The Fairest Vote of all.

• Autores: Partha Dasgupta, Eric Maskin
• Localización: Scientific American, ISSN 0036-8733, Vol. 290, Nº. 3, 2004, págs. 92-97
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This article discusses voting systems. Most American and French citizens--indeed, those of democracies the world over--spend little time contemplating their voting systems. In the U.S., many voters asked why the most popular candidate lost the election of 2000. But based on research by ourselves and colleagues, we can address a more fundamental issue: What kinds of systems, be they for electing national leaders or student council presidents, go furthest toward truly representing the wishes of the voters? In most national presidential electoral systems, a voter chooses only his or her favorite candidate rather than ranking them all. If just two candidates compete, this limitation makes no difference. But with three or more candidates, it can matter a great deal. Such ambiguity can be resolved by having voters submit complete rankings. If four candidates are running, each voter assigns four points to his or her favorite, three to the next favorite, two to the next, and one to the least favorite. The winner is the candidate with the biggest total.