For those who need a system for substituting for a top-two runoff election, I devised two fair methods to suggest to her that do not have all the flaws of IRV/STV. (They both may've been devised by others before me. My goal was to create a fair method without IRV/STV's flaws which solve the problem of one person/one vote which is necessary to get a voting method approved by US courts. ------------------------------------------
I believe that these alternative systems (below) are also susceptible to the spoiler effect of a nonwinning candidate changing who wins the election, although I believe that there is a significant difference between the alternative methods below and plurality and IRV where a majority opposed candidate may win the election. In other words, I believe that the winner due to a spoiler in the alternative method below is more likely to be a majority favorite. Both methods below solve the problem of every voter having a vote of value one and, unlike IRV, treat all voters alike by counting all their choices So, here are two possible methods that are fairer than IRV/STV and which are monotonic (unlike IRV/STV): 1. A rank choice ballot method: Any number of candidates may be running for office and any number allowed to be ranked on the ballot. Voter ranks one candidate vote =1 Voter ranks two candidates, denominator is 1+2 = 3 votes are worth 2/3 and 1/3 for first and second ranked candidates Voter ranks three candidates, denominator is 1+2+3=6 votes are worth 3/6 and 2/6 and 1/6 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice respectively Voter ranks four candidates, denominator is 1+2+3+4=10 votes are worth 4/10, 3/10, 2/10, and 1/10 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd and 4th choice respectively ETC. Just follow the same pattern 2. A point system where a total number of points per voter per contest may be allocated by the voter to any of the candidates running for office: Two candidates running for office, give all voters 2+1=3 votes to cast. They may cast all three votes for one candidate or split the votes any way between the two. Three candidates running for office, give all voters 3+2+1=6 votes to cast. They may cast all six votes for one candidate or split the votes any way they like between the three. Four candidates running for office, give all voters 4+3+2+1=10 votes to cast. They may cast all ten votes for one candidate or split the votes any way they like between the four. Five candidates running for office, give all voters 5+4+3+2+1=15 votes to cast. They may cast all 15 votes for one candidate or split the votes any way they like. The benefits of this system are that it: a. gives the voters more flexibility than plan #1 above as far as weighting the individual candidates b. is easy to assure that all voters contribute 1 total vote during the process by dividing each vote by the total number of votes allowed for each voter for each contest. It would, however, require educating each voter to make sure to use all the points available in any one contest though. The advantage of these two methods over IRV/STV include: 1. easy to count, precinct-summable (unlike IRV) 2. fair, treats all voters' votes equally by counting all choices of each voter (unlike IRV) 3. gives each voter a total of one vote total over the entire vote counting process satisfying the US courts (unlike IRV) 4. is monotonic -- preserves the right to cast a vote that has a positive affect on a candidate's chances of winning (unlike IRV.) 5. Allows all voters to participate in all the rounds since these methods require only one (1) round (unlike IRV) 6. can begin the counting immediately without waiting for all the late-counted provisional and absentee ballots to be ready to count (without fear of having to restart the entire process again from the beginning unlike with IRV/STV) -- Kathy Dopp Town of Colonie, NY 12304 phone 518-952-4030 cell 518-505-0220 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf Checking election outcome accuracy --- Post-election audit sampling http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf -- Kathy Dopp Town of Colonie, NY 12304 phone 518-952-4030 cell 518-505-0220 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf Checking election outcome accuracy --- Post-election audit sampling http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info