[EM] Why use more than two grades?

[Joe Weinstein]

WHY USE MORE THAN TWO GRADES?

In response (1/17) to my last posting (1/16), Bart Ingles asks:

"One question: why would any voter want to vote anything other than 0.0 or 
1.0 for any individual candidate?  I understand that a voter may be truly 
undecided about a candidate, but in that case why wouldn't a coin-toss serve 
just as well?"

WHY ME? To be fair, these basic queries ought to be put not just to me but 
to ALL advocates of what are in effect higher-resolution grading methods 
(more than two grade values allowed).  These methods include all schemes - 
e.g. Borda, Condorcet, ‘cumulative' voting, and ‘instant runoff'- which 
allow (or indeed even force) strict ranking of three or more candidates.  
Nontrivial instances of (and discussions about) these methods require three 
or more grade values.

In fact, only two methods discussed on this list DON'T use more than two 
grade values, namely the prevalent lone-mark (‘plurality), and pass-fail 
(‘approval').

Here are my basic responses to Bart's basic queries.


RESPONSE TO FIRST QUERY. For many intimate or smaller-scale elections, 
pass-fail (‘approval') grading, using just two grades,  will be adequate - 
and may be required for simplicity of tabulation.  However, in larger or 
more public elections, with thousands or even millions of voters, use of 
higher-resolution grading will impose little or no extra burden on the 
already requisite computerized tabulation.  Moreover, as it is unlikely that 
any outcome will be determined by a single vote, a major electoral function 
and voter motivation - and arguably a civil right of both voters and 
candidate - is conferred when the available grade levels allow a voter V to 
express her (or his) evaluations to higher resolution.

In brief, a voter V should (and may as well, given modern technology) be 
enabled to better express her grade of each candidate.  Closer realization 
of this goal is a major reason for considering alternative election methods 
at all.

Even with just two candidates, V may well wish to ‘send a message' to future 
politics, that her favored candidate has most, but far from all, of her 
support.  For example, she may wish to vote A 0.6, B 0.0 . Or, with three 
candidates, she may wish to express a judgment that B is much  worse (or 
anyhow much less worthy of support) than A but much better than C, e.g.: A 
1.0, B 0.6, C 0.1.   For a 6 Nov. 2000 example using candidates initials 
(with IW =Ideal Write-In), I myself wanted to vote something like: IW 1.0, 
AG 0.8, RN 0.7, HB 0.3, GB 0.2, PB 0.0.

Maybe most voters in most elections will not care to use the grading option 
to its fullest degree.  That situation would contradict neither this 
option's benefits nor its very necessity, as a attainable civil right of 
free expression, for voters and candidates.  One could as well rule out any 
one of some better-known civil rights and liberties, e.g. freedom of speech 
or of the press, on the grounds that relatively few citizens ever use these 
options to their fullest, or at all.


RESPONSE TO SECOND QUERY.  If voter V truly cannot credibly assign candidate 
C some minimal nonzero grade, then C may as well receive the grade 0, - 
either explicitly from V, or by automatic default from V's failure to mark 
any grade for C.


Joe Weinstein
Long Beach CA USA

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