Neither the blog post kindly submitted here nor the comments (so far) nor the Wikipedia article mentioned in one comment mention the impossibility theorem proved by Kenneth Arrow,[1] which shows that we can't build a perfect voting system to take into account preferences among three or more candidates. As a voter in a state with as many as ten candidates on the ballot in a typical presidential election, and some amazingly close three-way statewide elections,[2] I'm surprised that the Arrow paradox (Arrow impossibility theorem) isn't more widely known. I learned about it in an article in Scientific American back in the 1970s. My state has three "major parties" that have automatic ballot access for nominated candidates, and I expect that this year we may add one more political party to the list of major parties by the rules established in state law. If voters have more than two choices, odd results can happen in elections.

AFTER EDIT: A comment posted while I was typing the first version of this comment mentions "range voting" as a response to the Arrow paradox. A commentary by an economist[3] and a problem set by a mathematician[4] may suggest to thoughtful readers here some issues to ponder while discussing whether or not range voting provides better trade-offs than our current voting system, and whether it indeed escapes the theorem proved by Arrow.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_impossibility_theorem

http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/arrow.pdf

[2] http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/11/franken-c...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24383.html

http://www.amazon.com/This-Is-Not-Florida-Minnesota/dp/08166...

[3] http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/11/ran...

[4] http://www.math.cornell.edu/~mec/Summer2008/anema/approval.h...