Re: [EM] Remember Toby
What is the difference between least extra votes and MinMax(margins)? Isn't least extra votes pretty much the definition of MinMax(margins)? (assuming that the extra votes rank the candidate in question first) Juho On 22.6.2011, at 10.28, Jameson Quinn wrote: My impression was that the remember Toby thread(s) was (were) inclining towards advocating simpler systems than CSSD. I heard more support for C//A, minimax, and SODA. Separately, I agree that it's best to describe a system by focusing on the outcome rather than the procedure. The difference is not so large for C//A and SODA; for minimax, though, that inclines one to the least extra votes description. (Although with a covering Smith set 4, this is not technically identical to minimax, I'm happy to ignore that difference, or even to actually use the least extra votes system instead of minimax.) JQ 2011/6/21 fsimm...@pcc.edu As I remember it, when Toby settled on CSSD, we made a huge psychological mistake: we got bogged down in the description of the CSSD algorithm for the public proposal. I think that was a fatal mistake, and I would like to propose a strategy for avoiding that mistake in the future. It was a mistake because it gave the impression that to understand the proposal, you have to understand a detailed algorithm. Here’s an analogy: Complicated Version of the law of refraction: Snell’s law says that the ratio of the signs of the angles of incidence and refraction are equal to the ratios of the speeds of light in the respective media at the interface where the refraction takes place. This is way too technical for the average man on the street. Simple version of the law of refraction: Fermat’s Principle's says that light takes the path of least time. The man on the street can understand this. Snell’s law gives a way of finding that path of least time for the technician. What is analogous to Fermat’s principle in the context of CSSD? Answer: the beatpath winner idea. We elect the alternative A with the strongest beatpaths to the other alternatives. This means that for each alternative B, alternative A has a stronger beatpath to B than B does to A. Once the concept of a beatpath is explained (and that its strength is that of the weakest link) then the man on the street can understand this definition of the method. The CSSD algorithm is the technical part like Snell’s law,that the man on the street doesn’t have to worry about. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info 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] Remember Toby
2011/6/23 Juho Laatu juho4...@yahoo.co.uk What is the difference between least extra votes and MinMax(margins)? Isn't least extra votes pretty much the definition of MinMax(margins)? (assuming that the extra votes rank the candidate in question first) Sorry, you're right. I was thinking that it was least *removed* votes. If there are 5 or more members in the uncovered set (which, unlike the Smith set, cannot have 4 members), then the minmax winner could have two defeats on different sets of ballots, while some other candidate could have two slightly-larger defeats, but on the same set of ballots. The least-removed-ballots winner would then differ from the minmax winner. It seems that extra votes avoids this issue, though. JQ ps... I don't want this thread to get too distracted from the central issue; I was trying to bring it back to discussing the best practical proposals, because I saw the discussion of a user-friendly CSSD definition as a side-track. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: As I remember it, when Toby settled on CSSD, we made a huge psychological mistake: we got bogged down in the description of the CSSD algorithm for the public proposal. I think that was a fatal mistake, and I would like to propose a strategy for avoiding that mistake in the future. It was a mistake because it gave the impression that to understand the proposal, you have to understand a detailed algorithm. Here’s an analogy: Complicated Version of the law of refraction: Snell’s law says that the ratio of the signs of the angles of incidence and refraction are equal to the ratios of the speeds of light in the respective media at the interface where the refraction takes place. This is way too technical for the average man on the street. Simple version of the law of refraction: Fermat’s Principle's says that light takes the path of least time. The man on the street can understand this. Snell’s law gives a way of finding that path of least time for the technician. What is analogous to Fermat’s principle in the context of CSSD? Answer: the beatpath winner idea. We elect the alternative A with the strongest beatpaths to the other alternatives. This means that for each alternative B, alternative A has a stronger beatpath to B than B does to A. Once the concept of a beatpath is explained (and that its strength is that of the weakest link) then the man on the street can understand this definition of the method. The CSSD algorithm is the technical part like Snell’s law,that the man on the street doesn’t have to worry about. So perhaps something like: An indirect defeat of B by A is one where A beats B, or A beats someone who indirectly beats B. An indirect defeat is a chain made of direct defeats, each of whose strength is equal to the number of voters preferring the winner. The strength of the indirect defeat itself is equal to the strength of the link of least value[1]. When direct defeats contradict themselves, indirect defeats give a claim as to whether one candidate is better than another. Therefore: Elect the candidate that, no matter what other candidate you compare it to, the former more strongly indirectly defeats the latter than vice versa. - It could be interesting to try to make short descriptions of various Condorcet methods. The above is quite a bit longer than descriptions of, say, Minmax or FPC, but the Schulze method also passes criteria the other two don't. [1] Or perhaps closest to being overturned. Should one mention that if there are more than one such chain, the strongest one counts? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
My impression was that the remember Toby thread(s) was (were) inclining towards advocating simpler systems than CSSD. I heard more support for C//A, minimax, and SODA. Separately, I agree that it's best to describe a system by focusing on the outcome rather than the procedure. The difference is not so large for C//A and SODA; for minimax, though, that inclines one to the least extra votes description. (Although with a covering Smith set 4, this is not technically identical to minimax, I'm happy to ignore that difference, or even to actually use the least extra votes system instead of minimax.) JQ 2011/6/21 fsimm...@pcc.edu As I remember it, when Toby settled on CSSD, we made a huge psychological mistake: we got bogged down in the description of the CSSD algorithm for the public proposal. I think that was a fatal mistake, and I would like to propose a strategy for avoiding that mistake in the future. It was a mistake because it gave the impression that to understand the proposal, you have to understand a detailed algorithm. Here’s an analogy: Complicated Version of the law of refraction: Snell’s law says that the ratio of the signs of the angles of incidence and refraction are equal to the ratios of the speeds of light in the respective media at the interface where the refraction takes place. This is way too technical for the average man on the street. Simple version of the law of refraction: Fermat’s Principle's says that light takes the path of least time. The man on the street can understand this. Snell’s law gives a way of finding that path of least time for the technician. What is analogous to Fermat’s principle in the context of CSSD? Answer: the beatpath winner idea. We elect the alternative A with the strongest beatpaths to the other alternatives. This means that for each alternative B, alternative A has a stronger beatpath to B than B does to A. Once the concept of a beatpath is explained (and that its strength is that of the weakest link) then the man on the street can understand this definition of the method. The CSSD algorithm is the technical part like Snell’s law,that the man on the street doesn’t have to worry about. 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] Remember Toby
On 9.6.2011, at 5.48, Jameson Quinn wrote: It seems I have to give one more example to cover also cases where the difference between major an minor candidates is not that clear. 26: AB 25: BA 49: C Again, if two of the B supporters vote BC, then B wins. If some A and B supporters truncate in order to defend against burying or as a general safety measure against the other competing grouping (A and B supporters may not guess right which one of them will have more votes), then C wins. Before the election A and B groupings could both claim that they are bigger and therefore they should truncate, and all the voters of the other grouping should rank also the candidate of the other grouping. This second example comes close to the traditional Approval strategy related problems where near clone parties/candidates fight about who must approve whom. The strategic problems of approval as a tie-breaker and winning votes are also quite closely related. The method isn't perfect, no. I don't believe this kind of scenario has a good resolution. I think in practice one of those candidates will drop out, and while that's bad, I don't think we can do much about it. I'm not claiming that this scenario has a perfect resolution, but I do think that SODA does pretty well here. By providing perfect information on which group is bigger (25 vs 26 in the above), by reducing the players in the game of chicken from thousands to two, and by providing incentives in terms of future credibility to those two players to behave in at least an arguably-honest fashion, I think that SODA would dramatically reduce the chances of a car crash, or even the wrong car ending up in the ditch. In this example SODA certainly is an improvement over basic Approval. There is a risk that some A and B supporters will cast bullet votes without delegation. Does that mean that one should try to discourage this kind of truncation. Actually the method already does so if bullet vote by default means that the vote is a delegated vote. Maybe the most risky scenarios are just like in this example, and things would be quite ok if voters that do not delegate would approve at least two candidates. Juho JQ 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] Remember Toby
On 9.6.2011, at 4.51, Dave Ketchum wrote: On Jun 8, 2011, at 1:32 PM, Juho Laatu wrote: On 8.6.2011, at 16.15, Jameson Quinn wrote: 2. Voters submit approval ballots, with up to two write-ins. Do not delegate is a valid write-in. Your definition seems to define also the used ballot format. That's ok although often the formal descriptions of methods don't cover this. Note that most countries of the world don't use the write-in option. Is this a recommendation that if they start using SODA they should support write-ins in general or that they should have a write-in slot to support the do not delegate feature? Nothing said here of ballot format except for being Approval and capable of two write-ins. Do not delegate is a command entered as if a write-in. I was thinking about the write-ins. They were actually mentioned already in the previous bullet, but this bullet said that there should be two such slots. I guessed that if there are such write-in slots, maybe there is also an assumption that regular candidate names are listed next to the write-ins. I could at least guess what kind of ballot was intended. Alternatives to what I described above could include ballots and elections that do not recognize write-ins (I guess write-ins are not an essential part of the SODA method anyway). One could also e.g. vote based on candidate numbers and white ballots to write those numbers in. I thus considered the ballot format that I imagined based on the description to be maybe one good approach but not the only possible or mandatory format for SODA. Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On 9.6.2011, at 5.04, robert bristow-johnson wrote: i still think this Asset thingie is crappy. it is *immaterial* how candidates rank or value the other candidates. the only thing that matters is how the electorate values the candidates. No Smoke-Filled Rooms!!! Yes, there are risks. If one wants the electorate to make the decision, then delegation may be problematic. My default example that tries to point out the line between direct and delegated elections is this one: Millions of voters vote on who will be the president; voting power is delegated to candidates; one of the candidates will get the power to decide; that candidate (= one of the voters) then can and will decide if the next president is A or B. One problem is that millions of voters may feel disappointed since this one person made the final decision instead of them. One problem is that people may fear that this person traded his vote for money or political position or something else. One problem is that some of the supporters of this deciding candidate chose A instead of their favourite B. In SODA this last problem is reduced because of the pre-declared preferences, but still a voter with preference order CXYBA could have bullet voted for candidate C with declared preference order CXYAB. So, at least the voters should be made well aware that in these elections there may be some trading before the final decision. Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
2011/6/8 robert bristow-johnson r...@audioimagination.com On Jun 8, 2011, at 10:32 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote: 2011/6/8 robert bristow-johnson r...@audioimagination.com On Jun 8, 2011, at 9:51 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote: On Jun 8, 2011, at 1:32 PM, Juho Laatu wrote: On 8.6.2011, at 16.15, Jameson Quinn wrote: 1. Before the election, candidates (including declared write-ins) submit full rankings of other candidates. ... i still think this Asset thingie is crappy. it is *immaterial* how candidates rank or value the other candidates. the only thing that matters is how the electorate values the candidates. Just curious: would you be happy if making your ballot delegable were opt-in, rather than opt-out? i would be happy with a contingency vote and a 2nd contingency vote and maybe a 3rd contingency vote. after that, i think that most of the other candidates are in league with Satan. :-) I didn't ask about contingencies, I asked about delegability. Let me rephrase the question. Take another system called opt-in SODA. Unlike SODA, which counts a bullet vote as delegable unless the voter also somehow marks do not delegate, under opt-in soda a bullet vote is non-delegable unless the voter also marks make this vote delegable. Obviously, mathematically, this is the same system; the difference is essentially just a matter of ballot design. Would this system be palatable to you? As to which is better - SODA or opt-in SODA - that's basically a question of which system would lead to more people mistakenly leaving the default even though they would have intended to change it if they understood. I think that the fact that third-party support is habitually much lower in actual elections than in polls, shows that most people would rather a strategically-effective vote than a bullet vote for their favorite. That, for me, is evidence that opt-out is better than opt-in for SODA. But I'd happily support the opt-in variety, if that one were more likely to be implemented. Again, they're mathematically identical. You consider delegation to be a negative. But many people would like their vote to be delegable. delegable over their own expressed contingency vote? and what if the delegated vote fails to elect? then is it the delegated delegate (or delegate^2) who decides who i'm voting for? Not in SODA. You seem to be arguing against a straw man. (this is worse than IRV.) i (and i would hope that most intelligent voters) do *not* want someone else voting for me in elections. And in SODA, you and anyone else who feels that way can easily make sure it doesn't happen. Why do you want to deny me and the people who feel like me the right to now, in a representative government, it is true that (if my candidate is elected) i am delegating authority to this candidate to vote in my place in the legislative body that i send him/her to office for. i may or may not like the votes he/she makes (and if i don't like too many, i might vote for his/her opponent next election). i know that, both for the U.S. president, and for many states (in fact here in Vermont, the new legislature elects the governor if there is no majority in the statewide vote, and this happened twice since i moved to Vermont) we are delegating our electoral vote to others, but only in unusual circumstances when a decision must be made. (here in Vermont, they elected the Plurality winner in 2002 and 2010 and there would have been a great hew and cry if they did anything differently.) so, i guess i'm not too keen about delegating my vote when i want to participate directly in choosing the person going into office. For instance, as somebody whose views are out of the US mainstream, I do not expect my candidate to win. i with you there. wasn't until 2008 that i was particularly happy about the elected prez, and this goes back to 1976. If you're still happy with Obama, then I'm further from the mainstream than you are. But let's not get distracted with politics, please. While of course I'd like to convince the majority to agree with my (impeccably correct) views, I do not even wish I could impose them undemocratically (except insofar as they accord with the constitution and/or inalienable rights). I would, however, like my views to have a spokesperson with a measure of democratic voice and power in accord with the size of my faction. If I truly liked a candidate, I would regard it as a positive benefit to give them my delegable vote, even if they ended up using it exactly as I would have. you mean; even if they ended up *not* using it exactly as you would have, no? I meant what I said. Even if I could have correctly predicted the appropriate strategy, I still see a positive benefit in letting a spokesperson execute that strategy, rather than doing it myself. If they end up doing something different because of the better information available after the election, that's even better.
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On 9.6.2011, at 11.23, Jameson Quinn wrote: 2011/6/8 robert bristow-johnson r...@audioimagination.com (this is worse than IRV.) i (and i would hope that most intelligent voters) do *not* want someone else voting for me in elections. And in SODA, you and anyone else who feels that way can easily make sure it doesn't happen. Why do you want to deny me and the people who feel like me the right to If we assume that it is ok to allow each voter to decide if he/she will delegate or not, there is still one smaller problem left. If the ballot would contain also option I will delegate my vote to myself then both paths would be in a rather similar position. Now those voters that do not want to delegate their vote (to others for further decisions on how the vote will influence the outcome of the election) have more limited choices (only fixed approvals) than those that delegate. Only the delegated votes may make further decisions based on the outcome of the first round and negotiations between the rounds. A voter that does not want to delegate may be interested in active participation in the second round too. Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
2011/6/9 Juho Laatu juho4...@yahoo.co.uk On 9.6.2011, at 11.23, Jameson Quinn wrote: 2011/6/8 robert bristow-johnson r...@audioimagination.com (this is worse than IRV.) i (and i would hope that most intelligent voters) do *not* want someone else voting for me in elections. And in SODA, you and anyone else who feels that way can easily make sure it doesn't happen. Why do you want to deny me and the people who feel like me the right to If we assume that it is ok to allow each voter to decide if he/she will delegate or not, there is still one smaller problem left. If the ballot would contain also option I will delegate my vote to myself then both paths would be in a rather similar position. Now those voters that do not want to delegate their vote (to others for further decisions on how the vote will influence the outcome of the election) have more limited choices (only fixed approvals) than those that delegate. Only the delegated votes may make further decisions based on the outcome of the first round and negotiations between the rounds. A voter that does not want to delegate may be interested in active participation in the second round too. Technically speaking, SODA as defined allows this. Register as a write-in, declare your preferences (thus voluntarily ceding your right to a secret ballot), bullet-vote for yourself, and you are free to participate in the second round. The system is still satisfied, because second-round voters still have perfect information on the declared preference order of all other second-round voters. However, this would create logistical problems if it were too common an option. Simply publishing thousands of declared preference orders (desirable in the first round and mandatory in the second) would be difficult. And by increasing the number of second-round voters, the advantage that it's easier to ensure cooperation in a smaller group (to resolve the near-clone chicken) would be lost. Ideally, then, the rules for declaring yourself as a write-in and pre-announcing your preferences would contain some hurdle(s) just high enough to keep people from doing it frivolously. Something like a minimum-length candidate statement and a $25 dollar filing fee would be plenty; heavy enough to keep thousands of people from doing it, but light enough to be an insignificant burden to anyone who's remotely serious about it. Jameson Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
Yes, that's about it. But of course the situation is still somewhat uncomfortable to regular voters that are not interested and active enough to register themselves or that are unwilling to reveal their preferences to all (i.e. no secret vote allowed), but that would like to participate also in the second round. Juho On 9.6.2011, at 12.49, Jameson Quinn wrote: 2011/6/9 Juho Laatu juho4...@yahoo.co.uk On 9.6.2011, at 11.23, Jameson Quinn wrote: 2011/6/8 robert bristow-johnson r...@audioimagination.com (this is worse than IRV.) i (and i would hope that most intelligent voters) do *not* want someone else voting for me in elections. And in SODA, you and anyone else who feels that way can easily make sure it doesn't happen. Why do you want to deny me and the people who feel like me the right to If we assume that it is ok to allow each voter to decide if he/she will delegate or not, there is still one smaller problem left. If the ballot would contain also option I will delegate my vote to myself then both paths would be in a rather similar position. Now those voters that do not want to delegate their vote (to others for further decisions on how the vote will influence the outcome of the election) have more limited choices (only fixed approvals) than those that delegate. Only the delegated votes may make further decisions based on the outcome of the first round and negotiations between the rounds. A voter that does not want to delegate may be interested in active participation in the second round too. Technically speaking, SODA as defined allows this. Register as a write-in, declare your preferences (thus voluntarily ceding your right to a secret ballot), bullet-vote for yourself, and you are free to participate in the second round. The system is still satisfied, because second-round voters still have perfect information on the declared preference order of all other second-round voters. However, this would create logistical problems if it were too common an option. Simply publishing thousands of declared preference orders (desirable in the first round and mandatory in the second) would be difficult. And by increasing the number of second-round voters, the advantage that it's easier to ensure cooperation in a smaller group (to resolve the near-clone chicken) would be lost. Ideally, then, the rules for declaring yourself as a write-in and pre-announcing your preferences would contain some hurdle(s) just high enough to keep people from doing it frivolously. Something like a minimum-length candidate statement and a $25 dollar filing fee would be plenty; heavy enough to keep thousands of people from doing it, but light enough to be an insignificant burden to anyone who's remotely serious about it. 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] Remember Toby
On 1.6.2011, at 13.48, Kevin Venzke wrote: Hi Juho, Hi, I was busy with other activities for a while but here are some comments. --- En date de : Mer 1.6.11, Juho Laatu juho4...@yahoo.co.uk a écrit : I agree with Kevin that elect the CW if there is one, else elect the candidate ranked (or ranked above last) on the greatest number of ballots is plenty simple, and is much more satisfactory than MinMax or Copeland in other respects. In what sense is the above mentioned implicit approval cutoff + Approval to resolve is the best simple method? If compared to MinMax, is it maybe easier to explain to the voters, more strategy free, or yields better winners? Would an explicit approval cutoff be fine (to allow full rankings to be given)? It is surely easier to explain than MinMax, If we talk about the sincere voting procedure, then MinMax voter only needs to rank candidates, but if loops are resolved using implicit Approval, then the voter should know in addition to the idea of ranking that truncation means that the remaining candidates are not approved. The voter needs to decide where to truncate. Or alternatively one could let the voters vote without knowing that truncation means disapproval. That would give more power to those that have the knowledge (although not very much if approvals are expected to come into play only seldom). I note also that if we don't tell to the voters how their ballots will be interpreted, then all Condorcet methods become very similar from the sincere voting procedure point of view (just rank the candidates sincerely and that's it). If explanation to regular voters should contain strategic voting aspects, then the methods become more complex to the regular voter. I don't know if voters should be trained to use of approval as a tie breaker or if those properties should be hidden from the voters as discussed above. Burial would be even more difficult to explain (but maybe not recommended to the voters). In Approval all voters are expected to vote strategically (=decide where to put the cutoff), but if one uses approval only for tie breaking then one need not be as careful as with normal Approval. If we talk about the vote counting process (with sincere votes) and how to explain it, then we have a two phase explanation (=Condorcet winner, and alternatively sum of all the ticks in the ballots if there is no Condorcet winner) vs. a one or two phase MinMax explanation (elect the candidate worst worst defeat is least bad. MinMax(margins) is quite simple since it is enough to refer to the number of additional votes each candidate would need to win all others (if doesn't already). None of the explanations is quite obvious to average voters if one has to explain the difference between having a Condorcet winner and not having a Condorcet winner. The MinMax(margins) specific explanation is maybe easiest (and still fair, clear and exact enough) to present without talking about the probabilities of having or not having a top cycle. If we seek simplicity, I'd be happiest to explain the voting procedure simply just rank the candidates and use the MinMax(margins) additional votes explanation if the voters need to know how the votes are counted. has more obvious burial disincentive (especially if the comparison is to margins), All Condorcet methods have a burial incentive with some variation between different methods. I don't know why margins would be more problematic than winning votes. I mean that they have different kind of vulnerabilities and disincentives, and it is not straight forward to say which ones are more problematic. Also Condorcet with approval as a tie-breaker has its own burial problems, although the approval cutoff introduces also some risk to the burying strategy. I'll give one example of a burying strategy when approval is used for tie-breaking. 49: AB 02: BA 49: C A wins. But if the two B supporters vote BC, then there is a cycle, implicit approvals will be used, and B wins. One possible comment to this strategy problem is that A supporters could truncate and not approve B (that seems to come from the same party or the same coalition at least). In that case all the big groupings could simply bullet vote and only the small ones would rank their second favourites. That approach could kill the chances centrists that are not the first candidates of one of the major groupings as potential compromise candidates and Condorcet winners. It seems I have to give one more example to cover also cases where the difference between major an minor candidates is not that clear. 26: AB 25: BA 49: C Again, if two of the B supporters vote BC, then B wins. If some A and B supporters truncate in order to defend against burying or as a general safety measure against the other competing grouping (A and B supporters may not guess right which one of them will have more votes), then C wins. Before the election A and B
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
Here are some random observations about the SODA method. There should be a full definition of the method somewhere. If there are three candidates and their declared preferences are ABC, BCA and CAB, the method may introduce some additional problems. If most voters delegate, then we may easily have a cycle (easier than usual). It will not be easy to decide who will delegate votes to the others. If we have a centrist candidate (C) and left wing (L) and right wing (R) candidates, then it is problematic for C to decide whether to declare CLR or CRL. Some of C's right wing oriented supporters might be lost if C decides to declare CLR. C could ask for help from a less known person C2 to take part in the election C2's declared preferences could be C2CRL. Now the right wing oriented supporters of C will have a more sensible way to vote. Since C will not not rank C2, there is not much risk that C2 will be elected. One step further, maybe C could be allowed to give two preference orders, CLR and CRL. Then we are not far from allowing any preference order and full rankings. The votes could be delegated in multiple ways. The nominated candidate could decide how many to approve (in one or several phases). The nominated candidate could delegate the vote to the next one in chain so that the next one in chain would get also the right to delegate (or not) the vote further (using the original preference order). There is some smoke in the room in the sense that always when some nominated persons are given the right to decide the destiny of large number of votes (=delegated power), there is a possibility of trading the votes. One can imagine that some candidates would take part in the election only or mainly for this purpose - to get some votes and then decide how (how far in the chain) to sell them. (The price could typically be e.g. a nice seat in some office.) That's enough for now, Juho On 5.6.2011, at 7.01, Jameson Quinn wrote: Message contents: Section 1. When isn't SODA more condorcet compliant than condorcet methods Section 2. Smoke-filled rooms? Section 3. What are we looking for, anyway? (in this thread) Section 1. When isn't SODA more condorcet compliant than condorcet methods 2011/6/4 fsimm...@pcc.edu For the benefit of those who are advocating ranked ballots in order to achieve Condorcet Compliance, note well that Jameson has a good argument that SODA, a simple method that uses only a Plurality style ballot, is more Condorcet Compliant than most well known Condorcet methods. I believe that is true in a practical sense. However, I should note that I'm not claiming that SODA achieves the impossible. As with other methods, (attempted) strategy could spoil its condorcet compliance. I'll explain how, and why I think that wouldn't happen. First off: I'd like to note that I'm mostly worried about burial strategy here. Generally, favorite betrayal strategy is useful to break an honest Condorcet cycle to your advantage, while burial is useful to create a false cycle which gives you some advantage. Since I think that honest cycles will be rare, I'm more worried about the latter. Also, psychologically, most people have a much higher propensity for burial than for favorite betrayal. At any rate, in all the discussion that follows, I will assume that there is an honest pairwise champion (CW). So, in SODA, burial/truncation is still possible in several ways: 1. A candidate could cause a cycle through burial, and thus avoid the (known, unique, strong, stable) Nash equilibrium for the honest pairwise champion. However, that can only work to their advantage if the other candidates actually believe that the false, strategic preference order, or if they manage to exploit a dishonest strategic mistake by another candidate. I believe that high-profile frontrunner candidates could not plausibly claim a false preference order, so this strategy would be ineffective. 2. Individual voters could use truncation (not burial, because it's approval). For instance, voters could prevent their votes from being delegated in order to engage in games of chicken to ensure that their preferred near-clone was elected. This is a fundamentally unnecessary risk, however. The near-clone with an honest lead does not need such tactics, and the near-clone who is behind will probably need a dangerously large number of voters to do such tactics. I don't see how this could be coordinated on an effective scale in real life without backfiring. 3. Individual voters could vote for false flag minor candidates whose honest preference ordering happened to be the strategic burial ordering that they sought. I find this totally implausible, though; this requires a level of cold-bloodedness and sophistication that only a tiny portion of people have. So when is SODA voting more condorcet-compliant than Condorcet methods? When there is an honest
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
2011/6/8 Juho Laatu juho4...@yahoo.co.uk Here are some random observations about the SODA method. There should be a full definition of the method somewhere. I've posted a full definition. However, this definition included my additional step of recounting the top two without mutually-delegated votes. In further off-list conversation with Forest, I've realized that this addition, while it may be marginally helpful, does not fundamentally change the dynamics of the situation, and so is not worth the extra complexity. Here's the full definition without it: 1. Before the election, candidates (including declared write-ins) submit full rankings of other candidates. Equality and truncation (equal-bottom) is allowed in these rankings. These rankings are made public. 2. Voters submit approval ballots, with up to two write-ins. Do not delegate is a valid write-in. 3. All approvals are counted for each candidate. Bullet votes for each candidate are also counted. These totals are made public. 4. After a brief period (probably a couple of weeks) for analyzing and discussing these first-round results, all candidates, in a simultaneous and temporarily-secret ballot, decide how many rank levels (from their initial ranking in step 1) to delegate to. They may not delegate to candidates they ranked at the bottom (since this is strategically identical to delegating to nobody and withdrawing from the race). If A delegates to B, a number equal to A's bullet votes is added to B's approval total. 5. The candidate with the highest approval total after step 4 wins. If there are three candidates and their declared preferences are ABC, BCA and CAB, the method may introduce some additional problems. If most voters delegate, then we may easily have a cycle (easier than usual). It will not be easy to decide who will delegate votes to the others. Actually, the strategy in such a cycle is simple and stable. Say C has the fewest bullet votes. C has no hope of winning, so C delegates to A, so B delegates to C, so A delegates to B. B wins - the minimax winner. No further changes (either adding or subtracting delegations) will be strategically advantageous, so this is a strong equilibrium. Things are not necessarily quite so simple if there are more than 3 candidates. But in order for things to be strategically ambiguous (where some random mixed strategy is favored), I think (though I have no proof) that you need at least 5 candidates in the Smith set - which I regard as a negligible possibility, certainly under 1% in real-world conditions. If we have a centrist candidate (C) and left wing (L) and right wing (R) candidates, then it is problematic for C to decide whether to declare CLR or CRL. Some of C's right wing oriented supporters might be lost if C decides to declare CLR. Well, they could just vote [C,R]. If things are as you say, this should be a relatively safe option, because C is almost guaranteed to be a CW. (Formally: if there are negligible numbers of [R,L] voters, either directly or delegated, then a [C, R] vote is strategically the same as a CRL vote.) C could ask for help from a less known person C2 to take part in the election C2's declared preferences could be C2CRL. Now the right wing oriented supporters of C will have a more sensible way to vote. Since C will not not rank C2, there is not much risk that C2 will be elected. This would work too. One step further, maybe C could be allowed to give two preference orders, CLR and CRL. Then we are not far from allowing any preference order and full rankings. The votes could be delegated in multiple ways. The nominated candidate could decide how many to approve (in one or several phases). One phase. The nominated candidate could delegate the vote to the next one in chain so that the next one in chain would get also the right to delegate (or not) the vote further (using the original preference order). No. There is some smoke in the room in the sense that always when some nominated persons are given the right to decide the destiny of large number of votes (=delegated power), there is a possibility of trading the votes. One can imagine that some candidates would take part in the election only or mainly for this purpose - to get some votes and then decide how (how far in the chain) to sell them. Say X's declared preference order is AB. They can only be decisive if, without their vote, B leads by less than the votes they hold. Generally speaking, that's a 50/50 proposition that their trick is useless. And even then, their choices are: -Support A, electing A (which is so obvious that it would hardly deserve a payback, except insofar as X had legitimately demonstrated that they had a constituency of supporters); -Support neither, electing B (certainly not a way to get a payback) -Or support A and B, electing B. The latter case is the only likely one where anything untoward has happened - X has not strategically followed
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On 8.6.2011, at 16.15, Jameson Quinn wrote: 2011/6/8 Juho Laatu juho4...@yahoo.co.uk Here are some random observations about the SODA method. There should be a full definition of the method somewhere. I've posted a full definition. However, this definition included my additional step of recounting the top two without mutually-delegated votes. In further off-list conversation with Forest, I've realized that this addition, while it may be marginally helpful, does not fundamentally change the dynamics of the situation, and so is not worth the extra complexity. Here's the full definition without it: 1. Before the election, candidates (including declared write-ins) submit full rankings of other candidates. Equality and truncation (equal-bottom) is allowed in these rankings. These rankings are made public. I'm just wondering what the difference between a declared write-in and a regular candidate is. Maybe declared write-ins are candidates that have failed to meet some of the nomination criteria and that therefore will not get their own row in the ballot sheet or will not get a candidate number of their own (depends on what kind of ballots are in use, but the point is that voter must write their full name in the ballot). These declared write-ins must probably register themselves anyway as candidates in order to officially declare their preferences. Maybe votes to write-ins that have not officially declared their preferences are not allowed in the election at all. Or maybe votes to them are just always non-delegated approval votes. 2. Voters submit approval ballots, with up to two write-ins. Do not delegate is a valid write-in. Your definition seems to define also the used ballot format. That's ok although often the formal descriptions of methods don't cover this. Note that most countries of the world don't use the write-in option. Is this a recommendation that if they start using SODA they should support write-ins in general or that they should have a write-in slot to support the do not delegate feature? 3. All approvals are counted for each candidate. Bullet votes for each candidate are also counted. These totals are made public. 4. After a brief period (probably a couple of weeks) for analyzing and discussing these first-round results, all candidates, in a simultaneous and temporarily-secret ballot, decide how many rank levels (from their initial ranking in step 1) to delegate to. They may not delegate to candidates they ranked at the bottom (since this is strategically identical to delegating to nobody and withdrawing from the race). If A delegates to B, a number equal to A's bullet votes is added to B's approval total. I note that - candidates must delegate all or no votes, and all to the same level - couple of weeks is a long time to wait for the results - those couple of weeks probably include lost of negotiations, maybe to the level of agreeing how every candidate delegates (or at least a group that has power enough to agree what the outcome is) - I guess temporarily-secret means that the final vote of each candidate will be published afterwards - these rules assume one round of voting (i.e. not e.g. approvals that could be extended step by step) - empty votes are not allowed (maybe not necessary to ban, and many candidates could effectively cast an empty vote anyway, e.g. by not approving anyone else but themselves) 5. The candidate with the highest approval total after step 4 wins. Depending on the environment the winner could be agreed already before the second round, or alternatively all candidates would just, one by one, cast the vote that they consider best, and the end result could be a surprise. If there are three candidates and their declared preferences are ABC, BCA and CAB, the method may introduce some additional problems. If most voters delegate, then we may easily have a cycle (easier than usual). It will not be easy to decide who will delegate votes to the others. Actually, the strategy in such a cycle is simple and stable. Say C has the fewest bullet votes. C has no hope of winning C could still win, if for example candidate B would be happy to compromise and approve C. , so C delegates to A Is there moral pressure and an agreed rule that the one with least bullet votes should at east approve one/some of the others? , so B delegates to C, so A delegates to B. These are logical consequences after C's decision if B and A can be sure that the previous steps in this chain of decisions will be implemented with certainty. C however does not like the idea of B winning. C could cancel his plan to delegate to A, and he could tell this to A. A could then cancel his plan to delegate to B (if he trusts C). A would win. A and C would be happier. Actually any two of the candidates could make an agreement on the winner. They could also agree e.g. that X will be the president and Y
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On Jun 8, 2011, at 1:32 PM, Juho Laatu wrote: On 8.6.2011, at 16.15, Jameson Quinn wrote: 2011/6/8 Juho Laatu juho4...@yahoo.co.uk Here are some random observations about the SODA method. There should be a full definition of the method somewhere. I've posted a full definition. However, this definition included my additional step of recounting the top two without mutually- delegated votes. In further off-list conversation with Forest, I've realized that this addition, while it may be marginally helpful, does not fundamentally change the dynamics of the situation, and so is not worth the extra complexity. Here's the full definition without it: 1. Before the election, candidates (including declared write-ins) submit full rankings of other candidates. Equality and truncation (equal-bottom) is allowed in these rankings. These rankings are made public. I'm just wondering what the difference between a declared write-in and a regular candidate is. Maybe declared write-ins are candidates that have failed to meet some of the nomination criteria and that therefore will not get their own row in the ballot sheet or will not get a candidate number of their own (depends on what kind of ballots are in use, but the point is that voter must write their full name in the ballot). These declared write-ins must probably register themselves anyway as candidates in order to officially declare their preferences. Maybe votes to write-ins that have not officially declared their preferences are not allowed in the election at all. Or maybe votes to them are just always non-delegated approval votes. Write-ins are a standard ability for voters in the US - simply supply candidate name on the ballot - sufficient for such write-ins to even win elections. Among the reasons for using this ability are that the candidate was prevented from being nominated, without good reason for such. SODA is permitting something similar to a partial nomination for its particular needs. 2. Voters submit approval ballots, with up to two write-ins. Do not delegate is a valid write-in. Your definition seems to define also the used ballot format. That's ok although often the formal descriptions of methods don't cover this. Note that most countries of the world don't use the write-in option. Is this a recommendation that if they start using SODA they should support write-ins in general or that they should have a write- in slot to support the do not delegate feature? Nothing said here of ballot format except for being Approval and capable of two write-ins. Do not delegate is a command entered as if a write-in. 3. All approvals are counted for each candidate. Bullet votes for each candidate are also counted. These totals are made public. 4. After a brief period (probably a couple of weeks) for analyzing and discussing these first-round results, all candidates, in a simultaneous and temporarily-secret ballot, decide how many rank levels (from their initial ranking in step 1) to delegate to. They may not delegate to candidates they ranked at the bottom (since this is strategically identical to delegating to nobody and withdrawing from the race). If A delegates to B, a number equal to A's bullet votes is added to B's approval total. I note that - candidates must delegate all or no votes, and all to the same level If X, in step 1, agreed to delegate to ABC and X received 7 bullet votes, and the negotiating calls for X to delegate to 2; then 2 candidates, AB, will each get 7 votes delegated. Note that the voters knew of X delegating for 3 candidates - voters could not know of the later decision to delegate to only 2. - couple of weeks is a long time to wait for the results - those couple of weeks probably include lost of negotiations, maybe to the level of agreeing how every candidate delegates (or at least a group that has power enough to agree what the outcome is) - I guess temporarily-secret means that the final vote of each candidate will be published afterwards - these rules assume one round of voting (i.e. not e.g. approvals that could be extended step by step) - empty votes are not allowed (maybe not necessary to ban, and many candidates could effectively cast an empty vote anyway, e.g. by not approving anyone else but themselves) 5. The candidate with the highest approval total after step 4 wins. Depending on the environment the winner could be agreed already before the second round, or alternatively all candidates would just, one by one, cast the vote that they consider best, and the end result could be a surprise. I now fall back to SODA being Approval with a minor complication option: . Voter votes for those approved of. . Candidates each provide a list of those they will vote for and voter votes for candidate whose list attracts. Dave Ketchum Election-Methods mailing list - see
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
Hi Juho, --- En date de : Mer 8.6.11, Juho Laatu juho.la...@gmail.com a écrit : I was busy with other activities for a while but here are some comments. --- En date de : Mer 1.6.11, Juho Laatu juho4...@yahoo.co.uk a écrit : I agree with Kevin that elect the CW if there is one, else elect the candidate ranked (or ranked above last) on the greatest number of ballots is plenty simple, and is much more satisfactory than MinMax or Copeland in other respects. In what sense is the above mentioned implicit approval cutoff + Approval to resolve is the best simple method? If compared to MinMax, is it maybe easier to explain to the voters, more strategy free, or yields better winners? Would an explicit approval cutoff be fine (to allow full rankings to be given)? It is surely easier to explain than MinMax, If we talk about the sincere voting procedure, then MinMax voter only needs to rank candidates, but if loops are resolved using implicit Approval, then the voter should know in addition to the idea of ranking that truncation means that the remaining candidates are not approved. The voter needs to decide where to truncate. Or alternatively one could let the voters vote without knowing that truncation means disapproval. That would give more power to those that have the knowledge (although not very much if approvals are expected to come into play only seldom). I note also that if we don't tell to the voters how their ballots will be interpreted, then all Condorcet methods become very similar from the sincere voting procedure point of view (just rank the candidates sincerely and that's it). If explanation to regular voters should contain strategic voting aspects, then the methods become more complex to the regular voter. I don't know if voters should be trained to use of approval as a tie breaker or if those properties should be hidden from the voters as discussed above. Burial would be even more difficult to explain (but maybe not recommended to the voters). In Approval all voters are expected to vote strategically (=decide where to put the cutoff), but if one uses approval only for tie breaking then one need not be as careful as with normal Approval. I don't recommend that voters not be instructed on how the method is supposed to work. I think with C//A it is easier to explain how to find the winner, and the strategy becomes obvious. No defeat strengths are involved. MinMax has its strategy too, and this is harder to perceive because the method rules are harder to understand. If we talk about the vote counting process (with sincere votes) and how to explain it, then we have a two phase explanation (=Condorcet winner, and alternatively sum of all the ticks in the ballots if there is no Condorcet winner) vs. a one or two phase MinMax explanation (elect the candidate worst worst defeat is least bad. MinMax(margins) is quite simple since it is enough to refer to the number of additional votes each candidate would need to win all others (if doesn't already). None of the explanations is quite obvious to average voters if one has to explain the difference between having a Condorcet winner and not having a Condorcet winner. The MinMax(margins) specific explanation is maybe easiest (and still fair, clear and exact enough) to present without talking about the probabilities of having or not having a top cycle. You have to explain CW either way. If we seek simplicity, I'd be happiest to explain the voting procedure simply just rank the candidates and use the MinMax(margins) additional votes explanation if the voters need to know how the votes are counted. When I think of simplicity I mean that the voters would actually understand how the method works. I don't think you will have much luck proposing methods if you don't think voters need to understand them. Can you find an angle / sales pitch that dodges this? has more obvious burial disincentive (especially if the comparison is to margins), All Condorcet methods have a burial incentive with some variation between different methods. I don't know why margins would be more problematic than winning votes. The theoretical reason is that the offensive and defensive strategies look exactly the same. It's analogous to Borda. You cannot tell whether somebody is trying to steal an election or just cover themselves. I mean that they have different kind of vulnerabilities and disincentives, and it is not straight forward to say which ones are more problematic. It is not straightforward but one can certainly make an effort. It is not clear to me what strategic benefit margins is even supposed to have. So it wants to make equality of ranking unattractive... where does this get us? It isn't IRV, there is no guarantee that the truncations turn into sincere rankings. If someone wanted to tell you a half-truth why would you guess that they won't decide to just lie
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On Jun 8, 2011, at 9:51 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote: On Jun 8, 2011, at 1:32 PM, Juho Laatu wrote: On 8.6.2011, at 16.15, Jameson Quinn wrote: 1. Before the election, candidates (including declared write-ins) submit full rankings of other candidates. ... i still think this Asset thingie is crappy. it is *immaterial* how candidates rank or value the other candidates. the only thing that matters is how the electorate values the candidates. No Smoke-Filled Rooms!!! I'm just wondering what the difference between a declared write-in and a regular candidate is. Write-ins are a standard ability for voters in the US - simply supply candidate name on the ballot - sufficient for such write-ins to even win elections. Among the reasons for using this ability are that the candidate was prevented from being nominated, without good reason for such. i don't like such laws but i think that most (or at least many) jurisdictions require potential write-in candidates to register their (write-in) candidacy, their name (which is what voters may be required to spell correctly), and their residence (to make sure the candidate qualifies for office, maybe their age, too). i think that this means that, in such jurisdictions, no write-in candidate can win (or even get their votes counted) unless they are registered with whatever election authority for that race. grumbly... -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
2011/6/8 robert bristow-johnson r...@audioimagination.com On Jun 8, 2011, at 9:51 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote: On Jun 8, 2011, at 1:32 PM, Juho Laatu wrote: On 8.6.2011, at 16.15, Jameson Quinn wrote: 1. Before the election, candidates (including declared write-ins) submit full rankings of other candidates. ... i still think this Asset thingie is crappy. it is *immaterial* how candidates rank or value the other candidates. the only thing that matters is how the electorate values the candidates. Just curious: would you be happy if making your ballot delegable were opt-in, rather than opt-out? You consider delegation to be a negative. But many people would like their vote to be delegable. For instance, as somebody whose views are out of the US mainstream, I do not expect my candidate to win. While of course I'd like to convince the majority to agree with my (impeccably correct) views, I do not even wish I could impose them undemocratically (except insofar as they accord with the constitution and/or inalienable rights). I would, however, like my views to have a spokesperson with a measure of democratic voice and power in accord with the size of my faction. If I truly liked a candidate, I would regard it as a positive benefit to give them my delegable vote, even if they ended up using it exactly as I would have. Furthermore, there are many voters for whom even an approval ballot is more work than they want to give. This is not necessarily a matter of laziness; perhaps the amount of work per candidate they consider appropriate for deciding is actually much higher than for most voters. Allowing a simple bullet vote to *optionally* implicitly vote on all candidates is a positive benefit to such voters. Finally, I have had serious conversations with people who seriously worry about making a poor strategic choice, to the point where they'll pick plurality over a better system, because at least the strongest strategy (in a two-party duopoly) is unambiguous. Such people would prefer their ballot strategy to be decided in the perfect-information environment that SODA gives to the candidates. And delegation is *100% optional*. If you don't want anyone delegating your vote, you don't have to let them. If I and other voters want to allow our votes to be delegated, for any of the perfectly good reasons above, why should you have a right to stop that? JQ Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
It seems I have to give one more example to cover also cases where the difference between major an minor candidates is not that clear. 26: AB 25: BA 49: C Again, if two of the B supporters vote BC, then B wins. If some A and B supporters truncate in order to defend against burying or as a general safety measure against the other competing grouping (A and B supporters may not guess right which one of them will have more votes), then C wins. Before the election A and B groupings could both claim that they are bigger and therefore they should truncate, and all the voters of the other grouping should rank also the candidate of the other grouping. This second example comes close to the traditional Approval strategy related problems where near clone parties/candidates fight about who must approve whom. The strategic problems of approval as a tie-breaker and winning votes are also quite closely related. The method isn't perfect, no. I don't believe this kind of scenario has a good resolution. I think in practice one of those candidates will drop out, and while that's bad, I don't think we can do much about it. I'm not claiming that this scenario has a perfect resolution, but I do think that SODA does pretty well here. By providing perfect information on which group is bigger (25 vs 26 in the above), by reducing the players in the game of chicken from thousands to two, and by providing incentives in terms of future credibility to those two players to behave in at least an arguably-honest fashion, I think that SODA would dramatically reduce the chances of a car crash, or even the wrong car ending up in the ditch. JQ Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On Jun 8, 2011, at 10:32 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote: 2011/6/8 robert bristow-johnson r...@audioimagination.com On Jun 8, 2011, at 9:51 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote: On Jun 8, 2011, at 1:32 PM, Juho Laatu wrote: On 8.6.2011, at 16.15, Jameson Quinn wrote: 1. Before the election, candidates (including declared write-ins) submit full rankings of other candidates. ... i still think this Asset thingie is crappy. it is *immaterial* how candidates rank or value the other candidates. the only thing that matters is how the electorate values the candidates. Just curious: would you be happy if making your ballot delegable were opt-in, rather than opt-out? i would be happy with a contingency vote and a 2nd contingency vote and maybe a 3rd contingency vote. after that, i think that most of the other candidates are in league with Satan. :-) You consider delegation to be a negative. But many people would like their vote to be delegable. delegable over their own expressed contingency vote? and what if the delegated vote fails to elect? then is it the delegated delegate (or delegate^2) who decides who i'm voting for? (this is worse than IRV.) i (and i would hope that most intelligent voters) do *not* want someone else voting for me in elections. now, in a representative government, it is true that (if my candidate is elected) i am delegating authority to this candidate to vote in my place in the legislative body that i send him/her to office for. i may or may not like the votes he/she makes (and if i don't like too many, i might vote for his/her opponent next election). i know that, both for the U.S. president, and for many states (in fact here in Vermont, the new legislature elects the governor if there is no majority in the statewide vote, and this happened twice since i moved to Vermont) we are delegating our electoral vote to others, but only in unusual circumstances when a decision must be made. (here in Vermont, they elected the Plurality winner in 2002 and 2010 and there would have been a great hew and cry if they did anything differently.) so, i guess i'm not too keen about delegating my vote when i want to participate directly in choosing the person going into office. For instance, as somebody whose views are out of the US mainstream, I do not expect my candidate to win. i with you there. wasn't until 2008 that i was particularly happy about the elected prez, and this goes back to 1976. While of course I'd like to convince the majority to agree with my (impeccably correct) views, I do not even wish I could impose them undemocratically (except insofar as they accord with the constitution and/or inalienable rights). I would, however, like my views to have a spokesperson with a measure of democratic voice and power in accord with the size of my faction. If I truly liked a candidate, I would regard it as a positive benefit to give them my delegable vote, even if they ended up using it exactly as I would have. you mean; even if they ended up *not* using it exactly as you would have, no? Furthermore, there are many voters for whom even an approval ballot is more work than they want to give. This is not necessarily a matter of laziness; perhaps the amount of work per candidate they consider appropriate for deciding is actually much higher than for most voters. Allowing a simple bullet vote to optionally implicitly vote on all candidates is a positive benefit to such voters. Finally, I have had serious conversations with people who seriously worry about making a poor strategic choice, to the point where they'll pick plurality over a better system, because at least the strongest strategy (in a two-party duopoly) is unambiguous. Such people would prefer their ballot strategy to be decided in the perfect-information environment that SODA gives to the candidates. And delegation is 100% optional. If you don't want anyone delegating your vote, you don't have to let them. If I and other voters want to allow our votes to be delegated, for any of the perfectly good reasons above, why should you have a right to stop that? i think we should be forced to make up our own minds about the candidates, and not to pass that off onto someone else or some panel or body of delegates. i want my state legislator (whom i like) to vote for me in the statehouse (regarding laws or bills or appointed officials), but not in the voting booth. i'm still unmoved from Ranked-Choice and Condorcet. -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
2011/6/5 Dave Ketchum da...@clarityconnect.com I see this as Approval with a complication - that Jameson calls SODA. It gets a lot of thought here, including claimed Condorcet compliance. I offer what I claim is a true summary of what I would call smart Approval. What I see: . Candidates each offer draft Approval votes which voters can know in making their decisions. You are close, but apparently Forest and I haven't explained the system well enough. Candidates offer full or truncated rankings of other candidates. . Vote by Approval rules. . If there is no winner, then each candidate gets to vote above draft once for each ballot that bullet voted for that candidate. Candidates may vote any approval ballot consistent with the ranking above once for each ballot. They do so simultaneously, once, after the full results and all candidate's rankings have been published. Consistent with means that they simply set an approval cutoff - a lowest approved candidate - and all candidates above that in their ranking are approved. . If a voter is thinking bullet voting, but wants to avoid the above - voting also for an unreal write-in will avoid giving the candidate a draft vote. Yes. You've left out one extra check on this system, wherein the top two approval candidates are recounted in a virtual runoff without any delegated approvals between those two. I do not see the claimed compliance, for voters do not get to do ranking. I see a couple uses of thoughts that imply ranking - they are so rare that they look like typos to me. I'll give a formal proof showing in what sense and in what circumstances this system is more compliant than Condorcet systems later this week, when I have time to write it out. You are right that individual voters cannot do ranking, and so if there's a significant constituency with a shared ranking which is neither represented by a candidate nor balanced out by random noise, then that constituency is faced with the strategic choices typical of approval, and the system as a whole does not guarantee compliance. However, if that is not true - that is, if the electorate can be characterized as a set of known coherent candidate-led constituencies plus a leftover which is exactly 50/50 on any candidate pair - then this system, unlike actual Condorcet systems, is compliant, not just for honest votes, but always for any rational strategic votes. On Jun 5, 2011, at 6:23 PM, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: ... 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] Remember Toby
2011/6/6 fsimm...@pcc.edu - Original Message - From: Jameson Quinn 2011/6/5 Dave Ketchum I see this as Approval with a complication - that Jameson calls SODA. It gets a lot of thought here, including claimed Condorcet compliance. I offer what I claim is a true summary of what I would call smart Approval. What I see: . Candidates each offer draft Approval votes which voters can know in making their decisions. You are close, but apparently Forest and I haven't explained the system well enough. Candidates offer full or truncated rankings of other candidates. . Vote by Approval rules. . If there is no winner, then each candidate gets to vote above draft once for each ballot that bullet voted for that candidate. Candidates may vote any approval ballot consistent with the ranking above once for each ballot. They do so simultaneously, once, after the full results and all candidate's rankings have been published. Consistent with means that they simply set an approval cutoff - a lowest approved candidate - and all candidates above that in their ranking are approved. . If a voter is thinking bullet voting, but wants to avoid the above - voting also for an unreal write-in will avoid giving the candidate a draft vote. Instead of an unreal write-in it could be a virtual candidate whose name is No proxy for me meaning I do not delegate my approvals to any candidate. Yes. You've left out one extra check on this system, wherein the top two approval candidates are recounted in a virtual runoff without any delegated approvals between those two. I do not see the claimed compliance, for voters do not get to do ranking. I see a couple uses of thoughts that imply ranking - they are so rare that they look like typos to me. I'll give a formal proof showing in what sense and in what circumstances this system is more compliant than Condorcet systems later this week, when I have time to write it out. You are right that individual voters cannot do ranking, and so if there's a significant constituency with a shared ranking which is neither represented by a candidate nor balanced out by random noise, then that constituency is faced with the strategic choices typical of approval, and the system as a whole does not guarantee compliance. However, if that is not true - that is, if the electorate can be characterized as a set of known coherent candidate-led constituencies plus a leftover which is exactly 50/50 on any candidate pair - then this system, unlike actual Condorcet systems, is compliant, not just for honest votes, but always for any rational strategic votes. It is also possible to consider the (non-proxy) approval ballots as ordinal ballots with the approved candidates equal ranked first and the unapproved candidates truncated. Then putting these rankings together with the candidate rankings gives a basis for defining a ballot CW. Then we can argue that this ballot CW is very likely to be the same as the actual CW when there is one. In fact, it is well known that when there is a real CW, the CW will be a strong equilibrium Approval winner, assuming near perfect information. Couple this fact with the fact that the ballot CW for a set of approval ballots (interpreted as ranked ballots with lots of equal rankings and truncations) is always the same as the approval winner, and you are well on your way to showing that the ballot CW is the same as the actual CW. These considerations suggest a modification of SODA: for each voter submitted approval ballot fill out a pairwise matrix. Add these matrices to the pairwise matrices of the candidate rankings (weighted according to their respective numbers of bullet voters). If, according to the total pairwise matrix, there is a CW, then elect that candidate. Else have the candidates indicate their approval cutoffs, and elect the resulting approval winner. I would still strongly approve of this modified SODA, but I believe that it is worse than the original. If the candidate preference orders are sincere, it merely formalizes a strong Nash equilibrium[1] — that is, gives the same result by replacing some extra steps with some extra rules (not a net gain). But if some candidate's preference orders are insincere/strategic, it removes or reduces the other candidates' ability to correct for that fact. I believe that in most cases, strategic preference orders by a high-profile candidate would be correctly detectable by the other candidates. If I'm right, unmodified SODA, unlike your proposed modification, makes such strategizing entirely pointless. JQ [1] In an earlier message, I said known strong stable Nash equilibrium. That stable was a misstatement; the equilibrium in question is not actually stable, in the trivial and unimportant sense that small numbers of
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
Having flunked on a detail Saturday, I will try to do better tonight. This SODA is a possibility for improving Approval. I remain a Condorcet backer: . What it offers is valuable to voters seeing the value of ranking in voting. . Approval voting is doable within Condorcet (and having full value within its capability) for those preferring to avoid actual ranking. On Jun 6, 2011, at 2:51 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote: 2011/6/6 fsimm...@pcc.edu - Original Message - From: Jameson Quinn 2011/6/5 Dave Ketchum I see this as Approval with a complication - that Jameson calls SODA. It gets a lot of thought here, including claimed Condorcet compliance. I offer what I claim is a true summary of what I would call smart Approval. What I see: . Candidates each offer draft Approval votes which voters can know in making their decisions. You are close, but apparently Forest and I haven't explained the system well enough. Candidates offer full or truncated rankings of other candidates. . Vote by Approval rules. . If there is no winner, then each candidate gets to vote above draft once for each ballot that bullet voted for that candidate. Exactly what the candidates may/shall do is a topic for later design. It starts with: . Before the election the candidates define what voting they will do if lack of winner gives them the opportunity/duty. . Voters know of these promises and either do Approval voting or do bullet voting to have the voted for candidate vote as promised. . If no winner these extra votes hopefully will see to deciding on a winner. Candidates may vote any approval ballot consistent with the ranking above once for each ballot. They do so simultaneously, once, after the full results and all candidate's rankings have been published. Consistent with means that they simply set an approval cutoff - a lowest approved candidate - and all candidates above that in their ranking are approved. . If a voter is thinking bullet voting, but wants to avoid the above - voting also for an unreal write-in will avoid giving the candidate a draft vote. Instead of an unreal write-in it could be a virtual candidate whose name is No proxy for me meaning I do not delegate my approvals to any candidate. Yes. You've left out one extra check on this system, wherein the top two approval candidates are recounted in a virtual runoff without any delegated approvals between those two. I do not see the claimed compliance, for voters do not get to do ranking. ... Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
Having flunked on a detail Saturday, I will try to do better tonight. This SODA is a possibility for improving Approval. I remain a Condorcet backer: . What it offers is valuable to voters seeing the value of ranking in voting. . Approval voting is doable within Condorcet (and having full value within its capability) for those preferring to avoid actual ranking. On Jun 6, 2011, at 2:51 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote: 2011/6/6 fsimm...@pcc.edu - Original Message - From: Jameson Quinn 2011/6/5 Dave Ketchum I see this as Approval with a complication - that Jameson calls SODA. It gets a lot of thought here, including claimed Condorcet compliance. I offer what I claim is a true summary of what I would call smart Approval. What I see: . Candidates each offer draft Approval votes which voters can know in making their decisions. You are close, but apparently Forest and I haven't explained the system well enough. Candidates offer full or truncated rankings of other candidates. . Vote by Approval rules. . If there is no winner, then each candidate gets to vote above draft once for each ballot that bullet voted for that candidate. Exactly what the candidates may/shall do is a topic for later design. It starts with: . Before the election the candidates define what voting they will do if lack of winner gives them the opportunity/duty. . Voters know of these promises and either do Approval voting or do bullet voting to have the voted for candidate vote as promised. . If no winner these extra votes hopefully will see to deciding on a winner. Candidates may vote any approval ballot consistent with the ranking above once for each ballot. They do so simultaneously, once, after the full results and all candidate's rankings have been published. Consistent with means that they simply set an approval cutoff - a lowest approved candidate - and all candidates above that in their ranking are approved. . If a voter is thinking bullet voting, but wants to avoid the above - voting also for an unreal write-in will avoid giving the candidate a draft vote. Instead of an unreal write-in it could be a virtual candidate whose name is No proxy for me meaning I do not delegate my approvals to any candidate. Yes. You've left out one extra check on this system, wherein the top two approval candidates are recounted in a virtual runoff without any delegated approvals between those two. I do not see the claimed compliance, for voters do not get to do ranking. ... Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Remember Toby
I hope that everybody gives careful thought to the three parts of Jameson's letter, (1) the heuristic plausibility argument for the high degree of Condorcet compliance, (2) the near impossibility of winning candidates throwing the election through back room deals, and (3) a great call to focus on something that we can all support. Just a few random loose ends. If you delegate your approvals to some candidate, and that candidate approves your most detested candidate X, automatically everybody he publicly ranked ahead of X gets approved by him as well. So if he ranks X high on his list, you should probably do your own approvals by simply approving the candidate that you would vote for under Plurality as well as everybody you like better. If the candidates' public rankings are truncated, then they can only approve down to the truncation mark, but no more. Under this rule most voters will find that their favorite did not even rank their most despised candidate X, so they don't have to worry about that. Kathy was worried that courts might consider Approval in violation of one-person-one-vote requirements. There are many ways to get around this: (i) Interpret the intent of the law as meaning that each voter gets copies of the exact same anonymous ballot except possibly for randomization of the candidate order to avoid giving any candidate special advantage from being listed first or last. (ii) Each voter gets one vote on each question, and for each candidate the question is do you or do you not approve of this candidate. A mark is a positive response, while a blank is a negative response. So each voter gets exactly one vote per candidate. (iii) (suggested by Martin Harper ten years ago) Complete the Approval election with the following transfer of votes, so that in the end each voter's vote is cast to only one candidate in the race: your vote is transferred to that candidate who received the greatest approval among the candidates that you approved of. This transfer step does not change the Approval winner. With regard to the problem of chicken in the presence of nearly equally matched clones, I suggest that in the process where the candidates cast the votes delegated to them, they all simultaneously cast their first delegated approval votes, then their second, etc. until all of them (with votes left to cast) vote the same twice in a row. Then their remaing votes must be identical to those two. It is well known that repeated play tends to yield a satisfactory solution to the games of prisoner's dilemma and chicken when the players are rational. From: Jameson Quinn To: EM Subject: Re: [EM] Remember Toby Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Message contents: Section 1. When *isn't* SODA more condorcet compliant than condorcet methods Section 2. Smoke-filled rooms? Section 3. What are we looking for, anyway? (in this thread) *Section 1. When isn't SODA more condorcet compliant than condorcet methods* 2011/6/4 For the benefit of those who are advocating ranked ballots in order to achieve Condorcet Compliance, note well that Jameson has a good argument that SODA, a simple method that uses only a Plurality style ballot, is more Condorcet Compliant than most well known Condorcet methods. I believe that is true in a practical sense. However, I should note that I'm not claiming that SODA achieves the impossible. As with other methods, (attempted) strategy could spoil its condorcet compliance. I'll explain how, and why I think that wouldn't happen. First off: I'd like to note that I'm mostly worried about burial strategyhere. Generally, favorite betrayal strategy is useful to break an honest Condorcet cycle to your advantage, while burial is useful to create a false cycle which gives you some advantage. Since I think that honest cycles will be rare, I'm more worried about the latter. Also, psychologically, most people have a much higher propensity for burial than for favorite betrayal. At any rate, in all the discussion that follows, I will assume that there is an honest pairwise champion (CW). So, in SODA, burial/truncation is still possible in several ways: 1. A candidate could cause a cycle through burial, and thus avoid the (known, unique, strong, stable) Nash equilibrium for the honest pairwisechampion. However, that can only work to their advantage if the other candidates actually believe that the false, strategic preference order, or if they manage to exploit a dishonest strategic mistake by another candidate. I believe that high-profile frontrunner candidates could not plausibly claim a false preference order, so this strategy would be ineffective. 2. Individual voters could use truncation (not burial, because it's approval). For instance, voters could prevent their votes from being delegated in order to engage in games
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
I see this as Approval with a complication - that Jameson calls SODA. It gets a lot of thought here, including claimed Condorcet compliance. I offer what I claim is a true summary of what I would call smart Approval. What I see: . Candidates each offer draft Approval votes which voters can know in making their decisions. . Vote by Approval rules. . If there is no winner, then each candidate gets to vote above draft once for each ballot that bullet voted for that candidate. . If a voter is thinking bullet voting, but wants to avoid the above - voting also for an unreal write-in will avoid giving the candidate a draft vote. I do not see the claimed compliance, for voters do not get to do ranking. I see a couple uses of thoughts that imply ranking - they are so rare that they look like typos to me. On Jun 5, 2011, at 6:23 PM, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: ... Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On Jun 3, 2011, at 10:30 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote: Been a busy day on this thread. I will try for Condorcet, to sell that it can be good and usable by voters without requiring much new understanding by them. my sell for Condorcet compliant is more of a negative: If you don't wanna elect a Candidate B when more voters prefer Candidate A, you use a Condorcet method. if they say H. I think this Condorcet is sorta tricksy, i yell back Why do you want to elect a candidate when that candidate is rejected by voters in favor of another candidate? Condorcet is simple. the Ranked Ballot is simple. all it says is who you vote for when any two candidates are drawn, if you chose to select between the two. any two-candidate comparison can be made and every ballot counts equally. all candidates start out as potential winners, if a candidate is beaten in any paired runoff, he/she is marked as a loser. the candidate who is left standing (not a loser) is the winner. of course, this leaves off the deficit of the potential cycle. that's when us Condorcet proponents get to appeal to Arrow's Theorem (then you hope some sophisticated voters that were involved in the IRV debate nod their heads). where Condorcet fails Arrow is because, although each ballot is linear in ranking (there are no ambiguities that we know how the voter prefers any candidate to any other), the results from Ranking: IRV ranking, learned by many, is a start, with equal ranking a trivial addition. Approval voting permissible and usable as valid Condorcet by using a single rank number. How many rank numbers? Three, as in IRV, is probable reasonable minimum. here in Burlington, we had five levels, and there were five candidates (plus Write-In) on the ballot in 2009 and a similar number in 2006. no truncation was forced. i think the number of levels has to be limited in the rules because of real estate on the ballot. and i think that ballot access laws should be tough enough that the number of candidates often is (say, within 90% of the occurrences) equal to or less than the number of levels. if it begins to appear that the number of candidates exceeds the number of levels regularly, legislatures should notice and increase the ballot requirement (number of signatures needed to get a candidate on the ballot). More needs thought, but not necessarily many - usability of equal ranks minimizes true need for more. certainly agree with that. that was only a problem for IRV (i guess it would be a problem for Borda, if these total points needed to remain integer valued). i don't consider usable for IRV or Borda to be a particularly valuable property of a voting system. i think Approval requires more thinking from the voter and i think Score does also. and i don't like at all this Asset system thems trying to foist upon us (with its smoke-filled rooms and all). the ranked ballot requires only for a voter to decide between any two voters just as they would if it were only those two. and Condorcet counts it precisely one person, one vote, just as a two-candidate simple- majority election counts it. what the voters have to accept is that they have to decide about *every* candidate, not just their favorite, by Election day. why is that too much to ask? (we normally require voters to make up their minds about the content of an election by Election Day.) i guess i'm still unmoved from using a ranked ballot with sufficient number of levels to accommodate every voter's expression of preference, and using Condorcet to decide the result. which Condorcet- compliant method is something i'm more agnostic about. -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
i got distracted from finishing a sentence... On Jun 3, 2011, at 10:30 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote: Been a busy day on this thread. I will try for Condorcet, to sell that it can be good and usable by voters without requiring much new understanding by them. my sell for Condorcet compliant is more of a negative: If you don't wanna elect a Candidate B when more voters prefer Candidate A, you use a Condorcet method. if they say H. I think this Condorcet is sorta tricksy, i yell back Why do you want to elect a candidate when that candidate is rejected by voters in favor of another candidate? Condorcet is simple. the Ranked Ballot is simple. all it says is who you vote for when any two candidates are drawn, if you chose to select between the two. any two-candidate comparison can be made and every ballot counts equally. all candidates start out as potential winners, if a candidate is beaten in any paired runoff, he/she is marked as a loser. the candidate who is left standing (not a loser) is the winner. of course, this leaves off the deficit of the potential cycle. that's when us Condorcet proponents get to appeal to Arrow's Theorem (then you hope some sophisticated voters that were involved in the IRV debate nod their heads). where Condorcet fails Arrow is because, although each ballot is linear in ranking (there are no ambiguities that we know how the voter prefers any candidate to any other), the results from the election can possibly be circular, as in Candidates Rock, Paper, and Scissors. then who wins? that's where people differ, and i'm less invested in the issue of *which* Condorcet than i am about using Condorcet at all. Ranking: IRV ranking, learned by many, is a start, with equal ranking a trivial addition. Approval voting permissible and usable as valid Condorcet by using a single rank number. How many rank numbers? Three, as in IRV, is probable reasonable minimum. here in Burlington, we had five levels, and there were five candidates (plus Write-In) on the ballot in 2009 and a similar number in 2006. no truncation was forced. i think the number of levels has to be limited in the rules because of real estate on the ballot. and i think that ballot access laws should be tough enough that the number of candidates often is (say, within 90% of the occurrences) equal to or less than the number of levels. if it begins to appear that the number of candidates exceeds the number of levels regularly, legislatures should notice and increase the ballot requirement (number of signatures needed to get a candidate on the ballot). More needs thought, but not necessarily many - usability of equal ranks minimizes true need for more. certainly agree with that. that was only a problem for IRV (i guess it would be a problem for Borda, if these total points needed to remain integer valued). i don't consider usable for IRV or Borda to be a particularly valuable property of a voting system. i think Approval requires more thinking from the voter and i think Score does also. and i don't like at all this Asset system thems trying to foist upon us (with its smoke-filled rooms and all). the ranked ballot requires only for a voter to decide between any two voters just as they would if it were only those two. and Condorcet counts it precisely one person, one vote, just as a two-candidate simple- majority election counts it. what the voters have to accept is that they have to decide about *every* candidate, not just their favorite, by Election day. why is that too much to ask? (we normally require voters to make up their minds about the content of an election by Election Day.) i guess i'm still unmoved from using a ranked ballot with sufficient number of levels to accommodate every voter's expression of preference, and using Condorcet to decide the result. which Condorcet- compliant method is something i'm more agnostic about. -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
Dave Ketchum wrote: Been a busy day on this thread. I will try for Condorcet, to sell that it can be good and usable by voters without requiring much new understanding by them. Ranking: IRV ranking, learned by many, is a start, with equal ranking a trivial addition. Approval voting permissible and usable as valid Condorcet by using a single rank number. How many rank numbers? Three, as in IRV, is probable reasonable minimum. More needs thought, but not necessarily many - usability of equal ranks minimizes true need for more. I think some STV countries use ranked ballot types where you write a number in front of the candidate. The ballot is is then checked using OCR and forwarded to a manual count if ambiguous. These types of ballot could permit as many rankings as there are candidates, and seem reasonably simple as long as the electorate knows how to count. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
Message contents: Section 1. When *isn't* SODA more condorcet compliant than condorcet methods Section 2. Smoke-filled rooms? Section 3. What are we looking for, anyway? (in this thread) *Section 1. When isn't SODA more condorcet compliant than condorcet methods* 2011/6/4 fsimm...@pcc.edu For the benefit of those who are advocating ranked ballots in order to achieve Condorcet Compliance, note well that Jameson has a good argument that SODA, a simple method that uses only a Plurality style ballot, is more Condorcet Compliant than most well known Condorcet methods. I believe that is true in a practical sense. However, I should note that I'm not claiming that SODA achieves the impossible. As with other methods, (attempted) strategy could spoil its condorcet compliance. I'll explain how, and why I think that wouldn't happen. First off: I'd like to note that I'm mostly worried about burial strategy here. Generally, favorite betrayal strategy is useful to break an honest Condorcet cycle to your advantage, while burial is useful to create a false cycle which gives you some advantage. Since I think that honest cycles will be rare, I'm more worried about the latter. Also, psychologically, most people have a much higher propensity for burial than for favorite betrayal. At any rate, in all the discussion that follows, I will assume that there is an honest pairwise champion (CW). So, in SODA, burial/truncation is still possible in several ways: 1. A candidate could cause a cycle through burial, and thus avoid the (known, unique, strong, stable) Nash equilibrium for the honest pairwise champion. However, that can only work to their advantage if the other candidates actually believe that the false, strategic preference order, or if they manage to exploit a dishonest strategic mistake by another candidate. I believe that high-profile frontrunner candidates could not plausibly claim a false preference order, so this strategy would be ineffective. 2. Individual voters could use truncation (not burial, because it's approval). For instance, voters could prevent their votes from being delegated in order to engage in games of chicken to ensure that their preferred near-clone was elected. This is a fundamentally unnecessary risk, however. The near-clone with an honest lead does not need such tactics, and the near-clone who is behind will probably need a dangerously large number of voters to do such tactics. I don't see how this could be coordinated on an effective scale in real life without backfiring. 3. Individual voters could vote for false flag minor candidates whose honest preference ordering happened to be the strategic burial ordering that they sought. I find this totally implausible, though; this requires a level of cold-bloodedness and sophistication that only a tiny portion of people have. So when *is *SODA voting more condorcet-compliant than Condorcet methods? When there is an honest pairwise champion; most voters bullet vote, allowing delgation; and no frontrunner candidates (those with a chance of winning) can plausibly claim a false preference order. *I believe that these three conditions will hold most of the time.* *Section 2. Smoke-filled rooms?* * * Some people on this list have said that they don't like asset-inspired methods like SODA because of the smoke-filled room scenario. That is, what if you voted for someone who eventually, in some crooked deal, ended up giving your vote to your least-favorite candidate? Certainly, I'm sure some UK Lib Dem voters might feel that way about Cameron, so it's not a crazy idea. There are at least 4 reasons that I think this fear is unrealistic; I'll list them from weakest to strongest. The weakest reason first: hopefully, your favorite candidate will be someone you can trust. Sure, Nick Clegg might have betrayed some part of his base; but in SODA voting, that part of his base who didn't trust him would have been free to choose a different, more-trustworthy candidate, without fear of FPTP making their votes irrelevant. I find some comfort in this argument, but this reason alone wouldn't convince me to trust SODA. Second, there is the fact that candidate's preference orders must be announced in advance. Sure, that doesn't stop candidates from being deliberately unstrategic in order not to help a higher preference beat a lower preference, but that would be rare, and despite this, you can still absolutely guarantee that your vote will not actually provide the winning margin for that lower preference. Third, the point of SODA is that candidates' post-election strategy is done with perfect knowledge of the number of delegable votes and preference orders of the other candidates. This perfectly transparent situation is the exact opposite of a smoke filled room. As I've already said, it means that if there is an honest pairwise champion, then there will be a known, unique, strong, stable, Nash equilibrium where that champion wins. That's the gold standard of
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:14:12 + (GMT) From: fsimm...@pcc.edu To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Is DYN too complicated? If so, we are stuck with ordinary Approval or ordinary Asset Voting. They are the only choices simpler than DYN that dominate Plurality. Great analysis. I like the uniformly better concept. I agree with everything you said - very logical. Question: Wouldn't there be a third option that is uniformly better than plurality - an Approval/Asset hybrid? I.e. allow voters to rank only one candidate - then if that candidate loses, those voters who rank only one candidate transfer the right to their losing candidate to cast their vote for another candidate. Or if voters choose more than one candidate, their own extra approval votes are counted. Just a thought that might alleviate the problem that some Judges have found with some electoral methods on the basis of voters having unequal amount of votes if voters may choose either two candidates or one candidate and their candidate gets to cast their other vote, but I haven't really thought it through completely. It seems like in this case, an initial loser could end up the winner if enough of the asset votes were cast for that person. But it's probably not a good idea - just a passing thought. -- Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts. Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174 Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf View some of my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Remember Toby
Dear Kathy, Great idea! Why didn't I think of that? As you indicated, it could be done with an ordinary Plurality ballot, and would amount to a simplified version of DYN: If a voter bullet votes, then the ballot is interpreted as submission of a replicate of the Approval ballot that the marked candidate ends up submitting. Otherwise it is interpreted as an ordinary Approval ballot. The candidate with the most approval wins. To rule out the smoke-filled-room scenario, candidates' Approval ballots must be consistent with their rankings of the candidates, which they are required to publish at least a three (?) days before the voting takes place. This method is indeed uniformly better than Plurality, Asset, and Approval! What should we call it? Can anybody think of a better deterministic voting method for a single winner public proposal? Forest Kathy Dopp kathy.dopp at gmail.com responded to Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:14:12 + (GMT) From: fsimmons at pcc.edu To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com Is DYN too complicated? If so, we are stuck with ordinary Approval or ordinary Asset Voting. They are the only choices simpler than DYN that dominate Plurality. Great analysis. I like the uniformly better concept. I agree with everything you said - very logical. Question: Wouldn't there be a third option that is uniformly better than plurality - an Approval/Asset hybrid? I.e. allow voters to rank only one candidate - then if that candidate loses, those voters who rank only one candidate transfer the right to their losing candidate to cast their vote for another candidate. Or if voters choose more than one candidate, their own extra approval votes are counted. Just a thought that might alleviate the problem that some Judges have found with some electoral methods on the basis of voters having unequal amount of votes if voters may choose either two candidates or one candidate and their candidate gets to cast their other vote, but I haven't really thought it through completely. It seems like in this case, an initial loser could end up the winner if enough of the asset votes were cast for that person. But it's probably not a good idea - just a passing thought. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
2011/6/3 fsimm...@pcc.edu Dear Kathy, Great idea! Why didn't I think of that? As you indicated, it could be done with an ordinary Plurality ballot, and would amount to a simplified version of DYN: If a voter bullet votes, then the ballot is interpreted as submission of a replicate of the Approval ballot that the marked candidate ends up submitting. Otherwise it is interpreted as an ordinary Approval ballot. The candidate with the most approval wins. To rule out the smoke-filled-room scenario, candidates' Approval ballots must be consistent with their rankings of the candidates, which they are required to publish at least a three (?) days before the voting takes place. This method is indeed uniformly better than Plurality, Asset, and Approval! Well... it's only uniformly better than Approval if you allow non-tranferable bullet-voting. So you'd need to include an option to opt-out of the delegation process. That's simple, though - for instance, writing in Mickey Mouse would do the trick. What should we call it? Can anybody think of a better deterministic voting method for a single winner public proposal? This is a great proposal. I'd add my safety fix to the near-clone problem, *if* someone can think of an easy way to describe and motivate it. Basically, it looks at any candidate who mutually approve with the winner, and sees if they would beat the winner (pairwise) with those mutual approvals turned off. This helps when, for instance (honest preferences): 35: X1X2 25: X2X1 21: YX2 19: YX1 If X1 and X2 approve each other, the right thing happens (X1 wins), no matter what Y voters do. If they do not, this fix does not attempt to read anyone's minds (or to ask people again in a runoff). Forest Kathy Dopp kathy.dopp at gmail.com responded to Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:14:12 + (GMT) From: fsimmons at pcc.edu To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com Is DYN too complicated? If so, we are stuck with ordinary Approval or ordinary Asset Voting. They are the only choices simpler than DYN that dominate Plurality. Great analysis. I like the uniformly better concept. I agree with everything you said - very logical. Question: Wouldn't there be a third option that is uniformly better than plurality - an Approval/Asset hybrid? I.e. allow voters to rank only one candidate - then if that candidate loses, those voters who rank only one candidate transfer the right to their losing candidate to cast their vote for another candidate. Or if voters choose more than one candidate, their own extra approval votes are counted. Just a thought that might alleviate the problem that some Judges have found with some electoral methods on the basis of voters having unequal amount of votes if voters may choose either two candidates or one candidate and their candidate gets to cast their other vote, but I haven't really thought it through completely. It seems like in this case, an initial loser could end up the winner if enough of the asset votes were cast for that person. But it's probably not a good idea - just a passing thought. 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] Remember Toby
Forest, While I love the complement of great idea, I still am not 100% sure if the method is well-defined. I.e. under what condition do all the Asset voters (the candidates) get to cast their 2nd choice votes for the voters? To be fair, wouldn't all candidates who received any bullet votes have to be allowed to cast 2nd choice votes. But then, wouldn't that be like voting against themselves? Or doesn't Asset voting have similar problems to IRV if only the losing candidates get to reapportion their votes -- i.e. tending to elect extremist candidates on the right or left and eliminating centrist majority favorites because the 2nd choices of some voters (that they've allocated to their 1st choice candidate) would be hidden during the counting process? Please try to unconfuse my thinking on this because I seem to be convincing myself that simple Approval might be better. How exactly are you suggesting this AA method (for Asset Approval) work? Maybe AA's too much like Alcoholic Anonymous ;-) If it were me, I would probably only feel comfortable with AA if *all* the candidates receiving bullet votes had their 2nd rank choice counted in round 2 - regardless of whether or not it caused their own loss or not. But that would mean if possibly allowing some candidates to *not* list any 2nd choice and to bullet vote for themselves, so that their bullet voters did not receive any asset votes. I'm I making this too confusing? Kathy From: fsimm...@pcc.edu To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Subject: [EM] Remember Toby Message-ID: e1a0d07252dc0.4de92...@pcc.edu Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Dear Kathy, Great idea! Why didn't I think of that? As you indicated, it could be done with an ordinary Plurality ballot, and would amount to a simplified version of DYN: If a voter bullet votes, then the ballot is interpreted as submission of a replicate of the Approval ballot that the marked candidate ends up submitting. Otherwise it is interpreted as an ordinary Approval ballot. The candidate with the most approval wins. To rule out the smoke-filled-room scenario, candidates' Approval ballots must be consistent with their rankings of the candidates, which they are required to publish at least a three (?) days before the voting takes place. This method is indeed uniformly better than Plurality, Asset, and Approval! What should we call it? Can anybody think of a better deterministic voting method for a single winner public proposal? Forest -- Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts. Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174 Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf View some of my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
2011/6/3 Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com Forest, While I love the complement of great idea, I still am not 100% sure if the method is well-defined. I.e. under what condition do all the Asset voters (the candidates) get to cast their 2nd choice votes for the voters? To be fair, wouldn't all candidates who received any bullet votes have to be allowed to cast 2nd choice votes. But then, wouldn't that be like voting against themselves? Or doesn't Asset voting have similar problems to IRV if only the losing candidates get to reapportion their votes -- i.e. tending to elect extremist candidates on the right or left and eliminating centrist majority favorites because the 2nd choices of some voters (that they've allocated to their 1st choice candidate) would be hidden during the counting process? It's important to be concrete when you think about this. Candidates would not be faced with an abstract choice of whether to support each other, in a vacuum. They would know the full first-round results. If you think about specific scenarios, you'll quickly see that a candidate will almost always know whether they can win - and shouldn't approve others - or whether they have no chance. That won't be simply a matter of how many votes they have, but also looking at the preference orders of the other candidates; so center squeeze is not a problem. To put this in the abstract terms that a lot of people here like: insofar as people bullet voted, a Condorcet winner would be knowable, and then it would be a strong Nash equilibrium for that person to win. And insofar as people didn't bullet vote, then the approval winner would be clear, so candidate strategy wouldn't matter. As for names, I'd prefer ODA (optional delegated approval) over AA, though I'll accept whatever the consensus is. Jameson Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Remember Toby
From: Jameson Quinn jameson.qu...@gmail.com To: fsimm...@pcc.edu Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] Remember Toby Message-ID: banlktinpcsb7kg4q3-em5gq5nr-xn+4...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 I'd add my safety fix to the near-clone problem, *if* someone can think of an easy way to describe and motivate it. Basically, it looks at any candidate who mutually approve with the winner, and sees if they would beat the winner (pairwise) with those mutual approvals turned off. This helps when, for instance (honest preferences): That sounds like it might work. Here is my simplistic thought on a simplistic electoral method that might solve some of plurality's problems without introducing new ones: Let all the voters vote for one or two candidates. Require all the candidates to list a second choice approval vote different than themselves. In one round, count *all* the (two) choices of each voter (the one for his own two approvals or his one approval and that candidate's approval choice) Done. I.e. voters must either approve a 2nd candidate or let their candidate do so for them. The candidates' must publish their 2nd approval choice prior to the election and cards must be available to voters at the polling booth saying who the candidates have chosen at their 2nd approval votes. The only *gaming* I can see here would be on the part of some candidates to try to choose losing candidates as their 2nd approval vote - Thus we might get more candidates into the contest - one potential loser for every serious candidate - which could be problematic for ballot length. However, voters could simply vote their own two approval votes - no need to care what the candidates chose. The reason I suggest this is that it solves the problem of having courts shoot the system down due to its not having an equal number of votes per voter (the one vote, one voter rule) and seems to solve some of the problems of plurality, and treats all voters' votes equally, and it is precinct summable, takes only one round, would be simple to program counting (simply add up all the two candidate votes and tally all the bullet votes for each candidate, plus the 2nd vote from the list of candidate 2nd approvals). However, I still like Condorcet as a method if we're willing to add ballot complexity of rank choice ballots. Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts. Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174 Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf View some of my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
2011/6/3 Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com From: Jameson Quinn jameson.qu...@gmail.com To: fsimm...@pcc.edu Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] Remember Toby Message-ID: banlktinpcsb7kg4q3-em5gq5nr-xn+4...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 I'd add my safety fix to the near-clone problem, *if* someone can think of an easy way to describe and motivate it. Basically, it looks at any candidate who mutually approve with the winner, and sees if they would beat the winner (pairwise) with those mutual approvals turned off. This helps when, for instance (honest preferences): That sounds like it might work. Thanks! Here is my simplistic thought on a simplistic electoral method that might solve some of plurality's problems without introducing new ones: That's not a simple problem, and so it's probably hard to find solutions that are both simple and new. I think that your proposal, by arbitrarily setting the number of approvals at 2, would introduce all kinds of distortions, ranging to the possibly nightmarish. As a programmer, I know that when I set arbitrary constants in my programs (except as ids), it almost always leads to bugs. Jameson Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
Jameson, The number two (2) is *not* arbitrary. It is the next integer after the number one (1). Therefore, two is the next simplest number of candidates to allow voters to vote for after the number one, since we cannot vote for portions of candidates. Again, the idea is to follow Forest's principle of strictly improving, as well as the principle of equal votes per voter, equal treatment of all voters' votes ( thus precinct summable, easy to count and manually audit). Why would we need voters to have more than two votes for one office-holder to fix the problems of plurality? Perhaps you can make the case. I've programmed enough to know that allowing each voter to vote for at most two candidates is not a programming problem. So, please supply a more realistic argument against keeping the electoral method simplistic by increasing the number of candidates a voter can vote for by at most one. Kathy On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 4:48 PM, Jameson Quinn jameson.qu...@gmail.com wrote: 2011/6/3 Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com From: Jameson Quinn jameson.qu...@gmail.com To: fsimm...@pcc.edu Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] Remember Toby Message-ID: banlktinpcsb7kg4q3-em5gq5nr-xn+4...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 I'd add my safety fix to the near-clone problem, *if* someone can think of an easy way to describe and motivate it. Basically, it looks at any candidate who mutually approve with the winner, and sees if they would beat the winner (pairwise) with those mutual approvals turned off. This helps when, for instance (honest preferences): That sounds like it might work. Thanks! Here is my simplistic thought on a simplistic electoral method that might solve some of plurality's problems without introducing new ones: That's not a simple problem, and so it's probably hard to find solutions that are both simple and new. I think that your proposal, by arbitrarily setting the number of approvals at 2, would introduce all kinds of distortions, ranging to the possibly nightmarish. As a programmer, I know that when I set arbitrary constants in my programs (except as ids), it almost always leads to bugs. Jameson -- Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts. Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174 Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf View some of my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
Kathy wrote: Let all the voters vote for one or two candidates. Considering this Approval-like method on its own, without any proxy aspects, I see problems. Capping the number of candidates that each voter is allowed to approve at 2 destroys some of Approval's desirable properties. First, no longer is your best strategic vote necessarily even weakly sincere; in other words, it will often be to your advantage to approve B and not A even when you prefer A to B. Second, even when all voters have strict preferences over all candidates, there may be an equilibrium that doesn't elect a sincere Condorcet winner. As an overly dramatic example, if the sincere preferences are 49:ABCDEF 3:DCFEBA 48:FECDBA One equilibrium, I claim, would be 49:A,B 3:D 48:F,D which elects D even though 97 of the 100 voters prefer C to D. Just going by intermediate results, as from polls, it might be very difficult for C to emerge as a contender. -- Rob LeGrand r...@approvalvoting.org Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
I thought of a simpler way to explain my safety fix. The full system description follows, with my new phrasing in bold. N days before the election, all candidates (including declared write-in candidates) rank order all other candidates (including declared write-in candidates). These orderings are announced. In the election, all voters submit an approval ballot, with two spaces for write-ins. Total approvals and number of bullet votes are counted for each candidate and announced. (Bullet votes are votes for only one candidate, including all valid or invalid write-in votes.) Then each candidate may grant the number of bullet votes they received to N other candidates from the top of their preference list, where N can be any number including 0. All candidates decide what number N to use simultaneously, and then those decisions are announced publicly. *Take the two candidates with the highest approvals. Recount those two as if they hadn't approved each other (that is, without adding any bullet votes from one to the other).* The winner is the candidate *of those two* with the highest approval in this final count. The purpose of removing the mutual votes from the top two before deciding the pairwise winner of these two is, as I explained before, to make it so that one candidate will never lose because they approved another one. This frees candidates to be honest in their approvals. I believe that this system, as described, is pareto-dominant over plurality, asset, and approval. It is also very Condorcet-compliant. That is, assuming that X% of all candidates' voters agree with their candidate's preference order, and that the other (100-X)% have preferences which cancel each other out (random noise); that this X is the same for all candidates; that all voters who do not agree with their candidate do not bullet-vote (voting for a random number of extra candidates), and all voters who do agree with their candidate do bullet vote; and that there is a true pairwise champion; then the pairwise champion will win in a (unique) strong Nash equilibrium. This is a very solid result, which relies on the perfect information of the candidates when choosing how to delegate their approvals; it is NOT true of systems such as Approval or even DYN (without the preference-ordering and top-two-pairwise-recount aspects). It is not even true of any Condorcet system I know of (because of strategy)! So this system (and some obvious variants) is in fact *the most Condorcet-compliant* system I know of. Since it is also relatively simple to understand - not as simple as approval, but not too far behind - I think it makes an excellent candidate for a practical proposal. Jameson Quinn I'd add my safety fix to the near-clone problem, *if* someone can think of an easy way to describe and motivate it. Basically, it looks at any candidate who mutually approve with the winner, and sees if they would beat the winner (pairwise) with those mutual approvals turned off. This helps when, for instance (honest preferences): 35: X1X2 25: X2X1 21: YX2 19: YX1 If X1 and X2 approve each other, the right thing happens (X1 wins), no matter what Y voters do. If they do not, this fix does not attempt to read anyone's minds (or to ask people again in a runoff). Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Remember Toby
There are only two single winner methods that are uniformly better than Plurality, i.e. that are better in some ways and worse in none. These two methods make use of Plurality style ballots, and those voters who want to use Plurality strategy (marking only their preferred of the two frontrunners) can do so without incurring a worse result than they would get in a Plurality election. The two methods are Approval and Asset. My remarks in the first paragraph explain why neither of these methods is in any way worse than Plurality. To see that they are in some cases better, consider the following points: In the case of Approval, if many voter s also mark the candidates they prefer over their Plurality choice, the results will often be improved. In the Asset voting case, consider that when you trust your Favorite candidate’s ranking of the other candidates, you can mark you favorite and not worry about Plurality strategy. It appears that between eighty and ninety percent of the voters would rather have their favorite do the ranking. Where do we get that figure? We get it from Australia where the vast majority of voters just copy their candidate cards onto the ballot. In summary, we have shown that both of these methods are at least as simple and have at least as good results as Plurality by treating the ballots as Plurality ballots, and that obviously safe and beneficial departures from Plurality strategy yield significant improvements in both cases. Therefore, these two methods are uniformly better than Plurality. Although there are many other methods that are better than Plurality, there are no others that are uniformly better, i.e. no other method Pareto dominates Plurality. When we propose a method to replace Plurality, if that method is worse than Plurality in any aspect at all, you can be sure that the opponents will focus on that aspect. But who can rationally oppose a change to a method that is uniformly better than the status quo, except by proposing what they think is a better method? But that supposed better method can be shot down if it is worse than Plurality in any aspect. Take IRV, for example. It has more complicated ballots than Plurality. And unlike Plurality it fails monotonicity, just to mention two aspects. No matter that its clone independence and later no harm features may completely compensate in the minds of some people; it is not uniformly better than Plurality. Even DYN which is a hybrid that allows Asset voting at one extreme and Approval at the other is not uniformly better than Plurality, because the ballot is slightly more complicated. In every other way it is better than Plurality, Asset voting, and Approval. So far I have seen no method that is uniformly better than DYN, but the trouble is that DYN is not itself uniformly better than Plurality because it needs a two- bits-per-candidate ballot instead of a one bit per candidate ballot. Our voting public may not be ready for that much change in the ballot. All of the other proposed methods except various three slot methods like MCA use more complicated ballots than DYN. Is DYN too complicated? If so, we are stuck with ordinary Approval or ordinary Asset Voting. They are the only choices simpler than DYN that dominate Plurality. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On Jun 2, 2011, at 12:14 PM, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: In the Asset voting case, consider that when you trust your Favorite candidate’s ranking of the other candidates, you can mark you favorite and not worry about Plurality strategy. It appears that between eighty and ninety percent of the voters would rather have their favorite do the ranking. Where do we get that figure? We get it from Australia where the vast majority of voters just copy their candidate cards onto the ballot. I assume that's because (IIRC) they're required to rank all candidates, and that's too hard to do. I don't think that the 80-90% figure is supportable if truncation is allowed (and it should be). Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
Here we get led down a path of rejecting methods for being worse than plurality in some way, without considering whether they may be better in other important ways. Agreed that Approval is better - and very little different. Asset deserves a bit of study - the candidate you vote for can be part of deciding who gets elected - sorting this out makes it more complex than plurality for me. IRV sounds great to many for what it offers voters - vote for more than one as in Approval, but rank them to indicate which you like best. What it tells the vote counters sounds good until you look close: Look only at what each voter ranks highest; if this identifies a winner - fine; if not, discard the least liked of what was looked at but failed to win and try again. Usually this will discard losers and expose a deserving winner. But sometimes what I describe next happens to one the voters really liked: 50 A 51 BA 52 CA 53 DA Counting: 50A; 51B; now 51A; now 53D beats 52C. Condorcet looks much like IRV to the voters. Counters, looking at all the ballots above say, will see 153A beating 53D. On Jun 2, 2011, at 3:14 PM, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: There are only two single winner methods that are uniformly better than Plurality, i.e. that are better in some ways and worse in none. These two methods make use of Plurality style ballots, and those voters who want to use Plurality strategy (marking only their preferred of the two frontrunners) can do so without incurring a worse result than they would get in a Plurality election. The two methods are Approval and Asset. My remarks in the first paragraph explain why neither of these methods is in any way worse than Plurality. To see that they are in some cases better, consider the following points: In the case of Approval, if many voter s also mark the candidates they prefer over their Plurality choice, the results will often be improved. In the Asset voting case, consider that when you trust your Favorite candidate’s ranking of the other candidates, you can mark you favorite and not worry about Plurality strategy. It appears that between eighty and ninety percent of the voters would rather have their favorite do the ranking. Where do we get that figure? We get it from Australia where the vast majority of voters just copy their candidate cards onto the ballot. The Aussies are required to rank every candidate - a chore few want to do for themselves. If voting for as many as in Approval the American voter should see little pain in ranking these few that they approve of. In summary, we have shown that both of these methods are at least as simple and have at least as good results as Plurality by treating the ballots as Plurality ballots, and that obviously safe and beneficial departures from Plurality strategy yield significant improvements in both cases. Therefore, these two methods are uniformly better than Plurality. Although there are many other methods that are better than Plurality, there are no others that are uniformly better, i.e. no other method Pareto dominates Plurality. When we propose a method to replace Plurality, if that method is worse than Plurality in any aspect at all, you can be sure that the opponents will focus on that aspect. A reason for caution BUT it is proper to consider magnitudes of both gains AND losses. But who can rationally oppose a change to a method that is uniformly better than the status quo, except by proposing what they think is a better method? But that supposed better method can be shot down if it is worse than Plurality in any aspect. Take IRV, for example. It has more complicated ballots than Plurality. And unlike Plurality it fails monotonicity, just to mention two aspects. No matter that its clone independence and later no harm features may completely compensate in the minds of some people; it is not uniformly better than Plurality. Even DYN which is a hybrid that allows Asset voting at one extreme and Approval at the other is not uniformly better than Plurality, because the ballot is slightly more complicated. In every other way it is better than Plurality, Asset voting, and Approval. So far I have seen no method that is uniformly better than DYN, but the trouble is that DYN is not itself uniformly better than Plurality because it needs a two- bits-per-candidate ballot instead of a one bit per candidate ballot. Our voting public may not be ready for that much change in the ballot. All of the other proposed methods except various three slot methods like MCA use more complicated ballots than DYN. Is DYN too complicated? If so, we are stuck with ordinary Approval or ordinary Asset Voting. They are the only choices simpler than DYN that dominate Plurality. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On Jun 2, 2011, at 9:34 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote: Asset deserves a bit of study - the candidate you vote for can be part of deciding who gets elected ... that sorta smacks of smoke-filled room to me. a general election should be decided purely by the electorate according to rules set forth in advance. i guess it should be possible for some candidate, who's winning, to concede and let the next candidate in line (however the election method sorts candidates) to win office. i dunno why that would happen unless there was a sudden scandal after the election, before taking office. except, if that candidate runs with another as a team (like the American presidential election), then the other person on the team (the veep) should take office. but i really don't like the idea of even the guy i voted for, negotiating, using assets that i have given him or her, the installation of the candidate i might like the least. this happens in legislative bodies to determine the leadership in that body (like the Speaker of the House), but this should not happen for a general election in a democracy. Condorcet looks much like IRV to the voters. we can be grateful to FairVote for that. maybe that's unfair. my fear is that Condorcet, if ever marketed to some town or state government, the opponents will just label it IRV. sorta like McSame in the last prez election. -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: It seems to me that thevoters are more worried about the ballot type and ease of voting it than they are of the exact counting rules. There are several Condorcet methods that are clone proof and monotonic without being too complicated. Perhaps, but not to the extent that Schulze has passed yet, if complexity is the reason we don't have Schulze yet (or why Toby failed). Thus I was trying to find very simple rules that would do reasonably well, and I think you could do worse than Copeland with simple tiebreaker. As far as complexity is concerned, I'd rank them in about this order: 1. Approval, plurality 2. Range (some distance here because of the unfamiliarity of the Condorcet treatment in general) 3. Copeland 4. Minmax 5. Ranked Pairs (quite some distance) 6. Schulze (although the CSSD phrasing may make it seem simpler) (quite a lot more) 7. DAC/DSC and other very complex rules. Your chain-based and uncovered methods would be somewhere between Copeland and Schulze. I'm not sure exactly where, because I don't know whether they feel unfamiliar because I'm not used to them, or because the electorate wouldn't be. I'm not sure where Borda-elimination would be, either. Borda would probably be between Range and Copeland, but Borda isn't any good as a method because of its extreme susceptibility to teaming and tactical voting. I agree with Kevin that elect the CW if there is one, else elect the candidate ranked (or ranked above last) on the greatest number of ballots is plenty simple, and is much more satisfactory than MinMax or Copeland in other respects. True enough. I'd probably prefer it to be Smith, though, and I hope the voters wouldn't feel penalized for giving the rank all the way down to the last candidate. If someone were to reason Even though I don't like these guys, I'd rather have this one than that one, it would be bad if the ballot interpreted this to say that they approved of every candidate. But, as I said, what we really need to concentrate on is simplicity in votinig, i.e. how do we make ballots that easy to use for Hodge, fresh from the plough, as Lewis Carroll put it. It has been averred many times on this list that in Australia, where partial rankings are considered spoiled ballots, the vast majority of voters fill out their ballots by copying candidate cards which are published sample ballots recommended by the various candidates. Forcing full rank is bad, you'll get no disagreement from me there. I do think the EM style ballot is simple enough, though: rank as many as you want, and if you feel like it, make use of equal-rank, too. Although the equal-rank part hasn't to my knowledge been used elsewhere, the rest seems to work where it has been used. Earlier, I gave examples of STV use in the US, and STV is also used elsewhere in the world without voters really complaining about the complexity of the ballot. Asset voting makes this automatic for 100% of the voters. That's probably going too far, so how do we get a compromise between Asset voting and Condorcet? Approval Asset, perhaps? But I'd prefer the power to stay with the voters as much as possible. If we have representative democracy because the people can't make every decision themselves, then one should move away from the ideal (direct) democracy as little as is required. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
robert bristow-johnson wrote: On May 31, 2011, at 10:46 PM, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: It has been averred many times on this list that in Australia, where partial rankings are considered spoiled ballots, that sure makes little sense. is this related to the mandatory voting laws for Aussies i hear about? AFAIK, it's related to that you can't claim the IRV winner is a majority winner if some people decline to vote for every candidate. Similarly, in STV, quotas have to be readjusted if some voters truncate their ballots. the vast majority of voters fill out their ballots by copying candidate cards which are published sample ballots recommended by the various candidates. Asset voting makes this automatic for 100% of the voters. That's probably going too far, so how do we get a compromise between Asset voting and Condorcet? i forget what Asset voting is. is it Approval or Score voting? (if so, why a different name?) Asset is basically this: 1. You vote for a candidate. 2. Each candidate gets points proportional to the number of votes he got. 3. All the candidates meet somewhere and negotiate, transferring points. 4. At the end of negotiation, the k winners with the most points win. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On 1.6.2011, at 5.46, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: I agree with Kevin that elect the CW if there is one, else elect the candidate ranked (or ranked above last) on the greatest number of ballots is plenty simple, and is much more satisfactory than MinMax or Copeland in other respects. In what sense is the above mentioned implicit approval cutoff + Approval to resolve is the best simple method? If compared to MinMax, is it maybe easier to explain to the voters, more strategy free, or yields better winners? Would an explicit approval cutoff be fine (to allow full rankings to be given)? Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
Hi Juho, --- En date de : Mer 1.6.11, Juho Laatu juho4...@yahoo.co.uk a écrit : I agree with Kevin that elect the CW if there is one, else elect the candidate ranked (or ranked above last) on the greatest number of ballots is plenty simple, and is much more satisfactory than MinMax or Copeland in other respects. In what sense is the above mentioned implicit approval cutoff + Approval to resolve is the best simple method? If compared to MinMax, is it maybe easier to explain to the voters, more strategy free, or yields better winners? Would an explicit approval cutoff be fine (to allow full rankings to be given)? It is surely easier to explain than MinMax, has more obvious burial disincentive (especially if the comparison is to margins), and, in my view, gives comparably good winners to WV, but more attention may need to be placed on where to stop ranking than under WV. (In practice, I would not plan to rank any lower than could possibly help me in WV, so I would probably vote the same under both methods.) The favorite betrayal incentive is worse than WV though. (This is where I should plug my ICA method, which satisfies FBC. But it's more complicated.) An explicit approval cutoff in this method is not fine at all: You will lose the burial disincentive. You would be able to try to stop your opponents from winning as CW without hurting your own candidate's odds to win that way, and then in the approval count you would not have to stand by the pawn candidates you voted for. This strategy would only backfire when too many voters try it and make a pawn candidate the CW. --- Also, the reason I don't need to see Smith in this method is that unlike MinMax, where there isn't an obvious justification for failing Smith, in C//A the second step is a completely different method. If one doesn't think that Approval can justify itself, then I doubt C//A is attractive anyway. Kevin Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On Jun 1, 2011, at 3:57 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: It seems to me that thevoters are more worried about the ballot type and ease of voting it than they are of the exact counting rules. There are several Condorcet methods that are clone proof and monotonic without being too complicated. Let's start by narrowing the field: - Forget plurality - we offer that bullet voting suits many as in Approval. - Approval thinking is backed in Condorcet - voters simply pick any rank, and approve all desired at that rank. - Condorcet thinking with its ranking satisfies the above and many others - usually by identifying a CW. Cycles inspire debate but are basically selecting one member from among the cycle leaders according to method details. - Others, such as range and asset, require additional work by voters and counters. Perhaps, but not to the extent that Schulze has passed yet, if complexity is the reason we don't have Schulze yet (or why Toby failed). Thus I was trying to find very simple rules that would do reasonably well, and I think you could do worse than Copeland with simple tiebreaker. As far as complexity is concerned, I'd rank them in about this order: 1. Approval, plurality 2. Range (some distance here because of the unfamiliarity of the Condorcet treatment in general) 3. Copeland 4. Minmax 5. Ranked Pairs (quite some distance) 6. Schulze (although the CSSD phrasing may make it seem simpler) (quite a lot more) 7. DAC/DSC and other very complex rules. Your chain-based and uncovered methods would be somewhere between Copeland and Schulze. I'm not sure exactly where, because I don't know whether they feel unfamiliar because I'm not used to them, or because the electorate wouldn't be. I'm not sure where Borda-elimination would be, either. Borda would probably be between Range and Copeland, but Borda isn't any good as a method because of its extreme susceptibility to teaming and tactical voting. I agree with Kevin that elect the CW if there is one, else elect the candidate ranked (or ranked above last) on the greatest number of ballots is plenty simple, and is much more satisfactory than MinMax or Copeland in other respects. True enough. I'd probably prefer it to be Smith, though, and I hope the voters wouldn't feel penalized for giving the rank all the way down to the last candidate. If someone were to reason Even though I don't like these guys, I'd rather have this one than that one, it would be bad if the ballot interpreted this to say that they approved of every candidate. Voting that they approve should be read as such - they should not vote it unless they mean it. The method and the teaching should agree on this. But, as I said, what we really need to concentrate on is simplicity in votinig, i.e. how do we make ballots that easy to use for Hodge, fresh from the plough, as Lewis Carroll put it. It has been averred many times on this list that in Australia, where partial rankings are considered spoiled ballots, the vast majority of voters fill out their ballots by copying candidate cards which are published sample ballots recommended by the various candidates. Forcing full rank is bad, you'll get no disagreement from me there. I do think the EM style ballot is simple enough, though: rank as many as you want, and if you feel like it, make use of equal-rank, too. Although the equal-rank part hasn't to my knowledge been used elsewhere, the rest seems to work where it has been used. Earlier, I gave examples of STV use in the US, and STV is also used elsewhere in the world without voters really complaining about the complexity of the ballot. Agreed forcing full ranking is bad, while ranking implies approval. - Equal ranking needs permitting since it often agrees with voter thoughts. - Write-ins should be accepted, though there are two groups: - Rare stray votes, which deserve no attention. - Serious attempts to elect without having formally nominated. Painful counting, but need counting when this happens. How many different rank numbers? - Perhaps at least three to accommodate voter desires. - Perhaps not more than three to minimize use of ballot space. Asset voting makes this automatic for 100% of the voters. That's probably going too far, so how do we get a compromise between Asset voting and Condorcet? Approval Asset, perhaps? But I'd prefer the power to stay with the voters as much as possible. If we have representative democracy because the people can't make every decision themselves, then one should move away from the ideal (direct) democracy as little as is required. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby (fsimm...@pcc.edu)
I agree with everything you've said here re. simplicity etc. Condorcet with Approval to break Condorcet cycles would be great. Simple to explain, precinct-summable with the use of an NxN matrix, with N= # candidates and the matrix diagonal available for other data. (such as the total number of ballots cast or ?) I like the idea of using Approval to count all except the last ballot position, whatever that would be. In the US, given current voting system capacities, that would be counting the first two ranked positions. Upper margin error bounds could probably be calculated for each reported Condorcet matrix precinct tally so that selection weights and sample sizes could be calculated for post-election manual audits to publicly verify the accuracy of the reported election outcomes. Range voting would be too complex because it involves too much thought and strategizing for voters to determine how many relative points to give each candidate. Some of the other methods for resolving Condorcet cycles are too complex for most voters to understand and apply so that they can check the calculations. IRV and STV methods are out, not only due to their nonmonotonicity, and their failure to solve the spoiler problem, but due to their fundamental unfair method of counting ballots which makes manual counting and thus auditing for election outcome accuracy virtually impossible. We ought to focus on how to make Condorcet/Approval voting understandable to the public and to election officials and show how it could be used with existing voting equipment, the existing problems with plurality it solves, etc. I could work on developing the mathematics of post-election auditing sampling for it when I have time. Kathy Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:46:20 + (GMT) From: fsimm...@pcc.edu It seems to me that thevoters are more worried about the ballot type and ease of voting it than they are of the exact counting rules. There are several Condorcet methods that are clone proof and monotonic without being too complicated. I agree with Kevin that elect the CW if there is one, else elect the candidate ranked (or ranked above last) on the greatest number of ballots is plenty simple, and is much more satisfactory than MinMax or Copeland in other respects. But, as I said, what we really need to concentrate on is simplicity in votinig, i.e. how do we make ballots that easy to use for Hodge, fresh from the plough, as Lewis Carroll put it. It has been averred many times on this list that in Australia, where partial rankings are considered spoiled ballots, the vast majority of voters fill out their ballots by copying candidate cards which are published sample ballots recommended by the various candidates. Asset voting makes this automatic for 100% of the voters. That's probably going too far, so how do we get a compromise between Asset voting and Condorcet? -- Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts. Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174 Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf View some of my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
2011/6/1 Dave Ketchum da...@clarityconnect.com On Jun 1, 2011, at 3:57 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: It seems to me that thevoters are more worried about the ballot type and ease of voting it than they are of the exact counting rules. There are several Condorcet methods that are clone proof and monotonic without being too complicated. Let's start by narrowing the field: Let's not. Choosing a voting system is a trade-off, and using a single argument to eliminate a system or class of systems from consideration is not helpful. I'm sure I could come up with some honest, logical arguments against your choice of systems, whatever that may be. The point of choosing a common proposal to put forward, while still supporting a range of systems, is that just arguing leads nowhere. A common proposal is not going to satisfy everyone. But it absolutely must be extremely simple to understand. I've seen four proposals in this thread that pass that test for me: - Approval - DYN - Condorcet/Approval - Minimax Condorcet I'd suggest a fifth: - MYND - that is, just DYN, with a two-way runoff if there's a (M)ajority failure, or if the second-place majority-approved candidate demands it. This is essentially a work it out, guys threat to keep any negotiation between near-clones grounded in the voters' will, as all of the above are in some way vulnerable to a game of chicken between supporters of near-clones. None of these are my favorite systems in theory, but any of them would be a huge practical step up from plurality. I would still enthusiastically support more-complex systems, but I don't think that they're the most efficient use of our advocacy energy. JQ Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby (fsimm...@pcc.edu)
On Jun 1, 2011, at 11:38 AM, Kathy Dopp wrote: I agree with everything you've said here re. simplicity etc. Condorcet with Approval to break Condorcet cycles would be great. Simple to explain, precinct-summable with the use of an NxN matrix, with N= # candidates and the matrix diagonal available for other data. (such as the total number of ballots cast or ?) Sounds good until you think about Condorcet and Approval arguing as to what quality is worth ranking. Approval wants ONLY desirable candidates; Condorcet can afford low ranks in case all those given higher ranks lose. Note that each member of a Condorcet cycle has demonstrated CW ability vs every non-member. Thus the cycle members are near to being tied, and properly compete among themselves for one to become CW. I like the idea of using Approval to count all except the last ballot position, whatever that would be. In the US, given current voting system capacities, that would be counting the first two ranked positions. Attempted recovery - but the voter may, OR may not, have ranked one that would have been approved if the voter was thinking of Approval (and, the voter may have ranked only two). Upper margin error bounds could probably be calculated for each reported Condorcet matrix precinct tally so that selection weights and sample sizes could be calculated for post-election manual audits to publicly verify the accuracy of the reported election outcomes. Range voting would be too complex because it involves too much thought and strategizing for voters to determine how many relative points to give each candidate. Agreed. Some of the other methods for resolving Condorcet cycles are too complex for most voters to understand and apply so that they can check the calculations. IRV and STV methods are out, not only due to their nonmonotonicity, and their failure to solve the spoiler problem, but due to their fundamental unfair method of counting ballots which makes manual counting and thus auditing for election outcome accuracy virtually impossible. Agreed. We ought to focus on how to make Condorcet/Approval voting understandable to the public and to election officials and show how it could be used with existing voting equipment, the existing problems with plurality it solves, etc. I could work on developing the mathematics of post-election auditing sampling for it when I have time. Not agreed - see above. Kathy Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:46:20 + (GMT) From: fsimm...@pcc.edu It seems to me that thevoters are more worried about the ballot type and ease of voting it than they are of the exact counting rules. There are several Condorcet methods that are clone proof and monotonic without being too complicated. I agree with Kevin that elect the CW if there is one, else elect the candidate ranked (or ranked above last) on the greatest number of ballots is plenty simple, and is much more satisfactory than MinMax or Copeland in other respects. But, as I said, what we really need to concentrate on is simplicity in votinig, i.e. how do we make ballots that easy to use for Hodge, fresh from the plough, as Lewis Carroll put it. It has been averred many times on this list that in Australia, where partial rankings are considered spoiled ballots, the vast majority of voters fill out their ballots by copying candidate cards which are published sample ballots recommended by the various candidates. Asset voting makes this automatic for 100% of the voters. That's probably going too far, so how do we get a compromise between Asset voting and Condorcet? -- Kathy Dopp Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
- Original Message - From: Jameson Quinn Date: Wednesday, June 1, 2011 11:27 am Subject: Re: [EM] Remember Toby To: Dave Ketchum Cc: Kristofer Munsterhjelm , election-methods@lists.electorama.com, fsimm...@pcc.edu 2011/6/1 Dave Ketchum On Jun 1, 2011, at 3:57 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: It seems to me that thevoters are more worried about the ballot type and ease of voting it than they are of the exact counting rules. There are several Condorcet methods that are clone proof and monotonic without being too complicated. Let's start by narrowing the field: Let's not. Choosing a voting system is a trade-off, and using a single argument to eliminate a system or class of systems from consideration is not helpful. I'm sure I could come up with some honest, logical arguments against your choice of systems, whatever that may be. The point of choosing a commonproposal to put forward, while still supporting a range of systems, is that just arguing leads nowhere. A common proposal is not going to satisfy everyone. But it absolutely must be extremely simple to understand. I've seen four proposals in this thread that pass that test for me: - Approval - DYN - Condorcet/Approval - Minimax Condorcet I'd suggest a fifth: - MYND - that is, just DYN, with a two-way runoff if there's a (M)ajorityfailure, or if the second-place majority-approved candidate demands it. This is essentially a work it out, guys threat to keep any negotiation between near-clones grounded in the voters' will, as all of the above are in some way vulnerable to a game of chicken between supporters of near-clones. None of these are my favorite systems in theory, but any of them would be a huge practical step up from plurality. I would still enthusiastically support more-complex systems, but I don't think that they're the most efficient use of our advocacy energy. JQ Approval deserves the place you have given it for effectiveness and simplicity, but in trying to sell it over the years I have encountered an unexpected level of resistance. The reasons are mainly these two: (1) Voters feel inadequate for making the decisions necessary for near optimum strategy. (2) they want a method that satisfies the strong FBC, i.e. they want to be able to vote their Favorite strictly ahead of any other candidate without lowering the probability that their vote will be pivotal for the better. It turns out that Asset voting better meets their expectations on both of those counts: they think that voting for favorite is pretty much optimum strategy in that context, even though it is perfectly clear that when your favorite cannot possibly win, and you disagree strongly about her preferred of the two frontrunners, you should use plurality strategy. DYN fixes all of these problems. You have as much control as you want. You can give Favorite all discretion or you can take it all for yourself, i.e. you can make it into anything between pure delegation (Asset style Approval) and pure Approval. If we go for one of the Condorcet methods I think that there should be provisions on the ballot for the voters that want to delegate some or all of their ranking to one of the candidates. This would be easier if Range style ballots were used, and the rankings necessary inferred from the ratings. Then in Condorect/Approval any positive rating would be considered as Approval. In particular if the range were from zero to fifteen, a typical line of the ballot might look like Joe Candidate (fav) (?) (8) (4) (2) (1) If the voter wants to indicate that this candidate is her favorite, she darkens the (fav) bubble. If the voter wants to delegate the rating to her favorite, she darkens in the (?) bubble. If no bubble is darkened, her rating of the candidate is zero. Otherwise the sum of the darkened digits is her rating for the candidate. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On Jun 1, 2011, at 2:26 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote: 2011/6/1 Dave Ketchum da...@clarityconnect.com On Jun 1, 2011, at 3:57 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: It seems to me that thevoters are more worried about the ballot type and ease of voting it than they are of the exact counting rules. There are several Condorcet methods that are clone proof and monotonic without being too complicated. Let's start by narrowing the field: Let's not. Choosing a voting system is a trade-off, and using a single argument to eliminate a system or class of systems from consideration is not helpful. I offered a way for Condorcet to welcome Approval backers without them having to learn all that Condorcet offers - until they develop interest in what it can do. Also did not narrow the field within Condorcet. I'm sure I could come up with some honest, logical arguments against your choice of systems, whatever that may be. The point of choosing a common proposal to put forward, while still supporting a range of systems, is that just arguing leads nowhere. A common proposal is not going to satisfy everyone. But it absolutely must be extremely simple to understand. I've seen four proposals in this thread that pass that test for me: - Approval Perhaps salable to those liking simplicity - but weak in desirability. - DYN A bit more ability - but who, thinking, really wants to end here - or see this leading to a good destination. - Condorcet/Approval At first glance this sounds as if headed where I would lead, BUT. Does fine when there is a CW. If not it interprets the ballot as if voted for Approval. Trouble with that is incompatibility - for Condorcet it can be useful to give low ranks to those you do not really like in case all you like better and rank higher lose; for Approval you only want to vote for those you truly like. One attempt at recovery is that, in the Approval step, ignore those ranked lowest for Condorcet. This may help some though, for the counters it asks for something they had no need to know except for this Approval step. I argue that we have plenty of valid ways to handle Condorcet cycles. - Minimax Condorcet Narrowing the field - how to handle cycles is something to leave open for the moment. I'd suggest a fifth: - MYND - that is, just DYN, with a two-way runoff if there's a (M)ajority failure, or if the second-place majority-approved candidate demands it. This is essentially a work it out, guys threat to keep any negotiation between near-clones grounded in the voters' will, as all of the above are in some way vulnerable to a game of chicken between supporters of near-clones. None of these are my favorite systems in theory, but any of them would be a huge practical step up from plurality. I would still enthusiastically support more-complex systems, but I don't think that they're the most efficient use of our advocacy energy. JQ Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
S Sosnick wrote: On 27-May-2011, Jameson Quinn, wrote, I agree [with Juho Laatu]. If minimax is twice as likely to be adopted, because it's simpler, and gives 95% of the advantage vs. plurality of the theoretically-best Condorcet methods, then it *is* the best. And besides, if we try to get consensus on which is the absolutely best completion method, then almost by definition, we're going to end up arguing in circles (cycles?). I also agree. More noteworthy, however, is that Nicolaus Tideman does, too. At page 242 of Collective Decisions and Voting (2006), he says, If voters and vote counters have only a slight tolerance for complexity, the maximin rule is the one they would reasonably choose. Wouldn't that title more likely go to Copeland? It's simple (count number of matches won x2 plus number of matches tied), is already used in sports, and (at least here) the sports application has a tiebreaker, too (basically, sum margins of defeats). Copeland also always elects from the Smith set, and possibly even the uncovered set. It isn't cloneproof, but neither is Minmax. I suppose Minmax is more strategy-resistant, though. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Remember Toby
From: Kristofer Munsterhjelm To: S Sosnick Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com, election-methods-requ...@lists.electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] Remember Toby S Sosnick wrote: On 27-May-2011, Jameson Quinn, wrote, I agree [with Juho Laatu]. If minimax is twice as likely to be adopted, because it's simpler, and gives 95% of the advantage vs. plurality of the theoretically-best Condorcet methods, then it *is* the best. And besides, if we try to get consensus on which is the absolutely best completion method, then almost by definition, we're going to end up arguing in circles (cycles?). I also agree. More noteworthy, however, is that Nicolaus Tideman does, too. At page 242 of Collective Decisions and Voting (2006), he says, If voters and vote counters have only a slight tolerance for complexity, the maximin rule is the one they would reasonably choose. Wouldn't that title more likely go to Copeland? It's simple (count number of matches won x2 plus number of matches tied), is already used in sports, and (at least here) the sports application has a tiebreaker, too (basically, sum margins of defeats). Copeland also always elects from the Smith set, and possibly even the uncovered set. It isn't cloneproof, but neither is Minmax. I suppose Minmax is more strategy-resistant, though. It seems to me that thevoters are more worried about the ballot type and ease of voting it than they are of the exact counting rules. There are several Condorcet methods that are clone proof and monotonic without being too complicated. I agree with Kevin that elect the CW if there is one, else elect the candidate ranked (or ranked above last) on the greatest number of ballots is plenty simple, and is much more satisfactory than MinMax or Copeland in other respects. But, as I said, what we really need to concentrate on is simplicity in votinig, i.e. how do we make ballots that easy to use for Hodge, fresh from the plough, as Lewis Carroll put it. It has been averred many times on this list that in Australia, where partial rankings are considered spoiled ballots, the vast majority of voters fill out their ballots by copying candidate cards which are published sample ballots recommended by the various candidates. Asset voting makes this automatic for 100% of the voters. That's probably going too far, so how do we get a compromise between Asset voting and Condorcet? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On May 31, 2011, at 10:46 PM, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: It seems to me that thevoters are more worried about the ballot type and ease of voting it than they are of the exact counting rules. There are several Condorcet methods that are clone proof and monotonic without being too complicated. I agree with Kevin that elect the CW if there is one, else elect the candidate ranked (or ranked above last) on the greatest number of ballots is plenty simple, and is much more satisfactory than MinMax or Copeland in other respects. my question is if number of possible ranking levels is at least as large as the number of candidates on the ballot (not counting Write-In who can be accommodated without forcing the voter to equally rank any other candidates) if Candidates A through E are ranked 1 to 5, is the vote for Candidate E (who is ranked lowest) counted? or must E be last by not being ranked to be not counted? But, as I said, what we really need to concentrate on is simplicity in votinig, i.e. how do we make ballots that easy to use for Hodge, fresh from the plough, as Lewis Carroll put it. It has been averred many times on this list that in Australia, where partial rankings are considered spoiled ballots, that sure makes little sense. is this related to the mandatory voting laws for Aussies i hear about? the vast majority of voters fill out their ballots by copying candidate cards which are published sample ballots recommended by the various candidates. Asset voting makes this automatic for 100% of the voters. That's probably going too far, so how do we get a compromise between Asset voting and Condorcet? i forget what Asset voting is. is it Approval or Score voting? (if so, why a different name?) L8r, -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember toby
2011/5/30 Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com Date: Sun, 29 May 2011 23:41:47 +0100 (BST) From: Kevin Venzke step...@yahoo.fr To: election-meth...@electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] Remember toby KD Kevin, Could you please explain in fairly simple terms how Condorcet/Approval works? The way it works is that the voters will submit rankings. Anybody who is ranked is considered approved. (I strongly recommend against making approval something that is explicitly marked. If people want a method like that, don't use this one.) We will check to see whether there is a Condorcet winner. If there is, he wins. That's phase 1. If there's not, the approval winner wins. All rankings count exactly the same, as one vote. I.e. everybody you gave any ranking to is getting 1 approval point from your ballot. It is possible to limit the approval phase to candidates who are in the Smith or Schwartz sets, but I'm not too concerned about that personally. The most obvious downside to C//A is that, since phase 2 levels all your rankings, the later-no-harm failures are worse: You are more likely to regret ranking more candidates. This is like Approval of course. But the phase 2 leveling (that is to say, the approval part) is also why burial is deterred: It's undesirable to vote for candidates you don't actually like, because you will be stuck voting for them (equal to your favorites) if you succeed in forcing the method into phase 2 (which would be the goal of burial). Hope that helps. Kevin Thanks Kevin, I like the simplicity of that plan -- Condorcet/Approval. Have you thought about only counting the first two rank ballot choices of voters if the Approval step becomes necessary due to a Condorcet cycle? With only three ballot positions in the US I wonder if some voters might rank their last choice third and not really understand they were approving that candidate? If ballot design considerations limited the number of ranks available for Condorcet/Approval, one could still use equal ranking to approve an unlimited number of candidates. I agree that an explicit unapproved ranking, though theoretically unnecessary because it's synonymous with a blank ballot line, would help voters understand what's happening. Even just two approved ranks would be a good system, but I believe that any serious proposal should advocate at least three approved ranks (four ranks overall), because I suspect that would get more support. JQ Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember toby
Hi Kathy, --- En date de : Lun 30.5.11, Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com a écrit : Thanks Kevin, I like the simplicity of that plan -- Condorcet/Approval. Have you thought about only counting the first two rank ballot choices of voters if the Approval step becomes necessary due to a Condorcet cycle? With only three ballot positions in the US I wonder if some voters might rank their last choice third and not really understand they were approving that candidate? The only thing I reject is the ability of the voter to rank some candidate over another candidate, and not be forced to approve the former candidate in the approval stage. So, for me it won't work to say the first two slots, but the thing you are trying to prevent is OK with me. Kevin Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember toby JQ
Hi Jameson, --- En date de : Lun 30.5.11, Jameson Quinn jameson.qu...@gmail.com a écrit : If ballot design considerations limited the number of ranks available for Condorcet/Approval, one could still use equal ranking to approve an unlimited number of candidates. I agree that an explicit unapproved ranking, though theoretically unnecessary because it's synonymous with a blank ballot line, would help voters understand what's happening. Even just two approved ranks would be a good system, but I believe that any serious proposal should advocate at least three approved ranks (four ranks overall), because I suspect that would get more support. An advantage to two approved ranks (with one disapproved) is that it becomes hard (impossible?) to show Smith failure examples. Your typical example has four candidates and four distinct ranks with a cycle among three of them. I'm pretty sure you can't do that with three slots. Kevin Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember toby
On 29.5.2011, at 3.53, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: I agree with Kevin. Winning Votes is much better and easier to defend. Kevin Venzke referred to the number of disappointed voters on the winning side (that will be overruled in the case of a top cycle). That's one concern. I have some problems finding good explanations behind the winning votes philosophy. One problem is that also the losing side votes should have some weight. 51-49 seems almost tied and 50-0 seems almost unanimous (although only half of the voters gave their opinion on this pairwise comparison). 49: AB 49: C 2: BC In this example there seem to be two large parties, one of which has two candidates (good and bad). In addition there are 2 voters that don't vote like the others do. It is not easy to me to defend the WV philosophy that B should win this election. In margins one can discuss if 55-45 should really be equal to 15-5 but to me it seems that margins is at least roughly in the correct direction all the time anyway. But I still think that we should go with a method that is does not require the voters to rank the candidates. From simplest to less simple but still simple enough: 1. Asset Voting 2. Approval 3. DYN 4. MCA 5. The Bucklin Variant of Venzke and Benham Filling an Approval ballot is technically easier than filling a Condorcet ballot (there can be many different kind of ballots). But isn't Bucklin already in in the Condorcet category of complexity (=to give rankings or ratings to at least all potential winners)? If one has only limited number of slots available (like in some of the methods), then the interesting question is how good results will Condorcet methods give if the number of ranks is limited to some fixed number (to make voting and/or ballot format simpler). Although Approval ballots can be simpler technically, the complexity of strategy selection in Approval may make it more complicated than Condorcet voting in the minds of some voters at least. One argument in favour of (the simplicity of) Condorcet methods is thus that usually strategic thinking is not needed. Giving one's sincere rankings is already enough and with good probability the best strategy for all voters. Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On 29.5.2011, at 5.07, Kevin Venzke wrote: Hi Juho, --- En date de : Sam 28.5.11, Juho Laatu juho4...@yahoo.co.uk a écrit : Margins elects A here: 35 AB 25 B 40 C Is this going to be defensible when this method is proposed? Can you argue a case for A without mindreading off of the blank areas of the ballots? I guess the common assumption is that the unranked candidates are considered to be tied at the last position. So, vote B should be read BA=C. (The intended meaning of B and BA=C is thus the same by default. Some methods may however have an implicit approval cutoff at the end of the explicitly ranked candidates. In that case vote B should be interpreted B | A=C and BA=C should be interpreted BA=C |, but I consider that to be a special case. If the voter has some preference between A and C (and she wants to express it), then the voter should mark that in the ballot, since otherwise there is no other sensible interpretation but that A and C should be treated as equal. If there are so many potential winners in the election that one can not expect all voters to rank all potential winners, then we may lose some of the information that the voters wanted to give. I'm not sure if I answered properly to the mindreading point here but those were my thoughts anyway.) The mindreading point is that you are having to say if the voters wanted to say something they could have said it. I'm not sure this will be persuasive because you can't offer an assurance that those voters could vote that way without risking something. This is why I suggest that you had better force voters to rank everyone in a margins method. In som sense margins does this. Vote B gives the same result as half vote BAC and half vote BCA together. Or statistically the results are the same if all uncertain voters will flip a coin and vote either way. In WV A and C will be considered as equal, too - it just won't count that voter as a schizophrenic who always feels 50% cheated no matter what happens between the two. This was not an easy explanation :-). Juho Kevin 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] Remember toby
Date: Sun, 29 May 2011 02:42:44 +0100 (BST) From: Kevin Venzke step...@yahoo.fr To: election-meth...@electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] Remember toby In the easy to explain/solve but still Condorcet category, I am okay with Minmax(WV) but I think Condorcet//Approval (with implied approval) is preferable because you don't need a defeat strength concept at all, and it makes burial a pretty clearly unattractive strategy. Kevin Kevin, Could you please explain in fairly simple terms how Condorcet/Approval works? I have no problem with Condorcet/Margins approach but it might be hard to explain to the general public. I like Condorcet in general. I also like Approval because it is so simple and could be done using today's voting systems (hardware) and ballots. Thanks. -- Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts. Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174 Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf View some of my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember toby KD
Hi Kathy, --- En date de : Dim 29.5.11, Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com a écrit : In the easy to explain/solve but still Condorcet category, I am okay with Minmax(WV) but I think Condorcet//Approval (with implied approval) is preferable because you don't need a defeat strength concept at all, and it makes burial a pretty clearly unattractive strategy. Kevin Kevin, Could you please explain in fairly simple terms how Condorcet/Approval works? I have no problem with Condorcet/Margins approach but it might be hard to explain to the general public. I like Condorcet in general. I also like Approval because it is so simple and could be done using today's voting systems (hardware) and ballots. The way it works is that the voters will submit rankings. Anybody who is ranked is considered approved. (I strongly recommend against making approval something that is explicitly marked. If people want a method like that, don't use this one.) We will check to see whether there is a Condorcet winner. If there is, he wins. That's phase 1. If there's not, the approval winner wins. All rankings count exactly the same, as one vote. I.e. everybody you gave any ranking to is getting 1 approval point from your ballot. It is possible to limit the approval phase to candidates who are in the Smith or Schwartz sets, but I'm not too concerned about that personally. The most obvious downside to C//A is that, since phase 2 levels all your rankings, the later-no-harm failures are worse: You are more likely to regret ranking more candidates. This is like Approval of course. But the phase 2 leveling (that is to say, the approval part) is also why burial is deterred: It's undesirable to vote for candidates you don't actually like, because you will be stuck voting for them (equal to your favorites) if you succeed in forcing the method into phase 2 (which would be the goal of burial). Hope that helps. Kevin Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Remember Toby
On 27-May-2011, Jameson Quinn, wrote, I agree [with Juho Laatu]. If minimax is twice as likely to be adopted, because it's simpler, and gives 95% of the advantage vs. plurality of the theoretically-best Condorcet methods, then it *is* the best. And besides, if we try to get consensus on which is the absolutely best completion method, then almost by definition, we're going to end up arguing in circles (cycles?). I also agree. More noteworthy, however, is that Nicolaus Tideman does, too. At page 242 of Collective Decisions and Voting (2006), he says, If voters and vote counters have only a slight tolerance for complexity, the maximin rule is the one they would reasonably choose. --Stephen H. Sosnick (5/28/11) Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On May 28, 2011, at 3:41 PM, S Sosnick wrote: On 27-May-2011, Jameson Quinn, wrote, I agree [with Juho Laatu]. If minimax is twice as likely to be adopted, because it's simpler, and gives 95% of the advantage vs. plurality of the theoretically-best Condorcet methods, then it *is* the best. And besides, if we try to get consensus on which is the absolutely best completion method, then almost by definition, we're going to end up arguing in circles (cycles?). I also agree. More noteworthy, however, is that Nicolaus Tideman does, too. At page 242 of Collective Decisions and Voting (2006), he says, If voters and vote counters have only a slight tolerance for complexity, the maximin rule is the one they would reasonably choose. will minimax of margins decide differently than ranked pairs? if the cycle has only three candidates, it seems to me that it must be equivalent to ranked pairs. is there any good reason to use minimax of winning votes (clipped at zero) over minimax using margins? it seems to me that a candidate pairing where Candidate A just squeaks by Candidate B, but where a lotta people vote should have less weight than a pairing where one candidate creams the other, but fewer voters weighed in on 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
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On 28.5.2011, at 23.16, robert bristow-johnson wrote: On May 28, 2011, at 3:41 PM, S Sosnick wrote: On 27-May-2011, Jameson Quinn, wrote, I agree [with Juho Laatu]. If minimax is twice as likely to be adopted, because it's simpler, and gives 95% of the advantage vs. plurality of the theoretically-best Condorcet methods, then it *is* the best. And besides, if we try to get consensus on which is the absolutely best completion method, then almost by definition, we're going to end up arguing in circles (cycles?). I also agree. More noteworthy, however, is that Nicolaus Tideman does, too. At page 242 of Collective Decisions and Voting (2006), he says, If voters and vote counters have only a slight tolerance for complexity, the maximin rule is the one they would reasonably choose. will minimax of margins decide differently than ranked pairs? if the cycle has only three candidates, it seems to me that it must be equivalent to ranked pairs. With cycles of three maybe the main difference between the most popular methods is the choice between margins and winning votes. In addition to that minmax may elect outside the top cycle in the rare case that the defeats within the top cycle are all stronger than any of the losses of some candidate outside the top cycle. is there any good reason to use minimax of winning votes (clipped at zero) over minimax using margins? I guess the usual arguments on e.g. strategic voting and strength of pairwise comparisons apply on this comparison in both directions. If one looks for simplicity and ease of explaining the method and ease of following the vote counting process, then margins has some advantages since, as said, it always measures the number of additional (first preference) votes each candidate would have needed (or would still need) to beat all other candidates. it seems to me that a candidate pairing where Candidate A just squeaks by Candidate B, but where a lotta people vote should have less weight than a pairing where one candidate creams the other, but fewer voters weighed in on it. In margins pairwise victory of 55-45 is as strong as 35-25. In winning votes 55-45 is as strong as 55-5. In the margins example 35 is not a majority but it is 40% bigger than 25 (while 55 is only 22% bigger than 45). In the winning votes example both victories have majority but in the latter one the winning side has more than ten times the number of votes of the other side. It is hard to say what kind of a rule would be ideal for all elections. Minmax(margins) in a way relies on the required additional voters philosophy when measuring the strength of preferences. (There are also other approaches to measuring the pairwise preferences, like counting the proportion, e.g. 55/45 = 122%.) Juho -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. 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] Remember Toby
Hi Robert, --- En date de : Sam 28.5.11, robert bristow-johnson r...@audioimagination.com a écrit : will minimax of margins decide differently than ranked pairs? if the cycle has only three candidates, it seems to me that it must be equivalent to ranked pairs. It is the same with three. is there any good reason to use minimax of winning votes (clipped at zero) over minimax using margins? it seems to me that a candidate pairing where Candidate A just squeaks by Candidate B, but where a lotta people vote should have less weight than a pairing where one candidate creams the other, but fewer voters weighed in on it. Margins is basically what Peter originally suggested and what I was trying to advise him away from. Margins on average is closer to IRV in results, WV closer to Bucklin. Though both are closer to each other, of course. You say you find it more obvious to drop a close contest, but it's only the winning side of that contest that's going to feel the outcome was spoiled if they get overruled. The margins idea of what looks right doesn't directly serve any purpose, yet by definition vetoes more voters' opinions than WV does, making more people wish they had just voted FPP style, or making candidates wish they hadn't entered the race. Margins elects A here: 35 AB 25 B 40 C Is this going to be defensible when this method is proposed? Can you argue a case for A without mindreading off of the blank areas of the ballots? I don't think the tightest race is the one to drop. That could be the only race people thought mattered. Can you imagine if there were a very tight election between candidates B and G let's call them, but because there was a third candidate in the race we may pick the *loser* of the B-G contest? I.e. the voters give you a single majority decision (more than half the voters) and that's the one you don't respect? Kevin Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember Toby
On 29.5.2011, at 1.33, Kevin Venzke wrote: Margins elects A here: 35 AB 25 B 40 C Is this going to be defensible when this method is proposed? Can you argue a case for A without mindreading off of the blank areas of the ballots? I guess the common assumption is that the unranked candidates are considered to be tied at the last position. So, vote B should be read BA=C. (The intended meaning of B and BA=C is thus the same by default. Some methods may however have an implicit approval cutoff at the end of the explicitly ranked candidates. In that case vote B should be interpreted B | A=C and BA=C should be interpreted BA=C |, but I consider that to be a special case. If the voter has some preference between A and C (and she wants to express it), then the voter should mark that in the ballot, since otherwise there is no other sensible interpretation but that A and C should be treated as equal. If there are so many potential winners in the election that one can not expect all voters to rank all potential winners, then we may lose some of the information that the voters wanted to give. I'm not sure if I answered properly to the mindreading point here but those were my thoughts anyway.) Why would margins elect A then? The explanation is simple from the margins point of view. If we elect A then there are 40 voters saying that C should have been elected instead of A and 5 less saying than A is better. If we elect B then there are 35 voters saying that A should have been elected instead of A and 10 less saying than B is better. If we elect C then there are 60 voters saying that B should have been elected instead of C and 20 less saying than C is better. From that point of view A is the least controversial winner. A would need only 6 additional votes to become a Condorcet winner and beat all others. the voters give you a single majority decision (more than half the voters) and that's the one you don't respect? That could happen in margins. It is possible that the winner is opposed by a majority of the voters, and in all other pairwise comparisons the winning side has less than majority of the votes, but those comparisons are stronger when measured as difference between winning and losing side (e.g. 30: AB, 21:B, 49: C). I'm not sure when majorities should be given precedence and what majorities that would mean. In large elections there is seldom a majority of all the people or the whole electorate. In the case of margins above in all the pairwise comparisons the winning side had majority of all the voters that wanted to express their opinion in that pairwise contest (although not a majority of all the valid ballots of that election). Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember toby
I agree with Kevin. Winning Votes is much better and easier to defend. But I still think that we should go with a method that is does not require the voters to rank the candidates. From simplest to less simple but still simple enough: 1. Asset Voting 2. Approval 3. DYN 4. MCA 5. The Bucklin Variant of Venzke and Benham From: Kevin Venzke To: robert bristow-johnson Cc: election-meth...@electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] Remember Toby Message-ID: 952900.12451...@web29609.mail.ird.yahoo.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Hi Robert, --- En date de?: Sam 28.5.11, robert bristow-johnson a ?crit?: will minimax of margins decide differently than ranked pairs?? if the cycle has only three candidates, it seems to me that it must be equivalent to ranked pairs. It is the same with three. is there any good reason to use minimax of winning votes (clipped at zero) over minimax using margins?? it seems to me that a candidate pairing where Candidate A just squeaks by Candidate B, but where a lotta people vote should have less weight than a pairing where one candidate creams the other, but fewer voters weighed in on it. Margins is basically what Peter originally suggested and what I was trying to advise him away from. Margins on average is closer to IRV in results, WV closer to Bucklin. Though both are closer to each other, of course. You say you find it more obvious to drop a close contest, but it's only the winning side of that contest that's going to feel the outcome was spoiled if they get overruled. The margins idea of what looks right doesn't directly serve any purpose, yet by definition vetoes more voters' opinions than WV does, making more people wish they had just voted FPP style, or making candidates wish they hadn't entered the race. Margins elects A here: 35 AB 25 B 40 C Is this going to be defensible when this method is proposed? Can you argue a case for A without mindreading off of the blank areas of the ballots? I don't think the tightest race is the one to drop. That could be the only race people thought mattered. Can you imagine if there were a very tight election between candidates B and G let's call them, but because there was a third candidate in the race we may pick the *loser* of the B-G contest? I.e. the voters give you a single majority decision (more than half the voters) and that's the one you don't respect? Kevin Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember toby
Hi Forest, --- En date de : Sam 28.5.11, fsimm...@pcc.edu fsimm...@pcc.edu a écrit : From simplest to less simple but still simple enough: 1. Asset Voting 2. Approval 3. DYN 4. MCA 5. The Bucklin Variant of Venzke and Benham If by #5 you mean IBIFA, I can't take any credit for that. I did make a Bucklin variant (VBV) but it was well after Chris (seems to have) dropped off the face of the earth. In the easy to explain/solve but still Condorcet category, I am okay with Minmax(WV) but I think Condorcet//Approval (with implied approval) is preferable because you don't need a defeat strength concept at all, and it makes burial a pretty clearly unattractive strategy. Kevin Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember toby Nixon
On the mathematical-exploration side of things: 2011/5/26 fsimm...@pcc.edu From: Kevin Venzke To: election-meth...@electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon? FS Message-ID: 404845.50771...@web29613.mail.ird.yahoo.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Hi Forest, --- En date de?: Mer 25.5.11, fsimm...@pcc.edu a ?crit?: The main problem is determining (through the disinformation noise) who the front runners really are. Suppose the zero-information front runners to be candidates A and B, but that the media created front runners are C and D.? If everybody votes for one of these two falsely advertised front runners, then they become the front runners, but only through self fulfilling prophecy. The difference between Approval and Plurality here is that in Pluralitywhen the frontrunners are A and B, generally only A and B can win. Under Approval it is not guaranteed that the winner will be one of these candidates, as long as C or D haven't dropped out of the race. If the perceived frontrunners are actually the worst candidates, any better candidates should receive a vast number of votes. If C or D are clones of A/B then I think they probably would drop out of the race. But if we are simply electing the wrong clone, that doesn'tseem like an enormous problem. Yes, Approval is much better than Plurality and quickly homes in on the CW if there is one. But this homing in typically takes a couple iterations, which doesn't help when the candidates change every four years. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info I suspect that Approval, with even a modicum of openly-reported polling, would mostly get the CW (pairwise champion) on the first try... and that, given (real-world, perhaps-misguided, attempts at) strategy, actual Condorcet methods would not do measurably better at this. The one case where approval could fail to find the CW, even after a number of iterations, is when there are two near-clones splitting/sharing a majority (call them A1 and A2, and their strongest opponent B), and a game of chicken between the supporters of those two. If A1 and A2 have similar levels of support, the winner between those two will not be the CW, but rather whichever of the two has more-strategic supporters. But if there are too many such strategists, B will win. There is no dominant equilibrium to this game. DYN helps to resolve this somewhat, because it shifts the game of chicken from an impossible-to-coordinate mass, secret-ballot election to the two individual candidates themselves. This makes it much less likely that B will win by mistake; but it does not ensure that the winner between A1 and A2 will be the CW. It is possible to patch this problem with DYN by using some measure of candidate quality from the first, and only allowing candidates to approve of other candidates of higher quality. This is in the spirit of IRV's elimination-and-transfer, and like that process, it is theoretically vulnerable to center squeeze. However, I think that it would be possible to use a measure of candidate quality such that the overwhelming probability would be that the highest-quality candidate by that measure would be the CW, and that exceptions would be minor and/or manageable through simple strategies by the candidates. The measure I'd pick would be the range score of the candidate, measuring preference (circled), approved, and [unmarked or unapproved], as 2, 1, 0 respectively. (I'm grouping unmarked and unapproved so that there is no strategic motivation to explicitly unapprove a near-clone of your favorite candidate. Note that this 2,1,0 range score, unlike any more-finely-chopped range score, has the property that the actual CW is guaranteed to have a range score as high or higher than the highest approval score.) So, translated into ordinary language: You circle your favorite candidate, and approve or disapprove of as many other candidates as you want. Your favorite candidate is automatically counted as both favorite and approved. After these results are published, your favorite candidate may 'fill in your ballot' by approving of any other candidate who has more favorites plus approvals than themself. If you had left any such candidates unmarked, they then get a vote for you. The candidate with the most approvals wins. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon?
If you are looking for simplicity then maybe also minmax should be considered since it (the margins version) simply measures the number of required additional voters to beat all others. I agree. If minimax is twice as likely to be adopted, because it's simpler, and gives 95% of the advantage vs. plurality of the theoretically-best Condorcet methods, then it *is* the best. And besides, if we try to get consensus on which is the absolutely best completion method, then almost by definition, we're going to end up arguing in circles (cycles?). JQ Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon?
On 26.5.2011, at 7.10, matt welland wrote: On Thu, 2011-05-26 at 01:07 +, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: matt welland wrote ... The only strategy in approval is to hold your nose and check off the front runner you despise because you don't want the other front runner you despise more to win. The main problem is determining (through the disinformation noise) who the front runners really are. Suppose the zero-information front runners to be candidates A and B, but that the media created front runners are C and D. If everybody votes for one of these two falsely advertised front runners, then they become the front runners, but only through self fulfilling prophecy. When unbiased polls are not drowned out by the big money, this is no problem. But after the Citizens United decision, we have to assume that disinformation is the rule, not the exception. For me it seems we are so far from a point were discerning the front runner is anything but blindingly obvious (at least in the US) that it is a complete non-issue. Did any of the alternative candidates get into the two digit range in 2008? The third party candidates are so irrelevant that after a couple searches I still hadn't found a link that mentioned the percentage results to put in this post. I would be thrilled if when voting I even *considered* dropping my vote for the lesser horror front runner in an approval vote. Approval would be a perfect start for the US (assuming that you want to get rid of the two party dominance). It would work fine as long as the small parties/candidates remain small. When there are more than two potential winners, then Approval will face some strategy problems, and possibly also some of the discussed strategic poll related problems. When such problems materialize, then it would be time to change the system again. And at that point the probability of people wanting to return back to the old FPTP and two party domination would maybe be smaller. These concerns are like bikeshedding, we are arguing about the paint color and we don't even have a roof, walls or foundation, hell, we don't even agree on the plans. On this list there are many people with their own inventions and favourite methods, and people who love to study all the possibilities. They may be less all over the place if one makes the difference between theoretical studies and practical implementations. Also pointing out the target environment will reduce the number of possible choices. For example to me Approval is not an ideal theoretical general purpose single winner method, but if we discuss about possible next steps for some single winner elections in the US (where FPTP is used today), and we state getting rid of the two party dominance, then Approval is an excellent choice (maybe not to last forever, but a perfect tool for the current problem anyway). There may also be endless debates e.g. on the properties of the numerous Condorcet variants. Many people on this list agree that Condorcet methods are excellent general purpose single winner methods for competitive majority oriented elections. But if the need to rank (or rate) all major candidates is too much, then some simpler ballots should be used. And it is difficult to get an agreement on which one of the Condorcet methods is the ultimate best one, but that doesn't matter too much since all of them work quite well when compared to many of their competitors. That doesn't mean the debate on this list is not important, it is very important, but I come full circle to my post from a while back. When the knowledgeable experts can't put out a unified front there will be no moving forward. I would have liked this list to find some general agreements on what methods should be generally recommended for practical use in different environments and traditions. That has not happened during the years. With clearly defined targets (e.g. a practical and politically acceptable solution for some particular election in the US within n years), maybe people on this list can at least point out the properties of various approaches. I don't expect consensus on one particular choice. I don't expect people to jointly sign any petition to support one chosen approach. Since the theoretical / scientific / web community is not organized, maybe support should be sought from some more traditional forms of political campaigning (lobbying, political activists, political movements, initiative with a support group). Sorry, it's hard to watch a country which had so much potential to make the human condition better for people all around the world, turn a bit uglier, meaner and, yup, more fascist every day. I suspect that the only thing that can turn this around in a sustainable way is a change in the voting system but without a crystal clear rallying cry from the experts for *ONE* method that will never happen. Truth is that the goals of this list
Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon?
On 26.5.2011, at 4.35, robert bristow-johnson wrote: being that they choose the same winner in the case that there are only 3 candidates in the cycle, i would recommend Tideman over Schulze (sorry Marcus) for the simplicity of explanation. while getting a Condorcet cycle is expected to be rare enough, how often in real elections in government, would you expect a situation where RP and CSSD will arrive at a different result? If there are only few candidates and clear political agendas and clear differences between them, then cycles of 3 are probably much more common than cycles of 4. If there is a large number of quite equal candidates and no dominant or clear preference orders among the voters, then cycles of 4 and higher could be almost as common. In that case the differences between methods that differ only on cycles of 4 become relevant, maybe not very critical though. The choice between margins and winning votes could impact the results sooner. I guess Schulze is by default winning votes based. Ranked pairs maybe more margins oriented(?). But one could use either depending on one's preferences. If you are looking for simplicity then maybe also minmax should be considered since it (the margins version) simply measures the number of required additional voters to beat all others. That is easy to explain, and also to visualize the results during the counting process (one should pay some attention also to this kind of real-time visualizations). It may pick also outside the top cycle in some extreme situations where the losses within the cycle are worse than the losses of some compromise candidate outside the cycle. Good or bad (to always respect the clone independence or to pick the least controversial winner), maybe a matter of taste. Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon? FS
Hi Forest, --- En date de : Mer 25.5.11, fsimm...@pcc.edu fsimm...@pcc.edu a écrit : The main problem is determining (through the disinformation noise) who the front runners really are. Suppose the zero-information front runners to be candidates A and B, but that the media created front runners are C and D. If everybody votes for one of these two falsely advertised front runners, then they become the front runners, but only through self fulfilling prophecy. The difference between Approval and Plurality here is that in Plurality when the frontrunners are A and B, generally only A and B can win. Under Approval it is not guaranteed that the winner will be one of these candidates, as long as C or D haven't dropped out of the race. If the perceived frontrunners are actually the worst candidates, any better candidates should receive a vast number of votes. If C or D are clones of A/B then I think they probably would drop out of the race. But if we are simply electing the wrong clone, that doesn't seem like an enormous problem. Kevin Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Remember toby Nixon
From: Kevin Venzke To: election-meth...@electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon? FS Message-ID: 404845.50771...@web29613.mail.ird.yahoo.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Hi Forest, --- En date de?: Mer 25.5.11, fsimm...@pcc.edu a ?crit?: The main problem is determining (through the disinformation noise) who the front runners really are. Suppose the zero-information front runners to be candidates A and B, but that the media created front runners are C and D.? If everybody votes for one of these two falsely advertised front runners, then they become the front runners, but only through self fulfilling prophecy. The difference between Approval and Plurality here is that in Pluralitywhen the frontrunners are A and B, generally only A and B can win. Under Approval it is not guaranteed that the winner will be one of these candidates, as long as C or D haven't dropped out of the race. If the perceived frontrunners are actually the worst candidates, any better candidates should receive a vast number of votes. If C or D are clones of A/B then I think they probably would drop out of the race. But if we are simply electing the wrong clone, that doesn'tseem like an enormous problem. Yes, Approval is much better than Plurality and quickly homes in on the CW if there is one. But this homing in typically takes a couple iterations, which doesn't help when the candidates change every four years. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon?
On 7/22/64 11:59 AM, Dave Ketchum wrote: On May 24, 2011, at 6:42 PM, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: About six years ago Toby Nixon asked the members of this EM list for a advice on what election method to try propose in the Washington State Legislature. He finally settled on CSSD beatpath. As near as I know nothing came of it. What would we propose if we had another opportunity like that? It seems to me that people have rejected IRV, Bucklin, and other methods based on ranked ballots because they don’t want to rank the candidates. I would propose Condorcet, with just a few clarifications: Leave CSSD beatpath as a detail method decision to resolve later. Reject IRV for known problems. Those unranked are simply counted as having the bottom rank. Write-ins permitted and counted as if actually nominated. This is a bit of extra pain, but I like it better than demanding extra nominations that enemies could make unacceptably difficult. Equal ranking permitted. Those who like Approval should understand that using a single rank lets them express their desire without considering ranking in detail. No restrictions as to how rank numbers compare - when considering which of a pair has higher rank, ONLY their ranks compare as HL, LH, or E=- what ranks are assigned to other candidates have no effect on this. No restriction as to how many rank numbers a voter may use, beyond fact that a chosen ballot design may impose a limit as to how many can be expressed. DYN is a simple addition for those who see value in that method. Having conducted in the CIVS system an experiment over the past several years as to whether people are able to deal with ranked ballots, I have to say that voters seem to be able to deal with ranking choices. In fact they will even rank dozens of choices. As long as the user interface is not painful, it's not a big deal for most people. So I would choose Condorcet in a second. Like Dave, I don't think the completion method matters a great deal. However, write-ins are a more complicated issue and it is still not clear to me how to handle them fairly. -- Andrew Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon?
fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: About six years ago Toby Nixon asked the members of this EM list for a advice on what election method to try propose in the Washington State Legislature. He finally settled on CSSD beatpath. As near as I know nothing came of it. What would we propose if we had another opportunity like that? Being who I am, I would either pick Ranked Pairs or CSSD (Beatpath, Schulze): the former if it's more important that it can be explained easily, the latter if precedence is more important. It seems to me that people have rejected IRV, Bucklin, and other methods based on ranked ballots because they don’t want to rank the candidates. Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) anticipated this difficulty in 1884, and he suggested what we now call Asset Voting as a solution. Asset voting is the simplest solution to the spoiler problem. Approval is the next simplest. IMHO anything much more complicated than Approval or Asset voting doesn’t stand a chance with the general public here in America. For this reason most IRV proposals have actually truncated IRV to rank only three candidates. This destroys IRV’s clone independence. I'm not sure about this. If you look at history, ranked voting has been used many places in the US, and the voters didn't seem to complain about ranking -- the methods were usually repealed because the candidates or the political machines didn't like them. For instance, as I've mentioned before, New York used STV for ten years. Cincinnati did, too, and I think they still use STV in Cambridge, MA. There was also the Minnesota use of Bucklin, which wasn't stopped because people didn't want to rank, but because the courts found it unconstitutional for some strange reason. Most ranked methods also permit the voters to truncate. Even IRV does, though it then loses the majority winner feature. Thus, if the voters don't want to rank all the way down to the write-ins, they don't have to. They can even bullet vote if they so desire. If I'm to speculate, I think the reason for truncated IRV is so that already existing optical mark counters can handle the ranked ballots, to save on the infrastructure. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon?
matt welland wrote: On Tue, 2011-05-24 at 22:42 +, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: On the other hand Approval requires reliable polling information for informed strategy. This fact makes Approval vulnerable to manipulation by disinformation. Is this a generally accepted truth? I don't think I agree with it, can you point me to more information or explain? The only strategy in approval is to hold your nose and check off the front runner you despise because you don't want the other front runner you despise more to win. But I think this is only a factor for the period after transitioning to approval from a plurality system. In the longer term both the candidates and the voters will change. I think the change would be for the better, candidates would generally be more accountable, voters need only decide who they could live with as leaders and it is worth it to listen to what the minority players are saying - giving them your vote is both possible and meaningful. I guess most of these would be true (perhaps more so) for asset voting also. The strategy holds even when there are more than two frontrunners. AFAIK, the best strategy (LeGrand's strategy A) is approve all you prefer to whoever has the most votes, then vote for that one if you prefer him to the one who has second most. When there are only two frontrunners, that's simple enough: you vote for the frontrunner if you prefer him to the other guy. When there are more than two, however, the importance of polls increases, since you have to know who is currently in the lead and who is second. In between, there could be an uncertainty point. For instance, in the 2000 example, if Nader has no chance, you approve of him and Gore (but not Bush). If Nader has a lot of support, you vote for Nader alone because you want to make sure Gore doesn't win. But if Nader has just about the same chance to win as Gore, then it gets tricky. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon?
For a legislature one could use also multi-winner and proportional methods, but I think the question was what single-winner method to recommend. (I'd probably recommend proportional methods for most multi-winner elections, unless the community explicitly wants to have a two-party system.) Jameson Quinn mentioned the kingmakers. Delegating the power to decide who will win to one or few candidates is risky since (depending on the environment) that might lead to buying personal benefits, instead of basing the decision on one's sincere opinions or doing only political trading. Kristofer Musterhjelm mentioned the possibility that the limitations of current voting machines might limit the maximum number of candidates to rank. Good sigle-winner methods tend to require evaluation and some knowledge of at least all the major candidates. Maybe ranking is not much more difficult than other simpler approaches like approval. Different ballot types might be used, depending on the preferences of the community. If the complexity of allocating some preference strength (e.g. a rating) to at least all major candidates is not too much, (almost) any Condorcet method would be a good first guess. (Alternatively also Range could be used for clearly non-competitive (and non-majority-based) polls / elections. But probably the question addressed competitive political elections only.) To pick one of the Condorcet methods one might use criteria related to simplicity, performance with sincere votes, performance with strategic votes (hopefully an maybe likely strategies will be marginal in Condorcet), ability to explain and visualize the results, easy marketing. All Condorcet methods tend to give the same winner in almost all real-life elections since in most cases there is a Condorcet winner, and even if not, the winner still tends to be the same, and even if it was not, then it will be difficult to say which one of the about equal candidates should really have won. Matt Welland discussed the Approval strategies. The strategy of approving some of the frontrunners and not approving some of them is well known. Therefore it makes sometimes sense to distribute fake (or hand picked) polls. One may also distribute different polls or other messages to different target audiences. I wrote something about this few years ago. See http://lists.electorama.com/htdig.cgi/election-methods-electorama.com/2006-December/019127.html. Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon?
On May 25, 2011, at 2:07 AM, Andrew Myers wrote: On 7/22/64 11:59 AM, Dave Ketchum wrote: On May 24, 2011, at 6:42 PM, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: About six years ago Toby Nixon asked the members of this EM list for a advice on what election method to try propose in the Washington State Legislature. He finally settled on CSSD beatpath. As near as I know nothing came of it. What would we propose if we had another opportunity like that? It seems to me that people have rejected IRV, Bucklin, and other methods based on ranked ballots because they don’t want to rank the candidates. I would propose Condorcet, with just a few clarifications: Leave CSSD beatpath as a detail method decision to resolve later. Reject IRV for known problems. Those unranked are simply counted as having the bottom rank. Write-ins permitted and counted as if actually nominated. This is a bit of extra pain, but I like it better than demanding extra nominations that enemies could make unacceptably difficult. Equal ranking permitted. Those who like Approval should understand that using a single rank lets them express their desire without considering ranking in detail. No restrictions as to how rank numbers compare - when considering which of a pair has higher rank, ONLY their ranks compare as HL, LH, or E=- what ranks are assigned to other candidates have no effect on this. No restriction as to how many rank numbers a voter may use, beyond fact that a chosen ballot design may impose a limit as to how many can be expressed. DYN is a simple addition for those who see value in that method. Having conducted in the CIVS system an experiment over the past several years as to whether people are able to deal with ranked ballots, I have to say that voters seem to be able to deal with ranking choices. In fact they will even rank dozens of choices. As long as the user interface is not painful, it's not a big deal for most people. So I would choose Condorcet in a second. Like Dave, I don't think the completion method matters a great deal. However, write-ins are a more complicated issue and it is still not clear to me how to handle them fairly. I was not limiting how much deciding on completion method matters - just saying what I do care about matters more. Ranking dozens? I think some overdo that - It should be acceptable for any voter to quit after ranking those they care most about. Two thoughts on write-ins: When having a lone thought it matters little. When wanting to elect one who is not nominated, get serious and campaign, just as you do for a favored nominee. -- Andrew Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon?
matt welland wrote ... The only strategy in approval is to hold your nose and check off the front runner you despise because you don't want the other front runner you despise more to win. The main problem is determining (through the disinformation noise) who the front runners really are. Suppose the zero-information front runners to be candidates A and B, but that the media created front runners are C and D. If everybody votes for one of these two falsely advertised front runners, then they become the front runners, but only through self fulfilling prophecy. When unbiased polls are not drowned out by the big money, this is no problem. But after the Citizens United decision, we have to assume that disinformation is the rule, not the exception. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon?
- Original Message - From: Kristofer Munsterhjelm Date: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 11:31 pm Subject: Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon? To: fsimm...@pcc.edu Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: About six years ago Toby Nixon asked the members of this EM list for a advice on what election method to try propose in the Washington State Legislature. He finally settled on CSSD beatpath. As near as I know nothing came of it. What would we propose if we had another opportunity like that? Being who I am, I would either pick Ranked Pairs or CSSD (Beatpath, Schulze): the former if it's more important that it can be explained easily, the latter if precedence is more important. It seems to me that people have rejected IRV, Bucklin, and other methods based on ranked ballots because they don’t want to rank the candidates. Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) anticipated this difficulty in 1884, and he suggested what we now call Asset Voting as a solution. Asset voting is the simplest solution to the spoiler problem. Approval is the next simplest. IMHO anything much more complicated than Approval or Asset voting doesn’t stand a chance with the general public here in America. For this reason most IRV proposals have actually truncated IRV to rank only three candidates. This destroys IRV’s clone independence. I'm not sure about this. If you look at history, ranked voting has been used many places in the US, and the voters didn't seem to complain about ranking -- the methods were usually repealed because the candidates or the political machines didn't like them. It's true that historically and even recently ranked systems have been adopted here and elsewhere. But these successes are infinitesimal in comparison to the failed initiatives. Why have the initiatives failed? Overwhelmingly because the voters have rejected the idea of ballots that require ranking of candidates. I first saw this pattern ten years ago when FairVote Oregon was working on an IRV ititiative here in Oregon. And it has been the constant theme in failed initiatives ever since then. Lewis Carroll was right! Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon?
On May 25, 2011, at 9:17 PM, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: - Original Message - From: Kristofer Munsterhjelm Being who I am, I would either pick Ranked Pairs or CSSD (Beatpath, Schulze): the former if it's more important that it can be explained easily, the latter if precedence is more important. being that they choose the same winner in the case that there are only 3 candidates in the cycle, i would recommend Tideman over Schulze (sorry Marcus) for the simplicity of explanation. while getting a Condorcet cycle is expected to be rare enough, how often in real elections in government, would you expect a situation where RP and CSSD will arrive at a different result? ... It's true that historically and even recently ranked systems have been adopted here and elsewhere. But these successes are infinitesimal in comparison to the failed initiatives. Why have the initiatives failed? Overwhelmingly because the voters have rejected the idea of ballots that require ranking of candidates. The single affirmative vote. a religious position, but it's more honest than misrepresenting another principle: One person, one vote. the most effective political sign was probably Keep Voting Simple. what these people say they don't wanna do is vote for *anyone* other than their choice of candidate. it's like ranking their contingency vote as #2 will somehow hurt their #1 choice (as it would with Borda). then (with IRV) they find out that their #1 choice actually hurt their #2 choice by helping the candidate they hated the most. this is why i'm kinda mad at FairVote. by equating the Ranked Choice with Hare/IRV, when IRV screwed up, they sullied the ranked ballot for all other cases. -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon?
On Thu, 2011-05-26 at 01:07 +, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: matt welland wrote ... The only strategy in approval is to hold your nose and check off the front runner you despise because you don't want the other front runner you despise more to win. The main problem is determining (through the disinformation noise) who the front runners really are. Suppose the zero-information front runners to be candidates A and B, but that the media created front runners are C and D. If everybody votes for one of these two falsely advertised front runners, then they become the front runners, but only through self fulfilling prophecy. When unbiased polls are not drowned out by the big money, this is no problem. But after the Citizens United decision, we have to assume that disinformation is the rule, not the exception. For me it seems we are so far from a point were discerning the front runner is anything but blindingly obvious (at least in the US) that it is a complete non-issue. Did any of the alternative candidates get into the two digit range in 2008? The third party candidates are so irrelevant that after a couple searches I still hadn't found a link that mentioned the percentage results to put in this post. I would be thrilled if when voting I even *considered* dropping my vote for the lesser horror front runner in an approval vote. These concerns are like bikeshedding, we are arguing about the paint color and we don't even have a roof, walls or foundation, hell, we don't even agree on the plans. That doesn't mean the debate on this list is not important, it is very important, but I come full circle to my post from a while back. When the knowledgeable experts can't put out a unified front there will be no moving forward. Sorry, it's hard to watch a country which had so much potential to make the human condition better for people all around the world, turn a bit uglier, meaner and, yup, more fascist every day. I suspect that the only thing that can turn this around in a sustainable way is a change in the voting system but without a crystal clear rallying cry from the experts for *ONE* method that will never happen. Truth is that the goals of this list are at odds with my primary interest. After reading any replies to this I'll sign off the list. Cheers and thanks to all for the great work done in furthering the art and science of choosing our leaders! Matt -=- 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] remember Toby Nixon?
About six years ago Toby Nixon asked the members of this EM list for a advice on what election method to try propose in the Washington State Legislature. He finally settled on CSSD beatpath. As near as I know nothing came of it. What would we propose if we had another opportunity like that? It seems to me that people have rejected IRV, Bucklin, and other methods based on ranked ballots because they don’t want to rank the candidates. Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) anticipated this difficulty in 1884, and he suggested what we now call Asset Voting as a solution. Asset voting is the simplest solution to the spoiler problem. Approval is the next simplest. IMHO anything much more complicated than Approval or Asset voting doesn’t stand a chance with the general public here in America. For this reason most IRV proposals have actually truncated IRV to rank only three candidates. This destroys IRV’s clone independence. Asset Voting in its simplest form tends to squeeze out the CW, because when flanked closely on both sides by other candidates, the CW tends to have too few first place preferences (assets or bargaining chips) to survive. On the other hand Approval requires reliable polling information for informed strategy. This fact makes Approval vulnerable to manipulation by disinformation. That brings us to Delegable Yes/No (DYN) voting, which is a hybrid between Asset Voting and Approval that overcomes the weaknesses of those methods without increasing the complexity to the level of IRV: In DYN you circle the name of your favorite candidate and then optionally mark “Yes” next to the candidates that you are sure you want to approve of, and “No” next to those that you are sure that you want to disapprove of. You automatically delegate the rest of the Yes/No decisions to the candidate that you circled as “favorite.” Those delegated decisions are made by the candidates after the partial results have been made public, so that no false polls can manipulate the strategy. What do you think? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon?
I think DYN is my new favorite practical proposal. It's simple and it would work beautifully. The one downside of that system would be the possibility of granting too much power to a minority kingmaker. For instance, a 4% candidate could have the power to swing the election to either one of two 48% candidates. They might well be able to negotiate concessions for their party (or worse, for themselves personally) which amounted to, say, a 20% share of the power, far in excess of their actual support. The only way to minimize this risk is to minimize the enforceability of any promises made between the voting rounds - for instance, by ensuring that all cabinet positions can be dismissed at will. Hmm... another way to address this would be to have candidates pre-decide their full preference order. After the first round, they would only be free to set their threshold. This would halve the chances that they'd end up as kingmakers, which is fair, because the winning 51% coalition gets essentially twice that much power. Anyway, this issue is actually a pretty good problem to have. Giving a slightly-larger minority of power to a minority in some circumstances is not the end of the world. I like it. Jameson 2011/5/24 fsimm...@pcc.edu About six years ago Toby Nixon asked the members of this EM list for a advice on what election method to try propose in the Washington State Legislature. He finally settled on CSSD beatpath. As near as I know nothing came of it. What would we propose if we had another opportunity like that? It seems to me that people have rejected IRV, Bucklin, and other methods based on ranked ballots because they don’t want to rank the candidates. Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) anticipated this difficulty in 1884, and he suggested what we now call Asset Voting as a solution. Asset voting is the simplest solution to the spoiler problem. Approval is the next simplest. IMHO anything much more complicated than Approval or Asset voting doesn’t stand a chance with the general public here in America. For this reason most IRV proposals have actually truncated IRV to rank only three candidates. This destroys IRV’s clone independence. Asset Voting in its simplest form tends to squeeze out the CW, because when flanked closely on both sides by other candidates, the CW tends to have too few first place preferences (assets or bargaining chips) to survive. On the other hand Approval requires reliable polling information for informed strategy. This fact makes Approval vulnerable to manipulation by disinformation. That brings us to Delegable Yes/No (DYN) voting, which is a hybrid between Asset Voting and Approval that overcomes the weaknesses of those methods without increasing the complexity to the level of IRV: In DYN you circle the name of your favorite candidate and then optionally mark “Yes” next to the candidates that you are sure you want to approve of, and “No” next to those that you are sure that you want to disapprove of. You automatically delegate the rest of the Yes/No decisions to the candidate that you circled as “favorite.” Those delegated decisions are made by the candidates after the partial results have been made public, so that no false polls can manipulate the strategy. What do you think? 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] remember Toby Nixon?
On Tue, 2011-05-24 at 22:42 +, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: About six years ago Toby Nixon asked the members of this EM list for a advice on what election method to try propose in the Washington State Legislature. He finally settled on CSSD beatpath. As near as I know nothing came of it. What would we propose if we had another opportunity like that? It seems to me that people have rejected IRV, Bucklin, and other methods based on ranked ballots because they don’t want to rank the candidates. Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) anticipated this difficulty in 1884, and he suggested what we now call Asset Voting as a solution. Asset voting is the simplest solution to the spoiler problem. Approval is the next simplest. IMHO anything much more complicated than Approval or Asset voting doesn’t stand a chance with the general public here in America. For this reason most IRV proposals have actually truncated IRV to rank only three candidates. This destroys IRV’s clone independence. Asset Voting in its simplest form tends to squeeze out the CW, because when flanked closely on both sides by other candidates, the CW tends to have too few first place preferences (assets or bargaining chips) to survive. What is CW? Us part time readers would be forever grateful if some kind soul would put a magic decoder ring on the wiki. On the other hand Approval requires reliable polling information for informed strategy. This fact makes Approval vulnerable to manipulation by disinformation. Is this a generally accepted truth? I don't think I agree with it, can you point me to more information or explain? The only strategy in approval is to hold your nose and check off the front runner you despise because you don't want the other front runner you despise more to win. But I think this is only a factor for the period after transitioning to approval from a plurality system. In the longer term both the candidates and the voters will change. I think the change would be for the better, candidates would generally be more accountable, voters need only decide who they could live with as leaders and it is worth it to listen to what the minority players are saying - giving them your vote is both possible and meaningful. I guess most of these would be true (perhaps more so) for asset voting also. That brings us to Delegable Yes/No (DYN) voting, which is a hybrid between Asset Voting and Approval that overcomes the weaknesses of those methods without increasing the complexity to the level of IRV: In DYN you circle the name of your favorite candidate and then optionally mark “Yes” next to the candidates that you are sure you want to approve of, and “No” next to those that you are sure that you want to disapprove of. You automatically delegate the rest of the Yes/No decisions to the candidate that you circled as “favorite.” Those delegated decisions are made by the candidates after the partial results have been made public, so that no false polls can manipulate the strategy. What do you think? 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] remember Toby Nixon?
Hi, --- En date de : Mar 24.5.11, matt welland m...@kiatoa.com a écrit : What is CW? Us part time readers would be forever grateful if some kind soul would put a magic decoder ring on the wiki. CW is the Condorcet winner. This is a candidate who would beat any other candidate head-to-head. This could be defined using the ballots, or by the sincere preferences of the voters. In either case there may not be a CW. On the other hand Approval requires reliable polling information for informed strategy. This fact makes Approval vulnerable to manipulation by disinformation. Is this a generally accepted truth? I don't think I agree with it, can you point me to more information or explain? The only strategy in approval is to hold your nose and check off the front runner you despise because you don't want the other front runner you despise more to win. I think that's mostly it. You need to know who the frontrunners are. In my simulations most scenarios result in there being two perceived frontrunners (especially if voter and candidate opinions are based on issue space) so I don't think this would change or become more complicated. What some find unappealing about Approval is that if nobody does any polling and everyone just votes above some threshold of acceptability that each voter defines for himself, there is no telling who will win. But we basically already have this situation with Plurality, if everyone just votes for his favorite (and nobody drops out of the race to prevent a disaster). Kevin Venzke Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] remember Toby Nixon?
On May 24, 2011, at 6:42 PM, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: About six years ago Toby Nixon asked the members of this EM list for a advice on what election method to try propose in the Washington State Legislature. He finally settled on CSSD beatpath. As near as I know nothing came of it. What would we propose if we had another opportunity like that? It seems to me that people have rejected IRV, Bucklin, and other methods based on ranked ballots because they don’t want to rank the candidates. I would propose Condorcet, with just a few clarifications: Leave CSSD beatpath as a detail method decision to resolve later. Reject IRV for known problems. Those unranked are simply counted as having the bottom rank. Write-ins permitted and counted as if actually nominated. This is a bit of extra pain, but I like it better than demanding extra nominations that enemies could make unacceptably difficult. Equal ranking permitted. Those who like Approval should understand that using a single rank lets them express their desire without considering ranking in detail. No restrictions as to how rank numbers compare - when considering which of a pair has higher rank, ONLY their ranks compare as HL, LH, or E=E - what ranks are assigned to other candidates have no effect on this. No restriction as to how many rank numbers a voter may use, beyond fact that a chosen ballot design may impose a limit as to how many can be expressed. DYN is a simple addition for those who see value in that method. Unranked serves as no; top rank serves as yes; third (middle) rank gets passed to the candidate this voter wants to leave choice to. Dave Ketchum Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) anticipated this difficulty in 1884, and he suggested what we now call Asset Voting as a solution. Asset voting is the simplest solution to the spoiler problem. Approval is the next simplest. IMHO anything much more complicated than Approval or Asset voting doesn’t stand a chance with the general public here in America. For this reason most IRV proposals have actually truncated IRV to rank only three candidates. This destroys IRV’s clone independence. Asset Voting in its simplest form tends to squeeze out the CW, because when flanked closely on both sides by other candidates, the CW tends to have too few first place preferences (assets or bargaining chips) to survive. On the other hand Approval requires reliable polling information for informed strategy. This fact makes Approval vulnerable to manipulation by disinformation. That brings us to Delegable Yes/No (DYN) voting, which is a hybrid between Asset Voting and Approval that overcomes the weaknesses of those methods without increasing the complexity to the level of IRV: In DYN you circle the name of your favorite candidate and then optionally mark “Yes” next to the candidates that you are sure you want to approve of, and “No” next to those that you are sure that you want to disapprove of. You automatically delegate the rest of the Yes/No decisions to the candidate that you circled as “favorite.” Those delegated decisions are made by the candidates after the partial results have been made public, so that no false polls can manipulate the strategy. What do you think? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
