[EM] 05/23/02 - Single-Seat Cumulative is not FPTP:

[Donald Davison]

05/23/02 - Single-Seat Cumulative is not FPTP:

Greetings list members,

I proposed Single-Seat Cumulative as a solution to some failings that exist
in FPTP and Approval Voting.  Most people prefer to vote for only one
candidate, but some people may wish to divide their vote and support two or
more candidates.

FPTP will allow people to vote for only one candidate, but in no way does
it allow anyone to support two or more candidates, this is a failing of
FPTP.  Approval Voting does allow some people to support two or more
candidates with one full vote for each candidate, but most of the people
are short changed because they are only allowed to support their one
candidate with only one vote, this is a failing of Approval Voting.  If
people wish to divide their vote between two or more candidates, they
should be allowed to do so, but they are not entitled to extra votes in
order to do it.  Fair is Fair - every voter should have the same number of
votes to cast anyway they care to cast them.  Single-Seat Cumulative is the
solution to these failings that exist in FPTP and Approval Voting.

Now, I agree that if all the voters were to give all their votes to one
candidate each, then the Single-Seat Cumulative election would be the same
as FPTP, but that result is not in evidence in the real world.  While most
would give all their votes to one candidate, the door has been left open
for some to divide their votes between two or more candidates that they
consider to be fairly equal, and that, more likely will be the case.

While Single-Seat Cumulative is better than FPTP or Approval Voting, all
three are unacceptable because all three will not always yield a candidate
with a majority of the votes.

IRVing is the best solution.  It allows every voter to place the full
weight of their vote on one candidate as most voters wish to do, but each
voter can support other candidates by ranking those other candidates.  In
the event your first choice is last, you will be asked to change your vote,
your next choice is your change of vote.  Voters are allowed to keep
changing their votes until one candidate has a majority.

The lessons to be learned here are as follows:

  * That almost all voters want to be able to place the full weight of
their voting power on one candidate.
  * That all candiates want this full voting power placed on them.
  * That all voters should have the same weight of voting power, like
either only one vote each or having the same number of votes to cast anyway
they want.
  * That there should be some way to support other candidates.
  * That the winning candidate should have a majority of the total votes.

Only IRVing has learned and can abide by all these lessons.



Regards,
   Donald Davison, host of New Democracy at http://www.mich.com/~donald
                        Candidate Election Methods
   +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
   |                        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 -                              |
   +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
    APV   Approval Voting
    ATV   Alternative Vote  aka  IRV Instant Runoff Voting  aka  IRVing
    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  Hare-Clark
          aka  Preference Voting  aka  Hare Preferential Voting

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