Lawn Selection: Approval vs Borda

    Getting a room on the Lawn is a huge honor but few students know how the winners are actually picked. The lawn selection committee consists of 64 Students. These students vote in rounds: first each member gets a limited number of "yes" votes, then they vote "yes" again on the top 100, and ties are broken by ranking. After the reading, I wondered if instead of approval voting the committee should use a Borda count. During the second round, members would rank every finalist and then add the points rather than a second yes round. The big plus of Borda is that it shows how much a member likes someone, since a "yes" treats a member's first pick and fiftieth pick the same. Mueller reports that Borda picks the Condorcet winner more often than approval, and that it is hard to game.

    The usual problem with ranking is that it takes a lot of effort, but that matters less here because members would only rank the top 100. However, there is a larger problem which is that Borda says the gap between 1st and 2nd is the same as 10th and 11th, which is hard to assume when the qualifications being judged are "meaningful and engaged participation." Along with the time it would take to rank all 100 people, a yes is easier to explain to a student than a rank. Overall, the Lawn's process already works well, but using Borda in round two would make the final cut more precise for a small cost in effort.