I've been over and over this point, there is little in this post that is new. I'd suggest reading it carefully. And if you wish to continue asserting that Range can "cause a mess" when voters vote a mixture of "sincere" voting and Approval-style voting, please define "sincere" in a manner that we could agree upon, define what a sincere Range vote is, and how, and *how much* the voters are harmed by voting sincerely, and what effect this has on society as a whole.
Otherwise, the assertion is just blowing smoke and confusion.At 12:03 AM 8/9/2007, Juho wrote: >>It happens, however, that you can think about Range that way if you >>want. It can be used to maximize social utility, and it does a >>pretty good job even if most voters vote the extremes. > >Maximizing social utility refers to giving sincere utilities in the >ballots. No. Not necessarily. If you don't give some kind of "sincere" utility on the ballot, *your* utility won't be maximized! However, the word "sincere" isn't precisely defined with Range. Lots of writers have assumed that there is some "sincere utility" that would automatically translate to a specific Range vote. Of course, Warren Smith, in designing his simulators, had to face the fact that there is no such thing. We can easily define "insincere" with Range, and the definition covers ranked methods exactly, except for ranked methods which allow equal ranking. When equal ranking is allowed, ranked methods start to resemble Range in that small way.... "Insincere" refers to reversing a preference; that is, you prefer A over B but your ballot shows that you prefer B over A. Plurality, with no overvoting, for starters, requires "insincere voting" if you prefer a third party candidate who has no chance of winning, and want to influence the outcome of the real election. Range methods never provide an incentive to reverse preference. Now, when I propose Range+PW, there comes to be a ranked aspect to the election, so it is possible that one could discover some such incentive, but the strategic considerations, it seems to me, become so twisted and unlikely that I doubt anyone would do it. Condorcet methods do provide some motive for insincere voting, but even there it is controversial how much people would actually do it. With Range+PW, I haven't examined the characteristics of the hybrid method in detail, but it seems to me quite a stretch that a solid strategic motive for reversal would be found. In Range+PW, the goal is to get your favorite in the runoff, or, failing that, your favorite from among the top few candidates. I should note that Range and Approval, without special rules, are "Plurality" methods. Approval makes it more likely that a winner will have a "majority," but certainly does not guarantee it, and "strategic" considerations make an Approval majority less clear if there exists more than one candidate with it. Some consider that Approval can elect a winner who would lose a pairwise election with another candidate to be a feature of Approval. It is, to a degree. My opinion is that whenever a majority surrenders its preference, it should do so knowingly. It's generally impossible to fully consider this in a single-stage election. (It's possible, if the voters specifically consent to it, with the same ballot. It gets murky if, instead, they pass a law to apply to future elections. It's a *different* majority in that case!) > You seem to be recommending the voters to primarily do so, I do recommend not reversing preferences. As to the expression of so-called sincere ratings -- what is that? -- I suggest normalization, for starters, in nearly all circumstances. In some, what I call the "first normalization" would remain proper, not the second. (The first normalization: the voter considers *all* possible candidates, not just those on the ballot. The voter assigns 100% to the best of these and 0% to the worst. This is pretty much what Warren does with his simulations, to generate "sincere" and "not normalized" utilities. But by assuming that all voters have the same internal scale, there is a normalization. Other utilities are proportional. An assumption is made that they are linear, though various distributions of utilities are used.) (The second normalization: the voter considers all candidates on the ballot, including a write-in, if any. The voter assigns 100% to the favorite and 0% to the worst. Another variation of this would not include any write-ins. Again, other utilities would be presumed to fall in the middle somewhere, but that is actually a separate issue.) (And how are so-called sincere internal utilities translated to Range Votes, when they are not at the extremes? There is no fixed standard. Approval-style voting could be, in ordinary usage of the term, "sincere." That is, the voter is saying, "I'll be about as happy with either of these, and about as unhappy with either of those." This does *not* necessarily mean that the voter has no measurable preference, if only given the choice of two. It does mean that the voter is more likely, perhaps, to stay home in a runoff, but that is not guaranteed.) >and in addition to that accept the Approval style voting as a >secondary less good option. Depends. It can be better, it can be worse. My position is that it is up to the voter to decide. Approval style, *if done skillfully*, will maximize personal outcome, but it can also backfire. Do a study of what actually happens, perhaps look at my analysis of Range 2, and you can see. With a large number of voters, and accurate utility expression possible -- in Range 2 this requires that any middling candidate be exactly in the middle -- the Sincere vote has the same expected (average) outcome as the Approval style vote. But it has other benefits that do *not* show up in the personal expected utility analysis. The sincere vote has less variability in outcome compared to the Approval Vote. I think in the list of possible vote patterns, with the sincere vote, there is one where you'd regret it, because the worst candidate wins when that candidate would have tied with your middle candidate, who then would have a 50% chance of winning. With the Approval vote, there are two such patterns, as I recall. But the average outcome for both strategies is the same. (The patterns are equally likely, so, essentially, it is twice as likely that the Approval outcome is maximally bad, and twice as likely that it is maximally good.) > With this I think we are back in the >original claim that Range may create a mess if some voters vote >sincerely (and maybe are guided to do so) and some strategically. No such mess has been alleged specifically. Rather, Juho and others continue to claim that a mess is created, but not *specific* scenario that deserves the name is mentioned. The discrimination, in Range, between "sincere" and "strategic" is artificial. Suppose we have a pizza election. Two friends are choosing a pizza, using Range Voting. They express, with their votes, not only what they prefer, but how strongly. Certainly, the person who votes Approval style is more likely to get what he wants -- indeed it is guaranteed -- than the one who votes "sincerely." This is quite like two friends having a discussion about it. One says, I like Artichoke, but Mushroom is okay with me. The other says, wow! I *love* Mushroom and I *hate* Artichoke. Which pizza do they choose? Routinely, in ordinary human interaction, we give precedence to strongly expressed preferences. Do we question the sincerity of these preferences? We may, if voting over time shows a pattern. But who is to say, even then. A person's preferences may change. If a person always expresses strong preference, we may think them histrionic, but usually we will treat their preference as strong; however, in some cases, we may also start to treat our own as strong, if we never get what we want. It balances out. And I expect the same with elections. The alternative to considering preference strength is to use a ranked method, which can be truly lousy for choosing pizzas. Why would we expect better with public elections? Only because we assume a polarized environment. Fine. If it's a polarized environment, most people will vote Approval style. But this actually gives control to those in the middle! (Polarized political environments *tend* to be polarized about the middle, so swing voters carry the day, and swing voters are quite likely to vote intermediate outcomes.) There is a huge amount of discussion on the topic of "strategic" voting in Range, nearly all of it starting with an assumption that a mixture of strategic and sincere voting is somehow harmful. No proof, no demonstration, or only some contrived example, at most, that actually doesn't show harm beyond what is obvious: In Range the preference of a majority can be passed over for the broader satisfaction of the whole electorate, including a minority with a stronger expressed preference. *This is not a problem,* unless you consider the Majority Criterion sacred. And we fix that problem with detection of the condition, holding a runoff in the rare circumstance that it occurs, so that the consent of the Majority becomes explicit, thus satisfying the Majority Criterion where it counts: with the final result. My contention is that usually the Range winner will prevail. This might not occur, however, if the majority understated its preference, or the minority overstated theirs. A runoff tests the strength of the preferences, and submits the final decision for majority vote, thus satisfying, fully, the principle of majority rule. In a healthy society, the majority *often* gives up its first, personal, utility, in favor of a general overall utility. We wouldn't think it strange at all when a town votes to, for example, establish a fund for the indigent. This fund costs the taxpayers of the town a small amount, but makes a huge difference for those who need it. And this is, more or less, a zero-sum game (or even, because of administrative costs, negative sum). In elections, it is often not zero-sum, everyone can gain, and what the majority is giving up is maximized personal gain. And in this case, because election follows election and people may be in different positions with each election, a distributed general benefit with each election will generally result in a greater personal benefit overall. You scratch my back, this time, I scratch yours, next time. Or vice versa. A general increase in benefit is *generally* associated with a personal increase, overall, over time. If you change the method to Approval, that larger general increase, under the circumstances of concern, can't take place, so *everyone suffers*. If it is Range, allegedly, those who vote sincerely "suffer," and this is a choice that they can make. Claiming that there is a problem is essentially asserting that voting stupidly can harm you. And it can! No matter what method we have! Shall we remember that almost half the voters voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004? (It's undisputed in 2000, it is speculative in 2004.) I'm sure that, to them, it seemed like a good idea at the time.... but, as with the Iraq war, all the signs were there before the fact. ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info