Ranked Voting Systems

4 points by Elzear 5 years ago | 3 comments

Score Voting is superior. In the Olympics people are not classified as 1st, 2nd, 3rd until their scores are averaged. Political elections ought not be any different. Jumping to cardinality loses a lot of data and is relatively useless for comparing candidates across eras. Nice diagrams, but I would like to see Score Voting (Range Voting) featured as well. The hype behind Ranked Choice is strong, even though we would never use such a method to award Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals.

Elzear 5 years ago | |

Thank you for this good example. However, I think there are cases where Score Voting is hard to implement: If we look at how we rank the countries in the Olympics, we usually look at the medals count. However, a country ranking 4th in every discipline is arguably better than a country ranking 1st in one discipline and last everywhere else. Ranked voting could be used here. It would be difficult to establish the ranking with Score Voting: is being 10% slower in a marathon the same as being 10% shorter in throwing?

I don't really understand how Range Voting is better than Ranked Voting. Won't voters only grade candidates with the maximal or minimal grade to have more impact? But then, Range Voting was supported by very smart people (eg Balinski, Arrow), so I will try to read more about it and hopefully update my website in the future :)

PlsDontBan 5 years ago |

I don't believe alternative electoral systems are a good idea because they tend to have major unforeseen consequences. For example, proportional representation sounds great on paper but it is widely recognized as a contributig factor to the rise of Hitler.

Ranked choice voting would likely have the effect of eroding the two party system. Whether that is a good or bad thing is highly uncertain. I think it has a lot more potential to be bad and it isn't worth the risk.