Alternate voting methods

[xiphias]

As we all know, there is no voting method which is "fair" for all definitions of "fair", in elections which have more than two candidates. But as I was debating with myself who to vote for for Massachusetts governor, I started wondering about other methods.

As it is, I think I'd like a method in which you could vote for as many candidates as you want. You'd look at your ballot, and mark as many or few as you wanted to. You could vote for just one, as you do today. You could vote for everybody except one person, if you just really didn't like someone.

Or you could, as I wanted to, vote for the person that you WANTED to win, and also vote for the person who had a chance to win that you would RATHER have than the other option.

So, what I was wondering is, what is the downside (or downsides) to this method?

Comments

[kiya]

You might want to look up politics in Australia, which I believe uses the balloting method "Rank candidates, if there isn't a clear winner counting the first-ranked ones on all ballots, drop the weakest candidate and add the second-choice votes on those ballots, repeat until done."

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I thought about a number of voting methodologies: the reason I'm leaning towards the one I just mentioned is that it's the easiest, and requires the fewest changes in how people currently vote. I wanted to come up with an idea in which, if somebody just plain didn't notice that the voting method had changed, their vote would still be valid.

[cheshyre]

If you're interested, a few days ago Slashdot posted a story from Science News about mathematicians studying how well different voting procedures capture the will of the voter.

[goljerp]

Interesting idea, but the problem I'd have with it is that some people would have a disproportionate impact -- i.e. someone who votes for 3 out of 4 candidates would have more of an impact than someone who only votes for one.

But it gave me an idea: what if you had one vote, and it could be for any candidate (like now), or against any one candidate. That way if, (to take New York's Governor's race as an example) you didn't want Pataki to win, but didn't really care who did, you could vote against Pataki. Still one person, one vote, but each candidates final tally would be:
total number of votes for - total number of votes against.

Of course, you'd have to do it in a way where people wouldn't mistakenly vote against the person they wanted to vote for...

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

How does voting for all-but-one candidate differ from giving a negative vote for that candidate?

And how does someone who votes for half the candidates have more of an impact than one who votes for just one?

[goljerp]

Argh. I wrote a long, well-written post yesterday, even including a hand-created table. And it's not here. Apparently I forgot to hit "post comment".

You ask good questions. My answers were better yesterday, but I'll try...

To your first question, voting for all-but-one candidate is identical to giving a negative vote for that candidate, when the number of candidates, n, is less than or equal to 3. When n is greater than 3, however, the two systems are different. I worked out a scenario with the following breakdown. Imagine there are four candidates, two major party candidates (A and B), one third party candidate who only is viewed positively by that candidate's supporters (C), and one third party candidate who's liked by all (D). Imagine the breakdown of sentiment is as follows: (sorry, no table this time...)
Likes A - 5
Dislikes B - 25
Likes B - 25
Dislikes A - 30
Likes C - 10
Likes D - 5

Furthermore, people who Dislike A will either give a negative vote for A (my system) or will vote for B and D (Xiphias's). Likewise, voters who dislike B will vote for A and D (or against B). In Xiphias's system, the winner is is D, with a 5 vote margin over B. In my system, the winner is C, with a 5 vote margin over D. In a more "traditional" system (with people who dislike a candidate splitting evenly among the other possibilities), B wins by the largest margin (more than 6 votes). In fact, a more likely scenerio would have the people who are against a major party candidate mostly voting for the other major party candidate; when I had 60% do this (and 40% vote for D), B wins even more overwhelmingly.

I freely admit that I had to work a bit to come up with this scenario. But if it's possible, the parties will work to exploit the system to their advantage. Take the Louisiana Senate race as an example; the republicans knew that they didn't have any candidate who could beat the democratic candidate, but that by fielding lots of candidates they could whittle the lead down below 50% and trigger a runoff. (I'm sure the Democrats would do the same thing were they in that situation).

I was able to find more scenarios where both of our alternate systems had the same results. But the thing I like a bit more about mine is that it makes it harder for a third party candidate to campaign and win on nothing but warm fuzzies (Democrat? Republican? Doesn't matter; Vote for Bob, too, he's a nice guy...) One good thing about both our systems is that it would make candidates think twice about negative advertisements, because just getting people to vote against the other guy doesn't help you out that much... Right now, if you get people disgusted enough, they don't vote... but in either of our systems, they might be disgusted enough to go to the polls and vote against someone... which is fine, but helps third party candidates as much as ones from traditional parties. (Note - I have the spreadsheet I used to play around with this if you feel like playing around with it... it was probably getting carried away with the spreadsheet that made me forget about the comment yesterday)

As far as your question: And how does someone who votes for half the candidates have more of an impact than one who votes for just one?

Well, it must have some difference, because otherwise there'd be no difference between our systems. Part of my response is a gut instinct: one person, one vote. Even though my plan is stretching things a bit (as you pointed out, a negative vote for one candidate is equivalent to voting for all-but-one candidate), you can still say with a mostly straight face that each person gets one vote.

Finally, I freely admit that my idea could potentially pose problems (imagine if all those poor folk in Florida who accidentally voted for Buchannan accidentally voted against Gore?

[ailbhe]

It's quite easy - you can either vote for just one person, X in a box or whatever, or you can vote in order of preference, with Bush being No. 52 on a potential list of 30.

Um. My prejudice is showing.

How about my favorite candidate?

[(Anonymous)]

Everyone seems to have forgotten about the obvious choice for office:
NONE OF THE ABOVE

Why is it that for many races we are always selecting the "lesser of the evils". Do you think the politicians would get the message if None of the Above started winning elections?

Re: How about my favorite candidate?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

"None of the Above" won't win elections, because "None of the Above" is a lousy fundraiser and rarely has compelling television ads.

from http://www.fairvote.org/irv/#arguments

[(Anonymous)]

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)



Advances for instant runoff voting: San Francisco adopts IRV for major offices, will implement in November 2003. More than 50 Vermont towns vote to urge lawmakers to adopt IRV statewide, and the Vermont State Labor Council AFL-CIO gives its support to IRV for statewide elections. Utah Republicans this year used IRV to nominate candidates for Congress at their state convention. Louisiana uses IRV for some overseas absentee ballots. Los Angeles city council votes to study IRV. Alaska ballot measure falls short, but wins endorsement of Senator John McCain.

Contents

What is Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)?
Arguments for IRV
IRV Talking Points
Graphical Descriptions of IRV
More Information on IRV
IRV in the News
Editorials on IRV
Commentaries on IRV
IRV Reports
How You Can Get Involved
Campaign Archives

What is Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)?

Instant runoff voting is a winner-take-all, constitutionally protected, voting system that ensures a winning candidate will receive a majority of votes rather than a simple plurality. IRV eliminates the need for runoff elections by allowing voters to rank their candidates in order of preference.

See:

Frequently Asked Questions about IRV
Factsheet on Instant Runoff Voting: A Fairer Way to Conduct Single-Winner Elections
Arguments for IRV

Instant runoff voting (IRV) corrects the defects in plurality elections and two-round runoff elections, the two most widely used voting systems in the country. Efforts to replace plurality election laws with this more democratic alternative are underway in Alaska, New Mexico, Vermont, Washington, and California. San Francisco has replaced its "delayed runoff" elections with instant runoff elections, and with the passage of San Francisco's Prop A, interest in replacing a runoff elections is growing across the Bay in Oakland, Berkeley and San Leandro.

Instant runoff voting allows for better voter choice and wider voter participation by accommodating multiple candidates in single seat races and assuring that a "spoiler"-effect will not result in undemocratic outcomes. Instant runoff voting allows all voters to vote for their favorite candidate without fear of helping elect their least favorite candidate, and it ensures that the winner enjoys true support from a majority of the voters. Plurality voting, used in most American elections, does not meet these basic requirements for a fair election system that promotes wide participation, and traditional runoff elections are costly to the taxpayer and often suffer from low voter turnout.

Instant runoff voting is a winner-take-all system that ensures that a winning candidate will receive a majority of votes rather than a simple plurality. In plurality voting -- as used in most U.S. elections -- candidates can win with less than a majority when there are more than two candidates running for the office. In contrast, IRV elects a majority candidate while still allowing voters to support a candidate who is not a front-runner. IRV is a sensible method in single winner elections.

IRV allows voters to rank candidates as their first choice, second choice, third, fourth and so on. If a candidate does not receive a clear majority of votes on the first count, a series of runoff counts are conducted, using each voter’s top choice indicated on the ballot. The candidate who received the fewest first place ballots is eliminated. All ballots are then retabulated, with each ballot counting as one vote for each voter's favorite candidate who is still in contention. Voters who chose the now-eliminated candidate have to support their second choice candidate -- just as if they were voting in a traditional two-round runoff election -- but all other voters get to continue supporting their top candidate. This process continues until a candidate receives a majority.