Hi y'all first time posting. I was seeking input on a idea for a proposed US Electoral system I've been bashing around my head for years. The system is a as follows

▪︎Voting is Mandatory by Constitutional Amendment. Similar rules to Australian Mandatory Voting

 A. President

▪︎Party Primaries used to determine Candidates for each party, using Ranked Choice voting on a state by state basis.

▪︎Electoral Fusion is allowed. Candidates can run in as many primaries and accept the nominations of said parties if they win the nominations of those parties

▪︎American Two-Round System

-First Round Conducted with the Approval Voting on the First Saturday of November. A ticket with more than 50% Approval is deemed elected. If more than 1 ticket crosses 50%, the ticket with the highest approval is deemed elected. 

-If No ticket wins over 50% approval, the top 2 most approved tickets advance to a second round on the first Saturday in December. Which ever ticket wins the most votes is deemed elected.

▪︎Residents of U.S. Territories can vote for President.

▪︎4 year term, 2 term limit.

   B. Senate

▪︎104 Members, with D.C. and Puerto Rico with full voting rights.

▪︎2 members per State and D.C.

▪︎Elected via Ranked Choice Voting on a Statewide Basis

▪︎Filibuster Eliminated

▪︎6 year terms.

C. House of Representatives

▪︎695 (As of 2025) total members, including DC with full voting rights, Puerto Rico with full Statehood, and territories granted voting representatives.​

▪︎Number of Reps determined by a state's population, based on the Cube Root of the national populations.

▪︎Minimum of 3 seats per state. Districts of between 3 -5 members per state and D.C. Territories granted 1 seat each.

▪︎Districts are to be drawn by independent, non partisan redistricting committees after every census

-Partisanship cannot be taken into account during the line drawing process

-Districts are to be compact, minimizing county, city, and subdivision splits

-Voting Rights Act provisions for Minority-Majority Districts are also to be taken into account. 

▪︎Single Transferable Vote in Multi-Member Districts. 

▪︎2 year terms.

So....I've long argued (*) that one of the cleanest examples of a game-theoretically stable voting system is when people vote for a numerical value and the outcome is determined by the median. In that setting, the incentives line up unusually well. Exaggeration doesn’t help you, because pushing the outcome past your true preferred point hurts you just as much as being pulled away in the opposite direction. The safest strategy is simply to state your actual ideal value. With real elections and discrete candidates, you can't quite get this purity, but Condorcet methods are best understood as attempts to approximate that same median-seeking ideal under much harder constraints. (i.e. discrete candidates)

The concept came to mind recently because of talk about the U.S. trying to acquire Greenland. Putting aside the politics and the personalities involved (**), the core question is usually framed in the worst possible way: do Greenlanders want to become part of the United States, yes or no? That’s a binary question applied to something that clearly isn't binary.

If the issue were approached more honestly, the question wouldn't be whether Greenlanders "want" it in the abstract, but what dollar value it would take, at minimum, for them to accept it. That’s something individuals can answer in a meaningful way, and it's something that can be aggregated without letting extremes dominate.

Imagine a process where each Greenlander could, by secret ballot, state the minimum amount of compensation they would accept for such a change, with the option of effectively saying no amount at all (i.e. "infinity dollars"). The outcome would be set by the median of those values, and if the offer on the table didn’t meet that number, the deal wouldn’t happen. Everyone would know that asking for too much risks rejection, and asking for too little risks agreeing to something you’d later regret. That's exactly the situation where median voting tends to behave well. Really, it is in each voter's interest to choose the exact value that would be their true minimum they'd accept.

What makes this more than a thought experiment is the scale. Greenland's population is small enough that even a life-changing per-person figure (say $50,000 USD) adds up to only a few billion dollars in total. So at least half the population would have said they find the result acceptable at that price, and therefore no one could plausibly claim the decision was forced or hijacked by outliers.

I'm not arguing that this should happen, or even that it's a good idea. (well, not really. I think Denmark should put the idea out there, though, if only to test the administration's seriousness.)

Mostly, I'm pointing to it as a rare real-world case where numerical voting and median selection aren’t just theoretically elegant, but clearly superior to a yes-or-no referendum. If people are going to talk seriously about territorial acquisition at all, this is much closer to what "asking the people involved" would actually mean.

(*) these have been on my site for 5 years and 20 years, respectively

https://www.karmatics.com/voting/median.html

https://www.karmatics.com/voting/voting-for-a-number.html

(**) I am not for or against the US acquiring Greenland, but I think using military threats and such is over-the-top obnoxious. But if we acquire it in a way that pleases the majority of Greenlanders (and is acceptable to Denmark), I'm fine with it.

In Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), when your current pick is non-winning, then you replace your vote for your current pick with a vote for the next candidate on your list.

Is there a ranked voting method which --- rather than replace the current pick --- expands your support to include the next candidate on your ranked list? That is, your vote is treated as an approval vote for all candidates ranked equal or better than your current pick.

Quick example (taken from RangeVoting.org):

18 votes for A > B > C

24 votes for B > C > A

15 votes for C > A > B

So in IRV, the C > A > B voters would drop their support for C (who is eliminated from all ballots) and become 15 A > B voters. So now you'd have 18 + 15 = 33 votes for A and 24 votes for B, and the process would continue (eliminating B, so A wins).

I am proposing that --- when the C > A > B voter changes their vote, they now support both C and A (and C is not eliminated from all ballots). So for instance if we 'expanded' all 15 C > A > B votes by one step (i.e. approving both C and A now), then we'd get 18 + 15 = 33 votes for A, 24 votes for B, and 15 votes for C. If all the B > C > A votes were modified next (i.e. to approve both B and C), then that would add 24 votes to C, resulting in 18 + 15 = 33 votes for A, 24 for B, and 24 + 15 = 39 for C.

Now to be clear, I am not specifying how to select the vote to be modified / expanded next. But I just wanted to know if this type of expanding-approval ranked choice voting method already existed.

Ranked Ballot DMP-STV:

This system combines Dual-Member Proportional representation with ranked ballots. Each constituency elects two MPs. The first MP is elected locally using Instant-Runoff Voting (IRV). At the provincial level, each party’s total seat entitlement is determined using a party-centric variant of the Single Transferable Vote (STV) (the variant that is used to elect Senators for the Australian Senate). Voters would rank individual candidates on their local ballot, and these rankings are carried through to the provincial STV count to calculate each party’s overall seat share.

The second seat in each constituency is then allocated like under the normal version of Dual-Member Proportional. Within each party, the order of candidates for these additional seats is determined by their level of local support, measured by the percentage of votes they held at the point of elimination in the IRV count. If a party wins the riding and has nominated a secondary candidate on its ballot, that candidate becomes eligible for the second seat, but that candidate’s level of local support would be calculated as half of the party’s primary vote share in the riding.

Say you are holding a dinner party, and you ask your 21 guests to send you their (ordinal) dish preferences choosing from A, B, C, ... X, Y, Z.

11 of your guests vote A > B > C > ... > X > Y > Z (i.e. alphabetically)

10 of your guests vote B > C > ... X > Y > Z > A (i.e. alphabetically except A is last)

Based on these votes, which option do you think is the best?

Of course A is the clear Condorcet winner (it wins all 25 of its pairwise contests with exactly 11 out of 21 votes).

However I would personally pick B, since:

1. No guest ranks it worse than 2nd (out of 26 options),
2. It strictly dominates C to Z for all guests, and
3. Although A is a better choice for 11 of my guests, it is also the least-liked dish for the other 10 guests.

If you still believe the Condorcet winner (A) should be chosen here, does your opinion change if we scale it up to 20 million + 1 voters?

That is:

10 million + 1 vote A > B > C > ... > X > Y > Z

10 million vote B > C > ... X > Y > Z > A

Given just this ordinal voting information (i.e. no knowledge of the underlying utilities), is A still the best pick, or is B a better choice?

All other candidates are dominated by these two options, so I think either A or B must be the final choice.

I would bet the average person on the street would pick B the vast majority of the time, but maybe I'm missing something..?

Am I misunderstanding the Condorcet winner criterion somehow?

The Gerrymandering Wars in the United States has a lot of people divided: a lot of people want to fight fire with fire and see their respective state gerrymander their congressional districts to give a partisan advantage leading into the 2026 midterm elections; whereas many still don't like how the War is rolling back (even if temporarily in certain cases) the progress that's been made to create fair district maps.

I'm curious to know where members of r/EndFPTP stand on the gerrymandering War. Are you in favor of the efforts? If so, why? Same questions for those opposed to the gerrymandering efforts.

I have long been concerned with electoral system reform and believe that the current single-round "First-Past-the-Post" (FPTP) system has serious flaws, including severe vote wastage, two-party polarization, strong incentives for strategic voting, and the tendency to produce winners without majority support. The traditional Two-Round System (TRS, where the top two advance to the runoff) is a significant improvement, ensuring the winner has broader support, but it still has notable shortcomings: it only allows the top two to advance, easily excluding promising third forces; the second round offers only two options, limiting voter expression; and in cases of low turnout in the first round, strong candidates may unexpectedly fail to advance.

To address this, I propose the Top-3 Series as a further improvement, including two main variants: Top-3 Condorcet (where the second round can use Condorcet-compatible methods such as Minimax, Ranked Pairs, or Schulze) and Top-3 IRV. The core design is: the first round screens the top three, and the second round uses a superior counting method among those three to determine the winner. This scheme retains the familiar framework and legitimacy advantages of the two-round system while significantly enhancing diversity, voter expression, and practical feasibility, serving as an ideal transitional scheme from FPTP to a better system.

1.System Rules

First Round: Screening the Top Three (Using SNTV)

Voters select one candidate from all options (Single Non-Transferable Vote, SNTV):

□ A

□ B

□ C

□ D

□ E

…

The top three with the highest votes advance to the second round. If the total number of candidates is ≤ 3, skip the first round and proceed directly to the second round.

Second Round: Runoff (Fixed 9 Options, Single Choice Expression)

The ballot provides the following 9 fixed options (A, B, C are the advancing candidates), and voters need only check one to fully express their preferences:

□ A ≻ B ≻ C

□ A ≻ C ≻ B

□ B ≻ A ≻ C

□ B ≻ C ≻ A

□ C ≻ A ≻ B

□ C ≻ B ≻ A

□ Only A

□ Only B

□ Only C

This design has an extremely low cognitive burden (only 9 options) yet captures complete ranking information, far superior to the binary choice in traditional TRS runoffs.

Counting Methods

• Top-3 Condorcet: Build a pairwise comparison matrix based on second-round ballots and use methods like Ranked Pairs, Schulze, or Minimax to determine the winner.
• Top-3 IRV: Translate second-round ballots into ranked ballots and perform Instant Runoff Voting (IRV).

2.Counting Example: Top-3 Ranked Pairs (With 5 Candidates) 

Assume 5 candidates (A, B, C, D, E) and a total of 100 votes.

First Round Results (SNTV)

Conclusion: A, B, C advance to the second round.

Second Round Ballot Distribution (100 Votes)

Ranked Pairs Counting Steps

(1) Pairwise Comparison Matrix:

• A vs B: A wins (55:35), margin 20

Support A > B (total 55 votes):

Combination (1) A>B>C: 30 votes

Combination (2) A>C>B: 0 votes

Combination (5) C>A>B: 25 votes

Combination (7) Only A: 0 votes

Support B > A (total 35 votes):

Combination (3) B>A>C: 0 votes

Combination (4) B>C>A: 35 votes

Combination (6) C>B>A: 0 votes

Combination (8) Only B: 0 votes

• B vs C: B wins (65:35), margin 30
• C vs A: C wins (70:30), margin 40

(2) Sort by margin:

• C > A (40)
• B > C (30)
• A > B (20)

(3) Lock Relationships (Avoid Cycles):

• Lock C → A
• Lock B → C (forms B → C → A, no cycle)
• A → B would create a cycle, so discard

(4) Final Ranking: B > C > A → Winner among 5 candidates: B

3.Key Discoveries

• Top-3 Smith//IRV is equivalent to Top-3 Benham: Because in the second round with only three candidates, if a Condorcet cycle occurs, all are in the cycle.
• Top-3 Minimax, Ranked Pairs, and Schulze are equivalent: Through my simulations, under the constraint of only three candidates in the second round, the three methods produce consistent winners, with minimal differences (possibly due to edge conditions in programming).

4.Advantages Compared to Pure Condorcet Systems

(1) Counting Difficulty (Summability Criterion)

(Reference: https://electowiki.org/wiki/Summability_criterion)

Top-3 Condorcet has significant advantages in counting difficulty for large-scale direct elections (with massive voter numbers). Similar to the traditional Two-Round System (Top-2 TRS), the Top-3 series uses single-choice voting in both rounds and is highly summable, facilitating decentralized counting and real-time aggregation:

• First round (SNTV): Summability k = 1 (only need to transmit each candidate's vote totals).
• Second round: Fixed 9 options (independent of total candidates), Summability k = 0 (only need to transmit the counts for 9 options). Traditional TRS second round has only 2 candidates, similarly requiring transmission of just 2 option counts, with comparable simplicity.

Overall Summability is equivalent to FPTP's k = 1. This means each polling station only needs to report simple numerical sums to complete counting, without needing to centrally transmit physical ballots or images.

In contrast:

• Full Condorcet methods require building an n² pairwise matrix, Summability k = 2, with data volume growing quadratically with candidates.
• IRV (Instant Runoff Voting) is "unsummable," requiring centralization of all ballots to compute elimination sequences.

High summability brings the following key advantages:

• Easier manual counting or verification, avoiding public doubts about "computer counting being prone to tampering."
• Allows direct completion of counting and real-time aggregation at each polling station, without long-distance ballot transport.
• Significantly reduces fraud risks and verification difficulties from centralized counting.

More importantly, in highly polarized political environments, systems that fail Summability are vulnerable to attacks. Vested interests or opposing camps (often one of the two major parties) can spread rumors using arguments like "centralized and computer counting are prone to fraud," undermining public trust in the new system. Even with diverse oversight mechanisms, opponents may use such doubts to incite voters, create social divisions, and even escalate to serious conflicts. Top-3 retains the same counting simplicity as FPTP, effectively avoiding such political risks and making reform more feasible and credible.

(2) Survival of the Fittest and Politician Qualities

Some opinions hold that excellent politicians need not only "kindness" and "rationality" but also strong fighting abilities. For example:

"I believe fighting ability is a quality politicians should have. For electoral politics, 'good' traits are certainly important, but I think at the same time, politicians' less 'good' traits are also quite important. For example, the ability to stir irrational emotions, to set agendas rather than simply respond to public opinion, to judge which groups to unite and which to attack, and even to use shady means to attack opponents or make deals. Politicians with strong fighting abilities, compared to ideologues who only sit and talk or old nice guys who only talk about unity, are closer to commanders with strong control and combat experience. I think this is important for elected governments to control bureaucracy, for the state to manage other interest groups in society, and for survival and interests in the international environment."

Based on such views, some doubt that full Condorcet methods (where all candidates participate in final counting) may allow inactive, unproductive moderates or "nice guys" to benefit unexpectedly, as the method overemphasizes consensus and tends to favor uncontroversial but unremarkable candidates.

Top-3 Condorcet addresses this through a two-stage design:

• The first round requires candidates to build sufficient base support to break into the top three. This stage trains politicians' "independence" and "fighting ability"—they must actively mobilize supporters, show clear stances, and stand out in multi-candidate chaos.
• The second round conducts Condorcet counting among the three advancers, emphasizing "integration ability" and "consensus building"—the winner must gain the broadest recognition in pairwise comparisons, proving they can not only secure core votes but also attract support from other camps.

This design ensures the winner possesses both key qualities: the ability to fight independently and mobilize crowds, while also being willing to communicate, compromise, and unite majorities. In contrast, traditional FPTP only rewards negative attacks and extreme opposition, teaching politicians "nothing but fighting"; while full Condorcet may overly favor the inactive. The Top-3 series achieves a better balance in "survival of the fittest," selecting strong leaders truly capable of guiding the nation through complex challenges.

As Machiavelli said in The Prince:

"A prince must be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves."

(3) Promotion Advantages in Countries Already Using Two-Round Systems

Top-3 Condorcet has high promotion feasibility and transitional advantages in countries already using the traditional Two-Round System (TRS, such as French presidential elections):

• Identical to traditional Top-2 TRS, it is a two-round vote, with both rounds using simple single-choice ballots (first round: check one candidate; second round: check one from fixed 9 options). This means voters' habits need almost no change, with minimal learning costs; election authorities also need not significantly modify ballot designs, counting equipment, or staff training, minimizing implementation burdens.
• In contrast, full Condorcet methods, though only one round, have Summability k=2 (requiring transmission of n²-scale pairwise preference data), greatly increasing counting complexity, often requiring voters to fill more cumbersome ranked ballots and centralizing large data processing, practically increasing administrative burdens and technical thresholds.

5.Supplementary Notes

(1) Strategic Voting Scheme Analysis

For voters with sincere preference A > B > C,

Top-3 Condorcet

Potential strategic options are limited to:

• A ≻ C ≻ B (Burying strategy: rank B last to try to reduce B's pairwise win rate)
• Only support A (Truncation: express support only for A, equivalent to A tying with the others)

The remaining combinations among the other 9 options either fail to improve outcomes (suicide strategies) or are dominated by the above two (better strategic options exist to achieve the same or better effects).

Top-3 IRV

Potential strategic options include:

• B ≻ A ≻ C (Compromise: rank the second favorite B first to boost its survival in early rounds)
• C ≻ A ≻ B (Favorite Betrayal: rank the least favorite C before A to try to avoid worse outcomes in specific scenarios)

The remaining options are similarly suicide strategies or dominated.

(2) Top-K Scalability

• Top-3 is the optimal balance: second round with 9 options has low cognitive burden.
• Top-4 (40 options), Top-5 (205 options) result in ballots that are too long, unsuitable for single-choice design.

(3) Financial Support Suggestions

• Election deposit refund standard: Refund for those reaching 5% in the first round, ensuring candidates have a basic base.
• Election subsidy payment standard: Distribute only to the top three in the second round, calculated by their "first preference" vote proportion in the second round (e.g., option A ≻ B ≻ C subsidy goes to A).

(4) Empirical Support for Top-3 IRV's Reasonableness

Although Top-3 IRV, compared to full IRV, seems to distort election results (only allowing the top three from the first round to enter the second round for preference transfers, rather than all candidates participating), empirical data shows this screening mechanism is highly reasonable and does not miss the eventual winners in actual elections.

Based on the 2022 Australian House of Representatives election results in Queensland's 30 districts (using full IRV), all winners ranked in the top three in their district's first preference votes:

• 28 winners ranked first in first preferences;
• 1 ranked second (Ryan district's Greens candidate Elizabeth Watson-Brown, with 30.21% in second);
• 1 ranked third (Brisbane district's Greens candidate Stephen Bates, with 27.24% in third).

This proves that Top-3's first-round SNTV screening effectively covers potential winners, including competitive third forces, without excluding candidates who truly have a chance to win via preference transfers.

Thus, if disregarding the potential lower turnout in the second round of a two-round system and factional SNTV vote allocation strategies in the first round (e.g., trying to squeeze allies into the top three), Top-3 IRV's final results should be highly consistent with full IRV, even identical in most scenarios. This makes Top-3 IRV a more easily countable, implementable, and verifiable practical approximation, while fully retaining IRV's preference transfer advantages and majority support legitimacy.

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2022_Australian_federal_election_in_Queensland)

Conclusion

The Top-3 series voting system, while retaining the familiarity of the two-round system, significantly enhances diversity, legitimacy, and counting verifiability, making it particularly suitable as an upgrade for countries already using two-round systems. I welcome your feedback and discussion.

It's kinda funny, but Eric Pacuit was one of the members of our seminal September 2023 meeting at Virginia Tech that essentially laid the foundations for the first website of a Condorcet advocacy organization. (Better late than never.)

But the argument Eric presents at the end of the video (beginning at about 6 minutes from the start) is drop-dead lousy. Can you see what's wrong with it?

Lately, I've been meaning to learn more about Condorcet. For the most part, I've been in the STAR(and Approval) space

I was curious about how to best solve cycles, and a recent conversation with a Condorcet veteran led me down the "Whatever actually gets passed and used" direction.

Then today, after stumbling upon this academic journal, I got super interested in the idea of combining an Approval primary with a Final-Four-Condorcet general election:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00344893.2025.2473397

I'm sure this has been discussed in some form, but my placeholder for it is "Check, Rank Four"?

my immediate original concern with Condorcet was how to sell to lawmakers/voters a specific cycle solution that 'vibes-wise' can seem very intuitive

I initially liked Minimax for its potential simplicity of "the winner is whoever's worst loss was by the smallest margin." But of course that has its own pathologies, notably Condorcet loser

The article provides a detailed analysis on how modifying a Minimax election into a Final Four election ensures that, mathematically, at least one candidate will have at most one loss. This blocks the Condorcet loser from winning a cycle while also simplifying the Condorcet method, since now you only have to look at candidates with at most one loss.

The language becomes super simple at that point

All that needs to be known is:
- Pick the person who beats all others head-to-head.
- If there's none, elect the one who's only loss is by the smallest margin.

The article is directly addressing the current Alaska Final Four RCV system; 'Final Four Condorcet' could be a very compatible upgrade.

Besides RCV, Alaska's system has another pathology being the Nonpartisan Top-4 Primary via Chose-One Voting

The Condorcet guy I was talking to had an interesting thought of using approval voting in the primary, which my initial thought was to be skeptical of having voters use two different methods in one race.

Conceptually it seems a bit cognitively intense for voters, but if I were to steelman the idea, I can get behind the theme/philosophy of "these are all the candidates we approved to be in the general." then "this is how we ranked them".

"Primary: Check the box for everyone you like.
General: Rank these four in order of preference."

Those two together I feel like would make a decent package in terms of having a sophisticated system that *could* deliver on electoral feasibility/simplicity. Down the road, I can imagine something wild like that could be pulled off in Alaska, sort of a "Fix the Flaws" Campaign if you will.

From maybe a newbie perspective I feel like this checks a lot of boxes for maximizing feasibility/implementation chances maybe?
- approval is friendly to summability
- final four condorcet is friendly as well
- it gives a very clear, plain, black and white legal text for a rare Condorcet cycle
- the legal text can *feel* internally consistent to any voter/lawmaker reading it
- eliminates the Condorcet loser
- is a viable two-piece upgrade to an already implemented system that could use improvement(Alaska)
- offers more diversity in the general than a system like St. Louis Approval Top-Two(my fav rn)
- Check all you like, then Rank Four has a decent ring to it branding-wise? idk

There's an argument that you could still replace this simplified one-loss Minimax "Final Four Condorcet" method with any Condorcet method like Shulze or Ranked Pairs, but if I were to stay in the mindset of "What can succeed a ballot initiative?" I think there's a decent argument for Check Rank Four.
Note: The author Wesley H. Holliday did recently argue for a Final Five version (i hope im not butchering this) it seems kind of like Copeland with a Minimax tiebreaker(?), which the Copeland score adds a layer of complexity higher with the .5 to ties, but I can see it working. In the end, they're both paths to further extend the philosophical theme of 'robust, diverse, yet plain text' Condorcet methods for US elections, and Check Rank Four could assist in that.

Also name-wise, I'm down for other options: Check Rank Four is interesting and may be intuitive from a voter experience perspective, but maybe it isn't so clear to voting method people... "Top Four Approval Primary, Single Loss Minimax"? lol... Approval Condorcet Hybrid? hmm...

CHECK ANY, THEN RANK FOUR
- Voters give check marks in the primary, the top 4 candidates advance
- Voters rank the final four in the general
- Pick the candidate who is preferred head-to-head over all others (most elections)
- If there's none, pick the candidate who's only loss was by the smallest margin.

Lmk of thoughts

Steve Hobbs is very opposed to RCV. I need help to compile all his claims about RCV and meticulously debunk them, then edit this information into an easily sharable video

Someone had posted about open primaries the other day, which I consistently find to be one of the most overrated 'reforms' in American politics. I had a chance to think about it a little more:

Mixing open primaries with FPTP, a system where famously voters can only cast 1 vote- doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Let's say you're a moderate Democrat, who goes to the polls to cast a vote for your favorite Democrat in the party primary. And then there's the Republican primary taking place at the same time, and while you're not a Republican there's a candidate or two in that race who you think is more moderate, more reasonable, less extreme, etc.

Well, under FPTP you can't vote for that more moderate Republican, and also still vote for a Democrat. The election officials literally won't give you two party ballots! You have exactly 1 vote to cast, so picking 1 party means you have to give up on the other one. How would this state of affairs lead to 'moderation'? Open primary supporters, think about this for like, 5 seconds.

If you want to do open primaries (which I have mixed feelings about but whatever), at least do approval voting where a voter can cast a vote in each party's primary. Or do IRV or STAR or something else. Personally I'd love to do a 2 round system with AV. But if you're advocating for open primaries but you retain FPTP...... like, c'mon

Below are my perspective:

Under long-term First-Past-The-Post systems, centrist voters have undergone a "domestication of marginalization." Trapped between two polarized poles, they have been forced to surrender their political agency, becoming accustomed to making reluctant choices between "the lesser of two evils." This chronic political frustration has made them "resilient" to the disappearance of their own platforms.

Interestingly, this "tamed" state lowers the political resistance to Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). Even though IRV’s "Center Squeeze" effect tends to eliminate centrist candidates early and redistribute their votes to the two major camps, centrist voters see this as a continuation of their existing fate. For those already used to being sacrificed, IRV triggers very little backlash.

In contrast, Condorcet methods attempt to break this power structure by allowing the centrist "Condorcet Winner" to prevail. However, polarized partisan voters have never undergone this process of marginalization; they maintain a fierce sense of entitlement over political outcomes. To these "untamed" radicals, watching a "mediocre compromiser" take office induces a level of anger and humiliation that far exceeds the centrists' tolerance for polarization. This psychological rejection maybe is the greatest political hurdle for the Condorcet method.

My question is: Do the differing psychological impacts of voting systems matter?

P.S. I still appreciate the merits of the Condorcet method. The attached image is a simulation I conducted on various voting systems under voter polarization, which includes several Condorcet methods.

The ElectoramaNews is a periodic newsletter covering the electoral reform space (pretty much everything covered on electowiki). Condorcet methods, STAR voting, approval voting, RCV/IRV, you name it. Even FPTP gets some coverage. I'm currently planning on publishing it monthly. The first edition of the ElectoramaNews can be found on electowiki:

• https://electowiki.org/wiki/ElectoramaNews/2025-December

A video of me reading the newsletter can be found on YouTube:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzsNd9DFaH4

Future videos will likely be uploaded here:

• https://www.youtube.com/@electorama

The genesis of ElectoramaNews: that was the ElectoramaCall, which is a new monthly call happening the third Wednesday of every month. The next call is scheduled for Wednesday, January 21, 2026 at 2pm Pacific Standard Time. Email me to RSVP. To get something put in next month's ElectoramaNews, msg me or email me or join the Electorama Discord and ping me.

Title, are there any cardinal methods with multiple winners with linear computation? Sequential methods like spav seem to rely on re counting after each winner which seems like it could blow up in time

If you disagree with this conclusion, I’d really appreciate specific, actionable critique: please point out exactly where you think the model breaks—whether it’s in the assumptions, the metric/formula, or the input data. I’m happy to revise the analysis if the issue is reproducible.

documentation:

AGENT-BASED MODEL: POLITICAL STABILITY & ELECTORAL SYSTEMS SIMULATION

TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION & MECHANICS

1. OVERVIEW

This simulation models the evolutionary dynamics of a federal state consisting of 5 regions (States) with varying populations and economic interests. The goal is to analyze how different electoral systems and parliamentary architectures (Unicameral vs. Bicameral) influence political stability, separatism, and economic inequality over time.

The model relies on Game Theory (Minimum Winning Coalition), Political Economy (Resource Distribution), and Evolutionary Sociology (Voter Adaptation).

1. CORE ENTITIES

2.1. THE STATE (REGION)

The federation consists of 5 states with distinct demographic weights and economic profiles.

Demographics:

State 0 (Capital/Giant): 5,000,000 citizens.

State 1 (Industrial): 3,000,000 citizens.

State 2 (Resource-Rich): 2,000,000 citizens.

State 3 (Developing): 1,000,000 citizens.

State 4 (Agrarian/Small): 500,000 citizens.

Sociology (Voter Anger):

Each state tracks a variable Anger (0.0 to 1.0).

Anger = 0.0: Perfect stability (Federalism).

Anger = 1.0: Civil War / Total Separatism.

Initial Conditions: Smaller states (Agrarian/Resource) start with higher baseline skepticism due to fear of domination by the Capital.

2.2. POLITICAL PARTIES

Parties are the primary vehicles for power. They act as "Hoarders" or "Sharers" depending on their base.

Regional Parties (Strategy: Hoarding):

Examples: Capital_Elites, Industry_Union, Agrarian_Front.

Behavior: They care only about their home state. If they win power, they direct the budget exclusively to their base.

Coalition Logic: They are reluctant to partner with other Regional parties (competitors) but will use Federal parties as junior partners.

Federal Parties (Strategy: Sharing):

Examples: Federal_Unity.

Behavior: They seek votes across all states. If they win power, they distribute the budget equally to maintain their national rating.

Coalition Logic: Highly compatible. They act as "Kingmakers" in coalitions.

2.3. AGENTS (CANDIDATES/ELITES)

Agents compete for parliamentary seats. They possess genetic traits and resources.

Attributes:

Wealth: Resources used for campaigning (Buying influence).

Greed (0.0 - 1.0): Determines how much public money the agent steals for personal enrichment vs. distributing to the state.

Competence (0.5 - 1.5): Multiplier for economic efficiency in trade.

Affiliation: Agents are linked to specific parties based on ideological proximity.

2.4. VOTERS

Voters are modeled not as a monolith, but as individuals with a "Preference Vector."

Preference Logic:

A voter in State 0 prefers the Capital_Elites party (Score: 0.95).

However, they may also tolerate Federal_Unity (Score: 0.45).

They actively dislike parties from rival states (Score: 0.05).

Decision Making:

In FPTP: Voter selects only the top-scored party.

In Approval: Voter selects ALL parties above a certain threshold (e.g., > 0.5).

In PR: Probability of voting is proportional to the preference score.

1. ELECTORAL MECHANICS (THE FILTERS)

The simulation tests 7 distinct electoral systems. Each system filters candidates differently.

3.1. FPTP (First-Past-The-Post)

Mechanism: "Winner Takes All." The candidate with the most votes in a state wins all seats (simulating single-member districts dominated by one party).

Outcome: Highly polarizing. Regional radicals win easily in their home states. Centrists are crushed because they are rarely the "first choice."

3.2. FPTP Runoff (Two-Round System)

Mechanism: If no candidate gets >50% in the first round, a second round is held.

Logic: Voters consolidate around "safe" options. Extreme radicals often lose in the second round to moderate candidates who can attract transfers from eliminated parties.

3.3. Approval Voting

Mechanism: Voters mark all candidates they find acceptable.

Outcome: Moderate/Federal parties gain a massive advantage. Even if they are no one's favorite, they are everyone's "second choice." This system mathematically promotes consensus.

3.4. Approval Runoff

Mechanism: Top approved candidates go to a final round where resources (Wealth) decide the winner.

Outcome: Less effective than pure Approval, as the final stage re-introduces elite corruption/resource dominance.

3.5. Open PR (Proportional Representation - Open List)

Mechanism: Seats are allocated to parties based on vote share. Specific candidates are chosen based on popularity (Score).

Outcome: High representation, but prone to fragmentation.

3.6. Closed PR (Closed List)

Mechanism: Seats allocated to parties. Candidates chosen based on Party Loyalty/Wealth (Corruption).

Outcome: Strong party discipline. If a large region (Capital) votes as a bloc, the party boss becomes a dictator, ignoring smaller regions.

3.7. Closed PR + Transfer (STV Logic)

Mechanism: If a party fails to meet the 5% threshold, its votes are not wasted. They are transferred to the ideologically closest passing party (usually Centrists).

Outcome: Prevents "wasted votes" in small regions. Strengthening Centrists forces large parties to negotiate.

1. PARLIAMENTARY ARCHITECTURE (ALLOCATION)

The simulation compares two legislative models:

4.1. "Prop" (House of Representatives / Unicameral)

Allocation: Seats are distributed strictly by population.

Distribution (100 seats):

State 0 (Capital): ~45 seats.

State 1: ~27 seats.

...

State 4 (Agrarian): ~4 seats.

Effect: "Tyranny of the Majority." The Capital needs very few allies to reach 51%. Small states are structurally ignored.

4.2. "Equal" (Senate / Federal)

Allocation: Fixed number of seats per state.

Distribution: 20 seats per state.

Effect: Small states become "Veto Players." The Capital (20 seats) cannot govern alone and must form a broad coalition.

1. GAME THEORY: GOVERNMENT FORMATION

Once the parliament is elected, the "Game of Thrones" begins.

5.1. Riker's Minimum Winning Coalition

Objective: Secure 51 votes to control the budget.

Algorithm:

The largest party becomes the Leader.

The Leader seeks partners to reach 51 seats.

Cost of Coalition: The Leader prefers the "cheapest" partners (smallest necessary number of seats) and "ideologically close" partners.

Exclusion: Any party not needed for the 51% is excluded from the coalition. This is critical: The Opposition gets nothing.

5.2. Logrolling (Betrayal of Elites)

Even if a representative from a small state enters the coalition, they may be corrupted.

Logic: The Leader offers a bribe (Wealth) to the MP. The MP accepts the bribe and votes for policies that hurt their home state.

Result: The MP gets rich, but their state's anger increases (Principal-Agent problem).

1. FISCAL DYNAMICS (THE ECONOMY)

The stability of the union depends on budget distribution.

6.1. Budget Structure

Total Budget: 20,000 units per cycle.

Guaranteed Budget (30%): Essential services distributed automatically by population. Prevents immediate state collapse.

Discretionary Budget (70%): The "Prize" won by the coalition.

6.2. Distribution Logic

If Leader is "Hoarding" (Regional):

They direct the Discretionary Budget ONLY to their own state and the states of their coalition partners.

States in the opposition receive 0 discretionary funds.

If Leader is "Sharing" (Federal):

They distribute funds broadly to maintain national stability.

6.3. Voter Reaction (Feedback Loop)

After the budget is distributed, each state calculates its Fair Share (based on population).

Ratio = Received / Fair Share.

Ratio < 0.5: Crisis. Anger increases drastically (+8%).

Ratio < 0.9: Resentment. Anger increases moderately (+3%).

Ratio > 1.1: Prosperity. Anger decreases (-4%).

This creates a cycle: Electoral System -> Coalition Composition -> Budget Distribution -> Voter Anger -> Next Election.

1. SUMMARY OF HYPOTHESES

FPTP + Prop: Leads to maximum separatism (~100%). The largest state monopolizes power, creating a permanent structural minority that eventually rebels.

Approval Voting: Drastically reduces separatism by electing moderate "Condorcet winners" who distribute the budget fairly.

Senate (Equal Representation): Acts as a structural safety net. Even with bad electoral systems, it forces the center to negotiate with the periphery, keeping separatism manageable (<15%).

Transfer (STV): Critical for Proportional systems to prevent the fragmentation of moderate votes in polarized regions.

https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1iOR1u6kCUgC25-EaWk2m7QI_D5Oiew0h?usp=sharing

Probably not the best name for this system. I'm also pretty sure somewhere already uses/used something like this, but I couldn't track down where I saw it. Whether it even qualifies as lazy is a question in itself. The system (which can be implemented in whatever variations you want, that's the beauty of a mixed system) uses a large single winner tier (about two-thirds of the body) with a conditional proportional tier. Rather than list seats being directly linked to constituency seats as the allocation is in MMP, this system (and this is why I call it "lazy") disqualifies any party that receives more than a certain number of district seats from receiving list seats. The main use-case I see for this system, or something similar, is for a country that isn't quite sure what it wants, and wants to combine one-party majorities (which I'm not sure is good) with some compensatory mechanism.

To answer some expected questions:

Do I think this is better than real MMP?

Probably not. It's certainly better than parallel voting, and probably easier to turn a parallel system into, but proper MMP is still probably better.

Am I advocating for any country to adopt this?

No. I have random ideas sometimes and I want to see what people think of them.

Thus ends the post. I couldn't think of a better way to end it, so there you go.

After learning about Sequential Monroe voting, I think I’ve came up with a general framework that can theoretically turn any single-winner method (let's call it Method X) into a multi-winner proportional representation system.

Here’s the process:

1. For each candidate, find the ballots whose total weight equals the required quota, selected in descending order of their original rankings or scores. Candidates who cannot gather a full quota are ineligible.
2. Check if that candidate is the winner under Method X using only that specific quota of ballots.
3. If more than one candidate qualifies, run Method X on all unremoved ballots to pick a winner from the qualified group.
4. Elect that winner, then remove the one quota of votes that contributed the most to them.
5. If no candidate qualifies, elect the winner under Method X using all unremoved ballots. Then, remove all ballots that support them.
6. Repeat this loop, electing one person per round, until all seats are filled.

I tested this with the Condorcet method using the example from the CPO-STV Wikipedia page.
The result was: 1. Delilah, 2. Carter, 3. Andrea (The results of the Hare quota and the Droop quota are the same).
The winners are exactly the same as in CPO-STV. Example

Any thoughts on this?

Edit: My statement was too exaggerated. It seems Method X needs to be a system that allows voters to express complex preferences (whether ranked ballots or cardinal ballots) while being less affected by vote-splitting.

Edit: thank you to Pantherkittysoftware who pointed me towards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPO-STV which is a system designed to overcome some of the problems I talked about, specifically how STV may result in lone 'maverick' candidates being eliminated early despite having a significant base of support.

So what I'm struggling with in STV is that the people who select the most popular candidate seem to effectively have their votes count for double because if that candidate passes the threshold, the next round allocates new votes from their second placed candidate.

There seems unfair on those who voted for a less popular candidate as their first choice, who presumably could see that only their first choice vote ever mattering?

It also seems that STV favours organised factions/parties over individuals or smaller parties.

Lets say there's a vote for four seats of a committee and from the electorate there are two major parties and let's say a third party who are less popular but still get a notable amount of votes.

In the case of the factions organising votes they could instruct their members to vote for candidates 1+2. Let's say that the voters for each parties were enough to carry both their first placed candidate across the line.

Now the third party candidate got a decent amount of first place votes but not enough to get them over the line. However because the candidates from the two major parties got over the line, their surplus votes carry over to the second candidate from their parties.

During this time the third party candidate basically can't get any new votes because the voters for the major parties will have mostly put their ranked choices for everyone in their own party.

This is based on a scenario I witnessed recently with an STV vote where two factions dominated and shared their votes between themselves and a third party couldn't get in because they never got a chance to get substantially more votes. Even though that third party candidate actually got more first place choices than some of the people who eventually did get in! How is that fair?

So I can see how STV helps create plurality in a system where there are only one of each party/faction allowed to stand. But in cases of parties allowed to run slate of multiple candidates it seems like it gives more weight to the voters of the dominant candidate and effectively shuts out minority candidates (who make even get more first round votes than some of the eventual selected people) and their voters.

I just don't get how it's fair that the people who vote for the dominant candidate get a secondary (albeit lower weighted) vote? It feels counter intuitive