Musings on Range Voting

Firstly I'd like to correct a previous blog posting.  I was actually talking about range voting rather than ranked voting.  Ranked voting actually refers to a group of voting systems where candidates are rated based on numbers, including approval voting and IRV.  An alternative name for range voting is also score voting.  Range voting is best able to promote democracy and elect a candidate that maximizes overall voter satisfaction.

At the current moment, there are no politicians that are speaking publicly about the advantages of this system.  This is unfortunate because of the potential that it has to represent the full gamut of political viewpoints.  There is no other voting system that allows one to express their true intent as well as range voting.  Unlike most other systems, range voting circumvents what is called Arrow's Impossibility Theorem.  The consequences of Arrow's theorem are that it is impossible for a voting system that uses mutually exclusive rank order to be fair.  It can be shown that plurality, or winner-take-all, is a special case of a rank order voting method, and falls prey to the theorem.

There is an official Center for Range Voting, similar to FairVote (an organization that promotes IRV.)  FairVote has offered a criticism of range voting claiming:

Bottom-line: Range voting violates all three of our common sense principles of preserving majority rule, requiring a minimum level of core support and rewarding sincere voters.

Based on FairVote's criticism it is clear they don't understand how range voting works in practice and are only criticizing an over-simplistic straw man.  I'm going to assume they aren't trying to mislead people to promote their own agenda, and enlighten their organization.  I will take care not to return the favor by straw manning their position.  To restate their claims for clarity, they state:

1. Range voting violates preservation of majority rule
2. Range voting doesn't require a minimum level of core support for candidates
3. Range voting does not reward sincere voters

Let me address each claim individually.

Preservation of Majority Rule

Does range voting violate preservation of majority rule?  Firstly we have to define what majority rule means.  I'm going to define majority rule as the assurance that the candidate that is elected represents the views of the most people.  I would argue that a candidate that maximizes over all electoral satisfaction is the candidate that represents the views of most people.  In other words, the candidate that makes everyone most pleased on average as possible.  Of course, there could be debate as to whether the candidate that makes the most people happy preserves majority rule.  But I think satisfying the most people with the resulting candidate accomplishes just this.

Ensuring a Minimal Level of Support

The second claim is that range voting doesn't require a minimum level of core support for candidates.  This could be a problem, but it is only theoretical.  In an actual range voting election, this problem is trivially fixed by adding an option for a voter to express "no opinion" or a null vote.  There are two ways to handle this type of vote to ensure that a proper level of core support is reached.  One way is make null votes count as the minimum assignable rank.  The other is to count the votes placed for a candidate only once a certain actual number of ranked scores are assigned by voters.  In other words, only assign a rank once a minimum level of core support is reached.

Rewarding Sincere Voters

I'm not sure why FairVote seems to think range voting doesn't reward sincere voters.  Indeed, it is probably the system that most rewards honest voters.  It also allows voters to express a much wider gamut of political expression. Multiple candidates can even be ranked the same.  The more sincere voters are in ranged voting, the better the result of the election will be.  No system as simple as ranged voting can accomplish this feat.

Further Reflections

Further I want to address those that claim range voting violates the one-person, one-vote principle.  Looking behind this principle, it's intent is to ensure everyone has the same voting power--no more, no less.  As it stands winner-take-all or plurality voting currently fails this principle in practice, because voting for third-party will result in your vote being effectively discarded.  However range voting gives all voters equal power, which I would argue is the underlying premise of one-person, one-vote.

I have been looking for alternative voting methods for quite some time.  IRV was one of the first alternates that caught my attention.  After reviewing range voting, I have changed my opinion.  Range voting truly allows democracy to reign by giving people the oppourtunity to express their honest political views without fear of their vote being discarded.

Plurality Voting: Why Third Parties Don't Get Elected in the US

I'm going to provide some of my ideas as to the reasons why third parties don't get elected to political office in the US more frequently.  Why do the choices seem so limited and poor?  Why does there seem to be a failure to represent the views of the electorate?  I also want to offer some solutions.

The Problem: Plurality Voting

Plurality voting is the simplest form of voting.  It is well known how it works to those who are registered to vote and have begun participating in elections.  The premise is simple and there are two stages, if everything goes according to plan.  The first stage is the primary where voters select a candidate from each political party to represent that particular party in the second part of the election, the general election.  Depending on the state, voters can participate in either one party's primary election, or the primary election of the party that voter is registered with.  In the second phase the entire electorate participates.  Voters then go out and select one candidate out of the pool of those selected to represent their party in the general election.

In the US there are two major political parties: Democrats and Republicans.  Occasionally so-called "third-party" candidates, representing views deviating from the aforementioned two, emerge in the general election (the media plays a role in the disenfranchisement of these candidates, but a discussion of that is better left to another blog post.) Often, one or both of the candidates of the two major parties will try to adopt one or more of the views to win over this small, but often enthusiastic group of the electorate.

Voters commonly select candidates from the major parties, despite frequently preferring an alternative candidate, because of the real concern that these candidates often have a much smaller chance of winning.  Justifiably there is concern their vote might go to the major candidate they least prefer--in effect they end up voting for the lesser of two evils.

It is fair to call this a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If it is thought that third-parties can't win, they wont.  The phenomenon also provides an explanation for why elected candidates always seem to consistently poll so poorly on performance in general.  Additionally, it highlights a major problem the winner-take-all system.  So lets fix that.  Here's how.

Alternative: Instant-Runoff Voting, or IRV

IRV solves some issues with plurality or winner-takes-all voting.  There is no need for a primary election.  Candidates are ranked with a number only used once.  They are ordered by preference.  The votes are tallied in a series of rounds.  In each round a candidate is eliminated, and the next preference voters voting for that candidate is used sequentially and a winner eventually emerges.  While this system provides some solutions to some of the troubles it introduces a slew of others, and is more complicated than others which are simpler.  Namely, ranked voting.

Solution: Introducing Ranked Voting

The fix I prefer is to eliminate the primary election altogether as before.  A single general election is then held and the electorate ranks all the candidates from all parties on a scale of A-F or 1-10.  When the votes are tallied, the candidate with the highest median score wins.  It is a very simple system, and can represent voter preference more accurately and completely.  A voter can give candidates any rank they want, even the same one, allowing a very wide gamut of views to be expressed numerically as a voter preference.  Not only this, but it provides  incentive for candidates to reach out to as many people as possible.  Additionally, because of the mathematics, the system punishes voters that try to game the system.  In other words, there is a strong motivation to rank candidates honestly.  This is exactly what a voting system to do.