You're Actually Voting for THEM? But why?
Putting the "dialog" back in dialog
I hate it when public figures suggest that serious issues require a “dialog” or a “conversation”. That’s because real dialog and real conversation involve bi-directional communication, which is something very few public figures seem ready to undertake. Still, it would be nice is there was some practical mechanism through which a conversation could happen.
It should be obvious - and I’m sure you’ll agree - that no intelligent individual will be voting in the coming federal election for any party besides the one I’ve chosen. And yet I’ve got a nagging sense that, inexplicably, many of you have other plans. Which, since only intelligent people read The Audit, leads me directly to an epistemological conflict.
I have my doubts about the prospects for meaningful leadership debates. Even if such events are being planned, they’ll probably produce more shouting and slogans than a useful comparison of policy positions.
And I have remarkably little patience for opinion polls. Even if they turn out to have been accurate, they tell us absolutely nothing about what Canadians actually want. Poll numbers may be valuable to party campaign planners, but there’s very little there for me.
If I can’t even visualize the thinking taking place in other camps, I’m missing a big part of Canada’s biggest story. And I really don’t like being left out.
So I decided to ask you for your thoughts. I’d love for each of you to take a super-simple, one question survey. I’m not really interested in how you’re planning to vote, but why. I’m asked for open-ended explanations that justify your choice. Will your vote be a protest against something you don’t like or an expression of your confidence in one particular party? Is it just one issue that’s pushing you to the polling station or a whole set?
I’d do this as a Substack survey, but the Substack platform associates way too much of your private information with the results. I really, really want this one to be truly anonymous.
And when I say this is a “super simple” survey, I mean it. To make sure that absolutely no personal data accompanies your answers (and to save me having to work harder), the survey page is a charming throwback to PHP code in all its 1996 glory.
So please do take the survey: theaudit.ca/voting.
If there are enough responses, I plan to share my analysis of patterns and trends through The Audit.
I couldn't agree more that opinion polls are of little value and, in fact, are more harm than help. I wrote this article on the topic last year that may be of interest.
How does it help us to know how our neighbour might vote? How many people's opinion do we truly trust re: a good place to eat, where to get our car serviced or what to invest in? And yet we are okay with consensus bias derived from people we don't know nudging us as to how we should vote?
All this opinion polling, for the average electorate, is just more noise deafening them to their own critical thinking and individual analysis, which is often sorely lacking.
https://open.substack.com/pub/pragmaticcanadian/p/political-polls-more-harm-than-help?r=2l9qgc&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
First, thank you for this column.
Second, of course, all intelligent Canadians will vote as I do! If the election goes in a direction adverse to how I vote, go back to the adjective (starting with an "i") in the previous sentence.
Of course, of course, I am right and those with contrary opinions are wrong. Of course.
Unless, I have that reversed. But I don't; really I don't.