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I'm not aware of any official name for what you're proposing (which basically combines referendum with candidate-matching). The closest - which isn't very close - I can think of is voting for party lists, with the party list being a secret before the election and you only know the party platform; in a multi-party state.

However, there are major flaws in your system; the biggest one I notice being the following: There is no mechanism to vet that the candidates declaring to be of the opinion X actually have that opinion, and thus the system is trivially easy to game.

The specific - and very likely - scenario of how elections in such a system would go is as follows:

  • Polling finds that electorate cares most about two issues, cats vs dogs (with cat supporters polling 40% and dog supporters 60%); and the right to put patty above the cheese in a cheesburger (with the righteous cheese-down freedom lovers unfortunately losing in the public opinion polls 20/80%)

  • Any candidate who wants to win (and trusts the polls) instantly puts down their own preferences as supporting dogs at 60% and rejecting cheese by 80%.

  • Hence, the candidates that guessed the final election spread more accurately, will win.

  • There is absolutely zero reason to suspect that any of those candidates actually hold those positions; and won't instead vote for a law that requires all hamburgers to be dog meat above cheese.

    Since you don't know who the candidates are before the election, there's no way to prevent this.

Of course, normal elections suffer from this to a degree (any candidate lies when promising stuff) but as they aren't anonymous, they can at least be held accountable post-election, in a normal electoral fashion.


Of course, since the system is also akin to referendums, you also have many of the flaws with "everything is a referendum" described in the linked P.SE question.

I'm not aware of any official name for what you're proposing (which basically combines referendum with candidate-matching). The closest - which isn't very close - I can think of is voting for party lists, with the party list being a secret before the election and you only know the party platform; in a multi-party state.

However, there are major flaws in your system; the biggest one I notice being the following: There is no mechanism to vet that the candidates declaring to be of the opinion X actually have that opinion, and thus the system is trivially easy to game.

The specific - and very likely - scenario of how elections in such a system would go is as follows:

  • Polling finds that electorate cares most about two issues, cats vs dogs (with cat supporters polling 40% and dog supporters 60%); and the right to put patty above the cheese in a cheesburger (with the righteous cheese-down freedom lovers unfortunately losing in the public opinion polls 20/80%)

  • Any candidate who wants to win (and trusts the polls) instantly puts down their own preferences as supporting dogs at 60% and rejecting cheese by 80%.

  • Hence, the candidates that guessed the final election spread more accurately, will win.

  • There absolutely zero reason to suspect that any of those candidates actually hold those positions; and won't instead vote for a law that requires all hamburgers to be dog meat above cheese.

    Since you don't know who the candidates are before the election, there's no way to prevent this.

Of course, normal elections suffer from this to a degree (any candidate lies when promising stuff) but as they aren't anonymous, they can at least be accountable post-election, in a normal electoral fashion.


Of course, since the system is also akin to referendums, you also have many of the flaws with "everything is a referendum" described in the linked P.SE question.

I'm not aware of any official name for what you're proposing (which basically combines referendum with candidate-matching). The closest - which isn't very close - I can think of is voting for party lists, with the party list being a secret before the election and you only know the party platform; in a multi-party state.

However, there are major flaws in your system; the biggest one I notice being the following: There is no mechanism to vet that the candidates declaring to be of the opinion X actually have that opinion, and thus the system is trivially easy to game.

The specific - and very likely - scenario of how elections in such a system would go is as follows:

  • Polling finds that electorate cares most about two issues, cats vs dogs (with cat supporters polling 40% and dog supporters 60%); and the right to put patty above the cheese in a cheesburger (with the righteous cheese-down freedom lovers unfortunately losing in the public opinion polls 20/80%)

  • Any candidate who wants to win (and trusts the polls) instantly puts down their own preferences as supporting dogs at 60% and rejecting cheese by 80%.

  • Hence, the candidates that guessed the final election spread more accurately, will win.

  • There is absolutely zero reason to suspect that any of those candidates actually hold those positions; and won't instead vote for a law that requires all hamburgers to be dog meat above cheese.

    Since you don't know who the candidates are before the election, there's no way to prevent this.

Of course, normal elections suffer from this to a degree (any candidate lies when promising stuff) but as they aren't anonymous, they can at least be held accountable post-election, in a normal electoral fashion.


Of course, since the system is also akin to referendums, you also have many of the flaws with "everything is a referendum" described in the linked P.SE question.

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user4012
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I'm not aware of any official name for what you're proposing (which basically combines referendum with candidate-matching). The closest - which isn't very close - I can think of is voting for party lists, with the party list being a secret before the election and you only know the party platform; in a multi-party state.

However, there are major flaws in your system; the biggest one I notice being the following: There is no mechanism to vet that the candidates declaring to be of the opinion X actually have that opinion, and thus the system is trivially easy to game.

The specific - and very likely - scenario of how elections in such a system would go is as follows:

  • Polling finds that electorate cares most about two issues, cats vs dogs (with cat supporters polling 40% and dog supporters 60%); and the right to put patty above the cheese in a cheesburger (with the righteous cheese-down freedom lovers unfortunately losing in the public opinion polls 20/80%)

  • Any candidate who wants to win (and trusts the polls) instantly puts down their own preferences as supporting dogs at 60% and rejecting cheese by 80%.

  • Hence, the candidates that guessed the final election spread more accurately, will win.

  • There absolutely zero reason to suspect that any of those candidates actually hold those positions; and won't instead vote for a law that requires all hamburgers to be dog meat above cheese.

    Since you don't know who the candidates are before the election, there's no way to prevent this.

Of course, normal elections suffer from this to a degree (any candidate lies when promising stuff) but as they aren't anonymous, they can at least be accountable post-election, in a normal electoral fashion.


Of course, since the system is also akin to referendums, you also have many of the flaws with "everything is a referendum" described in the linked P.SE question.

I'm not aware of any official name for what you're proposing (which basically combines referendum with candidate-matching). The closest - which isn't very close - I can think of is voting for party lists, with the party list being a secret before the election and you only know the party platform; in a multi-party state.

However, there are major flaws in your system; the biggest one I notice being the following: There is no mechanism to vet that the candidates declaring to be of the opinion X actually have that opinion.

The specific - and very likely - scenario of how elections in such a system would go is as follows:

  • Polling finds that electorate cares most about two issues, cats vs dogs (with cat supporters polling 40% and dog supporters 60%); and the right to put patty above the cheese in a cheesburger (with the righteous cheese-down freedom lovers unfortunately losing in the public opinion polls 20/80%)

  • Any candidate who wants to win (and trusts the polls) instantly puts down their own preferences as supporting dogs at 60% and rejecting cheese by 80%.

  • Hence, the candidates that guessed the final election spread more accurately, will win.

  • There absolutely zero reason to suspect that any of those candidates actually hold those positions; and won't instead vote for a law that requires all hamburgers to be dog meat above cheese.

    Since you don't know who the candidates are before the election, there's no way to prevent this.

Of course, normal elections suffer from this to a degree (any candidate lies when promising stuff) but as they aren't anonymous, they can at least be accountable post-election, in a normal electoral fashion.


Of course, since the system is also akin to referendums, you also have many of the flaws with "everything is a referendum" described in the linked P.SE question.

I'm not aware of any official name for what you're proposing (which basically combines referendum with candidate-matching). The closest - which isn't very close - I can think of is voting for party lists, with the party list being a secret before the election and you only know the party platform; in a multi-party state.

However, there are major flaws in your system; the biggest one I notice being the following: There is no mechanism to vet that the candidates declaring to be of the opinion X actually have that opinion, and thus the system is trivially easy to game.

The specific - and very likely - scenario of how elections in such a system would go is as follows:

  • Polling finds that electorate cares most about two issues, cats vs dogs (with cat supporters polling 40% and dog supporters 60%); and the right to put patty above the cheese in a cheesburger (with the righteous cheese-down freedom lovers unfortunately losing in the public opinion polls 20/80%)

  • Any candidate who wants to win (and trusts the polls) instantly puts down their own preferences as supporting dogs at 60% and rejecting cheese by 80%.

  • Hence, the candidates that guessed the final election spread more accurately, will win.

  • There absolutely zero reason to suspect that any of those candidates actually hold those positions; and won't instead vote for a law that requires all hamburgers to be dog meat above cheese.

    Since you don't know who the candidates are before the election, there's no way to prevent this.

Of course, normal elections suffer from this to a degree (any candidate lies when promising stuff) but as they aren't anonymous, they can at least be accountable post-election, in a normal electoral fashion.


Of course, since the system is also akin to referendums, you also have many of the flaws with "everything is a referendum" described in the linked P.SE question.

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user4012
  • 93.3k
  • 20
  • 228
  • 390

I'm not aware of any official name for what you're proposing (which basically combines referendum with candidate-matching). The closest - which isn't very close - I can think of is voting for party lists, with the party list being a secret before the election and you only know the party platform; in a multi-party state.

However, there are major flaws in your system; the biggest one I notice being the following: There is no mechanism to vet that the candidates declaring to be of the opinion X actually have that opinion.

The specific - and very likely - scenario of how elections in such a system would go is as follows:

  • Polling finds that electorate cares most about two issues, cats vs dogs (with cat supporters polling 40% and dog supporters 60%); and the right to put patty above the cheese in a cheesburger (with the righteous cheese-down freedom lovers unfortunately losing in the public opinion polls 20/80%)

  • Any candidate who wants to win (and trusts the polls) instantly puts down their own preferences as supporting dogs at 60% and rejecting cheese by 80%.

  • Hence, the candidates that guessed the final election spread more accurately, will win.

  • There absolutely zero reason to suspect that any of those candidates actually hold those positions; and won't instead vote for a law that requires all hamburgers to be dog meat above cheese.

    Since you don't know who the candidates are before the election, there's no way to prevent this.

Of course, normal elections suffer from this to a degree (any candidate lies when promising stuff) but as they aren't anonymous, they can at least be accountable post-election, in a normal electoral fashion.


Of course, since the system is also akin to referendums, you also have many of the flaws with "everything is a referendum" described in the linked P.SE question.