Margins matter. Looking at the paper there, they used tons of margins data to do their calculations. They talked about how groups should direct their efforts in shifting thousands of votes, based on margins… and somehow missed that that meant that margins matter.
Now, that doesn’t apply as directly to third party vs wrong lizard, it may seem. But just keeping the voting rolls up (especially but not just in your area and demographic) matters, as it impacts where attention is directed. You’re saying, “I vote and neither of you is doing a good job and here’s what you can do” and the bigger that number is the more of a prize they see. Every tenth of a percentage point makes you more and more attractive. Making the less terrible lizard better is a good thing.
So, there isn’t just one threshold that matters a lot, but there are also many thresholds that matter less but still can count enough to add up.
Plus, there’s normally more than one election per ballot. So that multiplies the impact of whatever decision you make. And your leverage is greatly increased in many of these elections. Last election I may not have been able to impact national matters, but two municipal elections came down to single votes. Either candidate in that case could have kicked themselves for not courting that one other voter.
Margins matter. Looking at the paper there, they used tons of margins data to do their calculations. They talked about how groups should direct their efforts in shifting thousands of votes, based on margins… and somehow missed that that meant that margins matter.
Now, that doesn’t apply as directly to third party vs wrong lizard, it may seem. But just keeping the voting rolls up (especially but not just in your area and demographic) matters, as it impacts where attention is directed. You’re saying, “I vote and neither of you is doing a good job and here’s what you can do” and the bigger that number is the more of a prize they see. Every tenth of a percentage point makes you more and more attractive. Making the less terrible lizard better is a good thing.
So, there isn’t just one threshold that matters a lot, but there are also many thresholds that matter less but still can count enough to add up.
Plus, there’s normally more than one election per ballot. So that multiplies the impact of whatever decision you make. And your leverage is greatly increased in many of these elections. Last election I may not have been able to impact national matters, but two municipal elections came down to single votes. Either candidate in that case could have kicked themselves for not courting that one other voter.