Should Voters Be Allowed to Pick Multiple Candidates?
SodaHead News
2012/03/19 13:00:00
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Matthew Lane, a Ph.D. candidate in mathematics at UCLA, wrote an interesting editorial for CNN on Friday examining how the U.S. could improve election results. After examining voter satisfaction levels for different types of voting systems, he determined that one simple adjustment to the current U.S. voting system could improve our overall satisfaction with the results: Let people vote for as many candidates as they want. It might sound strange, but the numbers seem to suggest it works.
According to the article, "approval voting" and "score voting" have higher voter satisfaction than "plurality voting" (our current system) and "Instant-Runoff Voting" (a complicated strategic voting system used in some U.S. cities), no matter how honest or strategic the voters are. Approval voting is exactly like our current system, but with the ability to vote for candidates. Score voting is similar, but requires that voters also rank their selected candidates on a given scale.
According to the article, "approval voting" and "score voting" have higher voter satisfaction than "plurality voting" (our current system) and "Instant-Runoff Voting" (a complicated strategic voting system used in some U.S. cities), no matter how honest or strategic the voters are. Approval voting is exactly like our current system, but with the ability to vote for candidates. Score voting is similar, but requires that voters also rank their selected candidates on a given scale.
Top Opinion
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wilsonmja 2012/03/19 21:43:58Yes
+8It makes sense. If you have 3 candidates running and none of them get over 50% of the votes than majority did not rule. This system will help 3rd party candidates a lot because in sure that a lot of people won't vote Ron Paul because they are unwilling to "throw away their vote."
(I should admit that my name is Ossipoff, not Osborne. But I forgot my password, and so it was necessary to start a new account in order to log-in. I emphasize that I didn't and won't vote a 2nd time. I've cast a vote in the poll, and I won't re-vote.)
In Plurality, there are two possibilities:
1. You vote for your favorite.
2. You vote for a compromise who isn't as good as your favorite.
What should/would you do in an Approval election?
1. If you voted for your favorite in Plurality, then you'd vote _only_ for him/her in Approval.
2. If you voted for a less-liked compromise, then, still believing that you need that
compromise, you'd vote for him/her, and also for everyone whom you like better, including
your favorite.
So then, how will this change the results, when we change the voting system to Approval?:
Lots of approvals will go to candidates whom people like more than their un-liked compromise. More-liked candidates will get more support. People will be helping candidates whom they like. The winner will be someone more liked. That can only be an improvement.
(My apologies for starting a 2nd account--As I said, I lost my password, and therefore couldn't use my initial account)
In Plurality, many or most people compromise. They have to choose which compromise candidate is the one who can win, the one that others like themselves will unite on. And they have to guess right. With Approval there's no guessing-game.
In Approval, you merely approve everyone you like. Or everyone you think is good enough.
...Or everyone who is acceptable. Maybe there are some really unacceptable candidates, and some acceptable ones. So you just approve the acceptable ones.
Or maybe you'll feel like voting for the compromise-candidate you'd vote for in Plurality--but you can also vote for everyone who is better than that..everyone whom you like more. That's a big difference. You can, for the first time, actually approve all of the candidates you like, including the one(s) that you like best.
Not more complicated. More fun. More expressive. More free. And more hopeful, because, everyone can always vote for what they really like best.
miserably. Of course millions of people aren't voting for their favorite. They report that they "hold their nose" and vote for someone they don't like or want, in order to defeat
someone who is even worse.
In Plurality you must try to guess which candidate is the one you need for compromise, and on whom sufficiently many voters will unite. What if voters have been guessing wrong? Approval lets you approve the _set_ of candidates among whom you expect to need a compromise. No split vote.
Approval doesn't give anyone undue or unequal voting power. Each voter may give,
to each candidate, a rating of "approved" or "not approved". Therefore, if there are
12 candidates, then each voter is giving 12 ratings--one to each candidate--up/down ratings. Approved or not-approved ratings. By marking the candidate's name, you're giving an "approved" rating.
Someone mentioned the possibility of ballot-tampering by adding more approvals to someone's ballot. The simple remedy is to actually have two boxes for each candidate--The voter marks either the "approved" box or the "not approved" box.
Anyway, if count-officers aren't observed, they could steal and discard ballots, maybe replacing them with th...
miserably. Of course millions of people aren't voting for their favorite. They report that they "hold their nose" and vote for someone they don't like or want, in order to defeat
someone who is even worse.
In Plurality you must try to guess which candidate is the one you need for compromise, and on whom sufficiently many voters will unite. What if voters have been guessing wrong? Approval lets you approve the _set_ of candidates among whom you expect to need a compromise. No split vote.
Approval doesn't give anyone undue or unequal voting power. Each voter may give,
to each candidate, a rating of "approved" or "not approved". Therefore, if there are
12 candidates, then each voter is giving 12 ratings--one to each candidate--up/down ratings. Approved or not-approved ratings. By marking the candidate's name, you're giving an "approved" rating.
Someone mentioned the possibility of ballot-tampering by adding more approvals to someone's ballot. The simple remedy is to actually have two boxes for each candidate--The voter marks either the "approved" box or the "not approved" box.
Anyway, if count-officers aren't observed, they could steal and discard ballots, maybe replacing them with their own pre-marked ballots. So no method, including Plurality
is invulnerable to tampering by unobserved count-officers. The ballot-box must not be opened or unlocked except when there are sufficient observers. Have video-cameras
watching the ballots and count-personnel at all times. Have video and other security for the room where the locked ballot-boxes are stored.
If you think that Approval has a problem that Plurality doesn't have, then tell us what it is.
If you think that Approval will have a societal bad result that Plurality doesn't have, then tell us what it is.
Approval will elect the candidate approved by the most voters. The candidate given an approval mark by the most voters. That isn't a bad result.
If you feel that Approval will dilute the strength of your support for your favorite, then you're free to not approve anyone else.
What would give a bad societal result? A voting system in which millions of voters are
unable to indicate or support their favorite, but must instead vote only for someone they don't like. I'm referring to our current Plurality voting system.
How to vote in Approval:
Well, in Plurality, many people are voting for a compromise whom they think they need. Do the same in Approval. Approve that candidate. But you can also give an approval mark to the candidates whom you like more--including your favorite.
With Approval, for the first time, no one would have to abandon their favorite. Voting would become something positive. You could approve the candidate(s) you like, in addition to the one(s) you think you need. ...Then you'll find out if you really needed the compromises you approved. Maybe your favorite will prove winnable.
Allowing people to vote for more candidates would tell us what people we want and what people we do not want.
Voting for only one is like having a race on a racetrack that's only two people wide. Anyone who doesn't start out in front doesn't have a chance.
It needn't be like that. This need to give it all to a lesser-evil is the direct result of only being allowed to indicate support for one candidate. Plurality is a points system in which you're (inexplicably) only allowed to give a point to one candidate. What a bizarre point system. Approval lets you give to anyone one or zero points, as one would expect from a reasonable point system. Each voter gives to each candidate "Approved" or "Not Approved".
In a meaningful and real sense, Approval elects the most approved candidate.
No more only giving a point to a lesser-evil. With Approval you'd be able to also approve the _best_ candidates too, including your favorite.
Anyone who thinks Approval is too complicated, confusing, unpredictable, undemocratic, or somehow a plot of liberals / conservatives / libertarians should be consistent, and only give a single post a thumbs-up.
Of course, those voting "yes" to the Approval question are free -- nay, encouraged! -- to vote for as many posts as they like. :D
Based on your experience, and ignoring the voter quality or the issue of actual cheating using multiple accounts, is the Sodahead system worse than plurality voting? I find myself about as likely to agree with the top comment as I am to agree with my congresscritter, which is to say, not very. And certainly I don't think sodahead would be improved by limiting you to one vote.
The system seems to work best when there are multiple candidates for multiple seats. For example, instead of having districts in which each district has to choose 1 representative, you can use approval voting to allow all the voters to choose 1 or more of all the representatives without having your vote "washed out" because you live in a particular district.
You mention rank methods. For one thing, they're all more complicated. Approval quite obviously is an improvement, and only an improvement, over Plurality. That isn't so obvious with the rank methods, they being much more complicated. Also, Approval doesn't require any new balloting. The ballot would differ from Plurality only in saying "Approve one or more candidates", instead of "Vote for one candidate". That's it. Just two more words in the instruction. Added balloting cost? Zero.
Also, rank methods' improvement over Approval is largely illusory. Each of the rank methods brings with it some problem of its own.
And when (as I suggest is the case now), there are unacceptable candidates who could win, Approval has a strategy much simpler than that of any other method: Approve the acceptable candidates, and don't approve any of the unacceptable candidates. That simplicity of strategy is unmatched.
The person getting the second highest number of votes becomes the veep. Plain and simple.