Case #2. To Tobin re: false votes.

[Mike Ossipoff]

Everything that I said about the situation #2, where A wins the 
2-candidate race even though A loses to B by 34 to 46, assumed
that those indifferent 20 actually voted A & B equal, or voted
that they didn't care. So that those 20 can be counted as voters.

If not, then of course a majority of the voters have said that
B is their favorite, and that they'd rather have B than A. In
that case #1 also violates all 3 of the basic democratic principles
that I named.

But even then, if the indifferent 20 aren't voters, #1 is still
the worse of those two situations, because a majority of those
polled voted B over A, instead of just a majority of voters.

Not that that's an important distinction in public elections,
for the purpose of choosing a method. Of course Condordet,
when it guarantees defeat for someone with a majority of the
voters against him, would also guarantee his defeat if he
had a majority of those polled against him. And the methods
that don't meet the criteria that I've named still wouldn't
meet them if we replaced "majority of the voters" with
"majority of those polled". So it seems best to just keep
defining a majority as we do now, as a majority of the voters.

I mention the majority-of-those-polled just in connection with
situations #1 & #2, because #1 seems worse even if the indifferent
20 aren't voters.

***

About Tobin's arguements for the false half prefernces, I've
already answered those same arguments that he's posted.

But let me repeat a few things anyway:

1. The fact that someone votes a preference vote that does'nt
really represent a preference of theirs, because of a different
genuine preference that they have doesn't change that it's
a false preference that's being voted. Falsely voting that you
like A better than B & that you also like B better than A is
quite false, even if you do it because of a sincere preference
for C over A & B.

So Tobin is mis-identifying the true-ness of a preference
vote with the trueness of the feeling that motivated someone
to vote an unfelt preference.

If I lie to you in a business deal, to get your money, shall
I insist in court that my statement was a true one, because
it was motivated by my true & sincere desire to get your
money?

2. As I said, your justification for the false votes is a
justification for a point-count. There's nothing wrong with
wanting a system where we can cast a half a vote against
anyone we want to. Or a whole vote (that wasn't intended
as a straw man). Or as many votes as we want to!

But just let's not call them preference votes. Let's call
them points. What you want is a points system. Propose
a system in which anyone can cast any number of votes against
anyone they want to. Or any number of votes _for_ anyone,
which would be equivalent. Or any number of votes for or
against anyone. By "any number", I of course mean any
number within a specified range, like 0-100, or -100 to 100,
etc. I already pointed out that your justification of the
false votes leads to such a point system.

In no way can the false votes be called preference votes, when
they "prefer" A to B & B to A. They're points, not preference
votes.

3. Whether we use an outright points system, or whether we
merely use the half-way-across system with compulsory or
default falsification of people's ballots: Either way
we lose compliance with the LO2E & majority rule standards
& criteria that I've been defining & discussing.


Mike



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