[EM] Remember Toby

[robert bristow-johnson]

On Jun 8, 2011, at 10:32 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote:

>
>
> 2011/6/8 robert bristow-johnson <rbj at audioimagination.com>
>
> On Jun 8, 2011, at 9:51 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote:
>
> On Jun 8, 2011, at 1:32 PM, Juho Laatu wrote:
> On 8.6.2011, at 16.15, Jameson Quinn wrote:
>
> 1. Before the election, candidates (including declared write-ins)  
> submit full rankings of other candidates.
> ...
>
> i still think this Asset thingie is crappy.  it is *immaterial* how  
> candidates rank or value the other candidates.  the only thing that  
> matters is how the electorate values the candidates.
>
>
> Just curious: would you be happy if making your ballot delegable  
> were opt-in, rather than opt-out?

i would be happy with a contingency vote and a 2nd contingency vote  
and maybe a 3rd contingency vote.  after that, i think that most of  
the other candidates are in league with Satan. :-)

>
> You consider delegation to be a negative. But many people would like  
> their vote to be delegable.

delegable over their own expressed contingency vote?

and what if the delegated vote fails to elect?  then is it the  
delegated delegate (or delegate^2) who decides who i'm voting for?   
(this is worse than IRV.)   i (and i would hope that most intelligent  
voters) do *not* want someone else voting for me in elections.

now, in a representative government, it is true that (if my candidate  
is elected) i am delegating authority to this candidate to vote in my  
place in the legislative body that i send him/her to office for.  i  
may or may not like the votes he/she makes (and if i don't like too  
many, i might vote for his/her opponent next election).

i know that, both for the U.S. president, and for many states (in fact  
here in Vermont, the new legislature elects the governor if there is  
no majority in the statewide vote, and this happened twice since i  
moved to Vermont) we are delegating our electoral vote to others, but  
only in unusual circumstances when a decision must be made.  (here in  
Vermont, they elected the Plurality winner in 2002 and 2010 and there  
would have been a great hew and cry if they did anything differently.)

so, i guess i'm not too keen about delegating my vote when i want to  
participate directly in choosing the person going into office.

> For instance, as somebody whose views are out of the US mainstream,  
> I do not expect my candidate to win.

i with you there.  wasn't until 2008 that i was particularly happy  
about the elected prez, and this goes back to 1976.

> While of course I'd like to convince the majority to agree with my  
> (impeccably correct) views, I do not even wish I could impose them  
> undemocratically (except insofar as they accord with the  
> constitution and/or inalienable rights). I would, however, like my  
> views to have a spokesperson with a measure of democratic voice and  
> power in accord with the size of my faction. If I truly liked a  
> candidate, I would regard it as a positive benefit to give them my  
> delegable vote, even if they ended up using it exactly as I would  
> have.

you mean; even if they ended up *not* using it exactly as you would  
have, no?

>
> Furthermore, there are many voters for whom even an approval ballot  
> is more work than they want to give. This is not necessarily a  
> matter of laziness; perhaps the amount of work per candidate they  
> consider appropriate for deciding is actually much higher than for  
> most voters. Allowing a simple bullet vote to optionally implicitly  
> vote on all candidates is a positive benefit to such voters.
>
> Finally, I have had serious conversations with people who seriously  
> worry about making a poor strategic choice, to the point where  
> they'll pick plurality over a better system, because at least the  
> strongest strategy (in a two-party duopoly) is unambiguous. Such  
> people would prefer their ballot strategy to be decided in the  
> perfect-information environment that SODA gives to the candidates.
>
> And delegation is 100% optional. If you don't want anyone delegating  
> your vote, you don't have to let them. If I and other voters want to  
> allow our votes to be delegated, for any of the perfectly good  
> reasons above, why should you have a right to stop that?

i think we should be forced to make up our own minds about the  
candidates, and not to pass that off onto someone else or some panel  
or body of delegates.  i want my state legislator (whom i like) to  
vote for me in the statehouse (regarding laws or bills or appointed  
officials), but not in the voting booth.

i'm still unmoved from Ranked-Choice and Condorcet.

--

r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."