[Election-Methods] Response to Schudy re Range vs Approval voting

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 06:13 PM 8/8/2007, Juho wrote:
I'm just saying that the voters should know what they are doing in
>order not to lose their vote (partly). Maybe the official
>descriptions of the method are not that important since probably we
>can trust the media to do their job and explain the methods to the
>voters.

First of all, what their vote is doing, in Range, is quite simple. 
Range is just like Approval, only difference is that you have more 
than one vote to cast. So the problem reduces to what is happening in Approval.

And the principle is already established and used in public 
elections. I've mentioned it many times: with conflicting 
initiatives. Again, there is a difference: with initiatives, if none 
get a majority Yes vote, none pass. But in some places no candidate 
can get a majority Yes vote and still someone is elected. It is 
actually a flaw, a situation where basic democratic principles are 
not observed, in the name of efficiency.

What would we think about a budget process where various budgets were 
presented to the legislators, and they could vote for which one they 
wanted, and the one with the most votes wins. Even if most 
legislators would vote against it.....

In any case, simple Range N is exactly like having N votes to cast, 
in an Approval election, and the one with the most votes wins. There 
is nothing in this about "utilities" or "ratings."

It happens, however, that you can think about Range that way if you 
want. It can be used to maximize social utility, and it does a pretty 
good job even if most voters vote the extremes. But this should *not* 
be part of the official explanation on the ballot. That explanation 
should be very simple and should not presume to tell people what 
their vote "means," except for the *real* meaning: what will be done 
with the vote.

What if the instructions on a present Plurality ballot were to say, 
"Vote for your favorite"? It would be offensive, a suggestion that 
some voters disregard political reality, thus wasting their vote. It 
would actually be an instruction with partisan effect, harming some 
candidates more than others.

Yes, media and others will explain what the implications are of 
Range. And some of this will be propaganda to be disregarded! What 
should be officially said about it is the minimum. What I've 
suggested, about how the winner will be determined, is more than 
current practice.... but I think it would be appropriate.

>The media could give also the examples. They could say e.g. that: If
>one wants to use the full strength of one's vote one should normally
>use the min and max points. If you believe the winner will be either
>A or B and you prefer A don't vote A=100, B=90 but vote A=100, B=0
>instead.

Or if it is Range+PW, you *might* vote A=100, B=1. Depends on how you 
feel about the other candidates. If there is another candidate C, who 
you would really like to keep out, you might want to express 
preference in the pairwise election between B and C, and you can't do 
that with zero. 1/100 of a vote expresses preference but gives very 
little support to B.

I've suggested a Plus marker, which at the top end would be used to 
indicate preference, but it could be used at the bottom as well. 0 
and 0+ would be counted the same for the Range total, but to 
determine if there is any pairwise winner over the Range winner, the 
Plus would establish preference for the one so marked, without even 
giving the person 1/100 of a vote....

With a Plus marker, the Range method could be much lower resolution 
without harm.... It's questionable that humans have stable 
preferences with an accuracy of 1%.... 10% is quite possibly closer 
to what we do.

>If this kind of discussion is repeated often enough voters will learn
>and then use the method in a way that they find most appropriate for
>them. Nobody will be "cheated" to cast weak votes. If they do so,
>they will do that for some reason.

Right. In any case, we start out with Approval, most likely, in 
public elections, it is such a simple change. It then becomes a 
little bit easier to explain Range, which is simply Approval with 
more votes per voter per candidate. Approval is one vote per voter 
per candidate....

>(Also the people that make decisions on what voting methods to use
>should get all this information.)

They will, I assume.