A mathematical—but controversial—idea for fixing the flaws in voting.
Comment: Indeed, we may not get the most popular candidate at times. However, any time that we have an orderly change of government from one president (or congress for that matter) to another, we are all winners.
Best wishes,
Ron
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http://endlessfreeplr.com
Comment: Yes, when three candidates run for the same office, those whose policies and promises are closest do split their "common" vote -- and the second-place candidate wins. This is what the Dems did in 2000 and in 2004 between Gore and Nadar and Kerry and Nadar -- and Bush Jr. became President. Not only do third party candidates never win, they distort and destroy the will of the people. So while it's great to have more people register as Independents, it's worse to present them with more than two candidates.
Comment: dewcooper: Any voting method that follow's Duverger's law, generally leads to two-party duopoly. The problem is that anyone knows a vote for a minor party or independent candidate is more likely to be wasted than to accomplish anything. Thus it is strategically "forced" to vote for your favorite of the two major party candidates - and then you get locked into two-party domination. By contrast, most of the 27 countries that use a plurality+runoff system (a runoff is held if no one gets at least 50% of the votes) have escaped duopoly. It's all about the voting method. With Range Voting, you can "safely" vote for your favorite candidate, no matter what. Voting for Nader doesn't stop you from expressing your preference for Gore over Bush (or vice versa).
Comment: dewcooper: Any voting method that follow's Duverger's law, generally leads to two-party duopoly. The problem is that anyone knows a vote for a minor party or independent candidate is more likely to be wasted than to accomplish anything. Thus it is strategically "forced" to vote for your favorite of the two major party candidates - and then you get locked into two-party domination. By contrast, most of the 27 countries that use a plurality+runoff system (a runoff is held if no one gets at least 50% of the votes) have escaped duopoly. It's all about the voting method. With Range Voting, you can "safely" vote for your favorite candidate, no matter what. Voting for Nader doesn't stop you from expressing your preference for Gore over Bush (or vice versa).
Comment: There seems to be general agreement that our two party system is not serving us well. Will someone please send me some of whatever you've been smoking to cause you to believe that the two parties which we don't like and who control the process necessary to change the rules would ever facilitate such a change. IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!!!! The closest we will ever get is for the two parties to change the rules to further emasculate the prospects for any outside competition. Light up and chill out.
Comment: SOMETHING has to change. whether it's this or Instant Runoff Voting, I don't know, but either one would at least allow the possibility of creating a viable multiple party system instead of this crap of having to vote for either of two sides of the same freakin' coin.
Comment: What in the current system forces you to vote for only one of the two partys? In the last couple of elections there have been multiply choices...
Comment: Nothing special about this 'new' idea, both college and pro sports have been using it for years. That being said, I prefer this method over the current 1 and done.
Comment: Nothing special about this, it's what college and pro sports have been using for years. I would however prefer it to the current system.
Comment: Here is an interesting question: In the 0-5 scale, is the 0 a non-vote or a counted vote? For example, If Candidate A received a 5 and a 4, his range is a 4.5. However, if Candidate B recieves a 5 and a 0, his range is 2.5, and not 5.
Also, in the range system, it is still possible to have a candidate elected with a less-than favorable rating, ie., less than say a 3. Isn't this the same as electing a candidate with a less than a majority of votes?
Comment: dewcooper:
A 0 is a 0. But you can allow Range Voting with an "abstain" option, which doesn't affect the average. If you do that, you need to have a quorum rule like, if you don't get at least half as much total score as the candidate with the most, you are not eligible to win. That means you can't get a perfect 10 from 3 people and win with a total of 30 points - that would be disastrous of course.
The winner should be the candidate with the highest score, no matter what it is. The idea that a candidate in our current system should get a "majority of votes" is rather simplified and unscientific to begin with. Presumably the idea is that, the candidate who wins should be preferred by a majority to his rivals (whereas vote splitting can prevent the election of a candidate like Gore, who was preferred head-to-head against Bush and Nader). Check out RangeVoting.org and read about the idea of a Condorcet winner, as well as the concept of Bayesian regret. That should help explain this better.
Comment: I like the idea of range or score voting, but good luck trying to work that into Art. II, sec. 1 of the Constitution. The rangevoting.org summarizes that "[r]ange voting is fine with the US constitution." Then, rather than address the constitutionality of range voting, it discusses how range voting would probably be ok with Jefferson, Washington, and Lincoln. Last time I checked, Washington was the only one of the three that was a framer of the Constitution, and who cares what he thought anyway. The Constitution is a document, not a idea. I would be in favor of constitutionalizing range voting, but good luck with that one.
Comment: Jace, Range Voting is perfectly Constitutional, as that page explains. It also gives anecdotes about how early American presidents apparently were perfectly well aware that the Constitution does not proscribe alternative voting methods (although proportional representation is forbidden at the federal level for Congress).
Comment: I like this idea! But, why wait 50 years when I'm either dead or too old to know the difference? For the record, this is how I would vote in either primary (0-5): Huckabee (4), Paul (2), McCain (1), other Rep. (0). On the other side: Biden (4), Obama (3), Clinton (1), other Dem. (0). This is actually more fun than holding your nose and throwing a lever. Let's do this!
Comment: It appears as though you are implying that the voting mind is merely balck and white: that every voter must support either a Democratic canidate or a Republican canidate. Is it beyond the realm of comprehension for you to assume that someone actually WANTED Nader to become president? I understand that a third party electorate has not been, historically speaking, a likely winner in such an election - but there are numerous voters that support the reform of our current organizations. Not to say that Nader was the the correct canidate by any means, but to suggest that he was merely a "spoiler" is relatively ignorant, honestly.
Comment: It appears as though you are implying that the voting mind is merely balck and white: that every voter must support either a Democratic canidate or a Republican canidate. Is it beyond the realm of comprehension for you to assume that someone actually WANTED Nader to become president? I understand that a third party electorate has not been, historically speaking, a likely winner in such an election - but there are numerous voters that support the reform of our current organizations. Not to say that Nader was the the correct canidate by any means, but to suggest that he was merely a "spoiler" is relatively ignorant, honestly.
Comment: hrhJAM said: Not to say that Nader was the the correct canidate by any means, but to suggest that he was merely a "spoiler" is relatively ignorant, honestly.
Nobody debates that some people liked Nader best. (I did, but voted for Gore)
The point is that IN OUR CURRENT SYSTEM, Nader's running distorts the vote and results in bad things. People want to change this system, so that people like Nader CAN run without screwing things up. In fact, someone like Nader would be much more likely to win if people knew that voting for him might cause more harm than good.
Comment: Would you be claiming that 'bad things' happen with the third party candidate if Gore had won? Do you think Perot distorted the vote and screwed things up, since that is how Clinton won?
Comment: ummm.... i'm a republican but voted for nader because i couldn't stand W. I don't think you can make the assumption in your article that nader voters would deffinately be for gore.
Comment: I agree with you entirely. To the other posters; you cannot speculate about the Nader supporters wouldnt vote for Bush. In the last 25 years there has not been one poll, Gallop nor Straw type poll that has been accurate. 80% have been down right incorrect- google it if you dont beleive me. You cannot assume anything, and by assuming makes your point invalid. Voting is black and white, a vote, a solidary opinion that cannot be construed one way or the other. Either a yes or a no. How soon we forget that the so called Nader voters didnt agree with Gore, hence not voting for him, but rather make their statement by giving their vote to an impossible victory. The problem is the popular vote in comparison to how Bush elected (forgoing the rigged election etc. etc.) If we fix the popular vote, as the only vote, the true vote;the vote of the people problems will be minimal. The caucuses is another horse that needs to shot dead; two days of voting. The first National caucus, a few months later the Presidential vote. One citizen, one vote.
Comment: reddawnz said: ummm.... i'm a republican but voted for nader because i couldn't stand W. I don't think you can make the assumption in your article that nader voters would deffinately be for gore.
I think its a fair assumption that Nader drew more away from Gore than he did from Bush.
Regardless, imagine if not only Nader was on the ballot, but all the Democratic candidates that were eliminated at the primaries. This is actually the bigger problem...the clustering into parties to gain a strategic advantage results in government paralyzed by partisanship
Comment: It is not the 'voting system' which produces the two party system (though we do currently have more than two parties) but the political system. A third party candidate will be completely useless unless they can not only win the White House but get a small majority in the House and Senate. A Third Party President can quack all they want, but unless they have 'associates' in the House and Senate to move legislation along, they will produce nothing but wind.
Third, and even fourth and fifth parties are setting their sights too high. Start winning local and state elections, followed with Congress before you try and hit one out of the park. To change the system you must first be a part of it. Wether you are pushing chads, touch screens or popularity contests like range voting, you need allies before you take on your enemies.
Comment: dewcooper: It is indeed the voting system which produces the two-party system. You need to learn about Duverger's law. Most countries with a runoff system (not "instant" runoff) have escaped duopoly, for example. All the other hurdles like ballot access are minor compared to the flaws with the voting method. If we had a respectable voting method, there's no reason third party candidates or independents couldn't have every chance at winning. Every single person who supported them could vote for them - safely. Then they could still show support for second favorites, so as to minimize the chance of getting the "greater evil".
Comment: dewcooper said: It is not the 'voting system' which produces the two party system (though we do currently have more than two parties) but the political system.
you might be surprised at how much the voting system affects this. Imagine for a moment that there were a dozen significant parties on the left, while the right had all combined into the republican party. When you go to vote, there is only one candidate on the ballot that represents the conservative side, while there are a whole bunch on the liberal side.
The conservative candidate would win every time under a plurality system, because the vote on the left would be split among so many candidates.
Parties don't tend to get a lot of support if they never win. So the people one the left would tend to cluster into a party as well, agreeing to present one candidate rather than a bunch. This would give them a better chance of winning, and in turn give them power.
Don't underestimate the importance of this.
Comment: I love how all of the examples make Repulicans out to be closed-minded party-liners and the rest of America as open minded and deep thinkers. Didn't Perot steal votes from Bush, Sr? Did he get Dem votes who normally vote Rep, or Rep votes? On the other hand, these examples are showing the fractured state of the Dem party...
My point is, it is not about HOW people are elected but what they can do once elected. The General election aside, it is much easier, regardless of the system, to get elected at the state and local level. Many of these election do have multiple party nomanies on the ballot during the primaries, and the vote comes out just fine.
Comment: misterharban said: And I suspect that in each ccase the voters who selected them got exactly the choice they wanted.
Well, I know for a fact that there are lots and lots of people who voted for Nader that wished they hadn't.
You are doing what Brokenladder does, suggesting that a punishment that is applied to all of society (i.e. illogical candidates elected, the two party system with all its partisan bickering, etc) will serve as a deterrent to individuals.
Individuals tend to try to advance their own interests, but often in poorly designed systems, everyone is worse off when that happens. It seems like a paradox at first, but it is very very real. Google "prisoner's dilemma".
Comment: misterharban said: "let the parties trim their sails to accommodate the wind rather than shake their fists at the wind which they will likely never be able to change."
The two big parties aren't going to do anything about this, they are the ones that benefit from the current system. It is the people like me who think that the two party system are the main problem. (or, maybe I should say, "a voting system which results in a two party system" is the main problem)
Comment: To say the very least I am not a fan of the two party monster under which we live. I see absolutely nothing in the range voting proposal, however, which would weaken their grip on us. In fact, it appears to me that range voting is simply a way of having third party candidates without having third party candidates. It seems to me to say go ahead and vote for your nut job, but also tell us who you really want your vote cast for.
Comment: I voted for Clinton and ultimately wished I hadn't. So what? Do I get a do over? I don???t think so. How anyone votes is not a punishment for someone else. It is a right that each of us has and it is not the place of you or anyone else to compel someone to do any particular thing with their franchise, even to do something stupid with it. I am sure that nearly 100 percent of the country thinks that nearly 50 percent of the country did something stupid with their votes in 2000 and 2004. It is easy to scapegoat Nader-type third parties. The truth is more harm was done by stupid Republicans voting for Bush than stupid Naderites voting for Nader. Each person got what they wanted, or at the very least, what they deserved. The Democrats were not especially entitled to the votes that were cast for Nader. They had to earn them and they did not. The votes you get from stupid people count just the same as the votes you get from the people who are smart like you. Maybe the Democrats could do well to understand that everyone who doesn???t share their party purity is not stupid, and even if they are, their votes still count.
I am an Independent rooting for the Democrats to either elect whomever they wish this cycle or be creamed beyond recognition so we can put an end to all of the bellyaching over how everyone and every thing beat them except themselves. The simple truth is in 2000 and 2004 that they beat themselves. All they ever had to do is nominate someone who had even a little more of a pulse than the dead meat they nominated during those cycles. You may subscribe to the theory that we are forever locked in a cycle where close elections are inevitable. If either party spent one half as much time working on a thoughtful way to serve the needs of a broader cross section of the American people rather than trying to game the system to preserve their political purity we would likely have an election, much like many in the past, where the margins left no doubt as to the winner. Both parties seem content to not compromise their purity even at the risk of close outcomes. If they will not take that risk, they both deserve the uncertainty and instability that results from their unwillingness to cut anybody on the other side of 50 percent any slack.
Put simply, let the parties trim their sails to accommodate the wind rather than shake their fists at the wind which they will likely never be able to change.
Comment: Listen guys. It is great that you can understand the range voting concept well enough to advocate for it and even to understand its implications. Is there anyone out there who really believes that folks like the ones in Florida that could not understand a relatively simple punch ballot could understand both how to vote under this system and what the implications might be for how they would vote? Give me a break. It is widely believed that the position of the name of a candidate on a ballot can influence the choice a voter will make. And all that is required in a case like this is a simple decision to remember and mark a single name. Throwing in additional choices may be useful for the wonks who think they understand and are advocating this system. It would only obscure the wishes of those who would simply be confused by it.
It is interesting that many countries around the world get along quite nicely with a simple system of a free for all primary followed shortly by a run off between the top two candidates. Sure it can be gamed. Contrary to what many seem to believe here, range voting can be gamed to the extent that savvy politicians persuade ignorant voters how to make their choices. It would be interesting to know what the outcome of recent elections would have been in the absence of the pervasive practice of picking up rum dumb derelicts, giving them a little food or drink, driving them to polling places and telling them how to mark the ballot. Whatever your motivation is for supporting range voting, please do not pretend that it would eliminate or even reduce the total impact of gaming on our electoral system. It would simply change the way the gaming is done.
Comment: Catbutt said:
Anyway, here is shorter (and hppefully easier to understant) version of my complaint about Range voting being susceptable to vote splitting...
Without Nader in the race, I might vote:
Gore: 100
Bush: 0
With Nader in the race, I might vote:
Nader: 100
Gore: 75
Bush: 0
A Bush voter would have likely done this:
Without Nader:
Gore: 0
Bush: 100
With Nader:
Nader: 0
Gore: 0
Bush: 100
So with me and the Bush fan, it would have been a tie in the first case, but with Nader, Bush wins.
How in the world is that not vote splitting?
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Catbutt, in your example sited above:
Without Nader, the totals are Gore 100, Bush 100 - a tie
With Nader, the totals are Nader 100, Bush 100 and Gore 75. Nader and Bush tie.
Comment: BubbaDownSouth:
"One person, one vote" is a phrase from the civil rights era, and implies than every person should have the same equal-strength ballot, regardless of race, class, gender, or what have you. It is not a legal proscription against alternative voting methods which allow us to vote for more than one candidate. Range Voting is perfectly legal.
Comment: Brokenladder,
I have not said I am against range voting. I love voting. I go to the polls every election.
I would still go with range voting procedures.
One person, one vote did not come from the civil rights era, it came from the Greek city-state governments thousands of years ago.
Comment: Catbutt said:.
" No, um, third party candidates ARE spoilers, assuming they are seen as similar (in platform) to another candidate. Saying otherwise just means you haven't thought about it, because it isn't complicated..
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I have thought about it.
It seems you just want a Dem-Repub election where the Democrat will win every time.
You are not too big on Democracy by wanting to limit participation of non Democrats. I bet former Repubs would be welcome to have a third party candidate in your world.
Comment: BubbaDownSouth said :" I have thought about it.
It seems you just want a Dem-Repub election where the Democrat will win every time."
I can't figure how you read that into what I said.
I want both the Republican and Democrat parties to become less influencial, and other parties, and independant candidates, can compete. This would happen with the elimination of the spoiler effect.
BTW, a spoiler candidate may have given the election of 1992 to the democrats. (perot/clinton/bush) So this is not a partisan issue for me. I am anti-partisanship far more strongly than I am anti-republican.
Comment: Perhaps you can explain how this system makes it more possible for independent candidates to compete. It looks to me like range voting, at least in the cases we have seen in my lifetime i.e. Wallace, Perot and Nader would simply have the effect of rendering these kinds of candidates irrelevant. Votes for these characters may or may not have spoiled outcomes, but they were the free choices of the voters who cast them. And IIsuuspect that in each ccase the voters who selected them got exactly the choice they wanted.
Comment: BubbaDownSouth said: "One person, one vote and no middleman. Most votes win.
Third party candidates are just that, candidates, not spoilers." No, um, third party candidates ARE spoilers, assuming they are seen as similar (in platform) to another candidate. Saying otherwise just means you haven't thought about it, because it isn't complicated..
Comment: I would settle for a national popular vote for President and Vice President.
Get rid of the Electoral College for Presidential elections.
We elect Governors, Senators and Congressmen by popular vote. We should do the same with Presidents.
One person, one vote and no middleman. Most votes win.
Third party candidates are just that, candidates, not spoilers.
Comment: tkharmonic: it is a mathematical consequence of the way votes are tabulated here that people gain an advantage by clustering into two parties. Fixing this with a new voting system will allow for more parties. (we have more parties here, they just don't get many of their candidates elected)
Comment: brokenladder said: "Well, then you have to ask yourself, why are they rating one Dem higher than the other? To help their favorite Dem beat the other Dem, right?"
No, because, by offering them a Range ballot (rather than, say, an approval ballot) you are ASKING them to rate the candidates relative to one another. And in trying to honestly do what they are asked, they hurt the candidate that has a chance of winning. EXACTLY like in our current system.
This is not complicated. I think this Warren fellow you speak of has thrown so much complex looking math at you you are blinded to a very simple thing.
Isn't he the guy who applied for a patent on a computer made of dna? Can you say "crackpot"?
Comment: brokenladder: "If a voter knows nothing about the candidates, then his vote would be random under _any_ system."
Not talking about knowing about the candidates, talking about knowing how others will vote...polls information. Very different thing, and you know that.
The more you know about how others will vote, the better you will do in Range Voting. Much more so than in better systems. And knowing how others will vote is complicated, especially when those "others" are trying to guess how you are going to vote.
Comment: brokenladder: can you point me to something that shows that academics consider this fact?
Personally, I agree with your other comment (that fixing the method is a bigger issue than fraud), and I really wish Gore had won, but I think dwelling on the possible vote fraud isn't helping your cause.
Comment: Reality: Gore won the election by a considerable margin, but election fraud in key states caused him to "lose". This, combined with the vote splitting flaw in our archaic voting method, caused Gore to "lose", even though he actually won. There is no credible doubt about the fraud. It's considered a point of fact by academics who've studied it.
Comment: misterharban said: "The problem lies not in how we select the winner, but how we select the nominees."
With a system that allows third party candidates without screwing everything else up, we wouldn't need nominees. The reason we have primaries is that parties know they would lose if all their candidates were on the ballot (due to vote splitting), so they eliminate them on an earlier round. This is why we have a two party duopoly, and why politics is so polarized. This is a big, big problem.
With a good system, you can put them all on the ballot. Unfortunately Range voting doesn't solve this problem. Google "condorcet voting".
Comment: If the Democrats do not find a way to certify the vote, then another election could be stolen.
Comment: Myth versus reality. Bush won the majority of votes in both elections once the final count was done. The votes were certified, the Dems just never accepted them.
Comment: The current Electoral College system is evil and should be scrapped at once. The range voting system described in this article sounds like an ideal replacement. This country must never again elect an unmitigated disaster like George W. Bush to the nation's highest office.
Comment: The way to never elect another unmitigated disaster like GW is to offer good alternatives. Rather than *** about how the system caused GW to get elected, consider the irony that the Democrats could not find a candidate capable of beating an unmitigated disaster. Both parties would do well in their nominating process to consider electability rather than ideological purity in selecting their candidates. The problem lies not in how we select the winner, but how we select the nominees.
Comment: misterharban, what you are talking about is a different issue. I would argue that vote splitting, and the polarization it causes (i.e. the two party system), has much more serious consequenses than fraud. But regardless, it is just a different issue....what you are saying is like saying we shouldn't fix potholes before we stop people from being murdered. Two different things.
Comment: The range system will not fix anything because it is too complex for the electorate to understand. In that very complexity, losers will always find reasons for their failure other than their own inadequacies. Where I come from, they say "you just can't fix stupid". The range system will simply allow stupid people to continue to vote stupidly, but in a different stupid way. People are unhappy with the electoral system and they think that politicians conspire to cheat when they count the votes. Range voting solves a problem that doesn't exist. The reasons that Bush lost when Perot ran and Gore lost when Nader ran was because their parties at the time put up weak candidates that failed to address the issues that the spoilers raised. We are watching a new election cycle where both parties seem to be favoring candidates that are innately incapable of reaching outside their own narrow political views. This is what is wrong with the system and not the way we tally the votes. The vote tallies in the past elections cited have, in fact, reflected the will of the electorate. They voted A, B or none of the above. Its time for our ossified political parties to respond to the people who are voting for none of the above and give us candidates which are more representative of the will of the people.
Finally, it should be obvious to even the most casual reader of the article, that the ultimate result of range voting is to take away the opportunity for voters to meaningfully opt for a third party candidate, either in the context of sincerely wanting to see that person elected or in the context of telling the entrenched political parties that they want none of the above. After all the math is done, range voting simply filters the third party candidate into oblivion.
Comment: The basic theory of this discussion is flawed - we do not elect presidents by a MAJORITY vote (especially when you consider that a vast majority of Americans don't vote). While we may have a one person\one vote system, we elect delegates to the electorial college, who then cast their 'vote'. It is a mathematical probability that in a race with 3 or more candidates, no one will recieve a majority of the votes (Clinton didn't and neither did Bush). Even with the range system, if you look at the total 'range' possible, no candidate will recieve a perfect score, and may not even score above the median. What do you do if on a 1-5 scale, the 'winner' only scores a 2.3? We are back to the original discussion that they did not receive a 'majority'.
Comment: For all the sour grapes about the so called unintended outcomes resulting from vote splitting, I am under the distinct impression that the electorate has voiced more concerns in the last two elections about perceived misdeeds by one party or the other with regard to voting procedures and vote tallying than with what we do with the numbers once we get them. Before any system will work, the voters must be confident that no one, either through cupidity or incompetence, will be able to distort the system. Based on the lack of confidence expressed in outcomes of the last two elections, I cannot imagine that adding another layer of calculations or relying on exit polls will, in any way, increase voter confidence. If we believe that someone fixed the outcome of the last two elections, consider the permutations for imagining fraud with more layers of calculations or relying on pollsters who are trusted less than used car salesmen.
Nader, Perot and Wallace were all essentially products of a two party system where neither party adequately addressed the concerns of some significant part of the electorate. It seems to me that as time has passed, the parties have become more and more strident and, as a consequence, more likely to totally alienate groups outside the so called party bases. Range voting would certainly be attractive to the two main parties because it would allow the establishments in both parties to further ignore the constituencies which have, in the past, been the basis for third party candidacies.
The range voting proposed in this article is no more than sleight of hand to marginalize the only tool that voters disenfranchised by the two established parties currently have to express their disgust for the poor choices the parties offer up. The authors could have saved a lot of ink by simply proposing to eliminate third party candidates. I don???t like third party candidates. But more and more voters are being disenfranchised by both Republicans and Democrats who seem concerned only with satisfying the needs of their core constituencies and not reaching out to those outside that narrow group.
To both Republicans and Democrats who are concerned that our method of counting votes is the reason they are not succeeding, I would suggest that they try something really radical. Try to give us good quality choices. The fact that the Democrats could not find someone capable of beating George Bush was much more a reflection of the poor quality of candidates from both parties than it was from our election process.
Comment: Many complain that there's no point in upgrading the voting method until we can ensure an accurate vote count. But evidence overwhelmingly says that our voting method causes a bigger anti-democratic effect than current levels of fraud. So fixing the voting method is the more pressing issue.
Comment: brokenladder said: If they want to vote out of ignorance, they will pay the price for that by possibly helping to elect a sub-optimal candidate."
Umm, won't society as a whole pay the price for errors of an individual? You say that as if "that'll teach him not to do that again".
Is this supposedly a benefit of Range Voting that if the voter hasn't done his homework, he'll basically vote randomly? Because that's true. Voters who haven't followed the polls closely are not going to be sure whether their votes will help or hurt their cause.
Comment: cat said: "Is this supposedly a benefit of Range Voting that if the voter hasn't done his homework, he'll basically vote randomly? Because that's true. Voters who haven't followed the polls closely are not going to be sure whether their votes will help or hurt their cause."
My response: If a voter knows nothing about the candidates, then his vote would be random under _any_ system. But Warren Smith's simulations included an ignorance factor as one of the tunable parameters; and Range Voting still beat the other voting methods, no matter how he tuned that ignorance factor. So Range Voting is more resistant to the ignorance-induced randomness than the other methods.
And if a voter knows how he feels, but hasn't looked at the polls, then an honest Range vote won't hurt him, as compared to not voting at all. It may not help him as much as if he had strategically exagerrated, but it won't hurt him. With methods such as IRV, it can actually make the result worse for you to show up and cast a sincere vote. Stew on that paradox.
Comment: brokenladder said: "It's not vote splitting because if 51% of the voters are Democrats, let's say, and 100 Democrats run, and 1 Republican runs, there's no reason that the Republican must automatically win."
That is a weird contrived case. 100 Democrats and 1 Republican? What? Anyway, the Repulican wouldn't NECESSARILY win, but he'd have a hell of an advantage, unless all the Democrats were in a very unlikely agreement.
Regardless, I gave a basic REAL WORLD case, the same one mentioned in the article .... the 2000 election. If it was Range, what would have happened? It seems downright obvious that with Range, adding Nader to the race would push Gore's average downward, significantly.
The effect is strong enough that we would be stuck with a two party system as people try to avoid that sort of splitting.
Can you really not see this?
Comment: cat,
My example was contrived _in your favor_. I intentionally used an enormous amount of Democrats to exaggerate the vote-splitting problem. The point is that your example relies on the idea that Dem voters may give their favorite of the Dems a "10", and a lower score to the other Dem - and if they all do this, then the Republican could conceivably win. Well, then you have to ask yourself, why are they rating one Dem higher than the other? To help their favorite Dem beat the other Dem, right? But if polls show a realistic chance that the Republican could win, then these voters are better off giving both Dems a high score, because it's more important to prevent electing the Republican than to try to get one's favorite Democrat. It's an issue of what is important to voters, and Range Voting lets them express that. In this sense, it does eliminate the vote splitting problem. And it definitely does a better job than more expensive complex and problematic methods, namely IRV.
Comment: Odd that it didn't post the end of my comment. Here's what my last sentence should have been: And the more likely for the vote to be distorted in weird ways by the presence of candidates that can't win but take away votes from the people who otherwise should have won.
Comment: tomruen, I am no fan of Range voting, but I don't understand the requirement for "majority choice". Especially if you mean the majority (more than 50%) have the candidate as their very first choice out of all people on the planet. Because I don't think that is very likely.
Even if you are limiting it to mean "more than 50% of people have the candidate as their very first choice out of all people on the *ballot*....the more people on the ballot, the less likely that is. And the more likely for the vote to be distorted in weird ways by the presenc
Comment: Instant Runoff voting, like a top-two runoff allows a voters to offer a final confirmation among the strongest two candidates, so a majority (of voters) can support the winner over the runner up. That's one step better than plurality. Nader and Perot candidates with only 5% or 18% can be harmlessly eliminated and that spoiler effect is gone. (It is a bit tricker for presidential elections, but could at least be a majority state-by-state.)
Comment: tomruen said: Instant Runoff voting, like a top-two runoff allows a voters to offer a final confirmation among the strongest two candidates, so a majority (of voters) can support the winner over the runner up.
my response: Simply false. IRV can easily eliminate candidate Y early on, and then elect X, even though Y was preferred to X (and all other candidates) by a sizable majority.
http://rangevoting.org/CoreSupp.html
tomruen said: That's one step better than plurality.
my response: But IRV also increases spoiled ballots by a factor of 7, and incentivizes the adoption of fraud-prone electronic voting machines, and must be centrally counted instead of counted in precincts and summed - meaning it's less transparent, and more susceptible to a central fraud conspiracy.
Approval Voting, the simplest form of Range Voting, is radically simpler, and much better.
Comment: tiffsthoughts, they picked the 2000 election because a) it was more recent, and b) it was more clear that Nader through it to Bush, while the Perot situation is much more speculative.
Anyway, here is shorter (and hppefully easier to understant) version of my complaint about Range voting being susceptable to vote splitting...
Without Nader in the race, I might vote:
Gore: 100
Bush: 0
With Nader in the race, I might vote:
Nader: 100
Gore: 75
Bush: 0
A Bush voter would have likely done this:
Without Nader:
Gore: 0
Bush: 100
With Nader:
Nader: 0
Gore: 0
Bush: 100
So with me and the Bush fan, it would have been a tie in the first case, but with Nader, Bush wins.
How in the world is that not vote splitting?
Comment: It's not vote splitting because if 51% of the voters are Democrats, let's say, and 100 Democrats run, and 1 Republican runs, there's no reason that the Republican must automatically win. Democrats can simply give every Democrat the maximum score. If you feel that Democrat X is preferable to Democrat Y, so that you're willing to risk getting a Republican by lowering your score for Y, that's your choice. No voting method can stop you from purposely doing such a thing.
Comment: It is not vote splitting, but multiple voting by a single voter.
Comment: First it is interesting that the article refers to the 2000 election rather than a the 1992 or 1996 election where Peroit most likely influenced the outcome of the election. More importantly, the range voting seems to over simplify the nature of American politics by pretty eliminating the power of third party candidates. What influence would they have in a system where one could vote for them but also vote for a viable candidate. What insentive would major party candidates have to move their positions towards that of a third party candidate if they could still receive a "4" instead of a "5"?
Comment: tiffsthoughts: you're not getting it. With Range Voting, major party candidates wouldn't _have_ to move their positions more toward a third party. They'd have to move them more toward the will of the people, and third parties could actually _win_ because you'd never have to fear voting for your favorite candidate, regardless of his party. Range Voting is enormously helpful for third parties. Get on the Range Voting web site and read about the nursery effect.
Comment: Unfortunately the spoiler effect happens under Range voting as well.
Look at 2000. Most people agree (well, most people not blinded by party loyalty) that more people preferred Gore to Bush, and that Gore would have won in a race against Bush alone.
In a Range election, if only Bush and Gore were running, most people would give Bush zero and Gore 100, or Bush 100 and Gore zero. Even "honest" voters would do that: since the ratings are relative to other candidates, it is expected that voters will "stretch" their ratings to cover the full zero to 100 range.
Now, enter Nader. Honest voters who like Nader best and Gore second best would now lower their ratings for Gore from 100 to some value representing how much they like Nader more than Gore. Bush, however, stays at either zero or 100 on most ballots (except on the ballots of those rare people who like Nader best and Bush second best). It is possible that having Nader on the ballot would raise Gore a bit on some ballots of Bush voters, but it seems likely that most Bush voters would leave Gore at zero even with Nader in the race. This gives a significant advantage to Bush against Gore, because the 3rd candidate's platform is perceived as closer to Gore's than to his own. Vote splitting, plain and simple.
If Nader actually got popular enough so that it was a close 3-way race, the situation would get worse. Even those voting purely strategically would end up punishing Gore for Nader's entry into the race. If a Nader fan thought that Gore was in first place, Nader in second, and Bush in third, they would be tempted to "bullet vote" for Nader, not approving Gore even though they prefer him to Bush. Enough people doing this would hand the election to Bush, when he clearly is not preferred by most.
Comment: Unfortunately the spoiler effect happens under Range voting as well.
Look at 2000. Most people agree (well, most people not blinded by party loyalty) that more people preferred Gore to Bush, and that Gore would have won in a race against Bush alone.
In a Range election, if only Bush and Gore were running, most people would give Bush zero and Gore 100, or Bush 100 and Gore zero. Even "honest" voters would do that: since the ratings are relative to other candidates, it is expected that voters will "stretch" their ratings to cover the full zero to 100 range.
Now, enter Nader. Honest voters who like Nader best and Gore second best would now lower their ratings for Gore from 100 to some value representing how much they like Nader more than Gore. Bush, however, stays at either zero or 100 on most ballots (except on the ballots of those rare people who like Nader best and Bush second best). It is possible that having Nader on the ballot would raise Gore a bit on some ballots of Bush voters, but it seems likely that most Bush voters would leave Gore at zero even with Nader in the race. This gives a significant advantage to Bush against Gore, because the 3rd candidate's platform is perceived as closer to Gore's than to his own. Vote splitting, plain and simple.
If Nader actually got popular enough so that it was a close 3-way race, the situation would get worse. Even those voting purely strategically would end up punishing Gore for Nader's entry into the race. If a Nader fan thought that Gore was in first place, Nader in second, and Bush in third, they would be tempted to "bullet vote" for Nader, not approving Gore even though they prefer him to Bush. Enough people doing this would hand the election to Bush, when he clearly is not preferred by most.
Comment: misterharban:
There is strong evidence that a switch to Range Voting would lead to a much larger improvement in our democracy than the elimination of election fraud. See: http://rangevoting.org/RelImport.html
And I've done exit polling in Beaumont, Texas. Average middle Americans had no problem with it. In fact it experimentally leads to fewer spoiled ballots than our current voting system. So in some sense, voters find it easier to use, not harder.
tomruen:
You have it completely backward. Strategic voters are also rewarded in IRV and other systems, and in fact the result is even _worse_. This issue is given rigorous consideration by Poundstone and proponents of Range Voting. See http://rangevoting.org/StratHonMix.html
The simple fact is that IRV is one of the worst voting methods, according to extensive Bayesian regret calculations by Princeton math Ph.D. Warren D. Smith (and those same metrics show Range Voting to be effectively the best).
Range Voting is also cheaper/easier to administer and count, and does not incentivize the adoption of fraud-prone electronic voting machines like IRV does. And it can be counted in precincts, whereas IRV requires central counting, which is another open invitation to a central fraud conspiracy, and a loss of transparency.
Range Voting is just a hands down radically better system than other methods that have been proposed. It's high time this simple and brilliant reform came to light.
Comment: Range voting makess the ridiculus assumption that people would actually vote for more than one candidate. If I want Candidate A to win, regardless of the number of candidates running, I will rate A at the top and the rest at the bottom, because I want him to WIN and the rest to lose (not win for the PC crowd). Why gamble with rating A any lower?
Range voting also allows for the 'throw away' vote. I can vote a 5 for A, but wouldn't it be hilarious if C won? So I give C a 4. After all, my original vote counts, and so does my second, which was just a joke.
Comment: Brokenladder - spoken like a true convert who has never set foot into a caucus hall. There's no power for finding a majority choice in a range election, no room for iterations of opinions. It's one blind or not-so-blind count and take it or leave it. Not very enlightening....
Comment: tomruen: I agree that people would reach better more informed decisions if they had to sit around and debate before voting. That may be one benefit of traditional runoff elections, where voters have a chance to re-evaluate the two candidates who make it to the final round. But that decrease in voter ignorance cannot make up for the dastardly things that a runoff can do (just look at the last French election, in which Bayrou certainly would have beaten Royal _and_ Sarkozy head-to-head. Also, IRV and every other "single shot" voting method has this problem. The key is for voters to take their time and research the candidates well, if they really care enough to vote. If they want to vote out of ignorance, they will pay the price for that by possibly helping to elect a sub-optimal candidate.
Comment: Brokenladder, I won't disagree runoffs are a brute power struggle at best, and IRV offers nothing good only speeds the elimination process. If I had a chance to "reform" iterative runoffs, I'd change the process at the end - say when all the candidates are above 20% (or whatever), perform a Condorcet head-to-head process with no more elimination.
Endorsement elections often require 60%, so a Condorcet process could also require 60% victory against all opponents or there'd be no winner.
Anyway, I'm content with Plurality, horror and all for single-winner elections - rarely do I vote in plurality without knowing the results - whether I'm supporting a nobel loser or a compromise. STV and multimember districts is where the real action lies for reform.
Comment: misterharban:
There is strong evidence that a switch to Range Voting would lead to a much larger improvement in our democracy than the elimination of election fraud. See: http://rangevoting.org/RelImport.html
And I've done exit polling in Beaumont, Texas. Average middle Americans had no problem with it. In fact it experimentally leads to fewer spoiled ballots than our current voting system. So in some sense, voters find it easier to use, not harder.
tomruen:
You have it completely backward. Strategic voters are also rewarded in IRV and other systems, and in fact the result is even _worse_. This issue is given rigorous consideration by Poundstone and proponents of Range Voting. See http://rangevoting.org/StratHonMix.html
The simple fact is that IRV is one of the worst voting methods, according to extensive Bayesian regret calculations by Princeton math Ph.D. Warren D. Smith (and those same metrics show Range Voting to be effectively the best).
Range Voting is also cheaper/easier to administer and count, and does not incentivize the adoption of fraud-prone electronic voting machines like IRV does. And it can be counted in precincts, whereas IRV requires central counting, which is another open invitation to a central fraud conspiracy, and a loss of transparency.
Range Voting is just a hands down radically better system than other methods that have been proposed. It's high time this simple and brilliant reform came to light.
Comment: Before we worry about the problems associated with voting on more than two candidates (remember Perot?), we should make sure that each person is allowed to only cast one ballot and that each person casting a ballot is actually alive and legally entitled to cast that ballot. If we can't count ballots and we can't count heads, how will making the tallying procedure more complicated increase our confidence in the outcome. Our voters don't even know where California is located. How will they ever understand the propoosed syststem?
Comment: Range voting/Approval voting are GREAT REFORMS for questions like inclusion in political debates, where voters want to hear from more than one candidate, but seems a non-reform for picking a single winner were voters are penalized by honest ratings - merely helping a second choice beat a first.
IRV and STV (Single Transferable vote for multiseat elections) are the way to go - to maximize the number of voters influencing the winners.
Comment: Range voting/Approval voting are GREAT REFORMS for questions like inclusion in political debates, where voters want to hear from more than one candidate, but seems a non-reform for picking a single winner were voters are penalized by honest ratings - merely helping a second choice beat a first.
IRV and STV (Single Transferable vote for multiseat elections) are the way to go - to maximize the number of voters influencing the winners.
Comment: All equipment, and soft ware should be standardized by the federal Government. And should be fully open source. So that the public, and global computer community can inspect the system for security weaknesses, and back doors on an ongoing basis. No closed proprietary systems should be used. Your just asking for vote fraud that way.
Lastly whichever paper ballot system is used. Every paper ballot should be stamped by the voter with a unique digital signature before they cast that ballot. The machine that stamps the paper ballot should print three paper receipts. One for the voter. One that goes into a lock box under the custody of the federal government. One receipt goes in a lock box under the custody of each party. With a different lock on the box for each party.
A representative sampling of the digital signatures should be checked against the digital signatures stamped on the paper ballots in the presence of all parties. If they don't match. You have fraudulent paper ballots. And a big problem. This will assure each voter that their vote was counted. And that each vote counted was cast by a individual voter. In other words democracy.
Then all voting systems should be opened to the public with the directive to tear the system apart, and expose any weaknesses they can find. And suggest ways to close the weakness.
Sadly there will not be enough time to fix this disgrace before the elections. So congress should authorize a massive strike force against vote fraud with extensive monitoring of the coming election. And with extensive and open, transparent exit polling to help catch discrepancy's, and fraud. 2 of 2
Comment: Technically speaking our disgraceful voting system is very easy, and relatively inexpensive to fix. Though no expense should be considered to much to assure our democracy. And the integrity of each of our votes.
One way to fix it is for everyone to cast a paper ballot like they do in Germany that is hand counted by civil servants over an approximately two week period. Preliminary election results are called the night of the election based on exit polling. The Germans have shown this method to be highly accurate, and relatively secure.
Of course in the US exit polling does not work well. And is used to assist in the commission of massive voting fraud. As was done in our past two national elections. In the US we use the highly accurate exit polling to determine how many pre-punched fraudulent votes need to be substituted for legitimate votes for the loosing party to win.
The other way is to use electronic means to produce, and mark a ballot. But regardless of what electronic system is used. It is critical that the end product be the creation of a paper ballot that can be easily reviewed by the voter before that paper ballot is cast by the voter. So that the voter can change, or discard that ballot if it was not marked as they wanted to vote. Ideally the paper ballot would be hand counted as in the German example above.
If the paper ballot is machine counted, then random hand counting of a representative number of each batch of votes must be done to assure the accuracy of the electronic totals. Plus very careful exit polling. If there is any discrepancy, all paper ballots should be counted by hand. And electronic equipment, and software checked for failures. 1 of 2
Comment: Please forgive me, but I don't really understand why with a population the size of ours we are still using a two or three party system.
Why can we not have a multi-party system similar to what they use in Germany, Canada, France and other countries?
I'm not being sarcastic, I honestly don't understand why would that not work here in the US?
Comment: Technically speaking our disgraceful voting system is very easy, and relatively inexpensive to fix. Though no expense should be considered to much to assure our democracy. And the integrity of each of our votes.
One way to fix it is for everyone to cast a paper ballot like they do in Germany that is hand counted by civil servants over an approximately two week period. Preliminary election results are called the night of the election based on exit polling. The Germans have shown this method to be highly accurate, and relatively secure.
Of course in the US exit polling does not work well. And is used to assist in the commission of massive voting fraud. As was done in our past two national elections. In the US we use the highly accurate exit polling to determine how many pre-punched fraudulent votes need to be substituted for legitimate votes for the loosing party to win.
The other way is to use electronic means to produce, and mark a ballot. But regardless of what electronic system is used. It is critical that the end product be the creation of a paper ballot that can be easily reviewed by the voter before that paper ballot is cast by the voter. So that the voter can change, or discard that ballot if it was not marked as they wanted to vote. Ideally the paper ballot would be hand counted as in the German example above.
If the paper ballot is machine counted, then random hand counting of a representative number of each batch of votes must be done to assure the accuracy of the electronic totals. Plus very careful exit polling. If there is any discrepancy, all paper ballots should be counted by hand. And electronic equipment, and software checked for failures. 1 of 2
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