Bryan Ford in response to my post about splitting the analysis of methods into two pieces:
>>You're quite right to point out that both IRV and Condorcet (and Approval and most other "alternative" methods) critically depend on changing the balloting scheme to something other than simply "choose one candidate". But I don't think it's quite true that "_any_ improvement over plurality needs some [sort] of ranked-ballot input". For example, the Candidate Proxy scheme that has been discussed before on this list, as well as my very similar Delegative Voting scheme (http://www.brynosaurus.com/deleg/elect), use ordinary plurality-style ballots but nevertheless I think at least represent a significant improvement over plurality (independent of how they might compare to IRV or Condorcet).<< Quite true. I would argue that from a theoretical perspective, though, there's a different assumption behind proxy systems that essentially makes the process different. Without passing any judgment, I just note that defining the transfer of votes for a defeated candidate to one still in the running to be handled by the candidate I voted for rather than something that I explicitly entered still provides the same "additional information" that can't be inferred from pure Plurality. >>One of the main reasons I suggested Delegative Voting in the first place was precisely because it requires no change whatsoever in balloting or vote counting technologies, or the attendant effort in re-educating voters in how to cast ballots. In that sense Delegative Voting or Candidate Proxy could represent a "path of least resistance" from plurality to something at least substantially better if not necessarily ideal.<< I think this is worth more study. It is true that the ballots would look the same, but the implications of the vote are different. It is not at all obvious in my neck of the woods that most voters would choose "let a politician decide how you'd have voted if you knew your guy was going to lose" would be more acceptable than "Ok, who's your second choice?" My concern about proxy systems is there's an extra level of complexity that might cause my sincere preferences to be different than in a direct election. This may not be a bad thing but the effect would be hard to analyze. Personally, I think it would make me more likely to make a "protest vote" for a fringe candidate, but I think most people (around here anyway) would tend to move back toward just straight party-line votes. Regarding: >So I would argue quite strongly that if you use a pairwise matrix as your >tally mechanism, you allow each voter to fill in their pair-wise >preferences. If you don't, the system is not "transparent" and can't be >backed-up by voters' ballots. That would be a lot harder to sell (but it's >trivial to implement) >>Very cute idea - for us voting geeks anyway - but somehow I'm not quite sure it would fly with the general public... :)<< Whether the general public would adopt it would depend upon the implementation. It is much easier to deal with pairs of candidates than it is to accurately order a list according to one's sincere preferences. Take a 5-candidate election - I have 120 choices for my ranked ballot. If you list out the 10 pairs and ask me to select X, Y, EITHER, NEITHER I can generate the same information you have to infer from a ranked ballot in seconds and you run no risk of inferring something that might not have been my preference. If I say NEITHER at any pair, the most I have to deal with is 4 questions. I haven't had to go to the trouble of picking one of 120 choices for a ranked ballot, weighing the implications in the method for each choice (and certainly no one does this - by the time they're at the point of deciding between 4th and 5th they are flipping coins or making random marks...) I think it would be easier for the voter to do it that way, and much easier to analyze the effects of the tallying method without having to make assumptions about the translation from 120 different ranked ballots into a 20-bucket set of pair-wise sums. ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info