Fair and Inclusive Participatory Budgeting: Voter Experience with Cumulative and Quadratic Voting Interfaces

Thomas Wellings; Fatemeh Banaie Heravan; Abhinav Sharma; Lodewijk Gelauff; Regula Hänggli Fricker; Evangelos Pournaras

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-61698-3_6

Fair and Inclusive Participatory Budgeting: Voter Experience with Cumulative and Quadratic Voting Interfaces

Thomas Wellings, Fatemeh Banaie Heravan, Abhinav Sharma, Lodewijk Gelauff, Regula Hänggli Fricker, Evangelos Pournaras

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

Abstract

Cumulative and quadratic voting are two distributional voting methods that are expressive, promoting fairness and inclusion, particularly in the realm of participatory budgeting. Despite these benefits, graphical voter interfaces for cumulative and quadratic voting are complex to implement and use effectively. As a result, such methods have not seen yet widespread adoption on digital voting platforms. This paper addresses the challenge by introducing an implementation and evaluation of cumulative and quadratic voting within a state-of-the-art voting platform: Stanford Participatory Budgeting. The findings of the study show that while voters prefer simple methods, the more expressive (and complex) cumulative voting becomes the preferred one compared to k-ranking voting that is simpler but less expressive. The implemented voting interface elements are found useful and support the observed voters’ preferences for more expressive voting methods.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Design for Equality and Justice
Subtitle of host publication	INTERACT 2023 IFIP TC 13 Workshops, 2023, Revised Selected Papers
Editors	Anna Bramwell-Dicks, Abigail Evans, Marco Winckler, Helen Petrie, José Abdelnour-Nocera
Publisher	Springer, Cham
Pages	65-71
Number of pages	7
ISBN (Electronic)	9783031616983
ISBN (Print)	9783031616976
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-61698-3_6
Publication status	Published - 9 Jul 2024
Externally published	Yes
Event	19th IFIP TC13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: INTERACT 2023 - York, United Kingdom Duration: 28 Aug 2023 → 1 Sep 2023 Conference number: 19

Publication series

Name	Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Publisher	Springer
Volume	14536 LNCS
ISSN (Print)	0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)	1611-3349

Conference

Conference	19th IFIP TC13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
Country/Territory	United Kingdom
City	York
Period	28/08/23 → 1/09/23

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1007/978-3-031-61698-3_6Licence: Unspecified

Cite this

Wellings, T., Banaie Heravan, F., Sharma, A., Gelauff, L., Fricker, R. H., & Pournaras, E. (2024). Fair and Inclusive Participatory Budgeting: Voter Experience with Cumulative and Quadratic Voting Interfaces. In A. Bramwell-Dicks, A. Evans, M. Winckler, H. Petrie, & J. Abdelnour-Nocera (Eds.), Design for Equality and Justice : INTERACT 2023 IFIP TC 13 Workshops, 2023, Revised Selected Papers (pp. 65-71). (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics); Vol. 14536 LNCS). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-61698-3_6

Wellings, Thomas ; Banaie Heravan, Fatemeh ; Sharma, Abhinav et al. / Fair and Inclusive Participatory Budgeting : Voter Experience with Cumulative and Quadratic Voting Interfaces. Design for Equality and Justice : INTERACT 2023 IFIP TC 13 Workshops, 2023, Revised Selected Papers. editor / Anna Bramwell-Dicks ; Abigail Evans ; Marco Winckler ; Helen Petrie ; José Abdelnour-Nocera. Springer, Cham, 2024. pp. 65-71 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)).

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title = "Fair and Inclusive Participatory Budgeting: Voter Experience with Cumulative and Quadratic Voting Interfaces",

abstract = "Cumulative and quadratic voting are two distributional voting methods that are expressive, promoting fairness and inclusion, particularly in the realm of participatory budgeting. Despite these benefits, graphical voter interfaces for cumulative and quadratic voting are complex to implement and use effectively. As a result, such methods have not seen yet widespread adoption on digital voting platforms. This paper addresses the challenge by introducing an implementation and evaluation of cumulative and quadratic voting within a state-of-the-art voting platform: Stanford Participatory Budgeting. The findings of the study show that while voters prefer simple methods, the more expressive (and complex) cumulative voting becomes the preferred one compared to k-ranking voting that is simpler but less expressive. The implemented voting interface elements are found useful and support the observed voters{\textquoteright} preferences for more expressive voting methods.",

keywords = "voting, voter experience, quadratic voting",

author = "Thomas Wellings and {Banaie Heravan}, Fatemeh and Abhinav Sharma and Lodewijk Gelauff and Fricker, {Regula H{\"a}nggli} and Evangelos Pournaras",

note = "Funding Information: We would like to acknowledge the other members of the Stanford Crowdsourced Democracy Team for the development of the Stanford Participatory Budgeting platform and their support to this project, in particular Ashish Goel, Sukolsak Sakshuwong and Sahasrajit Sarmasarkar. We would also like to thank Jasmin Odermatt, Lea Good, Sebrina Pedrossi and Joshua Yang for providing their insights on improvements to the cumulative voting interface. This work is supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (MR/W009560/1): \u2018Digitally Assisted Collective Governance of Smart City Commons\u2013ARTIO\u2019 and by the SNF NRP77 \u2018Digital Transformation\u2019 project \u201CDigital Democracy: Innovations in Decision-making Processes\u201D, #407740_187249. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2024.; 19th IFIP TC13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction : INTERACT 2023 ; Conference date: 28-08-2023 Through 01-09-2023",

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Wellings, T, Banaie Heravan, F, Sharma, A, Gelauff, L, Fricker, RH & Pournaras, E 2024, Fair and Inclusive Participatory Budgeting: Voter Experience with Cumulative and Quadratic Voting Interfaces. in A Bramwell-Dicks, A Evans, M Winckler, H Petrie & J Abdelnour-Nocera (eds), Design for Equality and Justice : INTERACT 2023 IFIP TC 13 Workshops, 2023, Revised Selected Papers. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), vol. 14536 LNCS, Springer, Cham, pp. 65-71, 19th IFIP TC13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, York, United Kingdom, 28/08/23. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-61698-3_6

Fair and Inclusive Participatory Budgeting : Voter Experience with Cumulative and Quadratic Voting Interfaces. / Wellings, Thomas; Banaie Heravan, Fatemeh; Sharma, Abhinav et al.

Design for Equality and Justice : INTERACT 2023 IFIP TC 13 Workshops, 2023, Revised Selected Papers. ed. / Anna Bramwell-Dicks; Abigail Evans; Marco Winckler; Helen Petrie; José Abdelnour-Nocera. Springer, Cham, 2024. p. 65-71 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics); Vol. 14536 LNCS).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

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N2 - Cumulative and quadratic voting are two distributional voting methods that are expressive, promoting fairness and inclusion, particularly in the realm of participatory budgeting. Despite these benefits, graphical voter interfaces for cumulative and quadratic voting are complex to implement and use effectively. As a result, such methods have not seen yet widespread adoption on digital voting platforms. This paper addresses the challenge by introducing an implementation and evaluation of cumulative and quadratic voting within a state-of-the-art voting platform: Stanford Participatory Budgeting. The findings of the study show that while voters prefer simple methods, the more expressive (and complex) cumulative voting becomes the preferred one compared to k-ranking voting that is simpler but less expressive. The implemented voting interface elements are found useful and support the observed voters’ preferences for more expressive voting methods.

AB - Cumulative and quadratic voting are two distributional voting methods that are expressive, promoting fairness and inclusion, particularly in the realm of participatory budgeting. Despite these benefits, graphical voter interfaces for cumulative and quadratic voting are complex to implement and use effectively. As a result, such methods have not seen yet widespread adoption on digital voting platforms. This paper addresses the challenge by introducing an implementation and evaluation of cumulative and quadratic voting within a state-of-the-art voting platform: Stanford Participatory Budgeting. The findings of the study show that while voters prefer simple methods, the more expressive (and complex) cumulative voting becomes the preferred one compared to k-ranking voting that is simpler but less expressive. The implemented voting interface elements are found useful and support the observed voters’ preferences for more expressive voting methods.

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Wellings T, Banaie Heravan F, Sharma A, Gelauff L, Fricker RH, Pournaras E. Fair and Inclusive Participatory Budgeting: Voter Experience with Cumulative and Quadratic Voting Interfaces. In Bramwell-Dicks A, Evans A, Winckler M, Petrie H, Abdelnour-Nocera J, editors, Design for Equality and Justice : INTERACT 2023 IFIP TC 13 Workshops, 2023, Revised Selected Papers. Springer, Cham. 2024. p. 65-71. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)). Epub 2024 Jul 8. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-61698-3_6