A dummy candidate is a

candidate A candidate, or nominee, is the prospective recipient of an award or honor, or a person seeking or being considered for some kind of position; for example: * to be elected to an office — in this case a candidate selection procedure occurs. * ...

who stands for

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

, usually with no intention or realistic chance of winning. A dummy candidate can serve any of the following purposes: * In

instant-runoff voting Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a type of ranked preferential voting method. It uses a majority voting rule in single-winner elections where there are more than two candidates. It is commonly referred to as ranked-choice voting (RCV) in the U ...

, a dummy candidate may direct preferences to other candidates in order to increase the serious candidate's share of the

vote Voting is a method by which a group, such as a meeting or an Constituency, electorate, can engage for the purpose of making a collective decision making, decision or expressing an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election camp ...

. * A dummy candidate may be used by a serious candidate to overcome limits on advertising or campaign financing. For example, in India, there have been cases of serious candidates fielding multiple dummy candidates to distribute their poll expenses. The expenses are directed towards the campaign of the serious candidate, but shown to the election commission under the dummy candidates' names. * Dummy candidates with names similar to that of a more established candidate may be fielded by political parties to confuse the voters, and cut that candidate's vote share. The dummy candidate's name also may be deceptively similar to that of a retiring incumbent, a former candidate or officeholder, or even a deceased former candidate or officeholder. (The

Eddie Murphy Edward Regan Murphy (born April 3, 1961) is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and singer. He rose to fame on the sketch comedy show ''Saturday Night Live'', for which he was a regular cast member from 1980 to 1984. Murphy has als ...

film '' The Distinguished Gentleman'' was somewhat based on this premise.) For example, in the

2014 Indian general election General elections were held in India in nine phases from 7 April to 12 May 2014 to elect the members of the 16th Lok Sabha. With 834 million registered voters, they were the largest-ever elections in the world until being surpassed by the 2019 ...

s, there were seven candidates named Chandu Lal Sahu and another four named Chandu Ram Sahu in the

Mahasamund Mahasamund City is a city in Mahasamund District in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh.It is situated on the Mumbai-Kolkata and Raipur-Vishakhaptnam National Highways. It is one of the largest (ranked 13th) and most important cities in the Stat ...

. The serious candidate –

Chandu Lal Sahu Chandu Lal Sahu (born 1 June 1959) is an Indian politician. He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Mahasamund as a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate in 2009 and 2014. Previously, he had been elected as a member of the Chhattisgarh Legislative ...

of the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the List of ruling p ...

– received 503,514 votes, but his margin of win was just 1,217 votes. The dummy candidates received the votes intended for him, with one of them finishing third in the constituency. To solve this problem, the Election Commission of India is designing Electronic Voting Machines with candidates' photographs. In the

1982 Glasgow Hillhead by-election A Glasgow Hillhead by-election was held on 25 March 1982. The by-election was caused by the death of the Conservative Party Member of Parliament for Glasgow Hillhead Tam Galbraith on 2 January 1982. Hillhead had been held by the Conservatives ...

, a minor candidate changed his name to "Roy Harold Jenkins" to confuse voters looking for Roy H. Jenkins. *A dummy candidate may serve as a placeholder for a party in a

primary Primary or primaries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Primary (band), from Australia * Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea * Primary Music, Israeli record label Work ...

and then withdraw after winning the primary, allowing the leadership of the party an opportunity to nominate the candidate they really desire to fill their line for the

general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

. * Dummy candidates can also result from candidates withdrawing from a particular race, but being unable to pull their name off the ballot, remaining listed as a choice.

References

See also