Making Decisions

Point System Voting

Voting for just one choice does not allow you to express how you feel about all the possible choices. One way to see the preferences of group members is to allow everyone to assign points to their choices.

Let’s give everyone a total of 10 points to distribute among the possible choices. (For example, suppose we’re deciding between apple, banana, and cantalope. You can assign the following: 7 points to apple, 2 points to banana, and 1 point to cantalope. The total points add up to 10.) After the assignment of points, we add the points up for each choice, and the choice with the most points win!

Make the point assignments for your restaurant choices and sum up the points. Is there a new winner?


Questions to Ponder:

(1) Did it take longer to find the winner? Was it worth the time?

(2) What if you have many choices to choose from? And suppose your group has many people?

(3) Could this voting method lead to a tie? If so, what would you do?

(4) Do you like this voting method?