Balinski & Laraki op-ed re USA election

[Warren D Smith]

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/trump-and-clinton-victorious-proof-that-u-s-voting-system-doesnt-work

Balinski & Laraki find a Pew USA-wide poll, copy here:
http://RangeVoting.org/PewMarch2016poll.pdf
(17-27 march 2016) including a rating-style question:

Candidate.....Great Good Average Poor Terrible NeverHeardOf
JohnKasich 5% 28% 39% 13% 7% 9%
BernSanders 10% 26% 26% 15% 21% 3%
TedCruz 7% 22% 31% 17% 19% 4%
HillClinton 11% 22% 20% 16% 30% 1%
DonTrump 10% 16% 12% 15% 44% 3%

From which I compute these average scores:
JK=2.12, BS=1.89, TC=1.80, HC=1.68, DT=1.31
if Great=4, Good=3, Average=2, Poor=1, Terrible=0.

Using "majority judgement" (median-based range voting)
we see JK=BS=TC=HC all have the same median score 3,
but Trump has lower median 2. Sanders has the
largest number of voters regarding him as Great
or Good, so by some median based methods Sanders would be the winner,
but Balinski & Laraki's particular flavor (they explain) would award
the win to Kasich. In any event Sanders & Kasich are the top
two -- MJ, average-based score, and approval voting all agree on that.

Pew also asked voters to vote plurality-style but asking only the
Dem-leaning voters
about HC & BS, and only the Republican-leaning voters about JK, DT, and TC:
41% Donald Trump
32% Ted Cruz
20% John Kasich
-----
49% Hillary Clinton
43% Bernie Sanders
which note are the exact opposites of the score- and MJ (and approval)
total-sample-wide results.

B&L also point out:
Pew's poll question "Do you think the primaries have been a good way
of determining who the best qualified nominees are or not?" found only
35 percent of respondents said yes.


--
Warren D. Smith
http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking
"endorse" as 1st step)

[Ted Stern]

This has been a very interesting cycle for voting method comparisons!

It's looking to me as if a proposal for either approval or score with top-two runoff would be received well at this point.

I would be more in favor of score (with named scores Excellent, Very Good, Good, etc. corresponding to scores 9 through 5, plus 0 for reject) with top two runoff, but Approval + top two runoff would be acceptable for me.

The real trick for a presidential election would be to frame it in a way that it could be modified in accordance with constitutional rules.

Ted

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[Warren D Smith]

They also published essentially the same piece here:
https://newrepublic.com/article/133411/trump-clinton-proof-us-voting-system-doesnt-work

[Jameson Quinn]

Of course, it doesn't help that Balinski and Laraki use "Majority voting" to mean plurality, while Maskin and Sen use essentially the same term to mean Condorcet.

[Warren D Smith]

>Of course, it doesn't help that Balinski and Laraki use "Majority voting" to mean plurality, while Maskin and Sen use essentially the same term to mean Condorcet.

--they may have had in mind the idea that you had to get a
majority of delegates to win, otherwise "contested convention."
In that sense it really isn't plurality voting.