6 ms·

Yes. Score voting or approval voting would be my preference. Easier to use and even more expressive for voters. https://electology.org/score-voting https://e

by bhauer 8y ago

Yes. Score voting or approval voting would be my preference. Easier to use and even more expressive for voters. https://electology.org/score-voting https://electology.org/score-voting https://www.counted.vote/ https://www.counted.vote/

dragonwriter 8y ago
Score and approval have inconsistent meaning for ballot markings, and are for that reasons bad mechanisms unless that is resolved (approval is ideal for choosing group activities where either voting approve is a commitment to participate if that option wins or disapprove is a binding opt-out.)
faitswulff 8y ago
I just learned about approval voting and it has my...approval. Jokes aside, "upvoting" all the candidates I approve seems much more doable than ranking the candidates in order of merit, especially given that there are a lot of candidates running.
- davidw 8y ago
  Approval feels a bit too binary to me. I like the idea of scoring or ranking. Not sure how scoring doesn't get gamed by people giving 10's to the ones they like, ad 1's to the ones they don't, though.
  - somebodythere 8y ago
    It's not gaming the system, range voting is robust to such an expression of voter preferences. However, there is something to be said for simplifying the system if that ends up being the way that most people vote.
    - ClayShentrup 8y ago
      ScoreVoting.net/Honesty
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    Gamed? Surely this is exactly how it's intended to work?
  - dgzl 8y ago
    Don't think of score of 1 as being 1/10, think of it as being an additional 1 point in a cumulative game. Insert saying about saving pennies here
  - bhauer 8y ago
    IMO "gamed" is a bit of a strange choice of word. The whole point of score voting is to give each voter more power to express their true preference. If their preference is to assign top scores to several candidates, fantastic, thank you for your vote! If the next voter prefers to give more diversified scores, wonderful, thank you for voting! And if the next voter would prefer to rank order the candidates, you can do that too using score, so great, thank you for voting! Yes, if you are highly strategic and acutely fear some popular candidate(s), you might give maximum scores to all candidates of which you approve to minimize loss risk. But again, great. That doesn't seem like "gaming" things to me. With score, voters leave the ballot box feeling they were able to express their preferences and therefore have less regret about their votes. Incidentally, I feel in the long term, approval or score voting would do more to improve the satisfaction people have with voting thereby increasing participation than all of today's "get out the vote" drives have had.
    - davidw 8y ago
      Over time, the people who use middling scores might 'catch on' that doing that lessens their influence, so everyone starts gravitating towards the extremes? IDK, I'd love to see it tried.
      - vokep 8y ago
        Probably, but we shouldn't expect to actually solve this entirely...if so, great, but realistically, anything better than the present is...better.
  - tomjen3 8y ago
    Surely one should be able to give a negative vote to somebody they didn't like? That would also solve the issue with polarizing candidates, since by definition you now have to care that those who would never vote for you, would at least not vote against you.
  - specialist 8y ago
    My first election reform activism was for IRV. It is mathematically better than approval voting. However, my election integrity concerns came to outweigh the fairness considerations. Tabulating IRV is a pain, requires computers to be feasible, and is much harder to audit. Happily, approval voting get us most of the fairness of IRV and greatly improves election integrity over both FPTP and IRV (for different reasons).
- imh 8y ago
  This is why people who care about voting can't come together around up with a new voting system. They can't decide how to choose as a group ;_;
  - boomboomsubban 8y ago
    Nah, that's how the people who want to change the voting system kill time. People have their preferences, but they're fairly united in thinking most systems would be an improvement.
    - beatgammit 8y ago
      Sometimes I think a lottery system would be better...
- Mbioguy 8y ago
  I like Approval voting for single positions that are supposed to represent a community rather than a faction: mayor, governor, county commissioner, etc. Mixed member for legislative bodies and Ranked Choice for anything else.
simplify 8y ago
And here's an excellent interactive resource to better understand pros/cons of different vote systems: https://ncase.me/ballot/ https://ncase.me/ballot/
somebodythere 8y ago
I used to be an ordinal-method purist, but I realized that approval voting is still (much) better than FPTP mathematically, and is also a win in terms of usability and understandability versus most ordinal systems. Usability of a ballot system is a big factor when it comes to voter engagement and turnout, so at this point, I would be very happy with approval-method ballots.
- smichel17 8y ago
  Alternatively, score voting but using letter grades (ABCDF) instead of numbers. Everyone who's had a small amount of education can understand that.
  - Ntrails 8y ago
    How does the abstraction of order from number to letter help people understand what is required? Or is the concern the possibility of confusion around "rank 1-5" vs "Score candidates out of 5" etc
  - moate 8y ago
    That's a bold assumption. I think that numbers have less cultural understanding needed. Letter grades are common, but not ubiquitous. Some schools just use % based "grades" and the 4.0 GPA system. If you say "Each candidate can be given up to 5 points, or as few as 0 points. There are no limits to the number of points you can give out in total (there are X candidates, so you could give a max of [X*5] points)." you're being pretty succinct and direct in the explanation. You might need more poll workers the first few years (which will create all kinds of problems because areas attempting to minimize voter turn out can exploit that) but once it becomes common you hope that people are used to it and know how the system works
    - ClayShentrup 8y ago
      Starlane.us
      - 8y ago
dgzl 8y ago
I had this idea several years ago, but didn't really know how to talk about it. Essentially, if voters can attribute a value (between 0 and 10, let's say) to every candidate they like, then we can see a better picture of who the country likes. For instance if I want Candidate A to win, I'll give him a 10. But if I'm only half bought into candidate B, I can give them 5, and could give Candidate C nothing because I really don't like them. Now if the rest of the country doesn't like A, and the battle is between B and C, then I'd feel good that I could contribute to the goal. The actual process is up for remix of course, but that was the idea.
- mywacaday 8y ago
  Maybe proportional representation is close to what you're thinking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote
- jwally 8y ago
  Dan Carlin (hardcore history - which is awesome btw, and common sense) mentioned a couple of ideas that sounded interesting. I’m sure he’s not the inventor of the concepts and I have no idea how they’d actually work, but sounded similar to what you’re talking about. One would work where you have 1 vote per ballot item. If there were 24 ballot items, you get 24 votes. You can allocate your votes across the ballot however you saw fit. If you thought president and senate were more important than city council and an infrastructure bond; you could put 18 votes for president, 6 votes for senate, and nothing for local issues. No idea how this would be normalized but it’s a novel concept. Another idea is to rank options in each issue, and if my first option loses; my votes go to the second option. Say I wanted to vote libertarian for president in the US but was afraid it was a protest vote that wouldn’t win so I voted Democrat because I didn’t like the GOP candidate. Under this system I could say I want the libertarian candidate first, democrat second, and not pick the gop candidate. After the votes were counted and the libertarian lost, my vote would be reallocated to the democrat; and the votes would be re-tallied. This would encourage people to vote for a non binary political candidate since they knew their vote wouldn’t be “thrown away”.
ClayShentrup 8y ago
ReformFargo.org StarLane.us
zamalek 8y ago
While I immensely agree with these approaches, it is unlikely to change with the current incumbents (as they have perfected strategies for the current system).

by bhauer 8y ago

dragonwriter 8y ago

Score and approval have inconsistent meaning for ballot markings, and are for that reasons bad mechanisms unless that is resolved (approval is ideal for choosing group activities where either voting approve is a commitment to participate if that option wins or disapprove is a binding opt-out.)

faitswulff 8y ago

I just learned about approval voting and it has my...approval. Jokes aside, "upvoting" all the candidates I approve seems much more doable than ranking the candidates in order of merit, especially given that there are a lot of candidates running.

davidw 8y ago
Approval feels a bit too binary to me. I like the idea of scoring or ranking. Not sure how scoring doesn't get gamed by people giving 10's to the ones they like, ad 1's to the ones they don't, though.
- somebodythere 8y ago
  It's not gaming the system, range voting is robust to such an expression of voter preferences. However, there is something to be said for simplifying the system if that ends up being the way that most people vote.
  - ClayShentrup 8y ago
    ScoreVoting.net/Honesty
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  Gamed? Surely this is exactly how it's intended to work?
- dgzl 8y ago
  Don't think of score of 1 as being 1/10, think of it as being an additional 1 point in a cumulative game. Insert saying about saving pennies here
- bhauer 8y ago
  IMO "gamed" is a bit of a strange choice of word. The whole point of score voting is to give each voter more power to express their true preference. If their preference is to assign top scores to several candidates, fantastic, thank you for your vote! If the next voter prefers to give more diversified scores, wonderful, thank you for voting! And if the next voter would prefer to rank order the candidates, you can do that too using score, so great, thank you for voting! Yes, if you are highly strategic and acutely fear some popular candidate(s), you might give maximum scores to all candidates of which you approve to minimize loss risk. But again, great. That doesn't seem like "gaming" things to me. With score, voters leave the ballot box feeling they were able to express their preferences and therefore have less regret about their votes. Incidentally, I feel in the long term, approval or score voting would do more to improve the satisfaction people have with voting thereby increasing participation than all of today's "get out the vote" drives have had.
  - davidw 8y ago
    Over time, the people who use middling scores might 'catch on' that doing that lessens their influence, so everyone starts gravitating towards the extremes? IDK, I'd love to see it tried.
    - vokep 8y ago
      Probably, but we shouldn't expect to actually solve this entirely...if so, great, but realistically, anything better than the present is...better.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  Surely one should be able to give a negative vote to somebody they didn't like? That would also solve the issue with polarizing candidates, since by definition you now have to care that those who would never vote for you, would at least not vote against you.
- specialist 8y ago
  My first election reform activism was for IRV. It is mathematically better than approval voting. However, my election integrity concerns came to outweigh the fairness considerations. Tabulating IRV is a pain, requires computers to be feasible, and is much harder to audit. Happily, approval voting get us most of the fairness of IRV and greatly improves election integrity over both FPTP and IRV (for different reasons).
imh 8y ago
This is why people who care about voting can't come together around up with a new voting system. They can't decide how to choose as a group ;_;
- boomboomsubban 8y ago
  Nah, that's how the people who want to change the voting system kill time. People have their preferences, but they're fairly united in thinking most systems would be an improvement.
  - beatgammit 8y ago
    Sometimes I think a lottery system would be better...
Mbioguy 8y ago
I like Approval voting for single positions that are supposed to represent a community rather than a faction: mayor, governor, county commissioner, etc. Mixed member for legislative bodies and Ranked Choice for anything else.

simplify 8y ago

And here's an excellent interactive resource to better understand pros/cons of different vote systems: https://ncase.me/ballot/ https://ncase.me/ballot/

somebodythere 8y ago

I used to be an ordinal-method purist, but I realized that approval voting is still (much) better than FPTP mathematically, and is also a win in terms of usability and understandability versus most ordinal systems. Usability of a ballot system is a big factor when it comes to voter engagement and turnout, so at this point, I would be very happy with approval-method ballots.

smichel17 8y ago
Alternatively, score voting but using letter grades (ABCDF) instead of numbers. Everyone who's had a small amount of education can understand that.
- Ntrails 8y ago
  How does the abstraction of order from number to letter help people understand what is required? Or is the concern the possibility of confusion around "rank 1-5" vs "Score candidates out of 5" etc
- moate 8y ago
  That's a bold assumption. I think that numbers have less cultural understanding needed. Letter grades are common, but not ubiquitous. Some schools just use % based "grades" and the 4.0 GPA system. If you say "Each candidate can be given up to 5 points, or as few as 0 points. There are no limits to the number of points you can give out in total (there are X candidates, so you could give a max of [X*5] points)." you're being pretty succinct and direct in the explanation. You might need more poll workers the first few years (which will create all kinds of problems because areas attempting to minimize voter turn out can exploit that) but once it becomes common you hope that people are used to it and know how the system works
  - ClayShentrup 8y ago
    Starlane.us
    - 8y ago

dgzl 8y ago

I had this idea several years ago, but didn't really know how to talk about it. Essentially, if voters can attribute a value (between 0 and 10, let's say) to every candidate they like, then we can see a better picture of who the country likes. For instance if I want Candidate A to win, I'll give him a 10. But if I'm only half bought into candidate B, I can give them 5, and could give Candidate C nothing because I really don't like them. Now if the rest of the country doesn't like A, and the battle is between B and C, then I'd feel good that I could contribute to the goal. The actual process is up for remix of course, but that was the idea.

mywacaday 8y ago
Maybe proportional representation is close to what you're thinking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote
jwally 8y ago
Dan Carlin (hardcore history - which is awesome btw, and common sense) mentioned a couple of ideas that sounded interesting. I’m sure he’s not the inventor of the concepts and I have no idea how they’d actually work, but sounded similar to what you’re talking about. One would work where you have 1 vote per ballot item. If there were 24 ballot items, you get 24 votes. You can allocate your votes across the ballot however you saw fit. If you thought president and senate were more important than city council and an infrastructure bond; you could put 18 votes for president, 6 votes for senate, and nothing for local issues. No idea how this would be normalized but it’s a novel concept. Another idea is to rank options in each issue, and if my first option loses; my votes go to the second option. Say I wanted to vote libertarian for president in the US but was afraid it was a protest vote that wouldn’t win so I voted Democrat because I didn’t like the GOP candidate. Under this system I could say I want the libertarian candidate first, democrat second, and not pick the gop candidate. After the votes were counted and the libertarian lost, my vote would be reallocated to the democrat; and the votes would be re-tallied. This would encourage people to vote for a non binary political candidate since they knew their vote wouldn’t be “thrown away”.

ClayShentrup 8y ago

ReformFargo.org StarLane.us

zamalek 8y ago

While I immensely agree with these approaches, it is unlikely to change with the current incumbents (as they have perfected strategies for the current system).