[EM] Divided Majority - YES votes

[Juho Laatu]

On 21 May 2014, at 09:17, DNOW1 at aol.com wrote:

> More on the divided majority with YES votes --
> Single office -- A, B, Z choices.
> 
> 26 AB
> 25 BA
> 39 Z
> 4 ZA
> 6 ZB
> 
> Should listed Number Votes all be deemed YES votes ???
> 
> Thus -- YES 55 A, 57 B, 49 Z
> Minority Z loses.
> 
> Head to Head B 31 > A 30 --- due to the 10 of 49 Z voters voting also for A or B.
> 
> i.e. All or most the voters in a divided majority group would have to vote for the major choices of such majority group in order to get a YES majority for 1 or more of them.
> i.e. Some of the minority group may want to vote YES for the lesser of the perceived evils in the majority group.

Yes, this is one key weakness of implicit approvals. Voters are encouraged not to rank the candidates of the opposite group. It is possible that all the 39 "Z" voters preferred A over B. Explicit approvals would allow also the non-approved candidates to be ranked. The ballots will be one step more complex though.

26 A > B >> Z
25 B > A >> Z
39 Z >> A > B (or Z >> B > A, or Z >> A = B)
4 Z > A >> B
6 Z > B >> A

> Ballot Form
> Number ONLY the choice(s) that you approve using 1, 2, 3, etc.

One possible simple ballot form that allows explicit approvals is to have one row for each candidate, and 10 coumns for the approvad candidates, and then 10 columns for the non-approvad candidates. The voters put a tick in the correct column.The leftmost column is the best etc.

Another approach closer to your proposed form is to have one column for the number of the approvaed candidates and another column for the number of the non-approvad candidates. The numbering of the non-approved candidates might be a bit confusing (starting from 1 again).

A third approach that is very close to your proposed approach is to simply agree that numbers that are less that 10 mean that the candidate is approved. Higner numbers than that are non-approved.

Juho



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