[EM] Center for Range Voting Formed

[Abd ulRahman Lomax]

At 07:38 PM 8/11/2005, Warren Smith wrote:
>More generally could consider, say, "asset voting" an unconventional
>voting method I invented
>    http://math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/works.html  #77
>which also was similar to an idea of Forrest Simmons.
>It was designed to be a multiwinner method but can be used single-winner.
>Is asset voting condorcet or not?  Does the question even make sense?
>Not easy to say.  A voter who gives his entire asset vote to Nader,
>is not necessarily saying "my option of Gore, Bush, Buchanan, Peroutka etc is,
>they are all equal."  It is more like he is saying "I think my ranking
>of the candidates agrees with Nader's ranking of them."

Asset Voting is my favorite of Mr. Smith's voting methods, which should not 
be surprising to those who know me as a dedicated advocate of delegable 
proxy. Asset Voting closely resembles the Proxy voting proposal on the 
electorama wiki.

Some aspects would depend on implementation details which have not 
necessarily been fully defined. For example, what about write-in votes?

Nevertheless, in Asset Voting, one gives one's vote(s) to candidates who 
are trusted, either to function appropriately in the office, or to function 
appropriately in reassigning the votes given to them. This is a proxy 
function, in which the candidate represents the voter.

So in the example given above, the Nader voter is essentially entrusting to 
Nader the voter's power, which could then be reassigned however Nader sees fit.

In basic Delegable Proxy, the proxy knows the identity of the giver of the 
proxy (which is quite desirable in an open structure where bidirectional 
communication is to be highly valued); but the secret ballot variation 
described on the wiki is quite like Asset Voting.

So the first proxy is given to the candidate or candidates, secretly by the 
voter. Then the candidate receiving the votes either exercises the votes 
directly (i.e., by electing himself or herself) or passes them on (which is 
equivalent to the delegation of the proxy). Further, full multilevel 
delegable proxy could be used as a means of pulling together the votes if 
there ended up being a large number of vote-holders (as could happen if 
write-ins or some other method of handling very large numbers of candidates 
were part of the system).

"Condorcet" is an election method. Asset Voting combines an election method 
(which is basically range voting) with a deliberative phase. In the end, in 
my opinion, no election method is going to suffice until and unless there 
is such a phase; and, indeed, the result will, necessarily in some cases, 
"fail" this or that criterion of what is supposedly fair. The Condorcet 
criterion is a good example of a criterion that seems very good at first, 
but which can clearly produce a disastrous winner under some circumstances.

A great deal of confusion exists, I think, over the "one person, one vote" 
concept. To me, that concept applies most clearly in a standard Robert's 
Rules kind of situation: Yes/No. If an election result is to be ratified or 
else it is not accepted, then each "citizen" would have one vote, clearly. 
There is no "election method" involved, just a vote Yes or No on the 
outcome of the prior process. While there is indeed value in some method of 
attempting to develop supermajority ratification of elections, in the end, 
a simple plurality of Yes over No must suffice to ratify the election 
(which presumes that abstentions are neutral). That is, the question of 
whether or not the entire election process produces an appropriate result 
must be one which is subject to interpretation and decision by the majority.