[Phys-L] Re: Voting Strategy

[John Denker <jsd@AV8N.COM>]

Edmiston, Mike wrote:

> I remember I have heard people say that if your primary goal is to get
> the bad incumbent out you should vote for everybody but the bad
> incumbent, that is, vote for the really good candidate plus the two okay
> candidates.  On the other hand, if your primary goal is to get the
> really good candidate elected, you should only cast one vote, that is,
> just vote for the one person you really want elected.
>
> I remember hashing this out once, but I don't remember the answer.  Is
> this strategy actually valid?

Yes and no.

There are other factors.  For instance, suppose your "primary" goal is
to defeat the bad guy, but he is so strong he's going to get elected
in spite of you.  Then your primary goal is irrelevant, and your actions
should be driven by your secondary goal.

There are many similar scenarios that shift weight to/from primary and
secondary goals.

It also depends on how many candidates there are, how many votes you
get to cast, whether you can rank your preferences, whether the
criterion is majority or plurality (with or without a runoff), et
cetera.

======

In general, the proper method for analyzing such questions is to
consider the ensemble of possibilities for how things would stand
without your vote, and then see how your vote would affect each
member of the ensemble.

========

In most cases, plain old campaigning -- to get your friends to
vote for the good candidates -- is likely to have more effect than
Byzantine micro-engineering of your own ballot choices.
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