UK minority party supporters coordinate strategic votes through Facebook

LibDem supporters in the UK have started a Facebook group to coordinate action among LibDem supporters who might vote "strategically" for another party in the upcoming election. In the UK (as in most countries), voting for minority parties is seen by many as a "waste" because your candidate is unlikely to win. This, of course, is self-fulfilling -- if everyone votes strategically, even popular candidates don't get elected. Using the net to make contact with other supporters is a smart way to overcome the collective action problem. (Thanks, Dan!)

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neward

I’m still upset they abolished rotten boroughs. We in Argleton demand disproportionate representation!
stumo

I’m not sure Cory’s description is accurate. My take on the same group is that it’s trying to persuade people *not* to tactically vote, but to vote for the Lib Dems if they believe in them the most – on the grounds that if enough people do it, it might turn out that the tactical voting wasn’t necessary all along.

To put this in context – the Lib Dems had 63 MPs (to Labour’s 352 and the Conservative’s 193). So they can win and have won seats (unlike some minority parties).

Also, thanks to the unevenness of vote distribution, the BBC vote predictor http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8609989.stm predicts that if all 3 parties had 1/3 of the vote, Labour would have 317 seats, the Conservatives 208, and the Lib Dems 101.
- elro
  
  Yes, it’s a plea for people not to tactically vote and let the Tories in. Sigh.
  
  I’m a Labour supporter in a seat where the Lib Dems come second. I’ll happily trade my Labour vote here for a Lib Dem one for a Labour vote in a Labour-Tory marginal.
electricinca

Yes our ridiculous first past the post system that can lead to elections such as in 1951 where despite Labour winning the most votes nationally it was the Conservatives that became the Government.

I think that this is a good year for Liberal Democrat supporters to not vote tactically. Mantras such as Anyone but the Tories don’t hold water anymore for Liberals when many consider the Labour party to be as bad.

On the flip side it might be wise for traditional Labour voters to vote tactically and go Liberal this time around.
eerd

I’m a bit sceptical about coalition governments but having just done some quick reading on the LibDems preferred voting method – single transferable vote – I can kinda see the appeal.

My one quibble is that it stops parties from being comprehensively beaten and kicked out of power, which I see as being the main benefit of democracy.

Maybe I’m just particularly negative, when it comes to matters psephological.
Stephen

Cory wrote: “In the UK (as in most countries), voting for minority parties is seen by many as a “waste” because your candidate is unlikely to win.”

Um… Wow. I don’t know what to think of this. In most countries in which a parliamentary coalition chooses the prime minister, very few people consider voting for a minority party a waste, if that party participates in coalition politics. Are you saying the LibDems have ruled out participating in a coalition on the left? Or is this a attempt to propagate the mistake belief that the same thing would work in the US?
- Anonymous
  
  The problem is that often times a minority will not have the support it needs in any one area to get any representatives into parliament. Take for example the green party in canada which in the last election received just as many votes nationally as the bloc quebecois, and yet they received no seats in parliament while the bloc received 21 because their supporters are centered in those 21 ridings. The problem Cory is describing is a result of like minded people not all finding themselves in the same ridings and so they swap votes.
- loonquawl
  
  I agree, the list on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_voting_systems_by_nation seems to indicate that most nations do not use the ‘First Past The Post’-mechanism, that lads to that kind of strategical voting; The english-speaking world ist mostly on that wagon, though.
- sabik
  
  Stephen, what you’re describing happens with proportional voting. What Cory is describing happens with first-past-the-post voting.
  
  In the UK, the country is divided into ~650 little areas, each of which uses first-past-the-post to elect a single MP.
  
  In a proportional system, if a party has 10% support, it’ll get about 10% representation in Parliament. In the UK, if a party has 10% support, it depends on how that support is distributed geographically. To get candidates into Parliament, the support must be concentrated in some areas; if it’s evenly spread, it’ll get nobody in Parliament.
  
  Hence strategic voting.
Anonymous

The reason no-one votes Lib Dem is because of our screwed up electoral system. A yougov poll said that 49% of people would vote Lib Dem if they though they could win. The shame is, this poll is never published so people don’t realize how much support this “minority party” have.
If we had proportional representation people would feel confident voting for the Lib Dems.
abstract_reg

What he means is this is how it works in countries that typically don’t have coalition governments. Such as Canada, or to my knowledge, the UK. Coalitions can happen, they are just rather rare, mostly because people are not used to the idea. That what happened in Canada a few years ago.

Trust me, if you live in Alberta, and are an NDP supporter, you are going to probably vote Liberal and still loose to a Conservative. Most of the world does not have the silly two party system the US has, so in most parts Cory’s advice is true.