Approval voting slogan help?

[kir...@electology.org]

CES will be attending FreedomFest in Las Vegas, Nevada next month, and we're looking for input on slogans we could use on bumper stickers to promote approval voting. FreedomFest is an annual meeting of libertarians, so we're hoping to appeal to reasons libertarian voters would be excited to support an alternative voting method.

[Ciaran Dougherty]

Approval? I don't know, but I'm giving a presentation to my local chapter of the lp tonight on why supporting score voting is a libertarian position...

On Jun 14, 2018 10:36, <kir...@electology.org> wrote:

CES will be attending FreedomFest in Las Vegas, Nevada next month, and we're looking for input on slogans we could use on bumper stickers to promote approval voting. FreedomFest is an annual meeting of libertarians, so we're hoping to appeal to reasons libertarian voters would be excited to support an alternative voting method.

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[Jameson Quinn]

The difference between approval voting and choose-one voting can certainly be couched in terms of freedom. Approval gives you the freedom to vote for as many candidates as you want; choose-one restricts that freedom arbitrarily.

Reducing that to a bumper sticker slogan is tricky, though. "Freedom to approve"? Or, following Balinski and Laraki's justification of Majority Judgment (they have an article called "Judge, don't vote"), "freedom to judge"? "Freedom to vote honestly"? Any of these would work, but I'm not convinced that they're ideal. Anybody else have ideas?

(Note: I've been participating in the "cross-team dialogue" between CES, FairVote, and Equal Vote about issues of common interest. As noted elsewhere, FairVote has already agreed to take down some of their anti-score and anti-approval articles; that's a good step. One of the sub-threads is about naming the enemy, the system we all hate. Both "FPTP" and "plurality" are deeply problematic as names. We haven't yet reached definite consensus, but as of now the most promising nascent consensus is for "choose-one", so that's the term I've used above.)

2018-06-14 13:36 GMT-04:00 <kir...@electology.org>:

CES will be attending FreedomFest in Las Vegas, Nevada next month, and we're looking for input on slogans we could use on bumper stickers to promote approval voting. FreedomFest is an annual meeting of libertarians, so we're hoping to appeal to reasons libertarian voters would be excited to support an alternative voting method.

[Brian Olson]

I love to talk about the ability to freely, fully, and honestly express oneself on a ballot.

No "throwing your vote away", vote how you really feel.

(But I don't think an approval ballot is the best form of expression. Rankings or ratings please.)

[Nevin Brackett-Rozinsky]

Approval voting — Count all the votes

[Jan Kok]

Approval Voting - vote for as many as you like!

This has a subtle double meaning:

"as many as you like" can mean "whatever number you choose."

But it can also mean, "whichever candidates you really _like_."

Both meanings convey a sense of freedom.

[parker friedland]

> Approval voting — Count all the votes

I think that's the best one.

Approval voting — Count ALL the votes!
(instead of plurality voting where we only count first preference votes)

[a...@lomaxdesign.com]

Quoting Nevin Brackett-Rozinsky <nevin.brack...@gmail.com>:

> Approval voting — Count all the votes

Approval voting is, by far, the simplest voting reform with a possible
major impact. To greatly improve approval voting, use it in a
two-round system, with write-in votes allowed when a run-off is needed.

RCV (IRV) would also be improved by allowing "overvotes" to be
counted. (and then with better canvassing methods . . . IRV rules as
generally implemented cause votes to be uncounted, when those votes
could show a far better winner than the IRV winner.)

There is no doubt that better systems than simple Approval or Runoff
Approval are possible, but Approval is terminally simple to implement,
and it is precinct summable (as is Score, of course). Approval, is, in
fact, the simplest form of Score, so one way to frame future reform of
an Approval system would be that it allows what are, in essence,
fractional votes, and it could start with simple ranked/Approval
systems, i.e., Bucklin, which was probably the best system ever
implemented in the U.S.

The simplest system is Count All the Votes, which should be
emphasized. The idea that "overvotes" should be discarded was rooted
in voting systems where a majority was required to win, or the
election failed and needed to be repeated -- with new nominations!!!
Nobody was disqualified, but, in practice, from the results of a first
poll with majority failure, the candidate set was reduced.

Basic democratic principle that was abandoned in favor of some weird
idea of efficiency: approval of a majority for any decision. IRV
accomplishes a faux majority by tossing out ballots that did not
contain a vote for the top two.

>
>
>
>
> On Thursday, June 14, 2018 at 1:36:33 PM UTC-4, kir...@electology.org wrote:
>>

>> CES will be attending FreedomFes <https://www.freedomfest.com/>t in Las

[kir...@electology.org]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, everyone!

Do you have any feedback on the ideas below?

1. "The market doesn't limit your choices; why should your ballot?"

 2. "Demand more freedom, not less. Approval voting: the ultimate freedom of expression" 

[Brian Olson]

1. obvious pandering. Targeting a group of free-market loving people this message will already be saturated. There's a case to draw parallels between economic markets and elections but I think that's more of a paragraph than a slogan.

2. get to the point faster. I'd lead with something like "vote with more freedom" which leads with the issue at hand (voting) and action we'd like (changing the system towards more freedom). "demand more freedom, not less" is so obvious as to be a waste of space. Also "Approval voting: the ultimate freedom of expression" is too easy to disprove (don't be like people claiming IRV is infallibly the best thing ever). But I suppose modern marketing doesn't let you make the non-superlative statement, "Approval voting: a pretty simple and achievable modest but substantial improvement in elections". There might be a way to spin that more positively though. "no really, we can do this, actually do this" is an appealing quality when facing a market of activist causes where 90% of them seem like unlikely long-shot bets.

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[Warren D Smith]

--both these slogans more appropriate for range rather than approval voting.

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

[Steve Cobb]

The key message to libertarians is that the current choose-one plurality voting method underlies the two-party duopoly, via Duverger's Law. Approval Voting is the simplest way to break the duopoly. Capital-L Libertarians are currently under the delusion that third parties are excluded by ballot-access and debate-access rules, but these are secondary. This was all conveyed in the attached flyer, which we made for FreedomFest a couple of years ago. Now try to capture all that in a concise slogan....

[Warren D Smith]

On 6/15/18, Warren D Smith <warre...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/15/18, kir...@electology.org <kir...@electology.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Thanks for sharing your thoughts, everyone!
>>>
>>
>> Do you have any feedback on the ideas below?
>>
>> 1. "The market doesn't limit your choices; why should your ballot?"
>> 2. "Demand more freedom, not less. Approval voting: the ultimate freedom
>> of expression"
>
> --both these slogans more appropriate for range rather than approval
> voting.

in fact I had at one point written an essay attempting to appeal to
libertarians re range voting:

http://rangevoting.org/ForLibs.html

[Andy Jennings]

"Approval Voting - Freedom from two-party domination"

"Approval Voting - Give yourself the freedom to vote outside the top-two parties"

"Approval Voting - Escape from voting for the lesser evil"

"Approval Voting - Don't just vote for the lesser evil"

"Approval Voting - Stop settling for the lesser evil"

"Approval Voting - Let's move beyond lesser-evil voting"

"Approval Voting - Let's get rid of the lizards"

"Approval Voting - Make third-parties viable"

"Approval Voting - Vote for the greater good instead of for the lesser evil"

[Jameson Quinn]

"Approval Voting - Make third-parties viable"

Reform will mean dealing with the two major parties at some points. Saying "we think you shouldn't have unfair advantages" is OK. Saying "we support your enemies" is not. I think this slogan would veer too far towards the latter. 

[Steve Cobb]

Sure, in a general-audience context, and of course when speaking to the major parties, in which case you switch to talking about primaries. But at FreedomFest, even this slogan is pretty mild. However, you can mitigate it by talking about how AV will also deny third parties their spoiler weapon.

[Steve Cobb]

Nice! I like the word "settle".

On Saturday, June 16, 2018 at 7:30:59 AM UTC+2, Andrew Jennings wrote:

"Approval Voting - Freedom from two-party domination"

"Approval Voting - Give yourself the freedom to vote outside the top-two parties"

"Approval Voting - Escape from voting for the lesser evil"

"Approval Voting - Don't just vote for the lesser evil"

"Approval Voting - Stop settling for the lesser evil"

"Approval Voting - Let's move beyond lesser-evil voting"

"Approval Voting - Let's get rid of the lizards"

"Approval Voting - Make third-parties viable"

"Approval Voting - Vote for the greater good instead of for the lesser evil"

[Ciaran Dougherty]

If you're talking libertarians, the line that resonated most with the group I spoke with Thursday was "marketplace of ideas"

So perhaps something like "approval voting: opening the marketplace of ideas"?

--

[William Waugh]

Permission to quote on Facebook?

On Saturday, June 16, 2018 at 1:30:59 AM UTC-4, Andrew Jennings wrote:

"Approval Voting - Freedom from two-party domination"

"Approval Voting - Give yourself the freedom to vote outside the top-two parties"

"Approval Voting - Escape from voting for the lesser evil"

"Approval Voting - Don't just vote for the lesser evil"

"Approval Voting - Stop settling for the lesser evil"

"Approval Voting - Let's move beyond lesser-evil voting"

"Approval Voting - Let's get rid of the lizards"

"Approval Voting - Make third-parties viable"

"Approval Voting - Vote for the greater good instead of for the lesser evil"

...