What's the fairest voting system?

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 wedmakawand via Getty Images)