Re: [EM] Composite methods (Re: Eric Maskin promotes the Black method)
Some more observations.
Party officials and representatives have more weight in decision making than
regular voters. The opinions of regular supporters of party A could be
A>Centrist>B, but the opinions of people whose future and career are tied to
the party have more A>>>Centrist>B orientation. Some of them may simply count
the number of days that they will be in power vs. in opposition. They want to
rule themselves, not that someone ideologically close to them rules. From that
point of view a two-party system may be better than one that allows also small
parties that are ideologically closer to win. Parties that are ideologically
close may be interpreted also as worst enemies since they may steal votes that
would otherwise be yours (they might thus even think A>>>B>Centrist). These
people could be more interested in going back to plurality from Condorcet than
from IRV. And they are the ones that are in power (or have more power than many
others).
Juho
On 8.7.2011, at 12.43, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
> Juho Laatu wrote:
>> On 8.7.2011, at 11.00, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
>>> But now consider a parallel universe where the CW always won (and
>>> these victories were significant, i.e. people really preferred the
>>> CW to the rest). Say Montroll won. Then Kiss-supporters and
>>> Wright-supporters might try to unite in the feeling that Montroll
>>> wasn't what they wanted ("we don't want any steenkin centrists");
>>> but if they tried so, there would be a majority who did like
>>> Montroll (because he was the CW), and therefore these could block
>>> the repeal if it came to a referendum.
>> Condorcet methods are majority oriented, but unfortunately CW has
>> majority only in pairwise comparisons. Majority of the voters would
>> choose the centrist rather than X. But it is possible that majority
>> of that majority would want Y rather than the centrist. And quite
>> typically majority of the voters prefer someone else to the CW.
>
> My point is that a majority of a majority isn't enough in a repeal-or-not
> referendum. If the repeal side can gather only a majority of a majority,
> while the keep-it side can gather a full majority, the method remains.
>
>> In a two-party oriented political system both major parties would
>> prefer a centrist to the candidate of the other major party. But if
>> they think carefully, maybe it would after all be in their interest
>> to just accept the fact that the major parties rule each 50% of the
>> time, instead of e.g. the centrists ruling 50% of the time, leaving
>> 25% to each of the major parties.
>
> The more general concept that you mention is of course true. I was
> considering Condorcet methods as new methods versus other methods as new
> methods, and giving a possibility that Condorcet methods might outlast
> non-Condorcet methods in voting reform.
>
> If society didn't have any bias at all, and could coordinate, it would
> quickly converge to the method that would do it best. The society would say
> "We don't like the spoiler effect, let's find a way to fix it". But because
> voting reform is hard, we can assume that doesn't hold true.
>
> So yes, voting reform will be hard, no matter what new method you want to put
> in place. I'm merely saying that because of dynamics, it might be easier to
> replace status quo with a Condorcet method (and have the new method last)
> than it is to do so with a non-Condorcet method (and have *it* last), because
> majorities can complain more often in the latter case than in the former.
>
> If people are in favor of two-party rule, well, then Plurality will remain.
> If they want two-party rule with no chance of minor spoilers upsetting the
> outcome, they may settle on IRV. But even here, Condorcet wouldn't be worse
> than IRV: if the voters want two parties, then one would assume they'd vote
> in a manner consistent with it. Third parties wouldn't break free -- because
> the voters don't want them -- and a cloneproof Condorcet method would keep
> minor spoilers out of the way.
>
>
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
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Re: [EM] Composite methods (Re: Eric Maskin promotes the Black method)
Juho Laatu wrote:
On 8.7.2011, at 11.00, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
But now consider a parallel universe where the CW always won (and
these victories were significant, i.e. people really preferred the
CW to the rest). Say Montroll won. Then Kiss-supporters and
Wright-supporters might try to unite in the feeling that Montroll
wasn't what they wanted ("we don't want any steenkin centrists");
but if they tried so, there would be a majority who did like
Montroll (because he was the CW), and therefore these could block
the repeal if it came to a referendum.
Condorcet methods are majority oriented, but unfortunately CW has
majority only in pairwise comparisons. Majority of the voters would
choose the centrist rather than X. But it is possible that majority
of that majority would want Y rather than the centrist. And quite
typically majority of the voters prefer someone else to the CW.
My point is that a majority of a majority isn't enough in a
repeal-or-not referendum. If the repeal side can gather only a majority
of a majority, while the keep-it side can gather a full majority, the
method remains.
In a two-party oriented political system both major parties would
prefer a centrist to the candidate of the other major party. But if
they think carefully, maybe it would after all be in their interest
to just accept the fact that the major parties rule each 50% of the
time, instead of e.g. the centrists ruling 50% of the time, leaving
25% to each of the major parties.
The more general concept that you mention is of course true. I was
considering Condorcet methods as new methods versus other methods as new
methods, and giving a possibility that Condorcet methods might outlast
non-Condorcet methods in voting reform.
If society didn't have any bias at all, and could coordinate, it would
quickly converge to the method that would do it best. The society would
say "We don't like the spoiler effect, let's find a way to fix it". But
because voting reform is hard, we can assume that doesn't hold true.
So yes, voting reform will be hard, no matter what new method you want
to put in place. I'm merely saying that because of dynamics, it might be
easier to replace status quo with a Condorcet method (and have the new
method last) than it is to do so with a non-Condorcet method (and have
*it* last), because majorities can complain more often in the latter
case than in the former.
If people are in favor of two-party rule, well, then Plurality will
remain. If they want two-party rule with no chance of minor spoilers
upsetting the outcome, they may settle on IRV. But even here, Condorcet
wouldn't be worse than IRV: if the voters want two parties, then one
would assume they'd vote in a manner consistent with it. Third parties
wouldn't break free -- because the voters don't want them -- and a
cloneproof Condorcet method would keep minor spoilers out of the way.
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Composite methods (Re: Eric Maskin promotes the Black method)
On 8.7.2011, at 11.00, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
> But now consider a parallel universe where the CW always won (and these
> victories were significant, i.e. people really preferred the CW to the rest).
> Say Montroll won. Then Kiss-supporters and Wright-supporters might try to
> unite in the feeling that Montroll wasn't what they wanted ("we don't want
> any steenkin centrists"); but if they tried so, there would be a majority who
> did like Montroll (because he was the CW), and therefore these could block
> the repeal if it came to a referendum.
Condorcet methods are majority oriented, but unfortunately CW has majority only
in pairwise comparisons. Majority of the voters would choose the centrist
rather than X. But it is possible that majority of that majority would want Y
rather than the centrist. And quite typically majority of the voters prefer
someone else to the CW.
In a two-party oriented political system both major parties would prefer a
centrist to the candidate of the other major party. But if they think
carefully, maybe it would after all be in their interest to just accept the
fact that the major parties rule each 50% of the time, instead of e.g. the
centrists ruling 50% of the time, leaving 25% to each of the major parties.
In other words, in order to change the basic rules of distributing power in a
society one may need also some good will from those currently in power and some
general support to the new way of distributing power. In societies that are
based on one party taking all the power after winning the election, giving that
power to some minor party, or having more than two major parties rotating in
power (with not much more than 33% support) may be problematic. Also Condorcet
combined with single seat districts might not provide what people want. One may
thus need to rethink the whole system to make people accept it and find the
majority concept of Condorcet methods ideal for them.
CW is ideal for many single winner decisions but the dynamics of the society
may also work against it. And one may need to be ready to change more than just
the election method to make the new rules work well.
Juho
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Re: [EM] Composite methods (Re: Eric Maskin promotes the Black method)
robert bristow-johnson wrote:
i was looking for Kristofer's posts to EM and came across this, i may
have missed it:
On Jun 22, 2011, at 5:30 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
I've mentioned it before, but I think Condorcet enjoys an additional
advantage here. Say there's a CW and he is not elected. Then that
means a majority prefers the CW to the candidate who was elected, and
if that majority is annoyed enough, it could try to repeal the voting
method in question. However, if the method always elects the CW, any
attempt to do so must face a majority who did prefer that CW to all
the other candidates, and if that majority feels the candidate is good
enough, they can block the repeal by virtue of being a majority.
it's curious to me, Kristofer, that this is a theorem that states that
Condorcet-compliant will eventually, naturally become the norm because
eventually the majority will be well aware of their status (as the
majority) and know their loss, be outraged, and change the system to
something different. until Condorcet is landed on, there will always be
the probabilistic pressure to change to something different.
i dunno if i would be as optimistic as that. i don't think that people
think about it.
No, I don't think it would be conscious. I don't think the voters would
go about and think, to themselves "You know, I would really have liked
Montroll to win, but since he didn't, I'm going to repeal the system".
Instead, if the effect above is real, it would take the shape of, say,
Wright-supporters and Montroll-supporters (or the fraction of the latter
that didn't think long enough about that Montroll would also lose under
Plurality or 40% TTR) could unite in the feeling that Kiss is no good.
Thus united under the feeling that Kiss was the wrong choice, they could
propose to repeal the system.
But now consider a parallel universe where the CW always won (and these
victories were significant, i.e. people really preferred the CW to the
rest). Say Montroll won. Then Kiss-supporters and Wright-supporters
might try to unite in the feeling that Montroll wasn't what they wanted
("we don't want any steenkin centrists"); but if they tried so, there
would be a majority who did like Montroll (because he was the CW), and
therefore these could block the repeal if it came to a referendum.
I'm making a lot of assumptions here. Perhaps Wright- and
Montroll-supporters would be too different from each other to unite in
that way, or perhaps there would never be a "we don't want any steenkin
centrists" campaign in the alternate universe. I don't know enough about
Burlington politics to say, but I hope it does show the shape of the
indirect dynamics that would be in play, anyway.
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Re: [EM] Composite methods (Re: Eric Maskin promotes the Black method)
i was looking for Kristofer's posts to EM and came across this, i may have missed it: On Jun 22, 2011, at 5:30 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: robert bristow-johnson wrote: On Jun 21, 2011, at 7:56 AM, Markus Schulze wrote: Hallo, Eric Maskin, a Nobel laureate, is currently very active in promoting the Black method. and we've all been groping for a name for this primary voting criteria that is not this non-American, Frenchie, probably sorta pinko-socialist secular humanist "intellectual" (did i mention *not* American?) whose heresy is leading us away from the One True Faith of the Single Affirmative Vote. we have sects in the One True Faith, some of us believe in the sanctity of the Two Party System: "if yer ain't fer us, you agin' us. and pass da ammunition, Ma." I've mentioned it before, but I think Condorcet enjoys an additional advantage here. Say there's a CW and he is not elected. Then that means a majority prefers the CW to the candidate who was elected, and if that majority is annoyed enough, it could try to repeal the voting method in question. However, if the method always elects the CW, any attempt to do so must face a majority who did prefer that CW to all the other candidates, and if that majority feels the candidate is good enough, they can block the repeal by virtue of being a majority. it's curious to me, Kristofer, that this is a theorem that states that Condorcet-compliant will eventually, naturally become the norm because eventually the majority will be well aware of their status (as the majority) and know their loss, be outraged, and change the system to something different. until Condorcet is landed on, there will always be the probabilistic pressure to change to something different. i dunno if i would be as optimistic as that. i don't think that people think about it. -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Composite methods (Re: Eric Maskin promotes the Black method)
robert bristow-johnson wrote: On Jun 21, 2011, at 7:56 AM, Markus Schulze wrote: Hallo, Eric Maskin, a Nobel laureate, is currently very active in promoting the Black method. and we've all been groping for a name for this primary voting criteria that is not this non-American, Frenchie, probably sorta pinko-socialist secular humanist "intellectual" (did i mention *not* American?) whose heresy is leading us away from the One True Faith of the Single Affirmative Vote. we have sects in the One True Faith, some of us believe in the sanctity of the Two Party System: "if yer ain't fer us, you agin' us. and pass da ammunition, Ma." I've mentioned it before, but I think Condorcet enjoys an additional advantage here. Say there's a CW and he is not elected. Then that means a majority prefers the CW to the candidate who was elected, and if that majority is annoyed enough, it could try to repeal the voting method in question. However, if the method always elects the CW, any attempt to do so must face a majority who did prefer that CW to all the other candidates, and if that majority feels the candidate is good enough, they can block the repeal by virtue of being a majority. i don't have a better idea than "true majority rule". but there must be a better one than that. Warren, i remember you like "beats-all winner" for the CW. i wonder if the "beats-all method" is a good label. Alas, as Jameson has pointed out, the IRVistas have muddied the waters by saying that the candidate that makes it to the last IRV round *is* a majority winner. (By extrapolation, every candidate that is not the Condorcet loser is a "majority winner", because given an arbitrary loser-elimination method, you could make any non-CL win, but never the Condorcet loser.) The Black method says: If there is a Condorcet winner, then the Condorcet winner should win; if there is no Condorcet winner, then the Borda winner should win. i hadn't heard of the Black method before, but just reading this shows pretty superficially a problem. above is one way to say something... [snip] at the core, let's assume that we are already disciples of Condorcet, we all agree that method X is best for domain X, he doesn't say squat about why method Y is preferred in domain Y. if we're nowhere near to a conclusion that Borda is good for anything (he might have been a good general, i dunno), then how do we conclude that it is preferable to everything else when there is no CW? sorry, i haven't even got past this block. I guess Maskin thinks Borda is the best on domain Y. Why, I don't know. Maskin's argumentation doesn't work because of the following reason: Whether an election method is good or bad depends on which criteria it satisfies. Most criteria say how the result should change when the profile changes. Now it can happen that the original profile and the new profile are in different domains. This means that, to satisfy some criterion, election method X for domain X and election method Y for domain Y must not be chosen independent from each other. but, this is the fundamental argument of those who claim that it is natural for an election to be spoiled, to be dependent upon irrelevant alternatives. isn't that what the fundamental issue is about for why Condorcet (assuming a CW exists) is consistent with any simple-majority, two-candidate election where every vote carries equal weight? that's what's fundamental about it, it is consistent to the concept that if Candidate A is preferred to Candidate B, Candidate B is not a winner, and being consistent with the result when the profile changes in that manner is both tangible and operational (we can get a handle on it and doing it differently, like using IRV instead, makes a difference). The point is that the transition between the X- and Y-domain also matters, and just sticking methods together doesn't take the transition into account. Example: The participation criterion says that adding some ballots, that rank candidate A above candidate B, must not change the winner from candidate A to candidate B. does Black do this? Nope. Condorcet is incompatible with Participation, even though Condorcet is compatible when there is a CW, and Borda is compatible on its own. Consider it analogous to having a function that's made out of two horizontal lines, but the rules (impossibility theorems) forbid the two lines from having the same height. Then, although both the first (Condorcet) and second (Borda) line is flat (passes Participation), there's no way to combine lines (base methods) so that the function (composite method) is flat, as a whole, along its entire domain. There will always be a jump between the first and second domain. okay, since adding a positive number to the margin increases the size of the margin, and since, if there is no cycle (domain X), the Condorcet winner is decided *solely* by the margins (even the signum functio
