Truncated ballots

[Steve Eppley]

DEMOREP1 wrote:
> The single winner case was dealt with extensively in
> 1996-1997 on the EM list.
> 
> My observations were:
> Each choice (assuming a limited number of choices) is
> acceptable or not acceptable to a majority of the voters. 
> That is, there should be a YES/ NO vote on each choice.  
-snip-

Demorep's observations do not reflect the opinions of a majority
of this maillist.  It is silly to ask voters about their fuzzy,
arbitrary concept of "acceptability" vs. "unacceptability." 
What really matters is relative preferences, not absolutes.  

In the poll in this maillist, methods which allow the voter 
to express polarized absolutes such as "yes/no" or
"approve/disapprove" were far less popular than methods which
only ask the voter for relative preferences.

Demorep has been misled, I believe, by the terminology used in
the so-called "Approval" method, which purports to ask voters
about their "absolute" opinions.  For instance, given a choice
between adopting a proposition (if a majority vote "yes") or
keeping the status quo (if a majority vote "no"), the smart
voter will vote "yes" if s/he prefers the proposition more than
the status quo, or "no" if s/he prefers the status quo more
than the proposition.  Only a foolish voter would attempt to 
evaluate the proposition in absolute terms and vote no if s/he 
prefers it more than the status quo.

I think Demorep and others have also been victimized by the 
natural tendency for people to use absolute shortcuts such as "I 
like X" to briefly express more precise relative feelings such 
as "I prefer X more than Y."

An interesting question, if voters are allowed to vote "no" on
all the choices, is what happens when all the choices receive
more "no" than "yes" votes.  Whatever happens in that case
(such as holding a new election a few weeks later, or allowing
some group such as the legislature to resolve the decision), it
is a relative preference for that special alternative which the
voter is really expressing by a "no" vote, not some absolute
unacceptability.  The voter could express that just as well 
without the misleading, polarizing, "yes/no" voting by including 
in his/her order of preference that special alternative.

Here's an example.  Suppose the special alternative is to allow 
the legislature to select the winner.  I'll use the symbol "L" 
to denote this special alternative.  Given a voter who prefers 
candidate X more than L, and L more than candidate Y, his/her 
ballot could be:
                           <--more preferred   less preferred-->
   X                                  (o)   ( )   ( )
   Y                                  ( )   ( )   (o)
   Let legislature decide             ( )   (o)   ( )

This format would be far less misleading to the voters.

In my opinion, and I think in the opinions of most subscribers
of this maillist, it would be better NOT to offer a "pig in a
poke" special alternative on the ballot.  In the first place,
there's no good reason to expect new, better candidates to jump
into the election if the voting method is good enough not to
deter them from competing in the initial election.  (The
"plurality wins" method currently in widespread use, which has
led to the "two-party, one nominee per party" system, may not
be good enough to avoid deterring better candidates from
competing in the general elections, but that's not relevant
since the context of this discussion is about better voting
methods.)

Second, if the alternative is to hold a new election a few 
weeks later, then the wealthiest party has a big edge since it 
can win by attrition.  If the alternative is to let some other 
group (such as the legislature) select the winner, there's no 
reason to expect them to represent the people's will better than 
the people themselves.

---Steve     (Steve Eppley    seppley at alumni.caltech.edu)