4 ms·

I'd recommend Approval Voting, it has fairly good properties from the perspective of Social Choice.

MichaelApproved 10y ago
For anyone wondering, like I was... > Approval voting is a single-winner voting method used for elections. Each voter may "approve" of (i.e., select) any number of candidates. The winner is the most-approved candidate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting
joshjje 10y ago
Seems pretty similar, but simpler. Just thinking about it Id prefer something like a "Strongly Disapprove, Somewhat Disapprove, Approve, Somewhat Approve, Strongly Approve" on all candidates. Most people should be familiar with that and then you could "downvote" ones you strongly dislike, and its weighted.
- fusiongyro 10y ago
  The problem with that is you effectively give partisans two votes: a strong approval for their guy and a strong disapproval of your guy. It's worth noting that there is a mathematical discipline of studying voting systems. Approval has been studied quite extensively and seems to have fewer flaws than most other methods—though it has been proven that no method can be perfect.
  - ClayShentrup 10y ago
    You're presumably talking about Arrow's Theorem, which only applies to ordinal (ranked) voting methods. http://scorevoting.net/ArrowThm http://scorevoting.net/ArrowThm
mtgx 10y ago
Approval voting is my favorite, too - for single-winner elections. But no single-winner voting system beats proportional representation systems [1] when it comes to electing Congress members, legislatures, councils, etc. Everyone gets much better representation when "their candidate" can actually get a seat at the table, instead of having one party/candidate "take it all" (in that local region of theirs). It also spurs collaboration [2] and "bridge-building" rather than division and obstruction as it happens with the FPTP in the U.S. (and elsewhere) My biggest hope is that Canada is closing-in on a proportional representation voting system, and adopts it within the next year. That could (or should) make it an election issue for 2018 and 2020 in the U.S., too. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWPx8hmd4pQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWPx8hmd4pQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS62N5b5L7Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS62N5b5L7Y
- gotofritz 10y ago
  This is ok if the only goal is to give a voice to all voters. But proportional representation produces all too often unworkable majorities and grand coalitions. Just look at Italy's postwar history for why pure PR is not to be recommended.
losvedir 10y ago
I also prefer Approval Voting (although if it were an approval vote, I would approve of both Approval Voting and Ranked Choice, heh). One question to ask yourself to figure out which system you like better is what the outcome should be of this election: Candidate 1 is loved by 55% of the population and despised by 45%. Candidate 2 is loved by 45% of the population and despised by 55%. Candidate 3 is tolerated by 85%. Approval Voting would choose Candidate 3. IRV would choose Candidate 1. Who "should" be elected?
- johnsonav 10y ago
  Under approval voting, wouldn't the people who love candidate 1 realize that they should vote strategically, and not approve of candidate 3 on their ballots, causing candidate 1 to win this election?
  - ClayShentrup 10y ago
    http://scorevoting.net/RVstrat6.html http://scorevoting.net/RVstrat6.html
- ClayShentrup 10y ago
  The correct social welfare function is cardinal/utilitarian. Math that proves this. http://scorevoting.net/UtilFoundns.html http://scorevoting.net/UtilFoundns.html So the right answer is presumably #3, although you didn't specify exact utilities so I don't know for sure.
dragonwriter 10y ago
Approval voting, because "approval" has ambiguous meaning that varies from voter to voter, is crap for most public elections. (It's good for certain kinds of votes where "approving" can be tied to some concrete meaning, generally not secret-ballot elections. E.g., if you are in a social group voting on a shared activity, where "approval" is a binding commitment to participate if the action is chosen by the group, while disapproval is an opt-out or at least a non-commit, approval makes sense. Numerical scale rankings have similar problems (especially as there is empirical evidence that numerical rankings for similar actual levels of satisfaction are assigned differently in different cultures (e.g., ethnic) even within, say, the US. Again, there are circumstances other than usual candidate voting where the numerical scale can be tied to a concrete commitment to make the meaning of the markings consistent and such voting useful (e.g., when they are tied to an amount that one would pay to get or avoid a particular outcome), but they are generally a bad idea for electing candidates. Ranked ballots is pretty much the system that provides the most information with relatively consistent meaning from each voter for circumstances like public, secret-ballot, free elections of candidates. (Different election methods using ranked ballots do a better or worse job of using that information, of course.)

For anyone wondering, like I was... > Approval voting is a single-winner voting method used for elections. Each voter may "approve" of (i.e., select) any number of candidates. The winner is the most-approved candidate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting

joshjje 10y ago

Seems pretty similar, but simpler. Just thinking about it Id prefer something like a "Strongly Disapprove, Somewhat Disapprove, Approve, Somewhat Approve, Strongly Approve" on all candidates. Most people should be familiar with that and then you could "downvote" ones you strongly dislike, and its weighted.

fusiongyro 10y ago
The problem with that is you effectively give partisans two votes: a strong approval for their guy and a strong disapproval of your guy. It's worth noting that there is a mathematical discipline of studying voting systems. Approval has been studied quite extensively and seems to have fewer flaws than most other methods—though it has been proven that no method can be perfect.
- ClayShentrup 10y ago
  You're presumably talking about Arrow's Theorem, which only applies to ordinal (ranked) voting methods. http://scorevoting.net/ArrowThm http://scorevoting.net/ArrowThm

mtgx 10y ago

Approval voting is my favorite, too - for single-winner elections. But no single-winner voting system beats proportional representation systems [1] when it comes to electing Congress members, legislatures, councils, etc. Everyone gets much better representation when "their candidate" can actually get a seat at the table, instead of having one party/candidate "take it all" (in that local region of theirs). It also spurs collaboration [2] and "bridge-building" rather than division and obstruction as it happens with the FPTP in the U.S. (and elsewhere) My biggest hope is that Canada is closing-in on a proportional representation voting system, and adopts it within the next year. That could (or should) make it an election issue for 2018 and 2020 in the U.S., too. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWPx8hmd4pQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWPx8hmd4pQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS62N5b5L7Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS62N5b5L7Y

gotofritz 10y ago
This is ok if the only goal is to give a voice to all voters. But proportional representation produces all too often unworkable majorities and grand coalitions. Just look at Italy's postwar history for why pure PR is not to be recommended.

losvedir 10y ago

I also prefer Approval Voting (although if it were an approval vote, I would approve of both Approval Voting and Ranked Choice, heh). One question to ask yourself to figure out which system you like better is what the outcome should be of this election: Candidate 1 is loved by 55% of the population and despised by 45%. Candidate 2 is loved by 45% of the population and despised by 55%. Candidate 3 is tolerated by 85%. Approval Voting would choose Candidate 3. IRV would choose Candidate 1. Who "should" be elected?

johnsonav 10y ago
Under approval voting, wouldn't the people who love candidate 1 realize that they should vote strategically, and not approve of candidate 3 on their ballots, causing candidate 1 to win this election?
- ClayShentrup 10y ago
  http://scorevoting.net/RVstrat6.html http://scorevoting.net/RVstrat6.html
ClayShentrup 10y ago
The correct social welfare function is cardinal/utilitarian. Math that proves this. http://scorevoting.net/UtilFoundns.html http://scorevoting.net/UtilFoundns.html So the right answer is presumably #3, although you didn't specify exact utilities so I don't know for sure.

dragonwriter 10y ago

Approval voting, because "approval" has ambiguous meaning that varies from voter to voter, is crap for most public elections. (It's good for certain kinds of votes where "approving" can be tied to some concrete meaning, generally not secret-ballot elections. E.g., if you are in a social group voting on a shared activity, where "approval" is a binding commitment to participate if the action is chosen by the group, while disapproval is an opt-out or at least a non-commit, approval makes sense. Numerical scale rankings have similar problems (especially as there is empirical evidence that numerical rankings for similar actual levels of satisfaction are assigned differently in different cultures (e.g., ethnic) even within, say, the US. Again, there are circumstances other than usual candidate voting where the numerical scale can be tied to a concrete commitment to make the meaning of the markings consistent and such voting useful (e.g., when they are tied to an amount that one would pay to get or avoid a particular outcome), but they are generally a bad idea for electing candidates. Ranked ballots is pretty much the system that provides the most information with relatively consistent meaning from each voter for circumstances like public, secret-ballot, free elections of candidates. (Different election methods using ranked ballots do a better or worse job of using that information, of course.)