It’s No Surprise the Iowa Caucus was a Trainwreck

Which has a better voting system, the Democratic party nomination or Dancing With The Stars?

“Probably the latter, 😛”

Really there is no probably about it. Obviously DWTS does. And I don’t even need to check how they choose their winners. I imagine almost any public voting show has a better system than the Democrats, the Republicans or the country as a whole.

DWTS has:

• Low stakes. There isn’t a lot of reason to try and bend the system to get your person to win.
• Little tradition. Imagine being outraged that DWTS had changed their voting system”.
• Clear authority. DWTS gets to choose how the system works. People can turn off, sure, but noone things the viewers should take over.

Now, let’s compare this to the Iowa Caucus. It has:

• Very high stakes. It’s possible to see who does better under every system. People are going to decide not only on the system, but on who it seems likely to benefit.
• Lots of tradition. Iowans are proud of their system. Humans are more concerned with what they lose than what they gain. It’s called loss aversion. Any change will need lots of momentum.
• No clear authority. Does the Democratic National Committee choose? Do the democrats choose? What about the candidates? If any of these groups are unhappy they can derail proposed changes.

In short, for DWTS the system is unimportant. The main thing is the dancing, so its easy to tinker and take ideas from elsewhere. In democratic votes, the system is front and center, it chooses who wins. Any change is going to be as impactful as a huge amount of campaigning or money. Whoever stands to lose will resist the change.

So what can we do:

1. Take the outside view. Rather than thinking about what we want, consider what everyone would want. Everyone wants to be fairly represented. Everyone wants to be able to vote simply and securely. Why should you care about everyone? Well there will be a time when the current systems swings against you. If you think the British or American electoral system is dumb, probably the party you support has recently had the power to try and change it.
2. Support change. I find the work of the Centre for Election Science very compelling, with their support of Approval Voting. The current system isn’t from malice or incompetence, it’s from a lack of people supporting an alternative.

In conclusion, it’s no surprise that many important voting systems suck, but that isn’t an excuse for not working to change them.