[EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Russ Paielli]

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 9:47 AM, Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com>wrote:

> I'm sorry, but aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhh.
>
> I think that people on this list are smart, but this is pathetic. I don't
> mean to be hard on Dave in particular. But why is it impossible to get any
> two of us to agree on anything? I want to make a list of systems which are
>
> 1. Commonly agreed to be better than approval.
> 2. Commonly agreed to be simple for an average voter to feel that they
> understand what's going on.
>
> I am not asking each person who responds to choose the best or simplest
> system according to them. I'm asking everyone to vote in the poll<http://betterpolls.com/do/1425> and
> approve (rate higher than 0) all systems which meet those two very low bars.
> Hopefully, the result will be a consensus. It will almost certainly not be
> the two best, simplest systems by any individual's personal reckoning.
>
>
Jameson, I think the answer depends on what you mean by "better." (You may
have defined that specifically in an earlier post, but if you did, I forgot
it. Sorry!)

I think we can break the evaluation of election methods down into three
major categories:

1. Technical criteria
2. Complexity
3. Equipment requirements

Technical criteria includes all those "theoretical" criteria that have been
defined and discussed here for many years, such as Condorcet Criterion,
monotonicity, etc. Complexity relates to the vote counting and/or transfer
rules.

As I wrote a couple days ago, I strongly suspect that any vote counting
rules beyond simple addition will be extremely difficult to sell on a large
scale. IRV may be a counterexample, but I suspect that (1) it has only been
adopted in very "liberal" cities, and (2) it will never gain traction for
major public elections.

The more I think about it, the more I am starting to think that Range Voting
is the answer. I'm sure Warren will be glad to hear that! One great
advantage of Range is its ultra-simple counting rules. Its only real
disadvantage is the equipment requirements, but those are not
insurmountable.

An open issue about Range is, of course, how many rating levels should be
used. A "natural" choice is 10, but anything from about 5 to 10 or so seems
reasonable to me.

As I said before, I am very concerned about the large number of candidates
in the Republican presidential primary. I would love to see Range Voting
used there. That won't happen, of course, but if Republicans end up largely
unhappy with their candidate (as they were with McCain), the silver lining
to that could will be an opportunity to promote Range Voting to Republicans.

--Russ P.

-- 
http://RussP.us
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