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An Analysis of Various Election Methods 646

Posted by michael from the anything-would-be-a-step-forward dept.
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."
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An Analysis of Various Election Methods More

An Analysis of Various Election Methods

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  • Must explain in one sentence or less (Score:5, Insightful)

    by siriuskase ( 679431 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @01:12AM (#10411560) Homepage Journal
    Much as we need a better system, it won't catch on if it can't be explained in one simple sentence.

    • Re:Must explain in one sentence or less (Score:5, Informative)

      by UserGoogol ( 623581 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @01:21AM (#10411594)
      The person who is would win a one-on-one vote against for every other candidate wins, if such a person exists.
    • I am more concerned by the level to which misinformation and spin has weakened our democracy. I am not sure how we can curtail the 30 second attack ads without stepping on first amendment issues, but there is no doubt that money and marketing have taken precedence over meaningful discussion of the issues. I had high hopes for the McCain/Feingold capaign finance reform bill, but I was evidently niave. Anyone out there have ideas on how to fix the current broken system.
    • Approval Voting is very easy to explain: vote for ("approve") as many candidates as you wish (no ranking), and the candidate with the most votes wins. There it is in one sentence.

      Approval voting requires no new voting equipment. It could be implemented very quickly once a consensus is reached, and it would truly revolutionize our political system, giving minor parties a much fairer chance than they now have.

      One caveat: it will not work well in US Presidential elections as long as the Electoral College in
      • One caveat: it will not work well in US Presidential elections as long as the Electoral College in place.

        Why not? The current Electoral College system simply requires that the presidency be decided on a state-by-state basis. Nothing prevents any state from using approval voting to choose its electors.

        Would you say that approval voting can't work in an election for a congressman? Choosing presidential electors is no different.

        • Approval Voting (or any other alternative election method) can be used with the Electoral College in place, but then it can't help minor parties get a fair chance.

          Think about it. Suppose your state uses Approval Voting and selects Nader. Now, the spoiler effect is just transferred to the national level, where Nader can spoil the race in the EC. Your state "wasted" its electoral votes on Nader. Most people will figure this out in advance (or be told) and won't let it happen.

    • Re:Must explain in one sentence or less (Score:5, Funny)

      by TPIRman ( 142895 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:11AM (#10411789)
      I agree, citizens won't tolerate any complications in their voting system. Especially Americans, who are just too accustomed to the straightforward, ultra-simple, intuitive U.S. electoral college to comprehend anything complex.

    • Re:Must explain in one sentence or less (Score:5, Informative)

      by bgog ( 564818 ) * on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:26AM (#10411836) Journal
      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.

    • Re:Must explain in one sentence or less (Score:4, Funny)

      by NegativeOneUserID ( 812728 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:26AM (#10411838)
      Much as we need a better system, it won't catch on if it can't be explained in one simple sentence.
      I can do it in four....

      1) Eenie meenie miney moe.
      2) Catch a tiger by the toe.
      3) If he squeals, let him go.
      4) Eenie meenie miney moe.

      Although I do feel this is the better system, you are probably right in saying the average american would find this confusing.

    • The REAL reason (Score:3, Insightful)

      by joib ( 70841 )
      I don't agree with you. If you believe people are so stupid that they can't comprehend to rank candidates in order of preference (Condorcet) or simply put a mark on the ballot for all the candidates they approve (approval voting), how the h*ll do you think they are going to make an informed decision as to which politician best represents their interests?

      Yes, there's always going to be some dofus who doesn't get it (Florida anyone?), but for the most part the electorate understands perfectly well how to vot
    • But our current system takes three simple sentences; one simple sentence for instruction, and two simple sentences for scoring.

      Instruction to voters: Select one candidate from the choices available.

      Scoring explanation: The candidate who is selected by the most voters wins. In case of a tie (flip a coin / vote in the Senate / etc.)

      The reason this seems simple is because we are familiar with it. The reason approval voting seems simple is because it is a modification of it. But Condorcet is only slightly

  • Mechanism not listed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blamanj ( 253811 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @01:16AM (#10411576)
    One mechanism I've not seen discussed is one I'll call a "voter economy". It probably has a real name, but it's not on that site and it seems like a reasonable system to me.

    In this system, you get a certain number of votes (say 5x the number of candidates) and you can "spend" those votes however you like. So if you really like candidate A, you spend all your votes on A. If you like A a little, hate B, and would prefer C, you can spend 75% of your votes on C, 25% on A, and none on be.

    This, to me, seems much better than ranking systems, since you can specifiy how much you prefer one candidate over another. It should be easy to explain, since people are used to the idea of spending.

    Mathematicians, tell me whether or not this is a workable system.
    • If you must spend all votes, then the system becomes non-repudiable, which as I mentioned in another post, is a very serious problem with approval voting.

      In straight approval voting, what stops the guys that take your ballot from marking their candidate of choice on your ballot?
    • What you're proposing is a modified version of Range Voting [wikipedia.org], which has its proponents.

    • Re:Mechanism not listed (Score:5, Informative)

      by shobadobs ( 264600 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @01:31AM (#10411637)
      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.
      • Borda voting in action [cnn.com]... that's my personal theory on how the "World Idol" thing went, every country placed the weird looking Norwegian guy second because they didn't think he'd win

      • Re:Mechanism not listed (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bfree ( 113420 )

        I find it amusing that you describe the very aim of the voting method and then describe it as a drawback! If everyone votes perversely (i.e. not in their order of preference but to screw someone) then is it the systems fault that they get the result they deserve?

        In your scenario, lets assume that Myrtle is a hedonistic "spring break" type trip, Chicago is just another big city and Toronto is a "music lovers paradise" (meaning the trip will entail non-stop musical activities), then while lots of people ma

    • This has the same problem as our current system... Most people will spend 100% of their votes on the major candidate they dislike the least, in order to prevent the opposition from winning.

      No, it's not a good system.

    • Cumulative voting (Score:3, Insightful)

      by robla ( 4860 ) *
      The system you are referring to is cumulative voting [wikipedia.org]. The problem is that the strategy are very complicated in this system, and the "spending" metaphor doesn't entirely hold up. When you spend money, you get what you pay for (literally). When you vote, you're not actually buying 75% of one candidate, and 25% of another candidate. Your vote, along with everyone else's vote, is mixed up in a big pool, and a winner is chosen. Thus, the consequences and benefits of spending all your money in one place vers

    • Re:Mechanism not listed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MourningBlade ( 182180 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:06AM (#10411769) Homepage

      A sibling post mentioned Borda, and he is correct, this maps to Borda.

      Another issue with Borda-type systems is voting strategy.

      If you run a scare campaign, you can convince people that it is vital your campaign succeed. Of course, your opponent will do likewise.

      Of course, just about every presidential campaign in memory has been that way: vote for me OR ELSE.

      So how does Borda deal with this? If it's vital that your opponent lose, you have to put the maximum vote on a candidate likely to defeat him. In your system, that would mean putting all 5x the available options onto one candidate. Any other option would reduce the strength of your vote.

      So, Borda devolves into our current system.

      You want to use a system that does not punish you for stating a preference. Condorcet does this. IRV does this better than the current system, but not as well as it could. Approval voting doesn't punish, either (though you could argue that it doesn't reward).

      A large part of the issue with any voting system is you have to consider how it will be used. You will have some very intelligent people out there attempting to manipulate those votes.

      In disclosure, I believe in doing either Condorcet or Approval voting, preference to Condorcet in the future, Approval today.

    • What about combining this system with the Condorcet method:

      In a first step, use only the relative order of candidate votes to get the preferences of candidates, and calculate the Smith set (just as you'd do with the Concordet method). If that gives a clear winner, then we are ready. Otherwise, for all candidates in the Smith set, add the preference numbers, and the one with the highest vote wins. If there are two or more candidates with the same total vote, apply the Concordet method to the set of those (b

  • Approval voting and security (non-repudiability) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Corpus_Callosum ( 617295 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @01:17AM (#10411577) Homepage
    The biggest problem that I can see with systems such as approval voting is that it is not non-repudiable. In other words, it would be impossible to verify that election results were not changed. A recount would not be able to detect changes made after a voter made his/her marks.

    With a one voter, one vote system, it is easy to count the number of voters and the number of votes and ensure that the results were not modified.

    I believe that this is a pretty important characteristic and I am a bit skeptical about who is pushing approval voting.
    • I think the idea is to have a yes and no bubble after every name. I don't know what it means to skip a name. Permision for poll officer to vote for you?
      • I think the idea is to have a yes and no bubble after every name. I don't know what it means to skip a name. Permision for poll officer to vote for you?

        That does not address the problem. It only ensures that a fair re-count has the opportunity to be fair. However, when all the numbers are added up, you still have an arbitrary number that has nothing to do with the number of voters and therefore lacks a general credibility. The modification to this scheme proposed as economy voting in a previous post
        • The number of ballots should equal the number of people who cast ballots, though, should it not? And would this not provide the number you're looking for?

        • Re:Approval voting and security (non-repudiability (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Ricdude ( 4163 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:11AM (#10411788) Homepage
          Y + N + A = T*C

          Y = total number of "approve", N = total number of "disapprove", A = "abstain", T = total voters, C = number of candidates.

          Although, I would go for IRV personally. 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 shown in 2000, this can be a factor in pushing a "dark horse" candidate to the top, even if that candidate represents the views of fewer voters. The classic example is: A gets 30 votes, B (similar platform as A) gets 30 votes, C (diametrically opposed to A) gets 40 votes and wins. Clearly, either A or B would more closely represent the views of more voters than C.

          IRV fixes this problem. Realistically, in IRV, you would have people generally voting for the "left" candidates, and people generally voting for "right" candidates. You would not have preference lists of "Cobb", "Bush", "Kerry". These are the types of contrived preference lists that are purported to show that IRV is poorly designed.

          In more realistic situations, IRV allows voters to unequivocably state a true "first choice" candidate/platform, and also state a "safe" vote for someone more likely to win, whom they could live with. With plurality voting, many times the smart choice is to vote for the "safe" candidate, thus giving the candidate the potentially mistaken opinion that all who voted for them did so as their first choice.
          • In case you didn't explore the site fully, this page [electionmethods.org] 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 uneve

    • Re:Approval voting and security (non-repudiability (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Oh it's easy to count, eh?

      That's why there has never been voting fraud using those systems? Notably the US 2000 theft? I doubt approval voting is any less verifiable. The truth is your verifiability criterion has never been exercised. Non-repudiable this, buddy. A real system needs to be implemented for auditing instead of twisting the scheme itself to accomodate.

      http://www.truevotemd.org/

      On the motivation: Some people think that since plurality voting causes as an artifact a two-party system, that

    • Checksum (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Llywelyn ( 531070 )
      We've been dealing with this for years in the computer world using checksums. I don't see why that wouldn't work here.

      For instance, let's say we have a punch card ballot with a machine operating it. It marks each person you wanted to vote for, then it marks *the number of people voted for*.

      Suddenly, it is easy to detect tampering. People can still invalidate the vote, but they can do that when there is only one hole in the card as well by punching another one for another candidate.

      That is, of course,

      • Re:Checksum (Score:4, Interesting)

        by cryptochrome ( 303529 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @09:27AM (#10412947) Journal
        Punch cards have many other problems, are well documented, so probably we shouldn't be doing that. Scantron ballots are a little worrisome, but if you make people bubble in the "unapproved" too it fixes that nicely. Machines and touchscreens, it doesn't matter.

        The topic raises a very good point. Depending on your voting hardware, there is no direct way for you or the voting council tell if the ballot has been modified after the fact if you were just specifying your approved candidates. Specifying unapproved candidates, or total candidates approved, helps a little, but complicates the procedure and is prone to error.

        The question is how easy is it to enact WIDE-SCALE tampering - the only kind that matters. The key thing is that the best strategy in approval is to vote for your choice of the two front-runners, and any third party candidates. That means that in an election, the winner will likely be receiving more than 50% of the votes, because in a closely contested race everyone will want to specify their lesser of two evils, since they can also specify their true choice. Simply adding approvals for the loser on ballots would mean that BOTH were getting better than 50% - a highly suspicious situation where some voters voted for both. If NO votes were approved by more than 50% under approval (but were close), then tampering becomes attractive. But frankly in that range tampering is attractive under any system. Just ask Florida.

        I'm not sure how approval would be affected if there is no clear front-runner, or if somehow both front-runners really ARE approved of by majorities of the people. Frankly, the divisive tendency of plurality has warped our approach to candidates so much it's hard to say how people might vote if they were free of the two-party control over the whole system.

        If the ballots deviate too much from the polls and from the general populous's will, people will notice and cry foul. Only closely contested or poll-free elections can get away with it. And to get away with it when you're only able to tamper with existing ballots, you need to be able to delete votes rather than just add in any system.

        In the end, ballot integrity for ANY system depends primarily on a corruption-free voting administration. Checking an extra box on a ballot is possibly the easiest way to corrupt a vote, but like all tampering it requires allowing people or hardware to access and tamper with the votes, either before (software) during (electronic and lever) or after (paper of any kind; counting machines) voting. And pure mechanical or electronic systems can tamper however they want - so long as the end result looks plausible and doesn't contradict the paper trail if there is one.

        So on that basis, I think that Approval voting is no worse off than any other voting system in terms of corruptibility.

  • No perfect system (Score:5, Informative)

    by harlows_monkeys ( 106428 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @01:17AM (#10411578) Homepage
    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 [wikipedia.org].

    • Re:No perfect system (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 02, 2004 @01:35AM (#10411650)
      I totally agree.

      Anybody who advocates one system as more platonically better needs to read Arrow, but anyways, in my analysis, I prefer IRV/STV voting over Condercet voting, especially in multi-seat elections. Why? If all seats were chosen by condercet voting, all seats would be the kinda middle of approval. It doesn't provide for proportional representation, _at all_.

      The multi-seat form of IRV, called Choice Voting (generally called Single-Transferable Voting (STV)), is preferable to Condercet if you aren't doing a straight party vote for bringing forth a diversity of representation. STV allows any minority group that can reach the election threshold (VotesTotal / (NumSeats + 1)) at least one seat of representation.

      Further, in a representative system where there are multiple seats and they are all elected singularly, IRV would be preferable for the same reason (more likely to provide minority representation to increase the dialectic, because it heavily penalizes the person who can't get first place votes (if you got second place votes on all ballots, you may not win), giving third parties much more representation. In a single seat non-aggregate position (such as the Presidency), Condercet voting would probably be the best system.

      However, we should all look back to Arrow's Theorem and remember that all voting systems are merely ways to reduce the input from direct democracy to a "managable" level for the elites, and thus they are flawed because OF COURSE they are losing data by "downsampling". Thus, if you want to really be heard, be active, get out, vote, be involved, write letters, run for office yourself and work to integrate real democracy, not just temporary dictatorships.
      • Would STV require a change to the Constitution for use on federal elections? You seem to be talking about adding indirect election to the House and Senate, basically (well, at least the House).

        • Re:No perfect system (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Yes, it would, but so would Condercet Voting. IRV itself on the other hand can be wiggled around the constitutional requirements, which is why Greens support it as the _first step_ to a fairer electoral system -- understanding that it's not perfect, but an incremental improvement that can be done without much tweaking of the seat structures.

          One way to implement Choice Voting at the state level though that might be both constitutional and something that can be done on a state-by-state method would be to do
      • That was staggeringly insightful, and I wish I had mod points. Some questions, though:

        The Wiki article says: "With a narrower definition of "irrelevant alternatives" which excludes those candidates in the Smith set, some Condorcet methods meet all the criteria."

        Doesn't this mean that no system is perfect, but some Condorcet methods get close? Doesn't that make the Condorcet method superior?

        Also, I agree totally about proportional representation. However, couldn't there be some way to modify the Condor

    • No one disputes that Arrow is a brilliant economist, who came up with a very mathematically interesting theorem. However, "reasonable" is entirely subjective, and there's a case to be made that one of his criteria (independence of irrelevant alternatives [wikipedia.org]) is not entirely reasonable.

      There's a fairly good rebuttal of this [electionmethods.org] on the electionmethods.org website.

      Rob

  • The Two Party System (Score:3, Informative)

    by Izaak ( 31329 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @01:21AM (#10411596) Homepage Journal
    The attractive thing about runoff elections is they make it more viable to have more than two parties. Unfortanetly, the two major parties have stacked things to make it difficult for a viable third party to establish itself.

  • Take your pick (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gladed ( 451363 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @01:22AM (#10411598) Journal
    Electoral College vs IRV vs Condorcet vs ... but how will we decide which system to use, since a majority vote obviously isn't good enough? Do we draw straws?

    Actually the only thing I can't decide on is, which is the sillier idea:

    1. Joe Voter will correctly navigate a ranking system, when he can't even push the whole chad out of the correct row.
    2. Joe Voter has even the foggiest notion what's best for the country.
    • Electoral College vs IRV vs Condorcet vs ... but how will we decide which system to use, since a majority vote obviously isn't good enough? Do we draw straws?

      But this is always a problem with democratic systems. At some level, someone has to make a decision, and simply inflict it upon people.

      You can ask the people, with a simple yes/no vote once you've made the decision, but the details of how that vote works also have to be chosen by someone.

      Joe Voter will correctly navigate a ranking system, w

    • Re:Take your pick (Score:4, Interesting)

      by MourningBlade ( 182180 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:17AM (#10411810) Homepage

      The dilemma you mention is a serious one: do our voters know what's best for the country?

      Our system of voluntary association and contract was established because it was decided that no one really knew what was best for the country, only what was best for themselves. So leave the people free to do best for themselves (within certain rules), enforce the rules, and people will do as best they can.

      I don't think we should be using our votes to decide a "direction" for the country. I believe our individual actions will decide a direction. Our votes should be regarding what ground rules we want, and who we wish to enforce them.

      "Only slaves pull as a team. Free men pull in all sorts of directions."

    • And your alternative is? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by freejung ( 624389 ) * <webmaster@freenaturepictures.com> on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:31AM (#10411847) Homepage Journal
      Joe Voter has even the foggiest notion what's best for the country

      So, would you then prefer to live in a dictatorship? Seriously, democracy has its flaws and this is one of them, but the alternatives are much worse because they take away our freedom.

      Furthermore, this attitude is seriously elitist. Joe Voter may know more than you give him credit for. Of course most people don't understand the technical details of how to run the country, indeed, no one person really understands that. But the population as a whole should determine things like general direction and basic values, which is what you're supposed to be voting for when you vote for a candidate.

      Joe Voter doesn't know what's best for the whole country, but he often has a pretty good idea what's good for him, and since the country is just Joe Voter in aggregate, its interest is just his interest in aggregate.

      The problem we have in our system is not so much that the voters are stupid, but that their opinions have been deliberately manipulated so as to be contrary to their own interest. But this doesn't always work: "you can't fool all the people all the time," and democracy is still the best chance we have to get a government that represents the interest of the general population. As it is, we have an oligarchy representing the interests of the priviledged few. Moving in a more democratic direction would help to correct that.

  • Won't Change (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zors ( 665805 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @01:23AM (#10411608)
    To be honest, i dont think our voting msystem is going to change. Between public apathy and the unwillingness of the establishment to change what benefits them -- not saying they're necessarily evil, but come on, for them it's not broke, so why fix it?-- there's never going to be enough inertia in the movement to move it onto either the systemic or institutional agendas. And frankly, if the 2000 election fiasco wasnt enough to get people to go after their elected representatives, nothing will.

    Or maybe i'm just Apathetic.
    • You're forgetting.

      Any of these changes increases the viability of third parties.

      Both current parties have a vested interest in preventing any attempt to increase the viability of third parties.
    • Or maybe i'm just Apathetic.

      If you were apathetic, you won't bother reading the flammage in the politics section, and you certainly wouldn't bother posting (unless you're drunk and just having fun). I think you're like many of us--aware of the limitations of your knowledge and frightened by the likelihood of being wrong.

      At some point, though, you either decide to commit yourself to something and charge headlong into the foray or you stick with the safe option and sit on your ass.
  • Look, our current system is as simple as it can get, and people in Florida still had problems with it. Anything more complicated and people's heads will explode in the voting booth.

    Also the reason that there are two parties is, well, because no other perspective has garnered enough voters to perpetuate itself. Back in the day there were multiple parties, but most of those points of view are long gone.

    As time goes on and people see what works and what doesn't, the field narrows. What's left are single-issu
  • The ballots would be the same as in instant runoff voting. Only difference is a more mathematically reasonable outcome.

  • Simulation Of Voting Models for Close Election (Score:5, Informative)

    by Isomorph ( 760856 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @01:30AM (#10411634)
    Another interesting thing to read is this essay by Brian Olson.

    He has made a simulation that is open source.

    So hack away. Look here [bolson.org] and here [bolson.org].

    • Slashdot Poll (Score:3, Insightful)

      by j3110 ( 193209 )
      So why doesn't the slashdot poll use this method...

      If we want to argue that alternative voting isn't complicated, the best step in that direction is to implement it ourselves in a very simple manner. /. has a decent sized community.

      I propose the first poll on the new system ask what poll is best. :)

      Until /. implements something other than plurality, I don't want to hear any complaining that the US Government should.

  • Operating under another *assumption* (Score:4, Informative)

    by ari_j ( 90255 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @01:34AM (#10411645)
    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.

    • Re:Operating under another *assumption* (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      mostly sane? I guess if the two candidates from the two parties are consistantly both consumate and demonstratable liars and large segments of the population tend to vote for one or the other out of fear of one or the other is sane in your eyes, then you have a point.

      But I think this is just plain nuts. Electoral college was great before TV. We need something to dilute the power structure. We need better representation. You know, too many Americans don't vote at all, because they don't think it will make
      • I only want to point out one thing that isn't quite accurate.

        I know it's not your main point, but you say "too many Americans don't vote at all, because they don't think it will make a difference or feel represented."

        Actually, this is one of the mystifying things about democracy. The plain truth of the matter is that we don't *know* exactly why more people don't vote. There are a number of theories, but for each of them there is a body of data suggesting they are wrong. Which is to say, for every piece of
        • Actually, this is one of the mystifying things about democracy. The plain truth of the matter is that we don't *know* exactly why more people don't vote. There are a number of theories, but for each of them there is a body of data suggesting they are wrong. Which is to say, for every piece of evidence suggesting people don't vote because they are disaffected, or whatever, there is another piece of evidence suggesting people don't vote because they generally think things are fine the way they are.

          Last week
      • Actually, the Electoral College, in its original and proper form (to which I think we should return), gives minor parties a chance. The problem is that the major parties have hijacked the system by fining electors who vote against party lines. I think that each state should set its own standards for selecting electors (some states are far from the status quo on this already, with others like Colorado holding referenda this fall to decide whether to change). I also think that the electoral college should

    • I think we should continue the Electoral College system. It works well.

      I think we can use Condorcet, IRV, Approval, or other such voting systems to choose the winner for each state. Keep the current system, just update the decision method. Same benefits, better expression of preference.

    • Rural voters get to have votes that are worth significantly more than the votes of city dwellers and they are worried about being disenfranchised? City voters are the majority of americans and their votes count for less. Please explain to me how that makes sense.

      As it stands the president must pander to a tiny minority of americans while the concerns of a majority of americans are sidelined - you know those who design, manufacture market and manage everything that isn't grown on a farm. The people that
    • 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.

      I wouldn't say most methods operate under the assumption that the popular vote is what matters. For example, in Canada we have 4 parties which got seats in the last federal election. There are 308 seats. The Liberal Party has 135, the Conservative

    • Tough shit for rural voters... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Goonie ( 8651 ) * <robert.merkel@be n a m b r a . o rg> on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:49AM (#10411883) Homepage
      This self-serving rubbish gets thrown up by rural voters, and the mostly conservative politicians who rely on their disproportionate electoral influence, all the friggin' time. Your contention that those sheep living New York, LA, and Chicago are more susceptible to charismatic bullshit-spinners than the good citizens of Bum's Rush, Alabama simply isn't supported by any evidence.

      In my experience, the only thing that electoral bias in favour of rural voters does is to artificially inflate farmers property values by turning them into into welfare recipients (in all but name), while indulging their worst tendancies to blame people who aren't WASPs for the world's problems and tell everybody else what they can and can't do in their own bedrooms.

      The subsidy for American farmers works out to about $20,000 per rural job - yep, those salt of the earth folks you love so much have a huge proportion of their income paid by those city pagans. That's what the electoral college, and 2 senators per state regardless of population, does.

      • Check out the facts first (Score:4, Interesting)

        by slashing1 ( 818431 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @05:01AM (#10412229)
        There is no question that American agricultural subsidies and protectionism are completely screwed up and hurting both American consumers and the international market for agricultural products. For someone to blame this on our electoral college and our senator election method, however, is hard to fathom. Take a look at the other major wealthy, developed nations-- Europe and Japan have even worse policies regarding agricultural supports and tariffs. The question is, why is this?

        During the time period of the Great Depression, many economies around the world were suffering greatly, and the agricultural sector in particular was hurt globally. Countries responded by passing extremely harsh anti-trade legislation to try to protect their own economies through "screw-your-neighbor" terms of trade. After WWII, politicians wised up and starting relaxing these trade barriers, but many countries were afraid to expose their agricultural sector to greater risks. Effectively, farmers had suffered enough, and they hadn't gotten a big jumpstart from the industrial war effort. As such, trade liberalization occurred primarily in the manufacturing sector.

        All the crap you see today with agriculture is a legacy of that ultraprotectionist era, and developing countries still pay the price today. There is some hope with the latest Doha round of trade talks, but don't expect any major changes soon.

    • It's obviously broke (Score:4, Insightful)

      by freejung ( 624389 ) * <webmaster@freenaturepictures.com> on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:57AM (#10411905) Homepage Journal
      I don't know what universe you're talking about, but the America I live in is ruled almost entirely by corporate interests, with the population only having a marginal say about mostly irrelevant social issues. In the America I live in, most people don't seem to think government represents them very well, nor that their parties represent them very well, but they are forced to vote for what they regard as the lesser of two evils. In the America I live in, polls consistently show that people lack confidence in our leaders, either government or corporate, and yet they continue to vote for them because they have no real choice. I'd say that's pretty severely broke.

  • Rank voting confusion (Score:4, Interesting)

    by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @01:41AM (#10411673)
    First let me say that I do support ranked voting schemes for Instant run-off type voting. However I want to address the usual bull that these systems are more optimal than the system we have in place.

    There supposed advantage of IRV is that its a more of a grey scal e vote that allows voters to vote for a wider spectrum of candidates without worrying about voting for a spoiler. It supposedly remedies the complaint that we have a bistable system that only supports two parties.

    In actual fact there is no evidence that a bistable system is bad. Indeed the entire point of our electoral system in that the winning person enters witha strong mandate to govern, not be voted in as the lesser of multiple evils as a third choice candidate everyone could agree upon. You want a candidate that can enter office and govern with a single uncompromoised point of view for an effective period of time. You get the balance between point of views ergodically over time not by having a compromise up front. There is an old sayng that there is the right way, the wrong way and the army way. Its a joke and a truth. What it means is that in war waiting for the perfectly thought out plan is not effective--its better to have an acceptable plan than none at all even it it sometimes is couter productive in specific instances.

    one can contrast and compare our 2-party system with another gray scale system: parlimentary systems. in parlimentary systems there is more of a grey scale of representation, however that is not how the voting occurs. What happens is that a consenus coalition forms a govenrment and rules with complete authority. compromise happens only within the coalition not the entire body of elected officials. So once again a strong leadership emerges and can govern effectively. In our system the same sorts of intra-organizational consensus happens but it happens at an earlier stage. If the greens get too powerful the democrats move to co-opt their positions. That might piss off the greens as a party but basically it means the greens won if your opponents adopt your platform issues. So assimilation at an early stage replaces overt inter-party consensus at the end stage. In some ways this is better. For example, a single issue minor party that joins a parlimentary consenus can in return giving up all other issues create disporotionate havoc if it does not get its way on its single issue, say mandatory prayer in schools. In contrast a two party system is less beholden to fringe elements.

    A final system is our electoral college. Many people mistakenly believe it somphow is wrong that someone could win the popular vote and lose in the electoral college. Wrong. To govern effectively a president has to be able to pass bills in both the house and the senate. there is a deliberate small-state bias in the senate. Therefore the best candidate for president is not the most popular one but the one whose popularity is spread out over the greatest number of states. willing a large popular vote in CA, NY, Ohio, texas and florida might win the popular vote but would make for an awful presidency. the person who is favored by in more states is actually going to be able to work more effectively with congress.

    SO basically, while I support IRV systems because I like the idea of getting more diversity in candidates, I also recognize that it is not gaurentteed to produce a more stable or more representative or more efffective from of government.

    • Re:Rank voting confusion (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hak hak ( 640274 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @05:13AM (#10412249)
      If I understand correctly, you're saying that a two-party system is good because it ensures the winning candidate will have the support of a large part of the population. This support might be only formal for a part of the population (the people who vote for the "lesser of two evils"), however. I think the fundamental problem is that in the US, a great deal of importance is given to the president, a person with considerable power.

      In many other democracies, such as in the Netherlands (where I live), there is no single powerful leader. The government is in practice always a coalition, and the most powerful person, the prime minister, in some way has to represent the whole coalition instaed of only his own party. In this way, just about any party has a chance to enter the government; for example, one of the three parties in the government right now is D66, a party which presumably would be the Libertarians if we were the US, although they only have somewhere around ten of the 150 seats in Parliament. This must sound very appealing to a great deal of you US-based Slashdotters (I'm not a fan of D66 at all, but that aside). Yet, how is the parliament elected? With a simple single-vote system.

      In short, maybe all these complicated election methods are only necessary because of the need to elect a single person. This may be a more flawed thing than the election system itself.

  • If you want to come up with a scheme to improve American elections, it better not have any froofy french-sounding name like "Condorcet" attached to it.

    "Instant Runoff" works, because it sounds like some new kind of lottery ticket.

  • Do you really need voting to have a Democracy? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Alaska Jack ( 679307 ) * on Saturday October 02, 2004 @01:48AM (#10411706) Journal
    The ancient Greeks used to fill a lot of their governmental positions by lottery. Also, Bill Buckley is famous for noting that you'd getter better government out of the first 200 names in the Cambridge phone book than you would from the faculty at Harvard. These two things got me thinking -- Could you really construct a workable modern system around that concept?

    Imagine, just for fun, a legislative body chosen by lottery.

    * You'd probably want to exclude felons and the legally insane.

    * You couldn't, of course, compel anyone to serve, but you'd want to make serving an attractive proposition, so you'd have to make the experience a financially rewarding one.

    * Bribery would be a big problem. You'd have to try to ameliorate through a combination of a healthy salary, draconian punishment, and probably a healthy guaranteed pension for life for those chosen to serve.

    * Currently, legislatures are full of strong personalities which tend to cancel each other out. In a randomly selected body, strong personalities would have a much greater tendency to influence the weak.

    * Legislators would (at least at first) need to rely to a greater extent on professional bureacracies of expert wonks. On the other hand, the U.S. government is sufficiently complex that it's not like any one legislator can master all of it anyway, so I think it's arguable as to how much of a change this would be.

    * Randomly choosen legislators would not be accountable through the mechanism of elections, though I suppose they could still be impeached.

    * One could make the case for choosing members of one house by lottery, and members of the other (presumable the Senate) by election. But that's no fun.

    * You would probably want to hold the lottery every year, but not for every seat, so members would hold overlapping terms.

    * You might also want your selectees to serve a one-year period of apprenticeship, learning how the system works before they're actually able to vote or anything.

    Anyway, it's kind of a fun idea to toy with. It would certainly have its drawbacks, but I'm not convinced those drawbacks would be anything worse than what we have now. At least it would stop everyone from bitching about the influence of money on elections.

    - Alaska Jack

    • * You couldn't, of course, compel anyone to serve, but you'd want to make serving an attractive proposition, so you'd have to make the experience a financially rewarding one.

      * Bribery would be a big problem. You'd have to try to ameliorate through a combination of a healthy salary, draconian punishment, and probably a healthy guaranteed pension for life for those chosen to serve.

      I think it was in The Tamuli trilogy, by David Eddings, where something similar was described. I'm not sure if it was by lot

  • Live Condorcet Presidential Poll (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Baldrson ( 78598 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @01:49AM (#10411710) Homepage Journal
    There is a live Condorcet Presidential Poll [outlander.com]. Source code is available [outlander.com] too.

  • The Condorcet website says " It [Condorcet] allows voters to vote for the candidate they agree with most rather than against the major-party candidate they disagree with most. In other words, it eliminates the need for defensive or strategic voting." Unfortunately, this is wrong, and demonstrates a lack of understanding on someone's part.

    Nobel prizewinning economist Kenneth Arrow proved [wikipedia.org] a neat little theorem in the 1950s. He showed that, under some very minimal and reasonable requirements for what a voti

    • Arrow's theorem and its relevance to these voting systems is a much more complicated matter than it seems at first. For instance, one of Arrow's "reasonable requirements" is the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives Criterian (IIAC), and it's been shown in many scenarios that failing the IIAC is actually what you want.

      Condorcet fails Arrow's Theorem as do all other methods, but only when there isn't a Condorcet Winner. When there is, Condorcet is perfect. When there isn't a Condorcet Winner (like when there's a defeat loop, A over B, B over C, and C over A), then there are plenty of tiebreaker methods people can use that are "almost perfect". But in large elections, it's actually pretty rare that there isn't a Condorcet Winner.

      So the Arrow argument isn't the smackdown that people take it to be.

  • a clarification (Score:5, Informative)

    by RussP ( 247375 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:03AM (#10411752) Homepage
    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 go to a Quaker college [earlham.edu], and we use a modified approval system for voting. Basically, we mark every confident with either "confidence" or "no confidence. A candidate must get over 10% of the number of votes cast, and get more confidence votes than no confidence votes. A run-off election is held if that doesn't happen. It works marvels here.

  • If Condorcet is so great.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) * <<ten.elcychtneves> <ta> <kram>> on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:08AM (#10411776) Homepage
    Why doesn't Slashdot's Polling section start taking entries by rank? ;)

    The winner of the debate was... Cowboyneal?!?!?!?

  • Really it seems like the choice between IRV and Condorcet/Approval is a question of which sacrifices you make.

    One one hand, there is the Condorcet Criterion: A candidate which beats every other candidate in a pairwise election (they call it an IDW) "should" win the election when it involves multiple candidates and people vote sincerely. On the other hand, there is Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives: Spoiler Candidates "should" have no effect on the election.

    As it turns out, rigid adherance to the II
  • I want to see some serious change before I get old.

    However, our existing system has it's merits, given it is run properly.

    Making each vote cast added to a fair and unbiased tally is the top concern right now.

    It is possible for third parties to gain traction, as the Libertarian party has been doing, within our current system.

  • Who you're voting for is more important than how (Score:4, Interesting)

    by humankind ( 704050 ) on Saturday October 02, 2004 @02:53AM (#10411896) Journal
    I agree there can be some improvements to the voting system, but I think these issues are less significant than the more important problems plaguing the structure of power in the United States.

    This may not seem obvious until you examine a country like Switzerland and their democratic process and power structure. In the U.S., we vote for a President, who in turn appoints people in charge of key areas of government: defense, transportation, agriculture, education, etc. More often than not, these appointees are not even modestly qualified to hold the positions they're given. The president doles out these assignments as rewards for those who are loyal in their service to his campaign.

    In contrast, Switzerland divides the management of the government into a set of distinct areas [admin.ch] and there is a vote for the best-qualified person for that particular specialization. This is the Federal Council and it allows the people to select the best-qualified person to manage defence, foreign affairs, communications, etc.
  • The systems described primarily discuss what sort of vote is cast. There are, however, other aspects to an election. For example, what are the votes actually worth?
    • First Past The Post: This is the system practiced in Britain, for example. It's very simple. Anyone can stand for election, and whoever wins the most votes wins.
      • Pros: It is very simple and therefore very cheap. Unless an election is closely-fought, it also produces a clean result.
      • Cons: It takes no account of anyone's opinion, other than th

  • Most voting methods are preoccupied with voting strategy and how it best reflects the will of the voters.

    Well, there is one method that is overlooked: continuous voting.

    Ok ok, it is overlooked for a very sound reason, continuous voting requires the election to be constantly held, this is difficult in our physical world. And yet, what other method would better reflect the will of the voters???

    VeniVidiVoti Library [dyndns.org]

  • I was thinking that in fact there are 4 ways votes get to determine who gets elected.
    First, there is the machine. Here it is an actual box with levers. In FL punch cards. Some places are trying to get touch screens.
    Second, there is the counting method, e.g. IRV, approval, or Borda. That then consolidates everyone into one or more candidates.
    Third, there is the transference way. Is an Electoral collage used? Is it popular? Is it with distrecs?
    Finally, there is how can get elected. Are there multiple chairs w

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