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

[Toby Pereira]

I think it's probably too long, to be honest.
 
When it comes to giving an example to clearly explain vote splitting I'm sure we can do better than:
 
"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."
 
I don't think it reads well at all. So we're saying that, for example, a right wing candidate might defeat a popular left wing candiate by offering financial support to another left wing candidate? (left and right obviously interchangeable) I don't think it's very clear.
 
I don't think it's necessary to point out that some Condorcet methods start off by looking for a winner and some don't. I still think it would be fine not to name any of them specifically, or just say "Condorcet methods such as..." and point people to somewhere like the Wikipedia where they can look them up.
 
And although I'm sure SODA would get decent results, I see it really as a hobby for people on this mailing list at present and I'm not sure it really needs to be mentioned.
 
Counting methods/election methods seem to be saying basically the same thing.
 
Then there's a load of stuff about Robert's Rules of Order which I didn't know was there. Is it necessary? Also, the following paragraph seems overly specific, and there's a later section about rounds of voting anyway.
 
"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."
 
There's probably more stuff as well, but this will do for now!
 
Toby

From: Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com>
To: EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>; electionsciencefoundation <electionscience at googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, 4 September 2011, 19:05
Subject: [EM] Declaration of Election-Method Experts and Enthusiasts: final stretch


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. 

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

We also support the Condorcet-Approvaland Condorcet-IRVmethods, 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 votingis 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 methodsprovide 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 judgmentuses 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 votingcomes 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.

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