[EM] Declaration of Election-Method Experts and Enthusiasts

[Richard Fobes]

OK, this is going to be controversial, but Jameson Quinn and I are 
attempting to write one advantage for each of the four election methods 
supported in our Declaration.

Below are the versions each of us have written.  What does everyone else 
prefer?

We know that the final result will be different from what either of us 
have written, so please suggest improvements -- either as better 
wordings or as requests for what to change.

If we cannot agree on this content, we can leave out these paragraphs 
and let the readers investigate each method without us offering any 
high-level perspective.

------------- version from Jameson Quinn: -------------

Some examples of advantages claimed for each system are:

* Approval is the simplest of the systems, and thus, in places where 
voters are wary of complexity, may have the best chance of passing. Even 
at an academic conference on social choice theory, where few argued that 
Approval was the overall-best system, it still received the widest 
support. It also is a step towards any of the other systems; any of the 
systems, if used with an approval ballot, ends up being equivalent to 
approval. Therefore, after seeing what issues arose under approval, we 
might be able to make a better-informed choice of which other system to 
move on to.

* Condorcet systems give the best possible guarantee that the result 
would be consistent with a two-way race. When there is a “Condorcet 
winner” --- a single candidate who could beat any other candidate 
one-on-one --- most people’s sense of fairness and democracy say that 
such a candidate should win.

* Majority Judgment allows a score ballot, the most expressive ballot 
type because it can show the strength of preferences. The advocates of 
this system claim that it gives relatively little incentive for 
dishonest, strategic votes. Also, by focusing on the absolute quality of 
a candidate, rather than their quality relative to other options, it may 
help avoid a situation where a polarized electorate elects an 
unqualified compromise candidate just because both sides prefer such a 
nonentity to seeing the other side win.

* Range also uses the expressive score ballot. This system has been 
shown in simulations to give the results which best-satisfy the voters. 
It gives the best results in this sense with any predetermined fractions 
of honest and strategic voters. It is not known if these simulations 
accurately reflect real voters, who might use strategy in different 
amounts under different voting systems or in different factions.

------------- version from Richard Fobes: -------------

Although we disagree about various characteristics of the four supported 
methods, most of us agree that:

* Approval voting is the easiest election method in terms of collecting 
preferences (either on ballots or verbally) and in terms of counting.

* Condorcet methods provide the fairest results in the many cases in 
which one candidate – the Condorcet winner – is pairwise preferred over 
every other candidate.

* Majority judgment uses score ballots (which collect the fullest 
preference information) in a way that reduces the effect of strategic 
voting.

* Score voting may provide the mathematically defined "best" overall 
("optimum") results if voters vote sincerely instead of strategically.	
	
------------- end -------------

Thanks!

(We are getting close to having the next, and possibly final, version 
ready to review in full.)

Richard Fobes