Resolving Conflict for the Candidate

There is a flip side to the difficulty raised by 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, which concerns candidates and political parties. In particular, the fact that voters must decide whether or not to vote strategically pose two curious dilemmas for aspiring candidates.

• Whether to Run. A candidate must consider whether it is a good idea to run. In the case of vote-splitting, they must contend with the possibility that their entry into the race will in fact decrease the chances of a candidate they identify with being elected. One need look to further than Ralph Nader’s bids in 2000 and 2004, where many people urged him NOT to run for this exact reason. No candidate should have to compromise their ideals to run for office.
• Strategic CampaigningCandidates must take strategic voting into account in deciding their platform and campaign. Rather than just vying for the preference of the voters, they must also vie for plausibility, in the sense that voters must believe that the candidate can win for a vote to be worth it. Furthermore, any time voters are choosing their votes based on strategic factors, candidates must take these strategic factors into account, further multiplying the confusion.

The Suppression of Third Parties

From the perspective of this website, possibly the most problematic aspect of strategic voting, particularly in a plurality system, is the suppression of third party efforts. Third parties are absolutely necessary to democracy for several reasons.

• Variety. There is a much larger marketplace of ideas in any democracy than two parties can contain, thus it is necessary for third parties exist to represent the full spectrum.
• Ideological Progress. Many of the great social movements of American history began as third party efforts, which the two major parties were afraid to touch. These included the abolition of slavery and women’s rights.
• Balance of Power. Without third parties to shake up the power structure, the two major parties would come to exercised a sort of tyranny. It is the feat of third party attacks that stops this from occurring.

In some cases, what gives third parties their power is the so-called “spoiler effect.” Each party fears having the election stolen from them, and begins to assimilate the goals of the third party to respond to this threat. But third parties would be much more effective if voters were unconstrained to use voting to express their support for them. However, strategic voting is very hostile to third parties, and generally stops them from gaining prominence.

How Condorcet Solves these Problems

Simply put, with the near-elimination of strategic voting comes the near-elimination of the need for strategic campaigning. In a system where the voter is not afraid to compromise the achievement of their ideals by expressing them, reciprocally candidates do not need to fear championing their ideals, since the “risk” of people actually voting for them does not carry any consequences for those same ideals. Thus the process of running for office is turned from an intriguing game to a legitimate marketplace of ideas.