<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><DIV>Kristofer Munsterhjelm:<BR><BR>>> "Normalization could be used if required, with either the voter <BR>>> specifying "absolutely worst" and "absolutely best" (setting the<BR>>> range), or by the lowest and highest rated candidate having those<BR>>> positions. So if a voter wants to say that he likes all the<BR>>> candidates, but some are better than others, he could vote all<BR>>> positive integers, whereas a McCain/Obama/Clinton voter could vote<BR>>> McCain less than zero and the other two greater than zero. With<BR>>> normalization, the contribution of<BR>>> <BR>>> A: 1 pts. B: -1 pts.<BR>>> <BR>>> to the raw scores would be the same as<BR>>> <BR>>> A: 3 pts. B: 1 pt.<BR>>> <BR>>> but would
have a different effect regarding the approval component<BR>>> (only A approved in the first case, both approved in the second)."<BR> <BR></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 13px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> Chris Benham:<BR><BR>> I don't think I'm that keen on "normalization", but I don't really<BR>> object to 'automating' the approval cutoff, so that ballots are<BR>> interpreted as approving the candidates they rate above the mean of<BR>> the ratings they've given (and half-approving those exactly at that<BR>> mean). I can imagine that others would object on various grounds,<BR>> and the US voting reform enthusiasts who like FBC-complying methods<BR>> like Range and Approval generally seem to prefer their voting methods<BR>> to have 'manual transmission'.</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 13px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote (Wednesday, 1 October, 2008):<BR><BR>The advantage of having zero set the boundary between approved and <BR>disapproved, instead of the mean doing so, is that you could express a <BR>general favor (or dislike) of politicians. For instance, if you think <BR>only one person's mostly decent and the rest are all corrupt (but some <BR>are more corrupt than others), you could vote the favored candidate <BR>above zero and the others below zero, whereas "above mean" would include <BR>some of the corrupt candidates as well.</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 13px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif">CB: I don't see why it would. If the voter max rates her favourite and gives<BR>all the other candidates a much lower, near or absolute bottom rating then</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 13px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif">the 'automated' version will only approve her favourite.<BR></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 13px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif">KM:<BR>I can understand that some would prefer the ballot to have, to use your <BR>own words, a manual transmission, but I think the concept of an explicit <BR>approval cutoff would be confusing to most. With the boundary at 0, you <BR>can just say, implicitly, "give those who you like points, and take <BR>points away from those you don't like".<BR><BR>When Approval voting has better strategies than plain commonsense <BR>approval, that's going to be a suboptimal strategy, but hopefully the <BR>voters are going to be mostly honest so that that's not much of a problem.<BR><BR>CB:</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 13px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif">With Approval cutoffs my basic assumption is that voters will be strategic</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 13px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif">and I'm happy for them to be so. I generally like to try to minimise the </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 13px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif">advantage of good strategists over poor ones and non-strategists, so I'm</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 13px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif">not interested in expanding voters' options to use poor strategy.<BR></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 13px; FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Chris Benham<BR></DIV></DIV></div><br>
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