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"Cumulative Voting" Method Gaining Attention
Local ID10T writes "The AP reports on a system of voting, called 'cumulative voting,' which was just used under court order in Port Chester, NY. Under this system, voters can apportion their votes as they wish — all to one candidate, one to each candidate, or any combination. The system, which has been used in Alabama, Illinois, South Dakota, Texas, and New York, allows a political minority to gain representation if it organizes behind specific candidates. Courts are increasingly mandating cumulative voting when they deem it necessary to provide fair representation." Wikipedia notes that cumulative voting "was used to elect the Illinois House of Representatives from 1870 until its repeal in 1980," without saying why the system was abandoned.
This one has flaws too, but at least it's better than FPTP hopefully.
Some important things regarding the flaw of this voting method...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulative_voting#Voting_systems_criteria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulative_voting#Tactical_voting
Courts are increasingly mandating cumulative voting when they deem it necessary to provide fair representation.
Well then it's a good thing that it's the judiciary's role to enact public policy!
allows a political minority to gain representation if it organizes behind specific candidates
I'm pretty sure that's how most voting systems work.
It's too bad that a proportional STV (Single Transferable Vote) isn't more widely used, then there would truely be no wasted votes
Divide a cake by zero. Is it still a cake?
What they really mean by "fair representation" would be more accurately described as "damn voters won't vote for the people we want them to, so we're screwing with the rules."
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Yet it's news for nerds. Go figure.
Despite Thomas Jefferson's fantasies, most Americans seem to prefer parties. That's why we need a Bundestag-like proportional representation system at the state Legislature and Congressional levels (BTW, save some money and get rid of the silly state Senates). Any party (or, in our case, add individual) that can gather some significant number of members/petitioners should be placed on the ballot, and the seats of the legislative body apportioned according to the votes cast for the party/individual. That way, maybe we would have some representation of more than two (increasingly lunatic) points of view. California, for example, has several registered parties (American Independent, Democratic, Green, Libertarian, Peace and Freedom, and Republican), but legislators from only two, so a large portion of the registered voters are simply not represented at the state level. Before some idiot says "well, they just need to get enough votes", the district lines are drawn to prohibit any but the Demopublicans from getting a seat (see "Gerrymander") in any district in the state.
The real reason that we don't have such a system is that the corporations that own the Demopublicans ("Big Oil", Hollywood, ...) would have to spread their bribes over a lot more politicians and they will do whatever it takes to prevent that additional expense.
A ranking system is the right solution.
If 50%-something would like A to win, are ok with B, but definitely don't want C, and if the 50%-something others are the exact opposite, then the best candidate should be B, not A or C where it's only down to little percentage different.
Seems to be that the system was expensive and might have been too democratic.
"Black Representation Under Cumulative Voting in IL"
http://archive.fairvote.org/?page=419
Did careerism also play a part?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Here's a 1976 article on cumulative voting in Illinois. The writer saw it as promoting intraparty strife (creating more competition between candidates of the same party than with the candidates of the other party) and was hard for voters to understand.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
There are also a lot of other parties, however they didn't make it in any parliament. But there are parties for families, "true to the Bible"-Christians, or a party with yogic flyer called natural law party (however they dissolved 2004).
How is this better than ranked voting? The last thing we want is more power for deeply grooved special interests.
So whats your preference? First past the post or Single transferable vote?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
"Cumulative" voting is too prone to abuse. There are better (more mathematically "fair") voting systems. Take instant runoff voting for example. Statistically, it appears to satisfy the most people, most of the time, without too many quirks that some of the others suffer from, like the possibility of a minority winning under some circumstances.
If anyone can cast the votes he wants how can you be right about how many people have voted. This clearly violates the one man one vote principle. If protecting minorities is what you want, simply use the hondt method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D'Hondt_method.
Math is beautiful... e^(pi*i)+1=0
> First past the post or Single transferable vote?
Exactly what I outlined.
"First past the post "
Anything else and especially that single thing is COMMUNISTIC!
ONE PERSON, ONE VOTE. Non transferable. You vote for a loser, you loose. Too bad.
1311393600 - Back to Black
But with STV your vote only ever goes to one candidate. Its just a way of saying I want candidate C to win but if it comes down to A and B then I choose B. In this scenario B gets your vote.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I think the system they're looking for is the single transferable vote. With cumulative voting, various interests have to figure out how many candidates they have the numbers to elect and then organize their voters ahead of the election. With STV, the system itself does this all for them and gives fair, proportional results.
Why not just use preferential voting?
Your post is the best argument against your system that I have heard so far.
Also you might consider that by not accepting any other opinions than your own you are a fascist.
And they whole "One Person - One Vote!" thing is what communists have been babbling about all along, you know, the opposite of the capitalistic system where you can buy votes.
Uhm... I think you're being trolled.
Which is odd because the OP was really trying to satirise and not troll.
What would work better is a rating-based system, not a ranking-based one.
The two best-known rating-based systems are approval voting (give every candidate a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down) and score voting (AKA range voting; give each candidate any score from within a given range, like 0-5 or 0-10.) If 50% of voters gave A 10 points, B 6 or more points, and C 0 points, and 50% reversed A and C, then B wins; as you think they should.
More information about score and approval voting is available at The Center for Range Voting
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
The system you favour inevitably leads to a two party system with conservative policies. That may be okay if you like the status quo, but life generally requires adapting to new conditions and the first past the post system does not encourage new candidates who will propose genuine change.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I would like to point out that it's not just counting someone 6 times, it's making everyone else's vote count as 1/6th the vote of people "selected" by the government. What a great way to bring people together. This will just infuriate the people who are now worth a fraction of a vote and further isolate "selected" groups from the mainstream.
Since the government selects the multiplier and the "victim" group of people, it will be no surprise that the group will vote for a larger and more authoritarian government that gave them this power over the "regular" people. What obvious and malicious tampering, why secretly steel votes when you can just make a new law that does it for you!
And why stop at 6? Why not 10? Why not 100? Why not 1000? Once you have made the leap of logic that one person's vote is worth more than another person's vote there is no limit to how much you can alter the outcomes of elections to favor whatever candidate the controlling party likes. This is just pure banana republic, Hugo Chavez style lawlessness.
And this is from the same folks that think that a different test for everyone depending on their skin color is fair, but the same test for everyone regardless of skin color is unfair. More liberal logic: These people, what the liberals have forced me to call them, are not smart enough to take the same tests as "regular" people. But they should be given a vote that is worth 6x the vote as "regular" people, which by the liberal's standards, are smarter than them? That's just as stupid and contradictory as the two ideas on their own!
In this country, as it should be everywhere, everyone should be treated exactly the same regardless of their skin color, gender, age, religion. "These people" are "regular" people. It is only a label given to them by liberals and the government (ever fill out a government form?). There should be no arbitrarily payoffs by power hungry politicians of this group and that group. We are all humans. We live together in a society of laws that cannot be arbitrarily tossed aside when you want to get a few more votes.
To say, as liberals do, that one race is inferior to another is a crime against nature but it's said over and over by these people in the guise of helping. But the only result, and their only real interest, is a more authoritarian and power hungry government that has more interest in tricking, hiding and asserting total control over the people than helping the people.
You don't need "parties."
Speak your piece on the issues and if your views are in sync with the voters you get their votes.
Abolish political parties, PAC's, and the rest of the their ilk and make the candidates run on their VIEWS alone.
Hi, I Am Joe Idiot and I am running for Mayor of Hooterville. This is what I am going to do: ...................
Candidates need to speak THEIR OPINION not the opinion of some bunch of unelectable puppeteers. See "If I'm Lucky" 1946.
1311393600 - Back to Black
"un-American" is a good thing.
"un-American" is a good thing."
Then "UN-[UK, Irish, French, Spanish, Italian, Swiss, Austrian, Canadian, Russian, Turkish, Lithuanian...." is a GOOD THING!
1311393600 - Back to Black
All this does is wastes people's votes who are silly enough to not vote with all their votes for the person they really want to win.
Based on what I've read and heard about this legal precedent, I'm having a difficult time understanding how it's at all constitutional. Let me get this straight - because Hispanics are supposedly underrepresented as a portion of the voting population, the Hispanics who voted in this court controlled election are getting 6 votes to the single vote that non-Hispanics get? They say this is supposed to provide equal protection to the Hispanic minority, but I don't see how granting extra votes to Hispanics doesn't adversely impact the equal protection guaranteed to every other citizen.
What am I missing here?
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Even better would be a system where you could not only vote for certain candidates, but also against them. For example, the same system with 6 votes, but you could choose to give 4 votes to a certain candidate, and 2 votes against another. This could serve to keep racist and other undesirable candidates out. Maybe divide the negative votes by half, though, so you don't get a situation where 49% vote for A and against B, 49% for B against A, and C wins with 2% of the votes. This would also limit tactical abuse of the system, since a vote for a candidate is more productive than a vote against his opponent.
Tthey always got 6 votes. All that has changed is that before they had to vote for 6 different candidates, but now they can combine their votes.
So how does benefit minority groups? Well say there were 6+ white candidates but only one black candidate. Then voters could spend their votes only on white candidates, but did not have the option of spending their votes only on black candidates. So under the new system, if one sixth of the population wants a black representative, they get one. In principle this doesn't give them real political power, since the 5 white representatives could still out-vote them; however, for various reasons having a non-white representative gives some people warm fuzzies. For example a representative is meant to represent people as well as cast votes, so black people may be glad to have a black representative even if this doesn't directly increase their political power.
I read 'cumulative vomiting' and thought it was some new artsy thing people do in the States.
-- Cheers!
They say that cumulative voting will give the Hispanics in the area, who make roughly half the population, equal representation. However, according to articles I've read about this area, only a quarter of that half of the population vote. Then they wonder why a White candidate wins and there is no Hispanic on the 6 seat board? We can't vote for you. Why is the idea of splitting up that area into 6 seats "a bad idea", like you would your county commissioners in most American areas? One area would be predominately Hispanic, which would ensure atleast one seat would be for a candidate with the Hispanics' interest, but they won't do it that way.
I don't understand how giving 6 votes to a quarter of the actual voting population is going to help and yet the judges and election officials give each other pats on the back because one Hispanic candidate actually won a seat after you give voters 6 votes? Am I missing something?
If hispanics made up half the population and Hispanics wanted representation, then all that had to happen was for all the hispanics to vote. I guarantee that some other minorities and some whites would end up voting for an hispanic candidate if said candidate was an issue candidate and not a race candidate.
This is nothing but a way for a specific race, to get someone elected. Special rules designed to benefit a certain race? That sounds like racism to me.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I prefer approval voting. For every candidate on the ballot, you can either vote for him or not vote for him. That would fix the tactical voting problem, since voting for a non-mainstream candidate doesn't affect your ability to choose between the 2 largest parties, so the weaker parties would see more popularity. Also, it would encourage politicians to campaign positively, proposing solutions to problems, rather than relying on a smear campaign against their opponents.
This method does make sense when you are voting for the members of an elected body , like a city council or school board (or a parliament). Suppose there are 10 positions to be filled, and a couple dozen candiates then you get 10 votes, which you could spread out over a number of candidates, or just one if thats the only one you like. The top 10 vote getters get seats on the council.
It does not make sense if you are voting for just one position (like the president of the USA.) If you are splitting your votes there, then essentially you are cancelling yourself out.
The Illinois system was abandoned because forces (led by people like current Governor Pat Quinn) wanted to eliminate Republican representation in Chicago. It also eliminated Democratic representation downstate, and wiped out any chance for minority parties to gain a foothold, but they were very adamant about it. The liberal Independent Voters of Illinois pushed the change very strongly.
One result of this would be e.g. the USA splitting into two groups.
The only time that has ever happened, hoop skirts were in fashion.
Approval voting is possibly even easier for voters to understand than fptp, since you can still just vote for whoever you like the most.
This post is long, late, and buried, but proxy voting would work work better than either plurality or cumulative voting. Each person gets a single vote, but each representative (in this case, the six trustees) would get voting power equivalent to the number of people who voted for them. It's no more difficult for voters than first past the post (plurality) voting, and it's much more representative of voters actual wishes.
As an example, let's assume a Zipfian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf's_law) distribution. There are seven candidates -- A, B, C, D, E, F, and G -- the distribution is 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, and 1/7. Normalizing, you A=38.57%, B=19.28%, C=12.86%, D=9.64%, E=7.71%, F=6.43%, and G=5.51%.
Since only six can be elected, candidate G will be left out. You are not representing the first choice of 5.51% of the voters, but more important, the first choice of the voters has six times the support as the last seated candidate. How on earth is it fair to give each the same voting power? Both plurality and cumulative ignore this problem.
Completing the example above, let's assume G's supporters have their second choices spread among the remaining candidates in the same Zipfian distribution. Taking out the 1/7 and normalizing, you have A=40.82%, B=20.41%, C=13.61%, D=10.2%, E=8.16%, and F=6.8%. You have the following minimum voting blocks that can pass any legislation they want:
Two people:
A&B = 61.22% of the voting power
A&C = 54.42%
A&D = 51.02%
Three people:
A&E&F = 55.78%
Four people:
B&C&D&E = 52.38%
B&C&D&F = 51.02%
A is necessary in 4 of these groups
B,C, and D in 3 of them,
E is necessary in 2 of them
F is necessary in 1
The remaining possibilities require one of the above subgroups.
This should give an indication of how voter preference translates into the proxy system more accurately than in proxy or cumulative voting.
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Only Veterans should vote.
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Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
While there are advantages and disadvantages to various voting systems, isn't it the case that in theory, there is no panacea to the voting problem? Arrow's impossibility theorem
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Instead of complex rules to ensure diverse representation, why not use sortition?
That is the sanest way to go. That way I know for a fact that the products and services which I prefer are the ones being supported.
The districts in California are horribly drawn, hence the recent proposition that appoints a non-legislative group to draw the lines. I, personally, would have preferred a simple computer system with a limited number of rules (such as "make the shortest possible outlines" and "follow natural boundaries such as rivers and highways when possible") and required NO input as to voting registration, racial demographics, etc. But I'll take this system. The results won't be obvious until after the lines are redrawn as a result of this year's census but with any luck we'll get districts that are less gerrymandered.
Actually I am a lab rat in an elaborate plot to take over the world.
I must not understand this. If I had 6 votes instead of 1, I would still spend all 6 votes on the same guy I would have voted for with just 1. If everyone did this then the results would be the same, except all candidates would have 6 times the votes they would have. How does this make it more likely for a minority to win?
Ooops... I think you would get zero something percent for your math...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I, for one, am glad to see that the definition of "representation" means that you get a candidate elected who is the same race and ethnicity as you. After all, that is SOOOOO much more meaningful than, say, policy positions, voting records, etc.
Am I now not represented in the White House because I am not a half-white, half-black male over the age of 45?
I think cumulative voting could work if a voter could apply one vote to each candidate she preferred, rather than having a set number of votes to spread over the candidates. The candidate who accumulated the most votes would win. If you had several identical open positions, the candidates with the most votes could win them (rather than splitting up the positions into separate campaigns.)
I've thought for some years that a fair voting system should not only allow one to vote for a candidate, but also to vote against him/her. Maybe it is just me, but I think that there are people I do not want to represent me, but since others have voted them, I have a little say, other than voted someone else who I may not like but have some chance to beat the guy I do not like/trust. Perhaps being able to vote for or against every candidate in an election will express in a more clearly way the will of the people.
IIRC when IL used cumulative voting it didn't have single-member districts. The House used State Senate districts, and each one elected a couple (3, IIRC) Representatives.
That's no longer the case today, so cumulative voting makes no sense.
Sorry.
The system is broken. You get to choose charming and evil or just plain evil.
The government is bought and paid for. Voting is a charade.
For voting to work as we'd all like it to work, first we'd have to...
1. Have an independent media not owned by the oligarchs. This way real debate can happen.
2. Test candidates and sitting leaders for psychopathy and remove those who fail the tests from the system.
3. Make corporate sponsorship/lobbying a crime with real punishments which stop the crimes from repeating.
4. Fix the money system so that we are not all debt slaves in the giant pyramid scheme which is the global economy.
Since none of those things are going to come about, debating how to vote is pointless.
The system is collapsing, and a LOT of people are going to suffer horribly.
The only thing you can realistically do is to find your neighbors and figure out how to help and support each other through the hard times, because the government is an evil leach which is here to feed on you and enslave you. Disengage from it.
-FL
and every man a king!
Iowa has detailed rules on how district lines are drawn, and therefore well known for preventing Gerrymandering. In contrast, Illinois has some interesting Gerrymandering going on.
My webcomic
There's something fundamentally wrong when the will of the people is so openly and casually quashed by a system like this. The idea of a representative government is that those who are elected are those who receive the most votes. By skewing the system in a way that the most popular candidate doesn't win, we're basically throwing away the system of government our founders relied upon to create a stable government that acted in a way that was wanted by the majority of people
> Fear and dislike are completely different.
So, what's with the word "homophobia" then? An attempt at emasculation?
Just for the record, I voted against Palin. I don't think she's a good leader. She makes all her decisions based on politics and ignores basic competence. So did McCain, for that matter, or he might have run a decent campaign (actual volunteers, not just big media buys). Heck, Hillary ran better than either of them and she didn't run that well (she was too focused on winning the main election, so she was caught totally unprepared when it became a fight over delegates).
May I suggest Personal Representation, in which each citizen can choose their own personal representative who will vote on their behalf, in much the same way that shares are voted at a stockholder's meeting. Alternately, a person could hold on to their own vote and vote as they like, but only representatives with a minimum number of votes would be allowed a seat in Congress or allowed to sponsor a bill - everyone else would have to submit their votes remotely.
With this system, almost everyone would have a representative that they approve of. Persons with multiple, conflicting personalities would still be out of luck.
I tried to stir up some interest on Facebook, but didn't have much luck:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/I-want-Personal-Representation-in-Congress/109651832401918
A better solution is approval voting, where you essentially do a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on each candidate. There's no vote-splitting, and it avoids the situation of a third candidate stealing votes from a marginally-favored candidate (think Ralph Nader and Al Gore in 2000). (And DON'T FLAME ME about whether Gore was "marginally favored" or not - that's not my point!)
The biggest problem with getting approval voting into effect is likely to be that it seems to contradict the idea of "one person, one vote" - but cumulative voting would seem to raise the same objection.
Clinton's AG nominee? Got crucified in the confirmation hearings for her scholarly writings on this topic? Hello!!!!!!!!!
Cumulative Taxation. Taxpayers are 'given' a number of 'dollars' equal to the amount they owe the IRS, and on their tax form are allowed to specify how much of what they're paying goes to what agency or purpose. One possible outcome could be the rich, who often arrange tax havens, instead paying taxes to make sure they don't lose perks only they can afford to use but haven't had to subsidize. Another might be the realization of the bumper sticker favored by many educators and education supporters, where "textbooks are paid for by taxes and the Pentagon has to hold bake sales to buy bombs". Maybe more interesting to contemplate: what government departments or agencies would go bankrupt and have to close?
Of mine, NASA would get every dime.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Description on Wikipedia sounds complicated. Why not just give each voter three (say) ballot papers. Much easier to count and still provides most of the benefit.
Yes, and that's it.
With the current systems in use, what determines whether it's A or C is an infinitesimal epsilon.
Did I just see "Carly Fiorina" and "considerable accomplishments" in the same post?
If she mentions anything about synergies, economies of scale or anything that sounds remotely like merging with any nearby state I suggest you run to the hills.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Didn't Hari Seldon suggest this strategy after becoming Cleon's First Minister?
I voted for EVERYONE
This one has flaws too, but at least it's better than FPTP hopefully.
Some important things regarding the flaw of this voting method...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulative_voting#Voting_systems_criteria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulative_voting#Tactical_voting
The first link mentions that the "Independence of irrelevant alternatives" criteria is not satisfied by this voting method, which I've also seen called the "3rd-party spoiler effect." There are several other voting systems that do avoid this effect and more, and are equally simple. The simplest is an approval vote, where each voter gives a thumbs-up or down vote for each candidate (or a score from 1-10, or whatever). It's hot-or-not style voting, which people seem to understand quite easily. Another is an instant-runoff election where you rank your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice candidates. This doesn't work for multiple-seat elections. If by counting up all top votes one candidate gets a majority, they win. Otherwise the lowest vote-getter drops out of the running and their votes go to the 2nd choice listed. The process iterates until there is a majority winner. This got some good attention a while ago (including support early in Obama's political career), but is probably more complicated and no better than approval voting.
I believe, but can't prove because I'm too lazy, that a 2-party system is a stable equilibrium with the most common voting system in the US, plurality. Any 3rd-party works against its own interest, precisely because of this spoiler effect.
Sure, but we've got a million of these potential show-stoppers here, like complex butterfly ballots. We need a system where we can admit errors and fix things rather than one where we've painfully avoided features trying for radical simplicity.
Perhaps I should have said "deemed qualified to vote".As in the people who determined who was "qualified to vote" were in part the slave owners. It's little surprise they decided that slaves weren't "qualified to vote".
No I understand. My point is that while they slave-owners already would try to prevent the slaves from voting on emancipation (or anything else) a system of tests for voting would have simpler tests for simpler issues. This is already a problem and my ideas would make it vanishingly worse, if at all.
And, of course, there's the secret bonus level of democracy where the slaves rise up and vote with fire...
They are similar feelings, but not the same.
Some of the most monumentally bad leaders have been "strong willed", that by itself is not necessarily a positive quality.