Lesser-evil voting

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Lesser-evil voting (LEV) refers to a kind of strategic voting where a voter supports a less-preferred candidate in an election (the "lesser evil") rather than their actual favorite candidate, when this candidate is unlikely to win.^[1]

Electoral systems where lesser-evil voting is forced, i.e., where it is not possible for a voter to support both their favorite candidate and a lesser-evil without causing the "greater evil" to win, necessarily fail the sincere favorite criterion. If the incentive is sufficiently severe, such methods are also subject to Duverger's law, tending to devolve into two-party systems.^[2] Lesser-evil voting is a common strategy in plurality-based systems like first-past-the-post and ranked-choice voting (RCV),^[3] but not approval or score voting.^[4]