[SEQ RERUN] Stop Voting For Nincompoops

MinibearRex

Today's post, Stop Voting For Nincompoops was originally published on 02 January 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Many people try to vote "strategically", by considering which candidate is more "electable". One of the most important factors in whether someone is "electable" is whether they have received attention from the media and the support of one of the two major parties. Naturally, those organizations put considerable thought into who is electable in making their decision. Ultimately, all arguments for "strategic voting" tend to fall apart. The voters themselves get so little say in why the next president is that the best we can do is just to not vote for nincompoops.

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).

This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was The American System and Misleading Labels, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.

Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.

Today's post, Stop Voting For Nincompoops was originally published on 02 January 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Many people try to vote "strategically", by considering which candidate is more "electable". One of the most important factors in whether someone is "electable" is whether they have received attention from the media and the support of one of the two major parties. Naturally, those organizations put considerable thought into who is electable in making their decision. Ultimately, all arguments for "strategic voting" tend to fall apart. The voters themselves get so little say in why the next president is that the best we can do is just to not vote for nincompoops.

Bringing some empirical input from a little different presidential electoral system.

Here in Brazil the system for presidential elections has two turns. All candidates run for the first turn. If someone has >50% votes, that candidate wins. If none has it, the two with most votes run for the second turn, when the most voted wins.

In the last three elections (2002, 2006, 2010), there were 6, 8 and 9 presidential candidates. There was a second turn in all of them, with candidates from the same parties (Worker's Party and Social-Democratic - the labels don't mean much, though) at all three. The third-place candidates, though, were from different parties in each election, with 17,9%, 6,85% and 19,3% of the votes. The 2006 election was Lula's reelection, and the votes for the first and second place in the first turn were the closest of all three years (48,6%/41,6%).

I'm not sure about what the data means and how Eliezer's line of thought would have to change to apply here. I think it changes the picture a little because even getting to the second turn is seen as some kind of victory. So people can vote in the candidate they really prefer because, hey, maybe they can get to the second turn and have a chance! And the chance that there will be no second turn is small, so the part about "keeping the wrong lizard out" is postponed.

And the chance that there will be no second turn is small, so the part about "keeping the wrong lizard out" is postponed.

And more, voting for the right lizard doesn't change the probability of the wrong lizard's first round victory.

1Emile15y

In France we have a run-off system too, and I think some complaints about American politics I hear would disappear if they adopted that - though others might appear, for example regional parties like there are in Canada. Unlike what you describe in Brazil, it's not that rare for candidates that are not part of the two "main" parties to get to the second turn (Le Pen did in 2002), or even to get elected (The centrist Giscard in 1974). The "main" parties are also more likely to split up / reorganize themselves than the US ones.