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For me, “voting system” implies the wrong question

I recently expressed frustration with something I called “voting-system-speak.” This is my attempt to define (or at least engage) that and say why I find it frustrating. The crux, I think, is that many (but not all) who think about electoral reform are coming at the subject from a social-choice perspective. Another key point, which is related, is that we may be able to sort reform proposals based on their handling of the problem of social choice. One class of reforms turns to parties. Another class turns to voters. And the former strikes me as more realistic, based on insights from the field of political behavior.

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Is “more voter education” the solution?

I have been mentioning this article a lot lately, so I figured I’d blog it. Here are some key excerpts:

More than one in 10 votes were ruled invalid in the multicultural seat of Fowler, raising serious questions about whether explanations of Australia’s compulsory preferential voting system are getting through.

Fowler, in Sydney’s south-west, has one of the highest non-English-speaking populations, many of whom have come to Australia as refugees from countries with very different political systems.

And:

She said the centre had just run a campaign, Civic Spotlight, that aimed to educate migrant communities about the voting system, but more needed to be done.

“The AEC, they are not doing enough to address it. They have resources online and they provide information in several languages but it’s not just about addressing community leaders, it needs to be one-on-one,” she said.

I recently referred to the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission) as one of “the sorts of agencies that like running STV elections.”

The number of candidates if Final Five Voting were applied to STV

Voters’ ability/willingness to rank candidates is an issue in ranked-ballot systems. Final Five (Four) Voting (FFV) aims to solve this problem with a plurality winnowing round. Voters are asked to consider only five (four) candidates at the ranking stage. What does this look like in STV?

The minimum number of decisive-round candidates is district magnitude. It cannot be less than 5 in a 5-seat district. So, for two slates of 3 that run in a competitive 5-seat district, voters are asked to consider six options. (I chose that scenario because it feels like an equilibrium.)

This number grows or shrinks in response to the number of slates, the sizes of slates, the number of independents, and the number coming out of an FFV winnowing round.

Someone should make a graph.