"Pretty much any electoral system would have delivered Chirac as the winner of that election" - hmm, on second thoughts maybe not. The Left was even more fragmented than I realised, and hence bigger: *two* communist parties picked up 7.5% between them.
Anyway, I don't think that was important to answering your question.
The point is that although the need for tactical voting is notorious under FPTP, it's still there to a smaller extent under AV. Your optimal vote may depend on your beliefs about the votes of others. Both systems obliterate a candidate who is literally *everybody's* second choice, perhaps in favour of someone who is the first choice of only one person, and no better than third choice of anyone else.
So even under AV an individual could be tempted into tactical voting - if you don't think your first choice is going to win overall, put that compromise candidate first just to be on the safe side. If you're doing that, then your order of preference very well might change based on the results of earlier rounds. In particular, if you were wrong to start with and it eventually does came down to your "true" first choice vs your "tactical" first choice in the final round, then in delayed runoff voting you would indeed switch votes.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2011-04-18 10:58 pm (UTC)Anyway, I don't think that was important to answering your question.
The point is that although the need for tactical voting is notorious under FPTP, it's still there to a smaller extent under AV. Your optimal vote may depend on your beliefs about the votes of others. Both systems obliterate a candidate who is literally *everybody's* second choice, perhaps in favour of someone who is the first choice of only one person, and no better than third choice of anyone else.
So even under AV an individual could be tempted into tactical voting - if you don't think your first choice is going to win overall, put that compromise candidate first just to be on the safe side. If you're doing that, then your order of preference very well might change based on the results of earlier rounds. In particular, if you were wrong to start with and it eventually does came down to your "true" first choice vs your "tactical" first choice in the final round, then in delayed runoff voting you would indeed switch votes.