[EM] 12/19/02 - More Thoughts on Approval and IRV by Tom Ruen:

[Donald E Davison]

12/19/02 - More Thoughts on Approval and IRV by Tom Ruen:

Tom Ruen wrote:

Requoted:
"I say for me there is no fundamental flaw of power of Approval or Ratings
in terms of unequal power. The failure of Approval for me is that it
demands more thought from voters. I support IRV over Approval because it
better protects voters from themselves. Voter might "overvote" in Approval
because they voted too quickly, but this can't happen in IRV or single vote
methods."

I made the above statement against claims that Approval is easier to vote
and count. I think Approval is a harmless extension to plurality, except
with regards to a need for a more complex voting strategy and I am afraid
many people (by motivation, ability or time) are not up to this greater
task. Ranked ballots of IRV have their own complexity that can confuse some
voters, but the effects will be smaller since only one vote is counted at a
time and errors in lower preference will usually not make a difference,
unlike Approval.

Usually I wouldn't compare IRV and Approval, since IRV requires more complex
ballots, but given small hand-counted paper-ballot elections, I see no
reason to prefer Approval checkbox ballots over IRV ranked ballots.

If people wanted to use Approval ballots, I'd suggest "Normalize Approval"
which splits a vote equally among all checked candidates - or "Normalized
Ratings" for unequal splitting. This makes it a "Cumulative Voting" method
(one split vote) and will discourage people from overvoting (Voting for more
candidates than winners).

Tom Ruen


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