(no subject)

[theweaselking]

Oh look, we're fucked.

Gee, vote splitting, splits votes! CPC(non-communist) has taken a pile of seats because NDP and Lib supporters are bad at math.

Good news, looks like the Bloc are completely fucking dead, and both Ignatieff and Duceppe have lost their seats, which means Ignatieff is gone. Sadly, Rae looks like he *might* keep his seat.

Comments

[moiread]

I voted Liberal even though I wanted to vote NPD specifically because I wasn't willing to split the vote.

Last time, in my riding, Baird (C) only won by about 2.5k votes, and I did my best to tell this to everyone I knew and beg them to vote Liberal because that was our best chance of kicking Baird, who is both Conservative and a giant flaming fuckhead, out. Most of them either didn't vote or voted for a different left-wing party. Even my parents both decided to vote Green because they wanted to "give more money to a poor party". I begged them to vote Liberal so as not to split the vote, but they did it anyway.

I am so mad. I am trying hard to respect everyone's right to vote with their conscience and all that, but seriously, this was the result. And yes, I know FPTP is fucking broken, but you either work with that you've got and push for change or you wind up with shit like this.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Voters were told there would be no math.

Anyway, if you're complaining that the voters failed to game the system, the problem isn't the voters.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Even my parents both decided to vote Green because they wanted to "give more money to a poor party". I begged them to vote Liberal so as not to split the vote, but they did it anyway.

Holy fucking shit "MAIL THEM A $20 AND VOTE FOR SOMEONE WHO MIGHT WIN!"

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The problem is that 40% of the votes takes 100% of the power.

The system cannot NOT be gamed, and yes it is broken because of this.

[moiread]

Yes, thank you. We are aware that the system sucks.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

PS: I used to work with a bunch of Greens, including the current Green Party Candidate in my riding. When told that each vote gave money to the party, I tossed $5 at them and said "OH LOOK I JUST VOTED FOR YOU TWICE". They were only partly amused.

[snakey.livejournal.com]

No, they've taken a pile of seats because FPTP sucks ass.

[snakey.livejournal.com]

Also, opposition to so-called "vote-splitting" was a factor in causing the current Orwellian UK govt, so fuck that noise.

[snakey.livejournal.com]

Any chance Canada will EVER move away from FPTP?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

This is a well-known phenomenon. And, in a riding where you KNOW you're the spoiler (because per-riding polls aren't that bad, in Canada), voting for the spoiler party instead of the winning party is a sign that either you didn't know the system sucks (and thus were not paying attention), or knew it sucked and voted that way ANYWAY (which is damn near vandalism.)

[snakey.livejournal.com]

Polls're pretty shite in the UK. As the last election showed.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Had vote-splitting not led to the tonight's fiasco, chances were VERY good of AV being implemented. Given *these same results* with strategic voting between the NDP and Liberals, AV would likely have been implemented before the next election.

[snakey.livejournal.com]

Ie, the system is the problem, not individual voters.

[snakey.livejournal.com]

That's what they told us, and it looks like the AV referendum is *massively* set to fail in the UK. Apologies for cynicism, but yeah. :/

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

You should really use the American system, because it is free of flaws.

OK, typing that was more painful than i had envisioned.

[sivi-volk.livejournal.com]

I voted for the third-place party of last election. My candidate won by a landslide.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The system would be LESS of a problem if the voters understood it and knew how to work it.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

What riding?

Which is another way of saying "third-place MY ASS"

[snakey.livejournal.com]

what kind of political/civics education do you have in schools here? We had fuck-all unless you did politics A-Level. Vested interest in keeping people uniformed and all that.

[sivi-volk.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaSalle-Emard

I was wrong - fourth, last election.

[moiread]

Every grade 9 student in this province (I'm not certain about other provinces, and quite frankly do not have the energy to look them up right now) has a mandatory Civics class. So at least here in Ontario, there is no excuse. I recognize that some teachers suck, and that teenagers are inclined to throw most of what they learn in high school out the window, but short of tattooing it to everyone's arm on the day they turn eighteen, I don't know what more we can do to educate except continue trying to throw useful information at people's heads and hope that it sticks. They learn it in high school and there are ads on TV and people who go door-to-door or are there to help explain at the polls themselves. I've been a poll clerk. I've pulled aside the co-op students working at the school where I teach to make sure they know. I have personally made sure, wherever I can, that people understand how our voting system works. And still people don't listen, or they deliberately do stupid shit and hope everyone else around them will make it work anyway.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

In Kitchner center it's played out like this:

Party                    %   
                    2006    2008   2011

Conservative 	    32.13  36.69   42.1
Liberal 	    43.26  35.94   30.6
New Democrat 	    18.43  18.08   22.5

I don't think the local NDP got all that many extra votes; it's just the Liberals are dead meat and even a once relatively popular MP like Redman couldn't survive that.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Uh, what?

Your seat went Liberal for the last FOREVER. There is no possible way you voted for a "fourth place" who came out "winner" last time.

[sivi-volk.livejournal.com]

I voted NDP. They won THIS time.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

If you meant the current election: Uh, check the polls. You were predicted NDP, secondary Liberal. You were NOT voting for fourth place, that was CPC, behind NDP, Liberals, and Bloc, in that order.