Tactical voting: Difference between revisions

While most agree that tactical voting is generally a problem, there are some cases when a strictly limited amount of it may bring about an more democratic result. Since the [[Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem]] shows that all systems are vulnerable to tactical voting it become a question of which kinds of tactical voting are encouraged by each system more than the existence of it at all. For [[Ranked voting]] systems, [[Arrow's impossibility theorem]] proves that any voting system is arguably undemocratic in at least some case. However, tactical voting may be used to mitigate the issues of such systems. For instance, under purely honest voting, [[Condorcet method]]-like systems tend to settle on compromiseconsensus candidates, while [[Instant-Runoff Voting]] favors those candidates which have stronga corestronger supportpolarizing faction - who may often be more extremistfringe in beliefs. An electorate using one of these two systems but which (in the general or the specific case) preferred the characteristics of the other system could consciously use strategy to achieve a result more characteristic of the other system. Under Condorcet, they may be able to win by "burying" the compromiseconsensus candidate (although this risks throwing the election to the opposing extremefaction); while under IRV, they could always "compromise" and vote for the consensus above their true favorite.