Do the polls matter?

With all the attention now on the Canadian federal election and the stunning polling swap between the Conservatives and the Liberals, I wanted to direct my attention to how those polls actually affect voters.

When the polls show a tight race between the top two candidates, do more people turn out since their vote has a higher chance of counting? Most people want their votes to count, but in our first past the post system, that can be difficult. Some people vote strategically for a candidate that they might not prefer in order to block another candidate.

Strategic voting is one strategy that can use election polls to its advantage. By using poll data, voters are able to strategically place their votes when they see that they may be able to use their vote to block their least liked candidate from winning. In Canada, this is typically done when supporters of the Liberals, NDP, and Greens try and pool their votes behind one candidate to prevent the Conservative candidate’s chance of winning.

Alvin Finkel founded Change Alberta in 2012 to try and convince progressive supporters to pool their votes behind one progressive candidate rather than split the progressive vote. He says that polls are a good tool to convince people to vote strategically if they can be shown that their vote might make a difference.

“When polls reveal a close race, they become a powerful motivator,” says Alvin Finkel, former history professor and president of the Alberta Labour History Institute. “If progressive voters see that their least-preferred candidate could win by a narrow margin, the data can push them to unite behind a single contender. It’s not just about preference—it’s about showing people their vote can tip the scales.”

He says that polls played a part in the “Orange Wave” in 2015 when Alberta’s NDP swept over the province. “Polls were a quiet catalyst in Alberta’s 2015 Orange Wave. As the numbers tightened and showed the NDP gaining ground, it energized progressive voters who might have otherwise stayed home. Seeing that shift in real time gave people the confidence to rally behind a unified choice.”

With the federal election looming, I looked at every federal election since 2004 to examine whether the perceived closeness of an election from poll numbers affected voter turnout.

Data from 338Canada (variance) and Elections Canada (voter turnout).

This graph compares the gap between the top two parties as an average of each pollsters’ final polls compared to the change in voter turnout from the previous election. Interestingly, in the last seven elections, the tightest three elections according to the polls have had a lower voter turnout when compared to the previous election.

Blake Woods is 21 years old and he’s getting ready to vote in his first election this spring. He says that he doesn’t follow politics too closely, but he is exposed to it through social media, especially on Tik Tok.