Tuesday 7 July 2009

'Anytime Voting'

The core idea behind Anytime Voting is to allow voters to cast their votes whenever they like, rather than on specific election days. This also means a voter can change their vote whenever they like, which means the outcome in a district can change at any time. This drastically increases the immediate impact of voting: it's possible for voters to react to events the same day rather than being disenfranchised until the next election.

There are other practical effects as well: election specific advertising is eliminated (replaced with the need to maintain a party's image at all times), opinion polls are largely devalued (since actual electoral changes can be monitored instead), and core voters become a far more reliable base for a party (since a voter can lodge their vote once and not change it for many years, rather than having to be convinced to vote in every election).

In a first-past-the-post election, a situation can arise with Anytime Voting wherein a small group of voters that change their vote regularly can cause the result in a marginal constituency to fluctuate quickly. The simplest way to address this is to use a moving average to stabilise the result. The type (simple, weighted, exponential, etc.) and period of the moving average can be selected to achieve the desired balance between stability and responsiveness.

This isn't just pie in the sky thinking, either. Anytime Voting can be practically achieved with existing technology.

No comments:

Post a Comment