Re: [EM] Why I think IRV isn't a serious alternative 2
Hallo, Terry Bouricius wrote (22 Dec 2008): > In a crowded field, a weak CW may be a > little-considered candidate that every > voter ranks next to last. Markus Schulze wrote (23 Dec 2008): > As the Borda score of a CW is always > above the average Borda score, it is > not possible that the CW is a > "little-considered candidate that > every voter ranks next to last". Juho Laatu wrote (23 Dec 2008): > Except that there could be only two > candidates. But maybe the CW wouldn't > be "little-considered" then. Even when there are only two candidates, the Borda score of the CW is always above average. Markus Schulze Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] "CDTT criterion" compliance desirable?
Marcus, In one of your recent papers and on the Schulze method Wikipedia page you list "Woodall's CDTT criterion" as one of the criteria satisfied by the Schulze (Winning Votes) method. What, in your opinion, is supposed to be the positive point of compliance with that criterion? In other words, how would Schulze(WV) be worse if it satisfied all the criteria presently on your list of satisfied criteria except that one? Chris Benham PS: For those who might not know, the "CDTT criterion" presumably says that the winner must come from the CDTT set, explained below by Kevin Venzke. http://nodesiege.tripod.com/elections/#methcdtt The CDTT is a set of candidates defined by Woodall to include every candidate A such that, for any other candidate B, if B has a majority-strength beatpath to A, then A also has a majority-strength beatpath back to B. (See Schulze for a definition of a beatpath.) Another definition (actually, the one Woodall chooses to use) of the CDTT is that it is the union of all minimal sets such that no candidate in each set has a majority-strength loss to any candidate outside this set. (Candidate A has a "majority-strength loss" to candidate B if v[b,a] is greater than 50% of the number of cast votes.) Markus Schulze proposed this set earlier, in 1997. His wording was to take the Schwartz set resulting from replacing with pairwise ties, all pairwise wins with under a majority of the votes on the winning side. Stay connected to the people that matter most with a smarter inbox. Take a look http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/smarterinbox Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Why I think IRV isn't a serious alternative 2
Dave Ketchum > Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 12:23 AM > Disturbing that you would consider clear wins by a majority to be > objectionable. Dave, I never said that I would find that result objectionable. What I did say was that I thought such a result would be POLITICALLY unacceptable to the ELECTORS - certainly in the UK, and perhaps also in the USA as there are SOME similarities in the political culture. It goes almost without saying that such a result would be politically unacceptable to the two main parties I had in mind. Political acceptability is extremely important if you want to achieve practical reform of the voting system. The Electoral Reform Society has been campaigning for such reform for more that 100 years (since 1884), but it has still not achieved it main objective - to reform the FPTP voting system used to elected MPs to the UK House of Commons. The obstacles to that reform are not to do with theoretical or technical aspects of the voting systems - they are simply political. It was for political reasons that the Hansard Society's Commission on Electoral Reform came up with its dreadful version of MMP in 1976 and for political reasons that the Jenkins Commission proposed the equally dreadful AV+ in 1998. Jenkins' AV+ was a (slight) move towards PR, but it was deliberately designed so that the two main parties would be over-represented in relation to their shares of the votes and that one or other of two main parties would have a manufactured majority of the seats so that it could form a single-party majority government even though it had only a minority of the votes. It is sometimes possible to marginalise the politicians and the political parties in a campaign if you can mobilise enough of the ordinary electors to express a view, but our experience in the UK is that constitutional reform and reform of the voting system are very rarely issues on which ordinary electors will "take up arms" (metaphorically, of course). > In Election 2 Condorcet awarded the win to M. Who has any > business objecting? > 52 of 100 prefer M over D > 53 of 100 prefer M over R > Neither R nor D got a majority of the votes. Leaving aside the debate about the meaning of "majority", it is clear to me that M is the Condorcet winner - no question. But, as explained above, it is MY view that such an outcome would not be acceptable to our electors. I base my view of UK electors' likely reaction on nearly five decades of campaigning for practical reform of the voting systems we use in our public elections. > As to my "no first preferences" example, surest way to cause > such is to be unable to respond to them. I'm not sure what this statement is really mean to say.. I understand that a Condorcet winner could, indeed, have no first preferences at all. But in political terms, such a possibility is not just unacceptable, it's a complete non-starter. James No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.0/1861 - Release Date: 22/12/2008 11:23 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] "CDTT criterion" compliance desirable?
Dear Chris Benham, you wrote (23 Dec 2008): > In one of your recent papers and on the Schulze > method Wikipedia page you list "Woodall's CDTT > criterion" as one of the criteria satisfied by > the Schulze (Winning Votes) method. > > What, in your opinion, is supposed to be the > positive point of compliance with that criterion? > In other words, how would Schulze(WV) be worse > if it satisfied all the criteria presently on > your list of satisfied criteria except that one? Woodall's CDTT criterion can be rephrased as follows: When (1) the partial individual rankings can be completed in such a manner that candidate A is a Schwartz candidate and candidate B is not a Schwartz candidate and (2) the partial individual rankings cannot be completed in such a manner that candidate B is a Schwartz candidate and candidate A is not a Schwartz candidate, then candidate B must not be elected. This guarantees that not needlessly a candidate is elected who would not have been a Schwartz candidate when not some voters had cast only a partial ranking because of strategic considerations or other reasons. When Woodall's CDTT criterion is violated, then this means that casting partial individual rankings could needlessly lead to the election of a candidate B who is not a Schwartz candidate; "needlessly" because Woodall's CDTT criterion is compatible with the Smith criterion, independence of clones, monotonicity, reversal symmetry, Pareto, resolvability, etc.. I had already proposed this criterion in 1997. See e.g.: http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/1997-October/001569.html In that mail, this criterion is formulated as follows: > "X >> Y" means, that a majority of the voters > prefers X to Y. > > "There is a majority beat-path from X to Y," > means, that X >> Y or there is a set of candidates > C[1], ..., C[n] with X >> C[1] >> ... >> C[n] >> Y. > > A method meets the "Generalized Majority Criterion" > (GMC) if and only if: If there is a majority > beat-path from A to B, but no majority beat-path > from B to A, then B must not be elected. The motivation for this criterion was that I wanted to find a truncation resistance criterion (a) that is compatible with the Smith criterion and with independence of clones and that is otherwise as strong as possible and (b) that is defined on the cast preferences and not on the sincere preferences. Markus Schulze Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Why I think IRV isn't a serious alternative 2
On Tue, 23 Dec 2008 13:02:09 - James Gilmour wrote: Dave Ketchum > Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 12:23 AM Disturbing that you would consider clear wins by a majority to be objectionable. Ok, I did not say it clearly. Obvious need is to package arguments such that they are salable. Take the one about a Condorcet winner with no first preferences. Ugly thought, but how do you get there? Perhaps with three incompatible positions that share equally all the first preferences, while a neutral candidate gets all the second preferences. Assume it will never happen, so do not provide for such? As I suggested before, somehow, if you assume such fate will, somehow, prove you wrong. Provide a fence, forbidding getting too close to such? Where do you put the fence without doing more harm than good? Leave it legal, while assuring electors they should not worry about it ever occurring? I see this as proper - it is unlikely, yet not a true disaster if it does manage to occur. The primary battle between Clinton and Obama here presents a strong argument for getting rid of Plurality elections - better for them both to go to the general election fighting against their shared foe, McCain. Actually, the Electoral College complicates this discussion for presidential elections but it does apply to others. DWK Dave, I never said that I would find that result objectionable. What I did say was that I thought such a result would be POLITICALLY unacceptable to the ELECTORS - certainly in the UK, and perhaps also in the USA as there are SOME similarities in the political culture. It goes almost without saying that such a result would be politically unacceptable to the two main parties I had in mind. Political acceptability is extremely important if you want to achieve practical reform of the voting system. The Electoral Reform Society has been campaigning for such reform for more that 100 years (since 1884), but it has still not achieved it main objective - to reform the FPTP voting system used to elected MPs to the UK House of Commons. The obstacles to that reform are not to do with theoretical or technical aspects of the voting systems - they are simply political. It was for political reasons that the Hansard Society's Commission on Electoral Reform came up with its dreadful version of MMP in 1976 and for political reasons that the Jenkins Commission proposed the equally dreadful AV+ in 1998. Jenkins' AV+ was a (slight) move towards PR, but it was deliberately designed so that the two main parties would be over-represented in relation to their shares of the votes and that one or other of two main parties would have a manufactured majority of the seats so that it could form a single-party majority government even though it had only a minority of the votes. It is sometimes possible to marginalise the politicians and the political parties in a campaign if you can mobilise enough of the ordinary electors to express a view, but our experience in the UK is that constitutional reform and reform of the voting system are very rarely issues on which ordinary electors will "take up arms" (metaphorically, of course). In Election 2 Condorcet awarded the win to M. Who has any business objecting? 52 of 100 prefer M over D 53 of 100 prefer M over R Neither R nor D got a majority of the votes. Leaving aside the debate about the meaning of "majority", it is clear to me that M is the Condorcet winner - no question. But, as explained above, it is MY view that such an outcome would not be acceptable to our electors. I base my view of UK electors' likely reaction on nearly five decades of campaigning for practical reform of the voting systems we use in our public elections. As to my "no first preferences" example, surest way to cause such is to be unable to respond to them. I'm not sure what this statement is really mean to say.. I understand that a Condorcet winner could, indeed, have no first preferences at all. But in political terms, such a possibility is not just unacceptable, it's a complete non-starter. James -- da...@clarityconnect.compeople.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] Why I think IRV isn't a serious alternative 2
Dave Ketchum > Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 9:54 PM > Ok, I did not say it clearly. > > Obvious need is to package arguments such that they are salable. > > Take the one about a Condorcet winner with no first preferences. Ugly > thought, but how do you get there? Perhaps with three incompatible > positions that share equally all the first preferences, while a neutral > candidate gets all the second preferences. > > Assume it will never happen, so do not provide for such? As I suggested > before, somehow, if you assume such fate will, somehow, prove you wrong. > > Provide a fence, forbidding getting too close to such? Where do you put > the fence without doing more harm than good? > > Leave it legal, while assuring electors they should not worry about it ever > occurring? I see this as proper - it is unlikely, yet not a true disaster > if it does manage to occur. Interesting points, but I don't think any of them address the problem I identified. It is no answer at all to say "Obvious need is to package arguments such that they are saleable.". The ordinary electors will just not buy it when a weak Condorcet winner is a real likely outcome. I do not think you have to be anywhere near the zero first-preferences Condorcet winner scenario to be in the sphere of "politically unacceptable". I am quite certain that the 5% FP CW would also be politically unacceptable, and that there would political chaos in the government in consequence. The forces opposed to real reform of the voting system (big party politicians, big money, media moguls, to name a few) would ensure that there was chaos, and the electors would have an intuitive reaction against a weak Condorcet winner so they would go along with the demands to go back to "the good old ways". I said in an earlier post that I thought a strong third-placed Condorcet winner could be politically acceptable, and thus the voting system could be saleable if that was always the only likely outcome. So I have been asked before where I thought the tipping point might be, between acceptable and unacceptable. I don't know the answer to that question because no work has been done on that - certainly not in the UK where Condorcet is not on the voting reform agenda at all. In some ways the answer is irrelevant because the Condorcet voting system will never get off the ground so long as a 5% FP Condorcet winner is a realistic scenario, as it is when the current (pre-reform) political system is so dominated by two big political parties. > The primary battle between Clinton and Obama here presents a strong > argument for getting rid of Plurality elections - better for them both to > go to the general election fighting against their shared foe, McCain. This represents a VERY idealistic view of politics - at least, it would be so far as the UK is concerned. NO major party is going into any single-office single-winner election with more than one party candidate, no matter what the voting system. Having more than one candidate causes problems for the party and it certainly causes problems for the voters. And there is another important intuitive reaction on the part of the electors - they don't like parties that appear to be divided. They like the party to sort all that internally and to present one candidate with a common front in the public election for the office. But maybe my views are somewhat coloured by my lack of enthusiasm for public primary elections. > Actually, the Electoral College complicates this discussion for > presidential elections but it does apply to others. Yes, the Electoral College is a "complication" in any discussion about choosing a voting system for the possible direct election of the US President. As a practical reformer, that's one I would leave severely alone until every city mayor and every state governor and every other single-office holder in the USA was elected by an appropriate voting system instead of FPTP. But then I don't have a vote in any of those elections! James No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.0/1861 - Release Date: 22/12/2008 11:23 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] MELLS (min expected lack of log satisfaction)
I would like to give an introduction to MELLS (min expected lack of log satisfaction) that explains what kind of "satisfaction" is referred to in its name. The ballots are cardinal ratings on a range of zero to one hundred percent. The method assigns each ballot to a candidate in such a way as to minimize a certain quantity that we choose to call the "expected lack of log satisfaction," and then elects the candidate to whom a randomly drawn ballot was assigned. For ease of discourse, let's say that the ballot "votes for" the candidate to whom it is assigned. The "satisfaction" we have in mind has two factors: the first factor is the percentage of ballots that voted for the winning candidate. The second factor is the geometric mean of the ratings of that candidate on the ballots that voted for it. In other words, this kind of satisfaction is jointly proportional to the number of ballots that ended up voting for the winner and the geometric mean of the winner's ratings on those ballots. When we take the log, we get log satisfaction. The max possible value of this quantity is zero, which is attained when one hundred percent of the ballots rate the winner at one hundred percent. So if we want to deal with positive values, we change the sign to get lack of log satisfaction. Then minimizing expected lack of log satisfaction is equivalent to maximizing expected log satisfaction, but yields a positive optimal value instead of a negative one. You might well ask, "Why even bother with logs?" Of course, expected satisfaction would be positive, but maximizing expected satisfaction doesn't yield the same nice results as maximizing expected log satisfaction. Furthermore, the lack of expected log satisfaction is related rather directly to what is commonly called the entropy of a probability distribution: If you add (to the expected lack of log satisfaction) the log of the geometric mean of all of the ratings that the ballots give to the candidates that they "voted for," then you get what is commonly known as the entropy of the lottery (as a probability distribution).. What do I mean by "nice results?" I mean the family of examples implicit in the following set up: (ratings in brackets, with w+x+y+z=100%): v: A1>C1[v/(v+w)]>D[v] w: A2>C1[w/(v+w)]>D[w] x: B1>C2[x/(x+y)]>D[x] y: B2>C2[y/(x+y)]>D[y] In this example there are three lotteries tied for Minimal Expected Lack of Log Satisfaction. They are (1) The Random Ballot Lottery with respective probabilities v, w, x, y for A1, A2, B1, B2. (2) The consensus D "lottery." (3) The other compromise lottery that elects C1 or C2 with respective probabilities of (v+w) and (x+y). The common value of the MELLS for these lotteries is - (vlogv+wlogw+xlogx+ylogy), which is just the entropy of the Random Ballot Lottery. So these three lotteries are tied for MELLS winner, which is the way it should be if the ratings are interpreted as utilities. In other words, the voters would be indifferent among these three lotteries if their ratings were "sincere utilities." I hope that clarifies the rationale behind MELLS. Forest Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Why I think IRV isn't a serious alternative 2
Hello, --- En date de : Dim 21.12.08, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a écrit : > > Hello, > > > > --- En date de : Ven 19.12.08, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax > a écrit : > > > > > With LNH, the "harm" is that the voter > sees a > > > second preference candidate elected rather than > the first > > > preference. > > > > Actually, the harm need not take that form. It could > be that you add an > > additional preference and cause an even worse > candidate to win instead of > > your favorite candidate. > > That's not called LNH, I think. LNH: Adding an > additional preference cannot cause a higher preference > candidate to lose. I didn't contradict that. I contradicted the statement quoted. When a voter adds a preference and so makes a preferred candidate lose, there is no guarantee that the new winner was ranked by this voter, according to the definition of LNHarm. > With Bucklin, the described behavior can't occur, if > I'm correct. That's correct. > > Yes, but the concern should not be that you personally > will ruin the > > result, it's that you and voters of like mind and > strategy will ruin the > > result. > > There are two approaches: true utility for various vote > patterns, which is the "last voter" utility, since > if your vote doesn't affect the outcome, it has no > utility (except personal satisfaction, which should, in > fact, be in the models. There is a satisfaction in voting > sincerely, all by itself, and this has been neglected in > models.) > > The other approach is the "what if many think like > me?" approach. That's not been modeled, to my > knowledge, but it's what I'm suggesting as an > *element* in zero-knowledge strategy. It's particularly > important with Approval! The "mediocre" results in > some Approval examples proposed come from voters not > trusting that their own opinions will find agreement from > other voters, and if almost everyone votes that way, we get > a mediocre result. This actually requires a preposterously > ignorant electorate, using a bad strategy. That's not very relevant to the point I was making. I was saying it doesn't matter whether a given (negative) change to the outcome can be achieved by a single voter, or whether it takes a group of like-minded voters. > From the beginning, we should have questioned the tendency > to believe that "strategic voting" was a Bad > Thing. All things being equal it is a bad thing, when the alternative is sincerity. There are situations where it helps, is all. > > > I'd have to look at it. How does MMPO work? I > worry > > > about "nearly," [...] > > The "opposition" of candidate A to candidate > B is the number of voters > > ranking A above B. (There are no pairwise contests as > such, though the > > same data is collected as though there were.) > > > > Score each candidate as the greatest opposition they > receive from another > > candidate. > > > > Elect the candidate with the lowest score. > > > > This satisfies LNHarm because by adding another > preference, the only > > change you can make is that a worse candidate is > defeated. > > Okay, that's clear. Now, "nearly" a Condorcet > method? If truncation and equal ranking are disallowed then it is a Condorcet method (and equivalent to the other minmax methods). Discrepancies occur when equal ranking and truncation are allowed, because instead of candidates only being scored according to contests that they actually lose, they are scored according to all of them, even the ones they win. > But this is a peripheral issue for me. Reading about > MMPO, my conclusion is that, absent far better explanations > of the method and its implications than what I found > looking, it's not possible as an alternative. But that's irrelevant. I'm not trying to persuade you to advocate MMPO. I'm pointing out again that you can't effectively criticize LNHarm by using arguments that are specific to IRV. > > DSC is harder to explain. Basically the method is > trying to identify the > > largest "coalitions" of voters that prefer a > given set of candidates to > > the others. The coalitions are ranked and evaluated in > turn. By adding > > another preference, you can get lumped in with a > coalition that you > > hadn't been. (Namely, the coalition that prefers > all the candidates that > > you ranked, in some order, to all the others.) But > this doesn't help > > the added candidate win if a different candidate > supported by this > > coalition was already winning. > > MMPO is easy to explain, but the *implications* aren't > easy without quite a bit of study. DSC being harder to > explain makes the implications even more obscure. Thanks for > explaining, I appreciate the effort; but I'm > prioritizing my time. I'll need to drop this particular > discussion. If, however, a serious proposal is made for > implementing one of these methods, I'll return. Again, the point was not to encourage you to advocate DSC. Kevin Venzke Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com
Re: [EM] Why I think IRV isn't a serious alternative 3
Hello, --- En date de : Lun 22.12.08, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a écrit : > At 12:56 AM 12/21/2008, Kevin Venzke wrote: > > --- En date de : Ven 19.12.08, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax > a écrit : > > [starts with Venzke, then my response, then his] > > > > Mean utility is supposed to be naive, and it > is > > > optimal, if you are > > > > "naive" about win odds. > > > > > > I know that this (mean voting strategy in > Approval) has > > > been proposed, but it's a poor model. A voter > who is > > > "naive" about win odds is a voter who > is so out of > > > touch with the real world that we must wonder > about the > > > depth of the voter's judgment of the > candidates > > > themselves! > > > > I can't understand what you're criticizing. It > is the zero-info strategy. > > You seem to be attacking this strategy by attacking > the voters who would > > have to use it. That doesn't mean that those > voters wouldn't have to use > > it. > > Yes, that is *a* zero-knowledge strategy that misses > something. A voter with no knowledge about other voters is a > very strange and unusual animal. I'm saying that the > *strategy* is a stupid one, and that real voters are much > smarter than that. This is missing the point. There is no implication anywhere that a zero-info strategy is supposed to be usable by real voters. > Voters have knowledge of each other, > generally. Positing that they have sufficient knowledge of > the candidates to have sufficient preference to even vote -- > I don't vote if I don't recognize any of the > candidates or knowledge of whom to prefer -- but they > don't have *any* knowledge of the likely response of > others to those candidates, is positing a practically > impossible situation. Yet this is the > "zero-knowledge" assumption. In this sense, > "zero-knowledge" doesn't exist, it's an > oxymoron. That's fine. It makes no difference whether zero-info strategy is ever usable in practice. > Most voters, in fact, have a fairly accurate knowledge of > the rough response of the overall electorate to a set of > candidates, provided they know the candidates. Those on the > left know that they are on the left, and that the > "average voter" is therefore to their right. And > vice versa. Those near the middle think of themselves as, > again, in the middle somewhere. Yes, this is not a zero-info situation. > The most common Approval Vote will be a bullet vote. How > much "knowledge" does that take? Do you have a very concise summary of why you believe the most common Approval vote will be a bullet vote? Are you making any assumptions about nomination strategy, what kinds of and how many candidates will be nominated? > > > This naive voter has no idea if the voter's > own > > > preferences are normal, or completely isolated > from those of > > > other voters. This is far, far from a typical > voter, and > > > imagining that most voters will follow this naive > strategy > > > is ... quite a stretch, don't you think? > > > > I don't know of anyone who said that voters would > follow this strategy > > in a public election. > > It's been implied that the scenario is somehow > realistic. Do you want to name names? I don't know who has implied this. > If there is no possibility that a scenario could > occur in a real election, then considering it as a criticism > of the method is ivory-tower thinking. Are you talking about Saari? > Mean utility of the candidates strategy has been proposed > by Approval supporters, but unless the utilities are > modified by expectations, it's a terrible strategy, > bullet voting is better, probably. Why do you think it's a terrible strategy? I think it is a better strategy than bullet voting, unless you believe lots of clones have been nominated in order to take advantage of your strategy. But that would be a pretty bizarre fear since, if anyone ever learned of this conspiracy, the strategy would disappear. > > > > "Better than expectation" is mean > *weighted* > > > utility. You weight the > > > > utilities by the expected odds that each > candidate > > > will win. (There is > > > > an assumption in there about these odds > being > > > proportional to the odds > > > > that your vote can break a tie.) > > > > > > Sure. That's the correct understanding of > "mean > > > utility." It means a reasonable expectation > of the > > > outcome. However, what's incorrect is > assuming that > > > voters have no idea of the probably votes of > others. > > > > Ok, but I have never done that. "Better than > expectation" strategy > > does not really depend on ignorance of other > voters' intentions. > > "Better than expectation strategy" is sound. > "Better than mean of the candidates" isn't. > But this is inherently a "strategy." The latter is a special case of the former. > > > Being human, each voter is a sample human, and > more likely > > > to represent the views of other humans than not. > This is a > > > far more accurate model of human behavior than > the > > > assumptio
Re: [EM] Why I think IRV isn't a serious alternative 2
On Tue, 23 Dec 2008 23:05:56 - James Gilmour wrote: Dave Ketchum > Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 9:54 PM Ok, I did not say it clearly. Obvious need is to package arguments such that they are salable. Take the one about a Condorcet winner with no first preferences. Ugly thought, but how do you get there? Perhaps with three incompatible positions that share equally all the first preferences, while a neutral candidate gets all the second preferences. Assume it will never happen, so do not provide for such? As I suggested before, somehow, if you assume such fate will, somehow, prove you wrong. Provide a fence, forbidding getting too close to such? Where do you put the fence without doing more harm than good? Leave it legal, while assuring electors they should not worry about it ever occurring? I see this as proper - it is unlikely, yet not a true disaster if it does manage to occur. Interesting points, but I don't think any of them address the problem I identified. It is no answer at all to say "Obvious need is to package arguments such that they are saleable.". The ordinary electors will just not buy it when a weak Condorcet winner is a real likely outcome. Does "real likely" fit the facts? Some thought: Assuming 5 serious contenders they will average 3rd rank with CW doing better (for 3, 2nd). Point is that while some voters may rank the CW low, to be CW it has to average toward first rank to beat the competition. Or, look at the other description of CW - to be CW it won all counts comparing it with other candidates - for each the CW had to rank above the other more often than the other ranked above the CW (cycles describe nt having a CW). I do not think you have to be anywhere near the zero first-preferences Condorcet winner scenario to be in the sphere of "politically unacceptable". I am quite certain that the 5% FP CW would also be politically unacceptable, and that there would political chaos in the government in consequence. The forces opposed to real reform of the voting system (big party politicians, big money, media moguls, to name a few) would ensure that there was chaos, and the electors would have an intuitive reaction against a weak Condorcet winner so they would go along with the demands to go back to "the good old ways". I said in an earlier post that I thought a strong third-placed Condorcet winner could be politically acceptable, and thus the voting system could be saleable if that was always the only likely outcome. So I have been asked before where I thought the tipping point might be, between acceptable and unacceptable. I don't know the answer to that question because no work has been done on that - certainly not in the UK where Condorcet is not on the voting reform agenda at all. In some ways the answer is irrelevant because the Condorcet voting system will never get off the ground so long as a 5% FP Condorcet winner is a realistic scenario, as it is when the current (pre-reform) political system is so dominated by two big political parties. So long as the domination stays, Condorcet does not affect their being winners. It helps electors both vote per the two party competition AND vote as they choose for third party candidates. Only when (and if) the two parties weaken and lose their domination would the third party votes do any electing. The primary battle between Clinton and Obama here presents a strong argument for getting rid of Plurality elections - better for them both to go to the general election fighting against their shared foe, McCain. This represents a VERY idealistic view of politics - at least, it would be so far as the UK is concerned. NO major party is going into any single-office single-winner election with more than one party candidate, no matter what the voting system. Having more than one candidate causes problems for the party and it certainly causes problems for the voters. And there is another important intuitive reaction on the part of the electors - they don't like parties that appear to be divided. They like the party to sort all that internally and to present one candidate with a common front in the public election for the office. But maybe my views are somewhat coloured by my lack of enthusiasm for public primary elections. So long as the general election would be Plurality, the parties DESPERATELY needed to offer only single candidates there. Thus the Democrats had to have a single candidate. Clinton and Obama invested enormous sums in the needed primary - apparently the Democrats were unable to optimize this effort. If the general election was Condorcet the Democrats could have considered a truce in this internal battle and invested all that money in making sure McCain lost. Per your enthusiasm note, we see primaries as a normal way to decide on a single candidate for each party in the general election. How is this handled in the UK - you a
Re: [EM] Why I think IRV isn't a serious alternative 2
--- On Wed, 24/12/08, James Gilmour wrote: > I do not think you have to be anywhere near the zero > first-preferences Condorcet winner scenario to be in the > sphere of "politically > unacceptable". I am quite certain that the 5% FP CW > would also be politically unacceptable, and that there would > political chaos in > the government in consequence. The forces opposed to real > reform of the voting system (big party politicians, big > money, media > moguls, to name a few) would ensure that there was chaos, > and the electors would have an intuitive reaction against a > weak Condorcet > winner so they would go along with the demands to go back > to "the good old ways". > ... the Condorcet voting system will never get off the ground > so long as a 5% FP Condorcet winner is a realistic scenario, > as it is when > the current (pre-reform) political system is so dominated > by two big political parties. The question is if methods that may regularly elect a 5% first place support Condorcet winner can be politically acceptable. One reason supporting this approach is that most single-winner methods are designed to always elect compromise winners. (Some methods like random ballot are an exception since they give all candidates a proportional probability to become elected.) Using single-winner methods to implement multi-winner elections is a weird starting point in the first place. This approach works for two-party systems, although PR of those two parties will not be provided. If one uses a compromise / best winner seeking single-winner method like Condorcet for multi-winner elections (using single-seat districts) it is in principle possible that all the districts will elect a 5% FP support candidate. In the worst case there are the two old major parties with close to 50% support and then one or few compromise candidates in the middle. The proportionality of this single-winner single-seat district based Condorcet for multi-winner elections may thus be quite biased. The same applies to all similar misuse of single-winner methods. What is the fix then? One approach is to use a single-winner methods that do not aim at electing the best (compromise) winner in each case. Random ballot would be one. We would get quite decent PR this way. But the random nature of the method is maybe nor what people want. Another approach is to use IRV or some other method that favours the large parties. No proper proportionality provided but this approach is close to the current plurality based approach in many two-party countries. This approach may thus be acceptable in wo-party countries (but probably not elsewhere). A third approach would be to implement some PR method. Typically this means use of multi-winner districts (although not mandatory since one can do this in principle also with single-seat or few-seat districts). One can interpret this as one argument in favour of IRV-like methods that will to some extent maintain the dominance of the old large parties, or as a warning against trying to achieve PR by using single-winner methods for multi-winner elections. - - - Since I mentioned option of having PR and "few-candidate districts" here is also one sketch of such a method. Each district has two seats. Votes for each party are first counted at national level and the number of seats will be allocated to them proportionally. At the second phase seats are allocated in the districts. The district that has strongest support of some single party gets the first seat. A quota of votes is deducted from its votes. Next the second strongest claim will be handled. Claims that would exceed the two seats per district limit or the national level allocation of seats to each party will be skipped. The process continues until all seats have been allocated. One can expect that each two-seat district got at least one representative that the voters clearly wanted. The second seat will in some cases go to some small party that didn't get as much votes in this district as some other party did. This violation of "local proportionality" is needed to maintain the "national proportionality" and the "two-seat district approach". (Mixed member systems would be another approach.) Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
