Stopping Plurality by DEMOREP1

[New Democracy]

Dear DEMOREP,

     In regard to your post of January 17 1997 titled Stoping Plurality. In
the main I found it very interesting.

     However I do disagree on one small point. You stated that Approval
Voting has a special feature of picking a majority winner. I fear you are
making a simple mistake in math. When we add selections we increase the
total number of votes that we are dealing with therefore we also increase
the majority requirement - we cannot use the majority requirement from the
first tally.

     For Example: Suppose there were three thousand voters in an election.
The first tally majority requirement would be 1501 votes. If there were no
majority candidate on the first tally and we add the second set of
votes(selections) to the first set of votes we increase the total votes to
six thousand votes and we also increase the majority requirement to 3001
votes. But - 3000 votes is the highest number of votes any one candidate
can possibly collect in two sets of selections.

     Stated in other words: If there is no majority winner on the first
tally of the votes, Approval Voting will never produce a majority winner on
two or more sets of selections because it is mathematically impossible for
it to do so.

     Otherwise: Keep up the good work - We want to see more of your posts
on these lists.

Sincerely  yours,

Donald Eric Davison of New Democracy at http://www.mich.com/~donald

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