[EM] Why We Shouldn't Count Votes with Machines

[Dave Ketchum]

THANK YOU, Terry & James.

Plurality does fine with two candidates, or with one obvious winner over 
others.  It is unable, even with top-two Runoffs, to satisfy voter needs to 
  identify:
      Best - hoped for winner.
      Next - hoped for if best loses.
      Remainder - not as good as above.

French voters, a few years ago, talked of rioting when they saw what 
Plurality offered to Runoff.

Look at the this year's competition between Obama and Clinton - something 
more practically attended to in November, given a capable election method.

DWK

On Sat, 4 Oct 2008 09:29:54 -0400 Terry Bouricius wrote:
> To put a different slant on James Gilmour's message bout fraud vs. wasted 
> votes under plurality voting...
> 
> I'm sure Kathy Dopp (on this list for a few months now) will note that 
> "high level" fraud is possible without detection on current voting 
> technology, which is why systems should be universally subject to manual 
> audits.  On the other hand, current plurality voting doesn't just "waste" 
> votes, it often elects the "wrong" candidate even WITHOUT any fraud.
> 
> Under Plurality voting rules, a candidate can be declared elected who 
> would lose in every possible one-on-one match up with each of the other 
> candidates (the Condorcet Loser). This "winner" would also be outside the 
> mutual-majority set (those candidates that a solid majority of all voters 
> prefer over this plurality "winner").
> 
> The point is, that even with ZERO FRAUD, the current U.S. voting system 
> regularly elects candidates that the majority of voters believe are the 
> wrong ones.
> 
> Some election integrity activists have taken the mistaken stance that no 
> improvement in voting methods should be pursued until the fraud issue is 
> perfectly fixed. But in the mean time "honest" elections, using our 
> defective plurality voting method, regularly elect the wrong candidate. A 
> bit like obsessing on fixing the rotten clapboard on the back of the barn, 
> while ignoring that the barn door is wide open and the cows are leaving.
> 
> Terry Bouricius
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "James Gilmour" <jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk>
> To: <kathy.dopp at gmail.com>; "'Dave Ketchum'" <davek at clarityconnect.com>
> Cc: <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
> Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2008 7:41 AM
> Subject: Re: [EM] Why We Shouldn't Count Votes with Machines
> 
> 
> 
>>>Dave Ketchum wrote:
>>>Mixed into this, Plurality is easily done with paper; better systems,
>>>such as Condorcet, are difficult with paper, but easily handled with
>>>electronics.
>>
> 
> Kathy Dopp  > Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2008 1:24 AM
> 
>>Well that is a very good reason to avoid implementing them -
>>because if they can't be easily done with paper ballots, then
>>they cannot be assured to be counted accurately.
> 
> 
> This raises a very interesting point - how to balance the risk of failing 
> to detect a low level of fraud against the known wasting
> of very large numbers of votes by the plurality voting system.  (I say 
> "low level of fraud", because any high level should be
> readily detectable.)
> 
> Of course, we don't want any fraud, and we don't want any fraud to go 
> undetected, and we don't want the outcome of any election
> determined by fraud, no matter how low the level of that fraud may be. 
> But to use the ease of detecting fraud as the sole criterion
> for selecting a voting system is almost certainly to lose sight of the 
> much larger "losses of votes" that occur in every plurality
> election.
> 
> In the UK, Canada and in most countries using plurality (except USA), the 
> voting system discards the votes of around half of those
> who vote - sometimes a little more than half, sometimes a little less.  In 
> some plurality elections large numbers of the elected
> members are elected with only a minority of the votes cast in the 
> single-member districts.  The evidence on this is abundant and
> worldwide.  The exception is the USA, where, for example, in elections to 
> the House of Representatives, only one-third of the votes
> are wasted in this way.  The reason is probably related to successful 
> incumbent gerrymandering of the district boundaries and to the
> effects of holding primary elections.  But even in the USA, around 
> one-third of the votes are wasted by the plurality voting system.
> 
> So to look at the overall picture with a voting system like plurality, 
> should we reject any move to a voting system that would give
> effect to more of the votes actually cast because it might be more 
> difficult to detect a low level of fraud in such a voting system?
> 
> James
-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
            Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
                  If you want peace, work for justice.