Making Sense of Voting Systems

It's an election year here in the United States. I've been reading more articles on politics than usual the last couple months, and have actually found myself almost more interested in the "how" of elections than the "who".

How do we decide who wins? How would other systems affect how we approach elections? How do other systems even work?

To explore these questions, I've created this simulation tool. It's designed to clarify the complex world of voting systems, from the familiar Plurality Voting system to the Ranked Choice system that's gaining popularity in parts of the country, and even lesser-known methods like the Borda Count and Condorcet Method. There are many more systems than I've included in this tool, each with its own mechanics, strengths, and weaknesses.

I decided to try a simulation tool so that we can really interact with these systems and, for example, see which voting systems are more forgiving to highly polarizing candidates. To that end, the simulation works with you first curating a set of candidates for an election and then simulating how different voting systems might play out with those candidates.

I hope this is as fun and informative for you to play with as it was for me to build!