[EM] Rob: Condorcet's Criterion vs FBC. Will people favorite-bury?

[Paul Kislanko]

If you think B "should" win, the point is made that Range voting won't pass.
Anybody who loses 90-10 in plurality but wins in another system is just an
argument against the other system. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: election-methods-electorama.com-bounces at electorama.com 
> [mailto:election-methods-electorama.com-bounces at electorama.com
] On Behalf Of Abd ulRahman Lomax
> Sent: Monday, October 03, 2005 10:25 PM
> To: election-methods at electorama.com
> Cc: election-methods at electorama.com
> Subject: Re: [EM] Rob: Condorcet's Criterion vs FBC. Will 
> people favorite-bury?
> 
> At 04:30 AM 10/3/2005, Rob Lanphier wrote:
> >90 voters: A=7, B=6
> >10 voters: A=0, B=10
> 
> It has been proposed that Range votes be normalized, otherwise voters 
> who honestly recognize that no candidate is perfect and thus does not 
> rank at least one as a 10 will suffer vote dilution. It is possible 
> that ballot instructions could warn the voter that their vote will be 
> diluted if they don't rank at least one at the top rank. Or, with 
> full normalization [top and bottom], the above would become
> 
> 90 voters: A=10, B=0
> 10 voters: A=0, B=10.
> 
> Obviously, A wins by a landslide.
> 
> >A:630
> >B:640
> >
> >B wins, even though 90% of voters prefer A to B.
> 
> By a slight preference. Still if only top normalization is used, the 
> vote becomes
> 
> 90: A=10, B=8.52
> 10: A=0, B=10
> 
> still a strong victory for A.
> 
> But what if there were the same votes present in the system for A and 
> B, but there were other candidates, and it was clear from the A votes 
> that the preference for A over B was indeed very weak, as the numbers 
> would indicate. (There might be other candidates ranked as 10s, for 
> example, but scattered so that none of those candidates will actually 
> win. And others as zeros.)
> 
> I could easily argue that B *should* win that Range election.
> 
> But normalization makes sense, for what it does is to compensate for 
> the fact that people express different intensities of feeling with 
> what might be the same levels of difference between candidates. I see 
> no reason to reward extreme ranking; therefore normalization. 90% of 
> the people prefer A and 10% rate him as zero? It is patently obvious 
> that those 10% are exaggerating, or they are using a corrupt standard.
> 
> >There is no possible way Range will ever get serious 
> support, given that
> >weakness.
> 
> Normalization completely answers this particular objection. 
> Normalization, by the way, would probably be to 1, no matter what the 
> numbers on the ballot. The reason: each voter gets 1 vote. Range is 
> an Approval method. A vote of up to 1 may be cast for each candidate. 
> Range is essentially Approval with fractional voting possible.
> 
> >   If it manages to pass constitutional muster, it goes against
> >what I suspect is the instinct of most voters out there, including
> >myself.  I cannot be brought to recommend a system that suffers from
> >such a glaring defect.
> 
> First of all, I think the defect has been misunderstood. Even if 
> Range is not normalized, most voters will know that voting less than 
> 100% is a weak vote. And then there is an easy fix.  Whether or not 
> votes in Range should be normalized is controversial within the Range 
> community; the side other than the one I've argued says that people 
> should be free to express such weak preferences as result in the 
> election shown above. Personally, I think that Mr. Lanphier's 
> objection will be a common one, if Range is not normalized, and I 
> also think that many will stick with that objection. Whether it is 
> valid or not.
> 
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