On Apr 22, 2012, at 11:14 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
I missed the fact that Dave was answering my question here, and so
I'll reply to his answer:
I'd said:
"Approved" ratings wins. The result? Well, we'd be electing the most
approved candidate, wouldn't we. Who can criticize that?
> Dave says: >
> The voter who did not have equal liking for all Approved.
[endquote]
Ok, Dave is saying that that voter could complain about electing the
most approved candidate, the
candidate to whom most people have given an approval.
One can only wonder how that voter would criticize electing the
candidate to whom the most voters
have given an approval.
Dave is welcome to share with us the complaint that that voter could
make. Dave, don't forget to include
that voter's justification for his complaint. Let your hypothetical
voter tell us what is wrong with electing the candidate
to whom the most voters have given an approval.
But I'm going to guess what Dave means. He's saying that he wants
more; he wants something else. He wants
the expressivity of rank balloting. No matter how much Dave wants
that, it doesn't amount to something wrong
with electing the candidate to whom the most candidates have given
an approval.
Certainly Dave can make that complaint--that he wants something
more. But his complaint and ambitions don't amount
to an answer to my question (when I asked who could object to
electing the candidate to whom the most voters have
given an approval.
The rank-balloting advocates' ohjection, desire and ambition
certainly deserves to be answered. I will answer it in a subsequent
post (though I answered it to a large extent in the part of my
article that discusses Approval's advantages--I invite Dave to re-
read that part).
To try to sort out the question:
. In Plurality voters objected to being unable to vote for more
than one.
. Approval is better, for having fixed that, so now voters wish
they could express preferences as to which candidate they like better.
Quite aside from that, is the important question that can be asked
about any propoesd replacement for Plurality:
"Is this method going to turn out to be worse than Plurality? Does
it have unforseen consequences and problems that will have
some unspecified disastrous effect?"
Proper question when considering any new method, whatever the current
base may be. IRV is an example that scares thinkers.
I know that I've already addressed this problem, and pointed out
that Approval's stark, elegant, transparent simplicity doesn't leave
any room for that question. That was why I asked who could object to
electing the candidate to whom the most voters have given an
approval.
You see, it's one thing to say, "I want something even better. I
claim that there can be more, and I want to ask for more!"
But it's quite another thing to be able to claim that the method
will be worse than Plurality. It was regarding that, that I asked my
question, "Who could object...".
You refer back to Plurality here - but from context we were at
Approval and those of us who looked ahead realized that we need
something better.
DWK
I'm addressing the person who wants to keep Plurality. The person
who wants to say thalt Approval would be worse than Plurality.
One question that I'd ask that person is, "Ok, then what's wrong
with electing the candidate whom the most people have approved?"
I'd also remind that person that the only difference between
Approval and Plurality is that the person who, in Pluralilty
approves a compromise candidate
who isn't his favorite, would, in Approval, be able to also approve
everyone he likes more, including his favorite(s). People are then
supporting
candidates whom they like more. The winner will be someone who is
more liked by all of those people. Thats's another thing that would
be difficult for the Plurality-defender to object to.
Another question that I'd ask the Plurality-defender is; What's
wrong with letting each voter have equal power to rate each
candidate? ...equal power to give to each candidate one point or 0
points? ...or, which amounts to the same, to give to each candidate
an "Approved" rating or an "Unapproved" rating?
In fact, what's wrong with getting rid of Plurality's forced
falsification (which I described in the article)?
It's easy to show that Approval will be an improvement on Plurality,
and nothing but an improvement. That can't be said for more
complicated methods, such as the rank-balloting contraptions.
I've already said all this in the article. With any method more
complicated than Approval, the public aren't going to be able to be
sure that it
won't make things worse. Rank methods are contraptions. How many
peoiple will feel confident that they know what those complicated
contraptions will do? And what they'll do wrong sometimes?
Opponents, media, etc. will be able to take full advantage of that
uncertainty.
I've already said that, if it could be enacted, and if people could
understand or trust its FBC compliance, I'd like ICT as the my
favorite choice of voting system. But those conditions don't obtain,
and so I don't propose ICT, or any other rank method.
Mike Ossipoff
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