Due to a miscommunication, the CAV/AAV Board had not fully signed off on the statement that I posted yesterday. Here's the corrected statement approved by the whole CAV/AAV Board. I apologize for the confusion.
A Summary of the Actions of the CAV Board Meeting of August 12, 2005 The Board of Citizens for Approval Voting (CAV) has decided against a major reorganization of CAV and Americans for Approval Voting (AAV). But it has broadened the mission statement to allow other groups to work with CAV/AAV for the adoption of better voting systems and also to address other forms of elections, such as multiwinner elections and general ballot questions, including citizen initiatives and bond-package voting in referenda. Although still subject to change, the approved plan is that CAV will remain a non-profit organization that works to promote Approval Voting to an international audience, and to spur scientific study of all voting systems so that best practices can be identified. AAV remains a political-action organization that works for the adoption of legislation in the United States to enact Approval Voting. In the instance that Approval Voting is not among the systems being considered for a specific use, AAV will also support the adoption of any other voting system that the Board and members agree is clearly superior to some existing voting system. Of course, implementation details can have drastic impacts on any voting system, and therefore AAV will evaluate all legislation related to the adoption of new voting systems on a case-by-case basis. Both CAV and AAV look forward to cooperating with other election- reform groups. We hope to foster a spirit of cooperation and open- mindedness. We do not feel that the CAV name precludes or hinders such cooperation. In fact, we applaud recent proposals to create a new Center for Range Voting (CRV), as suggested by Warren Smith and supported by Jan Kok and others, though we have reservations about Range Voting that are expressed in the Appendix to this statement. We look forward to working closely with CRV and other voting-reform organizations. We would also be interested in the possibility of joining an umbrella organization dedicated to voting-system reform. In addition, we remain open to cooperating with the Center for Voting and Democracy for mutual benefit. At this stage, we believe that Approval Voting's advantages are strong enough to redouble our efforts for its adoption in public elections. The Board discussed several implementation strategies and believe that it would be useful to target party caucuses and primaries, as has been proposed by Warren Smith (e.g., Iowa '08). We also agree that more public-poll experiments, which compare outcomes under different voting systems, are worthy of support. Finally, the Board has approved a plan to complete the incorporation of the CAV and AAV organizations and to add members to the Boards of the respective bodies as soon as possible. Some possible nominees have been discussed, but we also call on our members and supporters to put forward additional names. APPENDIX: RESERVATIONS ABOUT RANGE VOTING Although Range Voting provides a generalization of Approval Voting, it is not obvious how many levels of approval voters should be allowed to indicate: 100, 10, or some other number? Even 10 levels is asking a lot of voters, who--psychological experiments show-- generally cannot make such fine discriminations. In politics, the situation is aggravated when there are, say, ten candidates in a party primary, and the average voter has little information about most of them. To use a measure of regret, based on 10 levels, to argue that Range beats Approval is to engage in an exercise of dubious validity and false precision. We do not say that 2 levels is always perfect--3 may be better in some instances--but we think it is a good starting point for most citizens, including the 50% who cannot name the Vice President. At a theoretical level, it is well known in game theory and social- choice theory that a larger menu of choices do not necessarily lead to better decisions, even when there is complete information. Indeed, additional choices often render a system more vulnerable to manipulation, especially by sophisticated players. Recent research has shown that Appproval Voting gives "strong Nash equilibria," making certain outcomes invulnerable even to coalitions of players, which other voting systems do not induce.* In short, we question the advantages of Range Voting on both practical and theoretical grounds while admitting that, as a relatively new system, it deserves more research. *Steven J. Brams and M. Remzi Sanver, "Critical Strategies under Approval Voting: Who Gets Ruled in and Ruled out," ELECTORAL STUDIES (2005, forthcoming). END OF STATEMENT -- Rob LeGrand, psephologist [EMAIL PROTECTED] Citizens for Approval Voting http://www.approvalvoting.org/ ____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info