ranked-choice voting

Primer uses simulations to compare voting systems such as first-past-the-post, approval, ranked choice and others. It shows how each system behaves and can be manipulated, with links to further voting theory resources.

An animated simulation comparing single-winner voting methods such as plurality, instant runoff and STAR. Colored regions show which candidate wins as a randomized electorate shifts across a two-dimensional political space, building on Ka-Ping Yee's earlier diagrams.

The Center for Election Science explains favorite betrayal in instant-runoff voting: in some elections, ranking your favorite first can cause your least favorite to win. It contrasts this with plurality voting's spoiler problem.

A short CGP Grey explainer on the alternative vote (instant runoff voting) versus first past the post, made around the 2011 UK referendum. It shows how ranked ballots are tallied and why they avoid spoiler effects.

CGP Grey explains the Single Transferable Vote, a proportional ranked-ballot system, and why politicians have little incentive to adopt it. It is a short animated explainer of how multi-winner ranked voting works.

A six-minute explainer from Undefined Behavior on range (score) voting. It follows an earlier video on Arrow's Theorem and shows how range voting seems to satisfy the criteria Arrow's Theorem says no ranked system can.

Veritasium explains why no voting system can be perfectly fair, drawing on Arrow's theorem and the work of Eric Maskin. It looks at problems with systems like first-past-the-post and ranked-choice voting.

Tom Scott explains why electronic voting is a bad idea. Elections must be trusted by everyone and attacks on software scale in ways attacks on paper do not, so open source or blockchain fixes do not solve it.

Tom Scott explains for Computerphile why electronic voting is a bad idea, arguing that paper ballots are transparent, auditable and hard to tamper with at scale. He covers why moving voting to phones, tablets or computers undermines trust and verifiability.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on US voting machines, covering how they work, their security weaknesses, and how elections could be made more secure.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz argues in this TED talk that abundant choice makes people more paralyzed and dissatisfied rather than freer and happier.

A John Oliver Last Week Tonight segment on voting access in the US, covering how some states are making voting less equal. It is a comedic news commentary piece.

A LockPickingLawyer video showing that a padlock sold as an Amazon's Choice high-security product can be opened trivially, with no picking needed.

A Google Tech Talk by Steve Weis that introduces modern cryptography and its use in practice and at Google. It covers proofs of security and security definitions and a special topic. HN commenters treat it as a talk on verifiable electronic voting.

CGP Grey explains Mixed-Member Proportional representation, the system used in New Zealand where voters get two votes. It covers how it differs from first-past-the-post.

Sabine Hossenfelder explains the delayed choice quantum eraser and argues it does not rewrite the past, as popular accounts claim. She walks through what the experiment actually shows.

Malcolm Gladwell's TED talk on how Howard Moskowitz found that there is no single perfect spaghetti sauce. He draws a larger point about choice, preference and happiness.

The restored 4k official music video for Fatboy Slim's Weapon of Choice featuring Bootsy Collins, directed by Spike Jonze, with Christopher Walken dancing around a hotel lobby. It won multiple MTV awards and a Grammy.

Numberphile interviews cryptographer Ron Rivest about end-to-end verifiable voting. He explains how homomorphic encryption and receipts let a voter confirm their ballot was counted without being able to prove how they voted to anyone else.

CGP Grey explains first-past-the-post voting and why it pushes elections toward two dominant parties. It is the first in his series on electoral systems.

Psychologist Melanie Joy's TEDxMunchen talk introduces carnism, the invisible belief system that conditions people to eat some animals but not others, and how it shapes reactions to food choices.

LockPickingLawyer picks an Amazon's Choice 'high security' padlock in about two seconds.

PBS Space Time explains the quantum eraser experiment, in which erasing which-path information appears to reverse causality in a double-slit setup. It discusses what this means for quantum mechanics.

On Peter Attia's podcast, Tenet Healthcare CEO Saum Sutaria, formerly of McKinsey, walks through the structure and financial flows of the US healthcare system. They cover insurance, drug pricing, how the system evolved and possible reforms.

CGP Grey explains how the 2015 UK general election showed the flaws of first-past-the-post voting, with parties like UKIP winning many votes but few seats.

A Last Week Tonight segment on how century-old Supreme Court decisions left U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa without meaningful representation. It mixes comedy with a history of their legal status.

A Last Week Tonight episode segment in which John Oliver explains gerrymandering, how lawmakers reshape voting districts to shift political power. It uses humor and examples such as oddly shaped districts.

A four-minute clip of George Carlin arguing that voting is a way of keeping people in a distracted bubble, and that non-voters have as much right to complain as anyone.

An episode of the Norwegian documentary series Brainwash, in which a comedian interviews academics from different sides about gender differences and gender equality. It looks at why more equal societies can still show unequal career choices.

A short CGP Grey animation showing how the US electoral college lets a candidate win the presidency with as little as about 22 percent of the popular vote. It lays out the arithmetic of winning states by narrow margins.

In a TED talk, behavioral economist Dan Ariely uses visual illusions and his research to show that people are less rational in their decisions than they think. He covers defaults, such as organ donation rates, and how choice framing steers decisions.

A five-minute animated explainer of liquid democracy, in which voters can delegate their vote to trusted people. It starts from the origins of democracy and contrasts direct and representative models.

Bryan Cantrill's OSCON 2015 talk on moving a proprietary product to open source, drawing on Sun's history with Solaris and illumos, licensing choices and the relicensing after Oracle's acquisition.

A 1980 clip of conservative strategist Paul Weyrich telling a religious audience he does not want everybody to vote. He says elections are not won by a majority and that leverage rises as turnout falls.

Peter Norvig answers the top questions submitted by reddit users in a 27-minute interview. Topics include programming language choice, AI, and workplace design.

A short CGP Grey bonus video explaining the shortest-splitline algorithm, which draws electoral districts by repeatedly splitting a state along its shortest dividing line while balancing population. It is offered as a neutral, algorithmic fix for gerrymandering.

A demo of Deldo, an Emacs package that lets Emacs hooks trigger vibration events on computer-controllable sex toys. It is an absurd teledildonics project that is half performance art.

The first episode of Michael Sandel's Harvard course on moral reasoning, opening with the trolley problem and the choice between killing one to save five. Sandel draws out student arguments and introduces utilitarian and other approaches to justice.

James D'Angelo argues that the 1970 Legislative Reorganization Act made congressional votes public, opening the door to lobbyists and special interests. He proposes restoring secret voting as a cheap fix for corruption and many social ills.

Tantacrul dissects the UX and UI of Avid's Sibelius music notation software, going through a long list of bad design choices. The review is both a comic rant and a practical lesson in interface design.