[Coda]

People don't fall into neat categories so easily. You might find people who like A, B, and F, or B, C, and D. There can't be a candidate for every combination of issues.

So what you're really missing is that someone who likes A, C, and E would rather see the A, B, C candidate win than the D, E, F candidate, but every vote for the A, C, E candidate is one less vote towards their second-choice candidate.

There are other forms of voting besides single-vote ballots that solve this problem. The easiest to describe is Instant Runoff Voting, wherein you rank each candidate according to preference. Then when tallying votes, you first count everyone's first choice. Then you take out the lowest-scoring candidate, and then take everyone who voted for that candidate and count their second-choice votes. You repeat this until there are only two candidates left, and the winner is the one with more votes.

It's not a perfect system, but it's an improvement over a simple majority system.

[Jurinjo]

Originally Posted by littl3chocobo

america has not been 'on top' since the 20s and it has been dying since the 80's, i just want it not to tank in the next 30 years

Yeaaah "tanking" is something I am expecting.
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I've never been one to care for "being on top" it would be better if our country had our shit together. hmm...there's a lot of things i could say but I need some sleep before work and it'd just be ranting to the clouds. I'm one of those voters who ignored the other 2 candidates b/c no one would vote for them. Obama would've gotten my vote were I able to vote in this county. xp -recently moved-

Wow so me, Tiva, Poggio, and Alpha all live in the same state =O
I'm sure I knew this at some point and forgot. Interestingly Asheville was where we were me and my roomate were hoping to move at first.

[Alpha]

Jurinjo: There are a few others I can think of, but I'll leave it up to them if they want it known or not.

Coda: That is certainly one way to do it, but another would be to replace the "winner take all" system when it comes to a state's electoral votes, and instead partition them according to the percent of the vote each candidate won.

[Coda]

Alpha: Those two changes are compatible. You can run IRV along with proportional electoral representation.

[Alpha]

Indeed they are. I was merely stating a different change despite the compatibility with IRV. Presenting different solutions to a flawed system more to the point. Ironically this is something I am doing as a persuasive speech....should be interesting.

[Coda]

Honestly I think we SHOULD do both, although I think some sort of pairwise method might be preferable to IRV. IRV is easier to explain, but a point to note is that picking more than two representatives with IRV is difficult. (It's easy to determine what proportion of the population wanted first place, and what proportion wanted second place, but how do you determine the proportional popularity of the third-place candidate when the first two by definition add up to 100%?)

A pairwise method starts with preference ranking like IRV, but then instead of iteratively eliminating the person with the fewest votes, you take each candidate and compare him with each other candidate one-by-one, and the candidate that beats the most other candidates when considered pairwise is the winner. Think of it like a round-robin tournament format: everyone goes one-on-one with everyone else. This makes it easy to determine proportions, and it attempts to guarantee that whoever is selected is preferable to more people than whoever isn't selected. (This is actually impossible to guarantee with ANY voting system, but there are a number of tiebreaker options available.)

[Darth Vader]

I definitely think that instant-runoff voting would be a pretty great idea and system, but a lot of people would probably get confused with it or something, especially if, like, older people have to stray away from traditional voting methods. I still wouldn't mind something like that. Maybe in the distant future, it'll happen... at least I hope so.

I like how you described your last post, though, Coda. It just sort of made me think of Mortal Kombat where you have to fight your way up a list of competitors, then BOOM, boss fight.

Mitt Romney vs. Baraka Obama
FIGHT.
[combat ensues; Baraka Obama projected winner; Mitt Romney is stunned]
FINISH HIM.
Baraka Obama... wins.
MAJORITY!

[Coda]

... that was a TERRIBLE pun. XD

Well played.

[Lauv Keiko]

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xD
.. wow, I've never seen coda post THIS much in a different forum/thread.

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[littl3chocobo]

dude, anywhere there is a good fight and at least one person ready to refute coda is there XD

[Lauv Keiko]

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and once the debate has gone down, Coda flees. xD

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[Alpha]

He still sticks around.....at least stalking a bit.

Coda: It really is impossible to ensure complete satisfaction with any system, but as you said, best you can do is make it more representative of the opinion(s) of the voters. Any reform to the system is a long time off, unless there happens to be a revolution of some sort.

[littl3chocobo]

coda is a pokemon! XD

[Coda]

Coda... Coda?

Coda coda!

... coda coda coda. x.x

[Coda]

Seriously, though, it's not even a question of satisfying all the voters. It turns out that it's mathematically impossible to create a ranked voting system that simultaneously gives everyone equal voice (that is, making it so that no one voter has any more power than any other), makes all of the alternatives independent (that is, making it so that changing the preferences of one candidate doesn't affect the relative rankings of the others), and is fair (that is, if everyone agrees that X is better than Y, the voting system should favor X over Y as well).

[Alpha]

Well, unfortunately, yeah......it also doesn't help that you find some groupings attempting to abuse the system though.