Improving Elections with Instant Runoff Voting
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THE SINGLE-MEMBER PLURALITY and MIXED-MEMBER PROPORTIONAL ELECTORAL SYSTEMS : Different Concepts of an Election
THE SINGLE-MEMBER PLURALITY AND MIXED-MEMBER PROPORTIONAL ELECTORAL SYSTEMS : Different Concepts of an Election by James C. Anderson A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfillment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Master of Arts in Political Science Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2006 © James C. Anderson 2006 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Library and Bibliotheque et Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-23700-7 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-23700-7 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce,Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve,sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet,distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform,et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. -
Responsiveness, Capture and Efficient Policymaking
CENTRO DE INVESTIGACIÓN Y DOCENCIA ECONÓMICAS, A.C. ELECTIONS AND LOTTERIES: RESPONSIVENESS, CAPTURE AND EFFICIENT POLICYMAKING TESINA QUE PARA OBTENER EL GRADO DE MAESTRO EN CIENCIA POLÍTICA PRESENTA JORGE OLMOS CAMARILLO DIRECTOR DE LA TESINA: DR. CLAUDIO LÓPEZ-GUERRA CIUDAD DE MÉXICO SEPTIEMBRE, 2018 CONTENTS I. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 II. Literature Review ..................................................................................................... 6 1. Political Ambition .............................................................................................. 6 2. Electoral Systems and Policymaking ................................................................. 7 3. The Revival of Democracy by Lot ..................................................................... 8 III. Lottocracy in Theory .............................................................................................. 12 IV. Elections and Lotteries ........................................................................................... 14 1. Responsiveness ................................................................................................. 14 2. Legislative Capture ........................................................................................... 16 3. Efficiency.......................................................................................................... 18 V. A Formal Model of Legislator’s Incentives .......................................................... -
Are Condorcet and Minimax Voting Systems the Best?1
1 Are Condorcet and Minimax Voting Systems the Best?1 Richard B. Darlington Cornell University Abstract For decades, the minimax voting system was well known to experts on voting systems, but was not widely considered to be one of the best systems. But in recent years, two important experts, Nicolaus Tideman and Andrew Myers, have both recognized minimax as one of the best systems. I agree with that. This paper presents my own reasons for preferring minimax. The paper explicitly discusses about 20 systems. Comments invited. [email protected] Copyright Richard B. Darlington May be distributed free for non-commercial purposes Keywords Voting system Condorcet Minimax 1. Many thanks to Nicolaus Tideman, Andrew Myers, Sharon Weinberg, Eduardo Marchena, my wife Betsy Darlington, and my daughter Lois Darlington, all of whom contributed many valuable suggestions. 2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction and summary 3 2. The variety of voting systems 4 3. Some electoral criteria violated by minimax’s competitors 6 Monotonicity 7 Strategic voting 7 Completeness 7 Simplicity 8 Ease of voting 8 Resistance to vote-splitting and spoiling 8 Straddling 8 Condorcet consistency (CC) 8 4. Dismissing eight criteria violated by minimax 9 4.1 The absolute loser, Condorcet loser, and preference inversion criteria 9 4.2 Three anti-manipulation criteria 10 4.3 SCC/IIA 11 4.4 Multiple districts 12 5. Simulation studies on voting systems 13 5.1. Why our computer simulations use spatial models of voter behavior 13 5.2 Four computer simulations 15 5.2.1 Features and purposes of the studies 15 5.2.2 Further description of the studies 16 5.2.3 Results and discussion 18 6. -
On the Distortion of Voting with Multiple Representative Candidates∗
The Thirty-Second AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-18) On the Distortion of Voting with Multiple Representative Candidates∗ Yu Cheng Shaddin Dughmi David Kempe Duke University University of Southern California University of Southern California Abstract voters and the chosen candidate in a suitable metric space (Anshelevich 2016; Anshelevich, Bhardwaj, and Postl 2015; We study positional voting rules when candidates and voters Anshelevich and Postl 2016; Goel, Krishnaswamy, and Mu- are embedded in a common metric space, and cardinal pref- erences are naturally given by distances in the metric space. nagala 2017). The underlying assumption is that the closer In a positional voting rule, each candidate receives a score a candidate is to a voter, the more similar their positions on from each ballot based on the ballot’s rank order; the candi- key questions are. Because proximity implies that the voter date with the highest total score wins the election. The cost would benefit from the candidate’s election, voters will rank of a candidate is his sum of distances to all voters, and the candidates by increasing distance, a model known as single- distortion of an election is the ratio between the cost of the peaked preferences (Black 1948; Downs 1957; Black 1958; elected candidate and the cost of the optimum candidate. We Moulin 1980; Merrill and Grofman 1999; Barbera,` Gul, consider the case when candidates are representative of the and Stacchetti 1993; Richards, Richards, and McKay 1998; population, in the sense that they are drawn i.i.d. from the Barbera` 2001). population of the voters, and analyze the expected distortion Even in the absence of strategic voting, voting systems of positional voting rules. -
Single-Winner Voting Method Comparison Chart
Single-winner Voting Method Comparison Chart This chart compares the most widely discussed voting methods for electing a single winner (and thus does not deal with multi-seat or proportional representation methods). There are countless possible evaluation criteria. The Criteria at the top of the list are those we believe are most important to U.S. voters. Plurality Two- Instant Approval4 Range5 Condorcet Borda (FPTP)1 Round Runoff methods6 Count7 Runoff2 (IRV)3 resistance to low9 medium high11 medium12 medium high14 low15 spoilers8 10 13 later-no-harm yes17 yes18 yes19 no20 no21 no22 no23 criterion16 resistance to low25 high26 high27 low28 low29 high30 low31 strategic voting24 majority-favorite yes33 yes34 yes35 no36 no37 yes38 no39 criterion32 mutual-majority no41 no42 yes43 no44 no45 yes/no 46 no47 criterion40 prospects for high49 high50 high51 medium52 low53 low54 low55 U.S. adoption48 Condorcet-loser no57 yes58 yes59 no60 no61 yes/no 62 yes63 criterion56 Condorcet- no65 no66 no67 no68 no69 yes70 no71 winner criterion64 independence of no73 no74 yes75 yes/no 76 yes/no 77 yes/no 78 no79 clones criterion72 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 monotonicity yes no no yes yes yes/no yes criterion80 prepared by FairVote: The Center for voting and Democracy (April 2009). References Austen-Smith, David, and Jeffrey Banks (1991). “Monotonicity in Electoral Systems”. American Political Science Review, Vol. 85, No. 2 (June): 531-537. Brewer, Albert P. (1993). “First- and Secon-Choice Votes in Alabama”. The Alabama Review, A Quarterly Review of Alabama History, Vol. ?? (April): ?? - ?? Burgin, Maggie (1931). The Direct Primary System in Alabama. -
Third Party Election Campaigning Getting the Balance Right
Third Party Campaigning Review Third Party Election Campaigning – Getting the Balance Right Review of the operation of the third party campaigning rules at the 2015 General Election The Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts CBE March 2016 Third Party Election Campaigning – Getting the Balance Right Review of the operation of the third party campaigning rules at the 2015 General Election The Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts CBE Presented to Parliament by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster by Command of Her Majesty March 2016 Cm 9205 © Crown copyright 2016 This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: [email protected]. Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned. This publication is available at www.gov.uk/government/publications Any enquiries regarding this publication should be sent to us at [email protected] Print ISBN 9781474127950 Web ISBN 9781474127967 ID SGD0011093 03/16 19585 Printed on paper containing 75% recycled fibre content minimum Printed in the UK by the Williams Lea Group on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office Foreword 1 Foreword I was appointed as the Reviewer of Part 2 specific topics was sent to interested parties. of the Transparency in Lobbying, Non-Party My special thanks are due to all who took the Campaigning and Trade Union Administration trouble to respond to these questionnaires Act 2014 on 28 January 2015. -
High School Voter Registration FAQ
High School Voter Registration FAQ Do you need to be 18 years old to register to vote? No. Although laws vary from state to state, all states let at least some 17 year olds register. Most states only require that a person be at least 18 years of age by the next election. Some set more specific deadlines, such as 17 years and six months, and two states, Florida and Hawaii, even allow people to register at 16 years of age. Do some places already use this type of registration system? Although the 1993 National Voter Registration Act increased access to voter registration materials, governments in the United States still do little to educate voters or encourage voter participation. While many of these other governments use other government records such as a national citizen registry, basing a registration system in high schools is more practical in the United States due to the decentralized nature of our electoral system. Does High School Registration work at either the state or local level? Yes. While it would be great to have entire states using this system, local governments have the authority to implement high school registration at a local level. Local programs would potentially increase participation in local elections, especially ones that directly affect schools, and could also serve as a pilot program for implementation at the state level. I like the idea of helping high school students register to vote; however, I am uncomfortable with making registration a requirement. First of all, remember that compulsory registration is not the same as compulsory voting. -
Women and the Presidency
Women and the Presidency By Cynthia Richie Terrell* I. Introduction As six women entered the field of Democratic presidential candidates in 2019, the political media rushed to declare 2020 a new “year of the woman.” In the Washington Post, one political commentator proclaimed that “2020 may be historic for women in more ways than one”1 given that four of these woman presidential candidates were already holding a U.S. Senate seat. A writer for Vox similarly hailed the “unprecedented range of solid women” seeking the nomination and urged Democrats to nominate one of them.2 Politico ran a piece definitively declaring that “2020 will be the year of the woman” and went on to suggest that the “Democratic primary landscape looks to be tilted to another woman presidential nominee.”3 The excited tone projected by the media carried an air of inevitability: after Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, despite receiving 2.8 million more popular votes than her opponent, ever more women were running for the presidency. There is a reason, however, why historical inevitably has not yet been realized. Although Americans have selected a president 58 times, a man has won every one of these contests. Before 2019, a major party’s presidential debates had never featured more than one woman. Progress toward gender balance in politics has moved at a glacial pace. In 1937, seventeen years after passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, Gallup conducted a poll in which Americans were asked whether they would support a woman for president “if she were qualified in every other respect?”4 * Cynthia Richie Terrell is the founder and executive director of RepresentWomen, an organization dedicated to advancing women’s representation and leadership in the United States. -
Labour Parties Ideas Transfer and Ideological Positioning: Australia and Britain Compared B.M
Labour parties ideas transfer and ideological positioning: Australia and Britain compared B.M. Edwards & Matt Beech School of Humanities and Social Sciences, The University of New South Wales, Canberra School of Politics, Philosophy and International Studies, University of Hull, UK As part of this special issue examining policy transfer between the Labour Parties in Australia and Britain, this paper seeks to explore the relationship between the two on ideological positioning. In the 1990s there was substantial ideas transfer from the Australian Hawke‐ Keating government to Blair ‘New Labour’ in Britain, as both parties made a lunge towards the economic centre. This paper analyses how the inheritors of that shift, the Rudd/Gillard government in Australia and the Milliband and Corbyn leaderships in Britain, are seeking to define the role and purpose of labour parties in its wake. It examines the extent to which they are learning and borrowing from one another, and finds that a combination of divergent economic and political contexts have led to strikingly limited contemporary policy transfer. Keywords: Australian Labor Party; British Labour Party; Kevin Rudd; Julia Gillard; Ed Miliband; crisis In the 1990s there was substantial policy transfer between the Australian Labor Party and the Labour Party in Britain as they confronted the rise of neoliberalism. The ALP was in power from 1983‐1996 and introduced far reaching market liberalisation reforms complemented by a strengthened safety net. Due to the economic reforms of Thatcherism, Labour in Britain also remade itself to be more pro‐market, drawing considerably on policies of the ALP (Pierson and Castles, 2002). -
Ranked-Choice Voting from a Partisan Perspective
Ranked-Choice Voting From a Partisan Perspective Jack Santucci December 21, 2020 Revised December 22, 2020 Abstract Ranked-choice voting (RCV) has come to mean a range of electoral systems. Broadly, they can facilitate (a) majority winners in single-seat districts, (b) majority rule with minority representation in multi-seat districts, or (c) majority sweeps in multi-seat districts. Such systems can be combined with other rules that encourage/discourage slate voting. This paper describes five major versions used in U.S. public elections: Al- ternative Vote (AV), single transferable vote (STV), block-preferential voting (BPV), the bottoms-up system, and AV with numbered posts. It then considers each from the perspective of a `political operative.' Simple models of voting (one with two parties, another with three) draw attention to real-world strategic issues: effects on minority representation, importance of party cues, and reasons for the political operative to care about how voters rank choices. Unsurprisingly, different rules produce different outcomes with the same votes. Specific problems from the operative's perspective are: majority reversal, serving two masters, and undisciplined third-party voters (e.g., `pure' independents). Some of these stem from well-known phenomena, e.g., ballot exhaus- tion/ranking truncation and inter-coalition \vote leakage." The paper also alludes to vote-management tactics, i.e., rationing nominations and ensuring even distributions of first-choice votes. Illustrative examples come from American history and comparative politics. (209 words.) Keywords: Alternative Vote, ballot exhaustion, block-preferential voting, bottoms- up system, exhaustive-preferential system, instant runoff voting, ranked-choice voting, sequential ranked-choice voting, single transferable vote, strategic coordination (10 keywords). -
Third Party Election Spending and the Charter
ELECTIONSPENDING AND THE CHARTER 429 LIBERTE, EGALITE, ARGENT: THIRD PARTY ELECTION SPENDING AND THE CHARTER 0 ANDREW GEDDIS Both the federal government and the courts have le gouvernementfederal et /es cours de Justice ont brought about changes in election law. The author apportedes modificationsa la loi electorate.l 'auteur reviews these recent changes In the legal landscape revolt le.r recents changementsdans le cadre legal that surroundelection mies. Inparticular third party entourant/es reg/es electorates, tout particulierement electionspending. Thequestions of "whatrules exist" /es depenseselectorates de tiers. la question,a savoir and "who shall make them" are particularly « quelles sont les reg/es qui existent II et « qui les importantto the discussionas this area of law tries to me/Ira en place ,, est particulierement importante reconcile individual interestsin liberty and equality dans celle discussionetant donne que ce domainedu in a democracy.The trio of SupremeC our/ of Canada droit teme de reconcilierles interets individuelset la decisions, Libman v. Quebec (A.G.), Thomson notion de liberte et d'egalite d'une democralie.Les Newspapersv. Canada (A.G.) and Sauve v. Canada trois dkisions de la Cour supreme du Canada. (Chief Electoral Officer), reveal ambiguity In the notamment Libman c. le Quebec (A.G.). Thomson Court's rationalefor limiting Individual liberty at Newspapersc. le Canada (A.G.)et Sauve c. le Canada electiontime. Thisambiguity Is broachedIn the recent (Directeur general des elections), manlfestent Supreme Court of Canada case of Harper v. Canada I 'amblg1111erelativement au raisonnementde la Cour (A.G.)where the Courtaccepted that Parliamentmay de limiter la liberte individuellependant un scrutm. -
Office of the City Clerk: Elections and Voter Services Division Table of Contents
Office of the City Clerk: Elections and Voter Services Division Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................ 2 I. IMPACT OF THE 2012 PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION ......................................................... 3 II. STATE LEGISLATIVE PLATFORM ISSUES (EARLY VOTING) ........................................................... 3 III. RECOMMENDED LOCAL IMPROVEMENTS .................................................................................. 4 IV. FINANCING ELECTIONS: MULTI-YEAR PERSPECTIVE .................................................................... 5 V. FINANCING THE 2013 MUNICIPAL ELECTION – SUPPLEMENTAL FUNDING REQUEST ........... 7 VI. PROCUREMENT OF NEW VOTING SYSTEMS & EQUIPMENT .......................................................... 8 VII. PRECINCTS & POLLING PLACES ......................................................................................................... 9 VIII. VOTER OUTREACH & EDUCATION ...................................................................................................11 IX. RANKED CHOICE VOTING – THE MINNEAPOLIS METHOD: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PROCESS IMPROVEMENTS ...................................................................14 CONCLUSION: RECOMMENDATIONS & NEXT STEPS ...................................................................................18 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report provides an update on several initiatives aimed at improving administrative