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:
“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)