[EM] Re: "Implied ranked choice" method

[Rob Brown]

Eric Gorr <eric <at> ericgorr.net> writes:
> If you choose to not pick one from this list, you can do the rankings 
> yourself. I can't imagine this would not be important for general 
> acceptance. People will want the option even if most do not use it.

Well, one of the main "marketing" benefits of the system is this: "You vote 
for a single candidate exactly as you do today. Period."

If people are allowed to rank candidates themselves, how would you do 
this "trivially"?  Now you have to accomdate complex ballots, and it could be 
argued that you are (slightly) disenfranchising those who do not want to rank 
the candidates themselves, since you are potentially giving a strategic 
advantage (however slight it may be) to those who do.

I'm not sure how you can say that people will demand such an option.  Today 
you do not have the option to rank candidates (in most elections), and I don't 
see people going into the voting booths and getting up in arms about not being 
able to do something the system was not designed to accomodate. (other than 
the select few of us who understand why plurality is so broken -- which 
doesn't apply to this situation)  Anyway, if you then give people the ability 
to explicitly rank the candidates, won't there be someone out there who will 
demand that they be able to provide a full pairwise matrix?  Where does it 
stop?

The point is that there isn't such an option, the system isn't designed to 
process ballots with such an option, so, you know, voters need to deal with it 
and pick a single candidate like today.

So, can you tell me a significant real world advantage to allowing voters 
explicitly rank them, other than simply speculating that they will demand it 
if it is not offered?  Will the election actually produce 
significantly "better" results if people are allowed to do so?

-rob