[EM] Open letter to STAR voting promoters

[robert bristow-johnson]

> On 06/04/2024 12:22 PM EDT fdpk69p6uq at snkmail.com wrote:
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jun 3, 2024 at 8:41 PM Richard, the VoteFair guy wrote:
> > they are basically just supplying money to the huge(!) 
> >  number of Oregon voters who understand that ranked choice ballots are 
> >  much better than STAR ballots.
> 
> Score ballots are superior to ranked ballots.

Not for governmental elections.  Elections are not about utility.  Not utilitarian.  We are partisans that vote by secret ballot and not judges for the Figure Skating event at the Olympics.  When we vote, we don't have to be "fair to the other side".

We vote to best serve our own political interests.  It's a battle of sorts.  They call them "campaigns".

> They are easier to fill out.

That's horseshit.  Requires voters to not only say who they prefer over the others, but then they have to figure out *how* *much* they prefer that candidate over the others and then they have to figure out whether or not they're shooting themselves in the foot by ranking some second-choice (or lesser evil) higher or lower.  In any Cardinal system and whenever there are 3 or more candidates (especially if they are non-trivial candidates), the voter is faced with the decision of how much to score (or whether to approve) their second-choice (or lesser evil) candidate.  Score them too high and you hurt your favorite.  Score too low and you help your greater evil.

You CES guys keep repeating this falsehood with ***zero*** evidence.  And it doesn't even make common sense.

>  They allow expression of strength of preference and indifference.

Yes.  And that expression will be exaggerated by partisans.  And the timid that worry about the greater evil might be pressured to reduce that expression.

And Approval ballots are Score ballots, with two levels of scoring.  How much expression is there?  The amount of expressivity of Score ballots is related to how many levels of scoring is there.  More levels, more expressivity.  Why not have 100 levels?  My vote for Candidate Whoever is the sqrt(3).  Can we get fractional-resolution in expressivity?

There is the Paradox of Choice problem.  At some point, more degree of choice makes it **harder** to choose.

> They stay the same from one election to the next, regardless of the number of candidates. They don't require limiting your rankings to top 5 for space in an election with 20 candidates, etc. etc.

Ordinal ballots stay the same, too.

This whole thing is just baloney:  Claim followed by claim followed by claim.  Nothing really backing it up.


--

r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

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