[EM] Interesting use of Borda count

[Bart Ingles]

Of course.  Isn't it ironic that most multi-seat local elections, at
least in California, use something similar to approval voting, while the
single-vote plurality used in single seat elections is logically
equivalent to cumulative voting.

Bart



Forest Simmons wrote:
> 
> I assume that you are not advocating cumulative voting for single winner
> elections, but are saying that Tom's idea might be a good way to get
> proportional representation in multi-winner elections.
> 
> Forest
> 
> On Sat, 5 Jan 2002, Bart Ingles wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> > Forest Simmons wrote:
> > >
> > > Bart,
> > >
> > > this discussion reminds me of the time Tom Ruen was toying with the idea
> > > of modifying Approval by requiring all of the approved candidates on one
> > > ballot to share one vote equally, i.e. if you approve three candidates
> > > they each get one third of your vote, a kind of constrained cumulative
> > > voting where all of the non-zero votes on your ballot have equal value.
> >
> > This may actually be the most practical form of cumulative voting.  I
> > think in most cases, the best strategy is usually to divide one's vote
> > equally anyway (otherwise, the candidate who gets fewer votes will
> > probably lose & his votes wasted, so that his voters would have been
> > better off concentrating their votes on the remaining candidates).
> >
> > In the relatively rare situations that could benefit from unequal
> > voting, such as two factions each with their own candidate but sharing a
> > third, you can overcome this restriction using the same cooperative or
> > stochastic strategies.  So each group gives 2/3 of its voting power to
> > its dedicated candidate, and the remaining 1/3 to the shared candidate
> > (or let individual voters roll the dice to make the choice).
> >
> > The fact that this strategy requires a conscious effort would serve to
> > keep voters from blindly assiging points without regard to consequences,
> > or based on sentiment, etc.
> >
> > Bart
> >