[EM] Fwd: no wimpy lesser evils

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

>
>Hi--
>
>Your argument is convincing--why vote for something lesser, when
>you can vote for the real thing.
>
>It's said that it's better to vote for what you want and not
>get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it. I
>quite agree. I won't be voting for a corrupt lesser-evil in
>November. I'll probably vote for Nader instead of Cthulhu, though,
>because he has better name recognition, and because I like his
>policy positions better.
>
>But I suggest a simple solution for the person who wants to vote
>for a lesser-evil and won't even consider otherwise:
>
>Simply let the voter mark more than 1 name on the ballot if s/he
>so wishes, voting for as many candidates as s/he wants to, and
>giving one whole vote to each candidate whom s/he votes for.
>
>As with our current 1-vote Plurality system, the candidate with
>the most votes wins. This system that lets people vote for more
>than 1 is called the Approval method.
>
>Approval gets rid of the lesser-of-2-evils problem (we abbreviate
>it LO2E) because, with Approval, for the first time, everyone
>would be able to vote for their favorite. If someone feels a
>need to vote for a lesser-evil like Al Gore, they can also vote
>for everyone whom they like better, including Nader.
>
>Maybe you've heard proposals for rank-balloting voting systems.
>It turns out that only  a very few of the very best rank methods
>are as good as the elegantly simple Approval method. Besides,
>unlike the rank methods, Approval is a _minimal_ change from our
>current voting system, making it very easy to propose, define,
>& justify. Approval has a stability that no other voting system
>has. Uniquely stable, and elegantly simple.
>
>Here are a few criteria that Approval meets:
>
>Favorite-Betrayal Criterion (FBS):
>
>By voting a less-liked candidate over his/her favorite, a voter
>should never gain an outcome that s/he likes better than any
>outcome that s/he could get without voting a less-liked candidate
>over his/her favorite.
>
>***
>
>In other words, no one has any incentive to dump their favorite.
>More important, no one is strategically forced to dump their
>favorite, as they are now, when they dump Nader to vote for
>lesser-evil Gore. (Isn't "Gore" a neat name for a lesser-evil")
>
>***
>
>Strong Adverse Results Criterion (SARC):
>
>If a group of voters all have the same preferences, and all
>vote in the same way, and if they vote in a way that, with some
>configuration of the other people's votes, could gain an outcome
>that they like better than all the outcomes that they could get
>by other ways of voting, then the fact that they showed up &
>voted in that way should never cause their 1st choice to lose,
>or cause their last choice to win.
>
>***
>
>FBC & SARC may sound obvious, but only Approval meets those
>2 criteria. Approval is the only method that meets FBC, and
>Approval is the only method that meets SARC.
>
>***
>
>Non-Drastic Defense Criterion (NDDC):
>
>If a majority of all the voters prefer A to B, then they should
>have a way of voting that ensures that B can't win, without any
>member of that majority voting a less-liked candidate over a
>more-liked one.
>
>***
>
>Approval meets NDDC. Only a few of the best methods meet NDDC.
>
>***
>
>Let me introduce UUCC:
>
>With out Plurality method, there could be a good-old-boy, a
>longtime corrupt incumbant, or a party consisting of those types.
>Maybe this guy is someone who has traditionally been the
>coming-together point for the progressives for a long time.
>Say there's another newer candidate who share's the corrupt
>candidate's policy position, but isn't corrupt.
>
>If you're one of just a few people who switch to the new candidate,
>you could cause Mr. Corrupt to lose to some other party whose
>policy positions are worse (and which is also corrupt). Does
>that sound familiar? The result is that the electorate could
>be stuck re-electing a corrupt party or incumbant because everyone
>is afraid to change their vote and risk the election of someone
>worse. This is the lesser-of-2-evils problem with a vengeance:
>Even if everyone prefers the new candidate to Mr. Corrupt,
>Mr. Corrupt can keep winning.
>
>Here's a criterion about that:
>
>Unanimously-Unpreferred Candidate Criterion (UUCC):
>
>If everyone prefers X to Xc, then it shouldn't be possible to
>contrive a situation where Xc wins, and where if 1 voter changed
>his vote so as to no longer vote Xc over X, that could cause
>the election of someone whom that voter likes better than Xc.
>
>***
>
>Approval is one of the few methods that meet UUCC. Plurality
>fails it, for instance.
>
>***
>
>Some promoters in the U.S., known as the IRVies, are aggressively
>pushing a method that they call "Instant Runoff", or "Instant
>Runoff Voting" (IRV). IRV fails every one of the criteria that
>I've listed here, and meets no important criteria.
>
>***
>
>Let me know of any questions, comments, agreements, disagreements,
>or other reactions to all this.
>
>***
>
>Mike Ossipoff
>nkklrp at hotmail.com
>
>
>
>

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