Anytime you have a vote with more than two alternatives you run into
problems. Any form of approval or average voting is just awful, awful,
Awful! Condorcet voting is just to complicated. So here is my suggestion:
Split the voting up in multiple yes/no votings.I have been in a
national's party's congress voting for a new logo and that is how we
made it; Make a cup out of it. Logo A vs. B, C vs. D, E vs. F, G vs. H.
(Vinner of A vs. B) vs (vinner of C vs. D), (Vinner of E vs F) vs.
(Vinner of G vs. H)... you get the point. In sports that system is
ineffective because placement beyond the first depens on which pairing
the team gets. But for this voting it is pefect because we only care
about ONE alternative - the vinner.
One disadvantage is that it takes some more time than other voting
methods and that is why it is not used for large scale votings. It
requires 13 separate votings for 16 alternatives. Another is that it
requires some attention from the voters. A third that someone might
object to how the alternatives is paired against each other. Should X
face Y and Z face O, or should O face X and Z face Y? That problem is
solved by letting a computer randomize the pairings.
But we can run the voting rounds simultaneously. If we have 16
candidates we can first run the 1/8's voting rounds simultaneously. Then
the quarter final round, semi final round and the final round. That is
four rounds and if we let each round take one month we are done in
January. Yes, that is a long time but a decision that involves so many
people and seems to be so important should be allowed to take the time
it needs! But we could instead have each round being two weeks long and
be done in eight weeks which definitely is not to much time.
We could even have used that method for the first voting stage.
Regardless of which method we use the last voting absolutely,
positively, definitely needs to be "Should this logo replace the
existing logo?". Maybe that question should have been the first to vote
about but it's to late to change that now.
BL