Comparison of VoteFair Ranking with other voting methods
Voting method |
Fair results? |
Second, third, etc. preferences considered? |
Voter can indicate equal preference among two or more choices? |
A sincere voter has the same influence as a strategic voter? |
VoteFair |
Yes, always |
Yes, all the alternate preferences of all the voters are considered. |
Yes |
Yes, strategic voting attempts are not effective. |
Runoff
(and instant runoff) |
Usually, but unfair results easily occur if there are more than two or three main choices. |
Some alternate preferences of some voters are considered (and others are ignored). |
No, if an equal preference is encountered the ballot must be ignored. |
Usually, but in some cases strategic voting can slightly increase a voter's influence. |
Majority
(used in a few U.S. general elections) |
Yes if a majority is achieved, but this seldom happens if there are more than two main choices. |
No, only one mark is allowed. |
No, only one mark is allowed. |
No, voting for a preferred but unpopular choice weakens the most similar popular choice. |
Plurality
(used in most U.S. primary and general elections) |
No, a "splitting" of votes can easily cause a less-popular choice to win. |
No, only one mark is allowed. |
No, only one mark is allowed. |
No, a sincere voter has less influence than a strategic voter. |
Condorcet-winner-only |
If a winner is identified, the result is fair (and matches the VoteFair result),
but this method often fails to identify any winner. |
Yes |
No, if an equal preference is encountered the ballot must be ignored. |
No, in some situations strategic voting can slightly increase a voter's influence. |
Borda count |
No |
Yes |
No, if an equal preference is encountered the ballot must be ignored. |
No, strategic voting easily increases a voter's influence. |
To better appreciate the fairness of VoteFair Ranking over other voting methods,
consider an election between three candidates named Clifford, Farah, and Gordon in
which 100 voters have the following preferences:
- 40 voters prefer Clifford (as their) first (preference), Farah second, and Gordon last
- 35 voters prefer Gordon first, Farah second, and Clifford last
- 25 voters prefer Farah first, Gordon second, and Clifford last
Based on these preferences, the various voting methods would produce
the following results:
Voting method
|
Winner
|
VoteFair |
Farah |
Instant runoff |
Gordon |
Majority |
None of the choices has won a majority (more than half) the votes. |
Plurality |
Clifford |
Condorcet winner |
Farah |
Borda count |
Farah |
Notice that VoteFair ranking reveals the most popular candidate to be Farah.
This makes sense because a majority of voters (60 out of 100) prefer Farah over Clifford,
and a majority of voters (65 out of 100) prefer Farah over Gordon.
In contrast, plurality voting
— which is used in almost all U.S. elections — declares Clifford to be
the winner (because he receives the most first-preference votes).
Majority voting — which is used in U.S. Presidential elections —
would not produce any winner because none of the candidates receives a majority
(more than half the votes). Instant runoff voting (IRV) is commonly claimed as a fair
alternative, yet IRV would designate either Clifford or Gordon as the winner.
(Variations of IRV can resolve the tie one way or the other, but the outcome
still isn't fair.) The Borda-count method would declare
Farah as the winner, but this method is well-known to produce unfair results
in other situations. The Condorcet-winner-only produces the same fair results
as VoteFair ranking when there is a Condorcet winner, but it does not define any
results if there is no Condorcet winner.
To better appreciate the differences in voting methods, here is a
tally table that summarizes the pairwise preferences of all the voters.
All possible pairs of item names |
Number of votes with indicated preference |
Prefer X over Y |
Equal preference |
Prefer Y over X |
X =
Farah
Y =
Gordon |
65 |
0 |
35 |
X =
Farah
Y =
Clifford |
60 |
0 |
40 |
X =
Gordon
Y =
Clifford |
60 |
0 |
40 |
Hopefully you now recognize that plurality and majority voting — and even
instant runoff voting — can easily fail to produce fair results. In contrast,
VoteFair ranking always correctly identifies the most popular candidate.
Send feedback to Richard Fobes at
or use the Testimonials page
© Copyright 2004 through 2011, Richard Fobes at VoteFair.org
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