Mike,
Because you are not supplying your brief "signature" in the specified
format, I (and presumably Jameson) must assume that you do not want your
named moved to the credentialed section of the Declaration.
(I don't understand your choice, but I respect your choice.)
If you can contact the people you refer to and get them to sign the
Declaration, that would be great. (Jameson is pursuing the signatures
of additional potential signers.)
Richard
On 4/9/2012 2:04 PM, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
Hi Richard--
A big advantage of being a credentialed signer would be that I'd be
putting in a word, and a "vote" for Approval. I'd be showing, to other
voting-system reform advocates that the first wv Condorcetist, someone
who has been with voting systems since well before EM started,
is a confirmed, adamant Approvalist. And of course I'd be able to
include a few brief words about why I like Approval. That should suggest to
voting system reform advocates that Approval deserves a closer look.
Of course, the people who would recognize my name, and who to whom my
credentials would mean something, consist of other voting system
reform advocates--people who already fully understand the need to
abolish the single-mark ballot.
But I understand that the purpose of the declaration isn't to advocate
for one voting system reform in comparison to the others--It's to make
people aware that Plurality has got to be replaced with something
better, if democracy is to be genuine. That means that it's necessary to
reach
people who are net yet advocates of voting system reform.
To such people, the fact that I was the first introducer and advocate of
the popular Condorcet(wv) family of methods, and was the proposer and
a founding member of EM, might not count for much, because they have yet
to be convinced that we need a new voting system.
What such people need, to be impressed, to listen, is some proof of
accomplishment or recognition _outside_ the voting system reform community.
I don't hold a degree, or a professional position.
So, what I'm saying is that I fully understand that my being on the list
of credentialed signers could, to the general public, dilute and devalue
that
credentialed list, by a bit.
Of course I'm not saying that I wouldn't like to be included in that
credentialed list. In fact it would help Approval (which I feel is a bit
slighted in the declaration's discussion
of advantages). I'm just saying that I fully understand that my being
mentioned in that list might not be helpful for the purpose of impressing
members of the general public, showing them that voting system reform is
advocated by people whose authority they can recognize.
And this is certainly not about not wanting to give out an e-mail
address. My contact e-mail, for voting systems, is :
"nkklrp, followed by the symbol
that always precedes e-mail domain-names, followed by hotmail, followed
by period, followed by what typically follows that period, something
that starts with
the same letter as the word 'cat'. "
If I'm not in the credentialed signers list, I'd still be glad to be
listed in a list of contacts for answering questions, depending on whether
that is felt to be helpful for the declaration's primary purpose.
But I'll tell you _who_ should sign: Matthew Lane, a PhD candidate at
UCLA. He recently published an editorial on CNN, about the desirability
of, and
need for, Approval voting. It apparently aired on a Friday, within the
past few weeks.
Also, Brams & Fishburn. And Myerson & Weber. And Guy Ottewell (sp?).
Weber and Ottowell have both been named as the modern
1st proponents of Approval (which is known, however, to have been used
long ago too). Myerson & Weber introduced a "voting equilibrium"
that many now call Myerson-Weber equilibrium. They showed that, with
Plurality, the most disliked two parties could continue to win forever,
at equilibrium. Put very briefly, people vote for one of those 2 parties
because they're told that they're the only winnable parties. And, sure
enough,
the winner is always one of them, confirming what the media have told
us. So they keep winning, ad infinitum. One or both of them also discussed
voting systems' encouragement or discouragement of corruption, the
influence of money. And an equilibrium for configurations of candidates.
They
thereby confirmed someone else's suggestion that Approval will result in
an equilibrium in which there is at least one candidate at the voter
median.
And the candidate there will the the winner at voting equilibrium.
Those people made their main contributions decades ago. I don't know how
many of them are still alive (except, of course, for Lane).
How disappointing and embarrassing it would be if all of the people who
have given us those contributions have died out, and are therefore no longer
available to help us, before we start to make use of what they introduced.
Mike Ossipoff
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