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Why Plurality Rule is a Bad Voting System
- “Falling Slowly” from “Once”*
- “Happy Working Song” from “Enchanted”
- “Raise It Up” from “August Rush”
- “So Close” from “Enchanted”
- “That’s How You Know” from “Enchanted”
Discuss.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on February 28, 2008 at 07:20 AM in Political Science | Permalink
Comments
Yep. When they were announcing each song to perform, I thought "well, looks like Enchanted will win." Then "Falling Slowly" was selected and I realized "well, that makes perfect sense." The vote for Enchanted got divided by 3 (roughly), allowing the other song to win. If I were Alan Menken, I think I'd be a little upset by that.
Posted by: Ben at Feb 28, 2008 8:01:33 AM
I found it weird that they nominated three songs from the same movie... almost as if they intended that sort of a result. I'm not all that familiar with the history of the category, but I would assume having the majority of the nominees from the same movie is pretty unprecedented stuff...
...that being said, "Once" had an awesome soundtrack.
Posted by: Michael Fisk at Feb 28, 2008 8:12:41 AM
Certainly looks like the Enchanted votes were cancelling each other out...until you actually listen to the songs and realize how good Falling Slowly was, by far better than any generic Disney garbage this year. I'm guessing it was far and away picked the winner by the judges, but if I guess I can't say for sure unless someone has the numbers on it.
Posted by: Erik at Feb 28, 2008 8:25:29 AM
Reference a previous year, when both Thelma and Louise were nominated for best actress. Obviously, neither would win.
Posted by: Zubon at Feb 28, 2008 8:36:55 AM
Also look at it from Disney's point of view - suppose only 1 of their songs was nominated and it won. Which would they rather have when promoting their DVD - "Won best song" or "3 Oscar nominated songs"...I'm guessing it's close to neutral with slight edge to the 3 songs. Win win situation.
Posted by: Erik at Feb 28, 2008 8:52:00 AM
Erik's right, "Once" deserved to win based on the existence widespread shared aesthetics (ie, the others sucked). Perhaps Alex is merely commenting on the nomination process that got 3 Enchanted songs nominated? Obviously a weak year for film songs.
Posted by: Vincent Kargatis at Feb 28, 2008 9:15:00 AM
It may be bad, but what do you suggest as an improvement?
Posted by: AZ at Feb 28, 2008 9:15:03 AM
Being nominated multiple times in the same category does not always hurt.
Steven Soderbergh won best director in 2001 despite being nominated for both Erin Brockovich and Traffic.
Posted by: John at Feb 28, 2008 9:15:48 AM
They ought to abolish that category. "Best Soundtrack" I can understand because the soundtrack is a major component of the movie-watching experience. Giving an award for a single song seems a bit like giving an award for for "best chase scene," or "best kiss."
Posted by: Steve R at Feb 28, 2008 9:36:53 AM
The real tragedy was that Johnny Greenwood couldn't be nominated based on some technicalities, since a small portion of the work used in There Will Be Blood was also used in a BBC production.
Didn't Dream Girls also have like all of their songs nominated last year?
Posted by: Pup, MD at Feb 28, 2008 9:42:02 AM
And also, despite how horrible the songs from Enchanted truly were, I now have a crush on Amy Adams after her performance :)
Posted by: Pup, MD at Feb 28, 2008 9:43:10 AM
Falling Slowly was the best song because within the movie it completely represented the core idea of the movie while also staying within the realism of the world of the movie. Although, I wouldn't mind having Amy Adams clean my house.
Posted by: MrD at Feb 28, 2008 10:08:14 AM
I think "Spider-Pig" was the actual best movie song of the year, but it was probably not eligible for multiple reasons.
Posted by: Sol at Feb 28, 2008 10:40:48 AM
That's really only an argument against Plurality Voting if you think any one of the crappy songs from Enchanted actually deserved to win. Happy Working Song was the best of the bunch, and it's an amusing piece of light satire, but it was never going to win an Oscar for best song, no matter how hard Amy Adams sold it on stage.
So Close and That's How You Know wouldn't even have been nominated if there were any other original songs worth mentioning last year. If they didn't need 5 songs, those two wouldn't have even made the cut.
Posted by: Jacquilynne at Feb 28, 2008 10:52:29 AM
There are about a dozen songs in ONCE, all good as far as I could tell. There may be one or two songs there that also deserve a nomination. But Falling Slowly is unique. If it is ever possible to capture a movie in one song, Falling Slowly would have been it. In other words, there is an undisputable global optimum in ONCE whereas there seem to be three local optima in Enchanted. In the end, only one peak would be chosen. I don't think plurality rule is as distorting as it may seem at the first sight in this case.
Posted by: Yan Li at Feb 28, 2008 10:55:26 AM
There are about a dozen songs in ONCE, all good as far as I could tell. There may be one or two songs there that also deserve a nomination. But Falling Slowly is unique. If it is ever possible to capture a movie in one song, Falling Slowly would have been it. In other words, there is an undisputable global optimum in ONCE whereas there seem to be three local optima in Enchanted. In the end, only one peak would be chosen. I don't think plurality rule is as distorting as it may seem at the first sight in this case.
Posted by: Yan Li at Feb 28, 2008 10:56:03 AM
There are about a dozen songs in ONCE, all good as far as I could tell. There may be one or two songs there that also deserve a nomination. But Falling Slowly is unique. If it is ever possible to capture a movie in one song, Falling Slowly would have been it. In other words, there is an undisputable global optimum in ONCE whereas there seem to be three local optima in Enchanted. In the end, only one peak would be chosen. I don't think plurality rule is as distorting as it may seem at the first sight in this case.
Posted by: Yan Li at Feb 28, 2008 10:56:16 AM
Agree that plurality voting is a bad system. You need to have a ranked-voting system for something like this.
But I also agree that none of the Disney songs were really that good. They really, really pale compared to past Disney songs.
Aaaand - also agree that none of the songs were really that good or memorable. Pretty blah group. "Falling Slowly" was probably the best of the bunch, I guess.
Then again, I find pop ballads unlistenably boring, so take with a grain of salt. ;)
Posted by: Bob Montgomery at Feb 28, 2008 11:54:24 AM
Actually, I don't see what was so wrong with the songs from Enchanted. I didn't like the movie, but the great-looking 2D animated scenes and Menken songs were breaths of fresh air given Disney's (and nearly everyone else's) recent attempts at children's films. It really just made me wish they had gotten the band back together for a full-on Disney film, rather than a parody of one.
I didn't see Once, but the soundtrack is fairly good, and I can't really dispute the win.
Posted by: d.cous. at Feb 28, 2008 12:02:25 PM
We need a voting system with the following properties: unrestricted domain, non-imposition, non-dictatorship, Pareto efficiency, and independence of irrelevant alternatives.
But I have to admit, I'm stumped.
Posted by: josh at Feb 28, 2008 12:06:31 PM
Contra Bob Montgomery, who suggests ranked voting, I think a better way to achieve a consent-maximizing outcome among Academy voters is approval voting. Why not just vote for every song/movie/person that deserves to win, in your opinion? No need to artificially rank qualitatively different performances if you use approval voting.
It has drawbacks vs. ranked voting, but it does encourage a result that is acceptable.
Posted by: Sisyphus at Feb 28, 2008 1:27:40 PM
Falling Slowly was the best song (by far) of those that got nominated. Perhaps this reflects poorly on the nomination?
I agree that "Best Soundtrack" would be a much better category than "Best Song".
Posted by: Andy at Feb 28, 2008 2:05:36 PM
If you watched the Oscars you would have heard the audience react for "Once" in a much more positive fashion than any other songs. It was far and away the crowd favorite...
Posted by: Chicagoan at Feb 28, 2008 2:09:42 PM
Contra Bob Montgomery, who suggests ranked voting, I think a better way to achieve a consent-maximizing outcome among Academy voters is approval voting. Why not just vote for every song/movie/person that deserves to win, in your opinion? No need to artificially rank qualitatively different performances if you use approval voting.
It has drawbacks vs. ranked voting, but it does encourage a result that is acceptable.
Ok, I actually looked up the voting process and it seems that they do use ranked ballots.
Posted by: Bob Montgomery at Feb 28, 2008 5:04:21 PM
Bob, they use some kind of ranked ballots for nominating not for choosing among the nominees.
Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at Feb 28, 2008 6:51:44 PM
According to Arrow every voting system is bad.
Anyway who lost time watching any award ceremony?
Posted by: karl at Feb 28, 2008 9:20:02 PM
Cue the endless arguments between advocates of approval, instant runoff, and Concordcet voting systems...
Posted by: David Wright at Mar 1, 2008 2:48:14 AM
