Three-Tier Truncated Range Voting (3TTRV)

Election Theory Single Winner Theory
#1

The principle objective of a three-tier truncated range voting (3TTRV) system is to completely avoid any strong motivation to utilize automation, machinery, computers, etc. in the voting and the tabulation operations of political elections and referendums. The only means to achieve hand tabulation is to design the process to be absolutely as simple as reasonably possible. This obviously demands an extremely minimal transfer of data within the system, or more succinctly, extremely low information traffic.

The 3TTRV system consists of a significantly modified form of the range method. The ballot allows voters to grant 5, or 4, or 0 votes to each and every candidate printed on said ballot. The existence of the 0 vote tier merely adds a small degree of additional security for the ballots. Voters can also grant 5, or 4, but not 0 votes to write-in candidates, since allowing them to grant 0 votes to write-ins could lead to personal harassment. Allowing 3, 2, or 1 votes to be granted would afford very little improvement in the relevant expression of portions of electoral support, but would approximately double the complexity of automation-free tabulation. Only voters who provide provable significantly valid reasons should be allowed to submit mail-in ballots, so as to provide adequate system security.

Voters should probably be preregistered, with their names being noted on lists at the time when they vote. Voters would fill out paper ballots and then insert them into ballot boxes at polling places. At the end of the polling period, the votes should be immediately hand-counted at the polling places. Then the polling place staff should announce and publish all of the results one hour prior to submitting them to larger tabulation centers, which should do the same prior to submitting them to yet larger centers, since this would suppress organized tampering.

Upon close examination, systems of proportional representation (PR) do not appear to provide positive outcomes for the factions they ostensibly represent, and it is apparent that all PR methods require unacceptably high levels of information traffic.

Advocating three-tier truncated range voting (3TTRV) will be a very worthwhile mission!

#2

Why include 4 but not 1?

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#3

Just in case anyone may overlook the point of extremely low information traffic 3TTRV, with such a system the pragmatic voter would grant 5 votes to their strongly preferred contenders, thus providing them with a 5/5 (i.e. 100%) portion of electoral support.

That voter would probably grant 4 votes to their powerful-influencer-fronted front-running lesser-evils, thus providing them with a 4/5 (i.e. 80%) portion of electoral support.

And that voter would grant no votes at all to their powerful-influencer-fronted front-running greater-evils, thus providing them with a 0/5 (i.e. 0%) portion of electoral support.

In this way, such voters would sacrifice only a 1/5 (i.e. 20%) portion of electoral support for their lesser-evils, should they choose to do so, while providing no support at all to their powerful-influencer-fronted front-running greater-evils. This is almost as simple as the approval voting system, although it gives the voters a much improved way to deal with the lesser-evil phenomenon.

#4

I think what @psephomancy is getting at is, what about the fourth candidate? The dark horse opposite you, who’s even worse than the “greater evil”? Wouldn’t anyone willing to give their second favorite (what you call the “lesser evil”) a 4 be willing to give their second least favorite (what you call the “greater evil”) a 1? Then again, anyone who would give any candidate a score other than 5 or 0 is irrational, so who’s to say?

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#5

“Then again, anyone who would give any candidate a score other than 5 or 0 is irrational, so who’s to say?”

Why ‘irrational’?

Why not simply self-interested?

So yes, just grant the powerful-influencer-fronted front-running lesser-evils 4 votes, thus providing them with a 4/5 (i.e. 80%) portion of electoral support.

And give the strongly preferred contenders 5 votes, thus providing them with a 5/5 (i.e. 100%) portion of electoral support.

It’s not difficult to perceive.

#6

No, it’s not difficult to perceive, it’s just irrational.

#7

It appears to me that the Wikipedia has created its own vast subject area of voting systems, which happens to be so intellectually warped that even the most obviously simple and commonsensical ideas can be labeled as ‘irrational’. It’s really quite an amazing feat.

#8

What would be an amazing feat would be your convincing anyone by repeating your bare assertions in an increasingly arrogant manner. If the idea that a rationally self-interested individual would use intermediate scores is so obvious and commonsensical, you should have no trouble proving it. Myerson and Weber proved their theorems, not on Wikipedia, but in a series of papers, one of which the Wikipedia page links to in addition to accurately summarizing their theory. Maybe you are a respected theorist in your own right, but your handle is rkjoyce, and I don’t know who that is, so you’re going to have to produce a logical argument.

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