Still unsure who to vote for? Here's how to tell if your strategic vote is truly strategic
Many people are wondering whether to vote strategically or not in the parliamentary elections on Wednesday. This raises at least three important questions: what is strategic voting, how do you know if you are a strategic voter yourself, and what do you need to do to use your strategic vote well?
In an article that Elise Roumeas (Groningen University) and I published this past summer in the Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, titled "The Political Ethics of Strategic Voting: A Compromissory Account," we give some answers to these questions.
We argue that strategic voting is an act of inner compromise, offer a test for finding out if you're a strategic voter, and give some advice that strategic voters can use before and after election day.
What is strategic voting?
Drawing on a rich political science literature and a bit of conceptual analysis, we define strategic voting as a vote with two main features.
- Success condition: a vote is strategic if the most favored electoral option—be it a party or a candidate—has relatively low chances of winning and voting for it increases the winning chances of the voter's least favored electoral option.
- Sacrifice condition: a vote is strategic if, by not choosing their most favored electoral option, voters sacrifice something of value or principled concern, morally and/or politically. According to this definition, a vote that is based only on calculus is not strategic. It also has to involve the sacrificing the voter's moral and political convictions.
Example: Choosing between GL–PvdA and PvdD
One implication of the definition above is that not all people who think they are strategic voters really are strategic voters. For instance, a left-wing voter might think that they are voting strategically when they decide to vote for GL-PvdA instead of PvdD.
The voter thinks that PvdD better aligns with their political preferences and beliefs, but does not think that the difference between the two parties is so big that voting for GL-PvdA misaligns with their political preferences and beliefs in any crucial way. Even if they think that PvdD reflects their preferences and beliefs better than GL-PvdA, they also think that the policy and political differences between PvdD and GL-PvdA are not huge.
Eventually, the voter decided to vote for GL-PvdA, but that is mainly based on calculus considerations: this party is overall better situated in the polls.
An emotion test
In our view, this is not the profile of a typical strategic voter. This is because strategic voting is not only a question of political calculus. It's also a question of sacrifice—or, as we put it, of moral and political self-compromise.
So, how do you know if you are a strategic voter? One relatively straightforward way can be an emotion test. Here's a simplified version: if you doubt which party to vote for between two specific parties and that doubt is at least in part informed by how well those parties are doing in the polls, ask yourself: how would I feel if, from these two parties, I voted for the one with bigger chances of getting the most votes? If the answer to this question is no emotion or indifference, it's quite likely that you're not a strategic voter.
Sadness, regret, disappointment, disgust
In our article, we point to evidence that strategic voters often experience negative emotions when they vote for the party that has better electoral prospects. These include different forms of sadness, such as regret or disappointment, but also disgust, detestation, frustration or shame.
Take, for instance, the testimony written by Arturo Erdély, a strategic voter in the 2022 Mexican elections: 'I think that the strategic vote is also a sad vote, a VERY sad vote, but necessary in the face of the sad panorama that our fragile democracy is experiencing, which today more than ever is under the threat of the current government'.
No sadness or shame? Then there's a chance you're not a strategic voter
The negative emotions strategic voters experience when they vote strategically are the signals of the moral loss that they impose on themselves. To come back to the emotion test, if you wouldn't experience at least some of the negative emotions listed above when you think about how voting for the party with better winning chances makes you feel, it's quite likely that you're not a strategic voter.
Rather, it's more likely that you're simply an undecided voter with an interest in electoral calculus. You're volatile, not strategic.
After the elections: Ranked voting
After elections, strategic voters would be wise to mobilize and campaign for the introduction of ranked-choice voting like the Borda count. These voting methods are not currently used in the Dutch parliamentary elections.
This is regrettable, mainly because they allow voters to rank more parties or candidates in the order of their preference, rather than concentrate all their vote into one party or candidate alone. By so doing, ranked voting keeps strategic voting on the table, but also helps voters express at least part of their support for the party or candidate they would have voted for in more ideal circumstances. It can reduce the extent of the moral loss and soften negative emotions.
More information:
Andrei Poama et al, The political ethics of strategic voting: a compromissory account, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (2025). DOI: 10.1080/13698230.2025.2524981
Provided by Leiden University
