[EM] IRV vs. Plurality

[Forest Simmons]

On Sat, 6 Sep 2003, Bart Ingles wrote:
...

> >         In contrast to plurality, IRV allows for ranked ballots. This allows
> > voters to communicate in much more detail than on a plurality (or
> > Approval) ballot, which is in general a good thing, although admittedly
> > voters may either vote strategically, thus distorting their communication,
> > or regret their choices later. [...]
>
> I don't generally favor ranked ballots, so this would not be a point in
> favor of IRV for me.

On the basis of evidence that I summarized recently under the heading
"simplicity" I believe that most of the US public would consider ranked
ballots a nuisance in public elections.

What do you think of the Candidate Proxy / Approval hybrid that I
suggested a few months ago?

Voters fill out regular approval style ballots. If a voter makes only one
mark on the ballot, then (by default) the marked candidate (as proxy for
the voter) may approve additional candidates on behalf of the voter in the
Election Completion Convention.

If a voter wants to approve only one candidate without the proxy option,
then the voter must make another mark on the ballot on the "no proxy"
line. [Treating the "no proxy" line the same as a candidate line allows
the use of standard plurality ballots.]

In summary, if a voter marks at least two lines on the ballot by approving
at least two candidates or by marking a candidate and the "no proxy" line,
then the approval ballot will be counted "as is" in the Election
Completion Convention, otherwise the lone mark candidate is proxy for the
voter. [If the lone mark is on the "no proxy" line, then no candidate is
approved by the ballot.]

Even if I had rather strong feelings about whom to approve and whom to not
approve, if I trusted my favorite enough I might go ahead and designate
her as my proxy in order to give her more leverage in the Election
Completion Convention.

Also if I didn't trust the polls, and the popularity of the candidates was
an important consideration in deciding the approval cutoff, I might want
to give proxy status to my favorite, since her final decisions would be
made after the "as is" approval ballots were tallied.

It seems to me that the average voter would find this method to be simpler
to use than Approval, and that the method would preserve all of the
advantages that Approval has over other methods.