Re: [EM] Does IRV elect "majority winners?"
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. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Feature extraction and criteria for multiwinner elections
--- On Fri, 2/1/09, Kristofer Munsterhjelm 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?"
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] 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. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Does IRV elect "majority winners?"
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?"
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
Re: [EM] Does IRV elect "majority winners?"
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" To: ; 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.
Re: [EM] Does IRV elect "majority winners?"
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 serie
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" To: ; 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 huge difference if the elec
Re: [EM] Does IRV elect "majority winners?"
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?"
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?"
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
Re: [EM] Does IRV elect "majority winners?"
> From: "Terry Bouricius" > Subject: Re: [EM] Does IRV elect "majority winners?" > 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" Terry, That is very convoluted logic, but I suppose it works as long as you ignore obvious facts including: 1. that voters in an one-election IRV contest cannot know for certain in advance who will be in the final IRV counting round (unless you imagine that all voters are psychic and can know how all other voters will vote) - so voters are not given the choice to participate in the final IRV counting round, they are arbitrarily excluded from participation depending on how other voters vote, and 2. that *all* voters in two election runoff election do participate in the final counting round. Terry, this is a very slick way to justify mislead people on the facts by ignoring obvious factual differences between a one election IRV scenario versus a two-election top-two runoff scenario. Not surprising though. Kathy Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Does IRV elect "majority winners?"
At 01:06 AM 1/2/2009, Dave Ketchum wrote: Terry and Abd look set to duel forever. It could look that way. Terrill Bouricius is one of the major players with FairVote, he has a lot invested there, so to speak. He finally said that he wouldn't, personally, make the majority claims that others have made though his basis for it was solely that full ranking wasn't allowed. Nearly all U.S. implementations allow, at most, three expressed ranks. However, the point of a majority requirement is that a majority of voters support the winner! This is standard democratic procedure. Even with full ranking, it could occur that the only reason *a majority of voters* have supported the IRV winner is that someone *worse* was on the ballot. One may argue that a runoff election can present the same Hobson's choice, and, indeed it can. However, if write-ins are allowed, there is a way for voters to fix the problem -- and they have, on occasion. Even without that, the voters are, at least, making a fresh choice, with increased opportunity to examine the candidates, with a real runoff. Conduct of elections is a serious topic, but both of them offer too many words without usefully covering the topic. Perhaps. Occupational hazard for me. Possibly smokescreen for Terrill, or not. It did take a lot of words to explain the tortuous logic that turns a minority of those who voted into a majority, into a "majority winner," to try to turn Robert's Rules of Order on its head, when *clearly* RRONR, for preferential voting, considers that majority failure may occur if there is truncation by voters, they are explicit, but that doesn't stop Terrill from trying anyway. 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. Yes, Dave, we know where RRO came from, and what it is used for. The term "majority of the vote" has clear meaning for the rules of order. I didn't bring it into this debate, FairVote did, and they were quite successful. Researching this, I found that election officials had repeated the claim, using exactly the same language as FairVote. 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. Yes. There are default rules, and the default is repeated ballot until a majority is found. No eliminations, but perhaps voluntary withdrawals. Meaning of 'majority' is their big dispute. It's not in dispute for anyone who understands the rules. Further, the context is typically the replacement of a top-two runoff process with IRV. TTR requires a majority in the primary, or a runoff is held. "Majority" here means that more than half of all those who voted any legal ballot (typically containing a vote for an eligible candidate, and not otherwise spoiled) voted for the winner. Now, to people who have a runoff system, the word "majority" has a very clear meaning, and when you tell them that they can get a majority without having the runoff, they are certainly interested. IRV *looks* like it would do this, if you don't look too closely, and if you don't look at the Australian experience with Optional Preferential Voting, but, instead, only look where FairVote points you: standard Preferential Voting there, which finds an "absolute majority," and can do so because full ranking is required, the ballot is spoiled if not fully ranked. Without making any specification or indication that the word "majority" is now being used in a different way, FairVote activists make the argument, and they have made it successfully enough and with such insignificant opposition, that even supposedly neutral analysts have repeated the claim. Voters have been deceived, and may well have voted differently had they known the truth. IRV documentation claims its found winner has a majority (with no attached statement of what this means) and Terry defends this usage. He finally said that "He wouldn't say it himself," though for a different reason.; Abd claims this is deception, if not worse: No. Just deception. It is probably deliberate, given the power of the argument and how badly the argument is damaged if the necessary qualification to make the claims into true statements, and that it was made by some very knowledgeable people. Majority means more than half and, without qualification, means of the whole thing measured. That's right. So the only question, then, is, "What is the whole thing?" Blanks are excludable - presumably their voters chose not to participate in deciding wh
Re: [EM] Does IRV elect "majority winners?"
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?"
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" To: "Terry Bouricius" Cc: ; "Abd ul-Rahman Lomax" 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" > To: "Terry Bouricius" ; > ; > 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: >> >> >>since "abstentions or blanks" are from those who have not voted. >> >> >>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
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" To: "Terry Bouricius" Cc: ; "Abd ul-Rahman Lomax" 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" > To: "Terry Bouricius" ; > ; > 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: >> >> >>since "abstentions or blanks" are from those who have not voted. >> >> >>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.compeople.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you wo
Re: [EM] Does IRV elect "majority winners?"
On Jan 2, 2009, at 8:32 AM, Markus Schulze wrote: 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". We know, by the rules at hand, what it means to win an election. The question of majority, though, it seems to me, is vaguely analogous to the question of the existence of God, to which the first answer must be, "what precisely do you mean by 'God'?". If I had voted in the 1948 US presidential election, and it had been a ranked ballot, I might have voted Wallace > Truman > Dewey > Thurmond (that'd Henry, not George, btw) Had Wallace won, I'd certainly have been content to be counted toward his majority. OTOH, if Dewey had won, not so much, since my relative preference for a very bad choice over a real stinker should not have been counted as "support" for Dewey in any absolute sense. So in that sense, even without truncation (that is, without abstentions), I don't want to talk about "majority support" or "majority approval" under IRV or any other ranking method. The election rule operates on ballots to produce an election winner, not to tell us anything more about what voters do or don't support, as a majority or otherwise. (This directly relates to a recent thread where Abd & I rather strongly agreed: that the "meaning" of a vote is limited to its role as input to the election rule that produces the winner, and that we lead ourselves astray when we start talking about concepts like "approval".) 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." Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Does IRV elect "majority winners?"
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?"
> > 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 No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.2/1871 - Release Date: 01/01/2009 17:01 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Does IRV elect "majority winners?"
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?"
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 No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.2/1871 - Release Date: 01/01/2009 17:01 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Feature extraction and criteria for multiwinner elections
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