Breaking news on the study, promotion and adoption of voting methods reform worldwide. Increasingly important systems of voting like instant-runoff voting, approval voting, top-two voting and proportional representation will be covered in this section. Our resident DC experts on voting methods include authors Aaron Hamlin, augustin, Michael Ossipoff and Richard Fobes. Also visit our Third Party, American Democracy and Election Technology pages.
Why Purple Districts Elect the Most Extreme Legislators (5/11/2018) - Study titled "Geography, Uncertainty, and Polarization" has some revealing insight into American political polarization
Study finds pre-election polls are still as reliable as ever (3/12/2018) - Pre-election polls are not becoming less reliable, said a study Monday addressing public distrust stemming 
Special Oscars Poll Demonstrates Pairwise Vote Counting (2/12/2018) - This NewsHereNow Oscars poll allows you, or anyone who is familiar with the Oscar-nominated movies, 
Taking measure of the support for Putin inside Russian (2/7/2018) - Despite chest-thumping of Putin’s more enthusiastic supporters, it’s unclear exactly how deep this devotion runs
Studying Political Party Affiliation Through Pickup Truck Density (1/4/2018) - If town has more sedans than pickup trucks, there's an 88% chance the city in 
Trump Election Miss Still Costing Gambling Websites in a Huge Way (6/18/2017) - Following the election of President Donald Trump in November, political betting websites in England and 
A Look at the Design of the New Taiwanese Referendum Process (5/11/2018) - Government officials in Taiwan have overhauled the country’s referendum process making it simpler for people 
Wisconsin Voters to Retain Right to Elect State Treasurer (4/4/2018) - This an issue that touches on the ability of voters to decide on important economic 
Should America Make Changes to Model Swiss Democracy? (3/4/2018) - The Swiss model is highly regarded as one of the best models of democracy in 
Move making it harder to alter South Dakota constitution advances (1/23/2018) - Constitutional amendment would increase the majority vote threshold required for a constitutional change to at 
The trouble with Swiss direct democracy is minority rule (1/15/2018) - Switzerland is a semi-direct, not a purely parliamentary democracy and has no alternation in power 
Grassroots group closer to overhauling Michigan redistricting (12/19/2017) - Reform may be coming for redistricting in Michigan. The following is from an article, "Anti-gerrymander 
Ranked Choice Voting is Not a Conspiracy, it is Nonpartisan (5/19/2018) - The accusations by entrenched Republican elites in Maine does not change these facts. Republican leaders, 
VIDEO: Independent Candidates and Election Reform in 2018 (4/26/2018) - In a partisan political environment, independent or unaffiliated voters now represent the largest voting bloc
Election Method Reforms Leave California Ballots Way Too Long (4/16/2018) - California's new top-two system has created wave of confusion among voters leading to rise in 
GoFundMe: Help us win a Peaceful Voting Revolution in Maine! (4/16/2018) - Please don't miss this chance to fundamentally level the playing field and improve our system 
Were Nonpartisan Elections Behind Florida Libertarian’s Local Win? (4/14/2018) - The win demonstrates the potential benefits of nonpartisan elections for independents and third party candidates
Large Majority of Public Support Congressional Election Reforms (4/13/2018) - Majorities of voters support independent redistricting commissions, ranked choice voting and multi-member districtsWhat Voting Methods We Should Use
Voting systems, also known as election methods, have a revolutionary potential that is not grasped by the general public even though there is an entire universe of research on this topic.
When we were just getting started as a website, Democracy Chronicles founder Adrian Tawfik conducted an exclusive interview series with an international group of election method proponents including prominent signers of the Declaration of Election-Method Reform Advocates. It is a great example of the diversity of the people involved. The best place to start off is the Democracy Chronicles introduction and then take a look at each of these interviews:
- Richard Fobes – Election Method Reformer Speaks With DC
- Aaron Hamlin – Interview With President of Center for Election Science
- augustin – Writer Discusses Election Reform and New Website
- Michael Allen – Election Method Reformer Seeks Radical Changes
- Jameson Quinn – Election Expert Discusses Reform in US and Guatemala
- Michael Ossipoff – Democracy Chronicles Author Discusses Approval Voting
- Robert Bristow-Johnson – Expert Demands Reducing Money in Elections
Also see the DC Interview With Creator of Wooden Models of Voting Methods with artist Peter A. Taylor.
Concerns Rise as WhatsApp Becomes Campaign Tool in India (5/20/2018) - WhatsApp faces scrutiny in India amid concerns about the role the app is playing in 
GOP-led Senate Panel Confirms Russian Election Meddling in 2016 (5/17/2018) - The committee's investigation had shown Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help 
Transatlantic Election Commission Founded to Focus on Hacking (5/15/2018) - An international commission has formed to try to end meddling in elections in Western democratic 
New Revealing Info Details Tennessee Election Hacking Attack (5/12/2018) - Investigators found evidence of a "malicious intrusion" into a Tennessee county's elections website
Facebook Ads Reveal Russian Effort to Stoke Political Division (5/11/2018) - Most of the ads are issue-based, pushing arguments for and against immigration, LGBT issues and 
Cambridge Analytica Denial of Prime Role in Data Scandal (4/25/2018) - Cambridge Analytica unleashed its counterattack against claims that it misused data from millions of Facebook 
Would We be Better Served by National Popular Vote? (4/13/2018) - Polls that have consistently shown that a majority of Americans wants to elect the President 
Colorado Case is Defining State Power Over the Electoral College (4/12/2018) - Do states have the authority to penalize presidential electors and bind their vote to reflect 
Why the Popular Vote Won’t Solve Electoral College Problem (3/28/2018) - At the moment, whoever exceeds 270 electoral votes wins the election even if the candidate 
Democratic Party Considers Ending Superdelegate System (3/13/2018) - A proposal would put an end to the superdelegate system once and for all for 
Activists Head to Courts to Undermine the Electoral College (3/4/2018) - Having failed to generate enough support to abolish the Electoral College through a constitutional amendment
Why a citizenship question on the 2020 census is a bad idea (2/22/2018) - In December 2017, the Department of Justice formally proposed adding a citizenship question to the 
Money Starting to Dominate State Supreme Court Elections (12/29/2017) - Causing the greatest distress is the growing prevalence of so-called “dark money” in state judicial 
North Carolina Elections Are Ground Zero in Broken System (12/21/2017) - North Carolina’s civil-rights and good-government groups are preparing for a special session
Debate over how to elect NC judges gets uglier (12/16/2017) - Democratic senators walked out of a legislative study committee meeting Wednesday on judicial selection
Montana Makes Stand For Impartial Judicial Elections (12/14/2017) - A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals bars judicial candidates from 
Ethics Concerns as Koch Brothers Run TV Ads For a Virginia Judge (6/24/2017) - There is concern that the judge backed by the ads may have to recuse himself 
Case Shows Punishing Judges For Political Activity is Not Easy (6/11/2017) - A judicial conduct complaint resulted in the censure of judges who spoke out against a Voting Methods Resources Online
The Center for Election Science has great information on voting methods. Also, the Wikipedia page on Voting Systems is the unofficial battleground between proponents of different voting methods. The Declaration of Election-Methods Reform Advocates is a document signed by academics who support moving beyond plurality voting.
A great place to go if you are looking to meet people discussing this neglected subject is Minguo.info which not only promotes better voting methods which would allow better, more honest candidates to be elected at every levels, it is also offering the tools for users to create their own polls using a variety of alternative voting systems. Those polls can be used to discuss policies as well as candidates.
Minguo.info is a non-profit, advertising free, community project which has several, complementary aims. First and foremost, it aims to educate the public about better voting methods. It promotes such better methods like Approval Voting, Emocracy Voting and Score Voting. Plurality voting is also implemented in the web site, certainly not because it’s a good election method, but in order to offer the users the chance to compare our current, broken system with better alternatives (follow these last two links, cast your own ballots and appreciate the difference!). Minguo.info also wants to educate against the use of voting machines in official elections. Ideally, there should be a verifiable paper trail in every election.
Politics tends to divide people, especially given the poor election method used in official elections. However, the advanced polling tools used at minguo.info allows for a more peaceful debate on policies to take place, especially since more nuanced positions have the room to flourish and get the approval of a large majority of the members. Thus, minguo.info is an experiment in internet democracy via constructive policy discussion. It is fairly unique on the web. When the community reaches a critical mass, it will be empowered to use its collaboratively drafted policy document (the Community Manifesto) to reach out to the public, educate it and positively influence public discourse, policy decisions, the democratic process and, hopefully, the outcome of elections.
- Take a Minguo Poll: What is your opinion on abortions?
- Take a Minguo Poll: What do you think about nuclear energy?
Voting Methods: The Forgotten Science
According to Eric Pacuit in his essay “Voting Methods” from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 Edition), a central question the election methods science is that “given a group of people faced with some decision, how should a central authority combine the individual opinions so as to best reflect the ‘will of the group’?” According to Pacuit, “a complete analysis of this question would incorporate a number of different issues ranging from central topics in political philosophy (e.g., how should we define the “will” of the people? what is a democracy?) to the psychology of decision making.”
Little about election methods science is considered set in stone as opinions are as varied as the wide array of methods that have been proposed around the world. You can actually take a look at the election ballot of every democracy in the world thanks to the University of North Carolina. According to election method advocacy group FairVote:
The nations within our global community display a staggering array of voting systems. In spite of this, one thing is clear — the modern trend is toward using proportional voting systems, as most industrialized nations and all of the newly emerging democracies in the former Eastern Bloc have done, as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of the lingering winner-take-all, first-past-the-post systems exist in former British colonies, including in the United States.
Modern Giants of Election Methods
American economist and joint winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics with John Hicks in 1972. Arrow’s impact on the economics profession has been tremendous. For more than fifty years he has been one of the most influential of all practicing economists. His most significant works are his contributions to social choice theory, notably “Arrow’s impossibility theorem”, and his work on general equilibrium analysis. He has also provided foundational work in many other areas of economics, including endogenous growth theory and the economics of information.
His research also includes collective decision-making, general equilibrium theory, environment and growth and his new research includes information and communication in the economy, networks and markets, as well as new work on environment and growth. The use of mathematical criteria to evaluate voting systems was introduced when Kenneth Arrow showed in Arrow’s impossibility theorem that certain intuitively desirable criteria were actually mutually contradictory, demonstrating the inherent limitations of voting theorems.
Is Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and has made seminal contributions to the fields of economics and political science. In game theory, he introduced refinements of Nash’s equilibrium concept, and he developed techniques to characterize the effects of communication when individuals have different information. His analysis of incentive constraints in economic communication introduced several fundamental which that are now widely used in economic analysis, including the revelation principle and the revenue-equivalence theorem in auctions and bargaining.
Myerson has also applied game-theoretic tools to political science, analyzing how political incentives can be affected by different electoral systems and constitutional structures. Myerson is the author of Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict (1991) and Probability Models for Economic Decisions (2005). He also has published numerous articles in professional journals, includingEconometrica, Journal of Economic Theory, Games and Decisions,American Political Science Review, Mathematics of Operations Research, and International Journal of Game Theory. He is currently president of the Game Theory Society (2012), has been president of the Econometric Society (2009), and has been vice president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1999-2002).
Frederic E. Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Decision Sciences at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Educated at Princeton and Cornell, he was a faculty member of the Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics at Yale, and taught in the Yale School of Organization and Management, prior to joining the Kellogg faculty in 1979. His general area of research is game theory, with a primary focus on the effects of private information in competitive settings.
Much of his research has been centered on the theory and practice of competitive bidding and auction design. His 1982 paper, “A Theory of Auctions and Competitive Bidding” at Econometrica (co-authored with P.R. Milgrom), is considered a seminal work in the field. He served as an external consultant on a 1985 project leading to revisions in the procedures used to auction petroleum extraction leases on the U.S. outer continental shelf, and he co-organized (with representatives of the Federal Reserve Board and the U.S. Treasury) the 1992 public forum which led to changes in the way the Treasury auctions its debt issues. Since 1993, he has represented private clients during both the rule-making and bidding phases of the FCC’s sale of licenses of spectrum for the provision of personal communications services.
Game theorist and political scientist at the New York University Department of Politics. Steven J. Brams is a founder and the Chairman of the Advisory Board of Fair Outcomes, Inc. Dr. Brams is a game theorist and political scientist at New York University’s department of politics, and is best known for his work on applying game theory to voting systems and to systems involving fair division.
Dr. Brams is one of the independent discoverers of approval voting and was, along with Alan Taylor, a co-discoverer of the first envy-free solution to the n-person cake-cutting problem. The Brams-Taylor solution to the cake-cutting problem solved what had been one of the most important open problems in contemporary mathematics. With Taylor, he is a co-inventor of the “Adjusted Winner” system, a patented fair-division procedure now being offered by Fair Outcomes, Inc. He is also, along with James F. Ring, a co-inventor of the patent-pending “Fair Buy-Sell” system that is currently being offered by the company. He is the author or co-author of fourteen books, the most recent being Mathematics and Democracy: Designing Better Voting and Fair Division Procedures (2008).
Here are DC authors who have focused on election methods:
Thanks to New Fundraising, the Center for Election Science is Hiring (1/31/2018) - With exciting projects like our push for approval voting in Fargo and general capacity building, we’ve reached the point where we have to bring on 
Voting Methods: An Open Target for Effective Altruism (5/24/2017) - Pushing smarter voting methods has the potential to change lives in the world at a fundamental level. There are few opportunities for this level of 
2017 French Presidential Elections: Do They Do It Better? (5/10/2017) - We’ve seen a different picture of French elections under alternative voting methods before. Fortunately, we’ll all get another look as an alternative voting method analysis 
The Majority Illusion: What Voting Methods Can and Cannot Do (3/31/2017) - If a candidate gets elected that is both not preferred by a majority, then you’ve got a problem. A voting method that regularly makes that 
Remembering Kenneth Arrow and His Impossibility Theorem (3/5/2017) - When the alternative is to continue using the worst voting method—plurality voting—there is little risk experimenting. Clearly, Dr. Arrow wanted us to have better.
AUDIO: My Discussion With Radio Host Kevin Willett (2/16/2017) - Host Kevin Willett is joined by Aaron Hamlin of The Center for Election Science. They promote better collective decisions in settings ranging from civic organizations 
Voting Systems Don’t Matter if You Don’t Have a Real Democracy (2/2/2018) - Why should a better voting-system be allowed, unless the people who own the lawmakers want to cede government to the public? And without verifiable vote-counting, 
New Voting Systems Can’t Solve the Problems of Democracy (5/27/2017) - There's a widespread assumption that if we just tried a little harder or better, everything would improve, and that it's soon going to happen. I 
Why the Ruling-Rich Won’t Impeach Trump For Now (5/23/2017) - The problem with impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors is the ruling-rich benefit from what he's doing, and he's doing it for them as well 
Time is Now For Democrats to Take a Stand on Trump Crimes (5/22/2017) - In these Trump-times, communities need to stick together, to minimize the harm and damage that Trump, his ruling cronies, and his Republican friends (but Democrats 
Thorough Comparison of the 12 Best Voting-Systems (5/20/2017) - This is the final article in a series analyzing the 12 best voting-systems. It is a long and detailed comparison of twelve voting-systems by four 
How Approval and Score Voting Compare to the Alternatives (2/15/2017) - Attempts to improve on Approval and Score Voting are always at least somewhat illusory, because, even when some improvement is achieved, it’s accompanied by problems. Special Oscars Poll Demonstrates Pairwise Vote Counting (2/12/2018) - This NewsHereNow Oscars poll allows you, or anyone who is familiar with the Oscar-nominated movies, to rank the movies using a 1-2-3 ballot. And then 
Wild Election Results Brought To You By Single-Mark Ballots (9/27/2016) - Secret revealed! The humorous yet insightful story of how we ended up with Trump and Clinton written by the author of the ebook Ending The 
Vote Against Oregon’s Top Two Primary Election Proposal (10/7/2014) - Those of us in Oregon need to vote against the "top two primary" election because it continues to use single-mark ballots, which are the source 
Against Arizona’s Proposition 121, a Flawed “Top-Two” Primary (10/16/2012) - Anyone in Arizona who wants fairer election results should vote against Arizona's Proposition 121, learn about vote-splitting, and look at the Declaration of Election-Method Reform 
Democracy in Theatre: The Ice-Cream Flavor War (10/1/2012) - To help people better understand vote-splitting, and how this unfairness can be overcome, I wrote The Ice-Cream-Flavor War. A performance of it gives the audience 
Poem: Abe and Thomas for President (9/19/2012) - The author of this poem, Richard Fobes, has given permission for the words of this poem to be used in any video, as long as