Voting is an extremely important topic in this day and age, and the systems that go into making it work are just as important. Learning about how these systems work (and how they can fail) is critical to maintaining and improving democracy.

Inspired by the works of CGP Grey, when this program is finished, it will give you hands-on experience with how different voting systems work. This will allow you to compare and critique them, all in a friendly manner.

It is being created in the Godot Engine.

Why Learn About Voting Systems?

If you live in a democracy(especially the US), you might think you know all about voting. After all, you (optionally) participate in it every 4 years or so, and (optionally) might have learned about it in school. And anyway, the system has worked for over 200 years “without fail”, how could it possibly be faulty or need improvement?

Or perhaps you have felt that something is off with the current system. Your vote seems meaningless, so why cast it anyway? The system feels broken, but you can’t pin point what is wrong, let along how it could be improved. Even if you could, you’re just one person, so how could you fix it?

Knowledge is power. By studying something, you can learn how it works, where it fails, and how to improve it. Ensuring that the voting process is fair is probably the most crucial part of a democracy, and yet the topic is hardly touched upon in school until university and only then if you have a related major.

The truth is that no system is perfect, and the voting systems in the United States are far from perfection. By learning and raising awareness we, as a group, can in no uncertain terms demand change towards a more representative government, and a brighter tomorrow.

Showdown of the decade!

A winner most fowl, and an unpopular one at that.

How will this program help?

There are many problems in the world, and nothing can fix them all. This program aims to fix one: lack of knowledge on how voting works.

CPG Grey’s videos are a great introduction on the subject. However they lack a hands-on approach which many people find easier to learn from. This is not to dismiss his videos, quite the contrary, I highly recommend everyone gives them a watch! That said, they still are missing an interactive element (such is the nature of video). After watching a video, I’m usually left with a desire to get my hands dirty and try out different scenarios for myself.

That’s where this program comes in. When it is finished, it will enable to you to run simulations of different voting systems allowing you to get a feel for what’s going on, and how it all works. All in an easy to understand, and engaging way.

What does/will this program do, specifically?

Getting into the nitty gritty part now! Be prepared for some specialized vocabulary.

With this program, you generate a population and then run an election multiple times (with different voting systems) simultaneously so that you can compare the results. This can be as simple or as complex as you’d like.

On the simpler end of the spectrum, you can set up a population with near uniform voting preferences and a few candidates (like CGP Grey’s videos). On the more complex side you can set up a widely diverse voting populace, with each individual having unique opinions on policies, groups, political parties, and candidates. In addition to this, there are also variables such as voter awareness, participation, and party loyalty which can be taken into account. And.. if you REALLY want to dive off the deep end, you can program your own voting system simulation for the program to load and use alongside the built in ones.

Those are the basics of what it can/will do. It’s main focus is the simulation of different voting systems for a single election. However in the future I’d like to add features for simulating sequential elections (with actions candidates/parties take between elections) and multiple complex elections covering topics like gerrymandering, electoral colleges, districting, etc.

Example text output for experienced users.