politicalsim.com

What It Is

PoliticalSim is not a conventional online video course, but an interactive software and teaching tool focused on simulating electoral systems. It lets users experience and compare a wide range of election rules from around the world—such as Australia’s STV, Japan’s SNTV, Finland’s list proportional representation, and France’s runoff system—by simulating voter rankings and candidate positioning to clearly show how different rules affect election outcomes.

Core Dimensions

• Subject Area: Deeply focused on political science and electoral systems, with strong academic and educational value.
• Teaching Format: Interactive software simulation, not video or livestreaming. Players act as party leaders, competing for support by moving candidates, paying for advertising, and answering interview questions—essentially “learning by doing.”
• Language: English.
• Instructor/Institution Background: Maintained by an individual developer, Robert. It is a niche independent academic tool.

Pricing, Pros, and Cons

No pricing information is provided in the source text. Its main strength is the extremely broad range of electoral rules it covers, including rare systems such as bloc voting and cumulative voting. It also provides an intuitive way to compare seat allocation differences under systems such as LER, Condorcet, and STV, giving it substantial academic value. The downside is severe: its technical architecture is badly outdated. Because Microsoft has long discontinued support for early Excel macro languages, modern users must run Windows 3.1 through DOSbox and install Excel 4.0 in order to use it. The setup barrier is very high, runtime errors are common, and there is essentially no technical support.

Who It’s For

Suitable only for political science scholars, electoral-system researchers, and hardcore geek players with a very strong interest in political simulation. Ordinary learners are likely to be put off by the technical barriers.

Access from China

Website accessibility is unknown, but as an old static site it is likely to be directly reachable. Payment methods are unknown. Since the software is based on obsolete technology, there are currently few direct modern replacements, though contemporary political science teaching may be more likely to use web-based election simulation tools or rely on theoretical modeling.