What's the fairest voting system?

CrowdScience

BBC

Science, Technology

4.8 • 985 Ratings

🗓️ 11 October 2024

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

2024 is the biggest election year in history. From Taiwan to India, the USA to Ghana, by the end of the year almost half of the world’s population will have had the chance to choose who governs them. But there are a huge number of possible voting systems – and listener James wants CrowdScience to find out which is the fairest. To do so, we create a fictional country called CrowdLand to try out different electoral systems. Presenter Caroline Steel consults mathematician David McCune and political scientists Eric Linhart and Simon Hix, and we hear from listeners around the world about how they vote in their respective countries. Can we find the perfect voting system for CrowdLand? Contributors: Prof David McCune, William Jewell College, USA Prof Eric Linhart, University of Technology Chemnitz, Germany Prof Simon Hix, European University Institute, Italy Actors: Charlotte Bloomsbury Ross Virgo Presenter: Caroline Steel Producer: Florian Bohr Editor: Cathy Edwards Production Co-ordinator: Ishmael Soriano Studio Manager: Donald MacDonald

(Image: Hand of a person casting a vote into the ballot box during elections, Thailand Credit: boonchai wedmakawandvia Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Was Amber Lynn really a wicked queen?
0:04.4	People feared women who were smart.
0:06.8	M flay girl.
0:08.0	Exactly.
0:09.0	What about resputing?
0:10.4	A miraculous mystic or a die-hard deviant. I think there's some bad stuff in there. I do weirdly respect him.
0:17.0	On evil genius, we are the judges of that.
0:20.0	Join me, Russell Kane and a host of comedians as we put more historical legends under scrutiny to find out if they're evil or genius.
0:32.0	Evil genius listen on BBC sounds. Evil Genius.
0:33.0	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:35.0	We've come to the end of tonight's debate with the party candidates.
0:39.0	Each of you will now have 30 seconds to make a final statement.
0:42.0	Hello and welcome. have 30 seconds to make a final statement.
0:48.0	Hello and welcome to crowd science from the BBC World Service. I'm Caroline Steele and this is a very important political debate. Candidate number one, you will go first.
0:55.4	Citizens of Crowdland.
0:59.0	I feel like we've had some very fruitful discussions today,
1:01.6	and perhaps we've planted a seed of hope within your burgeoning hearts.
1:05.6	Okay maybe not that important but it is a political debate set in a fictional world called
1:12.2	Crowdland.
1:13.4	And remember, an apple a day keeps the doctor away.
1:17.2	Thank you so much.
1:18.8	Okay, candidate number two, your 30 seconds starts now.
	...

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