Forum Council

@bmjacobs Interesting article, but a couple of things. Where does it come from that in Borda you need 2/3 of the vote to ensure a win? Also Borda and winner-takes-all systems wouldn't have the step function if there are more than two candidates. E.g. having 40% of the vote under First Past the Post will still give you the win in many elections. If it's to guarantee the win then yes, but I don't think it's clear that that's what the graph is trying to say.

@mkeypaige A lot of those topics have Wikipedia or Electowiki pages, which describe them quite well, and there are also YouTube videos which discuss a lot of them. Some of the later stuff I wouldn't even know what they are. But I'll give you some links.

Ranked voting - Wikipedia

1. Plurality system (also known as First Past the Post) - Wikipedia, CGP Grey video

2. Ranked Choice Voting (also known as Instant Runoff Voting, Alternative Vote among others): Wikipedia, CGP Grey video

3. Condorcet methods: Wikipedia, Carneades.org video

4. Borda Count: Wikipedia, Carneades.org video

5. Majority criterion: Wikipedia, Becky Moening video

6. Unanimity criterion: Wikipedia article on Pareto Efficiency, Eric Pacuit video

7. Condorcet winner criterion: Wikipedia, Carneades.org video

8. Monotonicity criterion: Electowiki article, Becky Moening video

9. IIA (Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives) criterion: Wikipedia, Carneades.org video

10. Manipulability: Wikipedia article on strategic voting, Katherine Heller video

11. Random dictator: Wikipedia article, Carneades.org video

12. Approval voting: Wikipedia, CGP Grey video

That's the first section covered. Let me know if this is useful at all and I can get some links for the others.

@jack-waugh I think anything except the minimum for unmarked candidates makes it too easy to mark bullet burials. But I don’t know.

How should ABC voting treat unmarked candidates?

Who knows how the Gibbard theorem applies to ABC voting? In optimizing my vote, how do I take into account the stances of the other voters? Assume I know them perfectly. Do I maybe exaggerate support for a compromise candidate from D to C, with a metered probability?

@masiarek this may be slightly tangential, but another consideration for the future is making sure any encryption in voting systems is also quantum secure.

which leads to https://github.com/Election-Tech-Initiative/electionguard/blob/main/docs/concepts/Verifiability.md

Suppose a tallying algo is enacted that requires a preference matrix. What grounds could be cited to convince the public that each precinct correctly sums up the preferences in the votes to build the precinct-level addend to the preference matrix?

I first heard of ABC Voting when Beloved Comrade @Ex-dente-leonem posted about it and another system (Score B2R). I think that ABC Voting is so interesting that I'm starting the present post dedicated to just it.

I'm hereby running up the flagpole an alternative name IRV-Llull in contrast to IRV-Ware.

I heard arguments from two individuals who push for three-valued Score with the default being in the middle and the numbers set so that the middle is zero and the bottom is -1. Both of these advocates opine that voters need an explicit way to express impassioned opposition to a candidate. I think they may be right about that need, but I don't like their proposed solution. I hereby suggest that ABC voting fulfills that need not only psychologically, but better, by acting in the tally in a way that honors that impassioned opposition to the max. In this system, a voter can clearly oppose a candidate with any of the grades D, E, or F, because these grades deny the candidate a positive point for the initial ordering. Within that, the system still provides a way to express a preference for the lesser evil over the greater evil, and it provides that without compromising the effect of the voter's expression concerning the voter's preferred candidates, whom the voter will naturally place them up in the A, B, and C region. For these reasons, I want to sing the praises of this system.

For readers coming on this system here for the first time, I'll repeat how it works:

• Voters assign A, B, C, D, E or F to each candidate. Unmentioned candidates, I suggest, get D. This is my sop to those who think such should get the middle in a score system.

• A, B, or C confers a point of tolerance for the candidate; D, E, and F do not.

• The tally starts by arranging the candidates in order of how many tolerating votes they got, with the most tolerated candidate by that measure at the top of the list.

• The Llull stage of the tally begins, as though the candidates had entered the church in the order determined above (or maybe it's the reverse of that order). In any event, the bottom two candidates on the list are compared first, according to how many voters expressed a preference for one over the other minus how many expressed the opposite preference. A candidate who receives an "E" from a given voter, for example, is understood to be preferred by that voter over a candidate who receives an "F". Whichever candidate loses that comparison is removed from the list.

• The bottom-two comparisons according to voter counts who prefer one candidate over the other vs. the opposite preference are repeated until only one candidate remains on the list. That is the winner.