Split-ticket voting refers to when a voter in an election votes for candidates from different political parties when multiple offices are being decided by a single election, as opposed to straight-ticket voting, where a voter chooses candidates from the same political party for every office up for election.
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Australia
In Australia, federal elections in recent times have usually involved a House of Representatives election and a half-Senate election occurring on the same day. Most states, with the exception of Queensland and Tasmania, also hold elections for both houses of parliament simultaneously. An example of split-ticket voting in Australia is a voter who gives their first preference to the Liberal Party on the House of Representatives ballot paper and to the Family First party in the Senate.
In the 2013 election, the Senate vote for both the Liberal and Labor parties was considerably lower than their lower house vote, demonstrating that a large number of people voted for a major party in the House of Representatives and a minor party or micro-party in the Senate. There are many reasons why a voter may do this, including the fact that many parties only stand candidates for the Senate (leaving their supporters unable to vote for them on their lower house ballot), the much lower quota required for election to the Senate compared to the House of Representatives (14.3% versus 50%), and a desire to check the power of the government by preventing it from controlling the Senate.
From 1978 to 2008, when the Australian Democrats held representation in the Senate, the Democrats benefited greatly from split-ticket voting, as their Senate vote was always much higher than their House of Representatives vote. The party built its campaigns around "keeping the bastards honest", a reference to holding the balance of power in the Senate so as to prevent the chamber from becoming either a rubber stamp for the government or a tool of obstruction for the opposition.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom the Additional Member System is used for the devolved assemblies of Scotland and Wales, as well as the London Assembly and is considered to increase the likelihood to split-ticket. As each voter casts two votes: one vote for a candidate standing in their constituency (with or without an affiliated party), and one vote for a party list standing in a wider region. In the constituency vote a single representative is elected using the traditional First-Past-The-Post system. The regional vote is used to elect multiple representatives from party lists to stand in regional seats, taking into account how many seats were gained by that party in the constituency vote, using a system of proportional representation: the number of seats a party receives will roughly reflect its percentage of the vote. Between the 1997 and 2003 elections in London, Scotland, and Wales between 17 and 28 percent of voters split their tickets.
United States
In the United States, multiple elections for many different offices are often held on the same day. This may be true of primary elections and may also include the placing of candidates for federal, state, and local offices on the same ballot. One of many possible examples of split-ticket voting in the United States is a voter who seeks to elect the Democratic Party's candidate for the Senate, the Republican Party's candidate for House of Representatives, the Green Party's candidate for County Supervisor, and the Libertarian Party's candidate for Coroner.
A recent example of split-ticket voting in the United States is the 2004 elections in Montana, where Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brian Schweitzer was elected governor 50.4% to 46.0%, while incumbent Republican President George W. Bush simultaneously defeated Democrat John Kerry 59% to 39% in the state. This suggests that a large number of people voted split-tickets, selecting a Republican presidential candidate by a large margin while also selecting a Democratic Party gubernatorial candidate. Another example would be in the West Virginia gubernatorial election, 2016, in which Democrat Jim Justice won by 8 points while Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump won in the state with 68% of the vote.
However, Democratic candidates seeking governorships in red states often hold somewhat more conservative views compared to those of a typical registered Democrat, whereas Republicans running for governor in blue states often have more liberal views compared to those of an average Republican supporter elsewhere. For example, Massachusetts, despite being one of the most solidly Democratic states in national elections, elected Republican governors in 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, and 2014.
Motivations
Although less common, split-ticket voting can potentially be used as a form of tactical voting. One possible example of this is a voter who prefers candidate A but does not believe that candidate A can win the election, so the voter votes for candidate B (who may be of a different political party from candidate A) because candidate B is better than other more competitive candidates C, D, etc.
Split-ticket voting may also occur in elections where multiple voting systems are employed. One possible example of this is a voter who selects a candidate from a minority party for an office decided by a proportional representation election system and selects a candidate from a larger party for an office decided by a first past the post system.
Split-ticket voting in party list voting systems is called panachage; not all implementations allow it.