A few GOOD methods…

Voting is broken. Graded Or Optionally Delegated (GOOD) voting methods are here to help

The US, UK, and Canadian electoral systems are all badly broken, in pretty much the same way: FPTP limits voters’ options and effectively discounts any voters who don’t pick one of the top two options.

Voting theorists agree that, though it’s impossible to design the perfect voting method, there are usually ways to design a method that’s better than FPTP. Which specific method you end up choosing can depend on your definition of “better”. Do you want a system that gives good outcomes when voters are honest; one that makes voting easy and fair for different kinds of voters; or one that is simple to describe and administer? But there are some methods that are pretty good by all of these definitions. Among those good voting methods are the GOOD voting methods — the ones that are Graded Or Optionally Delegated. That means, methods in which voters can cast either a graded or a delegated ballot.

These methods include 3–2–1 voting (for single-winner executive offices), and GOLD voting (for proportional representation). In 3–2–1 voting, voters can either grade each candidate “Good”, “OK”, or “Bad”, or they can simply grade one candidate “Good” and that favorite candidate’s ratings of the others will be used to fill in the blanks. In GOLD voting, voters choose a candidate and can either delegate to that candidate or cast an “open list” ballot — effectively rating all other members of that candidate’s party as acceptable backups if the favored candidate doesn’t win.

To see why GOOD methods are good, let’s look at the second definition of “better” I gave:

A voting method should make voting easy and fair for different kinds of voters.

The key point about GOOD voting methods is that they allow delegation as an option. For you as a voter, that means that if there is even one candidate you trust, you can simply vote for that person and go home. Even if they can’t win, they can help make sure your vote acts to help whoever you’d prefer among the viable candidates. In practice, this means that before the election happens, your favorite has publicly declared which other candidates they find good; and, if your favorite loses, your vote goes to whichever of those other choices is most viable.

GOOD methods make it easy to vote: “You can handle the booth”.

In fact, delegating your voting power is an effective means of organizing with others like you and thus getting your fair share of political power. Say that you care most about issue X, but there aren’t enough people who agree with you on that to win the election outright. If you all make it clear that you’re going to vote for a given candidate, that candidate can go to other candidates and ask them what they’d do on issue X, declaring second-choice support for whichever gives the best answer. Thus, even though your favorite won’t win, your voice has an impact, as other candidates jockey to get your transferred vote.

But not everybody has even one candidate for each office they trust. In fact, some people don’t even have one candidate they could name for some offices. Forcing those people to delegate would be bad; it would effectively end up rewarding politicians for ingratiating themselves with the party leaders. So GOOD voting methods always have a non-delegated voting option. The key is that non-delegated votes are weighted the same as, and have every chance of being just as effective as, the delegated ones. How that works exactly depends on the specific method.

Since GOOD methods would make voting so easy and would ensure all voices are heard, they’d increase turnout. That is one of the key advantages of voting method reform: by getting more people to vote, there is less of a chance for “rent-seeking” where a highly-engaged minority dominates a less-interested majority. (As for the opposite problem, tyranny of the majority: it’s beyond the scope of this article, except to say that proportional representation helps, and you need a constitution.

I’m not arguing that GOOD methods are the only good methods. For instance, for single-winner voting, “star voting” is also worthwhile without being GOOD.

Follow these links to find out more about the GOOD methods I’ve mentioned: 3–2–1 voting (for single-winner executive offices), and GOLD voting (for proportional representation).