In choosing our representatives for public office, are the winning candidates in any given election really ‘the people’s choice’? Or do they win for completely different reasons?
The answer to these questions may surprise you.
Many believe that ‘strategic voting‘ is what ultimately decides the winner – where voters are not voting for a particular candidate, but against another. And while it turns out that this is true for a significant number of voters (35%), statistics reveal that many other significant voting patterns are contributing to a final electoral outcome.
Perhaps most surprising is that 57% of voters (according to a Leger poll conducted after the last Canadian election) say that they voted “based on their political convictions, without any thought to their candidates’ chances of winning.” Continue reading »