[EM] Mass Candidates

[raphfrk at netscape.net]

From: dave smith <germ32 at gmail.com>
> I need help in determining what voting system would be best for the
> following criteria:
>
> ~500 candidates
> ~1000 voters
> 1 winner
>
> I was going to do a form of PV, but limit the number of ranks to 3.
> The problem with this is that what if there are more candidates than
> voters, and the voters decided to stop paging through candidates
> after the 3rd - 4th page of candidates.

Why is there so many candidates for so few voters ?

Anyway, I think you need some method for proxy voting.  Otherwise,
nobody is going to read the entire set.  Is it a computer count ?

What about:

Each candidate submits a list ranking lots of candidates.

Each voter ranks 4 candidates.

Their vote is considered to be those 4 ranks, then it is considered
to be the list of each of their top 4 ranks in turn.  It is then
considered to be the lists of the candidates in order of the list
that their first candidate submitted.

So, it's

Rank 1 on ballot
Rank 2 on ballot
Rank 3 on ballot
Rank 4 on ballot
List for Rank 1 on ballot
List for Rank 2 on ballot
List for Rank 3 on ballot
List for Rank 4 on ballot
List for first on List for Rank 1 on ballot
List for second on List for Rank 1 on ballot
....
List for last on List for Rank 1 on ballot
List for first on List for Rank 2 on ballot
...
and so on

This should get you an effectively very long ballot.

> Maybe an approval system would be better here?

I don't see how that helps much.  Having to approve/disapprove
500 candidates is not that much easier than ranking them.