[EM] Simplifying ballots

[Abd ulRahman Lomax]

At 03:13 PM 8/16/2005, Simmons, Forest wrote:
>Asset voting (in its lone mark version) is one of the few methods simple 
>enough to have a decent chance among lazy U.S. voters, and it would be the 
>greatest possible improvement consistent with the simple lone mark ballot.

Absolutely, and it is gratifying to see Mr. Simmons say this. I've been 
arguing for some time now to the same effect (by the way, I would not agree 
with "lazy." People do make rational choices about where to put their 
efforts, and in a sane society, not everyone would be seriously involved 
with what might be called global issues. Rather, the job of most people is 
to deal with what is in front of their faces. But people should be able to 
make *one* clear choice: who represents me. And this should be a voluntary 
and uncoerced choice.)

Asset voting gets us almost all the way there. Allow write-in votes and we 
*are* there.

At the beginning a "convention" would not be necessary. Rather Asset Voting 
would start out just like present "Plurality." (Though I would make it 
Approval, which I then call Fractional Approval Asset Voting, because of 
the technical details of how votes would be counted, I'll give a proposal 
below.)

The proposal is that the ballots might be counted first as ordinary 
approval. If a majority appears from this process for a given candidate in 
a single-winner election, the candidate would be elected. If not, then the 
ballots would be retabulated as fractional approval, i.e., if you voted for 
N candidates, your vote would be assigned as 1/N for each of them, and then 
it is ordinary Asset voting from that point.

Or, alternatively, I'm not really sure which is best, the ballots are 
counted fractionally from the start.

In ordinary Approval, fractional votes weaken the voter's vote. But in 
Asset Voting, none of the votes are lost; it is merely the voter's choice 
whether or not to give the vote to one person or to distribute it among a 
virtual committee.