Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
At 05:57 AM 4/8/2010, Raph Frank wrote:
On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 11:25 PM, Dave Ketchum
<[email protected]> wrote:
> Write-ins permitted (if few write-ins expected,
> counters may lump all such as if a single candidate - if assumption
correct
> the count verifies it; if incorrect, must recount).
How do you handle write-ins. Are write-ins assumed to be equal last
on all ballots which don't mention them?
Yes. Average Range will treat them as abstentions from rating, but as
votes, they are problematic. Only Asset Voting can truly fix this
problem. However, there is another solution: require a majority. In that
case, with good runoff rules, a write-in could get into a runoff
election by causing majority failure, at some threshold or standard, one
designed to catch write-ins that might win, given a chance. My proposal
is to implement Bucklin as a runoff voting system and thus start to
collect data that could then be used to determine future reforms. If the
runoff allows write-ins, and the first election results show promise, a
write-in candidacy at that point would be one where other voters were
informed. Write-ins in a Bucklin runoff with, say, no more than three
candidates, and a serious poll preceding it as the primary, is very
interesting.
I'll note here that Bucklin is not cloneproof, and in some cases it can
reward cloning. See
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg02705.html
. Thus it might pay for voters of some opinion to add lots of write-ins
of the same opinion (leftist, right-winger) as clones.
Your limit to the number of write-ins would help fix that issue, but it
does exist.
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