On Nov 9, 2009, at 11:48 PM, Matthew Welland wrote:
Approval
Does not meet the desire of some to be able to differentiate
between "I like", "I like a lot" etc. (note: this seems like
perfectionism to me. Large numbers of voters and opinions all over
the bell curve should make individual expression at the greater
level of granularity irrelevant.)
we should be able to express our preferences. Approval reduces our
metric of preference to a 1-bit number, a dichotomy. i would like to
have more bits in that number.
Suite of complicated systems that strive to reach "Condorcet" ideals.
No regular bloke would ever trust 'em because you can't explain how
they work in one or two sentences.
Round Robin tournament, Ranked Ballot: The contestant who wins in a
single match is the candidate who is preferred over the other in more
ballots. The candidate who is elected to office is the contestant
who loses to no one in the round robin tournament.
that's two sentences and two labels.
Technically superior to other systems.
Not clear what problem with approval they would solve. Unless you
are a perfectionist and insist that individuals express nuances of
opinion...
like which candidate they like better than the other candidate?
It was very tedious voting in any of the ranking systems.
it's tedious to decide who you like better? who you would prefer if
any two candidates are presented?
i will say this: even though it is prohibited in the present IRV that
Burlington VT has, there is no reason that ties should not be allowed
in any ranked ballot.
but i would agree it would be tedious to allocate preference points
in Range.
So, to re-frame my question. What is the fatal flaw with approval?
it's essentially like Plurality except you get to mark "X" on more
than one candidate (like you do in multi-seat races). i don't like
it for multi-seat (in the state senate for the county i am in, all of
our senators are elected from the county at large and there are 6 for
my county) i always think i'm hurting a candidate i actively support
by voting for another candidate from the same party that i approve
of. so then i mark "X" on only one candidate and, if enough people
vote tactically like that, the election works like Plurality. we
want an improvement to Plurality because we might like a three or
four party system (or 3 parties and viable independents). we want to
not have to consider the likelihood of wasting our vote by deciding
who to Approve of. we know we approve of the candidate we support,
but it is a tactical decision to decide if you approve of a candidate
you would normally approve of but is not the candidate that you have
actively supported.
like what if you're a little old lady and you like and support you
representative legislator for re-election. and you support him over
any likely candidate from the other party, and it might be close so
you wanna feel like you helped him. but your grandson that you
cherish and are proud is running as an independent. in fact you gave
money to your grandson's campaign. you support your grandson. you
don't know if he'll win or not, but you do not want to harm his
chances. you also don't want your good ol' incumbent you've always
supported. you want to make sure he doesn't lose to the other major
party candidate. but you wouldn't mind harming his chances if the
race ended up between him and your grandson.
is that putting it in an accessible context? so then with Approval
voting, for sure this grandma marks "X" by her grandson's name. but
does she or doesn't she Approve her good ol' incumbent? Approval
doesn't let you mark it "Approve except in the race with my top choice."
I'm not interested in subtle flaws that result in imperfect
results. I'm interested in flaws that result in big problems such
as those we see with plurality and IRV.
how 'bout electing the wrong candidate?
i mean isn't that the essential flaw? e.g. the flaw with the
Electoral College is that sometimes it elects the wrong candidate.
it does pretty good when it selects the same winner as the popular
vote, but when it disagrees with the popular vote it *never* creates
more legitimacy or confidence in the election results. so then why
have it? what good is it? it's either ineffective in "filtering"
the popular vote or, when it *is* effective it makes matters worse.
such a useful device!
with Condorcet you elect the candidate that, from the set of voters
who have an opinion, is preferred by a majority of that set over any
other candidate that you pick.
any winner of an election system that elects a candidate who is not
the Condercet winner, has elected someone whom was rejected by the
voting majority in favor of the Condorcet winner who wasn't elected.
how is that congruent to the principle of democracy? do we have
elections and explicitly give it to the candidate with the fewer
votes? i don't see such flaws as subtle.
--
r b-j [email protected]
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
