Press release
for VoteFair ranking
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
VoteFair ranking increases election fairness and poll accuracy
A new voting method
named VoteFair ranking offers improved fairness over traditional
plurality voting and runoff voting. VoteFair ranking correctly
identifies an election's most popular candidate, and it also
identifies which candidate is second-most popular, third-most
popular, and so on down to the least popular. No other voting
method even attempts to reveal this overall ranking. This ranking
ability improves the accuracy of polls and ranking-type survey
questions, and it opens up new uses for voting, such as helping
decision-makers collectively rank budget categories.
According to Richard
Fobes, who is its inventor, "VoteFair ranking takes into
account all the preferences of all the voters, which makes the
results fairer than instant runoff voting, which only considers some
of the secondary preferences of some of the voters." VoteFair
ranking requires that most voters indicate not only their first
choice, but also their second choice, third choice, and so on.
Instant runoff voting also collects and uses similar secondary
preferences, but voting experts acknowledge that instant runoff
voting sometimes does not correctly identify which candidate is most
popular. In these cases VoteFair ranking correctly identifies which
candidate is preferred by a majority of voters.
A web site at
www.VoteFair.org provides a free service of calculating VoteFair
ranking results for elections and surveys. Anyone can create a
survey that includes one or more ranking-type survey questions. The
service is especially useful for small organizations needing to
resolve disputes in officer elections when the marks on traditional
single-mark ballots do not yield a majority of votes for any of
three or more candidates. The service also can be used by
decision-makers for ranking budget categories.
The VoteFair.org web
site includes an American Idol poll in which fans of the American
Idol TV show collectively rank the popularity of the show's singers.
According to Fobes, "the telephone voting used to eliminate
American Idol contestants sometimes produces surprising results
because the candidate with the fewest votes isn't necessarily the
least popular."
A new book by Richard Fobes titled
Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S. Elections
describes how VoteFair ranking works, why it produces fairer results, and how it can be used to improve the fairness of electing government officials. While Fobes was writing
his first book titled
The Creative Problem Solver's Toolbox
he tested his creative-problem-solving skills on political problems, realized that existing voting methods are too primitive for fair results, and
developed this new, fairer voting method. Additional information about VoteFair ranking is available at the VoteFair.org web site.
Contact: Richard Fobes
503-246-5067
Solutions Through Innovation
P.O. Box 19003
Portland, OR 97280-0003
www.VoteFair.org
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Press release
