Massachusetts: deciding when to bullet vote
The Boston Globe reports: When he steps into the dim privacy of a voting booth on Nov. 6, Larry Davidson - Dorchester resident, Democrat, math teacher - will circle ovals next to the candidates he has chosen based not only on politics, but on the power of math.
Like all voters in Boston, Davidson will be allowed to choose four at-large candidates for the City Council from nine contenders. And like many other voters, he will contemplate using just one of those votes as a "bullet vote:" a single vote for one candidate, not only advancing that candidacy but denying other hopefuls his remaining votes.
But deciding whether you should cast a single ballot for your first-choice candidate, mathematicians say, you have to make strategic judgments about the race and how others will vote. And that requires a sophisticated view of the election.
"It all depends, truly, on your ability to understand who are the competitors for that last one or two seats," said Arlene Ash, a professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and a statistician who testified in court about voting irregularities in the 2000 presidential election in Florida. -- Voter's quandary: to bullet on the ballot? - The Boston Globe