Editing 1844: Voting Systems

{{comic
| number    = 1844
| date      = May 31, 2017
| title     = Voting Systems
| image     = voting_systems.png
| titletext = Kenneth Arrow hated me because the ordering of my preferences changes based on which voting systems have what level of support. But it tells me a lot about the people I'm going to be voting with!
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Here we have basically two explanations which have to be merged.}}

This comic references three types of voting systems:

1) '''{{w|Approval voting}}''': Approval voting is a single-winner electoral system. Each voter may "approve" of (i.e., select) any number of candidates. The winner is the most-approved candidate.

2) '''{{w|Instant-runoff voting}}''': In Instant-Runoff Voting (also known as Ranked Choice or Preferential Voting) voters in elections can rank the candidates in order of preference. Ballots are initially counted for each elector's top choice. If a candidate secures more than half of these votes, that candidate wins. Otherwise, the candidate in last place is eliminated and removed from consideration. The top remaining choices on all the ballots are then counted again. This process repeats until one candidate is the top remaining choice of a majority of the voters or all but one candidate have been eliminated.

3) '''{{w|Condorcet method}}''': A '''Condorcet method''' is any single-winner electoral system that elects the candidate that would win a majority of the vote in all of the head-to-head elections against each of the other candidates, whenever there is such a candidate. A candidate with this property is called the Condorcet winner. Due to the {{w|Condorcet paradox}}, there may not be a Condorcet winner in an election with 3 or more candidates.

'''{{w|Arrow's impossibility theorem}}''' gives a list of criteria for ranked voting electoral systems and states that no system can satisfy all of them at once, despite that for each of them it may seem "obvious" that an electoral system ought to satisfy it.

The primary joke in the comic is the premise that people who are pedantic or knowledgeable enough to find Arrow's theorem to be relevant will self-fulfill the theorem by being inclined to disagree on any effort to change the voting system. They agree that the currently-used method of first past the post (FPTP, aka plurality voting) is clearly the wrong way to implement democracy, but they strongly disagree on what should replace it. This is illustrated by Cueball's voting system preference that is contingent on essentially disagreeing with the preferences of other people, which defeats any effort to produce a community-wide ranking.

A secondary joke in the comic is that often voters don't pick their favorite choice in a vote, because voting strategically for a less favorable choice may prevent their least favorite choice from being selected. This is the kind of situation these voting systems are designed to eliminate, as a traditional FPTP voting system creates situations where people do not vote for their first-choice candidate.

A third joke is the recursive self-referencing inherent in having to vote for a voting system creates.

The title text stipulates that Cueball has no fixed ranking of preference for human candidates, but makes this choice dependent on which voting system is favoured by the group. This exceeds strategic voting considerations as the ranking should have full information, whom Cueball prefers in each situation. Therefore Arrow's impossibility theorem and the analysis behind it assume the ranked preferences of an individual voter as a fixed given. To make them dependent on the voting system makes assessing the efficacy of the voting systems absurd or at least much more complicated to do as a general assessment. That is given as the reason, why Arrow would wholeheartedly hate him.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat and Ponytail are standing on either side of Cueball who is talking while lifting one hand.] 
:Cueball: I prefer approval voting, but if we're seriously considering instant runoff, then I'll argue for a Condorcet method instead.

:[Caption beneath the panel:] 
:Strong Arrow's theorem: The people who find Arrow's theorem significant will never agree on anything anyway.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Politics]]