Tactical Voting
Runoff voting attempts to reduce the potential for tactical voting by eliminating wasted votes. Under the first past the post (plurality) system, voters are indirectly encouraged to vote tactically by voting only for one of the two leading candidates, as a vote for any other candidate will not affect the result. Under runoff voting this tactic, known as compromising, is sometimes unnecessary because, even if a voter's favourite candidate is eliminated in the first round, she will still have an opportunity to influence the result of the election by voting for a more popular candidate in the second round. However, the tactic of compromising can still be used in runoff voting because it is sometimes necessary to compromise as a way of influencing which two candidates will survive to the second round.
Read more about this topic: Tactical Manipulation Of Runoff Voting
Famous quotes containing the word voting:
“Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)