Electoral systems

It has been suggested that this article be merged with Electoral system, Voting system and election method. (Discuss)

This category is for articles about voting methods. Articles about specific voting methods should be moved into sub-categories that describe their properties.

Voting methods can generally be categorized into rated and ranked methods. Rated methods look for a candidate who is most "satisfying" to voters (based on their ratings of the candidates), i.e. Score voting. Most ranked methods try to extend majority rule to situations where there are more than two candidates. IRV/RCV and Condorcet methods are the most notable of these.

In addition, there are some distinctions between deterministic and non-deterministic voting methods (deterministic means the voting method always gives the same results when the same ballots are inputted; non-deterministic usually means there's some kind of randomness to the voting method. Most likely you're looking for deterministic methods), and delegated and non-delegated methods (delegated methods allow/force voters to give up their voting power to someone else who decides who wins. You're probably looking for non-delegated methods).

It's also worth looking at what type of ballot the voting method uses i.e. if it uses an Approval ballot (voters can either support or oppose each candidate, like rating them thumbs up or down), a ranked ballot (voter ranks candidates 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.), etc.

Criteria in evaluating voting systems

Various criteria are used in evaluating voting systems. However, it is impossible for one voting system to pass all criteria in common use. For example, Arrow's impossibility theorem demonstrates that many desirable criteria are mutually inconsistent.

See also

• Voting theory

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