Reddit reviews Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About It)
We found 5 Reddit comments about Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About It). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Ok "certainty" overstates it. What can be mathematically proven is that in plurality voting, it's in each voter's best interest to vote for his favorite of the two candidates most likely to win. Since voters tend to vote strategically, plurality voting has a strong tendency towards two-party dominance; this is Duverger's Law.
Proportional representation and some voting systems like approval or range voting don't have this problem.
Also see the book Gaming the Vote by William Poundstone.
"Gaming the Vote" is a great read for anyone interested. It covers history and math of voting, and makes a strong case for both range and approval voting. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003K154R0/
If we want real third parties, we need to change how our electoral system works. Our current system just guarantees that if three candidates run, the first choice will never win.
http://rangevoting.org/
http://www.amazon.com/Gaming-Vote-Elections-Arent-ebook/dp/B003K154R0/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1381631276
Certainly true, but it's also pretty hard to agree on which new voting system should be used if we ever switch; they're all better than FPTP, but all have some major problem that makes them sound like a poor choice (even if it's an improvement overall). In the case of IRV (single-winner STV), you get weirdness where one candidate would win, but then a few new people decide to vote for them and now suddenly they lose because of the shift in how other candidates get eliminated.
Gaming the Vote did a good job of making me fear all voting systems. Every time they described a new one I thought "well, that sounds quite good", and then the next page would be "let me tell you how this is secretly terrible". STV is my personal favorite (although I think range voting was the one generally considered to give the best results), but the whole thing is absurdly complicated
Approval is great, range is better though! That being said, pretty much anything is better than plurality. If you're really interested in this kind of stuff, William Poundstone's "Gaming the Vote" is a great intro to different voting systems. It gives background on how the systems came about, and how they work. It can get a little long winded at times, but I'd definitely recommend it!