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Range voting is arguably the general case of approval voting and it has the same problem: candidates have no incentive to be honest about how the voting system

Range voting is arguably the general case of approval voting and it has the same problem: candidates have no incentive to be honest about how the voting system works and most will campaign on "just mark 1" or "just give me the max score" in order to convert back to a FPTP. This is not a hypothetical concern, something like this has already occurred in Australian politics. Queensland switched from exhaustive preferential (IRV where all candidates must be ranked) to optional preferential (1-n candidates may be ranked) and then ran "just vote 1" as their campaign slogan. In doing so they obliterated the centre-right and further-right parties that traditionally operate as a coalition in Parliament. Relying on voters to be aware of the mathematics of a voting system and on candidates to represent those honestly is problematic. IRV is simple to explain, works well enough and can be efficiently hand-counted.

deleted 7y ago
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throw_away 7y ago
So, your argument is that because this system has a feature that allows it to revert back to exactly what we have now, but also gives options so that more informed voters can better indicate their preference, and is otherwise strictly better, we shouldn't do it and stick with what we have? Arguments against IRV do not apply to SV/RV or AV. IRV and FPTP fall prey to shenanigans via Arrow's Impossibility Theorem because they require candidates to be ranked relative to one another (or you just pick the best one as in FPTP). Once they do not need to be ranked (as in two candidates can get the same vote from a given voter), then none of the Arrow problems apply. SV and AV are also simple to explain, work well and can be hand-counted. And they don't have the huge problem that IRV and other ranked voting mechanisms have.
- throw_away 7y ago
  & how can IRV be hand-counted? It is the most difficult system listed here to compute and most difficult to explain to voters why the outcome happened.
  - jacques_chester 7y ago
    > & how can IRV be hand-counted? It's very easy. Australia regularly does it with millions of ballots. Step one: you count the ballots by hand. Phew, what an exhaustive list of instructions!
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - throw_away 7y ago
      IRV has potentially multiple vote transfer steps and passes whereas all the other mechanisms are a single pass sum. IRV is easily the most complex to both compute and understand compared to the other alternatives (AV/SV/FPTP). Furthermore, doesn't Australia use it only for House elections where you don't have to compute across a particularly large population? Your tone is rather dismissive here.
      - jacques_chester 7y ago
        Australia uses it both for House and Senate elections. Millions of votes cast in a day. Indicative count on the night. My tone is dismissive because I am tired of being told IRV is "too complex" or "won't work". Because it's simple and it has scaled flawlessly for decades. You just need to believe the experience of other countries is more valid than a theory.
        throw_away 7y ago
        The AU senate is STV, no? And even then, the largest polity is NSW with only 8M people. 12 US states are more populous than this. But, I'm with you that IRV is workable (there's ample evidence) and better than the abomination that FPTP is. I guess my point is that AV/SV address these concerns through their simplicity (I find both of them less complex than IRV in both voter UX and result computation) and also that they avoid the unintuitive problems mentioned in the OP ncase link, which can potentially be even worse than the problems of FPTP simply because they are hard for even educated voters to wrap their heads around, whereas the problems of FPTP (vote splitting) are easier to explain (but still bad. this isn't a defense of fptp).
yyyk 7y ago
Range voting is an abomination. It's the perfect example of a system ranked as good by Arrow Theorem logic which horribly fails most actual requirements for a voting system - unlike Approval Voting, which despite the tactical voting non-issue is practically reasonable. [Some practical requirements for/questions about a voting method: * Does it always have a winner? * Can the resulting winner always enjoy public legitimacy? * Is the voting system simple enough for the public to understand? * Can it map to useful public choices? * Is it susceptible to cheating? * Does it bias towards the center or not? (Note that some people might prefer biasing and some not). * Can voters signal to politicians they must change course? ]
- ClayShentrup 7y ago
  Score Voting is objectively the best of the commonly proposed voting methods, with any mixture of strategic or honest voters. http://scorevoting.net/BayRegsFig.html http://scorevoting.net/BayRegsFig.html It is objectively one of the simplest voting methods based on summability, rates of spoiled ballots, speed it takes the average voter to complete a ballot, etc. http://scorevoting.net/Lorenzo http://scorevoting.net/Lorenzo
  - yyyk 7y ago
    Score voting? Is that how they're calling it now? However it is called, there are many reasons for why it is so bad, but they all boil to one point: it's asking voters for information they do not have while ignoring the human realities of the vote. As we code monkeys say: GIGO. 99% of humanity doesn't have a 'Score' for politicians* , but the reality of the vote is that whatever choice the voter has, the voter can push effectively by giving min/max scores - or at least is very likely to think it can be helpful, and feel guilty when they don't do it - imagine losing an election because you merely gave your preferred candidate an 8! A Range Voting election where everyone gives min/max scores de facto may look mathematically identical to Approval Voting, but it is far worse in reality. That's because voters will then convince themselves their choice is deserved - their politician is a 10 and the other is a 0, an enemy. The problem in other words is that voters will mostly not partially abstain, but be pushed into a false polarization beyond what is useful for society. Psychology, not math. There are other points, but this message is long enough. TL;DR: "Score" voting is the triumph of mathematically optimized voting methods that ignores too many human considerations. But look, I am willing to go half way: Approval voting is a perfectly good method and I can accept Borda. Both are strictly better than the current method even according to the weird measurement "The Center for Range Voting" uses. Approval can even be seen as a (sane) version of RV, so there's no reason at all for the center to object. * Oh, and the 1% who actually has a score? That's almost worse, because these scores are nearly always the compilation of single issue organizations which tend towards the extremes and never look at circumstances.

deleted 7y ago

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throw_away 7y ago

So, your argument is that because this system has a feature that allows it to revert back to exactly what we have now, but also gives options so that more informed voters can better indicate their preference, and is otherwise strictly better, we shouldn't do it and stick with what we have? Arguments against IRV do not apply to SV/RV or AV. IRV and FPTP fall prey to shenanigans via Arrow's Impossibility Theorem because they require candidates to be ranked relative to one another (or you just pick the best one as in FPTP). Once they do not need to be ranked (as in two candidates can get the same vote from a given voter), then none of the Arrow problems apply. SV and AV are also simple to explain, work well and can be hand-counted. And they don't have the huge problem that IRV and other ranked voting mechanisms have.

throw_away 7y ago
& how can IRV be hand-counted? It is the most difficult system listed here to compute and most difficult to explain to voters why the outcome happened.
- jacques_chester 7y ago
  > & how can IRV be hand-counted? It's very easy. Australia regularly does it with millions of ballots. Step one: you count the ballots by hand. Phew, what an exhaustive list of instructions!
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - throw_away 7y ago
    IRV has potentially multiple vote transfer steps and passes whereas all the other mechanisms are a single pass sum. IRV is easily the most complex to both compute and understand compared to the other alternatives (AV/SV/FPTP). Furthermore, doesn't Australia use it only for House elections where you don't have to compute across a particularly large population? Your tone is rather dismissive here.
    - jacques_chester 7y ago
      Australia uses it both for House and Senate elections. Millions of votes cast in a day. Indicative count on the night. My tone is dismissive because I am tired of being told IRV is "too complex" or "won't work". Because it's simple and it has scaled flawlessly for decades. You just need to believe the experience of other countries is more valid than a theory.
      - throw_away 7y ago
        The AU senate is STV, no? And even then, the largest polity is NSW with only 8M people. 12 US states are more populous than this. But, I'm with you that IRV is workable (there's ample evidence) and better than the abomination that FPTP is. I guess my point is that AV/SV address these concerns through their simplicity (I find both of them less complex than IRV in both voter UX and result computation) and also that they avoid the unintuitive problems mentioned in the OP ncase link, which can potentially be even worse than the problems of FPTP simply because they are hard for even educated voters to wrap their heads around, whereas the problems of FPTP (vote splitting) are easier to explain (but still bad. this isn't a defense of fptp).

yyyk 7y ago

Range voting is an abomination. It's the perfect example of a system ranked as good by Arrow Theorem logic which horribly fails most actual requirements for a voting system - unlike Approval Voting, which despite the tactical voting non-issue is practically reasonable. [Some practical requirements for/questions about a voting method: * Does it always have a winner? * Can the resulting winner always enjoy public legitimacy? * Is the voting system simple enough for the public to understand? * Can it map to useful public choices? * Is it susceptible to cheating? * Does it bias towards the center or not? (Note that some people might prefer biasing and some not). * Can voters signal to politicians they must change course? ]

ClayShentrup 7y ago
Score Voting is objectively the best of the commonly proposed voting methods, with any mixture of strategic or honest voters. http://scorevoting.net/BayRegsFig.html http://scorevoting.net/BayRegsFig.html It is objectively one of the simplest voting methods based on summability, rates of spoiled ballots, speed it takes the average voter to complete a ballot, etc. http://scorevoting.net/Lorenzo http://scorevoting.net/Lorenzo
- yyyk 7y ago
  Score voting? Is that how they're calling it now? However it is called, there are many reasons for why it is so bad, but they all boil to one point: it's asking voters for information they do not have while ignoring the human realities of the vote. As we code monkeys say: GIGO. 99% of humanity doesn't have a 'Score' for politicians* , but the reality of the vote is that whatever choice the voter has, the voter can push effectively by giving min/max scores - or at least is very likely to think it can be helpful, and feel guilty when they don't do it - imagine losing an election because you merely gave your preferred candidate an 8! A Range Voting election where everyone gives min/max scores de facto may look mathematically identical to Approval Voting, but it is far worse in reality. That's because voters will then convince themselves their choice is deserved - their politician is a 10 and the other is a 0, an enemy. The problem in other words is that voters will mostly not partially abstain, but be pushed into a false polarization beyond what is useful for society. Psychology, not math. There are other points, but this message is long enough. TL;DR: "Score" voting is the triumph of mathematically optimized voting methods that ignores too many human considerations. But look, I am willing to go half way: Approval voting is a perfectly good method and I can accept Borda. Both are strictly better than the current method even according to the weird measurement "The Center for Range Voting" uses. Approval can even be seen as a (sane) version of RV, so there's no reason at all for the center to object. * Oh, and the 1% who actually has a score? That's almost worse, because these scores are nearly always the compilation of single issue organizations which tend towards the extremes and never look at circumstances.