Tue 1 Jan 2019 2:21AM
Value of the Balance Constraint
The very name of the web site equal.vote suggests that the balance constraint is not only necessary, but also almost sufficient. Why to understand that it is nowhere near sufficient.
The very name of the web site equal.vote suggests that the balance constraint is not only necessary, but also almost sufficient. Why to understand that it is nowhere near sufficient.
William WAUGH · Tue 1 Jan 2019 2:34AM
Consider "vote for or against one", the voting system that constrains the voter to vote for one candidate and against all the others, or against one candidate and for all the others, as the voter chooses. This system is tallied just like Score, but as you can see, the ballots are very much more constrained. This system meets Frohnmayer balance. However, it arguably degrades to FPtP. Suppose there is a plethora of candidates that hardly anyone knows about, or that many voters actively oppose. If the voter is going to vote "against", that vote against is split among the many bad or unknown candidates. Thereby, the voter perceives that her power is diluted if she votes against. Therefore, she wants to vote "for". Everyone votes "for", and the system has thereby degraded to FPtP. Balance bought us exactly nothing.
The above argument isn't original to me; I credit "Marylander" from another discussion forum https://forum.electionscience.org/t/international-support-for-approval-voting/176/11
Moreover, as Marylander also points out, Borda count is balanced but has known severe problems.