Go or not to go?

In her column “Against the Boycott of the Elections” on the Echo of Moscow website of February 8, 2017, Ksenia Sobchak spoke on the problem of voting and boycott. I quote literally: “ If you do not go to the polls, your voice will not only be stolen, but also - which is more important - you cannot be distinguished from those who just stayed at home, went to the country, spat on everything. Your active position will not be recorded, which means that it will not be taken into account in a political confrontation . ” Sobchak is the rights that, under the current election, self -removal through the boycotting of the elections is unlikely to be able to make a boycott “visible”, but certainly strengthen the support of the main candidate. The current Boycot of Choice VS “Boycot Elections” can be reduced to “Game with a zero sum”, when the winnings of one player are equal to the losing of the other, or, in relation to our occasion, when each percentage of a decrease in the turnout due to the boycott “on Navalny” corresponds to the same percentage of the votes that were underout reciprocated Sobchak, and vice versa. Could the strategy of “Game with zero sum” imposed by power be torn apart? Is it possible to make Navalny's boycott "visible"? Is it possible to tie so different in content of the strategy of Navalny and Sobchak? I think yes.

Despite the fact that the government is able to impose a certain structure of choice, beneficial to itself, it is still not able to influence the mechanism of individual choice. An alternative opposition strategy in a situation of “playing a zero sum” is a “mixed strategy” (theory is presented here ). It involves the “carnivalization” of the elections with the involvement of the “random choice generator”. In other words, the choice between the boycott of the elections “on Navalny” or the vote “for Sobchak against all” can be decided using the usual lot - for example, an abandoned coin. Such an action could become an all -Russian ritual of tossing coins on elections day, for example, at the entrance to the polling station, that is, before registration. If the “eagle” falls out, then you can safely boycott the elections, as the Navalny wants, if the “Tails” falls out, then you can surrender to voting for Sobchak.

Despite all its entertaining, originality and some provocation, this strategic approach to voting, it seems to me, contains a number of serious advantages over classic sincere vote.

Firstly, the factor of the lot will dilute the vote for Sobchak voting for the Navalny not allowed before the elections. The opposition politician thereby gets the possibility of indirect participation, and voting for Sobchak comes down to voting for a certain analogue of the combined opposition. The reverse side of the voting strategy for Sobchak is the boycott of the election on Navalny, and vice versa.

Secondly, the Sobchak sympathizing with the equivalent opportunity to boycott the elections opens.

Thirdly, the factor of lots turns voting for Sobchak into an indicator of a decrease in the percentage of official turnout due to the connected voting and boycotts arising from the lot. By the way, therefore, the authorities are quite capable of mobilizing their administrative resource to reduce Sobchak's support.

Fourth, as already noted, if the result of a conventional boycott cannot be properly evaluated, then the proposed method gives an assessment of a boycott equal to the sum of the votes cast for Sobchak. Moreover, ceteris paribus, the gained percentage of votes for Sobchak, multiplied by two, allows you to evaluate the total electoral support of the opposition.

Fifthly, the power strategy in relation to the opposition is changing purely theoretically: since the “indifferent” vote through the lot causes a response “indifferent” attitude of the authorities to the strategy of the split of the opposition through “Sobchak-Navalny”. In other words, if such elections are repeated infinite many times, then the “indifferent” vote gives rise to the indifference of power to one of the opposition candidates will be registered and who is not, thereby contributing to the strengthening of the liberal opposition.

Thus, with the help of ordinary lots, both opposition candidates are so -dependent in terms of their electoral support and appropriate electoral strategies. This can contribute to the rapprochement of their positions in the future and even to the emergence of a single opposition. Of course, in this case, a lot depends on the conviction of the leaders of the opposition and their supporters in the advisability of using lots. So, if the shares of the “coins” of the voters who violate the “will” of these two leaders will coincide, then our estimates of the boycott and general support of the opposition will turn out to be non -effective; In other cases, we will deal with displaced assessments. If, contrary to the “will of the coin”, most of the supporters of Navalny still decide to boycott these elections, the assessment of the scale of the boycott of the elections, as well as an assessment of the overall support of the opposition, will be low. If Sobchak's supporters decide to give their vote for her, contrary to the “will of the coin”, then the assessment of the scale of the boycott and the overall assessment of the size of the opposition will be high.

If the candidacy of Sobchak is considered by the supporters of Navalny as unacceptable, then it can be replaced by voting for a conditional candidate, the support of which does not exceed the statistical error. In my opinion, an alternative with a conditional candidate is even more profitable than the previous strategy, as it allows you to isolate the voices of Navalny, Sobchak's voices, to evaluate the scale of the boycott. However, this gaming genre could be extended to the choice of other little -known fictitious candidates with near -l ratings, increasing their support, reviving the course of the entire election campaign. In general, this rather boring presidential campaign is quite applicable to gaming techniques that contribute to the “carnivalization” of the elections, “recharge” the voting act in the conditions of an imposed choice, reformatting the ideological platform of Sobchak through “binding” with the idea of ​​a boycott, indirect participation of a bulk in the elections, and most importantly, the transformation of the boycott into everyone is visible, all visible, all touched. The factor of the upcoming elections.

Kirill Kalinin,
PHD in political science (Giverovsky Institute of Stanford University)

Comment by a political scientist from EUSPB Grigory Golosov

At first - an extremely brief presentation of two main theories of voting, instrumental and expressive. People come to the elections for two reasons. One-to support the current power by voting for it (sincerely or under the influence of some external stimuli like bribing or coercion), or punish, voting for the opposition. In the current elections, this is pointless, because the change of power by the results of the elections will not happen. The second is to express their emotional support to one of the candidates, regardless of whether this will have some kind of impact on the current government. In the current elections, this is exactly what the sincere fans of Putin, Sobchak, Yavlinsky and other candidates will do. Those Russian citizens who have no such feelings for any of them have nothing to do there. You can relate differently to Navalny personally and his idea about the “voter strike” in particular, but the elementary fact of our life is that it is a waste of time.

If the elections are accompanied by festivities, performances of artists and clowns and other fun, as usual in Russia now, then people can come to the elections for the sake of entertainment. But they are not entertained by the act of voting, but related events. The act of voting is bored. A mass voter, if at all, votes seriously. Therefore, the “carnivalization” of the voting act will work at best for a couple of thousand geeks that love politics to such an extent that it entertains them. It is not characteristic of normal people. In addition, normal people are not characteristic, thinking about politics, to comprehend it in terms of games theory. But among the geeks there are such.

The very idea of ​​voting by lot is not new. She spoke (in particular, by me) when discussing voting tactics for any other party in the Duma elections. I don’t know how for whom the authors of the idea, but for me it was a kind of metaphor that allows you to better highlight the main task of this tactics: causing maximum damage to United Russia by creating conditions to win as many Duma places, albeit nasty, but still others-any other parties. In the 2018 elections, only one place is played. And if we distract from the fact that, according to their results, the “Yabloko”, the LDPR and some kind of notable “civil initiative” (from which Sobchak is nominated) can receive state financing, they will not have any other bonuses, and that is, there is Putin, he will receive everything. I’ll clarify: everything except the turnout. Therefore, the maximum damage to the current government can be caused only in one way - abstinence from voting.

As for the voting on the lot for the sake of "carnivalization", then, as mentioned above, this is the lot of geeks. They can find other entertainment: enter the names of the candidates detached from the elections in the ballot, draw funny pictures on his fields, post a selfie on social networks with a ballot and in the Gai Fox mask. There are few geeks, so this will not have any impact on the results of the elections. But since we are talking about individual action, in the place of each individual geek, I would think about whether a fleeting fan is worth the fact that one unit of turnout - your own turnout - joins the picture so desired for the authorities in the event. In my opinion, it is not worth it.

Grigory Golosov