[EM] The powers of YES/NO/Approval are unequal; J prog calculatesBorda weights

[Bart Ingles]

Craig Carey wrote:
> 
> What is you objection to calculating a power of a paper and normalising the
> power of each person's vote. STV has no such problem.

Didn't you say recently that STV gave some votes a negative power?


Here's another way to look at the issue of voting power:

With a single-winner approval election (I know of no one who advocates
such a method for multi-seat elections), there is one winner.  Between
any given pair of candidates, a given voter will have either cast one
vote for the winner and none for the loser; one vote for the loser and
none for the winner; or abstained by voting for both or neither.  In any
case, between any pair of candidates, a voter will never have cast more
than one differential vote.


With a method like STV, if a voter's 4th choice wins, her vote is
changed from NO to YES for each of the voter's 2nd, 3rd, and 4th
choices.  So not only does the voter vote for multiple candidates, she
is actually allowed to *change* her vote between rounds.

To make things worse, another voter who supports the 1st runner up is
only allowed one choice.  This voter is not allowed another try even
though his first choice is destined to lose.


With approval voting, all voters are allowed as many or as few choices
as desired, regardless of how likely any one of those choices is to win
or lose.