[EM] Re: Pseudo-electoral reform for California

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

It was said:

>If no line were added, ranked
>candidates would be considered to be above the line and unranked candidates
>would be below it.  [Mike -- Is this different from ATLO?]

A short ranking is the manually-voted counterpart of ATLO. If none of the 
actualy-ranked candidates would have won if more candidates had been ranked, 
the result with the short ranking is as if one had ranked more candidates, 
below an ATLO line.

The advantage with ATLO is that one can influence pairwise comparisons among 
those below-line candidates while still gaining wv's defensive truncation 
deterrent against offensive order-reversal by their supporters. Also, ATLO 
avoids the co-operation/defection dilemma in the posted example of that 
problem, by making defection into a definitely losing strategy.

The possibilities for 2-balloting combinations are more numerous than what 
we've discussed so far. Sure, the 2nd balloting could be between the top 
Approval-scorers. But having the 2nd balloting between the circular-tie 
members has the advantage of only requiring rankings, not requiring Approval 
voting, in the 1st balloting. Also, by Condorcet's standard, the members of 
the circular tie are the candidates who look the best in the 1st balloting. 
So I'd just send pairwise-count's circular tie to the 2nd balloting.

Sure, though 1-balloting enhancements have been proposed, the use of some of 
them, like AERLO and ATLO sometimes requires some knowledge of who the CW is 
likely to be, or where the offensive strategy will come from (unless you 
rate one set of candidates very much higher than the other candidates, which 
makes it easy to know where to draw the line). An adavntage of a 2nd 
balloting, for circular ties, is that the voters can act on the information 
that the 1st balloting provides.

Though much can be done to get rid of the offensive order-reversal problem 
(if that problem turns up) with just 1 balloting, of course 2 ballotings is 
a good solution too, and one that people are used to. It's just a question 
of how the population feel about the cost considerations.

>AERLO and/or ATLO or some other technique might eventually have to be
>introduced in the run-off if 3 candidates are allowed.

Those options would help in any rank method implementation, in a race with 
more than 2 candidates.

>I think the potential expense of a second election is justified because a
>cyclic "tie" really means that the voters deserve a more detailed look at 
>the
>candidates.  And that would certainly happen with the focused campaign that
>would result after a controversial primary.

Sure, that's reasonable. But I've just been looking at 1-balloting 
enhancements just in case the offer of just one balloting is a way of making 
a new voting system reform more winnable.

When proposing polls on EM, I always proposed 1 balloting, because it's 
difficult enough to get people to vote in one balloting, let alone two. But 
I made the AERLO option available in the most recent poll that I proposed. 
In a devious public electorate, ATLO too might be a good idea.

But the fact that one balloting is more acceptable on EM doesn't mean that 2 
ballotings wouldn't be acceptable to the public. We already have 2 
ballotings, counting the primary. More and more people are agreeing nowadays 
that they don't like a party primary, and neither do I. Since we're used to 
the 2 ballotings, then we could have a general election using a 2-balloting 
method. As I was saying, the appeal of just 1 balloting is that it allows us 
to offer it as a selling-point over the current 2-balloting system (primary 
+ general). Polling would tell us how much that offer would help a 
proposal's winnability.

Mike Ossipoff

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