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ternary operator vote

Andrew Koenig ark at research.att.com
Wed Feb 12 09:43:11 EST 2003 
Laura> If, on the other hand, I so badly want to avoid B that I will
Laura> vote no-change even though I support A, then I haven't helped
Laura> A's cause.  When C wins over A by 2 votes, I will be insensed.

ark> If C wins over A by two votes, C would have won whatever you did.

Dennis>         But in this case, C and A would have tied if he /had/
Dennis> voted for A instead "against B by voting C".

If you want to support A, and you would rather see no change than
either B or C, then by implication, you should certainly vote for
A and also vote for no change, but not vote for B or C.

Again, please read the discussion of this system in electionmethods.org;
one of its properties is that it is always right to vote for your
favorite alternative and against your least favorite.  The only
question is where to draw the line between alternatives you like
well enough to approve and ones you dislike enough to disapprove.

Electionmethods.org argues at some length that allowing votes other
than "yes" and "no" without otherwise changing the system does not
make the system more fair in any useful sense.  As an alternative,
it proposes "Condorcet voting", which allows people to vote by
rank ordering rather than just yes/no.

If you read the detailed description of Condorcet voting, you will see
why I think that approval voting makes more practical sense.


-- 
Andrew Koenig, ark at research.att.com, http://www.research.att.com/info/ark
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