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Range Voting seems to alleviate the problem of strategic voting.

No, it doesn't. "Range voting" (aka "Average Rating Voting") is subject to strategic voting (for the strategies that apply, see here.) Further, the Gibbard-Satterthwaite Theorem proves that the only way any single-winner system could eliminate strategic voting would either be to be dictatorial or to up-front prohibit certain candidates from winning regardless of the votes.

Range voting has the additional problem (compared either to choose-one systems like majority-runoff or plurality or to ranked ballots systems in general) that the meaning of the same marking on different voters ballots isn't the same (What does a 50 out of 100 maximum ranking mean?) Approval voting, a somewhat more popular, "weaker" form of range voting in which there are only two ratings ("acceptable" and "not acceptable", in essence) available, has the same problem, though somewhat weaker.

...My agenda:
- Constitutional amendment: single-issue bills only. (reduce pork and make reps accountable for everything they vote on instead of being able to hide behind a "must pass" bill)

Agreed. I'd add two more conditions:

1. In order to vote on a bill, each congresscritter must be endure, while conscious, an oral reading of the entire bill, with no restroom breaks.
2. No bills will be voted upon until at minimum 2/3 quorum of congresscritters have qualified to vote under the preceeding clause.

...
- Constitutional amendment: 10 year sunset clause on ALL federal laws. (create an upper bound on the number of laws that the federal gov't can maintain)

Sunset clauses don't work, because it's easier to vote to renew the status quo than to seriously consider changing it.

...
- Move elections to an instant-run-off system so voters don't feel they have to try to game the system

IRV fails as many fairness tests as the method currently used in the United States and elsewhere. IRV is vulnerable to gaming, namely compromise and push-over strategies. Ranked Pairs or Schulze would be preferable.

...
- Move election day to July 4th. More people vote because they're off work. Can celebrate *getting* freedom and *keeping* it.

Most companies informally allow time off from work to vote. In many areas, this practice is enforced by law.

Also, I would argue that the original (constitutional) method, which specified that only landowners could vote, resulted in a higher-quality electorate. Too many voters let their opinion be determined by the passing winds of mass media. Because they don't have enough invested in the outcome, they fail to seriously consider the issues.

...
That should get us some REAL change!

On the contrary, "real change" comes from the inside, not from the outside.

...My agenda:
- Constitutional amendment: single-issue bills only. (reduce pork and make reps accountable for everything they vote on instead of being able to hide behind a "must pass" bill)

Agreed. I'd add two more conditions:

1. In order to vote on a bill, each congresscritter must be endure, while conscious, an oral reading of the entire bill, with no restroom breaks.
2. No bills will be voted upon until at minimum 2/3 quorum of congresscritters have qualified to vote under the preceeding clause.

...
- Constitutional amendment: 10 year sunset clause on ALL federal laws. (create an upper bound on the number of laws that the federal gov't can maintain)

Sunset clauses don't work, because it's easier to vote to renew the status quo than to seriously consider changing it.

...
- Move elections to an instant-run-off system so voters don't feel they have to try to game the system

IRV fails as many fairness tests as the method currently used in the United States and elsewhere. IRV is vulnerable to gaming, namely compromise and push-over strategies. Ranked Pairs or Schulze would be preferable.

...
- Move election day to July 4th. More people vote because they're off work. Can celebrate *getting* freedom and *keeping* it.

Most companies informally allow time off from work to vote. In many areas, this practice is enforced by law.

Also, I would argue that the original (constitutional) method, which specified that only landowners could vote, resulted in a higher-quality electorate. Too many voters let their opinion be determined by the passing winds of mass media. Because they don't have enough invested in the outcome, they fail to seriously consider the issues.

...
That should get us some REAL change!

On the contrary, "real change" comes from the inside, not from the outside.

...My agenda:
- Constitutional amendment: single-issue bills only. (reduce pork and make reps accountable for everything they vote on instead of being able to hide behind a "must pass" bill)

Agreed. I'd add two more conditions:

1. In order to vote on a bill, each congresscritter must be endure, while conscious, an oral reading of the entire bill, with no restroom breaks.
2. No bills will be voted upon until at minimum 2/3 quorum of congresscritters have qualified to vote under the preceeding clause.

...
- Constitutional amendment: 10 year sunset clause on ALL federal laws. (create an upper bound on the number of laws that the federal gov't can maintain)

Sunset clauses don't work, because it's easier to vote to renew the status quo than to seriously consider changing it.

...
- Move elections to an instant-run-off system so voters don't feel they have to try to game the system

IRV fails as many fairness tests as the method currently used in the United States and elsewhere. IRV is vulnerable to gaming, namely compromise and push-over strategies. Ranked Pairs or Schulze would be preferable.

...
- Move election day to July 4th. More people vote because they're off work. Can celebrate *getting* freedom and *keeping* it.

Most companies informally allow time off from work to vote. In many areas, this practice is enforced by law.

Also, I would argue that the original (constitutional) method, which specified that only landowners could vote, resulted in a higher-quality electorate. Too many voters let their opinion be determined by the passing winds of mass media. Because they don't have enough invested in the outcome, they fail to seriously consider the issues.

...
That should get us some REAL change!

On the contrary, "real change" comes from the inside, not from the outside.

...My agenda:
- Constitutional amendment: single-issue bills only. (reduce pork and make reps accountable for everything they vote on instead of being able to hide behind a "must pass" bill)

Agreed. I'd add two more conditions:

1. In order to vote on a bill, each congresscritter must be endure, while conscious, an oral reading of the entire bill, with no restroom breaks.
2. No bills will be voted upon until at minimum 2/3 quorum of congresscritters have qualified to vote under the preceeding clause.

...
- Constitutional amendment: 10 year sunset clause on ALL federal laws. (create an upper bound on the number of laws that the federal gov't can maintain)

Sunset clauses don't work, because it's easier to vote to renew the status quo than to seriously consider changing it.

...
- Move elections to an instant-run-off system so voters don't feel they have to try to game the system

IRV fails as many fairness tests as the method currently used in the United States and elsewhere. IRV is vulnerable to gaming, namely compromise and push-over strategies. Ranked Pairs or Schulze would be preferable.

...
- Move election day to July 4th. More people vote because they're off work. Can celebrate *getting* freedom and *keeping* it.

Most companies informally allow time off from work to vote. In many areas, this practice is enforced by law.

Also, I would argue that the original (constitutional) method, which specified that only landowners could vote, resulted in a higher-quality electorate. Too many voters let their opinion be determined by the passing winds of mass media. Because they don't have enough invested in the outcome, they fail to seriously consider the issues.

...
That should get us some REAL change!

On the contrary, "real change" comes from the inside, not from the outside.

Look, America has ten times the votes to count, maybe it should just employ ten times the vote counters?

More counters costs more money.

Arguable; there are tons of examples I can trot out of this very thing. Can't report the name of a young offender, for example.

That's to protect the young.

I seem to recall, for example, Gore giving his initial concession speech based on a reporter 'calling' the election for Bush; forget waiting for the acutal votes to be counted...

That was Gore's fault. Just as all too many people in the US are impatient so was Gore.

maybe the unconstitutionality of the Press choosing the President, rather than the Electoral Colleges as determined by the Several States

It was in fact the electoral college that picked the president. What the press did was possibly affect the outcome of the election, which in the end the population is responsible for. I'm tempted to blame those who don't use their critical thinking skills, if they have them, for the outcome they voted for. However those who use their skills also have to pay the price. I have to blame myself for this as well, in 2000 instead of voting for whom I wanted to vote, I specifically voted against Bush by selecting Gore. Though I think Gore was bad to me Bush was worse and the election was too close for me. Unfortunately though Bush's Florida campaign manager was also in charge of elections in Florida and she made sure Bush would win the state.

But getting back to exit polls; why report them? I'd say that one shouldn't be reporting them during the election lest it sway undecided voters

If they, the voters, haven't decided by election day then maybe they shouldn't vote. They had months to decide who they wanted to vote for, what's the problem. Of all the candidates I know who are running now I already know who I'd vote for, Ron Paul. However I need to wait to see who else will run.

Of course, this is only a problem in the 'winner takes all' and defacto 'two party' system America has

I hat how presidential elected are setup so a candidate who "wins" a state carries all of the electoral votes for the state. Instead each candidate should get the number of electors they win in a state. This would allow smaller political parties to have a bigger say, but the Democrat and Republicans would fight tooth and nail to keep their power.

institute some sort of preference voting, and the problem goes right away

I'm not sure what you mean but it ma be like what I'd like to see. That would be that voters would rank candidates in order of preference. Say there are 5 candidates, a voter can give candidate A 5 points. And if A doesn't win but the voter would rather have candidate B win over candidate C, the voter could give B 4 points. Or if the voter doesn't want to give any candidate anything they don't have to. After all voting is done, the points for each candidate are added up and the candidate with the most votes wins. And in the case of the presidential elections, the candidate with the second highest count becomes the Vice President. In 2000 I could have given my candidate, Harry Browne, 5 points, Gore 3, and left it like that. Elections can use one of the Condorcet methods such as Ranked Pairs.

I'm voting green from now on.

The fact is that in a first-past-the-goal system like we have in the states, if you don't vote for the lesser of two evils then your vote is wasted. What we need is a change in how we count votes, such as Condorcet, ranked pairs, or approval voting. None of these is perfect (Condorcet is the most fair, but is complicated), but all of them are more fair than what we have in the states.

--- SER

If the way we count votes is broken, we can change it from plurality voting to something that actually would work

Approval voting (and Instand Runoff) is a half-baked solution. Check out this site about Condorcet Ranked Pairs, including their criticism of Approval Voting.

Approval voting (and Instand Runoff) is a half-baked solution. Check out this site about Condorcet Ranked Pairs, including their criticism of Approval Voting.

The patch? Instant Run-off Voting.

Instant runoff also helps to entrench the two-party system. The real fix is Condorcet voting, which is the only known method that is based around the idea that the candidate who wins should be the one who gains the support of a majority when pitted directly against each other candidate. As a side effect it tends to make extremists of either persuasion unelectable.

Your problem is viewing that the vote for the third party is throwing it away in the short term.

In the states, we have a first-past-the-post voting system -- possibly the worst voting system possible. In such a system, people are encouraged to vote for the lesser of two evils, which they do. Just listen to the rhetoric that comes out of the parties when elections come around and this becomes obvious.

To fix the system the US uses, we need a better voting mechanism. Condorcet and Approval (2) are good candidates.

Another thing that would really help would be serious campaign finance reform. Corporations should not be allowed to lobby, or contribute, in any way. It wouldn't hurt to have independent media in the USA again, either.

As long as we have first-past-the-post voting, though, nothing is going to change. People will continue to vote against candidates they don't like, rather than for candidates that they do. Those who don't vote this way will continue to be marginalized.

--- SER

Our voting system (first past the post) only gathers enough information to decide between two candidates. Your proposal seems similar to Approval Voting: vote for each candidate you approve of, and not for any candidate you disaprove of. Most approvals wins. It appears to be less susceptible to some of the problems Instant Run-Off has, and looks simpler to implement than Ranked Pairs (my favorite, a Condorcet method). See condorcet.org for some voting method descriptions, criticisms, and links.

I think everyone needs to seriously ask this question: assume for a moment that if, as is sometimes suggested, in the 2000 US presidential election, Ralph Nader "stole" votes from Al Gore such that had only Gore and Bush run then Gore would have won, do we really want a voting system that picks Bush as the winner in that case? (change the political parties if it helps, and ignore the Florida debacle). With any other voting system, all the Nader voters could have also voted for Gore. Or those who voted for Gore as a vote against Bush could have also voted for Nader. Or those who voted for Bush as a vote against Gore could have also voted for the one they really wanted.

First past the post sucks. It leads to voters gaming the system by voting for the lesser evil rather than voting for their favorite.

This method ("Instant Runoff Voting") has edge case issues that are solved in a similar system called Condorcet voting. A start at an explaination of the problem is at http://condorcet.org/rp/IRV.shtml.

Great explanation. I recently implemented in Ruby a toy script to tally votes by Ranked Pairs (a Condorcet method). (All I found via Google was vote.sf.net which was down at the time; I still haven't looked at their code.) I also recently did some light (web based) research on audio codec comparison, particularly the method known as ABC/Hidden Reference. Scoring these audio comparison tests is done using ANOVA for parametric statistics or the nonparametric Friedman test which is better for voting where citizens are prone to exaggerate their preferences. To my naive eyes it appears very similar to the Ranked Pairs method described at condorcet.org.

On a different note, I have heard defenses of the two-party system that assert that the system causes candidates to reach compromise before the election due to the limitations of the first past the post voting which cannot really handle more than two or maybe three candidates. Because compromise had already been reached, the elected representatives would then be able to "get things done". I'm interested in learning more about any defenses of the two-party system. Personally, I'd be more than happy if Congress never "got things done" because they seem to bungle everything or just claim more and more power.

Very interesting. I went and looked up the Condorcet system, if anyone else was unfamiliar with it, here's a page with a good (IMO, anyway) example:

http://condorcet.org/rp/intro.shtml

I think you would get a lot more "compromise" candidates that way, although I wonder whether that's really not what we have right now -- candidates that are almost identical to each other and struggling to be inoffensive rather than supportable, because voters tend to cast their ballots 'against the person they dislike more.'

It's pretty clear that electronic voting is a scam, and we can't even tell how much of a scam, but the paper ballot system was already commonly "fixed". And neither deals with the inherent flaws in the method of choosing. The US has, by and large, chosen to adopt the least democratic system that could, by stretching the term, be called democratic. Instant runoff would be better, and Condorcet voting would be even better. (Note that Condorcet voting isn't practical without computer assistance, but there's no reason for the code to be secret.)

And nothing would cure us of the fact that nearly half the population is of sub-normal intelligence.

I made it clear in my last post that my argument is that most people think that sharing music is okay. Consider my "Everyone who used Napster" quote to be poorly phrased - my mistake.

I am well aware of the deficiency of democracy, and will be happy to discuss alternatives that give minorities more voice. This web site has a number of voting methods that we could discuss. However, in this case we are not talking about murder, rape, or even theft. We are talking about modifying the economic rules under which the artificial construct called copyright should work. There is NO moral issue here - neither side has morality as their ally. My position is that the system cannot serve the interests of the general public if the general public thinks that the system is broken and largely ignores it. Creating a system that allows a service like Napster to exist in some form is what would best serve the public, in my opinion. Gone are the days when only the very rich can afford to distribute music, and our system needs to reflect that. We, the people, do not need them, the record companies, anymore - so why do we keep them around? Because they give money to congress, as far as I can tell. Or possibly, people have forgotten why we have copyright in the first place. It was not implemented to make people rich, though there's nothing wrong with that. It was implemented to encourage people to create, which I think is possible without 90-year terms, for example. Show me one media company that makes plans based on revenue models out through 90 years! How are we encouraging anything?

Please, let's frame this discussion without comparing copyright rules to something as immoral as murder, theft, or slavery...

Strictly speaking a constituency voting system where you can specify first choice, second choice and so on is not proportional representation. The number of seats allocated to each party still doesn't exactly reflect that party's share of the vote. True proportional representation means that if you got 10% of votes cast, you will get 10% of seats. Under single-transferrable-vote, Condorcet or other systems, a party could get 10% of first-choice votes and still not win a single seat.

True proportional representation requires a single nationwide count of votes and some kind of party list system - where you can't vote for a candidate, but only for a party which lists the candidates it will appoint to fill the seats it gets. Fairness is important in a voting system but it is not the only consideration - many people prefer a system which is 'unfair' (in that it doesn't reflect the exact proportion of votes cast) but gives more opportunity for local representation (constituencies) and doesn't concentrate power in the hands of party managers.

It's worth noting that if you do want a system of first choice, second choice and so on, the single transferrable vote system used in the ROI and other European countries may not be the best way to do it. See condorcet.org and related websites for some discussion of the flaws in STV, IRV and related systems, and a better way of deciding the winner. One interesting thing it points out (with examples) is that under STV, by voting for a candidate you can make them _less_ likely to win!

The Irish system uses multimember constituencies I believe, so it's not exactly the same as one-member STV, but I think the same flaws apply. And to reiterate, it's not accurate to call it proportional (though it does usually get closer to proportional than the plurality or first-past-the-post system used in some countries).

Plurality voting encourages strategic (as opposed to honest) voting, and thus does a terrible job of representing the genuine desires of the electorate. A Borda/Condorcet system or approval voting system would allow people to honestly portray their preferences without ever needing to be concerned about "throwing away" their votes.

Plurality voting encourages strategic (as opposed to honest) voting, and thus does a terrible job of representing the genuine desires of the electorate. A Borda/Condorcet system or approval voting system would allow people to honestly portray their preferences without ever needing to be concerned about "throwing away" their votes.

Plurality voting encourages strategic (as opposed to honest) voting, and thus does a terrible job of representing the genuine desires of the electorate. A Borda/Condorcet system or approval voting system would allow people to honestly portray their preferences without ever needing to be concerned about "throwing away" their votes.

You appear not to be familiar with the term "instant runoff." Our Green Party candidate for Secretary of State last time advocated it, so I've read up a little.

What it is is a ranked pairs system that has voters rank candidates from their favorite to their least-favorite. Here's an explanation in some detail of how that works, complete with responses to the usual objections.

I fail to see how that voting method necessarily scuttles geographic representation or the electoral college, the practical and mathematical arguments for which I've looked at a little too. (People often make the argument that their individual votes are worthless except in dead heat elections, but actually the college makes the opposite true.) There's no reason "instant run-off" voting is incompatible with the electoral college at all -- voters in a given state could still see all their electoral votes go to one candidate or another after the runoff votes were tallied.

The main problem in the USA isn't how we gather votes, although there are problems in some states (Florida). There is a more fundamental problem in that we aren't using the right voting mechanism. In the US, we use plurality voting -- a.k.a "first across the line" -- to determine who wins an election. This means that a candidate for whom only 30% of the people voted can win an election simply because there was no other single candidate with more votes.

This has a number of problems, but they can all be summed up by saying that plurality is one of the least fair, if not the least fair, way of determining the winner of a democratic election that you can get. Consider:

• Say 40% of the people vote for candidate A
• 35% of the people want candidate B
• 25% want candidate C

This situation encourages strategic voting; that is to say, voters for C have to decide whether they want to vote honestly, for C, or whether they should vote for B just to make that they don't get their least favorite candidate, A.

This is why we only have two parties in the US, and why -- despite the large number of Greens and Libertarians, neither party has a chance of winning. We don't even know what percentage of the US population is Green or Libertarian (or anything else, for that matter) because they aren't voting honestly. They're voting for the lesser of two evils. This system practically guarantees alienation of the largest number of people -- the majority ends up with a candidate they don't want, unless they lie when voting and vote for the candidate that they dislike the least who also has the best chance of winning.

There are voting mechanisms which allow people to vote their true opinion without being alienated. The most popular are Condorcet -- complex, but the most fair; Approval Voting -- not as fair as Condorcet, but much simpler, and can be implemented with existing voting technology; and Instant Runoff -- less fair than approval, no more simple -- but better than plurality.

Many democratic countries do not use plurality voting, although plurality is the most common. For example, Australia, Northern Ireland, and the Irish Republic (among others) use single transferable vote[1]. In fact, 68 countries (~2b ppl) use plurality, 31 countries (~400m ppl) use single transferable vote, and two countries (~18m ppl) use IRV (instant runoff) -- this is according to International IDEA Handbook.

There is a huge amount of information about Condorcet and Approval Voting available on the web. The Citizens for Approval Voting page is a good start, if you're at all interested in improving voting in the US. If you're interested in the mechanics and mathematics of the systems, start with Condorcet -- most sites that talk about Condorcet are less about how to get it implemented politically, and are more about how it works, fairness tests, and how it compares to other systems. The Wikipedia entry for "voting system" is particularly useful.

"Condorcet's method is one of several pairwise methods, which are great methods for electing people in single-seat elections (president, governor, mayor, etc.). Condorcet's method is named after the 18th century election theorist who invented it. Unlike most methods which make you choose the lesser of two evils, Condorcet's method and other pairwise methods let you rank the candidates in the order in which you would see them elected. The way the votes are tallied is by computing the results of separate pairwise elections between all of the candidates, and the winner is the one that wins a majority in all of the pairwise elections.

The best result of this is that if there is Candidate A on one extreme who pulls 40% of the vote, Candidate B in the middle who only pulls 20% of the vote, and Candidate C on the other extreme who pulls 40% of the vote, Candidate B will get elected as a compromise. Why? Because in a two-way contest between A and B, B would win with 60% of the vote, and in a two-way contest between B and C, B would also win with 60% of the vote. (Note that if B is a looney billionaire, he might not be able to win separate pairwise elections against anyone, and this would be reflected with Condorcet's method.)

Condorcet's method lets voters mark their sincere wishes for who they would like to win the election, without having to consider strategy ("I'd vote for Candidate B, but I'm afraid of wasting my vote."). It's really just a logical extension of majority rule when more than two choices are involved."

= 9J =

Plurality voting is the source of most of the election problems we have in the US. We don't need "campaign finance" reform, we need voting method reform! The problem isn't that Democrats and/or Republicans spend a lot of money, the problem is that we can't effectively vote against both of them!

Glad to see someone else posting useful Condorcet links. Condorcet is so superior to other methods, and IRV so flawed, I'm surprised that IRV is still mentioned as a possible replacement for plurality.

One last thing... ask a local Green what IRV is.

Condorcet, Condorcet, Condorcet! I can't say this enough. IRV has so many pitfalls that I can't believe anyone seriously recommends it as an alternative. Its faults in the vote-counting method so overwhelm the improvements in its vote-casting method as to make any benefit in using IRV completely illusory. Condorcet uses the same vote-casting method, but the vote-counting method actually does what IRV purports to do.

Approval voting is both simpler and mathematically superior to Instant Runoff Voting (though not as good as Condorcet).

IRV has serious problems. IMHO it is worse, not better, than the existing system of plurality voting. Read this and this.

Approval voting seems to me weaker than Condorcet but stronger than our current system. If we can't get Condorcet implemented, at least an Approval count method would be a step in a good direction.

If only I had mod-points. Guys look into this. It's so important that people understand the power of ranked voting. IRV is flawed, but it's a start.

Take a look at Condorcet's Method for information about an even cooler (although more complicated) voting system.