[EM] Feature extraction and criteria for multiwinner elections

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

One way of making multiwinner elections proportional is to have the 
method pass certain criteria. Most obvious of these are Droop 
proportionality, which is the multiwinner analog to mutual majority. 
However, such criteria can only say what the method should do, in 
certain cases, not what it does in all cases. This is like Condorcet - a 
Condorcet method elects a CW whenever there is one, but it says nothing 
about what happens when there isn't a CW.


So, if we're going to make better multiwinner methods, I think we need a 
way that's applicable to all situations, so that we can apply the same 
rule consistently. Another approach would be to try to devise criteria 
that cover increasingly more of the situations, but I'll get to that later.


If we're going to have a rule or metric for a good multiwinner election, 
what should it be? Well, the intuitive nature of proportional 
representation is that if there are some factions, and those factions 
all vote accordingly to their preferences, then those factions should be 
represented according to their numbers. This suggests some way of 
feature extraction: find underlying points in issue space, or the 
composition of issue space itself; then pick the candidates that most 
accurately represent this configuration.


That, in a sense, is what my test system does to find good multiwinner 
systems: it constructs n issues (of varying support among the people), 
then randomly assigns agrees and disagrees for each issue to each voter 
(and candidate) so that the support reaches the fraction in question. 
For instance, for an issue set so that 70% are in favor, a random 
fraction of 0.7 of the people (voters and candidates) have that issue in 
favor as well.


It may be possible to use this idea in reverse: construct some model of 
how voters weight disagreements, then assign n bits (for some n) so that 
the RMSE between their ballot scores and the predicted ballot scores 
(based on assigned issues to voters and candidates) is minimized. For a 
binary issue profile, in my simulations, I used simple Hamming 
agreement. That is, if a voter and a candidate agree on five issues out 
of ten, the voter gives five points of ten (or 2.5 of 5 or whatnot). 
Obviously, this lends itself much more to cardinal than to ordinal 
ballots. What's important is not whether voters actually do this, but 
whether it's a good model - that is, whether the RMSE can be made very 
low by doing this. If voters vote based on personal appeal or something 
like that, and that can be modeled as three or four virtual issues, 
then no great loss.


The good thing about binary issues is that once we have reconstructed 
them, it's simple (well, in the NP sense) to ensure proportionality. 
Simply pick the set of candidates so that the difference between the 
fractions supporting each issue, and those fractions for the entire 
people, is minimized according to some error (probably should be the 
Sainte-Lague metric, Gini, or RMSE).


What's not so easy is to assign the issues in the first place. The 
formal problem becomes something like: define an issue matrix, n_i * 
(voters + candidates), where n_i[issue][person] is either 0 or 1; 
further define a model scoring function f(voter, cand) = SUM(k = 
1..num_issues, (1 - |n_i[k][voter] - n_i[k][cand]|)); now, given a 
voters*candidates score matrix q, and an integer p  0, populate an 
issue array of p*(voter+candidates) so that the RMSE of the matrix, 
where difference at a point is defined as (f(voter, cand) - 
q[voter][cand]), is minimized. The decision version of the problem is, 
is there any way of constructing such a binary issue matrix so that the 
RMSE (or some other error) is below a certain value?. I think the 
decision version is in NP, so at worst, the problem is NP-complete, but 
what's worse is that if it is, it's in not just the number of 
candidates, but also in the number of voters.


So that might be too hard. The idea seems sound, though; construct an 
opinion space and then pick proportionally from it. Could we use other 
feature extraction methods? There is one such function/method that can 
be done in polytime, namely SVD - singular value decomposition. It's 
used in, among other things, predicting movie ratings by most entries to 
the Netflix contest. However, though I have tinkered a bit with SVD, I 
haven't found any way of translating its result into issue space, or 
getting good results in my simulations by any such SVD-driven selection. 
The two ways I've tried have been to pick candidates so that the sum of 
each row is the same for the candidates and for the population at large, 
and also one so that a histogram over the candidates (or rather, a KDE, 
but it's roughly the same) is similar to one over the people, for all 
issues. Neither seems to give much better results than random. Do any 
of you have ideas as to how to use SVD for this purpose? I'm no expert 
in statistics.


The binary issue model might also be expanded 

Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[Markus Schulze]

Dear James Gilmour,

you wrote (2 Jan 2009):

 So let's try a small number of numbers.

 At a meeting we need to elect one office-bearer
 (single-office, single-winner).  There are four
 candidates and we decide to use the exhaustive
 ballot (bottom elimination, one at a time) with
 the requirement that to win, a candidate must
 obtain a majority of the votes.

 First round votes:  A 40;   B  25;  C 20;  D 15.
 No candidate has a majority, so we eliminate D.

 Second round votes: A 47;  B 25;  C 20.
 It seems that some of those present who voted
 for D in the first round did not want to vote in
 the second round  -  but that is their privilege.

 QUESTION: did candidate A win at the second round
 with 'a majority of the votes'?

Whatever the statement the winner always wins a
majority of the votes means, this statement must
be defined in such a manner that you only need to
know the winner for every possible situation (but
you don't need to know the used algorithm to
calculate the winner) to verify/falsify the
validity of this statement. Otherwise, this
statement is only a tautology.

Markus Schulze



Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[James Gilmour]

  James Gilmour  wrote (2 Jan 2009):
  So let's try a small number of numbers.
 
  At a meeting we need to elect one office-bearer (single-office, 
  single-winner).  There are four candidates and we decide to use the 
  exhaustive ballot (bottom elimination, one at a time) with
  the requirement that to win, a candidate must
  obtain a majority of the votes.
 
  First round votes:  A 40;   B  25;  C 20;  D 15.
  No candidate has a majority, so we eliminate D.
 
  Second round votes: A 47;  B 25;  C 20.
  It seems that some of those present who voted
  for D in the first round did not want to vote in
  the second round  -  but that is their privilege.
 
  QUESTION: did candidate A win at the second round
  with 'a majority of the votes'?

Markus Schulze  Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 2:51 PM 
 Whatever the statement the winner always wins a
 majority of the votes means, this statement must
 be defined in such a manner that you only need to
 know the winner for every possible situation (but
 you don't need to know the used algorithm to
 calculate the winner) to verify/falsify the
 validity of this statement. Otherwise, this
 statement is only a tautology.

Markus, I don't know where the statement  the winner always wins a majority of 
the votes came from, but it is not mine, and in my
opinion, it does not take the discussion any further forward..

What I wrote, very specifically, was with the requirement that to win, a 
candidate must obtain a majority of the votes.
Statements of this kind, and in these words (or words almost identical to 
these), are used when elections are held at meetings and
are conducted either by show of hands or by informal paper ballot  This form of 
words distinguishes such elections from those where
a single-round plurality result would be accepted, when the corresponding 
statement from the Returning Officer would be something
like and the winner will be the candidate with the most votes.

This thread is about the meaning of the expression a majority of the votes.   
I presented the simple scenario above to see what
views there might be about the meaning of a majority of the votes in that 
specific situation.

James

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17:01



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Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[Markus Schulze]

Dear James Gilmour,

you wrote (2 Jan 2009):

 So let's try a small number of numbers.

 At a meeting we need to elect one office-bearer
 (single-office, single-winner).  There are four
 candidates and we decide to use the exhaustive
 ballot (bottom elimination, one at a time) with
 the requirement that to win, a candidate must
 obtain a majority of the votes.

 First round votes:  A 40;   B  25;  C 20;  D 15.
 No candidate has a majority, so we eliminate D.

 Second round votes: A 47;  B 25;  C 20.
 It seems that some of those present who voted
 for D in the first round did not want to vote in
 the second round  -  but that is their privilege.

 QUESTION: did candidate A win at the second round
 with 'a majority of the votes'?

I wrote (2 Jan 2009):

 Whatever the statement the winner always wins a
 majority of the votes means, this statement must
 be defined in such a manner that you only need to
 know the winner for every possible situation (but
 you don't need to know the used algorithm to
 calculate the winner) to verify/falsify the
 validity of this statement. Otherwise, this
 statement is only a tautology.

You wrote (2 Jan 2009):

 Markus, I don't know where the statement the
 winner always wins a majority of the votes came
 from, but it is not mine, and in my opinion, it
 does not take the discussion any further forward..

 What I wrote, very specifically, was with the
 requirement that to win, a candidate must obtain
 a majority of the votes. Statements of this kind,
 and in these words (or words almost identical
 to these), are used when elections are held at
 meetings and are conducted either by show of
 hands or by informal paper ballot  This form of
 words distinguishes such elections from those
 where a single-round plurality result would be
 accepted, when the corresponding statement from
 the Returning Officer would be something like
 and the winner will be the candidate with the
 most votes.

 This thread is about the meaning of the
 expression a majority of the votes.
 I presented the simple scenario above to see
 what views there might be about the meaning of
 a majority of the votes in that specific
 situation.

This thread is rather about the meaning of the
expression to win a majority of the votes.

Markus Schulze



Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[Terry Bouricius]

Dave makes a good point, that I may have emulated Abd in verbosity in
making my point. Here it is in a nutshell:

Since the two-round runoff election system widely used in the U.S. that
involves counting votes in two rounds is said to always elect a majority
winner, meaning a majority of votes from those voters who chose to
express a preference between the two candidates who made it into the final
runoff, then by the identical logic, an IRV winner is also a majority
winner who ALSO has a majority of votes from those voters who chose to
express a preference between the two candidates who made it into the final
runoff. Both methods define a majority by excluding from the basis for
calculating the majority threshold all of the voters who may have voted
for a candidate in the first round but abstain (do not indicate any
preference) in the final round. In sum...If two round runoffs result in
majority winners so does IRV.

Terry Bouricius

- Original Message - 
From: Dave Ketchum da...@clarityconnect.com
To: Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net
Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com; Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
a...@lomaxdesign.com
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 1:06 AM
Subject: Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?


Terry and Abd look set to duel forever.

Conduct of elections is a serious topic, but both of them offer too many
words without usefully covering the topic.

They offer RRONR as ammunition in a war it was never intended for:  Over
100 years ago General Robert had to chair a meeting.  As an army general
he
should be able to handle such a task?  After doing it he decided there
better be batter directions put together for the future.  The resulting
rules continue to be used by many.

RRONR has a few pages about elections.  Unlike some of their directions
for
new meeting chairs, these are not designed for blind obedience.  Their
major direction is that whoever does serious elections had better decide
carefully and formally agree as to how they will do such.

Meaning of 'majority' is their big dispute.

IRV documentation claims its found winner has a majority (with no attached
statement of what this means) and Terry defends this usage.

Abd claims this is deception, if not worse:

Majority means more than half and, without qualification, means of the
whole thing measured.
  Blanks are excludable - presumably their voters chose not to
participate in deciding whatever is voted on.
  Exhausted ballots are not excludable - those voters certainly
participated, though for other candidates.  But IRV, claiming a majority,
has to be excluding these since IRV only has a majority between the last
two candidates considered.

Therefore Abd complains since:
  Deciders can be sold IRV based on the Fairvote claim of majority.
  Anyone looking close will disagree due to failure of IRV to produce
a
true majority.

On Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:59:09 -0500 Terry Bouricius wrote:
   I take offense at Abd repeatedly suggesting I am a liar or am engaging
in
   deception. We have a legitimate difference of opinion about the
   appropriate use of the term majority and interpretation of RRONR.
  
...
  
   - Original Message -
   From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com
   To: Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net;
   kathy.d...@gmail.com; election-methods@lists.electorama.com
   Sent: Monday, December 29, 2008 11:55 PM
   Subject: Re: [EM] Why I think IRV isn't a serious alternative 2
  
  
   At 08:50 PM 12/29/2008, Terry Bouricius wrote:
  
  Kathy Dopp wrote:
  
  snip
  since abstentions or blanks are from those who have not voted.
  snip
  
  I believe my interpretation of Robert's Rules of Order is correct. In
  order for a ballot being reviewed by a teller to be blank, and thus
  excluded from the majority threshold calculation, as directed by
Robert's
  Rule of order, the voter must certainly have submitted a ballot paper.
  
  
   Bouricius, you are totally off, stretching, trying desperately to
   find ways to interpret the words there to mean what you want them to
mean.
  
...
  
   And now the kicker: we have explained -- and I could cite word for
   word, and have in many places -- the explicit language of Robert's
   Rules of Order on this. Bouricius has just said the exact opposite of
   the truth. What he is proposing as the meaning of abstention, and
   the basis for majority, is totally contrary to the plain language of
   RRONR, not to mention the usual interpretation.
  
   Usual interpretation by whom? By FairVote activists and those duped by
   them?
  
   I'm saddened, to tell you the truth. This is the absolute worst
   argument I've ever seen from Bouricius, it's word manipulation to try
   to take a text and make it say the exact opposite of what it plainly
says.
  
   I'd thought that he was above that, but, apparently not.
  
   The public will *not* be fooled when the issues are made plain and
clear.
-- 
da...@clarityconnect.com

Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[Paul Kislanko]

Not to muddy an already muddied water, but if I define majority to be
50%+1 of ELIGIBLE VOTERS no method can claim to select a majority winner
unless there's a large turnout in every round (for systems that include more
than one round of VOTING.) 

-Original Message-
From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com
[mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Terry
Bouricius
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 12:23 PM
To: Dave Ketchum; election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

Dave makes a good point, that I may have emulated Abd in verbosity in
making my point. Here it is in a nutshell:

Since the two-round runoff election system widely used in the U.S. that
involves counting votes in two rounds is said to always elect a majority
winner, meaning a majority of votes from those voters who chose to
express a preference between the two candidates who made it into the final
runoff, then by the identical logic, an IRV winner is also a majority
winner who ALSO has a majority of votes from those voters who chose to
express a preference between the two candidates who made it into the final
runoff. Both methods define a majority by excluding from the basis for
calculating the majority threshold all of the voters who may have voted
for a candidate in the first round but abstain (do not indicate any
preference) in the final round. In sum...If two round runoffs result in
majority winners so does IRV.

Terry Bouricius

- Original Message - 
From: Dave Ketchum da...@clarityconnect.com
To: Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net
Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com; Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
a...@lomaxdesign.com
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 1:06 AM
Subject: Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?


Terry and Abd look set to duel forever.

Conduct of elections is a serious topic, but both of them offer too many
words without usefully covering the topic.

They offer RRONR as ammunition in a war it was never intended for:  Over
100 years ago General Robert had to chair a meeting.  As an army general
he
should be able to handle such a task?  After doing it he decided there
better be batter directions put together for the future.  The resulting
rules continue to be used by many.

RRONR has a few pages about elections.  Unlike some of their directions
for
new meeting chairs, these are not designed for blind obedience.  Their
major direction is that whoever does serious elections had better decide
carefully and formally agree as to how they will do such.

Meaning of 'majority' is their big dispute.

IRV documentation claims its found winner has a majority (with no attached
statement of what this means) and Terry defends this usage.

Abd claims this is deception, if not worse:

Majority means more than half and, without qualification, means of the
whole thing measured.
  Blanks are excludable - presumably their voters chose not to
participate in deciding whatever is voted on.
  Exhausted ballots are not excludable - those voters certainly
participated, though for other candidates.  But IRV, claiming a majority,
has to be excluding these since IRV only has a majority between the last
two candidates considered.

Therefore Abd complains since:
  Deciders can be sold IRV based on the Fairvote claim of majority.
  Anyone looking close will disagree due to failure of IRV to produce
a
true majority.

On Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:59:09 -0500 Terry Bouricius wrote:
   I take offense at Abd repeatedly suggesting I am a liar or am engaging
in
   deception. We have a legitimate difference of opinion about the
   appropriate use of the term majority and interpretation of RRONR.
  
...
  
   - Original Message -
   From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com
   To: Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net;
   kathy.d...@gmail.com; election-methods@lists.electorama.com
   Sent: Monday, December 29, 2008 11:55 PM
   Subject: Re: [EM] Why I think IRV isn't a serious alternative 2
  
  
   At 08:50 PM 12/29/2008, Terry Bouricius wrote:
  
  Kathy Dopp wrote:
  
  snip
  since abstentions or blanks are from those who have not voted.
  snip
  
  I believe my interpretation of Robert's Rules of Order is correct. In
  order for a ballot being reviewed by a teller to be blank, and thus
  excluded from the majority threshold calculation, as directed by
Robert's
  Rule of order, the voter must certainly have submitted a ballot paper.
  
  
   Bouricius, you are totally off, stretching, trying desperately to
   find ways to interpret the words there to mean what you want them to
mean.
  
...
  
   And now the kicker: we have explained -- and I could cite word for
   word, and have in many places -- the explicit language of Robert's
   Rules of Order on this. Bouricius has just said the exact opposite of
   the truth. What he is proposing as the meaning of abstention, and
   the basis for majority, is totally contrary to the plain 

Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[Paul Kislanko]

I think the cited text provides an important distinction we need to use on
EM. 

In theory, we want to discuss election methods based upon how they collect
and count ballots, which is analytic in some sense. As soon as you
introduce real candidates and party politics (i.e. strategies) we get a
real mess that is not so easily analyzed.

This is relevant to the how do you define majority? question because if
the denominator doesn't include all of the non-voters who dis-approve of
EVERY alternative it's not a majority of stakeholders and in some sense
you need to count the non-voters, especially if the method discards ballots
in its counting rounds.

So, just from a logical perspective a claim to always select a
majority-approved winner must define majority in terms of Eligible
Voters.  Or at least define majority in terms of voters in the first
round. So, an IRV winner with 47 votes out of 100 originally cast is NOT a
majority-winner.

Bucklin is a method that identifies the rank for which a Majority agrees the
alternative should be ranked at least that highly. No information is
discarded in the counting process, and no ballots are ignored just because
the ballots' #1 isn't a plurality winner.

If we make the reasonable assumption that majority be defined in terms of
the number of eligible voters who cast any (ranked-) ballot at all, we'd
prefer counting methods that do not discard any of those ballots.

Just my opinion.

-Original Message-
From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com
[mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Jonathan
Lundell

In the immortal words of Jim Hightower, If the gods had meant us to  
vote, they would have given us candidates.


Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 06:34 AM 1/2/2009, James Gilmour wrote:

Dave Ketchum   Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 6:07 AM
 Terry and Abd look set to duel forever.

 Conduct of elections is a serious topic, but both of them
 offer too many words without usefully covering the topic.

So let's try a small number of numbers.

At a meeting we need to elect one office-bearer (single-office, 
single-winner).  There are four candidates and we decide to use the
exhaustive ballot (bottom elimination, one at a time) with the 
requirement that to win, a candidate must obtain a majority of the

votes.

First round votes:  A 40;   B  25;  C 20;  D 15.
No candidate has a majority, so we eliminate D.

Second round votes: A 47;  B 25;  C 20.
It seems that some of those present who voted for D in the first 
round did not want to vote in the second round  -  but that is

their privilege.

QUESTION: did candidate A win at the second round with 'a majority 
of the votes'?


James Gilmour


How many people voted in the election? Looks to me like 100. Could be 
more, actually; Robert's Rules considers all non-blank ballots that 
might possibly intend a vote, including overvotes. But let's stick with 100.


How many people voted for A? We don't know, actually! IRV doesn't 
count all the votes. However, what the method has found is 47. We 
know that 47 voters voted for A.


Are the ballots with a single vote for D on them votes? Surely 
those voters think they voted. Their ballots were recognized as legal.


The FairVote propaganda sometimes talks about majority without any 
qualification at all as to what it refers to; they are depending on 
voters imagining they know what it means, they know that this 
imagination will lead them to support IRV. Sometimes, however, we 
see, majority of the votes. Or, in what is even more of a stretch, 
the winner will still be required to win a majority of the votes. A 
requirement implies a standard that can fail. The IRV method can't 
fail to find a last round majority, it's simple math -- if we except ties.


But in Santa Clara, the arguments went further. Majority of the 
ballots was used. Once again, one could weasel out of the claim of 
deception. Why, we just meant, of course, majority of the ballots 
containing a vote for a continuing candidate.


But any reasonable person, not knowing the details of IRV, would 
interpret the words to be a general majority, a majority of all the votes cast.


What was found was a majority of unexhausted ballots found to contain 
a vote for the IRV winner. Not a majority of ballots, which implies 
the general usage.


Further, these arguments are being made in a context where majority 
has a very clear meaning, IRV is replacing, usually, top two runoff. 
The primary *requires* a majority, a true majority, in order to 
complete. When you tell these people that they can obtain a majority 
without needing a runoff, they will very naturally assume that you 
are talking about the *same thing.* The voters go to the polls and 
cast their votes. Setting aside informal ballots, if more than half 
of these voters support the winner, a majority has been found. The 
details of the voting system are actually moot. Did a majority of the 
voters who voted support the winner -- regardless of preference order?


A true majority is considered very desirable. IRV and Bucklin were 
apparently replaced by top two runoff, at least in some places, and 
the probable reason is that a majority was desired, and it was 
realized that these methods don't accomplish that, unless you coerce 
voters, as was tried in Oklahoma. (As is done in Australia.)


However, a more sensible approach would have been to use preferential 
vote in the primary, thus avoiding *some* runoffs! I would argue that 
Bucklin is better, because it doesn't suffer so badly from Center 
Squeeze, and it probably provides sufficient LNH protection that 
voters won't be significantly more reluctant to add additional 
preferences than they are known to be with IRV. We saw very 
significant usage of additional rankings in the municipal elections 
where I've been able to find results.


As I've noted, those who support a frontrunner don't have much 
incentive, with either method, to add ranks. With IRV, we don't know 
from the standard reports, how much truncation is present among those 
who vote for the top two.


Further, it seems to make a huge difference if the elections are 
partisan or nonpartisan. In nonpartisan elections -- which is most of 
the IRV implementations so far in the U.S. -- IRV functions almost 
exactly like plurality, the first round winner goes on -- every 
example so far at least before Nov 2008, which I haven't examined -- 
to win the election. In most elections, a majority is found in the 
first round. Same as Plurality!


So, looking just at the runoffs, roughly nine of them, in no case was 
there a comeback election. In *real* runoffs, it seems to happen 
about a third of the time, that the runner-up goes on to win 

Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 01:09 PM 1/2/2009, Jonathan Lundell wrote:


So sure, IRV elects majority winners in one particular operation
sense of the term. Even if there's a first-round absolute majority,
we're faced with the problem of agenda manipulation. To take another
US presidential election, in 1992 I might have voted

Clinton  Perot  Bush

but only because I didn't have a meaningful NOTA option.

In the immortal words of Jim Hightower, If the gods had meant us to
vote, they would have given us candidates.


Any election where write-in-votes are allowed has a NOTA option. 
Under Robert's Rules, there is no restriction as to what you can 
write in, though identifying yourself on the ballot might be an 
exception. You could literally write in None of the above, and it 
would count as part of the basis for majority, it wouldn't be a 
stupid vote, because if enough people vote that way, or for 
candidates other than the leader, the election fails and there is 
another opportunity for the gods to give us candidates.


(In preferential public elections, where only ballots with a vote for 
a legally allowed candidate count, you would simply use your ranks to 
vote for any candidate where you would not mind being part of the 
majority which elects the sucka.)


Preferential voting with a runoff trigger can be a much better method 
than without it.


With IRV, it seems, about one nonpartisan election in ten, very 
roughly, the method produces a winner who would lose in a direct 
face-off with either the runner-up or an eliminated candidate.






Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Jan 2, 2009, at 12:31 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:


At 01:09 PM 1/2/2009, Jonathan Lundell wrote:


So sure, IRV elects majority winners in one particular operation
sense of the term. Even if there's a first-round absolute majority,
we're faced with the problem of agenda manipulation. To take another
US presidential election, in 1992 I might have voted

   Clinton  Perot  Bush

but only because I didn't have a meaningful NOTA option.

In the immortal words of Jim Hightower, If the gods had meant us to
vote, they would have given us candidates.


Any election where write-in-votes are allowed has a NOTA option.  
Under Robert's Rules, there is no restriction as to what you can  
write in, though identifying yourself on the ballot might be an  
exception. You could literally write in None of the above, and it  
would count as part of the basis for majority, it wouldn't be a  
stupid vote, because if enough people vote that way, or for  
candidates other than the leader, the election fails and there is  
another opportunity for the gods to give us candidates.


(In preferential public elections, where only ballots with a vote  
for a legally allowed candidate count, you would simply use your  
ranks to vote for any candidate where you would not mind being part  
of the majority which elects the sucka.)


In the above example, I like the opportunity to rank candidates that I  
don't like, since I do have relative preferences. But if the winner's  
majority includes very many voters like me, in what sense does he have  
a majority? A majority of ballots in the final stage, yes. Majority  
political support? No.


FWIW, in California there's no way to write in NOTA and have it counted.

NOTA is also hard to count, since it's not quite like just another  
candidate. In my 1948 example, one voter might be voting for anybody  
but Dewey or Thurmond, and another for anybody but Wallace or  
Truman. That is, the above in NOTA differs from ballot to ballot.


NOTA is easier to interpret in a Condorcet method. It's very difficult  
for IRV to handle, I think, especially if counted as just-another- 
candidate, since it's not unlikely that NOTA would be eliminated  
early. Looked at another way, I don't think that the fact that IRV  
fails to find everybody's second choice is ordinarily a very serious  
problem. But it *is* a problem if that choice is NOTA.





Preferential voting with a runoff trigger can be a much better  
method than without it.


With IRV, it seems, about one nonpartisan election in ten, very  
roughly, the method produces a winner who would lose in a direct  
face-off with either the runner-up or an eliminated candidate.


I'd be interested in seeing documentation on this that didn't involve  
reinterpreting plurality or TTR results as an IRV election.



Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[Terry Bouricius]

Abd,

I think you miss-understood James Gilmour's question. He was asking about 
an exhaustive ballot election without any ranked-choice ballots. In his 
scenario 100 voters vote in the first round and 92 vote in the second 
round. Does the final round winner with 47 votes win with a majority? 
Robert's Rules and governmental election statutes would describe this 
candidate as a majority winner I believe.

Terry Bouricius


- Original Message - 
From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com
To: jgilm...@globalnet.co.uk; election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 3:23 PM
Subject: Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?


At 06:34 AM 1/2/2009, James Gilmour wrote:
Dave Ketchum   Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 6:07 AM
  Terry and Abd look set to duel forever.
 
  Conduct of elections is a serious topic, but both of them
  offer too many words without usefully covering the topic.

So let's try a small number of numbers.

At a meeting we need to elect one office-bearer (single-office,
single-winner).  There are four candidates and we decide to use the
exhaustive ballot (bottom elimination, one at a time) with the
requirement that to win, a candidate must obtain a majority of the
votes.

First round votes:  A 40;   B  25;  C 20;  D 15.
No candidate has a majority, so we eliminate D.

Second round votes: A 47;  B 25;  C 20.
It seems that some of those present who voted for D in the first
round did not want to vote in the second round  -  but that is
their privilege.

QUESTION: did candidate A win at the second round with 'a majority
of the votes'?

James Gilmour

How many people voted in the election? Looks to me like 100. Could be
more, actually; Robert's Rules considers all non-blank ballots that
might possibly intend a vote, including overvotes. But let's stick with 
100.

How many people voted for A? We don't know, actually! IRV doesn't
count all the votes. However, what the method has found is 47. We
know that 47 voters voted for A.

Are the ballots with a single vote for D on them votes? Surely
those voters think they voted. Their ballots were recognized as legal.

The FairVote propaganda sometimes talks about majority without any
qualification at all as to what it refers to; they are depending on
voters imagining they know what it means, they know that this
imagination will lead them to support IRV. Sometimes, however, we
see, majority of the votes. Or, in what is even more of a stretch,
the winner will still be required to win a majority of the votes. A
requirement implies a standard that can fail. The IRV method can't
fail to find a last round majority, it's simple math -- if we except 
ties.

But in Santa Clara, the arguments went further. Majority of the
ballots was used. Once again, one could weasel out of the claim of
deception. Why, we just meant, of course, majority of the ballots
containing a vote for a continuing candidate.

But any reasonable person, not knowing the details of IRV, would
interpret the words to be a general majority, a majority of all the votes 
cast.

What was found was a majority of unexhausted ballots found to contain
a vote for the IRV winner. Not a majority of ballots, which implies
the general usage.

Further, these arguments are being made in a context where majority
has a very clear meaning, IRV is replacing, usually, top two runoff.
The primary *requires* a majority, a true majority, in order to
complete. When you tell these people that they can obtain a majority
without needing a runoff, they will very naturally assume that you
are talking about the *same thing.* The voters go to the polls and
cast their votes. Setting aside informal ballots, if more than half
of these voters support the winner, a majority has been found. The
details of the voting system are actually moot. Did a majority of the
voters who voted support the winner -- regardless of preference order?

A true majority is considered very desirable. IRV and Bucklin were
apparently replaced by top two runoff, at least in some places, and
the probable reason is that a majority was desired, and it was
realized that these methods don't accomplish that, unless you coerce
voters, as was tried in Oklahoma. (As is done in Australia.)

However, a more sensible approach would have been to use preferential
vote in the primary, thus avoiding *some* runoffs! I would argue that
Bucklin is better, because it doesn't suffer so badly from Center
Squeeze, and it probably provides sufficient LNH protection that
voters won't be significantly more reluctant to add additional
preferences than they are known to be with IRV. We saw very
significant usage of additional rankings in the municipal elections
where I've been able to find results.

As I've noted, those who support a frontrunner don't have much
incentive, with either method, to add ranks. With IRV, we don't know
from the standard reports, how much truncation is present among those
who vote for the top two.

Further, it seems to make a 

Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 01:23 PM 1/2/2009, Terry Bouricius wrote:

Dave makes a good point, that I may have emulated Abd in verbosity in
making my point. Here it is in a nutshell:

Since the two-round runoff election system widely used in the U.S. that
involves counting votes in two rounds is said to always elect a majority
winner, meaning a majority of votes from those voters who chose to
express a preference between the two candidates who made it into the final
runoff, then by the identical logic, an IRV winner is also a majority
winner who ALSO has a majority of votes from those voters who chose to
express a preference between the two candidates who made it into the final
runoff.


In other words, if we don't consider the runoff election to be a 
single election, if we neglect that this election can and does result 
in plurality winners (Long Beach, CA, recently), then a narrow claim, 
possibly misleading, made about this situation can be applied by 
analogy. However, Robert's Rules of Order specifically rejects this, 
and notes that the STV method deprives the voters of the 
opportunity to base their votes in the next election on the results 
of the previous one.


What Bouricius is doing is to create an elaborate analogy; under this 
analogy, the use of the word majority is then, presumably, 
justified. However, the argument about majority is being used in a 
context where the word has a very clear meaning. It means more than 
half of the legal votes cast, i.e., the legal ballots contain a vote 
for the winner, never mind what rank -- as long as it isn't bottom, 
which is usually unexpressed.


Now, if I were selling you something, and I were accused of consumer 
fraud in the sale, and I claimed an analogy like this, it would not 
be accepted as a defense, because the word, in context, had a 
specific and clear meaning, and that meaning was the foundation of 
the desirability of runoff voting. Voters want that rule.


Runoff voting *seeks* a majority, and some forms guarantee it, in the 
second round, by considering all other votes to be illegal. However, 
in the runoff, voters make the specific decision to vote in that 
election or not. In the runoff, an abstention is specific and clear. 
Further, the electorate in a runoff is a different electorate, it is 
not the same voters. The primary merely controlled the nomination process.


Come FairVote with a promise that a majority can be obtained 
without a runoff! And, in fact, one who doesn't realize the 
implications of truncation, nor who realizes how *common* it is, will 
think, why, of course it will do this! A true majority. However, the 
reality is that IRV doesn't do this, in practice. Most elections 
where a majority is not found in the primary, there is no majority 
found with the vote transfers -- in nonpartisan elections.


The analogy is interesting, but it isn't what the voters were told! 
Words were used that would reasonably be expected to lead them in a 
certain direction, and the analogy is the typical deniability 
asserted by spin doctors when they get caught.


I didn't have sex with that woman. (Uh, what I did isn't 
considered, by some people, to be sex.) Did that argument stand? It 
was actually stronger for him than the argument is here, he was under 
considerable pressure, and, as a lawyer himself, may not have had an 
obligation to parse the words more carefully, it would have been the 
obligation of the examining attorney to make sure meanings were 
clear. But I think he was found to have perjured himself.


I'm claiming that, coming from FairVote, the deception was 
*intentional*. That there is an alternate interpretation -- a 
far-fetched one -- doesn't change that. The alternate interpreation 
is not what was communicated by the words, and I know this to be the 
case by the degree of resistance FairVote activists, including Mr. 
Bouricius, exerted against clarification.



 Both methods define a majority by excluding from the basis for
calculating the majority threshold all of the voters who may have voted
for a candidate in the first round but abstain (do not indicate any
preference) in the final round. In sum...If two round runoffs result in
majority winners so does IRV.


This argument, of course, depends on, among other things, the ability 
to fully rank the candidates, which wasn't even present in nearly all 
these implementations. The voters may not have been able to sincerely 
rank candidates *and* vote in that last round.


But the runoff election in TTR is actually a separate election, 
merely with a special nomination rule. That's why the first round is 
called a primary. There are various such primary methods.


We don't compare the votes in the primary with those in the runoff 
because they may be a quite different set of voters. Bouricius knows 
that whenever a motion fails, or an election fails, in deliberative 
process, the vote becomes moot and of no further effect. But, 
desiring to avoid a long series of election 

Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[Paul Kislanko]

I don't believe RRs or practical implementations thereof define percentages
this way.

For instance, the US Senate rules call for 60 votes, not 60% of the Senators
who vote, in their rules. Likewise by leaving the state, for a time Texas
Democrats delayed the (ridiculous) re-districting plan the Republicans
eventually got passed anyway by just reducing the numerator for a fixed
denominator.

Legislatures who follow RRoO pretty much define majority by majority of
eligible voters. If we want to depend upon majority-criteria we need to
pick whether we mean majority of voters or majority of eligible voters. If
we chose the latter definition then NO method can make such a claim, unless
it has a specific method for dealing with non-voters.

If we chose the majority of voters approach, then Bucklin is an efficient
way to find all majorities that support any alternative. IRV is problematic,
because the method changes the definition of voters in each round. I'm not
sure IRV is unconstitutional, but it is repugnant.

-Original Message-
From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com
[mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Terry
Bouricius
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 2:54 PM
To: jgilm...@globalnet.co.uk; election-methods@lists.electorama.com; Abd
ul-Rahman Lomax
Subject: Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

Abd,

I think you miss-understood James Gilmour's question. He was asking about 
an exhaustive ballot election without any ranked-choice ballots. In his 
scenario 100 voters vote in the first round and 92 vote in the second 
round. Does the final round winner with 47 votes win with a majority? 
Robert's Rules and governmental election statutes would describe this 
candidate as a majority winner I believe.

Terry Bouricius


- Original Message - 
From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com
To: jgilm...@globalnet.co.uk; election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 3:23 PM
Subject: Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?


At 06:34 AM 1/2/2009, James Gilmour wrote:
Dave Ketchum   Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 6:07 AM
  Terry and Abd look set to duel forever.
 
  Conduct of elections is a serious topic, but both of them
  offer too many words without usefully covering the topic.

So let's try a small number of numbers.

At a meeting we need to elect one office-bearer (single-office,
single-winner).  There are four candidates and we decide to use the
exhaustive ballot (bottom elimination, one at a time) with the
requirement that to win, a candidate must obtain a majority of the
votes.

First round votes:  A 40;   B  25;  C 20;  D 15.
No candidate has a majority, so we eliminate D.

Second round votes: A 47;  B 25;  C 20.
It seems that some of those present who voted for D in the first
round did not want to vote in the second round  -  but that is
their privilege.

QUESTION: did candidate A win at the second round with 'a majority
of the votes'?

James Gilmour

How many people voted in the election? Looks to me like 100. Could be
more, actually; Robert's Rules considers all non-blank ballots that
might possibly intend a vote, including overvotes. But let's stick with 
100.

How many people voted for A? We don't know, actually! IRV doesn't
count all the votes. However, what the method has found is 47. We
know that 47 voters voted for A.

Are the ballots with a single vote for D on them votes? Surely
those voters think they voted. Their ballots were recognized as legal.

The FairVote propaganda sometimes talks about majority without any
qualification at all as to what it refers to; they are depending on
voters imagining they know what it means, they know that this
imagination will lead them to support IRV. Sometimes, however, we
see, majority of the votes. Or, in what is even more of a stretch,
the winner will still be required to win a majority of the votes. A
requirement implies a standard that can fail. The IRV method can't
fail to find a last round majority, it's simple math -- if we except 
ties.

But in Santa Clara, the arguments went further. Majority of the
ballots was used. Once again, one could weasel out of the claim of
deception. Why, we just meant, of course, majority of the ballots
containing a vote for a continuing candidate.

But any reasonable person, not knowing the details of IRV, would
interpret the words to be a general majority, a majority of all the votes 
cast.

What was found was a majority of unexhausted ballots found to contain
a vote for the IRV winner. Not a majority of ballots, which implies
the general usage.

Further, these arguments are being made in a context where majority
has a very clear meaning, IRV is replacing, usually, top two runoff.
The primary *requires* a majority, a true majority, in order to
complete. When you tell these people that they can obtain a majority
without needing a runoff, they will very naturally assume that you
are talking about the *same thing.* The voters go to the polls and

Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 02:51 PM 1/2/2009, Paul Kislanko wrote:

I think the cited text provides an important distinction we need to use on
EM.

In theory, we want to discuss election methods based upon how they collect
and count ballots, which is analytic in some sense. As soon as you
introduce real candidates and party politics (i.e. strategies) we get a
real mess that is not so easily analyzed.


Yes. The biggest thing we neglected, going way back, was preference 
strength. In real decision-making, it is crucial, but theorists 
didn't like it, it was messy. It was imagined that preference was 
nice and neat. Though it isn't!



This is relevant to the how do you define majority? question because if
the denominator doesn't include all of the non-voters who dis-approve of
EVERY alternative it's not a majority of stakeholders and in some sense
you need to count the non-voters, especially if the method discards ballots
in its counting rounds.


Sure. It's pretty simple, though: Majority of the votes refers to 
more than half of those who voted. We could analyze an election like 
the mess in California a few years back by referring to a majority 
of votes from those who voted for a Democrat, or a Republican, or such.


A major point is that most people, asked, want to see majority 
winners. Turns out that, where I have looked, U.S. state 
constitutions required a majority of votes to win, then resorted to 
various devices when a majority wasn't found. We see that with the 
electoral college: if no majority is found, the election goes to the 
House. In New Hampshire, the state House could choose between the top 
two, if I'm correct.


So, people want to see majority winners. Telling them that they will 
get a majority winner from a method means to them that more than half 
of those who voted will have voted, in some way, for the winner. It 
*looks* to a casual observer that IRV will do that. I should have 
known better, but I was actually astonished to see the high 
percentage of majjority failure. It is the bulk of elections that 
didn't find a majority in the first round, with nonpartisan 
elections, and with some partisan ones.


Majority is independent of the voting method, though the data must 
be collected to distinguish between support of a candidate and 
merely, with a full-ranking required system, saying that the 
candidate is better than the absolute worst.


Elections aren't merely picking some ideal best winner in a bad 
situation, they are seeking, if a majority is sought, one who will be 
accepted, *at least*, by most voters.



So, just from a logical perspective a claim to always select a
majority-approved winner must define majority in terms of Eligible
Voters.


That's absolute majority, and it isn't what we've been talking 
about, except that I have, as part of this discussion, noted the 
effect of preference strength on turnout. Those voters who don't care 
about the available choices don't bother showing up (for better or 
for worse). This exerts a range-like effect on the election, shifting 
results toward those who care. In other words, methods which make 
voting trivially easy might actually worsen results, unless it's a 
Range method, because the factors that make ranked methods, and 
especially Plurality, work reasonably well might be taken away.



 Or at least define majority in terms of voters in the first
round. So, an IRV winner with 47 votes out of 100 originally cast is NOT a
majority-winner.


This is the meaning I've been using, and it is the meaning of 
Robert's Rules, except that they would include a few more ballots 
(informal ballots with no recognizable vote by the rules, but still 
considered to be a vote.)


For public elections, yes, it's the first-round vote.


Bucklin is a method that identifies the rank for which a Majority agrees the
alternative should be ranked at least that highly. No information is
discarded in the counting process, and no ballots are ignored just because
the ballots' #1 isn't a plurality winner.


That's right. All votes become equal if it goes to the last round. As 
implemented, it was a plurality method like IRV, but, because all the 
votes are counted, and especially where it's a nonpartisan election, 
there may be votes hidden under the other frontrunner(s), so there 
might actually be a real majority, but it's not reported as moot, 
because the method isn't looking for an overall majority, it's only 
looking for a last round majority.


Hence, in one San Francisco election, where it was touted that the 
winner will still be required to gain a majority, one Supervisorial 
position was won with less than 40% of the vote.


Most elections where there are runoffs don't find a majority, but 
several have, it happens with elections where the first round result 
is close to a majority. In one election, the reported vote was shy of 
a majority, but it would be a practical certainty that if counting 
had continued, the winner would have had a majority.



If we 

Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 03:53 PM 1/2/2009, Jonathan Lundell wrote:

FWIW, in California there's no way to write in NOTA and have it counted.


Depends on the election and perhaps on local rules. Pick the absolute 
best candidate *including write-ins and, if necessary, write that 
name in. A write-in is None of the above. In some elections, true 
write-in votes are not allowed, but the California constitution 
requires that write-ins be allowed; however minimal registration 
requirements have been considered acceptable. So San Francisco only 
recognizes registered write-ins. They aren't on the ballot, so voting 
for one of them would be voting for none of the above.



NOTA is also hard to count, since it's not quite like just another
candidate. In my 1948 example, one voter might be voting for anybody
but Dewey or Thurmond, and another for anybody but Wallace or
Truman. That is, the above in NOTA differs from ballot to ballot.


Actually, in a sane system, requiring a majority, NOTA causes the 
exact intended effect. None of the Above are elected. If most voters 
vote NOTA, either directly -- were it allowed -- or indirectly, for 
various write-in candidates, then the election fails. And the rules 
presumably prescribe what happens next.



NOTA is easier to interpret in a Condorcet method. It's very difficult
for IRV to handle, I think, especially if counted as just-another- 
candidate, since it's not unlikely that NOTA would be eliminated

early. Looked at another way, I don't think that the fact that IRV
fails to find everybody's second choice is ordinarily a very serious
problem. But it *is* a problem if that choice is NOTA.


It's a problem in both cases. But that's enough for now. NOTA should 
cause election failure, and all that has to occur is that a majority 
be required for a candidate to win. Under standard democratic 
process, talking Robert's Rules as a model, writing NOTA on a ballot 
has exactly the desired effect. It contributes to the basis for 
election, but not to the victory of any candidate.


But don't imagine that we have the rules we do in public elections 
because of pure democratic considerations!



Preferential voting with a runoff trigger can be a much better
method than without it.

With IRV, it seems, about one nonpartisan election in ten, very
roughly, the method produces a winner who would lose in a direct
face-off with either the runner-up or an eliminated candidate.


I'd be interested in seeing documentation on this that didn't involve
reinterpreting plurality or TTR results as an IRV election.


It's the other way. TTR results in runoffs, sometimes. When there are 
many candidates, often. A certain percentage of these runoffs are 
comebacks. It's roughly one-third.


We can assume that first preference votes in IRV are *roughly* how 
people will vote in a runoff primary. Now, in the IRV elections -- 
look at em! there is an article on the implementations in the U.S. on 
Wikipedia -- there are *no* comeback elections in recent history. 
About nine runoffs, as I recall. No comebacks.


Isn't this interesting?

Think about it. It does make sense. We just didn't know how to look at it.




Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Jan 2, 2009, at 2:26 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

Elections aren't merely picking some ideal best winner in a bad  
situation, they are seeking, if a majority is sought, one who will  
be accepted, *at least*, by most voters.


That may well be a desideratum, but it's not the case in real  
elections. I've certainly contributed (or tried to contribute) to  
majorities by voting for a less-unacceptable candidate. It's rational,  
but it doesn't constitute acceptance except in some weak sense,  
perhaps acquiescence. 


Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[James Gilmour]

Who would have thought such a simple example and such a direct question could 
provoke so much obfuscation and prevarication.
References to IRV, FairVote and Santa Clara are all completely irrelevant.

So let's try again, with little bit of additional information that was (more or 
less) implied first time.

At a meeting we need to elect one office-bearer (single-office, single-winner). 
 There are four candidates and we decide to use the
exhaustive ballot (bottom elimination, one at a time) with the requirement that 
to win, a candidate must obtain a majority of the
votes.  East person is allowed to vote for only one candidate in each round of 
the exhaustive ballot and the votes for each
candidate are to be indicated by show of hands.

First round votes:  A 40;   B  25;  C 20;  D 15.  
No candidate has a majority, so we eliminate D.

Second round votes: A 47;  B 25;  C 20.
It seems that some of those present who voted for D in the first round did not 
want to vote in the second round  -  but that is
their privilege.

QUESTION: did candidate A win at the second round with 'a majority of the 
votes'?

If you want you can rephrase the definition: Win with a majority of the 
votes;  Obtain a majority of the votes; Win a majority
of the votes.  IF these differences in wording have real differences in 
meaning, it would be helpful to explain the differences and
then to answer the question in relation to each of the different meanings.



Paul said 'Legislatures who follow RRoO pretty much define majority by 
majority of eligible voters. '  I am not going to argue
about RRoO, but that definition is VERY different from the election scenario 
above.  I have never heard such a definition used in a
meeting for an ELECTION.  The language I have heard would be something much 
more like a majority of the votes.  Which takes us
back to my request for answers to the direct question above.

The wording majority of eligible voters would appear to include those 
eligible voters who were not actually present at the
meeting.  That could be a much higher threshold.  I personally have never known 
such a threshold set in an election, but it does (or
did) happen in public elections in Russia where the seat was left vacant and 
the local community unrepresented unless some minimum
proportion (50% ??) of the registered electorate actually voted.  I have, 
however, experienced a similar threshold in a public
referendum in Scotland  -  that was set at 40% of the electorate.

While such thresholds do not feature in election instructions in the UK, 
neither public nor private, something comparable is common
in many organisations' constitutions to regulate voting on resolutions to amend 
the constitution itself.  I have encountered three
forms (given that is only a yes or no vote on each amendment): 1. a 
majority of the members;  2. two-thirds of those
present;  3. two-thirds of those present and voting.  These three thresholds 
are all very different, but in my experience, they
are not applied to ELECTIONS.

James


.


Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Re: [EM] Feature extraction and criteria for multiwinner elections

[Juho Laatu]

--- On Fri, 2/1/09, Kristofer Munsterhjelm km-el...@broadpark.no wrote:

 Reverse Condorcet: If the election is (n-1, n) and
 there's a Condorcet loser, all but the Condorcet loser
 should be elected.

Example:
- 10 Republican candidates, one Democrat candidate
- 55% support to Republicans
- 45% support to Democrats
- 10 candidates will be elected
- The Democrat candidate is a Condorcet loser
= Should D not be elected?

Juho







  


Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

[Paul Kislanko]

In real elections the problem is that the Powers That Be chose to not
allow me to vote at all, despite the fact I'm a registered voter. So
whatever method you propose or support I consider irrelevant, until you sort
out the problems on the collection side. 

-Original Message-
From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com
[mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Jonathan
Lundell
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 4:41 PM
To: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
Cc: Paul Kislanko; 'Markus Schulze'; election-meth...@electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Does IRV elect majority winners?

On Jan 2, 2009, at 2:26 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

 Elections aren't merely picking some ideal best winner in a bad  
 situation, they are seeking, if a majority is sought, one who will  
 be accepted, *at least*, by most voters.

That may well be a desideratum, but it's not the case in real  
elections. I've certainly contributed (or tried to contribute) to  
majorities by voting for a less-unacceptable candidate. It's rational,  
but it doesn't constitute acceptance except in some weak sense,  
perhaps acquiescence. 

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