Editing Swing vote (section)

==Profile==
In an election, there are "certain" or "lock" votes, voters who are solidly behind or [[partisan (political)|partisan]] to a particular candidate and will not consider changing their minds whatever the opposition says. Swing voters are undecided about how they will vote. They are sometimes referred to as '''undecideds''', '''undecided voters''', or '''floating voter.''' Which is essentially respondents who tell pollsters that they do not know how they are going to vote in the upcoming election.<ref name="Mayer 358–388"/>

They may be dissatisfied party members who are open to the idea of voting for other [[political party|parties]], or they could be officially registered as "independents" or simply people who have never had a strong affiliation with any political party and will vote depending on certain things such as valance factors with may influence them: [[healthcare]], [[Employee benefit|benefits]], [[election campaign]], etc.

Some, but not all, swing voters are considered to be "[[Low information voter|low-information voters]]." Because the votes of swing voters are considered to be "up for grabs," candidates direct a fair proportion of campaign effort towards them, but they must also be concerned with voter turnout among their political base. There is a perception that swing voters are primarily motivated by [[Self|self-interest]] rather than values or ideology and so are particularly susceptible to [[pork barreling]].

If a constituency contains a large proportion of swing voters it is often called a '''[[marginal seat]]''' and extensive campaign resources are poured into it.