Absent preferential voting [1] or public election financing [2], voting for a known hopeless candidate is very close to abstaining in effect.
[1] AKA the “Australian ballot”, AKA instant runoff voting.
[2] Also present in the Australian system. You give your first preference to the party you truly support, because the next election’s public funding is based upon how many first-preference votes were received in the previous election. Then you vote from the bottom up, ranking the candidates in order of descending evil.
