[EM] Declaration of Election-Method Experts and Enthusiasts: final stretch

[Jameson Quinn]

We've done a lot of work on the Declaration, and I think we're nearing the
final stretch. As always, you can help edit this over on the google
doc<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oyJLxI9dciXBbowM5mougnbGHzkL3Ue1QkD8nnMwWLg/edit?hl=en_US>
.

I recognize that this version was largely written by only a few, and it
is... well... significantly more than 10 words per person. If you think
we're making a mistake and it should be radically shorter, please speak up.
But personally I think that the section thesis statements, included in the
table of contents, provide a good "cliff notes" version.

If you want to sign on, please respond on the list. We only have four
signers so far, but I'm sure we can get many times that many.

Jameson Quinn

Declaration of Election-Method Experts and Enthusiasts
Contents
Introduction - It is time to change our voting system.
Unfairness of plurality voting - Plurality voting is a bad system that is
used in far too many cases.
Better ballots - With better information from the voters, we can find better
winners.
Fairer counting methods - Together we endorse four voting systems which
would give more-democratic results.
Additional considerations

Proportional representation - Legislatures should represent all the people,
not just a bare majority.

Using the fairer methods in organizations - Private organizations are a
great place to start voting reform.

Multiple rounds of voting - Good voting systems can reduce the need for
primaries and runoffs, or give even-better results when combined with such
extra rounds.

Separate reforms - Reforming the voting system helps with other democratic
reforms.
Benefits for all - Voting reform is truly a win/win solution which can help
all political groups.
Taking action - Here’s what you can do to help voting reform.
Introduction
It is time to change our voting system.

We, the undersigned election-method experts and enthusiasts from around the
world, unanimously denounce the use of plurality voting in elections in
which there are more than two candidates. In this declaration we offer
several ready-to-adopt replacement election methods that we agree will
reliably produce much fairer 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 improving the fairness of election results will produce
substantial political and economic benefits.

We are confident that any of the systems we propose will bring at least the
following direct benefits:

   - Dramatically increased voter turnout because voters will have
   meaningful choices
   - Reduced voter frustration
   - Improved voice for significant minorities (although they still cannot
   out-vote the majority)
   - Improved understanding of what the majority of voters really want



We expect these additional direct benefits, although the degree of benefit
depends on additional factors:

   - Reduced dependence on campaign money in politics
   - Healthier political dialogue, with less focus on personal attacks and
   negative advertising
   - Greater accountability, which means that disliked incumbents can be
   replaced, without having to elect someone from a different party
   - Reduced influence of lobbyists, and increased influence of voters



We also believe that electing more-representative government leaders and
making them more accountable could lead to some or all of these broader,
indirect benefits:

   - Freer cooperation between groups which share common interests, with
   less infighting within coalitions
   - Increased legitimacy of government and more political stability because
   of truer “majority rule”
   - Smaller gap between what voters want and politicians do
   - Reduced social conflict
   - Less corruption
   - Reduced government costs
   - Wiser use of tax dollars and natural resources
   - Increases in widespread economic prosperity arising from increased
   fairness



Unfairness of plurality voting
Plurality voting is a bad system that is used in far too many cases.

We use the term "plurality" voting to refer 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 this method is
used in elections with three or more candidates.

"Vote splitting" is a key weakness of plurality voting, so it is worth
understanding. Vote splitting refers to similar candidates each receiving
fewer votes compared to a single opposition candidate. It accounts for why,
in most democracies, each political party elects a single candidate for each
election. If a political party offers two candidates, both of those
candidates are likely to lose to a party that offers only one candidate.
This happens because that party's voters split their votes between the two
candidates, while the winning party concentrates all of their voters' votes
on a single candidate. In other words, plurality-based elections often
result in the wrong candidate winning.

A common strategy for altering the results of an election is for financial
support to be offered to a candidate who is similar to a popular candidate.
The resulting vote splitting, combined with lots of advertising for a
different heavily funded candidate, can easily defeat the popular candidate
and cause the heavily funded candidate to win. This weakens the influence of
voters and strengthens the influence of special interests who give the
largest campaign contributions.

If voters try to compensate by only voting between the two clearly popular
choices, the typical result is a two-party system. This narrows the scope of
debate and reduces voter choice. With fewer choices it becomes easier for
incumbents to become complacent and even corrupt. Additional political
parties only arise if other election methods, such as ones explained below,
accommodate additional parties.

In spite of its well-known weaknesses, plurality voting is far too widely
used, especially in the English-speaking world. It is also the preferred
election method in nations that pretend to be democracies, yet lack the
freedoms and economic benefits of democracy.

Better ballots
With better information from the voters, we can find better winners.
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. Its deficiency is that it does not
collect enough preference information from the voters in order to always
correctly identify the most popular candidate when there are more than two
candidates.

There are three kinds of ballots that collect enough preference information
to always, or almost always, correctly identify the most popular candidate.
The names and descriptions of these ballot types are, in alphabetical order:

   - Approval ballot, on which a voter marks each candidate who the voter
   approves as an acceptable choice, and leaves unmarked the candidates who are
   not acceptable



   - Ranked ballots (or “1-2-3 ballots”), on which a voter indicates a first
   choice, and optionally indicates a second choice, and optionally indicates
   additional choices at lower preference levels



   - Score ballots, 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.



Why don’t more people understand the unfairness of plurality voting?
Single-mark ballots do not collect enough information to reveal the actual
preferences of voters in elections that have three or more reasonably
popular candidates. This lack of full preference information makes it
difficult for anyone to produce clear proof, or even evidence, of unfair
election results.

Adopting any of the three better ballot types would provide the information
that is needed for fair results. In addition, a comparison of the fair
results in contrast to who would have won if plurality voting had been used
will quickly reveal the dramatic unfairness of plurality voting.

Fairer counting methods
Together we endorse four voting systems which would give more-democratic
results.

These three better ballot types can be counted in different ways to produce
different results. We, the undersigned election-method experts, have both
developed and analyzed many counting methods, and we now agree there are
several counting methods that are worth adopting in governmental elections.

Four of the counting methods that we agree would produce significantly
better results compared to plurality voting are, in alphabetical order:

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



   - Any of the Condorcet methods, which use ranked ballots, and which use
   "pairwise counting" to count how many voters prefer each candidate compared
   to each other candidate, and which identify as the "Condorcet winner" the
   candidate who is pairwise preferred over each and every other candidate. In
   some elections there is no Condorcet winner, and different Condorcet methods
   described below resolve these cases. (The word Condorcet is a French name
   that is pronounced "kon-dor-say".)



   - Majority judgment, which uses score ballots, and elects a candidate who
   gets the best score from half or more of the voters. More specifically, the
   best median score wins, which means that the winning candidate deserves to
   win if half the voters rate the winning candidate as good or better, and no
   other candidate has any half of the voters rating those candidates at more
   than fair or better.



   - Range voting (also known as score voting), which uses score ballots,
   and adds together the scores assigned to each candidate, and identifies the
   winner as the candidate who receives the highest total score.



There are three Condorcet methods that identify the Condorcet winner (when
there is one) without explicitly looking for the Condorcet winner, and they
are, in alphabetical order:

   - Condorcet-Kemeny method (or "VoteFair popularity ranking")
   - Condorcet-Schulze (or "beatpath") method
   - Condorcet-Tideman (or "ranked pairs") method



We also support the Condorcet-Approval and Condorcet-IRV methods, which
first look for a Condorcet winner and then use a different method to
identify a winner if there is none. In most cases allthe different Condorcet
methods identify the same winner, yet each of these Condorcet methods has
slight advantages and disadvantages compared to one another.

There is another counting method that is supported by some, but not most, of
the undersigned election-method experts. It is called "instant-runoff
voting" (or "IRV" or "the alternative vote"), and it uses ranked ballots.
The counting method begins by considering each voter's highest-ranked
choice, and eliminating the candidate with the fewest votes, and then
shifting the affected ballots to the next-most preferred candidate, and
repeating this process until a candidate receives a majority of votes.

Instant-runoff voting is used in some governmental elections throughout the
world, and most of us agree that usually the results are an improvement over
plurality voting. However, many of us either regard the degree of
improvement as not being significant enough to justify adopting this method,
or are concerned that its not-always-fair results will be associated with
ranked ballots rather than with the instant-runoff counting method.

Significantly some of the places that have adopted instant-runoff voting
have later rejected the method and returned to plurality voting. In the
United States, these places include Aspen, Colorado and Burlington, Vermont.
The rejections occurred because the official IRV winner was not the same as
the Condorcet winner.

One final counting method that deserves to be mentioned is Simple
Optionally-Delegated Approval (SODA) voting. This method combines approval
voting with vote delegation to make the voter’s task as simple as possible.
This method is too new to merit official support in this declaration, but
many of us agree that it shows promise and deserves further study.

The choice of counting method determines which kind of ballot is needed.
Each of the ballot types can be implemented on paper ballots, and these
ballots can be scanned optically and counted by computer. All the ballot
types also can be counted manually if needed, which is significant because
most of us also support making government elections trustworthy through the
use of voter-verifiable paper ballots.

To appreciate the importance of the few election methods we support,
consider that there are many other election methods and voting methods, plus
combinations of them, that we do not endorse. In fact, for some of them we
unanimously agree to oppose their use in governmental elections.

Why do we not support a single "best" election method? Each of our supported
election methods has advantages and disadvantages compared to each another,
and different election-method experts place different degrees of importance
on each of these advantages and disadvantages. It bears repeating, though,
that despite our disagreements, we would not hesitate to support any of
these methods over plurality.

Many of us – although not everyone signing this declaration – associates the
following method-specific advantages with each of our four supported
election methods:

   - Approval voting is the simplest election method to collect preferences
   (either on ballots or with a show of hands) and the simplest method (besides
   plurality) to count and explain.



   - Condorcet methods provide what most people see as the fairest results
   in the many cases in which one candidate – the Condorcet winner – is
   pairwise preferred over every other candidate.



   - Majority judgment uses score ballots, which collect the fullest
   preference information, and counts them in a way that reduces the incentives
   for strategic voting; so it is the best system for finding out how the
   voters feel about each candidate on an absolute scale, not just as better or
   worse than other candidates.



   - Score voting comes closest to the mathematically defined "best" overall
   results for voter satisfaction if voters vote sincerely; and gives the same
   reasonable results as Approval voting if every voter votes strategically.



The following Wikipedia articles about these methods provide detailed
descriptions and characteristics of these methods:

   - Approval voting
   - Condorcet method
   - Majority Judgement
   - 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.

In the list of signatures some of us indicate which voting method we
most-strongly prefer. Yet we also agree that we will support the adoption of
any of these methods. We agree that staying with plurality voting is the
"wrong" choice and that choosing any of our supported methods is the “right”
choice, so we will support whichever method has the best chance of adoption.
Additional considerations
Proportional representation
Legislatures should represent all the people, not just a bare majority.

So far, all of the above recommendations apply to identifying a single
winner, so they are known as "single-winner" election methods. These
single-winner methods are ideally suited for electing mayors and governors.
When used in non-governmental organizations, these single-winner methods are
ideally suited for electing a president, treasurer, and secretary.

Different considerations apply if an election fills a legislative seat, such
as a seat in a legislature, congress, or parliament. In Canada, the United
Kingdom, and the United States, the typical method for filling a legislative
seat is to define a district or riding in which plurality voting is used to
elect one person who is expected to represent the citizens in that district
or riding.

All of us signing this declaration agree that plurality voting is not
acceptable as an election method for filling a single district-based or
riding-based legislative seat. All of us would support using any of the
single-winner methods endorsed above, as an improvement over using plurality
voting to fill a district-based or riding-based legislative seat.

Most of us agree that an even better choice would be to adopt an election
method in which the choice of who wins one legislative seat interacts with
who wins another equivalent seat in ways that give at least somewhat
proportional representation to most voters.

The best-known approach, which is used in most European nations (but not the
United Kingdom), is party-based proportional representation. It asks voters
to indicate their favorite political party, and then the method makes
adjustments to ensure that the percentage of legislative seats filled by
members of each party roughly matches the percentage of voters who support
each party. In other words, if 15% of the voters mark the Silver Party as
their favorite, then approximately 15% of the parliamentary seats are filled
by Silver Party politicians.

Almost all of us agree that where proportional representation (PR) is used,
the "open-list" versions or the “candidate-centric” versions, not the
"closed-list" versions, should be used. We oppose the closed-list versions
because they disregard candidate-specific voter preferences, and transfer
power to people who are not elected, and who cannot easily be removed from
their position of power.

An additional advantage of increased proportional representation is that it
reduces the effects of "gerrymandering," which is a political manipulation
of district or riding boundaries for the purpose of favoring a specific
political party in each district or riding. Increased proportional
representation also increases voter turnout because a voter can influence
the overall, party-based, legislative balance even if they reside in a
district that never elects someone from that voter's preferred political
party.

Although we unanimously agree that increased proportional representation
would provide many benefits, and greatly increase fairness in filling
legislative seats, we are not yet ready to express support for any specific
versions of proportional representation. Some newly developed methods show
promise, but they are not yet fully developed, analyzed, and ready for use.

Using the fairer methods in organizations
Private organizations are a great place to start voting reform.

These better election methods are useful not just for public elections, but
also within private organizations and political parties. Private
organizations could use these methods to elect an organization's officers,
to elect corporate board members, and to make voting-based group decisions.
In addition to increasing the fairness of such elections and decisions,
these uses will increase the number of people who realize that plurality
voting is very unfair, and help them learn how to achieve much fairer
results.

Keep in mind that all four of our recommended election methods already have
been used to elect officers in non-governmental organizations, and the
fairer results have been widely appreciated (except by some incumbents who
were not reelected).

If an organization uses rules that require plurality voting, or follows
Roberts Rules of Order, we encourage the organization to amend its rules to
accommodate one or more of our supported election methods. If the
organization cannot decide which method to adopt, the revised rules can
allow the presiding organization's officers to choose which of our supported
methods will be used in the next election.

Even if amending the rules is not an option, using our supported methods
informally prior to the formal vote can help improve Roberts Rules of Order.
Here’s why. Robert’s Rules are different from all the election methods we
have discussed so far in that they assume that all voters are physically
present and able to vote again as many times as necessary until a conclusion
is reached. Thus these rules use a system where single-mark balloting is
repeated until one option gets an absolute majority. It is important to note
that this repeated balloting is not equivalent to plurality or
instant-runoff. Not only are voters free to change their preferences,
honestly or strategically; but also, unlike instant-runoff, Roberts Rules
specify that the person with the fewest votes must not be forced to
withdraw.

The Roberts Rules system is superior to plurality; in fact, if followed
faithfully, it will often lead to the same result as our endorsed systems.
The problem is that it can be very slow, as it takes many rounds of
balloting to reach a compromise. By first voting informally with one of our
supported methods (or indeed, with IRV, which may be easier to hand-count
with few voters than some of our endorsed systems), the Roberts Rules vote
will reach a faster, and sometimes a better, result than by simply voting
repeatedly. That is because the supported methods give evidence of which
candidate or candidates should withdraw, or should receive fewer votes,
based on a lack of popularity. In this case the supported election method is
being used to identify the least-popular candidates instead of the
most-popular candidate, so all the available counts and calculated rankings
produced by the supported method — not just the identity of the winner —
need to be shared.

Our recommended election methods also can be used by any group of people to
make single-choice decisions, such as choosing a new logo, choosing a time
or date for an event, and choosing a restaurant for a gathering. However, if
one of the choices is to not make a change (such as not changing the
organization's logo), then two rounds of voting are needed, with the first
round choosing the most popular change, and the second round choosing
between that change and not making any change.

One particularly relevant example of a “private” election is the nomination
process of a political party. It is true that our supported methods make
this process less important, because, unlike plurality, they do not break
down when more than one candidate from a party is running. Still, we expect
that many parties would still want to have a formal nomination (“primary
election”) process so as to focus their efforts on one or two candidates per
office. We believe that any party using a superior voting system internally
will see immediate benefits. A primary process with increased turnout, with
fewer negative attacks, and with a more-democratic result will result in a
stronger nominee who is better-prepared to win in the general election.
Multiple rounds of voting
Good voting systems can reduce the need for primaries and runoffs, or give
even-better results when combined with such extra rounds.

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

These extra rounds can serve several purposes, but they are especially
necessary with the plurality system, because that system only really works
when everyone knows that there are just two main candidates who matter.

Some of us believe that improved voting methods mean that only one round of
voting is needed. Others of us still believe that multiple rounds can still
usefully serve to focus attention. Where we all agree, though, is that
plurality should never be used in any round with more than two candidates.

As mentioned above, we also believe that any party which decides to use a
supported election method in its primaries, will tend to elect stronger
candidates and win more often.

When choosing which candidates deserve to progress to a runoff election, we
do not offer specific recommendations for interpreting results – beyond
obviously including the most popular candidate. There are various
possibilities for how to choose the second, third, and additional
candidates, and the best approach would depend on which of our supported
methods is used (in the earlier round), and other details. This is similar
to the question of how to increase proportional representation.

Regardless of whether our supported election methods are used with or
without runoff elections, the results will be much fairer than can be
achieved using plurality voting with multiple voting rounds.

Separate reforms

Reforming the voting system helps with other democratic reforms.

Nothing in this statement should be construed to say that we believe that
voting systems are the only thing that needs fixing in current-day political
systems. In fact, most of us would support reforms including broader
campaign finance reporting rules, increased use of other decision-making
aids such as deliberative polling, clearer ethics rules for officeholders of
all varieties, and others. We believe that the voting reforms suggested here
would be synergistic with such other reforms, both easing their passage and
multiplying their effects.
Benefits for all
Voting reform is truly a win/win solution which can help all political
groups.

We, as election-method experts, have spent the last decade developing online
resources about election methods, developing software for the election
methods we support, and now we have reached agreement as to which election
methods are worth adopting as replacements for plurality voting. Through
this declaration we are sharing our recommendations. We also offer to share
our deep understanding of election methods with policymakers and politically
active citizens of any nation, state, province, municipality, or political
party.

Those of us signing this declaration proudly stand at widely separate points
on the political spectrum. When we vote, we know that many of us will be
strongly supporting opposite sides. And even in discussing voting systems,
we have our disagreements. Yet we respect each other’s common interests in
desiring to move beyond plurality voting in search of a healthier democracy.
In signing this statement, and in supporting a variety of different methods,
we are looking beyond narrow, partisan interests. We seek to support the
common good. In fact we are unanimous in sincerely believing there are no
good reasons to oppose election-method reform.

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 democracy has
proven to be much better than dictatorships, higher levels of democracy will
help us reach even higher standards of living for almost everyone. We do not
pretend to offer a utopia, where conflicts of interest disappear and
everyone is a winner. We simply believe that even a political group that
loses an election can benefit from healthier dialogue and elected officials
who better represent the voters.

Thus, we believe that better election methods will help all political
groups: both left and right, both business and labor, both incumbents and
upstart campaigners, both centrists and extremists. Even special interests
who currently donate large campaign contributions will benefit from a more
robust and sustainable economy. We believe that every one of these political
groups could benefit in very concrete and specific ways, and we are
available to discuss how and why for each case.

Taking action

Here’s what you can do to help voting reform.

We address this statement to all citizens, and especially to those who are
aware of any of the many benefits that election-method reforms will bring.
To people in specific situations we offer the following words of
encouragement:

   - If you are a policymaker, we strongly urge you to introduce legislation
   that would adopt one of the election methods we support.
   - If you are active in a political party that uses plurality voting, we
   strongly urge you to encourage the use of a better voting method to choose
   your party's candidates and your party's internally elected delegates.
   - If you are politically active, we strongly urge you to tell others
   about the unfairness of plurality voting, and to bring attention to the
   fairer election methods supported in this declaration.
   - If you are a frustrated voter, we strongly urge you to learn about one
   or more of the election methods we support, and then tell others what you
   have learned.
   - If you are a member of an organization that elects officers using
   plurality voting, we strongly urge you to advocate using one of the
   recommended election methods when an election involves more than two
   candidates.



At the very least, please help the world by eliminating the primitive voting
method known as plurality voting.
The highest priority of this declaration is to stop the use of plurality
voting in governmental elections, which should always accommodate more than
two candidates. The widespread availability of computers now makes it easy
to adopt any of the better election methods we support.

More specifically, please educate others that if voters can only indicate a
single, first choice on their ballot, then the choice with the most
plurality votes is not necessarily the most popular, and the choice with the
fewest plurality votes is not necessarily the least popular.

We, the following election-method experts, agree with the statements made in
this declaration.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20110904/5934865b/attachment-0003.htm>