On Sat, 6 Sep 2003, Bart Ingles wrote: ... > > In contrast to plurality, IRV allows for ranked ballots. This allows > > voters to communicate in much more detail than on a plurality (or > > Approval) ballot, which is in general a good thing, although admittedly > > voters may either vote strategically, thus distorting their communication, > > or regret their choices later. [...] > > I don't generally favor ranked ballots, so this would not be a point in > favor of IRV for me.
On the basis of evidence that I summarized recently under the heading "simplicity" I believe that most of the US public would consider ranked ballots a nuisance in public elections. What do you think of the Candidate Proxy / Approval hybrid that I suggested a few months ago? Voters fill out regular approval style ballots. If a voter makes only one mark on the ballot, then (by default) the marked candidate (as proxy for the voter) may approve additional candidates on behalf of the voter in the Election Completion Convention. If a voter wants to approve only one candidate without the proxy option, then the voter must make another mark on the ballot on the "no proxy" line. [Treating the "no proxy" line the same as a candidate line allows the use of standard plurality ballots.] In summary, if a voter marks at least two lines on the ballot by approving at least two candidates or by marking a candidate and the "no proxy" line, then the approval ballot will be counted "as is" in the Election Completion Convention, otherwise the lone mark candidate is proxy for the voter. [If the lone mark is on the "no proxy" line, then no candidate is approved by the ballot.] Even if I had rather strong feelings about whom to approve and whom to not approve, if I trusted my favorite enough I might go ahead and designate her as my proxy in order to give her more leverage in the Election Completion Convention. Also if I didn't trust the polls, and the popularity of the candidates was an important consideration in deciding the approval cutoff, I might want to give proxy status to my favorite, since her final decisions would be made after the "as is" approval ballots were tallied. It seems to me that the average voter would find this method to be simpler to use than Approval, and that the method would preserve all of the advantages that Approval has over other methods. ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
