[EM] Bart Ingles being corrected:

[I Like IRVing]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 05/14/01
Greetings List,

I wrote: > [Don here: It is good if the voters of the larger factions only
make one
> choice when voting in a Bucklin election.  This will cause Bucklin and any
> of the other weird methods to become more like Instant Runoff Voting.]

Bart:  True enough.  Many or most major party supporters will decline to
rank a second choice even under IRV,

Don:  Bart is not correct to include IRVing.  Under IRVing, all voters are
safe in making lower choices because, under IRVing, lower choices can never
be used to help defeat top choices, this is only under IRVing.

Bart:  (1) partly because there would be no reason to bother with a second
choice (since their second and lower choices will never be counted anyway),
and

Don:  Bart is not correct if he is including IRVing.  There are reasons for
every voter to make lower choices under IRVing.  The lower choices would
help to solve ties, fill a later vacancy, and give a vote of confidence to
the winner if the candidates are worked down to one in the runoff routine.

Bart:  (2) partly to make it clear to supporters of any potential
third-party spoilers that their best strategy will be to rank one of the
top two candidates first, if there is any chance that the third party
candidate will be in a close contest with one of the frontrunners.  In
other words, Gore supporters should vote only for Gore, in order to make it
clear to Nader supporters that Nader has no chance to win the final round
even if he gets that far.

Don:  In other words, Bart is saying that the voters who vote Gore as first
choice will be willing to cut their noses off in order to spite their
faces.  I don't think so.  The Gore voters must consider that their action
may give the final contest to a third candidate, like say to Bush for
example.

Bart:  But at least Donald now acknowledges that voters of the largest
factions _should_ only make one choice, at least IRV, Approval, Bucklin,
and most of the other commonly discussed methods.  His previous examples
seemed to claim the opposite.

Don:  Bart are not correct to include IRVing.
      Under IRVing, all voters are safe in making as many choices as they
care to make.
      Under Approval, Bucklin, and Condorcet, voters of the largest
factions should only make one choice.  Voters of the smaller factions
should make more than one choice.
      Under Borda, voters of the largest factions would need to make two
choices, if the Borda method is using the Borda Rule as follows:

Borda Rule:  "Each voter ranks the candidates in order, and each candidate
is awarded a number of votes (from that voter) equal to the number of other
candidates ranked below him: the candidate receiving the greatest total
number of votes wins the election."

      Under Borda Rule, voters of the smaller factions should make more
than two choices.

Note: The Borda Rule is an unacceptable rule, but then so is Borda
unacceptable, and Approval, and Bucklin, and Condorcet.  So what else is
new?

      I hope the above covers my position on how many choices a voter
should make for different election methods and that there will no more
misstatements of my position.

  Regards, Donald Davison - Host of New Democracy,  www.mich.com/~donald

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   |                         Q U O T A T I O N                         |
   |  "Democracy is a beautiful thing,                                 |
   |       except that part about letting just any old yokel vote."    |
   |                            - Age 10                               |
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