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<br>I've long advocated that you can't adequately discuss the relative merits or desirability of<br>voting systems without actually using them. ...without actually trying them out. For that,<br>it's absolutely essential to do polling, simulated political elections, using the methods that are<br>proposed at EM.<br><br>You don't know the problems of methods that you consider best, until you use them in<br>an election, even if a simulated election. <br><br>Therefore, I propose a simulated presidential election. Mainly because we don't know who<br>the 2012 nominations will be yet, I suggest that the voting be by party, instead of by<br>candidate. In some ways, that's more meaningful anyway, because policy platforms are,<br>or should be, the basis of political voting.<br><br>Some have claimed that we should do polling at external websites, automated websites. The<br>main problem with that is flexibility: EM polls have nearly always included balloting by Approval,<br>Score Voting, and ranking. And they always should, because all of those balloting modes are<br>used by some of the various methods proposed on EM. My poll includes all three of those<br>balloting modes...three separate ballots: Approval, Score, and rank.<br><br>Another problem with automated polling websites is ballot-stuffing.<br>Even though polling websites usually register voters by their<br>e-mail, that only reduces, but doesn't eliminate the possibility of ballot-stuffing. Of course that<br>problem isn't as important in a poll whose only purpose is to demonstrate what it's like to use<br>the various voting systems. But, arguably, it still matters, for the purpose of such polls, that the<br>observed result reliably reflect the 1-per-voter ballots.<br><br>This poll could be criticized because EM's membership is international, and I'm proposing a <br>simulated U.S. election. I invite non-U.S. members to vote in this poll, because its purpose is<br>merely to demonstrate the use of the proposed voting systems.<br><br>If poll-participants identify themselves, in parenthesis as "international" or "U.S.", then separate<br>election results can be determined, one of which would indicate what kind of a party is<br>the EM international winner, and the other of which would indicate which kind of party would<br>win in the U.S. if EM members are typical.<br><br>...And EM members are more typical than some might believe, in terms of their sincere<br>preferences. I'd suggest that EM members differ from the general public mostly in that they<br>aren't Republocrat lesser-of-2-evils voters. Even if some EM members actually prefer<br>the Republicans or Democrats, none will favor one of those parties only as a lesser-evil.<br><br>Strategy? I suggest that any strategy used in this simulated election be appropriate to the<br>EM electorate. If you perceive any difference between the EM electorate and the general<br>population, then base your strategy on the EM electorate. It makes a poll more realistic<br>if voting is based on the conditions in the poll.<br><br>Should Score voting be sincere, or should it be however you'd vote it in an actual public<br>political election? I suggest the latter.<br><br>Sure, with an Approval balloting, it could be argued that there's no need for Approval<br>strategy in Score voting, so the Score voting should be sincere, regardless of whether<br>you'd rate sincerely in an actual election. I and others have made that suggestion in<br>previous EM polls. <br><br>But I don't think that's best in this poll. The purpose of this poll is to try out the various<br>methods, not to determine the sincere Score winner among the EM electorate. So I<br>suggest voting the Score ballot exactly as you would if it were an actual public political<br>election, in which Score voting were the only kind in use.<br><br>Unless Warren argues for suggesting sincere ratings on the Score ballot, I suggest<br>voting the same ratings you'd vote in an actual public political Score election. Because<br>we want to simulate an actual election.<br><br>As you know, I advocate, as options in an Approval balloting, the following ways of <br>voting:<br><br>Approval, MTA, MCA, ABucklin, AOC, MTAOC, MCAOC, and AOCBucklin.<br><br>I'll define these ways of voting in a subsequent posting.<br><br>But I'll briefly outline their definitions here:<br><br>You know what Approval, MTA and MCA are.<br><br>AOC is Approval, with the option to make some approvals conditional upon mutuality, as defined <br>by the MTAOC pseudocode program that I posted here.<br><br>MTAOC and MCAOC are MTA and MCA with that conditionality option.<br><br>AOCBucklin is ABucklin with that option at each rank position.<br><br>When there are ballots using the ABucklin &/or AOCBucklin option, the election is equivalent to<br>an ABucklin election, and is counted as such. Of course an Approval ballot counts as an ABucklin<br>ballot that only gives first preferences.<br><br>MCA and MTA are counted in the obvious way that I previously described, consistent with and<br>compatible with Approval and ABucklin.<br><br>All of the above remains true when ballots also use the conditionality option.<br><br>For AOCBucklin, all votes that have been assigned to a candidate, other than 1st preference votes,<br>come under the term "middle ratings", for the purposes of MTAOC conditionality.<br><br>For AOCBucklin, the conditionality calculations must be done anew after each AOCBucklin vote-assignment<br>stage. That's because the new vote assignments change the middle ratings counts that the MTAOC<br>conditionality calculation uses.<br><br>Voting instructions:<br><br>For the Approval election:<br><br>You can vote a ballot by:<br><br>Approval, MTA, MCA, ABucklin, AOC, MTAOC, MCAOC, or AOCBucklin.<br><br>If you choose an Approval ballot, approve whichever candidate(s) you choose to. You have the option of<br>designating any of those approvals as conditional. That indicates that you don't want that approval to be<br>usable to defeat your approved candidates. You give it conditional upon its being reciprocated as defined<br>in the MTAOC program pseudocode that I posted. (More about the conditionality option later in this posting).<br><br>If you choose an MTA or MCA ballot, then you rate some candidates then indicate that you rate<br>some candidates "top" and some candidates "middle". As with Approval, you can indicate that some<br>of your middle ratings are conditional, meaning that you don't want them to be usable to defeat your<br>coalition-suitable candidates (defined later in this posting). And, as said before, that guarantee is carried<br>out by making that middle rating conditional upon reciprocity as defined in the MTAOC program pseudocode.<br><br>If you choose an ABucklin ballot, then rank any number of candidates in order of preference. At any rank<br>position, you can indicate, for any candidate, that your vote for hir is conditional, as defined above.<br><br>Every method with more than two slots can benefit by AERLO, the Automatic Equal Ranking Line Option.<br><br>To use AERLO in MTA or MCA, list your middle-rated candidates vertically in order of preference, with "AERLO" written just<br>below the lowest-ranked one that you want to be protected by the AERLO option.<br><br>In ABucklin, write AERLO just below the lowest rank position that you want to protect with AERLO.<br><br>What it means when you have AERLO in your ranking, or your middle MTA or MCA ratings:<br><br>If none of your above-AERLO candidates wins, then they are all moved to top-rating or top-ranking. Another<br>count is conducted after that raising-to-top has done on each such ballot. That winner of that 2nd count<br>wins the election.<br><br>For example, an AOCBucklin ballot with AERLO might look like this:<br><br>1. Candidate A<br>2. Candidate B<br>AERLO<br>3. Candidate C<br>4. Candidate D (conditional)<br><br>The conditionality option, should you invoke it, requires that a middle rating be mutual as defined<br>in the MTAOC program pseudocode. That program refers to candidates whom you designate<br>"coalition-suitable". You don't have to actually make those designations.<br><br>The default "coalition-suitable" designation is: Your above-AERLO candidates are coalition-suitable.<br>If you don't use AERLO, then your top-rated or top-ranked candidates are coalition-suitable.<br><br>That's the default.<br><br>But, if you want to, you could specify that you only want your _initially_ top-rated candidates to be <br>coalition-suitable.<br><br>Or you could even designate particular candidates as candidate suitable, if you choose to. Doing so means<br>that you aren't using the default assumption.<br><br>But you needn't bother with that, because there is a useful and practical default assumption, stated above.<br><br>For the Score election:<br><br>Rate the parties as you would in an actual public election. If you strategize, do so with respect to the<br>actual EM electorate.<br><br>(unless Warren asks that people rate sincerely, with strategy only in the Approval election rather than in the<br>Score election)<br><br>For the ranking election:<br><br>Best to rank sincerely. Anyone can count the rankings by any method they choose. I'll count them<br>by MMPO with AERLO. No need to count them by AOCBucklin or ABucklin, since that way of voting is<br>included as an option in the Approval election. <br><br>Also, because the rankings election is intended to be method-nonspecific, it's best to count it be methods<br>that don't require much other than just a ranking. Count methods with drastic voting strategy aren't<br>desirable count methods, of course.<br><br>I suggest that the AERLO option should be available for the rank election, because AERLO is useful in pretty<br>much every rank method that allows equal ranking. I consider MMPO with AERLO to be a good method, and, if there<br>is participation in this mock election, I'll do an MMPO with AERLO count for the ranking election. <br><br>Voter's Choice:<br><br>Though this is not the purpose of this mock election, it's possible to determine an overall winner, by Voter's Choice:<br><br>When you vote, designate a method. Your designated method could be Approval, or Score, or any rank-count.<br><br>After the counts are completed, each political party receives a score equal to the sum of the numbers of people<br>designating the methods by which that party won.<br><br>The winning party is the one with the highest such score.<br><br>(MTA, MCA, ABuckliln, AOC, MTAOC, MCAOC and AOCBucklin don't count as separate election methods, as they are only<br>voting options for the approval election).<br><br>Nominations:<br><br>Every election should have a nomination period. I suggest a one-week nomination period. <br><br>I don't know how you feel about having a campaign period, because maybe this list shouldn't<br>have political advocacy. If people feel that there should be no campaigning, no discussion of the<br>parties' relative merits, then that's fine.<br><br>If people feel that such discussion is appropriate for an election, then there could be a week set aside<br>for it, after the nominations week.<br><br>I suggest that nominations can be made any time starting right now, and continuing till 0 hours, 1 minute<br>GMT (UT), January 15th.<br><br>I'll just start by making a few obvious nominations. Nominating a party doesn't mean that the nominator<br>likes it. It might just be that (as in the case of some that I nominate) those parties are just felt to be<br>ones that would be found in an actual election, and are nominated for that reason only.<br><br>Of course no one needs to rank or rate all of the parties nominated.<br><br>With that understanding, I nominate the following parties, listed in alphabetical order, to avoid<br>the appearance of favoritism:<br><br>Boston Tea Party (not to be confused with the Republican-like "Tea Party Movement")<br>Democrats (moderate) (example: Mondale)<br>Democrats (Republican-like) (example: Lieberman)<br>Democrats (relatively progressive) (example: Kuccinich)<br>Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA) (The original U.S. Greens)<br>Green Party US (GPUS) (The replacement Greens)<br>Libertarians (as defined by the Libertarian platform on the Internet)<br>Republicans (Moderate)<br>Republicans (More Republican)<br>Socialist Party USA (SPUSA)<br><br>That seems to roughly span the political spectrum among the U.S. political parties.<br><br>Of course you might want to look up those parties' platforms on the Internet.<br><br>Also useful, though biased, might be the "directory of U.S. political parties" on the Internet.<br><br>(I'm not quite sure how its name is worded, but the above name will probably find it at a<br>search engine).<br><br>By the way, what if I throw a party and no one comes? Or propose an election and no<br>one participates? I feel that mock elections are much needed at a voting system discussing<br>mailing list. I'm doing my part by proposing this mock election. That's so regardless of whether<br>anyone else thinks there should be a mock election, and regardless of whether anyone<br>participates. My purpose is merely to propose the election, make it available. Having done so,<br>I've done my part.<br><br>Mike Ossipoff<br><br> </div></body>
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