Elizabeth May supports strategic voting in close race ridings according to The Globe and Mail:
“As the leader of a grassroots party, I’m not in a position to yank anyone, or tell anyone what to do. I just think Canadians need to take a long hard look at the potential here to get rid of the government of
Stephen Harper and all that it represents…”
“That includes Greens as elected MPs, and to make that change it includes Stéphane Dion as a minority prime minister.”
While May insists that people should stick with the Green Party in many ridings, she also concedes that it makes sense to vote strategically where there are tight races.
“People who are looking for help in those choices,” May points out, “certainly there’s a lot of civil society, non-government efforts out there, and people know where to look. There are websites, there are ideas.”
Obviously Ms. May is referring to:
voteforenvironment.ca
At the DoC we find this position from the Green Party heartening for a number of reasons. In particular because by vote splitting, The Greens have been actively contributing to a Conservative campaign in Oakville, one of the DoC’s two Swing Ridings.
Although the latest polls show the Conservative candidate losing support compared to last year’s numbers, the Liberals there have been losing support faster to an impressive Green Party candidate.
According to the latest polls, a Conservative candidate who lost last election, could win this election with less votes, because of a strong Green Party candidate running in the riding.
We strongly hope that Elizabeth May and The Green Party use the remainder of the campaign to ensure that these situations do not take hold across the country. To prevent Canada from being saddled with a Conservative majority in this election, it is essential that opposing political candidates do not split the vote.
VOTE SMART
