[EM] Remember Toby

[Kathy Dopp]

> From: Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com>
> To: fsimmons at pcc.edu
> Cc: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
> Subject: Re: [EM] Remember Toby
> Message-ID: <BANLkTinPCsb7KG4Q3-EM5gQ5NR-xn+4TZw at mail.gmail.com>
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>
> I'd add my "safety" fix to the near-clone problem, *if* someone can think of
> an easy way to describe and motivate it. Basically, it looks at any
> candidate who mutually approve with the winner, and sees if they would beat
> the winner (pairwise) with those mutual approvals turned off. This helps
> when, for instance (honest preferences):

That sounds like it might work.

Here is my simplistic thought on a simplistic electoral method that
might solve some of plurality's problems without introducing new ones:

Let all the voters vote for one or two candidates.

Require all the candidates to list a second choice approval vote
different than themselves.

In one round, count *all* the (two) choices of each voter (the one for
his own two approvals or his one approval and that candidate's
approval choice)

Done.

 I.e. voters must either approve a 2nd candidate or let their
candidate do so for them.  The candidates' must publish their 2nd
approval choice prior to the election and cards must be available to
voters at the polling booth saying who the candidates have chosen at
their 2nd approval votes.

The only *gaming* I can see here would be on the part of some
candidates to try to choose losing candidates as their 2nd approval
vote - Thus we might get more candidates into the contest - one
potential loser for every serious candidate - which could be
problematic for ballot length.  However, voters could simply vote
their own two approval votes - no need to care what the candidates
chose.

The reason I suggest this is that it solves the problem of having
courts shoot the system down due to its not having an equal number of
votes per voter (the one vote, one voter rule) and seems to solve some
of the problems of plurality, and treats all voters' votes equally,
and it is precinct summable, takes only one round, would be simple to
program counting (simply add up all the two candidate votes and tally
all the bullet votes for each candidate, plus the 2nd vote from the
list of candidate 2nd approvals).

However, I still like Condorcet as a method if we're willing to add
ballot complexity of rank choice ballots.


Kathy Dopp
http://electionmathematics.org
Town of Colonie, NY 12304
"One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the
discussion with true facts."

Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections
http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174

Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting
http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf

View some of my research on my SSRN Author page:
http://ssrn.com/author=1451051