At 09:55 AM 6/12/2013, Jameson Quinn wrote:
As voting reform activists, we must work
together as much as possible. In general, that
means that raising awareness should start with
teaching people about approval. Still, if
someone is unsatisfied with the expressivity of
approval, we should have a backup offering.
That is, we should have a plan for future
improvement. Really, unless a place already has
IRV in place, a more complex ballot is not the
first step to take. It's like our decision to
promote Approval. An obvious first step, a
do-no-harm improvement. More complex ballots mean spending money.
The actual reform we suggest should depend on local conditions. They vary.
Personally, I think that median systems offer
the best backup offering in that sense. That
doesn't mean I intend to undercut people
promoting Score or Condorcet; just that I think
median systems offer a good compromise between
expressivity and low rewards to strategy. From
my perspective, Score is great for honest
voters, but for strategic voters it has exactly
the same expressivity problems that approval
does. And Condorcet is too complex not just to
describe in the abstract, but to present the
results of even a single election in a clear, intuitive form.
Uh, Score systems can ba amagalamated as median
or as average or as sum. The latter fits most
closely with democratic traditions, it is just
Count all the votes, i.e., Approval, plus the allowance of fractional voting.
Median systems are introducing what appears to
be, for public choice, an *entirely new* concept.
So, the obvious question, why?
And, remember, we are talking about first reforms, not the *ideal*.
But median systems have a problem. There are too
many of them, and even more names.
Off the top of my head, I can think of the following names:
* Bucklin: A general class of median systems
which are implemented via a descending
threshold. Also used to describe various
specific ranked or hybrid ranked/rated systems
used during the progressive era. For instance,
some use "Bucklin" to mean "median using full
or truncated rankings, using the highest
majority as a tiebreaker"; others mean the
Grand Junction system of "median using 3+1
numbered rank/grades with skipping allowed and
ties allowed at the third grade only; highest majority tiebreaker".
Bucklin is a median system, that's true, but that
is not the *concept.* And any poor performance of
Bucklin would come, quite likely, from using
median amalgamation. (I.e., a Bucklin ballot is
really a Score ballot, and a score ballot can be
used for Bucklin amalgamation, it is an obvious and simple extension.)
* Majority Choice Approval (MCA): I've seen
this applied to various 3-rank median systems,
but I think the canonical one is: "if there is
a majority top-rank, then the highest such;
otherwise, the candidate with the most non-bottom rankings."
* Majority Judgment (MJ): as defined by Balinski and Laraki
* Graduated Majority Judgment (GMJ): as defined by me.
There are also a number of possible descriptive
"branding" terms for a median / Bucklin system:
* Instant Runoff Approval
I created that one, because that is exactly what
it is, and it simulates a series of descending
cutoff Approval elections, hence a way-cool
implementation, as a primary and runoff method in
a two-round system, thus, if it has N approval
grades, it simulates 2*N approval runoffs in the
full two-election set. Jurisdictions that want to
ensure majority approval can probably reach that,
even with many candidates, in a two-round Bucklin
system, and I've suggested that if the Range
ballot is a little deeper, i.e, includes
unapproved ranks, it can also, in the primary, be
analysed for a beats-Range top two (or
beats-Bucklin top two) winner, using the lower
preferences, thus making the *system* Condorcet
compliant, if a Condorcet winner must always be
in the runoff. If a majority is found, depending
on the wishes of the jurisdiction, the runoff may not be necessary.
Increasingly, though, I've become aware of
systems that *always* go to the general election.
So the primary is just a unified primary, as
distinct from party primaries. And with a good
runoff method, and with write-ins allowed in the
runoff, the electorate can still have three
choices on the ballot, if certain conditions are
met, plus write-ins that don't necessarily vote-split.
What, I'd like to know, is not to like about this?
* Graded Instant Runoff
* Descending Threshold Approval
* Majority Threshold
* Grade Voting
* Majority-Based Grade Assignment
Instant runoff Approval fully satisfies
expectations. It is what the name implies.
It seems to me that Median and Bucklin advocates
should come to a consensus on what specific
system to promote, and what to call it. That
doesn't mean we should cease discussing the
different systems in fora like these; just that
when promoting systems to the public, we should be on the same page.
Bucklin is widely known as Bucklin, the Grand
Junction system, and it was simply called
"preferential voting" in many places. It was also
called "American Preferential Voting," to
distinguish it from "foreign" systems (i.e, STV methods).
Which system is best? I think the clear choices
are MCA or GMJ, and I'd personally favor GMJ.
MCA is the simplest well-defined median system. GMJ is good because:
* Unlike the specific systems called
"Bucklin", it has no vestige of ranked
thinking, and thus requires no dishonest strategy.
That's naive.
* It's more expressive than MCA.
* Unlike MJ, GMJ can easily be expressed in
terms of a Bucklin-like descending threshold, a
single algebraic formula, or a graphing
procedure. (As far as I know, MJ can only be
expressed in one way). GMJ is also easier to
"program" into a spreadsheet in my experience.
* Unlike MJ, GMJ results can be succinctly
and unambiguously expressed as a single number for each candidate.
* Unlike MJ, the GMJ winner for a given
honestly-voted utility profile tend to be
stable as the number of evenly-spaced grading
categories varies, even in moderately
"pathological" examples (such as a
single-peaked versus a two-peaked candidate).
* However, the actual results will agree
with other median systems in almost all realistic cases.
What should we call it? GMJ isn't a horrible
name, but if people prefer to use one of the
above "branding" terms or something similar, I'd be open to discussing it.
I *very much* dislike the use of letter grades
that imply absolute ratings. It is essentially
suggesting to the voter that they disempower
themselves. The whole discussion about "dishonest
strategy" is contaminated with judgment against
the normal think we do with choices, our internal
ratings are highly dependent on expectations *in
the particular case*, and people who don't do that tend to be unhappy.
But I think it's important for us to join our
voices in better harmony on this. Abd, in
particular: why do you continue to talk about
"Bucklin" (ie, the grand junction system) when
there are better-designed, more-clearly-defined
Bucklin systems available today?
The Grand Junction System is adequately defined,
but the system I'd recommend now is Bucklin-ER, to start. Three ranks.
All three ranks are approved ranks. In *some*
elections, two ranks might be used.
Jameson
ps. None of this message should be read as an
attempt to abandon the common effort to promote
approval voting as a first step.
This is very simple. Approval first. The obvious
first and most significant objection to Approval,
then, is addressed with ranked approval. There is
a method, approval-IRV, that has the LnH behavior
of IRV, if the voter wants that protection. But I
actually think it harms voter behavior to encourage excessive fear of LnH.
Look at the arguments for GMJ above. They will
mostly be unintelligible to ordinary citizens who
are not specialists in voting systems.
So, I see this as one reform path.
1. Approval.
2. Bucklin-ER, 3-rank. (Traditional Grand
Junction system plus equal ranking *allowed* in all ranks.)
3. Full range ballot for Bucklin [adds . (*Range
reporting starts, and Condorcet analysis becomes more complete*)
4. Runoff with pairwise leader included if
different. Runoff if majority not found. Or unconditional runoff.
5. Range amalgamation substitutes for Bucklin
amalgamation. Resolution may be increased if
needed. Approval information is always collected.
All of this works with runoff voting. We should
*not* attempt to kill runoff voting as an *easy
target*, and we should oppose FairVote attempts
to do this, there is basic information about this
to be included, and providing information for intelligent decisions is our job.
(If it were practical, approval voting with
repeated Bucklin ballots until a majority is
found is a *highly sophisticated system*.)
We don't know the Bayesian Regret performance of
Bucklin, because the testing that was done,
AFAIK, did not understand a Bucklin ballot as
being a Range ballot, but treated it as a ranked ballot.
The Bucklin ballot I'd see at the 3rd step could
even have letters attached, it's really a Range 4
ballot, just as the step 2 ballot is that ballot
without the elevated but unapproved rating of "1:
included. So A is 4.0, as people expect. But I'd
want to see the method in actual use *first*, to
avoid misleading voters. If you really want to
give all politicians a bad rating, then you
should totally realize that you are disempowering
yourself, not casting a full vote, to *make a choice.*
Bucklin could be reported, by the way, as a net
grade point average for candidates, the values
averaged would be the numbers of 0 plus 2-4. If
the additional unapproved level of 1 is included
on the ballot, it's then a complete Range set.
And candidates can be given that single "grade"
that Jameson wants. Voting is *choice*, not absolute rating.
If I could put full and accurate labels on a
Bucklin ballot, the ratings would convey this:
4. Favorite(s) or Best
3. Good, Preferred over others.
2. Barely Accepted, better than holding a runoff.
(If runoffs are triggers by majority failure.)
1. Disapproved, but better than the Worst.
0. Worst. No support in any way.
(If one sees a nice candidate, with the
misfortune to be in a field of better candidates,
hey, give him a zero, or maybe a 1 if there is
significant write-in activity, but ... send him a
donation to encourage him to keep plugging away!
"I rated you 1, but only because there really
were some great other candidates. But next
election, I could vote for you. Keep up the good work!)
A rating of 1 will not ordinarily elect a
candidate, per se, but *might* get the candidate
into a runoff if pairwise analysis is done. It is
a vote against the candidate, not any kind of
approval of the candidate. It is possible that if
other voters, by a majority, approve of that
candidate, the vote of 1 might edge the candidate
to first position in, say, Range amalgamation. As
I'd have it, without majority approval, nobody is
elected and the ballot becomes a method of
providing ballot position in the runoff.
Now, the kicker, full circle. The most
sophisticated system proposed here can be
improved with a vote-for-one ballot, to create an
assembly or other body to handle single-winner
elections deliberately. Asset Voting. The chosen
electors -- total free choice by the voters, no
worry about wasted votes -- unless, of course you
vote for a wasted idiot -- could easily use *any
ballot method* with repeated elections, until a
decisive and true majority winner emerges. And
that election, on principle, *could be revoked at
any time.* Asset. Radical, a complete revolution
in how we think about politics and elections.
Most people still hold on to expectations from
the present system, when considering Asset.
They imagine, routinely, *the same political
behavior seen with winner-take-all elections.*
They imagine that candidates must still try to
get as many votes as possible in the general
election. They imagine that the need, then, to
buy expensive media coverage will continue. They
imagine the continuance of the common
oppositional obsession, when Asset rewards
nothing but cooperation. If electors cooperate,
they elect more seats. If they don't, they elect fewer. No big deal.
I have no idea how far the single-winner reform
path would go before an Asset or STV reform.
Approval, yes, *immediately*. Bucklin could come
vary soon, and, before I close this, I want to
remind readers that Bucklin, aside from top-two
runoff, is the most widely tried advanced voting
system in U.S. history, aside from what I just discovered about Vermont.
Vermont had pure vote-for-one *majority required*
going for a long time, they simply kept voting
until they got it right. That is a *highly
advanced system*. It's easily improved, made more
efficient, with Approval or Bucklin methods. That's what's never been done.
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