Canada votes in a general election on Monday. It seems a good time to consider what drives voter choice. What do we know of Canadian Voting Behavior?
What Drives Canadian Voting Behavior?
There are multiple explanations and most have at least some support. One popular theory is that people vote for the leaders of parties. Certainly, leaders get much of the blame when things go wrong. As things have gone wrong for the Liberals in recent elections. [Written in 2015, just before Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister].
Some people don’t like it that leaders get so much focus. Intense scrutiny of a leader seems more appropriate in presidential systems like the US. A leader-based focus fits rather worse on the parliamentary model of Canada and the UK.
What To Assess?
Some commentators suggest that voters should decide on other factors that the commentators feel should be seen as more important by the public. For example, the economy is a popular choice with pundits. There are problems with assessments based upon the economy. These are either retrospective (punish/reward the incumbent for past failure/success) or prospective (choose who you think will be best for the economy going forward). the big problem is that assessing the economy is really hard. (There are three types of economic commentators — liars, fools and those who admit that they don’t know much.) The public are rather better at assessing people than the economy. We assess people every day of our lives. While we aren’t perfect there is often at least some meaningful basis to our assessments.
Assessing Leaders
Do people, therefore, use assessments of the leaders in their choice? Yes. But what type of assessment?
…evaluations of character affect vote choice more than evaluations of competence…. What is not clear is why?
Bittner, 2010, page 1999
Some commentators seem unhappy with this. I personally tend towards a slightly more optimistic view than most. Maybe we assess character because what the candidates try to do is indicative of their priorities. Most policies will be implemented by someone other than the prime minister. This means the winning candidate will have help on the competence front. Yet, if the candidate’s priorities are wrong no one can help with that.
If you are able to vote in Canada on Monday it’ll be interesting to see how much your assessment of each leader’s character plays in your choice.
For more on voting see here, here, and here.
Read: Amanda Bittner (2010) Personality Matters: The Evaluation of Party Leaders in Canadian Elections, page 183- 207, in Voting Behaviour In Canada, Edited by Cameron D. Anderson and Laura B. Stephenson, UBC Press