947
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2024
947 points (87.3% liked)
Showerthoughts
29819 readers
322 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- Avoid politics
- 3.1) NEW RULE as of 5 Nov 2024, trying it out
- 3.2) Political posts often end up being circle jerks (not offering unique perspective) or enflaming (too much work for mods).
- 3.3) Try c/politicaldiscussion, volunteer as a mod here, or start your own community.
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Changing the voting system so that third parties are actually possible.
You need a cardinal voting system, otherwise you'll fall prey to Durverger's Law and Arrow's Impossibility Theorem.
I favor STAR, it's the best system designed to date.
The problem is that these systems are way more complex and have edge cases where someone unpopular gets elected. Making major changes to a system that has worked for 248 years seems like a recipe for disaster.
Edge cases like you describe are a key part of Ordinal voting systems, Cardinal voting systems are immune to that sort of thing.
Also, Cardinal voting systems can be super easy. Take Approval.
Simply take a list of names, and mark next to each candidate you approve of. If you feel like you need to have a moral conundrum over what you feel like approval means, then go ahead, but just mark the next to any or all of the names on the list that you like.
After that, the counting is simple as well. You add up the approval of each candidate, independent of what any other candidate gets, and then the winner is the one with the most approval.
It is literally impossible to elect an unpopular candidate via Approval, unless only unpopular candidates run.
STAR is slightly more complex, in that you rate each candidate on a scale of 0-5. Again, no one actually cares about your personal journey in rating someone a 4 or whatnot, just do it and move on.
Then when counting, you again add up the numbers, take the highest two, and see where they rate on each individual ballot. If one is rated higher than the other, they get the vote from that ballot.