Re: [EM] Presidential debate ordering
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A few days ago, we had the Republican debates on TV, and I came to the conclusion that having ten people on the stage at once was an unmanageable mess. At thirty seconds per answer, candidates were limited to faux anger and soundbites, while the cheers and applause gave it a gameshow feel. (Well, okay, so it was better than the debate on MSNBC, where you had questions like What do you hate most about America?) What I'd like to see is one-on-one, round-robin debates. Now, we could pair up the candidates randomly, but where is the fun in that? What I thought might be interesting is to have each candidate pick the order he wanted to debate every other candidate, and choose the order that best matches the aggregate preference. Unfortunately, I am not certain the fairest way to piece together incomplete debate orders (each candidate would have nine debates, but the total field would have a total of 45 debates). Anyone know the best way to do something like this? It would be similar to scheduling a baseball season or other sporting event, so it would seem to have a use beyond just debates. Interesting idea. 10 people on stage is to many. but 45 pair wise debates it a lot for the public to watch. Perhaps there is a good middle ground say, 4-5 people on stage at once. and try to make sure that each candidate faces each candidate on stage once. Thanks! Michael Rouse election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Presidential debate ordering
On May 22, 2007, at 16:41 , Howard Swerdfeger wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A few days ago, we had the Republican debates on TV, and I came to the conclusion that having ten people on the stage at once was an unmanageable mess. At thirty seconds per answer, candidates were limited to faux anger and soundbites, while the cheers and applause gave it a gameshow feel. (Well, okay, so it was better than the debate on MSNBC, where you had questions like What do you hate most about America?) What I'd like to see is one-on-one, round-robin debates. Now, we could pair up the candidates randomly, but where is the fun in that? What I thought might be interesting is to have each candidate pick the order he wanted to debate every other candidate, and choose the order that best matches the aggregate preference. Unfortunately, I am not certain the fairest way to piece together incomplete debate orders (each candidate would have nine debates, but the total field would have a total of 45 debates). Anyone know the best way to do something like this? It would be similar to scheduling a baseball season or other sporting event, so it would seem to have a use beyond just debates. Interesting idea. 10 people on stage is to many. but 45 pair wise debates it a lot for the public to watch. Perhaps there is a good middle ground say, 4-5 people on stage at once. and try to make sure that each candidate faces each candidate on stage once. There could be different criteria when organizing the debates: 1) Fix the size of the debate groups 2) Arrange each candidate the same number of pairwise debates with other candidates (typically one with each) 3) Give each candidate same number of minutes in TV Criterion 3 is maybe a fair criterion for politics. In addition to this one could fix the size of the groups (allowing some to debate in smaller groups could be considered an advantage). These together mean that in most cases we would need to violate criterion 2. Some candidates might meet twice. Maybe that would be no major problem. They would have maybe little less to talk to each others at the second round and they could concentrate beating the others, which would not be quite fair. But they could also continue their previous fights and balance the situation this way :-). Would this method be a fair method? Juho Thanks! Michael Rouse election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info ___ All new Yahoo! Mail The new Interface is stunning in its simplicity and ease of use. - PC Magazine http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] stratified renormalisation for elections
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It is often possible effect who actually votes elections by selecting when the voting occurs. For example, the general election in Ireland is being held on Thursday. However, university exams are being held at the moment. This means that students are much less likely to vote. Also, even the fact that the elections are on Thursday is likely to suppress that demographic as students tend no to re-register when they move to go to university. They stay registered in their home constituency. The elections are sometimes held on Saturday so that students have the option of going home for the weekend to vote (some would go home for the weekend anyway). Similar tricks can be used for lots of demographics. One solution would be to do stratified renormalisation. This is where you split the population up into sub-groups. If a sub-group is over-represented by the number of voters, the vote of each member of that group would be reduced in weight. Similarly, if the demographic is under-represented, it would have its votes increased in weight. This would mean that differential turn-out would be corrected. If a demographic is 20% of the population, it will count for 20% of the votes. This is already done for regions. A region/district gets seats on the basis of population not on the basis of number of votes. The initial split could be based on population. The voters could be split into 4 equal groups starting at 18 and going upwards. Votes from each group would be coloured slightly differently, if one group is over/under-represented, then renormalisation could be applied. Obviously, the characteristics for the groups would have to be clearly defined. This is an interesting idea, one I never thought of before. but there are many many issues you need to address before you could even think of implementing something like this The obvious problem is how you define the groups Some of these groups may be obvious Age, sex, race, income, current net worth, marital status, education level, Many sub groups for each common disability But some groups that I would think would be important to have would be hard to prove that you are a member of that demographic. Two that spring to mind are religion and sexual orientation. Both of these demographics are self identified (ie. can be faked), but both could affect voting patterns. Worse some demographic category that you missed may effect voter turn out. Example : Bed ridden 80+ year olds with dementia, are much less likely to vote then an 80 year old in good health. and it is likely that there voting patters would be different. as the bed ridden one might favour more money to permanent long term care, and the other more money to medicare, and homecare. election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Presidential debate ordering
Interesting idea. 10 people on stage is to many. but 45 pair wise debates it a lot for the public to watch. Perhaps there is a good middle ground say, 4-5 people on stage at once. and try to make sure that each candidate faces each candidate on stage once. There could be different criteria when organizing the debates: 1) Fix the size of the debate groups 2) Arrange each candidate the same number of pairwise debates with other candidates (typically one with each) 3) Give each candidate same number of minutes in TV Criterion 3 is maybe a fair criterion for politics. In addition to this one could fix the size of the groups (allowing some to debate in smaller groups could be considered an advantage). These together mean that in most cases we would need to violate criterion 2. Some candidates might meet twice. Maybe that would be no major problem. They would have maybe little less to talk to each others at the second round and they could concentrate beating the others, which would not be quite fair. But they could also continue their previous fights and balance the situation this way :-). Would this method be a fair method? Or even better then asking if its fairis it useful? Taking a step back: Firstly we can ask are selves two questions. Are debates useful? and Why? Then we need to set out to design a debate structure to maximize the attributes of the debate that are useful, or abandon the debate structure for something else that better meets the needs of the public. So, I do Find debates useful for 3 reasons. 1. They inform me of candidates alleged positions on the issues 2. They offer some insight on the candidates ability to think logically and interpret/deconstruct an opponents position. 3. They offer some insight on the charisma of a candidate I would say debates are most useful to me personally when each candidates positions are clearly stated. and ample time is granted to each opponent to fully explain why the opponents position is wrong. It should offer a variety of opinions but allow me to quickly skip over candidates I have eliminated or issues I feel are not important. As such perhaps the debate could be pre-recorded over several days with each candidate given 30 minute opening/closing statements and 10-15 minute answers on each question. followed by a 5 minute follow up. The marathon debate should then be Indexed for easy retrieval on the Internet, or other similar media. But then that requires abandoning the traditions set in place before the printing press was common place. much less computers, and the Internet. cheers, How Juho Thanks! Michael Rouse election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info ___ All new Yahoo! Mail The new Interface is stunning in its simplicity and ease of use. - PC Magazine http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] HR811 and Federal paper trail legislation
Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 00:01:51 -0400 From: Chris Backert [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [EM] HR811 and Federal paper trail legislation To: election-methods@electorama.com The House will soon consider a bill introduced by Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.) that aims to make all ballots voter-verifiable and recountable and to set up a system for audits, or partial recounts, of ballots in every federal race. Those are important goals, especially given recent high-profile election foul-ups. But the bill's provisions are overly prescriptive and in some cases impossible to implement in their current form. http://www.washingtonpost.com http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/20/AR200705200 1034.html /wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/20/AR2007052001034.html This WAPO article represents the position of election officials. Election officials have gone on a concerted campaign to kill HR811 and this editorial is one result. Unfortunately BlackBoxVoting (whose income is almost $1 Mill/year to continue the fight vs. election problems) faxed thousands of election officials and urged them to fight against the bill. The bill is GREAT because it: 1. gets rid of all paperless DREs immediately 2. gets rid of DREs w/ paper rolls by 2010 3. requires the largest manual counts of paper ballots since the 1980s 4. requires the first-ever INDEPENDENT (not conducted by election officials) manual audits of election results before unofficial results are certified. PLEASE take the time to read this paper which debunks some of the disinformation that a small group of influential election activists have been spreading re. HR811. It is REALLY important to call Congress about it because the Republican alternative that is supported by virtually all election officials and voting machine vendor groups requires internal audits by election officials, does not require ANY paper ballots, does not replace any DREs, and so forth - bad bad bill. If we don't support HR811, no one will. http://electionarchive.org/ucvInfo/US/FactsAboutHR811.pdf -- Kathy Dopp The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author Kathy Dopp's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at P.O. Box 680192 Park City, UT 84068 phone 435-658-4657 http://utahcountvotes.org http://kathydopp.com http://electionmathematics.org http://electionarchive.org Election Audit Mathematics Bibliography http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/KathyDoppAuditMathBibliography.pdf Support Clean Elections in 2008 http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/SupportCleanElectionsIn2008.pdf Important Facts About The Voter Confidence Increased Accessibility Act (HR811) http://electionarchive.org/ucvInfo/US/FactsAboutHR811.pdf Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day, wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1816 election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Asset Voting from EM archives
I came across this: http://lists.electorama.com/htdig.cgi/election-methods-electorama.com/2002-December/008919.html Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 14:28:47 -0800 (PST) From: Forest Simmons mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Candidate Proxy Methods Dear [his correspondent, and he forwarded the mail to the EM list], I would like your feedback on the following minimal voting method reform proposal: The method is an example of a Candidate Proxy method. If no candidate gets a full majority of the votes, then each candidate represents his/her supporters in an Election Completion Convention in which an Election Completion Procedure is carried out by the candidates. Follows is a description of what is essentially single-winner Asset Voting, with only one vote allowed. Of course, it's a small step beyond that to interpret overvotes as assigning fractional votes to multiple candidates, though this complicates the counting (a little, not a lot) and is not essential in my view. And it is likewise a relatively small step to use Asset for multiwinner elections to form a fully proportional assembly that could self-assemble with floating, overlapping districts. (Why would there be districts at all? Well, precinct vote counts are available, and candidates could reassign votes in precinct blocks to create seats grouping proximate precincts, where there are enough votes. Yet there may also be some seats which would be state-wide.) I also find much earlier in the EM archive, back in 1997, discussion of what was called Proxy STV. This was a form of delegable proxy, because the assembly members elected have variable voting power. I'm not sure -- I find it difficult to search that archive -- but it does not seem to have been realized that with a proxy assembly, it's possible to bypass most of the election method and proceed straight to voluntary assembly of votes, thus avoiding some of the hazards that caused much concern back in this days, the bete noir of some individual ending up with a majority of votes. It is highly unlikely that an electorate would assign a majority of votes to an individual; but it would be easy to set a cap well below the hazard level, and my guess is that a significant cap would never be approached in practice. Once people can freely choose representatives, they are hardly likely to all fall upon the same person as ideal! (Indeed, that would, in a sense, represent the election of a king, not of a representative, because a representative is a communications link, not an officer, as such. The *duty* of the representative is to represent, which requires continuous communication, which requires that it take place at some level well below that of the entirety.) election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
