Naomi Klein told a standing room only audience last week that the left needs to form a coalition to defeat the Conservatives.

Afterwards, people remained in the hall to discuss strategic voting in the federal election. Klein recommended a national coalition called VotePair, which has set up a vote-coordinating web site.

She did state incorrectly, however that the site is set up as a means to defeat Conservatives. That is in fact untrue. Pair Vote is a service to *any* voter who wants to make their vote count in this election. There are orphan voters on all sides of the political spectrum.

From the article Naomi Klein: “It’s time to grow the hell up” [Briarpatch Magazine]

Holy cow. In Elizabeth May’s words:

“I’d rather have no Green seats and Stephen Harper lose, than a full caucus that stares across the floor at Stephen Harper as prime minister, because his policies are too dangerous,” she said.

So determined is May to keep Harper from power she also told the Star she wants Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion and NDP Leader Jack Layton to join her in a pact to beat Conservatives candidates.

The Green, Liberal and New Democratic parties should prevent vote-splitting that would favour Conservatives, and carve up electoral ridings according to who has the best chance of winning, May said. “We sit down and say, `Who has the best chance of winning in all these ridings?’ What I’ve been calling for is proportional representation by other means.”

Pair voting is one method of strategic voting that lets people still get a vote for their preferred party. I doubt any party will come out and endorse pair voting because it is new and less understood in Canada, so that means those of us inspired by the idea need to reach out to fellow party supporters and invite them to participate.

Read the rest of the Toronto Star article.

Vote swapping was featured this morning on CBC Radio Ottawa, featuring our very own John Mynott. In case you missed it, here is the 7 minute clip:

CBC Radio Ottawa interview

I also had a couple of interviews of my own. Tomorrow night (Tuesday) watch the 6pm A-News in Ottawa for a video interview I did from my house in Sault Ste. Marie. This was very cool, I helped them figure out how to record an online video using iChat, the first time they had ever tried this. Watch it and see where I spend most of my days. The video will also be online tomorrow after 9 pm. Maybe after watching it I’ll wish I had stuck to the phone.

The other interview was with the University of Western student newspaper the Gazette. One interesting nugget from that conversation is that students can vote in either their home riding or the riding of their university. That means university students have two chances to end up being in a strategic riding. Ideally, we should take a look at which strategic ridings have campuses on them, and reach out to these student newspapers. The article should be up in a couple of days. I’ll try and post a link.

Once the election is over, vote reform will disappear from the headlines. We have 3 more weeks to build awareness through healthy, informed dialogue. The best stories are the ones you already know – your personal story, how the voting system has let you down, time and time again. The collection of voter stories on this site is a powerful testimony to the will of people who want to bring about necessary change. We need to collect more.

Find and join the discussions

Ordinary citizens, journalists, political junkies are all talking about vote pairing and voting reform. Join in the conversations. Here is how you can find them online:

• Google search for vote swap, strategic voting.
• Twitter postings. Twitter is a micro blogging service. Find people talking about vote swap, strategic voting.
• Blogs talking about vote swap, strategic voting.

Local papers are also interested in local people talking on this subject. Try writing a letter to the editor, or contact the paper and let them know you are interested in doing a story on pair voting (and I’ll help you with the information you might need).

PairVote.ca members in the spotlight

Listen to John Mynott, pair voter on CBC Radio Ottawa, 7:45 am Monday morning.

I had an email discussion with Alan Parker, deputy managing editor of the Toronto Sun today. Look for the article tomorrow online and in the paper and join in the debate. Alan seems to want to focus on the shortcomings of pair voting rather than the bigger story of why so many are willing to try pair voting in the first place. We’ll see what comes out.

Update: The Toronto Sun blog post is up. Anti vote swap crusader Glyn Clarke puffs his chest and invites people to join against this “immoral” act (2nd comment beneath post).

It seems pair voting is now one of the hot stories at this point in the election. I’ve gotten over a dozen requests for interviews over the past week,

Pair vote tour, coming to a town near you:

• Sudbury. Interview with CBC Radio One Sudbury tomorrow (Friday Sept 19) at 7:15 am. I’ll be explaining how pair vote works and how someone in a northern Ontario riding might consider pair voting. Hopefully the kids racing around in the house won’t drown out my 5 minutes of fame.
• Montréal. Jean-Francois Ranger, pair voter in Montréal will speak with Radio Canada at 12 tomorrow. Not sure when it will air, but we’ll put a link to the video on their web site once its published. Go JF go!
• Toronto. Change a Click Away (NOW Toronto) My interview didn’t make to the edited version, probably because of its partisan nature, but vote swapping is mentioned.
• Edmonton. I’ll trade my Harper for your Layton. For anyone who doesn’t vote Conservative, there is little point in voting, unless

Where next? You can decide where the next story happens by contacting your local media. That’s all it takes. Most are looking for someone local to tell their story of why they are vote swapping, what the difference it makes.

You’ve inspired me with your stories, I encourage you to share them with those in your community. Real change happens from the bottom up. Let’s send Ottawa a message that the voting system status quo has to go.

Update: A News Ottawa did a story on pair voting (see video), including our very own Kris Joseph and an awful shot of myself near the end. That aside, they reported something I hadn’t heard before, that tricking someone into voting for a particular candidate is an offence under the Elections Act:

The verdict is in; Elections Canada has concluded that online vote-swapping schemes aren’t illegal. James Hale, a spokesman for the federal agency, said that the simple act of encouraging someone to vote in a particular way is all right under the Canada Elections Act. It’s also permissible to invite people to participate in an organized strategic voting plan, whether on the Internet or by other means.

Nevertheless, they warn voters to be careful if they decide to participate for a number of reasons. One is that they could potentially be misled by someone acting under multiple or false identities to trick them into voting for a particular candidate. If such an act were to occur, Hale says the person who misled them would, be guilty of an offence under the Elections Act.

Nice to see Elections Canada finally made a decision on vote swapping.. Now no one needs to worry about legal issues. EC is right in pointing out that there is some risk involved – there is no guarantee that the person you pair with will carry out the vote swap. But, when your vote in your own riding has no chance at all, that’s an easy risk to take.

Canada’s electoral watchdog has deemed online vote-swapping to be legal but warned that the scheme could be used to dupe voters into casting their ballot for certain parties.

Elections Canada began looking into the issue after a Facebook group surfaced last week urging people living in ridings likely to have tight races to swap votes as a way to keep Stephen Harper’s Conservatives from winning a majority.

James Hale, a spokesman for the federal agency, said the act of encouraging someone to vote in a particular way is allowed under the Elections Act.

It’s also acceptable for people to invite voters to participate in an organized strategic voting plan, whether on the internet or through other means, he said.

But, he said, “electors should be cautious for a couple of reasons.”

Voters could potentially be misled by someone acting under a false identity who tricks them into voting a particular way, which would be an offence under the Elections Act.

Since people cast ballots alone in a voting booth, it is also difficult to verify whether they actually voted as promised.

Also, the agency warned, it is illegal for money or “material benefit” to pass hands as part of a voting arrangement.

“It’s not an offence to tell your friend you think they should vote in a certain way, and it’s not an offence to say ‘Yeah, I think that’s a great idea.’ It is an offence to accept money or to offer money for that,” said Hale.

Read the rest of the article.