Range Voting

[kevin_standlee]

The folks advocating Range Voting contacted WSFS (actually, the WSFS webmaster, sfrose) lobbying WSFS to change its voting system from the Instant Runoff Voting system we currently use for site selection and the Hugo Awards. Sharon told them how our rules work and suggested that if they want to change them, they come to WSFS business meetings and propose and debate the changes there, like all other rule changes. The advocate's response, in my opinion, amounted to, "Our proposal is so obviously Right that we shouldn't have to do all that hard, expensive work. You should change your rules because we tell you to do so."

I often tell people who come to me with rules-change proposals, "If you think it's worthwhile, come and submit it yourself. I'll help you with all of the technicalities to the best of my ability, but you have to make your own case, lobby people yourself, and get the votes by convincing people." Most of the time, this discourages them -- democracy is hard work! But sometimes we get people who are willing to work and debate, and sometimes we even get workable changes and improvements.

WSFS rules are intentionally designed to be resistant to change; however, they can be changed if people work hard enough at it. But it's not enough to just lobby a Board of Directors or subvert the Chairman; you have to convince the members.

Comments

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

The discussion on this has gone far and wide, and I see that it's been read by a bunch of people who are not on LJ, some who can't read it (work restrictions) and have made do with messages forwarded to them, some who can read but can't post for various reasons.* From among this last group I got some good comments, which I'll partially quote here:

...A voting system can be as brilliant as you want, but if people don't understand how the result is reached then they won't believe it is fair. As far as most people are concerned, the definition of a "fair" voting system is "one in which my favorite candidate wins". If their candidate doesn't win, and they can't understand the voting system, then they will claim that the voting system is unfair. (As you noted, this happens when the first round leader doesn't win in the Hugos.) [...]

...The issue with selecting the "best" voting system is not selecting the one which results in the best reflection of people's desires, but one that achieves the best balance between that aim and people having confidence in the voting system. If a voting system is sufficiently hard to understand then people will not have confidence in it and will keep assuming that the result is flawed.

This all makes sense to me. Indeed, it partially explains why any system other than "first past the post" is a hard sell -- if the people using the system don't have sufficient confidence in it, the system is a failure. To have sufficient confidence, they have to be able to understand it. It doesn't matter if you're mathematically perfect; if you can't explain it in terms that Joe Six-Pack understands, you're doomed.

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*I preemptively rule that a discussion on why people can or cannot read or post messages here is out of order. Take my word for it. I'll delete comments on the subject of ability-to-read-or-post. If you want to discuss it with me, write to me directly or go start your own topic in your own LJ.

[thebrokenladder.livejournal.com]

...The issue with selecting the "best" voting system is not selecting the one which results in the best reflection of people's desires, but one that achieves the best balance between that aim and people having confidence in the voting system. If a voting system is sufficiently hard to understand then people will not have confidence in it and will keep assuming that the result is flawed.

You want a voting method that people can understand, right? So here I describe two methods.

A) You give each candidate a score on a 0-10 scale, and the candidate with the highest average wins.

B) You rate each candidate in order of preference. We check to see whether any candidate got a majority of first-place votes. If not, then we find the candidate who got the least first place votes, and remove him from all the ballots, and check again for a majority winner. If we get down to only one candidate, he is elected, even if he doesn't have a majority (this can happen if you let people leave some candidates off their ballots).

Hmmm...call me crazy, but IRV sounds a heck of a lot more complicated. Maybe that's why you don't see it used to rate products/books/faces/etc. online, but you DO see range voting used all over the place.

But say that's still not simple enough. Say you're a person who thinks both IRV and Range Voting are too complicated. Behold, Approval Voting, a simplified form of Range Voting that is exactly like plurality, except that you can vote for as many candidates as you want. Even that simplified method bests plurality, IRV, Condorcet, and Borda, coming second only to Range. And it's just a tiny bit more involved than plurality. So why not just switch to Approval voting, and get 90% of the quality improvement of Range Voting, and way more simplicity than IRV or Range voting?