[EM] Poll on voting-systems, to inform voters in upcoming enactment-elections

Michael Ossipoff email9648742 at gmail.com
Wed Apr 3 22:13:28 PDT 2024


EM used to do a lot of polls, but now never does. So I wouldn’t propose
one, if it weren’t for the fact that, this year, the voters of at least two
states are going to vote on whether to enact a certain voting-system.

It seems to me—tell me if I’m wrong—that those people have a right to know
how people familiar with voting-systems feel about the relative merits of
some voting-systems.

So, though I claim that polls are valuable for demonstrating the experience
of using the voting systems, & how they work, & what they’ll do—& are
therefore useful & worthwhile for their own sake—this poll that I now
propose isn’t a poll for its own sake.

It is, as I said, proposed for the important practical purpose of letting
the voters in the upcoming enactment-elections know how we feel about the
relative merits of some voting-systems, including the one that they’re
about to vote on the enactment of.

The voting-method for the poll:

It seems to me that Schulze is the most popular ranked voting-system, among
the people at EM.

…& it seems to me that the last time we voted on EM’s collective favorite
voting-system, Approval won.

Those seem the top-two, in EM popularity.

I prefer RP(wv) to Beatpath, mostly for its simple, intuitively natural &
obvious rule, but also for its LIIAC compliance, & the fact that its winner
usually pairbeats Schulze’s winner.

But I guess Schulze is more popular due to its more efficient algorithm.

Anyway so I suggest that the poll I propose have a Schulze balloting &
count, & an Approval balloting & count.

Voting would consist of posting a ranking & an approval-set, in one post.

Candidate voting-systems:

My purpose isn’t an all-inclusive poll among all proposed voting-systems.
…just a very few ones that are the most popular here at EM, solely to have
a little comparison to the main voting system being publicly voted on this
year.

So it should just be among a few voting-systems. Additionally, no reason to
make the alternatives-lineup too time-consumingly large by including
methods unlikely to win anyway.

I’ll suggest a few obvious inclusions. But, of course every poll here
should have the possibility of nomination of whatever alternative anyone
wants to nominate.

I’ll list my nominations in this post, & I claim that those few are all the
alternatives needed for the poll.  …& anyone can nominate anything during a
1-week nomination-period.

I suggest the following voting-systems as candidates in the poll, the
alternatives among which to vote:

Approval
RP(wv)
Schulze
IRV

(Schulze & RP are often said to be the ranked-methods most popular among
single-winner reform  community, & that seems true at EM.)


Is there any need for more alternatives than that?

I suggest a nomination period of exactly one week, starting at the time
recorded as the posting-time-&-date of this post.

After which a voting-period of exactly one month would start…at the exact
time as the end of the nomination-period.

If there are no nominations (I suggest that none are needed) during the
nomination-period—& if, during the nomination-period, no one posts the
words “I second the suggestion of a poll”—then of course there’d not be a
poll.

Again, I realize that polls are no longer popular here, but this is a
special situation, bringing a need for voters in the upcoming public
enactment-election to have a chance to hear how people at EM feel about
relative merit among voting-systems. So let’s make an exception to the
absence of polls here, for voters in the next election.
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