[EM] Voting reform statement; a clearer and more inspiring version

[Richard Fobes]

Here are additional paragraphs we can add to the declaration to further 
resolve the criticism from Markus Schulze that there are "too many ... 
methods":

"To appreciate the importance of the few election methods we support, 
consider that there are hundreds of other election methods and voting 
methods, plus countless combinations of them, that we unanimously agree 
should not be used in governmental elections.  All of us agree that we 
will oppose the adoption of any of those inferior methods."

"Why do we not support a single "best" election method?  We are highly 
trained in mathematics and there is a mathematical proof (commonly 
called "Arrow's Impossibility Theorem") that mathematically proves that 
there cannot be a voting method that has all the expected and desirable 
characteristics of a "best" voting method.  This means that each of our 
supported election methods has advantages and disadvantages compared to 
each another.  For example, approval voting has the advantage of using a 
ballot layout that is similar to single-mark ballots (with the 
difference being that approval voting allows marking more than one 
candidate as acceptable).  As another example, the range ballot (which 
is used in range voting) collects more preference information compared 
to the ranked ballot (because the "distance" between candidates can be 
expressed)."

"As a related complexity, different election methods have different 
levels of vulnerability to "strategic" voting, which means that if a 
group of voters knows how other voters will vote, they may be able to 
mark their ballots differently in a way that increases their influence 
in the election results.  We have rejected as unacceptable the election 
methods that are most vulnerable to strategic voting.  All of our 
supported election methods have at least some vulnerability to strategic 
voting, but their vulnerability is small compared to plurality voting, 
which is highly vulnerable to strategic voting."

Richard Fobes


On 8/24/2011 5:52 PM, Richard Fobes wrote:
> On 8/24/2011 2:15 PM, Markus Schulze wrote:
>> ...
>> Well, one of the most frequently used arguments
>> against Condorcet methods is that there are too
>> many Condorcet methods and that there is no
>> agreement on the best one.
>>
>> Markus Schulze
>
> Perhaps we can add a statement that says something like:
>
> "In most cases the different Condorcet methods identify the same winner.
> Occasionally they identify different winners, but those situations
> involve complications that make it difficult to objectively determine
> which candidate is really the most popular. Each of these Condorcet
> methods has slight advantages and disadvantages compared to one another,
> and some are easier to explain than others. Yet in all cases they
> provide dramatically fairer results compared to plurality voting, and
> significantly fairer results compared to instant-runoff voting, so any
> of them is suitable for use in governmental elections."
>
> Richard Fobes
>
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