[EM] Approval voting election tomorrow in Fargo ND

[Forest Simmons]

Good News!

And pretty good explanation.

Some negative and confusion inducing comments from IRV advocates based on
common misconceptions were responded to.

A voter said she was confused because she was not used to voting for more
than one candidate and didn't know how it worked ... despite the simple
instructions: "vote yes or no for each candidate; the one with the most yes
votes will be elected."

IRV advocates contribute to that kind of confusion by claiming Approval
violates "one person, one vote."

For that reason I think it would behoove us to distinguish between 'votes'
and marks on the ballot. Instead of saying...

"Vote yes or no for each candidate; the one with the most yes votes will be
elected."

 ... say ...

"Mark yes or no for each candidate; the one with the most yes marks will be
elected."

For additional clarification it might help to say, "For best results, mark
'yes' for the candidate that would get your 'vote' if you could only mark
one, AND also mark 'yes' for all candidates (if any) that you like better
than that candidate."

There was another confusion based the same "one person, one vote" phrase in
supreme court rulings that became the law of the land in the sixties;
Approval detractors in Fargo have been claiming that Approval election
results should be counted fractionally; in other words they are
intentionally confusing Approval Voting with Fractional Cumulative Voting.

Under that burden, if all voters marked yes for their top two favorite
candidates, then the winner could not claim more than fifty percent support
even if she were marked yes on 100 percent of the ballots.

So there is a big quarrel over how to report the results, if not over how
to determine the winner.

For IRV supporters, no method satisfies "one person, one vote," unless each
ballot boils down to a single vote for a single candidate.

To counter that claim, Approval supporters go back to the supreme court
language as in the 1964 *Wesberry v. Sanders
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesberry_v._Sanders>* decision,

"...the U.S. Supreme Court declared that equality of voting—one person, one
vote—means that "the weight and worth of the citizens' votes as nearly as
is practicable must be the same",[12]
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_man,_one_vote#cite_note-:0-13>and
ruled that states must also draw federal congressional districts containing
roughly equal represented populations." [from the one person one vote
Wikipededia page]

However, I agree with Martin Harper ... that it is easier, more
informative, and less contentious to humour superstitious detractors by
specifying which of the marked candidates gets the (one and only) vote from
that ballot:

"Mark yes or no for each candidate; your actual vote will go to the one
(from among those that you marked 'yes') with the most yes marks from other
voters."

This rule is equivalent to the standard Approval rule, but allows us to
distinguish (in the post election analysis) the Approval Support
percentages, and the percentage of 'votes' received.

It also highlights the importance of agreement with other voters: Approval
Voting can be considered (primarily?) as a tool for helping like minded
voters to pool their votes conveniently, safely, efficiently, and
effectively.

-Forest





El lun., 6 de jun. de 2022 1:54 p. m., KenB <kdbearman at gmail.com> escribió:

>
> https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/06/06/vote-for-everyone-you-like-fargo-tests-approval-voting
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