Ted Sowinski's home page
Welcome to my home page! I have three main interests:
- Computing: the Internet (keep it free!),
web programming (Perl/CGI),
peer-to-peer (p2p) or distributed computing (a good example is
LimeWire), the
open source movement,
the
Viewable With Any Browser campaign, and
consulting.
My prefered OS is Linux;
windoze is for
lusers.
Linux is simply a superior product -- and a programmer's paradise.
- Handmade pottery. I have been making
stoneware and porcelain on and off since the '70s.
- Politics, democracy, and election reform. I was involved with
The Greens until it became clear how urgent it is to
remove George Bush from office. Now my wife and I write letters to the editor
and support organizations that are working to defeat him.
Also, ever since the 2000 election I have been working
to make elections more fair and to give voters more choices.
I created IRV-Vote, an open source project (see below) that
allows webmasters to put Instant Runoff polls on their web sites. I am
also working with the Midwest
Democracy Center to promote IRV.
Fran's Art Gallery
Free software! Here are some Perl/CGI scripts I developed for
my own use that you can download and use on your own site. (They are also
available on freshmeat.)
-
IRV-Vote demonstrates Instant
Runoff Voting (IRV). IRV is a voting system that ensures that
the winner has a majority of the votes (50% + 1).
It eliminates the "wasted vote" syndrome,
where voting for you favorite candidate may help elect your least
favorite candidate. In IRV voters rank their choices, 1st, 2nd, 3rd. If
no candidate has a majority, the candidate with the least number of
votes is eliminated and his votes are transfered to the other candidates.
If your first choice is eliminated, your vote is transfered to your second choice.
These runoff rounds continue until one candidate has a majority.
IRV has many advantages
over plurality voting. There are initiatives all over the country to use IRV
at the state and local levels. San Francisco voters recently passed Proposition A which
provides for using IRV to elect their mayor.
To learn more about IRV visit
www.instantrunoff.com or The Center for Voting and Democracy
(www.fairvote.org).
IRV-Vote is an easily customized application written in Perl
for conducting IRV elections and polls on the web.
It is not intended to be used for real public elections (because of security issues).
Here are some samples:
Vote
for the Greatest achievement of the Internet.
See results so far.
Vote
for the most serious problem in the world.
See results so far.
-
Vote
for the greatest US President of all time.
See results so far.
-
More samples - vote,
see results so far.
-
Samples in the download package - vote,
see results so far.
-
A sample that requires voters to register before voting
(new in version 0.5) - vote,
see results so far.
Downloading and installing.
First read the README file. Then download the
tar ball and install according to directions. The latest version (0.6) contains a minor bug fix for when conf
files become contaminated with carriage returns (x0D).
-
MailList. Put a small mailing list/address book on your home page.
Try this sample.
Read the README for download/install
instructions. Download the tar
ball.
Other voting systems: Condorcet and Borda Count.
Condorcet and Borda Count are other methods for tallying ranked ballot,
in fact they can be used to count the same ballots used for IRV.
For more information, see
Condorcet Voting Explained and
Borda count from Wikipedia.
There is disagreement about which method is best for counting ranked ballots.
Arrow's Impossibility Theorem shows that no voting system is perfect;
each one has some bias, favoring, for example, the most broad appeal,
or the most core supporters. Each voting system also has some flaw, such as
permitting "strategic voting" or allowing lower choices to defeat higher
choices. Rather than try to resolve this question, I've developed
Perl/CGI scripts that tally the IRV demo ballots above using both
the Condorcet and Borda Count methods -- so you can
compare the results and judge for yourself!
- Condorcet Samples.
- Borda Count Samples.
Some other dynamic web stuff - Java applets and Perl/CGI scripts:
Favorite Links.
My personal address book (password required)
Progressive Film List (password required)
Midwest Democracy Center Contact List (password required)
Last modified:
Thu Jan 1 21:57:47 2009 -
Access count: 21140 - Last access: Sat Sep 4 00:59:19 2010