| | |  | Books | | Home » » | | | | | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| William Poundstone | | Hardcover:
| 352 pages | | Publisher:
| Hill and Wang | | Publication Date:
| February 05, 2008 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0809048930 | | Product Width:
| 158.0 centimeters | | Product Height:
| 232.5 centimeters | | Product Weight:
| 1.32 pounds | | Package Length:
| 9.1 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.3 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.3 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.3 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 19 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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76 of 91 found the following review helpful:
 Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About It)Feb 12, 2008
By Terrill G. Bouricius
"voting reformer"
The book is extremely well-written, and a joy to read. It would be highly recommended, except for two fatal flaws discussed below.
Poundstone's latest book deals with an issue that is fundamental to democracy, yet almost totally ignored in the U.S. While many books focus on the role of money in elections, or voter registration, or voting machine integrity, relatively few popularly written books have tackled the more fundamental question of how votes get translated into representation. This is not a question of voting machine technology, but of logic. Most Americans are remarkably unaware of the variety of voting methods available, nor of the fact that the plurality voting method that predominates in the U.S. is not the norm among modern democracies, and, in fact, is probably the most problematic of all voting methods.
Americans generally accept as inevitable that if more than two candidates are in a race, vote splitting may cause a candidate that the majority oppose to be declared elected. Poundstone points out that it doesn't have to be that way. For hundreds of years thoughtful individuals have proposed alternative means of finding majority winners, that avoid this problem. Voting methods that allow voters to rank candidates in order of preference, for example, were first proposed over 150 years ago and have been used for government elections around the world for generations. He discusses the history of methods such as the borda count, condorcet pairwise comparisons, approval voting, and instant runoff voting.
Poundstone approaches the subject by telling stories about the key people involved (both historic and contemporary), making the history and theory of voting into a fascinating and compelling tale. His book avoids the technical formula-laden jargon of voting theory texts, but does justice to the concepts. He manages to present Kenneth Arrow's Impossibility Theorem (often summarized as "there is no such thing as a perfect voting method") in a way that makes it both understandable and interesting.
However, the book suffers from two fundamental shortcomings, that prompt me to give a poor overall rating. First is the fact that Poundstone focuses almost exclusively on the question of how to elect an executive, single seat office, as if this was the core problem we face. He gives scant attention to the single biggest issue of voting in democracies, that of how to achieve fair representation in legislative bodies. He discusses proportional representation in just a few pages, and never really tackles the problems inherent in all of the winner-take-all election methods that he spends the rest of the book discussing.
The other fundamental failing of the book is his championing the assertions of advocates of one particular reform as immune from the paradoxes and dilemmas facing all other voting methods. He simply accepts the claim that Range Voting, a theoretical method in which voters can give a score to each candidate, can avoid the dilemmas and tactical manipulation. Poundstone was either unaware, or chose to ignore the analysis of Nicolaus Tideman, in his 2006 book, "Collective Decisions and Voting," which led Tideman to place Range Voting on the list of "unacceptable" voting methods, because of how prone it is to strategic manipulation.
Unfortunately, this shortcoming misdirects people in the key second part of his subtitle -- "what to do about it." Readers truly taking Poundstone seriously are likely to end up banging their heads against the wall -- and perhaps making them more frustrated and alienated than ever.
19 of 20 found the following review helpful:
 Best in Class!May 22, 2008
By Nyghtewynd
Most books that attempt to propose new ways of carrying out elections are nothing more than sour grapes: "Since *my* guy didn't win the last election, the system is obviously flawed and should be overhauled." Therefore, most of these sort of books are a waste of time.
This one, however, is simply brilliant.
Instead of approaching the subject through party results, Poundstone instead takes a historical walk through many different voting schemes in terms of the mathematical theory behind them. Don't be scared by the word "mathematical", by the way...Poundstone not only steers clear of intense mathematics but also provides a simple glossary to help you remember something you may have forgotten from earlier pages. While I think I can determine his political leanings from a couple of different allusions, he makes such a good argument and has such an engaging style of writing that it doesn't matter. There were several times when I noticed a flaw in the argumentation and Poundstone responds to the particular question on the VERY NEXT page. Any author that can read the mind of an informed reader is doing a good job indeed. :)
In conclusion, anyone who's interested in the process of voting should read this one because it's the best of its kind.
24 of 29 found the following review helpful:
 Revolutionary ideas that are worth ponderingFeb 21, 2008
By Paul Tognetti
"The real world is so much more interesting!"
I don't know about you but I sure am frustrated by the choices we have been presented with during the current Presidential election cycle. Over the years I have observed that regardless of political philosophy the first candidates to be eliminated during the primary season are the ones with ideas. In addition, the frequent appearance of so-called "spoiler" candidates in the both primaries and general elections very often frustrate the will of the people. Voters are frequently heard to mumble "there must be a better way." Well maybe, just maybe, there is. In "Gaming The Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About it) author William Poundstone considers these issues and presents for your consideration at least a half dozen possible alternatives to our current system of plurality voting. Some methods are clearly better than others but the ideas offered in "Gaming The Vote" will definitely get you thinking about the problems voters face in selecting their leaders.
The overwhelming majority of elections conducted in this nation utilize the method known as plurality voting. Plurality voting is not very complicated and works very well when there are only two candidates. For all intents and purposes, whoever gets the most votes wins. That is fine and dandy until a third or a fourth candidate enters the race. That is when a phenomenon known as "vote splitting" occurs. The end result can be what we all saw in Florida in the 2000 Presidential election. Independent candidate Ralph Nader siphoned off just enough votes from Al Gore to cost him a victory in Florida and denied him the Presidency. So just what are the alternatives? Is there really any method of voting out there that is fair and fool-proof?
William Poundstone examines several voting methods that have been developed over the years. Most of these have been deemed statistically "unacceptable" by the experts who study these things. There are simply too many ways to manipulate the results. Both "Borda Count' (introduced in France in 1784) and "Condorcet Voting" would fall into this category. You will also discover that the same appears to be true for something called "Cumulative Voting" and yet another system called "Approval Voting". It is interesting to note that there are a couple of voting alternatives that are being heavily promoted these days. "Instant Runoff Voting" ranks the candidates in order of preference while "Range Voting" offers voters the opportunity to rate all candidates based on a scale of 0 to 10. You may not even realize it but Amazon reviewers use "range voting" every time they choose to submit a review. What you will discover in "Gaming The Vote" is that reforming our elections is a very tricky proposition indeed. There are so many factors to consider and no one can be absolutely certain that any election system is fool-proof. And as another reviewer has aptly pointed out William Poundstone only discusses the election of executives in his book. Whether any of these methods could work at the state and local level in races for the legislature or city council is really unclear.
When all is said and done I really do think that "Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren't Fair (and What We Can Do About It)" is a book worth reading. However, if you are looking for definitive answers to the problem of conducting elections in this country then you will likely be disappointed. For most folks, "Gaming The Vote" will merely serve as an introduction to those methods that could one day make our elections fairer and the results more indicative of the voters wishes than they are today. People need to arm themselves with this kind of useful information if we are ever going to bring meaningful reform to our elections. "Gaming The Vote" is a well written book that should prove quite interesting to a wide range of readers. Recommended.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
In one word: CompellingMar 21, 2009
By D. Sheldon
Received for the holidays, and quickly devoured, William Poundstone's Gaming the Vote. I absolutely loved this book, as its layout mirrored my own exploration of the issue of fair voting, and was filled with the sorts of great examples that grab and focus attention, written in a way that brings out the very human characters that underlie what seems, on the surface, to be a dryly academic topic. Basically, it's the book I would love to write, if I had Poundstone's experience, training, and writing ability.
Starting with an anectdote about Kurt Godel (one of my other favorite books is Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach), it lays out all the problems with our current voting system, with examples scatterd across American history, from Lincoln (and his 39.8% popular-vote win) all the way up to 2006's midterm elections. Once the problem is laid out, Poundstone starts searching for solutions, again giving us great real-life examples full of all-too-human characters, including Kenneth Arrow (winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics), Lewis Carrol (author of Alice in Wonderland), and Lee Atwater (Nixon's expert slime-man.) Along the way, he points out all the downsides of IRV, Condorcet's method, Approval voting, and even his favorite horse, Range voting. Most compelling is his diagram of Baysian Regret of various voting methods (basically, the sum total of how upset people are about an election's result), which strongly suggest that he's right: Range voting scores best.
The book ends by calling me out; asking if any municipality would be willing to step up to the plate and put Range voting into law. Well Mr. Poundstone, I accept your challenge.
(crossposted from "The Least of all Evils" voting-reform blog, "leastevil" on blogspot)
13 of 18 found the following review helpful:
A joy to readMar 15, 2008
By Bruce R. Gilson
I've read a number of books on voting systems, most of which are very dry and technical. This book manages to explain a lot of things in a well-written, readable form, and I recommend it highly.
The book has two main sections: in one, several elections in the past history of the United States are discussed to show how our electoral mechanism can go awry. This could be very amusing if it weren't so tragic, and sets the stage for the second part. This part describes alternatives and homes in on a method, "range voting," which solves many of the difficulties associated with our electoral system.
Range voting is familiar to Amazon customers, because it is the way books are rated here: voters give a rating (1 to 5 stars on Amazon, it could be 1-10 or 1-100, for example, in another type of election) and the ratings are averaged, with the highest rating winning. It is a system where you can sincerely rate a number of candidates and be sure that your vote will not hurt one you favor against one you dislike or help someone you disfavor against one you prefer. It never has been used in political elections, but has been used in many other contexts, and not just on Amazon.
Unfortunately, as Poundstone mentions, there has come to be a controversy where two different electoral system reforms have been set against each other: range voting and "instant runoff voting" have their advocates, each cutting down the other. Each would have advantages over the present system, but range voting has in my eyes slightly more, as IRV does generate some odd paradoxes (discussed in the book under the term "nonmonotonicity") in some situations. Whether these situations would often arise is hard to determine, because IRV has only been used for any length of time in one place: Australia. Range voting seems to be harder to implement, but avoids these paradoxes.
It is true, as another reviewer mentions, that the book concentrates on single-winner elections and does not go into the possibility of electing legislatures by proportional methods. This only means that that is another issue to deal with, and does not detract from the fact that many offices, such as mayors, governors, and chief executives in general are inherently single-winner, and this book is oriented toward such offices.
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