Hi Anthony,
Thanks for replying to my little poll.
Anthony Duff anthony_duff-at-yahoo.com.au |EMlist| wrote:
Hi Russ,
I think DMC/RAV is less acceptable for public elections because the instructions for the voter will be too complicated for some.
Well, that is certainly a concern of mine too.
I think a ranked ballot counted by a condorcet method, completed by anything reasonable, and approval, both would be excellent methods for elections.
I don't think that RAV adds enough benefit to either to warrent
giving away the simplicity of the instruction given to the voter.
The extreme simplicity of Approval is certainly a major plus for public acceptability and implementation. On the other hand, many IRV advocates dislike Approval because it forces them to "rank" their approved candidates all equal. They prefer IRV because it lets them rank the candidates in order of preference.
Most of us here realize that IRV ranking is misleading (because only some preferences are actually counted), but the ranking capability is a major selling point nevertheless. That's why I am beginning to think that DMC/RAV may actually be more "marketable" than Approval. You can tell the IRVists that DMC/RAV also lets you rank the candidates, yet unlike ordinal-only Condorcet, you don't need an eight-week course to calculate the winner.
As for the additional complexity specifying an Approval cutoff, we can tell voters that they can rank only their approved candidates if they wish, in which case they won't need a separate approval cutoff.
--Russ
However, technically, RAV is superior, as it collects and uses more information.
Absolutely.
Anthony
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