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<!doctype html>
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<title>To Build an Even Better Ballot?</title>
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INTRODUCTION:
THE SPOILER EFFECT
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<div class="words">
<p>My name is Jameson Quinn. If spending 10,000 hours on something makes you an expert, then I'm easily an expert on voting methods. And right here in your browser, I want to give you a tool that can help you think like an expert on this in a whole lot less than 10,000 hours. If you read all the way through this page, you'll be well on your way. You'll know a lot about voting methods, and you'll understand in a very intuitive way how much this knowledge could be used to make politics healthier.</p>
<p>I think this tool is a lot of fun and I'm really excited to share it with you. But before I do, I should acknowledge the people who have made this possible. Nicky Case made the first version; Pareto Man did most of the work on the current one; and some of the key ideas come from Ka-Ping Yee and Warren Smith. There's more acknowledgements at the bottom. If you want to be part of this chain of awesomeness, this is all open source, so you're free to make it even better. You can also support Electology.org, aka the Center for Election Science, a nonprofit that works on these issues.</p>
<p>So, let's get started.</p>
<p>If you live in the US (or Canada or the UK, for that matter), you've probably read plenty of depressing or scary articles about politics recently. There are a lot of problems in politics, and it can seem hopeless. How can we possibly fix it all?</p>
<p>I want to show you how democracy itself can be fixed. Doing that wouldn't immediately fix all the other problems. But it would make fixing everything else substantially easier.</p>
<p>In order to see how to fix democracy, you have to understand how it's broken, right at its root: we're doing voting wrong. Choose-one plurality voting, the voting method we have in most big English-speaking countries, is just about the worst voting method ever used. It's easy to see why other methods are better. It doesn't take complicated rules to improve on choose-one plurality; approval voting is arguably even simpler, and better in every way.</p>
<p>Once I've shown you that, I'll move on to <a href="#partII">part II</a>, where I'll get into some of the more complex elements of voting theory (aka social choice theory; a subfield of game theory). I'll discuss strategic voting, and show you several other voting methods, such as score voting, IRV, Condorcet, Star, and 3-2-1. I'll discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of these methods, and let you play with the examples that have convinced me which methods are better for which situations — approval for simplicity, 3-2-1 or Star for a balance betwen expressiveness and robustness against strategy, and score for situations where the voters share common end goals and are merely voting on the best means to those goals — and which are usually worse — plurality worst of all, but IRV not too much better.</p>
<p>Imagine your town is planning to buy one fire truck of a fancy new kind, and they're having a vote to decide which firehouse to keep it at. Every voter wants it kept as close to their home as possible, so it can arrive quickly in case of a fire.</p>
<p>How would you vote? It's a trick question. How you'd vote depends on what voting method is being used. Let's start with choose-one plurality voting, where you're only allowed to, um, choose one. Here's a simple example, so you can play around with it; drag the shapes/candidates/firehouses and the voter/home representing you and see what happens to the ballot.</p>
<!-- Single plurality voter -->
<p>Say that everyone votes like that; a simple, honest assesment of which candidate is closest, without strategizing about other voters. Here's how it might come out:</p>
<!-- plurality vote -->
<p>This is an easy voting situation to visualize, because all that matters is where the candidates (firehouses) and voters (homes) are physically. In real life, of course, it's not so much your physical location that matters, but your "location" on ideology and/or issues; and that's hard to even define or know, much less draw on a neat 2-dimensional map. But these 2D let us show pretty much all the interesting kinds of things that can happen. So now I'll stop saying "firehouse" and "home" and just say "candidate" and "voter".</p>
<p>So what's wrong with this voting method? Well, anyone who doesn't vote for one of the two frontrunners has no say in which of them wins; their vote is essentially wasted. So if two candidates are similar, they "split the vote" and "spoil the election" so that neither one of them wins. For instance, in the election above, reset and then try moving the hexagon close to the square. Hexagon steals votes from Square and so Triangle wins!</p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p>Never fear. I have two more ssdtasdt methods to teach you about, and I hope I can convince you that they're the best yet.</p>
<p>Who's "me"? I'm Jameson Quinn, a statistics student at Harvard and a board member of the Center for Election Science. I'm not as good a designer or interactive programmer
as Nicky, as you can see from the title above. But I have spent a lot of time thinking about voting methods.</p>
<p>I'm also not as cool as Nicky, but I'm going to pretend to be. If my pale imitation of their chatty tone puts you off, then... well, I guess you can wait for my peer-reviewed paper.</p>
<p>So, the story so far: FPTP voting is horrible. There's all kinds of other voting methods that would be better. We're looking for the one that's best. Some activists think that's Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), but Nicky and I both disagree; it can prematurely eliminate centrists, and requires centralized counting. Nicky says they lean towards score voting, and I can see why: it's easy to understand, and in all the simulations Nicky built, it does a great job of satisfying all the little dot-on-screen voters.</p>
<p>By the end of this interactive, you're going to understand the three methods I consider the best. One of them Nicky already showed you: approval voting, which is great because it's so simple and because it has absolutely no downsides versus FPTP. The other two are newer, but they use similar basic ideas to what you've already seen. I hope you like all three methods.</p>
<p>But before I show you the new methods, I have to show you why score voting isn't already the greatest method possible. So I have to explain strategic voting.</p>
<h1 id="postmedian>">Unstrategic voting</h1>
<p>Remember how Nicky's voters worked in Score Voting? They just gave each candidate a number based on the absolute distance. Like this:</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-ballot">
<h2 class="ballot_title" style="margin-bottom: 0.15em;">UNSTRATEGIC BALLOT</h2>
<p class="ballot_caption">Judge, don't choose.</p>
<iframe src="play/ballot4.html" width="655" height="256" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p><em>Description: this should just be an unstrategic score voter, as in ncase's thing. Allow ballot picture to show 0 scores.</em></p>
<p>But notice something about that ballot? For many positions of the voter and candidate, the ballot doesn't include a score of 5 or a score of 0. If you actually voted like that, you'd be giving up on some of your voting power. Say Triangle is your favorite, and you give them a score of 3, which also happens to be their average score. If Square wins with a score of 3.2, you're going to feel very silly for not giving a triangle a 5, in order to pull their average up as high as you can.</p>
<h1>Digression: median systems</h1>
<a href="#postmedian">skip this digression</a>
<p>Ever watched the Olympics? In events like figure skating, there are a number of Olympic judges from different countries. In order to prevent any one judge from having too much influence, they use a "trimmed mean": they throw away the highest and lowest scores before they take the average. </p>
<p>Olympic judges are supposedly supposed to be unbiased. But for voters, there's nothing wrong with having political opinions. (I mean, obviously your opinions, dear reader, are the best, and everybody else should just listen to you. But much as I'd like to, I can't force them to.) So let's imagine voting used the olympic system.</p>
<p>Throwing away just one highest and lowest score, with thousands or millions of voters, obviously wouldn't make an appreciable difference. So we'd have to throw away some more scores. And, why not? Let's throw away a few more while we're at it.</p>
<p>When should we stop? When there's just 1 or 2 scores left to take the average. But if you do that, most people wouldn't called that a "trimmed mean" anymore; they'd just call it the median, the middle number.</p>
<p>There are several voting methods that use the median to find the winner. (It turns out that can lead to a lot of ties, so you need a tiebreaker system to avoid that.) In the 1910s, over a dozen US cities, starting with Grand Junction, CO, used "Bucklin voting", a median-based system using a hybrid ranked/rated ballot. More recently, voting theorists Balinski and Laraki have proposed Majority Judgment, a median-based method using a rated ballot that's now been used in a number of competitions.</p>
<p>Using the median reduces the incentives for a single voter to strategize. After all, unless you happen to be the exact median rating for a candidate, the only thing that matters about the rating you gave them is whether it's above or below the median.</p>
<p>Still, large groups of voters can still get a strategic advantage. The larger the voting bloc, the greater the chance is that the median rating for a given candidate happens to be a voter in that bloc.</p>
<p>I used to think that median voting methods were the best. But then I did the simulations I'll talk about below, and they were merely OK; not much better outcomes than approval voting, but without the simplicity. I still think they're hugely better than FPTP and a bit better than IRV, but I'm not sold enough on them for it to be worth my time programming them in to Nicky's simulator.</p>
<h1 id="postmedian>">Lightly-strategic voting: "normalization"</h1>
<p>As I suggested above, in the real world, in score voting and similar methods, most voters will want to make sure that their ballot contains at least one candidate each at the top rating and at the bottom rating. The simplest way to do that (even though the name sounds complicated and math-y) is "normalization". That just means that you set the top and bottom ratings to be however good your favorite and least-favorite candidates are, and then spread the rest of the ratings evenly between that.</p>
<p>Here's an example of a "normalizing" voter for you to play with:</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-ballot">
<h2 class="ballot_title" style="margin-bottom: 0.15em;">UNSTRATEGIC BALLOT</h2>
<p class="ballot_caption">Judge, don't choose.</p>
<iframe src="play/ballot4.html" width="655" height="256" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p><em>Description: this should be like ncase's "drag the voter" examples, with a normalizing score voter. This voter should have a series of circles, where the closest one intersects the closest candidate and the farthest one the farthest candidate. Thus, as you moved the voter or candidates the circles would change size.</em></p>
<p>As soon as voters are using strategy in score voting — even a very slight amount of strategy, such as normalization — it is no longer fully exempt from impossibility theorems like Arrow's theorem. In particular, it no longer obeys independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA); adding or removing a losing candidate can change how voters normalize, and thus change who wins. For instance, in the simulation below, try removing the pentagon candidate, and see what happens.</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-ballot">
<h2 class="ballot_title" style="margin-bottom: 0.15em;">UNSTRATEGIC BALLOT</h2>
<p class="ballot_caption">Judge, don't choose.</p>
<iframe src="play/ballot4.html" width="655" height="256" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p><em>This should be a score voting scenario with 100% normalizing voters. the voter median around (0,0), and candidates square (3,0), triangle (-2,0), pentagon (-4,0). Pentagon voters are not enthusiastic enough about triangle so square wins, even though triangle is higher utility. Removing penta fixes the problem. </em></p>
<p>But a bigger problem than IIA violation, which in the real world is relatively hard to engineer or take advantage of, is the issue of differential voting power. In the following election, one of the groups of voters normalizes, and the other one doesn't. The two groups are the same size, but the normalizing group gets a candidate they like a lot better.</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-ballot">
<h2 class="ballot_title" style="margin-bottom: 0.15em;">UNSTRATEGIC BALLOT</h2>
<p class="ballot_caption">Judge, don't choose.</p>
<iframe src="play/ballot4.html" width="655" height="256" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p><em>groups of voters at (-4,0)non-normalizing and (4,0)normalizing. Cands at (-2.5,.5), (-2,0), (0,0), (2,0), (2.5,.5). (2,0) wins. </em></p>
<p>Is that kind of thing realistic? Perhaps not in the form above; few voters would be so unstrategic as not to normalize. But actually, normalizing as above is a pretty weak strategy. To strategize even more strongly, voters could somehow assess which two candidates were the frontrunners, and use them as the endpoints for normalization. Mostly, this means casting an approval-like ballot that gives every candidate either a 5 or a 0. For instance, in the election below, the voter believes that triangle and square are the frontrunners. Compare the strongly strategic voter below with the normalized voter in the second example above.</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-ballot">
<h2 class="ballot_title" style="margin-bottom: 0.15em;">UNSTRATEGIC BALLOT</h2>
<p class="ballot_caption">Judge, don't choose.</p>
<iframe src="play/ballot4.html" width="655" height="256" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p><em>Single-voter example with 3 candidates and a voter who normalizes based on only the 2 of them.</em></p>
<p>Just as normalized voters can have more voting power than naive voters, strongly strategic voters can have more than normalized voters (as long as they are not too far off in guessing the frontrunners). This is a potential weakness of score voting.</p>
<p>Is approval voting immune to this kind of voting strategy? No; in fact, in the early seventies, mathematicians Gibbard and Satterthwaite both independently proved the theorem which bears their names, showing that no non-dictatorial voting method with more than 2 options is entirely immune to strategy. Unlike Arrow's theorem, which Nicky discussed, this one goes for any kind of voting method — ranked, rated, or whatever. So yes, approval voting is more resistant to strategy than score; but not immune.</p>
<p>(Note: advocates for IRV sometimes garble this point by saying that in approval voting the best strategy is to "bullet vote" for only your favorite candidate, and that this would lead it to devolve back to FPTP. That's just wrong; if voters are strategically voting for somebody other than their favorite in FPTP, then there's no way it would make sense for them to bullet vote in approval. Approval voting isn't perfect, but it simply does <strong>not</strong> break down to FPTP.)</p>
<p>One scenario where approval becomes a factor is called the "chicken dilemma". Imagine 3 groups of voters, with 25%, 30%, and 45% of the vote respectively. Say that the first two groups both prefer each other over the third, so that either of them could beat that third opponent by 55% to 45%. Whichever of the first two groups strategically gives fewer approvals to its rival will win... unless neither of them gives enough, in which case the opponent will win. This is called a "chicken dilemma" because it's like a game of chicken between the voters for the two similar rivals: they can "swerve" and let their second-favorite win, or they can "drive straight" and either win (if the other side swerves) or crash (if the other side doesn't).</p>
<p>Here's that scenario in sandbox form. The slider on the right controls the percent of the smallest group that is strongly strategic between triangle and square; all the rest of the voters use normalized strategy (that is, approve any candidate better than the average of their favorite and least-favorite).</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-ballot">
<h2 class="ballot_title" style="margin-bottom: 0.15em;">UNSTRATEGIC BALLOT</h2>
<p class="ballot_caption">Judge, don't choose.</p>
<iframe src="play/ballot4.html" width="655" height="256" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p><em>Clumps of voters at (x,y,size): (-2,1,6); (-2,-1,4)slider; (3,0,10). </em></p>
<p>The "chicken dilemma" is a genuinely tough situation for almost any voting method. The motivations for the two rival factions to vote strategically are hard to minimize safely. Voting methods that go too far out of their way to punish strategic voters in this scenario tend to get the wrong answer in other, more-common scenarios like center squeeze. Look at how these various methods deal with both of these situations:</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-ballot">
<h2 class="ballot_title" style="margin-bottom: 0.15em;">UNSTRATEGIC BALLOT</h2>
<p class="ballot_caption">Judge, don't choose.</p>
<iframe src="play/ballot4.html" width="655" height="256" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p><em>two different sandboxes. One repeats chicken dilemma case from above but also lets you switch voting methods (plurality, IRV, approval, score). The other one has center squeeze.</em></p>
<p>So, now I've explained why strategic voting makes things tricky, I can explain my two favorite voting methods: star voting and 3-2-1 voting. </p>
<h1>Star voting</h1>
<p>"Star", or more precisely, "s+ar", stands for "score plus automatic runoff." In this method, voters use the same ballot as score voting. Between the two candidates with the highest scores, the winner is the one that comes higher on more ballots. Here's a one-voter star election. You can choose between three kinds of strategy: normalized, moderately strategic, and strongly strategic. The first and last kinds you've seen before. The third is almost like a strongly strategic voter, except that the ratings may be changed by one to avoid giving a frontrunner the same score as any other candidate. Here's a one-voter election:</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-ballot">
<h2 class="ballot_title" style="margin-bottom: 0.15em;">UNSTRATEGIC BALLOT</h2>
<p class="ballot_caption">Judge, don't choose.</p>
<iframe src="play/ballot4.html" width="655" height="256" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p><em>one-voter star election</em></p>
<p>And here's the chicken dilemma you saw above:</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-ballot">
<h2 class="ballot_title" style="margin-bottom: 0.15em;">UNSTRATEGIC BALLOT</h2>
<p class="ballot_caption">Judge, don't choose.</p>
<iframe src="play/ballot4.html" width="655" height="256" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p><em>chicken dilemma with star</em></p>
<h1>3-2-1 voting</h1>
<p>In 3-2-1 voting, voters rate each candidate "Good", "OK", or "Bad". To find the winner, you first narrow it down to three semifinalists, the candidates with the most "good" ratings. Then, narrow it further to two finalists, the candidates with the fewest "bad" ratings. Finally, the winner is the one preferred on more ballots. Here's a ballot to play with:</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-ballot">
<h2 class="ballot_title" style="margin-bottom: 0.15em;">UNSTRATEGIC BALLOT</h2>
<p class="ballot_caption">Judge, don't choose.</p>
<iframe src="play/ballot4.html" width="655" height="256" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p><em>one-voter 3-2-1</em></p>
<p>And here's the chicken dilemma. Note "moderately strategic" doesn't change the result from "normalized". So unlike in star voting, candidates wouldn't have to go negative against their nearby rivals in order to ensure that their voters would at least be moderately strategic and wouldn't just normalize.</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-ballot">
<h2 class="ballot_title" style="margin-bottom: 0.15em;">UNSTRATEGIC BALLOT</h2>
<p class="ballot_caption">Judge, don't choose.</p>
<iframe src="play/ballot4.html" width="655" height="256" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p><em>chicken dilemma with 3-2-1</em></p>
<p>Putting it all together, here's a sandbox for you to try out all the different systems and to make your own scenarios:</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-ballot">
<h2 class="ballot_title" style="margin-bottom: 0.15em;">UNSTRATEGIC BALLOT</h2>
<p class="ballot_caption">Judge, don't choose.</p>
<iframe src="play/ballot4.html" width="655" height="256" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
</div>
<div class="sim-intro">
<p class="caption" style="margin-top:30px">
<b><span style="font-size:2.5em;">click & drag</span><br>the candidates and the voter:</b>
</p>
<iframe src="play/model1.html" width="305" height="360" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p>It's a tough choice. Triangle's got some sharp points, but Square understands more sides! Alas, in the end, you can only vote for one.</p>
<p>Of course, there's more than just one voter in an election. Let's simulate what an election would look like with 100+ voters.</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-intro">
<p class="caption">
<b>drag the candidates & voter<span class="underline">s</span> around.<br>(to move voters, drag the <em>middle</em> of the crowd)<br>watch how that changes the election:</b>
</p>
<iframe src="play/model2.html" width="320" height="400" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p>Now let's consider a different election. Say Tracy Triangle is <em>already</em> beating Steven Square in the polls, and a third candidate, Henry Hexagon <img src="play/img/hexagon.png"/>, sees this. (Hexagon's supporters like how he tackles problems from more angles) Inspired by her success, Hexagon swoops in and takes a political position close to Triangle's.</p>
<p>Now, you'd think giving the voters more of what they want should result in a <em>better</em> choice, or at least, not result in a <em>worse</em> choice, right? Well...</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-intro">
<p class="caption">
<b>
at first, <img src="play/img/triangle.png"> beats <img src="play/img/square.png">.<br>
drag <img src="play/img/hexagon.png"> to <i>just under</i> <img src="play/img/triangle.png">,<br>
and see what happens:</b>
</p>
<iframe src="play/model3.html" width="320" height="460" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p>That's right. Steven Square, our <em>least</em> popular candidate, now wins! This is because when you have two good candidates, they "steal" votes from each other, letting a bad third candidate win.</p>
<p>This is called <strong>the spoiler effect.</strong> The most famous real-world example of this was in 2000, when Ralph Nader "stole" votes from Al Gore, letting George Bush win. And though the spoiler effect didn't play a big role in 2016, its impact could still be felt.</p>
<p>In the Republican primary, one anti-establishment nominee, Trump, ran against <em>sixteen</em> GOP establishment nominees, who all "stole" votes from each other, letting Trump grab the nomination, <em>easily</em>. As for the Democratic primary, fear of splitting the vote prevented Sanders from running as independent. And to cap it all off, there was always the worry that other candidates like Johnson, Stein, and McMullin could spoil the election.</p>
<p>But again, this is <em>not</em> about the 2016 U.S. election.</p>
<p><strong>This is about designing a democracy that people can <em>trust</em>.</strong></p>
<p>Despite so much hoopla around the 2016 election, a full <em>half</em> of Americans did not vote. Even of those who voted for Clinton/Trump, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html">20% of them said their candidates were untrustworthy</a>, <em>and voted for them anyway.</em> <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/07/trust-institutions-trump-brexit/489554/">And around the world, people's trust in their governments</a> – or the trust<em>worthiness</em> of their governments – has never been lower. It's more than America at stake. It's <em>every democracy in the world.</em></p>
<p>...so yeah, no pressure.</p>
<p>Rebuilding trust is a complex problem with no easy solutions. But I think there <em>is</em> an easy first step. It's a step that could get rid of our “lesser of two evils” problem, and give us citizens more choices, <em>better</em> choices. And yet, it won't be as daunting as fixing campaign finance or gerrymandering or lack of proportional representation, no, it'd just require changing <em>a piece of paper</em>, and how we count those pieces of paper.</p>
<p>This idea is <em>not</em> the most important issue. It <em>won't</em> solve everything. But as a first step? It'd give us the biggest bang-for-buck.</p>
<p><strong>Let's talk about how to build a better ballot.</strong></p>
</div>
<!-- - - - - - - - -
PART I:
THE ALTERNATIVE BALLOTS
- - - - - - - - - -->
<div class="banner">
<img src="img/part1.png"/>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p>Now, some of you may have a couple objections!</p>
<p>First objection. Why would the people in power change the voting method that <em>got</em> them in power? Well, the spoiler effect has cost <em>both</em> Dems & Reps a major election before. Getting rid of that glitch would be a win-win for major <em>and</em> minor parties! Also, voting reform is already picking up steam. Just last month, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/03/us/maine-ranked-choice-voting.html">Maine adopted Instant Runoff</a>, and Justin Trudeau, <a href="http://cdn.pinknews.co.uk/images/2016/02/justin_trudeau.jpg">Canada's <s>Cutie-In-Chief</s>Cynic-in-Chief</a>, will be moving his nation towards a better voting system in 2017. (UPDATE: actually, he <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/01/justin-trudeau-abandons-voter-reform-canada">didn't do that</a>.)</p>
<p>Second objection. Didn't some guy once prove that <em>all</em> voting methods will be unfair? Not quite. You're thinking of the infamous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem">Impossibility Theorem</a> by Kenneth Arrow, the mathematician in the 1950's who founded the whole study of voting methods.</p>
<p>Two answers to that: 1) some voting methods can still be <em>more</em> fair than others, even if none are perfect. And 2) Kenneth Arrow's proof <em>doesn't</em> apply to all voting methods! That's a misconception. It only applies to voting methods <em>where you rank candidates</em>. Later, we'll see some voting methods where you <em>don't</em> rank candidates – along with other alternatives to our current, glitchy voting method.</p>
<p>But first, let's take a closer look at the voting method we <em>do</em> have:</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-ballot">
<h2 class="ballot_title" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">FIRST PAST THE POST (FPTP)</h2>
<p class="ballot_caption">same as before. click & drag<br>the candidates and voter</p>
<iframe src="play/ballot1.html" width="655" height="256" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p><strong>How To Count:</strong> Simply add up the votes. Whoever gets the most votes, wins.</p>
<p>Sounds logical enough. But as you saw earlier, it can lead to a weird glitch, where having two <em>good</em> candidates can make the election go to a third <em>bad</em> candidate. This is why some people vote "strategically", voting not for their actual honest favorite, but voting for the lesser of two evils. And strategic voting is fine – but! – ask yourself this: <b>how can we expect our elected officials to be honest, when our voting method <em>itself</em> doesn't let us be honest?</b></p>
<p>So, to fix the spoiler effect, other voting methods have been suggested. Such as...</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-ballot">
<h2 class="ballot_title" style="margin-bottom: 0.15em;">RANKED VOTING</h2>
<p class="ballot_caption">again, click & drag</p>
<iframe src="play/ballot2.html" width="655" height="256" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p><strong>How To Count:</strong> There's actually <em>several</em> different ways to count these kinds of ballots. Here, I'll just show you the top three:</p>
<p>
<strong>Instant Runoff Voting (IRV):</strong>
This one is <em>the</em> most popular alternative to First Past The Post (FPTP).
Australia and Ireland use it in national elections.
San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Portland, Maine use it in local elections.
And Justin Trudeau, <a href="https://queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com/wp/docs/2016/02/justintrudeautorontopride.jpg">Prime Man-ister of Canada</a>,
is leaning towards Instant Runoff, too.
</p>
<p>
(Note: Instant Runoff Voting is also called “Ranked Choice Voting”,
even though there's other ways to count ranked ballots.
IRV is also often just called “Alternative Vote”,
even though there's a flippin' dozen other voting methods.
Such selfish naming! Sheesh!)
</p>
<p>IRV is a bit more complicated than FPTP, but here's how it works:</p>
<ol>
<li>Count up the #1 choices.</li>
<li>If someone has more than 50%, they win! END.</li>
<li>If not, eliminate the last-place loser.</li>
<li>Run a new "round" of the election, minus that loser.</li>
<li>Repeat until someone has 50% or more.</li>
</ol>
<p>If that seems like too much, there <em>is</em> a much simpler method of counting ranked ballots...</p>
<p><strong>Borda Count:</strong> Simply add up the rank numbers. Like in golf, whoever has the <em>lowest</em> score, wins. Borda count is used in Slovenia and a bunch of tiny islands in Micronesia.</p>
<p>But if you want an even nerdier way of voting, you could try...</p>
<p><strong>Condorcet Method:</strong> Run a simulated "election" between every pair of candidates, using the info on voters' ballots. IF there's a candidate who beats all other candidates in one-on-one "elections", that candidate wins the <em>real</em> election. However, that's a very big "IF". (as we'll see later...) The upside is, when this method <em>does</em> pick a winner, it's always the “theoretically best” candidate! Currently, this method is not being used by any governments, and is only being used by neeerrrrrds.</p>
<p>So, those are the voting methods <em>where you rank candidates</em> – the ones that Kenneth Arrow proved would <em>always</em> be unfair in some big way! But what of voting methods where you <em>don't</em> rank candidates? They're less well-known, but now, at least <em>you'll</em> know 'em:</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-ballot">
<h2 class="ballot_title" style="margin-bottom: 0.15em;">APPROVAL VOTING</h2>
<p class="ballot_caption">yup, stiiiiill click & drag</p>
<iframe src="play/ballot3.html" width="655" height="256" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p><strong>How To Count:</strong> Simply add up the approvals. Whoever gets the most approvals, wins.</p>
<p><em>Wait, picking more than one candidate? Doesn't that violate the one-vote-per-person rule?</em> I hear you ask. Well, your vote was never a single check mark, your vote was always <em>the whole ballot</em>. And on this ballot, you get to honestly express <em>all</em> the candidates you approve of, not just your favorite or strategic second-favorite.</p>
<p>But if you want a <em>more</em> expressive voting method, why not try...</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-ballot">
<h2 class="ballot_title" style="margin-bottom: 0.15em;">SCORE VOTING</h2>
<p class="ballot_caption">you guessed it</p>
<iframe src="play/ballot4.html" width="655" height="256" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p><strong>How To Count:</strong> Simply add up the ratings. Whoever has the highest average score, wins. Kind of like Amazon reviews, but with democracy. (Note: this is <em>not</em> a ranking method, because two candidates can have the <em>same</em> score.)</p>
<p>So there's our top 6 voting methods: the one we use, and five popular alternatives. But how can we tell if these alternatives are actually better? What glitches might <em>they</em> have? And which voting method – if any – can we say is "the best"?</p>
<p>Like before, let's simulate 'em.</p>
</div>
<!-- - - - - - - - -
PART II:
HOW DO THE ALTERNATIVES HOLD UP?
- - - - - - - - - -->
<div class="banner">
<img src="img/part2.png"/>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p>Remember that simulation of the spoiler effect from earlier? Well, here it is again, but now you can switch between the six different voting methods! Here's the "spoiler effect" simulation again. See how different voting methods deal with potential spoilers:</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-test">
<p class="caption-test">
drag <img src="play/img/hexagon.png"> to <em>just under</em> <img src="play/img/triangle.png"> to create a spoiler effect.<br>
then compare the 6 different voting methods:
<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold; font-size:0.8em">
(note: in the rare cases there's a tie, i just randomly pick a winner)
</span>
</p>
<iframe src="play/election1.html" width="800" height="380" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p>As you could see, <em>every</em> voting method except First Past The Post is immune to the spoiler effect. So, that's it, right? Ding dong, the glitch is dead? Just pick any other alternative voting method and be done with it?</p>
<p>But, alas. In getting rid of one glitch, some of these alternative voting methods create <em>other</em> glitches – for some, the cure is even worse than the disease.</p>
<p>For example, here's a sim of Instant Runoff Voting. In the beginning, Tracy Triangle <img src="play/img/triangle.png"/> is already winning, and you're going to move the voters even <em>closer</em> to her. Obviously, if a candidate is already winning an election, and becomes even <em>more</em> popular, they should <em>still</em> win afterwards, right?</p>
<p>You can probably guess where this is going...</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-test">
<p class="caption-test">
drag the voters <img src="play/img/voters.png"> <em>slowly</em> up towards <img src="play/img/triangle.png">:
</p>
<iframe src="play/election2.html" width="800" height="380" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p>What happened?
Originally, <img src="play/img/hexagon.png"/> is eliminated in the first round, so
<img src="play/img/triangle.png"/>
goes against a weaker <img src="play/img/square.png"/>, and wins.
But when you move the voters closer to <img src="play/img/triangle.png"/>,
the loser <em>changes!</em>
So now, <img src="play/img/square.png"/> is eliminated in the first round,
which means <img src="play/img/triangle.png"/> goes against a stronger <img src="play/img/hexagon.png"/>,
and <em>loses</em>.</p>
<p>Under Instant Runoff, it's possible for a winning candidate to lose, <em>by becoming more popular</em>. What a glitch!</p>
<p>How often does this actually happen in real life? <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotonicity_criterion#Real-life_monotonicity_violations">There's a couple confirmed examples</a>, and <a href="http://www.rangevoting.org/Monotone.html">mathematicians estimate this glitch would happen about 14.5% of the time</a>. But sadly, we can't know for sure, because governments usually <em>don't release enough info about the ballots</em> to reconstruct an IRV election & double-check the results.</p>
<p>So, not only is Instant Runoff's glitch as undemocratic as First Past The Post's glitch, it's possibly <em>worse</em> – because while FPTP's counting method is simple and transparent, Instant Runoff is anything but. And a lack of transparency is an even deadlier sin nowadays, when our trust in government is already so low.</p>
<p>(But wait! We'll be talking about the risk of <em>strategic voting</em> later.
Can IRV can make a comeback? Stay tuned...)</p>
<p>So much for the most popular alternative. What about the second-most popular, Borda Count? In this next simulation, you move a losing candidate closer to <em>another</em> losing candidate. Under FPTP, the spoiler effect would split their votes, making both of them lose even more. But watch what happens under Borda Count instead...</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-test">
<p class="caption-test">
drag <img src="play/img/hexagon.png"> to <em>just slightly left</em> of <img src="play/img/square.png">:
</p>
<iframe src="play/election3.html" width="800" height="380" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p>Yup. Borda Count has a <em>reverse</em> spoiler effect. Instead of one good candidate hurting another good candidate by moving closer, with Borda Count, one bad candidate can <em>help</em> another bad candidate by moving closer.</p>
<p>Here's what happened: at first, some voters ranked
<img src="play/img/square.png"/>><img src="play/img/triangle.png"/>><img src="play/img/hexagon.png"/>,
but when you moved <img src="play/img/hexagon.png"/> closer to <img src="play/img/square.png"/>,
those voters then <em>swung</em> to ranking
<img src="play/img/square.png"/>><img src="play/img/hexagon.png"/>><img src="play/img/triangle.png"/>,
hurting <img src="play/img/triangle.png"/> enough
to make her lose to <img src="play/img/square.png"/>.</p>
<p>Still, Borda's not the worst, and at least it's simpler and more transparent than Instant Runoff. But how does Condorcet Method compare? When Condorcet picks a winner, it's always the “theoretically best” winner – but that's <em>when</em> it picks a winner.</p>
<p>So far, I've just been simulating voters as a <em>single</em> group, with a center and some spread. But seeing how polarized politics is nowadays, one could imagine <em>several</em> groups of voters, with totally different centers. Now, Condorcet tries to pick the candidate who beats all other candidates in one-on-one races. But with <em>polarized</em> voters, you could end up with a Rock-Paper-Scissors-like loop, where a majority of voters prefer A to B, B to C, <em>and</em> C to A.</p>
<p>In certain situations, the other voting methods just had glitches. In Condorcet, the voting method <em>crashes.</em> Try it out for yourself:</p>
</div>
<div class="sim-test">
<p class="caption-test">
create your own “condorcet cycle”!<br>
move the voters <img src="play/img/voters.png"> in such a way that NOBODY wins:
</p>
<iframe src="play/election4.html" width="800" height="380" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p>Now, in actual practice – not that any government actually uses this voting method – when Condorcet fails to find a winner, the election falls back to another method like Borda Count. But if you do that, it'll get the glitches of its backup method. So it goes.</p>
<p>First Past The Post. Instant Runoff. Borda Count. Condorcet Method. Those were all the voting methods that use <em>ranking</em> – the ones that our math boy, Kenneth Arrow, proved would <em>always</em> be unfair or glitchy in some big way. What about the voting methods that <em>don't</em> use ranking, like Approval & Score voting? Well...</p>
<p>...I couldn't come up with a simulation to show their flaws. Because, <em>in theory</em>, they don't have many big flaws.</p>
<p>
But that's a really, really, really big <em>“in theory!”</em>
It may be that, in <em>practice</em>, strategic voters use Approval & Score Voting exactly like First Past The Post –
only approving or giving 5 stars to their top candidate, and disapproving or giving 1 star to all others,
even if they actually <em>like</em> the others.
<a href="http://www.fairvote.org/why-approval-voting-is-unworkable-in-contested-elections">(See FairVote's critique of Approval Voting, and defense of Instant Runoff)</a>
</p>
<p>
Then again, even if Approval & Score Voting disincentivize you from expressing an honest <em>second</em> choice,
FPTP and IRV punish you for expressing an honest <em>first</em> choice.
Besides, if Approval can be "gamed", then that goes double for IRV.
<a href="http://www.rangevoting.org/LNH.html">(See this mathematician's critique of FairVote's critique, and defense of Approval)</a>
So, in the end... [confused shrugging sounds]</p>
<p>
We're gonna need a hecka lot more simulations.
</p>
<p>
So, below is a chart
<a href="https://electology.org/tactical-voting-basics">(source)</a>,
showing the results of 2.2 <em>million</em> simulations.
A <i>huge</i> variety of scenarios were tested. All-honest voters.
All-strategic voters. Half-honest, half-strategic.
Voters who know each others' preferences.
Voters who <i>don't</i> know each others' preferences.
Voters who only sorta-know each others' preferences.
And so on.
You can tell that a <em>real</em> mathematician made this chart,
because it's makin' my eyes bleed:
</p>
<p><img class="real" src="img/comparison.png"></p>
<p>
Each voting method's results is shown as an ugly-blue bar.
The further to the right a voting method is, the more it "maximizes happiness" for the voters.
The higher up a voting method is, the simpler it is.
And a bar's width shows the range of a voting method's performance,
given different ratios of honest-to-strategic voters.
</p>
<p>
The first thing to note is that strategic voting makes voters <em>less happy</em> than honest voting
– in <em>all</em> voting methods! I was very surprised when I first learnt that.
(But it makes sense, if you think about, say, a crowded room full of people trying to talk. Any one person can be "strategic" by shouting over others, but if <em>everybody</em> is "strategic", nobody can hear anybody, and all you're left with is sore throats and sad peeps.)</p>
<p>The other thing to note is which voting methods make people the happiest. If you have mostly honest voters, <em>Score Voting is best</em>. (with Borda Count a close second) And if you have mostly strategic voters, then <em>both Approval & Score Voting are best</em>. (and with strategic voters, IRV does <em>just as bad</em> as FPTP)</p>
<p>However, those are still computer simulations. How would these different voting methods play out <em>in real life?</em> Well, we can't just get the DeLorean up to 88, go back in time before the 2016 election, change the voting method, and see what would happen...</p>
<p><em>...or can we?!</em></p>
<p>No, no we can't. But last month, researchers did something close enough.
<a href="http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/25/13733322/instant-runoff-ranked-voting-2016">A polling study asked 1,000+ U.S. registered voters to rank & rate the six presidential candidates</a>,
to simulate who would've won the (popular) vote under different voting methods!
(But keep in mind that if we had a different voting method in the primaries, we'd have different candidates <em>entirely</em>.
So take this study with a pillar of salt.)
The results: under Instant Runoff, Condorcet, and Approval Voting, the winner would've been Hillary Clinton. But under Score Voting, the winner would've been Donald Trump. And under Borda Count, the winner would've been... uh... <em>Gary Johnson?</em>
</p>
<p><em>?????</em></p>
</div>
<div class="sim-test">
<p class="caption-test">
a guesstimated model of the 2016 US election?...<br>
<span style="font-weight:100; font-size:0.85em">
how Clinton <img src="play/img/square.png"> wins IRV,
Trump <img src="play/img/hexagon.png"> wins Score,
and Johnson <img src="play/img/triangle.png"> wins Borda??
</span>
</p>
<iframe src="play/election5.html" width="800" height="380" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p>Anyway.</p>
<p>Before we wrap all this up – remember Kenneth Arrow? The infamous mathematician who founded the study of voting methods in the 1950's? Well, <a href="https://electology.org/podcasts/2012-10-06_kenneth_arrow">in an interview 60 years later</a>, Kenneth Arrow had this to say, about which voting method he likes most now:</p>
<p class="quote">
<em>“Well, I’m a little inclined to think that score methods</em> [like Approval & Score Voting] <em>where you categorize in maybe three or four classes</em> [so, giving a score out of 3 or 4, not 10 or 100] <em>probably – in spite of what I said about manipulation</em> [strategic voting] <em>– is probably the best.”</em></p>
<p>That's as strong an endorsement as you'll ever squeeze out of a math-head.</p>
</div>
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PART III:
CONCLUSION. OPEN LETTER
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<div class="banner">
<img src="img/part3.png"/>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p><em>ahem</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center">
<strong style="font-size:1.4em">DEAR JUSTIN <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Borowitz-Justin-Trudeau.jpg">“TOTES ADORBZ”</a> TRUDEAU</strong><br>
<b style="font-size:0.93em">(and everyone else around the world pushing for voting reform)</b>
</p>
<p>Thank you for taking this small but powerful first step! We've known for way too long that our current voting method – First Past The Post – forces voters to be dishonest, creates a polarizing "lesser of two evils" scenario, and screws over both major <em>and</em> minor candidates.</p>
<p>
However, you're probably only considering Instant Runoff Voting.
Which, to be fair, <em>is</em> better than than First Past The Post,
and if it's a choice between just those two, <em>definitely</em> go for Instant Runoff.
But IRV still has a glitch as undemocratic as FPTP's –
and worse, in our age of distrust, Instant Runoff's lack of transparency may be deadly for democracy.
Yes, sure, IRV was the best voting method we could come up with...
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_and_use_of_instant-runoff_voting">in 1870</a>.
And since then, IRV has dominated the conversation,
unwittingly framing the whole voting reform debate as “simple vs expressive”.
</p>
<p>
<b>But that is a false choice.</b> Thanks to computer simulations, real-life studies, and a bunch of math nerds,
<b>we now know of voting methods that are both simple <i>and</i> expressive.</b>
</p>
<p>
<i>Personally</i>, I'm leaning towards Score Voting.
It's simple, very expressive, and already familiar to anyone who's seen Amazon's or Yelp's “five star” review method.
But that's just my humble opinion.
You could also make the case that Approval Voting is more <i>practical</i>,
because it's even simpler, and would <i>already work with existing voting machines!</i>
All you'd need to do is change the instructions from
“vote for the candidate you like” to “vote for the candidate<b class="underline">s</b> you like”.
</p>
<p>
<em>Or maybe I'm completely wrong about Instant Runoff Voting, and it's actually pretty okay.</em>
Heck, you could even go for Borda Count, as a hilarious prank.
</p>
<p>I won't claim to know which voting method is The Best™. I shall keep open this discussion, just as long as we <em>have</em> this discussion. For three reasons:</p>
<p>1) If I claim one voting method is the best, end of story, all the social-choice-theory nerds will be on my butt, yelling, BUT NICKY WHAT ABOUT <a href="http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/research/eric-posner-quadratic-vote-buying-efficient-corporate-governance/qanda">QUADRATIC VOTE BUYING</a></p>
<p>2) We still need to test these alternative voting methods with <em>actual experience</em>,
not just <span style="text-decoration:line-through">annoying internet flame wars between IRV advocates and Score Voting advocates</span> theory.
All the more reason for small towns, local states, and nations like Canada to be <em>pioneers</em>, to bravely experiment!</p>
<p>3) Keeping the discussion going is what democracy <em>is</em>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.journalofdemocracy.org/article/danger-deconsolidation-democratic-disconnect">A recent study</a> found that in many Western countries – from Sweden to Australia to the United States – support for democracy has <em>plummeted</em> over the last several generations.
In 2011, almost <em>a full quarter</em> of young Americans said democracy was a "bad" or "very bad" way to run a country.
And <em>today</em>, one in six Americans say it'd be "good" or "very good" to be under <em>actual military rule</em>.
</p>
<p>Our age of distrust goes a <em>lot</em> deeper than the technical details of a voting method. There isn't gonna be One Weird Trick to fix democracy. But as a first step, a low-hanging fruit, a way to show that, <em>yes</em>, you will make the method respond to the needs and wants and pains and hopes and dreams of your people – well, fixing our voting method's a good start as any.</p>
<p>Because, this isn't just about trying to build a better ballot.</p>
<p>This is about trying to build a better <em>democracy</em>.</p>
<p><strong><3,</strong><br>
<b>~ Nicky Case</b></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>P.S:</strong> Since you've read & played this all the way, here, have a bonus!
A “Sandbox Mode” of the election simulator, with up to <em>five</em> candidates.
You can also save & share your very own custom election scenario with others. Happy simulating!</p>
</div>
<!-- - - - - - - - -
PART IV:
SANDBOX
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<div id="sandbox">
<div class="sim-sandbox">
<h1 class="caption-test" style="margin: 30px 0 15px 0;">SANDBOX MODE! <a href="sandbox">(link to <em>just</em> this)</a></h1>
<iframe src="sandbox/sandbox.html" width="802" height="508" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
<div class="words">
<p>
One hope for Sandbox Mode is that readers can debate with me and each other <em>using</em> this tool!
Not just telling me I'm wrong, but <em>showing</em> me I'm wrong.
For example –
<a href="sandbox?m=%7B%22s%22%3A%22FPTP%22%2C%22v%22%3A%5B%5B54%2C147%5D%2C%5B54%2C72%5D%2C%5B249%2C109%5D%5D%2C%22c%22%3A%5B%5B54%2C227%5D%2C%5B249%2C106%5D%5D%2C%22d%22%3A%22This%20is%20the%20biggest%20challenge%20to%20Approval%2FScore%2C%20IMHO.%20Below%3A%202%2F3%20of%20voters%20dislike%20both%20candidates%2C%20but%20dislike%20Square%20slightly%20less.%20However%2C%201%2F3%20of%20voters%20LOVE%20Triangle%20and%20HATE%20Square.%20Under%20FPTP%2C%20IRV%20%26%20Condorcet%2C%20Square%20wins%2C%20coz%20a%20majority%20of%20voters%20barely%20prefer%20him.%20But%20under%20Approval%20%26%20Score%2C%20Triangle%20wins%2C%20coz%20she's%20intensely%20loved%20by%20her%20minority.%20Now%2C%20is%20this%20OKAY%3F%20Is%20this%20a%20betrayal%20of%20democracy%2C%20or%20actually%20*saving*%20democracy%20from%20a%20tyranny%20of%20the%20majority%3F%20This%20question's%20not%20just%20theoretical%2C%20it's%20*philosophical*.%22%7D">
here's a model I made in Sandbox Mode,
showing an interesting argument <em>against</em> Approval & Score Voting</a>.
Granted, this tool is very limited – it doesn't handle strategic voting or imperfect information –
but I think it's a start, and may help improve our Democratic Discourse™
</p>
</div>
</div>
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PART V: THE END
- What Can I Do?
- Social Sharing
- Credits
- Stay In Touch
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<div id="end">
<div id="credits">
<!-- Public Domain -->
<div id="uncopyright">
<img src="img/public_domain.png" width="180">
<div style="float:right; width:750px; font-size:20px; color:#999;">
<div style="font-size:91px; height:97px; color:#fff; position: relative; left: -5px; line-height: 1em;"><b>PUBLIC DOMAIN</b></div>
<a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/" target="_blank">Zero rights reserved.</a>
I'm giving away
all my art/code/words,
so that you
teachers, mathematicians, hobbyists, activists, and policy wonks
can use them however you like!
This is for you.
<a href="https://github.com/ncase/ballot" target="_blank">Get my source code on GitHub!</a>
</div>
</div>
<div id="appendix_container">
<!-- Further Reading -->
<div id="further_reading">
<div class="appendix_title" style="font-size:50px; line-height:50px">“BUT WHAT CAN <em>I</em> DO?”</div>
<p>
<b>For citizens:</b> Remember, <i>think global, but act local</i>.
Change from the bottom-up lasts longer.
If you're in the US,
<a href="http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/">find your representative</a>
and badger 'em.
If you're in Canada,
<a href="http://www.lop.parl.gc.ca/ParlInfo/compilations/houseofcommons/memberbypostalcode.aspx">find your Member of Parliament</a>
and badger 'em.
Also if you're Canadian,
<a href="https://www.mydemocracy.ca/">fill out the MyDemocracy.ca survey before the end of 2016!</a>
This survey has a few questions specifically about voting reform!
(sadly, the question is <i>still</i> framed as "simple vs expressive".
<i>that</i> is why i've been so gung-ho about Approval & Score,
and maybe a bit too mean towards IRV)
</p>
<p>
<b>For learners:</b>
Watch CGP Grey's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7679C7ACE93A5638"><i>Politics in the Animal Kingdom</i></a> series!
It's charming, and covers more ground than I did here – it explains
gerrymandering, proportional representation, and more.
Also, read <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Gaming-Vote-Elections-Arent-About/dp/0809048922"><i>Gaming The Vote</i></a> by
William Poundstone.
It's a thrilling read,
with dramatic human stories of crooks & conmen trying to game our glitchy voting systems –
and sometimes, succeeding.
</p>
<p>
<b>For teachers:</b>
This entire "explorable explanation" is public domain, copyright-free,
meaning you <i>already</i> have permission to use this freely in your classes!
You can even use the <a href="sandbox">Sandbox Mode</a> to create your own material,
or as a tool for students to make something on their own.
</p>
<p>
<b>For coders:</b>
This is all open source!
So you can <a href="https://github.com/ncase/ballot">get my code on GitHub</a>, and remix it to your heart's content.
(sorry in advance for my messy code)
</p>
<p>
<b>Check out these organizations:</b>
Though they may differ on what voting method they like best,
they all have a common goal: to reform the one we have.
<a href="https://electology.org/">Electology</a> likes Approval Voting most,
<a href="http://www.fairvote.org/">FairVote</a> likes Instant Runoff most,
and <a href="http://rangevoting.org/">RangeVoting.org</a> likes Score Voting most.
</p>
<div class="appendix_title" style="font-size:36px; line-height:50px; margin-top:35px;">ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS</div>
<p>
This "explorable explanation" was directly inspired by these two projects:
</p>
<img src="img/zesty.png" style="width:100%"/>
<p>
<a href="http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/">Voting Sim Visualization</a> by Ka-Ping Yee (2005)
was a real eye-opener.
(hat tip to <a href="https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/781324328054951936">Bret Victor</a> for sharing it with me!)
I've heard lots of written debate over FPTP vs IRV vs Condorcet vs Approval vs blah blah blah,
but I'd never seen their difference <i>visualized</i> so clearly!
It gave me instant insight.
And it actually changed my mind – I used to think IRV was pretty good,
but after seeing IRV's <i>messiness</i> (as shown above), I realized it's actually kinda stinky cheese.
</p>
<p>
However, even <i>this</i> brilliant visualization was still too abstract.
And since it wasn't interactive, I couldn't test the many questions & scenarios that came to mind.
So that's why my second inspiration was...
</p>
<img src="img/ladder.png" style="width:100%"/>
<p>
<a href="http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/">Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction</a>
by Bret Victor (2011).
It's one of the web's earliest "explorable explanations" (also a term Bret coined)
and it is <i>gorgeous</i>.
Obviously, I borrowed the format of mixing words & "games" to explain things,
but I also followed the formula of starting concrete – one voter –
then moving up to the more abstract – a whole election.
</p>
<p>
<a href="http://explorableexplanations.com/">
You can learn more about Explorable Explanations here.</a>
</p>
<p>