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Talk:Electoral system/Archive 7

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Latest comment: 7 years ago by Filingpro in topic What now?
Archive 1 ← Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7 Archive 8 Archive 9

Doesn't Random Ballot satisfy those criteria on average?

Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

For example, even though the majority candidate isn't guaranteed to win, that candidate has the greatest probability of winning. I'm pretty sure it satisfies some of the other criteria on average as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheKing44 (talk • contribs) 02:47, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Good point. At the moment I believe all we have is the standard for compliance: that any single failure causes failure of the criteria. This has the benefit of knowing that when a system passes a criterion, it can never be failed; however, on the other hand we do not see the likelihood of compliance under various circumstances, which is a limitation. I believe a possible area of research (not on Wiki) might be to standardize simulation models that disclose assumptions under which voting systems would comply or not comply with certain criteria over a range of inputs, and give a graded performance. For example Yee-Graph Monotonicity as per Dr. Ka Ping Yee's simulations: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ The question I see is what constitutes a standardized test - i.e. range of inputs. Filingpro (talk) 04:55, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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Voting systems#Compliance of selected systems (table)

Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I've renovated this table somewhat, in the course of which, I have messed around with the styling and sorting of the values in the table. I have not changed the canonical text anywhere, but I would appreciate it if people would glance over anything they're familiar with and check everything makes sense. In particular, I'm not sure what the ranks columns are for (there is no explanation in the changeset they are introduced in), and, within them, there is one valaue that is contrary to its own styling and also the pattern of values in adjacent voting systems. 178.16.2.15 (talk) 00:33, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Voting systems are rigged in many countries

Explains at Electoral College (United States), First-past-the-post

Requested move 11 February 2017

Latest comment: 7 years ago90 comments16 people in discussion
The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved to Electoral system. This was a long RM that contained several subthreads and discussions about what the terms involved meant in different fields and the distinctions between various terms. In coming to this close the primary policies that weighed in my mind were WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. There was clear consensus here on two topics: first that voting system was not an ideal name for the current article. Next that electoral system was the most used term of all the terms proposed. There was disagreement as to whether the content in this article was the primary topic that the term itself referred to. The agreement that this is the most common name used is a strong argument to the questions that WP:PRIMARYTOPIC says we should ask, and there was not a consensus that existed that another article would be a primary topic, nor was there a consensus that for this article to be named electoral system would be an inaccurate portrayal of the content. Weighing all of these factors, the action that is most in line with both this discussion and Wikipedia policy is for the article to be moved to electoral system. (non-admin closure) TonyBallioni (talk) 02:46, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Voting system → Voting method – explained below Homunq (࿓) 23:11, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

"Make your choice, intrepid Closer,
Read and resolve, though it's a dozer,
Or skip it; no sense just getting madder.
If you can't close, beware the BADGER.”
― Apologies to C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew
(I'm only insulting myself here, don't worry.) My point is, this discussion is heavy going, but I think that at this point it just needs closure one way or another. So if you're here to close it, great; and if it seems like too much for you, there's plenty of easier stuff in the backlog. Either way, many thanks for stopping by. Homunq (࿓) 15:35, 26 February 2017 (UTC)


In discussion below, the targets of Electoral system and Voting rule have been suggested. It seems that all participants who have stated a position agree that one of those two would be preferable to the originally-suggested Voting method, so I'm withdrawing that suggestion. If you post a !vote from this moment on, please state your preference order over these two options and the original title (mine is Voting rule > Electoral system >> Voting system). Homunq (࿓) 14:59, 20 February 2017 (UTC) (ps, changed the "rule" option to "voting" because that's the one that does better in the ngrams.)

The 4th paragraph of the article states right now (after I just edited it):

The real-world implementation of an election is generally not considered part of the voting method, and is instead referred to as a voting system. For example, though a voting method specifies the ballot abstractly, it does not specify whether the actual physical ballot takes the form of a piece of paper, a punch card, or a computer display. A voting method also does not specify whether or how votes are kept secret, how to verify that votes are counted accurately, or who is allowed to vote. These are aspects of the broader topic of elections and election systems.

I believe that the distinction above, between "voting method" and "voting system", is clearer and more memorable than the version as it was just before I edited it, where the distinction was between "voting systems" and "election systems" (which, though supposedly a separate topic, was actually just a self-link via redirection!)

This system/method distinction in terminology is the same as is explicitly made in the following two articles I found on Google Scholar (which I access through a university proxy, so I'm not giving the links, just the names; hopefully, others can find the articles): "An Internet Voting System Supporting User Privacy" and "Versatile Prêt à Voter: Handling Multiple Election Methods with a Unified Interface".

I've reviewed both google and google scholar for all the reasonable terms for this article's topic (which I'll abbreviate TAT below). Here's what I found:

voting system:

  • 55K hits in Google Scholar; of top 20, 3 are using it for TAT.
  • 3.3M hits in Google; of top 20, 9 are TAT, of which 3 are WP.
  • Otherwise, mostly used for stuff like "electronic voting method"

voting method:

  • 13K hits GS. Top 20, 1 is TAT.
  • 196K hits Google. Top 20, 16 are TAT.
  • Academically, seems to refer to algorithms for other purposes which involve simulated "voting" by various sub-algorithms. That is, algorithms that use voting, not algorithms for voting.

election method:

  • 2.9K hits GS. Top 20, 6 are TAT.
  • 46K hits G. Top 20, 16 are TAT, of which 7 are WP.

election system:

  • 20K hits GS. Top 20, 2 are TAT
  • 460K hits G. Top 20, 2 are TAT

electoral system:

  • Endorsed by WP in first sentence of article.
  • 145k hits GS. Top 20, ~13 are approx TAT, but not exactly; a tendency to combine TAT with country-specific factors.
  • 2.6M hits G. Top 20, ~15 are TAT, but with same caveat.

electoral method:

  • 946 hits GS. Top 20, 16 are TAT
  • 12K hits G. Top 20, 18 are TAT

voting rule: (added later)

  • 14K hits GS. Top 20, 10 are TAT
  • 110K hits G. Top 20, 13 are TAT

By google trends (search frequency), the order is "voting" > "electoral" > "election", and "system" >> "method" >> "rule".

So "electoral method" is the most specific, but the rarest. "Electoral system" is the winner in academic literature, but even there is not exactly what we mean. "Voting method" is reasonably good in google. It seems that WP itself is a not-inconsiderable source of this confusing terminology, and I think that clarifying things here will help spread better usage. ETA: "Voting rule" is something I hadn't considered, but could be a good option.

I realize that changing terminology WP-wide is a tough task, but I can certainly do a lot of it, and I imagine bots can do a lot more.

I don't think that inertia should stop us from making this move. Homunq (࿓) 23:11, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Note that Coombs' method, Copeland's method, and Kemeny–Young method already use the "method" terminology.Homunq (࿓) 23:54, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
The lede of Proportional representation uses the less ambiguous term "electoral systems", and the lede of Election by list uses the "system of election". Both are better than "voting method", because they do not invite confusion with the mechanism for casting and counting votes, such as paper ballots or voting machines.
The Google data above is unhelpful. It doesn't include any links, so there is no way for editors to verify the results claimed, such as whether the words were searched as a phrase by including them in quotes. Most importantly, the lack of links doesn't allow editors to assess how the listed terms were used, and whether they refer to the electoral system (PR/FPTP/Lists) etc or to other topics such as the mechanism of counting votes. A bare list of numbers tells us nothing about the relevance of the hits. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:32, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
When I first gathered that google data above, I was composing an email; I only thought of this RM later. I used quoted (exact phrase) searches, and simply counted links in the first two result pages. Most links I felt I could categorize based on what's shown on Google; perhaps 10-15% required actually clicking through to the page. I realize that this survey is not scientific and is probably subject to confirmation bias, but I'd be surprised if said bias were more than 10%. I may redo the survey and include links here if there is enough interest and I have enough time. Homunq (࿓) 12:49, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

!votes

Changed proposal

In discussion below, the targets of Electoral system and Voting rule have been suggested. It seems that all participants who have stated a position agree that one of those two would be preferable to the originally-suggested Voting method, so I'm withdrawing that suggestion. struck out Homunq (࿓) 10:06, 25 February 2017 (UTC) If you post a !vote from this moment on, please state your preference order over these two options and the original title (e.g. Voting rule > Electoral system > Voting system or Voting system > Electoral system > Voting rule).


  • Support Thank you for the detailed nomination. I have thought the same thing myself, and appreciate the background information and your willingness to do the cleanup work. ★NealMcB★ (talk) 00:17, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
Even after the updated proposal, and reading the extensive discussion, I (and others) still think the original proposal is the best, combined with a move of a smaller amount of appropriate text to "Electoral system", as discussed below. ★NealMcB★ (talk) 16:42, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose as proposed, but propose alternative move to Electoral system.
    "Voting method" and "voting system" both carry a plain English primary meaning of the process of casting a vote, i.e. paper, mechanical or electronic. This article is about the means by which the electoral system translates the votes into seats. I appreciate that the title "voting methods" has been used elsewhere, but it too ambiguous to make a satisfactory title, and it is even more ambiguous than the current title. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:11, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
I appreciate your objections to the originally-proposed new title; though I disagree with them, it's a matter of opinion, so I'm not going to argue. But "electoral system" does NOT resolve the basic problem which motivates this proposal: the desire to make a distinction between the subject of this article, which is abstract game-theoretic functions from ballot sets to winners, and the broader set of things needed to run an election. If somebody says "the electoral system of Blefescu", I think the inevitable image it summons includes things like an electoral calendar, election authority, ballot design, counting and auditing procedure— all aspects which are external to the subject of this article. So, if you want to make a different proposal, I suggest you avoid "system"; if "method" seems wrong for you, there's words like "rule", "algorithm", etc.
As I've said, I think "method" is best, as the most unambiguous term in use by the specialist community and in reasonably broad use among non-specialists; for instance, "voting algorithm" is mostly used to refer to algorithms which include simulated voting between sub-algorithms. But any of these (combined with "voting", "election", or "electoral" as a modifier) would still resolve the basic issue, where "system" simply would not. Homunq (࿓) 01:28, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
If I could wave a wand and set the term that everyone would use for this, I think "election rule" would be my choice. But that's my own OR at best. As I have argued above and below, I think "method" has the most support as the term in current use off wikipedia, among both academic and lay communities. As to "voting", "election", or "electoral", I'm agnostic; I proposed leaving "voting" mostly because if that word ain't broke don't fix it. Homunq (࿓) 18:57, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
@Homunq: I'm afraid that I disagree strongly with your ain't broke don't fix it comment. It is broken, because it is ambiguous with the mechanics. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:22, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
If you feel strongly on "electoral" over "voting", then fine; I'd be happy if the new page name started with "electoral". The main thrust of my comments above, and indeed of this whole RM, is to change the other word; I feel, and I think the evidence supports, that "system" is ambiguous. Homunq (࿓) 18:25, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Support I agree that the word "system" is not appropriate for this article. VoteFair (talk) 02:24, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose and Support move to Electoral system per BrownHairedGirl. I don't know if this is an WP:ENGVAR issue (in which case this should be kept as it per WP:RETAIN), but I personally as a British English speaker have never heard this concept called a "voting method" it is always a "voting system" or "electoral system". See for example:
    As for the assertion above: If somebody says "the electoral system of Blefescu", I think the inevitable image it summons includes things like an electoral calendar, election authority, ballot design, counting and auditing procedure, I dispute that. Those concepts mentioned would be called the electoral or voting process, not the system. If we're going to make assertions liek that, we need evidence, and the evidence that I've seen suggests that the "system" is exactly what this article is about.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:04, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
I don't want to debate your !vote, but I do have a question for you. You seem to be suggesting that "voting method" is an Americanism, and for all I know you might be right. Would you consider "voting rule" (or "electoral rule") in a similar light? Homunq (࿓) 13:34, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
Hi, to be honest I don't know if it's an Americanism or not. That was just a suggestion, based on the fact that I haven't heard of "voting method" before, but it would require more in depth analysis to confirm whether there's a regional reason for that. Personally, I haven't heard of "voting rule" either, but as I say, my personal opinion isn't what counts here. I guess the main thrust of my !vote is that I'm not really convinced that calling it a "system" is wrong. From the evidence I can gather, the following seem to be true: (1) the two most WP:COMMONNAMEs available are "electoral system" followed by "voting system" - see this ngram for book figures; and (2) "electoral system" and "voting system" do indeed mostly refer to the philosophical systems rather than the machinery or specifics of how people vote. All the first entries of book results for "electoral system" and "voting system" all seem to refer to general systems. I appreciate that you see an ambiguity in "system", but I'm not really convinced that this is an actual problem, or that changing the title for one that is much less commonly used and recognised would really be the way forward. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 14:06, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
PS - having seen the results of the ngram mentioned above, I am now adding in a support for BrownHairedGirl's alternative suggestion of electoral system. That one wins the ngram, and hence appears to be the WP:COMMONNAME, ahead of voting system, and considerably ahead of the alternative suggested names. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 14:13, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
Well, I still don't like "system", but I must admit that your ngram and google books link on that are convincing. One quibble, though. You state that "the first entries of book results for ... "voting system" all seem to refer to general systems.", but that's not what I see. The page you link has one book on this article's topic ([1]), but as far as I can see all of the rest either refer to the physical hardware used to vote, or have the words "electoral system" rather than "voting system" in the title. So I think you can see the impetus for me to originate this RM. Homunq (࿓) 14:29, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
Ah OK, fair point. I've struck the part about "voting system" - apologies, I looked at a couple of entries in the list, [2] and [3], without checking all of them. As far as I can see that list is a mixture of physical voting systems and philosophical ones (which from the two books above can be called "voting system"). The list of books mentioned above for "electoral system" is still dominated by entries relating to the philosophical subject though, isn't it? Which means that is another reason why electoral system would be the ideal title, since it would help remove some of the confusion you mention. Would you consider supporting that move? Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 14:42, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
We just had an edit conflict; I was trying to edit the first sentence of my comment above to say "Well, I still don't like "system"; when you talk about this stuff as much as I do, you tend to drop the modifier most of the time, so any ambiguity in the noun becomes problematic." ... So I'd support a move to "electoral system" as being an improvement over the status quo, but I'd still prefer "voting method" or "voting rule" as promoting more clarity in specialist discussions. Homunq (࿓) 14:46, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
To expand on my comment just above: I think that eventually WP should have a separate article on voting hardware. In that case, "Voting system" would probably become a dab page, and I think that the two target titles should be clearly specific to their topics in both modifier and noun. Homunq (࿓) 14:50, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm trying to reorganize this so it reads in more chronological order, so I'm moving !votes below this line to the bottom. Any future votes should also go at bottom. To whoever closes this monster, I owe you at least a cookie. Homunq (࿓) 10:02, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

discussion

Another bit of supporting evidence for this move: "voting methods" is the title of the article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voting-methods/ Homunq (࿓) 13:01, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

  • A philosophy encyclopedia would not be my first port of call for a political science topic. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:33, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
    Indeed. Britannica, which is a mainstream general encyclopedia, calls it "electoral system".  — Amakuru (talk) 11:10, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
    I made an account to point out that voting, social choice, and decision theory touch on a wide, varied number of fields, philosophy being one of those fields. It doesn't make any more sense to dismiss the SEP here than it would to dismiss something from a political science encyclopedia or a mathematics encyclopedia. Also, it certainly makes no sense to defer to Britannica over the SEP. If you'd like more information, the person who wrote the article leaves their e-mail at the bottom, which you can use to clear up any misunderstanding you have on the matter. You may also simply read the article itself if you'd like to learn more about this topic. --SaintDonut (talk) 18:36, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
The Britannica article is 5 sentences, of which 2 refer to things (indirect election, party system) that are out of scope for this article here. The SEP one is several pages on this article's topic. Homunq (࿓) 14:07, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

When I first made this RM, I had not considered the possibility of "voting rule". I would be fully satisfied if that were the conclusion. The purpose of this RM is to get rid of the ambiguity I see in "system"; I have no strong opinion on "method" versus "rule" or on "voting" versus "election" versus "electoral". Homunq (࿓) 13:29, 20 February 2017 (UTC)


I just extended my google survey to include "election rule" and "electoral rule". Here are the results; pretty striking:
electoral rule:
  • 3.05K hits GS. Top 20, 20 are TAT (though 1 is in an article with "voting method" in the title)
  • 17.8K hits G. Top 20, 20 are TAT
Perfect specificity!
election rule:
  • 1.68K hits GS. Top 20, 12 are TAT
  • 46.8K hits G. Top 20, 0 are TAT (most refer to the NLRB.)
Homunq (࿓) 13:52, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
Since it's currently looking as if the main options are "electoral systems" and "voting rule", I'd just like to point out that only one of those is likely to get confused with the first two words of ES&S.

Question 1: In deciding the method or system of representation for a given province under government A, is the question as to whether there is proportional or regional representation (and the number and distribution of these representatives) a question of electoral system or a question of government structure? I believe that the discussion of the most effective "electoral system" (e.g. Jenkins, MMP, etc.) can overlap the government structure itself. On the other hand, IRV/STV, Approval, Plurality, Top-Two, etc. may be considered "Single or Multi-Winner Election Rules." This might suggest a structure for the article or separate articles. Filingpro (talk) 10:59, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Question 2: Can we disambiguate the "voting systems" and "election systems" made by the likes of Diebold systems by classifying as "election management systems”, "election administration", "voting machines”, "ballot scanners and tabulators" etc.? Filingpro (talk) 10:59, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

note to closer

Would you be so kind to also close the corresponding category discussion. Thanks. Marcocapelle (talk) 17:45, 12 February 2017 (UTC)


Overdue for close

Here's my attempt to summarize the discussion above, in as neutral a fashion as possible.

Undisputed facts:

  • The current title is often used to refer to hardware, not the mathematical abstractions that are the subject of this article.
  • In Google ngrams, the order of potential titles is electoral system > voting system > voting rule > voting method > electoral method > other.
  • The majority of uses of any of the 4 alternate titles above (electoral system, voting rule, voting method, electoral method) refer to the subject of this article.

Disputed:

  • User homunq (that's me) believes that "electoral system" is sometimes used to refer to a larger system which includes the article subject but also other things. User Amakuru disputes that.

Thus, it seems pretty clear to me that there's consensus for some move; and that the new title with the most consensus is "electoral system"; but that there is not a strong consensus that that is the final title for the article.

However, this is not an easy move to make; it involves moving a main category, several subcategories, and at least two templates; as well as plenty of editing of text across dozens of articles. It would be better to do that as few times as possible.

So I think the best thing is to resolve this debate before moving. Homunq (࿓) 00:44, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

I dispute the relevance of the ngrams. They simply show the frequency of the usage of the terms; but they do not say what the terms are being used to mean. So they are worse than useless -- they are a misleading distraction. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:52, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
I brought this up earlier and explained my reasoning,, but to repeat, I really feel we should be placing more weight on the SEP article that was shared above. That's something you disputed the relevance of but haven't responded to explain why. SaintDonut (talk) 17:23, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Arguments on "electoral system" versus "voting rule" ... versus "voting method"

Note: added "voting method" to the heading above as it seemed I had prematurely withdrawn it. Homunq (࿓) 09:40, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

The first page of a google search on "electoral system" gives the following links: this article; [4], on the US electoral college, which includes human elements outside the scope of this article; [5], about this article's topic (TAT); [6], about the US EC (not an example of TAT); [7], about TAT; [8], debatable; [9], about Brazil, includes mostly TAT but a few things beyond the scope, and does not clearly define "electoral system"; [10], ditto; [11], irregularities in US elections, definitely not TAT; [12], TAT; [13], TAT; [14], TAT. So aside from this article that's 4 or 5 that prefer "electoral system" and use it for TAT, and 5 that use the term more broadly. Not exactly a solid endorsement for moving this to "electoral system". I think "voting rule" is better. Homunq (࿓) 00:44, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

...Kenneth Arrow has just died; the world has lost a good man. I decided to look back at his original paper, "A Difficulty in the Concept of Social Welfare", to see what terminology he used. He uses the words "function" (48 times, plus once with an unrelated meaning) "method" (20 times, plus 3 for unrelated meanings), "rule" (9 times), "system" (3 times for this meaning; the other 6 uses are "capitalist system" or "value system"), and "process" (2 times). [15] --- Homunq (࿓) 09:48, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Oh my, so sad to hear about Kenneth Arrow passing away! :( Filingpro (talk) 11:15, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
@Homunq: just to be clear, do you still dispute that "electoral system" is the most common name for the subject of this article? I would have thought the ngram, as well as Number 57's list of global sites mentioned above, would be fairly conclusive on that point, but happy to hear any evidence that this assumption is wrong. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 11:23, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
It is clearly the most common, but as BrownHairedGirl points out, the goal is not simply to find the most commonly-used pair of words. I feel that it is not the least ambiguous/ most specific; as with the links above where it is used to include non-mathematical specificities of the US or Brazilian electoral systems that would be outside the scope of this article. I now think that "voting rule" is the best blend of common and specific. I do not doubt, however, that pretty much any option we've discussed would be an improvement from the current title. Homunq (࿓) 14:21, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
From all the googling and such I've done for this RM, I'd say that the three best terms are "voting rule", "electoral system", and "election method"; the first sentence of this article should have the one we pick as a title in bold, and the other two in parentheses. Homunq (࿓) 14:33, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
From my 10+ years researching elections to write articles on here, "electoral system" is by far the most common term, as demonstrated by its use above in all the major online election resource websites. it's also the term we tend to use on here in articles (see e.g. German federal election, 2017, Bulgarian parliamentary election, 2017, Dutch general election, 2017, Bulgarian parliamentary election, 2017, Argentine legislative election, 2017, Kenyan general election, 2017 etc). I can't say I have ever come across "voting rule" before and I think it's not a terribly good description either. Number 57 11:38, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
Nobody disputes that "electoral system" is the most common term. The question is whether it is specific to this article's topic, or whether it often refers to aspects that are out of scope. In fact, of the articles you cite, only the Bulgarian one uses "electoral system" to mean nothing more than a (set of) voting rule(s with different underlying parameters for district size). All the others mention one or more out-of-scope aspect such as calendars, list construction, multiple bodies, etc. Homunq (࿓) 12:29, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
But even if it is not specific to the topic, then it comes down to a question of disambiguation. In particular, is it the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for the term. I would say unequivocally yes. I don't deny that one or two sources may use "electoral system" to refer to a voting machine or suchlike, but the majority usage of the term is precisely this article. The usual solution to that is not to move to another, less common name, but simply to declare this the primary topic and place a hatnote at the top of the article leading to an article on the minority meaning of the term.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:40, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
In order for this article's topic to be the primary topic for the term "electoral system", the latter must fully encompass the former. But the venn diagram of the two, while it has a large overlap, has non-overlapping parts on both sides. For instance, I could imagine saying "The UK has a parliamentary electoral system" or "The US electoral system usually includes party primaries followed by general elections" — both of which are out of scope for this article as it stands — but not "Majority judgment is an electoral system" or "some database coherency algorithms involve using certain electoral systems when inconsistencies are detected" — both of which I could imagine perfectly well if you substituted "voting rule" or "election method" in place of "electoral system". Homunq (࿓) 15:25, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
Another example I recently came upon (as I was researching the history of voting theory for unrelated reasons, based on a seach for "Ramon Llull voting theory"), in Ramon Llull: from ‘Ars electionis’ to social choice theory: "By the time of Llull’s writings, voting and elections were regularly held in Christian convents and councils, as well as in many city councils and parliaments all across Europe. Different voting rules and procedures involving people‘s acclamation, lots, several stage elections, approval voting, and eliminatory methods were innovatively tried." I have a very hard time imagining referring to such such an un-systematic grab bag of "innovative" (that is, ad hoc) procedures as "electoral systems". Homunq (࿓) 16:00, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
I would suggest "Electoral System" for the broader question of representation - e.g. how many districts and members, regional or proportional representation, appointment of a president or prime minister by direct vote or by the elected representatives etc. (e.g. [16]) While you could also use "Electoral System" to describe Plurality, Approval, IRV, Top-Two Runoff, etc, I would rather distinguish these "Single or Multi-Winner Election Methods/Rules". This is the more specific science of single or multi-winner preferences aggregation algorithms, as discussed in Arrow's groundbreaking work in the field (who uses the word "method" or "function"). "Electoral system" to me seems too broad, and probably inappropriate in the context of comparing, say IRV to Least-Worst-Defeat, as single-winner algorithms, and comparing their criterion, say IRV's failure of "Condorcet" and Least-Worst-Defeat's failure of "Later-No-Harm/Help". Consider algorithms Coombs, Schulze (a.k.a. Beat-Path Method), Dodgson, Nanson, Baldwin, Ranked Pairs, MiniMax.: Do we call these "electoral systems" or methods? I think if we enforced the broader words "electoral system" in the specific context of comparing preference aggregation algorithms having a specific scope, we might lose something. Instead, I would like to see a distinction in the article allowing for more specific terms in the appropriate context, perhaps even separate articles focusing on these algorithms (e.g. "Single and Multi-Winner Election Methods") which are employed by an electoral system. For example, we might consider two semi-proportional electoral systems that differ only in that they employ different single-winner methods for local districts. To me, this strongly suggests that we need language to make the distinction. Filingpro (talk) 12:33, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
I agree that "electoral system" deserves to have a WP article, with one major subsection summarizing this article, and (for instance) another major subsection discussing the difference between parliamentary systems (with a PM) and direct election. Nobody would deny that the latter distinction is an aspect of electoral systems! But this article as it stands does not discuss that distinction (!), and so is not precisely about "electoral systems" IMO.Homunq (࿓) 12:44, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
Also, theoretical voting rules like majority judgment, that have been used for awards ceremonies but never in any country's political elections (though 1798 Geneva came close), are hardly "electoral systems", but they are very much in scope for this article. Homunq (࿓) 13:23, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes re: PM vs direct election and possibly a separate article, although what is not clear to me is we have in the current "voting systems" article much discussion of proportional representation, semi-proportional representation, constituencies etc. For example, "Often the purpose of an election is to choose a legislative body made of multiple winners. This can be done by running a single election and choosing the winners from the same pool of votes, or by dividing up the voters into constituencies that have different options and elect different winners." <--- this debate seems to me could be in the realm of "electoral systems" because it could change whether the electors are regional or proportional, while different than the scope of comparing the preference aggregation methods in the compliance table. For example we don't have in the compliance table Jenkins, MMP, and P3. These are different levels of scope than Schulze vs MiniMax vs Borda.Filingpro (talk) 17:18, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
I notice there is also an article on single-member district methods Its not clear to me to what extent we should make all of this information better encapsulated. For example, a single member-district might choose a "Single-Winner Election Method", and so would a city in directly electing its Mayor - I wonder if there should be a specific page therefore for "Single-Winner Methods" which compares them, which could be pointed to in either case, rather than duplicating. Filingpro (talk) 17:18, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

There is a requested move for this article. Consensus seems to be that a move is in order, but there is debate on the new title between "electoral system" and "voting rule". All parties agree that of those two options, "electoral system" is the more common term, but there is debate as to whether it precisely covers the scope of the article, either inclusively or exclusively. In the normal course of events, simply picking one of the options and closing the requested move, with a note that further debate is not out of order, would be acceptable; but since this move would mean moving several templates and categories, and possibly minor edits to the text of dozens of articles, it's probably worth broadening the discussion and getting a more-lasting consensus the first time. Homunq (࿓) 17:36, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Note: when this debate eventually closes, I do not anticipate contesting the closer's reading of consensus, whether or not it is in my favor. But I do not think there is a consensus yet, which is why I started the RfC.Homunq (࿓) 17:40, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
Well, I'm biased of course, but personally I do think there's a consensus to move to "electoral system". Not necessarily numerically, but based on the evidence and policies. In particular, WP:COMMONNAME has I think been established (you, yourself did not contest that part, Homunq, since you said above "Nobody disputes that "electoral system" is the most common term"). And for me, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is satisfied too. The Google books link I posted above shows that a significant majority of sources are referring to philosophical systems for elections rather than machines or computers, when they talk of "electoral systems". I respect your point of view, but I haven't yet been convinced by it, I'm afraid. I don't believe we should move the article to "voting rule" or "voting method", as I think that those are fringe terms, and not used predominantly in the mainstream media or by experts in the field. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 19:43, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
repetitive stuff which Maproom says better below
I said "the most common term", not "the most common term for the subject of this article". If the former were all that were needed, we should just move this article to The. Or, as WP:COMMONNAME puts it, "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources."
As for machines or computers, those were the issue with "voting system", which nobody at this point is considering. With "electoral system" the main issue is that it includes non-mathematical country idiosyncrasies such as the US electoral college, but does not include voting rules when not used in the context of political elections. (Some aspects of the EC could be treated as mathematical abstractions, but nobody uses mathematical abstractions to talk about details like faithless electors; that is clearly out of scope of this article, and not just because of undue weight.) Homunq (࿓) 19:51, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

...I think that we should give around 48 hours for the RfC (until UTC 17:36 on 25 February), and then some poor put-upon Wikipedian should close this. By now, it seems that both sides are clear. I won't respond any more here unless people use my own words in ways I feel are misconstruals. Homunq (࿓) 20:09, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Note: this utterly arbitrary deadline has now passed. I for one consider this debate as ripe as it ever will be for closure. Homunq (࿓) 19:08, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
OK, sorry, one more thing. The article as it stands is already longer than ideal WP:LENGTH, at 10,745 words. I would absolutely support a compromise: moving the current article to "electoral system", adding a brief discussion of country-specific issues that I've argued above are out of scope (for an article centered on the math aspects), and then calving off major parts of the article to something like Voting rule or even (if that takes out too much) Single-winner voting rule or the like. Homunq (࿓) 20:27, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
The more I think about the above compromise, the more it makes sense to me. In my experience, when people say "electoral system", more often than not they're talking about a system which chooses multiple winners for multiple offices (whether those offices are homologous, that is, symmetrical in a mathematical sense, or not). In other words, often proportional representation systems, as in number57's first link above: "The Bundestag has 598 nominal members, elected for a four-year term. Half, 299 members, are elected in single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post voting, while a further 299 members are allocated from party lists to achieve a proportional distribution in the legislature...". Single-winner voting rules are, at most, one sub-aspect of such systems. But those same single-winner rules are an object of extensive voting theory, and deserve an article of their own. So, split the current article into both Electoral system and Single-winner voting rule (or perhaps Single-winner voting method; either would be fine with me). Obviously, the two resulting articles would link to and briefly summarize each other. Homunq (࿓) 21:47, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes. I think making this distinction is helpful, whether a subsection of the main article or separate article, while I generally agree with the point you raise about the current length of the article - probably more clear if smaller articles. I think "voting rule" or "election/electoral method/rule" would be appropriate in that context, just as BBC article naturally speaks of changing the method of electing local MPs, in the AV vs plurality referendum in the UK. You might combine the article for single and multi-winner voting rules since all methods can be used for both, although only some are multi-winner proportional. This could be highlighted in the compliance table and discussion. E.g. perhaps "Multi-Winner Proportional" Y/N? as a column in the table comparing methods. While we certainly could use "electoral system" for comparing the single and multi-winner voting algorithms (e.g. Schulze, Minimax, Range, Coombs etc.) I think we would lose the opportunity to distinguish these from broader electoral systems such as Jenkins, MMP, P3, and the electoral college system in the U.S .Filingpro (talk) 22:21, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
Rough attempt at the distinction: "Voting Rule" (or whatever term is agreed upon): "a procedure for aggregating voters expressed preferences for a given set of available alternatives to determine a single-winner or ordered list of winners." Filingpro (talk) 22:37, 23 February 2017 (UTC) Also needs to be distinguished from this article Social choice theory - perhaps "voting rule" assumes preferences have been stated by the voter on some type of ballot Filingpro (talk) 23:12, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
Thanks to all for the wide-ranging and informative discussion!
I support the idea of moving the appropriate text to "electoral system", and making that a more balanced and general view of how countries etc. define the high-level structure of how election happen and what they involve.
Yes. "Electoral system" broad article + "voting method/rule" for single or multi-winner procedures.Filingpro (talk) 09:56, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
But most of this article is not about that, and never has been. So rather than lose the valuable history going back to 2001 about TAT, by copy-pasting it to a new article, I'd say we should move this article to a new name, and then split off the text specific to electoral systems.
And I must say that "voting rule" is doesn't sound right as an article title to my ears. It seems naturally used in this article about a rule requiring proof of citizenship: Kobach defends new voting rule, but not as a synonym for "voting method". It is used less than "voting method" in non-specialist usage, based on the google search statistics above. "Voting method" remains the term that makes sense to me for most of TAT, despite some use of "voting rule" in academic papers. I guess I could live with separate articles for Single-winner voting method and Multi-winner voting method, and those names might cause less confusion. But I expect they would have enough duplication that it would be hard to split them and maintain them well.
I also note the use of the name "voting methods" in the IEEE and (later) US Election Assistance Commission working group name "Voting Methods Mathematical Models". ★NealMcB★ (talk) 02:23, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes for more specific article "voting method" although "voting rule" growing on me (further discussion below) Filingpro (talk) 09:56, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
long discussion summed up just below
Thank you, Nealmcb, SmokeyJoe, and Markbassett for joining the discussion (below). I think all of you make good points. Unfortunately, you've also scuttled what I thought was a tentative consensus.
And I must say I'm sympathetic to NealMcB's points; not surprising, because it's pretty much the position I started out this RM with.
This article's topic, as I see it, is the theory of processes for aggregating ballots into an overall result. This includes history and practical application, but to me the theory is central. If I were to imagine separate idealized articles for "Electoral system", "Voting (method/rule)", "Single winner voting (method/rule)", and "Multi-winner voting (method/rule)", and compared them to the current article, here's roughly how big I think the overlaps would be:
Current article Electoral system Voting (method/rule) Single-winner voting (method/rule)
Electoral system 60% -
Voting (method/rule) 90% 55% -
Single-winner voting (method/rule) 60% 35% 70% -
Multi-winner voting (method/rule) 40% 45% 55% 35%
So my idea of moving this article to "electoral system" and then splitting off "Single winner (method/rule)" was basically to minimize redundancy (the relevant cell says "35%" overlap), with the original target of the move honestly little more than a concession to the point of view of voices like Amakuru and Number57 in deference to their well-reasoned and good-faith opinions.
But if instead of looking for the lowest entry in the table above in order to minimize redundancy, you look for the highest entry in order to maximize continuity, as NealMcB reasonably argues is valuable, then clearly it's the 90% overlap between the current article and the material I think would belong at "Voting method" or "Voting rule".
I still honestly think that it would be important to also have an article at "electoral system". But that article would be focused on TAT as it is actually used in real-world political elections, and it would briefly cover things beyond TAT such as districting, election authorities, calendars, intermediate deliberative bodies like the electoral college, partisan primaries, procedures for making closed party lists, etc. It would also have maps of countries colored by various aspects of their electoral systems, and other similar material that does not seem a good fit for this article as it stands.
So I'm sorry, but I'm withdrawing my support for moving this article to "Electoral system". It's not that I'd actively oppose such a move — it would still be a clear step up from the status quo — but I don't think it would be the healthiest move overall. Considering NealMcB's arguments, I'd much rather see this article go to "Voting method" or "Voting rule"; and I'm pretty indifferent to which of those two it goes to.
I'd also like to say, for what it's worth, that I recognize Filingpro and NealMcB as fellow voting geeks; that is, people who spend nontrivial amount of time specifically thinking about this article's topic. NealMcB, in particular, is arguably "on my team"; that is, hangs out in similar voting discussions as I do. So it's not really surprising that we agree. But still, I find it interesting that none of the three of us are really enthusiastic about "electoral system" as a name. My guess is that people from outside our little world mostly think of TAT only in the context of electoral systems, but that we consider it as a topic in its own right, though clearly related. I'm not trying to say here that people outside that world are not qualified to speak about this stuff; for one thing, this article should be pitched for a general audience, so in-group jargon would be a bad thing. But of course I feel that my particular point of view has value. I've corresponded personally with, and in several cases met IRL multiple times, Arrow (RIP), Balinski, Brams, Green-Armytage, Laraki, Maskin, Regenwetter, User:MarkusSchulze, Sen, Tideman, and others... many of the big names in this field. And I've done plenty of work on this article itself, from an early point in its growth.
So to sum up: I think that "voting rule" and "voting method" are in wide enough use to satisfy WP:COMMONNAME, and that their advantages in specificity and accuracy over "electoral system" are enough to outweigh the latter's advantages in broad usage. I'm still going to live with however this issue is decided, but I think that moving this article to "electoral system" would in the long run require more rewriting and leave less continuity than moving it to "voting rule/method". Homunq (࿓) 17:32, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
From what I see, the framing of the current article includes questions of constituencies, proportional representation, gerrymandering etc. so "electoral system" is an appropriate title, but we need a subsection or separate article for "voting rule" then single and multi-winner. (I don't think we can justify "voting rule" based on percent content as we are confronted with an issue of scope ) Filingpro (talk) 10:19, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
Personally I can't see how anything other than "electoral system" can be used for the main chunk of the content given its ubiquitous use by the main international election-related organisations listed above – it is the common name. However, I would be more than happy to split the article into "electoral system" (covering the details like whether elections are two-round, use proportional representation etc.) and "voting method" (covering the method of voting, e.g. electronic machines, marbles into buckets, ballot letters etc.). Number 57 21:30, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes."Electoral system" main article, although (1) "voting rule"I think is about single and multi-winner algorithms and not about machines vs. paper - I think that would be "voting administration" or "voting systems equipment/machines" (2) I would include the decision about single or two-round in the "voting rule" as it impacts the ballot definition. Filingpro (talk) 10:28, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
Agreed. This article, discussing philosophical concepts, should be moved to "electoral system" since that's the name used by the majority of book sources and the reputable bodies you mention, and any part of the article that pertains to how the person actually goes about casting their vote (e.g. do they use a pencil or a punch card), could be hived off into "voting method".  — Amakuru (talk) 22:36, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes. Filingpro (talk) 10:30, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
long WP:BLUDGEON which Maproom says better below
I suspect that we may have all already made our points, but the above makes me unsure as to whether I've been clear enough. If I have been clear, and you merely disagree, then I apologize for repeating myself, but here goes, one more time:
In my view, this article, as it stands, is at its core about abstract mathematical functions that take the information from ballots as inputs and output a winner or winners: "how votes are ... aggregated to yield a final result of an election". It is, of course, also about the theory, history, and the application of these functions in the real world, in both political and non-political contexts.
I believe that the above topic is only one of several possible meanings of the current title "voting system"; this term is also used to refer to voting hardware. Thus, "voting system" is a poor title for this article. There seems to be consensus on this point.
I believe that the primary meaning and usage of the terms "voting method" or "voting rule" is precisely the above topic. "Voting method" is almost never used to indicate the question of machines versus marbles, as suggested above. "Voting rule" is sometimes used to refer to a specific rule regarding who can vote or when a vote is to be called; but this usage is almost always preceded by some modifier to speak of a specific such rule, so the unmodified phrase "voting rule" generally means the topic we want.
I believe that the phrase "electoral system" means something closely related, but crucially different. For one thing, a voting method/rule which is not in use (in the present, past, or proposed future) in some democratic polity is not an electoral system; so that "ES" does not accurately refer to TAT. For another thing, electoral systems include aspects beyond just TAT, such as the people in the US electoral college, the electoral districts/ridings/constituencies, the distinctions between upper and lower house in a multi-chamber legislature, the multiple examples of TAT that a single polity might use for different kinds of elections, the sequence of elections (such as rolling partisan primaries followed by a general election in US presidential elections), etc.
It's as if this were an article on "shelter", and people were proposing moving it to "house". Yes, most shelters are houses, and the primary function of a house is to provide shelter; but there are shelters that aren't houses, and there are functions/aspects of houses besides providing shelter.
Again, if I'm repeating myself, I apologize. I respect the right of people like Number57 and Amakuru to disagree with me on any or all of the above. But honestly, if they've provided reasons for that disagreement aside from the (true, but in my view insufficient) point that they find the proposed terms "voting method" and "voting rule" not to be as common usage as "electoral system", I haven't seen it. Homunq (࿓) 01:48, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
I think I laid it the reasons pretty clearly above (here it is again). Unfortunately I am beginning to get the impression that of WP:BLUDGEONING taking place here. Number 57 12:40, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
Homunq, I'll just note I was confused by your "So to sum up" summary, and only felt I understood your point when I read the part with the nice helpful little table of overlaps. You might want to un-hide that by default. ★NealMcB★ (talk) 04:15, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

more !votes

  • Support "voting method" per nom. System sounds odd, reminds me only of a betting method where you place multiple bets in one transaction, and which is a misunderstanding of transferable votes. "Voting method" does sound familiar, and is logical, although the "method" applies to the counting, not the filling in of the ballot. "Electoral System" sounds too much like how electorates combine to form the parliament/congress. Some electoral systems are multi-plurality, others are more complicated, this is a system of what happens with the winners, not how the winners are drawn from the ballot. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:49, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose and Support move to Electoral system - per WP:TITLE WP:CRITERIA, electoral feels more the WP:COMMONNAME, and has better precision for the article topic. The precision is in both being linked to an election as opposed to other venues of voting (such as jury vote or wikipedia vote), and in it being the complete process. A voting system could refer to just the device to cast votes, and voting method to just the overall way of casting votes, but electoral would include the way that those votes are turned into results. Markbassett (talk) 06:46, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment Have only this morning received the RFC, so I don't think I have much to contribute. However, having checked on a few related article topics and skimmed the foregoing text and the article, I reckon that the fundamental problems are that the concepts involved, apart from regional language usages such as UK/US, are too varied and confused for a monolithic long article. Given and granting all that, one of the options is to leave it as it is (but then do include a section explaining the alternative terms at issue and how they fit in with the article title; the fit being inevitably poor because either you choose a general title that is not properly covered by the text, or a specific title that does not sit well with half the text -- as it stands the lede and title are pretty incoherent) or work out the distinguishable issues and split the article to deal with them. Intelligent choice of skeleton sections containing links to the full articles would serve the readers' needs, and as things stand, the article is already long. On a topic like this one it is difficult to assign a title that is as once precise, comprehensible and comprehensive for a long article. Smaller bites might help the readers' assimilation. 0.02c please... JonRichfield (talk) 07:44, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Voting rule. It seems to me that there (at least) two differences between electoral systems and voting rules. (1.) An electoral system is about electing someone: a parliamentary representative, a chairman, a president, etc.; while a voting rule maybe be about anything, a group of people can vote about where to go for lunch. (2.) When discussing a voting rule, it's assumed that we know who's allowed to vote, and what they're voting about. But a discussion of an electoral system covers broader issues: what is the residence requirement for voting, do voters choose the outcome directly or is there an intermediate process such as an "electoral college", are all voters treated the same way, or are they grouped into "constituencies" each with the same rule, or into "states" with a variety of rules? This article is about voting systems, and should be named accordingly. Maproom (talk) 09:17, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
Thank you, Maproom; you've said in few words what took me many above. I agree entirely. Homunq (࿓) 10:12, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes. Consensus seems to be building around "electoral system" main article - e.g. Jenkins, MMP, P3 etc. and "voting rule" for single and multi-winner election rules (also as per my comments in the above section interspersed). Suggestion: The electoral system employs a voting rule with the task of selecting a single or multi-winner for a given electorate by way of some balloting and counting procedure. For example, in the Jenkins electoral system, Jenkins considered that despite having a semi-proportional system that Plurality voting was not a sufficiently representative rule for choosing each local district representative, and therefore recommended AV (IRV) as the single-winner method of choice. Filingpro (talk) 10:51, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
"Voting rule" used by Nobel Prize winners Maskin and Sen in their recent book [[17]]. "Rule" avoids the objection by some that "method" connotes paper vs electronic balloting (just as debit, credit, cash, or check are payment "methods"). Filingpro (talk) 11:05, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
  • I have never heard the term "voting rule". "Voting rules" would sound more natural to me. "Voting system" and "electoral system" both sound very natural. CapitalSasha ~ talk 20:23, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment - I think part of the issue is that this topic is something that's used and studied by different communities, and specifically by different academic disciplines, for different reasons. I think that political scientists would probably be more likely to use "electoral system" (though, as I've said, I think the scope of that term differs in key ways from that of this article as it stands); mathematicians and philosophers might tend to prefer "voting rule" or "social welfare function"; computer scientists, "election algorithm"; and the non-academic community which thinks about this (which, as the article itself notes, is important — activists, politicians, and amateur mathematicians have all contributed to this field in non-negligible ways) might tend to use "election method" or "voting system". I haven't even mentioned economists, because as far as I can tell they partake of almost all the different terminologies, possibly excepting "electoral system".
So I'm not changing my position here — personally I still think "voting rule" or "voting method" are the best options, and "voting system" by far the worst — but I wanted to give this interdisciplinary perspective, as it may help whoever closes this debate think about the issue. Homunq (࿓) 23:51, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

What now?

Latest comment: 7 years ago58 comments8 people in discussion

Thanks again to TonyBallioni for closing the above. On his talk page, I asked him some questions about what to do next, and he basically suggested that I could still use WP:BRD, but I should probably wait a week or so to cool off. I think that's a good idea. So I'll see where this is a bit later and take it from there. Feel free to use this talk page subsection to discuss any cleanup work that needs to happen. Homunq (࿓) 16:11, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Without wishing to get into more walls of text, similar to what we saw above, I would have one question regarding this. What is it about the current setup that you think is broken? In particular, which sections of the article do you think don't belong under the heading "electoral system"? (or indeed, "voting system", which is where the article with its current content had been located stably for many years before the recent move). Personally I'm not convinced any major restructure is needed. Most of the content does pertain to what the sources call an electoral system, which was really why I favoured that title above. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 17:47, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
PS - it's also worth noting that a prior version of this article from 2005 was promoted to featured status. Of course, the standards for FAs have changed a lot since then, and it was demoted in 2009, but in terms of content, the article doesn't actually look hugely different even now from its FA version of 12 years ago. That means that those looking at it at that time were presumably very happy with the content. Just a thought anyway.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:52, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
As to "what's broken": to avoid walls of text, I'm going to answer that after the week is over. As to FA: I know that... I was one of the principal authors of the 2005 FA version, and helped push it to FA status. Homunq (࿓) 20:38, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

This article is about "how votes are cast, counted and aggregated to yield a final result." An electoral/voting SYSTEM involves additional issues, such as whether the polling stations are handled by a city, state, or nation, how voters register to be allowed to vote, whether voting is done in person or by mail, etc. The name "method" or "rule" serves to clarify that this article does not cover an entire "system." I've always disliked the use of the word "system" in this title, and I'm glad someone is trying to get the name changed, now that more people are taking an interest in the methods/rules used to count votes. VoteFair (talk) 19:06, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree with VoteFair. To me, "electoral system" includes not only the algorithm for finding a winner from a given set of ballots, but also questions of who votes, what ballots look like, when votes happen and how multiple rounds are sequenced, where votes happen (ie, districts and such), and why votes happen (which offices have votes, whether there are referenda, etc.). I think that the intro and first section could be tweaked to make all of this clearer.
As to what doesn't belong... well, pretty much everything that's here fits under the heading, but most of the single winner, multi winner, and history sections could be spawned of into more-specific articles and abridged here to make the length more reasonable. Homunq (࿓) 05:02, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
Agreed. And more important, there are many situations which have nothing to do with traditional "electoral systems", but use a variety of algorithms / voting methods. I.e. use by processes running within distributed computer programs. Separating out the algorithms (which are most commonly called voting methods) makes things much cleaner. ★NealMcB★ (talk) 18:30, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
OK, I've WP:BOLDly rewritten the first paragraph to reflect the angle I think we should be taken. If this vision gets consensus, it would involve considerable (but not ground-up) reworking of the article as a whole; probably 30% rewritten in place and over 40% broken off into sub-articles and rewritten as a summary here. I'm not going to go further before there's at least some time for discussion here. Here's the current version of the first paragraph after my rewrite. (I'm not claiming the writing here is perfect, just that I hope it's clear enough to indicate the direction I'd suggest taking the article.) Homunq (࿓)
An electoral system includes the various rules and processes surrounding elections and referenda in some territory or organization. Such rules determine when and on what matters elections are held; who is eligible to vote in those elections; how votes are cast and what set of rules which must be followed for a vote to be considered valid; if and how multiple rounds of voting are used; and how votes are counted and aggregated to yield a final result. This last aspect, the algorithm for aggregating votes into a result, is called the "voting method" or "voting rule", and is central to an electoral system. Electoral systems are often characterized by the primary voting method they use; for instance, majority rule, proportional representation and plurality voting, aside from being voting methods, are considered to be types of electoral systems, as are variations such as first-past-the-post and preferential voting. The study of formally defined voting methods is called social choice theory or voting theory, a subfield of political science, economics, or mathematics.

...I've now begun to work on forking off voting method. Help and/or comments are welcome. Homunq (࿓) 02:09, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Having seen the above and how you've started the other article, we don't appear to be heading in the right direction. What you have listed as "voting method", e.g. proportional representation, plurality voting etc. is the electoral system whereas (as stated above by several editors) the voting method is the process of physically casting the vote. The whole reason for moving this article to electoral system was to have this information here. Moving this information to "voting method" seems to be effectively circumventing the outcome of the RM... Number 57 12:29, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
I initially redirected voting method to this article seeing as it was covering this topic, but I've now re-started it as a brief outline of what I think it should be about based on the comments above. Thoughts and expansion welcome. Cheers. Number 57 14:26, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I see at least 3 different topic groupings in this overall area:

  • Group A: for any specific country, everything to do with voting. Includes questions of what is voted on and when; voter registration and eligibility; abstract and concrete ballot format; abstract and concrete counting procedures; multi-round and/or multi-district election procedures; districting procedures; election authorities and audits; etc.
  • Group B: the abstract algorithm. Includes abstract ballot format and abstract counting procedure only.
  • Group C: implementation details. Includes the physical ballot format, the urns, and possibly some issues of chain of custody and/or communications.

I'd say that "electoral system" is the correct word for group A, which includes both group B and group C as a subset (but only insofar as they are actually used by a country or similar entity). I'd use words like "election method" or "voting rule" for group B, and "voting system" for group C.

I've now begun to clarify that this article refers to A, and I was working on a version of voting method referring to B, when Number57 deleted it and made something that clearly refers to C. So now we've had the first two steps of WP:BRD, and it's time for discussion. I think that other voices besides the two of us would be useful in this conversation.

My bottom line is that I think those 3 groupings above should be separate articles (though the A article should summarize B). I have opinions about what the right names for those articles are but I can live with it if the consensus titles are not my first choice. Homunq (࿓) 17:54, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Electoral system's primary meaning is what I think you are describing as the "abstract algorithm" in (B), i.e. things like proportional representation, first-past-the-post etc. So this article should cover (a) and (b) with possibly a bit about (c), most of which should be covered by voting method. Number 57 18:06, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Part of the confusion is that the word "voting" can apply to just casting a vote/ballot, or it can apply to how the vote-counting is done. Perhaps "electoral method" is better than "voting method" as a name that focuses on vote counting. Another part of the confusion is that there is overlap between ballot type and vote-counting type (because some ballot types can only be counted by some counting methods, and vice versa). VoteFair (talk) 18:13, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Commenting here because Homunq asked me to weigh in: I am far from the expert on voting theory and only got involved in the close because of a request by Homunq to act as a neutral party in determining consensus. I don't have a strong opinion on the A, B, C options and what should be at what article and what should be split. As I said on my talk page when Homunq contacted me after the close, I assumed that splitting discussions would take place after the move, because there was disagreement as to the precise nature of each term and conversations about splitting had already begun to take place. In that regard, I don't see Homunq's original copy/paste move as disruptive, but I also don't disagree with with Number 57's blanking and reworking. The above discussion was contentious, and like I mentioned, the two consensuses were that voting system was a bad name and that electoral system was the most common name, but with disagreement as to what exactly should be in the article. Perhaps the best option would be to work towards drafting an RfC as to what, if anything, from this article should be split off. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:25, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Well stated, Tony. We're taking this one step at a time.
I note that my impression of the original discussion is that there were 6 or 7 expressing the opinion that voting method, or perhaps voting rule, was the right term for the bulk of the article (homunq, nealmcb, filingpro, smokeyjoe, ajaxsmack, probably votefair, perhaps saintdonut) and 4 who were mostly focussed on wanting to change the name (brownhairedgirl, amakuru, number 57, markbassett). But there was consensus that voting system was inappropriate, so the move was made.
Many have commented that the article is now too specific to how voting happens in human political elections. But voting is done by humans in other very different settings, and voting is done by distributed computer programs also, whose organization is not well characterized as an electoral system. Besides that, the article is already too long and complex. So I think it makes abundant sense to separate it out into more pieces. ★NealMcB★ (talk) 18:44, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Number57 says that "this article should cover (a) and (b) with possibly a bit about (c)". But (a) includes (b) and (c), as long as the context is human political voting. So to me, that's just saying that this article topic is (a), which I would agree with.
They also say that (c) should be the focus of another article (I agree); and that that article should be voting method. I cannot recall ever having heard "voting method" used in that sense, except by Number57. So I think that's the wrong title.
But that's mostly immaterial to me. I think the next job is to get the article on (b) written, and to reduce the coverage of (b) here to a summary. I can't do that writing as long as we're arguing about names.
I'm not going to edit war on this but I think that Number57's edits to voting method, though fully in good faith, were counterproductive. I'd welcome it if somebody else took the content that they blanked out and put it somewhere — whether that location be back at voting method, or at election method, voting rule, or something else. As soon as we have a place for it, we can work on getting the content right. I hope the first place it goes is stable but if moves are necessary in the future it's not the end of the world. Homunq (࿓) 19:07, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
This article's (Electoral system) primary subject is what I think you have listed as (b), so this should not be moved elsewhere, otherwise the RM was pointless. Any rewrite on this subject should be here. Number 57 19:11, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Then why do you think (a) should be covered here? And where should the article whose primary topic is (a) go? Homunq (࿓) 19:14, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Because it's the relevant to the context of (b), particularly stuff like frequency and districting. I don't see why the two need to be separated. Number 57 19:22, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
I disagree. (a) and (b) are obviously closely related topics, but they deserve separate articles. Both are clearly WP:NOTABLE in their own right, and the current article is pretty clearly WP:TOOLONG.
I think we both understand each other's position (and also that NealMcB understands both sides and has chosen one). How can we resolve this? I don't want to do an RfC so soon after the move, but though it's possible my policy arguments will convince Number57 or they'll have arguments that will convince me, it seems unlikely at this point. So unless other people jump in here I think it's either an RfC or "majority rules" (not ideal, but sometimes what it comes down to... ironically, in this case).
So Number57, if you want to start an RfC, that would be fine. Homunq (࿓) 20:30, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Given the amount of sub-articles there are on the various exact systems, I think the article could be trimmed quite siginficantly but still cover all the relevant material. In the meantime, let's wait to see what @BrownHairedGirl and Amakuru: have to say. Whatever the outcome, moving the main contents of this article on the various electoral systems to voting method would clearly be in contravention of the outcome of the RM, so that is definitely out of the question. Number 57 20:37, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
I agree with @Number 57. I came here from the ping, and read the thread from the top. I was appalled to see that after a consensus to have an article called "electoral systems" which covers PR/FPTP/Lists/etc, Homunq was setting to work to move all that content off to an article under the title which had been rejected at RM.
I was relieved to get to the end and see Number57's comment. As to Homunq ... after bludgeoning the RN discussion with so many walls of text that it became a nightmare to follow, this really is too much.
It seems to me that after not getting his way at RM, Homunq firstly tried circumventing the consensus by a restructuring ... and is now proposing an RFC to go over the same territory again, which is blatant WP:FORUMSHOPping.
Please, Homunq, back off or this will end up at one of the drama boards. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:00, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
PS I have just reverted[18] the article back to the last version before Homunq began this attempt to subvert the RM. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:05, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

(dedent; this is Homunq quoting people from above) Number 57 : "moving the main contents of this article on the various electoral systems to voting method would clearly be in contravention of the outcome of the RM"; TonyBallioni (closer of the RM): "I don't see Homunq's original copy/paste move as disruptive".

BrownHairedGirl: "...after a consensus..."; ★NealMcB★: "there were 6 or 7 expressing the opinion that voting method, or perhaps voting rule, was the right term ... and 4 who were mostly focussed on wanting to change the name" to the current.

BrownHairedGirl: "and is now proposing an RFC to go over the same territory again, which is blatant WP:FORUMSHOPping"; TonyBallioni (closer of the RM): "Perhaps the best option would be to work towards drafting an RfC as to what, if anything, from this article should be split off." Homunq (࿓) 21:14, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Also, I have a hard time not seeing BrownHairedGirl's reversion of this article as making a WP:POINT (to wit, that WP:BADGERs never prosper). I believe in good faith that those edits were improvements, in and of themselves; not merely a sneaky plan to subvert the RM outcome (nb: edited slightly). Yes, I did use the terms I feel are best in those edits, but BHG could have changed the terms without reverting the whole edit. Homunq (࿓) 21:19, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
(ec)@Homunq: rubbish. I am not making any point: I am simply following WP:BRD, and reverting a bold edit to the status quo ante. I urge you read both WP:BRD, and WP:BOLD, and take particular note of the section WP:RECKLESS.
It is quite possible that some of those changes were indeed improvements within the current structure. But when they were bound up with an attempt to restructure the whole article in a way which you already knew did not have consensus, then they get reverted along with the rest.
What irks me about your call for an RFC is not that it is inherently a bad idea, but a) that you came to it only after taking undiscussed steps to implement a set of changes which you knew in advance would be controversial, and b) I fear that an RFC will be subjected to the same sort of WP:BLUDGEONing which you did at RM.
I want to believe that you are not operating some sort of attrition strategy, but if you really are seeking to build a WP:CONSENSUS, this is not the way to do it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:52, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
I'm very sorry to see the strong language being used here. Let me try to inject some more content.
What I'll call for the moment voting algorithms (or voting methods or voting rules) are a major topic on Wikipedia, but not exclusive to electoral systems. Having them be the major topic of this very long article is thus inappropriate and we need to split things out. How we do the split, what names we use, etc is one thing, but most of the discussion of the algorithms should not be in this article, which is obviously about humans voting in traditional elections. For a sense of the other places where these voting algorithms com up, like movie recommendation applications, autonomous software agents, etc., check out this reference, cited from multiple pages here like Satisfaction approval voting: Aziz, Haris; Serge Gaspers, Joachim Gudmundsson, Simon Mackenzie, Nicholas Mattei, Toby Walsh. "Computational Aspects of Multi-Winner Approval Voting". Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems. pp. 107–115. ISBN 978-1-4503-3413-6. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) ---unsigned comment by ★NealMcB★ (talk)

BrownHairedGirl, in what sense were my edits "undiscussed"? Homunq (࿓) 21:58, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I really don't think that I need to spell that out again. Please re-read the comments above by me and and by Number 57, and note that you yourself described your actions as BOLD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:20, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
I got defensive
Please re-read the above yourself. There are comments on 2 March by VoteFair, and 4 March by me, both generally agreeing on the need to split the article, over 12 hours before I made any article-space edits; some edits to the lede to show what I intended. Then, I waited another 2 days, after NealMcB had also chimed in in agreement, until I started working on voting method on 6 March. I don't understand "undiscussed"; and that seems to be key to your point when you say "What irks me about your call for an RFC is not that it is inherently a bad idea, but a) that you came to it only after taking undiscussed steps to implement a set of changes which you knew in advance would be controversial..." I also remind you again that TonyBallioni was the first to suggest an RfC, which seems to me highly relevant. Homunq (࿓) 22:46, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
I'm sorry. BrownHairedGirl's opinion of me is not really what we should be talking about here.
Nobody disputes that this article needs further work. Whatever else you can accuse me of, it's not of failing to have a vision for how that work should proceed or failing to try to communicate that vision. As far as I can see, the general outlines of that vision seem to be shared by VoteFair and NealMcB, and to be considered at least legitimate/in good faith by TonyBallioni, though he remains neutral in a broader sense (which is useful; thanks). BrownHairedGirl and Number57, I understand that you don't like my vision, but I can't exactly understand what yours is, besides leaving the article more-or-less as is. Perhaps that would be a more fruitful line of discussion than whether or not I'm a bad person. Homunq (࿓) 22:54, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

(1) RE: "Voting method" for electronic vs paper ballots. I oppose am open but concerned . I don't believe in our longer discussion there was such a consensus reached. While some believed "method" meant paper vs electronic ballots, others mean algorithm, as commonly used in the field of voting theory (i.e. single-winner algorithm). For paper vs electronic, I would suggest instead "election administration" "ballot recording methods" "election management" "voting equipment" etc. (as a brainstorm). Filingpro (talk) 08:49, 8 March 2017 (UTC) Google search "voting method" seems dominated with voting rules/electoral systems not voting equipment. Filingpro (talk)
(2) I am concerned we are losing an opportunity to distinguish electoral systems from single and multi-winner election methods (or voting rules), or at least failing to teach the subset relationship - i.e. "fruit" to "apples". For example, in "Evaluating Electoral Systems Using Criteria", the criteria apply to single-winner election methods (and some multi-winner methods), but I'm not sure how they apply to [MMP, Jenkins, P3] etc, which are electoral systems, which seem to me of different scope. An electoral system might choose to employ different single-winner election methods for each of their local member seats (e.g. Jenkins uses AV and MMP uses Plurality). Filingpro (talk) 11:39, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

In response Homunq's question over what the vision of other editors is, in general, I think the article probably contains most of the right stuff, but not necessarily with the right order (the history should probably come first), weighting (we have far too much weight on evaluation and probably too little on the proliferation of different electoral systems) or level of complexity (some parts of it are far too complex for the general reader, especially the "Evaluating electoral systems using criteria" section, which is a good candidate for WP:TNT). I see this article as primarily being about the various electoral systems as described under multiple and single-winner systems, but also covering the wider parts of electoral systems such as districting, voting methods etc (i.e. what is currently covered under "Aspects", plus possibly a bit more around suffrage). The mathematical evaluation aspect should be briefly mentioned, but perhaps spun off into a separate article where it can be properly explained.
I also think The complexity issue is key, and reading the comments on this page, I have concerns that some editors want this article written as if it were an academic work for people already familiar with the minute intricacies of the relevant mathematics. My opinion is that the article should be much more accessible and any fine detail should be kept in the multitude of sub-articles on various aspects of electoral systems. Number 57 12:00, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
It seems we're agreed that the more technical voting theory stuff should be spun off. That's what I was trying/starting to do at voting method; but you have made that article about ballot technologies. So what do you think should be the title of the spinoff article?
As to the complexity issue: I agree that that needs improvement, but criticizing talk page comments for fixating on minor technical details is kinda missing the point. That's what talk pages are for. Homunq (࿓) 12:49, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
Voting theory would be a good title for that area. I'm not criticising people for fixating on technical details on the talk page (that's fine), I'm concerned that this is what the article will end up looking like. At the moment it's really not very readable. I might have a bash at writing a draft replacement in the next few days to let others see what they think. Number 57 13:30, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
"Voting theory" is not an accepted technical term. "Social choice theory" is, but I think it would be perverse to make people go to a jargon-named "theory of X" article to learn about "X". As the majority of people in this discussion have agreed, we need another article about voting algorithms. My preferences are "voting method" > "voting rule" > "electoral method" > "election method"> "election algorithm" > "voting algorithm" > "election rule" > "social choice function". I'd be fine if consensus settles on any of those (though I would hope it would not be because we have a different article about voting technologies at "voting method"; that should go at "voting technology"). All three articles — this one on overarching real-world systems, the one on algorithms, and the one on technology — should have a hatnote pointing to the other two, so that it doesn't matter too much which one of them is the target of any given redirect of a related phrase. Homunq (࿓) 14:12, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
Could you clarify what you mean by "voting algorithms", because above it initially seems that you meant electoral systems (e.g. proportional representation) and now it seems you are referring to the the mathematical evaluation. Of the suggested titles you've listed, I don't think any of the first three are suitable as they would mean rather different things to what it seems you want the article to cover; I don't think "voting technology" is a good title for what is currently at voting method because it suggests a specific focus on machine voting and overlooks paper ballots, which are not a form of technology in common parlance (which is what we should be aiming for). Number 57 14:37, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
What I (and, I think, Filingpro, NealMcB, and others) mean by "voting algorithm" is the function whose inputs are all the information the voters put on the ballots, and whose output is a winning option or a full ordering of the options. (In the multi-winner case, "option" means a set of candidates to take the available seats, not just a single candidate.) "Proportional representation" is not a voting algorithm, it is a broad class of such algorithms. I'm speaking of things like approval voting, Single transferable vote, Borda count, or "closed list D'Hondt_method".
As for the technology article (and yes, paper or marbles are technology, though I take your point that most people don't think that way), what about putting it at "voting system"? Looking at google, that is actually a common usage for that phrase, unlike for "voting method".
You can see in the RM above several attempts to look systematically at usage using Google and Google Scholar. I think that's what we should be going for, not just the feelings of the people who happen to show up on this talk page. Homunq (࿓) 15:09, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
OK, things like STV and the other things you list are still electoral systems which should be covered here, so I'm not sure there is a need for a separate article for this algorithm concept.
I still can't see a better title for what is at voting method that the current name, especially as there doesn't seem to be anything else that needs that title. Number 57 15:32, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

(dedent) This article is too long. Breaking out some of the technical coverage to a separate article is needed. Those things I listed are used as electoral systems, but they are also used for other things — recommendation algorithms, sub-steps of machine learning procedures, objects of inquiry in the philosophy of ethics, bases of comparison for designing auction procedures, etc. They deserve their own article. We already realize that you oppose "electoral method" and I favor it as a name for that article. Let's hear from other people. Homunq (࿓) 15:51, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the article is too long, but what should probably go is the Evaluating electoral systems using criteria section; I'm not sure whether this is the same thing as what you are suggesting taking out. Number 57 15:58, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

!votes on name for new sub-article

  • "voting method" > "voting rule" > "electoral method" > "election method"> "election algorithm" > "voting algorithm" > "election rule" > "social choice function" as stated above. Homunq (࿓) 15:51, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment What exactly is this article going to cover? This is still not clear; from the above it seems you intend to cover some electoral system details, which brings us back to circumventing the RM. Perhaps you could put a draft in your userspace of what you foresee this article being about and then we can decide whether it's necessary or not. Number 57 15:55, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
As I stated above: 'any functions whose inputs are all the information the voters put on the ballots, and whose output is a winning option or a full ordering of the options.... I'm speaking of things like approval voting, Single transferable vote, Borda count, or "closed list D'Hondt_method".' Homunq (࿓) 16:02, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
So this is back to circumventing the RM because these are electoral systems. Please let's not go there again... Number 57 16:04, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
TonyBallioni, the editor who closed the RM, characterized my actions as "not disruptive" and, prior to my taking them, told me "I would suggest opening up a conversation on the talk page about splitting. I would not take any offense from it, and actually assumed it would happen given the conversation." Please stop trying to use the RM outcome to shut down that conversation. Homunq (࿓) 16:11, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
The only thing I'm trying to shut down is an apparent attempt to get around the result of the RM by moving the main contents of this article by another means, because that is gaming the system and I see no problem with this being immediately shut down given that the RM has just finished. This point has been made more forcibly by BrownHairedGirl above and I would have hoped you would have understood that this is not acceptable. Number 57 19:02, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
Commenting here since I see my name has been invoked: my close of the RM was focused on what the name of the current article should be, and I think I did a decent job of explaining what after my reading what the discussion and policy seemed to suggest was what needed to be done and had consensus. Discussions had already started to occur in the RM about a potential split, which is why I said that I assumed there would be further discussion afterwards on the talk page. That's not an endorsement of a split, and it seems that there is opposition to the bold edits here concerning splitting, and not much of an appetite to have an extensive discussion concerning it now because the RM was so long. I appreciate Homunq's confidence in me here, but my advice after the close and here were just observations as an editor who had not been involved in the RM discussion previously, nothing more. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:18, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
Thank you, @TonyBallioni:. I was not claiming that you'd endorsed a split, merely that your closing the RM was not a rejection of the idea of a split, as it appears @Number 57: and @BrownHairedGirl: believe it was.
It appears we are at an impasse. As far as I can tell, a majority of those who have commented favor a split; and that reading of nascent consensus seems to me to be shared by @Nealmcb:. But clearly, my reading of the situation is biased. Meanwhile, Number57 and BrownHairedGirl seem to be inclined to view my actions as merely an individual's wikilawyering attempt to subvert the RM outcome, and as one might imagine given that point of view, have little patience for looking at such things as arguments regarding google results.
As a gesture of respect to those who don't care about this particular corner of the wiki as much as I do, I'm going to take a break on this until this weekend. In the meantime, I'd regard any efforts to bring in new voices on this as helpful, because I think that the existing voices are finding their assumption of good faith pretty strained at this point, on both sides. So go ahead, bring your friends, or alert the people who commented on the RM but have since dropped out, or people who have previously commented on this article; I'm not going to be throwing around accusations of WP:CANVASS as long as people are above-board about it. Or even better, start an RfC. Even a thread on a "drama board", which I assume means things like WP:ANI; I don't want that to happen, but I wouldn't regard it as hostile if it was phrased neutrally. Homunq (࿓) 20:07, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
I am not objecting to a split; the article is too long, particularly the coverage of certain areas; the crux of the issue is what should be split out of the article. You seem to be pushing for the main subject of the article (i.e. the electoral systems themselves) to be split out, which is clearly not acceptable. The only way we are going to move forward is when this stick is dropped and we can move onto a productive discussion of what can realistically be split from the article without changing its main focus (I don't harbour any grudges towards you Homunq, as I appreciate you simply want to improve this article, which is a mess, but you need to accept the outcome and move on).
Personally I would be more than happy to see the material currently listed under Evaluating electoral systems using criteria to be split out to free up space to discuss some more features of different electoral systems. Like I said earlier, I'll try and draft a new version somewhere in the next few days and put that up for discussion. Number 57 20:27, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I am frustrated to see Homunq still pursuing the idea of splitting out the main content of this article. It is abundantly clear that Homunq still doesn't accept that an article called "electoral systems" should be predominantly about FPTP/STV/Lists etc, and is pursuing an attrition strategy to try to grind down other editors by yet more WP:BLUDGEONing and subvert the RM decision.

It is frustrating too to see comments such as Homunq's remark that I have little patience for looking at such things as arguments regarding google results. That grossly misrepresents my position. In the RM discussion, I criticised Homunq's use of Google, because a) it included no links to the searches conducted, impeding verification of the results; and b) it made no effort to analyse what topics were thrown up by terms which can be used in different ways. The result was screenfuls of useless pseudo-data :( However, the RM is closed, so any such data is now irrelevant, even if done properly.

Once again, I plead with Homunq to WP:DROPTHESTICK and back off before this conduct has to be taken to a drama board; we are not far off that point.

I am not persuaded that the article as it stands is too long, but I wouldn't want to see it any longer. However, I have no objection in principle to splitting it up a bit if others feel that it is over-length, provided that the split does not alter the focus of the article.

I like Number 57's idea of splitting out the very lengthy evaluation section. That looks like quite easy job, which probably doesn't require much more than a scissors at the first sub-head. The history section is also quite long, and in theory could be split out, but that would first require a summary of the content, which does not currently exist; so some writing required. And I support the idea that history should come much earlier in the article. One it is summarised, that should not be difficult. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:54, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Questions come to my mind (to all editors)...
If the article is "electoral systems" then why wouldn't we want a concise comparison table of the electoral systems with respect to criteria? I wonder, is it necessary to move the table or perhaps just the criteria definitions?
If a city is choosing a method to elect their Mayor, or Egypt a means to elect their president after a revolution by direct vote, or an organization needs a method to choose a leader, or a semi-proportional system is seeking a single-winner method of choice for its districts, or a legislative body must vote on three alternative courses of action, what article on wiki do they go to see a comparison of voting methods such as Approval voting, Runoff Voting, Instant-Runoff Voting, Plurality Voting, Range Voting, or various counting methods for Ranked Choice Voting including Coombs method, Borda Count, or Condorcet methods (e.g. Schulze, Ranked Pairs, etc)?
Filingpro (talk) 09:58, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
I think the main reason would be because it's very technical and will be meaningless to people who do not have a detailed knowledge of the subject; I very much doubt that an average member of the public would be able to come to this article and use that table for comparison purposes (I have to confess that it's largely meaningless to me and I count myself as having an above-average knowledge of systems). I also can't see it being possible to explain what the table means without a huge amount of text. However, the article should still make it clear that this information is available in another article. Number 57 10:20, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
I agree with @Number 57. This article should provide an overview of electoral systems, and the detailed comparison should be in a clearly-linked separate article. That table assumes a detailed technical knowledge of the evaluation criteria, so it is not something to present in the introduction to the topic.
So the answer to @Filingpro is that this reader comes to this page, where they will find an overview of the topic, with a choice of more specific articles view. Those more specific articles include pages on each individual system, and a page on the comparison. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:02, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
Yes it makes sense to me to encapsulate topics of greater specificity to make a subject more approachable, and manageable. At the same time, I think we should caution ourselves not to shy from inclusion of a subject on the grounds that it is "technical" (which can be counter to education), and likewise I see no basis that voting criteria are "meaningless" (they have frequent and critical real-world impact), so I think we should not assume they are meaningless to a perceived "average reader". I am open to support specific proposals to move more detailed discussions to separate article where they might be better treated, with clear references as suggested by BrownHair and #57. Meanwhile, it remains unclear to me that electoral systems exhibiting properties is not sufficiently central to the topic (i.e. what procedure does a group of individuals employ to choose amongst three alternatives?), and I don't see how after extracting the section, where salient references would remain in the absence of stubs in the TOC. Lastly, while the article may be long I don't think we should base an editorial decision on arbitrary length. Filingpro (talk) 02:53, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
@Filingpro, please note that @Number 57 did not say that voting criteria are "meaningless". What #57 did say was the more qualified statement that the table is meaningless to people who do not have a detailed knowledge of the subject. That's why #57 proposed splitting them to a separate article in which that more detailed knowledge could be set out ... and that's why I support the split, leaving behind a less technical summary of the evaluation criteria. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:16, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
Yes I had considered that and open to moving more detailed discussions, although what I said is I think we should caution not to assume voting criteria are meaningless to a perceived average reader (#57 says they are meaningless to [them - i.e. #57] and #57 has above-average knowledge). I suggested in my post we base the decision on level of specificity, and centrality of an issue. Filingpro (talk) 09:06, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
I support splitting off the comparison info into a separate article, especially because this is a standard approach in Wikipedia (e.g. Comparison of web browsers). The comparison info is valuable and is extremely meaningful to anyone who understands voting methods. Note that this is a separate issue compared to the splitting of info between an "electoral system" article and an "electoral method" article. VoteFair (talk) 06:11, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
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