[EM] [RangeVoting] A procedure for handling large numbers of candidates using scorevoting with primaries and runoffs.

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 10:57 AM 8/15/2012, Michael Allan wrote:
>Abd ul-Rahman Lomax said:
> > Asset Voting blows the whole issue out of the water.
>
>Agreed.  Transitive voting in general is an elegant solution.  Some
>methods even allow for an informalized candidacy where anyone is
>eligible to receive votes without prior registration.

Thanks. I've suggested registration for public elections where, I 
know from personal experience, it can be very difficult to decipher 
and identify whom a voter intended to vote for as a write-in. In 
fact, to avoid this problem, many jurisdictions actually don't count 
write-in votes for the individual candidates but instead amalgamate 
them all as "Write-In," and the ballots are only reviewed if those 
votes could make a difference.

>Add the freedom to shift votes on the fly and even run-offs can be
>informalized.  The election then becomes an extended (even intermin-
>able) process of consensus making and re-affirmation.  This is more
>suitable for open primaries of course, than for official elections.

The process can be "interminable" when only one or a small number of 
seats are to be elected, or a single decision must made that requires 
a majority but is complex. (Actually that's an exaggeration. Any 
democratic voting process can have no fixed end, but in practice they 
don't last forever.)

For "official elections," I've suggested Asset, with some necessary 
restrictions due to the context. As the number of candidates rises, 
as I strongly expect it would, naturally, once Asset is in place, it 
will become important to set up methods for the electors (the 
now-public voters who hold received votes) to efficiently coordinate 
their votes. What I've recommended, in more detail, would be:

1. Electors may name a proxy, but this does not actually transfer 
voting power. Consider it a provisional transfer, an expression of 
trust. It is *assumed* to be transferable, but, remember, no actual 
power is transferred.
2. Being named as a proxy, you would get the email address of the 
namer. You may choose -- or not -- to provide your own direct address 
to the person who names you.
3. The proxy assignment may be changed at any time.
4. Electors may transfer a vote, without delegating the right to transfer.
5. Electors may transfer a vote with the right given to the receiver 
to further transfer.
6. Vote transfers, unlike proxies, may be partial, i.e,. X votes to A 
and Y votes to B. There might be some limit on complexity, or not.
7. Vote transfers may be revoked at any time, provided that a 
transfer that has been used to elect a seat may become irrevocable. 
(I don't like this, but this is essential for fixed elections without 
provision for direct democracy through the EC.)
8. Whenever a quota of votes are assembled, through this process, for 
a seat, the seat is declared elected. (There must be rules for how 
excess votes are handled. They might be held, provisionally, by the 
elected seat for redistibution, or they might revert, fractionally, 
to the electors who provided the votes.)

This system does allow electors to use delegable proxy if they 
choose; otherwise they retain the power and responsibility of casting 
their own votes. If delegable proxy is not considered mature and 
safe, then, this system can disallow transferability in the voting. 
Delegable proxy for generating advice is fully safe.


>For an overview, see the intro sections of Green-Armytage's 2010 paper
>here: http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~armytage/proxy2010.pdf
>Also: http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~armytage/voting/#proxy
>  And: http://zelea.com/project/votorola/d/theory.xht#fn-1
>
>--
>Michael Allan
>
>Toronto, +1 416-699-9528
>http://zelea.com/
>----
>Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info