[EM] Pseudo-election reform in California

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Sure, that's the old Runoff method. Runoff is a big improvement over 
Plurality, and Runoff guarantees that a CW will win if s/he comes in 1st or 
2nd in the initial Plurality count.

Of course we could do better than Runoff. Approval with one balloting would 
be better.

But of course there are lots of methods that would be better than Runoff. 
Approval with top-2 Runoff is a method that I prefer to Runoff, but not to 
ordinary 1-balloting Approval.

If we voted on candidates for an office in the same way that we vote between 
mutually contradictory initiatives, that would be better than Runoff too:

We can vote Yes or No or neither for any candidate. Of the candidates who 
get more Yes than No votes, the winner is the one who gets the most Yes 
votes.

The strategies of Runoff Approval and Initiative Yes/No are much more 
complicated than that of ordinary 1-balloting Approval. I'd prefer Approval.

Another possibility would be to have the Yes/No ballot, but count it as 
-1,0,1 CR. That would have the strategy of Approval, much simpler than that 
of Initiative Yes/No.

I don't know if Initiative Yes/No has important advantages. The requirement 
for a candidate to get more Yes than No votes sounds good, and it certainly 
suits me, because I rate the candidates acceptable and completely 
unacceptable. But for people who don't rate the candidates in that way, it 
isn't at all clear what it would mean to sincerely vote Yes or No for a 
candidate. So it wouldn't always be sincere,  but would just be a 
method-feature to be strategically used. For many voters it would just 
complicate the strategy.

If Approval would meet resistance because of ilts unfamiliarity, then CR 
would be a better proposal. Mention 0-10 CR and 0-100 CR. Then mention 
-1,0,1 CR, which would give people the enjoyment of negative rating. Maybe 
then mention 0,1 CR as an alternative. That's Approval.

You asked how we'd find the top 2 in a rank method. If we use a rank method 
it should be wv Condorcet. We should find the top two by first counting the 
rankings to get the 1st winner, then deleting hir from the ballots and 
counting those ballots again to get a 2nd winner.

But with Condorcet wv, we don't need the runoff.

Maybe have a provision for a 2nd election if there's a circular tie, or an 
all-majority-defeats circular tie. But Condorcet seems more winnable without 
that. If offensive order-revesal ever becomes a problem, then people will, 
at that time, be receptive to anti-reversal enhancements, including a 2nd 
balloting, or the other Condorcet strategy enhancements that have been 
described here.

But, to repeat, it would be good to improve the Runoff proposal to Approval, 
Condorcet, some form of CR (such as -1,0,1 or 0-10 or 0-100), or even 
Initiative Yes/No or Runoff Approval.

By the way, if one wanted to hold 2 ballotings with Approval, a better way 
would be to do an initial Approval count, and if anyone receives a vote 
total greater than half the number of voters, then s/he wins. Otherwise a 
2nd Approval balloting is held, and the one with the most votes wins.

Alternatively, the 1st balloting could be a Pluralitly balloting in which 
any candidate getting a majority wins. Otherwise a 2nd balloting is held by 
Approval. Or, of course, MCA accomplishes that in one balloting, and maybe 
MCA would be a good proposal.

Mike Ossipoff

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