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"Cumulative Voting" Method Gaining Attention

Posted by kdawson on from the vote-early-and-often dept.

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.

61 of 375 comments (clear)

  1. Sigh... by Antony-Kyre · · Score: 4, Informative

    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

    1. Re:Sigh... by BlueStrat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This one has flaws too, but at least it's better than FPTP hopefully.

      It's not good enough. We have the technology to run a democracy right now. Anything less is tyranny.

      Better take a look at past attempts at democracies, like ancient Greece. Pure democracies fail as soon as people realize they can vote themselves free stuff. That's part of the problem the US is having currently as ~46% (and growing rapidly) of US citizens pay no federal income taxes, so voting for more/larger entitlements doesn't cost them anything.

      These expansions in government give more & more power to those in government, thus giving them incentive to keep the feedback loop going until the system crashes.

      You want to destroy a country? Make it a democracy. A democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    2. Re:Sigh... by Third+Position · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

      -- Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill

      ...said the Prime Minister of a constitutional monarchy.

      --
      American Third Position
      Finally, a real choice!
    3. Re:Sigh... by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Funny

      Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
          -- Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill

      "I'll wager that a countryman's half of all Churchill quotations are fictions, dream'd up on a whim to aid the malarkinations of sophists and deceivers. I for one have never met the fucker, and know not one man of good sense who hath."

          -- Thomas Jefferson

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re:Sigh... by kvezach · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The best strategy in Cumulative voting is to vote plurality-style. You want to make a difference: well, the best way of doing that is pushing all your votes toward the candidate most likely to win that you like (the least of two evils) - that's pretty much what the page says.

      Personally, I'd be in favor of a Condorcet method for single-winner and a proportional representation method like STV for multiple winners. The Condorcet criterion simply says that if one candidate is preferred to every other one-on-one, then that candidate should win. It's like sports: if a team beats every other team outright, it should win. The Schulze method, which is a pretty good Condorcet method, is being used by Wikimedia, the Pirate Party of Sweden, and KDE already. It's not very easy to explain, however; if that's a goal, Ranked Pairs is pretty easy and good, too.

      Unlike the above, STV has actually been tried in America. New York used it in the 1930s-1940s until the established party machines abolished it by Red Scare tactics. STV's problem wasn't that it didn't work, its problem was that it worked too well. It is indeed interesting that the Republicans, who had no chance of winning pre-STV, actually opposed STV.

      One should be very careful about turning the multiwinner system, STV, into a single-winner system (IRV). Some groups in the US are trying to do so, most notably FairVote, and they are linking the concept of the ranked ballot to IRV itself. IRV is not a very good method: while it is more fair than Plurality, as another post here stated, Australia has been using IRV for a very long time and still has a two-party system.

      There is such a thing as a type of STV that becomes a Condorcet method when only electing a single winner: Schulze STV, but it is very complex; about the only chance one would have to implement it would be if the voting population could trust the method on performance alone, like a computer or other machine (which most people don't know how works, yet use).

    5. Re:Sigh... by paiute · · Score: 3, Funny

      Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

          -- Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill

      "I'll wager that a countryman's half of all Churchill quotations are fictions, dream'd up on a whim to aid the malarkinations of sophists and deceivers. I for one have never met the fucker, and know not one man of good sense who hath."

          -- Thomas Jefferson

      "What are you staring at, homo?"
      - Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, to FDR, after the PM emerged naked from his shower at Yalta.

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    6. Re:Sigh... by hibiki_r · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But they still pay all kinds of other taxes. Looking at federal income taxes is very skewed in favor of those that make a lot of money. Add payroll, sales and property, and the picture is a whole lot different. You end up with people who end up paying more taxes overall than people who pay federal income taxes, but it's all due to capital gains.

    7. Re:Sigh... by ignavus · · Score: 2

      A democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.

      It isn't any better the other way around: two sheep and a wolf voting on what's for dinner.

      You don't care how much of a majority the sheep have, you know that the wolf will eat them anyway.

      And THAT is democracy: the voters vote, and the corporations subvert both the voters (guess who own all the media?) and the government (guess who funds all the politicians?)

      --
      I am anarch of all I survey.
    8. Re:Sigh... by Lythrdskynrd · · Score: 2, Informative
      I had trouble believing that statistic. So I googled. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36226444 Fascinating.

      As it turns out, recent tax cuts indeed have an estimated half of citizens getting half their income tax back. Low income families. A family earning $50,000 with two children under 17 will get all their income tax back.

      Also says they still pay for other taxes. Income tax is roughly half of all tax paid (so if your total tax rate is 34% then you're still paying 17%).

      Also mentions that the reason the number has gotten so high is because of the recession.

      But income tax rates were lowered at every income level. The changes made it relatively easy for families of four making $50,000 to eliminate their income tax liability. Here's how they did it, according to Deloitte Tax: The family was entitled to a standard deduction of $11,400 and four personal exemptions of $3,650 apiece, leaving a taxable income of $24,000. The federal income tax on $24,000 is $2,769. With two children younger than 17, the family qualified for two $1,000 child tax credits. Its Making Work Pay credit was $800 because the parents were married filing jointly. The $2,800 in credits exceeds the $2,769 in taxes, so the family makes a $31 profit from the federal income tax. That ought to take the sting out of April 15.

      When I first read that stat I thought it sounded really sinister... but after reading the article, and finding that it's based on a family of four earning $50,000 a year, I'm a lot less worried about it. Two adults, both working, making that amount are still going to struggle to make ends meet with two hungry mouths to feed.

    9. Re:Sigh... by Gadzeus · · Score: 5, Informative

      We should represent our greatest heros with care. Churchill was by no means perfect but he was one of the best of us and is still held in the highest regard in Britain. There's no reason to sully his reputation with truncated quotations:

      “I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes,”...

      let our hero continue: ... “making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory [i.e., tear] gas.”

      The theme is concluded thus:

      “The moral effect should be so good as to keep loss of life reduced to a minimum” and “Gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror yet would leave no serious permanent effect on most of those affected.”

      I think you'll agree that the full text befits his reputation as Britain's visionary saviour, whereas the person who first sought to sully his reputation by offering up into popular currency the truncated misrepresentation of his view deserves shame.

  2. Single Transferable Vote by lul_wat · · Score: 3, Informative

    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?
    1. Re:Single Transferable Vote by LambdaWolf · · Score: 5, Informative

      It really is unfortunate that STV, proportional or otherwise, hasn't caught on more. You can sell instant-runoff voting in three sentences: "You can vote the new way or continue voting the old way. To vote the new way, number the candidates from 1 to n in your order of preference. To vote the old way, mark the candidate you want to vote for as 1 and leave the rest blank." There's really no disadvantage to it... except that it would give third parties a foothold against the entrenched two-party system, so why would any politician in power bother to support it? (Sorry to sound so cynical, on Slashdot no less.)

      Sadly, the notion that right-versus-left is American politics is getting more entrenched as well. The voters in my home state of California unfortunately just passed a ballot measure that will allow only two candidates on the ballot for any state general election. So long, third parties. Granted, most voters were probably taken in by the promise of open primaries, which was wrapped up in the same proposition and dominated the discussion. But that's just what was so outrageous about it: no one bothers to think that politics can be more subtle than Democrats versus Republicans.

      --
      "This algorithm runs in constant time. Come on, 2,147,483,648 is a constant..."
    2. Re:Single Transferable Vote by Relic+of+the+Future · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Except instant runoff doesn't really help third parties that much.

      Take a look at Australia. They've used IRV for over 100 years, and their house of representatives has two parties (well; one party and one 60+ year long two-member coalition that never oppose incumbent members of the other coalition-member; close enough.)

      But approval voting and score voting really CAN allow third-parties a foothold. http://rangevoting.org/

      --
      Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
    3. Re:Single Transferable Vote by PatHMV · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well, you omit 2 crucial facts about California. First, none of those 3rd parties getting onto the "general election" ballot had any chance of winning to begin with, correct? Second, ALL of those 3rd parties can participate equally in the new primary election, a non-partisan primary which results in the 2 highest vote getters, regardless of party, going to the general election.

      Thus, if a 3rd party has sufficient support to have any chance of prevailing in the general election, it must certainly have sufficient support to come in first or second in the primary election, yes? Or are you seriously arguing that a 3rd party might be able to garner 51% of the vote when running against the 2 major party candidates, but can't manage to get about 30% of the people to vote for it in a wide-open primary election?

    4. Re:Single Transferable Vote by TerranFury · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, it's not the voting system that locks out third parties; it's the reward system: In winner-take-all systems (as opposed to proportional systems as in many European parliaments), two-party systems emerge. This is Duverger's Law, a mostly-true empirical observation which has some possible theoretical explanations.

  3. "Fair representation" by Tridus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:"Fair representation" by DancesWithBlowTorch · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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."

      Well, it's pretty much the opposite. Cumulative voting is a system for elections involving party lists (such as city councils, in some jurisdictions). The point is that you get to assign your votes to the candidates you actually want to elect, rather than having to vote for a list of candidates that some party drew up for you, while still giving the parties a chance to nominate candidates and suggest to (not force upon) the voter a ranking among them.
      This system is commonly used in local elections in Switzerland and Germany. Works well there.

    2. Re:"Fair representation" by slick7 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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."

      A more fair representation would allow the "No Confidence" vote and a "Recall" vote box for each and every candidate in office every two years whether they are running or not. Then and only then will the *employees* of this nation take notice of their true employers. Also, no pay raise for any politician unless approved by 75% of the voting populace. And just like all the commercial businesses, the politicians should start paying a greater portion of their health benefits themselves and get off the free gravy train.

      --
      The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
  4. In use since 1870? by ascari · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yet it's news for nerds. Go figure.

  5. not proportional voting, rather representation by dltaylor · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:not proportional voting, rather representation by surveyork · · Score: 2, Informative

      Most of the World's democracies work with proportional representation, AFAIK. The American system of giving all the representatives of one state to the most voted party (national election) always looked odd to me. If I understand it correctly, a party getting 30% of the votes gets all the representatives if the other (hypothetical) parties get 29%, 29% and 12%. Doesn't seem fair.

      --
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    2. Re:not proportional voting, rather representation by taniwha · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think you're misinformed about how such things work. Here in New Zealand we use something very like the German system - while the tiny details may be different the basic idea is the same.

      Parliament or whatever has N seats, everyone gets two votes:
      - the first is for a local representative elected using FPP almost exactly as you do for the House in the US - there are N/2 local representative seats.
      - the second is for a party, after the first set of votes are counted and the number of party representatives with local seats are determined the total party votes for the country are tallied - the second N/2 seats are allocated to representatives off of party nominated lists so that when added to the first N/2 the party seat count in parliament comes out according to the second vote

      There are various details around minimum votes to get party seats and various rules for strange overhang situations that those can create that are different from system to system.

      And yes we haven't had a single government since we changed to this system where a single party got 50% or more of the vote - all governments have been coalitions - it means politicians have to make public agreements and compromises which result in them acting more constrained in their actions than they would have been if they'd gotten 30% of the votes in an FPP election but 60% of the seats - it's a wonderful thing - many of the politicians, especially the old school ones, hate it.

    3. Re:not proportional voting, rather representation by bhtooefr · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, don't get rid of the state legislatures.

      They're some of the last fragments of the way the US was supposed to work, before Lincoln screwed it all up with his ham-fisted approach to ending slavery, that ended up giving colossal power to the federal government.

      The states were supposed to have all the power, and to have that, you need your own governmental system.

      That's also why there's the electoral college - it's counterproductive in a federal-centric system, but it makes sense in a state-centric system. And the US Senate - which should be elected by the governments of the states, IIRC, NOT the people - that was an attempt to prevent mob rule, and represent the states themselves in US government - the House of Representatives was intended to represent the people.

    4. Re:not proportional voting, rather representation by trout007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I would still like to get rid of the 17th Amendment. Having the state governments representatives in Congress acts as another check against tyranny. One of the big problems states have right now is unfunded mandates coming down from on high. That might be prevented or at least curtailed.

      --
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  6. Ranking system by loufoque · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Ranking system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's still lightyears better than FPTP. Having a two party system only because of marketing rather than because the system actively abhors third parties is progressive like fucking space aliens handing down super-advanced direct-brain democracy technology compared to Britain.

      Share of vote: Labour 35%, Conservative 32%, Lib Dem 23%.

      Share of seats: Labour 39%, Conservative 47%, Lib Dem 8%.

      The Lib Dems needed 120,000 votes to win each of their seats. Labour needed 33,000.

      The system itself makes it almost literally impossible for a third party to win a share of the vote which is anything less than completely absurd. I wish our only problem was marketing,

    2. Re:Ranking system by tomhath · · Score: 2, Insightful

      then the best candidate should be B, not A or C

      Which is why a two party system is so much better than multiparty or cumulative. With two-party and one vote per candidate, both parties have to *compromise* in order to represent a majority of the electorate. Multiparty or cumulative voting means fringe groups get disproportionate representation.

      Those who want Puerto Rico statehood are stuck in your ABC scenario today (Statehood, Independence, sovereign protectorate, or status quo). The Obama administration is trying to force their agenda through by requiring a Yes/No vote on status quo first, then after that is off the table a second election to pick one of the other options. The slight plurality who will settle for nothing other than statehood will be happy, but the other 70% of the electorate will be very unhappy.

  7. Re:phew by exasperation · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well then it's a good thing that it's the judiciary's role to enact public policy!

    No, but it is the judiciary's duty to enforce the current law: the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

  8. Re:phew by Mitsoid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's unfortunate, but... you cant expect people whom have been voted into office will allow others to more easily take their place. I'm glad the judicial system can edge in on the election system (within its limits)...

    Though personally I don't think those whom are elected should be able to make/change laws about elections... but that would just make the system more complex and larger... So when the judicial system steps in and tries to keep things constitutionally in line I appreciate it.

  9. Some interesting stats by AHuxley · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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?

    --
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  10. The Illinois experience by PapayaSF · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
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    1. Re:The Illinois experience by Timmmm · · Score: 5, Insightful

      and was hard for voters to understand.

      Is there any alternative voting system which isn't "hard for voters to understand"? Of all the weaselly excuses to keep FPTP that is the lamest.

      Seriously. If you can't understand this:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cumballot.gif

      then maybe you shouldn't be voting.

    2. Re:The Illinois experience by Winckle · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's quite an unfortunate filename.

    3. Re:The Illinois experience by Hognoxious · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Someone clearly thinks it's hard to understand - they revised the diagram.

      And now it's more confusing. Would my vote be invalid if I put my red mark for Mary Hill in column one or two?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re:The Illinois experience by obarthelemy · · Score: 2, Informative

      that one is harder

      http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3e/Wcumballot.gif/160px-Wcumballot.gif

      I have problems with additions when I'm tired :-p

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    5. Re:The Illinois experience by obarthelemy · · Score: 2, Informative

      and that one

      http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e7/FracCumBallot.gif/180px-FracCumBallot.gif

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    6. Re:The Illinois experience by Anonymous+Custard · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Why should a stupid person have any less right to choose his representative than a smart person?

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    7. Re:The Illinois experience by CarpetShark · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah, people should really be using PNG these days.

    8. Re:The Illinois experience by jfb3 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Because they'll vote for Sarah Palin.

    9. Re:The Illinois experience by jimbolauski · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Seriously. If you can't understand this:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cumballot.gif

      then maybe you shouldn't be voting.

      Intelligence as a requirement for voting has been fought for a long time see voting tests.

      --
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      P= W/t
      t=Money
      Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
    10. Re:The Illinois experience by jimbolauski · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because they'll vote for Sarah Palin.

      Why are liberals so scared of Palin, do they fear a strong willed woman that some women would vote blindly for instead of blinding voting democrat.

      --
      Knowledge = Power
      P= W/t
      t=Money
      Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
    11. Re:The Illinois experience by Reality+Master+101 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why are liberals so scared of Palin...

      You don't have to be liberal to be scared of Palin. I fear Palin because she represents that absolute worst of politicians. She is totally ignorant, yet is so arrogant that she thinks that ignorance makes her more legitimate and "real". She literally thinks that she doesn't have to know anything, because God will give her the answer through prayer.

      I freaking HATE Palin. She is the absolute definition of a brainless demagogue.

      --
      Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
    12. Re:The Illinois experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      That's democracy.

      No, that's cummunism

    13. Re:The Illinois experience by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Scared? Hardly.

      Fear and dislike are completely different. And being a "strong willed woman" is not the problem. I've happily been voting for Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer for years now. And it'd be very hard to say that any on them are not strong-willed. In palin's case though. the overt malice, mind-boggling stupidity, and insufferably snotty attitude just lead to a pure and intense visceral emotional dislike of her. And that's *before* considering the damage she would do to the country if she were ever to wind up in a position of significant power.

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    14. Re:The Illinois experience by MrSteveSD · · Score: 2, Funny

      That's quite an unfortunate filename

      You'd have to measure votes by volume.

    15. Re:The Illinois experience by gringofrijolero · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That "idiocy" put over 12 million into her bank account

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    16. Re:The Illinois experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You think you're being clever, but you're not.

      The GP is right. Sarah Palin can hardly open her mouth without being snotty and condescending. And the only way you could not cringe when she spouts off with crap like: "Well, that's kinda like being a community organizer, dontcha know? Except that I had actual responsibilities." and not cringe at how obnoxious she was being is if you're nothing more than a partisan minion who's already made up his mind that all liberals are commie traitors and anyone who opposes them must be good regardless of any other consideration.

      Pelosi is an ass and the GP is obviously a San Francisco liberal. But he's right about Palin and Pelosi is a paragon of humility and intelligence in comparison. For better examples than his, consider Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, the (female) republican candidates for governor and senator in California; both of whom I, for one, will be voting for in november. Compare and contrast how they present and comport themselves in public compared to Palin's showboating antics. Compare their considerable accomplishments to Palin's utter lack therof.

      Democrats may have the wrong ideas (in my opinion) about how to run the country. But they're not evil and they're not traitors. And they are 100% right about Palin. We do all conservatives a disservice when we rally around dingbats like her, Michael Steele, and "joe the plumber". God... I'm almost glad that Bill Safire isn't around to see what we've become. Hopefully SOMEBODY will come along and rescue us from the idiots and fools running things now.

  11. Cumulative Voting and Vote-Splitting by prefec2 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Cumulative voting and vote-splitting is largely used in Germany on municipal contexts. So you could say that it has been evaluated now at least for 60 years and it worked perfectly. However, it is not used on state and federal level, but as we can vote there for different parties and not (only) for representatives which belong to parties, different social groups can vote for their party and get a fair share in the parliament.
    • CDU = conservatives/right wing/traditionalists
    • SPD = social democrats/becoming more and more conservative
    • Grüne = green party/for liberals and ecological motivated people
    • Linke = socialist party/party for the poor and for pacifists
    • FDP = neo liberal party/for those who have money and do not want to share their wealth as they do not see that they are also responsible for the poor in the country (as stated in the German constitution)
    • DVU/REP/NDP = very right wing nationalists/only present in parliaments in some eastern states of Germany

    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).

  12. Single Transferable Vote by rfugger · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  13. Re:phew by obarthelemy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The main issue with the US voting system (well, apart from "lobbying" which is actually legalized corruption) is gerrymandering, with which outgoing politicians try and tailor constituencies to maximize the probably they'll be reelected, and the numbers of successful candidates on their sides. Apart from the judiciary, who's gonna stop them ?

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  14. Negative votes by michelcolman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Negative votes by Rakeris · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Personally I like proportional voting systems; example: Say there are 100 seats in the legislature, party "A" gets 40% of the votes party "B" gets 30% of the votes, party "C" gets 25% and party "D" gets 5%. So they get a number of seats proportional to the votes they receive. Party A gets 40 seats and so on. Party D however doesn't get any seats as there is an 8% minimum you have to reach to get in the legislature, to help prevent radical minorities getting a foot hold. (last part is just kinda in-theory)

      But I think a system like this would benefit the US a lot, would really get 3rd parties on the map.

      --
      If brute force isn't working, you are not using enough.
  15. Re:I agree this is bad. by bhtooefr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Electoral college wasn't intended for the top-heavy government we have today - it was intended for the pre-Lincoln weak central, strong state governments. And the people weren't SUPPOSED to elect the President or Senators - the people got to elect the House of Representatives - that was for the state governments themselves.

  16. Everybody get 6 votes. by spaceturtle · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  17. Re:Equal Protection? by bhtooefr · · Score: 2, Informative

    No, looks like everyone gets six votes.

    What it looks like to me is that, under the old system, there was one candidate being elected at a time. So, 25% of the people wanted a Hispanic in office, apparently, but everyone else didn't.

    Under the new system, all six candidates get elected at a time. Those 25% of the people now got their wishes heard, because everyone was running against everyone, and not some crap like being pre-assigned a seat, and having to fight for that seat (at least that's how things work here in Ohio, if there's multiple seats in the same position up for grabs, things might work differently there) - and, if someone didn't mind the hispanic guy, they could say that, even if they were really voting for someone else.

  18. Re:The "fairest" thing since affirmative action by u38cg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You are rather misrepresenting the liberal position on positive discrimination. The point is not that one group is *inherently* smarter than another; it is that the entrenched disparity due to socio-economic factors is such that simple equality of treatment will not erode the differences between these groups over any meaningful timescale. Personally, I would prefer to see other solutions than simply applying skewed tests, but I do believe it is a problem that ought to be addressed in some way. What has your party done to deal with it?

    --
    [FUCK BETA]
  19. Re:The "fairest" thing since affirmative action by Noonian+Soong · · Score: 4, Informative

    it's making everyone else's vote count as 1/6th the vote of people "selected" by the government.

    If that was the case, cumulative voting would be bad, yes. But it doesn't work that way. What cumulative voting is, it gives everyone more votes to distribute among candidates. So everyone's vote is basically split into fractions, but everyone's ballot has the same weight overall. So if I (and everyone else) got 10 votes, I might chose to give 3 (respectively 3/10 of my vote) votes to candidate A, 2 (2/10) to candidate C, D, and J and 1 (1/10) vote to candidate X. This way, I can show that I like candidate A the most, but I'm also ok with candidates C, D, J, and X, but not with everyone else on the ballot.

    --
    The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.
  20. Re:Equal Protection? by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is the first article I have seen that actually thoroughly explains the new system. Up until now, I had a problem with it, however after reading what is actually going on I no longer do.
    Under the old system, two of the seats were up for vote at a time and you got to vote for which person you wanted in each seat, but you had to choose a different person for each seat. Under the new system, all six seats are up for election at a time and you get to vote for which person you want in each seat, but you can choose the same person for all six seats. The six candidates who get the most votes get the seats (even if they did not get all of their votes for the same seat). Also, this is the first article I have seen that mentions that the town suggested this solution.

    --
    The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
  21. Arrow's Impossibility theorem by langelgjm · · Score: 2, Informative

    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
  22. Voting? Useless. by Fantastic+Lad · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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

  23. pinch me by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

    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."