[EM] Plurality is not a "yes/no voting system"

[Tom Ruen]

Adam,

YES, I believe ideally for any type of voting should allow the possibility
for detecting spoiled ballots at the time of voting (rather than at the time
of counting), and then the voter can have a chance to revote correctly.

Counting equipment available at each voting location can perform this check.
This is done now in Minnesota at least with Optical scanners, although as of
now not all precinct in my state have counter available for this detection.
(That's actually my biggest reason against testing a state-level rank-ballot
IRV for the moment. More complex ballots risk more misvotes/overvotes and it
is unfair for more urban districts to allow vote correction.)

So, given the ability to detect spoiled ballots, it is BETTER to restrict
ballot votes in ways that force the voter to explicitly mark all decisions
is GOOD.

Lastly, yes, I know the issue of overvotes in Florida in 2000 - many
thousands of overvotes for Gore+Another versus much smaller overvotes with
Bush+Another. I had thought the same thing that Approval would harmlessly
"save the day", counting more votes between front runners Gore and Bush.

Still in this case we know most voters didn't intend to overvote, and so it
would be better to detect and correct than to allow over-votes to be counted
as approval.

Well designed Touch screen displays might be the ultimate aid for voters,
interactive feedback and confirmation of each vote, so long as a nice
printed ballot is created to allow a papertrail for vote challenges.

Tom

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Adam Tarr atarr at purdue.edu
To: <election-methods at electorama.com>
Sent: Tue Jun 8 22:42:02 2004
Subject: Re: [EM] Plurality is not a "yes/no voting system"
>
...
>>I believe "Approval" should be moved to "Ratings". I agree it is nice
>>Approval can fit nicely under existing checkbox ballot format. However I
>>don't necessarily think Approval is best implemented as a single-column
>>"checkbox" ballot. I think approval better fits under a "radio-button"
>>ballot, with your actual 2 column YES/NO ballot and allow explicit marks
>>under either category. That makes more sense to me to help voters see what
>>they are doing.
...
>Heheh... I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that you don't live in
>Florida. ;)
>
...
>
>>Condorcet could be a pairwise rating ballot. Actually I'd not disagree
with
>>Condorcet implemented as a 3-level rating ballot, one mark per pair row.
>>Notice each column is no longer a fixed choice.
>>FOR EACH PAIR, VOTE FOR A, B or Equal.
>>CANDIDATE-A  EQUAL        CANDIDATE-B
>>O Apple                  O                O Banana
>>O Apple                  O                O Coconut
>>O Banana                O                O Coconut
>
>Again, this makes it much easier to submit a spoiled ballot.  It also
>allows for logically inconsistent (cyclic) ballots.  Finally, it would be
>exhausting.  With six candidates, you would have to wade through 21
>pairwise contests.
>
>>Again, I'd offer this as a way to "check" ballot is logically coherent. If
a
>>cyclic preference is offered, it can be noted to allow a revote.
>
>Are you suggesting that some scanner check every ballot upon submission,
>and give the voter a chance to resubmit if there's a problem?  I suppose
>that would be a good step, although we should still choose the ballot
>format which minimizes the likelihood of voter error.
>
>-Adam