EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Danny Kleinman
Organization : | N/A
Post Date : | 9/30/2005
General Comments
Comment : | (6e) Continued The new totals: CANDIDATE MATCHPOINTS Gore 2.0 Bradley 3.0 McCain 4.0 Eliminating the low scorer (Gore): CANDIDATE RANK MATCHPOINTS Bradley 3rd 1.0 McCain 4th 0.0 CANDIDATE RANK MATCHPOINTS Bradley 99 0.0 McCain 2 1.0 CANDIDATE RANK MATCHPOINTS Bradley 2 0.0 McCain 1 1.0 The new totals: CANDIDATE MATCHPOINTS Bradley 1.0 McCain 2.0 At last we have a “head-to-head” race. Bradley, the low scorer, is eliminated and McCain is elected President. Though this procedure, which I call SOME (for “Single Office Majority Election”), could be used in a separate election for Vice President, there is a better method for electing a Vice President, who should really be conceived as a “Back-Up” in case the President dies in, or is removed from, office. Simply repeat SOME, with the computer creating a new set of ballots identical to the original set but eliminating the candidate who was elected President. The Vice President will then be the candidate whom the voters would have elected if the President hadn’t run for the office. Of course the prospect of electing a President and Vice President with similar political programs will provide an incentive for each party, and each faction within a party, to nominate more candidates and give the voters a wider choice. Because each step eliminates an “irrelevant” candidate, SOME fulfills Criteria (1), (2), (3) and (5), so nominating “also-ran” candidates cannot harm a party or faction, nor can marking preferences for “also-ran” candidates thwart the wishes of voters. (Though organized insincere “strategic” voting can alter outcomes, it cannot do so in predictable ways and to attempt it entails great risk of unforeseen outcomes opposite to the intentions of the organizers.) How can I prove that SOME fulfills Criterion (6), the Condorcet Criterion? Very simply. A Condorcet candidate beats each of his rivals head-to-head. Vis-a-vis each, he collects a majority of the available matchpoints (1 per ballot). That means on each successive tally he gets an above-average score, which cannot be the low score, and therefore he cannot be eliminated on any tally. Inquiries welcome!