Parties’ pre-election signals can and do influence strategic voting, according to evidence from Sweden

Britain is entering what appears to be a period of multi-party politics, with the old two party system seemingly disintegrating before our eyes. In this context, tactical voting takes on added importance, with numerous members of the electorate willing to ‘hold their nose’ and vote for a party they do not favour in order to keep a less favoured party out. Annika Fredén here presents research which shows that the messages sent by parties about their post-election intentions can and do influence strategic voter choice, with implications for electoral outcomes

Tactical voting: A study of voters' tactical considerations in the 2010 Swedish general election

Most studies on tactical voting in proportional representation system focus on voting to help a party pass the threshold to the parliament. This study extends and develops the definition of tactical voting. The theoretical starting point is the rational choice theory of Anthony Downs (1957), who discusses voters’ strategic considerations in elections. From Downs’s perspective the rational voter considers the governmental consequences of voting. Downs distinguishes general rational voting, oriented towards the next-coming formation of government, from future oriented rational voting. This distinction is developed in the study, and tested on a contemporary electoral context. The specific case investigated is the 2010 Swedish general election. Tactical voting is defined as voting where party tactical considerations have decided vote choice. Among Swedish voters seven variants of tactical voting are identified. Five of these are short term: impact-voting, government-voting, relationship-voting, big party-voting and pass-the-threshold-voting, whereas two types are future oriented: signaling-voting and diversity-voting. In an explanatory analysis tactical voting is found to be related to hesitation about what party to choose and to young age

Coalitions, Coordination and Electoral Choice : A Lab Experimental Study of Strategic Voting

When a voter chooses between large and small parties in a coalition, strategic reasons may be the tie-breaker. “Strategic voting” is often defined as a vote for another party than one’s most preferred one with the intention to affect the outcome of the election. The presence of coalitions can sometimes be argued to lead to less strategic voting, whereas others claim that coalitions create more strategic incentives. This chapter looks at how the relative strength of parties in a coalition affect voters’ tendency to vote strategically. Comparing two contexts with more or less uncertainty about which parties will make it to the parliament, the findings are that voters cast strategic votes for small parties to a greater extent when there are substantial size differences between the coalition parties. Individual expectations of parties’ likelihood of success are crucial to the decision making

Duellerna i riksdagsvalet 2018 från den väljandes perspektiv

Inför en valrörelse är det många som överväger fler än ett parti. Detta kapitel handlar om vilka dessa är, var de befinner sig politiskt och hur de ser på tre centrala sakfrågor: ekonomi, skola och invandring. Det visar sig att det är främst unga, högutbildade personer med låg partiidentifikation som överväger fler än ett parti. De placerar sig oftare något till vänster eller något till höger. När väljarna bedömer sina tänkbara alternativ tjänar Moderaterna på en ekonomisk agenda medan Liberalerna och Kristdemokraterna har starkare kort i skolfrågan. Centern och Sverigedemokraterna vinner på en annan typ av samtal. På vänstersidan är det jämnt mellan Miljöpartiet och Socialdemokraterna bland de som överväger dessa. Skolfrågan kan plockas upp av partier i båda läger. Analyserna av väljarens individuella preferenser för partier och sakfrågor ritar en delvis ny karta över landskapet inför valet 2018

How Polling Trends Influence Compensational Coalition-Voting

Compensational voting refers to when voters cast a vote for a more extreme party than they prefer, in order to push policies closer to an ideal point. This article develops the idea of compensational voting in regard to pre-electoral coalition signals and polling trends. The argument is that a significant share of voters consider the relative strength of the parties in their preferred pre-electoral coalition, and adjust their vote choice accordingly. This is elaborated by conducting a mixed logit model over eight Swedish general elections where parties were more or less clear about their intentions to collaborate with other parties. Combining unique data from parties’ election manifestos including negative and positive quotes about other parties with polling trends and voters’ approval rating of parties, the analysis lends support to the idea that this type of coalition-oriented compensational voting occurs.Strategic Voting under Coalition Government

Strategic voting in the 2018 Swedish General Election

De senaste valen är det fler väljare som röstar på ett annat parti än det de gillar bäst, och ett skäl till detta kan vara strategi. I denna rapport analyseras förväntningar, olika strate­gi­ska skäl för röstning och väljarströmmar i riksdagsvalet 2018. Kristdemokraterna står fort­farande ut som ett parti som gynnas av strategisk röstning. En förklaring till detta års uppgång är ett lagom osäkert läge runt spärren i valkampanjens slutskede och fokus på regeringsskifte. Samtidigt var det få som ”kastade bort” sina röster och vänster­blocket lyckades denna gång lyckades koordinera sina röster bättre än 2014. Analyserna tyder också på en förhållandevis stor grupp röstade strategiskt på Socialdemokraterna. I valet 2018 röstade 15 procent av väljarkåren på ett annat parti än de eller det parti de sade sig gilla bäst.  Many Swedes vote for another party than the one he or she likes most, and one reason for this is strategic considerations. This report investigates voters' expectations, reasons to vote strategically and party support shifting in the 2018 Swedish general election. In line with the most recent elections, the small right-wing party Christian Democrats benefited from high shares of strategic votes. This behavior was associated with the party's clear focus on shifting government and having opinion poll levels just at the four percent electoral threshold. Relatively few “wasted" their votes on parties that did finally not reach the electoral threshold. In particular, left-wing voters managed to coordinate their votes better than in the previous election (2014). The analyses also indicate that a relatively large share voted strategically for the Social Democrats. In the 2018 Swedish General Election, 15 percent of the electorate voted for another party than the party or parties they said they preferred.

Strategisk röstning till vänster (och höger) i riksdagsvalet 2018

Fenomenet ”strategisk röstning” har blivit ett allt hetare samtalsämne innan och efter val. Underlaget till 2018 års nationella SOM-undersökning samlades in mitt under regeringsförhandlingarna och visar att det framför allt var partierna runt fyraprocentsspärren och Socialdemokraterna som gynnades av strategiska röster i riksdagsvalet 2018. Socialdemokratiska väljare har också flyttat sig ett snäpp högerut jämfört med valet 2014 och i relation till regeringspartnern Miljöpartiet, visar mer ingående analyser. 12 procent röstade potentiellt strategiskt i riksdagsvalet 2018

Threshold Insurance Voting in PR Systems: A Study of Voters’ Strategic Behavior in the 2010 Swedish General Election

This study investigates strategic voting for small parties in proportional representation systems, in previous work sometimes referred to as threshold insurance voting (Cox, 1997). Starting from theories of rational voting (Downs, 1957), three conditions for threshold insurance voting are developed: the voter considers potential government outcomes, votes for a party at risk of falling below an electoral threshold, and votes for another party than his or her most preferred one. The conditions are tested on the case of the 2010 Swedish general election. Using extensive data material and a conditional logit model of vote choice, the results show that in this election voters cast strategic votes for at least one of the small parties, the Christian Democrats which was included in the incumbent government coalition