Re: [EM] Single-winner method with strong winners (was: Poll for favorite single winner voting system with OpaVote)
On 19.10.2011, at 5.37, Kevin Venzke wrote: Hi Juho, Firing off quick responses, sorry: --- En date de : Lun 17.10.11, Juho Laatu juho4...@yahoo.co.uk a écrit : I think that your method is similar to my single contest method. I believe you determine the critical pair of candidates in exactly the same way. However, while my method just has an instant runoff between those two candidates, you are possibly letting in some other candidates. That is essential. Those additional candidates and extra round with some Condorcet method (= a good single winner method) are needed to make it work in the intended way (= according to the requirements in the requirements section). I don't think there is a big problem on paper... It's quite likely that I tested in my sim some methods very similar to your proposal, and didn't report on them just because I found them to be . What would you expect to be the problems in this category of methods? Why are they less than the best? I considered them (i.e. your type, bringing in more candidates) less than the best for my purposes at the time because there is more strategy in the rank component of the ballot. Yes, two candidates means no strategy, three opens the possibility of strategy. It may be, and I hope I once noted, that transferring all the strategy to the approval component, so that said strategy can't be given clear pejorative names, may just be a magic trick. But I'm fond of tricks if they're good. The Condorcet tricks are well known. And yes, the approval part may introduce and hide problems (maybe even some that are linked to the Condorcet part). Note also that the target of the method is somewhat different that the regular requirements for single winner methods (i.e. elect the strongest, not the compromise candidate). It is planned for a few-party system that should be an improved version of a plurality based two-party system. But I guess strategic vulnerabilities should be treated pretty much the same way as with other methods. What I found to be of interest, of course, is that very little strategy remained on the ranking side of the method, since its main purpose was to resolve a two-way race. Your method will compromise on that a bit... What do you mean with a two-way race? And what is the compromise? Since my method only allows two finalists, there is only a two-way race to be decided using the rankings. The compromise your method makes is that more strategy will be possible on the rank component. True. But I couldn't avoid it because I wanted to allow all candidates that can be considered to be strong to take part and maybe become elected. My method is thus Condorcet for strong candidates. Maybe a good name for these methods could actually be strong candidate Condorcet. That makes the strong candidate part a modular component of the name (Condorcet being the other modular component), and allows that expression to be used also elsewhere as needed. (It hides the use of approval, but that's just one way to measure what strong means.) The idea is to pick the winner among those candidates that can be considered to be at least equal in strength with what single candidates of traditional two leading parties would be. Those candidates were picked by comparing their strength (= their level of approval) to the strength of the members of the most liked proportional pair. Yes, I get that. Do you have majority favorite covered...? What do you mean with this? I'm simply asking whether your method satisfies majority favorite. My method has a rule tacked on to make sure it satisfies it. It's ugly and contrary to my stated goals for the method, but seems to be better than the alternative. Majority favorite criterion: If a majority (more than 50%) of voters consider candidate A to be the best choice, then A should win 51: A B C 47: B C 1: B 1: C 98: A B C 1: B 1: C With these two vote sets A is a majority favorite, but pair B, C is most approved (100%) and A has less approvals than B or C. The method will elect B (A will not make it to the Condorcet round) and thus does not meet this criterion. This method thus emphasizes the meaning of approvals and picks a widely approved candidate rather than the one that is less approved but who is the favorite of majority. The majority behind A could force A to be elected by not approving B and C. This would introduce a strategic interest in some cases. In the first set of votes almost all A supporters should however do so to change the result. One could change the way how strength is measured. Since the original idea was to seek a method that would implement a few-party system that would improve the current plurality based two-party approach, allowing a candidate that has 51% or more approvals or first preferences could well be included in
Re: [EM] A design flaw in the electoral system
On 19.10.2011, at 1.14, Michael Allan wrote: But maybe if you form a small club (or a large club (=party)) that discusses and finds an agreement on how to vote. Then maybe you get the power that you want. Only at the cost of political liberty. To allow a flaw in the electoral system to rule my actions would be to surrender to a contingency and immediately lose my freedom. One can do this also without tying oneself in one of the clubs. And one may have informal groups like a mailing list or a web site. This still keeps the freedom of the my way path. Also many electoral systems do their best in trying to hide the opinion of one voter from the others, and thereby support independent decision making. (If one strongly wants to find even better ways to influence with more than 1/N times the electorate power one can become active in politics and become a candidate and maybe a representative.) Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Redistricting Paper w/ New Population Density Fairness (PDF) measure
To measure whether a plan is proportionately fair -- giving both urban and rural dwellers representation roughly proportional to their population -- this attached article now introduces an objective, nonpartisan population density fairness (PDF) measure for evaluating when a plan produces legislative representation approximately proportional to its relative share of regions having diverse population densities. I worked really hard to simplify the measure after deriving it in a much more complicated fashion. I have posted the revised paper, with its fairly simple new population density fairness measure described on pp. 20-24, here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1945879 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Redistricting Paper w/ New Population Density Fairness (PDF) measure
FYI, This is pretty exciting stuff re. redistricting. I've been working for the last several weeks on this and believe I may have derived a new, and fairly simple, nonpartisan, objective measure for evaluating how proportionately fair redistricting plans are in terms of their representation of various regions differing in population density. Since partisanship usually varies with population density, this measure would tend to ensure the partisan fairness of redistricting plans. Legislative Redistricting - Area and Population Compactness and Population Density Distribution Measures http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1945879 This article discusses three measures proposed to evaluate the fairness and convenience of redistricting plans: (1) Area compactness, (2) population compactness, and (3) a new population density fairness measure. There are over a dozen proposed competing measures of area compactness. Pictorial counterexamples demonstrate how most of these measures are unreliable. This article argues that area compactness is reliably measured using any of the area-to-square-of-perimeter measures (or their reciprocals or square roots) because all such measures rank any two redistricting plans in exactly the same order. The isoperimetric quotient is recommended because it has a maximum value of one (1) when the district is as compact as a circle, a minimum value approaching zero, and enables direct comparison of any two districts’ compactness regardless of size. On the other hand, population compactness helps to ensure districts are convenient for voters and politicians. Population compactness can be measured using the distance of a district’s census blocks, weighted by its proportion of the district’s population to the district’s population centroid. However, due to unequal population distribution patterns, neither area nor population compactness guarantee proportionally fair representation. To measure whether a plan is proportionately fair for both urban and rural dwellers representation this article introduces an objective, nonpartisan population density fairness (PDF) measure for evaluating when a plan produces legislative representation approximately proportional to its relative numbers of urban and city dwellers. In other words, this paper proposes a measure for evaluating proportional representational fairness of legislative redistricting plans for regions having diverse population densities. -- Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts. Renewable energy is homeland security. Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174 View some of my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051 -- Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts. Renewable energy is homeland security. Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174 View some of my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Redistricting Paper w/ New Population Density Fairness (PDF) measure
I like your PDF a lot. You could also use the same idea to measure minority/majority fairness for a given ethnicity (but probably not more than one, without getting into the problem of optimizing on too many dimensions). The problems I see: 1. If the measure being equalized (population density or minority status) was too highly correlated with partisan status, it would tend make too many uncompetitive safe seats. This could in principle be mitigated by statewide rules which reduced the advantage of incumbency in the party primaries... but I don't trust that to happen. Still, safe seats are on the whole less of a problem, in my view, than nonproportional gerrymandering; so I'd be willing to accept this price. 2. If the partisan/population density relationship was not linear, a clever gerrymander could take advantage of that fact. I doubt this would be possible without ruining compactness, though, so again, not too huge a problem. 3. It's not as good as a good proportional representation system. But it's a far less radical change which doesn't pretend to be. So this is not really a criticism; more just a comment. Jameson 2011/10/20 Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com FYI, This is pretty exciting stuff re. redistricting. I've been working for the last several weeks on this and believe I may have derived a new, and fairly simple, nonpartisan, objective measure for evaluating how proportionately fair redistricting plans are in terms of their representation of various regions differing in population density. Since partisanship usually varies with population density, this measure would tend to ensure the partisan fairness of redistricting plans. Legislative Redistricting - Area and Population Compactness and Population Density Distribution Measures http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1945879 This article discusses three measures proposed to evaluate the fairness and convenience of redistricting plans: (1) Area compactness, (2) population compactness, and (3) a new population density fairness measure. There are over a dozen proposed competing measures of area compactness. Pictorial counterexamples demonstrate how most of these measures are unreliable. This article argues that area compactness is reliably measured using any of the area-to-square-of-perimeter measures (or their reciprocals or square roots) because all such measures rank any two redistricting plans in exactly the same order. The isoperimetric quotient is recommended because it has a maximum value of one (1) when the district is as compact as a circle, a minimum value approaching zero, and enables direct comparison of any two districts’ compactness regardless of size. On the other hand, population compactness helps to ensure districts are convenient for voters and politicians. Population compactness can be measured using the distance of a district’s census blocks, weighted by its proportion of the district’s population to the district’s population centroid. However, due to unequal population distribution patterns, neither area nor population compactness guarantee proportionally fair representation. To measure whether a plan is proportionately fair for both urban and rural dwellers representation this article introduces an objective, nonpartisan population density fairness (PDF) measure for evaluating when a plan produces legislative representation approximately proportional to its relative numbers of urban and city dwellers. In other words, this paper proposes a measure for evaluating proportional representational fairness of legislative redistricting plans for regions having diverse population densities. -- Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts. Renewable energy is homeland security. Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174 View some of my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051 -- Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts. Renewable energy is homeland security. Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174 View some of my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051 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] A design flaw in the electoral system
Hi, Michael In describing the design flaw in the electoral process at: http://zelea.com/project/autonomy/a/fau/fau.xht#fla you say: The formal aggregate of votes in the count engine does not correspond to an actual aggregate of voters in the social world. The individual votes were brought together to make a result, but the individual voters were not brought together as such to make a decision; therefore no valid decision can be extracted from the result. Bringing the individual voters together to make a decision is impractical in any community with more than a few people. Voting by ballot was adopted to remedy this problem. In the small communities that dominated the United States before the 19th century, democratic politics were primarily of the town meeting variety. In this environment, individuals participated in the discussion of community issues. Decisions were made by consensus, and, when consensus was not reached, by a 'show of hands'. When these methods became unwieldy or impractical, decisions were made by ballot-type voting. The question of 'voters being separated from their votes' was not significant. What made the process democratic was not the method of voting but that the people discussed the issues themselves and decided which were of sufficient import to be decided by finding the will of the majority. When the people voted, they voted on matters that were important to them. Over time, that changed. Gradually, advocates of the various perspectives played a larger role in the process, forming factions and attracting followers. As their power grew (through the size of their following) they evolved into political parties, bent on seizing power. George Washington, with remarkable foresight, warned in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party. He called partisanship an unquenchable fire that demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume. He predicted that political parties were likely to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government[1]. The tragedy of democracy in America is that our intellectual community failed to anticipate and forestall the 'potent engines' that robbed the people of their birthright. Instead, we have been consumed by the parties Washington so accurately foretold. In our time, political parties are the sole arbiters of all political issues. The public is excluded from the process. That is the flaw in our political system. For a political process to be democratic, the people must decide what is important and must choose the best advocates of their interests to represent them in their government. How many among us have the wit to recognize the need for such a system? Fred Gohlke 1) http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Redistricting Paper w/ New Population Density Fairness (PDF) measure
Hi. Yes Jameson. I agree with your comments #1 and #3, and assume I will agree with #2 once I reflect on it when I don't have a headache (not today) and understand it. Also, apologies to the list for sending my notification twice. Thought I was sending it the 2nd time to another list. I know this is not about election methods, but a lot of persons on this list support proportionately fair systems, which this redistricting measure aims to make single-member redistricting plans be - at least on the state level for parties that are distributed according to population density as the Republican and Democratic parties in the US tend to be. On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 4:16 PM, Jameson Quinn jameson.qu...@gmail.com wrote: I like your PDF a lot. You could also use the same idea to measure minority/majority fairness for a given ethnicity (but probably not more than one, without getting into the problem of optimizing on too many dimensions). The problems I see: 1. If the measure being equalized (population density or minority status) was too highly correlated with partisan status, it would tend make too many uncompetitive safe seats. This could in principle be mitigated by statewide rules which reduced the advantage of incumbency in the party primaries... but I don't trust that to happen. Still, safe seats are on the whole less of a problem, in my view, than nonproportional gerrymandering; so I'd be willing to accept this price. 2. If the partisan/population density relationship was not linear, a clever gerrymander could take advantage of that fact. I doubt this would be possible without ruining compactness, though, so again, not too huge a problem. 3. It's not as good as a good proportional representation system. But it's a far less radical change which doesn't pretend to be. So this is not really a criticism; more just a comment. Jameson 2011/10/20 Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com FYI, This is pretty exciting stuff re. redistricting. I've been working for the last several weeks on this and believe I may have derived a new, and fairly simple, nonpartisan, objective measure for evaluating how proportionately fair redistricting plans are in terms of their representation of various regions differing in population density. Since partisanship usually varies with population density, this measure would tend to ensure the partisan fairness of redistricting plans. Legislative Redistricting - Area and Population Compactness and Population Density Distribution Measures http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1945879 This article discusses three measures proposed to evaluate the fairness and convenience of redistricting plans: (1) Area compactness, (2) population compactness, and (3) a new population density fairness measure. There are over a dozen proposed competing measures of area compactness. Pictorial counterexamples demonstrate how most of these measures are unreliable. This article argues that area compactness is reliably measured using any of the area-to-square-of-perimeter measures (or their reciprocals or square roots) because all such measures rank any two redistricting plans in exactly the same order. The isoperimetric quotient is recommended because it has a maximum value of one (1) when the district is as compact as a circle, a minimum value approaching zero, and enables direct comparison of any two districts’ compactness regardless of size. On the other hand, population compactness helps to ensure districts are convenient for voters and politicians. Population compactness can be measured using the distance of a district’s census blocks, weighted by its proportion of the district’s population to the district’s population centroid. However, due to unequal population distribution patterns, neither area nor population compactness guarantee proportionally fair representation. To measure whether a plan is proportionately fair for both urban and rural dwellers representation this article introduces an objective, nonpartisan population density fairness (PDF) measure for evaluating when a plan produces legislative representation approximately proportional to its relative numbers of urban and city dwellers. In other words, this paper proposes a measure for evaluating proportional representational fairness of legislative redistricting plans for regions having diverse population densities. -- Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts. Renewable energy is homeland security. Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174 View some of my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Redistricting Paper w/ New Population Density Fairness (PDF) measure
Kathy Anne Dopp: Legislative Redistricting - Area and Population Compactness and Population Density Distribution Measures http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1945879 Dopp (in internet post advertising above paper in her abstract): This article argues that area compactness is reliably measured using any of the area-to-square-of-perimeter measures (or their reciprocals or square roots) because ALL SUCH MEASURES RANK ANY TWO REDISTRICTING PLANS IN EXACTLY THE SAME ORDER. (emphasis mine.) --they do? Let X_k = A_k / P_k^2 be the area / perimsquared measure for district k. If the measure for an entire multidistrict plan is sum_k X_k then I claim that will rank plans in a different order than sum_k squareroot(X_k) and in a different order than sum_k 1/X_k, in general. For example: say plan #1 has these X's for its three districts: X1 = 10, X2 = 11, X3 = 12 while plan #2 has these X's for its three districts: X1 = 6, X2 = 11, X3 = 17 then the goal of maximizing sum X_k says that plan #2 is better since 3433 contradicting the goal of maximizing sum squareroot(X_k) which says plan #1 is better since 9.943 9.889. (You also can scale all numbers in this 2-plan example by any constant factor.) If plan #3 has X1 = 5, X2 = 11, X3 = 18 then the goal of maximizing sum X_k says plan #3 is better than plan #1, contradicting the goal of minimizing sum 1/X_k which says plan #1 is better than plan #3. (Again you also can scale all numbers in this 2-plan example by any constant factor.) In view of these counterexamples, I suggest Dopp either rephrase the capitalized sentence, or perhaps much more alteration is needed than merely 1 sentence, like her whole paper is busted. I'm not saying the latter; I'm saying the true amount of repairing needed lies somewhere between those two extremes. I think the truth is the the isoperimetric quotient indeed is a good idea, but it is not obvious to me what is the best way (from among the many inequivalent possibilities) to combine all the district values, to get a value for the entire multidistrict plan. My web page on this topic is here: http://rangevoting.org/TheorDistrict.html -- Warren D. Smith http://RangeVoting.org -- add your endorsement (by clicking endorse as 1st step) Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Plurality with Condorcet polling is effectively Condorcet. Condorcet for 2012!
(I emphasize the obvious fact that some of the most useful and helpful participants in this mailing list have been people who reside in countries other than the one that I reside in. The project that I'm proposing is polling for the U.S. presidential election of 2012) I've briefly mentioned this idea in a previous post. I suggest that all here who want a better voting system for the U.S., and who reside in the U.S., so that they can conduct polling here, work together on the following project: All of us, in our own counties /or cities, conduct a public poll. We can do that polling in places such as public plazas, etc. The poll consists of a rank-ballot, of the candidates in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. The reason why I suggest polling in person, in public places, is to avoid the ballot-stuffing possible in Internet voting, and to, avoid possible selection biases on the Internet. Of course, one should only do one day's session of polling, because, if one polls for several days, it will be difficult to recognize people who have already voted. Each poll-conductor, after his/her polling session, will post his/her rankings to the EM mailing list. (We'll know what the names of the polling volulnteers are, so only their rankings will be counted). When every volunteer has done his/her polling session, and all of their ballots have been posted at EM, anyone, including me, can count the ballots to find a CW. But, instead of just counting the raw ballots, I suggest weighting them according to the number of ballots in each local poll, and the population of the U.S. region in which that particluar local poll was conducted. Here's how I'll do that (unless someone has a better suggestion): On a U.S. map (conic projection or locally-centered azimuthal equidistant), I'll draw a line between each pair of neighboring polling cities. Then I'll draw the perpendicular bisector of that line. The set of perpendicular bisectors, together, will form a set of irregular polygons. I'll refer to those irregular polygons as regions. For each local poll, each of its ballots will be weighted by multiplying it by the the population of the region in which that local poll is conducted, divided by the number of ballots in that local poll. How to find the population of a region? Of course if a state is entirely in that region, then its population is simply added into the region's population. What if a state is partly in that region? Sum the population of the major cities in that region, and add that sum into the region's population. Assume that the state's population outside the major cities is uniformly-distributed. Determine the area of that state that is in the region. Multiply that area by the state's population density (adjusted by subtracting the populations of the major cities that have already been added in) Add, into the region's population, the result of that multiplication. How to determin the area of a state that's in the region? Unless someone has a better suggestion, I'll do as follows: I'll use the method of transects, using, as the numerical integration method, either Simpson's rule, or another closed Newton-Cotes formula. In the method of transects, a line is drawn across the area to be measured, more or less through the region's center. The area's width, measured perpendicular to that line, are measured at regular intervals along the line. My measuring interval will be the millilmeter marks on a ruler. The Newton-Cotes forumulas, including Simpson's rule, use regularly-spaced interval-divisions, such as those on a ruler. Such forumulas give an area estimate. Of course, the area-measurements needn't be exact, because the overall project will involve approximating assumptions less accurate than the area-determinations. Anyway, thereby will be gotten an estimate of how the ballots should be weighted, to simulate a national vote. Using the weighted ballots, we find the Condorcet winner. That candidate has a win. We announce that CW to various small parties, alternative candidates, political organizations, and progressive media (or of course any media you want to announce it to). These people and organizations can make the CW known around the country, if they want to. Looking it it from the point of view of a Progressive, I point out that, if the CW is a Progressive candidate, then the everyone who prefers a Progressive to the Democrats will know that they can probably safely vote for that Progressive CW, because s/he has a win, even in Plurality. At least, to the extent that voters and candidates are distributed on a one-dimensional political spectrum, the CW can win in Plurality if everyone to one side of hir votes for hir. Mike Ossipoff Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Let MMPO solve its ties. It elects A in the example. The simplest is the best.
Hi Mike, What do you make of this example under MMPO: 49 A 24 B 27 CB There is no CW. Standard MMPO returns a tie between B and C. If you remove A, C is both the CW and MMPO winner. Do you think this can be accepted? Thanks. Kevin Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
