Voting Methods Central covers 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 here. DC authors focused on voting methods include Aaron Hamlin, augustin, Michael Ossipoff and Richard Fobes.
VIDEO: How Polling Techniques Have Changed Since Last Election (11/7/2018) - Can polls be trusted? In 2016, polls in key states showed Hillary Clinton winning handily. 
VIDEO: How FiveThirtyEight Calculates Data Of A Divided Nation (11/6/2018) - Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog burst onto the political scene in 2008, when he forecasted the 
Polling Mischief in Maine Shows Why We Need Ranked Choice Voting (10/26/2018) - Let’s make sure whoever wins this election actually has the support of a majority of 
VIDEO: The Intersection of Technology and Polling Data (10/16/2018) - When it comes to elections, too much of the public focuses only at who is 
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 
Year-Long Global Initiative to Reimagine Democracy Releases Report (11/11/2018) - Report includes insights gleaned from almost 100 interviews, 54 essays and 26 ‘democracy dialogues’ from 
Fargo, ND Becomes First US City to Adopt Approval Voting (11/8/2018) - Voters overwhelmingly made their city the first in the US to adopt approval voting, an 
Referendum Trend Continues With Dozens Of 2018 Ballot Measures (11/5/2018) - Voters participating in U.S midterm will be choosing more than candidates, they’ll also be weighing 
US States Split On Allowing Citizen Ballot Initiatives (11/2/2018) - US States split on allowing citizen ballot initiatives which in every two years place eye 
Citizens to Vote on Religiously-Themed Alabama Constitution Changes (10/31/2018) - The colorful amendments presented to citizens in this year’s midterm elections in Alabama are again 
Practical Democracy: The Next Step in the Evolution of Democracy (10/19/2018) - Practical Democracy is a bottom-up process that lets every member of the community participate to Year-Long Global Initiative to Reimagine Democracy Releases Report (11/11/2018) - Report includes insights gleaned from almost 100 interviews, 54 essays and 26 ‘democracy dialogues’ from 
Is Ranked Choice Voting Working Its Magic in Maine Already? (11/10/2018) - Maine made history on Tuesday by becoming the first state to elect their national representatives Fargo, ND Becomes First US City to Adopt Approval Voting (11/8/2018) - Voters overwhelmingly made their city the first in the US to adopt approval voting, an 
Beyond Midterms, Some Republicans Eye Amending Constitution (11/4/2018) - To the mounting alarm of others on all parts of the spectrum, they want to 
Disability, Democracy and Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (10/27/2018) - New Zealand's Mixed-Member Proportional election system would be good for disabled people in the United 
Beyond Political Parties: Thoughts on the Evolution of Politics (10/26/2018) - Our political system in the U.S. failed, not because of our Constitution, but because we What 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.
Public Social Media Databases Reveal New Political Ad Tactics (11/9/2018) - Public databases that shine a light on online political ads; launched by Facebook and Google 
Don’t Leave Half The World Offline And Behind, Urges Web Founder (11/9/2018) - Tim Berners-Lee, who invented www, appealed on Monday for half of world population not to 
Facebook Blocked More Than 100 Accounts Prior To US Midterms (11/8/2018) - Accounts with potential ties to a so-called Russian "troll farm" has been blocked that may 
VIDEO: Securing Election Systems Against Cyber Attacks (11/6/2018) - Center for Strategic and International Studies published an event in which experts drew insights on 
Serious Online Voting System Problems Alleged In Georgia (11/6/2018) - Online voting problems alleged in Georgia, one of the nation's hottest governor's races, with Brian 
Contours Of Russian Midterm Vote Manipulation So Far (11/6/2018) - As Americans prepare for another election, Russian troublemakers have again been working to divide U.S. 
Key Trial Starts Over 2020 Census Question on Citizenship (11/6/2018) - A federal trial began Monday in New York City over challenges to the federal government's 
Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Halt Trial Over Census (10/31/2018) - President Donald Trump's administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to postpone a trial 
Judge Defies Supreme Court on Census Citizenship Question (10/27/2018) - New York federal judge whose rulings were criticized by two Supreme Court justices tossed their 
Supreme Court Halts Questioning in Closely-Watched Census Lawsuit (10/10/2018) - Court temporarily blocked order forcing Commerce Secretary to be questioned this week over decision to 
What Makes a Voting Method Good? (10/3/2018) - The idea here is that if we want a legislative part of our government to 
British Columbia May Soon Vote to Ditch Plurality Voting (9/25/2018) - A referendum in British Columbia would allow voters decide on the type of election method 
Dark Money Dominating State Supreme Court Races (10/31/2018) - Outside groups continue to pour money into state supreme court campaigns, television advertising spending so 
Dark Money Groups to Spend Millions in State Supreme Court Races (9/20/2018) - The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law will track, analyze, and publish 
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 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:
Fargo, ND Becomes First US City to Adopt Approval Voting (11/8/2018) - Voters overwhelmingly made their city the first in the US to adopt approval voting, an alternative voting method in which voters can vote for as 
Poll Shows Fargo Residents Support Approval Voting 2:1 (10/19/2018) - We’re all curious how approval voting stands in Fargo for the upcoming ballot measure. So over the last week, the Center for Election Science contracted What Makes a Voting Method Good? (10/3/2018) - The idea here is that if we want a legislative part of our government to cover broad ideas, then we need to have a voting 
It’s Official – Approval Voting Will Be On the Ballot in Fargo! (9/10/2018) - Fargo be the first US city to use approval voting and let voters choose all the candidates they want on their ballot. A local grassroots 
80,000 Hours Podcast: Join the Voting Method Revolution (6/5/2018) - I had the pleasure of sitting down with Robert Wiblin of 80,000 Hours to talk about The Center for Election Science and voting methods. Like 
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 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.
How to Stop the Two-Party Divide-and-Conquer Strategy (10/2/2018) - We must require that a winner must get more than half the votes. Alas, this simple rule cannot be imposed yet. Why? Because virtually all democracies 
What Made America Great? A Postwar Monopoly On Un-bombed Factories! (8/3/2018) - Voters in virtually all democracies (in Europe, Asia, and North America) use primitive single-mark ballots, which only allow a voter to mark a single choice. 
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