How to vote tactically (spreadsheet)

This is useful. Hopefully it will be issued widely.

Scotlands ONLY Labour MP is telling labour voters to vote tory to stop any SNP candidates from getting a seat....now I thought that was against labour party policy ..may be wrong but even if I am I wonder how Corbyn feels about losing his last seat here to a tory...when that last seat might just have got him over the line to win

Thought we'd already been told about this on the election thread. So, don't vote for who you actually want to get in, just vote to be spiteful! Typical leftie behaviour!

I haven't read the election thread ana.

I find it interesting that someone took the trouble to do it, and the implications of it being shared widely, and applied of course.

Of course someone took the trouble to do it - have you never looked on t'internet during past elections?

Nope. Truth be told I'm not that interested in UK politics <ducks>. But my offspring are.

It's pathetic to vote to stop a party winning rather than following your conscience and accepting that other people might not want what you want - it is a blinking democracy!

In the last Pres. elections in France, all the many left-wing parties asked their supporters to vote together against LePen. Instead of their own chosen candidate.
I can't remember what stage this came at, but it worked.

Tactical voting is not the sole property of the left!

And, with our unfair voting system, it is sometimes the only possible option. If you know that the party you support does not have a cat in hell's chance of getting in in your consistency, but you also know who you definitely do not want, then you have to vote for the party that will get you nearest to what you do want.

If we had PR this nonsense would not arise.

There is nothing "spiteful" about it - it is democracy - people deciding how best to vote to get as close as possible to their desired outcome. That is what you are supposed to do and what democracy is for.

I agree with kitty. It's not what you're 'supposed to do' - how ridiculous!

I'm with lucky . Those who think it is wrong are being very naive.

The idea of democracy is that people vote to get the result they want - that is the whole point of it and is indeed exactly what you are supposed to do.

What would be the point in casting a vote whose outcome would be exactly the opposite of what you want?

It's the difference between voting for a person, or voting for or against an important principle. Tactical voting emphasises the latter.

If we had a form of PR there would be no tactical voting.

I object to the implication that I would be voting for a person. I will vote for the representative of the party that I think will be best for the country. Although, our local mp is really good too. Tactical voting could be seen as being dishonest.

I could not consider tacitcal voting, at the last election I couldn't vote Lib to keep the Tory out even though I wanted the Lib to stay in. As a member of the Labour Party how could I be dishonest and vote for a candidate I had battled with at three previous elections

I think that you are misunderstanding about what why people vote the way they do.

Most people have a "list" in their minds of the policies that they would like to see from a political party. They also have a list of policies that they would definately not want to see.

Now if you look at a parties manifesto you will almost certainly be able to live with more than one political party. Especially if you are of the broad left. I suppose you have UKIP if you are a Tory supporter.

It is therefore completely rational to vote either for the political party that matches your list. However you know what you don't want, and it therefore is also completely rational to vote against a political party that you can't remotely support, if your party of choice has no chance but another with whom you could happily live with has a chance of keeping the horrors out.

Tactical voting can actually get you an outcome the nearest to what you want.

In the 2015 election, South Thanet was a genuine three way split between Ukip, Conservative and Labour. (That's the constituency where Farage stood and which is now being investigated for electoralfraud by the Conservatives, in case people had forgotten.)

Labour was the lowest of the three. My preferred options would have been LibDem or Green, but they didn't stand a chance. If I had lived in South Thanet, I would have wanted Ukip like a hole in the head. Farage's face and voice make me want to vomit.

Therefore, I would probably have voted Conservative (gritting my teeth), as many people did. My reasoning would have been that Conservative was closer to what I wanted than Ukip. That's how a mature democracy works. People have to make compromises all the time, despite having the right to choose. Tactical voting attempts to produce the outcome closest to what an individual wants. It's not an episode of "Bake Off" or an FA Cup Final.

The FPTP sysyem means that the majority of the popular vote is nearly always opposed to the party which wins. I have no doubt that the Conservatives will win the most seats in this election, but it's not democracy when they only represent about 25% of the electorate (as they do now). Tactical voting attempts to unite the opposition and create more democracy.

Coalition government works well in Germany, but even the government has to make compromises. Tactical voting puts the responsibility for the compromises in the hands of the electorate. The French system means that the second round inevitably involves compromises and, hopefully, will keep Le Pen out, even if she does win the first round.

PS.There's been a dramatic increase in the number of 18-35 year olds who have registered to vote over the last few days.

Why is tactical voting dishonest? Political parties are not a religion or creed.

It is not democratic to vote for a political party if it no longer represents your views.

Over the last 100 years (before Trump) the Democrats and the Republicans in the US have almost completely swapped their policies and core voters. Political parties are not set in stone. All they are is a group of people with broadly shared aims. Quite honestly, if you vote for a party which no longer shares your views and values, because you always have, you're being sheep-like.

ab To take an extreme scenario, if the Conservative wins by one vote, you will end up with an MP who is even further from your views and values than if you hadn't voted LD. Your vote could have made all the difference.

It's the outcome which matters - not your sense of loyalty, especially as you disapprove of the direction of the Labour Party and have some right wing views anyway.

Party loyalty has no place in a democracy. It simply makes no sense. If someone votes out of party loyalty in the full knowledge that casting that vote will simply allow in a party they definitely hate, then it is a wasted vote.

Democracy is essentially selfish - each person has to decide what matters to them and vote accordingly. That way you achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Voting so that a party with whom you disagree fundamentally gets in by default is a perversion of a sophisticated democracy.

The tribalism of party loyalty is what gets us into the mess we are in. If for instance, everyone who detested the Tories voted so that they would not get in in their constituency, then democracy will have been served. If some of those people vote with their tribal loyalties, then we will just get more of the same.

It is this sense of tribal loyalty that causes people to mistakenly think that tactical voting is underhand or dishonest. It is not - it is what democracy under a first past the post system is all about. Our government over the past few decades would have been very different indeed if people had realised that.

In a true democracy we would have proportional representation but we are stuck for now with the absurdity of first-past-the-post.

If any kind of democracy is to survive those of us who are not fans of TM's Brexit at any cost agenda, must take account of the local situation in the constituency and vote tactically.

This may mean voting for what you consider the lesser of two evils because of FPTP. The Liberal Democrats, and Liberal Party before them have always suffered, not gained from FPTP, because UK politics for a long time seemed to be a two party race.

I remember just before the 1979 election there was a poll where voters were asked "would you vote Liberal if you thought they could win?" 42% said yes, because they really liked the Liberals and thought they had the best policies, but of course most were convinced by the media that it could not possibly happen and voted Tory or Labour, whichever they considered to be the lesser of the two evils, and as we all know, Thatcher won.

Nowadays, politics is much more fluid. Both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are very unattractive prospects for so many voters. It is time to be more positive. Vote LibDem and only if you think there is absolutely no chance for the LibDem candidate in your constituency, support the second best party.

Do you really think Tim Farron is an 'attractive prospect'?