[EM] 02/09/02 - Approval favors certain candidates:

[Bart Ingles]

We should hold a running contest to see who can identify the most
logical fallacies in one of Donald's posts.  I propose 1/2 credit for
straw man, since this seems the most common and easily identifiable. 
Here are a few guides to the various fallacies, courtesy of Jeeves:

   http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/longview/ctac/fallacy.htm
   http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/toc.htm
   http://www.primenet.com/~byoder/fallazoo.htm




Donald Davison wrote:
> 
> 02/09/02 - Approval favors certain candidates:
> 
> Dear Adam,
> You wrote: "Perhaps it was best to let Mark's flippant response to your
> flippant post stand alone..."
> 
> Donald: I don't recall reading Mark's response to my post.  I must not be
> getting all my email, or most likely I deleted his post my mistake along
> with some commercial posts.
> 
> Anyway Adam, I was not being flippant.  Approval has only limited honest uses.
> 
> Adam: "I've seen your post (and copy) informative material when speaking on
> the subject of multi-winner elections.  But so far your posts on the
> subject of single winner elections have essentially consisted of talking
> down to those who support methods other than IRV."
> 
> Donald:  There is a difference.  In multi-seat election methods the
> corruption lies in which rules are used, in single-seat methods the
> corruption lies in which method is used.  The ABC methods are corrupt
> methods.  So, it follows that I would object to corrupt methods with the
> same vigor that I object to corrupt rules in STV.
> 
> Adam: "You say....approval is essentially good for nothing."
> 
> Donald:  That's about the size of it.  Approval should not be used in any
> serious election because it favors certain candidates (the lower ones).
> 
> Adam: "If you please, give an example of an election where approval will
> fail to produce a fair result."
> 
> Donald: Let's use the last Florida Presidential election.  The numbers were
> about: 44 Bush,  44 Gore,  8 Nader,  and 4 Others.  Now, what do you
> consider to be fair results?  Do you want a method that somehow, by hook or
> by crook, will raise Nader's vote total up to be in the same range as that
> of Bush or Gore?  If so, you have the same agenda as MikeO.  The ABC
> Methods serve that agenda and Approval Voting will be the best of the three
> at serving that agenda.  It is the most corrupt of the three, so it is
> understandable that MikeO is promoting Approval Voting, he wants a method
> that will do the most to elect a Nader type candidate even if 92 % of the
> voters want someone else.
> 
> If Approval Voting was the method of choice in the last Florida election,
> Nader would have had a good chance of winning, provided at least fifty
> percent of the Bush and Gore voters made the mistake of foolishly giving
> Nader a vote too.
> 
> In order for the election of Nader to become more of a certainty, the Nader
> voters should only vote for Nader, no other candidate.  Let the Bush and
> Gore voters be foolish (the Bush and Gore Voters are not going to be that
> foolish).
> 
> Adam: "Or show some other strategic pitfall of approval voting."
> 
> Donald:  Approval Voting is a method that can be easily foiled, to the
> extent that the method disappears.  Take some example that is like your
> example of three near equal candidates, say 1010 A,  1005 B,  and 1000 C.
> 
> In politics there is a rule that could be written; "If a ploy exists,
> someone will find it and we can be sure it will be used to win an
> election."
> 
> Now, the question is: "When using the Approval Voting method, what ploy
> could be used by one faction to win the above election?"   Answer: Your
> faction should only vote for one candidate. (your candidate of course)
> 
> If the supporters of any one of these three candidates were to only vote
> for their candidate, that candidate would have a very good chance of
> winning.
> 
> Of course, the supporters of the other two candidates may do the same, then
> the method of Approval Voting disappears and we are left with merely
> Plurality.  This truth alone should make any sensible person reject
> Approval Voting, but Approval is also deceptive.  Approval itself is a ploy
> to win the election for one of the lower candidates.
> 
> The success of Approval Voting depends on deceiving most of the voters into
> believing that it is safe to vote for more than one candidate.
> 
> The supporters of Approval are not being honest with the people when they
> implies to them, "Vote for Bush or Gore if you must, but also give one of
> your votes to Nader."  Or, "Of course, you want to vote for Bush or Gore,
> but you have plenty of votes, give one to Nader."
> 
> By replacing ranked preferences with actual votes, MikeO hopes that with
> more votes in the hot hands of the voters that enough of these excess votes
> will fall on his third party candidate so that Nader will win.  He is
> willing to have Nader win through the back door.  It's a con game MikeO is
> playing and you have yet to realize it.
> 
> The Lower Choices are the back door.  The lower choices are not netural,
> they are the reverse of the first choices.  If the first choices would have
> been:  60 A, 30 B, and 10 C, the lower choices are  40 A, 70 B, and 90 C.
> If all the lower choices are added to the first choices we end up with all
> candidates being equal at 100 A, 100 B, and 100 C.  While this most likely
> will not happen in a real election, this does point up the policy of
> Approval Voting to help the lower candidates to become equal in votes to
> the higher candidates.  The more lower choices a method uses, the more the
> lower candidates are favored, the more corrupt that method is.  Approval
> Voting uses all the lower choices, so it is the most corrupt.
> 
> Approval supporters want a method that uses more of the lower choices
> because the lower choices contain a ratio of votes that favors the lowest
> candidates.  The ABC methods are for people who believe that one of the
> lower vote gathers should win the election.
> 
> This push for single-seat reform is not just for the Presidential election,
> it is for all single-seat elections in the country, including all the
> single-seat districts of the most important multi-seat elections, so there
> is a lot at stake.  Candidates that cannot get enough votes need some ploy
> like Approval to give them a leg up.
> 
> Donald