What exactly is this?
This is an educational toy to explore just how different the outcome of an election can be depending on which of the many seemingly "fair" choices of voting method you decide to use.
Show more...Statistics
Winners (less ties) count4
Losers count1
Biggest winner
Plurality methods
Explanation
First Past the Post, aka Plurality, is one of the most common voting methods. Every voter votes for a single candidate and the candidate with the most votes wins.
Contingency methods
Explanation
The Contingent vote is kinda like an automatic version of the primary/general system seen in many parts of the US. With the major assumption that voter preferences wouldn't change between the primary and general vote. In Contingent votes, voters rank their preferences. If no candidate gets a majority in the first round, all except for the top 2 (more if there are ties) candidates get eliminated. Every voter that voted for an eliminated candidate will have their vote moved to whichever of the two candidates they prefer over the other.
Runoff methods
Explanation
IRV is the most well-known for of ranked-choice voting. Every round, if no candidate has gotten a majority of the remaining votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Those who voted for that candidate will have their vote move to their next highest pick.
Condorcet methods
Explanation
To find a "Condorcet winner", you take every candidate and compare them against each other. Count up how many times candidate A is preferred over candidate B. A Condorcet winner is one that wins every such matchup against all the other candidates. A "Condorcet method" is a method that will always elect a Condorcet winner if one exists (it's quite common for none to exist). Copeland is one of the simplest to understand Condorcet methods. For a given candidate, it gets 1 point for every other candidate that it beats and half a point for every candidate it ties with. The candidate with the highest of such score wins.
Positional methods
Explanation
Say there's 5 candidates. Your first choice gets 4 points, your second choice gets 3, your third gets 2, fourth gets 1, and last choice gets none. This is the Borda count method!
Evaluative methods
Explanation
Just mark every option you'd be cool with winning. The candidate with the most marks wins.
Budgetary methods
Explanation
Each voter gets N (in this case N=10) points to distribute to the candidates however they like. If they only love one candidate, they can give all 10 to that one. If they're split between a few options they could give a little bit to each!