Strategic nomination

Strategic nomination refers to the entry of a candidate into an election with the intention of changing the ranking of other candidates.^[1] The name is an echo of ‘tactical voting’ and is intended to imply that it is the candidates rather than the voters who are seeking to manipulate the result in a manner unfaithful to voters’ true preferences.

The same effect may be achieved if the result of an election depends on the distribution of candidates, even if candidates are not nominated with this thought in mind. For instance viewpoints favoured by wealthy voters may naturally accrue more candidates. If the voting system makes it likelier in consequence that the election will be won by a candidate with wealthy support, then the resulting bias has the same effect as strategic nomination even though it is entirely accidental.