22nd June, 2009 - Tactical Voting: An Apology

I feel I want to get something off my chest. It is about the elections for School Captain in Primary 7. I was nominated to stand for the election you see. Me, one other boy and two girls.

And we had two votes each you see. St Johns Primary did not use the first past the post system for the most important decision in its democratic calendar. Rather it seemed to use some odd derivative of the Single Transferrable Vote. And it was that that played into my Machiavellian little hands.

Because – well – you see – I had noted that the rules said that if the Captain was a boy then the Vice Captain had to be a girl, and vice versa. And – so – this is difficult to admit after all these years – but I exercised some tactical voting. I had kind of worked out that, if I voted for the two girls, I had a better chance of getting elected, because the other bloke would be denied at least one crucial vote.

I was elected of course, but to this day, I still wonder if it was only by a single vote. I’m sorry Barry.