Wasted votes: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
m (further clarification) |
Dr. Edmonds (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
Line 1:
The concept of a wasted vote is related to [[Vote splitting]] and other similar phenomina. A wasted vote is a vote which does not have the intended effect of voter because its power in tabulation is lost. The definition is not universally agreed upon and is somewhat system dependant. Most commonly the term is used colloquially without intention to imply that there is a strict definition.
== Calculating the number of wasted votes in a FPTP election ==
The number of wasted votes in a [[FPTP]] election are the number of votes that didn't count towards or against electing the winning candidate.
The tally of wasted votes includes all votes towards any candidate whom does not finish either 1st or 2nd in the election. This is because FPTP elections are ultimately decided by which of the two front runners has more votes and any votes for third parties effectively don't matter (they only matter when the third party actually ends up being one of the front runners in which case they are no longer all wasted votes).
Finally, in an uncontested election where there is only one candidate, that threshold becomes 1 since as long as at-least one person votes for the single candidate, it does not matter how many votes they receive in order to win the election as long as they get at-least 1 vote.
== 1st generalization: Calculating the number of wasted votes under deterministic non-delegated voting methods that pass the participation criterion ==
For voting methods that pass the participation criterion, one possible way to define the number of wasted votes in an election under that voting method is
The number of wasted votes is equal to number of votes in the largest possible set of votes such that for any possible subset of votes in this set, removing those votes cannot change the election result. (footnote 1)
Line 18 ⟶ 20:
== 2nd generalization: Calculating the number of wasted votes under other all deterministic non-delegated voting methods ==
A 2nd possible generalization of the previous generalized definition of wasted votes to methods that do not pass the
The number of wasted votes is equal to number of votes in the largest possible set of votes such that for any possible subset of votes in this set, removing those votes cannot change the election result if none of the voters who's votes are in that subset prefers the new election result to the old one.
Line 28 ⟶ 30:
Footnote 2: It can still be approximated by making assumptions about for any two candidates A and B, the probability that a voter that rates/ranks them equally prefers A over B vs. B over A (vs. actually liking A and B exactly the same if it's assumed that some voters like some candidates exactly the same).
==See also==
[[Vote splitting]]
| |||