4^5 = 1024, not 5^4 = 625 code words! ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: *Forest Simmons* <fsimmons@pcc.edu> Date: Friday, February 12, 2021 Subject: Limited ran On Friday, February 12, 2021, Forest Simmons <fsimmons@pcc.edu> wrote: > It pains me to see all of the ranked ballot proposals that unnecessarily > limit preferences to three or four alternatives because of ignorance of > simple higher resolution ballots that can be easily marked and read (by > hand or by machine) without ambiguity or confusion from poorly formed > characters, stray marks, etc. > > A method that allows only three or four candidates to be ranked cannot > satisfy clone independence ... the only indispensable justification for > scrapping First Past the Post Plurality. And (beyond that) it exacerbates > the biggest IRV/STV/RCV defect, the high likelihood that one's choices will > be completely exhausted before the final rounds unless you rank lesser > evils at the expense of alternatives you like better, because of ranking > limitations that highlight the effect of premature eliminations. > > It is alleged that because of ambiguous handwriting and lack of room for > more than a few "bubbles," only a handful of distinct ranks can be allowed. > > But what if each bubble has a different value?: > > [8] [4] [2] [1] > > The rank of a candidate is the sum of its darkened bubble values ... a > number between zero and fifteen. > > Suppose that there are to be 26 candidates, then instead of indicating > their relative ranks with mere numbers, you can order them with standard > alpha numeric code words ... Alpha1, Bravo2, Charlie3, Delta4, Echo5, > Foxtrot6, ... Victor22, Whiskey23, Xray24, Yankee25, Zulu26. So the > military already solved the ambiguity/ "noisy channel" commuunication > problem in the early days of Morse code. > > These 26 code words cannot be confused with each other no matter how > illegible the hand writing. > > If 625 alphabetically ordered code words are needed, there are that many > easily distinguished five-letter words that satisfy the following rules: > > The 1st letter of each word must be a member of the set {A, F, L, Q}. > The 2nd letter must be from {B, G, M, T}. > The 3rd from {C, H, N, W}, the 4th from {D, J, P, Y}, and the last from > {E, K, S, Z}. > > The important thing is that each of the five sets consists of four letters > that cannot be confused among themselves. Futhermore letters in the same > position come from different quarters of the alphabet, making alphabetical > order easier to discern. > > The ballots are to be accompanied by an easily accessible table of code > words numbered in alphabetical order. However, the voters can skip numbers > that they don't need when there are more code words than candidates in the > race. Similarly, it goes without saying that the same code word can be > applied to more than one alternative when equal rankings are allowed. And > of course, these code words can be adapted for high resolution ratings if > needed in the Range/Score/Cardinal Ratings context. > > These suggestions are intended for absentee and other mail-in ballots ... > electronic voting machines should allow in person voters to drag the names > into a list in any order, and then print out paper copies for voter and > precinct receipts. > > I am sure there are better ways of doing this, but then why do we still > keep seeing proposals with unnecessarily crippling limitations on the > number of distinct ranks? > > Comments? Suggestions? > >