[EM] Declaration; are you ready to sign?

[Richard Fobes]

Here is the latest version of our declaration.  If you are ready to sign 
it, just supply your signature in the specified format, and Jameson 
Quinn or Richard Fobes will add your signature.

We also welcome suggestions for wording refinements that will not affect 
those who have already signed.

Google Docs URL: 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oyJLxI9dciXBbowM5mougnbGHzkL3Ue1QkD8nnMwWLg/edit?hl=en_US


Declaration of Election-Method Reform Advocates

A Call to Move Beyond Plurality Voting

Executive Summary

This declaration, signed by election-method experts from around the 
world, publicly denounces the use of plurality voting – also called 
First Past the Post – in governmental elections. Plurality voting 
suffers from major flaws, including the risk of vote splitting. To avoid 
this risk, voters focus on only two dominant candidates and ignore other 
candidates they prefer.

As replacements for plurality voting, this declaration recommends four 
significantly fairer election methods: Approval voting, most of the 
Condorcet methods, Majority Judgment, and Range voting. These methods 
all replace plurality voting's primitive single-mark ballot with 
improved ballots that collect more information.

The signers take no agreed-upon position regarding the use of 
instant-runoff voting (IRV), which is also known as the Alternative 
Vote. Opinions differ on whether this method’s disadvantages outweigh 
its advantages.

As a consequence of adopting fairer election methods, this declaration's 
signers expect many direct benefits in government. They also expect 
indirect economic and societal benefits, similar to the way the 
transition from monarchies to plurality-based democracies yielded 
dramatic long-term and widespread benefits. The signers of this 
declaration vary in political orientation, and believe the recommended 
election reforms will be fair to all, without bias that favors or 
opposes any particular political parties or groups.

The signers urge broader discussion of the flaws of plurality voting and 
how the supported replacement methods eliminate those flaws. Private 
organizations can encourage this discussion by adopting one of the 
supported voting methods.

Most significantly the signers believe that any government that still 
uses plurality voting in any election should immediately replace that 
inferior method with one of the declaration-supported election methods.


Annotated contents

Introduction - It is time to change our voting system.
Unfairness of plurality voting - Plurality voting is a bad method that 
is used far too often.
Better ballots - With better information from voters, we can elect 
better winners.
Fairer counting methods - Signers agree that any of these four voting 
methods will give more-democratic results: Approval voting, Condorcet 
voting, Majority Judgment, and Range voting.
Additional considerations:
Instant-runoff voting - We have differing opinions on this method, which 
has both advantages and disadvantages.
Proportional representation - Legislatures that represent all the voters 
are a worthwhile goal, although proportional methods should not use 
closed lists.
Using the fairer methods in organizations - Private organizations are a 
great place to start voting reform.
Rounds of voting - Good voting methods can reduce the need for extra 
rounds (primaries and runoffs), or give even-better results when 
combined with such extra rounds.
Counting process - Some of our supported methods are easy to implement, 
and all will give fast, secure, and transparent results.
Separate reforms - Reforming the voting system will facilitate and 
reinforce other democratic reforms.
Further resources - Here are sources for learning more about better 
election methods.
Benefits for all - Voting reform is truly a win/win solution that will 
help all political groups.
Taking action - We urge you to help promote better voting methods, both 
by spreading awareness and by doing what you can to implement them.


(Full declaration)

Introduction

We, the undersigned election-method experts and advocates from around 
the world, unanimously denounce the use of plurality voting in 
governmental elections. In this declaration we offer several 
ready-to-adopt replacement election methods that we agree will reliably 
produce much fairer results.

We are confident that adopting any of our recommended methods will 
reduce the gap between what voters want and politicians do. Government 
will become more accountable because voters will have more influence, 
and campaign contributions will have less influence. In other words, 
adopting any of our supported election methods will increase the 
fairness of election results.

We agree that there are no significant political or economic risks 
associated with adopting the election methods recommended here. In fact, 
we believe that the indirect benefits of better democracy will be 
substantial. Just as plurality-based democracies tend to be more 
prosperous than monarchies, we expect that higher levels of democracy 
will lead to higher standards of living, reduced conflicts, and 
widespread increases in prosperity.


Unfairness of plurality voting

"Plurality voting” refers to the commonly used counting method in which 
each voter marks only a single choice on the ballot, the number of marks 
for each candidate are counted, and the candidate with the most marks is 
regarded as the winner. In some nations this method is called "First 
Past The Post" (and abbreviated FPTP or FPP).

Although plurality voting produces fair results when there are only two 
candidates, the results are often dramatically unfair when it is used in 
elections with three or more candidates.

"Vote splitting" is a key weakness of plurality voting. If there are two 
similar candidates, their supporters will split their votes between the 
two. If the opposition concentrates all their votes on a single 
candidate, that candidate may win, even though either of the similar 
candidates would have won instead if there had been a one-on-one 
election. Vote splitting also happens in primary elections and 
nominating conventions.

In many countries that use plurality voting, vote splitting in major 
elections is relatively rare because almost everyone votes for the 
nominee of one of the two dominant political parties, while ignoring 
other possibly-better candidates. This avoids vote splitting, but the 
resulting two-party monopoly causes many problems. Citizens become 
frustrated and fewer vote. Third-party and independent candidates are 
discouraged from running, and mostly ignored if they do. Any issues not 
promoted by one of the two main parties are scarcely debated publicly. 
And elected politicians are less accountable to voters, more dependent 
on their biggest campaign contributors, and harder to remove if they 
become corrupt.

In spite of its well-understood weaknesses, plurality voting is far too 
widely used in governmental elections throughout the world.


Better ballots

Unanimously we agree that the kind of ballot used in plurality voting – 
which in this declaration is called a "single-mark” ballot – is not 
appropriate in governmental elections. When there are more than two 
candidates, such ballots do not collect enough information to reliably 
identify the most popular candidate. This lack of information helps to 
hide the unfairness of plurality voting.

There are three kinds of ballots that collect enough information from 
voters to clearly identify the most popular candidate. These are, in 
alphabetical order:

* Approval ballot, on which a voter marks each candidate the voter 
regards as an acceptable choice, and leaves unmarked the candidates who 
are not acceptable. Another variation allows the voter to mark 
“approved” or “disapproved” for each candidate.

* Ranked ballot (or “1-2-3 ballot”), on which a voter indicates a first 
choice, and can indicate a second choice and additional choices at lower 
preference levels. For the election methods we endorse, the additional 
rankings are optional, and tied or skipped rankings are allowed.

* Score ballot, on which a voter assigns a number or grade for each 
candidate. The most familiar versions of such voting are to rate 
something with 1 to 5 stars, or rate a choice with a number from 1 to 
10, or to rate each choice at a named grade (such as "excellent", 
"good", "fair", "poor", or "reject"), but any range of numbers or grades 
can be used. Another variation allows the voter to leave some candidates 
unscored.

Any of these three better ballot types will provide the information 
needed for fairer results — and for proving how unfair plurality voting 
has been.


Fairer counting methods

Unanimously we agree that the four counting methods listed below will 
produce significantly better results compared to plurality voting. For 
each counting method we identify the main advantage claimed by that 
method’s proponents. (The methods are listed in alphabetical order to 
avoid any appearance of bias; the signers of this declaration have 
different preferences among them.)

* Approval voting, which uses approval ballots and identifies the 
candidate with the most approval marks as the winner.

Advantage: It is the simplest election method to collect preferences 
(either on ballots or with a show of hands), to count, and to explain. 
Its simplicity makes it easy to adopt and a good first step toward any 
of the other methods.

* Most of the Condorcet methods, which use ranked ballots to elect a 
“Condorcet winner” who would defeat every other candidate in one-on-one 
comparisons. Occasionally there is no Condorcet winner, and different 
Condorcet methods use different rules to resolve such cases. When there 
is no Condorcet winner, the various methods often, but not always, agree 
on the best winner. The methods include Condorcet-Kemeny, 
Condorcet-Minimax, and Condorcet-Schulze. (Condorcet is a French name 
pronounced "kon-dor-say.”)

Advantage: Condorcet methods are the most likely to elect the candidate 
who would win a runoff election. This means there is not likely to be a 
majority of voters who agree that a different result would have been better.

* Majority Judgment uses score ballots to collect the fullest preference 
information, then elects the candidate who gets the best score from half 
or more of the voters (the greatest median score). If there is a tie for 
first place, the method repeatedly removes one median score from each 
tied candidate until the tie is broken. This method is related to 
Bucklin voting, which is a general class of methods that had been used 
for city elections in both late 18th-century Switzerland and early 
20th-century United States.

Advantage: Majority Judgment reduces the incentives to exaggerate or 
change your preferences, so it may be the best of these methods for 
finding out how the voters feel about each candidate on an absolute scale.

* Range voting (also known as score voting), which also uses score 
ballots, and adds together the scores assigned to each candidate. The 
winner is the candidate who receives the highest total or average score.

Advantage: Simulations have shown that Range voting leads to the 
greatest total “voter satisfaction” if all voters vote sincerely. If 
every voter exaggerates all candidate scores to the minimum or maximum, 
which is usually the best strategy under this method, it gives the same 
results as Approval voting.

This list of supported methods may expand in the future as we continue 
to analyze and test newly-developed methods. One new method that some of 
us currently favor is Simple Optionally-Delegated Approval (SODA) 
voting, which combines Approval voting with vote delegation to simplify 
the voter’s task.

All of our supported methods are "single-winner" election methods, which 
means they are ideal for electing an executive such as a mayor or 
governor. All of them have been used to elect officers such as 
presidents, treasurers, and secretaries in non-governmental 
organizations, and the fairer results have been widely appreciated 
(except by some incumbents who were not reelected).

Why do we not support a single "best" election method? Different 
election-method experts place different degrees of importance on the 
relative advantages and disadvantages of each method. For this reason, 
in the list of signatures some of us indicate which voting method we 
most strongly prefer. It bears repeating though, that despite our 
disagreements, we would not hesitate to support any of these methods 
over plurality voting. In signing this statement, we are uniting against 
plurality, not “splitting the vote” by each supporting only our favorite 
method.


Additional considerations

These subsections provide clarifications for those who need more detail. 
The Benefits for all and Taking action sections wrap up this declaration.


Instant-runoff voting

"Instant-runoff voting" – or "IRV" or "the Alternative Vote" – is a 
method that is used in some governmental elections throughout the world. 
IRV uses a form of ranked ballot that disallows ties. The IRV winner is 
identified by repeatedly eliminating the candidate who is highest-ranked 
by the fewest voters compared to the other remaining candidates, until 
only one candidate, the winner, remains.

Many people appreciate IRV’s apparent similarity to runoff elections. 
Although IRV also has a possible advantage called “Later-No-Harm”, which 
means that adding further preferences after the election winner cannot 
hurt the winner, evidence shows that Later-No-Harm is not a necessary 
characteristic for a good voting method. Most significantly, many of us 
agree that IRV can often give better results than plurality voting.

However, IRV has significant disadvantages, including:

* In some elections IRV has prematurely eliminated a candidate who would 
have beaten the actual winner in a runoff election. This disadvantage 
may be why several cities, including Burlington, Vermont, repealed IRV 
and returned to plurality voting.

* To avoid premature eliminations, experienced IRV voters vote in a way 
that produces two-party domination, causing problems that are similar to 
plurality voting. In Australia, where IRV has been used for more than a 
century, the House of Representatives has had only one third-party 
winner in the last 600 elections.

* IRV results must be calculated centrally, which makes it less secure.

Our lack of formal support for IRV does not mean that all of us oppose 
it. After all, we and IRV advocates are fighting against the same enemy, 
plurality voting. Yet IRV’s disadvantages make it impossible for us to 
unanimously support it.


Proportional representation

To fill legislative seats, such as seats in a congress or parliament, 
many nations use "proportional representation". This term refers to 
methods that match the proportion of legislators from political parties 
or certain other groups with the proportion of voters who, on their 
ballot, associate themselves with each of those parties or groups.

If a government uses the "closed-list" version of proportional 
representation, we unanimously support switching to either a 
"candidate-centric" or "open-list" version. We oppose closed-list 
methods because they disregard voter preferences for specific 
candidates, transfer power to party insiders who are not elected, and 
reduce transparency and accountability.

It is not yet proven which is better: electing seats using a good 
single-winner system such as those we endorse, or using some form of 
proportional representation. We believe that increasing proportionality 
is important, so we encourage wider discussion and research about 
proportional methods, but we do not offer any universal recommendations 
regarding proportional representation.

We unanimously oppose the use of plurality voting in any aspect of 
filling legislative seats, so if plurality voting is used to elect 
legislators, it should be replaced. If a proportional method is not 
appropriate, any of our supported single-winner methods should be used.


Using the fairer methods in organizations

Our recommended better voting methods can be used not just in public 
elections, but also to elect a private organization's officers, to elect 
corporate board members, to make group decisions, and to elect delegates 
to political-party conventions. Such use will make these private 
elections and decisions more fair, and help educate more people about 
better voting methods and their advantages.


Multiple rounds of voting

Many current elections use multiple rounds of voting. This includes both 
“primary elections” to narrow the choices before the main vote, and 
second-round “runoff elections” to ensure a majority if one is not 
obtained in the main first round.

Some of us believe that improved voting methods mean that only one round 
of voting is needed. Others of us support multiple rounds. For instance, 
a runoff between the winners determined by the old versus the new 
election methods could ease voter concerns about reform and allow more 
in-depth debate between the top candidates. (Of course such runoffs 
would be unnecessary when the two methods pick the same winner.)


Counting process

The ease of switching to our supported methods varies according to the 
method. A switch is simplest with Approval voting, as this method is 
compatible with virtually all existing voting equipment and ballots, and 
both voting and counting can be done without computers. Switching to 
Range Voting or Majority Judgment would require redesigning paper 
ballots, yet existing ballot-scanning equipment may be able to count 
them. Also, typically, though not necessarily, these two methods would 
use computers for both counting ballots and finding winners. Switching 
to a Condorcet method essentially requires the use of computers for both 
counting votes and calculating results, although hand-marked or 
computer-generated paper ballots are still recommended to keep a secure 
audit trail.

All of our supported methods allow precinct-level counting and 
reporting, which enables fast, secure, and transparent access to the 
results. Voting authorities could easily release enough information to 
let citizens verify the results, without compromising the secrecy of 
individual ballots. Also, evidence suggests that at least three, and 
possibly all, of our four supported methods will result in fewer ballots 
needing to be rejected due to a marking mistake. These advantages do not 
apply to some unsupported methods such as instant-runoff voting.


Separate reforms

Most of us regard the adoption of our supported methods as merely one 
step toward improving democracy, and we view further reforms, such as 
improved campaign-finance reporting rules, as also desirable. Similarly, 
many of us believe that government bodies can make wiser decisions 
through reformed legislative procedures or by using decision-making aids 
such as deliberative polling. The election-method reforms we advocate 
here will both facilitate and reinforce such other reforms.


Further resources

The following Wikipedia articles provide detailed descriptions, 
characteristics, and comparisons of our supported methods:

* Voting system
* Approval voting
* Condorcet method
* Majority Judgment
* Range voting

Some of us signing this statement edit these Wikipedia articles to keep 
them accurate and unbiased. Also, many of us participate in the 
"Election-Methods" forum at www.electorama.com/em, and we would be happy 
to answer your questions about any of these methods.


Benefits for all

Those of us signing this declaration have very different political 
views, yet here we have joined together to look beyond narrow, partisan 
interests. We see no good reason to oppose election-method reform. In 
fact, we agree that better election methods can help all political 
groups: both conservatives and liberals, both business and labor, both 
incumbents and upstart campaigners, both centrists and extremists, both 
larger and smaller parties. We believe that each of these groups can 
benefit in very concrete and specific ways, and many of us are available 
(as indicated above) to discuss how and why for each case.

Politics is often viewed as a “zero-sum game” in which one side can gain 
only if another side loses. In contrast, we view election-method reform 
as taking the next step up the ladder of democracy. Just as 
plurality-based democracy has proven to be much better than 
dictatorships, higher levels of democracy will help us reach even higher 
standards of living. We do not pretend to offer a utopia, where 
conflicts of interest disappear; elections will always have winners and 
losers. Yet current plurality-based political systems are often so 
dysfunctional that they serve no one well. By helping ensure that the 
winners better represent the electorate, a healthier system will benefit 
all groups.


Taking action

We address this statement to all citizens. Regardless of your political 
orientation, we urge you to help educate yourself, your friends, and 
your representatives about the advantages of better voting methods, and 
to organize with other like-minded citizens to reinforce your 
effectiveness. To specific groups, we offer these recommendations:

* If you are active in a political party that uses plurality voting, you 
can increase your party’s chances of winning in the main election by 
using better voting methods to choose your party's candidates, 
delegates, and officers.

* If you feel that “your” political party wants your vote and your 
money, but doesn’t care about your priorities, you can move towards 
having a real voice by focusing your support, including donations and 
volunteer time, on candidates who support election-method reform.

* If you are involved in a small political party, you can urge the 
adoption of one of the methods here as part of your party platform and 
an important strategy for growing your party.

* If you are an independent voter, you can use your flexibility to favor 
candidates who help promote election reform.

* If you are a member of an organization that elects officers using 
plurality voting, you can help your organization increase election 
fairness, and run more smoothly, by requesting the use of a better 
election method when an election involves more than two candidates.

* If your organization promotes government transparency or similar 
reforms, you can help make politicians more receptive to your concerns 
by taking actions that promote better election methods in government, 
starting by using such methods internally.

* Most importantly, if you are a policymaker, you can better represent 
your constituents, reduce your need to constantly raise funds, and 
discourage negative campaigns, by introducing legislation to replace 
plurality voting with a better election method.

The unfairness of plurality voting has been known for centuries, yet we 
still use it. Why? Plurality voting uses single-mark ballots that 
collect insufficient preference information, thus hiding its failures. 
And computers only recently became available to easily study and 
implement better ballots and better ways to count these ballots.

We, the undersigned supporters of diverse election methods, united 
through recently developed digital-communication technologies, join our 
voices to denounce plurality voting and express our full support for 
superior replacements. We declare that it is time to begin putting the 
most primitive voting method – plurality voting – where it belongs, 
namely in historical records as an early step in the progress toward 
higher levels of democracy.


Tentative “signatures”

Format: name; contact; one line of academic/political credentials; and 
which method(s) you support

(Sorted by order of signing)

* Jameson Quinn; firstname.lastname at gmail; served as statistical analyst 
for two studies of Guatemalan voter rolls; supports Approval as a first 
step, and SODA or Majority Judgment as eventual goal.
* Matt Welland;estiforta at gmail tod com; BSEE
* Forest W. Simmons; PhD mathematician who has studied election methods 
and participated in the Election-Methods list discussions for more than 
a decade; supports statement wholeheartedly
* Richard Fobes; VoteFair.org; author of Ending The Hidden Unfairness In 
U.S. Elections, wrote major portions of this declaration; prefers 
VoteFair ranking, which is based on the Condorcet-Kemeny method
* Craig Lee Chrisco; Walabio at MacOSX.Com; Layperson interested in 
voting methods, but without a degree in this field.
* L. G. Ted Stern; <name without periods> at gmail dot com; Ph.D. 
Applied Math., occasional participant in Election-Methods list and ESF 
list since 2004; Supports Range, Approval, Bucklin/Majority Judgment, 
Condorcet, in that order, and Bucklin Transferable Vote for Proportional 
Representation.
* Stéphane Rouillon; stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca; Engineer in 
Physics, M.Sc.A. Mechanical Engineering, Ph.D. Applied Mathematics, 
Member of the Expert Committee mandated by the Direction Générale des 
Elections du Québec for studying the modalities of a mixed member 
compensatory system, Consultant for the "Soirée des Jutra" selection 
board, Expert-witness in the Association pour la Revendication des 
Droits Démocratiques case, designer of the System Preferential 
Proportional and Acirconscriptive; Single Transferable Vote fan.
* Jack Rudd;jackkelshallrudd at aol;BSc in Mathematics;Approval, Range
* Toby Pereira; firstname at firstnamelastname dot co dot uk; MA 
Philosophy of Mind; No qualifications in this field but interested in 
voting systems generally
* Andrew Jennings; elections at jenningsstory dot com; Ph.D. Mathematics 
(emphasis on Social Choice), and Treasurer, Center for Election Science
* Warren D. Smith; warren.wds AT gmail.com, PhD applied math, co-founder 
rangevoting.org and president Center for Election Science
* Sean Walker; crazy dot gold dot shield at gmail dot com; Undergrad in 
Mathematics; supports Approval as a first step, Range as a final goal