Dear Abd ulRahman! you wrote: > I can see only one argument for the practice of discarding > multiply-marked ballots, and it is singularly weak. A corrupt election > worker could weaken votes by adding extra marks. But this is truly weak > because in the event that this occurred, it would be closer to > legitimacy, under most circumstances, to count the ballot than to > discard it. Discarding it helps to accomplish the purpose of the corrupt > worker. The only way to truly void a ballot with extra marks would be to > mark all candidates. In which case it is moot whether the ballot is kept > or discarded. As long as one candidate remains unmarked, we would know > that the original voter's intent excluded that candidate. > > Anyway, the point is that it is singularly odd that Approval is > considered a separate election method. It really is something that would > exist in simple plurality elections if not for a special rule created to > prevent it. > > So promoting Approval voting might be as simple as pointing out the > injustice of it. I can't see any reason for *preventing* a person from > voting for more than one candidate. Allowing it merely adds to the > freedom of the voter without complicating the process. For me, the > question is "Why not" rather than "Why?"
I agree completely! And once that has been widely accepted, more sophisticated methods can be promoted which try to improve approval voting by adding additional safety measures -- such as the additional pairwise comparision in DFC. Jobst ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
