[EM] Vote Management

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Anthony,

you wrote (12 April 2003):
> To my surprise, I am unable to construct an example
> where vote management backfires.  I suspect that it
> cannot.

I guess that with "backfire" you mean that the party
that uses vote management wins fewer seats than it
would have won when it hadn't used vote management.
Vote management can backfire when the party overestimates
the number of its supporters or their willingness to vote
as they are told, when the candidates differ too much in
their popularity, when the candidates refuse to canvass
only in their bailiwicks, etc..

The best example for vote management that backfired
is the strategy of the Republican Party during the 1925
Cincinnati City Council elections. The party was sure of
winning 4 of the 9 seats. But it used vote management to
win 6 seats. In the end, it won only 3 seats.

Markus Schulze