[EM] Update about Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S. Elections
At the moment there is a FREE ebook edition of my book titled Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S. Elections. It's available on Kindle and Nook ebook readers, and (at last check) is available from iTunes (for iPads, etc.). (It may also still be available on other platforms.) I am having to switch ebook distributors, so it's due to be withdrawn soon, possibly following this long (Labor Day) weekend. Later I will release the same book through a different distributor. It will still be FREE. (After the transition I'll provide some chapters of the book as articles on the Democracy Chronicles site.) Richard Fobes Author of Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S. Elections Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Wikipedia article needs editing
Abd ~ Thank you for warning us about this Wikipedia article (Electoral reform in the United States) being a battleground partly populated with IRV-FairVote soldiers. I'm choosing other fronts for my election-method reform efforts, which is why I don't have time for these edits. Richard Fobes (aka VoteFair) On 8/28/2013 4:22 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: At 05:12 PM 8/28/2013, Richard Fobes wrote: The Wikipedia article titled Electoral reform in the United States contains a heading Electoral Reform Proposals and then under that heading is a section titled Instant-runoff voting. Obviously this needs to be broadened to Election-method reform with IRV being just one kind of election-method reform. Does anyone have time to do this edit? (I don't.) If one doesn't know Wikipedia policy, it can be an exercise in massive waste of time, or it might be useful for a time, and it's quite unreliable. Basically, that there is what we might consider important information, even information that, among the informed, is obvious and generally accepted, is not enough for Wikipedia, by policy. Indeed, making up an article out of your own knowledge or conclusions is called Original Research, quicklink WP:OR, and is prohibited. Everything should come from Reliable Sources, but don't copy, except for short excerpts, explicitly quoted, and attributed. Reliable Source does not have the ordinary meaning, it is a Wikipedia term of art. It means something independently published, and not self-pubished by an author or advocacy organization or even certain kinds of special-interest groups. Gaming the Vote, Poundstone, is RS. A page on the rangevoting.org web site is not. Never cite anything to a mailing list!!! And, then, if someone reverts you, don't revert war, it can get you blocked quickly. Don't use the Talk page to discuss the subject, but only for evaluating suggested edits. Yeah, counter-intuitive, all right! The cited article is atrocious. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_reform_in_the_United_States#Cost_of_problems_with_the_current_system is one section. It's recentism. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and is to be written, by policy, from an encyclopedic point of view. Everything in the article is about recent situations or proposals or organizations. There is less reliable source on this than on past reform movements. The article appears to be written from a reformer point of view, very possibly someone affiliated with FairVote. The history of the article shows extensive editing by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DavidMCEddy. This user is not exactly a single-purpose account (WP:SPA), but close, he's a reformer, writing about election reform. He uses what appear to be self-published sources, including FairVote. First step would be to take the article down to what is reliably sourced. Much of the article looks like Original Research. A chart showing the advocacy positions of organizations is close to OR. Is that a reliable compilation? What were the standards for inclusion? By the way, the first editor who edited the Talk page, and who worked on the article, was Captain Zyrain. CZ was, at that time or thereabouts, a FairVote activist, and was, he later told me, sent by FairVote to take me out. Unfortunately, he engaged in a conversation and said, essentially, OMG, I've been on the wrong side. He was subsequently, under a different name, banned. The article had a POV tag on it for years. That was removed by DavidMCEddy unilaterally. That's not a violation of policy, but he removed it first and asked questions later In his discussion of the article, he appears to have had the intention of removing the appearance that the article was a sales pitch for Instant Runoff Voting. Indeed. But he's not a sophisticated editor. McEddy makes piles of small edits, also a sign of an inexperienced editor. Yes, one should not make one huge edit, that is also rude. But section rewrites should be done with a single edit, proofread before saving The POV tag was added by Devourer09. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Electoral_reform_in_the_United_Statesdiff=455307060oldid=455302714 This editor had five edits this year, so far, probably is not checking his/her watchlist. Recent edits: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Electoral_reform_in_the_United_Statesdiff=570492529oldid=570491180 though it appears to be a sound edit, elimination possibly POV language, was reverted by a power user, an administrator, to revert block evasion. That's standard practice if an editor is identified as evading a block, to revert their contributions without considering them. Anyone could revert that back. If they dare. I don't know that any serious POV pusher is watching this article. That reversion is odd. The IP was not blocked, there is no block log for it. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidentsoldid=570593657#Harassing_an_administrator.3F Arthur
[EM] Wikipedia article needs editing
The Wikipedia article titled Electoral reform in the United States contains a heading Electoral Reform Proposals and then under that heading is a section titled Instant-runoff voting. Obviously this needs to be broadened to Election-method reform with IRV being just one kind of election-method reform. Does anyone have time to do this edit? (I don't.) Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Absolutely new here
On 6/16/2013 8:58 AM, Benjamin Grant wrote: ... I think my next task is to put a pause in the pursuit of different voting systems to focus on understanding better the various criteria (later no harm, Condorcet, etc), in much more depth, ie, what they are each about, what it means that a system fulfills of fails one, etc. I will post more about that shortly – let me know if I am dragging this group to far into “voting theory kindergarten”, but I really want to “get” all this. The Wikipedia article Voting System is the most concise explanation of voting-method criteria that I've seen. The comparison table summarizes which methods pass or fail each criteria, it is preceded by brief descriptions of the criteria, and you can click on the links in the table headings to take you to details about a specific criteria. Also you can sort the table according to any criteria. You are not dragging this group into “voting theory kindergarten”. We welcome anyone who makes an effort to learn about voting methods (and who does not behave like a troll). After all, our goal is to educate ourselves and others about what we should be doing when voters finally wake up to the need for better voting methods, and people like you will help us get there sooner. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Median systems, branding, and activism strategy
On 6/12/2013 7:55 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote: ... (As far as I know, MJ can only be expressed in one way). ... I wrote the following brief description of Majority Judgment. Is this correct? If so, perhaps it's useful? Starting with any candidate, count the number of voters who give this candidate the lowest score. If the count is more than half the voters, then the candidate is given this score. If the count is less than half the voters, the number of voters who assign the next-higher score is added, and the process is repeated until the count exceeds half the voters. Repeat this process to identify each candidate's 'median' score. Whichever candidate has the highest median score is the winner. Frequently two or more candidates have the same median score, so the tie is broken by removing ballots one at a time as needed, where the removed ballots are the ones that assign the same median score to the tied candidates. (I'm aware that the description does not specify which score is used if the median lands on a transition point. The purpose of this description is just to introduce the general concept.) Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Summary of psych/market-research studies of rating scales
On 6/4/2013 9:58 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: At 12:24 AM 6/4/2013, Richard Fobes wrote: ... ... Range Voting is Approval Voting with fractional votes allowed, it's seriously that simple. This clarification is helpful. Thanks! Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Jon's article The Second Most Important Electoral Reform
I'm forwarding what Jonathan Denn wrote: The piece I did on Approval [...] ran into some obscure editorial issue that prevented it from being widely promoted on social media. However, that was resolved and it is back up today and is already getting play. It would be great if you could invite the DEMRA folk to get involved. It is posted at… http://ivn.us/the-greater-platform/2013/05/07/will-banning-single-mark-ballots-make-greater-elections/ Jon, thank you for helping to promote election-method reform! Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Summary of psych/market-research studies of rating scales
While reading the information about score ballots, I wondered what the range-voting advocate's response is to the belief that a big preference gap in one ballot will have more influence than a smaller preference gap in another ballot. For example, suppose one voter votes: A = 1 B = 2 C = 10 and another voter votes: A = 1 B = 5 C = 10 and, combined with the other ballots, the winner is C. Now, suppose the first voter changes hisher ballot to: A = 1 B = 5 C = 10 and now B wins. This implies that the big gap between B and C in the first ballot has more influence than the smaller gap between B and C in the second ballot. How do range voting advocates resolve this apparent unfairness? I'm asking out of curiosity. (Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back.) Richard Fobes On 6/3/2013 9:25 AM, Warren D Smith wrote: http://rangevoting.org/RateScaleResearch.html is a new webpage attempting to summarize about 100 years and 100 papers worth of research on humans trying to use rating scales , focusing on what we can learn about how score voting (also called range voting) should be conducted. An older page, which knew comparatively little about this that kind of research, was http://RangeVoting.org/Why99.html and the two pages will need to be reconciled. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] What are the approaches you advocate for?
On 5/30/2013 12:44 PM, David L Wetzell wrote: ... dlw: If neither can dominate and we have some exit threat between them and away from them, possibly changing the specific two parties at the top or forcing them to merge with a growing (or regionally strong) third party, then it'll be easier to check the influence of special interests on both of them. ... I also think that 3rd party aficionados will recognize that the imperative is to incorporate the use of PR asap so as to mitigate the cut-throat competition between the two major parties that prevents us from making progress on so many issues that desperately need change and to trust that as a result of the changed rules that both major parties would be seriously changed for the better even if their names do not change. Rather than giving up on voter control of the Republican and Democratic parties, I want to increase voter influence on these two parties. That is why I promote reforming *primary* elections. I agree that third-party candidates should win often enough to indicate the extent to which the main parties (which could be more than two at a distant future time) fail to be controlled by the voters. Privately David asked: What are the approaches you advocate for? For primary-election reform (which are single-winner contests) I promote VoteFair popularity ranking, which is mathematically equivalent to the Condorcet-Kemeny method. (IRV cannot handle enough candidates for this purpose. Approval voting would provide improvements here, but I'm not a supporter of approval voting for widespread use.) For multi-winner use I promote VoteFair representation ranking. It is unlike any other voting method I've seen. Details are at: http://www.votefair.org/calculation_details_representation.html (STV is inferior to this method.) In addition I advocate the use of VoteFair party ranking to identify political-party popularity. Those results would be used to allow the two most-representative parties to offer two candidates in each race, and would limit less-popular parties to either one or zero candidates in each race. (IRV cannot handle this kind of general election. Let's say it's a Congressional election in which there are two Republican candidates, two Democratic candidates, one Green-party candidate, one [whatever] candidate, and no additional candidates.) To solve the gerrymandering problem I advocate using VoteFair representation ranking in double-size districts (to elect the two most representative candidates in each district), plus having some additional seats filled based on party-based proportionality. ... ... But choosing the candidate for the proportional seats would NOT be done using any kind of party list, and instead would be based on which district-based candidate lost in their district yet demonstrated he or she is the most popular candidate (of the specified party) compared to the other losing candidates (of that party) in the other districts. The full approach includes providing for a smooth transition to better elections. And the approach includes a proposed Constitutional amendment for reforming Presidential elections, which involves complications that IRV advocates don't seem to be aware of. (IRV advocates seem to think that after adopting IRV in more places, the details for dealing with IRV's limitations [especially its inability to handle three somewhat-equally popular political parties] can be worked out later.) Broadly speaking, in the context of this discussion with David about FairVote (not VoteFair) strategy, I do not see either FairVote or IRV advocates promoting a full election system that works together. Instead I hear let's use IRV here, and STV there, but stay with plurality voting there and there, and let's ignore the consequence of a third-party presidential candidate winning some electoral votes and preventing any candidate from winning a majority of electoral votes, and we're confident that everything will all work out. IRV and STV have been tried elsewhere (notably Australia) and those governments are just as corrupt as the U.S. (single-mark-ballot-based) and European (PR-based) election systems. Ironically most IRV advocates say they want third parties to grow, yet IRV cannot handle more than (let's say) 3 main candidates in a general election, so that will lead to a dead end if there should turn out to be four main parties. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] wrt Fobes
On 5/29/2013 3:24 PM, David L Wetzell wrote: My agenda is to defend iRV for single-winner gener'l elections and redirect energy to complenting such with American forms of Proportional Represetnation that similarly won't so much challenge the US's 2-party dominated system but keep it from tilting to one-party domination and make it work a lot better, as I belive would be inevitable if the proliferation of LTPs were incentivized by the use of Am forms of PR that make it easy for a small, local third party to win represetnation. Interesting. You/David seem to be focused on the balance of power between left versus right, whereas I'm focused on the balance of power between voters (up) versus special interests (down). In my book I promote ways for U.S. elections to produce more proportional results, but I'm sure the approach is unlike whatever you have in mind, which I presume is STV. If your perspective is shared by the Green party, that could explain why the Green party says they promote the use of IRV, yet they do not use it for their own primary elections. I think that one of the best ways to promote election reform (of any/all types) is for a third party to adopt any method -- even IRV -- for their primary elections because that would force state election organizations to accommodate it on the ballot. Or if a state's election rules do not allow it, then that party would do well to offer a candidate for Secretary of State (or whichever office handles election issues) and highlight the issue in the voter's pamphlet. More realistically I expect election-method reform to come to the United States after it has occurred in other nations, which is the same pattern that occurred for women getting the right to vote. Richard Fobes On 5/29/2013 3:24 PM, David L Wetzell wrote: It may not be fair but in the status quo US system there are networking effects in activism and voter education about electoral reform. Given the need to deal w. rational ignorance about politics, and even moreso electoral rules, there is a need for marketing short-cuts. FairVote does that well in simplifying the message for low-info voters ignorant about electoral rule analytics. So reform in a system where economies of scale are exacerbated by the status quo is not fair and there's scope for a 2nd best approach based on networking externalities and marketing advantages that include over-simplifications or statements of tendencies as absolutes. I agree w. your focus on primary systems where the no. of candidates on average wd tend to be higher. My agenda is to defend iRV for single-winner gener'l elections and redirect energy to complenting such with American forms of Proportional Represetnation that similarly won't so much challenge the US's 2-party dominated system but keep it from tilting to one-party domination and make it work a lot better, as I belive would be inevitable if the proliferation of LTPs were incentivized by the use of Am forms of PR that make it easy for a small, local third party to win represetnation. dlw Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] A simple thought experiment.
On 5/29/2013 12:52 PM, David L Wetzell wrote: ... Also, the bottom line is that when you're advocating for a change in which single-winner election rule alternative ought to be used, it's not right to dump the burden of proof on IRV advocates. The amount of time spent marketing IRV already is a sunk cost and so the burden of proof for switching ought to lie on the challengers not the defenders of the status quo progressive electoral alternative to fptp. This implies that the time (and money) spent on marketing IRV gives IRV advocates dibs (partial ownership) of the election-reform arena. None of us (that I know of) who promote voting-method alternatives (besides IRV) have attempted to build on what IRV advocates have done. Certainly my efforts have been independent. If anything, what I have experienced is IRV advocates attempting to take over some of my efforts to educate people about voting methods. More to the point, I've been working on election-method reform much longer than I've been aware of organizations (especially FairVote) that promote IRV. Does that put me at or near the front of an imaginary queue? Of course not. What we are all attempting to do is to promote fairness. The election-reform individuals and groups that use unfair tactics are revealing themselves to have an agenda other than fairness. In the long run, fairness will win, simply because it produces a higher level of economic prosperity (which in turn is connected to less fighting, better health, and greater happiness). Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Re2: Fobes wrt IRV w. relatively few competitive candidates.
A clarification would be helpful in this discussion (below). David seems to be talking about the number of candidates in _general_ elections. I am more focused on the number of candidates in _primary_ elections. This is where the greatest unfairnesses now occur. This is where there should be more candidates. Specifically, in a congressional election where the district boundaries do not ensure victory for the incumbent's party, the other party should have about four to seven credible candidates in their primary election. IRV cannot handle that many credible candidates. Richard Fobes On 5/29/2013 11:44 AM, David L Wetzell wrote: On 5/28/2013 12:51 PM, David L Wetzell wrote: Richard Fobes wrote: Plurality voting and limited voting (and the Borda count if the voters are undisciplined) are about the only methods that _cannot_ handle 3 or (maybe) 4 popular choices along with any number of unpopular choices. So you agree that IRV works w. relatively few popular candidates? The results for IRV get worse as the number of candidates increase. Condorcet methods give fair results regardless of the number of candidates. Approval voting gives reasonably fair results regardless of the number of candidates. IRV can usually -- but not always -- handle 3 candidates. And IRV can sometimes handle 4 candidates. But IRV becomes quite unreliable -- and also vulnerable to strategic voting -- if there are 5 or more candidates. dlw: So if there is a feedback from the election rule used that tends to change the number of competitive candidates then it might make sense to first push IRV and then something more advanced later on, after the expected number of candidates rises? So it seems disengaged from reality to let C, the number of candidates, go to infinity... and if a lot of candidates are not going to get elected then to disregard voter info/preference over them is of much less consequence. Although the number of popular candidates is now small, that's because we use plurality voting. When we use better voting methods, the number of popular candidates will increase; of course not to infinity, but frequently beyond the 3 or 4 popular choices that IRV can handle with fairness. dlw: This is a conjecture. One that I don't think makes economic sense when one considers all that is entailed with a competitive campaign for an important single-seat election. The biggest campaign contributors (a.k.a. special interests) have forced voters into the Republican and Democratic parties, and then taken control of the primary elections of both parties by taking advantage of vote splitting. All sorts of things will change when these constraints are removed. dlw: These constraints won't per se be removed entirely. Special interests will still exist and $peech will still matter for elections, regardless of what election rules get used. If there exists varying cognitive limits in voters, it doesn't negate the need for electoral reform but it does mitigate the scope for expanding the number of competitive candidates/parties, or how much merely changing the single-winner election rule used would make a difference. I believe the diff IRV makes makes it worth it. Given the current habits of the US, I don't see advanced-systems havinge sufficient additional value-added to justify switching from the extensive marketing campaign already in place for IRV. If things evolve, it will be easier to switch from IRV, in part because of widespread habituation to IRV and how it'll make it harder for those who benefit from the status quo to divide and conquer advocates of reform. My point is that Condorcet and Approval methods can handle whatever number of parties arise. In contrast, IRV will fail if there turn out to be more than 3 or 4 effective parties, so IRV is not a reliable choice. You mean IRV is not reliable if it becomes reasonable to expect for there to be more than 3 or 4 effective candidates in a single-winner election... This is not the case in the US today. Although it's a non-governmental example, take a look at the current VoteFair American Idol poll. The number of popular music genres is about 5, and there are about 7 singers who get more than a few first-choice votes. http://www.votefair.org/cgi-bin/votefairrank.cgi/votingid=idols IRV would correctly identify the most popular music genre (based on current results), but probably would not correctly identify the most popular singer. Apples and Oranges. There's no serious economic costs to competing in American Idol and so the number of competitive
Re: [EM] NY state fair elections public funding bill (comments asap please?)
On 5/27/2013 5:54 PM, Warren D Smith wrote: http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?sh=printbillbn=S04705term=2013 Re: [EM] NY state fair elections public funding bill (comments asap please?) Below is what I wrote on this topic in my book Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S. Elections. Warren, if you reference the book's title, you are welcome to copy this where it might prove useful. Adrian, you are welcome to publish this at Democracy Chronicles. You just need to write a brief (one-paragraph?) intro that refers to what is said in the article that Warren references. For those who don't know, I am currently creating an ebook version of this book, and I will be making it available for free. Soon anyone (at least in the U.S.) will be able to access a copy online through their local library. (Translation: I am not trying to sell copies of this book; rather I'm trying to educate people about what's really going on in politics, and why we need election-method reform.) Richard Fobes Section title: Publicly Finance Monopolies? Why? Some citizens have supported the idea of public funding for Presidential campaigns, which are the most expensive election campaigns. Public funding means that taxpayer money is provided to the candidate in return for a promise not to exceed specific spending limits. On the surface this sounds like a good way to make funding available to candidates who don't compromise their principles by accepting money from special interests. Under current conditions, public funding for candidates doesn't make sense. Why? Because the candidates who are publicly funded would often be defeated in their primary elections, where unfair plurality voting is used. Also consider that the biggest campaign contributors can simply spend more money. Why waste taxpayer money trying to defeat much-better-funded candidates? What about the checkbox on federal income-tax forms that says: Presidential Election Campaign: Do you, or your spouse if filing a joint return, want $ to go to this fund? It provides money for public funding of Presidential campaigns. Checking the box does not deduct the money from that taxpayer's account, but taxpayers do end up paying for money put into that fund. The movement to offer public funding of election campaigns simply reveals that voters are currently unable to defeat undesired well-funded candidates simply by voting. This undemocratic situation reveals an inadequacy in voting methods, not a need to compete against special-interest money by using taxpayer's money. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] true expressivities of voting methods
On 5/27/2013 8:52 AM, Warren D Smith wrote: http://rangevoting.org/PuzzIgnoredInfo.html Interesting. Plurality and Approval collect so much less information that they do not noticeably ignore any information. Instant-runoff voting obviously ignores information because it only considers preference information that floats to the top. Borda clearly does not ignore information, but it yields the wrong results -- unless somehow every voter separately ranks every choice. When I was developing VoteFair ranking -- a.k.a. the Condorcet-Kemeny method -- I considered and then rejected the beatpath-like approach of looking at the biggest and smallest pairwise counts. I rejected it partly because (similar to IRV) it ignores lots of the numbers (the ones that are not big or small). (I also rejected it because it does not identify the second-most popular choice, the least-popular choice, etc.) This concept of ignoring information is part of why I claim that the Condorcet-Kemeny method is better than the Condorcet-Schulze method. The opposite claim (that Schulze is better than Kemeny) tends to be based on counting the number (or importance) of fairness criteria that are met or failed. When we finally measure how often those failures occur, the information loss of the Condorcet-Schulze method will become clear. In contrast, the Condorcet-Kemeny method considers every pairwise count, not just the biggest and/or smallest pairwise counts. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Article on BSMB
On 4/22/2013 7:30 AM, Jonathan Denn wrote: ... My conclusion to the IVN piece is likely going to be to immediately advocate for Approval voting nationwide. Nationwide is both ambiguous and ambitious. If you express the reform that way, I'd suggest clarifying what you mean. Personally I'd suggest more of a ramping-up approach. And after voters get used to the change to then have an independent commission study which method is best for the ranking of candidates. A strong no on the idea of an independent commission study! Ontario Canada created a citizen's committee to study voting methods and they (under the influence of a biased expert) came up with the closed-list form of PR (proportional representation). It allows the people in power to stay in power, which is the opposite of what voters want. I and others then worked to defeat that choice when it came up on the ballot. In the Declaration Of Election-Method Reform Advocates we specifically denounce the closed-list approach by recommending the open-list approach instead (if PR is used). Let different cities and states use different methods -- preferably with guidance from the information in the Declaration. There is no need to converge on a single common approach. In fact, even though I advocate the Condorcet-Kemeny method, even I would recommend having used Approval voting in the recall election that Arnold Swartzeneger (sp?) won to become California's governor because there were 135 candidates competing for that single seat, and Approval voting is less confusing to the voters when there are that many candidates. ... So, would anyone like to send me a quote, or be interviewed, or want to dissuade me from my conclusion? I'm a sucker for a greater argument. I can't guarantee your input will make it into the article, but as you know I'm a big fan of DEMRA's work. You can regard this as either an attempt to influence what you say, or as a quote, or a series of quotes (your choice): The most important part of advocating better ballots and better counting methods is to educate voters as to why election results so often yield winners who most of the voters dislike. We know that money has an excessive influence on election results, but not enough people understand that it happens because we use single-mark ballots. Single-mark ballots are only intended to handle choosing between two choices. We need to use ballots and counting methods that handle three or more choices. This need is especially important in primary elections because that is where the biggest campaign contributors take advantage of vote splitting if a reform-minded candidate dares to run against a money-backed candidate. Remember that the biggest campaign contributors control both the Republican and Democratic parties, and by controlling the primary elections of both parties they don't have to care whether the Republican or Democrat wins the general election. Most voters, and politicians, are too distracted by the left-versus-right debate to notice where the real control of power occurs, and why it is so easy for moneyed interests to control both parties. The biggest potential for reform is for third parties to adopt better ballots and better counting methods in their primary elections. That change, besides attracting lots of voters to those third parties, will educate mainstream voters that there are alternatives. Approval voting is the logical place to start because the existing ballot-counting hardware can be used, and it just involves allowing more than one mark per race. Yet any use of any kind of better ballot -- in any kind of decision-making situation -- will quickly educate lots of voters about the unfairness of the single-mark ballots we now use. Education is the key! Richard Fobes Author of Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S. Elections Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Current SODA not monotonic; fixable. (mono-voter-raise)
On 4/19/2013 11:51 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote: ... Aside from my research paper, which is still progressing, I will soon be publishing a note about SODA and MODA on ArXiv, in which I prove MODA's compliances. Once my research paper, which will reference that note, is peer-reviewed, I hope that will be enough to add MODA to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system#Compliance_of_selected_systems_.28table.29. It will join MJ and Ranked Pairs among the overall most-compliant systems in that table. One possibility is that MODA might need to be a footnote that clarifies a specific criterion for the SODA entry. I might be wrong. (I haven't analyzed SODA/MODA carefully.) I'm just thinking that MODA is really the SODA method with an escape lever. Whether or not someone pulls the escape lever to get better compliance is not part of the MODA method itself, right? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Current SODA not monotonic; fixable. (mono-voter-raise)
On 4/19/2013 11:09 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote: ... So, what do people think? Should I change the default definition of SODA to make it have better compliances? Or should I keep it the way it is because the change would never matter in practical terms and would only make the system sound more complex? Join the club. Each of us favors a method that fails some criterion or another. I think the best fix is to identify how often each failed criterion occurs. Probably as a percentage, or a percentage range. Of course that's difficult to do. Yet it will be more meaningful than just having a yes-or-no checkbox for each criterion. Keep in mind that if you create a variation of SODA, that amounts to creating a new method, which probably requires a new name (or a qualification added to the SODA name). Of course this reply doesn't directly answer your question. The best solutions are not necessarily easy, but usually they are simple. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] secret ballots and proxy voting
On 4/11/2013 1:30 PM, Fred Gohlke wrote: ... We are engulfed in the corruption and destructiveness inherent in party politics. Surely the bright people on this site can come up with a better alternative. Instead, they seem committed to perpetuating it. Why is that? This forum focuses on understanding election methods. I believe that other publications (including Democracy Chronicles) and other forums -- especially presentations at conferences and meetings -- provide a better platform for _advocacy_ (regarding adopting the better election methods we discuss here). I, and I presume others here, are having success pursuing those other alternatives. Richard Fobes On 4/11/2013 1:30 PM, Fred Gohlke wrote: Richard Fobes wrote: In politics the power nodes are the political parties. They are much easier to control than the voters. Even the members of Congress are a bit too numerous to control, so special interests (the biggest campaign contributors) make their deals in backroom meetings with committee members. Then (under threat of withdrawal of money from election campaigns) the majority whip ensures that all Congressmen from that party vote the way the party arranged to vote. Why does this site not address the travesty Fobes describes? We are engulfed in the corruption and destructiveness inherent in party politics. Surely the bright people on this site can come up with a better alternative. Instead, they seem committed to perpetuating it. Why is that? Fred Gohlke Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] secret ballots and proxy voting
On 4/10/2013 10:56 PM, Michael Allan wrote: Kristofer Munsterhjelm said: Isn't that just what a protection racket is - large-scale coercion? It seems to work for the Mafia, inasmuch as they're still being involved in protection rackets... and the presence of organizations like Addiopizzo seems to show that they are. Usually a protection racket goes after business firms (equivalent to what Abd calls power nodes). It extorts money from those firms, not directly from their customers. The customers are too numerous, too mobile and generally too difficult to control (too large-scale as Abd says). For similar reasons, election racketeers wouldn't go chasing after individual voters. I think this is what Abd means. In politics the power nodes are the political parties. They are much easier to control than the voters. Even the members of Congress are a bit too numerous to control, so special interests (the biggest campaign contributors) make their deals in backroom meetings with committee members. Then (under threat of withdrawal of money from election campaigns) the majority whip ensures that all Congressmen from that party vote the way the party arranged to vote. Note that instead of using threats of damage to extort money (which is what protection rackets do), in politics the extortion consists of threatening to stop giving money (to election campaigns) in exchange for getting laws that provide beneficial tax breaks, legal monopolies, government contracts, etc. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Consensus threshold
On 4/11/2013 12:16 AM, Michael Allan wrote: I think there is a general williness to *consider* a consensus, but not a general willingness to follow it blindly. ... Yes, as Michael Allan says below, an iterative process is needed to bridge the gap between a calculated consensus and the final official decision. During that iterative process there is head-scratching to figure out if anything better can be arranged. Richard Fobes On 4/11/2013 12:16 AM, Michael Allan wrote: The psychological value of this method is that it appeals to our natural community spirit which includes a willingness to go along with the group consensus when the consensus is strong enough, as long as there is no hope for a better consensus, and as long as it isn't a candidate that we would rate at zero. Comments? I think there is a general williness to *consider* a consensus, but not a general willingness to follow it blindly. The popularity of a candidate is a recommendation to look more closely at that candidate given the fact of his/her popularity. Here popularity directly serves only to arouse my curiosity, Why is this candidate more popular? What do others know that I don't know? On learning the answer, I decide whether to follow the consensus. The proposed method differs in asking me to make the same decision, but without knowing the reason for the candidate's popularity. It invites me to act irrationally and enshrines that action as normal human behaviour. As a counter-proposal, consider a broader rationalization of the electoral design. Rather than overloading a single election with expectations it cannot fulfil, factor it into two elections: (1) a continuous, advisory primary to flush out consensus and dissensus, to give people time to talk things over, and decide what to do; followed by (2) a decisive election in which they express the decision. This solves the problem of systematic irrationality by allowing for a real consensus in the primary, one with reasons behind it, the validity of which can be discussed and debated before making a decision. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] List of primary voting projects invite to mirroring network
On 3/29/2013 12:54 PM, Michael Allan wrote: We have a Knight submission that concerns primary voting, the status of which is currently up the air. Knight is about to pick 50 submissions to proceed to the next phase (refinement). If we make the cut, then I imagine we could still modify the submission during the refinement phase, though I'm not 100% sure. Bearing that in mind, please consider joining us there. If you agree, we could try to add VoteFair to the list of providers (currently 3): https://www.newschallenge.org/open/open-government/submission/free-range-voting/ Thank you for the invitation. At this time, for various reasons, this would not be a good fit. My plan is to adapt the algorithm that is currently used in the VoteFair Negotiation Tool and incorporate a variation of it into the open-source VoteFair ranking software that I've posted on GitHub. The result, in addition to being useful for negotiation and liquid democracy and primary voting situations, also would be useful for long (more than 5 positions) open-list-party situations, which is the application that Peter Zbornik has expressed a future interest in. Again, thanks for your interest, and good luck with your efforts to move voting software into the open. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] List of primary voting projects
On 3/28/2013 10:39 AM, Michael Allan wrote: Thanks for explaining, Richard. This is an important topic, so I want to help out. The algorithm does not attempt to identify when the negotiation process is done. If the participants have a genuine desire to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement, then the results will slowly converge on an optimum set of approved proposals. ... What drives this change (convergence) in the results? Dissatisfaction with the current list of recommended proposals. Specifically it happens when a minority fails to get their most important proposal into the list of recommended proposals, or when any group sees a very bad proposal getting into the list of recommended proposals. Do some of the existing participants change their minds and re-rank the proposals? It's more like they are seeing which of their proposals are disliked, and splitting those up so that some of the narrower proposals (hopefully the ones they care about the most) will be approved. As an example from Oregon history, a proposed law to ban all animal traps failed to get passed by the voters. But if the law only covered trapping specific animals (wolves such), then it might have passed. The proposed law would have made it illegal to trap moles, and that's the only way to deal with moles (that anyone in this neighborhood has found to work). In other words, the animal-rights activists got too greedy. Greedy proposals get ranked as disliked. Projecting this issue onto the negotiation-tool usage, if there was one proposal to ban traps that are set for wolves, that might pass. If there was another proposal to ban the trapping of moles, that would not have passed. That would have given the activists what they wanted most. By overreaching, they lost out completely. Or do new participants enter the process and rank the proposals, with those rankings not subsequently modifiable? Everything can be modified at any time. In your case, it might not matter. Clearly your use cases show an intention to inform decisions. Yes. One of the basic ways to find a solution that everyone likes is to learn more about what people really want. And clearly the method tries to do so through consensus, even if it's not dynamic. Still I'm curious. Yes, through consensus. But I don't know what you mean by not dynamic because, as indicated above, anything can be changed at any time. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Parliamentary compromising strategy
On 3/23/2013 3:21 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: ... (details below) I'm not saying up is rich and down is poor as such. I'm saying that in most democratic nations, the people prefer some wealth redistribution. Putting it more strongly, every voter wants wealth redistribution. ... That is, special interests can block redistribution, but that doesn't mean up vs down is about wealth. Up vs down is about the degree to which the people get what they want, and redistribution is one of the things they want. Putting it even more strongly, wealth redistribution is the most important thing that voters care about. That's why prosperity favors the politicians in power, and why economically bad times lead to elected politicians not getting re-elected. Left versus right is about conflicting desires for wealth redistribution. I picture it as a game of tug-of-war (each side pulling a rope, with the stronger-and-more-numerous side winning). In the political map I'm describing, I picture up as having the majority of voters and they want fair taxes and fair laws (and fair elections). I picture down as having the people and businesses who give the most money (overall) to election campaigns. They want taxes and laws that favor their specific business (or source of income). And they want to control election outcomes. (Clarification: Here in the U.S. each industry in the down direction gives money to candidates in both the Republican party and the Democratic party; details at: www.OpenSecrets.org The industry category of labor unions is the only exception; they only give money to Democrats.) Superimposed on this map is what I'll call free candy. That's the wealth redistribution that the downers (special interests) arrange for government to give away free (at taxpayer expense) to bribe voters to vote for the special-interest puppets who get elected. In other words, rich selfish people distract voters from special-interest sweet deals (tax breaks, etc.) with free candy -- social security, unemployment compensation, tax rebates, etc. -- that cause voters to forget about the unfair taxes and unfair laws (that benefit the downers). The free candy can be categorized as wealth distribution. However, the total value of the free candy given out is much, much less than the total value of special-interest tax breaks, government contracts, legal monopolies, etc. In other words, the vertical dimension I'm describing has cooperation (including fair elections) in the up direction, and has selfish interests in the down direction. I realize that this is different from what most people picture. Yet I've been told that this map of politics nicely clarifies what goes on in politics/elections. It also clarifies why the democratic world is currently in an economic recession -- which is actually a depression if parliaments/congress did not cheat on measuring unemployment and inflation. Selfish interests have redistributed a major portion of wealth into their hands, and that unfair, non-cooperative approach is not sustainable. The majority of voters -- at the top -- in addition to wanting fair taxes and fair laws, also want fair elections. In my opinion, if we had fair elections, that would lead to fair taxes and fair laws. In other words, fair elections would increase overall cooperation. The influence of money in politics (because of vote splitting, single-mark ballots, etc.) is what pulls us down, away from cooperation. This happens in all existing democracies. In that sense cooperation is everyone mostly getting along (with each other) and everyone mostly getting what they deserve, without some people getting a lot more than they deserve (which is what special interests now get). In case it isn't obvious, I get angry at unfairness. That is what motivates me to work on election-method reform. Richard Fobes On 3/23/2013 3:21 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 03/23/2013 09:59 PM, Richard Fobes wrote: On 3/21/2013 2:05 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 03/19/2013 03:08 AM, Richard Fobes wrote: I continue to fail to understand why citizens think of politics as a left-versus-right tug-of-war. That's what it used to be before special interests hired election experts to advise them on how to take advantage of vote splitting. Now, the much bigger gap is up-versus-down. The vast majority of voters are up and the biggest campaign contributors are down. (The downers are also known as special interests.) Here, it seems that up vs down compresses a lot more, i.e. resolves itself. We're not perfect (by any means), but if income inequality is any metric, Norway's Gini coefficient is at around 26 while the United States exceeds 40 (and is around the same level as China last I checked). You seem to be picturing a vertical (up-versus-down) dimension that has rich people at the top and poor people at the bottom. That is different than what I'm
Re: [EM] List of primary voting projects
On 3/23/2013 4:17 AM, Michael Allan wrote: ... Please let me know if I missed any projects. ... You can add VoteFair negotiation ranking to the list. The website is: www.NegotiationTool.com Thanks. Richard Fobes On 3/23/2013 4:17 AM, Michael Allan wrote: As promised, here is my list of primary voting projects: http://zelea.com/w/Stuff:List_of_primary_voting_projects I define primary voting as a more-or-less continuous process of voting in which the results are not decisive. Its purpose is to build up a normative consensus or mutual understanding prior to a decision. The decision itself is usually expressed through a separate mechanism, as with an election, voting assembly or other authority. Please let me know if I missed any projects. Or just edit the list directly (it's in a wiki). Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Parliamentary compromising strategy
On 3/21/2013 2:05 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 03/19/2013 03:08 AM, Richard Fobes wrote: I continue to fail to understand why citizens think of politics as a left-versus-right tug-of-war. That's what it used to be before special interests hired election experts to advise them on how to take advantage of vote splitting. Now, the much bigger gap is up-versus-down. The vast majority of voters are up and the biggest campaign contributors are down. (The downers are also known as special interests.) Here, it seems that up vs down compresses a lot more, i.e. resolves itself. We're not perfect (by any means), but if income inequality is any metric, Norway's Gini coefficient is at around 26 while the United States exceeds 40 (and is around the same level as China last I checked). You seem to be picturing a vertical (up-versus-down) dimension that has rich people at the top and poor people at the bottom. That is different than what I'm describing. To repeat: Now, the much bigger gap is up-versus-down. The vast majority of voters are up and the biggest campaign contributors are down. (The downers are also known as special interests.) It's true that there are no poor people down among the biggest campaign contributors. However, there are some very rich people at the top of this vertical scale. In other words, some rich people would be at the top, and some would be at the bottom. The rich people at the top (who share the political goals of the majority of voters) may or may not give campaign contributions to help offset the money from special interests. Yet their total contributions pale in comparison with the businesses/people at the bottom who give the largest contributions (also known as special interests). In other words, _votes_ attract political parties upward, toward the majority of voters, while _money_ (in the form of campaign contributions) pulls the parties downward toward special interests (who then get tax breaks, legal monopolies, government contracts, etc.). Here is a link to such a map of politics: http://www.votefair.org/pencil_metaphor.html For each campaign-contribution dollar given by someone at the bottom of this dimension, they and/or their business typically gain many times as many dollars. One accounting revealed that a specific business gained about $400 for each $1 they gave as a campaign contribution (including money spent on losing candidates). That ROI (return on investment) is a huge percentage, something around 40,000% ! That's why special interests spend so much on elections. It's a drop in the bucket compared to how much they gain. ... To further reduce the relevance of coalition-building backroom deals, VoteFair negotiation ranking would be used by the parliament to make laws on an issue-by-issue basis, rather than on a backroom-deal (by the coalition leaders) -by-backroom-deal basis. Okay. So just to see if I got it right, you're saying that instead of PR, you'd have larger groups, and then these groups would negotiate among themselves, in the open, using the VoteFair method? In this context, each participant using VoteFair _negotiation_ ranking (which is different from the other, election-based VoteFair methods) would be an MP -- minister of parliament. The VoteFair negotiation ranking calculations do not identify any groups. Also, the algorithm is completely unaware of the notion of political parties. (This makes it useful in yet other contexts.) VoteFair negotiation ranking starts by approving the most popular proposal. Then it begins the process of also approving proposals that are the most popular among the voters (MPs in this case) who have not yet gotten as much as they deserve. Of course that process cycles back to approving majority-supported proposals as needed to maximize (within limits) all the voters getting represented in the final list of approved proposals. The software allows any voter (MP) to view the ranking provided by any voter. Current parliaments would probably want to keep these rankings private (not public), but in the distant future, when government transparency becomes more common, each MP's ranking would be made public (for those who care to analyze the details). Here, unlike other kinds of voting, any participant can propose any new proposal, and that proposal is initially ranked as neutral (neither liked nor disliked). The final result is a list of approved proposals that can be combined into a proposed law, and that law is likely to be approved by a majority of the MPs. If not approved, the negotiation process continues, which means that the MPs would change their rankings and possibly add new proposals to resolve the details of conflicts. All of that is done in real time, which means there are no rounds of voting. Anyone can change their ranking at any time. And the calculations are done whenever someone wants to view the current result. Does
Re: [EM] Historical perspective about FairVote organization
On 3/18/2013 2:00 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 03/17/2013 06:32 PM, Richard Fobes wrote: ... My VoteFair site collects lots of data. [...] ... Could we use the polling data to get some information about, say, candidate variety? I think we could, at least to some extent. We could ask something like how many elections with more than 20 voters have no CW?. I think you published stats like that once, but I don't remember what the values were. I have not published anything from this data. I'm not in the academic world so I don't have time to anonoymize (sp?) it, or do any special analysis. Perhaps you could also ask the voters some time later if they were satisfied with the choice. That kind of later polling could uncover Burlington-type breakdowns if there were any. If they could rank the options in retrospect, it would also be possible to determine whether they would have been satisfied with, say, IRV; but I imagine that's too much to ask. Somewhat related: There is a website named IdolAnalytics.com that analyzes the correlation between American Idol polls and the actual TV-show results (who gets eliminated) and compares the results for different polls. Here is a quote about the VoteFair American Idol polls from last year: “People complaining about your site's sampling are being ridiculous. Your site selected 20/30 bottom group contestants and 5/12 eliminated contestants correctly (excluding the finale). That's better than any other single index that I assessed, including Dialidol and Zabasearch. No poll is perfect. Your site clearly captures a significant part of the voting.” Now I need to stop spending too much time in this forum and get back to supporting real-life voting. Alas, more people vote in the American Idol poll than the Presidential polls I've conducted, but that means more people are learning how voting should be done (without the blinding distractions of left-versus-right politics). Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Parliamentary compromising strategy
On 3/18/2013 12:49 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 03/15/2013 06:55 PM, Richard Fobes wrote: On 3/15/2013 2:22 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 03/14/2013 11:26 PM, Richard Fobes wrote: ... I do not understand what you mean by making a government a minority government. What is a minority government? In parliamentary systems, a minority government is a government that is not supported by a majority of the parliament. Except in systems that require constructive votes of no confidence, the minority government can always be brought down by a vote of no confidence. Therefore, the minority government has to go from issue to issue, finding majorities on each issue separately so that the government is not replaced. A minority government is thus ultimately a device of the legislature. It does the legislature's work, and if it doesn't, it is replaced. It doesn't have internal party loyalty because it can't demand standards of its own. This is opposed to, say, a coalition deciding to negotiate among themselves in the executive, where all the coalition parties are instructed to support the executive. Ah, now I see. In a broader sense, it's what we have in U.S. Congress right now, where the Senate (upper house) and House of Representatives (lower house) are controlled by opposite political parties. As you point out, the important difference is where the (real) negotiations actually occur -- either in the coalition-based backroom deals, or in the cross-party backroom negotiations. The whole point of VoteFair negotiation ranking is to bring the negotiations out of back rooms and into the open (but not into public view) where all the elected representatives participate (as equals). For this reason, for this context (recommending VoteFair negotiation ranking), the difference between a minority government and a coalition-controlled government is not significant. ... How would that method solve the left/right scenario I mentioned? Would it give the right-of-center parties (or people) position if they had a majority, and otherwise let the left-of-center voter's vote go to a left-of-center candidate? Your scenario (as I recall) involved using a voting method in which there are strategies that enable the voters to produce a different outcome -- without any risk that a dramatically worse outcome can occur. The whole problem is that there's a strrategy but the strategy isn't risk free. The problem itself is a strategy that could make the gun fire back at the user, and so the voters face a quite unpleasant dilemma if they're instrumental. The problem is this. You have a bunch of voters who are left of center, and there's going to be a parliamentary election. Given past history, after the election, if the center-left coalition has a majority, it will form the government. Otherwise the center-right coalition will have a majority and form the government. This is an example, so I can state that voters vote mainly on a left-to-right axis. I now see that you are talking about voting for political parties, not voting for candidates. This shifts the conversation to electing the representatives. For this purpose I regard traditional PR (proportional representation) as flawed. It assumes that just getting the correct number of representatives is a suitable goal. And this omits the more-important issue of whether the elected representatives have priorities that match the voters who elected them. To improve the representativeness of the elected representatives, I recommend VoteFair ranking, which includes VoteFair representation ranking, VoteFair party ranking, and VoteFair partial-proportional ranking. The goal is to put more attention on electing the right people _and_ the correct (or nearly correct) number of representatives from each party -- rather than just getting the party quotas correct and treating party lists as if they are simply waiting lines (without paying careful attention to the order of candidates in those lists). ... The problem for the voters is that they can't both specify I want a left-of-center coalition *and* if I can't have that, I want a right-of-center coalition that's as centrist as possible. The voters don't in advance know where to direct their power, and a miscalculation could cause the worse outcome to occur. VoteFair ranking (the full system, although excluding negotiation ranking) favors fewer parties instead of more parties. In fact, using the details I recommend for U.S. elections would result in two main parties (presumably reformed versions of the Republican and Democratic parties) and probably one third party and (as now) almost no otherwise-minor parties. The third party would be a coalition of voters who don't like the two main parties. The two main parties would represent the voters, unlike now where they represent special interests and give out some favors to entice voters (and get the voters to believe, mistakenly
Re: [EM] Helping the Pirate Party to vanish
On 3/15/2013 1:27 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: At 04:16 AM 3/14/2013, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 03/13/2013 05:09 AM, Michael Allan wrote: If the experts in the Election Methods list can't find a serious fault with this method, then it might be possible to bring down the party system in as little as a few years. Mind you, it would be no bad thing if it took a while longer, given the disruption it might cause. Regarding liquid democracy methods in general, I think the vote-buying problem is pretty serious. Or rather, that's not the worst part of it, but it's a symptom of a more general aspect. Kristofer is asseting as a serious problem something on which there is zero experience. It's not clear that vote-buying is *ever* a serious problem.[...] Vote-buying would become quite serious if liquid democracy (direct voting on issues) were adopted. Many years ago I lived in a neighborhood that the police often had to visit, and I saw that the illegal behavior that the police responded to was just the tip of the iceberg. Just making vote-buying and vote-selling illegal would not stop low-income people from selling their vote. An underground (black) market would develop. Trying to stop it would have the same non-success as trying to stop the use of illegal drugs. Also consider that the reason elections require people to appear in person to cast their votes is that it greatly reduces voter fraud, which is common without that requirement. Of course there are exceptions. Here in Oregon everyone votes by mail, but that approach would not work in most other states because they are noticeably more corrupt. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Historical perspective about FairVote organization
On 3/15/2013 2:12 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 03/14/2013 06:45 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: IRV will prevent a true spoiler (that is a candidate with no viable chance of winning, but whose presence in the race changes who the winner is) from spoiling the election, but if the spoiler and the two leaders are all roughly equal going into the election, IRV can fail and *has* failed (and Burlington 2009 is that example). If you think about it, even Plurality is immune to spoilers... if the spoilers are small enough. More specifically, if the spoilers have less support in total than the difference in support between party number one and two, Plurality is immune to them. So instead of saying method X resists spoilers and Y doesn't, it seems better to say that X resists larger spoilers than Y. And that raises the question of how much spoiler-resistance you need. Plurality's result is independent of very small spoilers. IRV's is of somewhat larger spoilers, and Condorcet larger still (through mutual majority or independence of Smith-dominated alternatives, depending on the method). This is a good example of the need to _quantify_ the failure rate for each election method for each fairness criteria. Just a yes-or-no checkmark -- which is the approach in the comparison table in the Wikipedia Voting systems article -- is not sufficient for a full comparison. ... It's like reinforcing a bridge that would collapse when a cat walks across it, so that it no longer does so, but it still collapses when a person walks across it. Cat resistance is not enough :-) Great analogy. We need to start assessing _how_ _resistant_ each method is to each fairness criteria. It would be really useful to know what level of resistance is enough, but that data is going to be hard to gather.[...] Indeed, that is difficult. And beyond that we have even harder questions of how much resistance is needed to get a democratic system that works well. It seems reasonable to me that advanced Condorcet will do, but praxeology can only go so far. If only we had actual experimental data! My VoteFair site collects lots of data. I have used it to verify that VoteFair ranking accomplishes what it was designed to do. Not only has such testing been useful for refining the code for the single-winner portion (VoteFair popularity ranking, which is equivalent to the Condorcet-Kemeny method), but such testing has revealed that VoteFair representation ranking (which can be thought of as a two-seats-at-a-time PR method) also works as intended. As for praxeology (the study of human conduct), I also watch to see how people try to vote strategically. The attempts are interesting, but ineffective. I agree that using better ballots and better vote-counting methods in real situation -- using real data -- is essential for making real progress. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Parliamentary compromising strategy
On 3/15/2013 2:22 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 03/14/2013 11:26 PM, Richard Fobes wrote: ... One way is to eliminate the need for coalitions. This is the purpose of VoteFair negotiation ranking, which allows the elected representatives to rank various proposals on various (hopefully-at-least-somewhat) related issues. Based on these rankings the software calculates which proposals would produce a proposed law that is best supported by the elected representatives -- including support by small (but not tiny) opposition parties. (Details about VoteFair negotiation ranking are at www.NegotiationTool.com.) On 3/11/2013 1:33 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: I suppose that making every government a minority government would also work here. The cost would be greater instability, though. How would the negotiation ranking handle the instability (or general delay and gridlock) that might appear? I do not understand what you mean by making a government a minority government. What is a minority government? VoteFair negotiation ranking gives the majority the most control. Yet it also gives influence to minorities -- if: * They are joined together with a common interest -- which amounts to an opposition coalition that is internally identified by the algorithm based on votes, without being based on any additional information (such as party membership). * Or, they have some overlap with some representatives in the majority. * Or, when they support something that does not conflict with what the majority wants. Expressed another way, the method is a calculation algorithm that implements log rolling (combining separate proposals into a single package to be voted on) and vote trading (where representatives agree to vote for something they don't care for in exchange for another vote that supports what they do care about). The algorithm produces a suggested list of compatible proposals that would be likely to get majority support if they are packaged into a single yes-or-no vote among all the representatives (which in this case are the MPs). If the package does not pass with majority support, then the (elected) representatives can change their rankings and their identification of which proposals are incompatible with one another. This is a diplomatic way of saying that they either were not paying full attention when they were voting on the proposals, or they were not honest in their voting. The other approach is to replace traditional PR with an election method that gives no advantage to strategic voting. This is what the full VoteFair ranking system is designed to do. Specifically, each district would use VoteFair representation ranking to elect one majority MP (member of Parliament) and one opposition MP, and the remaining parliamentary seats are filled using VoteFair party ranking (to identify party popularity) and VoteFair partial-proportional ranking (to choose which district-losing candidate wins each party-based seat). The result does not allow even a group of well-coordinated voters to meaningfully and predictably alter the results. How would that method solve the left/right scenario I mentioned? Would it give the right-of-center parties (or people) position if they had a majority, and otherwise let the left-of-center voter's vote go to a left-of-center candidate? Your scenario (as I recall) involved using a voting method in which there are strategies that enable the voters to produce a different outcome -- without any risk that a dramatically worse outcome can occur. VoteFair ranking includes characteristics that defeat attempts to vote strategically. Specifically, insincere voting (in VoteFair ranking) can easily produce an outcome that is the opposite of what the voter wanted. (I suppose an analogy is that a person would hesitate to fire a gun at another person if there was some risk that the bullet might come out heading in the exact opposite direction. That's a lot riskier than a gun that simply might miss the intended target by a small amount.) And if insincere voting is attempted (even if it is well-coordinated by the group doing it), that attempt (when VoteFair ranking is used) cannot significantly increase the odds that the insincere voters could get what they want. If the voters have no reason to vote strategically and the algorithm produces fair results, then we can finally get beyond one-dimensional politics and arrive at multi-dimensional politics where issues and positions can each be handled appropriately. Remember that the concept of left versus right (or conservative versus liberal, etc.) is an oversimplification. This dimension does not really exist. Instead, each voter has separate opinions about taxation, religion (and each of its many separate issues), and environmental protection, and the best way to invigorate an economy (and create jobs), and the best way to reduce (or not reduce) the influence of money
Re: [EM] Corrections to inaccurate FairVote historical perspective
On 3/14/2013 4:09 PM, Jonathan Lundell wrote: Side comment: one of the many problems facing election reformers of any stripe in the US is our patchwork of election laws and practices, not just across state lines, but also within many states. While California elections are largely subject to state law, they are conducted by county registrars, who, among other things, choose the voting machinery used. Local jurisdictions who have adopted IRV, say, typically are stalled waiting to implement it until their county registrar gets around to supporting it. I agree. Yet I don't see the Green party (or any third party) working to implement the change in the localities where alternatives are allowed. They seem to be leaving that up to the FairVote organization. In other words, election-method reform does not appear to be a high priority for the Green party. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Parliamentary compromising strategy
On 3/11/2013 1:33 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: Here's a scenario I've been thinking about lately. Say that you have a parliament using proportional representation, and the voting method is party list. Then say that the situation is so that after the election, either the left-of-center parties or the right-of-center parties form a coalition. Given this, you might get a compromising strategy. [...] But if enough people vote this way, then the right-wing wins, even if the polls were inaccurate and it would not have won if people had voted honestly. Is there any way of ameliorating this? [...] The need for a coalition -- which often occurs when PR is used -- introduces an extra layer in the political system. The layer is between the elected representatives and the majority coalition (or ruling coalition). This extra layer can easily result in the opposite of what some voters want. As an exaggerated, simplified, and non-realistic example, suppose that half the voters in the Green party are women, and their votes for this party are based on the party's support for gender equality. And suppose that the Green party forms a coalition with another major party, and in the backroom negotiations a majority of the Green party leaders are men and agree to compromise on gender issues, in exchange for increased focus on environmental issues. Of course, in reality the backroom compromises are both unknown and intertwined. Yet this example illustrates the underlying problem. I see two ways of resolving this dilemma. One way is to eliminate the need for coalitions. This is the purpose of VoteFair negotiation ranking, which allows the elected representatives to rank various proposals on various (hopefully-at-least-somewhat) related issues. Based on these rankings the software calculates which proposals would produce a proposed law that is best supported by the elected representatives -- including support by small (but not tiny) opposition parties. (Details about VoteFair negotiation ranking are at www.NegotiationTool.com.) The other approach is to replace traditional PR with an election method that gives no advantage to strategic voting. This is what the full VoteFair ranking system is designed to do. Specifically, each district would use VoteFair representation ranking to elect one majority MP (member of Parliament) and one opposition MP, and the remaining parliamentary seats are filled using VoteFair party ranking (to identify party popularity) and VoteFair partial-proportional ranking (to choose which district-losing candidate wins each party-based seat). The result does not allow even a group of well-coordinated voters to meaningfully and predictably alter the results. Both approaches are needed to achieve the highest level of democracy. Either alone would greatly improve democracy. The bird's-eye perspective is that I support solving the problem at the source of the problem. Richard Fobes On 3/11/2013 1:33 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: Here's a scenario I've been thinking about lately. Say that you have a parliament using proportional representation, and the voting method is party list. Then say that the situation is so that after the election, either the left-of-center parties or the right-of-center parties form a coalition. Given this, you might get a compromising strategy. Say (WLOG) that you're a left-wing voter. Then if it's a narrow race, but the polls are slightly favoring the right-wing group, it might make sense for you to vote for the most centrist of the right-wing parties. The reasoning would go that the right wing is going to win anyway, so if I vote for the left wing, I get zero influence, but if I vote for the leftmost right-wing party, I at least pull the right-wing coalition away from its right extreme. But if enough people vote this way, then the right-wing wins, even if the polls were inaccurate and it would not have won if people had voted honestly. Is there any way of ameliorating this? The best solution would let people vote the left parties ahead of the right parties and contribute both to their left-wing preference, as well as push the right-wing in their direction. I suppose the problem is that the coalition makeup is set up after the election rather than during it. So the voting method has no idea about how power is distributed and arranged after the election. All the voting method does is produce a council that is proportional. Thus, if we're to solve that problem, it would mean either codifying the coalition structure into the system itself, or make the voters able to react to coalition setups so that they can redistribute their votes manually. The former, I'm a bit wary of doing. One of the advantages of parliamentary rule is that the parliament is fluid. The parliament can nominate, select, and dissolve executives. The members of parliament can also ally themselves with others or shift their allegiances
Re: [EM] Corrections to inaccurate FairVote historical perspective
On 3/14/2013 9:51 AM, Ralph Suter wrote: ... My own biggest disagreement with FairVote is that it has never, itself, been a truly democratic organization. At the 1992 founding meeting, I was under the impression that it would be incorporated as a member-controlled organization. In fact an initial board of directors was elected at the meeting using a PR procedure (STV as I recall). Only several years later did I learn that the organization was incorporated as a conventional nonprofit organization controlled by a self-perpetuating board (i.e., the board chooses all new board members). The initial board was selected by Matthew Cossolotto and the other incorporators and was not the board elected at the founding meeting. As a result of how it was incorporated, the organization has never been open to pressure from members (since it doesn't have any) regarding its positions on IRV and other issues. [...] It's insightful that the organizations that claim to support election-method reform -- especially the FairVote organization and the Green party -- do not elect their own leaders using the election methods that they support. Real reform will begin when there are political parties that use the election methods that they support. This is why the Czech Green party is far ahead of other political parties. They have begun to use better election methods in their own elections. Bravo! Does anyone know of any other political party that uses the election-method reform that they promote? Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] proportional constraints - help needed
On 2/17/2013 12:17 AM, Peter Zbornik wrote: 2013/2/16 Kristofer Munsterhjelmkm_el...@lavabit.com: On 02/14/2013 07:07 PM, Richard Fobes wrote: ... ... as in the top-down method of Otten? ... ... perhaps Peter meant this one? http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE13/P3.HTM yes, that's the method I was thinking of. Thanks Kristofer. The approach specified in this article by Joseph Otten involves identifying doomed candidates and guarded candidates. No, VoteFair representation ranking does not use that approach. VoteFair representation ranking uses a more advanced approach that looks deeper into the ballots. Specifically, after the first-position winner has been chosen, VoteFair _representation_ ranking starts by identifying the ballots that do not rank that candidate as their first choice, and using those ballots it identifies which (remaining) candidate is most popular. Then, it looks at the relative ranking between those two candidates. Obviously the ballots that rank the first-position winner higher are well-represented. The other ballots -- that rank the second tentatively popular candidate above the first-position winner -- are not represented by the first-position winner, so those ballots get full influence. The well-represented ballots get only a small influence, specifically to the extent that the first winner had the support of _more_ _than_ half the voters (the amount beyond 50%). Then the second-position winner is identified. Note that the second-position winner might be, or might not be, the tentatively identified candidate. This approach precludes the strategy of a majority of voters putting unpopular candidates at the top of their ballot (with different voters using different unpopular candidates) as an attempt to fool the algorithm into thinking they are not well-represented by the first-position winner. This approach avoids the weakness of STV (and IRV), which focuses attention on the top-ranked candidate on each ballot, and only looking at lower-ranked candidates on an as-needed basis. Possibly combined in some way with http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/issue9/p5.htm . Maybe, I don't know. The key paragraph from this second article is: Were we to know in advance that we would win, say, n seats in a region, then it would be straightforward to use STV to select n candidates from the potential candidates and put them in the top n places in our list. If we don't know n in advance (which we don't!) then we can perform this operation for every possible n, i.e. from 1 up to the number of seats available in the region, and attempt to construct a list whose top n candidates are those victorious in the nth selection ballot. (There is really only 1 ballot - the division into n ballots is notional.) It says what I said earlier: that STV needs to know in advance how many seats will be won. I did not quickly understand how Joseph Otten proposes combining the different lists (one for each value of n) into a single list, and I'm not in the academic world so I would not get paid to spend time figuring that out, and since Peter says it may not be relevant, I'll leave this level of detail unresolved. Getting to the point of answering Peter's question, no, VoteFair representation ranking also does not use this second-article approach. Shifting perspective here, there is an important difference between STV and VoteFair representation ranking. STV has the same weakness as IRV, namely it puts all of its focus on the top-ranked candidate on each ballot. In contrast, VoteFair representation ranking looks much deeper into each ballot to identify whether the ballot is from a voter who is (or is not) well-represented by which candidates have won the earlier seats (in the party list). As I've indicated before, if a party list needs to be longer than about five positions, it's possible to get even better proportionality in the later seats by using an algorithm used in VoteFair _negotiation_ ranking. The algorithm behind VoteFair _negotiation_ ranking could calculate a full party-list ranking, and then if the ranking violates the gender-based rules, then an administrator can indicate an incompatibility that adjusts the ranking to meet the gender-based quota (expressed as an incompatibility). There are two reasons why I haven't proposed using VoteFair negotiation ranking for use in a party-list election: * It is not designed to handle thousands of voters, which would be needed for party-list voting. (It's designed for a group of people working in a collaborative situation.) * It is designed in a way that regards the different party-list positions as distinct proposals (such as filling cabinet positions) rather than as somewhat-equivalent seats being filled. Yet, as I've indicated, the advanced adjustment capabilities of VoteFair _negotiation_ ranking can be combined with VoteFair _representation_ ranking
Re: [EM] proportional constraints - help needed
On 2/13/2013 4:51 AM, Peter Zbornik wrote: 2013/2/9 Richard Fobeselectionmeth...@votefair.org: ... 2013/2/6 Richard Fobeselectionmeth...@votefair.org: ... The method consists of running VoteFair _representation_ ranking calculations. ... ... Tentatively the five open-list party positions are assigned to the five candidates who are ranked as most representative -- according to VoteFair _representation_ ranking. These results are proportional. And they are very resistant to strategic voting. The details are explained at this web page: http://www.votefair.org/calculation_details_representation.html Does VoteFair representation ranking fulfil the criterion, that candidate for seat number 2 is elected proportionally to the elected candidate at seat 1, ... Yes. ... and candidate for seat number 3 is elected proportionally to the elected candidates at seats 1 and 2, etc This brings up an important point that I was already thinking of bringing up. There is a difference between proportionality when the number of seats is known -- which is what STV is designed for -- and proportionality for an open-party list where the number of seats that will be won by the party is not known in advance. In this case (regarding the first three positions), if the first three candidates were selected so that each represents one-third of the voters, and the Green party wins only two seats, then only two-thirds of the voters will be represented. That is not proportional in the legislature, even though the first three party-list positions are allocated to be very proportional. VoteFair representation ranking chooses for the third position the most popular person from among the remaining candidates. This is a fair approach for the two-seat win, the three-seat win, and the four-seat win. At about position # 5 there needs to be some additional calculations. This is what I referred to when I said that VoteFair _negotiation_ ranking has a method that would be useful starting at about position # 5. Also note that, as Jameson pointed out in a separate post, in order to ensure full proportionality beyond the first few seats -- say if ten or more seats might be won -- there has to be some additional information from the voters in order to select one or two candidates who represent a small minority. ... as in the top-down method of Otten? I did not find any information about the top-down method of Otten. If you send me a link to a place that describes it, then I can answer this part of your question. If the tentative results already happen to meet the quota for women, then no adjustments are needed. If there are no women in any of the tentatively assigned five positions, then the two women who are the most popular according to VoteFair _popularity_ ranking are moved into positions # 2 and # 4, and the men are shifted down. When the men who tentatively won are shifted down (to make room for the two women), their order is preserved (which in the above case means the men in seats # 4 and # 5 are completely removed, and the man who was in position # 3 is moved to position # 5, and the man who was in position # 2 is moved into position # 3). This does not necesarily lead to proportionality within the five candidates. Imposing a quota, by necessity, amounts to disturbing carefully balanced results. In other words, if the calculated results achieve proportionality, then imposing a quota will disturb the proportionality of otherwise-proportional results. Also this involves the issue mentioned above, namely that getting proportional results for a specific number of seats makes it difficult (impossible?) to add to, or remove from, the list and still also get proportional results for a different number of seats -- without making adjustments to earlier positions in the list. I assume that the Green party is not allowed to submit multiple party lists and specify that this party list is used if we win one seat, and this different party list should be used if we win two seats, and here is yet another party list that should be used if we win three seats, etc. ... Why is the second woman moved into position # 4 instead of position # 5? Because presumably half of the Green-party voters are women, and presumably you want proportional results if your party should win 4 seats. (If the quotas are met without needing any adjustments, then the second woman might end up in position # 5, and this would be fair because the results imply that quotas are no longer necessary to override other political priorities.) Both presumptions are wrong. In this case the second woman should be moved into position # 5 -- which is the minimum quota-based requirement -- rather than moving her into position # 4. Thank you for your questions. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] proportional constraints - help needed
On 2/11/2013 2:33 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: Although what I'm going to say may be a bit offtopic, I think I should say it. I think it could be useful to quantify exactly what is meant by quoted-in proportionality in the sense that the Czech Green Party desires it. Then one may make a quota proportionality criterion and design methods from the ground up that pass it. In my opinion, your comment is not off-topic. Yes, I agree that it would be nice to more clearly define the goal. Yet I've learned that reconsidering goals is a never-ending process because, when a clearly defined goal is achieved, often it turns out that a better goal becomes evident. (Especially if the intent behind the original goal was not achieved, in spite of having achieved the clearly stated goal.) In this case I presume the gender-based quota requirement is a temporary goal. Hopefully, as more women get elected (because of using better ballots and better counting methods), the need for it will disappear. If it's easy to define the quota-based goal, such a definition would be useful. But, in my opinion, spending time developing an election method that optimizes the clearly stated goal is not likely to provide a useful return on investment (ROI) -- because it must be discarded when the quota is no longer needed. I think it makes more sense to use an election method that provides fair results in many/most situations, and do some adjustments to accommodate a temporary situation (such as gender bias), and then abandon those adjustments when the results match the ultimate goal. Presumably the ultimate goal is gender equality -- which itself is probably worth defining clearly (although not here!). Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] proportional constraints - help needed
2013/2/6 Richard Fobeselectionmeth...@votefair.org: How many candidates would/could compete for the five (open) party-list positions? On 2/6/2013 3:12 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote: Say twenty, for instance. To: Peter Zbornik After considerable thinking about your request, I've come up with a recommended election method for your situation. The method has these advantages: * Uses open-source software that is already available. * Does not require any modification of the software. * Provides proportional results for the five seats. * Provides quota-based representation for women -- which, as I understand it, you specified as requiring a woman in one of the top two positions, and another woman in the next three positions. * Is very resistant to strategic voting. * Produces better representation compared to using STV (single transferable vote). The method consists of running VoteFair _representation_ ranking calculations. Five levels of representation would be requested. As a part of that calculation, VoteFair _popularity_ ranking results are also calculated for all twenty or thirty candidates. The open-source VoteFair ranking software, which runs under either Microsoft Windows or Linux, is here: http://github.com/cpsolver/VoteFair-ranking For convenience it can be used in conjunction with the Vote-Info-Split-Join (VISJ) framework here: htts://github.com/cpsolver/Vote-Info-Split-Join-VISJ The adjustments to ensure quota-based representation for women is done manually, after the calculations have been done. Here/below is a description of the election method. Tentatively the five open-list party positions are assigned to the five candidates who are ranked as most representative -- according to VoteFair _representation_ ranking. These results are proportional. And they are very resistant to strategic voting. The details are explained at this web page: http://www.votefair.org/calculation_details_representation.html If the tentative results already happen to meet the quota for women, then no adjustments are needed. If there are no women in any of the tentatively assigned five positions, then the two women who are the most popular according to VoteFair _popularity_ ranking are moved into positions # 2 and # 4, and the men are shifted down. When the men who tentatively won are shifted down (to make room for the two women), their order is preserved (which in the above case means the men in seats # 4 and # 5 are completely removed, and the man who was in position # 3 is moved to position # 5, and the man who was in position # 2 is moved into position # 3). If one or two women won seats in the top five positions, but a woman did not reach position # 1 or position # 2, then the more-representative woman is shifted into position # 2 and, if necessary, the man in position # 5 is completely removed. In other words, if any woman needs to be promoted, she first comes from the tentatively assigned most-representative positions. Otherwise she comes from the highest woman-occupied position in the popularity ranking. As an example, if the representation ranking looks like this (where M=male and F=female) ... 1: Jiri (M) 2: Petr (M) 3: Karel (M) 4: Vaclav (M) 5: Eva (F) ... and within the popularity ranking the most popular woman who is not listed above is ... Tereza (F) ... then these are the final results for the party list: 1: Jiri (M) 2: Eva (F) 3: Petr (M) 4: Tereza (F) 5: Karel (M) Why is the second woman moved into position # 4 instead of position # 5? Because presumably half of the Green-party voters are women, and presumably you want proportional results if your party should win 4 seats. (If the quotas are met without needing any adjustments, then the second woman might end up in position # 5, and this would be fair because the results imply that quotas are no longer necessary to override other political priorities.) (As a minor point, if in the future the gender-based quota is no longer needed because women typically end up in the top five positions, then the method for filling position # 5 can be improved by using a method from VoteFair _negotiation_ ranking. In the meantime the tentatively assigned winner of position # 5 usually will be demoted, so this future refinement would not affect the results under current circumstances.) Of course you, and your fellow Green-party members, will have questions about this method. I'll be happy to answer them. Just ask. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Why not filter out messages from participants who do not follow forum etiquette?
On 1/31/2013 11:31 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: On 1/31/13 1:05 PM, Richard Fobes wrote: On 1/30/2013 2:21 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: ... For instance, the LNHe failure of such traditional unimproved Condorcet (TUC) methods, such as Beatpath, Ranked-Pairs, etc. is admitted by most to be a disadvantage. To anyone here who is isn't already aware, Michael Ossipoff makes statements about what other participants here believe, yet frequently those statements do not reflect what participants here actually believe. killfile. ... please just plonk this dude so we can stop thinking about him. it's simple. Thank you for your reminders that other people here are ignoring the posts from M.O. It helps. (And thank you Jameson for the same reason.) You ask why I don't filter out all his posts. There are several reasons. M.O. has a better-than-average understanding of election methods, and he does make some worthwhile contributions to this forum. And I believe he has good intentions. What I object to is his failure to follow normal forum etiquette. On the positive side, Michael finally seems to be taking more seriously the request -- from many people here -- to include the full name for most of the acronyms he uses. My recent request, which he has dismissed, is basically the same request that Jameson has made. Specifically, Michael writes what he claims is a summary of what someone else has said, but his version is intentionally twisted. And then he criticizes that misinterpreted opinion. The reason for my concern is that I -- and others -- have made efforts to invite to this forum anyone who is interested in learning more about election methods, and Michael's frequent criticisms make it unlikely that people following this forum will feel comfortable asking questions. They are likely to assume, probably correctly, that Michael will criticize them if they express any preferences or opinions that do not match Michael's preferences and opinions. Another concern is that some people following this forum will believe all (or most) of what Michael says simply because currently he is so prolific, and because he sounds like he understands election methods. This problem has already manifested itself. Someone on Wikipedia requested that the Favorite Betrayal Criterion (FBC) -- that Michael speaks of so lovingly -- should be moved from the last column to the first column of the comparison table in the Voting system article -- because of its importance. Apparently the person has been believing what Michael has been writing here and/or at Democracy Chronicles. The person was surprised to learn that very few academic articles refer to the FBC. Of course Michael is likely to misinterpret this statement to mean that I do not appreciate the importance of FBC. Instead, my actual opinion is that I do not regard importance as a yes or no category. Rather, importance is a continuous dimension because something can have importance only to the extent that other things have less importance. Specifically, I would rank FBC in the lower half of the important-for-elections scale, but that is different than saying it has no importance. I realize that in spite of my multiple attempts (both here and at Democracy Chronicles), Michael continues to dismiss most of what I say to him. That is why my latest comment is directed to other people here. It is not directed to Michael O. because he dismisses feedback. My goal is to make it clear -- to others here -- that Michael does not speak for all of us. And that his criticisms do not hold lots of credibility with other participants here. My hope is that this recognition will help the rest of us to conduct a healthy dialogue here on this forum, in spite of Michael's lack of forum etiquette. Rather than filter out all of his messages, I briefly look at some of them. And, like most others here, I rarely respond to him. Now, when I do respond, I address the message to other participants, not to the person who dismisses what I write. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Proposed bullet-voting prohibition criterion
On 1/30/2013 2:21 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: ... For instance, the LNHe failure of such traditional unimproved Condorcet (TUC) methods, such as Beatpath, Ranked-Pairs, etc. is admitted by most to be a disadvantage. To anyone here who is isn't already aware, Michael Ossipoff makes statements about what other participants here believe, yet frequently those statements do not reflect what participants here actually believe. To repeat what has been said here many times, different election-method experts have different opinions about which criterion failures (disadvantages) are more important than other criterion failures. In other words, Michael's opinions about which criteria are more important than others does not reflect the group's opinions. As a more advanced clarification, research has not yet been done to identify _how_ _often_ each method fails each criterion. Those calculations are very difficult to figure out how to do (in a meaningful way). After that research has been done, it may turn out that a method fails a significant criterion relatively rarely (i.e. in cases that seldom occur). This means that criteria failures may not be as simple as the fail-or-not-fail checklist approach implies. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Proposed bullet-voting prohibition criterion
On 1/29/2013 2:23 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: ... There's a third possibility. The parties may produce decoy lists that aren't expected to get much support at all and are thus easily controlled by the parent parties. Party voters could then vote for a party and a randomly picked decoy list to get around the BVP limitation. I've been using the term shadow party in presentations I've given, yet I like your naming idea, which means I may try using the term decoy party, which is more self-evident as to meaning. Kristofer, I make a point of reading your messages because I appreciate your insights. Thanks for your contributions. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Responsible discussion. Acronyms.
On 1/26/2013 10:31 AM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: ... ... I'll try to do so in every posting, or certainly at least in every thread. Thank you! Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Acronyms and threads
To Michael Ossipoff ~ On 1/21/2013 10:31 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: Richard says: This is related to the pattern I've seen repeatedly. You ask for feedback, but then you dismiss that feedback [endquote] Whoa, Cowboy. What do you mean by dismiss? to reject serious consideration of...? So you want to say that, in that sense, I dismiss people's arguments or answers instead of answering them? Yes. But before we get to those, let's start with a simple, easy-to-understand request that you have repeatedly dismissed. Here is the most recent case of this request: Kathy Dopp (on Mon Jan 21 06:31:55 PST 2013) wrote: Could posters to this list please make your emails comprehensible to someone like myself by spelling out the words comprising the acronym when it is first used in each and every email to the list? In the past year, the equivalent request has been made by other participants here. Yet you have not complied with the request, except in one recent message (see below), and then for just some of the acronyms you used. Also I made a similar request regarding your Democracy Chronicles articles. There too you dismissed the request by saying you had defined the acronyms in previous articles. In spite of these repeated requests, here are recent messages in which you do not spell out what the acronyms stand for: http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2013-January/031449.html http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2013-January/031447.html http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2013-January/031450.html To your credit, you did name _some_ of the acronyms you used in this recent message: http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2013-January/031452.html Perhaps you think that your recent Acronyms message was an appropriate response to the request. But that does not provide what we are requesting. To be specific about the request, suppose you make a reference to IIA (Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives) and a CW (Condorcet Winner), then you should also indicate the spelled-out name, such as demonstrated in this sentence. Kathy Dopp would like to see the full names in each message. If that seems to be too much, here is another approach that I think would satisfy many of us ... You could provide the full spelled-out name when it is first used in a thread. But this brings up another issue. Apparently you aren't aware of what a thread is. So, to clarify, here is a link to the January threads in this Elections-Methods forum: http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2013-January/thread.html At last count you/Michael have started more than 30 threads. During the same time, all the rest of us _combined_ started only 6 threads. (FYI, Wikipedia explains threads here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threaded_discussion) Each time you change the subject in a message, you are starting a new thread -- unless you use the reply button in your e-mail client software, which is what most of the rest of us do. Repeatedly in the past you have been asked not to change the subject because it throws off this thread continuity. Yet you continue to create a new thread nearly every time you post a message. Notably, on a few occasions you have continued the thread instead of starting a new thread, so I know that you and your email software can do it. Getting back to the acronym-naming request, normal forum etiquette would suggest that you specify the name of an acronym at least the first time it's used in a thread. After that, later messages in the same thread can be expected to not necessarily include the spelled-out name of the acronym. If you continue to not follow the thread conventions, then at least you need to include the spelled-out names of your acronyms in more than one or two of your messages. Clarification: Of course there are a couple of well-established acronyms such as IRV (instant-runoff voting) and PR (proportional representation) that are so well-established that they do not need to be spelled out. However, many of the acronyms you use are not well established. And a number of them you have made up! Yet it is rare that you bother to spell out what the acronym stands for -- beyond the first time you use it or introduce it. Specifically, please spell out by name the acronyms you use, at least once per thread (or what would amount to a thread). You have claimed that you do not dismiss feedback presented in this forum. Now you have an opportunity, regarding this simple request, to prove me wrong. If you demonstrate a willingness to comply with this request -- which has been made by several of us here over the past couple of years -- then we can move on to the more subtle voting-related issues that you have also previously dismissed. Richard Fobes Election
Re: [EM] Clean Government Alliance
On Jan 22, 2013, at 8:07 PM, Richard Fobeselectionmeth...@votefair.org wrote: In this discussion about term limits, I forgot to mention an important U.S.-specific deal-breaker. The United States Supreme Court ruled that (using the words in Wikipedia) states cannot impose term limits upon their federal Representatives or Senators. ... On 1/22/2013 5:48 PM, aGREATER.US wrote: That's why we're going for an omnibus Constitutional Amendment. Ah, I had forgotten the specific goal. In that case I agree that term limits for Congressmen should be included -- along with a ban on single-mark ballots. That would split up opposition so that special interests have to fight against both reforms. And any success in opposing term limits would increase the odds of success for banning single-mark ballots. Now I understand why you cannot embrace someone who is unwilling to consider term limits as part of the proposed Amendment. Thanks for the clarification. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Clean Government Alliance
In this discussion about term limits, I forgot to mention an important U.S.-specific deal-breaker. The United States Supreme Court ruled that (using the words in Wikipedia) states cannot impose term limits upon their federal Representatives or Senators. The details are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_limits_in_the_United_States#Congress This means that applying term limits to members of the United States Congress would require adding an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Yet, as I understand it, adopting term limits for Congressmen is one of the goals of Clean Government Alliance. Even at the federal level, banning single-mark ballots might be easier. BTW, most of the states in the United States already have term limits for local and state-level positions. I am not opposed to those; they serve a useful purpose while we continue to have unfair elections. I am also not opposed to federal term limits. Rather I'm saying that getting term limits adopted for Congressmen appears, to me, to be a harder goal than banning single-mark ballots, and term limits won't lead to as much reform as better ballots and better counting methods. Why settle for using Duct Tape to patch up what isn't working, when solving the underlying problem is far more effective? Of course, the Supreme Court might also regard a ban on single-mark ballots as unconstitutional. But that would be great because that publicity for alternate ballot types would elevate the discussion of the topic to the point where it would become easy for individual states to adopt such a ban for elections of local and state-level positions, and that's where we are most likely to get early reforms. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Clean Government Alliance
(For context, see message that follows.) When looking for overrun or wild swings in politics, keep in mind that politics involves multiple dimensions. This concept is conveyed in the pencil metaphor at: http://www.votefair.org/pencil_metaphor.html Specifically, left-to-right (or liberal-versus-conservative) shifts are just one dimension. (As a further complication, different people have different opinions about what that one dimension refers to.) Yet there are other dimensions too. One is the money-fueled shift away from voters toward special interests (votes-versus-money). As the pencil metaphor suggests, this dimension is orthogonal (i.e. sort of perpedicular) to the left-versus-right dimension. Also consider that a system (either physical or political) can resonate at several different frequencies. And those oscillations (at different frequencies) can occur simultaneously. If plotted in along more than one axis, the results can be Lissajous curves (which are nicely shown in the Wikipedia article by that name). Such patterns are more difficult to comprehend than simple one-dimensional waveforms (such as an audio signal). So, indeed, it can be very difficult to clearly identify examples of the oscillations in current-day and recent politics. Yet some patterns become clear in an historical context. As an example, the U.S. stock market has large cycles with mathematically determined periods, such as a big 90-year-or-so cycle and a smaller 20-year-or-so cycle, both occurring together (along with other cycles at other frequencies). Such boom-and-bust cycles have what I, and others, believe is the same cause: people with lots of money learn how to game the system in their favor without realizing that those changes are not sustainable, and then the house of cards collapses, and then the cycle starts again with a different way to game the system (and maybe with a new category of people gaming the system). Kristofer asks what I suggest as a way to dampen such resonant/oscillation effects. I recommend VoteFair ranking (including VoteFair representation ranking and VoteFair partial-proportional ranking) for electing political leaders, and I recommend VoteFair negotiation ranking for voting within legislatures. By design, together they would produce laws and enforcement priorities that would much more closely match what voters really want. Also they would _relatively_ _smoothly_ track changes in what voters want. That contrasts with jerkily responding to voter shifts as happens now, and which makes oscillations more likely. As a result, there would be no need for term limits. Richard Fobes On 1/20/2013 12:41 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 01/18/2013 06:46 PM, Richard Fobes wrote: On 1/17/2013 10:49 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: The general pattern I was trying to think of, in any case, was this: the society is too far in one direction (according to the people). Candidate X has a position solidly on the other side and brings the policies in that direction. As X pushes policies towards the center, he gains reputation for doing something well. Then as X goes past the center, the people think we'll give him some time; he's been right in the past, why shouldn't he still know what he's doing? And so it takes time before the people recognize how far off the other side X really wants to go. Term limits mitigate this ... I have also been reading about predictor or ensemble systems (like weighted majority voting). In that context, it's like an expert that tends to be very right, but situations change and he suddenly stops being right. It then takes some time for his weight to be reduced, because he has such a high weight already. In dynamic situations (where experts may often shift from being very good to not being good at all), sliding window versions of WMV (or UCB) do better than non-sliding versions. I can find papers for this if you're interested :-) Currently, in politics there is not a close correlation between voter preferences and who ends up in office, so the tendency you claim does tend to occur. However, if elections are improved so that there is a high correlation between voter preferences and who ends up in office, then such over-runs would quickly lead to a push back to center. Such over-runs are a component of the concept of resonance in Physics. This over-extended state quickly lead to an ever-increasing push back to center. Yet, overall, the result is an oscillation that averages out to be centered. In my description, the problem is that the people trust the politician as he shifts from interests aligned with the people to interests not aligned with the people. They say he's done right things in the past, so he knows what he's doing now, too. So the effect is one of people's judgement of the politician, rather than how that judgement is being distorted by the election method. Do you think people are actually quick
Re: [EM] Resonance
To Michael Ossipoff: If you don't want to get hurt, then don't attack. You attack with words such as your confusion, your mistake, wrong, etc. even where those words do not apply. In your initial Resonance message, you start by (mistakenly) claiming I'm wrong, and afterward you say you weren't sure what I meant. When you don't understand what I write, please ask -- first. This is related to the pattern I've seen repeatedly. You ask for feedback, but then you dismiss that feedback, then you invite more feedback, and then you pretend that a lack of further responses to your invitations implies that you are correct. We (the participants here) don't want to waste time arguing with you about fully supported statements -- such as those on Wikipedia -- that are backed by lots of academically published articles. Instead, here, we want to explore what isn't as well known. Some other participants here have expressed wonder as to why I'm so patient in responding to some of your messages. Optimistically I hope that you will wake up to what's going on. In addition, I want to clarify to readers of this forum who don't understand all of what's going on here, that silence does not imply that we agree with your statements and claims. Your words if true suggest that you have doubts about my academic claim, so I'll specify that I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from the University of California at Davis. Additional credentials (electronics technician, contract technical writer specializing in documenting especially complex technology, and more) are available on my LinkedIn page. Your I-am-right-and-you-are-wrong comments (below) about resonance and oscillation are not worthy of a reply. Richard Fobes Author of The Creative Problem Solver's Toolbox and Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S. Elections On 1/20/2013 9:33 AM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: Richard says: Michael Ossipoff, you don't seem to take the time to carefully read the messages posted here. In this case it appears that you failed to notice my use of the word component. [endquote] Ok, here is what you said: Such over-runs are a component of the concept of resonance in Physics. This over-extended state quickly lead to an ever-increasing push back to center. [endquote] You're using the word resonance to mean oscillation. You're confused about the difference between what resonance is, and what oscillation is. As I've already explained to you, resonance is about a frequency. Your over-runs, displacements opposed by a restoring-force, can result in oscillation, and are a necessary condition for it. ...a component of it, if you want to say it that way. But resonance is a frequency-match between a system's natural frequency (which I defined for you in a previous post) and the frequency of an oscillatory driving force. A system's natural frequency, the frequency at which it would oscillate without external influence, is sometimes referred to as its resonant frequency, for that reason. If you don't want to admit that you were confused, then suit yourself. You'd continued: Yet, overall, the result is an oscillation that averages out to be centered. [endquote] Poorly and confusedly worded. What you're trying to say is that the average position of an object that is in harmonic oscillation is at the center of the oscillation, the point toward which the restoring-force acts. ...harmonic oscillation, or any oscillatory motion resulting from a restoring force whose variation with respect to displacement is symmetrical about the center defined above. [endquote] Richard continued; I have a degree in Physics [endquote] That's fine, if true. I was merely commenting about your confusion regarding the difference between resonance and oscillation. Mike Ossipoff 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] Resonance
Michael Ossipoff, you don't seem to take the time to carefully read the messages posted here. In this case it appears that you failed to notice my use of the word component. I have a degree in Physics, so I can assure you that I am not the one who is failing to understand the concept of resonance. (FYI, Wikipedia has a great explanation of the topic.) To all: In politics the resonant frequency can be issue-specific, and also depends on factors such as the time between elections, how long it takes to enact and enforce a change, how long it takes to notice effects, how long it takes for investigative journalism to call attention to undesired effects, and much more. In local politics the resonant frequency might be as short as one cycle per four years (assuming two years between elections and quick changes with obvious consequences). In large-scale politics, the frequency can be as long as one cycle per three generations. The latter case amounts to a period (one divided by the frequency) of about about 100 years, which coincides with some boom-and-bust cycles, probably including the one we are in now. (Often such cycles involve a new generation forgetting what an earlier generation learned the hard way.) Getting back to the original concept, term limits would be like building barriers to limit the swing of a pendulum. It does limit the swings. However, putting a damper on the pendulum also would reduce excessively wild swings. Making elections fairer would be like putting a damper on politics. The momentum that can cause wild swings would be difficult to get started. Richard Fobes On 1/18/2013 1:51 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: Fobes says: Such over-runs are a component of the concept of resonance in Physics. This over-extended state quickly lead to an ever-increasing push back to center. [endquote] Incorrect. Resonance, in physics, refers to a physical system's natural frequency of oscillation. The frequency at which it would oscillate without any outside influences. As for the ever increasing push back towards center: For small displacements the restoring-force typically tends to be approximately proportional to the displacement from the center (toward which the restoring force acts). Motion under the influence of such a restoring-force is called simple harmonic motion. For instance, clocks, whether with pendulum, balance wheel or quartz, are designed for simple harmonic oscillation, because one of its results is an oscillatory period that is independent of the amplitude. Galileo is said to have observed that independence, in the swinging of a chandelier But resonance only refers to natural frequency. Fobes continued: Yet, overall, the result is an oscillation that averages out to be centered. [endquote] ??? Meaning? Mike Ossipoff 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] Clean Government Alliance
On 1/17/2013 10:49 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: The general pattern I was trying to think of, in any case, was this: the society is too far in one direction (according to the people). Candidate X has a position solidly on the other side and brings the policies in that direction. As X pushes policies towards the center, he gains reputation for doing something well. Then as X goes past the center, the people think we'll give him some time; he's been right in the past, why shouldn't he still know what he's doing? And so it takes time before the people recognize how far off the other side X really wants to go. Term limits mitigate this ... I have also been reading about predictor or ensemble systems (like weighted majority voting). In that context, it's like an expert that tends to be very right, but situations change and he suddenly stops being right. It then takes some time for his weight to be reduced, because he has such a high weight already. In dynamic situations (where experts may often shift from being very good to not being good at all), sliding window versions of WMV (or UCB) do better than non-sliding versions. I can find papers for this if you're interested :-) Currently, in politics there is not a close correlation between voter preferences and who ends up in office, so the tendency you claim does tend to occur. However, if elections are improved so that there is a high correlation between voter preferences and who ends up in office, then such over-runs would quickly lead to a push back to center. Such over-runs are a component of the concept of resonance in Physics. This over-extended state quickly lead to an ever-increasing push back to center. Yet, overall, the result is an oscillation that averages out to be centered. If, after election-method reform, there should be a need to dampen such wild swings, there other -- and I believe wiser -- ways to do so. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Canadian politician supports a preferential ballot, or a ranked ballot
Here is an interesting development in Canada. Marc Garneau is running for the leadership of Canada’s national Liberal party, and his web page (at http://marcgarneau.ca/support-marc-democratic-reform/) says: If elected, my proposal would be to reform Canada’s electoral system by changing our voting process to a preferential ballot, or a ranked ballot. Adrian, you now know enough to write a very short article for Democracy Chronicles about this increased interest for election-method reform. Wikipedia has info about him, including a photo of him when he was an astronaut. I'm sure he would love the exposure. This is happening somewhat near the top of a political party. Currently he isn't the most likely winner for the leadership position, yet he is popular enough that he can attract significant attention to the issue of banning the use of single-mark ballots. The counting method he recommends is instant-runoff voting (IRV), which is not the best choice. Yet when used within a political party, this would be a big improvement, and the winner would never be from the wrong party. Soon enough, just as has happened in Aspen (CO) and Burlington (VT), the weaknesses of IRV counting will get exposed. In the meantime, just getting people to talk about, and think about, the possibility of better ballots and better counting methods is a wonderful development. (The word riding in Canada is equivalent to district in the U.S.) Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Jameson: How we can get voting-system reform
On 1/16/2013 11:12 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote: 2013/1/16 Michael Ossipoff email9648...@gmail.com mailto:email9648...@gmail.com Translation: You don't have an answer to it. Alright. That's it. You are the first human ever to go in my gmail killfile. ... you politely agree, then repeat the behavior. ... ... Jameson Jameson, I support your move to ignore someone who doesn't listen. Debate is supposed to involve actually wanting to understand other points of view. But some people aren't really interested in understanding. I continue to appreciate what you/Jameson have to say here. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Clean Government Alliance
On 1/5/2013 8:12 AM, Jonathan Denn wrote: The purpose is to draft a Constitutional Amendment for omnibus electoral reform. For these people everything is on the table. We had to pass on another household name because that person wouldn't put Term Limits on the table. (...adding to what I wrote earlier) Term limits are perceived as needed because elections aren't working. If elections did produce fair results, elections would be the best way to limit the term of an incumbent politician. Instead of dismissing the person who doesn't want term limits on the table, I'd suggest clarifying (in your reform) that term limits are a backup plan in case primary elections are not reformed (to be truly competitive). Many Republicans think that Democratic voters are happy with the Democrats who win Democratic primaries, and many Democrats think that Republican voters are happy with the Republicans who win Republican elections. I talk to people in both political parties, and I can assure you that a majority of voters in each party are not happy with their party's candidates (except as being better than the ones in the other party). This discontent is clear evidence of unfair _primary_ elections. I appreciate that your group recognizes that _primary_ elections is where the biggest unfairnesses occur, and the term-limit issue underscores the unfairness. Here's wishing you good luck with your reform efforts. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Survey of Multiwinner Methods
On 1/7/2013 1:04 PM, Greg Nisbet wrote: Hey, I'd like to get a sense of what sorts of multiwinner methods are currently known that are reasonably good and don't require districts, parties, or candidates that are capable of making decisions On 1/8/2013 12:24 AM, Greg Nisbet wrote: There's some definite motivation for writing the list of criteria to exclude parties, districts, and relying on candidates making decisions. These sorts of mechanisms are not always available (for instance, picking pizza toppings or locations or something of that nature) What I call VoteFair negotiation ranking is available at: www.NegotiationTool.com This calculation method does not consider political parties or districts or anything other than ranked priorities and incompatibilities. It goes beyond VoteFair representation ranking which is a multi-winner method that also does not consider districts or parties. Specifically the negotiation tool goes beyond the one-dimensional nature of VoteFair representation ranking so that it handles multi-dimensional issues. Picking pizza toppings could certainly be handled by the negotiation tool. The two demos are for more challenging cases, namely negotiating hiring terms, and assisting a Parliament in choosing a set of cabinet members. (A few days ago I moved the NegotiationTool website to a different server, and the contact form doesn't yet work there yet, but it works otherwise.) Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Losing Votes (ERABW)
On 12/13/2012 11:31 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 12/13/2012 05:28 PM, Chris Benham wrote: Of the various proposed ways of weighing defeat strengths in Schulze, Losing Votes is the one that elects most from the tops of the ballots. Given that we are seeking to convert supporters of FPP (and to I hope a lesser extent, IRV), I think that is a marketing advantage. On the other hand, we know that only paying mind to the tops of the ballots is a bad idea. That's what Plurality does. IRV pays less attention to the top (so that it can pass mutual majority, for instance), but Australia and Burlington seem to indicate it's not enough unlike Plurality. In a sense, IRV pays too much attention to the bottom of the ballot. First, consider that plurality voting assumes that the candidate with the _most_ first-choice votes is most popular. Relatedly, IRV assumes that the candidate with the _fewest_ first-choice votes is least popular. Both beliefs are mistaken rather often. IRV works fine if there are only two dominant candidates and other minor candidates, but what's the point of adopting a better ballot if the counting method only allows two main candidates? Of course long-time folks here know all this, but there are a few folks here who are in the process of learning more about voting methods. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Majority-Judgement using adjectives versus alphabetical scales versus numerical ranges.
On 12/9/2012 9:12 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote: ... 2012/12/8 ⸘Ŭalabio‽ wala...@macosx.com mailto:wala...@macosx.com ... ¡That is so last week! I wish to find a way to merge Score-Voting and Majority-Judgement into something even better. In order to find something better, we would at least need to know what's wrong with what we have. There seems to be a lot of disagreement about that point; smart people can't agree on whether Score or MJ is better. So I think research is in order before we tear off and design 15 new systems. As I see it: * Advantage of Majority-Judgement (MJ): Makes it (relatively compared to score and approval methods) more difficult to vote strategically. * Advantage of score ballots: Collect the greatest amount of information from the voter. Combining those two advantages could yield a better method. I encourage Ŭalabio to explore that possibility. Yet I would recommend adding yet another advantage, namely the ability to fully rank all the choices. As I've said before, credibility for the correctness of the most popular choice is undermined if the method cannot also identify the second-most popular choice, and so on down to the least-popular choice. Richard Fobes On 12/9/2012 9:12 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote: 2012/12/8 ⸘Ŭalabio‽ wala...@macosx.com mailto:wala...@macosx.com 2012:12-08T08:30:24Z, Kristofer Munsterhjelm: On 12/08/2012 06:19 AM, ⸘Ŭalabio‽ wrote: 1. This is my preferred range: Negative -99 to positive +99 The ponies already objected to your preferred range, and I think their objection has validity. If they find it too hard to find the right rating between -99 and +99, then they'll consider the method bad however you put it. Again, RBJ has voiced the same point here on the list: Range asks for too much, Approval asks for too little. ¡That is so last week! I wish to find a way to merge Score-Voting and Majority-Judgement into something even better. In order to find something better, we would at least need to know what's wrong with what we have. There seems to be a lot of disagreement about that point; smart people can't agree on whether Score or MJ is better. So I think research is in order before we tear off and design 15 new systems. Jameson 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] Majority-Judgement using adjectives versus alphabetical scales versus numerical ranges.
On 12/6/2012 1:54 PM, ⸘Ŭalabio‽ wrote: ¿Why not just use the ranges 0 to 9 or negative -9 to positive +9 instead? I am from the U.S. and don't like the idea of using A through F for voting. Those letters have a different meaning in my mind. For example, is C average for a politician or average for a desired leader? And is grade inflation involved? I like 0 to 10. Or how about +10 to -10? Or even better, +5 to -5? +5 +4 +3 +2 +1 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 Just expressing my opinion, since you asked. Richard Fobes On 12/6/2012 1:54 PM, ⸘Ŭalabio‽ wrote: ¡Hello! ¿How fare you? Yesterday, I noted that Majority-Judgements does not work if we have too many adjectives because we have only so many adjectives and voters might confuse adjectives too close in meaning.. ¿Would an alphabetical scale be acceptable?: In the United States of America, we grade students using letters: A+ A A- B+ B B- C+ C C- D+ D D- F+ F F- I have 2 questions grading candidates on this scale. 1 question is for people not in the United States of America. The other question is for everyone: People outside the United States of America: ¿Do you Understand this Scale? For everyone: ¿Is this scale acceptable to you? Followup question: If this scale is not acceptable to you, ¿why is it not acceptable to you? With 15 grades, this scale is not very different from the numerical ranges of 0 to 9 or negative -9 to positive +9. This raises the question: ¿Why not just use the ranges 0 to 9 or negative -9 to positive +9 instead? ¡Peace! Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Advocacy
On 12/5/2012 12:32 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: ... But isn't the voting-system of the government-run primary already decided? If a state uses Plurality for its elections, does a party have a way to use IRV for their primary, when using the official government primary process. I don't think that that choice is up to the Greens, when they use the government's official primary process. The Green-party candidate for Secretary of State here in Oregon has studied the Oregon laws and says the law allows IRV. The fact that the Green party does not use IRV for its primary elections -- even where laws allow it -- reveals a gap between their rhetoric and their actions. If everyone merely read the platforms, and then voted for what they actually prefer, I suggest that the Greens would win the presidency and most of Congress. I judge political parties by their actions, not their words. There is always a huge gap between a party's actions and their words. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Gerrymandering
On 12/3/2012 5:00 AM, Jonathan Denn wrote: Fair Redistricting or Ending Gerrymandering is always a great grievance among electoral reformers. But the solution is much more elusive. Do you folks ever venture into that area? Yes. VoteFair ranking includes VoteFair representation ranking and VoteFair partial-proportional ranking which, together, eliminate the need to care about where district boundaries are drawn (as long as they contain the same number of eligible voters). Here is a web page that gives an overview and contains links to the details: http://www.votefair.org/calculation_details.html To clarify, some other election-method experts (here and elsewhere) advocate trying to make the district-boundary-drawing process as fair as possible, such as by using mathematics or an impartial jury. In contrast, I advocate using a method that produces roughly equivalent results regardless of where the boundaries are drawn. The European PR (proportional representation) systems also use this gerrymandering-resistant approach. However, PR uses single-mark ballots. The result is that PR looks good based on measuring the party balance in parliament, yet PR elects the wrong candidates from the major parties. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Advocacy
On 12/2/2012 11:50 AM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: ... Voting system reform can only happen as part of a larger package of improvements that will come by electing a non-Republocrat party to office. Preferably a progressive one. That would be the Greens, the most winnable progressive party. FairVote says that the LIbertarians, like the Greens, favor IRV. The Green party _claims_ to support IRV. Yet they do not use it to elect their internal party delegates. And I haven't heard of the Green party putting any effort into using IRV in their primary elections. If they -- or any party -- did use IRV, then I and many other voters would support more of their candidates. ... So then, how can we get a better voting system? Vote for the Green nominee in every official public election, starting with the next one. Michael also had what I think is a better idea: vote for a third-party candidate for Secretary of State. For clarification, Secretary of State is the official who handles a state's election. Such votes would hopefully express a desire for election reform. FYI, about a year ago I met the Green-party candidate here when he attended a presentation I gave, and I voted for him in the last election, and I expressed support for him on a progressive online resource (even though he prefers IRV). He got 3 percent of the vote, which is about twice what each other third-party Secretary of State candidate in that election got. I also agree with Kristofer's statement about usage being very important. People need to try something on a small scale before they are comfortable with trusting it at the large scale. Where will that happen? More importantly, _when_ will a U.S. third party wake up and adopt better ballots and a better counting method for electing party officials, the way the Pirate parties already do? Richard Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Advocacy
I gave 5 stars to the Ban Single Mark Ballots proposal. FYI, I did not post that proposal. Jon Denn posted the proposal using the executive summary he copied from the website copy of the Google Docs original. (I did work with Jon to post there a tax-reform proposal named Tax The Takers More Than The Makers.) Based on the vote-counting method used at the site -- it uses score ballots -- I was tempted to vote one star for the competing American Anti-Corruption Act. But I didn't. I gave it 5 stars too. This sheds light on a question someone else posed: Why aren't better voting methods actually used in small organizations? The choice of which method is best is not obvious. And when voting is done by people who understand how to vote strategically, the strategy-vulnerable methods -- in this case score-ballot-based counting -- easily produce unrepresentative results. Richard Fobes On 11/26/2012 10:02 AM, Jonathan Denn wrote: United Republic has a new high profile attempt at change with the American Anti-Corruption Act. Of course, it doesn't address Banning Single Mark Ballots. On my site BSMB has an 83% approval rating which is a weighted average of conservatives, independents, and liberals. While this is a very good rating, even greater, it really needs to be up in the 90s to get real notice. So, if you could take a few moments, go to aGREATER.US http://aGREATER.US, sign up (it just takes a minute), click on http://www.agreater.us/billpage.php?id=400 , and give it 5 stars: I can then more confidently push this in my meetings and tweets. Also, UR has some real juice, so if their folk come to rate AACA and then hang out for awhile they may learn about (y)our efforts. Cheers, Jon Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Did you want anchovies with your election?
From a Canadian blog post at http://edges.canadahomepage.net/2012/11/ -- written by Jim Taylor -- here is an interesting metaphor that demonstrates why plurality voting is so unfair: There’s these five guys, see. They’re short on cash, so they pool their resources to buy a pizza. They can only afford one topping. Two of the guys love anchovies. The other three hate anchovies, but can’t agree on pepperoni, ham, or mushrooms. Guess what – everyone gets anchovies. That, in a pizza shell, is our electoral system. It goes by various names – winner take all, first past the post, plurality… Whoever has the most votes wins the election. Which sounds as though it makes sense. Unless you’re allergic to anchovies. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Approval voting and incumbents
On 11/13/2012 3:29 AM, aGREATER.US wrote: Incumbents have a huge unfair advantage in that corporations (including unions) pour money into their reelection campaigns. ... Easily overlooked is the fact that corporations elect their board members using single-mark ballots, and labor-union members use single-mark ballots to elect their union leaders. Keeping in mind the unfairness of elections that use single-mark ballots, the consequence is that corporations are not under the control of shareholders, and labor unions are not under the control of voting labor-union members. As a consequence, the Republican party is not controlled by individual investors, and the Democratic Party is not controlled by labor-union workers. Instead, both parties are controlled by the biggest campaign contributors using lots of money that was given to them by people who are not well-represented by those elected corporate/union leaders. If better ballots and better counting methods were used in corporate board-member elections and labor-union-leader elections, the Republican and Democratic parties would come closer to representing the majority of voters (even without any improvements in governmental elections). Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Board Meeting Deadline
analyzed by election-method experts is really the centerpiece of the Declaration. Although the above actions do not include requesting changes in Republican or Democratic primary elections, such additional changes would be very welcome -- but highly unlikely. (Interestingly this situation reveals that both mainstream parties are out-of-touch with the majority of voters.) Jon says: Intellectually, no 3rd party would NOT sign onto this accept if we blow the details. Alas, there is a well-networked group that Jameson (for good reasons) spells as Fa¡rVote and they aggressively promote IRV (instant-runoff voting). (Clarification: I created a method called VoteFair ranking, and its name should not be confused with the above similar word.) The signers of the Declaration have different opinions about the IRV method. A carefully worded portion of the Declaration says: Our lack of formal support for IRV does not mean that all of us oppose it. After all, we and IRV advocates are fighting against the same enemy, plurality voting. Yet IRV’s disadvantages make it impossible for us to unanimously support it. This (and related) wording allows people who like IRV to sign the Declaration without dismissing IRV as another alternative. Yet the Fa¡rVote group is likely to aggressively campaign against the methods supported in the Declaration. So I need to clarify why. Based on earlier writings, the leader of that group really wants a method called STV (the single transferable vote), and IRV is a single-winner version of STV, which makes IRV like a gateway drug to STV. It's significant that the group's branch in Canada advocates STV, not IRV. That is why that group is unwilling to consider any of the methods recommended in the Declaration, even though the Declaration-supported methods reliably produce fairer results. Very importantly, as the Declaration states: In Australia, where IRV has been used for more than a century, the House of Representatives has had only one third-party winner in the last 600 individual elections. In the United States, IRV has been adopted in various municipalities, but some of those places tried it and didn't like the results, so they went back to standard plurality voting. Examples: Aspen Colorado and Burlington Vermont So, to simplify, our flag is the Declaration Of Election-Method Reform Advocates, and I believe the first helpful action would be for lots of third-party voters and the third-party candidates to sign the declaration. A bigger step would be for one or more third parties to adopt -- for use in upcoming elections -- one of the voting methods it recommends. I hope this answer helps. Richard Fobes On 10/31/2012 4:18 AM, Jonathan Denn wrote: Hello All, I have a board meeting tonight of a left/right/center group who among others has in it the Conservative Party, Justice Party (Rocky Anderson), IndeCan.org (largest collection of Independent candidates in the US), TJ Ohara (Modern Whig POTUS Candidate who was #5 on American's Elect), and myself. Stephen Erickson the Exec from RebuildDemocracy.org is also an interested party but not a board member. As you know, I'm the Editor of aGREATER.US. We are considering making Ban Single Mark Ballots our first action. We would ask all past and present 3rd Party POTUS candidates (we also have access to Nader) to sign on, and other political organizations, which sort of sorts out the true believers from the make believe reformers—as I gather nothing protects the two party duopoly better than single mark ballots. Intellectually, no 3rd party would NOT sign onto this accept if we blow the details. So from your preamble I gather that after Single Mark Ballots are banned, the States or Congress should decide on whether to use... A. Approval B. Condorcet ( I gather there is now a tweaked version of this) C. Majority Judgement D. Range Voting It also appears that this would NOT need to be a Constitutional Amendment. Is that correct? My analysis has led me to believe the hole in this strategy is there is no position taken on primaries. Going back to the premise that the duopoly must be broken, it appears to me the whole ball game is how to structure primaries. Conservatives will want it left up the the States, liberals probably want Congress to pass something. Nevertheless, letting everyone vote, and having a diverse selection of viewpoints to choose from seems critical. I previously noted that in an open primary in CT for Senate I would have chosen; Hill (R) Byciewicz (D) and Passerell (L) probably in that order if I had to rank. I'm a staunch centrist (I) so don't read too much into a (R) being first; Brian is simply the best reformer of those running. BUT, what my choice is next week is Murphy (D) and McMahon (R). I'm NOT happy. Neither has any idea how economics actually work, and for that btw, as shocking as your work is to electoral reform, Modern Monetary
Re: [EM] Article: Answers to some traditional Condorcet arguments
As long as Michael has mistakenly posted this DM article on the forum, I'll use this opportunity to say to Adrian that I have stopped reading Michael's articles at Democracy Chronicles for the reasons below. (And often I delete his posts here without reading them.) His DM articles go off into a world of his own, including his own terminology (e.g. TUC and ICT). Also there are too many sentences for which his intended meaning is unclear (e.g. sentence #2 here). Also the topics jump around so quickly that it's dizzying. Most importantly he avoids explaining some very important voting-method concepts, yet makes indirect references to those concepts (e.g. none of the DM articles have yet described the concept of Condorcet compliance [and its advantage], yet he refers to disadvantages of Condorcet methods). I'm just wanting to keep things real, and let you know that he does not represent the views of at least some election-method experts. Richard On 10/30/2012 3:58 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: Hi Adrian-- It's important to answer arguments from people who claim that other voting systems are better, or that other criteria are more important. That's why I invited traditional unimproved Condorcet (TUC) advocates at the election-methods mailing list to tell what mitigating advantages TUC has, to outweigh the disadvantages that I described. I've gotten a few answers at the mailing-list, and I feel that I should answer them in an article. This article interrupts the procedure of this Properties article-series, but it can be considered part of the series, because it's about arguments regarding properties and their importance. I feel that this article supports the claims that I make in the other articles of this series. It's important that I be willing to support my claims, and answer objections. That's the purpose of this article. After this article (Properties, Part 4: Answers Re: Some Criteria) , I'll resume the intended procedure of the Properties series. There will be one more article (#5) about a method (Properties, Part 5: Majority Judgment), and then, after that, (#6) (Properties, part 6: Table of Properties and Criterion-Compliances), summarizing, in a table, what I've been saying about properties and criterion compliances. So this, and the next two, will be #4, #5, and #6 of this article series. In fact, what I've said here will make a good introduction to that article. So it will be repeated in the article itself. Here is the article: Properties, Part 4: Answers Re: Some Criteria: It's important to answer arguments from people who claim that other voting systems are better, or that other criteria are more important. That's why I invited traditional unimproved Condorcet (TUC) advocates at the election-methods mailing list to tell what mitigating advantages TUC has, to outweigh the disadvantages that I described. One reason why voting-system discussion doesn't get anywhere is because people are only trying to justify their pre-existing positions. Speaking for myself, I don't want to be like that. That isn't genuine discussion. I've gotten a few answers at the mailing-list, and I feel that I should answer them in an article. This article interrupts the procedure of this Properties article-series, but it can be considered part of the series, because it's about arguments regarding properties and their importance. I feel that this article supports the claims that I make in the other articles of this series. It's important that I be willing to support my claims, and answer objections. That's the purpose of this article. After this article (Properties, Part 4: Answers Re: Some Criteria) , I'll resume the intended procedure of the Properties series. There will be one more article (#5) about a method (Properties, Part 5: Majority Judgment), and then, after that, (#6) (Properties, part 6: Table of Properties and Criterion-Compliances), summarizing, in a table, what I've been saying about properties and criterion compliances. So this, and the next two, will be #4, #5, and #6 of this article series. Traditional unimproved Condorcet (TUC) is popular these days. Its most popular version is a method called Beatpath. As I've said, the TUC methods fail FBC and CD, and don't meet any form of LNHe. That results in drastic strategy-need that Approval, Score, ICT and Symmetrical ICT don't have. In particular, failure of FBC makes TUC a strategic mess. TUC advocates like to claim that people will rank sincerely in TUC. But American voters firmly hold cerain beliefs about candidate winnability. They get their beliefs from the mass media, and seem to believe whatever they hear from their tv. Voters here nearly all believe that no one can win except for the Democrat and the Republican. They firmly believe that the winner must be a Democrat or a Republican. Furthermore, people who want something better than the Republican, including all progressives, including the millions of people who's
Re: [EM] A Reformer's Lament
In a private message Jon Denn characterizes the banning of single-mark ballots as a grievance, and that a grievance should be accompanied by a proposed solution. (And I agree.) The signers of the Declaration did agree on the recommended actions that are listed on this web page: http://www.bansinglemarkballots.org/actions.html Yet I'm thinking that this might be a good time to go beyond these solutions. I suggest that each interested participant suggest a solution that he/she believes should be implemented in a specific context, as a replacement for single-mark ballots. My current suggestion (based on having explored lots of possibilities, some of which I'm still pursuing) is to encourage a third political party to adopt any of the methods recommended in the Declaration Of Election-Method Reform Advocates as a better way to choose their Presidential candidate. Also it would help educate people about how voting really should be done. Alas, that change isn't likely, so as an alternative I would recommend that a reform-minded organization elect their delegates using VoteFair ranking, including VoteFair representation ranking, which prevents a 40% minority from being completely outvoted by a 60% majority. Does anyone else want to recommend a solution? Jon Denn is connected to politically oriented organizations that are relatively receptive to what we can recommend. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Introduction
Jon, welcome! To add to Jon's self-introduction, I'll say to other participants here that, based on my earlier interactions with him, Jon quickly comprehends plain-English voting explanations, which is an appreciated contrast to many reform-minded folks who, in my opinion, are fixated on symptoms rather than solutions. Jon, we appreciate that you can help us get our knowledge of election methods in front of the countless voters who are trying to figure out ways to improve the election system. Especially, thank you for posting this group's (executive summary of the) Declaration of Election-Method Reform Advocates on your website and thereby helping more people understand the root of our unfair election system. This explains why recently there have been some new Facebook likes for the associated Facebook page. When you are ready to announce your Rebuild Democracy project (along with the big names), Adrian at Democracy Chronicles (.com), who participates here, can help you promote it at his online newspaper. Clarification to Adrian: Jon is the person who asked for my opinion about Arizona's proposition for a so-called top-two primary, which led to using what I wrote to Jon as the content for my recent article at Democracy Chronicles. Jon, thanks for joining us. Richard Fobes On 10/25/2012 1:20 PM, Jonathan Denn wrote: Hello All, I'm the editor of aGREATER.US http://aGREATER.US, an internet platform to find a greater political platform for the US. We are about a year old. I am also on the board of two different left, right, center reform groups. One is being formed by the Modern Whigs, Conservative Party and Justice Party; the other RebuildDemocracy.org http://RebuildDemocracy.org will be announcing their national leadership (big names!) momentarily. I've pitched the former Ban Single Mark Ballots! as our first action, hoping to get past and present third party Presidential candidates to sign on. It has an excellent tripartisan rating on my site... http://www.agreater.us/billpage.php?id=400 Anyway, I'd be very pleased to engage with you folks. I found you through Richard Fobes, we met on the Continental Congress 2.0 forum. And he has been quite generous with his time explaining nuance. By the way, I'm a true centrist, conservative or progressive depending on the best answer to any particular problem. So I have no ideological ax to grind, with the exception of reform. Cheers, Jon Denn @jmdenn 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] Amateur peer-reviewed journal for voting methods, criteria, and compliances?
about the new peer-reviewed publication. Again, bravo for taking academic knowledge into the digital age! Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Single-winner method used for multiple-winner elections; Wikipedia's election-method mistake
On 9/30/2012 4:56 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 09/30/2012 08:16 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: i dunno exactly how they do their ordering at Wikipedia (to get 2nd, 3rd place winners using Schulze), but would you say if the Condorcet criterion was met for each subset, would it be unfair to just identify the top CW, then kick him/her out of the set of candidates and do it again to identify the CW in the remaining set? it seems logical to me to say that after the top CW is removed from the candidate set, that if a CW exists in the remaining set, wouldn't that be fair to call the 2nd-most popular candidate? The problem with this is that it amplifies a (bare) majority into unanimity. ... Kristofer's sentence above nicely explains why it's unfair to use a single-winner method for multiple-winner results. I'll add another simple perspective. After a 51% majority elects their most popular choice, should the ballots of the 49% be ignored when choosing the second-seat winner. Of course not. A well-designed multiple-winner method takes the ballots of that 49% into account. In such methods, including STV, the ballots that elected the first winner are in some way given reduced influence when the second choice is determined. The fact that Wikimedia makes this mistake yields results that I interpret (from experiences, not numbers) as the editors now being in the majority, and the subject-matter experts are now in the minority. The result, as Kristofer says, is an amplification of that majority. The secondary effect is that subject-matter experts have to deal with increasing requests from Wikipedia editors for more inline citations. I wish I had time to write a Democracy Chronicles article about Wikipedia's woes being related to their choice of election method, but participants here would assume I'm putting down the Condorcet-Shultze method, even though I'm not. I just wish they would use it correctly. Of course that brings up the question of what they should be using to fill the remaining seats, and I am biased. Obviously I favor VoteFair representation ranking. The other good alternative would be Schultze-STV. Later when I have time to write a longer post I'll update my position about Jameson's peer-review publication idea, which, if enough people participate in helping out with (which in turn requires that it be well-designed), would solve Wikipedia's dysfunctionality regarding voting-method articles. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Amateur peer-reviewed journal for voting methods, criteria, and compliances?
of Wikipedia editors crowding out subject-matter experts. I agree that Democracy Chronicles is not as well known as Wikipedia, yet I believe it better targets the people who care about unfair election results. And after someone has written an article about the difficult-to-understand topic of multiple-winner vote-counting methods, then we could even write an article that calls attention to the unfair voting approach that the Wikimedia Foundation uses, which allows a majority of editors to outvote even a large minority of subject-matter experts. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Do any of you have any thoughts about California's top-two primary?
Although this is a bit of a simplification, the top-two runoff form of voting in the U.S. consists of using single-mark ballots combined with a variation of instant-runoff voting. If the voters are somewhat balanced between Republicans and Democrats, and if the two main parties cannot convince all the less-popular candidates from their party not to run, a likely outcome is that both of the top-two winners would be from the same political party, which is obviously very unfair. Oregon (where I live) had such a referendum on the ballot, and it was defeated. (I played a very small role in that defeat.) The way this fits into the Declaration of Election-Method Reform Advocates is that the Declaration denounces single-mark ballots, regardless of how they are counted. And the Declaration clarifies that instant-runoff voting (IRV) is neither supported nor opposed by the signers because there are differences of opinion as to whether IRV is a good choice. And the top-two approach is -- in my opinion -- even worse than IRV. I think the easiest way to explain the concept is in the context of vote splitting, although others here may prefer to explain it in the context of the more-mathematical independence of irrelevant alternatives. For a recent concrete example of the concept, I suggest referring to the recent Egyptian Presidential election. (I added this election to the list of vote-splitting examples in the Wikipedia Vote splitting article.) I don't know the situation well enough to know who might have won if a better voting method had been used. I did see news that both of the top-two runoff choices are widely disliked and unrepresentative. Does anyone here have more election-method knowledge about the recent Egyptian Presidential election beyond what's in Wikipedia, especially which candidates were similar? I was hoping that someone else might write an article about any of these related -- and important -- topics. As for me, I'm waiting to see if there is any significant reaction to my Tax The Takers More Than Makers article at the Democracy Chronicles. (Clarification: I informed Adrian about having posted that tax-reform proposal in two other not-much-visited places, and he asked permission to publish it.) I'm also now working on the yet-another project that I'll reveal later when I've got a working website to point to. I don't know if it's possible to collaboratively write the kind of article that Adrian wants, but at least we can try explaining the basics, as I've tried to do at the beginning of this message, and the result might be something that Adrian could edit to become an article that would explain these important concepts to a larger audience. Richard Fobes On 6/7/2012 8:31 AM, Adrian Tawfik wrote: I don't know if this has already been covered here, but do any of you have an opinion on the changes to California's primary system? There is now a so-called 'top-two' methodology being used. Where does this fit in with your group's Declaration? Would anyone be interested in writing something about it for my website? Thanks! Adrian democracychronicles.com Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Articles for Democracy Chronicles
On 5/6/2012 12:00 PM, Adrian Tawfik wrote: ... He has been nothing short of a miracle for my website. In this case, Mr. Fobes has already stated several times that he is open to changing the wording of the rebuttal. ... ... publication to focus the rebuttal to be more of a regular article ... Thank you for the compliment. And I'll add that Adrian's Democracy Chronicles was overdue. It now provides a great way to teach democracies (both new and old) how voting should be done. Instead of publishing my rebuttal as an article, here is what I suggest. Adrian, in his own words, can introduce Mike's article by saying that the article is about one of many voting methods (Approval voting) and about one of many characteristics of voting methods (FBC). Also in his introduction (or at the end) he can refer to the Wikipedia comparison chart as a place where different voting methods and different voting criteria are described and compared. That will put Mike's article in context, which is what I was trying to accomplish. (If appropriate, at the end of the article Adrian could repeat his invitation for additional articles about other methods and other voting criteria, because there are people outside this forum [and outside the IRV circle as well] who are qualified to write articles on those topics. This forum can serve to help Adrian identify which articles are mathematically sound.) Ideally I would hope that Mike recognizes that his article fails to describe Approval voting in a way that would be understood by most readers of Democracy Chronicles (especially considering its worldwide readership, which implies that English may not be the reader's native language). If he doesn't agree, Adrian can, in his own words, explain Approval voting in his introduction. And I think that using an example of people raising hands or saying yes makes it easy to understand, and encourages people to try using it. I would think that Mike would want people to try it to see how simple it is, and to give people an opportunity to experience how it works better than plurality voting. There is no need to mention the Condorcet criteria, as long as Mike does not make any false claims about it, which I think that Adrian can now identify as opinions rather than mathematically supported facts. I think the above comments also address Mike's points in his recent not-worthy-of-an-answer message. It would be wonderful if Robert would write an article about what happened in Burlington! That would clarify the importance of the Condorcet criterion, and would help people understand that ranking (1-2-3) ballots can be counted in more than one way. If I have time I would like to write an article for Democracy Chronicles about the concept that the second-most popular candidate is not necessarily the same as the second-most representative candidate. And if I have even more time I would like to write an article about my software negotiation tool at www.Negotiation.com , which clarifies concepts that are important when a parliament or legislature (or any group of people) does voting to make decisions. However, I am being pulled into a new project, so those articles may not happen. My goal is to focus on doing what needs to be done that no one else is doing. In retrospect, connecting the Election-Methods forum with Democracy Chronicles, which in turn connects with the Occupy Wall Street movement and the 99% movement and perhaps the Arab Spring movements, fits that goal. Now that I've created an open-source version of VoteFair ranking software, I am confident that the advantages of VoteFair ranking will become clear as people learn about different kinds of popularity (which is what VoteFair ranking software calculates), and the software will be waiting for the time when democracy has taken a few more baby steps in the direction of becoming much, much fairer than it is now. There are other people who can promote the advantages of the Condorcet criteria (which is why I said that anyone else would be welcome to write the rebuttal comments, instead of using what I wrote). (I do still intend to reply to Jameson's message from many weeks ago by explaining why VoteFair ranking always ranks all the Smith-set candidates above the non-Smith-set candidates, which means that it easily, and quickly, and Condorcet-Kemeny compliantly, handles 50 candidates if there are not more than about six candidates in the Smith set, but that reply requires more than just writing a few words.) Again, thank you Adrian for your patience in dealing with the complexities of voting methods, which, alas, gives rise to differences of opinion about what characteristics are most important. Richard Fobes On 5/6/2012 12:00 PM, Adrian Tawfik wrote: Hi again everyone, Thank you again for all the time you have dedicated to the articles for Democracy Chronicles. First, I would like to send my warmest
[EM] Rarity, FBC, Condorcet, comparison of criteria
On 5/7/2012 11:10 AM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: Yeah? How about this, then?: 27: AB (they prefer A to B, and B to C) 24: BA 49: C (indifferent between everyone other than C) Cases that require carefully chosen numbers, as this example does, become less important than patterns that occur over many elections. You pointing out a weakness that can only occur in rare cases is quite different than, say, what happened in Burlington and Aspen where IRV declared a non-Condorcet winner after only one (or perhaps just a few?) elections. Mike, if you really want to elevate FBC above the Condorcet criterion, I suggest that you start by noticing that it is the only voting criterion in the Wikipedia comparison table that does not link to a Wikipedia article about the criterion (and such a link is also missing from the text section just above the table). I'll let other election-method experts debate with you on Wikipedia if you choose to add a Wikipedia article about FBC. As for comparing FBC to Condorcet, have you not noticed that other debates about which criteria is more important than another criteria typically end up being inconclusive because mathematics supports the recognition that no single voting method is objectively best? As I've said on this forum before, some studies should be done to compare _how_ _often_ each method fails each criterion. Those numbers would be quite useful for comparing criteria in terms of importance. In the meantime, just a checkbox with a yes or no leaves us partially blind. (I changed the subject line because the subject line is not intended to be used to specify who you are writing to. The subject line should indicate the topic.) Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Rebuttal to article by Mike Ossipoff
[Here are my responses to Mike's comments about my rebuttal.] In a non-forum email message Adrian made a comment about Mike Ossipoff's article, and I replied (as part of replying to other topics as well) that I intended to post a message on the forum to refute a comment from Mike about him learning something significant from voting experiments done on the forum. I didn't have time to write that intended message. Recently when Adrian said he would be posting the article soon, he asked if I wanted to write what he called the rebuttal. When I found and read the final version of Mike's article, Mike referred to a mock presidential poll on this forum, but apparently that took place before I became involved in this forum, so I was not in a position to make a comment about that. Yes, of course you/Mike are allowed to respond to my rebuttal. However, as is the norm for printed publications, you are not allowed to split up my comments with your comments -- just as I did not intersperse my rebuttal comments within your article. Also, as is standard practice, you are not allowed to introduce new topics in your response to a rebuttal. If you don't know what this means, please read my rebuttal more carefully. (And if you still don't know what I mean, notice that I did not mention any Condorcet method, I only referred to the Condorcet criterion.) Yes, I made a grammatical mistake when I used the word criteria instead of criterion in the words ... Approval voting fails the more highly regarded criterion called the Condorcet criteria. You ask for evidence to support my claim that most election-method experts do not regard the Favorite Betrayal Criterion as being as important as the Condorcet criterion. On the election-method forum my observation is that far fewer participants have expressed support for FBC compared to Condorcet compliance. We could conduct a poll here on the forum if you think I am mistaken. In another message you refer to the idea of not mentioning other methods such as Condorcet methods, but that's irrelevant because I referred to the Condorcet criterion, not any Condorcet method. If you are going to promote a specific criterion (FBC) as highly important, then I or someone else needs to balance that out by clarifying that the FBC criterion is just one of many criteria, and that FBC is not highly regarded by many election-method experts. If you want to revise your article I won't mind, but of course then a new or revised rebuttal will be written (either by me or someone else). (And if you want to be credible in your response to a rebuttal, then you need to respond with facts or clarifications that do not just repeat what you already said in your article.) And remember that we are on the same side of the fence (trying to oppose the existing plurality method). Richard Fobes On 5/5/2012 12:00 AM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 4:55 AM, Richard Fobes electionmeth...@votefair.org mailto:electionmeth...@votefair.org wrote: On 5/1/2012 7:12 PM, Adrian Tawfik wrote: ... Do you have any interest in writing the rebuttal article to Mr. Ossipoff? His article will be published soon. At Adrian's invitation, here is a suggested rebuttal to give balance to Mike's article: [endquote] The only reason why Adrian would say _the_ rebuttal, instead of _a_ rebuttal would be because a rebuttal had already been brought up. Perhaps by you, Richard? There's nothing wrong with rebuttals. Debate, and open discussion, with everyone accountable, is a good thing. That's what EM is for. It's a debate-forum. It was my understanding that the evaluation /or criticism of articles was to take place on EM. But is Richard suggesting that his rebuttal be published at Democracy Chronicles? If so, then would I have an opportunity to rebut Richard's statements too? Otherwise, Richard's statements would be safe from comment and criticism at Democracy Chronicles. The best solution, I would suggest, would be to confine the debate and rebuttal to EM. But if Richard rebuts my statements at Democracy Chronicles, than would I be able to rebut his statements there as well? I applaud and agree with Richard's suggestion that criticism of articles here should be limited to instances in which an article ...defies mathematical principles. I trust that Richard's rebuttal is confined to such matters. Richard, I thought that the understanding was that, if you found something wrong with an article, you'd mention it here, at EM, and then, if the article is demonstrably wrong, the offending passage(s) of the article would be deleted or modified. Have you changed the format? Would you rather impose on Democracy Chronicles the role of a debate-forum? Anyway, here is my rebuttal to your statements I hope that, if your rebuttal is published, mine will be also: -- begin Mike Ossipoff is correct in claiming that Approval voting
[EM] Rebuttal to article by Mike Ossipoff
On 5/1/2012 7:12 PM, Adrian Tawfik wrote: ... Do you have any interest in writing the rebuttal article to Mr. Ossipoff? His article will be published soon. At Adrian's invitation, here is a suggested rebuttal to give balance to Mike's article: -- begin Mike Ossipoff is correct in claiming that Approval voting is a simple voting method, and that it produces results that are much fairer than plurality voting (which we now use). However, most election-method experts do not share Ossipoff's very high regard for the Favorite Betrayal Criterion. He does mention that Approval voting fails the more highly regarded criterion called the Condorcet criteria, which basically says that the winner of a Condorcet-compliant voting method would win a runoff election against any other candidate (assuming that voters do not change their preferences). However his preference for simplicity over fairness is not shared by a majority of election-method experts. The signers of the Declaration of Election-Method Reform Advocates support Approval voting for use in governmental elections. Some of us who strongly prefer other methods would be happy if Approval voting were used in primary elections or selected smaller general elections. In contrast, other election-method experts (who have not signed the Declaration) do not support the use of Approval voting in any governmental election because it could produce disappointing results that might cause voters to reject all election-method reforms and go back to plurality voting. Personally I encourage everyone to try Approval voting when you find yourself in a group of people who are choosing where to eat. In this case each person raises their hand or says yes for each food choice they approve, and whichever choice gets the most votes wins. This method is much fairer than the traditional (plurality) approach of only allowing each person to approve a single choice. However, using Approval voting in hotly-contested general elections would be highly controversial. For a full comparison of popular voting methods based on many different criteria, you can view the comparison table in Wikipedia's Voting system article [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system]. Richard Fobes [Adrian: A link to the table itself would not be a stable link] -- end I am offering this as a possible rebuttal, but if someone else has a stronger desire to write a rebuttal, I won't mind if this one is not used. What is important to me is fairness, and that the rebuttal does not dismiss the article, nor dismiss Approval voting. I appreciate that Mike is helping to educate citizens about better voting methods, yet it is important that bias either be avoided or pointed out. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Election layering effect (or why election-method reform is important)
On 4/27/2012 12:48 PM, Ted Stern wrote: On 27 Apr 2012 12:26:11 -0700, Richard Fobes wrote: ... Winning an election with less than half the votes might seem like a small unfairness, but the effect is huge because of a layering effect. Although each Congressman typically got a ballot mark from about one out of two voters in the general election, he or she got a ballot mark from only about one out of four voters (based on cross-party counting) if the Congressman competed against a strong candidate in the primary election. Another layer occurs because only slightly more than half the members of Congress need to vote in favor of a new law to get it passed, so just those Congressmen got ballot marks from only about one out of eight U.S. voters, which is about 12% of U.S. voters. Yet even more layers are involved because most Congressmen first serve as state-level officials, and the state-level election process similarly filters out the problem-solving leaders that most voters want. Adding in two more layers to account for mainstream-media influence and low voter turnout easily accounts for how each law passed in Congress represents the desires of only 1% of the U.S. population. ... I'm interested in any ideas for how this concept can be explained more clearly, especially if someone can think of an appropriate analogy or metaphor or diagram. Here's an analogy: The task is to approximate the number 0.4445 to the nearest integer. If you start by rounding to the nearest thousandth, you get 0.445. If you then round to the nearest hundredth, you get 0.45. If you then round to the nearest tenth, you then get 0.5. Then if you round to the nearest integer, you get 1. But 0.4445 is closer to zero than one, so you end up being wrong by more than one-half. Ted I like this analogy. It does not amplify enough, yet it prompted me to think of this idea: We tend to think of politics as a pyramid that has our few-in-number leaders at the top, and the numerous voters at the bottom who support the leaders through voting. In contrast, an upside-down pyramid might be more realistic. Each layer in the pyramid corresponds to one of the layers mentioned above. At the bottom are the few voters who marked on their primary-election ballot support for the Congressmen who voted (as part of a majority) to pass a new law. I'm still working out how best to draw it, yet this seems like a useful path to clarify the importance of election-method reform. Thanks! On 4/28/2012 10:52 AM, Stéphane Rouillon wrote: ... With an STV election, 3 seats in a single super-district, let's assume ... ... Typically STV produces a global individual satisfaction rates around twice FPTP rates for the simulations I have made yet... ... This does not covers the layering effect of multiple representative levels, but it emphasizes the mismatch between the will of electors and the results. Stéphane Rouillon Yes, proportional methods reduce the number of wasted votes (which can be defined in various ways). Yet, as you say, this does not address the layering effect. Nevertheless, thank you for your ideas. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Democracy Chronicles, introductions
Adrian, although I do not think that readers will misunderstand the words mathematically equivalent, Kristofer has been insistent that he does not like that wording, so let's change the wording accordingly: ... VoteFair popularity ranking, which virtually always identifies the same election winner as the Condorcet-Kemeny method, one of the methods supported by ... Eliminating the word mathematical should make Kristofer happy, based on what he says in a recent message. And the word virtually will be recognized by anyone as a qualification of the word always. And referring to the winner without referring to the results -- which in the Condorcet-Kemeny method includes a full ranking of all choices -- will avoid an issue that is not worth explaining in this article. Clarification for forum purposes: The full ranking from most popular, second-most popular, and so on down to least popular can differ between the Condorcet-Kemeny method and the VoteFair ranking software, and that accounts for the largest number of cases in which there is a difference. Out of those cases a much smaller number of cases could involve a difference in who is declared the winner (the highest-ranked choice), but that can only happen if there are more than six candidates in the Smith set (although I have not yet had time to reply to Jameson regarding the proof of this point), which is covered by the word election before the word winner because real elections do not have that many candidates in the Smith set. Non-election situations, such as the ranking of 100 songs, would have a reasonable (yet still unlikely) chance of having more than six choices in the Smith set. Further clarification for forum purposes: The statement in the revised wording for this Democracy Chronicles article refers to the VoteFair ranking software, which is not the same as saying that VoteFair popularity ranking does not intend to duplicate Condorcet-Kemeny results in all cases. (First I want to characterize the cases in which they differ as being so convoluted in terms of voter preferences that the difference is not significant for the purposes of use in an election [remembering that there must be more than six candidates in the Smith set in order for the top-ranked-choice difference to occur].) Adrian, very importantly, I recommend revising the article's words diverse group of election experts and election reform advocate to use the phrases election-method experts and election-method reform advocate because our topic (election-method reform) is a subset of election reform, and we do not claim to be election experts -- which would offend people who study voter registration, voter turnout, and many other characteristics of real elections. I approve the article if the phrase election-method is used. The only other edit might be to hyphenate the phrase round-off in the words ... compensate for any round off errors Actually I think the correct spelling in an academic article might be roundoff as a single word (but I'm not sure), but that would be confusing to non-academic readers. Thank you for your great work Adrian! And especially thank you for your patience in dealing with those of us who choose our words so carefully as a result of discussing our mathematically rigorous topic. As for an image, you have my permission to use the graphic in the upper left of the VoteFair.org home page: http://www.votefair.org/index.html (The same image appears on the BanSingleMarkBallots.org website, but that is not an official choice, just an image that fills the spot until something better is presented.) Or, if you prefer to use the cover of my book, you have my permission to use it at [http://www.solutionscreative.com/ehu_cover.html], but please keep in mind that my goal for this article is to promote the VoteFair.org website, and secondarily mentioning (and linking to) my creative-problem-solving book as credibility for my problem-solving skills, so this article should not contain a link that (also) promotes my election-method-reform book unless you use that cover for your image (in which case for this article I prefer that you link to the Google Books version at [http://books.google.com/books?id=UOf86S4Lc-YC] where people can read some of it for free). Speaking of images, if you are interested in the voting-related cartoons in Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S. Elections, you are welcome to use them in a separate cartoon-only series. Again, thank you Adrian for connecting us with people who can benefit from our deep understanding of election methods. Richard Fobes On 4/28/2012 9:38 AM, Adrian Tawfik wrote: As long as everyone is somewhat comfortable with keeping the mathematically equivalent wording, I think we can move forward with the article. I put together the more complete text of the article with the interview included and some additions to the introto remind readers
Re: [EM] Mathematical equivalence (was Re: Democracy Chronicles, introductions)
On 4/28/2012 9:48 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 04/24/2012 08:37 PM, Richard Fobes wrote: In the non-mathematical world the word equivalent means having similar or identical effects which allows for not _always_ being _identical_ in _all_ respects. That is the context for usage in the Democracy Chronicles article. A context which is overriden by prefixing the word equivalent with mathematically. I have recommended to Adrian a wording change that does not include the word mathematical. Consider two functions f and g defined on the integers. f(x, y) = x + y, g(x, y) = x + y when |x-y| 2 = x * y otherwise. The relationship between these two functions is not similar to the relationship we are discussing. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Election layering effect (or why election-method reform is important)
Recently I realized that in our Declaration, and in our discussions, we have failed to explain and explore the amplification effect that occurs as a result of, for a lack of a better term at the moment, layering. Here is how I explained it in the proposal I referred to earlier: Winning an election with less than half the votes might seem like a small unfairness, but the effect is huge because of a layering effect. Although each Congressman typically got a ballot mark from about one out of two voters in the general election, he or she got a ballot mark from only about one out of four voters (based on cross-party counting) if the Congressman competed against a strong candidate in the primary election. Another layer occurs because only slightly more than half the members of Congress need to vote in favor of a new law to get it passed, so just those Congressmen got ballot marks from only about one out of eight U.S. voters, which is about 12% of U.S. voters. Yet even more layers are involved because most Congressmen first serve as state-level officials, and the state-level election process similarly filters out the problem-solving leaders that most voters want. Adding in two more layers to account for mainstream-media influence and low voter turnout easily accounts for how each law passed in Congress represents the desires of only 1% of the U.S. population. (The full proposal is at: http://www.the99declaration.org/4408/ban_single_mark_ballots_from_congressional_elections?recruiter_id=4408 ) I'm interested in any ideas for how this concept can be explained more clearly, especially if someone can think of an appropriate analogy or metaphor or diagram. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Democracy Chronicles, introductions
On 4/23/2012 12:05 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 04/22/2012 05:07 PM, Richard Fobes wrote: The core of the system is VoteFair popularity ranking, which is mathematically equivalent to the Condorcet-Kemeny method, which is one of the methods supported by the Declaration of Election-Method Reform Advocates. You said there are ballot sets for which the Kemeny method and VoteFair provides different winners. How, then, can VoteFair be /mathematically/ equivalent? You say the differences don't matter in practice, but for the method to be mathematically equivalent, wouldn't the mapping have to be completely identical? First of all, in the context of a publication that is read by non-mathematicians (which is what the Democracy Chronicles is) the word equivalent does not refer to a rigorous sameness. Second, both methods identify the same winner, regardless of the number of candidates, if the Smith set is not larger than 6. This qualification (of the Smith set not exceeding 6) is true of every election ever held in the United States even in municipalities that use non-plurality methods, and is likely to be true of every election ever held in any country using any voting method. (If you really want to take it one step farther, it would be difficult for a small town of voters to produce a Smith set larger than 6 even if they tried!) The mathematical possibility of a larger-than-six Smith set is well beyond what the readers of the article care about. Third, the reinforcement issue -- which has no effect on which candidate wins (if the Smith set does not exceed 6) and which no other Condorcet method can even achieve -- is the area in which it can be said that VoteFair ranking calculations can differ (but would rarely differ) from the results of using the Condorcet-Kemeny method, but that difference is too subtle to bring up in an article about basic voting concepts (vote splitting, strategic voting, etc.). Fourth, to repeat an important point for Adrian's sake, the cases in which it is possible for the two methods to differ involve highly convoluted (muddled) voter preferences that have no clear preference pattern. To clarify this concept with an analogy, if the purpose of a voting method were to identify the highest mountain peak, then situations in which it is possible for the Condorcet-Kemeny method and VoteFair ranking to identify a different winner amount to attempting to find the highest sand dune in a desert -- which means that if the two methods identify different sand dunes as the highest, the difference is not significant. Of course here in this forum we will continue to discuss the circumstances that can cause a difference between the Condorcet-Kemeny method and VoteFair popularity ranking, but from the perspective of real-life elections in which the goal is to identify which candidate wins, the two methods are mathematically equivalent. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Democracy Chronicles, introductions
In the non-mathematical world the word equivalent means having similar or identical effects which allows for not _always_ being _identical_ in _all_ respects. That is the context for usage in the Democracy Chronicles article. Even in a rigorous academic mathematical context, equivalent means having virtually identical or corresponding parts. In this context VoteFair popularity ranking is virtually identical to the Condorcet-Kemeny method because the word virtually allows for the _extremely_ _rare_ cases in which there are more than six candidates in the Smith set (which can possibly cause a difference in which candidate is declared the winner), and allows for an election involving, say, 30 candidates that _can_ (but may not) result in different full rankings between the two methods. If I had instead claimed that the two methods are mathematically the same, then of course that would have been inappropriate. Richard Fobes On 4/24/2012 6:11 AM, Andy Jennings wrote: On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 11:28 PM, Richard Fobes electionmeth...@votefair.org mailto:electionmeth...@votefair.org wrote: On 4/23/2012 12:05 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 04/22/2012 05:07 PM, Richard Fobes wrote: The core of the system is VoteFair popularity ranking, which is mathematically equivalent to the Condorcet-Kemeny method, which is one of the methods supported by the Declaration of Election-Method Reform Advocates. You said there are ballot sets for which the Kemeny method and VoteFair provides different winners. How, then, can VoteFair be /mathematically/ equivalent? You say the differences don't matter in practice, but for the method to be mathematically equivalent, wouldn't the mapping have to be completely identical? First of all, in the context of a publication that is read by non-mathematicians (which is what the Democracy Chronicles is) the word equivalent does not refer to a rigorous sameness. When you qualify it as mathematically equivalent, it definitely does refer to a rigorous sameness. Perhaps you should say essentially equivalent. ~ Andy Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Democracy Chronicles, introductions
Adrian Tawfik at Democracy Chronicles requested that I supply him with an introduction to myself for the article that contains my answers to his interview questions. I'm thinking that everyone else who also answered his interview questions will need to supply an introduction, and I figure that all of us will want to elaborate on the brief comment that appears next to our name on the Declaration. As long as we are writing introductions that will be published, we might as well also use the opportunity to learn more about each other, and share ideas about what to write. Plus, if any of us includes a statement that defies the principles of mathematics, such an error can be pointed out prior to publication. With that in mind, here is my suggestion for an introductory paragraph about me: begin intro Richard Fobes, who has a degree in physics (and whose last name rhymes with robes), became involved with election-method reform when he realized, while writing his book titled The Creative Problem Solver's Toolbox [link], that most of the world's problems can be solved, but the current voting methods used throughout the world are so primitive that citizens are unable to elect the problem-solving leaders they want. That insight motivated him to spend time over the last two decades developing -- including writing open-source software for -- a system of voting methods that he calls VoteFair ranking. The core of the system is VoteFair popularity ranking, which is mathematically equivalent to the Condorcet-Kemeny method, which is one of the methods supported by the Declaration of Election-Method Reform Advocates. At his VoteFair.org [link] website, Fobes offers a free service of calculating VoteFair ranking results, and a number of organizations have used the service to elect their officers. The only people who have objected to the results have been incumbents who failed to get reelected. At that site Fobes also hosts an American Idol poll that allows fans of the TV show to rank the show's singers according to who is their favorite, who is their second favorite, and so on down to who they like the least, and the calculations reveal the overall ranking. Based on the results, Fobes writes commentaries that anticipate and explain so-called surprise results in terms of important voting concepts, especially vote splitting, vote concentration, and strategic voting. end intro Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] The 99% Declaration, proposal to ban single-mark ballots from U.S. Congressional elections
Here is a big opportunity to help promote election-method reform in the United States. I have posted online a proposed federal law that would ban the use of single-mark ballots from U.S. Congressional elections. Here is the URL: http://www.the99declaration.org/4408/ban_single_mark_ballots_from_congressional_elections?recruiter_id=4408 For clarification: This website grew out of the Occupy Wall Street movement (although this offshoot is disclaimed by the official Occupy Wall Street movement). Specifically (according to what I read on the website) the lawyer defending some of the people who were arrested for blocking the bridge in New York City realized that having specific and justifiable grievances would be helpful for their defense. Out of that grew the idea to elect two delegates from each U.S. Congressional district (one male and one female) and gather in Philadelphia on the Fourth of July (Independence Day), and vote on which specific grievances should form a Declaration that will be mass-march delivered to Washington DC (or specifically Congress, I'm not sure which). (The convention venue has already been rented and paid for.) The page I created is titled Ban single-mark ballots from Congressional elections. On this page you can help by clicking the must include and relevant and approve checkboxes (preferably all 3 of them), although you must use either your Facebook account (which presumably must have a US address), or similarly for Twitter, or you can sign up at the website itself (which is what I did, and which requires an email address and a U.S. postal address). The proposal is method-neutral. Here is the specific wording I wrote: Each individual state shall be allowed to choose which kinds of ballots and which kinds of counting methods are approved or disapproved as replacements for single-mark ballots and plurality counting, except that the ballots must collect additional preference information from voters and those ballots must be counted in ways that mathematically and reliably improve the fairness of the results compared to using single-mark ballots and plurality counting. If a ballot type can be counted in more than one way, the official election results must include published data that enables any news organization to count the ballot preferences using other counting methods for comparison purposes. If you want to promote your favorite method, please do so by adding your own grievance to this website, which will create your own page on that website. If you post comments on my proposal's page, it would be helpful to agree that vote splitting is a huge unfairness in U.S. Elections, but talking about specific voting-method criteria (e.g. favorite betrayal or even the Condorcet winner) would make this proposal seem even more esoteric (non-relevant) than some of the participants currently believe. More specifically, for those of you who have signed the Declaration of Election-Method Reform Advocates, please remember your promise to work collaboratively, rather than competitively, to promote the use of fairer voting methods. From other information I've seen about the Occupy Wall Street movement, it appears that one subgroup's election-method expert favors IRV, so please don't restart a fight with IRV advocates. My goal is to convince the delegates who will be gathering in Philadelphia on the Fourth of July that this proposal is worth adopting as part of the declaration they will be mass-march delivering to Washington DC. After that, if something develops from this proposal, we can use our position as election-method experts to influence state legislatures about which methods to approve and disapprove. Of course this proposal is bold, yet just getting it discussed in the convention in Philadelphia would help our efforts to ban single-mark ballots. If you are unable to use the must include and other checkboxes, you may be able to click the page's Facebook Like button or Google +1 button, and that too will help. Thank you for whatever help you can provide. Richard Fobes P.S. Of course if you create your own grievance on that website, please let us know so that we can express support for your election-method reform proposal. P.P.S. If you live in a congressional district that does not yet have any candidates for your district's delegate, you might even want to sign up as a possible delegate. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Can I get the e-mail address of Adrian at Democracy Chronicles?
On 4/17/2012 2:54 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: Richard /or Jameson (or anyone else too): Can I get the e-mail address of Adrian at Democracy Chronicles? Mike Ossipoff I am not supplying Adrian's direct email address because I have recommended to him that he get voting-method-related questions answered through the forum so that statements (both positive and negative) about voting methods are peer-reviewed. (This approach applies to me as well.) I suggest being patient and waiting for their article about the Declaration to appear, and hopefully shortly after that time (if not sooner) Adrian may have signed up to join this forum. Keep in mind, as already conveyed in Adrian's message that I posted here, there will be a series of articles about each of the experts who answered his interview questions, spaced about one week apart. That means he already has a long queue of articles from us. If you want the newspaper's email address, it is posted on the contact us page of their website: http://www.democracychronicles.com/contact-us/ Specifically, the website's email address is: democracychronic...@gmail.com And, thank you Mike, for your statement that your earlier comments were not intended to be disrespectful. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Verification of a voting outcome for VoteFair.
be good enough. Any Condorcet method does the right thing with Smith set size 1, and I think Schulze / RP / MAM all give the same result with Smith set size = 3, and that this result is the same as the Kemeny result. These other methods are either simpler than VoteFair (in the case of Ranked Pairs, say), or are more well known (Schulze). Simplicity for the person who writes the software is a tiny issue compared to simplicity for the voters (in terms of ballot type and marking strategies), and compared to simplicity in terms of understanding the algorithm (which is a big challenge for the Condorcet-Schulze method), and compared to the issue of voters trusting the results (which relates to mathematical arguments being difficult for most people to understand). As for the Condorcet-Schulze method being better known, that's because software for it was available years ago, which relates to the concept that it is easy to program (except for dealing with ties, which complicates all methods). History is filled with examples of the first-available choice not surviving over time. As one example, CPM and MS-DOS came before MS-Windows (and that race isn't over yet). I regard VoteFair ranking as having advantages that are not yet appreciated. Remember that the voting characteristics listed in the Wikipedia Voting system comparison chart are just checklist-like yes-versus-no attributes that fail to reveal how often, and under what circumstances, each method fails each of the failed criteria. (I am not disputing the importance of those criteria; I am saying that numeric information can be more revealing than true/false information.) On the other hand, if the max Smith set size is high, then VoteFair may not approximate Kemeny well enough. In that case, if what you want is Kemeny, then you pretty much have to go to Kemeny. If someone wants exact Condorcet-Kemeny results for a large Smith set then I have to wonder why. If it's needed to simulate results for studying its mathematical characteristics, then of course that's different from a group of voters wanting to know which candidate deserves to win an election. The fine-tuning argument then is: it appears that for VoteFair to have a substantial advantage over other Condorcet methods, the max Smith set size for realistic elections have to be high enough that the other methods don't approximate Kemeny but simultaneously low enough that VoteFair does approximate Kemeny. Is that the case? It doesn't seem clear *as such*. I, and the people who use my software at VoteFair.org, have been getting superbly fair results, and I have not encountered any case in which one of the other Condorcet methods would be a better choice. Only time can determine which voting methods are in use 100 years from now. Personally my view is that there is excessive focus on single-winner voting methods (partly because they are easier to study), yet there are bigger frontiers waiting to be pioneered. That's why I've gone beyond VoteFair popularity ranking to develop VoteFair representation ranking (because the second-most popular choice is not the same as the second-most representative choice), and VoteFair partial-proportional ranking (which provides a PR method that is designed for the situation in the U.S.), and VoteFair party ranking (which deals with the problem that will arise when vote splitting is not around to limit the number of candidates on the ballot, and which happens to minimize the cloneproof failure ascribed to the Condorcet-Kemeny method), and VoteFair negotiation ranking (which allows a Parliament to elect a fair slate of Cabinet Ministers without using any quota rules to enforce fairness). We have a long way to go, and when the dust settles a few centuries from now, the landscape will probably be unfamiliar to all of us. Richard Fobes - [For context, Kristofer's full message is repeated below:] On 4/7/2012 3:19 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: On 04/04/2012 08:06 PM, Richard Fobes wrote: My comments are interspersed as answers to specific questions/statements. On 4/3/2012 12:53 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: But anyway, I'll try to find an example where: - VoteFair elects A, - VoteFair has no ties in its social ordering, - Kemeny finds another candidate X as the winner, and - There is no Kemeny-optimal ordering that puts A first. Would that suffice to show that VoteFair isn't Kemeny? No. As Jameson Quinn points out (in a message I haven't had time to reply to yet), real-world elections typically involve no more than four candidates in the Smith set. VoteFair ranking easily ranks Smith-set candidates at the top (for reasons I plan to explain later). So, you might be able to find a set of ballots for 50 candidates in which ALL (or most) of the candidates are in the Smith set (and there are no ties), for which VoteFair ranking identifies a non-Kemeny
Re: [EM] Democracy Chronicles, upcoming multiple articles
On 4/15/2012 5:19 PM, ⸘Ŭalabio‽ wrote: “Richard Fobes”electionmeth...@votefair.org: On 4/14/2012 5:49 PM, Adrian Tawfik wrote: I have attached the first draft of this article to this email in a Word document so that you can take a look and make any edits or suggestions you might like. ¿Why do not we put the article on GoogleDocuments for easier editing? I did not edit out that paragraph even though it did not apply to the forum. (I thought it might provide perspective for what was going on.) Hopefully Adrian will soon be joining the forum and he can communicate with participants directly, and that will eliminate misunderstandings like this one. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Answers regarding claim about Approval's enact-ability
Ooops. I failed to remove your email address when I copied your signature from the Google Docs version. Now it's fixed. Thanks for letting me know. On 4/15/2012 3:54 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 3:26 PM, Richard Fobes electionmeth...@votefair.org mailto:electionmeth...@votefair.org wrote: Mike, I'm not sure what you are saying about your signature on the Declaration. As a clarification, the original document at Google Docs needs an email address as part of the signature. The copy of the Declaration at www.BanSingleMarkBallots.org http://www.BanSingleMarkBallots.org omits the email addresses. What I'm saying is that, at the URL in your paragraph above, my e-mail address is displayed. No one else's e-mail address is displayed there. Because no one else's e-mail address is displayed there, I'm assuming that mine is displayed there by accident. So all I was requesting is that my signature be like the others in that regard. For one thing, it makes my signature longer, less brief, than it could be. For another thing, it must look as I've violated the rules or gained special permission, when my e-mail address is the only one there. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Answers regarding claim about Approval's enact-ability
Mike seems to be in a hurry for an explanation for my earlier statement. As I recall the issue is that I stated in a previous message that Approval voting was very unlikely to be adopted for use in U.S. Presidential _general_ elections. Here are some reasons: 1: Making that change requires adopting a Constitutional Amendment. 2: By the time Congress is ready to consider writing such an amendment, various kinds of advanced voting methods will have been tried, which means that voters will be familiar with various kinds of better ballots, which means they will not be intimidated by marking ranked ballots or score ballots. This situation undermines the biggest advantage of Approval voting, which is that it is simple, and the easiest to understand (in terms of both ballot marking and ballot counting) for someone who is only familiar with plurality voting. 3: The majority of voters do not understand mathematics (and even most judges would not be comfortable with mathematics) so they would think that being able to mark more than one candidate would violate the one person, one vote rule. Richard Fobes On 4/15/2012 3:54 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: ... Thanks for your explanation about the delay in supporting your claim about Approval's enactability (in comparison to those of Condorcet, Kemmeny, SODA, MJ, etc.). I certainly agree with replying to messages in the order n which they were posted. Let me just add a few comments, though: 1. Though it's too late now, of course, I'll just repeat something that I said before. If you don't have time to support that statement (for now, at least), then you shouldn't have had time to make the statement in the first place. A good rule: Don't make statements that you don't have time to support. 2. I certainly do not want to hurry you. In fact, I'm not criticizing you if you don't even try to support your claim at all. (Who could blame you--it isn't supportable). 3. But, if you don't, then I just want to clarify to everyone that your claim remains an unsupported claim. I would have no objection to that. I am not saying that you should support the claim if you don't want to. Leave it unsupported if you want to. 4. I want to emphasize that, every time that I've said that Approval is the enactable method, I've told why that is. 5. The subject of which method(s) are the most promising to support, advocate, work for, is highly relevant to success. Claims regarding that matter should only be valued according the the justifications offered for those claims. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Answers regarding claim about Approval's enact-ability
On 4/16/2012 12:50 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: hey Richard, how did you get electionmeth...@votefair.org for the Reply-to header?. i had to change it to get this to post. That's the email account I sent the message from. On 4/16/12 12:42 PM, Richard Fobes wrote: As I recall the issue is that I stated in a previous message that Approval voting was very unlikely to be adopted for use in U.S. Presidential _general_ elections. Here are some reasons: 1: Making that change requires adopting a Constitutional Amendment. not precisely. there is a going state compact movement that will essentially make the Electoral College a figurehead. it will exist, but it will be powerless. and it doesn't need a Constitutional amendment, because the Constitution says that the state legislatures have the exclusive authority in defining how the presidential electors are chosen. ... ... Notice that the state compact movement specifies that the state's electoral votes goes to the candidate with the most votes. That will lead to ambiguity if there is a strong three-way race. For example, if the group that has gotten approval in many states to add a third Presidential candidate in the upcoming Presidential general election (I forget their name) were to choose a well-liked liberal candidate, vote splitting between the Democratic candidate (Obama) and the added candidate could cause the Republican candidate (Romney, presumably) to get the most votes, even though a majority of voters vote against the Republican candidate. That would break the most votes workaround. Yes, I agree that it is possible that the reform could happen without a Constitutional Amendment. However, at this rate of progress, the Constitutional Amendment seems as likely as a well-written workaround. (Jameson made the same point, so this reply also applies to his comment.) Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Richard reply, 4/16/12
for a dollar. Just roughly, about how much is that? And she otherwise was an intelligent person. You somehow seem to think that I think that Approval violates one-person-one-vote. I am not one of the people I am referring to here. Perhaps it is relevant to again mention that I have a degree in Physics. That means that I took lots of mathematics courses. Now that I've supported my claim that Approval voting is unlikely to be adopted for U.S. Presidential general elections, I hope to get back to answering the mathematical questions from Jameson and Kristofer that I haven't had time to reply to. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Democracy Chronicles, upcoming multiple articles
More great news! The Democracy Chronicles wants to write a series of articles, first about the Declaration and the forum, and then a separate article about each of the people who have responded to the interview questions. See below for details: On 4/14/2012 5:49 PM, Adrian Tawfik wrote: Dear Mr. Fobes, Thank you for your help so far, this has been a fascinating bunch of readings from obviously well informed people. After much deliberation I have decided that we will do a separate article for each of the experts who answered the questions and present to the audience the complete individual responses to the questions with only cosmetic changes. The first article I will do is to introduce the group and the Declaration. I have attached the first draft of this article to this email in a Word document so that you can take a look and make any edits or suggestions you might like. If you do make an edit, it would be best if you could use the Track Changes function on Word so that I can see what you have done. I'm not sure what you think about this, but I used some of your wording to describe the Declaration in the second paragraph and melded it with my own. I use a quote that is attributed to you later on but I'm not sure if you are ok with me using some of your wording within the article and giving you part of the byline. Three or four days after we publish that first article, we can publish your personal interview answers absolutely complete with a paragraph or two introduction by me. We will release each article a few days to a week after the previous one. I don't know what you think but I was thinking of the following order for the articles with your article going first and the rest in alphabetical order by last name. We can come up with a good title and subtitle for the articles which for the first article that is attached here will be something like Election Method Reform Experts Unite to Make Declaration. We need a subtitle of similar length for each article. I also will have to pick out some free pictures from Flickr to put with the articles. Can you post in the forum that each person will have their own articles? If they have more info they would like to send me please feel free to give them my email. I will use as much information for each interview as I have but I would love a way to communicate with them individually to dig a little deeper. Is there a way I can contact them? Can I post something in the forum? Once again I must thank you for all your help. You have made these articles possible. If you would like to talk over the phone, my number is [...]. Sincerely, Adrian I removed Adrian's phone number, but I will facilitate a direct connection with him for those of you who answered the questions. Plus I'll invite him to join the forum. I have not yet looked at the attachment; I'm expediting this message so that you-all know what's going on. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Answers regarding claim about Approval's enact-ability
Mike, I'm not sure what you are saying about your signature on the Declaration. As a clarification, the original document at Google Docs needs an email address as part of the signature. The copy of the Declaration at www.BanSingleMarkBallots.org omits the email addresses. Because I seem to be acting in a secretarial role regarding signatures, I have less time to answer every question that is asked in this forum. I'm still trying to find time to reply to earlier questions asked by Jameson and Kristofer. They have been patiently waiting. As should be clear from my posts, I have put Declaration-related matters to the top of my priority list (including your signature requests!), and that pushes other forum-related topics down on my list of priorities (but it does not push them off the list). Collaboration requires respect, and patience. Richard Fobes On 4/13/2012 10:57 AM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: Richard-- No one can fault you for being busy. But, I would just humbly suggest that, if you're too busy to support a statement that you make, it would be great if you could also be too busy to _make_ the statement. Remember that the EM guidelines ask that we be prepared to support our statements. Mike Ossipoff P.S. I'm sorry--I didn't mean to imply that I request my e-mail address to be in my signature. I've noticed that none of the other signatures contain an e-mail address. When I found my e-mail address in the suggested short-version, I left it in my own improved short version, thinking that it must be a standard feature that I hadn't noticed present in the others. Then I noticed that it isn't in the others. Removing my e-mail address would make my signature more in line with the others, in addition to improving its brevity. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Explain statement re: Approval enactment feasibility
Michael, The characteristics of each voting method, including Condorcet-Kemeny (which Markus Schulze has named Kemeny-Young in Wikipedia), are in the comparison table in the Wikipedia Voting system article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system#Compliance_of_selected_systems_.28table.29 Remember that this is a checklist, and does not reveal how often (or how rarely, or under what circumstances) a method fails each criteria. Sorry about the brief reply, but I haven't yet had time to catch up with earlier questions from Kristofer and Jameson (which require longer replies). In addition to the Democracy Chronicles article, I'm pursuing other voting-related activities (including explaining last night's surprise voting result on American Idol), not to mention that election-method reform is supposed to be a side project (because I'm not in the academic world where I would be getting paid for it). Richard On 4/12/2012 2:30 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: Richard: You wrote: I share your preference for ranked ballots and Condorcet methods. Yet I also realize that, as does Jameson, that Approval voting will not get used for U.S. Presidential general elections [endquote] For what reason to you believe that Approval isn't enact-able for U.S. presidential general elections? Are you saying that it isn't possible to change the voting system for presidential general elections? Certainly it would be more difficult than municipal election-reforms--unless enough people wanted that change at the national level. Or are you saying that, for those elections, Approval is less enact-able than other methods such as Condorcet or Kemmeny? If so, then why do you say that? I've often told why Approval is incomparably more enact-able than the rank methods. I explained it in my recent posting entitled Rank methods, contd., just a few postings back from this posting, in the date-ordered postings list. Approval is the minimal change, the obvious and natural freedom-enhancement, of Plurality. Plurality is a points system that only lets you give a point to one candidate, only lets you rate one candidate. Obviously that rules-forced lack of information has bad societal consequences, when compromisers can't good-rate their more favorite candidates. Excluding information without a good justification can't be a good thing. Obviously voters should be able to rate all the candidates. Candidate X is acceptable as a compromise, but Candidates Y and Z are better, and so you can rate all 3 of them as Approved. Condorcet's (and probably Kemmeny's) improvement over Approval is illusory: The Aproval bad-example is: Sincere rankings: 27: AB 24: BA 49: C In Approval, but also, just as much, in Condorcet, the A voters' support for B, even in 2nd rank position, will elect B, if the B voters defect by not reciprocating that 2nd place support. In other words, the same problem that Condorcetists complain about in Approval, is right there in Condorcet too. The difference is that Condorcet is more elaborately implemented, and incomparably less enact-able than Approval. No doubt what I've said about Condorcet applies to Kemmeny too. What does Kemmeny do with these rankings?: 27: AB 24: B 49: C Does it do like Condorcet, and elect B? Does it meet FBC? Mike Ossipoff 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] My shortened signature
On 4/11/2012 1:51 PM, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote: ... Mike Ossipoff; nkklrp via hotmail; Founding member of election-methods forum; Advocates Approval voting for full support for favorites As requested, I've moved your signature to the credentialed section, and used this text as your signature. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Please add my name to the Election-Method-Declaration
On 4/11/2012 12:40 AM, ⸘Ŭalabio‽ wrote: Craig Lee Chrisco 1283 Saint Francis Drive Petaluma California 94954 - 5331 The United States of America Your name is already listed as a signer. I added Petaluma, California to the end of your signature line (which already had your name and email address). Thanks for signing! Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] The credentiald signature section
Mike, Because you are not supplying your brief signature in the specified format, I (and presumably Jameson) must assume that you do not want your named moved to the credentialed section of the Declaration. (I don't understand your choice, but I respect your choice.) If you can contact the people you refer to and get them to sign the Declaration, that would be great. (Jameson is pursuing the signatures of additional potential signers.) Richard On 4/9/2012 2:04 PM, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote: Hi Richard-- A big advantage of being a credentialed signer would be that I'd be putting in a word, and a vote for Approval. I'd be showing, to other voting-system reform advocates that the first wv Condorcetist, someone who has been with voting systems since well before EM started, is a confirmed, adamant Approvalist. And of course I'd be able to include a few brief words about why I like Approval. That should suggest to voting system reform advocates that Approval deserves a closer look. Of course, the people who would recognize my name, and who to whom my credentials would mean something, consist of other voting system reform advocates--people who already fully understand the need to abolish the single-mark ballot. But I understand that the purpose of the declaration isn't to advocate for one voting system reform in comparison to the others--It's to make people aware that Plurality has got to be replaced with something better, if democracy is to be genuine. That means that it's necessary to reach people who are net yet advocates of voting system reform. To such people, the fact that I was the first introducer and advocate of the popular Condorcet(wv) family of methods, and was the proposer and a founding member of EM, might not count for much, because they have yet to be convinced that we need a new voting system. What such people need, to be impressed, to listen, is some proof of accomplishment or recognition _outside_ the voting system reform community. I don't hold a degree, or a professional position. So, what I'm saying is that I fully understand that my being on the list of credentialed signers could, to the general public, dilute and devalue that credentialed list, by a bit. Of course I'm not saying that I wouldn't like to be included in that credentialed list. In fact it would help Approval (which I feel is a bit slighted in the declaration's discussion of advantages). I'm just saying that I fully understand that my being mentioned in that list might not be helpful for the purpose of impressing members of the general public, showing them that voting system reform is advocated by people whose authority they can recognize. And this is certainly not about not wanting to give out an e-mail address. My contact e-mail, for voting systems, is : nkklrp, followed by the symbol that always precedes e-mail domain-names, followed by hotmail, followed by period, followed by what typically follows that period, something that starts with the same letter as the word 'cat'. If I'm not in the credentialed signers list, I'd still be glad to be listed in a list of contacts for answering questions, depending on whether that is felt to be helpful for the declaration's primary purpose. But I'll tell you _who_ should sign: Matthew Lane, a PhD candidate at UCLA. He recently published an editorial on CNN, about the desirability of, and need for, Approval voting. It apparently aired on a Friday, within the past few weeks. Also, Brams Fishburn. And Myerson Weber. And Guy Ottewell (sp?). Weber and Ottowell have both been named as the modern 1st proponents of Approval (which is known, however, to have been used long ago too). Myerson Weber introduced a voting equilibrium that many now call Myerson-Weber equilibrium. They showed that, with Plurality, the most disliked two parties could continue to win forever, at equilibrium. Put very briefly, people vote for one of those 2 parties because they're told that they're the only winnable parties. And, sure enough, the winner is always one of them, confirming what the media have told us. So they keep winning, ad infinitum. One or both of them also discussed voting systems' encouragement or discouragement of corruption, the influence of money. And an equilibrium for configurations of candidates. They thereby confirmed someone else's suggestion that Approval will result in an equilibrium in which there is at least one candidate at the voter median. And the candidate there will the the winner at voting equilibrium. Those people made their main contributions decades ago. I don't know how many of them are still alive (except, of course, for Lane). How disappointing and embarrassing it would be if all of the people who have given us those contributions have died out, and are therefore no longer available to help us, before we start to make use of what they introduced. Mike Ossipoff Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Burlington versus Aspen in Declaration
Regarding the Aspen versus Burlington choice, no one else has commented, so it will stay unchanged. Given what I now know, Aspen would have been a better choice, but the difference is too subtle for most people to understand. On 4/7/2012 11:12 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: ... just to be clear, i am not (yet) a signer. maybe i should be, but i really can't get behind any solution other than a Ranked-Choice voting (Condorcet preferable, IRV maybe acceptable). i really can't get at all behind promoting Score nor Approval nor Asset nor SODA for governmental elections. They're just too messy. (Approval isn't messy, but I don't think it will nor should catch on because of the need for expressivity for voters where we want to be able to separate our first and second choices *and* separate our second and last choices.) I share your preference for ranked ballots and Condorcet methods. Yet I also realize that, as does Jameson, that Approval voting will not get used for U.S. Presidential general elections, and presumably the same applies for Range voting. The Declaration has helped me appreciate Approval voting for use when a group of people are gathered in person and are making a simple choice, such as where to eat dinner, and that made me realize that I would be fine with Approval voting being adopted for Presidential _primary_ elections, and that qualifies as a governmental election. As for Score ballots, they are the best choice for the distant future when we have a way to count them that is not vulnerable to strategic voting. (Majority Judgment is clever and mathematically appealing, but too complex to explain in words.) Even IRV would be a good choice for a small group of people gathered together without access to a computer. I'm not trying to change your mind about the voting methods. Rather I'm pointing out that I signed because single-mark ballots are so awful that any of the methods even mentioned in the Declaration would be a significant improvement, and that, in my mind, is what the Declaration says. Richard Fobes On 4/7/2012 11:12 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: On 4/8/12 12:00 AM, Richard Fobes wrote: On 4/6/2012 12:45 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: ... Question 5. If you have not signed the Declaration, why? i had a couple of problems. two that i remember is that it cited the 2009 Mayoral election in my town, Burlington Vermont, as an example of the failure of Instant Runoff Voting, and, indeed IRV *did* fail that year (and has been repealed the following year, by a small margin). but the reason given for the dissatisfaction of Burlingtonians mentioned in the declaration is not accurate. the Burlington voters are not as sophisticated as folks on the election-methods list or otherwise engaged in election reform. the reason given is more of a reflection of what persons who study these different methods have for rejecting IRV, but voters that voted to repeal IRV in Burlington believed (incorrectly, IMO) that IRV robbed the Plurality winner of his legitimate election. most of us on this list understand that the root to the failure of IRV that year was that the Condorcet winner (a.k.a. the pairwise champion) was not elected. Should the example in the Declaration be changed from Burlington to Aspen? would it be more accurate with Aspen? it says: In some elections IRV has prematurely eliminated a candidate who would have beaten the actual winner in a runoff election. This disadvantage may be why several cities, including Burlington, Vermont, repealed IRV and returned to plurality voting. It doesn't make logical sense. It says that because IRV failed to elect the Condorcet winner (the candidate who would have beaten the actual winner in a runoff election) that these cities repealed IRV and returned to plurality. Why return to Plurality to address the problem of failing to elect the pairwise champion? I would expect that returning to Plurality would address the perceived problem of failing to elect the FPTP winner. What was the issue with the Aspen election? What year and what race was IRV used for, and who got elected? Was it a case where the Condorcet winner was not elected and people bitched about that problem or was it more like that the Plurality winner was not elected and that was perceived as the failure? just curious. This question applies to all signers, not just Robert. just to be clear, i am not (yet) a signer. maybe i should be, but i really can't get behind any solution other than a Ranked-Choice voting (Condorcet preferable, IRV maybe acceptable). i really can't get at all behind promoting Score nor Approval nor Asset nor SODA for governmental elections. They're just too messy. (Approval isn't messy, but I don't think it will nor should catch on because of the need for expressivity for voters where we want to be able to separate our first and second choices *and* separate our second and last choices.) Election
Re: [EM] Credentials
Mike Ossipoff ~ In order to move your signature into the list of signatures with credentials (from the signature category it's in now), Jameson and I need you to specify your signature in the very brief format that has been used by other credentialed signers. That information includes an obsfucated (not machine-readable) email address (or some other online contact information), a VERY brief indication of your credentials (perhaps something like co-founder of the Election-method forum or co-founder of, and long-time participant in, the Election-method forum and/or some other brief credential), and a VERY brief comment (perhaps something like strongly prefers Condorcet methods, and prefers Approval ballots over Score ballots or whatever). Please look at the signature format to see the specifics: http://www.bansinglemarkballots.org/signatures.html Notice that the format uses semicolons (;) between the fields. This is handy for removing email addresses (such as for the BanSingleMarkBallots.org copy), and might prove useful if there is a need to put the signatures into a database. We don't want to compose your signature for you, so we need you to tell us what to say (besides your name). By the way, thank you for co-founding this forum! Richard Fobes On 4/6/2012 12:46 PM, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote: I read that, if I might have any credentials, for the purpose of my Democracy Chronicles answers, then I should post them here: I'm a longtime participant in this election-methods mailing list. I was a founding member of this election-methods mailing list. In fact, it was I who first proposed the Single-Winner-Committee that was the basis for this election-methods mailing list. I can't say what someone else might have proposed sooner somewhere else, but, so far as I'm personally aware, I was the original proponent and advocate of Condorcet(wv). That's the winning-votes variety of Condorcet, in which the strength of a pairwise defeat is measured by the number of voters ranking the defeater over the defeated, for that pairwise defeat. I pointed out some strategic advantages of this form of Condorcet. (But I no longer consider Condorcet to be a good proposal for public elections, due to its FBC failure. However, it's a fine method for electorates, such as some committees, etc., that don't have the excessive timidity and over-compromise-proneness of our public-elections electorate.) I've been a longtime advocate of Approval, and I now consider it my favorite method, and unquestionably by far the best public proposal for voting-system reform. Mike Ossipoff Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Burlington versus Aspen in Declaration
On 4/6/2012 12:45 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: ... Question 5. If you have not signed the Declaration, why? i had a couple of problems. two that i remember is that it cited the 2009 Mayoral election in my town, Burlington Vermont, as an example of the failure of Instant Runoff Voting, and, indeed IRV *did* fail that year (and has been repealed the following year, by a small margin). but the reason given for the dissatisfaction of Burlingtonians mentioned in the declaration is not accurate. the Burlington voters are not as sophisticated as folks on the election-methods list or otherwise engaged in election reform. the reason given is more of a reflection of what persons who study these different methods have for rejecting IRV, but voters that voted to repeal IRV in Burlington believed (incorrectly, IMO) that IRV robbed the Plurality winner of his legitimate election. most of us on this list understand that the root to the failure of IRV that year was that the Condorcet winner (a.k.a. the pairwise champion) was not elected. Should the example in the Declaration be changed from Burlington to Aspen? This question applies to all signers, not just Robert. In order to justify this change all, or at least almost all, the signers would have to agree -- or at least not object -- to making this change. (Either is fine with me.) Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Democracy Chronicles, answers to interview questions
Below are the questions that editor Adrian Tawfik is inviting us to answer. Clarifications follow the questions. Question 1. Your name and the city and country you work in. Richard Fobes, Portland, Oregon, United States Question 3. Any contact info you wish to give to be published with article for readers (for example your email or website.) www.VoteFair.org Question 6. Briefly explain what characteristics you think are most important for a voting method to have? To produce fair results, a voting method should look deeply into the voter preferences. The current approach of voters only being allowed to mark a single choice, and then using an overly simplistic counting method (plurality), is a huge failure to look beneath the surface of voter preferences. In contrast, I think a voter should be allowed to rank all the candidates from most preferred to least preferred, and the counting method should fully rank all the choices from most popular and second-most popular down to least popular. If a method correctly identifies the least-popular choice, then voters can better trust that the method also correctly identifies who deserves to win. Question 7. What do you think is the most important election reform needed where you live (either locally or nationally)? Why is this reform important? I believe that the election reform that is most needed in the United States is to ban the use of single-mark ballots in Congressional elections, including primary elections. This ban would allow us, the majority of voters, to fill Congress with problem-solving leaders instead of special-interest puppets. This reform is more important than reforming Presidential elections because the job of the President is to enforce the laws that Congress writes, and because it would dramatically weaken Congressional lobbyists (who have far more power than Presidential advisers). Question 8. What is your opinion on other aspects of election reform such as reforming money's role in politics or redistricting (particularly in the US but very interested as well concerning election reforms internationally)? Banning single-mark ballots in Congressional elections would eliminate vote splitting, which is a weakness of plurality counting that the biggest campaign contributors have learned to exploit in ways that involve money. Using better ballots and better counting methods would enable a problem-solving leader to more easily win a Congressional (primary or general) election running against a money-backed incumbent, even if the money-backed incumbent greatly outspent the reform-minded candidate. I believe that the solution to the redistricting problem in the United States (and similarly in each state) is to slightly more than double the size of Congressional districts, and then fill each district's second seat with the candidate who is most popular among the voters who are not well-represented by the winner of the first seat, which is what VoteFair representation ranking deeply calculates. In a typical such district, one Republican and one Democrat would win that district's two seats, regardless of where the district boundaries are drawn. Additionally a few proportional seats would be filled based on the voters' party-preference information, with the candidate being selected by VoteFair partial-proportional ranking. This adjustment would compensate for any roundoff errors that occur in filling the district-based seats, and would ensure that the majority of each state's Congressional representatives are from the same political party as the state's majority of voters. To the extent that the Republican party and the Democratic party continue to be excessively influenced by money instead of votes, third-party candidates would win the proportional seats, and that outcome would force the two main parties to adopt at least some of the reforms promoted by the most popular third parties. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Who can sign the declaration?
Mike Ossipoff, I have added your name to the list of signatures, both at the original Google Docs document and on this website page: http://www.bansinglemarkballots.org/signatures.html I, or Jameson Quinn, can move your name to the list of signatures that include credentials, but we need you to supply (here in a forum message) the additional information needed. As for credentials, participation in this forum is sufficient, but if you have any academic degree you can specify that instead (or, if it fits, in addition). Other alternatives for signing the Declaration are explained at the above URL. Thanks for signing! Richard Fobes On 4/5/2012 11:50 AM, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote: The only reason why I haven't signed the declaration is because I've assumed that it's only for celebrities, dignitaries and offically-annointed authorities. is that so? If anyone can sign the declaration, then I'd like to. So, my 2nd question in this post is: If anyone can sign the declaration, then how does one sign it. Where does one e-mail to, or what website does one go to? The declaration, as I remember, favorably mentions or recommends 5 methods (with the understanding that there could be other good ones): Approval Range or Score Voting Majority Judgement (median point totals) SODA (simple optionally delegated Approval) IRV The 1st four of those really effectively amount to Approval, differently-implemented, or with an enhancement. IRV would be a perfectly ok method if voters weren't so timid and giveaway-resigned (but they are). So that set of recommendations is a quite good one, and I thoroughly support the declaration. So, can just anyone sign it, without being an officially-recognized authority, celebrity or dignitary? And, if so, how does one sign it? Mike Ossipoff 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] Democracy Chronicles, where to send answers to interview questions
On 4/6/2012 10:28 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: where do i send my answers, Richard? i hadn't seen an email address for Adrian or for Democracy Chronicles. Simply reply to my original forum message (not this one). That will post your reply to the forum (with the correct subject). Or, you can email your answers to: election-meth...@electorama.com but be sure to use the following subject: Democracy Chronicles, answers to interview questions Here is the URL I gave to Adrian: http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2012-April/date.html In a browser, Adrian will click on the messages that have the specified subject. (He might also view other messages to see what goes on here.) Thanks for participating! Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
