[EM] Advantages of CR style ballots

[Richard Moore]

Forest Simmons wrote:

> Furthermore, the lack of constraint makes it harder for a voter to foul
> the ballot. In other words, a voter can hardly violate non-existent
> constraints.  Which is harder to mess up ... lone mark or Approval?  A
> lone mark voter who doesn't notice the (rather ridiculous) "one mark only"
> instruction can accidently foul his ballot if he likes two of the
> candidates.


I've often thought of last year's butterfly ballot fiasco as a perfect 
example
of this principle. If the Gore+Buchanan ballots had been counted as approval
ballots, they would have counted 1 for Gore, 1 for Buchanan. The error 
in the
Buchanan votes would not have made a difference for Buchanan but the correct
inclusion of the Gore votes could have made a difference for Gore. 
(Presumably,
the number of Buchanan voters accidentally marking Gore would have been as
insignificant as the number of Buchanan voters in the general population.)

Could lone mark balloting be disenfranchising more voters than is generally
realized?

  -- Richard