But when voting directly for the person who is going to hold office (as in an American election for President -- or a Toronto election for Mayor) it doesn't make a lot of sense to vote for someone you don't think would be good.
You vote directly for the candidate in question. So vote for whom you think best.
I like Rocco Rossi.
6 comments:
The principle behind strategic voting has never been about voting for someone you think is good; that would be your original candidate. It's actually about voting for Person A who has the only chance of beating frontrunner Person B, because Person B would cause far more harm than Person A. Person C, the candidate you originally supported, only serves to split the vote with Person A and guarantee victory for Person B.
Reasonably inferring that you (James) are of the opinion that Rocco doesn't stand a chance of winning since you're railing against strategic voting, George Smitherman is the ONLY candidate left who could beat Rob Ford, and cause less damage than Ford. Despite how much we love Rocco, we must stop Ford at any cost.
By the way invoking the American prez example is not strong: Ralph Nader gave us George Bush!
Rocco doesn't deserve to be labelled as a Ralph Nader, he should stop acting like one.
This is stupid. At least in the party system voting for someone like the green party is useful because federal funding for parties is based on votes.
Ralph Nader clearly shows the downfalls of doing what Rossi is doing. Sure, it is great for his ego and has helped him sell books, but it also helped ellect a candidate that was the complete opposite of what he stood for.
Strategic voting is about electing the best pooible leaders. The word possible is key. If you like someone, but they have no chance of winning, they are not a possible leader. You are much better off voting for someone who has a chance of winning, who is closer to your ideals.
Let's face it, a vote for Rossi is a vote for Ford. If you are ok with that, by all means vote Rossi.
Does Rossi care about Toronto or himself? Is he willing to help ellect Ford in order to ensure he gets more attention for a few more weeks? We will find out.
Strategic voting doesn't make sense, period. We need better voting systems for our different levels of government. We need some form of proportional representation for each level. If we are voting for a single position such as mayor, we need STV or AV with ranked choices.
Don’t vote against someone, vote for something. Vote for the candidate you believe in and who, in your heart, you know can trust to bring real change to City Hall. Rossi’s campaign has seen a ground-swell of grassroots support over the past ten days with polls showing that over 60% of Torontonians are dissatisfied with the two frontrunners.
“I want Torontonians to know that I am in this race to win it and I will be there working to earn their trust on October 25th.” --- Rocco Rossi
Skinny Dipper,
Even if those voting styles were better, it doesn't matter. We have to work within the system we have because it's not changing in the next 20 days. Strategic voting makes sense in this system. Voting for someone who has not chance of winning while a person who is far from 2nd or even 3rd best in your mind wins a close race doesn't make sense.
As for the last Anonymous person said, polls showing that 60% of people don't like the two front runners says nothing about how much they like Rossi. Polls certainly don't show any love for Rossi. Most polls have shown Rossi having less than 10% of the vote throughout his entire campaign. There has never been any indication he has a chance of winning the election.
On the other hand, a poll showed that Smitherman would win a head to head race.
Does Rossi really want to be Toronto's Ralph Nader?
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