[EM] Anyone got a good analysis on limitations of approval and range voting?

[Chris Benham]

Robert Bristow-Johnson wrote (9 Nov 2009):

"Of course IRV, Condorcet, and Borda use different methods to tabulate  
the votes and select the winner and my opinion is that IRV ("asset  
voting", i might call it "commodity voting": your vote is a  
"commodity" that you transfer according to your preferences) is a  
kabuki dance of transferred votes.  and there is an *arbitrary*  
evaluation in the elimination of candidates in the IRV rounds: 2nd- 
choice votes don't count for shit in deciding who to eliminate (who  
decided that?  2nd-choice votes are as good as last-choice?  under  
what meaningful and consistent philosophy was that decided?), then  
when your candidate is eliminated your 2nd-choice vote counts as much  
as your 1st-choice."

Regarding IRV's "philosophy": each voter has single vote that is transferable
according to a rule that meets Later-no-Harm, Later-no-Help and Majority
for Solid Coalitions.

I rate IRV (Alternative Vote with unlimited strict ranking from the top) as the
best of the single-winner methods that meet Later-no-Harm.

Chris Benham


      __________________________________________________________________________________
Win 1 of 4 Sony home entertainment packs thanks to Yahoo!7.
Enter now: http://au.docs.yahoo.com/homepageset/