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"The Science of Elections," by Steven J. Brams and Dudley R. Herschbach. Science, 25 May 2001, page 1449.
The authors give a little history of voting theory and advocate for a method called approval voting. This method allows voters to vote for as many candidates as they wish and does not restrict them to only one choice, as do most voting procedures currently in use. Brams and Herschbach write that the fault in the last U.S. presidential election wasn't so much in Florida voting machines as it was in the plurality method of voting (in which the top vote-getter wins). The flaw with plurality voting is that in a race with more than two candidates, the top vote-getter is often the one most objectionable to a majority of the voters. Many professional societies use approval voting to elect officers. The authors invite a state to try approval voting and become "the pioneer in electoral reform."
--- Mike Breen
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