[EM] Wikipedia

[Brian Olson]

"One person, one vote" == "all people have equal voting power" ?

On Jun 5, 2004, at 1:28 AM, Tom Ruen wrote:

> Reading some of the replies here, it would appear what is apparent to 
> me is not apparent to others. The separation of "single vote" methods 
> and "multiple vote methods" would seem a clear one at least to me.

And an interesting distinction it is.

I'd like to subtly shift the idea of "One person, one vote" to "all 
people have equal voting power". Whether that voting power happens to 
be represented by the number One or not may be an irrelevant artifact 
of the system.

> In contrast:
> Approval is definitely NOT "one person, one vote" since we're electing 
> one candidate and voters can support as many candidates as they like.

Approval may not give exactly equal voting power, some voters will 
choose more or fewer choices, but it at least gives equal opportunity 
to vote.

> Similarly Borda is definitely NOT "one person, one vote".

In the variation where the unranked choices are given the average value 
of the ranks not used, every voter has equal voting power. ((n(n-1))/2)

>  Similarly Bucklin is NOT "one person, one vote" because if a second 
> round is needed, each voter can simultaneously support two candidates.
>  
> Of these methods Bucklin is the only one that I've heard was 
> implemented in a political election.

Fascinating historical article. So, it seems to me that the primary 
objection was that in the second (Nth) round of Bucklin _some_ people 
might be getting additional votes but not necessarily _all_ people. 
Someone putting down only a first place choice would be given no 
additional vote in the 2nd round. I would suggest a distribution like 
for Borda above. This could be countered by saying that a 1st-only 
ballot then only casts meaningless votes in Bucklin rounds. I say 
"equal opportunity to vote", and they didn't take it, they effectively 
stayed at home past the first round. Dunno if that would hold up in 
court but I'd love to try. :-)

Also IRV falls to this logic in the event of an incomplete ballot. If 
all of an elector's choices that they ranked on their ballot get 
disqualified, _they get no vote_!

I claim that a normalized cardinal ratings election satisfies one 
person equal-power/one-vote.

Really, all of these systems that suffer from incomplete-ballot 
sub-optimality only provide "equal opportunity to vote" and not 
necessarily "equal voting power". Normalized CR provides both!

[big snip, article]

> Every method I grouped under "multiple vote" would have the same 
> constitutional judgment. Granted this case specifically only refers to 
> Minnesota, but it would appear to be a universal position as well 
> considering that only "single" vote methods, methods where voters are 
> only allowed to support a single candidate with a single votes are 
> used in political elections worldwide.
>
> Does anyone know a single locale anywhere in the world that has 
> political elections for single winners that uses a "multiple vote" 
> method?
>  
> If this is true, if "one vote" methods are exclusively used in 
> politics and "multiple vote" methods exclusively NOT used, why is this 
> distinction so apparently controversial?

Because we're idealists and we think that the BEST system should be 
used, even in politics. I disagree that that all the methods under 
"Multiple Vote" {Borda, Bucklin, Coombs, Cardinal Ratings, Approval, 
MCA} would suffer the same constitutional fate. Although, only Approval 
out of that list would I bother to try getting enacted into public law.

Brian Olson
http://bolson.org/