# 9. Strategic voting ## 9.5. Methodology/Refinements/Sub-species ### 9.5.4. Vote-trading All voters have a greater or lesser interest in different issues. What is vitally important for one voter may be irrelevant to another person. It is upon this fact that vote trading relies. The manipulative vote trader must understand in some detail what the preferences are and have the strength of opinion in the voting population within which they are operating. Having established this, they can then set about trading their votes with their colleagues on any number of issues. A manipulator uses this by first deciding on which issues he requires additional support. He then determines which issues are of no particular interest to him, but in which other voters have a particular interest. The manipulator then simply has to approach the right voters and offer his support on their priority issues, in return for their votes for his. It's not fraudulent, but it's not morally honest either because it persuades voters who have higher and lower priorities to sacrifice their voting rights on lower priority issues.