Academics just conducted another study in 3 French towns (exit poll) of several score voting schemes & approval voting in 2012 presidential election. All produced the same winner as the official winner, Hollande.
I'm using the following paper by them (in French): http://RangeVoting.org/France1220.pdf Anyhow, they appended a QUESTIONNAIRE to the approximately 2340 voters who participated in this voting study, getting 80-95% response rates to these additional questions. QUESTION 1 asked which type of voting they prefer. Apparently this question was conducted using 4-choice plurality voting (sigh). 1958 answered. The 4 choices were: I. Les deux regles ("the two rules??" does this mean the present 2-round system? Or does it mean "I want both approval and score voting"?) 27.53% II.Vote par approbation ("approval voting") 29.47% III.Vote par note ("score voting") 32.84% WINNER!! IV.Aucune des deux ("neither of them") 10.11% Can any French-speaker explain what the hell that was all about? This question wording seems extremely poor. Elsewhere in same paper the official system was described as "Vote uninominal a deux tours (officiel)." Fortunately, we can dodge all that since question 2 works excellently. QUESTION 2a asked for which kinds of elections approval voting system should be used (or not). 4 subquestions: Elections presidentielles: 61%. Elections legislatives: 57%. Elections municipales: 61%. Associations: 52%. QUESTION 2b asked for which kinds of elections score voting system should be used (or not). same 4 subquestions: Elections presidentielles: 62%. Elections legislatives: 55%. Elections municipales: 66%. Associations: 51%. Superb. Majority wants them for everything, and 61% is equivalent to the largest ever USA presidential "landslides." This to me is the first really convincing evidence the populace WANT approval and range voting. Meanwhile there also is convincing poll evidence from UK, Australia, and BC Canada that voters do NOT want IRV (instant runoff, full rank ordering) if choice is between IRV & plain plurality voting. AUSTRALIA October 2010 nationwide professional telephone poll (NewsPoll http://www.rangevoting.org/AustraliaNewsPollVoteStudy.pdf ) 1202 random Australian adults: found that they prefer plain-plurality voting versus the preferential (instant runoff) system they presently use to elect their House. If forced to choose one, they'd choose to abandon IRV – the poll's result was 57% to 37% (with 5% don't know/refuse). UK: 5 May 2011 binding referendum asking voters to decide whether the UK should switch from plurality to IRV voting, resulting in a massive landslide victory (68% to 32% of the 19.3 million votes) for "stay with plurality." British Columbia Canada 12 May 2009: "switch to IRV" (from plain plurality) got only 39.09% of the 1.65 million votes in referendum. And I just posted landslide poll evidence voters do NOT want "majority judgment" with 7-point verbal scale, if choosing between it and present 2-round plurality plus 2nd round runoff system: FRANCE April 2011: http:/rangevoting.org/Sondageopinionway.pdf At the end of this poll of 1000, the pollees were asked WHICH voting method they preferred: 1. Traditional (plurality plus 2nd round runoff): 63% 2. MJ (median-based with verbal 7-point scale): 36% 3. Other/don't know: 1% Now returning to the academic study in the 3 towns, they trialed DIFFERENT score voting systems in the 3 towns: TOWN...........TYPE OF SCORE VOTING TRIALED Louvigny...............{-1, 0, +1} St.Etienne.............{0, 1, 2} Strasbourg............{0, 1, 2, ..., 19, 20} And the result of question 2b was that there was CLEARLY MORE SUPPORT for {-1,0,+1} and {0,1,2} than for {0,1,2,...,19,20} but in contrast question 2a got about the same support rates in all 3 towns. CONCLUSION: Voters want: Avg-based score voting (unspecified numerical scale) > Approval voting > 2-round plurality > MJ with 7-point verbal scale and plain plurality voting > IRV and Avg-based score voting with 3-point numerical scale (don't care if {-1,0,+1} or {0,1,2}) > Avg-based score voting with 21-point numerical scale. -- Warren D. Smith http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking "endorse" as 1st step) ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info