[EM] 02/12/02 - Approval Voting via Plurality-at-Large:

[Donald Davison]

02/12/02 - Approval Voting via Plurality-at-Large:

Greetings List members,

I don't remember who, but someone on the EM list raised the question if it
is possible that Approval Voting is Plurality.  Many thanks to that persons
for bringing this to our attention.

A form of Plurality, Plurality-at-Large, is Approval Voting if and when
only one seat is to be elected.  But, this raises a new question:  Does
this path of Approval Voting via Plurality-at-Large elect the real choice
of the people?  The Black leaders in the city of Detroit don't think so.

In America, most city councils are elected by Plurality-at-Large.  Many of
these cities select the council member with the highest vote total to be
the council president.  It can be argued that the council president is
elected using Approval Voting.  The people each cast a number of votes and
the candidate with the most votes is the winner, just like in Approval
Voting, but this does not elect the choice of the people.

For a number of elections, the same `old white woman' has been elected
council president in Detroit, a city that is over eighty percent Black.
Don't you believe that this is the choice of the people.

This happens because most of the Black voters are willing to vote for one
or two white candidates after casting most of their votes for Black
candidates.  The Black voters are giving Plurality-at-Large a measure of
proportionality, this is good.  These voters are elightened, they are
willing to elect one or two white persons to the council, but they are not
that elightened as to elect a white person as president of the council.

Because there are only one or two white candidates running in a large field
of Black candidates, this results in one white candidate receiving more
votes than any other candidate, white or Black.  It is the math of a poor
election system that is making this white woman the council president.

The Black leaders are as elightened as anyone, but they couldn't live with
the council president being white.  A proposal was placed on the ballot a
few elections ago to make the election of the council president a seperate
election race.  The proposal failed because no member of the council would
be willing to run in this new race and run the risk of being off the
council.  A rule of the proposal was that a candidate could run for council
or run for president of the council, but not both.

Some think, that is where the backers of the proposal goofed, they got
greedy, they not only wanted this `old white woman' to lose the position of
council president, they wanted her off the council, but it is not clear if
the `old white woman' even planned to run in the new presidential race.

I say, the backers of the proposal were between a rock and a hard place -
damned if they did and damned if they didn't.  If a candidate was allowed
to run in both races, the fear was that all candidates would run in both
races.  Running in the council presidential race would be very good
advertisment to gain votes in the council race, no council candidate could
afford not to run in the presidential race, but with the use of Plurality,
the `old white woman' could still win the council president position - if
she ran.

In a single-seat election in which we have many candidates, twenty to
thirty, we can expect the votes to be spread thin.  The winner could have
less than twenty percent of the votes used in the tally.  Neither Plurality
nor Approval Voting is suitable for this election.  The election needs a
way to reducce the field, a way of eliminating candidates.

The only proper way to conduct these two elections is to use Preference
Voting/STV to elect the council and then use the same ranked ballots a
second time as a single-seat IRVing election to elect the president of the
council.  If so, we can be sure that the council president will end up
being Black and thus proving Approval Voting does not elect the choice of
the people.

DEMOREP1 at aol.com, the demolition repo man, is EM's resident expert on the
politics of Detroit.  I refer you to him, if you want further details on
this saga. (or possible corrections)

Regards, Donald Davison,                      http://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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    APV   Approval Voting
    ATV   Alternative Vote  aka  IRV Instant Runoff Voting
    FPTP  First Past The Post  aka  Plurality
    NOTA  None of the Above  aka  RON Re-Open Nominations
    STV   Single Transferable Vote  aka  Choice Voting  aka  Full Choice
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