Electoral knowledgebase v1

Electoral Knowledgebase is starting point for anyone who wants to learn about electoral systems, voting theory, and collective decision-making: social choice. The topic of social choice is in a sense a border-field, with political scientists, economists, mathematicians, computer scientists, lawyers, and others studying it from different angles. The aim of Electoral Knowledgebase is to treat social choice comprehensively, as a main subject, to bring knowledge from the various angles together.

Electoral Knowledgebase was originally (Választási Tudásbázis) a project to make available this information in Hungarian. Many of the entries on this site will be translations from the Hungarian version.

Electoral Knowledgebase is also available as a Substack newsletter. Please consider subscribing if you are interested in periodically getting some social choice / electoral systems based information in your emails or on the app.

Although the purpose of the Election Knowledgebase is not primarily activism, but information. Nevertheless, it will hopefully make you think that we may vote in better ways, or at least the "ideal" system may be different for different situations. Objectivity is a goal in the sense that I try to be factual, but if I am wrong, I look forward to corrections as well any other feedback. Objectivity/neutrality/independence is not a goal in the sense that the Knowledgebase will not necessarily faithfully follow the structure in which the mainstream teachings and opinions go. Especially, when it comes to what are the common arguments, dilemmas about the advantages of certain systems, or what are the systems that are worth knowing about, worth talking about. For example, if we were to start only from what are the most common systems worldwide today, this may seem objective, but it is very much not a neutral approach. The Knowledgebase will hopefully expand relatively organically, integrating all sorts of aspects, whether it's about current elections in the world, scientific advances, trends related to reform efforts, etc. But what I choose to focus on is not value-neutral, that's not the goal here. The goal is, that the relevant value choices, which serve as the basis for possible judgements, stand out from the text. In light of all this, I invite the reader to adopt a critical perspective and conduct independent research, and also to put the acquired knowledge to good use in some way, if the opportunity arises.