Talk:List of elections involving vote splitting

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What about cases where vote splitting wins more seats for similar candidates? One example was the the election in Hong Kong Island in 2012 where under a PR system the DAB deliberately split its vote to gain two seats, while Civic won more votes but with no split only gained one. And does voting for two different parties in MMP systems or the use of decoy lists count as vote splitting? --Rumping (talk) 07:25, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

"Vote-splitting" in New Zealand
In New Zealand, voters cast two votes – one for the electoral candidate, the other for a party. The term vote splitting here refers to the practice of voting for one party, and the candidate of another party. Green Party/Labour candidate is a very common split. This article is probably not the place to discuss this practice. Is it discussed anywhere else? Koro Neil (talk) 00:11, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Three cornered contests
When I type in "Three cornered contests" it redirects to this article but the article itself has no mention of it. 122.106.83.10 (talk) 07:44, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Good find. It is possible to create a section about it. Orientls (talk) 09:09, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Canada as an example
As far as socially, the Liberal Party is indeed much closer to the NDP, but fiscally, there is a bigger gap between NDP and Liberals, than between Liberals and Conservatives. Therefore, unless you see politics in just a social dimension, that example is incorrect and I've removed it. Linkus (talk) 15:21, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Fear of vote splitting
Should the fear of vote splitting be explained as a way in which vote splitting can affect an election outcome? In the 2016 US Republican presidential primary election the first question at the first debate was whether any candidate would run as an independent candidate if he/she failed to be nominated. Trump answered "yes." If he had been rejected as the Republican nominee and ran as an independent candidate then the not-yet-determined Democratic nominee would have won easily because conservative voters would have split their votes between the Republican candidate and Trump (running as an independent). Does anyone know of a reference to this vote-splitting effect that would be appropriate if this topic were covered here? VoteFair (talk) 17:01, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

2020 US general election
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/526915-florida-investigating-third-party-candidate-who-ran-for-florida-state Not sure what section this should go under, if any, or if there are more, recent, examples.Oathed (talk) 08:28, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Cut or open
Hii 124.105.69.192 (talk) 03:55, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

US rewrite, WP:concise
I have rewritten the US examples section to include more reliable and notable sources with copyediting to reflect their findings and consolidating or removing examples with poorer or no sourcing. Have also copyedited and streamlined other parts of this article in the hopes of making it more WP:concise and accessible.

Superb Owl (talk) 23:27, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Wasted vote
I don't see the actual difference. Of course there is a difference (similar parties stealing each others votes and generally parties falling below the threshold) but the difference is unclear imo and they also overlap (it even follows the same structure: FPTP, Ranked Voting, Cardinal voting).

Maybe we could do an article about the more theoretical/mathematical part: how votes can be wasted, how it can be prevented, Spoiler effect ect. and something more of a list Braganza (talk) 18:36, 15 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Support For FPTP, ranked and cardinal the descriptions are similar and could be merged. The distinction could be: vote splitting is before the election, where only reduced chances of winning can be estimated. On the other hand wasted votes would be after the election the votes which actually didn't contribute.
 * In case of proportional, wasted votes just below the threshold can be considered due to vote splitting, but if the party is already below the threshold then further vote splitting would not result in more wasted votes.
 * Don't think mathematical parts should be a separate article. HudecEmil (talk) 18:27, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * this article is mostly mathematical already tbh, i am not saying that we have to remove it from here but it should be restructured maybe:
 * this article remains roughly the same with some new information from Vote splitting and Electoral threshold
 * Electoral threshold should only have like 3-5 examples of the highest vote wasting amounts (i think we should additionally add cases when the natural threshold was higher than the legal one like in some european elections)
 * Vote splitting: remove the beginning and add "Notable cases" section from Electoral threshold
 * Braganza (talk) 13:53, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Here my work in progress User:Braganza/SandboxAustria Braganza (talk) 09:21, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Which parts do you want to split off from this article? Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 17:40, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I would split "Spoiler effect and center-squeeze effect" and "By electoral system"
 * we have Wasted vote, Independence of irrelevant alternatives and you want to create "Spoiler effect", so i don't see the reason why we have to explain the mathematics here too Braganza (talk) 10:06, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
 * OK, looking more closely, here's what I think we should try:
 * An article called "Spoiler effect" on IIA failures in electoral systems.
 * An article on examples of the spoiler effect (the "by country" section here).
 * I would point out that "wasted vote" is a different concept--a wasted vote is a vote that could have had a bigger effect on the election if it was more strategic. This has lots of different definitions in election studies without much consensus. For example, in approval voting, some political scientists define any ballot that votes for both the top candidate and the runner-up to be wasted; this is true even though approval voting doesn't have IIA failures. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 17:51, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
 * these sections are written almost identical on both articles (here and wasted vote) Braganza (talk) 17:54, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
 * could you create a Draft:Spoiler effect what you imagine the article to look like Braganza (talk) 17:57, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Take the current section on spoiler effects and separate it out. Transfer the sections from IIA on electoral methods to that article. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 18:17, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Done. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:41, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 * maybe wait until next weekend and then proceed splitting it Braganza (talk) 21:44, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
 * you can split it i think Braganza (talk) 09:32, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yep, did that a while back. Spoiler effect. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 16:51, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion: Split off "Spoiler effect"
The Wikipedia article on independence of irrelevant alternatives is currently a bit awkward, because the voting criterion and the decision-theory concept are lumped together in there. (Yes, both refer to the same concept, but in different contexts.)

My proposal: separate "spoiler effect" into its own article, and move the sections of IIA dealing with voting systems there. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 08:07, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * wanna combine the two discussions? Braganza (talk) 09:18, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

What happened to the spoiler effect section? The intro says "This is commonly known as the spoiler effect" but that just links back to this article... — Omegatron (talk) 23:52, 12 April 2024 (UTC)


 * OK it was moved to Spoiler effect, but seems to be heavily rewritten? What happened to all the citations about IRV's spoiler effect, for instance? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vote_splitting&oldid=1210840980#Spoiler_effect_and_center-squeeze_effect  — Omegatron (talk) 23:55, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It was heavily rewritten (almost from scratch). I believe most of those citations are scattered throughout the new article, which mentions IRV's spoiler effects. If there's anything I missed, I'd be more than happy to see it added back in.
 * Center-squeeze needs its own article. Spoiler effect can then be given a section listing common kinds of spoiler effect (center-squeeze, vote-split, teaming, and cyclic ties). Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 00:21, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Cardinal methods
I don't understand the paragraph about cardinal methods under Vote splitting It previously had a bit about "altering the ballot after they have been cast" which seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of what vote-splitting is. I don't know if the rest of the paragraph is equally confused or if I just am.

It also says "Cardinal voting methods also fail the independence of irrelevant alternatives" which contradicts Independence_of_irrelevant_alternatives. — Omegatron (talk) 16:10, 28 February 2024 (UTC)


 * It's incorrect. OTOH, maybe they're trying to make a point that could, potentially, be correct: every voting system suffers IIA failures, so long as you introduce strategic voting. Cardinal methods usually make IIA failures much milder. You can think of IIA failures as having a "strategic component" and a "nonsensical component." Cardinal methods eliminate the nonsensical component completely.
 * (In practice, Cardinal-Condorcet hybrids like STAR voting might be able to violate strategic IIA less often than score, although that's speculative. Both satisfy criteria almost as strong as IIA.) Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 17:37, 29 February 2024 (UTC)