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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[smjjames]

How about Survivor voting? You vote the candidates out until only one is left.

With the population of the US?

[10ebbor10]

Instant runoff voting

[Angle]

Yeah, that's also pretty good - but it's a lot more complex to count. It'd do, though.

And obviously, you score the candidates relative to each other - the one you want to win most gets a 9, the one you want to win least gets a 0, and the rest are scored by comparison. If you're really concerned, just be sure to explain that to people.

And why do people think this is complicated? <Accent="Valley Girl">This is, like, the simplest thing ever. </Accent>

[Dutchling]

Did you miss the part where people explained it was broken?

Because even if you have to give everyone a different number you'd just give the 2-8 to random people nobody is going to vote for anyway. There will never be a situation where giving the guy you like second best a 2-8 unless a) you don't want your favourite to win, or b) he's the underdog and isn't going to win anyway.

[Angle]

No, It's not broken. You give itermediate scores to the people who aren't your favorites but that you'd be willing to see win if your favorite couldn't win.

Edit: Here's a rebuttal from the site I linked.

[Frumple]

Ah ha ha ha why are we arguing about this on freaking election day in the US politics thread?

Can we get election stuff instead? Take the vote system wrangling to some other thread? Maybe? Please?

[Dutchling]

That's not what you said here:

You give each candidate a score from 0 - 9 and whoever has the highest average wins.

fakedit: But yeah, what Frumple said

[Angle]

That's not what I said? That's exactly what I said. And yeah, sure, we can talk about the election - But I don't see what there is to say yet. If you have a topic, feel free to suggest it.

[smjjames]

Ah ha ha ha why are we arguing about this on freaking election day in the US politics thread?

Can we get election stuff instead? Take the vote system wrangling to some other thread? Maybe? Please?

The first polls won't close for another hour or so.

[Frumple]

Yeah, there's something like... 5-6 hours before they close, here in FL. 8 pm eastern is the counting time. Still. Any fistfights or something? Gotta' be something interesting going on during the voting process. Maybe interesting things someone noted on the ballot, I'unno.

[Dutchling]

That's not what I said? That's exactly what I said. Ad yeah, sure, we can talk about the election - But I don't see what thee is to say yet. If you have a topic, feel free to suggest it.

To clarify: if the highest average wins it means you can make your 6 win over your 9 by giving him a 6 instead of a 0.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Can we get election stuff instead?

A bunch of local positions (I think 8?) had only one person who could be arsed to try.  And one of the positions had 3 parties, one republican, and two independent.

[Angle]

To clarify: if the highest average wins it means you can make your 6 win over your 9 by giving him a 6 instead of a 0.

Obviously, you score the candidates relative to each other - the one you want to win most gets a 9, the one you want to win least gets a 0, and the rest are scored by comparison. If you're really concerned, just be sure to explain that to people.

Alternatively, if you honestly felt that that candidate was a 6, then you can't be that upset to see them get elected, now can you? Compare that with our current system, where despite wanting to vote green, o socialist, or anything that's not democrat, I consistently vote democrat, because the republicans are just that bad. That is to say we've already got the problem you're referring to - if you vote the way you honestly feel, an that means voting for a third party, you might as well not vote. In this sytem, even if you do get victimized the way you fear, at least your vote had some effect. No voting system is perfect, but this is easily miles better than our current system, because it means that third party candidates actually have a chance at winning, and the big parties can afford to field multiple candidates, giving you more options.

[penguinofhonor]

I voted against McConnell, because that's really all a vote for Alison Grimes is. I don't think she'll win, but she's got a chance.

[Reelya]

IRV gives you all that already, and the concept of ranking candidates e.g. 1-6 is not hard to understand.

IRV voting isn't complex to count by any measure. Say there are 15 candidates on a ballot. With your score voting, the counter needs to add 15 different running totals across the entire set of ballots. Hand recounting is important for auditing. Score voting would make that virtually impossible. Every counter person would need a separate spreadsheet to keep track of their pile of ballots.

With IRV they just get split into piles based on whichever candidate is scored with a "1". If someone gets >50% "1" votes you've done just as much counting as first past the post voting. So you counted 100% of the votes once each, and there's no need to look further.

If nobody got 50% of the 1's then you eliminate the lowest placing candidate first. Assuming a minimum of 3 candidates, that candidate could have gotten at most 33% of the vote - so you've had to resort 33% at the very most of the total votes if no candidate got 50% on the first run. So you just split the pile of 3rd candidate votes into piles of the other two candidates based on whichever name has a "2" next to it rather than a "1". This is not rocket science and is no harder than sorting based on "1s".

Compare range voting - you'd need to plug totals into a calculator to recheck by hand that there's no fraud. IRV doesn't need electronic record keeping to that level - you just count pieces of paper.