Re: CHAT (POLITICS!!!): Putting the duh in Florida

Yoon Ha Lee wrote, quoting myself (Adrian Morgan):

> > This may sound a little harsh, but I find it unbelievable that a
> > reasonably literate nation should still use a FPTP voting system (i.e.
> > where everyone marks just one candidate). I think FPTP is suitable
> > for developing nations with very low literacy, but I don't see why it's
> > accepted elsewhere, because in the end it says nothing about which
> > candidate really carries most favour with the community. I'd like to see
> > Americans adopt a preferential voting system, or an equally
sophisticated
> > equivalent.
>
> If I understand you correctly, does this mean that you would advocate a
> system where everyone, say, marks candidates in order of preference?
Yup. Just like we've always done here in Aus.

> Then you might (using the simplest weighting system) add up the number of
> ranks that every candidate has gotten, so if Mr. Very Unpopular had just
> 5 votes ranking him 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th he'd get a total ranking
 > of 15. The person with the lowest ranking wins, presumably.

No, that's not how the preferential system works.

Steps are:
(1) Each candidate's initial score is the number of '1' votes they get.
(2) If this is more than half #voters, candidate wins. Otherwise:
(3) Remove the least popular candidate from consideration. Distribute
    that candidate's score among the remaining candidates, so that a
    candidate now gets an extra point for each person that voted '1'
    for the removed candidate and '2' for /that/ candidate.
(4) If score is now more than half #voters, candidate wins. Otherwise:
(5) Remove the next least popular candidate from consideration.
    Distribute that candidate's score among the remaining candidates,
    according to the preferences specified by voters (as above).
(6) Continue until a candidate acquires a score greater than half the
    number of voters.

The preferential system makes ties impossible, if there are more than
two candidates. Better, it distinguishes between much prefered,
moderately prefered and not at all prefered politicians, thus capturing
a lot more information about voter thinking.

I admit that it would be relatively expensive to go through all the
steps for a country as populated as America (which is why I added "or
equally sophisticated alternative") but in these sophisticated modern
times it could be done. Australia uses it for local representatives
and (in the Senate) for state representatives.

Adrian.