[EM] remember Toby Nixon?

[Andrew Myers]

On 7/22/64 11:59 AM, Dave Ketchum wrote:
> On May 24, 2011, at 6:42 PM, fsimmons at pcc.edu wrote:
>>
>> About six years ago Toby Nixon asked the members of this EM list for a
>> advice on what election method
>> to try propose in the Washington State Legislature. He finally settled
>> on CSSD beatpath. As near as I
>> know nothing came of it. What would we propose if we had another
>> opportunity like that?
>> It seems to me that people have rejected IRV, Bucklin, and other
>> methods based on ranked ballots
>> because they don’t want to rank the candidates.
>
> I would propose Condorcet, with just a few clarifications:
> Leave CSSD beatpath as a detail method decision to resolve later.
> Reject IRV for known problems.
> Those unranked are simply counted as having the bottom rank.
> Write-ins permitted and counted as if actually nominated. This is a bit
> of extra pain, but I like it better than demanding extra nominations
> that enemies could make unacceptably difficult.
> Equal ranking permitted. Those who like Approval should understand that
> using a single rank lets them express their desire without considering
> ranking in detail.
> No restrictions as to how rank numbers compare - when considering which
> of a pair has higher rank, ONLY their ranks compare as H>L, L>H, or E=-
> what ranks are assigned to other candidates have no effect on this.
> No restriction as to how many rank numbers a voter may use, beyond fact
> that a chosen ballot design may impose a limit as to how many can be
> expressed.
> DYN is a simple addition for those who see value in that method.

Having conducted in the CIVS system an experiment over the past several 
years as to whether people are able to deal with ranked ballots, I have 
to say that voters seem to be able to deal with ranking choices. In fact 
they will even rank dozens of choices. As long as the user interface is 
not painful, it's not a big deal for most people. So I would choose 
Condorcet in a second. Like Dave, I don't think the completion method 
matters a great deal. However, write-ins are a more complicated issue 
and it is still not clear to me how to handle them fairly.

-- Andrew