[Election-Methods] Clone related problems in Range/Approval

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 06:23 PM 4/13/2008, Juho wrote:
>Let's assume that the set of candidates consists of groups of clones.
>For example there can be multiple parties and each of these parties
>has multiple candidates. We further assume that typical voter
>preferences are such that they prefer all their own party candidates
>clearly over the other candidates (A1>A2>A3>>X>Y>...).
>
>The claim that I don't recall having seen before is that in Range and
>Approval it makes sense to the parties not to nominate multiple
>candidates.

It also makes sense for them not to nominate octopi or beer steins.

Parties exist, as a major reason, to coordinate campaigns. If a party 
has three candidates running against one from another major party, it 
may have to spend, for positive campaigning, three times as much. 
There will also be additional inefficiency in negative campaigning, 
because, to some degree, they may attack each other. Look what is 
happening now with Clinton and Obama.

The claim that advanced election methods, starting with IRV, will 
reduce negative campaigning is pure fluff, there is no evidence at 
all that this is true, and some contrary evidence from San Francisco. 
It may reduce negative campaigning between similar candidates, to be sure.

Having a huge number of candidates on the ballot, with a 
single-winner system, is really quite confusing to voters. Sure, as 
happens at present, voters may be able to pick a favorite and a 
most-disliked, but what's in between may be more or less junk data. 
This is why some Range advocates think that blanks should be 
discarded, but I consider that totally impractical at this time, and 
dangerous to boot. Blanks should probably be minimum rating, though 
there is some argument for them being midrating (exact) or possibly 
some other middle rating, perhaps calculated from all the other votes.

I don't see Range being used to replace primaries. Rather, I see 
Range primaries and then a Range general election.

And I prefer, as well, Range systems that allow favorite designation, 
with a real runoff if pairwise comparison (including the favorite 
designation) shows that there is a candidate who beats the Range 
winner pairwise. And this would not have so much of a clone problem. 
People could give, for example, all the Republican candidates a 100% 
if they really want to make sure that the party wins, as best they 
can, then pick one favorite. So if there is a Republican win, they 
have not just abstained from determining which one won. There are 
similar systems that would do condorcet analysis on the Range votes, 
and if a voter rated one Republican at 100 and another at 99, the 
difference would be trivial in terms of electoral power; such a vote 
would mean that a Republican win -- either one -- was greatly valued, 
yet there remained a minor preference....