At 07:38 PM 8/11/2005, Warren Smith wrote:
More generally could consider, say, "asset voting" an unconventional voting method I invented http://math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/works.html #77 which also was similar to an idea of Forrest Simmons. It was designed to be a multiwinner method but can be used single-winner. Is asset voting condorcet or not? Does the question even make sense? Not easy to say. A voter who gives his entire asset vote to Nader, is not necessarily saying "my option of Gore, Bush, Buchanan, Peroutka etc is, they are all equal." It is more like he is saying "I think my ranking of the candidates agrees with Nader's ranking of them."
Asset Voting is my favorite of Mr. Smith's voting methods, which should not be surprising to those who know me as a dedicated advocate of delegable proxy. Asset Voting closely resembles the Proxy voting proposal on the electorama wiki.
Some aspects would depend on implementation details which have not necessarily been fully defined. For example, what about write-in votes?
Nevertheless, in Asset Voting, one gives one's vote(s) to candidates who are trusted, either to function appropriately in the office, or to function appropriately in reassigning the votes given to them. This is a proxy function, in which the candidate represents the voter.
So in the example given above, the Nader voter is essentially entrusting to Nader the voter's power, which could then be reassigned however Nader sees fit.
In basic Delegable Proxy, the proxy knows the identity of the giver of the proxy (which is quite desirable in an open structure where bidirectional communication is to be highly valued); but the secret ballot variation described on the wiki is quite like Asset Voting.
So the first proxy is given to the candidate or candidates, secretly by the voter. Then the candidate receiving the votes either exercises the votes directly (i.e., by electing himself or herself) or passes them on (which is equivalent to the delegation of the proxy). Further, full multilevel delegable proxy could be used as a means of pulling together the votes if there ended up being a large number of vote-holders (as could happen if write-ins or some other method of handling very large numbers of candidates were part of the system).
"Condorcet" is an election method. Asset Voting combines an election method (which is basically range voting) with a deliberative phase. In the end, in my opinion, no election method is going to suffice until and unless there is such a phase; and, indeed, the result will, necessarily in some cases, "fail" this or that criterion of what is supposedly fair. The Condorcet criterion is a good example of a criterion that seems very good at first, but which can clearly produce a disastrous winner under some circumstances.
A great deal of confusion exists, I think, over the "one person, one vote" concept. To me, that concept applies most clearly in a standard Robert's Rules kind of situation: Yes/No. If an election result is to be ratified or else it is not accepted, then each "citizen" would have one vote, clearly. There is no "election method" involved, just a vote Yes or No on the outcome of the prior process. While there is indeed value in some method of attempting to develop supermajority ratification of elections, in the end, a simple plurality of Yes over No must suffice to ratify the election (which presumes that abstentions are neutral). That is, the question of whether or not the entire election process produces an appropriate result must be one which is subject to interpretation and decision by the majority.
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