[EM] Dumbed down ballots (was Re: No Objection to NOTB or disapproval

[Steve Eppley]

Mike O. wrote:
>That brings me to "dumbed-down". I've proposed Condorcet's method
>in more than 1 form. I proposed in in a form that, in the event of
>a circular tie, picks the winner from that circular tie. Everyone
>rejected that as being too complicated, because the definition of
>a circular tie, of which candidates it includes, was the last straw
>that made people throw up their hands and say "Forget it! This is
>too complicated. You'll have to come up with something simpler."
>
>So I did. I began proposing a version of Condorcet's method, which
>I'll call "Plain Condorcet's method",
[snip]
>You can call that dumbing it down,

That's not what I meant!  I was drawing a distinction between
Condorcet and Condorcet+NOTB, which lets the voters express
themselves more clearly if they're "not too dumb" to understand it.
Condorcet+NOTB keeps Mike's tie-breaking algorithm.  It adds a
filter against disapproved candidates.

I haven't thought about whether this filter should kick in only if
NOTB is the winner (outright or the tiebreaker), or whether any
candidate beaten pairwise by NOTB should be disqualified.  Mike
disagreed, but to me it makes sense to privilege the NOTB choice,
and disqualify anyone beaten pairwise by it.  It may look fishy to
the electorate if a disapproved candidate wins. 

I apologize for using the term.  It has rude connotations. 
Apologies also to Matthew Shugart.

--Steve