Traditionally, elections in Nova Scotia are happy events. It is our chance to annoy our neighbours, friends, and family by voting for the person whom they like the least. If your parents, for example, would rather swallow a hedgehog fried in cod-liver oil than vote for the Liberals, then you naturally mark your ‘X’ next to the candidate wearing red. Or, if you prefer, you can irritate your neighbour with the hundred gnomes in her front yard, by voting for the Gnome Separation Party, if one happens to be on the ballot.

This is all good fun, until you realize that the whole thing also works in reverse. Thus, elections are also the time when every idiot you have ever encountered gets to decide your fate for the next five years. If that prospect annoys you, maybe it is time to vote strategically.

Hence, instead of voting for fibber ‘A’, one squeezes one’s forefinger and thumb firmly against each nostril, and votes for fibber ‘B’, since ‘B’ has a better chance  beating ‘C’, who, as everyone (except for her supporters) knows, is even more corrupt and incompetent than ‘A’ and ‘B’ put together. This, naturally, only holds true if one does not support ‘C’ from the very beginning. Should one do so, then voting for ‘A’  or ‘B’ was never an option, thereby negating the need for voting strategically. It’s really quite simple.

Strategic voting has a long history in democratic states. In ancient Athens, for example, historians record that in 435 BC Harperkles, who advocated that there should be no such thing as sword control, was soundly beaten by Martinophopopolis who managed to persuade the followers of Laytonophokoleouspopous to vote for him, just this once. Harperkles was subsequently banished to a far away continent that had yet to be discovered. Legend has it, that he took a boatload of cattle with him.

After the French revolution of 1799 (also know as the ‘revolution version 1.5’) ,  Premier Ministre Jacque Martiné was caught off-guard, when the followers of Monsieur Jacque Harpéré voted for Monsieur Jacque Laitons, as the latter was  seen as having a bigger moustache, which back then was the single most important factor in getting elected. Laitons won handily and ordered all breads to be made long enough to never fit into North American shopping bags. Strategic voting, thus, proved successful once again.

Like every Nova Scotian, I am a keen student of 19^th century French political history . So, as election day approached, I knew right away that this time around  my usual plan of voting for the candidate with the least amount of hair would not do the trick. It was time to vote strategically.

After giving it much thought, I marched to the voting booth and marked my ‘’X’ next to the blue candidate. After all, the blues had promised to unite health care and protect the country, or something like that.

At first, I felt calm about my choice, but doubts started to creep in on my way home. Maybe they lied about the whole health care thing? After all, their leader had been rather evasive when asked about the proposed universal face-lift plan that the reds had been promising.

By the time I had gotten home, I was thoroughly disillusioned with my choice and headed straight back to the polling booth. Luckily , Canada Post had delivered a large number of voting cards to my house, leaving room for a change of mind.

This time around, I voted for the reds. Their national face-lift plan seemed sound and they had strongly advocated a national union initiative, while also promising to save health care. Still, there was a slight feeling of unease, as I once again started my homeward journey. Didn’t the reds oppose the right of Belgian Canadians to include their traditional national colours of black and yellow in our flag? Could such a chauvinist party truly unite our great country?

I barely hesitated, before turning back and voting for the orange party. Their brilliant slogan of saving health care and uniting the country had attracted me from the very start, for it was bold and original . “The right choice” I thought to myself before realizing that I just had behaved in the most undemocratic of manners.

You see, in my haste I had forgotten about the greens. How utterly unfair of me to vote for all the other colours and not even give a second thought to their magnificent plan of uniting Canada and saving health care. Luckily, I had one more voting card left.

It was with utter exhaustion that I finally collapsed in front of the television to watch the results on the Soccer Network. Voting had proven to be more emotional and intellectually draining than I had first assumed. Still, there was one silver lining: I could truthfully tell everyone I knew, that I had voted for the party they liked the least. It’s good to have a strategy.

 
Frank Streicher believes that voting randomly is the a sound strategy, for it confuses the pollsters and confounds political scientists. You can reach him at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it