At 09:11 AM 12/30/2006, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >I have prepared a paper on the definition of preferential voting. I >invite all of you to check it. It is posted here: >http://rcum.uni-mb.si/~jure/preferential8_emlist.pdf
Well, it is a bit irritating to me, and perhaps to some others, that AV is used in the paper to refer to Alternative Vote; we routinely use it for Approval Voting. Approval is mentioned in the paper, however, in my view, incorrectly (though perhaps merely reporting common opinion, in which case it is correct about an incorrect opinion.) Specifically, >They apply the term to "those voting methods that make use of >a preference schedule"10 including plurality first-past-the-post >(FPTP) method, Concordet, >and Borda count. The definition does not however cover approval voting. Now, if "plurality" and FPTP use a "preference schedule," so does Approval. The preference schedule in FPTP consists of two classes, preferred and not-preferred, and the voter places the candidates into the classes by either voting for the candidate or abstaining. Generally, FPTP does not allow a voter to place more than one candidate into the approved class, but this is actually a detail of implementation having to do with ballot invalidation. That is, a ballot-invalidation rule is tacked onto the voting system that discards ballots who have approved more than the officially allowed number of candidates, which is generally one with single-winner and N with N-winner. This is an artificial restriction without, apparently, much explicit justification. If, for example, a show-of-hands election were being held in a face-to-face meeting, there would generally be no bar to voters raising their hand for more than one candidate, and I am sure that it happens from time to time. It might even happen more than occasionally, we would not normally know. Enough members at a meeting may abstain to compensate for the "extra" votes which appear in the reported counts. Only by specifically observing individual voters and objecting if they vote more than once would we become aware of "overvoting." It has never become an issue as far as I know, and the basic reason is that there is utterly no harm in it. Overvoting is essentially voting for every member of the approved class over every non-member, with more than one member allowed in the approved class. It is also equivalent to abstaining in the pairwise vote between those approved members. Many systems with more than two ranks allow voters to place more than one candidate at the same rank. This is identical to Approval Voting, the only issue is how many ranks are allowed. With Approval we assume there are two. I've proposed a system called A+ where there are three ranks. The Approved rank is split into two ranks: Approved and Preferred. One may place more than one candidate into each of these ranks; however, I assume that normally voters would only place one candidate into Preferred, with any other approved candidates being placed into Approved. In simple A+, the Preferred rank is considered merged with the Approved rank, it is not used to determine the winner. However, it may be used, for example, to determine ballot access rights and public campaign funding, as well as to generate accurate poll information, perhaps to monitor the performance of Approval vs the possibility of moving to a system with more detailed ranks. It's a small cost in ballot complexity for a substantial gain in gathered information, and it answers the common objection to Approval that voters want to express support for their favorite while still being able to approve other candidates. And then the same ballot is used for what I called A+/PW, for Approval Plus/Pairwise, where, once again, Approvaed and Preferred are considered identical in any pairwise race except for the pairwise race(s) between Approved and Preferred candidates. This, of course, is a Condorcet method with truncated ranks.... One clear advantage of Approval is that the ballot indicates Yes/No for each candidate. The meaning, thus, of majority failure is clear, the electorate has voted *against* all candidates, and, if sincere in this, has essentially indicated that they would prefer to see the office remain vacant than allow any of the candidates to be elected. Under Roberts Rules, with the sequential motion method of electing officers, which is the default, this is, indeed, exactly the decision that voters are making when they vote for or against each motion to elect So-and-So. (Of course, the problem with sequential motion is that one may imagine that voters will vote against a candidate, not because they are unwilling to accept the candidate, but because they prefer another. However, I would ask why these voters did not move to amend the motion to substitute their favorite for the one previously named in it? Where such amendment is allowed, which I'd think it would normally be, a motion to elect being like any other standard motion -- at least it should be -- then election by specific motion is fully Condorcet compatible. I think most of us have missed that. The basic method of electing officers under Roberts Rules is Condorcet-compatible. Substituting methods which are not for this, based on the presumed inefficiency and impracticality of using deliberative process for elections, would seem to be a loss. Now, are there any methods which, as purely aggregative methods, simulate the deliberative process? Yes, there are. Approval does it. It is a standard rule where multiple conflicting motions are presented for simultaneous vote, that the motion with the largest Yes vote prevails over passing motions with a lesser level of approval. This is, precisely, Approval Voting. The common statement that Approval is not used in public elections (with a couple of exceptions sometimes being mentioned, such as the election of the Secretary General of the United Nations) is not correct. It is used, but not to elect officers, rather to simultaneously consider conflicting referenda. And that is what an election should be, a series of motions to elect A, B, C, D, etc, with Yes/No votes possible. The only problem, and it is a severe loss, is that the rules typically prevent voters from voting for more than one. It is beyond me why. The assumption seems to be, where a reason is given or implied at all, that such votes are clearly mistakes, voter error, and thus, as errors, should be disregarded. But, quite often, they are not errors, except in the sense that the voter did not realize that the arbitrary no-overvote rule would apply. A naive voter -- and many would be naive in this way -- may think that the votes will simply be counted. Why not? I have been asking for some time for cogent reasons that overvotes should cause ballots to be discarded. What I've gotten so far, as I recall, is this: (1) If overvotes are allowed, fraud become easier. I could take a vote for A and add a vote for B by simply making the additional mark. I find this argument puzzling. For I can invalidate, with the no-overvote rule, ballots by doing just this, thus committing fraud. The no-overvote rule does not prevent fraud, and, indeed, it could be shown that it makes fraud simpler; together with other rules that are essentially aimed at preventing voters from revealing their identity, it makes it very easy to damage and cause ballots to be discarded. Generally, just make a mark on the ballot. In order to prevent voters from identifying their vote, perhaps to interdict those who would coerce or buy votes from verifying compliance, we risk -- and probably actually enable -- other kinds of election fraud. Vote buying does happen, but it is quite hazardous, even charges of vote-buying, coupled with sufficient evidence that something that may have made vote-buying possible, without proof that it actually took place, have resulted in the overturn of an election and the declaration of the former loser as the winner. Buying votes can ruin your election, even if you would have won without doing it, and buying enough votes to really make a difference is difficult. (Suarez vs. Carollo, Miami mayor race, I think it was about 1997. Some supporters of Suarez transported voters to a registration/absentee voting location and offered to pay them small sums. With this was made a suggested vote, but there was no allegation of coercion, nor, indeed that they were actually being paid to vote a certain way, nor even that the votes were monitored. There was however, evidence that some of these registrations were fraudulent, which was not necessarily the fault of the Suarez supporters. Because the total of absentee ballots resulted in Carollo not gaining a majority, thus automatically causing a runoff election to be held -- which Suarez won -- the court ultimately decided to discard *all* absentee ballots. Given that Suarez -- who was not implicated in the alleged vote-buying -- won the runoff even if absentee ballots were discarded, it is pretty likely that Suarez legitimately won the election if only fraudulent ballots could have been identified and discarded. But because there was no way to discriminate between fraudulent and non-fraudulent ballots, and the court ruled that absentee voting was a privilege and not a right, it decided to discard *all* absentee votes, thus systematically disenfranchising the population that must vote in that way. Which is quite likely not to be identical in preference to the direct voting population. Generally, vote-buying is illegal, and to have much effect, it must be a crime that is very difficult to conceal.) ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
