Electoral reform ideas

[Keystone Phil]

We need to keep the reform discussion going. I have always been a fan of clear reform in Atlasia's voting system but after this election I think the call for reform is the greatest it has ever been. Make your opinion known. Show our elected officials that this is very important to us.

[TomC]

preferential is not the probnlem. It IS the best method. The problem is the barstardised version used in atlasia.

If preferential voting is not the problem, then its the way the ballots are watched and torn apart for every nuance. It becomes sport to try and analyze how to effect the 5th round, and how to be cute and entertaining.

Look at Peter Bell's ballot:

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He clearly made this ballot because of prior mistakes by others: the absence of a running mate, even though the running mates are listed two preferences down. The misspelling of Akno21 repeated, intentionally erroneous since the next line shows he can indeed spell Akno. He did this to frustrate the sofa, to confuse him about the decisions he had to make. Did he mean true harm? I doubt it, but he was being cute with his ballot- and if that's what we want then it doesn't really matter what system we use. But candidates put a lot into running. Supporters clearly get behind candiates and believe in them. There's a place for jokes and strategizing but what we witnessed last weekend was excessive- and electoral integrity was compromised. We saw how that affected people. So, if we keep preference voting- we desperately need secret ballots. If neither is changed, I'll be voting at 11:58ish and encouraging others to do the same.


EDIT: And I don't mean disrespect for Peter, I'd like to see him as head of my party, and hell, my nation here, but there are certain people here who are looked up to, and at important times, I feel those people need to set a good example. Peter is absolutely one of those people. I don't think this ballot helped.

[Brandon H]

Does anyone think perhaps a seperate voting page would work, that would be tied to the users account, and only a few select people could view it? If Dave can add the PC scores, then this could also be done, except no one has written it yet. This would make it harder for a voter to vote invalidly except for perhaps write ins.

[Jake]

Don't come back with you rank all the candidates BS Hugh. If I think Dubya or Jesus is not worth my vote/preference, I should be allowed to deny it to them.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Don't come back with you rank all the candidates BS Hugh. If I think Dubya or Jesus is not worth my vote/preference, I should be allowed to deny it to them.

Then don't preference them.

[Platypus]

Don't come back with you rank all the candidates BS Hugh. If I think Dubya or Jesus is not worth my vote/preference, I should be allowed to deny it to them.

that's what preferential voting is. The system of preferential voting insists you rank all candidates. Optional preferential voting also exists, where someone can choose just to list one candidate and then either have their ballot exhausted when they are eliminated, or follow a pre-determined order of preference that candidate chooses.

Preferential voting is the best system. It's the most democratic, it's very simple, etc. Add a secret ballot, and institute true preferential voting, and Atlasia has the best system of voting.

[Brandon H]

Don't come back with you rank all the candidates BS Hugh. If I think Dubya or Jesus is not worth my vote/preference, I should be allowed to deny it to them.

that's what preferential voting is. The system of preferential voting insists you rank all candidates. Optional preferential voting also exists, where someone can choose just to list one candidate and then either have their ballot exhausted when they are eliminated, or follow a pre-determined order of preference that candidate chooses.

Preferential voting is the best system. It's the most democratic, it's very simple, etc. Add a secret ballot, and institute true preferential voting, and Atlasia has the best system of voting.

I really thought about not preferencing any of the candidates who did not preference Dubya at all. However that would only hurt the candidates themselves rather then the people who voted for them. One of the things I like about the Demochoice polls.

[Peter]

Having the secret ballots sent to only one person is in my opinion dangerous to the point of inviting fraud.

Even with the six number string, there is still ample opportunity for a clever SoFA to throw the election results - there are a number of people who vote and then don't really come back - a SoFA might subtly alter these ballots in order to try to throw a race. He would probably realise that he couldn't get away with it with the regulars like you and I, but people like danwxman, thefactor, Nation, etc., he might just be able to.

Certainly incorporating the six number string idea into the secret voting proposals that I wrote would be a good idea, but abandoning any definite check on the SoFAs sole power to read the actual ballots is reckless.

[Jake]

Preferential voting is the best system. It's the most democratic, it's very simple, etc. Add a secret ballot, and institute true preferential voting, and Atlasia has the best system of voting.

In your opinion. I see little reason why it is more democratic to force voters to vote for people they don't support.

[CheeseWhiz]

Preferential voting is the best system. It's the most democratic, it's very simple, etc. Add a secret ballot, and institute true preferential voting, and Atlasia has the best system of voting.

In your opinion. I see little reason why it is more democratic to force voters to vote for people they don't support.

How do we force them to vote for people they don’t support?  If anything, we’re encouraging more candidates into the race, meaning it is more likely for everyone to have a candidate that they enthusiastically support, instead of just voting for the lesser of two evils.

[WiseGuy]

Preferential voting is the best system. It's the most democratic, it's very simple, etc. Add a secret ballot, and institute true preferential voting, and Atlasia has the best system of voting.

In your opinion. I see little reason why it is more democratic to force voters to vote for people they don't support.

How do we force them to vote for people they don’t support?  If anything, we’re encouraging more candidates into the race, meaning it is more likely for everyone to have a candidate that they enthusiastically support, instead of just voting for the lesser of two evils.

I believe he was talking about Hugh's idea of requiring that all the candidates are preferenced.  I wouldn't put it exactly the way Jake did, but I'm not too hot on that idea myself.

[Brandon H]

Preferential voting is the best system. It's the most democratic, it's very simple, etc. Add a secret ballot, and institute true preferential voting, and Atlasia has the best system of voting.

In your opinion. I see little reason why it is more democratic to force voters to vote for people they don't support.

How do we force them to vote for people they don’t support?  If anything, we’re encouraging more candidates into the race, meaning it is more likely for everyone to have a candidate that they enthusiastically support, instead of just voting for the lesser of two evils.

I believe he was talking about Hugh's idea of requiring that all the candidates are preferenced.  I wouldn't put it exactly the way Jake did, but I'm not too hot on that idea myself.

Maybe, but surely everyone has a preference between any two candidates. Example: I would never vote for Ted Kennedy, but I would give him my second to last preference to rank him ahead of someone like Hitler.

I saw someone mentioning putting a limit on something like three candidates to preference. Maybe we could do something like exactly three candidates. I definitely don't like that being for the tie breaker.

I think the Signature thing mentioned in Fezzy's idea could be good, but would make it something like 5 signatures from anyone as opposed to just a few Senators.

We just need to keep the ideas coming.

[Jake]

Example:

Last election, there was no difference in my mind between Dubya/Donny and Jesus/Lewis. Having either ticket get elected would've been intolerable. I suppose if pushed, I would rate Joe/Defarge the slightest bit above horrible, but I still wouldn't want to vote for them.

Same for Senate. I was certainly not voting for an inactive candidate, even if the vote wasn't going to matter anyway.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

I feel the same way.  I would not have been able to preference Emsworth unless I wrote in every other possible combination of registered voters as candidates and put Emmy at the bottom of my ballot.  As for the Senate race, I would never have been able to put a candidate on my ballot who threatened me with bodily harm.

[Platypus]

the thing is, they're already ON your ballot, just not receiving a vote-and a last preference is the same as no vote. Compulsory listing of all candidates, sans write-ins, makes for an easy system to vote, with all the benefits of pref. voting. It has negatives, but the benefits far outweigh them, and are less numerous then those of other systems, especially any version of FPTP.

[minionofmidas]

It should be obvious to anyone by now that IRV in the absence of a secret ballot is problematic. Whether or no you have to list all the candidates is fairly irrelevant in this respect (except that if we had that rule, we'd get more needlessly invalid ballots, which is why I oppose it).