Contingent Vote - Strategic Nomination

Strategic Nomination

The contingent vote can be influenced by the same forms of strategic nomination as IRV and the two round system. Strategic nomination is where candidates and political factions influence the result of an election by either nominating extra candidates or withdrawing a candidate who would otherwise have stood. The contingent vote is vulnerable to strategic nomination for the same reasons that it is open to the voting tactic of 'compromising'. This is because it is sometimes necessary for a candidate who knows they are unlikely to win to ensure that another candidate he supports makes it to the second round by withdrawing from the race before the first round occurs, or by never choosing to stand in the first place. By withdrawing candidates a political faction can avoid the 'spoiler effect', whereby a candidate 'splits the vote' of her supporters and prevents any candidate acceptable to them from surviving to the last round. For instance, in Example I above, if Catherine had chosen not to stand then Brian would have been elected instead of Andrew, a more desirable result for Catherine's supporters. However the contingent vote's system of transfers makes it less vulnerable to the spoiler effect than the plurality system.