I said that the automatic equal ranking option can't possibly worsen someone's result. But, in BeatpathWinner, there could be two below-line candidates who have beatpath wins over all the others, and your more preferred of those two barely has a beatpath win against the other.
But that beatpath from the more preferred to the less preferred of those two below-line candidates includes a defeat between two of your above-line candidates. When you, and a few like you, promote all the above-line candidates to 1st place, you reduce the strength of that beatpath from the more preferred to the less preferred of those two below-line candidates. So, where the more preferred one won before your 1st choice promotions, the less preferred one wins after you've promoted the above-line candidates to 1st place.
But of course it could just as well go the other way, and change the winner from the less preferred to the more preferred of those 2 below-line candidates. So that effect seems neutral with respect to your expectation.
But the automatic equal ranking could change the winner from a below-line candidate to an above-line candidate, and couldn't do the opposite. So it would seem that the automatic equal ranking improves your expectation.
Also, for the voter who considers the merit differences on either side of the line to be negligible compared to the merit differences across the line, of course the use of the option could only negligily worsen that voter's outcome.
Mike Ossipoff
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