Election Transparency and Free Recounts for Voters

At OpaVote, we want voters to have confidence in the outcome of the election. Especially for hotly contested elections, there may be allegations of fraud or other bad acts to improperly influence the election.

The ability of voters to verify that the election was conducted properly can be referred to as election transparency.  The two main questions in election transparency are:

1. Were the ballots collected correctly (e.g., were ballots modified or discarded)?
2. Were the ballot counted correctly?

Why use ranked-choice voting over approval voting

Voting is not an easy task for a voter.  I don't mean taking time off work, getting to the polls, and waiting in line, etc.  I mean, when you are standing there in the ballot box, you have to decide what vote you want to cast given the options presented to you.  For example, a Jill Stein supporter may be torn between supporting her favorite candidate and voting for a candidate who has a better chance of winning the election.  I'll refer to this as the cognitive burden of expressing your vote.

In this post, I'll address the cognitive burden of three different types of voting:

1. Plurality voting (i.e., selecting one candidate)
2. Approval Voting
3. Ranked-choice voting

OpaVote supports all three of these voting methods if you want to try them out yourself.