[EM] Asset Voting

[Raph Frank]

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 7:22 AM, Greg Nisbet <gregory.nisbet at gmail.com> wrote:
> Iterative systems are based on "conditional" votes, meaning their
> relative values change with regard to what has "happened". For
> example, your vote shifting to a less preferred candidate in IRV is a
> result of a more preferred candidate being permanently excluded from
> victory.
>
> The consequences of this are dire.

No candidate is permanently excluded in standard Asset.  However, some
variants (the more transparent ones) do emulate a PR-STV like
elimination scheme.

> Let's put this in perspective.
>
> Asset Voting is equivalent to STV with one large difference: only
> O(candidates) ballots are possible as opposed to O(candidates!) with
> STV.

The trick with Asset is that there should be more candidates.  The
idea is to find a candidate who has the same viewpoint as you.  The
lack of expressiveness is offset by a greater number of candidate
choices.

Under asset, there are 2 types of candidates, the only who want to be
elected, and the ones who only intend to be electors.

In fact, you could have a situation where people who stand in the
election are prohibited to be nominated.

> Even worse, these are not even revealed on the ballot. The voter
> gets no control over reallocation, the candidates are not bound to
> anything. I argue that restricting the domain of expression is not the
> best way to go about representing the will of the voters. Voters
> should be allowed to pick and choose among the candidates at will.

I think a hybrid PR-STV/Asset system would be superior to pure Asset.

In this the voters can rank their choices, but also name a candidate
who will handle their exhausted ballots.