It's of interest how one would have voted in the recent 2012 presidential election, using the voting systems that are being proposed.
I'll suggest how a progressive might vote optimally in that election, using the various proposed methods. I'll name a candidate-set, consisting of the most well-known candidates, the ones who were in debates (televised and on the Internet). This candidate set includes the candidates of four media-banned parties. (All parties are media-banned, other than the officially recognized, promoted and endorsed one, the Republocrat party). Candidate set: Barak Obama Mitt Romney Jill Stein Gary Johnson Virgil Goode Rocky Anderson Voting systems used: Plurality Approval Score Instant Runoff Beatpath (a traditional unimproved Condorcet method) ICT Symmetrical ICT Majority-Judgment As I've said, I claim that all of our official public elections are u/a. That greatly simplifies voting strategy. As I mentioned in a previous post, it appears to me that Rocky Anderson and the Justice party are a strategic clone of Jill Stein and the Green Party US (GPUS), with the purpose of splitting the Green vote. Anyone who has heard the debates among the four candidates of media-banned parties, or read platform policies &/or candidate statements on the Internet, will undestand why I don't include Obama, Romney, Goode or Johnson among the acceptable candidates. If a progressive agrees with me on that, then Anderson is an unacceptable. Even with methods that don't have a clone problem, a progressive would be unlikely to regard the Justice party as acceptable, because, once its intentions are in question, there's no reason to trust it or its candidates to really implement the good policies that they copy in their talk. Based on the above two paragraphs, then, the only candidate, among the above-listed 6-candidate candidate-set, who is acceptable is Jill Stein. So, here is how I suggest that a progressive voter would vote optimally in the 2012 Presidential election, using the above-listed 8 voting systems: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Plurality: Jill Stein That's because Plurality's u/a strategy is to combine votes on the most winnable acceptable candidate. I've discussed the possibility of pre-election informational polling by ICT and Symmmetrical ICT. But large-scale polling is probably expensive, difficult, and hard to find people to do it, and hard to get participation from the public. But the Green Party US (GPUS) party nomination serves the purpose well. I suggest that, for American progressives, the GPUS nominee is always the candidate whom we should regard as the most winnable acceptable candidate. Hence my suggestion that a progressive would vote optimally in Plurality by voting for Jill Stein. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Approval: Jill Stein That's because Approval's u/a strategy is to approve all of the acceptable candidates, and none of the unacceptable candidates. As described above, I suggest that, among the above-listed candidate-set, Jill Stein is the only acceptable candidiate. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0-10 Score: Jill Stein 10 Barak Obama 0 Mitt Romney 0 Gary Johnson 0 Virgil Goode 0 Rocky Anderson 0 That's because Score's u/a strategy is to top-rate all of the acceptable candidates, and bottom-rate all of the unacceptable candidates. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Instant Runoff: 1. Jill Stein 2. Rocky Anderson 3. Virgil Goode 4. Gary Anderson 5. Barak Obama 6. Mitt Romney That's because IRV's u/a strategy is to rank the acceptables in order of winnability, and then rank the unacceptables in order of merit. Sure, it isin't easy to say what the order of merit is among the 5 unacceptables. But I suggest Anderson as the most meritorious unacceptable, because at least he re-states Stein's policy proposals, Even if we can't trust his sincerity, at least he doesn't espouse or advocate bad policy proposals. Johnson would immediately get us out of Afghanistan, but Goode wouldn't allow non-congress-declared wars, and so presumably he'd do the same. None of those 6 candidates, other than Johnson, proposed the extreme Libertarian policies proposed by Johnson. But, comparing Johnson to the Republocrats, Johnson's opposition to unnecessary wars, and his completely non-authoritarian positions make him better than the Republocrats. As for Johnson's extsreme LIbertarian policies, (elimination of occupational health and safety laws, consumer protection laws, product safety and food safety laws, etc.) if we had the desperate and undesirable choice between Johnson and the Republocrats, maybe it would be best to assume that, while the public would accept Johnson's better policies, they'd almost unanimously reject his worse policies, and they'd therefore never be implemented. That's why I rank Johnson over the Republocrats in IRV. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Beatpath: 1. Jill Stein 2. Rocky Anderson 3. Virgil Goode 4. Gary Johnson 5. Mitt Romney 6. Barak Obama TUC's (and therefore Beatpath's) problem, even in a u/a election, regarding which acceptables to top-rank, doesn't occur with this candidate-set, because there's only one acceptable. TUC's u/a strategy (when there's only one acceptable) is to top-rank the acceptable, and then rank the unacceptables in reverse order of winnability. In the IRV poll, after the first FreeAndEqual debate, Johnson, in comparison to Stein, got a lot more transfers from Goode and Anderson. That strongly suggests that there are a lot more Goode-preferrers than Anderson-preferrers. Hence my 2nd-ranking of Anderson. Of course the fact that Goode was eliminated before Johnson suggests less winnabilit for Goode, which is why I ranked Goode over Johnson. Less demonstrated winnability likewise is the reason why I ranked Johnson over the Republocrats. Everything that we were hearing suggested that Romney was less winnable than Obama, especially since Romney's 47% remark. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ICT: ICT's bottom-end strategy is the same as that of TUC (including Beatpath) The top-end difference is avoided when there's only one acceptable. Hence, with this candidate-set, my ICT ranking would be the same as my TUC ranking. 1. Jill Stein 2. Rocky Anderson 3. Virgil Goode 4. Gary Johnson 5. Mitt Romney 6. Barak Obama -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Symmetrical ICT: With Symmetrical ICT, there's no reason for random-fill in 0-info elections. And, even when there's some winnability information, there's less need to use that information or guesses. Maybe, if the above-described winnability information is reliable, it could actually be best to rank as in ICT: 1. Jill Stein 2. Rocky Anderson 3. Virgil Goode 4. Gary Johnson 5. Mitt Romney 6. Barak Obama ...but, because the method is Symmetrical ICT, there'd be much reason to do so, and it would be more strategically acceptable to just not rank any unacceptables: 1. Jill Stein ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A-F Majority-Judgment: (Majority-Judgment advocates want to use emotionally-expressive, evaluative rating labels, such as the U.S school grading system: A, B, C, D, F) Use it like Approval: Jill Stein A Barak Obama F Mitt Romney F Gary Johnson F Virgil Goode F Rocky Anderson F ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike Ossipoff ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
