There has been much talk of “strategic” or “tactical” voting in this spring’s Ontario election. While definitions vary, political scientists usually reserve the term for situations in which a voter supports a party that is not his or her most preferred, but one thought to have a better chance of defeating an even less acceptable opponent. Although the electoral situation in Ontario creates textbook conditions for strategic voting, for a number of reasons, it is unlikely to be successful.
Strategic voting is largely seen as necessary in places like Ontario because its “first-past-the-post” electoral system awards each constituency to the candidate attracting the most votes, regardless of what proportion of the electorate that represents. In jurisdictions using this system, “first-past-the-post” tends to distort how well the legislature’s resulting composition reflects the electorate’s political preferences. For Ontario, the potential for distortion is enhanced by the structure of its party system: three of the four major parties – the Liberals, NDP and Greens – compete for and frequently split the left-of-centre progressive vote. As a result, right-of-centre Progressive Conservative (OPC) candidates can take constituencies where a majority of voters may actually rank them least preferred among the alternatives. Assuming progressive voters view that policy agenda as important, a strategic vote for the most competitive left-of-centre candidate in their constituency would make much sense.
Certainly Ontario’s political parties recognize this feature of their system and try to exploit it to their advantage. In past elections, Liberals have been most vocal with an appeal for strategic voting, arguing that NDP and Green votes are wasted because only Liberals could defeat the Conservatives. Given their electoral collapse in 2018 (Liberal support dropped to 19 percent compared to the NDP’s 33 percent), Liberal leader Steven Del Luca has abandoned such talk in this election while the NDP’s Andrea Horvath has made what she calls a “straight up” appeal for Liberals to defect for the same reason. Conservatives usually avoid the topic, dismissing the practice as “anti-democratic”, although they were more sympathetic to the idea in 2018 when defeating Wynne’s Liberal government assumed pre-eminent importance within the electorate.
Of course, none of these claims should be taken seriously. Strategic voting is hardly “anti-democratic” if the purpose of the election is to create a legislature that accurately reflects the electorate’s views. As well, no left-of-centre party is sufficiently competitive everywhere to warrant the claim they are the logical destination for strategic votes. In 2018 for example, 42 of the 74 seats won by the Conservatives were secured with less than 50 percent of the constituency’s vote. Of these target ridings for a unified left-of-centre vote, the Liberals were competitive in 15 (placed second or tied for second), and the NDP in 33. Even this presents a misleading picture because current polls suggest Liberal support has recovered substantially since 2018, and now exceeds that of the NDP provincially.
More useful are attempts by nonpartisan groups to identify the party in each constituency with the best chance of challenging the Conservative candidate there. In the current election, VoteWell.ca, NotOneSeat.ca (for Toronto’s 25 ridings only) and StrategicVoting.ca are providing recommendations for each constituency. Calculatedpolitics.ca is also a source of information relevant to assessing strategic considerations.
It is clear that Ontario provides fertile ground for strategic voting, but the actual proportion of those casting such votes is likely to be quite modest. We don’t have reliable data for past Ontario elections, but we do have a reasonable grasp of its prevalence in electoral contexts that share similar structural and political conditions. Studies of Canadian and British national elections suggest that strategic votes typically constitute less than ten percent of all votes cast, and with some methodologies, more like three to five percent. Even accepting the more generous figure, it is fair to say that strategic considerations do not dominate the calculus used by most voters in British or Canadian national elections; there is no reason to think that the Ontario provincial electorate is much different.
Why do so few voters cast a strategic vote? We know that many if not most voters have a partisan inclination that serves as their default decision if there is no compelling reason to go elsewhere. For many of these voters, there is no reason to consider a strategic vote because their preferred party is already dominant in the constituency or best positioned to challenge the least preferred opponent. For those not in this position, a strategic vote might be considered, but several conditions must first be met. Above all, they must have reliable information that their party is not the one best positioned to defeat a hated opponent. This poses a challenge for most because Information of this kind is hard to come by at the constituency level; moreover the information must be convincing enough to overcome one’s partisan inclination. Second, the voter’s antipathy towards the least preferred opponent must be strong enough to justify “holding one’s nose” to assure his or her defeat. Certainly, there are many for which this condition is satisfied, but not everyone carries such strong political preferences. Third, strategic voters must overcome their sense of loyalty to a preferred party in order to cast an “insincere” vote. This is likely a substantial obstacle for those with strong partisan identities, or those who see strategic voting as slightly unethical, as “gaming the system” and perhaps even as undemocratic.
It is fair to say that strategic voting may well increase with recent efforts of nonpartisan groups to provide constituency-level advice. However because the other obstacles noted above are largely affective in nature, vote-splitting will likely remain a salient feature of our elections.