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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>With the up coming U.S. Presidential debates, I was
reminded of my original attraction to Approval Voting. Specifically the issue of
Nader being excluded from the debates in 2000 because he didn't poll at 15%
support needed to qualify.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>At the time it was obvious that the polls were
asking the wrong question. If you ask people "If the election was held today,
who would you support for president?" that's a fine question for determining who
will might win the coming election, but it is not a useful question if used to
determine inclusion of a debate.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Inclusion for a debate in inherently an approval
question, "Who would you like to see in the debate?" The answer for an
individual is a simple list of candidates that potentially may gain their
eventual single vote. AND the debate-inclusion polling result also should
be a list of candidate that people want to hear from, with a minimum threshold
needed for inclusion for the list.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>This to me is a true approval poll because there's
a variable number of winners and offering a second opinion doesn't hurt my vote
for my first preference.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>What is usually called "Approval Voting" where a
single (or fixed) number of winners are allowed can't really be considered "true
approval" since voters may still be afraid to offer their true opinion
of more than one favored candidate.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Inclusion Voting: Question given on the lines
of "Which candidates would you like to have included?"</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>1. Voters can vote for as many candidates as they
like.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>2. Winners are candidates whose vote totals exceed
X%.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Traditional EM discussion focuses on elections
with a fixed number of winners, so perhaps this is opening up a completely
new category of election methods.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Back to the Presidential debates, it would seem
this approach would work well. A first debate might have an approval level as
low as 5-10%, and allow limited exposure of a largest set of candidates. Then in
subsequent debates, the threshold of inclusion can be raised as high as 25-30%
perhaps.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I expect there's some room for manipulation in this
process. Specifically you might imagine the Democrats delaying their endorsement
and running a dozen mutually supportive candidates whose combined goal is to
attack the republican incumbent. Then the Republicans might do the same, and run
a dozen other candidates who all expect to drop out in deference to the
incumbent, but run merely to make the incumbent look good. Even if you demand
each party must only run one candidate in the debate, it can have the same
effect with special interest parties (No-New-Taxes Party, Antinuke
Party) mostly beholden to a major party in reality. These possible issues don't
make an approval vote less valuable - it's still up to the people to decide who
they really want to hear from.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The hard part in any case is how you convinced a
candidate who believes he is popular to debate candidates with a much lower
popularity - afterall they've little to win, and much to lose in such
publicity. Still, I don't think I'd mind if the first debate (5% approval) had
10 candidates and Kerry and Bush didn't show until later debates, and then we
voters could judge the competition and hear issues the top-two refuse to
discuss.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Tom Ruen</FONT></DIV>
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