A Movable-Vote Workshop

By organizing voters, Instant Runoff Voting ends:
Spoiler candidates and choices limited to the lesser-of-two-evils;
Costly runoffs and winners without majority mandates.

IRV elects leaders in London, Sidney, San Francisco and more.
It elects student leaders at Duke, Harvard, MIT, Stanford...

Questions on Instant Runoff Voting

Single Transferable Vote Elects Several Reps

• The finish line marks the height of a quarter of the cards plus one.
• Do not give a card to a candidate who has finished.
• Eliminate the weakest candidates one at a time.
• Move your cards until three candidates win!

Single Transferable Vote is used in some Australian and Irish elections,
at Harvard, MIT, Oberlin, Princeton, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and Vassar,
at Oxford and Cambridge, in some unions, in the Church of England,
and in voting for Hollywood's Oscars.

It gives each group their fair share of voices on a council.
It often elects more women and minority candidates.
It increases choices for voters and turnout of voters.
It makes more “effective votes,” the number needed to elect the council.

Questions on Single Transferable Vote

Movable Money Votes Pick Public Goods

• Let's say we each put in $1 to buy some items.
  You get two 25¢ voting cards and a tall 50¢ card.
• We decide an item needs modest support from 8 of us
  to prove it is a public good worth public money.
  So the finish line marks the height of 8 single cards.
• You may put only one of your cards in a column.
  So you can't dump all your cards on a private item.
   
  Tip: Give your tall 50¢ card to your favorite item.
  This way 4 eager voters can fund a low-cost item.
  So the voters' number and zeal both count.

• A costly item must fill several columns.  A column here
  holds $2, so a $4 item must fill two columns.
• When an item wins, the banker hides its cards, and then
  excludes any item that costs more than all the cards left.
  Then one at a time, we reject the least popular item,
  with the lowest level of cards in its columns.
• Move your cards from a loser to your next choice.
  Tip: You may try to save a threatened favorite by briefly
  withholding your cards from lower choices.

  Voting stops when all the items still on the table are paid up.
  Only a few items can win, but all voters can win something!

Fair Shares Set Budgets

• Each funding level is like another project:
  it needs enough cards to fill it up.
• The “$4 carton of OJ” has two columns.
  The “$6 bottle of OJ” has just one more column.
  A supporter must help fill the lower level first.
• One at a time, the weak levels lose and the money
  moves to help your highest ranks still in the running.

(Each funding level of an agency is treated as project.
But an agency starts with [80]% of its recent budgets.
So a member cannot give it zero and “steal a free ride.”)

Participatory Budgeting lets neighborhood assemblies spend
part of a city's budget.  Porto Alegre did this first in 1989;
now it is used by hundreds of cities and towns in Latin America.
But most still end it with the old winner-take-all voting methods.

MMV is new!  Try it!  You will build a strong democracy.

Questions on Movable Money Votes

Pairwise Rule Centers a Policy

• Policy C's flag is at our center, by the median voter.
  Three flags surround C, about 5' from it. (1.5m)
• Pairwise asks: “Are you closer to flag A than flag B?
  If so, please raise your hand.”  Then test A against C, etc.
  We put each total in the Pairwise table below.
• The winner must top every rival, one-against-one.

Pairwise is a Wide-Appeal Contest.

• A pole stands at our center, by the median voters.
  It holds a short Red ribbon and a long Blue one.
• If the Red ribbon gets to you, the Red policy
  gets your vote with its narrow appeal.
• But if the Red cannot touch you, the wider appeal
  of the Blue policy gets your vote.  Which one wins?

 If the poles are places for a heater in an icy cold room. 
A) Do we put it at our center or in the biggest group ? 
B) Do we turn on its fan to spread the heat wide ? 

Questions on Pairwise Voting

Conclusions