Do voters like alternative voting systems?
June 2017, Robin Quirke
Introduction
Some voting experts assert that an alternative voting system, as opposed to the current plurality voting system, would more honestly reflect the will of the people in political elections. Focusing on the presidential election of 2016, PolicyInteractive conducted five sequential studies which together explored the question: would Americans be open to an alternative voting system for presidential elections?
Using electronic mock ballots, participants compared the standard U.S. voting system of plurality voting to three championed alternatives: approval voting, range voting, and instant-runoff voting (IRV). Although a majority of the study participants supported the idea of revamping the current voting system, there was a lack of strong support for the specific alternative voting systems tested in these five studies.
Keeping in mind this was a nonprobability sample, see below for key findings, charts & graphs, methodology, and full results.
Key Findings
1. Participants favor the revamping of current voting system
For the last three studies, we asked the participants to express their level of support for the statement “Revamp our normal plurality voting method so a voter may express support for a minor candidate without wasting a vote.” Support for revamping the current voting system in studies 3 through 5 were 67%, 76%, and 67%, respectively.
Click here for Revamp bar graph
2. Participants’ preferred alternative was approval voting
In three out of the four of our studies where participants were given all four mock ballots, the currently used plurality voting system was consistently the preferred voting style, with approval being the most preferred alternative system. To control for mental fatigue, Study 4 consisted of each participant comparing plurality voting with just one alternative voting system. Participants were asked “Now that you have tried these two styles of voting, how would you rate them (0 is worst; 9 is best)?” With this method, approval and IRV each surpassed plurality in voting system preference, but not by a significant amount.
Click here for Voting System Preferences results tables
For Study 5, participants who voted in the 2016 presidential election were asked “Do you wish any of these following alternative voting systems had been used in the general election?” Approval voting received the least amount of “definitely yes” responses and IRV received the most “definitely no” responses.
Click here for Wish for Alternative line graph
3. Both Republicans and Democrats found approval voting the easiest
Participants were asked “How easy was it to make your decision on who to vote for?” choosing from the answer scale: very difficult, moderately difficult, somewhat easy, or very easy. Republicans, in general, had a more difficult time than Democrats making their decisions on whom to vote for, which is not a surprise when considering they had to choose among ten candidates.
Looking at the average ease of voting in broad strokes, without considering standard error, approval voting was rated the easiest voting system by both Republicans and Democrats, IRV was rated the least easy for Republicans, and score voting was rated the least easy for Democrats.
Click here for Ease of Voting line graph
Methodology & Transparency
Surveys were collected via opt-in online survey among five non-probability samples, each consisting of Americans, 18 years of age or older: (1) sample size 204 in July 2015, (2) sample size 615 in January 2016, (3) sample size 446 in March 2016, (4) sample size 646 in August 2016, and (5) sample size 642 in November 2016 after general election.
This study was sponsored, conducted, and funded by PolicyInteractive. These samples were acquired through Mechanical Turk. Respondents were paid a token of $.25 each. The reported data is not weighted. These surveys were administered in English.
Full surveys and results found at the following hyperlinks:
Study 2
Study 3
Study 4
Study 5