A few thoughts on Tactical Voting
Apr. 16th, 2015 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerI'm seeing a lot of posts at the moment about tactical voting. With people being encouraged to vote for whatever gets out The Enemy (the Conservatives in England, and the SNP in Scotland*).
And there are advantages to voting tactically, in the short term. Largely, if you want to vote someone out** then voting for the next-largest party is the way to do it. Voting for your actual preferred representative is liable to let the person you don't like stay in.
However, in the long term, what you end up left with is a two-party system where you don't _ever_ get change. If you want long term change then you need to make it look feasible that your preferred party can win. And the only way to do that is to vote for them.
If, for instance, you're in a Slightly-Bastard/Really-Bastard area, and you hate both with a fiery passion and want a Lovely candidate, then what you really need is for the Lovely vote to keep increasing each election, so that after five elections of the Lovely vote slowly creeping up, they actually take second place off, at which point tactical voters will switch to voting Lovely to keep the Really-Bastards out.
This may well result in more Really-Bastards winning in the short run. And it's a difficult choice to make, morally speaking. But I certainly don't blame people who refuse to settle for the slightly-less evil with the hope of getting in the much-less-evil in in the long-run***.
*Well, the SNP is one of the enemies in Scotland - but I'm only seeing pressure for tactical voting from the "Anyone but the SNP" slate.
**Under FPTP, of course. With a decent voting system there's much less need for any of this nonsense.
***Doesn't work in the USA, of course, where you seem to be perpetually stuck with a two-party system.
And there are advantages to voting tactically, in the short term. Largely, if you want to vote someone out** then voting for the next-largest party is the way to do it. Voting for your actual preferred representative is liable to let the person you don't like stay in.
However, in the long term, what you end up left with is a two-party system where you don't _ever_ get change. If you want long term change then you need to make it look feasible that your preferred party can win. And the only way to do that is to vote for them.
If, for instance, you're in a Slightly-Bastard/Really-Bastard area, and you hate both with a fiery passion and want a Lovely candidate, then what you really need is for the Lovely vote to keep increasing each election, so that after five elections of the Lovely vote slowly creeping up, they actually take second place off, at which point tactical voters will switch to voting Lovely to keep the Really-Bastards out.
This may well result in more Really-Bastards winning in the short run. And it's a difficult choice to make, morally speaking. But I certainly don't blame people who refuse to settle for the slightly-less evil with the hope of getting in the much-less-evil in in the long-run***.
*Well, the SNP is one of the enemies in Scotland - but I'm only seeing pressure for tactical voting from the "Anyone but the SNP" slate.
**Under FPTP, of course. With a decent voting system there's much less need for any of this nonsense.
***Doesn't work in the USA, of course, where you seem to be perpetually stuck with a two-party system.
no subject
Date: 2015-04-16 12:55 pm (UTC)For a party to have a chance in election at level X, unless X is the only level it contests and it has a very strong support base, you can look at how well it's done in the same area as X for elections at level Y & Z. In Scotland you have 4 levels, and electoral success will be similar in all those levels (locals, Scottish, EU and Westminster).
The Lib Dems, across the UK, have done well in building up their MPs at Westminster by first doing well in the local elections in the same area, building up a support base and campaign infrastructure in those areas.
In my area, locally, the Greens are, for the first time, running a full slate for the council elections, this is unheard of. But at the last General Election they got less than 2% and lost their deposit, despite their candidate being arguably the best of the bunch (my candidate definitely thought so, I disagreed). Voting Greens for Westminster, locally, almost certainly helps ensure the incumbent useless bigotted hypocritical Tory gets re-elected. But I'd understand, completely, anyone voting Greens at the local level, if they built up their infrastructure then they'd be in with a chance at Westminster.
UKIP, as a contrast, built up their support base first in the EU elections, but as the results for those are reported district-by-district, they know, in theory, where their best chances are for Westminster.
Duverger's Law in action, but Duverger was never as clear cut as many of his fans and detractors say, it's a district-by-district crystallisation, and there can be periods of realignment. This is almost certainly the most interesting election since 1983, probably, if the polls are to be belived, a lot more interesting than 1983, and I strongly suspect the fracture lines it shows will resolidify into new party alignments over the next decade.
(the US is a weird case because, in many instances, minor parties endorse major parties and their votes are counted as such—there were votes for John Kerry in some states that counted directly for Kerry but were for a different party, I forget which, some leftist splinter faction. Plus you have top-of-the-line bias where the top two parties from last time are at the top of the ballot, etc, it's deliberately entrenching. Oh, and single district elections where only one guy can win encourage two party systems. the US presidential election is effectively the largest simple plurality election in the world, Duverger applies to that)