[EM] Reply to Dave Ketchum, re: Approval

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Dave wrote:

MANY voters can understand wanting to be able to say: I prefer Nader; I
can tolerate Gore as a second choice; my dislike for Bush requires that I
mark him as less desirable than Gore.

Condorcet lets me say this, and expect to be heard when the votes are 
counted.

IRV lets me say this, but I cannot depend on their noticing.

Approval does not even let me say it.

I reply:

You seem to be implying that because IRV lets you express your
preferences, but sometimes ignores them, and Approval doesn't let
you express all of them, that you believe that IRV is better than
Approval.

Note that though Approval doesn't let you express all your preferences,
it reliably counts every pairwise preference that you express, and
that typically people will find that they're voting about half of
their pairwise preferences.

Also, though Approval can have you voting Gore equal to Nader, if
you think you need to vote for Gore, you're forgetting that IRV
can make it necessary to vote Gore over Nader, your favorite, if
it looks to you as if Nader will eliminate Gore and then lose to Bush.

So your criticism of Approval in comparison is misleading, ignoring
that IRV will sometimes not merely not let you vote your preference
of Nader over Gore, but will sometimes force you to vote Gore over
Nader, reversing that preferences instead of merely not voting it.

Dave continued:

Thus I believe in promoting Condorcet as the desired goal, rather than
promoting and getting Approval and then needing a second effort stating
the achieved goal was unsatisfactory and we need to change again:

I reply:

If you believe that both methods are equally likely to be accepted,
and you prefer Condorcet, then of course you should propose Condorcet
instead of Approval. But if Approval seems to have a significantly
better chance, due to its cost-free implementation, &/or its
extreme simplicity, &/or its minimal change from Plurality, etc.,
and it's going to be a costly campaign and you have to choose one or
the other, then Approval is then the better choice. Also, if you
want immediate improvement, and an unsuccessful Condorcet effort would
delay the voting reform by a year or 2, that too would be a reason
to try Approval instead.

If, on the other hand, you're willing & able to try both methods
in succession, and you aren't in any hurry for results--you don't
mind waiting for an unsuccessful Condorcet proposal before you
try Approval, a few years later, then Condorcet would be the thing
to start with if you prefer Condorcet.

I shouldn't make any blanket statements about which is the better
proposal, since, as you or someone else pointed out, there are
some audiences who'd prefer Condorcet, since IRV has introduced them
to rankings. I'd say that the matter of which is the more practical
proposal must be judged case by case, community by community.

The activists, the progressive electoral reformers, in your community
might much prefer Condorcet to Approval, due to rankings. But
maybe the average voter might prefer Approval because it's less of
a departure from Plurality. Approval isn't a completely new voting
system; it's merely Plurality done right.

So it isn' so easy to say which is the more winnable proposal.

You continued:

If Approval was basically free, and current budgets would not
support going to Condorcet

I reply:

Approval is free. Voters might prefer that cost-freeness even if
the budget could afford rank-balloting and rank-counting.

You continued:

, Approval would be an acceptable temporary step.
If making any improvement would cost money, then lets go to
Condorcet in one step.

I reply:

If Approval is a surer winner than Condorcet, and we want immediate
improvement, without waiting for a Condorcet initiative to lose,
then Approval is the way to go.

You continued:

If some current equipment supports Approval and some only plurality,

I reply:

Doesn't every county have an at-large board of supervisors? In
that case, each county has provision for accepting & counting votes
for several candidates per ballot.

Sure, technological improvements in balloting equipment could later
make a Condorcet proposal feasible, if Condorcet is initially
unfeasible due to lack of rank-balloting equipment, and you don't
want the inconvenience of using ordinary balloting equipment for
rank balloting.

I don't want to discourage Condorcetists from proposing Condorcet,
because sometimes, in some communities, it might be a feasible
proposal.

But on this list, about half of "Condorcetists" are actually
Margins advocates. If your Condorcet proposal is going to result
in a margins vs wv fight, forget about it and propose Approval instead.

That fight won't inspire much confidence in voters. Of course if
there are no other Condorcet advocates in your community, and no
outsiders will come in (I'll be there if you propose Margins)
then go ahead and propose the Condorcet of your choice.

Mike Ossipoff



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