The following poll-posting has been posted to alt.politics.elections, and
has been asked as a question at Yahoo Answers, at the elections section.
It's also been posted to a yahoo group called "AB Progressives". That group
has over 2000 members.
Hopefully there will soon be more than 5 respondents. So far all I've gotten
from yahoo answers is two flippant answers from people who answer everything
to get a scoring point. So far from alt.politics.elections I've only gotten
a few replies criticizing electoral reform itself.
I tell you where the poll is posted so that you can check for results there
if you want to. If I don't get results soon, I might quit checking.
I also invite you to post the below-quoted poll-posting anywhere else that
you might have an idea to post it. Modifiy it as you please. Or, of course,
post an entirely different poll here and there. But polling is essential, to
get an idea of what voting systemss(s) people will accept.
Here's the posting:
The single-vote Plurality voting system currently in use in our political
elections is a peculiar kind of candidate rating system: It lets you give
top rating to one candidate, but forces you to give bottom rating to all the
rest. A fairer system, with more voter freedom, would let you rate _each_
candidate as you choose. There are a number of such systems proposed.
Were so used to the lesser-of-2-evils problem that many people believe it
to be inherent in voting. Actually that problem is an artifact of the 1-vote
Plurality system, the rating system that forces you to give bottom rating
to all the candidates but one.
With any one of the methods described below, no one would ever again have
any reason to not give top rating to their favorite. No one would ever have
strategic need to vote someone else over their favorite.
The result would be that wed elect candidates whom you can like, trust and
respect, instead of sleazy lesser-evils that you have to hold your nose to
vote for..
Which one or more of the four methods described below would you accept? By
that I mean, which would you sign an initiative petition for, or vote for
the enactment of?:
Approval:
Each voter may mark, on his/her ballot, the names of as many candidates as
s/he wants to. The winner is the candidate who gets the most marks.
Approval is the same as what we use now, but without Pluralitys compulsory
bottom-rating rule. Approval lets you rate every candidate 0 or 1. Top or
bottom.
Changing to Approval wouldnt require any new balloting equipment or new
software. What change is needed? Where the ballot now says Vote for one,
it would instead say Vote for one or more. Thats it. Two new words on the
ballot.
Plus/Minus:
Each voter may give to any candidate either 1 point or -1 point. The
candidate with the highest positive total wins.
Plus/Minus is equivalent to Approval, but makes it more obvious that your
bottom rating for candidate Jones exactly cancels out someone elses top
rating for Jones. As a result, with both systems, a ballot with mostly
bottom ratings exercises just as much power as a ballot with mostly top
ratings. I mention that because some people mistakenly object to Approval on
the erroneous grounds that the voter who votes for more candidates exercises
more power than the voter who votes for fewer candidates.
Three-level:
Each voter may give to any candidate 1 point, -1 point, 0 points.
[If the following system has too wordy a definition, then that could be a
reason to not accept it]:
Majority Opposition:
Each voter may rank, in order of preference, as many candidates as s/he
wants to. Voters may rank 2 or more candidates at the same rank position if
they so wish.
1. Disqualify any candidate over whom another candidate is ranked by a
majority of the voters (unless that would disqualify all the candidates).
2. Among the undisqualified candidates, elect the candidate ranked on the
most ballots.
As I said, let me know which of these youd accept.
Optionally, rank them in order of acceptability, or state your favorite.
Optionally, comment on what you like &/or dislike about them.
Mike Ossipoff
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