One Person, One Vote comes from the Levellers of the Great Civil War, England, 1642-1661.
Since standard voting was simply "lone-mark," that's probably all they consciously meant. -----Original Message----- From: Richard Moore [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, July 29, 2002 10:21 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: What are we all about?, etc. Back from a week's absence I find a lot of EM posts in my inbox. I'll combine all my comments into a single response. 1. Thanks, Forest, for founding EMAC (July 23). I accept the invitation to be a charter member, though I think time constraints will keep me from playing a significant role. I hope someone steps up to become an organizing force. 2. On the "one person, one vote" argument against approval voting by James Gilmour (July 23), I don't know if the person who coined the phrase ever gave it an exact meaning. I suspect he (she?) meant "one person, one ballot", with the understanding that all ballots should have equal weight in the counting of the votes. I suspect the equal weights of ballots are what Joe Weinstein was referring to when he wrote "of equal inherent power". It seems to me that "voting power" can be defined in different ways, too, so I would like to avoid that term if possible. But to be fair to Joe, his use of the word "inherent" points to something that is a property of the ballot prior to marking, not something that is dependent on things extrinsic to the ballot -- such as the political climate or the voter's preferences. But as long as the "one person, one vote" phrase is being used as an argument against approval voting, then we should try to address the likely meaning as understood by those who use it in that way. I suspect those using this phrase in such a context intend it to mean "one person, one ballot mark per race". So first, I would like to ask those who believe this is an argument against approval voting to explain what is so objectionable about multiple marks by one voter in any given race. I would then like them to explain how this argument allows any form of voting other than lone-mark plurality. I'm also familiar with the reasoning that the person who elects to mark only one candidate (or all but one candidate) has expressed fewer preferences than one who has marked, say, half of the candidates, and therefore has exercised less voting power. E.g., with 4 candidates, those who mark 1 or 3 candidates express 3 preferences, while those who mark 2 candidates express 4 preferences. As I've noted before, a decision to exercise fewer preferences, made by a knowledgeable voter, is made in order to maximize the strategic value of that voter's ballot. Surely a voluntary choice made to maximize one's own expectation of the outcome, within the constraints set by the voting method, can't be held as a reduction of the voter's power. This is merely an instrumentality/expressivity tradeoff. No matter what the election method, the political situation may empower certain voters over other voters; lucky is the voter who already has such a political tide in favor of his favorite candidate that he doesn't feel the need to add more choices. The same inequality exists in lone-mark plurality elections, but it is exacerbated by the method's asymmetry: See my previous post at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/9795. Besides, how can we avoid applying this argument to ranked methods where reversal or collapsing of preferences can be used to strategic advantage? 3. I'd like to suggest that we give the name "Small-Nash Equilibrium" to the Nash Equilibrium defined in Alex's July 26 post (that is, if Alex was the first to propose it; I don't recall). This will distinguish this special case from other sets of Nash Equilibria that result when the electorate is divided into teams ("players") in different ways than Alex's division. In Craig Carey's response to Alex he states "The theorem starts with "If.. exists" and identifies if a Condorcet winner exists. Therefore all the weighted preference list information is available since a unique Condorcet winner is completely independent of voters." That conclusion depends on how Condorcet winner is defined. Google turns up two definitions, one on condorcet.org and the other in Lorrie Cranor's dissertation. Both refer to an alternative that wins pairwise against all other alternatives. But they are subtly different. If we take the condorcet.org definition "An alternative that pairwise beats every other alternative", nothing is hinted about how the balloting is done. If a single set of approval ballots is counted, and the pairwise information is extracted from this, then a Condorcet winner by this definition will be found, except in the case of exact ties. If we take Cranor's definition "An alternative that beats or ties all others in a series of pairwise contests", then the requirement for a series of contests (which could be met with simultaneous contests through ranked balloting) implies that the Condorcet winner is something that cannot be determined from a single set of approval ballots. A might beat B in the approval contest, while B might beat A if a pairwise contest between the two is held. So Craig Carey's statement is consistent with Cranor's definition -- provided that no voter votes inconsistently in any set of three pairwise contests, which is a given in ranked balloting -- and not with condorcet.org's. The CW Alex refers to in his theorem is probably the Cranor CW; if so, Craig's point is correct. However, Alex was merely developing an idea (in the collaborative environment of the list), not submitting it for publication in a mathematical journal, so most of Craig's pedantic comments in that post are uncalled for at this stage. 4. Craig's anti-approval diatribe (July 27) fails to point out any real problems. Examples presented on the EM list and elsewhere lack a sufficient number of candidates for his taste. Yet the existence of small examples does not imply failure with large numbers of candidates. Will Craig point out how increasing the number of candidates would make approval deteriorate? It's simple to do this for IRV: If there are N candidates, and M candidates are eliminated before there is a pairwise winner against the remaining candidates, then it is possible that that winner is a pairwise loser in M contests. This looks very bad for IRV if M = N - 2 and N is large. IRV needs to test the winner against M additional candidates. I would like Craig to present an argument, at least as coherent as the one above, for why Approval fails if the number of candidates is large, and to state what test it is failing. Also, why is IFPP only formulated for small numbers of candidates, if large fields of candidates are such an important consideration? -- Richard ---- For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the designated recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this message you are hereby notified that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. 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