Currently, over on CodeGolf.SE (CGCC for short), we are holding an informal election for new room owners of our main chat room. As this is an informal election, we haven't asked SE for the same mechanics they use in moderator elections - OpenSTV. Instead, we've just got a Q&A meta thread where each candidate has an answer. We were recently discussing what system of voting this was, but couldn't come to a conclusion or answer. So, what's the name of the voting system with the following criteria? Is this (or a similar style) used in real life elections anywhere?
Criteria:
- There are a limited number of seats to be won, at least one fewer than the number of candidates
- Each voter can vote for as many candidates as they like, but may only vote on each candidate a maximum of 1 time.
- Votes may either be positive (+1) or negative (-1), and the winner(s) is taken by the top candidates when sorting by net score
- The net votes (but not who voted for whom) are publicly shown/accessible to any voter
- A bonus criteria: voters may change their vote at any point between voting opening and the results being tallied. This isn't as important as the others, so if you find a system that has all but this criteria, that's perfectly fine
It clearly isn't FPTP or STV. It isn't quite Multiple non-transferable voting, as voters cannot vote for every candidate in MNTV, nor does it have the concept of positive/negative votes. Approval voting and score voting are both very similar, but fail to account for negative votes