Why Democracy Is Mathematically Impossible

00:23:34
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf7ws2DF-zk

Summary

TLDRThis video delves into the challenges inherent in democratic voting systems, particularly focusing on the mathematical impossibilities that arise in creating a perfect system. First past the post, a system where the candidate with the most votes wins, is critiqued for its potential to misrepresent the majority, often leading to a two-party system and resulting in leaders without majority support. The video discusses alternative voting methods such as ranked-choice voting and the Condorcet method, which attempts to capture voters' preferences more fully. However, the discussion leads to Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, demonstrating that no ranked voting system can be completely fair in every situation. Solutions like approval voting, where voters can approve of multiple candidates, are presented as better alternatives, shown to increase voter satisfaction and avoid common pitfalls like the spoiler effect. Ultimately, while democracy has systemic mathematical flaws, these insights push for adopting more effective methodologies in pursuit of fairer elections.

Takeaways

  • 📉 First-past-the-post voting can lead to non-majority winners.
  • 🔢 Arrow's Impossibility Theorem shows no perfect ranked voting exists for three+ candidates.
  • 🔀 Ranked-choice voting attempts to mitigate some voting issues by allowing preferences.
  • 🏆 Approval voting could improve systems by letting voters support multiple favorites.
  • 🤝 Ranked-choice elections can encourage positive campaigning.
  • 💡 Duverger's Law explains the drift towards two-party systems in first past the post.
  • 🔄 Condorcet's method proposes comparing candidates head-to-head.
  • 📊 Approval voting is simpler and prevents the spoiler effect.
  • 🔬 Arrow's Theorem highlights the inherent issues in trying to represent collective preference.
  • 📜 Despite flaws, engaging in democracy can drive important changes.

Timeline

  • 00:00:00 - 00:05:00

    Democracy as it currently exists might be mathematically irrational, particularly through the 'first-past-the-post' voting system, which has been shown to result in outcomes where the majority's choice isn't reflected. This system can lead to a minority party holding power and promotes a two-party system due to the spoiler effect, as seen in the 2000 US presidential election. Other systems, like preferential voting, aim to mitigate this by allowing voters to rank candidates, promoting more civil political competition, but still have inherent issues like potentially rewarding candidates for doing worse.

  • 00:05:00 - 00:10:00

    Instant runoff voting allows the ranking of candidates to simulate multiple election rounds, impacting candidate strategies by encouraging cordial behavior. However, it can still lead to paradoxical situations where a candidate performing worse initially can still win. The historical quest for fair voting systems highlights various methodologies, such as the Borda count or Condorcet’s system, which attempt head-to-head comparisons. Yet, these methods also encounter problems like Condorcet loops, identified as early as the 18th century, where no clear winner emerges despite voter preferences.

  • 00:10:00 - 00:15:00

    Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, established in 1951, mathematically showed that no ranked voting system could fulfill all criteria of a true democracy when there are three or more candidates. This theorem was revolutionary, asserting that every system would need to compromise on some democratic principles, leading to either paradoxes or the imposition of a 'dictator' voter. Despite this, practical solutions like taking the median voter's preference have emerged, often reflecting the true majority decision and minimizing paradoxes.

  • 00:15:00 - 00:23:34

    Alternatives like approval voting propose a method where voters express approval without ranking, and it avoids many pitfalls of ranked systems. Arrow eventually acknowledged these systems might be the best approach as they avoid inconsistencies and negative campaigning. Despite the theoretical impossibility, engagement and continuous improvement in voting methods are essential to address inherent flaws and retain democracy’s value, reaffirming Churchill's notion that democracy, while imperfect, is the best option available.

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Mind Map

Video Q&A

  • What is Arrow's Impossibility Theorem?

    Arrow's Impossibility Theorem states that no ranked voting system can meet all rational criteria with three or more candidates, making a perfectly fair election system impossible.

  • How does first past the post voting work?

    In a first past the post voting system, the candidate with the most votes wins. It can result in elected officials who did not get the majority of votes if there are multiple candidates.

  • What are the problems with first past the post voting?

    It can lead to misleading results where the winner doesn't represent the majority, and encourages a two-party system due to the spoiler effect.

  • What is ranked-choice voting?

    Ranked-choice voting allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Votes are redistributed from the least popular candidates until one has a majority.

  • What is the Condorcet method?

    The Condorcet method selects the candidate who would win a one-on-one election against each of the other candidates, assuming one exists without paradoxes.

  • Why is democracy considered mathematically flawed?

    Due to the impossibility of creating a completely fair ranked voting system for three or more candidates, democracy is mathematically flawed.

  • What is approval voting?

    In approval voting, voters 'approve' of as many candidates as they like, and the candidate with the highest approval rating wins.

  • What positive impact does approval voting have?

    It increases voter turnout, decreases negative campaigning, and avoids the spoiler effect by letting voters support multiple candidates.

  • What is a possible solution to improve democratic elections?

    Implementing approval voting could address some flaws in current systems by allowing voters to express their preferences more accurately.

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  • 00:00:00
    - Democracy might be mathematically impossible.
  • 00:00:02
    (serious music)
  • 00:00:04
    This isn't a value judgment, a comment about human nature,
  • 00:00:08
    nor a statement about how rare
  • 00:00:09
    and unstable democratic societies have been
  • 00:00:11
    in the history of civilization.
  • 00:00:14
    Our current attempt at democracy,
  • 00:00:16
    the methods we're using to elect our leaders,
  • 00:00:19
    are fundamentally irrational.
  • 00:00:21
    And this is a well-established mathematical fact.
  • 00:00:27
    This is a video about the math
  • 00:00:28
    that proved that fact and led to a Nobel Prize.
  • 00:00:32
    It's a video about how groups of people make decisions
  • 00:00:35
    and the pitfalls that our voting systems fall into.
  • 00:00:39
    (subdued music)
  • 00:00:41
    One of the simplest ways to hold an election
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    is to ask the voters to mark one candidate
  • 00:00:45
    as their favorite on a ballot.
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    And when the votes are counted,
  • 00:00:49
    the candidate with the most votes wins the election.
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    This is known as "first past the post" voting.
  • 00:00:56
    The name is kind of a misnomer though.
  • 00:00:58
    There is no post
  • 00:00:59
    that any of the candidates need to get past.
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    The winner is just the candidate with the most votes.
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    This method likely goes back to antiquity.
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    It has been used to elect members
  • 00:01:10
    of the House of Commons in England since the 14th century,
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    and it's still a common voting system
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    with 44 countries in the world using it
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    to elect its leaders.
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    30 of these countries were former British colonies.
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    The US, being a former British colony,
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    still uses first past the post in most of its states
  • 00:01:28
    to elect their representatives to the electoral college.
  • 00:01:32
    But first past the post has problems.
  • 00:01:36
    If you are selecting representatives in a parliament,
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    you can, and frequently do,
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    get situations where the majority of the country
  • 00:01:42
    did not vote for the party that ends up holding the power.
  • 00:01:48
    In the last a hundred years,
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    there were 21 times a single party held
  • 00:01:52
    a majority of the seats in the British Parliament,
  • 00:01:54
    but only two of those times did the majority of the voters
  • 00:01:58
    actually vote for that party.
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    So a party, which only a minority of the people voted for,
  • 00:02:04
    ends up holding all of the power in government.
  • 00:02:08
    Another thing that happens because of first past the post
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    is that similar parties end up stealing votes
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    from each other.
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    - The 2000 US presidential election,
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    which was an election essentially
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    between Al Gore and George W. Bush.
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    At that point, every state in the nation
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    used first past the post
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    to determine the outcome of the election.
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    Bush had more votes in Florida,
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    but by a ridiculously slim margin.
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    It was fewer than 600 votes.
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    But there was another candidate on the ballot, Ralph Nader.
  • 00:02:41
    Nader was a Green candidate.
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    He was certainly to the left of either Gore or Bush.
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    - And what we need is the upsurge
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    of citizen concern, people concern,
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    poor, rich, or middle class,
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    to counteract the power of the special interests.
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    - And he got almost a hundred thousand votes in Florida.
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    - I just don't know if I can, with a conscience,
  • 00:03:03
    vote for Bush or Gore.
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    - I will vote for Ralph Nader.
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    - Most of those voters were devastated
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    that by voting for Nader rather than Gore,
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    they ended up electing Bush.
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    This is what is called a spoiler effect.
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    Almost all Nader voters preferred Gore to Bush,
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    but in a first past the post system,
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    they had no way of expressing that preference
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    because you could only vote for one candidate.
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    (inquisitive music)
  • 00:03:34
    - So first past the post incentivizes voters
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    to vote strategically.
  • 00:03:39
    Say there are five parties,
  • 00:03:41
    one of them will be the smallest one, and so they won't win.
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    Why would you vote for them?
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    This is also true if you have four parties or three parties.
  • 00:03:51
    This winner-takes-all voting system leads
  • 00:03:54
    to a concentration of power in larger parties,
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    eventually, leading to a two-party system.
  • 00:04:01
    This effect is common enough
  • 00:04:03
    that it has a name: Duverger's Law.
  • 00:04:08
    So first past the post isn't a great option.
  • 00:04:11
    So what else could we do?
  • 00:04:13
    (subdued music)
  • 00:04:15
    Well, we can say that a candidate can only win an election
  • 00:04:17
    if they get a majority, at least 50% plus one of the vote.
  • 00:04:22
    But what if we hold an election and no one gets a majority?
  • 00:04:26
    We could go to the people who voted for the candidate
  • 00:04:28
    with the fewest votes and ask them to vote again,
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    but choose a different candidate
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    and we could repeat this process over and over
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    eliminating the smallest candidate
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    until one candidate reaches a majority.
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    But holding many elections is a big hassle
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    so instead we could just ask voters
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    to rank their preferences
  • 00:04:48
    from their favorite to their least favorite.
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    And if their favorite candidate gets eliminated,
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    we go to their second preferences.
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    When the polls close, you count the voters' first choices.
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    If any candidate has a majority of the votes,
  • 00:05:01
    then they're the winner.
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    But if no candidate has a majority,
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    the candidate with the fewest votes gets eliminated
  • 00:05:06
    and their ballots are distributed
  • 00:05:08
    to those voters' second preferences,
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    and this keeps happening
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    until one candidate has a majority of the votes.
  • 00:05:15
    This is mathematically identical
  • 00:05:17
    to holding repeated elections,
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    it just saves the time and hassle
  • 00:05:21
    so it's referred to as instant runoff,
  • 00:05:24
    but the system is also known
  • 00:05:25
    as preferential voting or ranked-choice voting.
  • 00:05:29
    An instant runoff doesn't just affect the voters,
  • 00:05:32
    it affects how the candidates behave towards each other.
  • 00:05:36
    - It was the Minneapolis mayor's race, 2013,
  • 00:05:39
    they were using ranked-choice voting.
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    The incumbent mayor had stepped down
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    and there were all of these people
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    came out from the woodwork wanting to be mayor.
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    There're 35 candidates.
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    And so you would think if there's 35 candidates
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    you'd want to dunk on someone,
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    you'd wanna like kind of elbow yourself into the spotlight.
  • 00:05:58
    That's not what happened.
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    These 35 candidates,
  • 00:06:00
    all of them were really nice to each other.
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    They were all super cordial, super polite,
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    to the degree that at the end of the final mayoral debate,
  • 00:06:13
    they all came together and they sang "Kumbaya" together.
  • 00:06:19
    ♪ Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya ♪
  • 00:06:24
    ♪ Oh, Lord, kumbaya ♪
  • 00:06:30
    - The amount of vitriol and anger
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    and partisan, you know, mudslinging that we're all used to,
  • 00:06:36
    to see this vision of an actual "Kumbaya."
  • 00:06:40
    It's not even a joke.
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    All of these people getting along
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    so desperate for second and third choices
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    from other people that they're like,
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    "I'm gonna be the picture-perfect,
  • 00:06:48
    kindest candidate possible."
  • 00:06:52
    - But there's also a problem with instant runoff.
  • 00:06:55
    There can be cases where a candidate doing worse
  • 00:06:58
    can actually help get them elected.
  • 00:07:02
    Let's say we have three candidates:
  • 00:07:04
    Einstein, Curie, and Bohr.
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    Now, Einstein and Bohr have very conflicting views
  • 00:07:10
    while Curie is ideologically in the center.
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    So let's say Einstein gets 25% of the vote,
  • 00:07:16
    Curie gets 30, and Bohr gets 45.
  • 00:07:19
    No one got a majority.
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    So it goes to the second round
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    with Einstein being eliminated
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    and because people who voted for Einstein
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    put down Curie as their second choice,
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    well, Curie ultimately gets elected.
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    But now imagine that Bohr has a terrible campaign speech
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    or proposes a very unpopular policy
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    so bad that some of his voters
  • 00:07:41
    actually switch over to Einstein's side.
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    Well now it's Curie that gets eliminated
  • 00:07:47
    and because she's more moderate,
  • 00:07:49
    half of her voters select Einstein
  • 00:07:51
    and the other half select Bohr in the second round,
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    and this leads to Bohr winning.
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    So Bohr doing worse in the first round
  • 00:08:00
    actually leads to him winning the election.
  • 00:08:04
    Clearly, this isn't something
  • 00:08:05
    that we want in a voting system.
  • 00:08:08
    (serious music) This is what
  • 00:08:09
    the French mathematician Condorcet also thought.
  • 00:08:12
    Condorcet was one of the first people applying logic
  • 00:08:15
    and mathematics to rigorously study voting systems
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    making him one of the founders
  • 00:08:20
    of a branch of mathematics known as social choice theory.
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    He was working during the time of the French Revolution,
  • 00:08:26
    so fairly determining the will of the people
  • 00:08:29
    was having a cultural moment right then.
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    In 1784, Condorcet's contemporary
  • 00:08:37
    at the French Royal Society of Science,
  • 00:08:39
    Jean-Charles de Borda, proposed a voting method.
  • 00:08:44
    You ask the voters to rank the candidates.
  • 00:08:47
    If there are five candidates,
  • 00:08:48
    ranking someone first gives that candidate four points,
  • 00:08:51
    ranking them second would give them three, and so on,
  • 00:08:54
    with zero points being awarded for last place.
  • 00:08:59
    But the Borda count has a problem
  • 00:09:01
    because the number of points given to each candidate
  • 00:09:03
    is dependent on the total number of candidates.
  • 00:09:06
    Adding extra people that have no chance of winning
  • 00:09:09
    can affect the winner.
  • 00:09:11
    Because of this, Condorcet hated Borda's idea.
  • 00:09:14
    He wrote that it was "bound to lead to error
  • 00:09:17
    because it relies on irrelevant factors for its judgments."
  • 00:09:21
    So in 1785, Condorcet published an essay
  • 00:09:24
    in which he proposed a new voting system,
  • 00:09:27
    one he thought was the most fair.
  • 00:09:29
    (soft music)
  • 00:09:30
    Basically the winner needs
  • 00:09:31
    to beat every other candidate in a head-to-head election.
  • 00:09:35
    But with more than two candidates,
  • 00:09:37
    do you need to hold a large number
  • 00:09:38
    of head-to-head elections to pick the winner?
  • 00:09:41
    Well, no.
  • 00:09:42
    Just ask the voters to rank their preferences
  • 00:09:44
    just like in instant runoff
  • 00:09:46
    and then count how many voters rank each candidate higher
  • 00:09:49
    than each other candidate.
  • 00:09:51
    This feels like the most fair voting method.
  • 00:09:56
    This voting system was actually discovered
  • 00:09:58
    450 years earlier by Ramon Llull,
  • 00:10:01
    a monk who was looking at how church leaders were chosen,
  • 00:10:04
    but Llull's ideas didn't make an impact
  • 00:10:06
    because his book, "Ars eleccionis," the art of elections,
  • 00:10:10
    was lost and only rediscovered in 2001.
  • 00:10:13
    So the voting system is named after Condorcet and not Llull.
  • 00:10:18
    (gentle music)
  • 00:10:19
    But will there always be a winner in this way?
  • 00:10:22
    Let's try Condorcet's method for choosing dinner
  • 00:10:25
    between you and two friends.
  • 00:10:27
    There are three options: burgers, pizza or sushi.
  • 00:10:30
    You really like burgers, so that's your first preference,
  • 00:10:33
    your second choice is pizza, and you put sushi last.
  • 00:10:37
    Your friend prefers pizza, then sushi, then burgers,
  • 00:10:40
    and your other friend prefers sushi,
  • 00:10:42
    then burgers, then pizza.
  • 00:10:44
    Now if you choose burgers, it can be argued
  • 00:10:47
    that sushi should have won instead
  • 00:10:49
    since two of you prefer sushi over burgers
  • 00:10:52
    and only one prefers burgers to sushi.
  • 00:10:55
    However, by the same argument, pizza is preferred to sushi
  • 00:10:58
    and burgers are preferred to pizza
  • 00:11:01
    by a margin of two-to-one on each occasion.
  • 00:11:03
    So it seems like you and your friends are stuck in a loop.
  • 00:11:07
    Burgers are preferred to pizza, which is preferred to sushi,
  • 00:11:10
    which is preferred to burgers and so on.
  • 00:11:14
    This situation is known as Condorcet's paradox.
  • 00:11:20
    Condorcet died before he could resolve
  • 00:11:22
    this problem with his voting system.
  • 00:11:24
    He was politically active during the French Revolution
  • 00:11:26
    writing a draft of France's constitution.
  • 00:11:30
    In 1793 during the Reign of Terror
  • 00:11:32
    when La Montagne came to power,
  • 00:11:35
    he was deemed a traitor for criticizing the regime,
  • 00:11:37
    specifically their new constitution.
  • 00:11:40
    In the next year, he was arrested and died in jail.
  • 00:11:45
    (gentle music)
  • 00:11:46
    Over the next 150 years, dozens of mathematicians
  • 00:11:49
    were proposing their own voting systems
  • 00:11:51
    or modifications to Condorcet's or Borda's ideas.
  • 00:11:56
    One of those mathematicians was Charles Dodgson,
  • 00:11:59
    better known as Lewis Carroll.
  • 00:12:01
    When he wasn't writing "Alice in Wonderland,"
  • 00:12:03
    he was trying to find a system to hold fair elections.
  • 00:12:08
    But every voting system had similar kinds of problems,
  • 00:12:11
    You'd either get Condorcet loops
  • 00:12:13
    or other candidates that had no chance of winning
  • 00:12:16
    would affect the outcome of the election.
  • 00:12:18
    (lively jazz music)
  • 00:12:20
    In 1951, Kenneth Arrow published his PhD thesis
  • 00:12:24
    and in it he outlined five very obvious
  • 00:12:27
    and reasonable conditions
  • 00:12:28
    that a rational voting system should have.
  • 00:12:31
    Condition number one:
  • 00:12:32
    if everyone in the group chooses one option over another,
  • 00:12:35
    the outcome should reflect that.
  • 00:12:37
    If every individual in the group
  • 00:12:39
    prefers to eat sushi over pizza,
  • 00:12:41
    then the group as a whole should prefer sushi over pizza.
  • 00:12:44
    This is known as unanimity.
  • 00:12:47
    Condition two: no single person's vote
  • 00:12:50
    should override the preferences of everyone else.
  • 00:12:52
    If everyone votes for pizza
  • 00:12:54
    except one person who votes for sushi,
  • 00:12:56
    the group should obviously choose pizza.
  • 00:12:59
    If a single vote is decisive, that's not a democracy,
  • 00:13:02
    that's a dictatorship.
  • 00:13:04
    Condition three: everyone should be able
  • 00:13:07
    to vote however they want
  • 00:13:08
    and the voting system must produce a conclusion for society
  • 00:13:11
    based on all the ballots, every time.
  • 00:13:14
    It can't avoid problematic ballots
  • 00:13:16
    or candidates by simply ignoring them
  • 00:13:18
    or just guessing randomly, it must reach the same answer
  • 00:13:22
    for the same set of ballots every time.
  • 00:13:25
    This is called unrestricted domain.
  • 00:13:28
    Condition four: the voting system should be transitive.
  • 00:13:31
    If a group prefers burgers over pizza
  • 00:13:33
    and pizza over sushi,
  • 00:13:35
    then they should also prefer burgers over sushi.
  • 00:13:38
    This is known as transitivity.
  • 00:13:40
    Condition five: if the preference of the group
  • 00:13:43
    is sushi over pizza,
  • 00:13:44
    the introduction of another option, like burgers,
  • 00:13:47
    should not change that preference.
  • 00:13:49
    Sure, the group might collectively rank burgers above both
  • 00:13:52
    or in the middle or at the bottom,
  • 00:13:54
    but the ranking of sushi over pizza
  • 00:13:56
    should not be affected by the new option.
  • 00:13:59
    This is called the independence of irrelevant alternatives.
  • 00:14:04
    But here's the thing, Arrow proved that satisfying all five
  • 00:14:07
    of these conditions in a ranked voting system
  • 00:14:09
    with three or more candidates is impossible.
  • 00:14:12
    This is Arrow's Impossibility Theorem,
  • 00:14:15
    and it was so groundbreaking
  • 00:14:16
    that Arrow was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1972.
  • 00:14:20
    So I wanna go through a version of his proof
  • 00:14:23
    based on a formulation by Geanakoplos.
  • 00:14:26
    So let's say there are
  • 00:14:27
    three candidates running for election:
  • 00:14:30
    Aristotle, Bohr, and Curie,
  • 00:14:33
    but we'll refer to them as A, B, and C,
  • 00:14:36
    and we have a collection of voters
  • 00:14:38
    that we'll line up in order.
  • 00:14:39
    So we have voter 1, 2, 3, and so on all the way up to N.
  • 00:14:44
    Each of these voters
  • 00:14:45
    is free to rank A, B and C however they like.
  • 00:14:48
    I'll even allow ties.
  • 00:14:50
    And the first we wanna show is that if everyone ranks
  • 00:14:53
    a particular candidate first or last,
  • 00:14:55
    then society as a whole
  • 00:14:57
    must also rank that candidate first or last.
  • 00:15:00
    Let's arbitrarily pick candidate B.
  • 00:15:03
    If say half of the voters rank B first
  • 00:15:06
    and half rank B last, then the claim is
  • 00:15:08
    our voting system must put B either first or last
  • 00:15:13
    and we'll prove it by contradiction.
  • 00:15:16
    So say this is how everyone voted.
  • 00:15:19
    If our system does not put B first or last,
  • 00:15:22
    but rather in the middle, say A is ranked above B,
  • 00:15:25
    which is above C, then we'll get a contradiction.
  • 00:15:29
    Because if each of our voters moved C above A,
  • 00:15:33
    then by unanimity, C must be ranked above A.
  • 00:15:38
    However, because we didn't change the position
  • 00:15:40
    of any A relative to B,
  • 00:15:43
    A must still be ranked above B
  • 00:15:46
    and because we didn't change the position
  • 00:15:48
    of any C relative to B, C must still be ranked below B,
  • 00:15:52
    and by transitivity,
  • 00:15:54
    if A is preferred to B and B is preferred to C,
  • 00:15:57
    then A must be ranked above C.
  • 00:16:00
    But this contradicts the result by unanimity
  • 00:16:03
    and that proves that if everyone ranks
  • 00:16:05
    a candidate first or last,
  • 00:16:07
    then society must also rank them first or last.
  • 00:16:13
    Now let's do a thought experiment
  • 00:16:14
    where every voter puts B at the bottom of their ranking,
  • 00:16:18
    we'll leave the ranking of A and C arbitrary.
  • 00:16:21
    Well then, by unanimity,
  • 00:16:23
    we know that B must be at the bottom of society's ranking
  • 00:16:27
    and we'll call this setup Profile 0.
  • 00:16:30
    Now we'll create Profile 1 which is identical to Profile 0
  • 00:16:34
    except the first voter moves B from the bottom to the top.
  • 00:16:38
    This, of course, doesn't affect the outcome,
  • 00:16:40
    but we can keep doing this
  • 00:16:42
    creating Profiles 2, 3, 4, and so on
  • 00:16:45
    with one more voter flipping B
  • 00:16:47
    from the bottom to the top each time.
  • 00:16:49
    If we keep doing this, there will eventually come a voter
  • 00:16:53
    whose change from having B at the bottom to B at the top
  • 00:16:56
    will first flip society's ranking, moving B to the top.
  • 00:17:01
    Let's call this voter the pivotal voter
  • 00:17:03
    and we'll label the Profile p.
  • 00:17:06
    Profile o is then the profile
  • 00:17:08
    right before the pivotal change happens.
  • 00:17:11
    Let's now create a Profile q, which is the same as p,
  • 00:17:15
    except the pivotal voter moves A above B.
  • 00:17:19
    By independence of irrelevant alternatives,
  • 00:17:22
    the social rank must also put A above B.
  • 00:17:26
    Since for all of our voters,
  • 00:17:28
    the relative position of A and B
  • 00:17:30
    is the same as it was in Profile o,
  • 00:17:33
    and B must be ranked above C
  • 00:17:36
    because the relative positions of B and C are the same
  • 00:17:40
    as they were in Profile p,
  • 00:17:42
    where our pivotal voter moved B to the top.
  • 00:17:45
    By transitivity A must be ranked above C
  • 00:17:49
    in the social ranking.
  • 00:17:51
    This is true regardless
  • 00:17:52
    of how any of the non-pivotal voters rearrange
  • 00:17:55
    their positions of A and C,
  • 00:17:58
    because these rearrangements don't change
  • 00:18:00
    the position of A relative to B or C relative to B.
  • 00:18:06
    This means the pivotal voter is actually a dictator
  • 00:18:09
    for determining society's preference of A over C.
  • 00:18:13
    The social rank will always agree with the pivotal voter
  • 00:18:16
    regardless of what the other voters do.
  • 00:18:19
    We can run a similar thought experiment
  • 00:18:21
    where we put C at the bottom
  • 00:18:23
    and prove that there is again, a dictator,
  • 00:18:26
    who in this case determines
  • 00:18:28
    the social preference of A over B.
  • 00:18:31
    And it turns out this voter is the same one
  • 00:18:33
    who determines the social preference for A over C.
  • 00:18:38
    The pivotal voter is therefore a complete dictator.
  • 00:18:42
    (dark music)
  • 00:18:44
    So is democracy doomed?
  • 00:18:46
    Well, Arrow's impossibility theorem seems to say so.
  • 00:18:49
    If there are three or more candidates to choose from,
  • 00:18:52
    there is no ranked-choice method
  • 00:18:54
    to rationally aggregate voter preferences.
  • 00:18:56
    You always need to give something up.
  • 00:19:02
    (hopeful music)
  • 00:19:03
    But the mathematician, Duncan Black,
  • 00:19:05
    found a much more optimistic theorem
  • 00:19:07
    which might actually represent reality better.
  • 00:19:11
    If voters and candidates are naturally spread
  • 00:19:13
    along a single dimension,
  • 00:19:14
    say ranging from liberal on the left
  • 00:19:16
    to conservative on the right,
  • 00:19:18
    but this could apply to any other political dimension.
  • 00:19:21
    Well, then Black showed that the preference
  • 00:19:24
    of the median voter will reflect the majority decision.
  • 00:19:28
    The median voter's choice
  • 00:19:30
    will often determine the outcome of the election,
  • 00:19:32
    a result that aligns with the majority of voters,
  • 00:19:35
    avoiding the paradoxes
  • 00:19:36
    and inconsistencies highlighted by Arrow.
  • 00:19:40
    And there's more good news.
  • 00:19:42
    Arrow's Impossibility Theorem only applies
  • 00:19:44
    to ordinal voting systems,
  • 00:19:45
    ones in which the voters rank candidates over others.
  • 00:19:49
    There is another way: rated voting systems.
  • 00:19:53
    The simplest version is known as approval voting
  • 00:19:56
    where instead of ranking the candidates,
  • 00:19:58
    the voters just tick the candidates they approve of.
  • 00:20:01
    There are also versions where you could indicate
  • 00:20:03
    how strongly you like each candidate,
  • 00:20:05
    say from -10, strongly disapprove of,
  • 00:20:08
    to +10, strongly approve.
  • 00:20:11
    Research has found
  • 00:20:12
    that approval voting increases voter turnout,
  • 00:20:15
    decreases negative campaigning
  • 00:20:17
    and prevents the spoiler effect.
  • 00:20:19
    Voters could express their approval for a candidate
  • 00:20:21
    without worrying about the size
  • 00:20:23
    of the party they're voting for.
  • 00:20:25
    It's also simple to tally,
  • 00:20:27
    just count up what percentage of the voters
  • 00:20:29
    approve of each candidate
  • 00:20:30
    and the one with the highest approval wins.
  • 00:20:33
    Kenneth Arrow was initially skeptical
  • 00:20:35
    of rated-voting systems,
  • 00:20:37
    but toward the end of his life,
  • 00:20:38
    he agreed that they were likely the best method.
  • 00:20:41
    Approval voting is not new.
  • 00:20:43
    It was used by priests in the Vatican
  • 00:20:45
    to elect the Pope between 1294 and 1621.
  • 00:20:49
    It's also used to elect
  • 00:20:51
    the Secretary General of the United Nations,
  • 00:20:53
    but it hasn't been widely used in large-scale elections.
  • 00:20:57
    And so more real-world testing is likely required.
  • 00:21:01
    (mellow music)
  • 00:21:02
    So is democracy mathematically impossible?
  • 00:21:04
    Well, yes, if we use ranked choice methods of voting,
  • 00:21:07
    which is what most countries in the world use
  • 00:21:10
    to elect their leaders.
  • 00:21:11
    And some methods are clearly better
  • 00:21:13
    at aggregating the people's preferences than others,
  • 00:21:15
    the use of first past the post voting
  • 00:21:18
    feels quite frankly ridiculous to me,
  • 00:21:20
    given all of its flaws.
  • 00:21:21
    But just because things aren't perfect
  • 00:21:23
    doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
  • 00:21:25
    Being interested in the world around us,
  • 00:21:27
    caring about issues,
  • 00:21:28
    and being politically engaged is important.
  • 00:21:31
    It might be one of the few ways
  • 00:21:33
    we can make a real difference in the world.
  • 00:21:35
    Like Winston Churchill said,
  • 00:21:36
    "Democracy is the worst form of government
  • 00:21:40
    except for all the other forms that have been tried."
  • 00:21:43
    Democracy is not perfect, but it's the best thing we've got.
  • 00:21:47
    The game might be crooked, but it's the only game in town.
  • 00:21:50
    (static buzzes and whines)
  • 00:21:55
    The world is changing.
  • 00:21:57
    How it works today is no guarantee
  • 00:21:59
    of how it'll work tomorrow
  • 00:22:00
    from how we elect presidents to how we do our jobs.
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    Luckily, there's an easy way to be ready
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    Now, thinking about elections for this video
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Tags
  • democracy
  • voting systems
  • Arrow's Impossibility Theorem
  • First past the post
  • ranked-choice voting
  • Condorcet method
  • approval voting
  • Duverger's Law
  • Nobel Prize
  • political science