Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About It) [Hardcover]

William Poundstone (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0809048930 | ISBN-13: 978-0809048939 | Publication Date: February 5, 2008 | Edition: 1st

Our Electoral System is Fundamentally Flawed, But There's a Simple and Fair Solution
 
At least five U.S. presidential elections have been won by the second most popular candidate. The reason was a "spoiler"--a minor candidate who takes enough votes away from the most popular candidate to tip the election to someone else. The spoiler effect is more than a glitch. It is a consequence of one of the most surprising intellectual discoveries of the twentieth century: the "impossibility theorem" of Nobel laureate economist Kenneth Arrow. The impossibility theorem asserts that voting is fundamentally unfair--a finding that has not been lost on today's political consultants. Armed with polls, focus groups, and smear campaigns, political strategists are exploiting the mathematical faults of the simple majority vote. In recent election cycles, this has led to such unlikely tactics as Republicans funding ballot drives for Green spoilers and Democrats paying for right-wing candidates' radio ads. Gaming the Vote shows that there is a solution to the spoiler problem that will satisfy both right and left. A system
called range voting, already widely used on the Internet, is the fairest voting method of all, according to computer studies. Despite these findings, range voting remains controversial, and Gaming the Vote assesses the obstacles confronting any attempt to change the American electoral system. The latest of several books by William Poundstone on the theme of how important scientific ideas have affected the real world, Gaming the Vote is a wry exposé of how the political system really works, and a call to action.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Behind the standard one man-one vote formula lies a labyrinth of bizarre dysfunction, according to this engaging study of the science of voting. America's system is the least sensible way to vote, argues Poundstone (Fortune's Formula), prone to vote-splitting fiascoes like the 2000 election. Unfortunately, according to the author, a famous impossibility theorem states that no voting procedure can accurately gauge the will of the people without failures and paradoxes. (More optimistically, Poundstone contends that important problems are solved by range voting, in which voters score each candidate independently on a 1–10 scale.) Poundstone provides a lucid survey of electoral systems and their eccentric proponents (Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, loved voting novelties), studded with colorful stories of election skullduggery by campaign consultants, whom he likens to terrorists... exploiting the mathematical vulnerabilities of voting itself. His lively, accessible mix of high theory and low politics merits a thumbs-up. Illus. (Feb.)
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Review

“Mr. Poundstone is a clear, entertaining explicator of election science. He easily bridges the gaps between theoretical and popular thinking, between passionate political debate and cool mathematical certainty.” —The New York Times

 

“A handy compendium of alternatives to plurality voting. … Poundstone gives math a leading place in politics.”—Salon.com

 

“Gaming the Vote entertainingly probes the combative history of voting over the past few centuries.”—Mother Jones

 

“Poundstone’s book raises a big question: how mad do the rest of us have to get before we change a system that just isn’t working?” —Newsweek

 

“Poundstone has a lively style and a penchant for anecdote that make his more difficult passages of analysis accessible and at times even dramatic.” —The Wall Street Journal

 

Poundstone “writes not with a partisan’s bile but with a technician’s delight in explaining all the ways our democracy can give us what we don’t want.” —The Seattle Times

 

“Poundstone always writes with the premise that thinking can be entertaining. His latest book, Gaming the Vote, clearly reasoned, well-researched, and often amusing, deals with the crucially important question: How best does a government ‘by the people’ decide what to do?  He does not find a definitive answer, but he shows why it is so difficult and prepares the citizen to face the question responsibly.” —Rush Holt, U.S. House of Representatives (NJ-12)

 

“In 1948 economist Kenneth Arrow dropped a bombshell on political scientists. He proved that no voting system can be perfect. Poundstone’s eleventh book is a superb attempt to demystify Arrow’s amazing achievement, and to defend ‘range voting’ as the best voting system yet devised. His account is interwoven with a colorful history of American elections, from the corrupt politics of Louisiana to Ralph Nader as the ‘spoiler’ whose splitting of the Democratic votes helped elect George W. Bush. A chapter covers Lewis Carroll’s little-known valiant efforts to solve the voting problem. A raft of amusing political cartoons enliven Poundstone’s prose. There is no better introduction to the inescapable flaws and paradoxes of all voting systems than this eye-opening, timely volume.”—Martin Gardner, author of Are Universes Thicker than Blackberries? and more than 60 other titles

 

“Gaming the Vote is a witty, irreverent tour d’horizon of voting theories, voting theorists, and their quarrels. Unlike many academic brouhahas, the stakes here are high. Both citizens and politicians will delight in the tales Poundstone tells, but it won’t always be easy to tell who’s right. Nevertheless, Poundstone cuts through a lot of the obfuscation and takes sides, which won’t please everybody.” —Steven J. Brams, Department of Poltics, New York University, and author of Mathematics and Democracy: Designing Better Voting and Fair-Division Procedures

“Gaming the Vote is a must-read for anyone interested in the process and outcomes of voting.  Poundstone gives a clear and remarkably accurate account of the rich theoretical literature. At the same time, his examples of voting anomalies in real elections are both lively and revealing.” —Kenneth J. Arrow, professor of economics (emeritus) at Stanford University and winner of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Economic Science

"In this masterful presentation William Poundstone sketches the history of voting systems, elucidates ideas such as Borda counts, Condorcet winners, and range voting, and shows how changing our system could make it less likely to yield paradoxical and unfair results. Ranging easily over material as disparate as Arrow's impossibility theorem and recent presidential elections, he makes it clear just how unclear is the question, "Who won?" The book has my vote." —John Allen Paulos, author of Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences and the forthcoming Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for Religion Just Don't Add Up

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Hill and Wang; 1st edition (February 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809048930
• ISBN-13: 978-0809048939
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #929,991 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

William Poundstone is the author of two previous Hill and Wang books: Fortune's Formula and Gaming the Vote.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best in Class!, May 22, 2008

By 

Nyghtewynd (St. Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About It) (Hardcover)

Most books that attempt to propose new ways of carrying out elections are nothing more than sour grapes: "Since *my* guy didn't win the last election, the system is obviously flawed and should be overhauled." Therefore, most of these sort of books are a waste of time.

This one, however, is simply brilliant.

Instead of approaching the subject through party results, Poundstone instead takes a historical walk through many different voting schemes in terms of the mathematical theory behind them. Don't be scared by the word "mathematical", by the way...Poundstone not only steers clear of intense mathematics but also provides a simple glossary to help you remember something you may have forgotten from earlier pages. While I think I can determine his political leanings from a couple of different allusions, he makes such a good argument and has such an engaging style of writing that it doesn't matter. There were several times when I noticed a flaw in the argumentation and Poundstone responds to the particular question on the VERY NEXT page. Any author that can read the mind of an informed reader is doing a good job indeed. :)

In conclusion, anyone who's interested in the process of voting should read this one because it's the best of its kind.

75 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About It), February 12, 2008

By 

Terrill G. Bouricius "voting reformer" (Burlington, VT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About It) (Hardcover)

The book is extremely well-written, and a joy to read. It would be highly recommended, except for two fatal flaws discussed below.

Poundstone's latest book deals with an issue that is fundamental to democracy, yet almost totally ignored in the U.S. While many books focus on the role of money in elections, or voter registration, or voting machine integrity, relatively few popularly written books have tackled the more fundamental question of how votes get translated into representation. This is not a question of voting machine technology, but of logic. Most Americans are remarkably unaware of the variety of voting methods available, nor of the fact that the plurality voting method that predominates in the U.S. is not the norm among modern democracies, and, in fact, is probably the most problematic of all voting methods.

Americans generally accept as inevitable that if more than two candidates are in a race, vote splitting may cause a candidate that the majority oppose to be declared elected. Poundstone points out that it doesn't have to be that way. For hundreds of years thoughtful individuals have proposed alternative means of finding majority winners, that avoid this problem. Voting methods that allow voters to rank candidates in order of preference, for example, were first proposed over 150 years ago and have been used for government elections around the world for generations. He discusses the history of methods such as the borda count, condorcet pairwise comparisons, approval voting, and instant runoff voting.

Poundstone approaches the subject by telling stories about the key people involved (both historic and contemporary), making the history and theory of voting into a fascinating and compelling tale. His book avoids the technical formula-laden jargon of voting theory texts, but does justice to the concepts. He manages to present Kenneth Arrow's Impossibility Theorem (often summarized as "there is no such thing as a perfect voting method") in a way that makes it both understandable and interesting.

However, the book suffers from two fundamental shortcomings, that prompt me to give a poor overall rating. First is the fact that Poundstone focuses almost exclusively on the question of how to elect an executive, single seat office, as if this was the core problem we face. He gives scant attention to the single biggest issue of voting in democracies, that of how to achieve fair representation in legislative bodies. He discusses proportional representation in just a few pages, and never really tackles the problems inherent in all of the winner-take-all election methods that he spends the rest of the book discussing.

The other fundamental failing of the book is his championing the assertions of advocates of one particular reform as immune from the paradoxes and dilemmas facing all other voting methods. He simply accepts the claim that Range Voting, a theoretical method in which voters can give a score to each candidate, can avoid the dilemmas and tactical manipulation. Poundstone was either unaware, or chose to ignore the analysis of Nicolaus Tideman, in his 2006 book, "Collective Decisions and Voting," which led Tideman to place Range Voting on the list of "unacceptable" voting methods, because of how prone it is to strategic manipulation.

Unfortunately, this shortcoming misdirects people in the key second part of his subtitle -- "what to do about it." Readers truly taking Poundstone seriously are likely to end up banging their heads against the wall -- and perhaps making them more frustrated and alienated than ever.

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Revolutionary ideas that are worth pondering, February 20, 2008

By 

Paul Tognetti "The real world is so much more... (Cranston, RI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About It) (Hardcover)

I don't know about you but I sure am frustrated by the choices we have been presented with during the current Presidential election cycle. Over the years I have observed that regardless of political philosophy the first candidates to be eliminated during the primary season are the ones with ideas. In addition, the frequent appearance of so-called "spoiler" candidates in the both primaries and general elections very often frustrate the will of the people. Voters are frequently heard to mumble "there must be a better way." Well maybe, just maybe, there is. In "Gaming The Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About it) author William Poundstone considers these issues and presents for your consideration at least a half dozen possible alternatives to our current system of plurality voting. Some methods are clearly better than others but the ideas offered in "Gaming The Vote" will definitely get you thinking about the problems voters face in selecting their leaders.

The overwhelming majority of elections conducted in this nation utilize the method known as plurality voting. Plurality voting is not very complicated and works very well when there are only two candidates. For all intents and purposes, whoever gets the most votes wins. That is fine and dandy until a third or a fourth candidate enters the race. That is when a phenomenon known as "vote splitting" occurs. The end result can be what we all saw in Florida in the 2000 Presidential election. Independent candidate Ralph Nader siphoned off just enough votes from Al Gore to cost him a victory in Florida and denied him the Presidency. So just what are the alternatives? Is there really any method of voting out there that is fair and fool-proof?

William Poundstone examines several voting methods that have been developed over the years. Most of these have been deemed statistically "unacceptable" by the experts who study these things. There are simply too many ways to manipulate the results. Both "Borda Count' (introduced in France in 1784) and "Condorcet Voting" would fall into this category. You will also discover that the same appears to be true for something called "Cumulative Voting" and yet another system called "Approval Voting". It is interesting to note that there are a couple of voting alternatives that are being heavily promoted these days. "Instant Runoff Voting" ranks the candidates in order of preference while "Range Voting" offers voters the opportunity to rate all candidates based on a scale of 0 to 10. You may not even realize it but Amazon reviewers use "range voting" every time they choose to submit a review. What you will discover in "Gaming The Vote" is that reforming our elections is a very tricky proposition indeed. There are so many factors to consider and no one can be absolutely certain that any election system is fool-proof. And as another reviewer has aptly pointed out William Poundstone only discusses the election of executives in his book. Whether any of these methods could work at the state and local level in races for the legislature or city council is really unclear.

When all is said and done I really do think that "Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About It)" is a book worth reading. However, if you are looking for definitive answers to the problem of conducting elections in this country then you will likely be disappointed. For most folks, "Gaming The Vote" will merely serve as an introduction to those methods that could one day make our elections fairer and the results more indicative of the voters wishes than they are today. People need to arm themselves with this kind of useful information if we are ever going to bring meaningful reform to our elections. "Gaming The Vote" is a well written book that should prove quite interesting to a wide range of readers. Recommended.