La estrategia de voto útil: Análisis de su efectividad en las elecciones para diputaciones federales de 2021

Abstract

Para las elecciones por diputaciones federales de 2021 se planteó a nivel público una estrategia para el fomento del llamado "voto útil". Aunque este llamado fue lanzado en diversos espacios digitales, uno de ellos contó con una metodología más elaborada y transparente y llevó a una queja infundada ante autoridades electorales, calificándola como publicidad partidaria. En esta ponencia se intenta analizar esta estrategia y su potencial impacto en la decisión de los electores. Para ello, en primer término, se discute el concepto mismo de "voto útil" y su pertinencia y diferencia respecto a otros conceptos usuales en el análisis electoral, como el de "voto estratégico". Luego, se definirá una metodología para la evaluación de su potencial impacto, que necesariamente recurrirá a ejercicios estadísticos a partir de los resultados oficiales de las elecciones por diputaciones federales a nivel de distrito, observando los comportamientos en aquellos en que hubo y en los que no hubo coalición de los partidos atendidos en el llamado (PAN, PRI y PRD) y la variación del sufragio que es dable estimar respecto al reparto de votos ocurrido en la elección anterior. Con base en el análisis empírico del impacto potencialmente atribuible a la estrategia de comunicación para la generación de un "voto útil", se discutirá su eficacia y repercusión en los resultados y su pertinencia como estrategia electoral a futuro.

For the federal elections in 2021, a strategy was proposed at the public level to promote the so-called "useful vote". Although this call was launched in various digital spaces, one of them had a more elaborate and transparent methodology and led to an unfounded complaint before electoral authorities, describing it as partisan advertising. This presentation attempts to analyze this strategy and its potential impact on the voters' decision. To do this, first of all, the concept of "useful vote" and its relevance and difference with respect to other usual concepts in electoral analysis, such as "strategic vote", are discussed. Once the meaning and what the call for the “useful vote” has been recognized, a methodology will be defined for the evaluation of its potential impact, which will necessarily resort to statistical exercises based on the official results of the elections by federal councilors at the level of government. District, observing the behaviors in those in which there was and in which there was no coalition of the parties attended in the call (PAN, PRI and PRD) and the variation of the suffrage that can be estimated with respect to the distribution of votes that occurred in the previous election, of 2018, assuming that before the election the political calculation of the participants could only objectively start from the prior knowledge of the electoral weights actually obtained by the different political parties in the previous contest, since at any time it was complicated and imprecise to attempt a adequacy of this political calculation with data that could be produced through sample studies of the electoral preferences of the citizenry, although the contestants undoubtedly turned to them to have additional clues about the potential success of their decisions or attempts to direct the vote within the voters for an electoral option. Based on the empirical analysis of the impact potentially attributable to the communication strategy for the generation of a "useful vote", its effectiveness and impact on the results and its relevance as a future electoral strategy will be discussed.