[EM] The matter of whether people strategize

[Anthony Duff]

 --- Bart Ingles <bartman at netgate.net> wrote: > 

> > 
> On the other hand, I actually met an Australian lady who said that
> she
> regularly voted for minor candidates whom she didn't even like,
> just to
> keep her favorite major-party representative from getting too full
> of
> himself.

That would not be terribly unusual.  Representatives, and
governments, take their primary vote very seriously, and if it is
high enough they get confident/arrogant, and every policy statement
they ever made becomes "mandated by the people", which means "how
dare the opposition even question it".

I am surprised that the lady couldn't find a candidate that she
liked, there are enough of them.  However, we are generally quite
confident that our minor party candidate won't actually be elected,
and I think that if there was actually a good chance of the minor
candidate being elected then some people voting in protest would
hestitate.

A typical voting pattern in some Australian electorates is
45 ABC
45 CBA
5  BAC
5  BCA  
with B being readily eliminated under IRV.  I think there is an
instinct to bury the strongest challenger.

However, I think that if the voting method was suddenly changed to
condorcet then the voting pattern would change, with B beng put last
a lot more often.


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