[EM] Viewable Interim results with permitted vote changing

[Juho Laatu]

On 25.9.2011, at 20.13, Toby Pereira wrote:

> This may well have been discussed before, and it wouldn't really be practical for parliamentary elections, but could be used in other situations. You allow a certain period for voting to take place (say a week), and when you cast your vote (logging into a computer with a password), it tells you the current result. Votes can be changed as many times as you want until the voting deadline.

If there is a deadline, possible strategic surprise moves might occur just before that deadline. One alternative (quite theoretical) approach (that would be more difficult to the strategists) would be to continue the election until the situation is stable (stableness to be defined, maybe with time as one parameter).

> This would possibly be a little bit like SODA except that voters aren't putting delegation in the hands of the candidates, but do it all themselves.
>  
> I think it would potentially remove problems where "weak" winners get in - candidates that people rank/rate highly thinking that they will never get in, perhaps to put a gap between theit favourite and their perceived nearest rival.
>  
> As for what sort of ballot you'd use with this, I would suggest something simple. First Past the Post probably wouldn't be too horrific with this sort of voting, but I would suggest probably Approval.

The problems of Approval might remain and even get stronger.

30: A > B >>
30: B > A >>
40: C >>

A and B supporters could fight for the victory and decrease the number of approvals of the other one of them, and these sincere opinions might in the end become...

10: A > B >>
20: A >> B
10: B > A >>
20: B >> A
40: C >>

Now all candidates have 40 approvals and the situation is unstable.

In general this approach makes strategic voting easier since the (current) vote counts are known. In some situations results could also improve thanks to the same information about the other votes.

Juho



> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20110926/71952343/attachment-0004.htm>