Voting game Prezident 21

The "Prezident 21" voting game was a flagship project of our institute. Our goal was to familiarize the general public with how the D21 method works. We used the timely topic of the presidential election and an online voting format to allow people to experience the method in practice and understand its main advantages. The project also sought to increase public interest in the presidential election, initiate debate on alternative voting systems, and highlight the role of new technologies in politics.

Each user had three plus votes and one minus vote. Thanks to the effect of multiple votes, the game identified the presidential candidate that Czech society could most agree on. During a time of significant polarization within Czech society, electing such a consensual candidate could have helped reunify the country. The game demonstrated the key feature of the D21 method: it always finds the most acceptable winner for the greatest possible number of voters.

In the first phase of the project, which ran from December 21, 2016, to November 24, 2017, users could nominate any individual who met the requirements for a presidential candidate. Participants generated a "catalogue" of over 600 popular Czech figures and politicians, whom they also encouraged to run by supporting them with their votes. In the second phase, beginning on November 24, 2017, voting was limited to official candidates only.

The website provided comprehensive information about the presidential election, gathered relevant news from the media, and offered detailed profiles of all candidates. Ultimately, we managed to involve all candidates in the game directly, except for Miloš Zeman. Before the election, we also launched a tool to help people determine which candidate aligned most closely with their views. A total of 227,864 people used the tool.

The game concluded with the first round of the election on January 13, 2018, with Jiří Drahoš emerging as the winner. Due to the effect of multiple votes, Marek Hilšer came in second place, while President Miloš Zeman dropped in the rankings due to the minus votes he received. These minus votes highlighted controversial candidates – those whom people either strongly supported or firmly opposed.

The target audience for the game was eligible voters in the Czech Republic – men and women aged 18 and over with the right to vote. To prevent manipulation, participation in the game required verification via SMS.

During the first round of the presidential election, we supplemented the results of the online experiment with a field survey involving a representative sample of more than 2,500 Czech voters to obtain more accurate data. The survey was conducted by MEDIAN and STEM/MARK. The field survey confirmed Jiří Drahoš’s victory and refined the ranking of other candidates compared to the online game results.

The game showed that the method involving multiple votes is naturally understandable to voters. An analysis of the results indicates that if Czechs had been able to use multiple votes, the outcome of the election would have been different, and a larger part of the Czech population would have been satisfied with the result. There was a significant overlap between the voters of the main election rivals, Miloš Zeman and Jiří Drahoš: a total of 33% of Miloš Zeman’s voters gave one of their additional votes to Jiří Drahoš, while the reverse was true for 5% fewer voters.

Under the current two-round majority system, Miloš Zeman won the presidential election, despite being a highly polarizing candidate. His voters were notably firm in their support and less inclined to sympathize with other candidates. Of the survey participants, 83% used the opportunity to cast multiple votes, and 77.5% used a minus vote. Conversely, a minority – 17% of voters – chose to use only one vote. Two-thirds of these voters supported Miloš Zeman. The largest share of those who cast only one vote were voters of the Communist Party (KSČM) (35%), people with basic education (28.1%), and those over 70 years old (25.1%). On the other hand, people with higher education and younger individuals were more likely to distribute all their votes, thus fully utilizing the potential of the D21 voting method.

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