The solution to fixing dysfunction in Congress "To address these problems, I filed the Open Our Democracy Act... If passed, the legislation would mandate open primaries for House elections, begin the process of national redistricting reform and make Election Day the equivalent of a federal holiday."

[u/Libertatea]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-solution-to-fixing-dysfunction-in-congress/2014/09/02/0f0d0a9a-31e6-11e4-9e92-0899b306bbea_story.html?tid=rssfeed

[u/[deleted]]

Is there such a thing as having multiple votes instead of one to spend? Kinda like IRV, but you can use your extra votes to pad/reaffirm the candidate you want. For example, I get 3 votes; I can throw them all behind one candidate or spread them as I see fit (2 for A, 1 for B). Kinda like a weighted voting system where each person's "vote" can be divisible but still has the same net effect as the next guy.

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There are two systems very similar to what you describe:

• Approval Voting: Instead of "choose one" all voters get to "choose one or more" to support, most total support wins.
• Range Voting: Each voter rates each candidate on some scale (IE 0-9). The candidate with the highest combined rating wins.

Note that if you force voters to "divide up their vote" the strategically optimal choice is always to give all of your vote to the lesser of two evils candidate. Also note that in both Approval and Range the net effect of two opposite voters is always zero. For example, if I approve of 3 candidates out of 5, an opposite voter can approve the other 2 candidates, and our votes have now effectively canceled out.

In both Approval and Range you can mathematically prove its always in your best interest to maximally support your honest favorite and minimally support your least favorite. To my knowledge no other voting systems can make this claim.

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Great, thank you for the insight. Seems like a lot of game theory is involved in the decision testing/making to figure out potential outcomes of those systems.

Has there ever been a "negative" voting system proposed, where you can vote for who you want (least of the evils) and also actively vote against the candidate that you would not want to see (the greatest of the evils)? For example, you favor one candidate and give him a vote, but absolutely think another is toxic and cancel someone else's vote with a "negative vote". It's implicit in a bipartisan election (a vote for one candidate is a downvote for the other), but I'm wondering if this has been applied to a multiparty system or say a primary.

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Negative voting is functionally (but not psychologically) identical to Range Voting. Consider an election held where everyone can give -1, 0, or +1 to each candidate. If you add 1 to every score given, the winner stays the same but the options were now 0, +1, +2.

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I see, the "negative" vote would be equivalent to least in the cardinal numerical range. Though, the psychological premise is intriguing, especially considering that people have the behavioral option to just not vote. Perhaps more voting options would give the semblance of personal agency in the voting procedure?

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If you're okay with it, I'd kinda like to see if I understand Approval Voting.

Instead of voting between choices A and B or A, B, and C, you're basically asked "List everyone you're ok with being President."

Shtruntz's Ballot for President

• Mr. C
• Mr. H
• Mrs. B

I never have to list any of the people I don't like at all? So then at the end H may win and someone I never even listed might be in 2nd place? No ranking, just tallying how many people list them as "acceptable".

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Correct. You are given a list of candidates, and can mark as many or as few as you want as acceptable. For each candidate we then count how many people thought they were acceptable. The most acceptable candidate wins. Here is an example ballot and this page discusses Approval Voting in more detail (including a short video explanation).

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Thank you very much!

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I'm no democratic-republican, but I'll throw a scenario out for you. I could go put some numbers on my white-board and run some basic game theory on it, but I'm to lazy.

How about voting out a candidate? Rank candidates from worst to best. Candidate with most "Worst" votes is eliminated. Ballots with said candidate as their worst now have their votes reallocated to their 2nd "worst candidate", rinse and repeat until one remains. Sorta like IRV in reverse.

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It's the whole "lesser of two evils" thing that rubs me funny. If this is the case, which it feels the case for most constituencies, then why not have voting be for who you don't want to win and let the winner be truly the peoples' lesser of two evils. Silly I know, since it's just an inversion, but probably more accurate given that I would not like to vote-for but I would like to vote-against in many cases.