What about a meta election?

[David Catchpole]

On Fri, 2 Oct 1998, Charles Fiterman wrote:

> At 04:58 PM 10/2/98 +0200, you wrote:
> >> Example:
> >>
> >>    18 voters prefer A to B to C to D to E.
> >>    17 voters prefer E to D to A to B to C.
> >>    17 voters prefer B to C to A to D to E.
> >>    15 voters prefer D to E to C to A to B.
> >>    14 voters prefer E to D to B to C to A.
> >>    11 voters prefer E to C to A to B to D.
> >>    2 voters prefer C to A to B to D to E.
> >>    1 voter prefers A to C to B to D to E.
> >>    1 voter prefers C to B to E to A to D.
> >>    1 voter prefers C to E to B to A to D.
> >>    1 voter prefers E to B to C to D to A.
> >>    1 voter prefers E to C to D to A to B.
> >>    1 voter prefers D to E to B to C to A.
> 
> So the question becomes "Is there a way for
> a voter to give all this information and fill
> other requirements of an election, honesty, 
> secrecy, convenience etc. that argue so 
> strongly against written ballots and complex
> ones?
> 
> I regard this as a very strong argument against
> this kind of system. Imagine the voter writing
> down 1, 2, 3, 4. Next to candidates names.
> 
> If their are many candidates the voter will take
> a long time to vote. People will see the line
> and be disenfranchised by walking away. There
> will be few elected offices, a very undemocratic
> situation in and of itself.

Australia has used exhaustive preferential voting, as filling in every box
but one is known, for close to a century with almost no breaks. It has
close to no problems except the rare case of voters spoiling their votes,
because in federal elections one's vote will only be counted if the whole
preference schedule can be inferred (that is, you must fill all but one
box). Elections for the Australian House of Representatives usually have 6
to 8 candidates in every seat. To see what real delaying factors there are
on our counting, check out the data on the elections we just had on
Saturday.