02/12/02 - Approval Voting via Plurality-at-Large: Greetings List members,
I don't remember who, but someone on the EM list raised the question if it is possible that Approval Voting is Plurality. Many thanks to that persons for bringing this to our attention. A form of Plurality, Plurality-at-Large, is Approval Voting if and when only one seat is to be elected. But, this raises a new question: Does this path of Approval Voting via Plurality-at-Large elect the real choice of the people? The Black leaders in the city of Detroit don't think so. In America, most city councils are elected by Plurality-at-Large. Many of these cities select the council member with the highest vote total to be the council president. It can be argued that the council president is elected using Approval Voting. The people each cast a number of votes and the candidate with the most votes is the winner, just like in Approval Voting, but this does not elect the choice of the people. For a number of elections, the same `old white woman' has been elected council president in Detroit, a city that is over eighty percent Black. Don't you believe that this is the choice of the people. This happens because most of the Black voters are willing to vote for one or two white candidates after casting most of their votes for Black candidates. The Black voters are giving Plurality-at-Large a measure of proportionality, this is good. These voters are elightened, they are willing to elect one or two white persons to the council, but they are not that elightened as to elect a white person as president of the council. Because there are only one or two white candidates running in a large field of Black candidates, this results in one white candidate receiving more votes than any other candidate, white or Black. It is the math of a poor election system that is making this white woman the council president. The Black leaders are as elightened as anyone, but they couldn't live with the council president being white. A proposal was placed on the ballot a few elections ago to make the election of the council president a seperate election race. The proposal failed because no member of the council would be willing to run in this new race and run the risk of being off the council. A rule of the proposal was that a candidate could run for council or run for president of the council, but not both. Some think, that is where the backers of the proposal goofed, they got greedy, they not only wanted this `old white woman' to lose the position of council president, they wanted her off the council, but it is not clear if the `old white woman' even planned to run in the new presidential race. I say, the backers of the proposal were between a rock and a hard place - damned if they did and damned if they didn't. If a candidate was allowed to run in both races, the fear was that all candidates would run in both races. Running in the council presidential race would be very good advertisment to gain votes in the council race, no council candidate could afford not to run in the presidential race, but with the use of Plurality, the `old white woman' could still win the council president position - if she ran. In a single-seat election in which we have many candidates, twenty to thirty, we can expect the votes to be spread thin. The winner could have less than twenty percent of the votes used in the tally. Neither Plurality nor Approval Voting is suitable for this election. The election needs a way to reducce the field, a way of eliminating candidates. The only proper way to conduct these two elections is to use Preference Voting/STV to elect the council and then use the same ranked ballots a second time as a single-seat IRVing election to elect the president of the council. If so, we can be sure that the council president will end up being Black and thus proving Approval Voting does not elect the choice of the people. [EMAIL PROTECTED], the demolition repo man, is EM's resident expert on the politics of Detroit. I refer you to him, if you want further details on this saga. (or possible corrections) Regards, Donald Davison, http://www.mich.com/~donald +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ | Q U O T A T I O N | | "Democracy is a beautiful thing, | | except that part about letting just any old yokel vote." | | - Age 10 - | +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ APV Approval Voting ATV Alternative Vote aka IRV Instant Runoff Voting FPTP First Past The Post aka Plurality NOTA None of the Above aka RON Re-Open Nominations STV Single Transferable Vote aka Choice Voting aka Full Choice Please be advised that sending email to me allows me to quote from it and/or forward the entire email to others.
