The election method was the shout which was actually range voting in essence. Aristotle (Politics) called this "childish," as opposed to something sophisticated and adult like using voting machines and ballots. However, it was unrivaled in its simplicity and transparency – two important virtues – and with a design that theoretically prevents any bias and cheating on the part of the vote counters (provided those counters really were kept in ignorance of what was being voted for when – and even if there was such cheating any major cheat would be immediately apparent to all, which'd plausibly be very dangerous for the cheaters). Historian Paul Cartledge said the Spartan system was presumably "easily manipulated" but didn't say what he meant by that. But actually, I suspect it was Cartledge who was being naive there.