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An Analysis of Various Election Methods
An anonymous reader writes "David Cobb talked about Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) as the best choice in electoral methods in his interview here, but is it really? The folks over at electionmethods.org seem to think it isn't. They favor Condorcet voting, which is another ranking style method using simulated one on one elections. Here is an evaluation of various methods, including IRV and Condorcet."
Voting systems are one of those things people will ALWAYS disagree on, because the set of "reasonable" desirable properties that most people would like in a system are contradictory, as shown by Kenneth Arrow.
The person who is would win a one-on-one vote against for every other candidate wins, if such a person exists.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
He has made a simulation that is open source.
So hack away. Look here and here.
This is somewhat like the Borda voting method, except that in the Borda method, you must give N points to your favorite candidate, N - 1 points to your second favorite, and so on - the number of points is fixed.
The problem with your method is that everybody is going to throw their points at one candidate - their favorite. The problem with the Borda method is this scenario: Suppose you have high school band members voting on where they want the band trip to be. The options are Chicago, Toronto, and Myrtle Beach. The situation is this: 45 bandies want Toronto over Myrtle Beach, 45 prefer Myrtle Beach over Toronto, and 10 loonies prefer Chicago (which is such a bad idea, by the way). Each person lists their three choices in order - first place votes are worth 3 points, second place 2 points, third place 1 point.
All the Toronto-wanters decide that to screw the Myrtle Beach crowd, they'll vote for Myrtle Beach in third place, with Chicago in second, even though it is a crappy place for a band trip (because they shouldn't have to worry about Chicago getting picked). The Myrtle Beach-wanters do the same thing. The result is that 180 points go to each Myrtle Beach, Chicago, and Toronto.
Then the Chicago loonies vote for Chicago in first place, putting Chicago over the edge. Chicago wins, and 90% of people hate the band trip.
Most election methods operate under the assumption that the popular vote is what matters. In America, that simply isn't the case. What matters is which candidate will most accurately reflect the needs and desires of the nation, not only of its population centers.
Additionally, a charismatic candidate can sweep the popular vote by carrying a handful of major cities. Popular voting in America implies that only the inner city vote matters, which disenfranchises the rural voters - you know, those who produce oil, wheat, beef, milk, chickens, pork, corn, soybeans, potatoes, and other things that you like to have in your life.
Quite simply, the Electoral College is a very effective compromise that has kept our Presidential elections mostly sane for more than 50 iterations. It ain't broke - don't try to fix it.
As the webmaster of ElectionMethods.org, I am thrilled to see this link on slashdot. Please tell your friends and relatives too!
I would just like to clarify a couple of points. We believe that Condorcet voting is the best system if properly implemented. However, as you will see at our site, the proper implementation gets very technical. Therefore, we realized a long time ago that Condorcet is simply not practical for actual implemention on a large scale in the forseeable future. It's just too darn complicated.
However, Approval Voting is very simple. It's the same as our current plurality system except that the voter is allowed to vote for more than one candidate (no ranking). When people first hear about Approval Voting (myself included), they think it is defective because it does not allow you to rank the candidates (as in IRV and Condorcet). But this is misleading. IRV lets you rank the candidates, but it does not properly count your preferences. Technical analysis shows that Approval Voting is a surprisingly good system given its extreme simplicity. And it requires no new voting equipment. It could be implemented very quickly once a consensus is reached to do so, and the only objection I can see is to protect the two-party duopoly.
Think about it, folks. We could revolutionize our political system by simply letting voters vote for more than one candidate. This will have a far more profound effect than term limits or campaign finance reform, for example.
What effect it will have cannot be predicted exactly, of course. Perhaps the Republicrats will still remain dominant for a long time, perhaps not. But it's definitely worth a try, perhaps starting at the local level.
Oh, one more caveat. You must realize that *no* alternative voting system can make the US Presidential election fairer for minor parties as long as the Electoral College is in place. Trust me: it just can't be done. That's why I'm for aboloshing the EC. Unfortunately, many of my fellow conservatives are dead set against that, and it requires a Constitutional Amendment.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
One way the two parties have "stacked" things is through the use of the so-called Australian ballot, which is pre-printed. This brings to rise the need to have an approved list of candidates, with write-in options.
Numerous states have horrible ballot access laws, mine in particular (Oklahoma).
I'm not sure there's really a better option out there at the moment, but concentrating the power to decide who will or will not be on a ballot leads to corruption.
Rank the candidates in your order of preference.
There is your sentance. Condorcet voting indicates that you vote a preference for each possible combination, however this can be simplified to just ranking them in order because it satisfies all of the possible combinations. For example:
Choose A over C
Choose B over A
Choose B over C
Choose B over D
Choose D over A
Choose D over C
Is exatly the same as saying:
1. B
2. D
3. A
4. C
But ranking is easier for people to understand.
In case you didn't explore the site fully, this page explains their arguments against IRV. Personally, I find them very compelling.
What you say here leads into their arguments:
Yes there are contrived conditions where you can show that some mathematically disproportionate fraction of the populace would be "happier" with a different candidate, but look at the reality of voting in the US. 90-99% of the voters split their votes relatively evenly between the two major parties. The rest split them fairly unevenly between the remaining minor contenders.
As long as the minor parties are quite minor, IRV will just provide more interesting protest votes. And there is probably some value in that, but it isn't enough. As soon as a party or candidate becomes big enough to challenge the main two, the spoiler effect comes right back into play.
But please read the above linked page for a much clearer and more thorough explanation.
Rome wasn't bilked in a day.