James--
You wrote:
For public elections, I'm recommending the following procedure. 1. Ranked vote. Pairwise tally. If there is a Condorcet winner, they take office. 2. If there is no Condorcet winner, non-members of the Schwartz set...
I reply:
In public elections, where pairwise ties are vanishingly rare, the Schwartz set is the same as the Smith set. And the Smith set is a lot briefer and simpler to define. So, for public election proposals, I suggest changing "Schwartz set" to "Smith set".
You continued:
...are eliminated from further consideration.
I reply:
I repeat here my suggestion that there's no reason to hold a 2nd balloting for order-reversal protection unless the circular tie has all majority defeats. That's because a circular tie won by a majority-beaten candidate must have all majority defeats in the circular tie.
You continued:
In addition, there is a period of time between votes where any member of the Schwartz set has the option of dropping out of the race and removing their name from the second ballot. 3. A second ranked vote takes place. The Condorcet winner or completed winner of the second vote takes office.
I reply:
Aside from my suggestion to only hold the 2nd balloting if the circular tie is all majority-beaten, I don't have any objections to that proposal. As you know, I prefer Approval for the 2nd balloting, but either Approval or Condorcet would be fine for the 2nd balloting. Others too have told me that they'd prefer Condorcet to Approval for the 2nd balloting.
You continued:
At this point I think that the problem is very serious, easily serious enough to justify another balloting if such a second balloting would help, and possibly serious enough to render single-balloting Condorcet critically unreliable as a voting method.
I reply:
...unreliable compared to what? IRV will jump to extremes because of its own idiosyncracy. Condorcet will jump to an extreme only if someone sucessfully uses the risky offensive order-reversal strategy. Purality can fail to elect a CW if sufficiently many people don't bury their favorite.
Two main differences between Condorcet and IRV or Plurality:
1. IRV & Plurality spontaneously let an extreme beat the CW, unless defensive strategy is knowledgably used. That happens in Condorcet only if the risky offensive order-reversal strategy is successfully used.
2. In all of these methods the CW can be protected by defensive strategy. In Condorcet that defensive strategy is equal ranking, or defensive truncation which, though not electing the CW, will deter offensive order-reversal. In IRV & Plurality, that defensive strategy requires burying one's favorite.
These are things that I've been telling you all along, but you continue to speak of Condorcet's strategy problem in a vacuum, as if Condorcet were the only method with a strategy problem. Maybe you'll just keep on repeating your claims without replying to these objections to them, but, if so, I just want everyone to know that that's what you're doing. You're repeating without listening.
All 3 methods, Condorcet, IRV, & Plurailty, can elect an extreme candidate instead of the CW. But that's where the similarity ends. These 3 methods differ in the two numbered ways that I described above. Of course they also differ in their strategy criteria compliances, the strategy guarantees that they offer.
You continued:
I'm not entirely sure about this, but that's the way it seems to me now. As for whether a second balloting would significantly mitigate this problem, I'm not sure, but I *hope* so.
I reply:
A 2nd balloting would help. As would all the strategy enhancements that I described here.
You continued:
(Actually there is also a third, namely: is there a way of mitigating the strategy problem that is both easier (i.e. one ballot) and more effective
I reply:
James, I posted a list of strategy enhancements for 1-balloting Condorcet that reduce its aready relatively minor strategy problem.
You're requiring perfection from Condorcet. You remind me of that scene from _How I Won the War_, in which the sergeant is inspecting the squad, out in the desert. He walks by the row of assembled soldiers. One of them is wearing a clown-suit, and is dyed (maybe blue, green or red) from head to toe. The sergeant walks by the clown, and then stops at the next man, and says "You're out of uniform! You don't have collar-stays!".
No, you won't find perfection in any voting system. But if you compare Condorcet's strategy to that of other voting systems, instead of comparing it to perfection, you'll find that the others are worse.
You continued:
Many people seem to disagree with me on one or both of these questions... let's see if we can get a meaningful and productive discussion going on the topic. Myself, I'm open-minded about the issue, and I hope that you can be open-minded as well.
I reply:
That's big of you. You can start being open-minded by looking at Condorcet's strategy in comparison to the strategies of other voting sytsems, instead of expecting it to meet standards that the other methods fail worse than Condrocet does.
A supporter of the CW, wanting to deter offensive order-reversal strategy against his candidate, doesn't have to know who is going to attempt offensive order-reversal, or even if anyone is going to. All s/he has to do is not rank anyone except hir candidate. Then, any offensive order-reversal against that candidate will backfire.
You complain later in your posting that s/he can't know that hir candidate is CW, and that hir truncation could take hir support away from the real CW. Yes, James, that's the whole problem, with all the methods' strategy situation: We don't have perfect information. I said that in my previous posting. I find that I'm repeating these same answers, in reply to successive long postings of yours, because, in those long postings, you just repeat your claims, quite oblivious to the fact that they've just been answered.
As I said before, the difference is in 1) what it takes to bring that strategy situation about; and 2) What it takes to protect the CW, or to protect majority rule. By both of those 2 standards, Condorcet does much better than IRV or Pluraity. Approval beats IRV & Plurality by the 2nd standard.
You continued:
Sincere preferences
27: A>B
25: B>A
24: C>A
24: C>B
Pairwise comparisons
A:B = 51 : 49
A:C = 52 : 48
B:C = 52 : 48
A is a Condorcet winner. But if just a fraction of the B voters reverse
their preferences, they can steal the election for B.
27: A>B
21: B>A
4: B>C
24: C>A
24: C>B
Pairwise comparisons
A:B = 51 : 49
A:C = 48 : 52
B:C = 52 : 48I reply:
You originally brought up this co-operation/defection dilemma in connection with Approval. I answered it recently on EM, bringing it up as a Condorcet problem, but also discussing it in terms of Approval.
I guess it's necessary to repeat some of that: That's IRV's shining example. For the A & B voters.
If A or B is taken advantage of by the other, it isn't a majority rule violation. Though strategy problems are undesirable, we should measure them for comparison. In contrast, IRV's failure is often a majority rule problem.
You're looking at it from the point of view of the mutual majority, the {A,B} voters. What about the C voters in IRV? Say they prefer one of {A,B} to the other. Say they can pretty well tell that C can't win, because the A & B voters are a mutual majority. That means that the C voters gain nothing by sincerely voting C 1st in IRV. Their best strategy is to vote their {A,B} favorite in 1st place, burying their favorite.
So what, you might say, C can't win, and shouldn't be able to. Sure, but what if they're mistaken in their belief that they should use favorite-burial compromise strategy? That's the whole problem, you know, when voters don't have complete information, and mis-estimate, and either give away the election or fail to protect a needed compromise. You talk of Condorcet voters who don't have perfect information. What about those C voters in IRV who don't have compelte information.
So every mutual majorilty example of the kind that you use as a Condorcet or Approval co-operation/defection dilemma is also an IRV failure example for WDSC & FBC, two criteria met by Approval and by all the wv versions.
You exaggerate the benefit of defection: It will result in the loss of the support that you'll need from your victims in the next election. In the next election, you can't expect them to co-operate again. If anyone co-operates then it will be you. I mentioned the Tit-For-Tat strategy in my previouis posting. The voters who have been victimized by defection might refuse to co-operate with their victimizers ever again, or they might just use TFT, whereby they copy the most recent strategy of the other "player". Co-operation/defection games aren't the hopeless disaster that you might think they are.
Aside from that, since we're now discussing Condorcet, the ATLO option would solve your co-operation/defection dillema: A voters or B voters rank sincerely, but apply ATLO below their favorite. If no one defects, either A or B wins, depending on which have more voters. If one defects, making a strategic circular tie, then the circular tie triggers ATLO, and the co-operating side withdraws its support for the defecting side, and C wins. Both side know that will happen if they defect. Neither side defects.
I'm gonig to stop and mail this now. I'm posting this reply in 3 parts, because last time my reply was so long that it almost didn't post, and its posting was delayed because of its length. Part 2 will be along tonight or tomorrow.
Mike Ossipoff
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