[kitchencabinetforum] Voting experts unanimously reject First Past the Post

At a recent Voting Power in Practice annual workshop organised by the Voting Power and Procedures (VPP) research programme at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), 22 voting theory specialists voted to select the best voting procedure to elect one out of three or more candidates. http://venitism.blogspot.com

VPP is the leading international centre for research in the theory, methodology and practice of voting power and its applications. From the design of national and international governmental voting systems to corporate mergers and acquisitions strategies understanding voting power is the key to achieving successful empowerment and legitimate representative governance. VPP's current Voting Power in Practice research project is sponsored by The Leverhulme Trust.

VPP Co-Directors Rudolf Fara, Dennis Leech and Moshe Machover, who voted in the poll, said that First Past the Post
(FPTP) - also known as Plurality Voting - was rejected unanimously most likely because it was the worst of any known system to elect fairly a single winner from three or more candidates. The most serious problem, they said, is that FPTP often elects the candidate least preferred by an absolute majority of voters.

The poll was held at VPP's Assessing Alternative Voting Procedures Workshop which focused on voting systems for single member constituencies such as the single member district system used in the UK for elections to the House of Commons.

Voting in the poll was by secret ballot using Approval Voting. Each voter chose from a list of 18 nominated voting procedures as many as she/he approved of. From a possible maximum of 22 votes, FPTP received no votes. Approval Voting won the contest with 15 votes. The Alternative Vote (AV) took second place with 10 votes.

The plurality voting system is a single-winner voting system often used to elect executive officers or to elect members of a legislative assembly which is based on single-member constituencies. This voting method is also used in multi-member constituencies in what is referred to as an exhaustive counting system where one member is elected at a time and the process repeated until the number of vacancies is filled.

The most common system, used in Canada, India, the United Kingdom, and some United States elections, is simple plurality, first-past-the-post or winner-takes-all. In this voting system the single winner is the person with the most votes; there is no requirement that the winner gain an absolute majority of votes.

In some countries such as France (as well as in some jurisdictions of the United States, such as Louisiana and Georgia) a similar system is used, but there are two rounds: the two-ballot or runoff election plurality system. If any candidate in the first round gains a majority of votes, then there is no second round; otherwise, the two highest-voted candidates of the first round compete in a two-candidate second round or all candidates above a certain threshold in the first round compete in a two-, three- or four-candidate second round. http://venitism.blogspot.com

Approval voting is a single-winner voting system used for elections. Each voter may vote for or approve of as many of the candidates as the voter wishes. The winner is the candidate receiving the most votes. Each voter may vote for any combination of candidates and may give each candidate at most one vote.

Instant-runoff voting (IRV), also known as the alternative vote (AV), is a voting system used to elect one winner from a pool of candidates using preferential voting. Voters rank candidates in order of preference, and their votes are initially allocated to their first choice candidate. If after this initial count no candidate has a majority of votes cast, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and votes for that candidate are redistributed according to the voters' second preferences. This process continues until one candidate receives more than half of all votes cast, at which point that candidate is declared the winner. http://venitism.blogspot.com

The political parties split voters into two groups, those who are for them and those who are against. There is also a very large group of undecided voters. You can try and win over these guys, but it's difficult to win citizens who are pissed off with kleptocrats. Consultants and opinion pollsters have taken all the spontaneity out of politics. In a deliberately vicious and ruthless campaign a lot of voters turn away in disgust. The abstention might damage bully's opponent more than the bully. The bully could make the race so obnoxious that he could merely discourage people from voting. Bully's deliberately dirty campaign might turn off voters who may vote against him.

The scales will tip toward the party that manages to motivate its supporters to come out and vote for it. The ability of a politician to rally his people decides the election outcome, not his or her ability to woo the supporters of the competition. It works the other way round too. If you manage to keep more of your opponent's voters at home than your own, you take the lead. You could describe this as success through a demobilization of voters. It is not a particularly appetizing procedure but, if it works, it can secure an election win.

Public support for democracy is a sensitive resource. If you convince people that they can follow an election on TV without ever having to take part, it will be difficult to win them back. Kleptocrats claim the people are well represented in parliament. But this is an illusion, because those who never vote are not included. The real number of citizens who feel represented in government grows smaller all the time, and this is the main byproduct of kleptocracy.