Like most post-election seasons, we have our share of recounts going on. I’m going to expand on one of my first blog posts about the electoral tie problem. My suggestion will seem extremely radical to many, and thus will never happen, but it’s worth talking about.

Scientists know that when you are measuring two values, and you get results that are within the margin of error, the results are considered equal. A tie. There is a psychological tendency to treat the one that was ever-so-slightly higher as the greater one, but in logic, it’s a tie. If you had a better way of measuring, you would use it, but if you don’t, it’s a tie.

People are unwilling to admit that our vote counting systems have a margin of error. This margin of error is not simply a measure of the error in correctly registering ballots — is that chad punched all the way through? — it’s also a definitional margin of error. Because the stakes are so high, both sides will spend fortunes in a very close competition to get the rules defined in a way to make them the winner. This makes the winner be the one who manipulated the rules best, not the one with the most votes.

Aside from the fact that there can’t be two winners in most political elections, people have an amazing aversion to the concept of the tie. They somehow think that 123,456 for A and 123,220 for B means that A clearly should lead the people, while 123,278 for A and 123 and 123,398 for B means that B should lead, and that this is a fundamental principle of democracy.

Hogwash. In close cases such as these, nobody is the clear leader. Either choice matches the will of the people equally well — which is to say, not very much. People get very emotional over the 2000 Florida election, angry at manipulation and being robbed but the truth is the people of Florida (not counting the Nader question) voted equally for the two candidates and neither was the clear preference (or clear non-preference.) Democracy was served, as well as it can be served by the existing system, by either candidate winning.

So what alternatives can deal with the question of a tie? Well, as I proposed before, in the case of electoral college votes, avoiding the chaotic flip, on a single ballot, of all the college votes would have solved that problem. However, that answer does not apply to the general problem.

It seems that in the event of a tie there should be some sort of compromise, not a “winner-takes-all and represents only half the people.” If there is any way for two people to share the job, that should be done. For example, the two could get together to appoint a 3rd person to get the job, one who is agreeable to both of them.

Of course, to some degree this pushes off the question as we now will end up defining a margin between full victory and compromise victory and if the total falls very close to that, the demand for recounts will just take place there. That’s why the ideal answer is something that is proportional in what it hands out in the zone around 50%. For example, one could get the compromise choice who promises to listen to one side X% of the time and the other side 100-X% of the time, with X set by how close to 50% the votes were.

Of course, this seems rather complex and hard to implement. So here’s something different, which is simple but radical.

In the event of a close race, instead of an expensive recount, there should be a simple tiebreaker, such as a game of chance. Again, both sides have the support of half the people, they are both as deserving of victory, so while your mind is screaming that this is somehow insane because “every vote must be counted” the reality is different.

This tiebreaker, however, can’t simply be “throw dice if the total is within 1%” because we have just moved the margin where people will fight. It must be proportional, something like the following, based on “MARGIN” being the reasonable margin of error for the system.

• If A wins 50% + MARGIN/2 or more, A simply wins. Likewise for B.
• For results within the margin, define an odds function, so that the closer A and B were to each other, the closer the odds are to 50-50, while if they were far apart the odds get better for the higher number. Thus if A beat B by MARGIN-epsilon, Bs odds are very poor.
• Play a game of chance with those odds. The winner of the game wins the election.

A simple example would be a linear relationship. Take a bucket and throw in one token for A for every vote A got over 50%-MARGIN/2, and one token for B for every vote they got over that threshold. Draw a token at random — this is the winner.

However, it may make more sense to have a non-linear game which is even more biased as you move away from 50-50, to get something closer to the current system.

This game would deliver a result which was just as valid as the result delivered by recounts and complex legal wrangling, but at a tiny fraction of the cost. The “only” problem would be getting people to understand (agree to) the “just as valid” assertion.

And the game would be pretty exciting.