No thanks, I’ll leave it to Liberal voters to tactically vote NDP
The favour has gone the other way enough already
This weekend I went looking for an author (or funding or methodology) after the anonymous We/Our speak and repeated claims of unbiased logic on the About page. Figure a little bit of paranoia isn’t a bad thing, given the stakes in this snap election.
[Fair Warning: long effort post, scroll for tl;dr]
…
They named something called Polaris Media & Entertainment (“Crafting digital conversations that resonate”) as Founder of the smart voting project, so I checked it out on a surface level and found 3 people. Between them, they have 2 podcasts they’ve been running for about 6 months: Loonie Legislature and The Tuesday Effect. I also found a bluesky post where one of them claims they made the smart voting website.
To get a sense for these folk I chose to watch a video where one of them guested on the podcast of the other 2. If anyone was curious, from 55 minutes is where their conversation gets relevant to strategic voting and what We need to be doing.
55-59 mins: Pete complains about “hard hard hardcore NDP parties” demanding perfection and says the left needs to “merge” for the next federal election. He immediately goes on to talk about the extreme hate for and misinformation surrounding Trudeau, ending his moment with another call for the NDP to merge with the Liberals.
Knitty says she’s “anti-merge” and JB says he’s “in sort of a non-aggression pact at the moment.”
And a dramatic reading, from 59 mins:
JB: I think all the parties should just say to Quebec, cool, you guys are good. Obviously Justin Trudeau’s not gonna do this ‘cause he’s a he’s a Liberal member from Quebec. But MY thought is, give Quebec to the Bloc, or OR if we wanna talk about non-aggression, Liberals run in metro uh Montreal, right? Bloc Quebecois runs everywhere else: Quebec City, Trois Riviers, the urbans to tackle the conservatives and those. But in in ridings where one party is running, you don’t run a candidate against that person. In Ontario, Liberals run in the rural and suburban ridings of Toronto, and and Hamilton and Ottawa, all that stuff. NDP runs in the cores: your Hamilton core, your Toronto core. Obviously Alberta, same thing: Liberals don’t run in Alberta, leave it to the ND… y’know, create, see where each /
Pete: Yeah. I agree. I agree.
JB: / and say “we’re just running here, we’re just running here.” Then at the end of election night, when they, all the votes are counted, and all the seats are awarded, sure the conservatives might get more because… just the candidates, it’s not there, but WILL they actually get more. That’s the actual question is because when they’re not splitting the vote in these ridings that would, I’m thinking /
Knitty: [talked over]
JB: [talked over]
Pete: [talked over]
[zoned out, can’t remember what happened here]
JB: I’m not gonna say what riding it is, but if the NDP didn’t run in my riding, it would be a Liberal riding. And I’m in a Conservative riding that’s been a Conservative riding since the mid-90s.
[… a little later…]
JB: I think at the end of the day, like Pete said, we do need to sit down and reevaluate what our strategy is, y’know, among non-Conservative individuals. I think the Bloc has a lot of things they, that they could raise, points successes to? Right?
Knitty: Yeah.
JB: Maybe, maybe it’s a matter of just the left focusing, like maybe the New Democrats bow out federally? Right?
[technical issues]
JB: What I was basically saying is, maybe it’s a matter of the New Democrats bowing out federally, and focus on provincial contests? Put all their effort and all their eggs in 1 basket provincially? Because again /
Knitty: I don’t… that…
JB: / OBVIOUSLY Alberta’s been New Democrat in the past. In the past BC uh, Manitoba, I don’t I don’t again I don’t know what the answer is /
Knitty: The only thing is /
JB: / here?
Knitty: / is Alberta wasn’t actually NDP. In Alberta /
JB: (rolls eyes dramatically)
Knitty: / the conservatives lost their own election, because they split the right. And that, that’s why I’m saying, maybe the strategy is fuck up the right.
…………….
tl;dr – I still don’t really know who We is. But the person who claims they made this voter advice website is proposing the NDP drop out federally. And in his neighbourhood. Basically everywhere except Core Toronto, Core Hamilton, Alberta and maybe Manitoba and/or BC. Everywhere he thinks they can’t win.
solely imo - I’m not taking voter advice from an anonymously authored app (with sekrit proprietary methodology they promise to release sometime later) in the middle of a snap election during an international crisis like what we’re all experiencing with the States.
I appreciate your work
Absolutely no harm to you OP, and the people behind this website/project are probably entirely well-intentioned, but anonymous people purporting to help save our democracy are not something anyone can really just trust right now, given the givens [link goes to “dark gothic maga” video about the fascist techbros fucking with us].
If you or anyone scrolling are curious about this too, I checked their About page.
It contains a lot of We/Our talk and repeated claims of unbiased logic. So is this a corporate or culty We? You’d assume We’s the programming team. So who are the programmers? Or are we included like, We the Canadian people made this resource together… through our polls (go us)? No answer for any of these off the bat, and the contact us page is worse (press@smartvoting.ca).
So how does Our prediction model work? Any controls?
Our model starts with publicly available polling data and riding-level projections from 338Canada, a widely respected election forecasting resource. However, rather than simply relying on these raw numbers, we apply a proprietary weighting system to fairly balance the available data based on our (yet to be publicly disclosed) methodology. This allows us to correct for potential polling inaccuracies and take into account factors such as regional trends, voter turnout patterns, and the impact of local candidates.
Once we have a weighted dataset, we apply advanced political modeling to assess the most effective choice in each riding. This process includes logic-based decision-making algorithms that simulate different electoral scenarios and their potential outcomes. Every decision we make is based purely on statistical likelihoods and electoral impact, not on personal opinions, party loyalty, or candidate preferences. There is no bias in our decision-making—only data.
[… ]
Strategic voting can sometimes be frustrating, especially when emotions and long-standing political loyalties are involved. However, as we have stated in our mission, we do not do this because we want to—we do this because we have to.
First, condescending much? Secondly, I still don’t know who We is. Where can I read Our mission? Am I Us or nah? Any staffers involved? Is this a labour of love from a concerned citizen? And if so, where can I send my supportive butter tarts?
But We named something called Polaris Media & Entertainment as Founder of the project. It wasn’t linked on the voting site, so I searched and found 3 people identified with it. Between them, looks like they have 2 podcasts/youtube shows they’ve been running for 6 months: Loonie Legislature, and The Tuesday Effect.
Since I’m unconvinced that constant polling and directing people to predictions websites increase anything beyond visits to polling and predictions websites (and voter apathy), I figured I’d take one for the team to get a sense for these folk and found a video with all of them together. It’s 2 hours long. Viewing notes to follow.
tl;dr - new election, who dis
ABC until we get Proportional Representation from BC and Quebec rolling the ball for electoral reform across Canada!
Fun fact: The ball was rolling in Ontario at the municipal level but Ford made it illegal
