Defections from Parties:
Tactical Voting, Split Voting and
Protest Voting
Eva-Maria Otto
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.
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)
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 voter‘s
choice  affect the vote
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 preelection polls
– Voters who do not follow the campaign: previous elections
2.1. Plurality system

Mechanical effect
– Single Member Plurality system’s under-
representation of minor parties

Psycological effect
– Voters’ reactions to this systematic under-
representation
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)?
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)
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
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 coalition‘s 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?
2.2. Mixed electoral system

Voter‘s proclivity to vote strategically
– Motivations hypothesis

The weaker the voter‘s partisanship, the more strongly
motivated they are to split their ticket
– Capability Hypothesis

The higher the voter‘s 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?
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)
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?
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
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
– Coalition Insurance strategy:
support a particular coalition
– Voters misunderstand the relative
importance of the respective votes
tactical
voting
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
3. Split Voting

Germany
– Small party voters (according to second vote) desert
their constituency candidates more in favour of largeparty 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
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.)?
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 firstpreference party
– Abstention
4. Protest Voting

Theoretical backround
– Rational Choice (Downs)
 Protest voting is irrational
 When voters are disaffected with their firstpreference 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
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?
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
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
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)
The End
Thank you very much for your attention!