[python-committers] Vote on governance will happen between Nov 16 - Nov 30

[Tim Peters]

[Chris Jerdonek <chris.jerdonek at gmail.com>[

> A major problem with approval voting IMO (and range and score) is that
> it constrains how voters can express themselves:
>

Well, that's an objection I never heard before - and expect I'll never hear
again ;-)

To the contrary, range/score voting are the _most_ expressive, allowing to
you make both gross and fine distinctions, and even to say "no opinion at
all about this one".  The only thing you can't do is express non-linear
preferences (whether flat-out intransitive, such as "I like A better than
B, and B better than C, but C better than A", or seemingly inconsistent,
such as "I like A 2x better than B, and B 4x better than C, but A only 3x
better than C").

In range/score voting, you give each a score according to your true
preferences as the granularity of the universe of possible scores allows.
For example, if scores are limited to be in range(100), give your most
favorite score 99, and if you favor them 3x more than your second-favorite,
give the latter score 33.  If you can't stand your second-favorite at all,
give them score 0.  If you like both your top choices the same, give them
both score 99.  If you only _know_ about your top candidate, and really
don't know anything about the other two, don't give the latter two scores
at all.  Then you're effectively saying "I did all the research I had time
for, and will leave it to others who did research the other two to rate
them".

This seems to me supremely relevant for the task at hand:  a substantial
number of detailed proposals that, in fact, won't _all_ be carefully
studied by the people asked to vote on them.  Merely ranking them from 1 to
6 (whatever) _forces_ people to fabricate opinions about proposals they may
not have even read, forbids them from saying, e.g., "I like #2 and #5
equally", forbids them from saying "#1 is ten times more attractive to me
than #3", forbids them from saying "I have the tiniest of preferences for
#5 over #4", forbids them from saying "I didn't even read #6, and so have
no opinion about it", and so on.

In approval voting, the universe of scores effectively shrinks to {0, 1}.
It's not _as_ expressive by far.  There you're limited to saying one of "I
can live with this" (score 1) or "I can't live with this" (score 0).  The
winner is whichever one the most people can live with.  Or, if people can't
refrain from playing dishonest tactical games , whichever one the most
people _claimed_ they could live with.  What more can you ask for?  If
people lie about their true preferences, it's hardly a voting system's
fault if it delivers a result consistent with the lies it's told.


> If you really like one candidate but your second choice is so-so but
> better than the third, do you "approve" of your second choice? If you
> do, you'll be helping to defeat the candidate you really like. So as a
> voter your hands are artificially tied.
>

If you're stuck with the relatively inexpressive approval (0 or 1) voting,
as above:  you can live with your second-favorite or not.  Vote
accordingly.  If you vote "I can live with them" and they win, what's your
_actual_ complaint?  You _said_ you could live with them.  If that's an
outcome you can't live with, you should have voted 0 for them instead.  If
you want to specify _degrees_ of approval, then you want range/score (with
a larger universe of possible scores) voting instead.

> [skipping stuff about elections-in-general]
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