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Voting is a Sham Mathematically Speaking

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Re: Voting is a Sham Mathematically Speaking

#11

Post by rjzzleep »

aprescott wrote: post #9

In this case, Hanselman is the clear winner with three votes, whereas the other two candidates each have two votes. This is how our elections are held today. This is dependent on the exact election taking place. With the US presidential elections, my understanding is that a plurality of electoral college votes is not enough to win, you need an actual majority. In the event of a simple plurality win with no majority,…

is it? the actual candidates already get preselected.

even if youre right, which is likely, it doesn't matter, because any majority was previously generated by pluarility.

Re: Voting is a Sham Mathematically Speaking

#12

Post by jivatmanx »

bhauer wrote: post #6
mtgx wrote: post #2

Approval Voting mostly solves the "strategic voting" part that almost forces you to choose the "most likely to win" candidate, or if you hate that one, the one closest to him, while eliminating the spoiler effect, and giving 3rd party candidates a much higher chance of winning than with current traditional voting systems. http://www.electology.org/approval-voting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting

Score voting is actually slightly superior to Approval Voting (which is Score Voting with a range of 0 to 1). To my understanding, the Center for Election Science ("electology.org") is the preeminent organization championing Approval and Score Voting. http://www.electology.org/score-voting Eric Sanders of that same organization has written a few articles on the subject, including the following: http://bigthink.com/ac…

I think that, over time, people would drift towards using only 0 and 10 and none of the middle scores, similar to how, over time a plurality voting system drifts towards only having two political parties (Duverger's Law). 0 And 10 are the "strategic votes" of score voting as 2-major-parties are the "strategic votes" of plurality voting.

A possible counter-argument to this is that score voting doesn't have a reinforcing feedback loop (each election, the minor parties get weaker until they remain at around 1%)

Re: Voting is a Sham Mathematically Speaking

#14

Post by Noughmad »

I find it interesting that in all those discussions about voting systems, which are mostly focused on USA president elections, nobody mentions two-round voting, also known as run-off voting.

This is what we have in Slovenia for electing our president. In the first round, there are many candidates, and each voter can vote for one. If any candidate gets at least 50% of votes, he automatically wins.

If, on the other hand, there is no majority winner, the two best candidates compete head-to-head in the second round.

Such a system allows you to always vote for your favourite candidate in the first round, and if your candidate doesn't make it into the second round, you can vote for the fallback one.

Details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system

Re: Voting is a Sham Mathematically Speaking

#16

Post by bo1024 »

saraid216 wrote: post #5

> Voting is a method that a group of people use to pick the “best choice” out of a set of candidates. It’s pretty obvious, right? And like many other pieces of "common sense", this isn't correct. Wikipedia says, "Voting is a method for a group such as a meeting or an electorate to make a decision or express an opinion—often following discussions, debates, or election campaigns. Democracies elect holders of high offic…

> Wikipedia says, "Voting is a method for a group such as a meeting or an electorate to make a decision or express an opinion—often following discussions, debates, or election campaigns. Democracies elect holders of high office by voting." This is very different from "picking the best choice".

I don't see how they are different. The author never said that candidates have to be people. Substitute the word "alternatives" if you prefer.

Re: Voting is a Sham Mathematically Speaking

#17

Post by saraid216 »

derleth wrote: post #7
saraid216 wrote: post #5

> Voting is a method that a group of people use to pick the “best choice” out of a set of candidates. It’s pretty obvious, right? And like many other pieces of "common sense", this isn't correct. Wikipedia says, "Voting is a method for a group such as a meeting or an electorate to make a decision or express an opinion—often following discussions, debates, or election campaigns. Democracies elect holders of high offic…

> I realize that the American public has been indoctrinated for the past few decades that voting is the only way you make yourself heard This has never been true. Americans have always protested, signed petitions, and even joined special interest groups like the ACLU and the NRA. Americans have a very long tradition of things like that.

Tell that to the next person who complains that their vote doesn't count.

Re: Voting is a Sham Mathematically Speaking

#19

Post by saraid216 »

wam wrote: post #10

Learning about Arrow's theorem definitely changed the way I think about elections in the US. It also changed the way I think about election news coverage. I used to be an ardent "horse race news" hater. I still am, in terms of how utterly it dominates election news, but now I see some utility in it as well. Arrow and these others have focused how I look at the game-theoretic underpinnings of elections and the importa…

Social choice theory is One Of Those Things which everyone (myself included) needs to spend more time learning about.

Re: Voting is a Sham Mathematically Speaking

#20

Post by Pinckney »

gradstudent wrote: post #15

Preferential voting solves all these problems. You vote by ranking the candidates on order of preference. If your top candidate does not win the vote goes to next guy down the line until eventually it ends up for one of two candidates.

Preferential voting does not satisfy the Condorcet criterion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting#Voting_sy...

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