Strategic Nomination
The contingent vote can be influenced by the same forms of strategic nomination as IRV and the two round system. Strategic nomination is where candidates and political factions influence the result of an election by either nominating extra candidates or withdrawing a candidate who would otherwise have stood. The contingent vote is vulnerable to strategic nomination for the same reasons that it is open to the voting tactic of 'compromising'. This is because it is sometimes necessary for a candidate who knows they are unlikely to win to ensure that another candidate he supports makes it to the second round by withdrawing from the race before the first round occurs, or by never choosing to stand in the first place. By withdrawing candidates a political faction can avoid the 'spoiler effect', whereby a candidate 'splits the vote' of her supporters and prevents any candidate acceptable to them from surviving to the last round. For instance, in Example I above, if Catherine had chosen not to stand then Brian would have been elected instead of Andrew, a more desirable result for Catherine's supporters. However the contingent vote's system of transfers makes it less vulnerable to the spoiler effect than the plurality system.
Read more about this topic: Contingent Vote
Famous quotes containing the words strategic and/or nomination:
“If the technology cannot shoulder the entire burden of strategic change, it nevertheless can set into motion a series of dynamics that present an important challenge to imperative control and the industrial division of labor. The more blurred the distinction between what workers know and what managers know, the more fragile and pointless any traditional relationships of domination and subordination between them will become.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)
“Do you know I believe that [William Jennings] Bryan will force his nomination on the Democrats again. I believe he will either do this by advocating Prohibition, or else he will run on a Prohibition platform independent of the Democrats. But you will see that the year before the election he will organize a mammoth lecture tour and will make Prohibition the leading note of every address.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)