You are supporting your favored candidate who doesn’t happen to be on the primary ballot. So you vote for someone else. No contradiction there.
These sorts of elections to see who will be on the next ballot are needlessly complicated. In contrast and eg jungle primaries work with tactical voting, rather than against it.
I would dispute that.
Consider the example BrainGlutton brought up: voting for Gore instead of Nader in 2000 is an excellent example of tactical voting. Somebody who really really would prefer Nader voted for Gore anyway, precisely because they wanted Gore to beat Bush. In other words, vote for somebody who is a second choice, but the first really viable choice. You want the person you’re voting for to win because the one you’d rather see win stands no chance. That’s tactical voting too.
So the Democrats nominate an extremist, and the Republicans nominate an extremist, and they both lose?
That sounds obtuse. But I guess it highlights some aspects of primary democracy. At times one primary base or another will lean more towards true believership and less towards considerations of November. Tea Partism is rampant today but back during the 1980s the unelectable candidate Jesse Jackson didn’t do too badly in the Democratic Presidential primaries. During the same age, then far right commentator Bill Buckley advised his minions to vote for the most conservative electable candidate during the primary. The partisan distribution of crazy varies over time.
If true believership is high and evenly balanced between the 2 parties (which I don’t rule out: it may happen during certain points in history) then the median voter finds himself with 2 distasteful choices in November. One will win of course. But neither will represent the body politic that well.
Anyway my point is that 30 years ago primaries were one party affairs. Cross party voting laws arose for a reason, and they didn’t have much to do with the grass roots or the strategic voting lobby, which of course doesn’t exist.
Yes, and that is when they do lose in November, or not, depending on the district, state, or whatever. So what? It should be entirely up to the members of a party who their candidate should be.
I have no respect for anyone who would use this tactic. It is an attempt to create a de facto one party election by sabotaging anyone you consider credible opposition, something better suited to the playbook of kleptocrats like Mugabe and not so-called “Democrats”.
I voted Other.
I’ve been a decline-to-state/no party preference voter since the early 80’s. When the laws were changed to allow parties to allow NPP’s to vote in their primaries, I did so. Here in California the Democrats allow it, the Republicans don’t (at least they didn’t as of 2012). As long as it’s legal I’ll vote for whomever I like. If the parties don’t like the open primary laws they should work to get it changed. I have no sympathy for the Tea Partiers in this case. They don’t get to decide who is and isn’t a real Republican, as long as the state laws are the way they are.
I would vote in another party’s primary, but only for purposes of trying to get the lesser of multiple evils. I would consider it personally unethical to vote for a candidate just because I think they’ll be weaker in the general election (though if the lesser-evil candidate would also be weaker in the general, I’ve no problem with that).
It’s easy to say that the laws should be written to prevent strategic voting, but unfortunately, that’s mathematically impossible. Some voting systems will have less strategic voting than others, but it’s been proven that in any election with three or more choices, in any sort of voting system, it will always be possible for some voters’ best interests to be served by voting for candidates they don’t actually prefer.
It’s called Arrow’s impossibility theorem. Note that one way of avoid it is to rate candidates on some scale instead of just a simple preference order. E.g., rate each candidate 0 to 100.
It should be up to the party leaders who their candidates are, while the voters choose who among all the competitors is best. Sort of like the market for cars or any other consumer product. I get to choose between GM, Ford, Toyota and Honda. I can even start a letter writing campaign. What I don’t get to do is vote on their business decisions.
No, it’s an attempt to advance a rational democratic system (no primaries), one used by most of the democratic world, where most people have more meaningful choices in the ballot booth (via proportional representation), not less.
And how does it create a one party state?? 
:dubious: I mean such power would be awesome, but I’m not sure what I’d do with it, unless of course I could choose that one party.
Personally, I register for the party who holds my gerrymandered district. Since the general election is a foregone conclusion, I want to vote in the primary that matters. If enough voters did that, we’d be able to negate the gerrymandering that creates safe seats, and thereby create a more moderate, less polarized Congress.
I said it was an attempt to make a de facto one party election. The purpose of the primaries is to try to ensure that each party puts their best foot forward - so that the best Democrat faces the best Republican. This tactic is an attempt to make it so that the general election is the best Democrat versus the worst Republican, in a naked attempt to fix the general election in your candidate’s favour. It’s an attempt to make it so that people voting in the general election only have one real option to vote for, and that it’s the person you want to win. That is why I hate you if you use this tactic, because it is the same mindset behind every asshole who gets 90%+ of the vote by dismantling any opposition.
I always try “WWLD” or “WWLS” and then do the opposite.
(L = Rush)
I think it is clear that crossover Dems who voted for the moderate Republican were NOT attempting to produce the Republican candidate least likely to win. They were assuring that another batcrazy candidate didn’t have a good chance to win in a normally Republican voting state. That was smart politics for the Dems, smart politics for the Republican liberal to encourage it, and smart politics for Dems going forward after the Republican party explodes into three factions without national leadership.
I don’t think that counts as tactical voting. It’s more like strategic voting. You’re voting for Gore because you want Gore to win the election, even if he isn’t your first choice.
Tactical voting would be if you voted for Nader in hopes that it would throw the election to the House of Representatives and they would choose Bush. In that case, you’re voting for Nader but you don’t want Nader to win.
If there is a Republican candidate about whom you think “If a Republican wins the general election, I want it to be this guy”, I don’t think voting for him in the primaries is objectionable. But that is quite different to voting because you want the Republican party to explode.
Voting to support your second choice: Good.
Voting to cause damage to your candidate’s opponents: Bad.
Ok now I get it: thanks.
Sorry but no. I do agree vehemently that voters should obey the law. But the law was set up to permit cross-party voting. So I’m supporting my favorite candidate by voting for the opposition’s greatest dingbat (depending upon the particular election - as noted upthread that wasn’t the strategy conducted in Mississippi, though some did it to topple Eric Cantor).
Basically your argument boils down to guilt by association. But I’m not advocating tearing down political posters, counterfeiting press releases by the opposition, gerrymandering or even district-level voting which let’s face it is what actually takes away choice in practice , discouraging the opposition from voting or passing laws to prevent the opposition from voting. I’m not even supporting cross party primary voting laws: I’ve opposed one in the past though I’ll have to take them on a case by case basis as I’m not conversant enough with voting theory. At any rate I reject your analogy.
ETA: I suppose I might hesitate before supporting a write-in campaign for an opposing wingnut, but that’s not on the table. We’re discussing voting systems that are set up by each party: they know what they are doing better than I do.
I voted 'Whatever helps your candidate in November", but honestly “Other” is the correct answer. Your vocal support and primary vote is the action. You assess how it affects the probabilities of the 3 candidate’s victory and multiply that times the subjective net advantages of each candidate which might be negative. It’s a complicated utilitarian calculation which reflects perceptions of the voting age population, turnout and a deep understanding of psycho-history.
Luckily all the delta-p values are indistinguishable from zero, so you can toss the calculation after computing it and vote for who the hell you want to. As I said earlier though, I assert that voting systems should be set up where voters consider policy and performance, as opposed to electoral demographics. So I oppose the primary system.
I agree.
Let’s say you were a voter in 2008. And let’s say your favorite candidate was Obama but you’re okay with Clinton, Edwards, Huckabee, or McCain. And let’s say your preferences are in that order.
Now you might decide to vote in a Democratic primary and vote for Obama to help him get the nomination rather than Clinton or Edwards. I can’t see anyone questioning your motives in that, even if they disagree with your choice.
But suppose you decide that you can live with any of the Democratic candidates but there are Republican candidates you consider unacceptable. So you feel it’s more important to eliminate some of the unacceptable candidates rather than push forward your favorite.
Now if you decided to vote in a Republican primary and voted for Huckabee even though you expected to vote for another candidate in the general election, that would be acceptable in my opinion. Of the candidates on the ballot in that primary, Huckabee was the one you wanted to win.
Now a little more strategic. You prefer Huckabee to McCain. But the polls are showing Huckabee is not doing well. The two candidates who are likely to get the nomination are McCain or Romney. To you, McCain is acceptable and Romney is not. And McCain is electable while Huckabee is not. Your favorite of the choices is Huckabee but you eliminate him because you realize he doesn’t have a realistic chance of winning. So you vote for McCain in the primary. To me, this is still morally acceptable because you prefer McCain to Romney so you want McCain to win in the competition between these two.
But if you decided to vote in a Republican primary and voted for Romney because you figured Romney could get the nomination and he would lose to a Democrat but McCain might beat a Democrat, then I would call your choice morally wrong. You voted for Romney but you don’t want him to win, even among the choices you had on that ballot.
I voted using the same logic and it differs from option 3 because that isn’t THE reason I approve of open primary voting it is just one of them. Using MS as an example I wouldn’t be voting in that primary to help the Democrats win but to have a voice in who was representing me. In a case where the odds are professionally stacked ( gerrymandered ) against you I don’t feel you should not have a vote in who is going to represent you if your preferred candidate doesn’t a realistic chance of being that guy. That’s a far nobler reason and I didn’t see it on the poll.