On May 13, 2010, at 1:41 AM, clay shentrup wrote:
Robert Bristow-Johnson just sent me an email saying:
QUOTE
both [Score and Approval Voting] present the voter with a tactical
dilemma right away, if the voter likes a candidate, but approves of
more. voters will likely Score their favorite 99 and the others as 0
(and "not approved") and then either Score or Approval will degenerate
to FPTP.
/QUOTE
I just linked him to http://www.electology.org/later-no-harm
My question is...
How. On. Earth. Do. People. Keep. Making. This. Argument?!
It's like saying that if I go back in time and find a Nader supporter
who tactically voted for Gore, and I tell him, "you're can vote for as
many candidates as you want to" he'll say, "oh great -- instead of
adding a vote for Nader, I'll just switch my ONE VOTE from Gore _to_
Nader, because having the option to vote for multiple candidates makes
me feel like throwing my vote away".
Crikey.
On May 13, 2010, at 1:42 AM, clay shentrup wrote:
Oh, and I'm assuming Robert has no problem with my posting that here,
because it is just a few sentences and presumably is a fair and
accurate reflection of his current (albeit baffling) beliefs.
On May 13, 2010, at 6:02 AM, Raph Frank wrote:
On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 6:41 AM, clay shentrup wrote:
How. On. Earth. Do. People. Keep. Making. This. Argument?!
Because, approval is strange. When a person hears about a new voting
method, their first thought is to try to figure out how it can be
abused. Once they find a way, they don't actually do a full check.
So, something like
<hears about approval>
<"hmm, this is strange and must be abusable">
<"ahh, people will bullet vote">
<"Cool, I knew I was right">.
well, i didn't realize i was joining a Range/Approval advocacy forum.
i thought it was a little broader like the name of the forum
suggests. it needs to be renamed to "Range/Approval Voting Advocacy
PAC". rot's o' ruk getting your 501(c)3.
Raph, you're <assumed thinking of the other person is both ignorant
and presumptuous>. you either have no idea (likely since you've heard
or read nothing from me, except one paragraph second hand), or if you
*do* have an idea, the <misrepresentation> is less excusable. you
think that we are just babes in the woods and know of nothing other
than FPTP and maybe delayed-runoffs. the assumptions you make,
underestimating other people (especially when you know diddley about
them) is, well the kind words might be "risky" and "silly".
so, before i unsubscribe, i'll tell you what i think, and you can make
fun of it after i'm gone. i base this tactical dilemma solely on what
*I* would be thinking upon entering the voting booth and being
presented with a Range ballot on one hand or an Approval ballot on the
other.
In fact, because of the State Senate district that I live in in
Vermont (Chittenden):
http://www.leg.state.vt.us/lms/legdir/districts.asp?Body=S
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_Senate_districts,_2002%E2%80%932012
we elect 6 members at large at a single un-staggered election. we can
vote for at most 6, the major parties offer 6 candidates each, we have
Dems, GOP, Progs, Greens, and independents, and there are at least 20
candidates on the ballot for State Senate in our district. the top 6
vote getters are elected. so candidates of the same party are
competing against each other as well as competing against those from
other parties. i have never voted for all 6 (usually just one or two)
and very few voters (Dems) that i have talked with in Chittenden about
it vote for all 6. it you don't hit your maximum, it is virtually
Approval voting.
one case is that the voter just wants to support the candidate he/she
likes and doesn't like anyone else. he/she votes for that candidate
(in Range, rates that candidate 99 because he/she wants to be as
effective as possible) and no one else (in Range all other candidates
get 0). then it's just like FPTP (with Range, a positive and real
scaling factor tossed in). big deal.
so whether it's Range or Approval, the question the other voter (who
likes a particular candidate, but approves of others) faces is this:
do i vote for the candidates i merely approve of (and with Range, how
highly shall i score them)? we know that voting for the other
approved candidates can actually harm the candidate we like best, if
the race comes out to be one where you favorite and the merely
approved of candidates are competing for that last available seat (or
the single seat, if it's a single winner). if i have a favorite
candidate (with others i merely approve of), perhaps this candidate is
my mother whom i respect and love dearly, i will have an incentive to
be fully support this candidate and not betray this candidate in any
way. i am faced with the strategic question of whether or not to help
these other candidates that i approve of and are not my favorite.
so what if i guess wrong? what if my vote for these other candidates
does not hurt my favorite but one or more of these others barely lost
to a candidate i didn't like. then i will regret not voting for
them. or, on the other hand, what if i *do* vote for these merely
approved of candidates (or Score them significantly higher than zero,
but not as high as my fav) and this candidate ends up beating my
favorite? again, voter regret, and a voter who thinks about this in
advance has some strategy to think about. you cannot deny that (you
*can* deny it, but only from ignorance), because that's how we voters
are thinking. we want to be loyal to our favorite and we want to help
less favorite candidates that we approve of beat the candidates we
hate. so (like Homer Simpson jumping back and forth from one foot to
another): "oh me, oh my, oh me, oh my, what to do! what to do!" the
voter is faced with the need to think strategically about their vote.
with the Ranked-order Ballot used for Condorcet, Borda, Bucklin, IRV,
Coombs, etc., all the voter is asked for is "between Candidate A and
Candidate B, who would you vote for?" if the voter ranks Candidate A
first, Candidate B second, Candidate C third, etc, all that voter is
saying is that if the race was between A and B, he/she would vote for
A. if between B and C, this voter votes for B. of course then if the
race was between A and C, this voter votes for A. that is ALL that
the voter is saying and that is all that is asked. the voter is not
asked "how much MORE do you like A than B over C?" he/she doesn't
have to think about (or get their dart board out) and say "Gee i like
A 56 points more than i like B and i like B 14 points more than i like
C and i like C sqrt(3) points more than i like D." you don't make the
voter guess around like that, and it *is* guessing. dunno about you,
but i don't like being made to guess on my ballot.
then (with Range) the voter has to worry about "did i rank B too
high? will that hurt A's chance to be elected?" or with Approval,
the voter has to worry similarly if he/she approved B, "did my vote
for B hurt A? even though i sorta like B, how can i express that i
really like A better than B?"
so YOU TELL ME: if i like A, approve of B somewhat, approve of C much
less, and think that D is Satan from hell (or Hitler, Stalin,
whoever), how should i mark my ballot if it's Range? how should i if
it's Approval?
it's pretty easy to mark a simple ranked-order ballot A>B>C>D and (at
least with Condorcet and assuming no cycle) i don't have to worry
about my vote for B hurting A, yet my vote for B *does* hurt C, but
not where C is up against D. my vote has equal weight with yours, it
should matter if i like my Candidate A just a little but you like your
Candidate B a whole lot. my vote for A should count just as much as
your vote for B because, despite our differing passions for our
candidates, we have an equal franchise in the election. that's why i
don't want to water down my vote because i don't *have* to, even if my
preferences are weak.
you cannot argue with that, because that's how i, as a voter, would be
thinking at the polls with Range or Approval. and with the Vermont
State Senate race (which is virtually Approval), that *is* how i think
at the polls. you cannot tell me that i think otherwise, so my
experience (as well as other politically savvy voters in Chittenden
County) is that we must think strategically about voting for
candidates that are not our favorite but we approve of. that's the
way it is.
i don't like being presented with that kind of agonizing decision,
just as i don't like agonizing over whether i'll vote for the Prog or
the Dem at the next mayoral election in Burlington because the Ranked
Ballot was done away with when IRV was repealed. (and i am no IRV
advocate, but i voted against the repeal because plurality is worse in
a 3-party context with a viable 3rd party.) so Range/Approval is
either virtually FPTP, if i only like one candidate, or it presents me
with a tactical dilemma.
so you guys continue to have your Range/Approval echo chamber here at
ESF. i'm getting out.
bye,
--
r b-j [email protected]
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
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