[EM] Maximum Consent

[Richard Moore]

Anthony Simmons wrote:

> Ideally, if we wanted each vote to contain
> as much information as possible, we should try to create the
> system so that half of the votes are "yes" and half "no".


That's actually possible. Set a rule that any voter voting 
for fewer than half of the candidates will have his ballot 
augmented until it is half-full by randomly selecting from 
the unvoted candidates, and if he votes for more than half 
of the candidates his ballot will be diminished until it is 
half-full by a similar process. Adding or subtracting from a 
ballot in this way doesn't improve the information content 
of the ballot, but it does create a negative incentive for 
voting any ballot that isn't 50/50.

Or simply throw out any ballot that isn't 50/50 (+/- 1/2, if 
the number of candidates is odd). If that's objectionable, 
it shouldn't be any more so than throwing out Plurality 
ballots that have multiple candidates marked on them (e.g., 
Palm Beach butterfly ballots).

Whether forcing 50/50 ballots really is a desirable goal, 
outside the information-theoretical considerations, is 
debatable. It discourages strategic voting but replaces it 
with something that might be worse: excessive constraints. I 
think many of us feel strategy in Approval is not a bad 
thing, and that Approval has about the right constraints as is.

Richard