Voting

[andrewducker]

Following discussions here in a post about Condorcet voting, I thought I'd ask people what voting system people would like for a single-winner voting system.

Let's say you have three parties:
Marmite, Vegemite and Peanut Butter

Vegemite lovers hate Marmite and vice versa. Peanut Butter isn't loved by as many, but isn't hated either.

You have 249 voters. Everyone ranks their preferences in order.

100 people vote marmite 1, peanut butter 2, vegemite 3
99 people vote vegemite 1, peanut butter 2, marmite 3
26 people vote peanut butter 1, vegemite 2, marmite 3
24 people vote peanut butter 1, marmite 2, vegemite 3

FPTP: Marmite wins, because only one vote per person counts, and more people voted marmite than anyone else (100->99->50).
AV: Vegemite wins, because after peanut butter is knocked out of the running, and the second-place votes are transferred, it has 125 votes to marmite's 124.
Condorcet: We compare each option to each other one, and see which one wins. Peanut Butter beats Marmite (149->100), Peanut Butter beats Vegemite (150->99), Vegemite beats Marmite (125->124). As Peanut Butter wins all of its battles, it's the victor, Vegemite is in second place.

[Poll #1637922]

Comments

[andrewducker]

The principle objection to FPTP is that it encourages huge amounts of tactical voting and partisan thinking.
The principle objection to Condorcet is that the least objectionable candidate wins (although whether you see that as bad or good is a personal choice, of course).
AV is generally seen as a wishy-washy "Better than FPTP but not as good as others." approach by people that prefer other voting systems. Nobody seems to love it, but it's not seen as that bad.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

FPTP hates Condorcet, and vice-versa. AV isn't loved by as many but isn't hated either. How very meta :)

ETA: By picking the least objectionable candidate, isn't Condorcet more wishy-washy than AV?

[anef.livejournal.com]

Clearly the answer is to mix marmite, vegemite and peanut butter together in proportions according to first choice popularity. That would satisfy everyone.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

> 100 people vote marmite 1, peanut butter 2, vegemite 3

Which way round does that mean? It's ambiguous.

[e-halmac.livejournal.com]

I've seen AV in action and the results can be surprising. I do think AV-type voting systems are more fair.

In other news, I hate vegemite AND marmite, so would always be on the side of peanut butter.

[andrewducker]

Marmite in first place, then peanut butter, then Vemegite.

Sorry!

[andrewducker]

That's why I said "single-winner" (like a mayor or president).

For large groups I favour either STV or AV+ (the Scottish method seems to work pretty well).

[andrewducker]

No, some people hate Condorcet with a fiery passion, because it makes first-place votes almost meaningless.

If you have first-votes of Marmite 49%, Vegemite 49%, Peanut Butter 2%, it's possible to end up with Peanut butter coming first. Some people are radically against that (see the comments on the post I linked to.)

[simont]

I found I was mostly influenced in my choice by your gloss on the suggested voting results, which makes it look as if there's some sort of political spectrum of opinion on which M and V are opposed extremist parties and P represents the reasonable moderate centrists. My instinct is always to go with the reasonable moderate in such cases, in the absence of more specific information which might show that one of the extremist parties is actually right. Hence, it seems clear that I would want P to win, and that's what I voted.

However, with a different gloss I might have felt differently. You might have said instead, for example, that there was near-universal consensus that P was terrible, so that all the MPV and VPM voters mentally put P as only just better than whichever one they placed third. Such a situation might arise, for example, if the M and V parties were each going to benefit about half the country at the expense of the other half (say, one rural and one urban), and P were naïve idealists who meant well but were probably going to wreck the economy in practice and not benefit anyone (and the first-choice-P voters were people who had foolishly believed the idealism). That gloss could have described the same set of voting results, but it would have made me want P to be thrown out early and the marginally more popular of M and V to win.

And neither of those pieces of reasoning has anything to do with each voting system's internal rationale for selecting a given winner!

[opusfluke.livejournal.com]

Option #4: Make Voting Mandatory So People Get Off Their Arses And Vote At All.

[andrewducker]

Yes. You pretty much have to assume the veil of ignorance over what the actual parties are.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

That's orthogonal to the choice of voting system, not a separate option.

[andrewducker]

Oh, God, No. I do not want people voting who do not care about it. I want passionate, educated voters.

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

Problem with Condorcet: what happens when large numbers of people just vote for Marmite, and don't give a 2nd or 3rd preference? Since they hate Vegemite so much, why would they even list it? There's nothing that says you must list a 2nd or 3rd candidate -- only the 1st. This leads to large numbers of battles that just aren't fought.

The only reason to include a 2nd vote is specifically to prevent your least preferred from getting in, sort of an "I'll settle for peanut butter, because it isn't vegemite" option. This isn't a problem for either FPTP or AV.

[anef.livejournal.com]

I was (ahem) making rather a feeble joke about the palatability of the rsulting mix. But it probably wasn't that funny.

[andrewducker]

Sorry - dashing back and forth between three tasks. Seems to make my ability to spot humour fall through the floor!

[andrewducker]

Would that be a problem? You'd count Marmite as first place, and then count the others as being a "loss" when doing the calculations for who wins.

[opusfluke.livejournal.com]

Look at the next 12 (or 15 if in Scotland) random strangers you encounter and imagine them on the jury for your trial. Having done jury duty twice I despair. Make education on the ethics of voting mandatory! Or let's just say stuff it, most mehums are morons, just try to vote against rather than for until people wake up and take responsibility and- Ooh! Shiny!

[skington.livejournal.com]

The thing is, though, that in an AV system it's perfectly reasonable to e.g. vote Green 1, LibDem 2, Labour 3 , SNP 4 and miss out Conservatives entirely, and not necessarily prefer the Greens to win. Perhaps you prefer the LibDems, and expect them to be significant contenders for the seat, but you want to express your support for the Greens, knowing full well that they'll get knocked out fairly quickly and then your vote will go to who you actually want to get in.

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

I may well be wrong. I've not looked at it mathematically, it's just sort of a hunch that it doesn't seem quite right, particularly in very polarised situations.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I'm coming round to FPTP because of all this fiddling and wiggling by political wonks like me running rings round ordinary voters who don't have time or inclination to master the intricacies of this kind of stuff.

[andrewducker]

AV is actually simpler, IMHO, because you remove the need to think about voting tactically.

In a three-way split, where you'd be happy with two of the parties, but hate the third, knowing how to vote in FPTP is very hard. Knowing how to vote in that situation with AV is trivial.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

But how often is that the case, and how often do voters think 'I want X to win', 'I am an X supporter', 'I like my MP', 'I wish X was my MP'? I think these are more common preferences.

I think the alternative systems risk disenfranchising those people who are already under-represented electorally.

[andrewducker]

I hear masses of talk about tactical voting every time there's an election. Because people vote against at least as often as they vote for. But then I know about 3 people who actually know anything about who their local MP is, pretty much all voting that I'm aware of goes for a party, not an MP.

And AV should help with people who are under-represented, by making sure that all elected MPs get 50% of the vote, whereas at the moment you can be elected on significantly less.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I hear masses of talk like that too, but I think that reflects the social circles we move in. Other types of people have a great interest in the personality of the local MP ('He's done a lot for the farmers' or whatever) and - yes - party tribalism.