Milk_and_Cereal's voting system proposal

[MaC]

Let's say there are six people running:

Gabu
Keystone Phil
Texasgurl
hughento
ilikeverin
StatesRights

I should be able to choose all six if I want, or just three, or one or none.  As many people as I want, all get one vote

For example I vote:

Gabu
Texasgurl
hughento

they get one vote each, the others don't

I think the current system sucks because I never understood the system.  Does everyone in a prference get a differently weighted vote?  What's with the run off thing?  I don't know; but I think my system is most fair...

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

Let's say there are six people running:

Gabu
Keystone Phil
Texasgurl
hughento
ilikeverin
StatesRights

I should be able to choose all six if I want, or just three, or one or none.  As many people as I want, all get one vote

For example I vote:

Gabu
Texasgurl
hughento

they get one vote each, the others don't

I think the current system sucks because I never understood the system.  Does everyone in a prference get a differently weighted vote?  What's with the run off thing?  I don't know; but I think my system is most fair...

I believe you are describing approval voting, which is the only thing I disapprove of more than FFTP.

[minionofmidas]

He is describing approval voting.
I'd say there are worse things. It's certainly easy to understand and not horribly unfair.

[Peter]

Its alright, but it has a weakness - what I think is called "Bullet voting".

In reality I might approve of the following candidates in your theoretical line-up:

Texasgurl
hughento
ILV

But I also approve of Hughento more than the other two. I've done the maths in advance and noticed that Hughento is running pretty closely with Texasgurl. Therefore to help my preferred candidate, Hughento, I don't vote "honestly" and instead simply approve of Hughento and ILV.

Its probably easier to calculate that IRV, but its still susceptible to tactical voting. A secret ballot may reduce this somewhat but there will be a number of voters who approve of just their ultimately preferred candidate, rather than voting "honestly" for all their approved candidates.

[DanielX]

Not bad. Certainly simpler.

One possible reform (albeit one that may be problematic) is to allow for someone to bive 2 votes for a 'favorite' candidate. Let's say the race is:

Mideastern Senate
Milk_and_Cereal
Peter Bell
MODU
opebo

My vote would be
Milk_and_Cereal (++)
Peter Bell
MODU

showing my approval of the three candidates,Milk and Cereal most of all. He gets 2, Peter Bell and MODU 1, and opebo nothing.

The other possibility is to give 10 points for each race, and have the voter allot them for each, say...

5 Milk_and_Cereal
3 MODU
2 Peter Bell
0 opebo

The only problem I can see with this in a secret ballot is that it means you can put all your points in one candidate to make your vote stronger. A hybrid would be numerical approval voting, or having up to 5 points you can award to each candidate based on your approval.

[Peter]

The only problem I can see with this in a secret ballot is that it means you can put all your points in one candidate to make your vote stronger. A hybrid would be numerical approval voting, or having up to 5 points you can award to each candidate based on your approval.

Thats range voting - again, it'll get used tactically a lot, and the tactical element will filter into the Senate races.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Here's another flaw though.

Imagine this hypothetical election:

Emsworth
Joe Republic
opebo
AuH2O
KillerPollo

Under approval voting, Emsworth and Joe Republic supporters would probably vote for the bottom three candidates as well to ensure they face them in the run off. And a worse case scenario: If enough people on both sides do so, neither Emsworth or Joe make the run off, and we end up with opebo vs. AuH2O, AuH2O vs. KillerPollo or opebo vs. KillerPollo.

[John Dibble]

Its alright, but it has a weakness - what I think is called "Bullet voting".

In reality I might approve of the following candidates in your theoretical line-up:

Texasgurl
hughento
ILV

But I also approve of Hughento more than the other two. I've done the maths in advance and noticed that Hughento is running pretty closely with Texasgurl. Therefore to help my preferred candidate, Hughento, I don't vote "honestly" and instead simply approve of Hughento and ILV.

Its probably easier to calculate that IRV, but its still susceptible to tactical voting. A secret ballot may reduce this somewhat but there will be a number of voters who approve of just their ultimately preferred candidate, rather than voting "honestly" for all their approved candidates.

Well, at least it's more honest that the way that the tactical voting screwed up this election - a tactical vote here is a vote for your preferred candidate, so you can't simply eliminate a candidate by preferencing someone you don't support.

[MaC]

Here's another flaw though.

Imagine this hypothetical election:

Emsworth
Joe Republic
opebo
AuH2O
KillerPollo

Under approval voting, Emsworth and Joe Republic supporters would probably vote for the bottom three candidates as well to ensure they face them in the run off. And a worse case scenario: If enough people on both sides do so, neither Emsworth or Joe make the run off, and we end up with opebo vs. AuH2O, AuH2O vs. KillerPollo or opebo vs. KillerPollo.

very unlikely though, look at the number of votes opebo got in the Mideast gubenatorial.  People deserve what they get if they vote for a troll candidate.
I think this 1st, 2nd, 3rd place thing is really confusing.  At leat approval voting would let you vote for guys you want, and not let the other people get your endorsement.