Re: [EM] it's been pretty quiet around here...
Simplicity is THE most important factor when trying convince people without > a computer/maths degree, especially as I want to use proportional top-down > ranking methods for party lists and possible council elections. > > This is very true, and easy to forget for us theorists. It's why I think simple two-rank, two-round Bucklin, while it is not the best method theoretically, has the best combination of simplicity and robustness for practical application. > > Explaining beatpath methods is not easy, and it does not become easier when > you go to proportional ranking STV. > Ranked-pairs seems to be easier to explain and code than Schulze at a first > glance. > I don't know which method would be simpler to explain than Schulze-STV > (which also has some nice properties, which makes it easy to explain). > > Why not minimax? I understand that it's not as good as Beatpath or Schulze theoretically, but it is identical up to 3 serious candidates, which covers I'd guess over 97% of the real-world cases. And it is much easier to explain. > On the other hand, Schulze-STV handles incomplete ballots completely > differently (proportional completion) than standard Schulze methods > (winning-votes), which is rather annoying. > I am not sure how well the multiwinner extention CPO-STV handles large > number of votes, seats and candidates although Juho was kind enough to > program a web-app. > > > CPO-STV and many other ranked proportional methods are a computational > challenge if the number of candidates and votes is large. It is not too > difficult to write a program that with good probability finds the best > winner quickly, but such uncertainly may be difficult to market. > > I think that generally speaking, Condorcet methods are not ideal for PR. If you use some form of elect-and-discount, they go for the compromise candidates first, instead of getting good representation of the interest blocs. And if you do condorcet-over-winning-sets, it quickly gets computationally complex and hard to explain or intuitively understand. I need to write up and code up my proposal for STV-like Bucklin-PR. Not now, though; I'm on deadline. It would be great, if you could aggree on a method to promote. > Why not try to vote? :o) > > There is a "favorite voting system" bonus question on the ongoing poll (until the end of the month) on branding voting systems. That is, just as Hare was rebranded as IRV for easy promotion, we should have snappy names for our systems. There are 13 votes so far, and no runaway winners yet for Condorcet or Bucklin. http://betterpolls.com/v/1189 Betterpolls.com is well-done. It gives results for Condorcet, IRV, Range (-10 to 10), and approval (0.5 cutoff). I would happily participate in a more thorough poll on which voting system is best. I think it should be done in two stages: what's the best variant of each general class (Condorcet, Range, Bucklin, hybrid, etc.) and then what's the best overall class. I'd also be willing to vote twice, once for theoretical best results, and again for most practically-applicable (where simplicity is much more important). > That might be a big fight. I once proposed to the Range proponents to use > Range voting to decide which voting method is best but I did not get any > support to this idea (maybe better so for the Range promoters) :-). Maybe > approval would be one working method, not to pick the winner but to provide > data on what methods different expert consider acceptable for some > particular use case. I'm actually somewhat surprised on how difficult it is > for research oriented people to even find approximate consensus on which > methods are good for the most usual needs. I guess many people are more > "promoters" of their own favourite methods than "scientists" when they have > to decide between these two approaches. > > Or why not promote both Schulze and Ranked pairs, but with one preferred of > these two options. > If you start voting in this forum, you might also want to consider > introducing a "blocking vote", meaning that the person is so strongly > dissatisfied with the vote, that he/she plans to leave the forum etc. if the > majority alternative will win. If a significant number of blocking votes is > cast (say one vote or 10% of the votes), then there will be re-elections > after a new round of discussion. > > > As discussed above, maybe one could collect such opinions without trying to > decide which method is the absolute winner. (One problem is that list > members and voters probably are not a representative set of the whole > scientific community.) > Just leave the voting open-ended, to make it clear that the idea is not to arrive at the Final Right Answer, but to improve our activism by seeking areas of consensus. > > > I guess what most organisations need, is what I wrote down, when hunting > for a good election method for the Czech green party. > 1. a simple method - I think I wrote this before, this is the main > criterion > 2. prop
Re: [EM] it's been pretty quiet around here...
Here are some late comments. I first thought that I'd upload some sw too to emphasize my viewpoints, but since I couldn't agree with myself on how to handle some ties I took a timeout on that front :-). On Aug 15, 2010, at 3:00 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote: Hello all, Haven't got much news lately, been busy with school, so election methods have taken summer holidays. I'm sending a rant below about how to sell proportional elections, most of which is old news I guess. After trying to promote proportional elections, proportional ranking elections and Condorcet single-winner to my party, the greatest hurdle was to explain how the methods work. Especially the top-down ranking multi-winner case. Simplicity is THE most important factor when trying convince people without a computer/maths degree, especially as I want to use proportional top-down ranking methods for party lists and possible council elections. Explaining beatpath methods is not easy, and it does not become easier when you go to proportional ranking STV. Ranked-pairs seems to be easier to explain and code than Schulze at a first glance. I don't know which method would be simpler to explain than Schulze- STV (which also has some nice properties, which makes it easy to explain). On the other hand, Schulze-STV handles incomplete ballots completely differently (proportional completion) than standard Schulze methods (winning-votes), which is rather annoying. I am not sure how well the multiwinner extention CPO-STV handles large number of votes, seats and candidates although Juho was kind enough to program a web-app. CPO-STV and many other ranked proportional methods are a computational challenge if the number of candidates and votes is large. It is not too difficult to write a program that with good probability finds the best winner quickly, but such uncertainly may be difficult to market. I will propose standard STV and proportional top-down rankong STV to my party as an alternative multi-winner method as a safeguard. I will promote, not that the current voting system will be replaced, but that each organisation within the party (local, regional etc) can decide on their own on what methods to use, from a set of officially approved methods. I mean some people in our party advocate that the elections amount to random sampling of seats from a set of candidates. Not bad. Maybe you will act as a good testing ground for new methods in the future :-). It would be great, if you could aggree on a method to promote. Why not try to vote? :o) That might be a big fight. I once proposed to the Range proponents to use Range voting to decide which voting method is best but I did not get any support to this idea (maybe better so for the Range promoters) :-). Maybe approval would be one working method, not to pick the winner but to provide data on what methods different expert consider acceptable for some particular use case. I'm actually somewhat surprised on how difficult it is for research oriented people to even find approximate consensus on which methods are good for the most usual needs. I guess many people are more "promoters" of their own favourite methods than "scientists" when they have to decide between these two approaches. Or why not promote both Schulze and Ranked pairs, but with one preferred of these two options. If you start voting in this forum, you might also want to consider introducing a "blocking vote", meaning that the person is so strongly dissatisfied with the vote, that he/she plans to leave the forum etc. if the majority alternative will win. If a significant number of blocking votes is cast (say one vote or 10% of the votes), then there will be re-elections after a new round of discussion. As discussed above, maybe one could collect such opinions without trying to decide which method is the absolute winner. (One problem is that list members and voters probably are not a representative set of the whole scientific community.) I guess what most organisations need, is what I wrote down, when hunting for a good election method for the Czech green party. 1. a simple method - I think I wrote this before, this is the main criterion 2. proportional ranking multi-winner elections for party lists and board/council elections. There are also other alternatives than proportional ranking based approaches. 3. draft text to use in statutes 4. an open-source freeware program Availability of such solutions could really help various organizations to improve their decision making. (If I had more time I'd do more work on the web. Maybe others will do the work faster.) The points above are maybe not so cool mathematically, but they will most certainly help promoting Condorcet methods. Condorcet people are quite poor promoters (maybe more "absent minded scientists" from this point of view), with the exception of Markus Sc
Re: [EM] it's been pretty quiet around here...
Hello all, Haven't got much news lately, been busy with school, so election methods have taken summer holidays. I'm sending a rant below about how to sell proportional elections, most of which is old news I guess. After trying to promote proportional elections, proportional ranking elections and Condorcet single-winner to my party, the greatest hurdle was to explain how the methods work. Especially the top-down ranking multi-winner case. Simplicity is THE most important factor when trying convince people without a computer/maths degree, especially as I want to use proportional top-down ranking methods for party lists and possible council elections. Explaining beatpath methods is not easy, and it does not become easier when you go to proportional ranking STV. Ranked-pairs seems to be easier to explain and code than Schulze at a first glance. I don't know which method would be simpler to explain than Schulze-STV (which also has some nice properties, which makes it easy to explain). On the other hand, Schulze-STV handles incomplete ballots completely differently (proportional completion) than standard Schulze methods (winning-votes), which is rather annoying. I am not sure how well the multiwinner extention CPO-STV handles large number of votes, seats and candidates although Juho was kind enough to program a web-app. I will propose standard STV and proportional top-down rankong STV to my party as an alternative multi-winner method as a safeguard. I will promote, not that the current voting system will be replaced, but that each organisation within the party (local, regional etc) can decide on their own on what methods to use, from a set of officially approved methods. I mean some people in our party advocate that the elections amount to random sampling of seats from a set of candidates. It would be great, if you could aggree on a method to promote. Why not try to vote? :o) Or why not promote both Schulze and Ranked pairs, but with one preferred of these two options. If you start voting in this forum, you might also want to consider introducing a "blocking vote", meaning that the person is so strongly dissatisfied with the vote, that he/she plans to leave the forum etc. if the majority alternative will win. If a significant number of blocking votes is cast (say one vote or 10% of the votes), then there will be re-elections after a new round of discussion. I guess what most organisations need, is what I wrote down, when hunting for a good election method for the Czech green party. 1. a simple method - I think I wrote this before, this is the main criterion 2. proportional ranking multi-winner elections for party lists and board/council elections. 3. draft text to use in statutes 4. an open-source freeware program The points above are maybe not so cool mathematically, but they will most certainly help promoting Condorcet methods. The problem now is not the lack of methods but "voting packs" that organisations can adopt with little work from their side. Otherwise - about the voting methods: I strongly consider a second top-two runoff election between the Condorcet winner and the candidate with the most first preference votes as a safeguard against dark horses and against criticisms from the unconvinced. Do you think it is a good idea? For multiple-winner proportional ranking - STV elections will be one alternative, as it is relatively simple to explain, haven't yet found an "as simple as STV" condorcet multiwinner method. If you know one let me know. I still haven't got to the point where I start writing down draft text into the statutes and different "customizations". I have text in statutes for STV (the american greens) and for Schulze single-winner. Writing down the Condorcet- proportional ranking STV (like Schulze STV) will prove to be a challenge, which I am not sure I will be up to, some help would be great here, but I will come back to you on this issue. Best regards Peter Zborník On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 12:41 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm < km-el...@broadpark.no> wrote: > robert bristow-johnson wrote: > >> >> On Aug 14, 2010, at 5:37 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: >> >>> >>> Since FV thinks IRV is so nice, it's to their benefit to link >>> preferential voting, the concept, to IRV, the method, so that others thing >>> "oh, either IRV or Plurality". Since IRV appears better than Plurality (at >>> least until the summability issues are encountered), this makes it >>> relatively easy to slip in IRV, and the theory then goes, to go from IRV to >>> STV, which is much better. >>> >>> It doesn't appear that we can change FV's minds from IRV to something >>> better (like Condorcet). When you dig really far down, the issue boils down >>> to "weak centrist! Condorcet winner! weak centrist! Condorcet winner!" and >>> there you go -- and then they sprinkle LNHarm and *perhaps* burial >>> resistance on top. >>> >> >> my experience with Rob Ritchie is that IRV is the only method with an ice >> cube's cha
Re: [EM] it's been pretty quiet around here...
robert bristow-johnson wrote: On Aug 14, 2010, at 5:37 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: Since FV thinks IRV is so nice, it's to their benefit to link preferential voting, the concept, to IRV, the method, so that others thing "oh, either IRV or Plurality". Since IRV appears better than Plurality (at least until the summability issues are encountered), this makes it relatively easy to slip in IRV, and the theory then goes, to go from IRV to STV, which is much better. It doesn't appear that we can change FV's minds from IRV to something better (like Condorcet). When you dig really far down, the issue boils down to "weak centrist! Condorcet winner! weak centrist! Condorcet winner!" and there you go -- and then they sprinkle LNHarm and *perhaps* burial resistance on top. my experience with Rob Ritchie is that IRV is the only method with an ice cube's chance in hell of being adopted in a governmental election. the claim is that IRV can be directly related to the traditional delayed runoff and that it is no different, except for no delay (which has the measurable difference in that many more voters participate in the instant runoffs than in the delayed runoff). but, for that to be true, it should have no more than 2 rounds with the top two of the first round going into the second and final round. of course, that doesn't fix the problems demonstrated in the 2009 Burlington mayoral election (because the "true majority" winner would not have made it to the runoff in either case). IRV is an emulation of an exhaustive runoff, not of top-two. The emulation of top-two, the Contingent vote, is worse - but I see your point, since IRV is at its surface similar enough to top-two runoff to seem a reasonable way of automating the latter. One might show that IRV denies the people the ability to change their votes between the rounds, but the problem is really that IRV, as a voting method, doesn't give good outcomes. If we discuss voting in a mechanical manner, as something that has to be done a certain way, then IRV will have an advantage because its mechanics are similar to that of ordinary runoff, which is trusted. I don't think that is the right approach, but I can see how it would appear as such to the voters. If that is what makes non-IRV methods unlikely to succeed, then it'd seem we have three ways of making the Condorcet method in question pass. The first would be to let organizations use it, like Schulze is being used by technical ones right now, so that the method itself (however complex) becomes trusted. The second would be to make the mechanics similar to something that *is*, as in the focus on championships, tournaments, round robins... In an indirect manner, you might also say that Ranked Pairs is similar to majority rule since it goes down affirming majorities until the winner is clear. It's simple to explain because of that, but is it similar enough? I don't know. The third would be to somehow manage to inform the people that looking at the outcomes is the right way of considering voting methods. It is intuitive, so it could work as long as the method isn't *too* opaque, but it would have to be pulled off right. Markus has a good point about Condorcet supporters splitting their own vote by not being sure which method one should support. Cardinal ratings technically pass both because it can pass IIA since it doesn't care about universal domain. However, I think that CR (Range, Score, etc) will be hard to get passed, since it doesn't even pass Majority. Even if Warren is right and social utility comparisons are better than majority rule, most people associate democratic fairness with that if some candidate is preferred by a majority, he should win. There are also the tactical issues: CR reduces to Approval (as Youtube raters found out) and Approval can reduce to Plurality bringing along the same strategy problems of Plurality. How so? If you vote Plurality-style, it never harms you to vote for those you prefer to the one you'd vote for in Plurality. You might get a Plurality outcome, but you might also get more (which is better than what Plurality has to offer). and pretty soon voters who want their vote to count must haul around concepts like "maybe frontrunner, plus" (LeGrand's Approval strategy A), something which really should be inside the method rather than outside. Thus we can't follow FV; and while we could advocate cardinal ratings, I don't think that would be very successful (and in any event, should be DSV instead). That leaves Condorcet, and so I think there should be an organization or group or at least some sort of coherent support for Condorcet. well, there used to be a condorcet.org or condercet.com (neither have an active web page, although the .com has a dumb page put up by the registrar, just like my audioimagination.com does). Yes, that's a good idea. Condorcet.org is owned by Blake Cretney, while
Re: [EM] it's been pretty quiet around here...
On Aug 14, 2010, at 10:21 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote:
Warren has used the term "beats-all winner" for the Condorcet winner.
Hope we can do better.
How about, to stay with the tournament metaphor, "champion winner"?
Also, it has the advantage of sharing the acronym with Condorcet
winner. Perhaps to be clearer, "guaranteed championship winner" -
you could still abbreviate that to "guaranteed CW" and satisfy both
theorists and the general public.
("Guaranteed runoff winner" works too, if you want to sound similar
to IRV.)
Seems to me IRV has made doing like that something to avoid. Anyway,
we don't do runoffs - we do not create a problem that needs to use a
runoff to escape.
"guaranteed" sounds like a dangerous word to include in a label.
"Tournament" sorta fits for we are reporting on lots of races, but I
do not really like that particular word here.
Why not Condorcet? We can brag about having enough sense to use
something good invented so long ago.
Dave Ketchum
JQ
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] it's been pretty quiet around here...
>
>
>> Warren has used the term "beats-all winner" for the Condorcet winner.
>>
>> Hope we can do better.
>
>
How about, to stay with the tournament metaphor, "champion winner"? Also, it
has the advantage of sharing the acronym with Condorcet winner. Perhaps to
be clearer, "guaranteed championship winner" - you could still abbreviate
that to "guaranteed CW" and satisfy both theorists and the general public.
("Guaranteed runoff winner" works too, if you want to sound similar to IRV.)
JQ
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] it's been pretty quiet around here...
On Aug 14, 2010, at 6:45 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote: On Aug 14, 2010, at 2:18 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: the other method, BTR-IRV (which i had never thought of before before Jameson mentioned it and Kristofer first explained to me last May), is a Condorcet-compliant IRV method. i wonder how well or poorly it would work if no CW exists. i am intrigued by this method since it could still be sold to the IRV crowd (as an IRV method) and not suffer the manifold consequences that occur when IRV elects someone else than the CW. does "BTR" stand for "bottom two runoff"? and who first suggested this method? is it published anywhere? Jameson first mentioned it here, AFAIK. the advantage of this method is that is really is no more complicated to explain than IRV, and it *does* resolve directly to a winner whether a CW exists or not. i am curious in how, say with a Smith Set of 3, this method would differ from RP or Schulze. For Condorcet you have the N*N matrix and precinct summability but, unlike IRV, you better do nothing that involves going back to look at any ballots. i guess you're right. i was just intrigued about this variant of IRV that is Condorcet compliant. but the actual method should be precinct summable so that leaves BTR-IRV out. -- 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] it's been pretty quiet around here...
On Aug 14, 2010, at 2:18 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: On Aug 14, 2010, at 5:37 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: Since FV thinks IRV is so nice, it's to their benefit to link preferential voting, the concept, to IRV, the method, so that others thing "oh, either IRV or Plurality". Since IRV appears better than Plurality (at least until the summability issues are encountered), this makes it relatively easy to slip in IRV, and the theory then goes, to go from IRV to STV, which is much better. It doesn't appear that we can change FV's minds from IRV to something better (like Condorcet). When you dig really far down, the issue boils down to "weak centrist! Condorcet winner! weak centrist! Condorcet winner!" and there you go -- and then they sprinkle LNHarm and *perhaps* burial resistance on top. my experience with Rob Ritchie is that IRV is the only method with an ice cube's chance in hell of being adopted in a governmental election. the claim is that IRV can be directly related to the traditional delayed runoff and that it is no different, except for no delay (which has the measurable difference in that many more voters participate in the instant runoffs than in the delayed runoff). but, for that to be true, it should have no more than 2 rounds with the top two of the first round going into the second and final round. of course, that doesn't fix the problems demonstrated in the 2009 Burlington mayoral election (because the "true majority" winner would not have made it to the runoff in either case). Perhaps we will do better if we aim at attacking their weaknesses. Delayed runoffs were invented to attack an experienced Plurality weakness - its voters cannot fully express their desires. The French had a major experience of this in 2002 - Le Pen, a minor candidate, got to the runoff in place of the deserving winner, and lost as deserved. We should not talk of runoffs unless we are prepared to do better. IRV's "instant runoffs" can fail much as the Plurality failure I mention above. Here the voters can more completely express their desires. Trouble is, IRV has a formula for ignoring parts of the ballot data, with results such as were demonstrated in Burlington in 2009. In Condorcet the voter ranks candidates as in IRV. Difference is that the counters read all that is voted, scoring a mini-race between each pair of candidates. The best candidates will win the election via winning all of these races. Else the best candidates will dispose of those weaker but require further analysis to decide on a winner. Cardinal ratings technically pass both because it can pass IIA since it doesn't care about universal domain. However, I think that CR (Range, Score, etc) will be hard to get passed, since it doesn't even pass Majority. Even if Warren is right and social utility comparisons are better than majority rule, most people associate democratic fairness with that if some candidate is preferred by a majority, he should win. There are also the tactical issues: CR reduces to Approval (as Youtube raters found out) and Approval can reduce to Plurality bringing along the same strategy problems of Plurality. and pretty soon voters who want their vote to count must haul around concepts like "maybe frontrunner, plus" (LeGrand's Approval strategy A), something which really should be inside the method rather than outside. Thus we can't follow FV; and while we could advocate cardinal ratings, I don't think that would be very successful (and in any event, should be DSV instead). That leaves Condorcet, and so I think there should be an organization or group or at least some sort of coherent support for Condorcet. well, there used to be a condorcet.org or condercet.com (neither have an active web page, although the .com has a dumb page put up by the registrar, just like my audioimagination.com does). Seems like we need this. (Alas, I'm not a very good organizer and I'm about 5000 km away.) What should such a group do? First, it should state that the concept of ranked voting is different from what method may be used as its back-end. Second, it should have a clear and easily understandable name for Condorcet, or for the Condorcet method it settles upon. The former could be done more simply: "round robin voting", "maximum majority voting", "championship" or "tournament" voting (but beware of equating it with an elimination tournament), etc. Warren has used the term "beats-all winner" for the Condorcet winner. Hope we can do better. The latter would be more difficult, as Schulze, for instance, is hard to explain. For reasoning, it might point out that if you put all the voters on a line, and cancel out the leftmost with the rightmost until one voter remains, the candidate closest to that voter wins -- if that's not too advanced. It might also show that if there's a CW, no
Re: [EM] it's been pretty quiet around here...
On Aug 14, 2010, at 3:21 PM, Markus Schulze wrote: Hallo, I believe that the main reason, why Condorcet methods never played a role in political reality, is that the Condorcet supporters could never agree on a concrete method. In consequence, the Condorcet opponents simply replied: "The Condorcet method has a problem. There may not be a Condorcet winner." See e.g.: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm21/cmselect/cmproced/40/40ap04.htm http://www.lwvmn.org/LWVMNAlternativeVotingStudyReport.pdf http://www.lwvor.org/documents/ElectionMethods2008.pdf Therefore, in my opinion, you should always promote a concrete Condorcet method. And you should treat the Condorcet criterion as one criterion among many criteria. This is literally a political strategy issue. It depends on what is more important and what is less important. Markus, your opinion is a good opinion. Maybe even the "correct" conclusion. Here's another: It seems to me that adopting *some* Condorcet- compliant method is more important than making sure we adopt a particular Condorcet method. The reason is that I am not convinced at all of the frequency of a cycle and, except for what to do with a cycle, there *is* a well-defined method for Condorcet (I could write a simple C program to do it) in the general sense. So then, it seems to me that once there is political momentum for Condorcet over the old Plurality or Two-round Runoff or IRV, *then* discussion of the practical issues about the procedure how the election would be carried out could begin. Among these is how to resolve cycles. Now *we* know that RP, Schulze, don't need to have different procedures for whether or not a cycle has occurred. But selling the straight method (particularly your method, Markus) will appear to be complicated and non-transparent to the lay voter (and the legislators). I *really* think that proposing Schulze or RP legal language for a law is more problematic than language for simply getting the CW. And I have read your document with such language, Markus. But, of course, there would have to be another section of the law for what to do with cycles. Or, another possibility is that BTR-IRV which is Condorcet-compliant but looks like IRV. I am not sure I like it, but it might fly better than Condorcet language. If it were another popular referendum vote, I wouldn't mind putting in the language of the question that the City Council (or whatever legislative body) can determine the precise procedures, including how cycles are to be resolved. But you might be right, Markus. My ability to do politics is poor, because i over-estimate the intelligence of the proletariat. Damned proletariat. -- 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] it's been pretty quiet around here...
Hallo, I believe that the main reason, why Condorcet methods never played a role in political reality, is that the Condorcet supporters could never agree on a concrete method. In consequence, the Condorcet opponents simply replied: "The Condorcet method has a problem. There may not be a Condorcet winner." See e.g.: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm21/cmselect/cmproced/40/40ap04.htm http://www.lwvmn.org/LWVMNAlternativeVotingStudyReport.pdf http://www.lwvor.org/documents/ElectionMethods2008.pdf Therefore, in my opinion, you should always promote a concrete Condorcet method. And you should treat the Condorcet criterion as one criterion among many criteria. Markus Schulze Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] it's been pretty quiet around here...
On Aug 14, 2010, at 5:37 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: Since FV thinks IRV is so nice, it's to their benefit to link preferential voting, the concept, to IRV, the method, so that others thing "oh, either IRV or Plurality". Since IRV appears better than Plurality (at least until the summability issues are encountered), this makes it relatively easy to slip in IRV, and the theory then goes, to go from IRV to STV, which is much better. It doesn't appear that we can change FV's minds from IRV to something better (like Condorcet). When you dig really far down, the issue boils down to "weak centrist! Condorcet winner! weak centrist! Condorcet winner!" and there you go -- and then they sprinkle LNHarm and *perhaps* burial resistance on top. my experience with Rob Ritchie is that IRV is the only method with an ice cube's chance in hell of being adopted in a governmental election. the claim is that IRV can be directly related to the traditional delayed runoff and that it is no different, except for no delay (which has the measurable difference in that many more voters participate in the instant runoffs than in the delayed runoff). but, for that to be true, it should have no more than 2 rounds with the top two of the first round going into the second and final round. of course, that doesn't fix the problems demonstrated in the 2009 Burlington mayoral election (because the "true majority" winner would not have made it to the runoff in either case). Cardinal ratings technically pass both because it can pass IIA since it doesn't care about universal domain. However, I think that CR (Range, Score, etc) will be hard to get passed, since it doesn't even pass Majority. Even if Warren is right and social utility comparisons are better than majority rule, most people associate democratic fairness with that if some candidate is preferred by a majority, he should win. There are also the tactical issues: CR reduces to Approval (as Youtube raters found out) and Approval can reduce to Plurality bringing along the same strategy problems of Plurality. and pretty soon voters who want their vote to count must haul around concepts like "maybe frontrunner, plus" (LeGrand's Approval strategy A), something which really should be inside the method rather than outside. Thus we can't follow FV; and while we could advocate cardinal ratings, I don't think that would be very successful (and in any event, should be DSV instead). That leaves Condorcet, and so I think there should be an organization or group or at least some sort of coherent support for Condorcet. well, there used to be a condorcet.org or condercet.com (neither have an active web page, although the .com has a dumb page put up by the registrar, just like my audioimagination.com does). (Alas, I'm not a very good organizer and I'm about 5000 km away.) What should such a group do? First, it should state that the concept of ranked voting is different from what method may be used as its back-end. Second, it should have a clear and easily understandable name for Condorcet, or for the Condorcet method it settles upon. The former could be done more simply: "round robin voting", "maximum majority voting", "championship" or "tournament" voting (but beware of equating it with an elimination tournament), etc. Warren has used the term "beats-all winner" for the Condorcet winner. The latter would be more difficult, as Schulze, for instance, is hard to explain. For reasoning, it might point out that if you put all the voters on a line, and cancel out the leftmost with the rightmost until one voter remains, the candidate closest to that voter wins -- if that's not too advanced. It might also show that if there's a CW, no recall by any of the other candidates can work against him, because a majority prefers him to each of the other candidates. That particular argument might be useful for those who dread a repeal, because if the method elects the CW, supporters of a single loser can't dress the complaint that the wrong candidate won up as a repeal of the method, simply because they don't have the voters required to make the repeal pass simply by that property alone. That is not what happened in Burlington, but it's similar - Condorcet minimizes this chance, and beatpath-based methods try to do so in the case of cycles as well. It should also ask the actual people, voters, what they think is important with respect to an election method, if such can be done. If simplicity matters, Ranked Pairs' relative simplicity may be more important than Schulze's track record, for instance. Asking in that manner could also help letting it know which arguments work - e.g. if the canceling-out phrasing of the singlepeakedness theorem gives a sense of fairness. as much as i like the Schulze method, since it is so much more difficult to explain and for a la
Re: [EM] it's been pretty quiet around here...
robert bristow-johnson wrote: ... my goodness! it's been at least 2 weeks with no activity. Yes. Other things have occupied my time, and that seems to have been the case for the other ones around here, too... just a little story: we are about to have our primary elections (August 24) here in Vermont. it's also a very small state where any old Joe could waltz into the capitol in Montpelier, and make an appointment to see the guv. anyway, recently when i bopped into the Vermont Dem HQ to pick up some signs, i happened to notice a candidate for Sec of State (who has responsibility to carry out elections for state offices and Vermont's contribution to the national offices). in a recent debate, he was debating his opponent about election policy and IRV came up (both candidates were for IRV, as far as i could tell). since he wasn't from Burlington, he was not as familiar with the Burlington debate as he could have been (he knew we had IRV and that it was repealed last March). there have been a couple of bills to introduce IRV to statewide offices (notably guv) since the Progs have a statewide presence, not just Burlington. he was thinking that the problem Burlington had with the election was in the *software* (as if the software "failed"). i told him that if that were the case, it would likely wind up in court, not just a repeal question on the ballot. anyway, it was interesting educating this leading candidate for the primary official responsible for elections what *did* go wrong with IRV in Burlington in 2009 and also what the problems would be if it were adopted for a statewide election (namely that it's not precinct summable). anyway, i like this candidate (better than the alternative), but it's just a shame that, in the popular mind, there is no differentiation between the concepts of Preferential Voting (the ranked-order ballot) and IRV. I like Condorcet and so a lot of this will be preaching to the choir (at least for you), but: Since FV thinks IRV is so nice, it's to their benefit to link preferential voting, the concept, to IRV, the method, so that others thing "oh, either IRV or Plurality". Since IRV appears better than Plurality (at least until the summability issues are encountered), this makes it relatively easy to slip in IRV, and the theory then goes, to go from IRV to STV, which is much better. It doesn't appear that we can change FV's minds from IRV to something better (like Condorcet). When you dig really far down, the issue boils down to "weak centrist! Condorcet winner! weak centrist! Condorcet winner!" and there you go -- and then they sprinkle LNHarm and *perhaps* burial resistance on top. Cardinal ratings technically pass both because it can pass IIA since it doesn't care about universal domain. However, I think that CR (Range, Score, etc) will be hard to get passed, since it doesn't even pass Majority. Even if Warren is right and social utility comparisons are better than majority rule, most people associate democratic fairness with that if some candidate is preferred by a majority, he should win. There are also the tactical issues: CR reduces to Approval (as Youtube raters found out) and pretty soon voters who want their vote to count must haul around concepts like "maybe frontrunner, plus" (LeGrand's Approval strategy A), something which really should be inside the method rather than outside. Thus we can't follow FV; and while we could advocate cardinal ratings, I don't think that would be very successful (and in any event, should be DSV instead). That leaves Condorcet, and so I think there should be an organization or group or at least some sort of coherent support for Condorcet. (Alas, I'm not a very good organizer and I'm about 5000 km away.) What should such a group do? First, it should state that the concept of ranked voting is different from what method may be used as its back-end. Second, it should have a clear and easily understandable name for Condorcet, or for the Condorcet method it settles upon. The former could be done more simply: "round robin voting", "maximum majority voting", "championship" or "tournament" voting (but beware of equating it with an elimination tournament), etc. The latter would be more difficult, as Schulze, for instance, is hard to explain. For reasoning, it might point out that if you put all the voters on a line, and cancel out the leftmost with the rightmost until one voter remains, the candidate closest to that voter wins -- if that's not too advanced. It might also show that if there's a CW, no recall by any of the other candidates can work against him, because a majority prefers him to each of the other candidates. That particular argument might be useful for those who dread a repeal, because if the method elects the CW, supporters of a single loser can't dress the complaint that the wrong candidate won up as a repeal of the method, simply because they do
[EM] it's been pretty quiet around here...
... my goodness! it's been at least 2 weeks with no activity. just a little story: we are about to have our primary elections (August 24) here in Vermont. it's also a very small state where any old Joe could waltz into the capitol in Montpelier, and make an appointment to see the guv. anyway, recently when i bopped into the Vermont Dem HQ to pick up some signs, i happened to notice a candidate for Sec of State (who has responsibility to carry out elections for state offices and Vermont's contribution to the national offices). in a recent debate, he was debating his opponent about election policy and IRV came up (both candidates were for IRV, as far as i could tell). since he wasn't from Burlington, he was not as familiar with the Burlington debate as he could have been (he knew we had IRV and that it was repealed last March). there have been a couple of bills to introduce IRV to statewide offices (notably guv) since the Progs have a statewide presence, not just Burlington. he was thinking that the problem Burlington had with the election was in the *software* (as if the software "failed"). i told him that if that were the case, it would likely wind up in court, not just a repeal question on the ballot. anyway, it was interesting educating this leading candidate for the primary official responsible for elections what *did* go wrong with IRV in Burlington in 2009 and also what the problems would be if it were adopted for a statewide election (namely that it's not precinct summable). anyway, i like this candidate (better than the alternative), but it's just a shame that, in the popular mind, there is no differentiation between the concepts of Preferential Voting (the ranked-order ballot) and IRV. Terry B, i still feel that we are for the same goals, but i also still feel that FairVote.org (*and* the opponents to IRV) did none of us a service in, essentially, equating the ranked ballot to the IRV method of tabulation when there are other, better, methods of tabulation. FairVote has to *really* (re)consider the product they are selling rather than just how to sell it. well, lessee if this stirs anything up. -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
