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Why Does Australia Still Use Fixed-Order Ballots?

3 pointsby iciacover 3 years ago

2 comments

dane-pgpover 3 years ago
&gt; The Bill additionally proposes to remove the requirement to number all candidates on the ballot paper. This is a little more contentious as it introduces new electoral strategies and can impact both positively and negatively on voting outcomes.<p>I know that it may be impossible to have a voting system which is both strategy-proof and has other desirable properties, but I don&#x27;t think this limitation requires that the available strategy actually be exploitable (or even findable) in practice by actual voters.<p>Unfortunately it seems that the mentioned Australian system (despite all its other benefits over FPTP) has exploitable strategies both with and without the complete ordering requirement, which gives a malicious administration one &quot;bit&quot; of control over the algorithm.<p>Even if they can&#x27;t predict the magnitude of the effect, they could be tempted to flip that bit based on the <i>direction</i> of the expected change. From the defender&#x27;s perspective, the fact that the magnitude is not predictable should be even more cause for concern.
ggmover 3 years ago
The conversion to random-order and the effect on donkey voting would be fascinating. I wonder if somebody has monte-carlo&#x27;d it out.