2012 Occupy Wall Street polls: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 05:08, 21 September 2018

On Election Day, November 6, 2012, the Politics and Electoral Reform Working Group of Occupy Wall Street conducted an experimental survey in New York City to investigate how voters behave under four different voting methods: Plurality voting, Approval voting, Score voting (0-5), and Instant-Runoff Voting (with top-3 ballots).^[1]

Preliminary pilot study

They first polled about 320 people at Occupy protest sites and events around Manhattan, to test the software and people's reactions.^[1]

No adjustment was made to correct for the unrepresentativeness of the Occupy voters; it was just to compare voting behavior under different systems.^[2]

The votes were tallied by hand, and it was much easier to tally the Approval and Score votes than the Instant-Runoff votes (which took 13 rounds).^[2]

Exit poll

They polled over 300 voters using custom software on ipads in Manhattan's left-leaning 69th Assembly District.

No adjustment was made to correct for the unrepresentativeness of the district, though polling only took place in a single district, so that the poll's plurality results could be compared with the results of the actual election in that district (and they were well-correlated).^[1]

Candidates: Obama; Romney; Jill Stein (Green Party); Peta Lindsay (Socialism and Liberation Party); Gary Johnson (Libertarian); Virgil Goode (Constitution Party)^[1]