The unattainable goal. An interesting look at the mathematics of various election schemes.
9 thoughts on “Fair Elections”
Comments are closed.
The unattainable goal. An interesting look at the mathematics of various election schemes.
Comments are closed.
Interestingly, the Debian Linux development community uses a modified Condorcet system for its decision making. The modifications remove some of the nice mathematical properties associated with Condorcet systems though. Of course, the Debian community consists of volunteers and there is no coercion involved.
Democracy isn’t a bad idea for voluntary associations. It stinks for national government, though less so than other systems that have managed to sustain themselves in a world where people are willing to use unprovoked coercion.
Amazing. A two page article on voting systems, including a discussion on Arrow’s Theorum, and not one mention of the voting systems the satisfy it most closely – Approval and Range voting.
Arrow’s Theorum says that no system is perfect, not that they’re all equally bad. The system we currently use is the absolute worst of all systems ever used by any nation.
“Of course, the Debian community consists of volunteers and there is no coercion involved.”
I was part of an internet-based group of volunteers, and the problem we had was ballot stuffing by “advocates” for a particular position. It was done with the motive “this is the best way to go, and I need to make sure it is the one chosen.”
I’m not familiar with Range voting, but I find the omission of Approval voting a major oversight. From an analytic perspective I like instant run off, but for practical reasons the simplicity of Approval voting wins my support. I also like the tendency to favor broad base of support over intensity of support.
Telling that the article dismisses coalition governments as “potentially leading to unstable and ineffectual government”, while ignoring the runaway government possible under single party rule.
Which voting system works best when a lot of dead people in Chicago vote?
Brock Says:
May 2nd, 2010 at 10:51 am
“The system we currently use is the absolute worst of all systems ever used by any nation.”
No wonder we’re the weakest, least productive nation on Earth! Hyperbole ‘R Us.
The article’s analysis is lacking in the sense that this is a feedback system. Shortcomings can be rectified by a dedicated electorate which observes failures and combines different factions to right them on the next cycle.
PeterH Says:
May 2nd, 2010 at 12:08 pm
“…I find the omission of Approval voting a major oversight.”
You have to look at this in a closed loop sense. Approval voting would essentially increase the bandwidth of the system. This might make it more responsive, but more likely would lead to overshoot and noise amplification. In the worst case, it might enclose a right half plane zero, and go unstable.
Going back to my original comment to Brock, we are, in fact (last time I checked) the most powerful, most productive nation on Earth. Things will all work out with normal feedback. Let’s not contemplate anything radical which would deviate significantly from the winning formula. Just my $0.02.
And yet elections produce “wrong” results quite often. Just look at the Bush-Perot-Clinton three-way that elected Clinton, despite a clear majority in favor of the center-right position. At the local and State levels this happens all the time.
Do we survive anyway? Sure. Even our system is better than tyranny or theocracy. But we can do better. Just imagine if in 2012 we could vote for Tea Party and Republican Party candidates without risking BHO’s re-election. Wouldn’t that be nice?
—
Peter H,
Range Voting is what Amazon uses to rate books, or Hot-or-Not uses to rate hotties. Voters assign a score (1-5, or 1-10) to each candidate.
Originally I was a fan of Range Voting, but I’m not sure the general public is informed or diligent enough to use it. YouTube originally used a Range Voting system to rate their videos, but their user base seemed incapable of rating anything other than 1 or 5 stars, so they reverted to a simpler Approval vote system (Like/Dislike).
I looked up range voting after my last post. Between complexity and tactical voting, I concluded that a binary weighting had a slim pragmatic advantage.
As for treating elections as a feedback system: I don’t see approval voting increasing the bandwidth of the system nearly so much as removing a step filter that introduces noise whenever there are more than 2 strong candidates.
And YES! I would like to vote for a minor candidate I like without neglecting or spoiling the race between the front runners. Most any of the proposed alternatives are better than our current election system there.