[EM] Ballot integrity (Was 'Re: "margins vs. winning votes" and Woodall's "Plurality" criterion')

[Ted Stern]

On 6 Mar 2005 at 06:50 PST, Chris Benham wrote:
>
>> Oh, by the way, I would *not* allow equal rankings. Why not? I just
>> don't like them. They strike me as an unnecessary complication and
>> little more than a way to game the system.
>
> I think an ideal method in an ideal world should allow them; but I can see
> that voters are not likely to be enthusiastic or to see any great point, and
> that they could be untidy from the practical point-of-view. Also with paper
> ballots, there could maybe be a theoretical possibility or suspicion that
> some extra "1"s could be added after the ballots have been cast.
>

This is a whole different can of worms.  Any ranking scheme has the
possibility of ballot tampering unless you design the ballot carefully.  That
is the one argument that plurality (SV-FPP) has over anything else, even
approval.

There are several ballot-checking strategies that could be used.  The simplest
is that all candidates would be ranked.  But if there were 100's of
candidates, it might be easier to simply enter a count of how many candidates
were entered at a given rank.

Here's a sample ballot:

                 |<--  Best    .............    Worst -->|

                  1    2    3    4   5    6    7    8   9    Below
                 
       A         ( )  ( )  ( )  ( ) ( )  ( )  ( )  ( ) ( )    ( )    
       B         ( )  ( )  ( )  ( ) ( )  ( )  ( )  ( ) ( )    ( )
       C         ( )  ( )  ( )  ( ) ( )  ( )  ( )  ( ) ( )    ( )
       D         ( )  ( )  ( )  ( ) ( )  ( )  ( )  ( ) ( )    ( )
       E         ( )  ( )  ( )  ( ) ( )  ( )  ( )  ( ) ( )    ( )
       ...       ( )  ( )  ( )  ( ) ( )  ( )  ( )  ( ) ( )    ( )

       Minimum   ( )  ( )  ( )  ( ) ( )  ( )  ( )  ( ) ( )
       Approved
       Rank  

       Number    [ ]  [ ]  [ ]  [ ] [ ]  [ ]  [ ]  [ ] [ ]
       at
       Rank

The voter could provide a count of how many votes were entered at a particular
rank.  If the actual count differed, the ballot would be recognized as
spoiled.

Or they could enter a rank of "Below" for any candidate they specifically
don't choose to rank.

Ted
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	ted stern at u dot washington dot edu

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