Similar Websites
The sites listed below share a commitment to the importance of electoral reform along the lines of the CondorcetThe general term for any election method that uses ranked ballots and has, as it's first princple, the Condorcet Criterion: any candidate which beats every other candidate individually must win the election. Any Condorcet method must come along with an ambiguity resolution procedure for cases in which there is no winner by this first criterion. system. All are valuable resources for one who desires to learn more about the precise theory behind the various election methods. Most have little or no analysis of the plausibility of reform in the United States, and instead are small scale (if valiant) efforts at describing Condorcet.
Wikipedia has an impressively complete set of articles describing Condorcet voting, various alternative methods, as well as a great deal of electoral theory. Highly recommended to those who wish to become familiar with the broad scope of theory that exists.
A fairly sparse but very informative document with links to many resources on various election theories, as well as a brief explication of Condorcet. This is part of an unsponsored personal website.
This site is an argument in favor of the Ranked PairsIn this ambiguity resolution system, all pairwise defeats are ranked in terms of strength. The defeats are then examined from strongest to weakest. The strongest defeat is “locked in” but ranking the winner above the loser. Each defeat is then examined, and if it does not violate any previous decisions, it is also locked in. This is a bit subtle. The intuition is that we should regard each defeat as sufficient cause to rank the winner above the loser, but since this cannot be done for defeats, we at least ensure that it is done for the defeats of strongest margin. variation on Condorcet voting. It contains a prolific glossary of electoral terms and descriptions of many different systems and criteria, in addition to the argument in favor of ranked pairs. This is another apparently personal website. The funding for this source is not apparent, though it appears to be personal website.
A website advocating the Instant RunoffThis election method is based on the principle of being able to initially vote for your preferred choice, and then transfer your vote to more viable candidates if your first choice cannot win. Like Condorcet methods, IRV begins with a ranked ballot. Initially, all first choices are tallied, and if one candidate wins a majority, they win. If no candidate has the majority, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated from all ballots (wherever that candidate was the first choice, the second choice becomes the new first choice) and the process begins again. It is called "instant" in comparison to other election systems where a series of "runoffs" are held, reducing the pool of candidates each time. In instant runoff, the voters need not return to the polls, since these runoffs can be performed instantly using ranked ballots. voting system. It is produced by a nonprofit organization. It advocated IRV as a common-sense reform that solves many of the problems of plurality. We do not endorse IRV, but provide this site strictly for reference purposes.
|