Mathematicians: Elections Flawed

Nader-licious writes "Science News Online reports: 'With recent reports of malfunctioning voter machines and uncounted votes during primaries in Florida, Maryland, and elsewhere, reformers are once again clamoring for extensive changes. But while attention is focused on these familiar irregularities, a much more serious problem is being neglected: the fundamental flaws of the voting procedure itself. Mathematics are shedding light on questions about how well different voting procedures capture the will of the voters.' The verdict: the U.S. system might be the worst of the lot."

Comments

My view on "instant runoff"

[lpontiac]

I'm an Australian, and we use the "instant runoff" system described in the article. My view on it is that rather than putting the most popular candidate into office, it keeps the least popular candidates out of office.

There is a problem that the article neglected to mention - "how to vote" cards. Each candidate will generally recommend how they think people should vote - themselves first, naturally. The same sheep mentality that leads to 70% of the population voting for the same party every election leads to many religiously following these how to vote cards.

The end result is a heap of wheeling and dealing between candidates for these "directed preferences." It even becomes a stick in between elections that the minor parties can use to beat a major party with; in a marginal seat, having a minor party favour you over your primary opposition can be the difference between winning and losing.

The system in Australia

[The Original Yama]

I'm quite partial to the Australian system (although I may be biased since I'm Australian). It is a variation on the simplistic British 'first-past-the-post' system. Basically, you number each candidate in the order you prefer, with #1 being your favourite candidate. When the votes are counted, they first tally all the #1 votes. If after that nobody has a clear majority (50% of the vote plus one), they count the #2 votes and add them to the #1 tallies. They keep doing that until someone gets a majority.

What I like about this system is that you are not tying yourself to one candidate. Your vote won't be wasted if you vote #1 for a minority candidate, since if they don't win your next preferences may count. This also means that you're not necessarily guaranteed a win if you're in one of the larger parties.

In the end (generally), you don't get an electorate that's split between people who did and didn't vote for the winner. Since everybody's preferences are taken into account, you get a decent compromise.

The system won't change

[rseuhs]

Currently, power is shared between Republicans and Democrats.

Neither would be happy if the system would allow more than 2 parties to exist, so neither will ever agree to a substantial reform.

Re:The system won't change

[the bluebrain]

• Currently, power is shared between Republicans and Democrats.
  Neither would be happy if the system would allow more than 2 parties to exist, so neither will ever agree to a substantial reform.

Yup. That is what I was missing in the article, too. Obvious, really: voting theorists deal with the theory of voting, not with the mechanics of change, and the question of what is politically doable.
Point being, not only the incumbents, but also the lower echelons grew up with the current system, and they know how to play it - play being exactly the right word. I expect few professional politicians would want to change the system, because the change would cause uncertainty - they would rather be big underdogs in the current system, than risk even the very small danger of becoming bit players in a new one.

A thought on this issue: as you say, neither the Dems nor the Reps would like to see the rise of smaller parties, because this would erode their influence (power base), and they would even (gasp) co-operate to keep the system just the way it is. However, if a party smaller party does grow big enough to be an "annoyance" to the established ones, the one more hurt by the smaller party will bring the issues in this article up - hence this discussion.

For instance: the Dems would be prepared to give the greens say 10 seats in the senate, if the Dems in turn get the presidency - quite a likely situation if the voting procedures are changed as described.

The point to which I have been coming all the while is this: in a one-dimensional political spectrum, the "right" is stereotypically more disciplined than the "left", i.e., they have a stronger belief in law & order, hierarchical systems etc. This means that if there is a small rightist party (e.g. a bunch of neo-nazis by anything but name) in a situation similar to the one in Florida during the last presidential election, their adherents will be more likely to follow the "orders" of the party leadership to vote for Bush rather than their own candidate (because Bush is better than Gore, and their own candidate doesn't have a real chance to win) than their "leftist" counterparts.

This means in turn that the results of the plurality vote in the US is not only the two-party system that we observe, but also a slight shift to the right.

In closing I must say that in my opinion, replacing the plurality vote would be the single biggest step the US could undertake to enhance its political image, pretty much everywhere else in the world.

We Don't Have A Federal Government...

[theduck]

Most other countries do not implement a form of federal government.

We (USA) don't have a federal government, at least not in the pure sense of the word. We have a national government.

What's the difference? Whether power resides primarily on the state or national level. A federal government represents and is controlled by a federation of smaller political entities (states, in the USA) where the true power resides. A national government represents and is controlled by a single national political entity that might or might not be comprised of smaller political entities.

The single best way to determine whether you have a federal or national government is where the primary power of taxation resides since a government can do nothing without revenue. The political struggle between the federalists and anti-federalists in the USA centered mainly around this point. Oddly enough, there was the same confusion between the terms "federal" and "national" back then. Apparently, the Federalist marketers got their mits onto that confusion first, because the Federalists were actually for a national government and the Anti-Federalists for a federal government.

French election turn out

[autopr0n]

99% of voters were absolutely certain that the 2nd round would bring the good old traditional Center-Left vs Center-Right showdown (Jospin-Chirac in that case), so many people didn't even care to vote.

Yet, france had a 70% voter turn out, Far higher then any US elections :P