I like the idea of helping voters (by some good rule automatically applied) choose a good final approval cutoff.
The method described below is an example of this. As long as the method allows equal rankings at the top and bottom the voters can over-ride the good intentioned help in the cases where they are sure of which candidates they want to approve and disapprove. On Tue, 9 Sep 2003, [iso-8859-1] Kevin Venzke wrote: > Back in 1998 or so there was a method known as "Runoff Without Elimination" > or "RWE." I think it may have been devised by Donald. > > I'm not sure if this is a faithful reproduction of the rules, but I have > programmed this: > 1. The voter ranks candidates. (As in Bucklin, voters should decide where to > stop ranking.) > 2. Initially count first-place rankings only. > 3. While no one has votes from a majority (of ALL voters), AND non-eliminated > candidates exist: > "Eliminate" the non-eliminated candidate with the fewest votes. > ("Eliminate" has no implied meaning besides what I'll say here.) > Recount the votes such that every voter approves their highest ranked > non-eliminated candidate, as well as every eliminated candidate preferred to > that non-eliminated candidate. However, no one approves last-ranked (truncated) > candidates. > 4. Elect the candidate with the most votes. > > This may not seem interesting, except that it is very similar to IRV (but surely > better), and to "AER" (and doesn't require an approval cutoff). > > I did an interesting experiment, I think. Assuming everyone knows the identity > of the sincere CW before voting, and everyone ranks down to and including the CW, > but no lower, then it seems (based on my simulations) that the CW is always > elected. > > There's the possibility that some factions will truncate the CW to try to beat > him (an experiment I've yet to try), but this finding still seems interesting. > > > Kevin Venzke > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > ___________________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en français ! > Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com > ---- > Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info > ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info