Wasted Vote

In electoral analysis, a wasted vote is any vote that does not help elect a representative. The concept is most often associated with single-member plurality (first-past-the-post) systems, where two categories of wasted votes are typically distinguished:

• Lost votes: ballots cast for any candidate who did not win the seat.
• Surplus votes: ballots cast for the winning candidate beyond the threshold needed to win (i.e., one more than the runner-up).

The efficiency gap, a metric popularized by Nicholas Stephanopoulos and Eric McGhee in a 2014 University of Chicago Law Review article, uses wasted votes to measure partisan gerrymandering: it is the difference between the two parties' wasted votes divided by total votes cast. The metric featured prominently in Gill v. Whitford (2018), where the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately remanded the case on standing grounds without ruling on the efficiency gap's merits.

The wasted-vote concept also drives strategic or tactical voting, where supporters of a third-place candidate switch to their less-preferred major-party option to avoid "wasting" their ballot. This dynamic underlies Duverger's law, the proposition that plurality rule tends to produce two-party competition.

Proportional representation (PR) systems are designed to minimize wasted votes. Under list PR with a low threshold, nearly every vote contributes to seat allocation; however, votes for parties falling below a legal threshold (e.g., 5% in Germany's Bundestag elections, 3.25% in Israel's Knesset elections) are still wasted. Mixed-member and ranked-choice (instant-runoff) systems likewise reduce, but do not eliminate, wasted ballots.

For MUN delegates and researchers, the term appears in debates on electoral reform, minority representation, and redistricting litigation. It is a descriptive accounting concept, not a normative judgment — a "wasted" vote is still a recorded expression of preference and can shape party vote shares, public funding eligibility, and future strategy.