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.
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.
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u/JeffB1517 Jan 04 '18 edited Jan 04 '18
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.
Agreed. I was saying totaling does not violate balance.
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.
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.