Game Theory in Voting
Ever since I was young, I was told that voting is every persons right and that nothing can take it away. That it is something that can’t be taken away and to use your vote the best way that you feel it needs to be used. I was also told that a viable vote is on single issue candidates in order to raise awareness for that main issue, and have it incorporated into policy by the winning candidate. However, in recent years I have noticed the amount of people unhappy with their votes as they can’t vote for something that they actually believe in. Society has taught me that voting for third parties or for something that “won’t make a difference is a wasted vote,” not even just from elections, but for life in general. From this, I decided to look more into the game theory of voting. In the article, it displays that there is much more to voting than voting in what you believe in. For the sake of length, I will mainly focus on the game theory aspect of voting on presidential elections.
The articles display a common theme, there is much more to what goes on in an election than the right candidate for the job, there is strategic planning on actions to take and what to say in order to garner votes and win. Especially in this most recent election, the top priority for the Democratic party was who can beat Trump and not on who would actually be better. As said in the article, voting in the primaries was not for their preferred candidate, but “everybody is trying to vote for the person we think our neighbors will like best in the general election” in order to garner the most votes to beat the opposition. This in addition to society’s influence to vote on somebody who has a chance directly leads into game theory, and the added aspects that go in in the entire process of an election.
As stated in class, sincere voting is not a nash equilibrium, this fact in itself displays a major issue for elections themselves. The candidate pool form the primaries ends up not being focused on actual candidate preference, but voting then becomes centered on the various individuals optimizing preferences of not only themselves, but other individuals and how they will vote. They alter their preferences on their primary vote even further by then devolving into group ranking and group preferences based on changes of the undecided voters and polls. This notion of group think leads to a contrary position to true democracy itself and individualism. With game theory involved in all aspects on the presidential election and through primaries and various swing states, the true set of preferences gets quite muddled, especially considering the importance of swing states, importance is not only on garnering votes, but on garnering votes in the right places to get the most electoral votes. All of these factors vary each individuals preferences for their selection in the primary even further, and leading to many of the candidates even backing out when they believe they can’t win, instead electing on operating to the best of their abilities, especially in the most previous election, focusing more on majority rule with even candidates bowing to the presence of game theory as opposed as to what they stand for.
The article states that voting who you actually believe would make the best president of the United States becomes a radical idea, directly displaying the vast effect that game theory has on voting and on the obsession of some voters on tactical voting. Keep this in mind for future elections, what really drives your vote?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/07/want-know-why-networks-finally-called-it-biden-heres-likely-reason/
https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2020/01/06/swing-voters-democratic-primary-nathaniel-stinnett