Get your hands on 4 great voting rules. See fair-share tallies organize voters. Vote fast on budgets, policies and projects. Movable Votes.

Get your hands on 4 great voting rules.

See fair-share tallies organize voters.

Vote fast on budgets, policies and projects.

Movable Votes

Instant Runoff Voting elects a strong executive.

Full Representation elects a whole council.

Movable Money Votes set budgets.

Pairwise Voting centers each policy.

Introducing FourGreat Voting Rules

Movable Votes,

A Winning Share,

Wasted Votes.

Key ideas:Key ideas:

A card for each voter,

A column for each option,

A finish line for the favorites.

A tally board hasA tally board has

Anna Eliminated 1st

Bianca Eliminated 2nd

Cecilia IRV Winner

DianaRunner up

Finish Line Finish Line Finish Line Finish Line

1. The weakest candidate, Anna, was eliminated. So voter JJ, moved his card.

2. Then Bianca was eliminated. So GG and BB moved theirs.

B B

J J G G

M M D D

B B L L Z Z

J J G G V V C C

BB moveshis card.

A Tally BoardA Tally Board

JJ moveshis card.

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) elects one winner.

A finish line marks the height of half the cards +1.This is how many votes a candidate needs to win.

Eliminate the weakest candidate if no one wins.Draw names from a hat to break ties.

Move your card if your candidate loses.This is a “movable vote”.

Repeat until one candidate reaches the finish line!

Instant Runoff VotingInstant Runoff Voting

IRV elects the mayors of London, Dublin, Sidney and

most Australian cities.

San Francisco and Minneapolis now use it.

IRV elects student leaders at 65 U.S. colleges including:

most of the Ivy League, Cal Tech, Duke, Johns Hopkins,

MIT, Rice, Stanford, Tufts, the universities of CA, MN, IA,

NC, OK, VA, WA, WI...

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IRVIRV Is Used Here

A majority winner.

Less negative campaigning.

No hurting your first choice.

No lesser-of-two-evils.

No spoilers.

IRVIRV Benefits

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1. How could your group use Instant Runoff Voting?

2. Your 2nd-choice vote can’t hurt your 1st choice. T,F

3. A vote that moves is no bigger than other votes. T,FDoes its voter have more votes or power than other voters?

4. Can 2 candidates reach the 50% +1 vote finish line?

IRVIRV Questions

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For a three-seat election by Choice Voting (CV)

The finish line's height is 1/4 of the cards + one. Do not give cards to a candidate who has won.

Eliminate the weakest candidates one at a time.

Move your cards until three candidates win!

Choice Voting

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CV elects national legislatures or city councils in Australian, Ireland, Malta, New Zealand, and Scotland.

CV elects many union and church councils in Australia and England.

CV elects student councils at Harvard, Princeton, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, Vassar, and Whitman. Oxford, Cambridge and many other British and Australian Universities also use STV.

CV Is Used Here

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Choices for voters and turnout of voters.

Election of minorities and women.

Funding for health and education,

Conformity of policies to public opinions.

The number of voters who elect reps.

CV Benefits

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1. Can four candidates each get 25% + one vote?

2. What total share must the three CV reps win?

3. What is the threshold for winning one of five seats?

4. Can your vote for a 2nd choice hurt your 1st choice?

5. How could you use the Choice Voting?

CV Questions

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Let's say we each put in $4 to buy some items. You get two $1 voting cards and a tall $2 card

We say an item needs modest support from 8 of us to prove it is a public good worth public money.So the finish line marks the height of 8 cards.

You may put only one of your cards in a column.You can’t dump all your cards on a private item. Tip: Give your tall $2 card to your favorite item. This way 4 eager voters can fund a low-cost item.

Movable Money Votes

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Each column here holds just $2.So a $4 item must fill 2 columns.

Drop the item with the lowest % filled.

Move your card from a loser’s column. Don’t put a vote over a full column.

Stop when all items are funded. Each voter helps fund winners !

Everyone Wins Something

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Each funding level is like another project. The “$4 OJ” level has two columns. The “$6 OJ” has just one more column. You must help fill the lower level first.

One at a time, the weak levels lose.

An agency starts at 80% of its old budget.So a voter cannot, “Take a free ride.”

MMV Setting Budgets

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1. Should we let each voter or rep fund private items.

2. Should people who pay more taxes get more power to spend public money? to set public laws?

3. Should voters see grants by a rep?

4. Can your second choice hurt your first choice?

5. How could your groups use MMV?

MMV Questions

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Flag C stands at the center, by the median voter. Three flag surround C, about 5' from it.

We ask: "Are you closer to flag A than B? If so, please raise your hand." Then A against C, etc.We put each total in a Pairwise table (see below).

Pairwise Voting

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Pairwise Voting centers a policy.For a Pairwise Tally the winner must beat every rival, one-against-one. Two examples show its affects:

Votes against

Votes J K L M

for J — 2 2 3

for K 5 — 2 3

for L 5 5 — 4

for M 4 4 3 —

Pairwise Table

A pole stands at our center near the median voter.It holds a short Red ribbon and a long Blue one.

If the Red ribbon gets to you, the Red policy gets your vote with its narrow appeal.

But if the Red cannot touch you, the wide appeal of the Blue policy gets your vote. Which one wins?

Pairwise Widens Appeal

If the poles are places for a heater in an icy cold room: A) Do we put it at our middle or in the biggest group? B) Do we turn on its fan to spread the heat wide?

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1. Can the median voter enact any policy alone?

2. Can fringe voters affect a Pairwise tally?

3. Does Pairwise favor narrowly-centrist policies?

4. Should first-choice votes count more?

5. Does Pairwise set a “winning threshold”?

6. Do votes “move” from one choice to the next?

7. Where could you use Pairwise voting?

Pairwise Questions

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Only small groups can use cards for actual voting. Big groups use paper ballots. They are often tallied by computer, with samples checked by hand.

Old-fashioned ballots: mark only “yes” or “no”; Create dichotomies, polarization and conflict.

Full-choice ballots reduce those negative results.Rank 1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd ... Reveal moderate points of view.

Full-Choice Ballots

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Ties are allowed. Fill only one “O” on each line.

Vote HereVote Here

Ranks

Best Worst

Names 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th

Perot o o o o o o Clinton o o o o o o Obama o o o o o o Bush o o o o o o Write In o o o o o o

AccurateDemocracy.com has pages on the logic, uses and effects of voting rules, plus a teacher’s guide, printer-ready cards and software for anonymous voting.

For anonymity on a tabletop, put your ballot in a box and pull out another voter’s, or a “mailed-in” ballot.

Only small groups can use tally boards for actual voting. Larger groups use paper ballots tallied by computer.

In Practice

Booklets 10 for $29 includes shipping.© 2003-2009, Robert Loring, [email protected]

Strong Votes & MandatesStrong Votes & Mandates

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Strengthen democracy by expanding the base of power, the voters supporting the:

Chairperson from a plurality to a majority;

Council from a plurality to three quarters;

Budget from a few blocs to all members;

Policy from a 1-sided to an overall majority.

Better voting rules are

fast, easy and fair.

They organize big groups

backing popular choices.

Politics is more principled with

fair shares for reps and money,

full majorities for presidents and policies.

ConclusionsConclusions

Blank black slide

Budget Refill Voting (BRV) for departments

A big department has several columns to fill.

The columns each need $100... for the department to reach last year’s budget; that's its refill line.

A supporter’s card helps refill a budget column.Voters can push it above its goal line.But its gain will be another program's loss.

Budget Refill Voting

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Let's say a council of 20 decides each program needs modest support from 10 members to restore its funding. So a column needs 10 cards from 10 voters to reach its refill line, or as few as 5 double cards from eager voters.

The group wants to budget 4 low-cost activities with 1 column each, plus 3 costly programs with 2 columns each. Those 10 columns X 10 cards to refill each = 100 cards.

The 100 cards / 20 voters = 5 cards for each voter; that's 1 double and 3 singles. You may put only 1 in a column.

BRV Limits Power

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Set target budgets and prioritize.

Reacting is key!

Stop when the timer sounds.You lose cards that are not on the board.

A two-thirds majority may reopen the voting.

BRV Sets Many Budgets

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1. Does each voter have movable votes?

2. Do departments have finish lines?

3. Can your second choice hurt your first choice?

4. Should a rep’s cards be so visible to voters?

5. Who could use Budget Refill Voting?

Try it; it’s fast!

BRV Questions

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