Thought maybe some people would be interested in reading this: https://electionscience.github.io/vse-sim/
It talks about and compares different voting methods.
this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
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This is a really well thought out experiment and, without digging into the actual code, seems to attempt to really answer the question asked in the OP. Arguments to be made against it revolve mostly around how much to care about certain features and whether or not someone's favored feature is included in the analysis. But this seems to do a great job of answering the, "better", question, given that someone can precisely define what they mean by better.
Reading it now, but that seems to be a very cool breakdown (though I had to go for the simplified version due to time). It had a few systems I haven't looked into yet.
Looks like STAR is pretty damn solid in every regard!
That's a nice analysis. I also want to share Ka-Ping Yee's 2D simulation visualization from 2005 that really highlights the theoretical problems with plurality (aka first-past-the-post, FPTP) and instant runoff (aka IRV, "ranked ballot"). Also see Brian Olson's and Warren Smith's additional simulations.
I'd like to get into an even broader discussion. I've noticed discussions about voting systems tend to assume a single winner, because most of our political systems are set up to require a single winner. Most commonly, this is the people in an area choosing a single representative. But if we're flexible with our political systems, we can expand the possibility space in all sorts of interesting ways.
A simple example: the city of Guelph elects two councillors per ward, with each voter choosing two of the candidates and the winners being the top two (see 2022 election results for details). This is almost like a blend of plurality (aka first-past-the-post) and approval voting systems. Anecdotally, I feel that this creates a better political climate in Guelph, because candidates can't be at each others' throats when they will end up sharing voters and eventually sharing power.
Some other examples:
- BC-STV would have created multi-member ridings with an instant-runoff-style voting system (proposed but rejected for BC provincial elections).
- MMP (Mixed-Member Proportional) creates two categories of representative to create proportionality by party (used in a number of countries, was proposed but rejected for Ontario provincial elections).
- Or completely rewrite the concept of representatives and do direct representation and have an unlimited number of representatives independent of ridings with varying voting power in the house (and then we can argue about voting systems for legislatures).
This is an awesome discussion, but let's define a term before we really dig in.
When you say, "works better", I'm reading that to mean something like, "most accurately represents the coherent, extrapolated volition of its population".
Does that match your meaning?
Well, somewhat. I left it open to interpretation on purpose so the reader could define that in their response.
If I were to personally state my interpretation, I'd mean something like a system least open to abuses (gerrymandering, cronyism, bribery, etc.), being open and honest, while also being representative of the people using it.