Voting Strategically

Voting Strategically

What is split-ticket voting? And why people who vote for one party in presidential election vote for another party in congressional election in the United States?

Regarding this question first of all we should define split-ticket voting.

Split-ticket voting refers to differences in partisan choices made by the same voter at simultaneous elections for more than one office.

 Multiple vote system widen voter’s choice because they can, if they wish vote for more than one party. In American phrase they can “split their ticket”. Various kinds of split-ticket voting are made possible by presidential election, bicameral legislatures, mixed-member electoral system, and multi-level governance. Where government is split between two separately elected Houses, or between directly elected executive (usually president) and legislatures, voters will often cast two or more votes simultaneously, as occur in the Unites States.

Some reasons are listed below:

As the voting population gets older, they will be replaced with voters with far fewer attachments to parties. Candidates will face voters less and less likely to vote regularly for one party. The consequence of this shift is rise in split-ticket voting.

Some times voters are attracted by the candidate of another party, so he or she against his or her vote for his or her party decides to vote for another party.

As Americans have moderate views on political matter if the power of presidency (imperial presidency) increase the rate of split-ticket voting will increase too. Actually split-ticket voting makes a balance in division of powers.

I think voters wish to balance competing offices by split-ticket voting or in other words voting for different parties in each election.