Anonymous user
Araucaria
Joined 12 September 2018
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The etymology of my username is explained on my [http://www.metafilter.com Metafilter] [http://www.metafilter.com/user/23101 User Profile].
It is important that we not be confused by the false choice that there are only two viewpoints on any issue. This is why it is important that there to be enough candidates in the general election to challenge common wisdom, talking points and the implicit agreement in the two-party duopoly to avoid discussing issues that actually affect us. ▼
Instead of our current ([[First Past the Post electoral system|Single vote]]) system, I would prefer a voting method that does not force one to vote for a compromise based on assumptions of what other voters would do.
In the interest of simplicity and expediency, I favor an incremental transition as follows:
* First Choice plus [[Approval voting|Approval]]: Single First Choice vote, plus [[Approval voting|Approval]] of any number of other candidates. The First Choice is also approved. If no candidate wins >50% of the First Choice votes, elect candidate with highest approval.
* First Choice plus [[Range voting]]. Single First Choice as above, plus a score of 0 to 99 can be given to any number of other candidates.
Why do I favor [[Range Voting]] over [[Approval voting|Approval]]? It allows the voter to show a lesser preference for some candidates, if only to encourage them to keep contributing to public discourse. And perhaps more importantly, it can be used to infer [[Preferential voting|candidate rankings]] by sorting the candidate's ratings in order from highest to lowest. Candidates with equal ratings would be given equal rank.
Once a [[Ratings ballot]] is used, the scores could be tabulated (inferring candidate rankings from their ratings) and reported with 5 different methods for comparison: Top First Choice, [[Range voting]], [[Schulze]], [[Definite Majority Choice]], or [[Cardinal pairwise]] using [[River]].▼
▲Once a [[Ratings ballot]] is used, the scores could be tabulated
With familiarity, it would eventually be possible to transition to a more robust voting system. In the case of no candidate winning a majority of the First Choice votes, we could select from one of the other four robust methods at random to introduce unpredictability (thus avoiding [[Arrow's impossibility theorem|Arrow's paradox]]). Since all four methods have similar sincere voting strategies but different strategies in the case of cycles, it would give an incentive to vote by sincere preference instead of trying to game the system.▼
As voters recognize the difference between FC+RV and more sophisticated methods, support would increase for the transition to a more robust voting system.
▲
I would prefer to avoid primary elections. However, they may continue to be required during a transition period. If that is the case, I would recommend using
* First Choice plus Approval. As above. Narrow field to at least 2 candidates, comprising the candidate with highest First Choice totals (single vote winner), most-approved, and second-highest approved, plus any other candidates with higher approval than the Single-Vote winner. The main advantage of this is simplicity, plus it would be a marked improvement of the Top-Two Louisiana-style primary using Single Vote --- voters would be assured that a good selection of alternative candidates would face the Single-vote winner in the general election.
* First Choice plus [[Range voting]]. As above. Narrow field to at least 2 candidates, who would include the Single Vote winner, cumulative ratings winner, second-highest cumulative ratings, plus any other candidate with a pairwise [[Beatpath|beatpath]] to the cumulative ratings winner, plus any candidate with higher cumulative rating than the Single Vote winner. The improvement here over First Choice plus Approval would be that the entire [[Smith set]] (plus first- and second-place range voting winners) would be included in the slate of candidates going to the general election.
▲It is important that we not be confused by the false choice that there are only two viewpoints on any issue. This is why it is important that there to be enough candidates in the general election to challenge common wisdom, talking points and the implicit agreement in the two-party duopoly to avoid discussing issues that actually affect us.
You can contact me at ''araucaria dot araucana at gmail dot com''.
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