Resolving Power and Speech for the Voter

The possibility of strategicA vote is called "strategic," "tactical," or "pragmatic" if it does not reflect the voter's true preference, but is rather an attempt by the voter to secure the best possible outcome, given the voter's prediction of how other voters will act. voting, as it manifests itself in PluralityThis is the voting system currently used for most American elections. Each voter chooses only one candidate, and the winner is the candidate with the most votes. election, separates power and speech for the voter: it makes voting accutely IllocutionaryThis is term applied to the act of voting, meaning that it consists of two distinct and often conflicting actions: an act of power (attempting to cause your most preferred possible candidate to win), and an act of speech (saying that you approve of the candidate you select).. Here the issue concerns how a voter should select candidates one all nominations are complete and the ballot is set. The potential for strategic voting exists in any situation where a voter can create a more desired outcome by voting in favor of a less desired outcome.

What is Wrong with Strategic Voting?

The first question we must consider is why there is any problem at all with strategic voting. After all, in any system where all voters are playing by the same rules, the contest is entirely fair and things will work themselves out. However, there are several reasons why it is not desirable for voters to have to consider these issues.

• Confusion. The presence of strategic concerns is confusing to the voter, because the amount of information they must consider increases substantially. Rather than only considering the views of each candidate and that candidate’s merit, the voter must also decide how the rest of the electorate will act. They must study polls to determine how they believe the rest of the voters will act before deciding which vote will help them the most, and at the same time every other voter analyzes them in this way. The entire process is terribly imprecise and shifts the emphasis away from the issues which should be at hand in an election.
• Moral Ambiguity. To many, voting honestly is considered a moral obligation. A vote for a particular candidate is often considered to be a symbol of support for that candidate. At the same time, there is a clear moral incentive to create the outcome that you think is best. Thus voters are forced into a moral dilemma, with extremely vocal advocates on both sides, which simply should not be present.
• Vote-splitting. Vote-splitting is an artifact of the curious game-theoretic problem discussed above. Ideally, all voters supporting a certain cause would agree among themselves to all support the same candidate against the opposition. This would be an example of strategic voting working properly. However, often it is not obvious how the rest of the electorate will act. In this case, supporters of the same ideals, even if they would willingly pool their resources to support the same candidate, split their votes between two candidates, simply because they do not know which one had a better chance of winning, and a rival faction, even possessing a minority of supporters, can win.

It should be apparent that strategic voting is not, in principle, a negative thing. It only becomes a problem because of ambiguities: not knowing how other voters will act, and not knowing how a vote will be interpreted. Thus our argument is not that strategic voting is inherently evil, but simply that it is not viable in practice as an electoral paradigm.

How Condorct Solves this Problem for the Voter

Condorcet voting does not completely eliminate the potential for strategic voting. In fact, it is a mathematical theorem that this is impossible, related to Condorcet's ParadoxThis paradox is that in some situations it is impossible to obey majority rule in an election. The situation in which paradox can arise is what is called a majority rule cycle. This is when, according to the result of the election, there is a cycle of candidates, each beating the next in a runoff. Imagine the simplest case: there are three candidates: A, B, and C. A majority rule cycle occurs when A defeats B, B defeats C, and C defeats A. This is a paradox because to install any one of these three candidates defies majority rule, since there exists another candidate which the majority prefers.. However, it does completely eliminate it in one particular case: the case where there are no majority-rule cycles. In this case, it is trivially clear that by rating a candidate higher, a voter can only increase that candidates chance of winning, without changing any other candidate’s chances. Any strategic voting in a Condorcet system must assume that there will be a majority rule cycle, or attempt to create one.

Non-Honest Strategic Voting is NOT a Good Strategy in Condorcet

Since any strategic voting is only valid when there is a majority rule cycle, in order to vote strategically the voter must first force a majority rule cycle, and simultaneously perform whichever vote will strategically benefit them. The difficulty here is crystal clear: it is extremely complicated to decide what strategic vote to cast. In some sense, what Condorcet methods accomplish is a magnification of the confusion and intrigue involved is thinking of a strategic vote. Honest voting is the easy way out; the voter throws up his or her hands and decides to throw it to the wind and hope for the best. However, in this case the easy way out is also strategically strong because assuming that many other voters do the exact same thing, the likelihood of a majority rule cycle is very small, making honest voting all the more attractive.