Federal Election 2019
- Thread starter Kin
- Start date
bustaheims
Well-known member
Nik said:
That, and I have a hard time envisioning much, if any, support from the NDP or the BQ, as they'd both come out on the short-end in a ranked ballot system. I don't see the CPC supporting it, either, though I suspect they might gain some benefit from it.
Electoral reform, while a worthwhile endeavour, is just such a political landmine. It's no surprise that it hasn't received much by way of serious consideration by a sitting parliament.
OldTimeHockey
Active member
Bullfrog said:
I was just glad I didn't burst into flames.
OldTimeHockey
Active member
So we heard coming in that the PPC was going to split the conservative vote. Now that it's all said in done, do we think it really effected the outcome?
Nik said:
My understanding is that it is actually extremely difficult, maybe impossible, to implement online voting securely enough. (I'm a prof in computer science -- I don't follow this topic at all, but some of my colleagues do.). There are a couple ways that it is different than something like online banking, which we all use regularly:
* voting should be anonymous -- no one should know how you vote. but you aren't anonymous to your bank. This makes it easiest to detect when things go wrong, prove that things have gone wrong, and fix them when they do.
* timing is crucial -- votes need to be counted by a certain day. if there is some kind of attack that can only be resolved later, there is going to be a massive threat to democracy. "getting your money back later" just might not be good enough
* getting the US election right, for example, is more important that just about anything to the right people. The incentives for putting the right person in place are worth billions and billions of dollars. eg: a corporate or personal tax cut is easily worth 10s of billions to the right people. This is worth much more than an electronic transfer gone wrong here or there.
This article explains:
https://medium.com/digital-diplomacy/security-experts-say-online-voting-is-a-bad-idea-heres-why-1792c9a876b0
Kin
Active member
princedpw said:
My understanding is that it is actually extremely difficult, maybe impossible, to implement online voting securely enough. (I'm a prof in computer science -- I don't follow this topic at all, but some of my colleagues do.). There are a couple ways that it is different than something like online banking, which we all use regularly:
* voting should be anonymous -- no one should know how you vote. but you aren't anonymous to your bank. This makes it easiest to detect when things go wrong, prove that things have gone wrong, and fix them when they do.
* timing is crucial -- votes need to be counted by a certain day. if there is some kind of attack that can only be resolved later, there is going to be a massive threat to democracy. "getting your money back later" just might not be good enough
* getting the US election right, for example, is more important that just about anything to the right people. The incentives for putting the right person in place are worth billions and billions of dollars. eg: a corporate or personal tax cut is easily worth 10s of billions to the right people. This is worth much more than an electronic transfer gone wrong here or there.
This article explains:
https://medium.com/digital-diplomacy/security-experts-say-online-voting-is-a-bad-idea-heres-why-1792c9a876b0
[/quote]
I will take your word on the technical aspects. My only experience with it is in Australia where voting is, or at least was, mandatory.
bustaheims
Well-known member
Nik said:
I wonder if they had more of a psychological impact than they did at the actual ballot box. Did their more prominent presence impact the CPC platform on some level? Did the appearance of a divide on the right motivate some voters on the left or push some right-leaning moderates to the Liberals? Also very difficult/impossible to really tell.
It's kind of odd to me that I saw commentary on vote splitting by the PPC but to some degree the Libs/NDP have been vote splitting each other for decades.
I think my main take away is Canada is moving forward more as a progressive/moderate progressive nation above conservative/hard conservative, despite the loudness of the people in the back.
I think my main take away is Canada is moving forward more as a progressive/moderate progressive nation above conservative/hard conservative, despite the loudness of the people in the back.
bustaheims
Well-known member
Bullfrog said:
That?s been the rough split for a long time now. We are, as a whole, a left-leaning moderate nation.
Kin
Active member
Bullfrog said:
That's what it looks like now. The VBM should bring that number down slightly, closer to the 36% or so that's been the average for the right-leaning vote in the 7 elections since 2000. I guess that's fairly even but that's almost a 30 percent difference between your "left" and "right" in the country.
Obviously it's a little soon to get too into the weeds on the numbers but it looks like a fair number of voters stayed away in the election and what voter enthusiasm there was was stronger on the right than the left. Everyone's % was fairly consistent except the Greens and the PPC sort of swapped places from 2019. That maybe raises the question of to what extent the Green vote is "left" as opposed to just fringe but I think you'd need to see it happen at least twice to say it's a real trend.
Heroic Shrimp
Active member
https://twitter.com/perreaux/status/1440742300448006147
Kin
Active member
I have to be honest, I'm still really puzzled by all of the negative reaction to Trudeau's decision to call the election when he did. Sure, I understand why voters might be cheesed off even though A) society isn't shut down and voting was pretty low risk B) Voting by mail was super easy and C) the issues at stake were pretty important but I'm really confused by why the opposition parties wanted to make it a big thing.
1. Neither the NDP nor the Conservatives at any point during the pandemic exhibited any sort of "Hey, this is the biggest public health crisis in years, lets all pull together and put politics aside for now" sort of spirit. Now, I'm not necessarily saying they should have because it's reasonable for the NDP to advocate for a more Left Wing response and the Conservatives for a more Right Wing one but if that's the course of action you're going to take, if it's politics as usual when Parliament is in session, then it strikes me as pretty hypocritical to then be outraged by the idea that the dissolution of Parliament might likewise be politics as usual. If you're going to treat the Liberals like they have a minority government, it makes sense that they'll act like they have a minority government.
2. Even if Politicians being hypocrites doesn't do it for you and is sort of to be expected, isn't there a big messaging problem too though? If you're going to say that calling the election during the pandemic was reckless and ill-advised then you're de facto arguing that Trudeau should have dealt with the frustrations of a minority government and remained Prime Minister until the pandemic was over or his 4 years was up. So on the one hand you're trying to sell people on "Trudeau has been a terrible Prime Minister, he needs to be replaced urgently" while also making the case that the best thing for the country would be if he'd decided to be Prime Minister for the next two years. Voters took all this in and delivered a result that...will probably see Trudeau stay on as Prime Minister for at least the next two years.
1. Neither the NDP nor the Conservatives at any point during the pandemic exhibited any sort of "Hey, this is the biggest public health crisis in years, lets all pull together and put politics aside for now" sort of spirit. Now, I'm not necessarily saying they should have because it's reasonable for the NDP to advocate for a more Left Wing response and the Conservatives for a more Right Wing one but if that's the course of action you're going to take, if it's politics as usual when Parliament is in session, then it strikes me as pretty hypocritical to then be outraged by the idea that the dissolution of Parliament might likewise be politics as usual. If you're going to treat the Liberals like they have a minority government, it makes sense that they'll act like they have a minority government.
2. Even if Politicians being hypocrites doesn't do it for you and is sort of to be expected, isn't there a big messaging problem too though? If you're going to say that calling the election during the pandemic was reckless and ill-advised then you're de facto arguing that Trudeau should have dealt with the frustrations of a minority government and remained Prime Minister until the pandemic was over or his 4 years was up. So on the one hand you're trying to sell people on "Trudeau has been a terrible Prime Minister, he needs to be replaced urgently" while also making the case that the best thing for the country would be if he'd decided to be Prime Minister for the next two years. Voters took all this in and delivered a result that...will probably see Trudeau stay on as Prime Minister for at least the next two years.