The main reason that "lazy"
voters don't take the time to study up on and carefully rank all of the
candidates is that they know that in these large scale elections the chance that
their vote will be pivotal is practically nil.
Suppose that we consider
voting duty like jury duty since elected officials end up making life and death
decisions. Then Joe Weinstein's suggestion is the most
logical:
(1) Pick 400 registered voters at
random. Give them time off work, and have them study the candidates
carefully and decide a tentative winner by some reputable method (like
DMC, Shulze, Approval, Asset Voting, etc.) It will definitely be
worth the time for these voters, since there will be an appreciable chance
that their votes will be pivotal.
(2) Analyze the ballots from step 1
statistically. If the results are so decisive that there is less than a
one percent chance that a different winner would emerge from the same
method involving the entire electorate, then submit the tentative winner to the
electorate for ratification by a Yes/No vote.
(3) If the statistical significance is too
weak for 99 percent confidence, then use the statisticians' estimate of the
sample size N necessary to get 99 percent confidence in the result, and
take a new random sample of size N from the registered voters. If N is
greater than 20% of the electorate, then use all of the voters.
(4) In the unlikely (less than one
percent probability) case that a tentative winner is not
ratified, take another random sample of size N and start over.
Forest
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