Strategic voting site accused of bias and conflict of interest
Posted October 16, 2015 8:07 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – One of the more high-profile strategic voting websites this election campaign is being accused of bias and conflict of interest after endorsing the NDP in a Vancouver riding.
Leadnow has recommended candidate Mira Oreck for Vancouver Granville, despite recent opinion polls suggesting the New Democrats are either tied with or trailing the Liberals in that riding.
Executive director Lyndsay Poaps is defending the move after it was revealed in an interview that she is a friend of Oreck.
Poaps has publicly rejected any suggestion her personal relationship had an impact on the process.
“The decision was not up to me. We put all the information to our community,” she told the Vancouver Sun, adding that across Canada, Leadnow has so far endorsed 13 Liberals and 10 New Democrats.
Leadnow’s polls suggest a split of support between the NDP and Liberals in Vancouver Granville and campaign manager Amara Possian says that is why they had members choose which party they should support in an email survey.
“The NDP and Liberals are in a statistical tie. Vancouver-Granville has been pretty volatile, according to recent polling. What was clear was that both candidates had a chance. We wanted to put that decision to our community. Sixty per cent of people who responded chose the NDP’s Mira Oreck,” Possian tells NEWS 1130.
That suggests 5,400 people in the riding have now committed to voting for Oreck, trying to avoid a vote-splitting scenario that could result in a Conservative win, but it remains to be seen whether strategic-voting will work.
Even if every Leadnow member in the riding voted according to plan, that’s still just a fraction of the 77,000 eligible voters.
