The tactical vote, the vote of endorsement and the vote of rejection
A ballot does not say why it was cast. Three different logics produce the same act, and the electoral system largely determines which dominates.
Three logics, one ballot
The vote of endorsement expresses a sincere preference: one chooses what one prefers, independently of the chances of success. The tactical vote is strategic: one chooses the best-placed option among those one judges acceptable, in order to weigh on the result. The vote of rejection is defined by what it wants to avoid rather than by what it wants.
These three logics leave the same trace in the count. That is why reading an electoral result as the direct expression of preferences is always an approximation, and why surveys try to reconstruct the motive after the fact.
A fourth logic exists, more rarely named: the vote of expression, which seeks less to weigh on the result than to have a position recorded. It resembles the vote of endorsement, but its objective is an option's final score rather than its victory.
The role of the electoral system
A single-round majority ballot strongly encourages the tactical vote, since a vote given to an option with no chance does not weigh. A two-round ballot allows a preference to be expressed in the first and a trade-off in the second, which redistributes the logics between the two rounds.
A proportional ballot reduces the incentive to strategic voting, since every vote counts in the allocation, but shifts the trade-off to the moment of coalition formation, where the voter no longer intervenes. No system abolishes compromise: it merely changes its timing and its author.
What the vote of rejection produces
A vote massively defined by what it refuses poses a particular problem for the one who benefits from it: they obtain a majority of seats without a majority of endorsement, which makes their mandate hard to interpret and its contestation immediate.
It is a source of tension proper to two-round ballots, where the second round aggregates very heterogeneous motives. The winner may legitimately claim victory and find the scope of their programme contested, without either position being dishonest.
What this changes for knowing oneself
A person may hold very marked positions and vote moderately by calculation, or the reverse. Deducing their convictions from their ballot therefore leads to errors, in both directions.
That is an argument for measuring positions separately from electoral behaviour. The gap between what one thinks and what one puts in the box is not a contradiction: it is the trace of the system within which the choice was made.
A question to ask yourself
At the moment of voting, ask yourself which of the logics you are using, and what you would do under another electoral system. The answer says little about your convictions and a great deal about the constraint the system exercises on them.
It is also the best way of understanding why two people with close positions may vote differently, and why two people with opposite positions may vote the same way.
Key points
Endorsement, calculation and rejection produce identical ballots, indistinguishable in the count.
The electoral system determines which logic dominates, and when the compromise is made.
A vote of rejection gives a majority of seats without a majority of endorsement, hence contested mandates.
Positions and ballot cannot be deduced from each other: the gap tells us about the system.
This article describes documented mechanisms and disagreements. It recommends no position, no party and no vote, and commits to no reading other than that of the work it cites.
And you, where do you stand?
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