Anti-plurality voting


Anti-plurality voting describes an electoral system in which each voter votes against a single candidate, and the candidate with the fewest votes against wins. Anti-plurality voting is an example of a positional voting method.

Example

In this electoral system, each voter marks a vote against his or her fourth preference. In this case, it would be a tie between Nashville and Chattanooga, both receiving zero votes.

Characteristics

As can be seen from the example, in the absence of tactical voting, this system tends to favor middle-of-the-road candidates. However, it is very sensitive to tactical voting, as any candidate perceived beforehand as a potential winner will attract more countervotes from partisans of their opponents. This creates the paradoxical situation for the candidates that, in order to win, you need to appear not to be winning. For this reason, few would advocate this system for general high-stakes use, though for its simplicity it can be useful in specific situations.

Voting method criteria evaluation

APV satisfies the monotonicity criterion, the participation criterion and the consistency criterion. It does not satisfy the Condorcet loser criterion, the independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion, the independence of clones criterion or reversal symmetry.