With only a couple weeks remaining before the provincial election, I’m curious to know how people are informing their own vote.
My own mind on which way to vote was made up a long time ago. I suspect that most people vote along a deeply ingrained sense of how one’s own social views line up with the policies of a particular party.
That’s why it’s difficult to convince someone to change their vote in the short term. Changing your vote is like changing your mind on some deeply held point of view.
At least that’s how it is with me. I’d have to sense that the party I’m voting for has strayed far and long from a political path that I’m willing to be led down before I’d consider voting for an alternate.
Ideally, we’re supposed to vote for the person we think will best represent the interests of our riding, regardless of their political persuasion. I’ve known people that vote that way and I admire their idealism, but I’ve never been able to get past looking at an election as a party-politics event.
So I’ll vote Liberal, or NDP or Conservative, based on which party I think will best represent the political and economic interests of the province.
The kicker is, and this probably flies in the face of how our own version of democracy is supposed to work, I’ll vote for the party of my choice even despite its track record.
My political views are so ingrained that I’d have to not be able to recognize the party anymore before I’d consider voting against it. I don’t think the other guy should have a chance just because my guy has recently had a tough go of it.
One of the informal, for-entertainment-purposes-only, polls on our website recently asked if people already knew who they were going to vote for. Something like 90 per cent of respondents answered yes, they already knew.
So where does this leave the upcoming candidates forum in Burns Lake?
If you already know who you’re going to vote for, there doesn’t seem to be much point going to a candidates forum.
Between now and then, I’m going to ask myself what could possibly make me change my vote. Is there a stance on something that I could hear someone take that would make me change my mind?
Probably not.
A single issue election sounds like a terrible idea. It’s interesting that parties with only an outside chance of making an impact take up single issues most strongly.
The BC Conservatives, for example, say they will connect the Alberta oil patch to the coast. Of course they can say that; they won’t have to deal with the inevitable pipeline politics a governing party will face.
If you can’t win, you can say whatever you want.
I expect that the local candidates’ debate won’t deliver a knock-out moment where I’m forced to change my views, but I’ll go anyway, just in case.
It’s one of the few opportunities to have someone remind me that my entrenched political views might border on the fossilized.