Last year, the Center for Election Science wrote up a quick blog post on the Oscars to motivate a discussion of voting reform. Since 2009, the Oscars have used Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) to decide the winner of the prestigious Best Picture award, but there is growing backlash against this voting system because of a number of strange properties it possesses. For example, the winner of an IRV election may not be the most favored candidate among the voters; for another strange example, it can sometimes be to your advantage to rank your preferred candidate last instead of first. Here’s a video explaining some of these weird features:
Instead of using IRV, a strong argument could be made for using Score voting (also known as Range voting). I’ve discussed these voting systems before (see here for a discussion of the 2010 Oakland mayoral race, for example), so I will spare . . . → Read More: And the Award for Best Voting System Goes to…
