[EM] More endorsement of Range (and Approval) Voting from Mike Ossipoff

[Jan Kok]

The following endorsement from Mike Ossipoff will be added to the
Endorsements page of the Center for Range Voting site,
http://math.temple.edu/~wds/crv/RangeVoting.html .
- Jan

[beginning of addition to endorsement message]

For me, the greatest advantage of RV, in all its versions, including
Approval, is that the voter never has any incentive or need to vote someone
over his/her favorite.

That sounds like an obvious criterion, but very few methods comply with it.
Many of us on the election-methods list consider it so important that we have
a name for it: The Favorite-Betrayal Criterion (FBC).

Though I always considered FBC to be important, recent conversations with
voters have convinced me that FBC compliance is absolutely necessary, at
least at this time in history. Even intelligent progressives will vote
someone over their favorite in Condorcet, or any method that doesn't
transparently guarantee that they have no reason to do so. To tell the
truth, I'd do so myself when it would increase the probability that an
acceptable candidate would win instead of an unacceptable one.

I used to say that RV (including Approval) is the only method that meets
FBC. But it's recently been pointed out, by Kevin Venzke and Forest Simmons,
on the election-methods mailing list, that there are a few rank methods that
meet FBC. Those rank methods also offer additional criterion-compliances
that can only be gotten by rank-balloting.

But, when praising those newly-discovered FBC-complying rank methods, I
pointed out that :

1) Their compliance with FBC isn't as transparently obvious as that of
Range Voting.

2) Those rank methods are new methods, rank methods among a galaxy of
rank methods. There are innumerable ways to count rank ballots. There's one
way to count range ballots: Add them up. People won't ask why we count it as
we do.

3) Range Voting is familiar and popular and therefore probably much more
winnable than any rank method.

In addition to FBC, RV has more advantages. As has been pointed out
elsewhere at this website, RV, at least when the range is sufficiently
large, say at least 0 to 10, maximizes social utility and minimizes Bayesian
regret, if voting is sincere.

And all RV versions, including Approval, when voting is strategic, guarantee
that, with a few plausible assumptions RV will maximize the number of voters
for whom the utility of the winner is greater than their pre-election
expectation for the election. In other words, with strategic voting, RV
maximizes the number of voters who are pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

That's a lot of advantages for one method.

[end of addition to endorsement message]

Mike