Strategic voting

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Strategic or tactical voting is voting in consideration of possible ballots cast by other voters in order to maximize one's satisfaction with the election's results.^[1] For example, in plurality or instant-runoff, a voter may recognize their favorite candidate is unlikely to win and so instead support a candidate they think is more likely to win (a tactic called favorite betrayal or lesser-evil voting).^[2]

Gibbard's theorem shows that no voting system has a single "always-best" strategy, i.e. one that always maximizes a voter's satisfaction with the result, regardless of other voters' ballots. This implies all voting systems can sometimes encourage voters to strategize. However, weaker guarantees can be shown under stronger conditions. Examples include one-dimensional preferences (where the median rule is strategyproof) and dichotomous preferences (where approval or score voting are strategyproof).

With large electoral districts, party list methods tend to be difficult to manipulate in the absence of an electoral threshold. However, biased apportionment methods can create opportunities for strategic voting, as can small electoral districts (e.g. those used most often with the single transferable vote). Proportional representation systems with small districts often involve large-scale vote management operations, which are common in countries using STV-PR such as Ireland.