Do these systems avoid the strategic voting that plagues American elections? No. For example, both Single Transferable Vote and Condorcet voting sometimes provide incentives to rank a candidate with a greater chance of winning higher than a candidate you prefer—that is, the same “vote Gore instead of Nader” dilemma you get in traditional first-past-the-post.
In the case of the Single Transferable Vote, this is simply wrong. If my preferences are Nader > Gore > Bush, I should vote that way. If neither Bush nor Gore have a majority, and Nader has the least number of first preferences, my vote contributes towards Gore’s total. In no way does voting Gore > Nader > Bush instead help Gore (in the case where Nader obviously has a small number of votes), but it does make it less likely that Nader will get elected, which I presumably don’t want.
The link describes how if your preferences are A > B > C > D, it is sometimes best to vote C > A > B > D because this will help get A elected, which is different to voting Gore ahead of Nader to get Gore elected.
What about this situation: You and your friend are the last people to vote (having the same preferences for Nader over Gore over Bush) while the standings are:
1,000,001 votes Gore first, Bush second
1,000,002 votes Bush first, Nader second
1,000,003 votes Nader first, Gore Second
Giving your two votes to Nader first + Gore second would mean that Gore is eliminated and his votes now support Bush, which gets Bush elected. If you instead vote Gore first and Nader second, Bush is eliminated and his votes are transferred to Nader who gets elected, which is much better outcome regarding your preferences.
You’re right. My mistake. The standard “that doesn’t really apply for real world situations” argument of course applies, with the circular preferences and so on.
The standard “that doesn’t really apply for real world situations” argument of course applies
I am not sure. Quite a realistic, although a bit different situation may be this: There are three candidates—White, Gray and Black. White and Black are opposed to each other while Gray is somewhere inbetween. Thus the preferences of White supporters are W > G > B and the preferences of Black supporters are B > G > W. The Grays are split equally between G > B > W and G > W > B.
Now suppose that the distribution of supporters is 40 for White and 30 − 30 Gray and Black. You are a White supporter. If you vote according to you real preferences, i.e. first W, second G, you make it likely that Gray makes it to the second round where he wins due to the transferred Black votes. So you should instead vote tactically first B, second W, which would help Black into the second round where he will be eliminated by White who has stronger overall support.
That’s not a safe strategy with less than perfect information. If as few as 5 of those gray-supporters vote black secondary when you thought they’d vote white, you’ve just handed the election to your worst enemy, when by voting honestly you could have had the moderate, agreeable-to-all candidate.
As a wider assortment of fringe parties become involved, perhaps emboldened by their nonnegligible first-round numbers, that sort of strategy becomes more sensitive to secondary (and tertiary, etc.) preferences. As part of that same increasing complexity, secondary preferences become more difficult to meaningfully survey in advance.
In the case of the Single Transferable Vote, this is simply wrong. If my preferences are Nader > Gore > Bush, I should vote that way. If neither Bush nor Gore have a majority, and Nader has the least number of first preferences, my vote contributes towards Gore’s total. In no way does voting Gore > Nader > Bush instead help Gore (in the case where Nader obviously has a small number of votes), but it does make it less likely that Nader will get elected, which I presumably don’t want.
The link describes how if your preferences are A > B > C > D, it is sometimes best to vote C > A > B > D because this will help get A elected, which is different to voting Gore ahead of Nader to get Gore elected.
What about this situation: You and your friend are the last people to vote (having the same preferences for Nader over Gore over Bush) while the standings are:
1,000,001 votes Gore first, Bush second
1,000,002 votes Bush first, Nader second
1,000,003 votes Nader first, Gore Second
Giving your two votes to Nader first + Gore second would mean that Gore is eliminated and his votes now support Bush, which gets Bush elected. If you instead vote Gore first and Nader second, Bush is eliminated and his votes are transferred to Nader who gets elected, which is much better outcome regarding your preferences.
You’re right. My mistake. The standard “that doesn’t really apply for real world situations” argument of course applies, with the circular preferences and so on.
I am not sure. Quite a realistic, although a bit different situation may be this: There are three candidates—White, Gray and Black. White and Black are opposed to each other while Gray is somewhere inbetween. Thus the preferences of White supporters are W > G > B and the preferences of Black supporters are B > G > W. The Grays are split equally between G > B > W and G > W > B.
Now suppose that the distribution of supporters is 40 for White and 30 − 30 Gray and Black. You are a White supporter. If you vote according to you real preferences, i.e. first W, second G, you make it likely that Gray makes it to the second round where he wins due to the transferred Black votes. So you should instead vote tactically first B, second W, which would help Black into the second round where he will be eliminated by White who has stronger overall support.
That’s not a safe strategy with less than perfect information. If as few as 5 of those gray-supporters vote black secondary when you thought they’d vote white, you’ve just handed the election to your worst enemy, when by voting honestly you could have had the moderate, agreeable-to-all candidate.
As a wider assortment of fringe parties become involved, perhaps emboldened by their nonnegligible first-round numbers, that sort of strategy becomes more sensitive to secondary (and tertiary, etc.) preferences. As part of that same increasing complexity, secondary preferences become more difficult to meaningfully survey in advance.
Sure, but you can be nearly indifferent between Gray and Black, or simply take the risk.