[EM] Open letter to STAR voting promoters

[robert bristow-johnson]

On 6/3/2024 7:00 PM, Closed Limelike Curves wrote:
> First: why are you so fiercely opposed to using rated ballots? ...
...

> On 06/04/2024 1:20 PM EDT Closed Limelike Curves <closed.limelike.curves at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> rb-j: your complaints all seem to be about score voting, not rated ballots.

Uhm, I don't differentiate between the two terms.

> Rated ballots can be used to execute a ranked voting algorithm.

Sure.  Assuming sincere scoring, we can derive an ordered rank from the same.

But Score ballots *still* require too much information from voters.

In a governmental election, it must not matter about any difference in *degree* of our preference.  If I enthusiastically prefer Candidate A and you prefer Candidate B only tepidly, the information of that difference in degree of preference should not be on the ballot at all and the government should never take that difference in preference into consideration at all.  If I enthusiastically prefer Candidate A and you prefer Candidate B only tepidly, your vote for B must count just as much as my vote for A.  And that must be because we have equality as citizens under the law.

We *must* *not* burden the voters with any notion that they are scoring or judging candidates.  When a voter ranks A above B on the ballot the *only* meaning that can be transmitted from those markings on the ballot is that If the election was solely between A and B, this voter votes for A.  And that vote counts equally as much as some other voter voting for B by ranking B above A.

The purpose of ranked ballots is to deal with multiple contingencies.  How does a voter vote, given different contingencies of which candidates are most in play and which are not.  It's not about voters judging candidates and being fair and measured in their judgement.  In Olympic events that are decided solely by subjective judgement of judges (like figure skating) and not by objective physical measure (like time or distance measure), these judges do *not* vote by secret ballot.  You might expect the Russian judge to possibly have a little bias toward the Russian contestant, but that bias will show if it's too much.  The Russian judge will not get away with scoring the American contestant with zeros.  And the western judge will not get away with scoring the Russian contestant with zeros.

But we are partisans and we vote by secret ballot and there is nothing stopping me from insincerely scoring a clone of the candidate I like with zeros.  If I thought that the election was gonna be primarily between the candidate I like and this clone, I might be pressured to bury the clone because I fear that supporters of the clone are burying my candidate.  But I shouldn't have to do that.  I shouldn't even have to think about it.

If I like Candidate A more than Candidate B, then, if the race comes out to be competitive between A and B, I want *all* of my voting power to go to my vote for A because I know the B voters want all of their voting power to go to B.

It's not about judging the degree of quality of candidates and coupling how much your vote counts according to that judgement.  It's about which candidate you are placing your vote for and the amount that your vote counts is determined *only* by your franchise.  Any citizen with franchise has a vote that counts exactly as much as any other citizen with franchise.  This must not be coupled to any measure of personal utility.  This is *not* utilitarian, because if it were, we would all be tempted to exaggerate our personal utility when we see that as advantageous.

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

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

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