Defections from Parties:

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• Defections from Parties
• Tactical Voting, Split Voting and Protest Voting
• Eva-Maria Otto

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1. Definitions

• Tactical Voting
• Someone who votes for another party (or party
  candidate) other than their most preferred one if
  he or she expects to be more likely to influence
  the outcome of this election than by casting a
  sincere vote.

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1. Definitions

• Split Voting
• In a electoral system in which voters have two
  votes, they can decide to cast a
• Straight ticket giving both votes to the same
  party OR
• Split ticket giving their votes to two different
  parties
• Protest Voting
• Voters reacting against specific policies or
  failures of their natural parties rather than
  being positively attracted to another party
  (Heath et al., 1985 113)

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2. Tactical Voting

• Assumptions
• The literature on tactical voting agrees that
  institutional incentives are the driving force
  that spurs tactical voting
• Duverger Political consequences of electoral
  systems
• Mechanical effect how electoral systems affect
  the way votes are transformed into seats ? affect
  the outcome
• Psychological effect how the electoral system
  affect voters choice ? affect the vote

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2. Tactical Voting

• Voters have rational expectations about electoral
  outcomes
• Voters are servants of two masters
• Their preferences and
• Their expectations
• Politicaly aware and informed voters discussions
  and pre-election polls
• Voters who do not follow the campaign previous
  elections

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2.1. Plurality system

• Mechanical effect
• Single Member Plurality systems
  under-representation of minor parties
• Psycological effect
• Voters reactions to this systematic
  under-representation

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2.1. Plurality system

• Wasted-vote hypothesis
• Supporters of parties that are likely to come
  third (or worse) in a local constituency would do
  better to cast their vote for whichever of the
  top two parties they find more acceptable instead
  of wasting their vote if they vote for their
  preference
• Especially when the race between the top two
  parties is close
• Do you think this is only true for smaller party
• supporters (e.g. Liberal Democrats supporters)?

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2.2 Mixed electoral system

• Germany
• Two votes
• Candidate Vote (Erststimme) the electorate vote
  for a candidate in single member districts and
  the victor is determined by a simply plurality ?
  casts the first half of MdBs
• List Vote (Zweitstimme) vote for the list of a
  Land party and elects the other half of MdBs
  (Members of the Bundetag), which are elected in
  such a way that the total number of seats which a
  party receives including any constituency seat
  won is proportional to its percentage share of
  such list votes. This gives the system a
  proportional represention component.
• Threshold 5
• Parties and Coalitions
• SPD (major party) and Greens (smaller party)
• CDU (major party) and FDP (smaller party)

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2.2 Mixed electoral system

• Mechanical effect
• Mixed electoral systems tendency to let more
  than two parties be represented in the Parliament
  
• Psyciological effect
• Voters reactions to possible coalition formations

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2.2. Mixed electoral system

• Influence of electoral rules on how voters behave
• Wasted-vote hypothesis
• The closer the district race, the more likely
  small party supporters are to cast a strategic
  candidate vote.
• Coalitions-insurance hypothesis
• If major party supporters are unsure about the
  expectations whether or not the smaller
  coalitions partner will be represented in
  parliament and the higher their tendency to
  desert their most preferred party, the more
  likely they are to cast a strategic list vote.
• Under which system is tactical voting more
  likely the
• plurality or mixed electoral system?

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(No Transcript)
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2.2. Mixed electoral system

• Voters proclivity to vote strategically
• Motivations hypothesis
• The weaker the voters partisanship, the more
  strongly motivated they are to split their ticket
• Capability Hypothesis
• The higher the voters level of political
  sophistication, the more likely they are to cast
  a strategic vote
• Does that mean that tactical voting will increase
  
• in the future?

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2.3. PR electoral system

• Israel
• One Vote The unicameral Knesset is elected via a
  single, nation-wide district under proportional
  representation
• Threshold 2
• 2006 Israeli election
• It was quite clear that the major centre party
  Kadima would win a plurality of the seats and
  serve as a senior partner in a multi-member
  government
• It was unclear which smaller party would join the
  coalition (unlike the German case)

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2.3. PR electoral system

• Coalition Hypothesis
• When voters perceive membership in the coalition
  to be out of reach for their preferred small
  party they desert it and instead endorse the
  lesser of the evils among those parties
  (ideologically nearest party) they perceive as
  potential coalition members
• Extension of Duvergerian logic not party entry
  into parliament, but party entry into government
• Do you think that there will be a lot of tactical
  voting in
• this case, because there are many small parties
  and the
• outcome is difficult to predict?

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3. Split Voting

• Different meanings of split voting in different
  electoral systems
• US selecting candidates of different parties for
  different types of offices (e. g. voting for a
  Democratic president and for a Republican senator
  and/or representative)
• Bicameral parliamentary systems in which
  elections for both houses are held on the same
  day voting for different parties for the two
  houses
• Mixed electoral systems split ticket for members
  of the same house

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3. Split Voting

• Reasons for split voting
• Special preference for a viable
• constituency candidates of
• another party
• Wasted vote hypothesis voters
• may see no chance of winning
• for their most preferred candidate
  tactical
• Coalition Insurance strategy
  voting
• support a particular coalition
• Voters misunderstand the relative
• importance of the respective votes

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3. Split Voting

• Difference between split voting and tactical
  voting
• Tactical Voting Comparison of party preference
  and vote intention or decision
• Split Voting Comparison of first and second vote
• ? Two forms of tactical voting are sufficient
  conditions of split ticket voting, but there are
  other causes

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3. Split Voting

• Germany
• Small party voters (according to second vote)
  desert their constituency candidates more in
  favour of large-party candidates than do
  large-party voters the other way around ?
  especially FDP voters
• Random splitting other vote combinations than
  CDU/FDP or SPD/Greens
• Attractive candidates this is only the case for
  the Left party , which won some Berlin
  constituencies
• 1990 survey 50 were unable to answer the
  question which of the two votes is the party vote
• ? Ticket splitting has increased in Germany
  over the
• time In 2005 24.4 of the voters
  split their ticket

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What do you think the main reason is for the
increasing split voting in Germany (e. g. weaker
partisanship, voters do not understand the system
etc.)?
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4. Protest Voting

• Dissatisfied voters have two options
• Protest voting
• Lack of a genuinely preferred alternative
  (especially in Plurality systems)
• Signal their disaffection from their normal
  first-preference party
• Abstention

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4. Protest Voting

• Theoretical backround
• Rational Choice (Downs)
• Protest voting is irrational
• When voters are disaffected with their
  first-preference choice, they will be more likely
  to abstain considering the cost of voting
• If voters no longer prefer party A but instead
  rank party B higher, then protest voting
  disappears in favour of a simple switch of
  alignments

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4. Protest Voting

• Alternative approch (Dunleavy and Margetts)
• Individuals define an appropiate aspiration
  level against which to judge their involvement,
  continuing to participate if this level is
  achieved, and dropping out if it is not.
• Do you think that decreasing in turnout in
  Western
• countries and the formation of new extremist
• parties like the Lefts in Germany or the New
• Zealand First are signals for an increasing in
• dissatisfied voters?

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5. Conclusion

• Tactical Voting
• The character of tactical voting differs between
  different electoral systems and the circumstances
  of each individual election
• The more proportional a system is the less
  motivation there is for voters to cast a
  strategic vote

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5. Conclusion

• Split Voting
• The character of split voting also differs
  between different electoral systems
• Tactical voting can be one reason for a voter to
  split their ticket, but there are other reasons
  too
• The increasing in split voting in Germany is
  mostly due to easing behavioural norms of
  partisans, not partisan declinement in general

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5. Conclusion

• Protest Voting
• The character of Protest Voting also differs
  between different electoral systems
• Dissatisfied voters have the choice between
  protest voting (voting for extremist parties) and
  abstention (lowers the turnout)

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The End

• Thank you very much for your attention!