In a world seemingly dominated by elections and talk of confirmatory referenda, and when we are so used to ‘first past the post’, probably quite a lot of people were confused as to how the EU election voting process worked.
Was it fair? Did my vote count? Did the right outcome result?
It feels timely to have a look at different ways to vote in Participatory Budgeting (PB). There is a range of techniques employed, some discussed in the appendix of the PB grant making guide on the PB network website.
Whatever system you choose, if you are going to be able to explain ‘why’ to voters in PB, its important to get your head around the sometimes complicated ideas within voting theory.
In our guest blog Peter Emerson of the de Borda Institute explains why voting systems matter, if it is to express the will of the participants accurately.
A WORD ON VOTING SYSTEMS
If the subject isn’t binary – and PB always has lots of options – we should use multi-option voting. That is where people are asked to vote for more than one project. There are many types: which option has the most first preferences, the least last preferences, the highest average, or whatever. And while nothing is perfect, some voting procedures can be hopelessly inaccurate, a few less adversarial, and two very inclusive. Let’s have a look.
Consider a dozen people discussing just three options, A, B and C, with the following preferences.
|
Preferences |
The 12 Voters |
||
|
Votes =5 |
Votes=3 |
Votes=4 |
|
| 1st |
A |
B |
C |
| 2nd |
B |
C |
B |
| 3rd |
C |
A |
A |
Option B, the 1st or 2nd preference of everybody, looks pretty good. But what happens in practice?
Well, with plurality voting – (like first-past-the-post) –
A wins on 5.
In two-round voting – (the French electoral system) – we eliminate the least popular, B, and have a second round between the two leading options, A and C; so if everybody’s preferences stay the same, option –
C wins by 7 to 5.
The alternative vote, AV, is a knock-out system, eliminating the least popular after each round, so that’s B, and transferring its votes, 3 of them, to their 2nd preference, which is C. So again, –
C wins by 7 to 5.
In a Modified Borda Count (MBC) points system – 3 points for a 1st preference, 2 for a 2nd, 1 for a 3rd – the scores are A 22, B 27 and C 23, so –
B wins.
With approval voting, a voter may be tempted to ‘approve’ of only their favourite. Range voting is even worse: having 5 or 10 points to distribute at will, the intransigent voter, without ways to prevent them abusing the voting process might plonk all their points on just one option.
With the MBC, however, if you cast only one preference, you get only 1 point; if you cast two preferences, your favourite gets 2 points and your second choice gets 1; but if you cast all three, your favourite gets 3 points, your second has 2 and your third 1.
So the MBC system encourages everyone, no matter how passionate their opinion, to participate fully, to cast all their preferences, and thus recognise the validity of all their neighbours’ aspirations. It is indeed inclusive, very accurate, and one of two “best interpretations of majority rule,” according to the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics (2003, p 139). The other good one is a Condorcet count.
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If you would like to hear more about the difference between voting systems, and the outcomes they might produce, watch Peter’s TEDx talk ‘What is democracy anyway’.
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Contact Peter at pemerson@deborda.org or via the de Borda web-page www.deborda.org
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Disclaimer: The PB Network does not recommend a specific voting system. But we do recommend that thought is given to which system is used and why. You may wish to research this topic further on the website of the Electoral Reform Society
