On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 09:39:05 -0800 Ted Stern wrote:
On 6 Mar 2005 at 06:50 PST, Chris Benham wrote:
Oh, by the way, I would *not* allow equal rankings. Why not? I just don't like them. They strike me as an unnecessary complication and little more than a way to game the system.
I think an ideal method in an ideal world should allow them; but I can see that voters are not likely to be enthusiastic or to see any great point, and that they could be untidy from the practical point-of-view. Also with paper ballots, there could maybe be a theoretical possibility or suspicion that some extra "1"s could be added after the ballots have been cast.
Those voters that see no value are welcome to not use them.
I do not understand "untidy" as used above.
This is a whole different can of worms. Any ranking scheme has the possibility of ballot tampering unless you design the ballot carefully. That is the one argument that plurality (SV-FPP) has over anything else, even approval.
There are several ballot-checking strategies that could be used. The simplest is that all candidates would be ranked. But if there were 100's of candidates, it might be easier to simply enter a count of how many candidates were entered at a given rank.
I like best that we leave detail of ballot design to someone prepared to apply some skill to this problem.
Until we find such:
I like a single field per candidate, with a numeric or letter code to be filled in (among the tampering with multiple fields is to fill in an extra, thus destroying the ballot).
One code means unranked at the bottom.
Unreadable I would translate to a ranked value - probably at the bottom, just above unranked.
Hundreds of candidates is abnormal, but CA has demonstrated that it is possible. Perhaps the rules should be adjusted when this happens.
Here's a sample ballot:
|<-- Best ............. Worst -->|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Below
A ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) B ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
C ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
D ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
E ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
... ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
Minimum ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
Approved
Rank
Number [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] at Rank
The voter could provide a count of how many votes were entered at a particular rank. If the actual count differed, the ballot would be recognized as spoiled.
Or they could enter a rank of "Below" for any candidate they specifically don't choose to rank.
Ted
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