Interview
#34 - We use the worst voting system that exists. Here's how Aaron Hamlin is going to fix it.
- 80,000 Hours plans to increase episode production and publish accompanying blog posts containing transcripts, topic lists, and key points to accommodate listeners who read faster than they listen.
- The Center for Election Science intends to scale operations by hiring a Director of Operations and Programs for digital outreach and coordination, alongside a Director of Philanthropy to manage fundraising and donor relations.
- The organization expects organizational growth to significantly increase with additional funding, enabling simultaneous targeting of multiple cities and future expansion to state and federal levels after local implementation.
- Current expansion strategy involves implementing approval voting locally first to prove the concept, utilizing the ballot initiative process available in approximately half of US states, with success expected in single-winner methods but acknowledging multi-winner failures in places like California and Cincinnati.
- Approval voting is predicted to outperform first-past-the-post decisively, be more tractable than instant runoff voting due to simplicity, and face fewer impediments since voters cannot logically reject the ability to add candidates.
- Proportional voting methods are expected to correlate with higher government female representation and lower income inequality, though they introduce complexity and trust requirements that may necessitate a transition period with simpler alternatives.
- First-past-the-post and runoff systems are anticipated to continue being used widely despite being poor voting methods, often causing vote splitting that consolidates the electorate into two parties, a dynamic that approval voting mitigates by allowing multiple candidate choices.
- Approval voting is projected to more accurately reflect third-party and independent support, elect moderate candidates, and reduce the fear of vote splitting that currently discourages influential candidates from running.
- In specific scenarios, score voting is considered more appropriate than approval voting for small groups of 20 to 30 voters due to higher sensitivity reducing random error, whereas approval voting remains superior for larger implementations due to easier machine requirements.
- Plurality voting is identified as an intrinsic cause of issues like gerrymandering and false majorities in single-member districts, while proportional methods may require support thresholds, such as 5%, to prevent extreme splintering.
- Strategic implementation includes exploring interstate compacts to allocate electoral votes based on a national popular vote using approval voting and anticipating major parties may eventually adopt approval voting for primaries to avoid candidate splitting.
- The organization expects significant barriers remain, primarily the lack of prior US usage for electing government officials, status quo bias caused by the "invisible" nature of voting methods, and the difficulty political scientists face in studying reform impacts dynamically.
- Future growth relies on increased media coverage by journalists, networking at conferences like "Unrig the System" and "Politicod," and leveraging board members for networks, governance knowledge, and ambassadorship.
- Approval voting is expected to improve voter turnout by making votes feel more meaningful, though unequal vote weighting for "wiser" voters is dismissed as a political non-starter that violates the "one-person, one-vote" principle.
- While no voting method is solid on all considerations regarding winner types, anomalies, and consistency, approval voting is predicted to almost always select a Condorcet winner if one exists and limit worst-case outcomes to settling for a compromise rather than a terrible result.
- The organization anticipates that third parties and independent groups will support approval voting for increased issue clout, and that coalition dynamics in proportional systems will likely see the smallest fraction joining the largest to govern rather than the second largest.
- A primary impediment to broader adoption is the difficulty of shifting from systems where vote splitting forces a choice between two major options, whereas approval voting allows for a more accurate reflection of support and potential co-option of issues by major parties.
- The center expects that using approval voting in small group decisions like a chili cook-off can help build understanding, and that the method proves itself when behaving rationally in competitive elections involving more than two candidates.
- Despite the potential for approval voting to enable precinct summability for US Presidential elections, the organization notes that international pro-democracy groups often push single-winner methods that may be inferior, and that major parties may co-opt third-party issues once those groups gain legitimacy.
- The likelihood of passing ballot initiatives for single-winner voting methods in the US is considered "surprisingly really good," with no observed pattern of hidden impediments causing failed initiatives, and score voting carrying a specific risk of tactical "burying" of disliked candidates.
- Academic contributions to voting reform are abundant, yet few organizations besides Fair Vote actively push for specific reform, and international groups frequently promote flawed single-winner systems despite expert analysis favoring alternatives like approval voting.