[EM] Most important/used election methods?

[Richard, the VoteFair guy]

On 10/13/2021 11:50 AM, Bohdan Andriyiv wrote:
> ...
> Is there a list that sorts election methods by popularity or importance?
>
> If there is none, could you please make one and enlighten me and the
> planet Earth?

Years ago we tried to enlighten the planet Earth by writing and signing 
the "Declaration of Election-Method Reform Advocates", a copy of which 
is at:

   http://www.votefair.org/bansinglemarkballots/index.html

We do not agree on any ranking by importance, but most of us did agree 
that we support the use of the following four categories:

* Approval voting

* most of the Condorcet methods

* Majority Judgment

* Range voting (now better known as Score voting)

If we were to update the list it would probably include STAR voting -- 
because it's based on Score voting, yet it's better than Score voting.

And I believe it would include the version of Minimax that uses winning 
votes -- even though this variation does not always elect the Condorcet 
winner.

And lately the Minimax variations can be thought of as growing in 
popularity -- especially because one of the Minimax variations is the 
default method at the very popular Condorcet Internet Voting Service.

Personally I believe that Instant Pairwise Elimination (IPE) would be 
included because it comes very close to being a Condorcet method, but 
that's a personal bias. (Disclaimer: I created this method.)

We did not approve instant-runoff voting (IRV).

The Ranked Choice Including Pairwise Elimination (RCIPE) method (which I 
also created, but did not name) improves IRV by eliminating "Condorcet 
losers" (which has a different meaning from Condorcet used elsewhere) 
might be approved as a stepping-stone to better methods (similar to why 
some of us approved Approval voting). Again, this is a personal bias.

Everyone here has a favorite method, and those methods are most often 
different for each person. So you are likely to get more responses 
saying that such-and-such is the best method.

So we, as a group, cannot rate or rank the methods. The "declaration" is 
about the best we can offer at this time.

In the declaration we agree that PR (proportional representation) is 
worth adopting, but we do not agree on which kind of PR is best. Yet we 
do agree that the most popular kind of PR -- Closed Party List -- is 
inferior to Open Party List. But there are better methods than party lists.

Another point is that the best method depends on which election is being 
reformed. That affects which choice is "best." For example, in the U.S. 
any reform has to be compatible with the current political system. (For 
example, dual-member districts could work, but an STV-like method using 
more than two seats per district would not work as long as plurality 
voting dominates US elections.)

I'm not claiming that everyone here will agree with what I'm saying 
here. I'm providing you with at least part of what you are requesting, 
and I'm making it easier for disagreements with my perspectives to arise 
as criticisms of what I'm saying here.

If you want to be specific about which part of the planet Earth you most 
want reform, we can offer specific suggestions for that case.

Thanks for asking!

Richard Fobes
The VoteFair guy