Astatine
Jr. Member
Posts: 1,883
Political Matrix
E: -0.72, S: -5.90
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« Reply #25 on: September 11, 2020, 07:40:04 AM » |
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This aspect might just be a minor factor, but taking party memberships off of ballots could actually change the outcome of an election if independent/third-party "spoiler candidates" with similar names are running. This idea might sound a bit weird in the beginning, but there was an actual example of that.
In the 2019 Ukrainian presidential elections, polls suggested a battle for 2nd spot (who would eventually advance to the runoff) between President Petro Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. But - allegedly drafted by Poroshenko allies if I can recall it correctly? - there was another candidate on the ballot who didn't even run a campaign and still gathered 0.6 % of the votes whose name was Yuriy Tymoshenko. He performed strongest in areas where Yulia also had most support, so it was a candidacy just to confuse voters. This didn't change the outcome in the end as Poroshenko's margin to advance to the runoff was larger than Tymoshenko's vote share, but in close elections, this could be a factor.
And here is the thing: If someone runs on a party ticket, then his party affiliation makes it clear to directly identify him from campaigns, ads on partisan basis etc. If the party ID is removed from the ballots, this would offer political opponents the chance to draft some random dud with a similar name, but voters who are simply not as deep into politics and might confuse first names could easily end up voting for the spoiler candidate.
This kind of spoiler strategy would likely make campaigns even more nasty and bitter and could be a result of removing party IDs since it is much harder to draft spoiler candidates when voters at least can associate the candidate they want to vote for with a certain party.
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