Tactical voting

TarfHead said:

Based on my understanding of PR-TV, vote 1 Humphreys & 2 FG. If you want to actively make a point about SF/IRA, give Andrews your highest number.

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That is what I would have done in the past.

But I think that tactical voting is important.

If I want to go Green 1, FF 2 , I might be wasting my vote.

Brendan

Brendan Burgess said:

That is what I would have done in the past.

But I think that tactical voting is important.

If I want to go Green 1, FF 2 , I might be wasting my vote.

Brendan

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Some of this is outside of your control. Assume your #1 preference is elected on the first count. Your #2 preference only travels if it's in the surplus for redistribution. Most likely it will not.

My #1 will be for the candidate I assume will be fighting for the 4th or 5th seat in Dublin Bay North. I think giving them my #2 is a gamble as that preference may never count to their final tally.

While your overall principle of tactical voting is correct, this bit is not quite correct:

TarfHead said:

Your #2 preference only travels if it's in the surplus for redistribution. Most likely it will not.

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Let's say I vote Green and he gets two quotas.

All his second preferences are counted.

If he has 2,000 2nd preferences for Labour - then Labour will get 1,000 votes

It doesn't matter that much whether my actual ballot paper travels or not, Labour will still get 1,000 transfers.

1,000 actual ballot papers will travel, but he will still get only 1,000 votes, whether mine is picked or not.

Brendan

I've being voting since 1982 and I still don't know what I should about PR. And I think I know more than many.

I've since decided, for the first time in many years, to not vote down the ballot. Rather than give my least favoured candidate (and there's quite a selection) my #18, I've decided to go to #5 through #1.

[EDIT]

I have a copy of one of the excellent spreadsheets Gavan Reilly (Today FM) maintains on Count Day. This one is for Dublin Bay North in 2016.

Quota was 12271. Richard Bruton topped the poll with 9792 first preferences and was elected after the elimination of his running mate, Naoise O’Muiri. All votes (3381) for O’Muiri were eligible for redistribution. This pushed Bruton 821 over quota, which were then redistributed. Just the 821, not the full 13092.

This supports my earlier assertion, that it's just the excess that's up for redistribution. And the composition of that excess is 'random'.

TarfHead said:

This supports my earlier assertion, that it's just the excess that's up for redistribution. And the composition of that excess is 'random'.

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Full guide here, the composition of the redistribution is determined by the last parcel of ballots received by the candidate exceeding the quota. In your example above the last parcel Bruton received was the second preference ballots from the elimination of O'Muiri.

Leo said:

Full guide here, the composition of the redistribution is determined by the last parcel of ballots received by the candidate exceeding the quota. In your example above the last parcel Bruton received was the second preference ballots from the elimination of O'Muiri.

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Thanks for the link. This supports the surplus argument, that it's the surplus that is redistributed.

"The second and subsequent counts at a PR-STV election involve either the distribution of the surplus of an elected candidate or the exclusion of the lowest candidate(s) and the distribution of his/her/their votes. "

TarfHead said:

Thanks for the link. This supports the surplus argument, that it's the surplus that is redistributed.

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Yes, but the full parcel of votes is assessed in determining the distribution, not just the last few hundred that brought them over the quota. So say the surplus is 200, but the last parcel contained 1000 ballots, all 1000 are assessed for next preferences. Section 3.5 goes on to describe the calculation that is performed on the number of those 1000 ballots to determine how the excess of 200 is distributed.

Two of the results show how important tactical voting was.

Final count in Dun Laoghaire

So the FG candidates averaged 11,336 votes i.e. more than the FF candidate and could have got two elected.

That gap is too narrow to plan tactical voting, but it does show how it can work.

Of course, both parties made stupid errors in the constituency.
FF split the vote two ways when they had no hope of getting two candidates elected. They very nearly lost out.

FG split the vote three ways. If they had run two candidates, they would probably have got both elected.

By contrast, FG pulled off a masterstroke of tactical voting in Dublin Rathdown


I don't know if this was tactical or accidental but it worked.

If 500 more FG voters had voted for Richmond instead of Madigan, Brennan would have got elected.

It didn't matter that much, but why did FF run a second candidate in this constituency? She got only 886 votes, half of which went to her FF colleague.

Brendan

In Dublin Bay North, the transfer of Denise (SF) Mitchell's votes saw +159 to Richard (FG) Bruton and +361 to Sean (FF) Haughey.

My mind is boggled

Out of a surplus of 9,409?

That is 1.7% of her surplus to FG and 3.8% to the other Republican party candidate?

An independent candidate and PBP candidate got about 2,000 each.

Brendan

Brendan Burgess said:

Out of a surplus of 9,409?

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I cannot understand mindset of someone who would vote #1 SF and #2 FG/FF.

TarfHead said:

I cannot understand mindset of someone who would vote #1 SF

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I agree with you.

Brendan

TarfHead said:

I cannot understand mindset of someone who would vote #1 SF and #2 FG/FF.

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Aside from being clueless about the parties, there are some people who seem to vote for "most local candidate", as in if there are two candidates from their part of the constituency, they might vote SF and FF\FG.

I was wondering about why there were three candidates in constituencies where the party had a chance of only one seat.

Could it be to do with quotas?

In Dublin Rathdown FF had two candidates when their chances of one seat were poor enough.

Did I hear it correctly on the radio that the quota is increasing to 40%?

Brendan