How election reform can eliminate spoilers, promote third party efforts, and clarify the meaning of democracy.

Home PurposeThe motivation of this site: the necessity and practicality of a new election system for a changing world. Election TheoryThe basic axioms of what we should desire in an election, and descriptions of several methods that attempt to address these. Why Condorcet?Argument for why Condorcet is the optimal system which we should strive to implement. PracticalityHow electronic methods make Condorcet practical, secure, and desirable. Links/ContactSite credits, contact information, and links to other resources. GlossaryGlossary of specific terms used throughout the site.

Election Criteria

We are evaluating which election methods are better than others, so it is critical to begin with precisely what we desire from our elections. This site proposes the following basic guidelines to decide what constitutes a good election. Unfortunately, it is not possible to meet all of these criteria, for reasons to be discussed under The Paradox.

Majority Rule. This is the value at the core of democracy itself. Put simply, if the majority of the electorate makes a particular decision, we should obey that decision.
Balance of Power and Speech. The election should be done in such a way that the voter’s desire to exercise power and their desire to express speech do not come into conflict. In particular, an honestA vote is called "honest" if it reflects the true preference of the voter, even if it is apparent to the voter that voting differently will produce a more preferred result. vote should also be a strategicA vote is called "strategic," "tactical," or "pragmatic" if it does not reflect the voter's true preference, but is rather an attempt by the voter to secure the best possible outcome, given the voter's prediction of how other voters will act. vote.
No “Spoiling.” It should be impossible for a third party to spoil an election. Specifically, the introduction of another candidate should not change the outcome of the election unless that candidate wins. This criterion aims to combat what is commonly called vote-splitting, and removes the stigma associated with third-party bids, as in the infamous 2000 presidential election.
Monotonicity. This is technical term referring to the property that expressing your preference for a particular candidate should increase that candidates chance of winning. It is fairly obvious why this should be the case.

Basic Implications

From these basic criteria we can immediately derive two characteristics that any good election system must possess. They are as follows.

The Condorcet Criterion. Any candidate that would defeat every other candidate in a one-on-one runoff must win the election. This is simply a restatement of majority rule.
Multiple-response ballots. The election must have a means of voting regarding more than one candidate. This follows from the prohibition of spoiling; if each voter can select only a single candidate, the addition of a third party that will not win can induce vote-stealing. The only solution is to allow multiple responses. In 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., this takes the form of a ranked ballot, in which the voter votes for multiple candidates, ranked by preference.