A high voter turnout in the Oct. 19 federal election may have made a bigger difference than strategic voting, especially in South Okanagan-West Kootenay (SOWK).
Turnout in SOWK was 73.57 per cent of registered electors, which is well above the national average of 68.49 per cent. These figures do not include people who registered at the polls on Election Day.
By contrast, turnout during the last federal election in 2011 would only have been 63.73 per cent if the current boundaries were in effect.
In total, 66,727 ballots were cast in SOWK compared to just 55,495 when the 2011 results are applied to current boundaries.
Despite the rise in total votes cast, the Conservative and Green parties in SOWK saw their numbers of votes decline. The Conservatives received 4,952 fewer votes and the Greens dropped by 1,661 votes.
It’s impossible to say with certainty whether those decreases resulted from former supporters deciding to stay home or whether they switched their votes to other parties.
The NDP increased their total votes by 2,937, but it was the Liberals who saw their total vote rise the most dramatically – by 14,785 votes.
Liberal candidate Connie Denesiuk obtained a total of 18,727 votes compared to just 3,942 that Liberal candidates in the present SOWK boundaries received in 2011.
On election night, Denesiuk said she believed strategic voting cut into her support.
Strategic voting refers to blocking the candidate you don’t want by voting for another candidate who is not your first choice, said Kai Nagata of Dogwood Initiative in a blog posting titled, “Strategic voting didn’t defeat Harper. Voter turnout did.”
Nagata noted that turnout in B.C. surged to 70.4 per cent from 60.4 per cent, outpacing other major provinces.
“That’s what defeated the Conservative Party in B.C.,” he said. “Not strategic voting, but the appearance at polling stations of 471,397 citizens who were too young, not registered or simply stayed home the last time.”
Dogwood Initiative is a non-profit organization that campaigns on environmental issues. The group engaged polling company Insights West to conduct riding-level polling in nine B.C. ridings including SOWK.
Those polls correctly predicted the winner in eight of nine ridings, including SOWK, although NDP candidate Richard Cannings won by a larger margin than identified in Insights West’s poll conducted over the Thanksgiving weekend.
Meanwhile, Insights West conducted another poll on Oct. 18 and 19 of 623 British Columbians who voted in the election, which asked them among other questions whether they voted strategically.
It found the biggest strategic voters were women (40 per cent), voters aged 18-34 (42 per cent) and Vancouver Islanders (38 per cent).
Insights West did not break figures on strategic voting down to the riding level, but outside of Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island, only 30 per cent said they voted strategically.
The Insights West poll found three quarters of British Columbians (74 per cent) thought it was time for a new Conservative leader to take over from Stephen Harper. This anti-Harper sentiment included 44 per cent of those who voted for the Conservatives in the Oct. 19 election.
The Conservative Party announced on election night that Harper would be stepping down as leader.
The Conservatives were reduced to just 10 seats of the 42 in British Columbia, falling from the 28 they would have won in 2011 under the present boundaries.
The Liberals won 17, the NDP 14 and the Greens took one, the seat of leader Elizabeth May.
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
