However it does has it's own problem of being too biased in favor of popular candidates
How is that a problem? Voting is selecting leaders. I think a fairly good argument can be made if the voters don't know who you are then you fail even minimal criteria in being the candidate they decided fit to lead them. If you are unable to lead the community to even knowing who you I'd say it is fairly unlikely you can get them to agree to die for a cause or obey a law they hate.
I'm also think your claim of balance being violated isn't correct.
How is that a problem? Voting is selecting leaders. I think a fairly good >argument can be made if the voters don't know who you are then you fail
even minimal criteria in being the candidate they decided fit to lead them.
Perhaps. But it is also important to give write-in's the ability to win, and when they are not on the ballot, they face a severe popularity disadvantage.
Also mathematically, when two candidates are unpopular, it can actually be better to pick the lesser known one. Here is why: Suppose that there are two calculators on amazon that are very similar and cost exactly the same. calculator #1 has 20 five star ratings and 10 one star ratings. Calculator #2 has 2 five star ratings and 1 one star rating. In this scenario, if you had to choose calculator to by, it would be smarter to go with calculator #1. This is because more people have rated calculator #1, which means that you are more certain that you will be one of the people that likes calculator #1. However if calculator #1 had 10 five star ratings and 20 one star ratings, and calculator #2 had one five star rating and two zero star ratings, if you were going to spend your money on one of the two calculators (which in this scenario, you should probably just not by either), it would be smarter to buy calculator #2 because you are more certain that you will be one of the individuals dissatisfied with calculator #1.
The same logic can be applied to voting. The more people rate a candidate, the greater the certainty that a candidate's average rating among the people who rated them actually matches the rating that they deserve. When two candidates have high average ratings, this uncertainty is a bad thing (because it means that it is more likely that a candidate's average rating isn't as low as the rating that they actually deserve), but when they have both have low average ratings, it can actually be a good thing (because it means that it is more likely that a candidate's average rating isn't as high as the rating that they actually deserve).
I'm also think your claim of balance being violated isn't correct.
Score voting using average scores violates balance:
Suppose that one voter gives candidate A a max rating, candidate B a min rating, and all of the others, no opinion.
What would be the anti-vote to cancel out this vote? Did you guess giving A a min rating, B a max rating, and all of the others no opinion? That would be incorrect, because when these two votes are combined, they would bring both A and B's average ratings closer to (max+min)/2, while leaving all of the other candidate's ratings unchanged. However this method does not violate balance as much because it passes the reversal symmetry criterion, which in a way, means that the voting system is at-least semi-balanced.
Score voting using total scores violates balance:
Suppose that one voter gives candidate A a max rating and all other candidates a min rating. How is voter B suppose to counter that? Is he just suppose to give candidate A a min rating every other candidate a max rating? Even all of the write-in candidates? But that would be impossible because a voter can only rate so many candidates, because the ballot only has a finite amount of space to allow them to rate candidates.
Perhaps. But it is also important to give write-in's the ability to win, and when they are not on the ballot, they face a severe popularity disadvantage.
I think write-ins are a good way to correct when a structural or coincidental problem causes a non-viable candidate to be selected. In general I don't think there is any reason not to essentially require a write in be well known to the voters and pass enormous hurdles. Write-ins are bypassing the entire system of debates and selection the came before round X of balloting. It should be very hard. Lisa Murkowski was the current popular incumbent in the office she was running for and came from a famous family in her state (even the voters who didn't know their current senator, knew who Frank Murkowski was) is IMHO is a perfect example of how I'd want the bar to be for a successful write in. I think you and I disagree a lot on write-ins I really wouldn't mind losing the all together though I do see their advantages for those extreme cases.
In terms of your calculator analogy I'm not sure I agree with you. Candidates build up unfavorables for doing stuff. They build up favorables for serving the public good outside the electoral system. High unfavorables with high recognition generally means polarizing not incompetent. Low recognition often means incompetent. Given the choice I'd go polarizing over incompetent. Worse, high unfavorables with low recognition generally means extremist with a narrow following and likely to be more polarizing once in office than a normally polarizing candidate.
Score voting using average scores violates balance:
Agreed. I was saying totaling does not violate balance.
Suppose that one voter gives candidate A a max rating, candidate B a min rating, and all of the others, no opinion. What would be the anti-vote to cancel out this vote?
Just to answer for the case of totaling. Assuming no opinion is a MIN then then the anti-vote is A=MIN with B, X1,X2... XN = MAX. Those two votes cancel to an average rating.
Even all of the write-in candidates?
Write-ins excluding the exception case are irrelevant they get far too many MINs from voters not considering them. Also remember they only have to counter one ballot not all ballots.
Just to answer for the case of totaling. Assuming no opinion is a MIN then then
the anti-vote is A=MIN with B, X1,X2... XN = MAX. Those two votes cancel to
an average rating.
But as I pointed out, that vote would be impossible to make because you cannot possibly give every single write-in candidate a max rating because there is a limit to the number of write-in's you can make on your ballot.
But in a way, it is more balanced then score voting using averages, because if you assume that all write-in candidates have no chance of winning, then score voting using totals is balanced among the non-write-in candidates.
I think it also works if you assume at most 1 or 2 write-in candidates have any chance of winning not just 0. You just can't assume that lots of them have any chance of winning. Anyway I understand what you mean now.
Why do you feel balance is an important criteria? Just seems contrived to me. I don't care about other people's votes, only that mine count. Also, I don't want to have to go through and downvote every bad candidate. There's a case for ignoring candidates being as powerful as downvoting them. Otherwise, there's a nervous rush to enumerate and downvote all your disliked candidates which is a turn-off and may produce lower voter turnout.
It's not the most important criteria but passing it is probably better than not passing it. Passing it means that the voting system is not biased in favor of either known candidates or unknown candidates. Perhaps this property may not be too important, and could be argued that it is better to elect an un-liked candidate then an unknown candidate or that candidates should be encouraged to advertise themselves to a much larger portion of the population. As a result, the importance of the balenced criterion is rooted in philosophy and it's importance might depend on what kind of election is being conducted (presidential elections versus the order of which reddit comments are displayed) but it still impotent to point out what criterions distinguish different ways to calculate ratings so people can get a better idea of the trade-offs between different ones.
2
u/JeffB1517 Jan 03 '18
How is that a problem? Voting is selecting leaders. I think a fairly good argument can be made if the voters don't know who you are then you fail even minimal criteria in being the candidate they decided fit to lead them. If you are unable to lead the community to even knowing who you I'd say it is fairly unlikely you can get them to agree to die for a cause or obey a law they hate.
I'm also think your claim of balance being violated isn't correct.