Northern Piper, you put it much more clearly than me.
As for why “tactical voting” is frowned upon, I think it boils down to the fact that it can maintain the status quo.
For many years, I voted Labour. I really, really wanted to vote SNP, but I figured the SNP candidate had no chance of winning (and that certainly appeared to be the case), and Labour were my second choice.
You’ll see that in 2005, SNP came fourth with 10% of the vote. Given that fact, in 2010, a vote for the SNP felt like a wasted vote, and again they came in fourth, with 12% of the vote. I voted Labour both times.
But what if there were thousands of people thinking exactly the same, and them all voting tactically was what was keeping the SNP from winning the seat?
It may well have been the case, because - just like all over Scotland - I switched to voting SNP in the “referendum backlash” election in 2015.
My reply is that the third party has to do a better job presenting its positions to the electorate, to the point that voters at least think there’s a chance for them to win.
Of course it did; Prisoner’s Dilemma. Since you have no way to compel cooperation, it cannot work. Everyone’s motivated to SAY they’'ll cooperate but not actually change their vote.
The problem is that you lose information. We want votes to express a true preference. But we also don’t want to elect a candidate that everyone but a plurality despises.
It’s not so much tactical voting that’s frowned up on as the system that requires it: FPTP voting. It wouldn’t be an issue with ranked choice, etc.
At any rate, it seems to me that in the US, non-tactical voters get more ire. It was the Bernie bros this time around. More often, it’s some third party spoiler that gets blamed for the outcome.
The act, if not the term, has a much longer pedigree than that. I remember it as far back as 1996 and it happens a lot in party primaries. Imagine that three candidates, Smith, Jones, and Davis are all running to be their party’s nominee for a state office.
The first poll comes out showing the following: Smith 41%, Jones, 40%, Davis 19%. After this poll, Davis might as well drop out because his support vanishes. Voters who care about the race discard Davis and then decide which of the candidates Smith or Jones they prefer because they want to influence the outcome. Only the tried and true Davis converts remain.
There are exceptions (such as Perot in 1992) where Davis might not drop because of a rift in the party or a general hatred of both Smith and Jones, but it has long been a phenomenon in party primaries to vote in a way that matters. If I mostly dislike Smith, somewhat like Jones, but LOOOVE Davis, in the scenario presented, I would probably vote for Jones just so I can beat Smith.
Speaking of which and I hope it is not too much of a hijack, I assume that there are no party primaries in the UK. How does one get on the ballot? Say I am a Conservative minded voter in Northscunthropeshire West (made up but sounds like a goofy UK parliamentary district) and I wish to run for the seat. Suppose:
A Conservative is a current MP and is running for re-election.
A Conservative is a current MP and is not running for re-election
Another party holds the seat.
Can I get on the ballot as a Conservative? Can I get on as long as I identify as another party? Is it hard to get on?
But that seems very abstract and a bit patronizing. Voting isn’t to give information to poli-sci wonks. It’s to give the voters the opportunity to choose their representative. And voters can be sophisticated and pragmatic in evaluating their choices. “Politics is the art of the possible.” That applies to voters just as much as elected officials. I’ve made choices in multi-party races by a combination of policies and likelihood of different candidates winning. That choice has always been my true preference.
Eh? Ranked choice voting is a system for tactical voting. Suppose there’s five candidates running. I despise candidate X and will do anything to defeat him. I may vote for A first, even though I know she won’t win, because her views match mine really closely.
Then i’ll cast votes for G, and H, and M, in descending order of my views, and won’t give a fifth vote to X, because I don’t want him to win.
Nope. You have to be selected as the candidate by the local party. That was constantly an issue with Labour MPs threatened with deselection if they didn’t worship Corbyn.
Very interesting. Thank you. It seems that the parties have full control over who appears under their banner, much like the old smoke filled room system of early 20th century U.S. Presidential politics.
Right. There are other ways to game it. Suppose I have a choice between Bush, Gore, Nader, Buchanan, Hitler Jr. and Stalin Jr. Further suppose that in truth, I would rank the candidates in order of: Buchanan, Bush, Gore, and Nader with Hitler Jr. and Stalin Jr. tied for last.
But I know that the final vote will come down to Bush and Gore so I vote: Bush, Nader, Hitler Jr., Stalin Jr., Buchanan and Gore. That way I give most possible points for Bush and the least possible for Gore. I push Buchanan (my preferred candidate) near the bottom so he doesn’t screw up the guy I think can/should win (Bush) and push Nader towards the top in hopes that he screws up Gore.
Works the other way too, not just for Labour. Twenty Tory MPs were deselected for voting against the Government in the last stages of the parliamentary manoeuvres on Brexit, including Grieve (former AG) and Hammond (former Chancellor of the Exchequer). Grieve didn’t stand in the general. Hammond did, and cake second as an independent, which is a pretty strong showing.
The difference between Westminster-style ‘chosen by the branch’ and US-style ‘primaries’ is mostly in who gets a vote.
In ‘primaries’, there’s a bunch of people deciding on the local (say) Republican candidate whose qualification for being a part of the decision is ‘I ticked a box once to say I liked this party better than other parties’
In Westminster politics, branches choosing candidates can (and sometimes do) function exactly the same way, except that your qualification for being part of the decision making process is much stricter - you have to choose to sign up as a real member of your party-of-choice, pay dues every year, and possibly also have been a member for long enough before the choosing date that you’re allowed to vote. So only people who are REALLY invested in that party take part in the decision, rather than all the people who vaguely like it more than another choice (or say they do)
Since parties have complete control over their selection process, they don’t *have *to have a vote of members - they can just devolve it to a selection committee. But letting your branch members have a free vote on candidates is a good way to encourage more people to become members of your party
Just to throw out some numbers, a quick Google tells me that the current membership of the Australian Liberal Party (our version of the Conservatives) is 80,000. That represents about 0.5% of the registered voters of this country. All of these people will get a vote on who goes on the ballot in their local area as the Liberal candidate at the next election (Federal or State). Anyone can become one of these people, but in practice you have to care enough about the party and have enough identification with the party to be bothered - and hardly anyone does.
If you REALLY want to be selected as the next Liberal candidate for BackoBourke division, one thing you can do is to persuade a few hundred of your mates to join the local branch just in time to vote for you when candidates are selected. This process is known as ‘branch stacking’ and is highly disfavoured
ETA: how’d that ninja get into our party meeting? :eek:
Not a Brit myself, obviously, but my understanding is that each party has a constituency organization in each constituency. Only party members can belong to a constituency org, by signing up and paying a membership fee. Once you’re a member of the constituency org, you have a vote on business matters. I don’t know if nominations are by a nominating committee within the constituency org, or by all members of the org.
This model of party nominations is designed to create parties with consistent ideologies. Parties in parliamentary systems tend to have parties with more clearly defined ideologies than is the case in the US.
On your third question, you don’t need to be nominated by a party to stand for election in Britain. To be nominated as an independent candidate, you just need to file a document nominating you, signed by 10 individuals who were on the electoral rolls for the constituency in the last election. You also need to fill out a form with your personal contact info, and a signed consent to the nomination. Plus a deposit of £500.
And there aren’t sore loser laws, like there are in the US. If you’re denied nomination by the party, that doesn’t keep you off the ballot. You either stand as an independent, as Hammond did, or see if some other party will nominate you. Failing to be nominated by a party can’t deprive you of the fundamental right to seek election to Parliament.
We call that “Insta-Tories” and “Insta-Grits” here in the north. There have been cases where a couple of busloads full of people have pulled up at the last minute at the nomination meeting, and an agent for one of the candidates for the nomination has marched up to the desk with a list of all their names and bought memberships for two busloads of people, in cash. Naturally, they voted as blocs for that candidate.
But , to their credit, the parties have been taking measures to reduce that. Now, you have to buy your membership in person, pay for it by cheque or credit card with your own name on the account, and do so a couple of weeks before the nomination meeting. That helps ensure that the party members are committed to the party, and that everyone knows the voting roll in advance.
Agreed. And I think this is an important feature of voting in a modern democracy. It keeps churning the candidates and keeps the electoral system and keeping two mainstream parties which represent honest and good faith disagreements and healthy arguments.
When one of these mainstream parties get out of whack the system reacts and things move back towards balance.
Before anyone says that cannot be true because Trump, let’s put aside our disagreements about Trump and look at recent history. There are many times in my short life where I’ve heard that either the Dems or Reps were so “extreme” that they were going to go extinct. But it doesn’t happen.
When the Dems went too far with Roosevelt, we had Eisenhower. When the GOP went too far with Goldwater, we got Johnson then Nixon and Carter. When Carter went too far we got Reagan. When Mondale and Dukakis went too far, we got a moderate like Clinton. Then the Dems ignored the white middle class too much and we got Trump. If Trump has gone too far, then we will see the Dems (either in 2020 or 2024, 2028 or soon enough) respond with a candidate that not only respects minority rights but the forgotten white middle class as well. When parties ignore or fail to respond to the reason for losses, they stay in the wilderness for a while.
This correction can only happen with consensus voting. If we have people only voting for extreme right and extreme left (and indeed Ranked Choice Voting encourages that), then nothing changes and we stay at a polarizing stalemate. Tactical voting gets people used to compromise.
You guys completely missed the point. He meant “more information” for the actual practical decision of who the people want as a leader. Why in the world would you think he meant “information for poli sci wonks”? That’s fucking ridiculous.