Simulating alternate voting systems

What Hacker News said

Recommends esarbe · 2020-12 · on “Apple’s longtime supplier accused of using forced labor in China”

Let's see. Canada currently has 338 MPs and over 80% (!) of those (278) belong to one of two majority parties. So yes, in theory Canada has a multi party system. In practice this multi party system is severely damaged by the effects of the FPTP voting system. There are mathematical reasons for FPTP to result in two party systems. [0] explains it pretty well. There don't have to be deeper underlying stuctural reasons for the dichotomy. So to combat two party systems, replacing FPTP with an alternative voting system seems a pretty reasonable step. [0] [this video]

Recommends awb · 2022-10 · on “Show HN: RankedVote – SurveyMonkey but focused on ranked-choice voting”

> and then we promised to not game the system That's the key point. Unfortunately, all known voting systems can be gamed. Here's an interesting video that explains how they can be manipulated: [this video]

Cites stjo · 2020-11 · on “Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.”

If I understand how the election works, the “first past the post” voting system is just as damaging. Correct me if I’m wrong, but they are not related. Explanation from game theory pov: [this video]

Cites paretoman · 2021-06 · on “What is ranked-choice voting and why is New York using it?”

Okay, one more from Justin because it is a video: [this video] Of course, everyone already knows CGP Grey's videos, right? .. wait.. nobody's posted it yet? OK, here's his whole video set: [LINK]

Cites dijit · 2021-07 · on “Indiscriminate messaging and chatcontrol: Last chance to protest”

> the EU is not democratic in the first place EU Election system is _literally_ one of the fairest systems in existence[0] ensuring that every party get some measure of proportional representation. Compared to English First Past the Post (minority rule, and 2 party systems) or Scotlands Single-transferrable vote (which is still winner take all); but D'Hondts method means that people can be safe in the knowledge they'll be represented and it's proportional to the input. It's not "perfect" but it's _literally_ the best humans have come up with. [0]: [LINK] [0.1]: [this video] CGP Grey did some videos on these: FPTP (England): [LINK] STV (Scotland): [LINK] D'Hondt-esque (EU): [LINK]

Cites drekipus · 2022-08 · on “Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land”

This is an interesting post, But requires changes "to the system" that is a little too big for my small brain to think about. If I might diverge from a little as a thought I'm still figuring out: It ends on the thought of "for a common good" which makes me think of that utilitarian ideal, one that I don't think is going to be approached by democratic processes of popular vote and the like* So what then? if not "democracy" to get us looking after the common good, is the alternative autocracy, totalitarianism? being realised through monarch-ism or dictatorship? There's a good video [1] about how fascism was able to be so prevalent in the 20th centry when politics became less individualised and

Cites amavect · 2025-12 · on ““Captain Gains” on Capitol Hill”

Lee Drutman advocates for ranked choice voting, but implementations in the USA still degenerated to 2 parties. RCV still has a spoiler effect. [LINK] [this video] Instead, we need approval voting, or even STAR voting. [LINK] (Drutman appears to have somewhat changed his views on RCV, but I don't think his "fusion voting" idea will catch on until we have multiple parties in the first place. [LINK] )

Cites amavect · 2026-03 · on “90% of crypto's Illinois primary spending failed to achieve its objective”

>imo proof that ranked choice is absolutely needed Ranked choice still succumbs to a spoiler effect. [LINK] [this video] Approval voting works better and simpler, and STAR voting works even better though with more complexity. [LINK]