The only wasted vote is a false vote

Has anyone else noticed a sense of desperation in the air emanating from certain of the other parties?  The pathetic attempts to try to win your vote by maintaining that strategic voting is “necessary” because a Harper loss must be procured at all costs?  That now is not the time to vote your conscience — your principles.  That too much is at stake.  But this is short-term thinking at best, and just another nail in the coffin of our democracy at worst.

Up until this election I would have counted myself among those who strategically voted.  In some ways it is appealing — gives you a sense of control over your vote.  Like maybe you can beat the system.  Beat the system.  Is this what our democracy has been reduced to?  What a shame that our electoral system is so flawed we are reduced to game-playing with our vote.  But democracy is not a game and we should not be forced to gamble and guess on our future.

I am tired of hearing Canadians lament about how we just vote in a dictatorship every four years.  That we have no real voice.  I’ve been listening to this complaint for decades.

Elizabeth is right — we deserve better.  We must demand better.

Canadians are being sold ABC campaigns and vote-swapping as a way to find a voice.  But what good is a voice no one hears?  After all, how can we get what want if our vote doesn’t communicate it?  How can we get what we want if all we do is vote for what we don’t want?  There is only one ballot and it doesn’t come with conditions or space for explanations.  I can’t say “Please count my vote for my Green Party candidate, but if s/he doesn’t win this time, then give my vote to ABC candidate X”.

There is no point in strategic voting — it can only prolong the inevitable.  The ABC party that gets those strategic votes will just continue to misinterpret them as support for their platform instead of what they are:  just a desperate ABC vote.

This year the only strategy I will employ is to actually vote for the platform I believed in — the one serious about electoral reform.

I’m voting Green because I’d be lying otherwise, and until we put our votes where our mouths are we’re destined to remain enablers in this vicious cycle of political, media-driven denial.  The only wasted vote is a false vote.

It’s time we really shone on a light on this broken system we like to call democracy.  It’s time for a reality check — some long-term thinking.  Yes, I will be frustrated if Harper wins again.  Yes, I will be angry if vote-splitting reigns the day and he manages to manufacture a majority.

But the story I want to read about on October 15 is the one where Green Party supporters refused to be intimidated.  Where we “came out of the woodwork” in droves and stood up and were finally counted.

Because no matter who wins the ridings — they always report the popular vote.

There is strength in numbers — Elizabeth May at the debates proved it. So let’s show them the real numbers.  Let’s finally stand up and be counted!