[EM] Why the concept of "sincere" votes in Range is flawed.

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 12:55 AM 11/26/2008, Kevin Venzke wrote:

>You can easily deny that you have an internal concept of "approval,"
>but you can also deny that you have an internal transitive ranking
>of the candidates. Maybe it's harder to believe, but it can't be
>disproven. (Though, I don't really think it is harder to believe,
>since "approval" has a plain English meaning.)

Yes. That's why it's a poor name. I just suggested "Open Voting." The 
point is that it is simply voting, but with slightly different rules, 
allowing what is usually a minority of voters -- usually a small 
minority -- to add additional votes if they desire. It's Open. It's 
not restricted to one vote per ballot, but only one vote per candidate, max.

The latter restriction is why it still satisfies reasonable 
interpretations of one person, one vote. (This was well expressing in 
the minority opinion in Brown v. Smallwood, and the weird thing about 
the majority opinion was that they gave the basis for concluding that 
there was no violation of one person, one vote -- considering the 
number of *voters* expressing support, rather than the number of 
marks on the ballot -- and then proceeded to do the exact opposite, 
to count the number of marks and then give that as a reason the 
method was a constitutional violation. Truly weird, and that, my 
friends, is a sign of a decision that was motivated by other than 
what is being stated. The reasons given were rationalizations, not 
the true cause. They had sound arguments before them, and they simply 
set them aside to render a different conclusion, one which they knew 
was contrary to the precedent from other states, and contrary to the 
large majority of legal opinion at the time. And, indeed, no other 
state followed this decision.

So the amazing thing is that this is still law in Minnesota, 
currently it's being challenged in its application to IRV and STV. 
Almost a century later. I know that the political process is slow, 
but that's ridiculous!