Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Nov 7, 2008, at 9:22 PM, Chris Benham wrote: Kevin Venzke wrote (Fri.Nov.7): Hi, --- En date de : Ven 7.11.08, Markus Schulze alumni.tu-berlin.de> a écrit : > Second: It makes it possible that the elections > are run by the governments of the individual > states and don't have to be run by the central > government. I especially agree with this second point, or at least that it has been a good thing that the elections have not been conducted by a single authority. It's possible to imagine a different American history, if the federal government had been in a position to cancel or postpone or manipulate the presidential election. Presumably, under that scenario, 50 states could do that to state elections. Not to mention a couple of dozen European democracies. But which country has had its federal supreme court short-circuit a national election? Kevin Venzke Kevin, Why does having elections for national office run by a "central authority" like a federal electoral commission necessarily mean that the "federal government" (presumably you refer here to partisan office-holders with a stake in the election outcome) would have the power to "cancel or postpone or manipulate" the presidential election? Can you please support your point by comparing the US with other First World countries, perhaps just focussing on the last few decades? Chris Benham Search 1000's of available singles in your area at the new Yahoo!7 Dating. Get Started. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] New MN court affidavits by those defending non-Monotonic voting methods & IRV/STV
Dave, Are you really comfortable supporting and supplying ammunition to a group of avowed FPP supporters in their effort to have IRV declared unconstitutional? Will have any complaint when in future they are trying to do the same thing to some Condorcet method you like and IRV supporters help them on grounds like it fails Later-no-Harm, Later-no-Help, and probably mono-add-top? Chris Benham Dave Ketchum wrote (Fri.Nov.7): Perhaps this could get some useful muscle by adding such as: 9 B>A Now we have 34 voting B>A. Enough that they can expect to win and may have as strong a preference between these two as might happen anywhere. C and D represent issues many feel strongly about - and can want to assert to encourage action by B, the expected winner. If ONE voter had voted B>A rather than D>B>A, IRV would have declared B the winner. Note that Condorcet would have declared B the winner any time the B>A count exceeded the A>B count (unless C or D got many more votes). DWK On Fri, 7 Nov 2008 14:05:03 -0700 Kathy Dopp wrote: >Dave, > >I agree with you -that is important too, but the attorneys and >judge(s) have their own criteria for judging importance as compared to >existing laws. > >Your example IMO does show unequal treatment of voters, so perhaps >I'll include it as one of many ways to show how IRV unequally treats >voters and see if the attorneys use it or not. > >Thanks. > >Kathy Find your perfect match today at the new Yahoo!7 Dating. Get Started http://au.dating.yahoo.com/?cid=53151&pid=1012 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Kevin Venzke wrote (Fri.Nov.7): Hi, --- En date de : Ven 7.11.08, Markus Schulze a écrit : >Second: It makes it possible that the elections >are run by the governments of the individual >states and don't have to be run by the central >government. I especially agree with this second point, or at least that it has been a good thing that the elections have not been conducted by a single authority. It's possible to imagine a different American history, if the federal government had been in a position to cancel or postpone or manipulate the presidential election. Kevin Venzke Kevin, Why does having elections for national office run by a "central authority" like a federal electoral commission necessarily mean that the "federal government" (presumably you refer here to partisan office-holders with a stake in the election outcome) would have the power to "cancel or postpone or manipulate" the presidential election? Can you please support your point by comparing the US with other First World countries, perhaps just focussing on the last few decades? Chris Benham Find your perfect match today at the new Yahoo!7 Dating. Get Started http://au.dating.yahoo.com/?cid=53151&pid=1012 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] New MN court affidavits by those defending non-Monotonic voting methods & IRV/STV
Perhaps this could get some useful muscle by adding such as: 9 B>A Now we have 34 voting B>A. Enough that they can expect to win and may have as strong a preference between these two as might happen anywhere. C and D represent issues many feel strongly about - and can want to assert to encourage action by B, the expected winner. If ONE voter had voted B>A rather than D>B>A, IRV would have declared B the winner. Note that Condorcet would have declared B the winner any time the B>A count exceeded the A>B count (unless C or D got many more votes). DWK On Fri, 7 Nov 2008 14:05:03 -0700 Kathy Dopp wrote: Dave, I agree with you -that is important too, but the attorneys and judge(s) have their own criteria for judging importance as compared to existing laws. Your example IMO does show unequal treatment of voters, so perhaps I'll include it as one of many ways to show how IRV unequally treats voters and see if the attorneys use it or not. Thanks. Kathy On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 1:35 PM, Dave Ketchum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Topic below is monotonicity, which seems discardable as a side issue. Of more importance is IRV's NOT CARING whether more voters indicate preferring A>B or B>A - can even declare A the winner when a majority of voters prefer B of this pair. Example: 20 A>B 15 C>B>A 10 D>B>A Here a majority prefer B>A, but C and D have a special attraction for some some minorities. DWK On Thu, 6 Nov 2008 11:23:39 -0700 Kathy Dopp wrote: FYI, Defendants in the MN Case (who are promoting IRV and STV methods) have just released new affidavits to the court that discuss Arrow's theorem as supporting the case for IRV/STV and dismissing the importance of IRV's nonmonotonicity. I posted three of these most recent affidavits of the defendants of Instant Runoff Voting and STV here: http://electionmathematics.org/em-IRV/DefendantsDocs/ The first two docs listed are by Fair Vote's new expert witness. The third doc is by the Minneapolis, MN City attorney. The defendants characterize Arrow's theorem as proving that "there exists no unequivocally satisfactory, or normatively appealing, voting rule." and claim the "possibility of nonmonotonic results plagues ALL potential democratic voting systems with 3 or more candidates unless a dictatorial voting rule is adopted." I would appreciate it if any of you have time to read some of the above three docs, particularly the third document by the attorney, and give me your responses. FYI, the plaintiff's characterizes Arrow's theorem on p. 3 of this doc: http://electionmathematics.org/em-IRV/DefendantsDocs/11SuplementaryReplyMemoinSupportofMotionforSummaryJudgment.pdf Thank you. Kathy -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. If you want peace, work for justice. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Hi, --- En date de : Ven 7.11.08, Markus Schulze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a écrit : > Second: It makes it possible that the elections > are run by the governments of the individual > states and don't have to be run by the central > government. I especially agree with this second point, or at least that it has been a good thing that the elections have not been conducted by a single authority. It's possible to imagine a different American history, if the federal government had been in a position to cancel or postpone or manipulate the presidential election. Kevin Venzke Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
--- On Fri, 11/7/08, Jonathan Lundell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: Jonathan Lundell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad > Thing Worse) > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Cc: "Chris Benham" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, election-methods@lists.electorama.com > Date: Friday, November 7, 2008, 10:47 AM > On Nov 7, 2008, at 8:07 AM, Aaron Armitage wrote: > > > A national plurality > > election only gains anything in the very rare case > that the EC result > > would have been different > > That's true only if one assumes that both candidate and > voter behavior is the same under NPV and EC, and that's > really in indefensible assumption in both cases. I should have specified that I meant gains in terms of better outcomes, and before 2000 the last election in which a candidate carried the EC without also carrying the popular vote had been over a hundred years before. So from that perspective it seems behavior won't change that much. If you place a value on a voting system because you approve of its behavioral effects even when those effects have no impact on the outcome, it's not clear which way that argument cuts. Most of the arguments defending the electoral college are of the same kind. Maybe what you see as a closer proportion between population and political importance others will as ignoring rural voters altogether. You might not like a strong focus on swing states, but it seems likely that conservative Ohio voters were less likely than conservative Idaho voters to think Bill Clinton was sending black helicopters to round them up and send them to secret FEMA camps, and likewise it seems likely that liberal Ohio voters are less likely than liberal San Francisco voters to think George Bush should be executed for war crimes. We won't know which case is actually better until we make the experiment, but there are very good reasons to think that even making the most optimistic assumptions about what effect a national plurality would have, the gains will be small compared to a popular vote using other systems, especially Condorcet. For example, in Condorcet it makes a lot of strategic sense to appeal to voters who will never rank you first, and even would never approve of you. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:09:51 +0100 Markus Schulze wrote: Hallo, in my opinion, the electoral college has two advantages to the popular vote. ... Second: It makes it possible that the elections are run by the governments of the individual states and don't have to be run by the central government. These are topics to consider when drafting an amendment. [Currently, to guarantee that the Equal Protection Clause is fulfilled, it is only necessary to guarantee that all the voters within the same state are treated equally. A popular vote would make it necessary that also all the voters across the USA are treated equally. This would mean that also the regulations on eligibility, absentee ballots, early voting, voting machines, opening hours of the polling stations etc. would have to be harmonized across the USA.] * In section 8 of the current version (3 November 2008) of my paper, I explain how the electoral college should be combined with Condorcet voting: I would not combine, but would try for the best we could with an amendment. Markus Schulze -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. If you want peace, work for justice. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
--- On Fri, 11/7/08, Markus Schulze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: Markus Schulze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad > Thing Worse) > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: Friday, November 7, 2008, 4:09 AM > Hallo, > > in my opinion, the electoral college has two > advantages to the popular vote. > > First: It gives more power to the voters in > smaller states. > > [In the USA, the Senate is significantly stronger > than the House of Representatives. > > For example: To appoint a Cabinet member or some > other federal officer, the President needs the > approval of the Senate, but not of the House of > Representatives. > > Therefore, a deadlock between the President and the > Senate would be more harmful than a deadlock between > the President and the House of Representatives. > Therefore, it makes sense to elect the President > in a manner that corresponds more to the election > of the Senate than to the election of the House > of Representatives.] > If we really wanted to prevent deadlock between the President and the Senate, we should adopt a parliamentary system. Deadlock between the President and the Senate may be worse -- if you don't like deadlock -- but an opponent of deadlock should object to deadlock between the President and the House, or for that matter between the House and Senate. After all, the EC is actually more like the House than the Senate, so if dropping it in favor of a more House-like procedure produces too much deadlock between the President and the Senate, then there should already be deadlock between the two houses of Congress. Getting rid of deadlock implies this overhaul of the government because the checks and balances system means the possibility of deadlock. The possibility of deadlocking is what a check *is*. In order for the system to work, the political branches should be chosen differently, but not too differently. An intractable deadlock would mean civil war; in fact that's more or less how the English Civil War happened. But it seems that both being subject to popular election in some form is enough similarity. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Simple example of FPTP being no monotonic
Thanks for providing another case to show how plurality voting does not solve the spoiler effect. Neither does IRV. This has zip to do with monotonicity. Look up all the definitions again. Kathy On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 12:50 PM, Stéphane Rouillon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Let us try a language you understand: > > - more voters prefer B to C > > - a fraction of those voters will vote for A because they even prefer A to > other candidates > > - thus C can get elected because of vote-splitting between A and B > > Even if more voters prefer B to C, the result is that C wins over B. This is > clearly non-monotonic. > This is a typical vote-splitting case using FPTP. > > Now do you understand in what reality we live today? > I do. This is why I consider alternatives. > Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] New MN court affidavits by those defending non-Monotonic voting methods & IRV/STV
Topic below is monotonicity, which seems discardable as a side issue. Of more importance is IRV's NOT CARING whether more voters indicate preferring A>B or B>A - can even declare A the winner when a majority of voters prefer B of this pair. Example: 20 A>B 15 C>B>A 10 D>B>A Here a majority prefer B>A, but C and D have a special attraction for some some minorities. DWK On Thu, 6 Nov 2008 11:23:39 -0700 Kathy Dopp wrote: FYI, Defendants in the MN Case (who are promoting IRV and STV methods) have just released new affidavits to the court that discuss Arrow's theorem as supporting the case for IRV/STV and dismissing the importance of IRV's nonmonotonicity. I posted three of these most recent affidavits of the defendants of Instant Runoff Voting and STV here: http://electionmathematics.org/em-IRV/DefendantsDocs/ The first two docs listed are by Fair Vote's new expert witness. The third doc is by the Minneapolis, MN City attorney. The defendants characterize Arrow's theorem as proving that "there exists no unequivocally satisfactory, or normatively appealing, voting rule." and claim the "possibility of nonmonotonic results plagues ALL potential democratic voting systems with 3 or more candidates unless a dictatorial voting rule is adopted." I would appreciate it if any of you have time to read some of the above three docs, particularly the third document by the attorney, and give me your responses. FYI, the plaintiff's characterizes Arrow's theorem on p. 3 of this doc: http://electionmathematics.org/em-IRV/DefendantsDocs/11SuplementaryReplyMemoinSupportofMotionforSummaryJudgment.pdf Thank you. Kathy -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. If you want peace, work for justice. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Simple example of FPTP being no monotonic
Let us try a language you understand: - more voters prefer B to C - a fraction of those voters will vote for A because they even prefer A to other candidates - thus C can get elected because of vote-splitting between A and B Even if more voters prefer B to C, the result is that C wins over B. This is clearly non-monotonic. This is a typical vote-splitting case using FPTP. Now do you understand in what reality we live today? I do. This is why I consider alternatives. Yours, Stéph. From: "Kathy Dopp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Stéphane Rouillon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> CC: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] New MN court affidavits by those defendingnon-Monotonicvoting methods Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2008 11:35:02 -0700 On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 7:45 AM, Stéphane Rouillon > Exactly, no electoral system can garantee coherence between the order of > preferences of a voter > and the impact the participation of that voter has on the result. Yea Right! The vote counting method that is employed cannot guarantee the coherence of "the impact the participation of that voter has on the result". What alternate reality are we living in today? Kathy 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] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:58:30 +0100 Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: Dave Ketchum wrote: With the EC it seems standard to do Plurality - a method with weaknesses most of us in EM recognize. Let's do a Constitutional amendment to move up. I propose Condorcet. One advantage is that states could move up to use it as soon as ready. States, and even districts within states, could remain with Plurality until able to move up - with their votes counted as if they did bullet voting with Condorcet. Approval voting would be permitted the same way. To clarify, the US would be a single district, while vote counts could be published for states and other contained districts, as might be useful. I think an NPV-style gradual change would have a greater chance of succeeding than would a constitutional amendment. The constitutional amendment requires a supermajority, and would thus be blocked by the very same small states that benefit from the current Electoral College. An NPV style change MIGHT have a greater chance than an amendment but: It would be incomplete. Small states could resist for the same reason. Note that small states could retain their advantage with an amendment -- as I proposed. What might all states compromise on? As for the system of such a compact, we've discussed that earlier. I think the idea of basing it on a Condorcet matrix would be a good one. That is, states produce their own Condorcet matrices, and then these are weighted and added together to produce a national Condorcet matrix, which is run through an agreed-upon Condorcet method. How do we tolerate either weight or not weight without formal agreement (amendment)? If all states use Plurality, well, the results are as in Plurality. If some use Condorcet, those have an advantage, and if some want to use cardinal weighted pairwise, they can do so. Yet it's technically possible to use any method that produces a social ordering (by submitting, if there are n voters and the social ordering is A>B>C, the Condorcet matrix corresponding to "n: A>B>C"). While imperfect, and possibly worse than Plurality-to-Condorcet or simple Condorcet matrix addition, the option would be there, and would be better than nothing. Actually each state does only the first step of Condorcet - the NxN array: If a state does Condorcet, that is exact. If a state does Plurality, conversion as if voters did bullet voting in Condorcet is exact. If a state does something else, it has to be their responsibility to produce the NxN array. States have differing collections of candidates: In theory, could demand there be a single national list. More practical to permit present nomination process, in case states desire such. Thus states should be required to prepare their NxN arrays in a manner that permits exact merging with other NxN arrays, without having to know what candidates may be in the other arrays. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. If you want peace, work for justice. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] New MN court affidavits by those defending non-Monotonicvoting methods
On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 7:45 AM, Stéphane Rouillon > Exactly, no electoral system can garantee coherence between the order of > preferences of a voter > and the impact the participation of that voter has on the result. Yea Right! The vote counting method that is employed cannot guarantee the coherence of "the impact the participation of that voter has on the result". What alternate reality are we living in today? Kathy Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] language/framing quibble
Good Morning, Kristofer re: "Even without rigid monitoring, there should be a counteracting measure. After all, the councilmembers work on behalf of the people, so if they start consistently diverging from what the people want, there should be a way of directing them back. This way must not be too strict, or we get short term interest on one hand and populism on the other. It should still be there; I think that's partly the point of the bidirectionality we're talking about, although it's not limited to "counteraction", but also involves information (to guide)." Absolutely!!! The other day, you mentioned the idea that those not selected at the highest level should have a role in advising the person selected (You may not have said it exactly that way, but that's the way I interpreted it.) I'd like to look at that a bit more carefully. At present, in the United States, our elected officials have 'staffs', including legislative assistants. I understand many of our (so-called) representatives do not even read the legislation they vote on ... they let their 'legislative aides' do it. Now, that's a travesty, if I've ever heard one. The people who reach the highest levels have already been carefully examined. They advanced because they were considered worthy by a large number of people. We should avail ourselves of that pool of talent. I've already mentioned using them as a source from which appointive offices are filled. In addition, following your thought, they can function as advisors to the elected official. The only question is the level of formality we attach to the role. Whoops! That's exactly what you're saying, isn't it: "My idea was that even the unselected helped the selected become selected. In one sense, they used their power (what one may call that power) to reach an agreement. Therefore, the selected are to some extent accountable to them; which makes sense if you go all the way down, where the people (except the candidates) are all ultimately unselected. As you say, formal power might not be the way to do so, though." I was wrong. In addition to the points you've made, such an arrangement would provide a training ground for candidates by exposing them to the legislative process. It would also provide an anti-corruption buffer. I'm not sure how we should implement the concept, but I'm sure we should do so. We seem to be in agreement that the bidirectional capability of the process affords us the means of allowing the electorate to influence their representative's acts, after election. I think we're agreed that those who reach the highest levels but are not elected should have a role in, at least, advising our elected officials. We have not yet precisely described the method of implementation, but that's because we're still exploring the possibilities. The idea of matrices seems (to me) to add complexity. It's true the data can be processed by machine, and, once it's set up, it will seem simple enough. But, I think that hides the complexity and transfers the decision making to the programmer that devises the algorithm. It does not encourage us to think about and justify each decision we make. Is there not a more direct way? I'm not sure the idea of 'weighting' the input of constituents based on the level they attain is a good one. Our interest in politics waxes and wanes throughout our lives. It's entirely possible a person will opt out at the lower levels many times before experiencing a desire to participate. Indeed, that's an important aspect of Practical Democracy; it allows us to participate, to the full extent of our ability, whenever our interest is aroused. Fred Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Nov 7, 2008, at 8:07 AM, Aaron Armitage wrote: A national plurality election only gains anything in the very rare case that the EC result would have been different That's true only if one assumes that both candidate and voter behavior is the same under NPV and EC, and that's really in indefensible assumption in both cases. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] New MN court affidavits by those defending non-Monotonic voting methods & IRV/STV
Greg wrote (Th.Nov.6): Those documents make a good case. If you rule IRV/STV unconstitutional due to non-monotonicity, you have to be prepared to rule open primaries and top-two primaries unconstitutional as well. Note also that other arguments by the "MN Voter's Alliance" would, if successful, would render *any* voting method that involves putting marks next to multiple candidates -- IRV, Bucklin, Approval, Condorcet, Range -- by its nature unconstitutional. -snip- That anti-IRV group explicitly say as much: "Additional note: There are several other "non-traditional" voting methods currently being advocated around the country. Among these are Range Voting and Approval Voting. (See the NYU report linked above) While these schemes are better in some ways than IRV, they retain some of the same fatal flaws which make IRV unconstitutional." http://www.mnvoters.org/IRV.htm Chris Benham Find your perfect match today at the new Yahoo!7 Dating. Get Started http://au.dating.yahoo.com/?cid=53151&pid=1012 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
> Why would anyone go to the trouble of elaborating and > proposing a > relatively complicated ranked-ballot method that is > justified by meeting > the Condorcet criterion and Majority for Solid Coalitions > and so on, > and then turn around and suggest that it is desirable that > weighting votes > unequally should be maintained, thus ensuring that any > voting method > cannot meet those criteria or even Majority Favourite or > Majority > Loser? > Although I'm also against the EC for the same philosophical reasons you are (or more precisely, against letting it produce a counter-majoritarian result: a compact that guarantees the majoritarian winner an EC majority makes it harmless pagentry), the major problem with it is the fact that the underlying system is plurality. Plurality is disfunctional when there are more than two candidates. The adaptation to this, namely the reduction to two major candidates, is also disfunctional. A national plurality election only gains anything in the very rare case that the EC result would have been different, and even then it gains relatively little because the choice has already been artificially restricted to two candidates, neither of whom may have been the CW in a larger field. Almost any other single winner method gains much more in every election. A system where each state gives its EC votes to the Condorcet winner in that state, while not guaranteed to elect the national Condorcet winner (and therefore not properly majoritarian overall), is better than a national plurality contest, because it doesn't go pear-shaped as soon as a third candidate appears. Even though national plurality obeys the majority criterion if we take the field of candidates as a given, an EC awarded by Condorcet is in fact more majoritarian because it opens up that field. A national CW deprived of office by the EC may not have even made it through the party primaries under plurality. Of course I would rather see the national CW elected all the time, either by eliminating the EC or by a compact pledging it to the CW. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Dear Chris Benham, I wrote (7 Nov 2008): > In my opinion, the electoral college has two > advantages to the popular vote. > > First: It gives more power to the voters in > smaller states. > > [In the USA, the Senate is significantly stronger > than the House of Representatives. > > For example: To appoint a Cabinet member or some > other federal officer, the President needs the > approval of the Senate, but not of the House of > Representatives. > > Therefore, a deadlock between the President and the > Senate would be more harmful than a deadlock between > the President and the House of Representatives. > Therefore, it makes sense to elect the President > in a manner that corresponds more to the election > of the Senate than to the election of the House > of Representatives.] You wrote (7 Nov 2008): > Presumably then you would favour abolishing the > general presidential election and instead fill the > office by a vote among the members of the Senate. > > That would further greatly reduce the chance of a > deadlock between the President and the Senate, and > also save a lot of time and money. A frequently used argument against the electoral college is that it gives more power to the voters in smaller states. However, I don't think that this is an important argument since the composition of the Senate favours the voters in smaller states even more and since the President needs the approval of the Senate for most of his decisions. Therefore, a popular vote of the President without a reform of the Senate would rather only lead to more deadlocks between the President and the Senate than to more equality between the voters. Markus Schulze Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Nov 7, 2008, at 2:09 AM, Markus Schulze wrote: Second: It makes it possible that the elections are run by the governments of the individual states and don't have to be run by the central government. [Currently, to guarantee that the Equal Protection Clause is fulfilled, it is only necessary to guarantee that all the voters within the same state are treated equally. A popular vote would make it necessary that also all the voters across the USA are treated equally. This would mean that also the regulations on eligibility, absentee ballots, early voting, voting machines, opening hours of the polling stations etc. would have to be harmonized across the USA.] And this would be, on balance, a bad thing because...? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Dear Jonathan Lundell, I wrote (7 Nov 2008): > Second: It makes it possible that the elections > are run by the governments of the individual > states and don't have to be run by the central > government. > > [Currently, to guarantee that the Equal Protection > Clause is fulfilled, it is only necessary to > guarantee that all the voters within the same > state are treated equally. > > A popular vote would make it necessary that also > all the voters across the USA are treated equally. > This would mean that also the regulations on > eligibility, absentee ballots, early voting, > voting machines, opening hours of the polling > stations etc. would have to be harmonized across > the USA.] You wrote (7 Nov 2008): > And this would be, on balance, a bad thing because...? First of all: There are many people in the USA who argue that the central government should pass regulations only where absolutely necessary and that the individual states should have as much say as possible. Furthermore: Currently, there are always also many elections on the state level and on the local level parallel to the presidential elections. The states would either have to run the presidential elections separately from the state elections and the local elections (which would increase the costs) or they would have to apply the same regulations for the presidential, the state, and the local elections (which would increase the power of the central government even further). Markus Schulze Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Nov 7, 2008, at 6:07 AM, Chris Benham wrote: Presumably then you would favour abolishing the general presidential election and instead fill the office by a vote among the members of the Senate. That would further greatly reduce the chance of a deadlock between the President and the Senate, and also save a lot of time and money. And we could go back to letting the state legislatures elect our senators, giving state governments even more control over elections. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] New MN court affidavits by those defending non-Monotonicvoting methods
From: "Kathy Dopp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Stéphane Rouillon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> CC: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] New MN court affidavits by those defending non-Monotonicvoting methods Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2008 23:43:28 -0700 On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 10:49 PM, Stéphane Rouillon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The spoiler effect is a special case of non-monotonicity. > > A general definition of a monotonic method is: > no voter or group of voter could harm a candidate by expressing its full > preference toward any higher preferred candidate. No, not even close. That definition you are giving is not met by any voting system I know of. Can anyone think of one? Exactly, no electoral system can garantee coherence between the order of preferences of a voter and the impact the participation of that voter has on the result. > While you restrict monotonicity definition to: > no voter or group of voter could harm its favourite by expressing its full > preference. Not even close. I simply use the mathematical definition of monotonic functions. Look it up. It's very simple. It is not so simple and you know it. For a monotonic function: if pref (a) > pref (b) then result (a) > result (b) For an election method a and b are not simple values but cover all instanciations of every other ballots case. Because some of these instanciations represent a collective incoherent will (containing a cycle), generic monotonicity cannot be inferred for all cases. > > It is your choice. You chose to disregard the fact that winners, while the > voter expresses or not its full preferences, could both not be the favourite > of the voters. I love the way you keep referring to voters as "its". It says something about the way you view voters. It says my mother tongue is french and I try not to discriminate between his or her. Huh? Your sentence above makes no sense to me. You want to try restating it more precisely? If, by voting or not for your favourite C, you could get either A or B elected, I say the method is not monotonic according to the general definition I use. Voting or not for C should have no impact on the result between A and B. > > I do not understand why you want to consider the spoiler effect as a > different problem. Because it IS. Because Arrow and every other expert recognizes it as a different problem than monotonicity. Because mathematically it is a different problem, etc. > As soon any voter would learn that its first choice has These voter "its" again... > no chance of winning, its second choice would become its new first choice, > the spoiler effect leading again to your personal definition of the > monotonic dilemma... Huh*!? My personal definition? You mean the personal definition that ALL mathematicians use? What do you think I'm so all-powerful that before I was born I went back in time and forced all mathematicians to adopt a definition for "monontonicity"? OK I can see I'm wasting my time here. If anyone wants to send me anything intelligent on this topic, please email me personally, off-list. Thanks. Kathy If you can't even recognize there is many definition to mononicity, you are definitively wasting your time doing psephology. Search for mono-add-plump or mono-add-top for example. By personal, I meant the one among these you use. As you cannot provide one by yourself I had to. If as you say: "I simply use the mathematical definition of monotonic functions. Look it up. It's very simple." Why not copy these simple lines? As about intelligence, I suppose it is like beauty and disrespect, it's all in the eye of the beholder... Finally I remark you did not comment on auditing paper versions of STV. Please do so on-list if you have good arguments, or off-list if you want preventing this discussion to harm your legal case. I hope it helped you prepare for your affidavits. Stéphane Rouillon, ing. M.Sc.A. Ph.D.(in mathematics) PS: Being a mathematician is not sufficient to always be logical, neither right all the time. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 8:58 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If some > use Condorcet, those have an advantage, and if some want to use cardinal > weighted pairwise, they can do so. You can also create a pairwise matrix from a range/score voting election. Basically, each candidate's total score sum is divided by the max score and all entries for that candidate in the table are set equal to that value. For example, Condorcet voting A ballot of A>B>C is converted to A B C A X 1 1 B 0 X 1 C 0 0 X Range/Score voting: A ballot of A(99) B(49.5) C(0) is converted to A B C A X 1 1 B 0.5 X 0.5 C 0 0 X e.g. the ballot is renormalised so that max value = 1 vote, A(1) B(0.5) C(0) Approval voting A ballot of A + B is converted to A B C A X 1 1 B 1 X 1 C 0 0 X Plurality voting A ballot of A is converted to A B C A X 1 1 B 0 X 0 C 0 0 X Since each method is summable, this means that all the matrices can all just be added together. If all the states use one type of ballot, then the result is equivalent to just using that type of election nationwide. Methods like IRV would be harder to fit into the system. It would require counting all the ballots (probably at the State level) and then generating a psuedo-matrix. Alternatively, maybe the matrices could be filled in as best as possible based on the announced results. It would give a mix of condorcet and plurality voting. First choices would effectively work like plurality and then the extra info from later rounds would help fill in the remainder. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Markus Schulze wrote (Fri.Nov.7): Hallo, in my opinion, the electoral college has two advantages to the popular vote. First: It gives more power to the voters in smaller states. [In the USA, the Senate is significantly stronger than the House of Representatives. For example: To appoint a Cabinet member or some other federal officer, the President needs the approval of the Senate, but not of the House of Representatives. Therefore, a deadlock between the President and the Senate would be more harmful than a deadlock between the President and the House of Representatives. Therefore, it makes sense to elect the President in a manner that corresponds more to the election of the Senate than to the election of the House of Representatives.] -snip- Marcus, Presumably then you would favour abolishing the general presidential election and instead fill the office by a vote among the members of the Senate. That would further greatly reduce the chance of a deadlock between the President and the Senate, and also save a lot of time and money. Chris Benham Find your perfect match today at the new Yahoo!7 Dating. Get Started http://au.dating.yahoo.com/?cid=53151&pid=1012 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Hallo, in my opinion, the electoral college has two advantages to the popular vote. First: It gives more power to the voters in smaller states. [In the USA, the Senate is significantly stronger than the House of Representatives. For example: To appoint a Cabinet member or some other federal officer, the President needs the approval of the Senate, but not of the House of Representatives. Therefore, a deadlock between the President and the Senate would be more harmful than a deadlock between the President and the House of Representatives. Therefore, it makes sense to elect the President in a manner that corresponds more to the election of the Senate than to the election of the House of Representatives.] Second: It makes it possible that the elections are run by the governments of the individual states and don't have to be run by the central government. [Currently, to guarantee that the Equal Protection Clause is fulfilled, it is only necessary to guarantee that all the voters within the same state are treated equally. A popular vote would make it necessary that also all the voters across the USA are treated equally. This would mean that also the regulations on eligibility, absentee ballots, early voting, voting machines, opening hours of the polling stations etc. would have to be harmonized across the USA.] * In section 8 of the current version (3 November 2008) of my paper, I explain how the electoral college should be combined with Condorcet voting: http://m-schulze.webhop.net/schulze1.pdf The basic ideas are: 1. Each voter gets a complete list of all candidates and ranks these candidates in order of preference. The individual voter may give the same preference to more than one candidate and he may keep candidates unranked. 2. For each pair of candidates A and B separately, we determine how many electoral votes Elect[A,B] candidate A would get and how many electoral votes Elect[B,A] candidate B would get when only these two candidates were running. To determine the final winner, we apply a Condorcet method to the matrix Elect[X,Y]. 3. To calculate Elect[A,B] and Elect[B,A], the electoral votes of a state should be distributed to candidate A and candidate B in proportion of the number of voters who strictly prefer candidate A to candidate B and the number of voters who strictly prefer candidate B to candidate A. Markus Schulze Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] New MN court affidavits by those defending non-Monotonic voting methods & IRV/STV
>>> From: Greg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>> Subject: Re: [EM] New MN court affidavits by those defending >>> non-Monotonic voting methods & IRV/STV > Abd seems to show that TTR cannot be reduced in such a mechanical manner, You guys seem to forget the biggest difference btwn TTR or primary/general and IRV is that ALL voters are free to participate in the second of the TTR elections or the general election - completely unlike all the voters with expired ballots in the final IRV counting rounds - esp. when their number of choices are restricted. THINK about it instead of continuing this steady stream of mouth-open, brain-shut nonsense. Plus there are numerous other differences. Re-read my paper on the flaws of IRV or re-read my affidavit to refresh yourselves on some of the differences between the two methods (two elections versus IRV). They are not remotely equivalent. Kathy Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] New MN court affidavits by those defending non-Monotonic voting methods & IRV/STV
> Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:56:16 -0800 > From: Bob Richard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [EM] New MN court affidavits by those defending >non-Monotonic voting methods & IRV/STV > Part of Kathy's argument here appears to depend on treating the first > and second rounds as if they were separate elections rather than two > steps in a single election method. If they could be taken separately, > each of the two rounds would be monotonic. Since you are talking about "rounds" you must be talking about IRV, in which case you are grossly mischaracterizing my position or have very poor reading comprehension. If you are talking about top-two runoff elections or primary and general elections, you are grossly mischaracterizing what any election official can inform you are clearly two separate elections and are most certainly nothing like "rounds" in an IRV election, in which case you need to sit down and give some serious thought to the differences to clear out the cobwebs. There is such a thing as real life despite some of the conversations on this list that seem to be determined to live in an alternate universe. Perhaps consult with your local election officials if you're still confused and don't believe me that top two runoff or primary and general *elections* involve two separate elections. Kathy Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] New MN court affidavits by those defending non-Monotonic voting methods & IRV/STV
> Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2008 22:39:02 -0500 > From: Greg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > You have often cited Warren Smith as one of the experts who "peer > reviewed" your prior arguments. I don't always agree with Warren, but > I do on this point. To quote from one of his pages: > > "But the delayed and instant runoff systems happen to be > mathematically equivalent if the voters are consistent between rounds > and if there are ?3 candidates." > http://rangevoting.org/Peru06.html > > You disagree, claiming they are "nowhere even close to equivalent." > Nowhere! Should you be letting someone peer-review your papers who you > makes a statement you deem "provably false and very simply so?" I > don't know how you can continue to contradict yourself in this way. Greg, I'm a mathematician, so when I say "provably so" I mean mathematically. You don't need me to point out all the detailed ways that top-two runoff is different than IRV, just sit down and think about it. You have a brain. Use a paper and pencil to help figure out and list the differences if necessary. Obviously more voters are able to participate if they choose to, in a top-two runoff than in any final IRV round in any IRV election where there are more candidates than the number of possible ballot rankings. Thus in top two runoff there is more likely to be a majority candidate, chosen by more than 50% of voters as opposed to IRV where 100% of voters rarely participate in the final counting rounds when there are alot of candidates, or if the IRV winner is the same as the first-round winner, then the result is the same as plurality with no runoff or second chance at all. That's just one big difference between the methods. Instant runoff is far fairer to more voters and has lots of other advantages over IRV. Just sit and study the issue for a while. I don't know what "delayed runoff" is. Never heard of that. Kathy Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] New MN court affidavits by those defending non-Monotonic voting methods & IRV/STV
Kathy Dopp wrote: From: Greg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [EM] New MN court affidavits by those defending non-Monotonic voting methods & IRV/STV As you acknowledge, IRV does not satisfy monotonicity when there are three (or more) candidates. True. IRV does not, but plurality does. Top-two runoff is equivalent to IRV when there are three candidates. Greg, Your statement above is provably false and very simply so. IRV and top-two runoff are nowhere even close to "equivalent". Read my affidavit from a month ago or my paper on the flaws of IRV or any of Abd'ul's emails, or just think about it for a while. If you consider top two runoff a single election that takes ranked ballots (people's preference orderings), and first votes for the first-ranked and then (on the second round) for whoever ranks highest of the candidates remaining in the race, then TTR is nonmonotonic. Abd seems to show that TTR cannot be reduced in such a mechanical manner, by that states that, when using TTR, used to elect candidates that weren't plurality winners, no longer elects them under IRV. Thus, the deliberation period between the first and second rounds are of importance. I don't think that makes TTR monotonic, though. What we'd need to show to have TTR nonmonotonic even with deliberation is for A and B to be winners if you vote in a "strategic" manner, but, if you raise your honest favorites, C and D win, both of which you think are worse than A and B. Can this be done? (Other list members, anyone? :-) Anyway, the point is that your nonmonotonicity argument against IRV could be used by others to argue that TTR is a virtual single-round method (of the form I described above), and thus that it too is nonmonotonic, and thus that either nonmonotonicity is too strict, or that TTR must be reverted to Plurality. If you face this, I think you should argue that TTR is a two-round mechanism and thus the deliberation gets around the problem (unless the A,B->C,D example is possible, in which case you have a problem). Or you might say that getting rid of TTR is a price you'll have to pay, and that getting Condorcet later might just be worth that price. Beware that you might look like a Plurality defender if you do so, though; especially so since TTR seems to give better results than Plurality, and probably better results than IRV too. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Dave Ketchum wrote: With the EC it seems standard to do Plurality - a method with weaknesses most of us in EM recognize. Let's do a Constitutional amendment to move up. I propose Condorcet. One advantage is that states could move up to use it as soon as ready. States, and even districts within states, could remain with Plurality until able to move up - with their votes counted as if they did bullet voting with Condorcet. Approval voting would be permitted the same way. To clarify, the US would be a single district, while vote counts could be published for states and other contained districts, as might be useful. I think an NPV-style gradual change would have a greater chance of succeeding than would a constitutional amendment. The constitutional amendment requires a supermajority, and would thus be blocked by the very same small states that benefit from the current Electoral College. As for the system of such a compact, we've discussed that earlier. I think the idea of basing it on a Condorcet matrix would be a good one. That is, states produce their own Condorcet matrices, and then these are weighted and added together to produce a national Condorcet matrix, which is run through an agreed-upon Condorcet method. If all states use Plurality, well, the results are as in Plurality. If some use Condorcet, those have an advantage, and if some want to use cardinal weighted pairwise, they can do so. Yet it's technically possible to use any method that produces a social ordering (by submitting, if there are n voters and the social ordering is A>B>C, the Condorcet matrix corresponding to "n: A>B>C"). While imperfect, and possibly worse than Plurality-to-Condorcet or simple Condorcet matrix addition, the option would be there, and would be better than nothing. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Raph Frank wrote: On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Steve Eppley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: For recounting in close states to affect the outcome, the leader's share of the EC (prior to recounts) would need to be very very close to half of the EC. If a State has 10 seats, then it would be 0.2% per seat. However, I would agree, in most cases, there wouldn't be an issue, as it would require 2 things to happen at once. First, there would need to be an extremely close national election and also an extremely close State vote. Perhaps the chances of this could be estimated by looking at how past presidential elections have gone. The national data is easily accessible, but I don't know about the state data; I know Wikipedia has diagrams of which way the various states voted in each presidential election, but to my knowledge, that doesn't show the margins that you'd need to see which states were close. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
