As settled by a poll of Manifold users in 2030, which voting system will they prefer for single seat elections in democratic countries, such as the United States?
Please only add specific options that describe a single voting algorithm.
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I wonder if there is anything that fits all of the following:
clearly desirable (e.g. life expectancy, low crime)
measurable and measured in international rankings on an ~annual basis
countries which elect their legislature via single-winner methods (US, UK, Canada, Australia, France...) consistently overperform multi-winner ones
not tautological (not directly linked to being single-winner, like "you have one specific representative that lives near you")
IRV is the most well-known alternative system, but isn't actually particularly good.
It is marketed using claims like "It fixes the spoiler effect", "It makes it safe to vote honestly for your true favorite without wasting your vote", etc. But these are not actually true.
It only counts first-choice rankings in each round, which means it suffers from the same type of vote-splitting as FPTP, and can eliminate the most-preferred, highest-approved candidates prematurely.
Its Condorcet Efficiency and Social Utility Efficiency are mediocre, and it suffers from center-squeeze, causing it to be increasingly biased against the most-representative candidates the more there are on the ballot.
@PlasmaBallin I'm inclined to use native Manifold voting features available at market close (Currently, that looks like a poll, which forces FPTP I guess). If Manifold supports a better voting method in 2030, as measured by this market, then we'll use that.
@kenakofer So if Manifold introduced, e.g., checkbox polls, then you would use that, since according to this market's probability, approval voting is better than plurality?
@kenakofer will this market N/A if Manifold concludes (correctly, IMO) that all non-proportional single-winner methods (like those in the polls) are inferior to proportional ones, preferably multi-winner?
@BrunoParga this market is about single winner methods, so I'm not sure how a proportional method could be eligible for the running.
I would certainly be interested in a generalization of this market, so please make it and link it if you want!
A Condorcet-compliant ranked-choice system
Wait, does this one count? It describes multiple voting algorithms, but they are also all so similar that it would seem weird not to group them together.
@PlasmaBallin Yeah, see the comments below. I'm open to suggestions if you can think of a better operationalization for sets of voting methods.
Here is a detailed nested debate about various systems:
https://www.kialo.com/the-us-should-adopt-a-better-voting-system-for-single-winner-elections-4650
@Snarflak Currently the ranking on Kialo is:
STAR voting
Approval voting
Score voting
Condorcet
Instant runoff/Ranked Choice
Two-round system
First-past-the-post
Borda Count
@jack Sounds good to to me. I unfortunately don't see a way to rename these options. (Possible bug: The arrow to the right of each option shows no additional buttons).
@Snarflak it sounds like "A Condorcet-compliant ranked-choice system" describes a set of voting methods? For ease of resolution's sake, I would prefer to stick to options that describe a single voting algorithm. I'm not sure to what extent other options have this issue. If a set of methods among our options is clearly dominated by a well-known implementation, I will use that in the eventual poll, otherwise I won't include the option in the eventual poll.
I apologize for this prior ambiguity in the description.
@kenakofer Yes, it describes a set of methods, but so do the other options. For example, Score Voting can use a variety of scales, and abstentions can be handled in different ways. IRV can be implemented using various tiebreakers, limited-choice ballots, etc. The different Condorcet systems are arguably just tiebreaker variations of the same system (though frequently framed as independent systems). It's a gray area.
@Snarflak thank you for the specifics, it's more shades of gray than I was thinking. I'm open to alternative guidelines for how to keep the submitted options mutually exclusive over the next 6 years.
@jakgnfdaghfjkahg that's impossible, they're single-winner methods. You can't be non-proportional and also the most democratic.