Running Green candidate would only split vote in Saanich-Gulf Islands, environmentalists say

[LoZoccolo]

VANCOUVER -- Federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said yesterday she does not know what will happen if her party chooses not to run a candidate in Saanich-Gulf Islands at a contentious nomination meeting scheduled for this afternoon.

"I'm just trying to respect the will of local members at this point," Ms. May said yesterday, refusing to speculate on what might happen.

A letter was distributed to Green Party members in the riding this week urging them to choose "none of the above" instead of voting for Andrew Lewis, the only candidate on the ballot.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070714.BCGREEN14/TPStory/National

Even though this article is about a Canadian election, I post it here to illustrate a certain point: these third parties in other countries consider the effects of their runs on elections because they want to do what's best for their cause. A large number of people who vote for third parties in the United States do not do that because they want to threaten people with getting Republicans elected, a move that I consider tantamount to holding people hostage.

There's no excuse for not taking responsibility for your vote as an important decision; you can see that it's a regular part of electoral politics in a country with many parties.

[Lisa]

1. update -- about 2 dozen people showed up at the meeting

Around 20 of them voted for Andrew Lewis. (One of the early news reports said "84%" without mentioning the exact number ... by coincidence I was at an event with Julian West, who's running for the NDP in the same riding -- Julian's a mathematician by training, and sure enough, that's about what it works out to!)

Julian pointed out to me that although in the past there have been "arrangements" where a national political party decided not to run a candidate in the riding where an opposing party's leader was running, that was not at all a standard rule, but viewed as a professional courtesy. To have this happen in a riding where Elizabeth May herself isn't actually running would be a bit of a departure, that's for sure.

For the non-Saanich folks out there -- the Liberals decided to go with Briony Penn (a local environmentalist/author) this time, perhaps hoping to attract enough green-ish votes to knock off Conservative Gary Lunn (currently the Natural Resources Minister). The NDP candidate the last couple of times, Jennifer Burgis, is running in Esquimalt/Juan de Fuca.

Local paper (Times-Colonist) coverage:

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=f8e979ef-aa47-472a-ba70-cc916c78b293&k=58693