How are you liking the system for this year’s POTY elections?

As PB regulars will recall we generally hold our Poster of the Year elections using first past the post. Twelve months ago, after the formal voting had taken place, Rod Crosby staged an experimental ballot using the AV system – which was to be the subject of the referendum a few months later.

This year, as an experiment, we are using a system that has not been seen much in the UK and is known as Approval Voting. This is how the US-based Center for Election Science describes it:-

Approval Voting is a single-winner voting system that has voters select as many candidates as they wish.

The candidate with the highest number of votes wins. Approval Voting is particularly useful when voters must select between more than two choices.

Approval Voting highlights:

• More expressive
• No vote splitting or spoilers
• Always vote your honest favorite
• Significantly less spoiled ballots
• Results are easy to understand, just like Plurality
• Ballots are familiar to voters and look essentially the same as Plurality
• Is good at choosing the beat-all winner
• Alternate candidates get a more accurate measure of support

So far we’ve had one completed ballot – for the “Newcomer of the Year” which has itself led to a debate in the US over approval voting.

Until 6pm today we’ll be voting on the overseas based POTY. Then later in the week we have the election for the main contest.

From the experience so far I like it particularly because all candidates get a more accurate measure of support.

If you haven’t voted yet in the current election you have until 6p GMT.

Mike Smithson @MikeSmithsonOGH