Re: [EM] Record activity on the EM list?

[Juho Laatu]

Yes, there are areas where single-winner methods are more challenging. For 
example multi-winner STV works better than single-winner STV, and it is easier 
to collect sincere ratings in multi-winner methods than in single-winner 
methods. On the other hand the field of study may be wider in multi-winenr 
methods (a bit like N is more complicated than 1). In multi-winner methods we 
may have some additional aspects to study and solve like proportionality, 
geographical proportionality and the computational complexity related problems 
tend to cause problems. Individual problems may thus be more numerous in 
multi-winner methods although some individual problems may be more challenging 
in single-winner methods.

Juho



On 3.8.2011, at 19.35, James Gilmour wrote:

> Juho Laatu  > Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 6:04 AM
>> Multi-winner methods are, if possible, even more complicated 
>> than single-winner methods. 
> 
> I disagree.  It is much easier to obtain a "satisfactory" (representative, 
> acceptable) outcome for a multi-winner election than it
> is to obtain a "satisfactory" (representative, acceptable) outcome for a 
> single-winner election.  Choosing a method to elect the
> candidate who best represents the voters in a single-winner election is the 
> most difficult challenge in electoral science.  As soon
> as you elect two or more candidates together, many of the problems disappear.
> 
> James Gilmour
> 
> 
> 
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info


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Re: [EM] Record activity on the EM list?

[Juho Laatu]

This method looks like one pretty natural way of measuring who should be 
elected.

The privacy concerns are a problem in some environments but not all. This 
method could thus well suit for some "real-world use" (if privacy in not a 
problem or if voting machines or vote counters can be trusted). Note that 
already e.g. basic rankings of typical Condorcet methods may violate privacy. 
If we want to be sure, we need large enough atomic voting areas and bullet 
votes, or not much more than that (e.g. short/truncated ballots and few 
discrete rating values only).

The most efficient counting process could be one where you guess some cutoff 
level and then try to adjust it.

One possible strategy could be that all parties (or wings) move towards 
exaggeration so that thy will give candidates of other parties 0 points. That 
way we could end up solving ties where the cutoff drops down to 0.

Juho



On 3.8.2011, at 19.05, Jameson Quinn wrote:

> 
> 
> 2011/8/3 Peter Zbornik 
> Hi Jameson,
>  
> I like the slate-nominating feature it requires the nominators of the slates 
> to think about the "best" composition of the council and not about "their" 
> candidates.
> This encourages deliberation and discussion across partisan "borders", I 
> imagine, in order to find the perfect mix.
>  
> Slate nomination is used in Sweden a lot, where a nomination committee gets 
> the assignment to find "the ideal" slate.
> By allowing everyone to nominate slates, this nomination committee might not 
> be needed, or would get some competition, I imagine.
>  
> I like letting the voters do some deliberation and cross-partisan 
> communication in order to ease the pain of the computer in evaluating 
> zillions of slates.
>  
> Peter 
> 
> Thanks for your positive comments. However, I have to admit that I anticipate 
> that in most cases, the supposedly NP-complete problem would be an "easy 
> case" which is resolvable using modern computation. So the winning slate 
> would be often be proposed not by cross-partisan deliberation, but by someone 
> who had a computer to evaluate zillions of slates.
> 
> Note that another practical problem with this method is that it requires 
> publishing full ballot data. With even a fair number of candidates and rating 
> levels, that would be enough to make many individual ballots, opening up the 
> possibility of vote-buying and such.
> 
> So while I think this method is quite beautiful in theory, I don't propose it 
> for real-world use.
> 
> JQ 
> 
> 
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info


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Re: [EM] Amalgamation details, hijacking, and free-riding

[Jameson Quinn]

2011/8/3 

> So if the true preferences are
>
> 20  A>B
> 45  C>?
> 35  (something else),
>
> the C supporters could spare 21 voters to vote A>C so that the amalgamated
> factions would become
>
> 41 A>C
> 24 C>?
> 35 (something else) .
>
> I can see where it is possible for such a move to payoff, but it seems
> fairly innocuos compared to other
> strategy problems like burial, compromising, chicken, etc.
>

Not to me. I would be livid to find out my vote had been hijacked. All the
other strategies you mention at least use a voter's own vote.


>
> In any case, it can only be a problem in methods that forget the ratings
> after the amalgamation and use
> only the rankings (like DSC), because when two candidates are rated closely
> a small "hijacking" effort
> could tip the balance and reverse the ranking of the two candidates in
> question.
>
> On the "free rider" problem of some PR methods, what do you think about the
> following?
>
> Because of its "free riding problem" Plurality is a fairly decent PR method
> in a perfect information
> setting, as long as voters agree to randomize in order to take advantage of
> the free riding effect.  For
> example in a three winner election where the voter preferences are
>
> 60 A1>A2
> 25 B
> 15 C
>
> If the A supporters agreed to toss coins and vote A! or A2 in the case of
> heads or tails, respectively,
> then the winning slate would be {A1, A2, B}, the best possible outcome in
> this case.
>
> So, in at least one PR method, the "free-riding" possibilities are
> essential for the fairness of the method.
>
> In fact, that is the basic principle of Asset voting (for PR); the
> candidates share their assets so that
> none will be wasted unnecessarily.  Whether the voters or the candidates do
> the redistribution doesn't
> natter in the perfect info case.
>
> In the zero info case, free-riding doesn't work, so it can neither harm nor
> help.
>
> So, I don't worry too much about it.
>

Free riding in some form is inevitable in a good system. (That is, any
system which avoids free riding entirely would be horribly warped by that
necessity). So it's a problem to be managed, not avoided. Still, to me it is
worth some thought. I'm not so much worried about successful free
riding/vote management, as about the pernicious effects of failed
strategies. A system should aim to be "good enough" that most voters do not
bother voting dishonestly in an attempt at free riding. STV is not always
"good enough" in that sense, but I think that there are systems which are
better. In the end, it's an empirical question.

JQ



>
> From: Jameson Quinn
>
> > OK, that's what I thought. So, candidate hijacking does not work
> > for any
> > amalgamated "ballot blind" method, that is, a method which
> > forgets which
> > rating came from which ballot. However, on a non-ballot-blind system,
> > including the ranking-based DSC which was the next step in your
> > SODA-inspired "sequential play" method, it can work. Basically,
> > it involves
> > finding a faction a bit smaller than yours, and ranking its favorite
> > candidate first. Since your faction is larger, you will be able
> > to set the
> > ranking of the remaining candidates, and you will gain the
> > ballot weight of
> > the smaller faction. Of course, you must be sure that the "false flag"
> > candidate does not win. This is similar to Wodall free riding in PR.
> >
> > JQ
> >
> > 2011/8/1
> >
> > > To amalgamate factions so that there is at most one faction
> > per candidate X
> > > (in the context of range
> > > style ballots) take a weighted average of all of the ballots
> > that give X
> > > top rating, where each ballot has
> > > weight equal to one over the number of candidates rated equal
> > top on that
> > > ballot. The total weight of the
> > > resulting "faction rating vector" for candidate X is the sum
> > of the weights
> > > that that were used for the
> > > weighted average.
> > >
> > > Note that these faction rating vectors are efficiently
> > summable. A running
> > > sum (together with its weight)
> > > is kept for each candidate. Any single ballot is incorporated
> > by taking a
> > > weighted average of the running
> > > sum and the ballot, where the respective weights are those
> > mentioned above.
> > > For the running sum it is
> > > the running sum weight. For the ballot it is zero if the
> > candidate is not
> > > rated top, and 1/k if it is rated top
> > > with (k-1) other candidates..
> > >
> > > To combine two running sums for the same candidate take a
> > weighted average
> > > of the two using the
> > > running sum weights, and then add these weights together to
> > get the
> > > combined running sum weight.
> > >
> > > If you multiply each faction rating vector by its weight and
> > add up all
> > > such products, you get the vector of
> > > range totals.
> > >
> > > Of course Range as a method is summable more efficiently without
> > > amalgamating factions, but other
> > > non-summable methods, when willin

Re: [EM] Amalgamation details, hijacking, and free-riding

[fsimmons]

So if the true preferences are

20  A>B
45  C>?
35  (something else),

the C supporters could spare 21 voters to vote A>C so that the amalgamated 
factions would become

41 A>C
24 C>?
35 (something else) .

I can see where it is possible for such a move to payoff, but it seems fairly 
innocuos compared to other 
strategy problems like burial, compromising, chicken, etc.

In any case, it can only be a problem in methods that forget the ratings after 
the amalgamation and use 
only the rankings (like DSC), because when two candidates are rated closely a 
small "hijacking" effort 
could tip the balance and reverse the ranking of the two candidates in question.

On the "free rider" problem of some PR methods, what do you think about the 
following?

Because of its "free riding problem" Plurality is a fairly decent PR method in 
a perfect information 
setting, as long as voters agree to randomize in order to take advantage of the 
free riding effect.  For 
example in a three winner election where the voter preferences are

60 A1>A2
25 B
15 C

If the A supporters agreed to toss coins and vote A! or A2 in the case of heads 
or tails, respectively, 
then the winning slate would be {A1, A2, B}, the best possible outcome in this 
case. 

So, in at least one PR method, the "free-riding" possibilities are essential 
for the fairness of the method.

In fact, that is the basic principle of Asset voting (for PR); the candidates 
share their assets so that 
none will be wasted unnecessarily.  Whether the voters or the candidates do the 
redistribution doesn't 
natter in the perfect info case. 

In the zero info case, free-riding doesn't work, so it can neither harm nor 
help.

So, I don't worry too much about it.

From: Jameson Quinn 

> OK, that's what I thought. So, candidate hijacking does not work 
> for any
> amalgamated "ballot blind" method, that is, a method which 
> forgets which
> rating came from which ballot. However, on a non-ballot-blind system,
> including the ranking-based DSC which was the next step in your
> SODA-inspired "sequential play" method, it can work. Basically, 
> it involves
> finding a faction a bit smaller than yours, and ranking its favorite
> candidate first. Since your faction is larger, you will be able 
> to set the
> ranking of the remaining candidates, and you will gain the 
> ballot weight of
> the smaller faction. Of course, you must be sure that the "false flag"
> candidate does not win. This is similar to Wodall free riding in PR.
> 
> JQ
> 
> 2011/8/1 
> 
> > To amalgamate factions so that there is at most one faction 
> per candidate X
> > (in the context of range
> > style ballots) take a weighted average of all of the ballots 
> that give X
> > top rating, where each ballot has
> > weight equal to one over the number of candidates rated equal 
> top on that
> > ballot. The total weight of the
> > resulting "faction rating vector" for candidate X is the sum 
> of the weights
> > that that were used for the
> > weighted average.
> >
> > Note that these faction rating vectors are efficiently 
> summable. A running
> > sum (together with its weight)
> > is kept for each candidate. Any single ballot is incorporated 
> by taking a
> > weighted average of the running
> > sum and the ballot, where the respective weights are those 
> mentioned above.
> > For the running sum it is
> > the running sum weight. For the ballot it is zero if the 
> candidate is not
> > rated top, and 1/k if it is rated top
> > with (k-1) other candidates..
> >
> > To combine two running sums for the same candidate take a 
> weighted average
> > of the two using the
> > running sum weights, and then add these weights together to 
> get the
> > combined running sum weight.
> >
> > If you multiply each faction rating vector by its weight and 
> add up all
> > such products, you get the vector of
> > range totals.
> >
> > Of course Range as a method is summable more efficiently without
> > amalgamating factions, but other
> > non-summable methods, when willing to accept amalgamated 
> factions, thereby
> > become summable.
> >
> > So, for example, we can make a summable form of Dodgson:
> >
> > (1) Use ratings instead of rankings.
> >
> > (2) amalgamate the factions.
> >
> > (3) let each candidate (with help from advisors) propose a 
> modification of
> > the ballots that will created a
> > Condorcet Winner.
> >
> > (4) the CW that is created with the least total modification 
> is the winner.
> >
> > Modifications are measured by how much they change the ratings 
> on how many
> > ballots.
> >
> > For example if you change X's rating by .27 on 10 of the 537 
> ballots of one
> > faction, and by .32 on 15
> > ballots from another faction, then the total modification is 
> 2.7 + 4.8 =
> > 7.5
> >
> > The reason for the competition is that otherwise the method 
> would be
> > NP-complete.
> >
> 

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Re: [EM] Record activity on the EM list?

[James Gilmour]

Juho Laatu  > Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 6:04 AM
> Multi-winner methods are, if possible, even more complicated 
> than single-winner methods. 

I disagree.  It is much easier to obtain a "satisfactory" (representative, 
acceptable) outcome for a multi-winner election than it
is to obtain a "satisfactory" (representative, acceptable) outcome for a 
single-winner election.  Choosing a method to elect the
candidate who best represents the voters in a single-winner election is the 
most difficult challenge in electoral science.  As soon
as you elect two or more candidates together, many of the problems disappear.

James Gilmour



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Re: [EM] Record activity on the EM list?

[Jameson Quinn]

2011/8/3 Peter Zbornik 

> Hi Jameson,
>
> I like the slate-nominating feature it requires the nominators of the
> slates to think about the "best" composition of the council and not about
> "their" candidates.
> This encourages deliberation and discussion across partisan "borders", I
> imagine, in order to find the perfect mix.
>
> Slate nomination is used in Sweden a lot, where a nomination committee gets
> the assignment to find "the ideal" slate.
> By allowing everyone to nominate slates, this nomination committee might
> not be needed, or would get some competition, I imagine.
>
> I like letting the voters do some deliberation and cross-partisan
> communication in order to ease the pain of the computer in evaluating
> zillions of slates.
>
> Peter
>
> Thanks for your positive comments. However, I have to admit that I
anticipate that in most cases, the supposedly NP-complete problem would be
an "easy case" which is resolvable using modern computation. So the winning
slate would be often be proposed not by cross-partisan deliberation, but by
someone who had a computer to evaluate zillions of slates.

Note that another practical problem with this method is that it requires
publishing full ballot data. With even a fair number of candidates and
rating levels, that would be enough to make many individual ballots, opening
up the possibility of vote-buying and such.

So while I think this method is quite beautiful in theory, I don't propose
it for real-world use.

JQ

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Re: [EM] Record activity on the EM list?

[Peter Zbornik]

Hi Jameson,

I like the slate-nominating feature it requires the nominators of the
slates to think about the "best" composition of the council and not about
"their" candidates.
This encourages deliberation and discussion across partisan "borders", I
imagine, in order to find the perfect mix.

Slate nomination is used in Sweden a lot, where a nomination committee gets
the assignment to find "the ideal" slate.
By allowing everyone to nominate slates, this nomination committee might not
be needed, or would get some competition, I imagine.

I like letting the voters do some deliberation and cross-partisan
communication in order to ease the pain of the computer in evaluating
zillions of slates.

Peter

On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 2:22 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote:

>
>
>  2011/8/3 Juho Laatu 
>
>> I noticed that there was a lot of activity on the multi-winner side.
>> Earlier I have even complained about the lack of interest in multi-winner
>> methods. Now there are still some interesting but unread mails in my inbox.
>>
>> Multi-winner methods are, if possible, even more complicated than
>> single-winner methods. Maybe one reason behind the record is that there are
>> still so many uncovered (in this word's regular non-EM English meaning)
>> candidates to cover.
>>
>> Juho
>>
>
> OK, on the theme of simple multi-winner systems I haven't seen described
> before, here's a simple Maximal (that is, non-sequential) Bucklin PR, MBPR.
> Now that the sequential bucklin PR methods have been described, it's the
> obvious next step:
>
> Collect ratings ballots. Allow anyone to nominate a slate. Choose the
> nominated slate which allows the highest cutoff to assign every candidate at
> least a Droop quota of approvals. Break the tie by finding the one which
> allows the highest quota of approvals per candidate (the slate whose members
> each satisfies the most separate voters). If there are still ties
> (basically, because you've reached the Hare quota, perfect representation,
> aside from bullet-vote write-ins) remove the approvals you've used, and find
> the maximum quota per candidate again (that is, look to for the slate whose
> members each "double satisfies" the most separate voters).
>
> Obviously, this needs to use the contest method to beat its NP-complete
> step. But all the rest of the steps are computationally tractable. Except
> for the NP-completeness, this or some minor variation thereof (diddling with
> the order of the tiebreakers between threshold, quota, and double-approved
> quota) seems like the optimal Bucklin method. I'd even go so far as to say
> that it seems so natural and "right" to me that, if it weren't NP-complete,
> I'd consider using it as a metric for other systems, graphing them on how
> well they do on average on the various tiebreakers.
>
> 
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>
>

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Re: [EM] Record activity on the EM list?

[Jameson Quinn]

2011/8/3 Juho Laatu 

> I noticed that there was a lot of activity on the multi-winner side.
> Earlier I have even complained about the lack of interest in multi-winner
> methods. Now there are still some interesting but unread mails in my inbox.
>
> Multi-winner methods are, if possible, even more complicated than
> single-winner methods. Maybe one reason behind the record is that there are
> still so many uncovered (in this word's regular non-EM English meaning)
> candidates to cover.
>
> Juho
>

OK, on the theme of simple multi-winner systems I haven't seen described
before, here's a simple Maximal (that is, non-sequential) Bucklin PR, MBPR.
Now that the sequential bucklin PR methods have been described, it's the
obvious next step:

Collect ratings ballots. Allow anyone to nominate a slate. Choose the
nominated slate which allows the highest cutoff to assign every candidate at
least a Droop quota of approvals. Break the tie by finding the one which
allows the highest quota of approvals per candidate (the slate whose members
each satisfies the most separate voters). If there are still ties
(basically, because you've reached the Hare quota, perfect representation,
aside from bullet-vote write-ins) remove the approvals you've used, and find
the maximum quota per candidate again (that is, look to for the slate whose
members each "double satisfies" the most separate voters).

Obviously, this needs to use the contest method to beat its NP-complete
step. But all the rest of the steps are computationally tractable. Except
for the NP-completeness, this or some minor variation thereof (diddling with
the order of the tiebreakers between threshold, quota, and double-approved
quota) seems like the optimal Bucklin method. I'd even go so far as to say
that it seems so natural and "right" to me that, if it weren't NP-complete,
I'd consider using it as a metric for other systems, graphing them on how
well they do on average on the various tiebreakers.

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[EM] SODA rationale, part 3 of 4: Pigs and angry birds (was: Record activity on the EM list?)

[Jameson Quinn]

*Continuing to consider SODA's advantages with groups often skeptical of
reform*

**
Another group that's worth considering is *implacable voting reform
opponents*. Lobbyists profiting from their ability to manipulate plurality;
corrupt and lazy politicians who only care about their safe seat; and people
who have calculated that the plurality's distortions work to their partisan
advantage; all of these are groups who will never support reform. And, as we
saw in the anti-AV campaign in the UK, such people can make a lot of headway
with arguments that, though they are not quite criminally mendacious because
they contain some half-truths, are still fundamentally dishonest. The goal
with these people is to de-fang them, to remove their strongest arguments.
And SODA, as system which is pareto dominant over plurality, does just that.
Of course, opponents, like ugly green pigs, will still construct arguments
against reform. But without anything honest to sustain them, these flimsy
anti-reform arguments will collapse when hit with the angry bird of simple
truth.

-
*
*
*Part 4 of 4 will consider how SODA is also better than other good reforms
(approval, median, range, and Condorcet) in its process, which I think would
encourage negotiation and a healthier debate. But I'll take a pause first,
as I think these three will spark enough discussion for now.*

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[EM] SODA rationale, part 2 of 4: politicians and LNH (was: Record activity on the EM list?)

[Jameson Quinn]

>
>
>
*Continuing to consider SODA's advantages with groups often skeptical of
reform*

Second, there's *politicians*. By definition, these are people who have
prospered under the current system; whose livelihood depends on knowing
their way around it; and whom you need at least some of on your side if
you're ever going to pass any reforms. If they were purely self-interested,
it would be pretty much impossible; because why would they want to change
the system that has made them winners? But, while you could certainly get me
to say all kinds of bad things about politicians, it's still important to
recognize that they're not just motivated by self-interest. All but the most
corrupt care at least to some degree about the public interest; and even the
most corrupt have to try to fake it.

So, imagine you're selling voting reform to some basically-honest,
public-interested politician. You have two tasks: convince them that it will
help the public, and help them understand how they could continue to prosper
under this new system. For helping the public, you talk about results; I'll
make some of those arguments, about how SODA gives good results, below.
Here, I want to talk about how SODA, unlike other systems, is not too
radical a change from a politician's point of view.

Under plurality, a politician's job is to be seen as the strongest candidate
in their own party, then to be seen as the lesser evil by 51% of the voters
at large. That is, they're affiliated with a party, and they're probably not
interested in changing that label. Voting reform is a threat if it makes
parties irrelevant, or worse, if it makes that (R) or (D) next to their name
into a liability.

This is where I listen to FairVote. Say what you will about their
sometimes-sneaky tactics (I find their recent false-flag blog at
rangevoting.com to be despicable, not to mention flat-out wrong on many
points), people like Rob Richie have by far the most experience promoting
voting reform with U.S. politicians. And I don't think their hangup about
Lesser-No-Harm (hereafter just LNH, becase they never talk about
Lesser-No-Help) is purely irrational. I think LNH matters to politicians.

Under non-LNH systems like Condorcet, if you're the second choice of three
or more non-majority groups, you win. To a politician steeped in plurality,
that seems like cheating. It means that any old centrist can come along,
without paying their dues in a party, and as long as they're positioned in
between the two major parties, they win. To put a name on this story, I call
it the Perot effect. I'm not claiming that Perot actually would have been a
Condorcet winner - at the time of the elections, at least, he probably
wouldn't have. But in the story, there's someone who is ideologically around
the median voter, and in a partisan electorate and a non-LNH system, they're
unbeatable.

LNH prevents that. If you've paid your dues, and you have status in a major
party, an LNH system will not look past that unless it has to. That's
important to a politician, who has already paid those dues. And it also
arguably has an element of public interest. Perot's quitting and
re-launching his campaign, in my opinion, showed a dangerous lack of
constancy, a quality that I think is important for a president. And the
party grind, the slow climb to status in a party, is one way to demonstrate
constancy and other qualities. (Personally, I don't think that all the
qualites it demonstrates are desirable. But they do include good qualities
like experience, constancy, and diplomacy). LNH guarantees that unvetted
candidates can't win in a DH3 pathology.

*And SODA satisfies LNH *for voters [1]*.* On the approval side, that's just
on a technicality. Since, simply going from the ballot, no approval is
"later" than an other, the fact that they can "harm" each other doesn't
break LNH. But on the delegated side, SODA is really squaring the circle,
providing a method that is both LNH and Condorcet compliant. It can
accomplish that impossibility partly because of the constraints on delegated
votes (they must follow one of the pre-announced rankings, each of which is
headed by a different candidate), but mostly because in the post-election
assignment phase, all totals and all rankings are known. A candidate might
wish they could conceal their rankings from earlier players in the
assignment order, but when their turn to assign comes, later-ranked
candidates cannot harm earlier-ranked ones. So a delegated vote, with the
candidate's pre-declared "later" rankings implicitly included, cannot be
worse than an undelegated bullet vote, unless you disagree with those later
rankings.

[1] It doesn't satisfy LNH for the candidate's initial declaration of
preference rankings. But a candidate who refuses to declare their second
preferences, simply encourages their voters to do so for them, which is not
in the candidate's interest. Only a frontrunner candidate --- that is,
someone who's been vetted, not a dark hors

[EM] SODA rationale, part 1 of 4: Undecided voters (was: Record activity on the EM list?)

[Jameson Quinn]

>
>
> but, as a peripheral actor here, i haven't been participating too much in
> this SODA thing or any other asset voting systems.  i have to admit that my
> attitude toward such is "why bother?".  i still don't get it.  maybe in an
> election in an organization or corporation, but i just can't see such in a
> governmental election.  people who complain about IRV or a ranked ballot as
> complicated will feel no different about an proxy-assignable contingency
> vote.  toss in the option to not assign the contingency vote to a proxy
> (with an additional check box) and these people will all the more so say
> "hunh?".
>

It's a fair criticism. So let me try to explain why I think SODA is
especially promising from a practical standpoint.

I think SODA would be better than other good systems from the perspective of
several constituencies who are typically skeptical about voting reform. RBJ
speaks of "people who complain about IRV", but I think it's worth being more
specific.

-

First off, there's the typical "undecided" voters, whom I'd recast as being
mostly more like *disengaged voters*. My thinking about such people has been
influenced by this 2004 article from the New
Republic.
Basically it argues that undecided voters are not so much the centrists that
pundits like to make up just-so stories about, but rather, they're just
people who view politics as an unappealing chore. They accept voting as
their civic duty, but see it as a boring and distasteful requirement to
choose between a bunch of people they don't know and probably wouldn't like
or even trust if they did. A person like that really does not care about how
the ballot-counting process works, any more than they want to have to think
about where their electricity comes from. And they don't want anyone coming
around to tell them later that they should have spent more effort to make a
"strategically optimal" vote (whatever that means).

SODA's advantages for this group are clear. They want to vote-for-one and
forget about it. And they don't care about the rest. Sure, they may express
their skepticism about IRV in terms of how the inner workings seem to
complex, but in reality they don't care about the inner workings.

Note that, even though it adds undesirable complexity, the "optional" part
of SODA, the ability not to delegate, is also important in convincing this
group of people. They don't trust politicians, and so any system which
forces voters to delegate and trust is a non-starter. So it's important to
have the option not to delegate, even if these voters will rarely use it.

Why even worry about such people, if they're so disengaged? It's not as if
they'll ever become political activists for your cause. But still, ignore
them at your peril. It's easy for a negative campaign to bring to the
forefront these people's simmering distrust, and while they are the weakest
of allies, you do not want them as enemies. Disengaged they may be, but they
are still voters. (They might have plenty in common with non-voters, but
that's not who I'm talking about).

(By the way, I have friends like this, as I'm sure most of you do. I
certainly hope I'm not being insulting. They are just as smart as anyone
else on average. The difference between the kind of person who'd be on an
election methods mailing list, and the kind of person who views voting as
about as fun as cleaning the toilet, isn't that the former is necessarily
more capable of understanding voting systems, it's that they're more
interested.)

*(to be continued)*

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