Tactical Voting

[nemafakei]

Particularly pertinent to US elections, but everyone should feel free to vote. That said, I suppose there's little relevance for those sneaky Dutch and their like who have proportional representation.

Anyway, opinions on the shoulds/shouldn'ts of tactical voting and the progression of constructive and peaceful discourse (who am I trying to convince?) is welcome...

[Dante]

Depends. Were I voting in the current American election, I would be voting Democrat under the 'anything to get rid of Bush!' philosophy. But here in Britain it really doesn't matter which of the two primary parties you choose, they're as bad as each other and the third is only slightly better. I'll be putting my vote here to where I believe it should go; not because I think it will make a difference but because there is no 'greater evil' to avoid.

(Because yes, by next General election I'll be old enough to vote. Mwa ha ha ha... >:D))

[nemafakei]

Well here (as with many places with first past the post systems), remember that your vote can make a difference if you're in somewhere like David Davis' constituency (held by about a 0.5% margin over the LibDems). There, only a few votes decide whether you have an extra Lib Dem or a Tory frontbencher.

[Dante]

Not such an issue up here. Maybe more in the cities, but not here. Not enough people. Besides, apparantly I'm in 'Labour heartland,' to my disgust.

[Andrew]

A good example is the last Canadian election. People were scared of a Conservative government because they would kill health care and sell Atlantic Canada.

The scare tactics worked. And were actually true in many aspects.

As for proportional representation, Canada is looking into it, and PEI has acted somewhat on it, and may have one in place in the near future. But with proportional representation the cities have all the power and rural areas will not, thus forcing more rural people to move to the cities.

[thomas]

never will vote my school's resident anarchist english teacher taught me that

[Andrew]

Well, you should vote. No reason not to. Besides, it is a reason to get off work a bit early. ;)

[nemafakei]

Option 2 didn't quite make sense; it's editied. You should be able to change your vote in any case.

[Cyborg]

The result is exactly as expected.

[Dragoon Knight]

Even though I can see the sense in voting for someone who is actually going to win, I'm very funny in my ways.

[Viq]

Based on the results so far, a lot of you have faith in the system, which really surprises me.

[Marcel71]

But with the comming elections in US, you can only vote for two parties?

Bush or Kerry...

So, then the options presented here are not really realistic

[nemafakei]

No, you can theoretically vote for all sorts of candidates, like Nader: look at the President Selector thread for more.

The fact that only two have a hope in hell is partly the point of the thread.

[Andrew]

Yah it is sad. The only candidates I heard of were nader, bush and kerry. But nader cant win. So it's only a race between 2 people to see who gets majority/minority government.

Wouldn't it be cool if Bush lost bigtime?

I wonder if there will be any protest marches before the election.

[EWS]

I vote for my party...simple as that.  Where I vote, it makes no difference due to white caucasions being a minority.

[Caid Ivik]

Last presidential elections I voted for independent candidate Butora, who ended with about 7% in first round. To be sure, winners took around 20%, however we can say there was low rate of voters. In Slovakia, when there is no good option, most of us rather abstain from vote. Like me in the second round: say, Gasparovic and Meciar where from same bandit party, just Gasparovic changed his chief. And now he is worse than any previous president, perhaps but Tiso, who ruled during WW2 under german patronate. Altough we can be sure that Meciar would be even worse.

[rigel6669]

In my country voting is compulsary, i vote for the candidate that is best suited for the job in my opinion

[Andrew]

Yah, I never understood why people are not forced (or its very important to vote, like you get your GST cheques if you vote, and if you don't you don't get them) to vote in a democracy. If that were so politics would be more alive, since most people would be voting, and not 50% of the population.

[Caid Ivik]

When country is officially democratic, but people have pragmatism in mind, choosing rather dictatorship of the minority to free ourselves from responsibility, it simply cannot be ideal.

[Dude_Doc]

I still don't understand how the Republicans can win after all these years. I mean, they've almost always caused war, the economy was trashed under at least Reagan, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr., and now again? Arrghh...

[Edric O]

I still don't understand how the Republicans can win after all these years. I mean, they've almost always caused war, the economy was trashed under at least Reagan, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr., and now again? Arrghh...

The Republican economic record has been dismal for most of the 20th century, and they're not exactly brilliant on foreign policy either. But they win because of social issues: gay marriage, abortion, the role of the Church in public life, "family values", etc.

The Republicans also have major support among the rich, of course, but the rich are a small minority. If America had a powerful Christian Socialist party (i.e. a party that would combine leftist economic policies with conservative social policies), it would probably obliterate the Republicans.

[Edric O]

As for the issue of tactical voting, such a strategy is usually not required in the Romanian electoral system. We use a "two-stage" vote, like France and many other countries. If none of the candidates gathers more than 50% of the vote, a second round of voting is held, in which the people have to choose between the two candidates who got the most votes in the first round.

This solves the kind of problems where a third candidate would "steal votes" from one of the two main candidates. For example, if applied in the United States, you could get the following results:

First round:

George Bush - 49%

John Kerry - 47%

Ralph Nader - 4%

Second round:

John Kerry - 51%

George Bush - 49%

So Kerry wins, even though Bush got more votes in the first round, because in the second round all of Nader's voters go and vote for Kerry. This kind of system allows people to vote for anyone in the first round, even someone with no chances of winning, and place their "tactical vote" in the second round.

[Marcel71]

I did not know you could vote for other too, besides Kerry and Bush.

And if i wanted to vote for the third party, but know this vote is thrown away, because he would never get enough votes, i for sure would vote for KERRY !

[Kiyouta]

Bush will win. You just know it.

[Viq]

Whatever the outcome, will it have an effect on Britains elections? I don't see why it should.