I see this concept mentioned, but don’t understand it all.
Fight my ignorance, please.
Use short words, and American spelling, please.
I live on the other side of the planet, and normally don’t care much about internal British politics.
but I’m interested in this election because, from far away, I like to watch clowns with bad hair, and Brexit is fascinating, like watching a disaster movie.
And also, more seriously, because Corbyn scares me to the depths of my soul. I’m trying to understand how the pundits analyze his loss; and they keep mentioning “tactical voting”
We have the same voting system as you: first past the post. So the candidate with the most votes gets the seat. That could mean in a five-candidate competition that a winner is declared with 21% of the vote.
That winner may be utterly reviled by nearly every one of the other 74%. So tactical voting is the idea that you vote for the candidate best placed to prevented that reviled candidate from winning.
with candidate A being the one B-E voters uniformly hate, then under tactical voting voters for candidates D and E at minimum could deliberately switch their votes for candidate B so B outnumbers A:
That’s the theory, anyway. In a wider sense there have been websites that allow people in one constituency to say ‘I’m a Labour voter but Labour can’t beat the Tories here so I’l vote Lib Dem if someone else in [specific constituency] votes Labour, because Labour can win there’.
Tactical voting was the hope that the built-in gaming of FPTP that allows 43% of the votes (the final Tory result) to get a majority of seats in Parliament would be countered by an efficient distribution of Labour/LD/SNP/Green/PC votes. It failed.
So is it like this - suppose you are a liberal American, and you have three candidates you can vote for for governor/Senator/president:
Trump, Bernie, and Biden…
…your dream candidate is Bernie, but you absolutely do NOT want Trump to win, and Bernie is lagging far behind Biden, so you vote for Biden instead? So instead of Bernie getting 15% of the vote, it turns into him getting only about 1% instead?
If tactical voting had been a thing in the US in 2000 perhaps Nader voters would have voted tactically for Gore and history would have been quite different.
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Tactical voting is what everyone who’s ever voted in a primary with “Because this one has a better chance to beat the other side” as their reason is doing
No, that’s just straight up voting for the best candidate.
A simple description: In your local district, you like Party A, hate Party B and neutral on Party C. Voting tactically, you would decide on Party A or Party C based on which was more likely to win the district and deny the seat to Party B.
No, straight up voting for the best candidate would be voting for whichever candidate you like the best with no consideration for their chances of winning the election.
What a tactical voter thinks is something like “I think Smith is a better candidate than Jones or Carter. But Jones is okay while Carter is terrible. And Smith’s a marginal candidate while Jones and Carter are running neck and neck. So while I think Smith is better, I’m going to vote for Jones because I want to make sure Carter doesn’t win.”
It can also be the opposite. Some tactical voters might put on a false flag and register with the party they oppose for primary voting purposes. And then vote for the opposing candidate who they think will be least likely to beat their real candidate in the general election.
The phrase is just generally not used that way. I’ve always seen it exclusively applied to the situation I described not to every time a strategy is part of your candidate selection.
Though your example is basically what I said only with names instead of parties and a bunch more verbiage. But voting for Biden in the primary because you think he’s more likely to win in the general would not be called strategic voting.
This is incorrect, at least for the Democratic primaries and caucuses. Voting for your candidate of choice can help him or her earn delegates even if they don’t win. And of course, top 3 finishes also help with fundraising. All Democratic primaries allocate delegates proportionally.
I won’t speak for the Republicans as they change their primary rules fairly often. But, in 2016 tactical voting may have helped stop Trump with all those winner take all and winner take most primaries. Trump racked up delegates with small pluralities. The problem in 2016 is that there was never just one strong ‘not Trump’ candidate.
In the U.K. election, it meant someone choosing between Labour and the Liberal Democratic Party or Labour and the SNP. Allowing two parties on the left to split the vote while the right had only the Tories would mean a Tory win even if more left votes were cast.
Similar situation in Canada where voters sometimes have to choose between the Liberal party or the NDP.
I disagree. I’ve seen the term tactical voting used for what I described. It can be used to cover any situation where you’re voting for somebody other than the candidate who would be your first choice in an ideal situation.
If you’re voting for ‘your candidate of choice’ meaning the person you honestly think would make the best president of all, then yes, that’s not tactical.
If you’ve looked at all the candidates and say “well, I think Sanders would make the best president, but I’m afraid his socialism would put too many Independents off and Trump might win, so I’m going to vote for Biden” - that’s tactical.
Obviously the specific tactics you use depends on what you’re voting for. But the constant discussions about ‘electability’ that crop up in every discussions of every aspect of the Presidential race - that’s tactical. You’re making a decision on something other than who is the best person for the job.
I don’t think so. You may have seen someone say “voting” and “tactical” in the same sentence but what the OP is asking about is as I describe in a parliamentary election context.
In your example, you like Party A and you’re neutral on Party C. But you’re voting for Party C. How is this straight up voting for the best candidate? According to your beliefs, the Party A candidate is the best candidate. But you didn’t vote for him.
You completely mixed up what I said there. The first part was replying to the idea that voting for an electable person in the Democratic primary was an example of “tactical voting”. It’s not. It’s a tactical voting decision but not whats meant by “tactical voting” in parliamentary elections. The second part was what tactical/strategic voting actually means in FPTP/district representation/multiparty/parliament discussions.
This is correct. Tactical voting is when a voter selects a candidate to ensure that a disliked candidate loses, rather than voting for their favourite candidate.
Yeah, that’s my understanding and it would be an applicable term for any sort of voting. “Boaty McBoatface” was a good example where people weren’t seriously wanting or expecting the ship to be christened with that name but did want the amusement of seeing the name come top.
Even then, I would say it’s not quite as simple as that. The election last week was all about Brexit. The party lines were:
Conservative: get Brexit done
Labour: hum… ermmm… we’ll figure out a Brexit deal, then take it back to the country in another referendum, and go with whatever that decides. (But Corbyn will remain neutral and not back either side).
Liberal Democrats: no Brexit
SNP: no Brexit
Green: no Brexit
Brexit Party: clue in the name
UKIP: pro Brexit
In my constituency, the last election was pretty close between SNP and Conservative, with SNP winning. If you were anti Brexit, and normally vote Labour or Liberal Democrat, you would probably have voted SNP - not because you specifically want to stop the Conservative candidate, but because the Labour or Liberal Democrat candidate is unlikely to win, and the SNP agree with your choice on this one huge issue.
Tactical voting also comes into play with the minority parties. Anyone who strongly believes in the Green Party has two choices:
vote Green, knowing that there is no chance your party will win the seat, but it will maybe “send a message” that if enough people vote for them that Green issues are important, or
vote for the mainstream party with a chance of winning whose policies broadly align with some of the Green Party’s
It’s a subtle difference from “stop the Conservatives at all costs” to “this party broadly aligns with my values and might win the seat”, but an important one.
"I’ve got three choices, and I want to be sure a candidate gets elected who most closely reflects my views.
A doesn’t align at all with my views.
B aligns very closely with my views, but hasn’t a snowball’s chance in my riding.
C aligns more closely with my views than A does, and has a better chance of getting elected than B, even though B is closer to my own views than C is.
I’ll vote for C, because I want someone in office closer to my views than A is, even though B lines up more closely."
I’ve never understood why “tactical voting” is frowned upon by poli sci types and commentators. There’s the phrase: “politics is the art of the possible”.
Just as we expect our politicians to be able to do horse-trading to get something done, even if it’s not perfect, why the disdain for voters who individually make that same kind of choice, to ensure that their views are at least partially represented in Parliament?
