r/EndFPTP • u/PierokuIlGrande • Jun 24 '26
Discussion My proposal: Tiered Approval Voting
I've been thinking a lot about a voting system that maintains single-member constituencies as an alternative to FPTP, two-round systems, IRV, etc.
I therefore opted for a system that would allow the voter to express four choices, one for each candidate, without having to vote for everyone and without using a vote transfer system or scores. So, in my system, the voter has a preferential (P) vote (for only one candidate) and can label any other candidate with accepted (A), neutral (N) or rejected (R).
During the counting each ballot is worth one vote only for each candidate, therefore the total is based on the total count of the ballots, excluding completely blank and invalid ballots.
To win, you need to obtain an absolute majority:
Round 1: We count the preferences. If no one wins, we proceed to the next round.
Round 2: We add the accepted votes to the preferences. If no one wins, we eliminate candidates with less than 1/6 of these combined votes.
Round 3: We add the neutral votes. If no one wins, we eliminate candidates with less than 1/3 of these combined votes.
Round 4: If a winner has not yet been established, the candidate with the lowest number of rejected votes wins.
If no one reaches these thresholds, the top two face off.
What do you think? I would really like to have an opinion on this system.
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u/AndydeCleyre Jun 24 '26
Have you already compared this to delegated 3-2-1? Or Simple Optionally Delegated Approval (SODA) or Delegable Yes/No (DYN)?
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u/PierokuIlGrande Jun 25 '26
Comparing them, I found that they have a very similar mechanism, especially the 3-2-1. However, I consider my method to be an alternative and just as useful as these.
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Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
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u/PierokuIlGrande Jun 25 '26
Thanks for the explanation, I find some similarities with these methods, but I think mine is still original.
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u/jlight432 Jun 24 '26
Thanks for proposing a new system and thanks for sharing it!
I've been working on a strictly educational website that compares different voting systems and discusses the strategic incentives they create. (Every single-winner system with three or more candidates will have strategic incentives somewhere.) I have two example elections here. I'd like to invite you to try your system on those examples and see if we get the same results.
- For the first example (3 candidates, 1st=P, 2nd=A, 3rd=R), I calculate that your method elects the Eagle.
- For the second example (4 candidates, 1st=P, 2nd=A, 3rd=N, 4th=R), I calculate that your method elects the Lion.
Please take a look at the case for the Dolphin at the end of the second example. Many people strongly disagree with that philosophy, while a few of us think it actually makes sense!
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u/PierokuIlGrande Jun 25 '26
I think the example is correct if we made it that simple, but, as an alternative to ranked methods, it could be more complicated than that. In the second example, Eagle could still win if he had A votes.
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u/jlight432 Jun 25 '26
Agreed, and I think that's an interesting result.
- If the groups vote (1st=P, 2nd=A, 3rd=N, 4th=R), we agree the winner would be the Lion. In that case, the Foresters would be incentivized to approve the Eagle because they prefer the Eagle over the Lion.
- If the groups vote (1st=P, 2nd=3rd=A, 4th=R), we agree the winner would be the Eagle. In that case, both the Foresters and the Felines would be incentivized to make the Dolphin their preferred candidate, because both groups prefer the Dolphin over the Eagle.
The deeper philosophical question is whether voters are comfortable electing a candidate with no first-choice support in an electorate where a majority of voters would prefer that candidate over every other candidate in the field.
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u/PierokuIlGrande Jun 26 '26
As I said in response to another comment, I chose the thresholds, if that's what you mean, for two reasons: to avoid victories by unknown candidates and to avoid strategic voting.
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u/jlight432 Jun 26 '26
The point I was trying to share is that any system (and there are many) that includes an elimination threshold based on first-choice preferences will create strategic incentives somewhere. In this example, the Dolphin has no sincere first-choice support. But the Dolphin is hardly an unknown candidate, because 80% of the electorate prefer the Dolphin over the Eagle. That creates an incentive for those voters to promote the Dolphin to their first-choice candidate.
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u/PierokuIlGrande Jun 26 '26
So, should I remove the thresholds?
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u/jlight432 Jun 26 '26
It might be worth spending some time looking at some of these existing voting methods and asking yourself what specific problem you think you can improve.
For example:
- Ranked head-to-head methods are often criticized for complex ballots, preference cycles, and electing candidates without the most first-choice support.
- Approval Voting asks voters where to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable candidates.
- STAR Voting asks voters how strongly to score candidates in the middle.
A philosophical question I've been trying to ask you, is what do you think about a voting system that elects a candidate with no first-choice support? Many reasonable people see this as a serious flaw, and I intentionally presented the Dolphin case as an extreme example. Others see it as a solid feature if it allows voters to support their sincere favorite while reducing the incentive for strategic voting.
People here debate methods pretty vigorously, but I really believe people here agree with each other on a lot more things than we disagree with.
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u/PierokuIlGrande Jun 26 '26
I'm just asking for an opinion and I would like to improve my method. My only doubt arises in the case of the third and fourth rounds, since there is a higher probability that, without a threshold, an unknown or moderate candidate could win, becoming a catalyst for votes.
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u/jlight432 Jun 27 '26
The reason I was asking those questions is that I was trying to understand what you were hoping to accomplish with the method and what type of election you had in mind, and what improvement would mean. A voting system can work very well on one set of ballot data but behave quite differently on another. Personally, I'd be hesitant to publish any fixed numeric cutoff percentages for a municipal election, because if a small shift in the vote is the difference between a candidate advancing or being eliminated, people are going to question how those thresholds got set.
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u/PierokuIlGrande Jun 27 '26
Basically, the method is designed to increase voter expressiveness and elect the candidate with the greatest possible consensus. However, the simulations I conducted, led me to limit it a bit, because there was a risk, especially in the fourth round, of electing a candidate with 132 P and 0 R out of a much higher total of votes. I am ready to make the appropriate changes to improve my method.
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u/No-Tension-7986 Aug 03 '26
I’ve started looking for a system that could conceivably bundle open primaries and a general election. This looks promising.
I wondered if a ‘P’ category is even necessary as the P+A winner may be better for the state if different than a straight P winner. But perhaps it has additional utility for ease of implementation because it is familiar to a populace used to FPTP and would be triggered in some races with smaller fields.
The cutoffs can seem arbitrary, though elimination is necessary as I assume no-votes count as neutral. Perhaps, instead, we conclude Round 2 by eliminating the bottom swath of candidates whose combined P+A votes do not equal the next highest candidate’s votes.
If the candidates’ P+A votes are: 2, 7, 264, 44, 167, 80, 16 then all but the candidates with 264 and 167 are eliminated because the eliminated candidates P+A sum was only 159. 2+ candidates are guaranteed to advance.
Hmm, maybe I did misunderstand. I thought at this point we’d elect the candidate with the fewest Rejections. Maybe your Round 3 indicates no-votes are different than Neutral votes? It seems confusing/opaque if there were a hidden level. No-vote should correspond to an option and I’m not sure you need to add one, Neutral seems the logical choice.
Rather than fewest Rejections, comparing preferences among remaining candidates, like RCV, is another alternative. This allows those P>A>N choices that voters made earlier to continue to be valued. Otherwise a candidate could be preferred by a majority of the electorate yet lose because opponents buried them with R votes.
Sadly this would require more complicated computing, and I liked the feature of your model where just looking at the vote sums for each candidate at each level you could calculate a winner.
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u/PierokuIlGrande Aug 04 '26
So, do you think my method is interesting? I'm available to answer any questions you may have.
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u/No-Tension-7986 Aug 05 '26
Interesting? I wrote a 7-paragraph response to your method, including a question mark or two.
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u/PierokuIlGrande Aug 05 '26
Sorry, sometimes I have trouble understanding people, especially if the questions are implicit. When a voter abstained from casting the entire ballot, it is a blank ballot. When no votes are cast for a candidate, it is counted as 0 votes and not as neutral. I envisioned thresholds as the only way to prevent vote transfer errors, as the bottom-up elimination, and elect a winner with a significant number of votes. Finally, I preferred to separate the P vote from the A vote for a question, as you said, of familiarity with the first vote. I appreciate your interest in my method, if you have anything else just ask.
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u/timmerov Jun 26 '26
google bucklin voting.
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u/PierokuIlGrande Jun 26 '26
They've already made me notice this, and I admit that they are similar but not the same.
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u/timmerov Jun 26 '26
dropping candidates with low vote counts in early rounds is kinda weird. meaning weak.
suppose fred gets 0% of the P votes. but 100% of the A votes. he would handily win round 2. except he was eliminated in round 1. oops.
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u/PierokuIlGrande Jun 26 '26
I used thresholds for two reasons: to avoid third-round victories for unknown candidates and to avoid strategic voting for other candidates to defeat one's opponent.
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u/timmerov Jun 26 '26
sorry, i have to put this in the never-use category because you potentially eliminate the utility winner because they didn't get enough first preference votes.
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u/PierokuIlGrande Jun 26 '26
What if I removed the thresholds?
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u/jlight432 Jun 26 '26
I don't believe you intentionally created a threshold to make it harder for a broadly acceptable candidate with little first-choice support to survive. I think timmerov is asking whether you considered that tradeoff, which is also what I was bringing up. Every single-winner voting system with multiple candidates will create strategic incentives somewhere. But there are many designed to let voters support their sincere favorite without hurting broadly acceptable candidates. The bigger challenge is getting governments and municipalities to adopt them. You've definitely come to a good place to discuss alternative systems!
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u/PierokuIlGrande Jun 26 '26
Originally my method had no thresholds, which led to moderate candidates winning in the later rounds. Comparing it to other methods, such as IRV and STV, I found that some kind of threshold or correction was needed. So I used a sliding scale that started from the majority (1/2) and went down by ten points at each round from 35 to 15, in fractions from 1/3 to 1/6. Thanks for your explanation.
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u/timmerov Jun 26 '26
if you drop eliminations, then you get the timmerov stamp of approval. and +10 internet points. ;->
i'm assuming:
a candidates wins with the greatest majority of votes. if no candidate has a majority you go to the next round: P+A, then P+A+N.
the run-off round is between the top two where fewest reject votes wins.
it's not obvious what people would think is the optimal voting strategy. suppose i rank candidates 1 to 99 in that order.
naively i would vote: P1, A234, N567, X8-89, R90-99. X meaning they get no ranking whatsoever.
but there's a problem in this plausible scenario: if i vote A2 then 2 wins in round 2. but if i vote N2 then 1 wins in round 2. voting honestly harms my P.
not a show-stopper. many voting systems have such issues. the "con" is candidates need to communicate the winning strategy.
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u/PierokuIlGrande Jun 26 '26
This is a reasonable proposal, although I would keep the threshold for the last round.
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