[EM] Remember toby

Jameson Quinn jameson.quinn at gmail.com
Mon May 30 10:27:31 PDT 2011


2011/5/30 Kathy Dopp <kathy.dopp at gmail.com>

> > Date: Sun, 29 May 2011 23:41:47 +0100 (BST)
> > From: Kevin Venzke <stepjak at yahoo.fr>
> > To: election-methods at electorama.com
> > Subject: Re: [EM] Remember toby KD
> >> Kevin,
> >>
> >> Could you please explain in fairly simple terms how
> >> Condorcet/Approval works?
> >>
> >
> > The way it works is that the voters will submit rankings. Anybody who
> > is ranked is considered approved. (I strongly recommend against making
> > approval something that is explicitly marked. If people want a method
> > like that, don't use this one.)
> >
> > We will check to see whether there is a Condorcet winner. If there is,
> > he wins. That's phase 1.
> >
> > If there's not, the approval winner wins. All rankings count exactly the
> > same, as one vote. I.e. everybody you gave any ranking to is getting 1
> > approval point from your ballot.
> >
> > It is possible to limit the approval phase to candidates who are in the
> > Smith or Schwartz sets, but I'm not too concerned about that personally.
> >
> > The most obvious downside to C//A is that, since phase 2 levels all
> > your rankings, the later-no-harm failures are worse: You are more likely
> > to regret ranking more candidates. This is like Approval of course.
> >
> > But the phase 2 leveling (that is to say, the approval part) is also
> > why burial is deterred: It's undesirable to vote for candidates you don't
> > actually like, because you will be stuck voting for them (equal to
> > your favorites) if you succeed in forcing the method into phase 2 (which
> > would be the goal of burial).
> >
> > Hope that helps.
> >
> > Kevin
> >
>
> Thanks Kevin,  I like the simplicity of that plan -- Condorcet/Approval.
>
> Have you thought about only counting the first two rank ballot choices
> of voters if the Approval step becomes necessary due to a Condorcet
> cycle?  With only three ballot positions in the US I wonder if some
> voters might rank their last choice third and not really understand
> they were "approving" that candidate?
>
>
If ballot design considerations limited the number of ranks available for
Condorcet/Approval, one could still use equal ranking to approve an
unlimited number of candidates. I agree that an explicit "unapproved"
ranking, though theoretically unnecessary because it's synonymous with a
blank ballot line, would help voters understand what's happening. Even just
two approved ranks would be a good system, but I believe that any serious
proposal should advocate at least three approved ranks (four ranks overall),
because I suspect that would get more support.

JQ
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