2016 Election Results Based on Different Voting Systems
After the 2016 presidential election, Matthew Davis and David Shor, a senior data scientist at Civis Analytics, a Democratic data and polling firm formed by veterans of the 2012 Obama campaign, analyzed the different outcomes of the elections based on different voting systems. These voting systems include instant run-off voting, Condorcet voting, and the Borda count method. Interestingly, each of these voting systems resulted in a different candidate than Donald Trump. As most people know, although Trump won the electoral college, Clinton won the popular vote. The instant run-off voting method and Condorcet voting method also would result in Clinton’s victory. The instant run-off voting method basically eliminates the last place candidate and distribute’s the losing candidates votes to the remaining candidates. This is repeated until a single candidate has the majority vote. The Condorcet voting, on the other hand, allows candidates to compete each other in an one-on-one race.
The Borda count method however, surprisingly would’ve resulted in Gary Johnson securing the presidential position. This is incredibly interesting since the entire presidential election was focused around Clinton and Trump and rarely mentioned candidate Johnson. However, the Borda count method showing that Gary Johnson would have won shows that different voting methods can produce results drastically different from others.
Of course, different voting methods that can produce different results can be manipulated to give a candidate an unfair edge in the election. Due to this reason, it can be understood why so many different nations and communities follow different voting systems as there isn’t a single voting system that can guarantee a truly fair election.
