voting systems explained [WIP]

Let's say there's two candidates & on a couple of political axes, and that a voter simply votes for whoever's political position is closest.

drag the candidates & voter around,
and see how that changes their vote:

Of course, there's more than just one voter in an election. Let's simulate what it would look like with several voters.

drag the candidates & voters around,
and see how that changes the election:

In this next simulation, the average voter is closer to , so wins. A third candidate sees this, and decides to take a political position close to .

Now, you'd think giving the voters more of what they want should result in a better choice, or at least, not result in a worse choice, right? Well...

at first, beats .
drag to just under ,
and see what happens:

That's right. , originally the loser, now wins! When you have two preferable candidates, they "steal" votes from each other, letting the less preferred candidate win.

This is called the spoiler effect, and it's one of many glitches in our current voting system. Later on, we'll explore other possible voting systems we could use – voting systems that better reflect what people want, that let voters be more honest and expressive, and maybe, just might give us a healthier democracy!

BUT THIS IS JUST A PROTOTYPE FOR NOW, SO I GUESS YOU'LL HAVE TO WAIT, HA HA

(what do you think? what was interesting, or confusing? please let me know in the Patreon comments, or emailing me at N [at] NCASE [dot] ME. early feedback is very important. thank you!)