The voting systems you won’t find on the referendum paper
The voting systems you won’t find on the referendum paper
Fed up with both the alternative vote and first-past-the-post? Fear not. politics.co.uk presents some of the more ridiculous voting systems for your consideration.
The alternative vote is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to complex voting systems.
The ‘no’ campaign has been at great pains to demonstrate the baffling complexity of the AV system. It turns out this is only the tip of the iceberg: there are many different kinds of ways in which the will of the voting public can be interpreted. Here’s our pick of some of the highlights – which may make you thankful that the referendum we’ve got only looks at two of them.
Approval voting
This is one of the more positive options on offer, perfect for those voters who feel constrained by only having one vote. Under approval voting, each voter approves as many candidates as they want. The candidate with the most ‘approvals’ is the winner. If you wanted to encourage the democratic process, for example, you could vote for all the candidates on the ticket as a ‘well done for taking part’. Or you could vote for all but one, to punish a particular candidate. Best of all, voting for the Conservative and Lib Dem candidate would be a vote of approval for a coalition government… the options are endless.
Tournament score
In this system voters submit a ranking of their candidates. Each candidate is then assessed on how many of their challengers they beat under what is known as “pair-wise majority rule” – that is, a straight fight between the two for a majority. The candidates with the largest scores are chosen. There’s one problem here, though – it’s not clear how ties are broken. Explaining this one to the British public might take some doing.
Two-round majority
A first-round election takes place in which each voter backs one candidate. If no candidate gets an overall majority, all but the top two candidates are knocked out and a run-off takes place. This is used around the world, but has its pitfalls. In France, for example, there is a real possibility the far-right Marine Le Pen could beat the Socialists into the runoff against Nicolas Sarkozy.
Coombs
This is a variant on the alternative vote. Rather than knocking out the candidate that came last, if no-one has an overall majority the eliminated candidate is the one who is most often ranked last. It’s named after the academic who came up with the idea in 1964.
Majority judgement
This appears one of the most baffling of all. Voters assess each candidate based on a graded verbal scale (eg Cameron is ‘satisfactory’, Clegg is ‘marvellous’, Brown is ‘hopeless’). The median result for each candidate is then calculated. A “linear approximation scheme”, whatever that is, is then used to choose the elected candidate. Wow.
Minimax procedure
If the voting system is being decided on which has the best name, this must surely be among the frontrunners. The aim of this voting system appears to be to find the candidate who is the least unpopular. Each voter ranks their candidates. Then each candidate is assessed by the size of the majority of all the other candidates against them. The winner is the one which has the smallest majority gathered against him or her.
Range voting
Why bother ranking candidates relative to each other, when you could mark them out of ten? Each voter assesses each candidate by giving them marks. The elected candidate is simply the one who receives the most points when all the marks are added together. This system is also known as “utilitarianism”. Try putting that on a referendum ticket.
Leximin
This is another ‘the least unpopular’ type of method. Each voter grades each candidate according to some kind of scale – it doesn’t really matter what. The winner is the one who gets the fewest of the worst possible grade. This is calculated through a mathematical equation which, I’m afraid, I don’t understand in the slightest.
Plurality
Each voter chooses one candidate and the candidate with the most votes is elected. Oh, wait – we’ve heard that one before, haven’t we? It is, according to the research paper, “the most common voting rule in the Anglo-Saxon world”. It has another name, too: first-past-the-post.
You can have a look at the academic research paper which assessed these options if you want to delve into the details further.
