Strategic Vote?

[Zardnaar]

I have a hypothetical question for the forums. Here we have proportional voting, 51% wins. For this scenario there's 4 parties that matter.

National 46%
Labour 37%
Greens 5%
New Zealand First. 6%

% is approximate numbers off the top of my head from the last election. Due to decimals and rounding the 48% is 51 or 52%.

Labour and Greens are fairly self explanatory if you're familiar with the left outside the states. National would roughly be old Rockefeller Republicans, NZ First slightly conservative blue dog democrats. National neo liberal, not that conservative, NZ first small c conservative socially, won't sign off in tax increases pre Covid but didn't sign up for tax cuts either. A small % of National are conservative with a hard C which are about as hard right it gets here.

So we could be seeing a repeat of 2002. In that election Labour was polling get high support for National collapsed. National voters strategically voted for NZ first as coalition partner to lock out the Greens.

National had unpopular leader, is polling in the low to mid 30s and Labour has popular, charismatic, female leader. There's speculation they might cross the 51% alone, never been done before probably a bit optimistic. Jacinda approval ratings are 87-93% support. The opposition leader is around 11%.

There's speculation he might get rolled but no one really wants the job. They've also stopped releasing internal polling numbers.

So assuming Labour has probably won and heading towards a blowout there's several strategic votes that can come up.

1. National is gonna get a hiding. You like National but might consider voting NZ First. You don't particularly like then but if they're the bigger party than the Greens and/or the Greens fail to get into parliament you prefer Labour/NZ First vs the triple coalition or even worse Labour+Greens. Your electoral vote doesn't matter.

2. You are a Labour voter in a safe Labour seat. Your leader is so popular though she might suck up support from the Greens who are on 5%. That number is the threshold. If the Greens fall below that number they can be out of parliment. You live in the seat where the greens enjoy the most support. A smart vote could gift the seat to the greens which negates the 5% requirement giving the greens 5-6 seats on 4.XYZ% of the vote. What if Labour does a deal and tells you to vote split in your Electorate?

So here is two scenarios. Do you party vote for your regular party no matter what. Or do you vote strategically and vote split for a different candidate or party in order to help your side out or mitigate the makeup of the next parliment? You get two votes here one for the local candidate, one for the party. The party vote determines who rules, the candidate vote can change the faces of who rules.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I dislike strategic voting. I prefer voting idealistically, no matter how insignificant it seems. AFD was at some point at below 5% and look what happened. If you only vote strategically you end up sacrificing your democracy for a two party political spectacle that is only democratic in name. There is a reason why the USA only has 2 parties. And those two parties have colonized their voters heads so strongly that no one even considers voting 3rd party.

 

[Zardnaar]

I dislike strategic voting. I prefer voting idealistically, no matter how insignificant it seems. AFD was at some point at below 5% and look what happened. If you only vote strategically you end up sacrificing your democracy for a two party political spectacle that is only democratic in name. There is a reason why the USA only has 2 parties. And those two parties have colonized their voters heads so strongly that no one even considers voting 3rd party.

Wasn't a US example.

I tried condensing it down as much as I could. There's 4 parties not two.

In this situation the government probably won't change, might even be a blowout. Strategic voting might change the composition of that government.

And what do you do if you're a right wing voters facing electoral defeat.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Wasn't a US example.

I meant in general, not just in context of the US

in your specific scenario, I don't know whether I would vote for my "party", so maybe I would take what you call the strategic choice. I typically don't think in terms of parties, at least in German politics, but rather in terms of people and agendas.

 

[Zardnaar]

I meant in general, not just in context of the US

in your specific scenario, I don't know whether I would vote for my "party", so maybe I would take what you call the strategic choice. I typically don't think in terms of parties, at least in German politics, but rather in terms of people and agendas.

I can't really give an entire run down but the parties here are agenda's.

National pro tax cuts business
Greens. Fairly typical green party
Labour. Probably not to drastically different than any other labour party
NZ First. One man band party lead by old school conservative not a neo lib one. He got kicked out of National when the neo libs took it over.


A Labour/Greens coalition is going to be more progressive than an NZ First/Labour one. All three might coalition to keep National out of power. All three might coalition anyway and have something like 60%+.

 

[Hygro]

I dislike strategic voting. I prefer voting idealistically, no matter how insignificant it seems. AFD was at some point at below 5% and look what happened. If you only vote strategically you end up sacrificing your democracy for a two party political spectacle that is only democratic in name. There is a reason why the USA only has 2 parties. And those two parties have colonized their voters heads so strongly that no one even considers voting 3rd party.

I agree with voting idealistically to a degree, but disagree that a 2 party system is the result of a cynical voting culture.

 

[Zelig]

Strategic voting is just manual ranked ballot voting.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I agree with voting idealistically to a degree, but disagree that a 2 party system is the result of a cynical voting culture.

it is certainly not a mono-causal thing, that much is for sure. I can think of many reasons. what do you reckon the main reasons behind keeping the 2 party system are?

and, to be fair, America is not the only non-democracy with a completely stupid system that people cling onto. Just look at "first past the post" in GB, whoever the **** thought that was a good idea? some posh lord high on too much earl grey and wheat toast, probably.

at least in countries like Russia, everyone knows **** is ***** up. Poland, in a spark of pure historical irony, willingly voted itself into a dictatorship using their own democratic process. at least there is no pretending there, it's more or less out in the open.

 

[Hygro]

I think people are idealistic in other axes than “this is my policy vision for the future”. For example “if we have a grand coalition and mandate, we can be better than the sum of our parts”. Many people further are less concerned with campaign promises and more concerned with vibe (and more openly and honestly among Republicans, classic first level “strength”) such that the bigger and more competitive the primary is, the more the “ideal” leader has proven themselves materially. There are surely other considerations as well. This is all to say first past the post can, with more than cynicism and power-reproduction, can capture a lot of idealism within the convergence.

 

[AmazonQueen]

it is certainly not a mono-causal thing, that much is for sure. I can think of many reasons. what do you reckon the main reasons behind keeping the 2 party system are?

and, to be fair, America is not the only non-democracy with a completely stupid system that people cling onto. Just look at "first past the post" in GB, whoever the **** thought that was a good idea? some posh lord high on too much earl grey and wheat toast, probably.

at least in countries like Russia, everyone knows **** is ***** up. Poland, in a spark of pure historical irony, willingly voted itself into a dictatorship using their own democratic process. at least there is no pretending there, it's more or less out in the open.

Nobody thought it up. Like everything in the British system it wasn't the result of clever design but because its been around a while just became the way we do things. Still at least we didn't put it in a written constitution that we then made almost impossible to change.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Strategic voting is just manual ranked ballot voting.

Strategic voting is what enabled us to get rid of Harper in 2015.

Well, that and blunders by Jason Kenney when he was in the federal cabinet and Thomas Mulcair who totally misread the electorate in Quebec.

I don't know what will enable us to get rid of Kenney in 2023. Maybe hire some aliens to kidnap him, or something. He didn't get his leadership honestly, everyone knows it, but he fired the commissioner investigating him, and the ethics commissioner just declared (surprise! not) that whatever "shenanigans" went on, Kenney didn't know about it and didn't benefit from it. Which is, of course, utter <cow pies>.

So a few more lackeys will take the fall for it, whether fines or prison sentences (likely just fines), and Kenney will sail on with his agenda. In the background, Harper will be snickering.


Canada was supposed to see the end of FPTP in 2015. Justin Trudeau promised, which is the reason at least some people voted for him who might otherwise not have. Well, he reneged on that, given that the committee tasked with coming up with an alternative didn't support the alternative Trudeau wanted.

So we're stuck with FPTP and strategic voting, aka "holding your nose", will be a part of our elections for the foreseeable future.

 

[AdamCrock]

I vote for Zard's Dictatorship ! for what it's worth

 

[Zardnaar]

I vote for Zard's Dictatorship ! for what it's worth

I would disappoint the left and the right.

Higher taxes
Capital gains tax
Tax reform
Focus on early childhood
Some tertiary courses would be free. Less students though to pay for it.
10-20 year plan for social housing
Less immigration, easier for skill based though.

Probably constitutional Monarchy.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Nobody thought it up. Like everything in the British system it wasn't the result of clever design but because its been around a while just became the way we do things. Still at least we didn't put it in a written constitution that we then made almost impossible to change.

afaik the very unique thing about British democracy and legal system is that it is built upon many different texts, some recent, some ranging back hundreds of years, but I don't think "nobody thought it up" can ever be true, yes, not one single person, but at one time people did decide to do things that way, instead of another way, and I think it is highly likely it was a conscious decision, no?

I think people are idealistic in other axes than “this is my policy vision for the future”. For example “if we have a grand coalition and mandate, we can be better than the sum of our parts”. Many people further are less concerned with campaign promises and more concerned with vibe (and more openly and honestly among Republicans, classic first level “strength”) such that the bigger and more competitive the primary is, the more the “ideal” leader has proven themselves materially. There are surely other considerations as well. This is all to say first past the post can, with more than cynicism and power-reproduction, can capture a lot of idealism within the convergence.

yes and yes for the bolded part. I think politician preference essentially boils down almost exclusively to psychological preferences (i.e. which candidate is best at exploiting, or rather, mobilizing, millions of people's fears and desires) and successful advertisement.

 

[AmazonQueen]

afaik the very unique thing about British democracy and legal system is that it is built upon many different texts, some recent, some ranging back hundreds of years, but I don't think "nobody thought it up" can ever be true, yes, not one single person, but at one time people did decide to do things that way, instead of another way, and I think it is highly likely it was a conscious decision, no?

Not in the sense that they planned for it to work in the way it does now and forsaw the consequences.
Also its not really built on anything. Parliament is sovereign, nothing is fixed in stone.

 

[AdamCrock]

Probably constitutional Monarchy.

No ! It's still not it !!! Full authoritarianism is the way ! xD

 

[Zardnaar]

No ! It's still not it !!! Full authoritarianism is the way ! xD

Then I could make my cat a senator or minister.

 

[AdamCrock]

Then I could make my cat a senator or minister.

It would be prudent move my lord

edit: Not that there's many puny humans that can fill the position ! My Lord first order of business ! : Let's make it that cat can be a foreign minister ! I mean there are many human fails , I think cat can do it just fine ! xD