[EM] Executive Summary for Declaration

[Richard Fobes]

On 9/7/2011 2:09 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:
 > I still think the 12 page declaration (incl table of contents) needs an
 > executive summary. The table of contents does not in my honest opinion
 > give good enough information.


I agree that the declaration needs an executive summary.  Here is what 
I've come up with as a first draft:

----- Executive Summary -----

This declaration, which has been signed by election-method experts from 
around the world, publicly denounces the use of plurality voting in 
governmental elections.  Plurality voting mistakenly assumes that the 
candidate who receives the most ballot marks – on single-mark ballots – 
is the most popular.  Plurality voting also suffers from vote splitting, 
which is what forces political parties to offer only a single choice in 
each election.

As replacements for plurality voting, this declaration recommends four 
significantly fairer election methods, namely, in alphabetical order: 
Approval voting, any Condorcet method, Majority Judgment voting, and 
Range voting.  These methods use better ballots – namely the Approval 
ballot, Ranked ballot, and Score ballot – to collect much more 
preference information compared to plurality's primitive single-mark ballot.

The lack of awareness about plurality voting's unfairness arises from 
its use of single-mark ballots, which not only fail to collect enough 
information to correctly identify the most popular candidate, but also 
fail to collect enough information to produce proof or evidence of the 
unfair results.

Computer technology now makes it easy to count better ballots and 
correctly identify who deserves to win.  All the supported methods are 
based on the fact that a majority of voters, not just a plurality of 
voters, must approve or prefer the winning candidate in order to produce 
fairer results.

In spite of the academically recognized, well-known unfairness of 
plurality voting, it is used throughout Canada, the United Kingdom, the 
United States, and to some extent nearly every democracy around the 
world.  As a consequence of adopting fairer election methods, this 
declaration's signers expect the benefits to include a dramatically 
reduced gap between voters and government, more easily -- and fairly -- 
resolved political conflicts, and significantly increased economic 
prosperity for any region that adopts fairer election methods.

Significantly the election-method experts do not support the use of 
instant-runoff voting, which is also known as the alternative vote. 
This method is based on the mistaken belief that the candidate with the 
fewest plurality votes is the least popular candidate.

The four supported methods also can be adopted for use in 
non-governmental situations, such as electing an organization's 
officers, making democratic decisions, and electing corporate board members.

The signers of this declaration do not share any common political 
beliefs, and are confident that the recommended election reforms will 
not favor any particular political parties or political orientations. 
Their clearly stated goal is to improve election fairness by replacing 
primitive plurality voting with any of the fairer supported methods. 
Their expectation is that a higher level of democracy will lead to 
higher standards of living, reduced conflicts, and widespread greater 
economic prosperity, just as replacing monarchies and dictatorships with 
plurality voting has produced dramatic and widespread benefits.

The signers urge everyone to learn more about how voting should be done 
– using Approval voting, Condorcet methods, Majority Judgment voting, or 
Range voting – and begin adopting the supported voting methods in 
whatever situations currently, yet inappropriately, use plurality voting.

----- end -----

It mentions some concepts that currently aren't in the declaration 
itself, so if this executive summary is liked, adjustments will need to 
be made in either this summary or in the declaration.

Also note that this summary does not mention PR. We still need to decide 
what to do about that section. It is long yet just says we like PR but 
oppose closed-list PR.

Richard Fobes


On 9/7/2011 2:09 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:
> Dear Jameson,
>
> I still think the 12 page declaration (incl table of contents) needs an
> executive summary. The table of contents does not in my honest oppinion
> give good enough information.
>
> An executive summary is standard when writing policy recommendations
> like this, and you cannot write a scientific paper without an abstract.
>
> On the other hand I understand, that writing summaries and abstracts is
> sometimes a pain (it is at least to me), and that it is easier to point
> out things that could be improved and more difficult to do something
> about it, like writing the summary myself.
>
> I dont write this just to nag. If you want your recommendations to be
> read by decision makers, you had better catch the interest within the
> one or two minutes this person will maximally spend do decide if the
> declaration is worth reading.
>
> It would be a petty, if this iniciative faild to get impact because the
> lack of a summary.
>
> Basically, a summary would give the declaration a wider audience and
> increase the potential political impact of the declaration.
>
> Best regards
> Peter Zborník
>
> On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 8:20 PM, Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com
> <mailto:jameson.quinn at gmail.com>> wrote:
> ...