Demorep wrote:
[D- Going beyond Majority Rule will boggle the minds of most voters into
paralysis- note the simple pandering by both Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore in the
so-called Prez debate on Oct. 3. Guess what Prez candidates would do with
any *complex* EM single winner method under serious consideration in the
U.S.
I reply:
Yes, actually, they'd probably use the same warning that they
use now, and tell people not to waste their vote by voting for
any non-Republocrat in 1st place. Would voters understand that
they were being misled by that advice? Very likely they wouldn't.
So actually Demorep may have been right: Voters might not know
what to do with rank-balloting, especially when inundated with
intentionally bad advice from Republocrat candidates and the media.
We could tell them different? Whom do they listen to?
Of course I still maintain that adding Y/N to rank balloting
only further muddies the water and complicates the strategy. And
the more complicated the strategy is, the easier it is for
Republocrats & media to confuse & mislead voters about how they
should vote. So Demorep seems right about voters being unlikely
to know what to do with rank balloting, but adding Y/N to rank
balloting makes the situation even worse.
Demorep continues:
[D- *Absolute* acceptability exists for candidates, food, housing or
whatever. The voters have enough brains to vote YES or NO on U.S. President
candidates]
I reply:
Then let them vote for or not vote for candidates, with Approval.
But if you're talking about rank balloting with Y/N, the strategy
will be so complicated that it will be all the easier for
candidates & commentators to mislead & confuse voters about how
they should vote.
Demorep continues:
I'd said:
Every Condorcetist or BeatpathWinner advocate on this list would
agree that A should win.
Demorep replies:
[D- Assuming YES votes are exactly the same as the first 2 place votes,
I reply:
You can't assume that.
Demorep wrote:
Obviously, a relative place number vote is NOT an Acceptable (YES) vote
(notwithstanding Mr. Ossipoff's attempts for circa 4 years on this list to
deny such political fact of life).]
I reply:
I quite agree that relative rank positions aren't Y/N votes.
The advantage of rank balloting is that the election isn't a Y/N
choice: It's a relative choice. Someone has to win, so which
should it be? Relative balloting, because the election is a relative
choice.
But, as I said, Demorep was likely right when he said that
voters are likely to not understand how to use rank balloting,
especially when, as Demorep pointed out, the media and the
Republocrat candidates will be inundating the voters with bad
advice intended to help them misunderstand how to vote.
Mike Ossipoff
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