[EM] Executive Summary for Declaration

[Andy Jennings]

I do like the executive summary.  Maybe it's a little too long?

I think we could do without the sentence "Some good Condorcet methods
are:..."

I do think the PR section could be significantly shortened.

I made a few changes.  Feel free to review, roll back, and discuss if you
think I have erred.

~ Andy Jennings



On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 9:25 PM, Richard Fobes
<ElectionMethods at votefair.org>wrote:

> 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 <jameson.quinn at gmail.com>>> wrote:
>> ...
>>
>
> ----
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