Re: [EM] Executive Summary for Declaration

[Stéphane Rouillon]

 When and where will the declaration be published?

On 2011-09-08 00:25, Richard Fobes wrote:

On 9/7/2011 2:09 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:
> I still think the 12 page declaration (incl table of contents) needs an
> executive summary. The table of contents does not in my honest opinion
> give good enough information.


I agree that the declaration needs an executive summary.  Here is what 
I've come up with as a first draft:


- Executive Summary -

This declaration, which has been signed by election-method experts 
from around the world, publicly denounces the use of plurality voting 
in governmental elections.  Plurality voting mistakenly assumes that 
the candidate who receives the most ballot marks – on single-mark 
ballots – is the most popular.  Plurality voting also suffers from 
vote splitting, which is what forces political parties to offer only a 
single choice in each election.


As replacements for plurality voting, this declaration recommends four 
significantly fairer election methods, namely, in alphabetical order: 
Approval voting, any Condorcet method, Majority Judgment voting, and 
Range voting.  These methods use better ballots – namely the Approval 
ballot, Ranked ballot, and Score ballot – to collect much more 
preference information compared to plurality's primitive single-mark 
ballot.


The lack of awareness about plurality voting's unfairness arises from 
its use of single-mark ballots, which not only fail to collect enough 
information to correctly identify the most popular candidate, but also 
fail to collect enough information to produce proof or evidence of the 
unfair results.


Computer technology now makes it easy to count better ballots and 
correctly identify who deserves to win.  All the supported methods are 
based on the fact that a majority of voters, not just a plurality of 
voters, must approve or prefer the winning candidate in order to 
produce fairer results.


In spite of the academically recognized, well-known unfairness of 
plurality voting, it is used throughout Canada, the United Kingdom, 
the United States, and to some extent nearly every democracy around 
the world.  As a consequence of adopting fairer election methods, this 
declaration's signers expect the benefits to include a dramatically 
reduced gap between voters and government, more easily -- and fairly 
-- resolved political conflicts, and significantly increased economic 
prosperity for any region that adopts fairer election methods.


Significantly the election-method experts do not support the use of 
instant-runoff voting, which is also known as the alternative vote. 
This method is based on the mistaken belief that the candidate with 
the fewest plurality votes is the least popular candidate.


The four supported methods also can be adopted for use in 
non-governmental situations, such as electing an organization's 
officers, making democratic decisions, and electing corporate board 
members.


The signers of this declaration do not share any common political 
beliefs, and are confident that the recommended election reforms will 
not favor any particular political parties or political orientations. 
Their clearly stated goal is to improve election fairness by replacing 
primitive plurality voting with any of the fairer supported methods. 
Their expectation is that a higher level of democracy will lead to 
higher standards of living, reduced conflicts, and widespread greater 
economic prosperity, just as replacing monarchies and dictatorships 
with plurality voting has produced dramatic and widespread benefits.


The signers urge everyone to learn more about how voting should be 
done – using Approval voting, Condorcet methods, Majority Judgment 
voting, or Range voting – and begin adopting the supported voting 
methods in whatever situations currently, yet inappropriately, use 
plurality voting.


- end -

It mentions some concepts that currently aren't in the declaration 
itself, so if this executive summary is liked, adjustments will need 
to be made in either this summary or in the declaration.


Also note that this summary does not mention PR. We still need to 
decide what to do about that section. It is long yet just says we like 
PR but oppose closed-list PR.


Richard Fobes


On 9/7/2011 2:09 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:

Dear Jameson,

I still think the 12 page declaration (incl table of contents) needs an
executive summary. The table of contents does not in my honest oppinion
give good enough information.

An executive summary is standard when writing policy recommendations
like this, and you cannot write a scientific paper without an abstract.

On the other hand I understand, that writing summaries and abstracts is
sometimes a pain (it is at least to me), and that it is easier to point
out things that could be improved and more difficult to do something
about it, like writing the summary myself.

I dont write this just to nag. If you want your recommendations to be
read by

Re: [EM] Executive Summary for Declaration

[Andy Jennings]

On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 11:01 AM, Richard Fobes  wrote:

> Removing the names of the "good" Condorcet methods is not acceptable. (We
> can change the word "good" if that's the issue.)
>
> Already we dropped "Condorcet-Tideman" (ranked pairs) from the list because
> Tideman himself prefers Condorcet-IRV (according to what I understand from
> Jameson Quinn).
>
> Originally the statement said that all the supported methods have been used
> to elect officials in organizations, but I had to change that to "our four
> supported methods" because Condorcet-IRV and Condorcet-Approval have not
> been used to elect officials (if I understand Jameson Quinn correctly).
>
> Listing specific Condorcet methods is essential. (As an exaggerated
> similarity, imagine expressing support for Bucklin methods and then not
> mentioning Majority Judgement as a specifically supported method.) The
> differences between the Condorcet methods are significant, especially in
> terms of how easy or hard they are to explain. The fact that they produce
> very similar results is just part of the picture.
>
> And we don't want someone taking the words "any of the Condorcet methods"
> literally, choosing an obscure Condorcet method that no one really supports,
> trying to get an organization to adopt it, and then having to answer the
> question "has it ever been used to elect officials?" with a "no". We want to
> fully support what we say we support.
>
> Personally I'd be happy to drop the reference to Condorcet-Approval, but
> I'm assuming that Approval advocates would not approve.



This is a good argument, and I don't disagree.  But still it feels like the
tone dives from conversational to technical right there.

Also, I feel like I know Condorcet-Kemeny and Condorcet-Schulze very well,
but I don't have a good feeling for Condorcet-Approval or Condorcet-IRV, and
I'm pretty informed about this stuff.  Those two aren't even listed on the
wikipedia page for Condorcet
Method.
 It doesn't seem like we've discussed them that much on this list, either.
 I guess I am fine with pretty much any Condorcet method, so it just seems
arbitrary to list these four.

But if everyone else is fine with it, that's fine.  It's really just minor
for me.  It won't keep me from signing.

Andy

Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Re: [EM] Executive Summary for Declaration

[Peter Zbornik]

Out of the three summaries of the declarations, I think Richard's is the
most efficient.

PZ

On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 8:34 PM, Toby Pereira  wrote:

> I think the executive summary needs to mention that plurality = First Past
> the Post. The term plurality is basically never used in the UK and most
> people wouldn't know what it means, so to cover as many countries as we can,
> we need to use the terms that each country uses.
>
>  *From:* Andy Jennings 
> *To:* electionmeth...@votefair.org
> *Cc:* election-meth...@electorama.com
> *Sent:* Thursday, 8 September 2011, 6:49
> *Subject:* Re: [EM] Executive Summary for Declaration
>
>  I do like the executive summary.  Maybe it's a little too long?
>
> I think we could do without the sentence "Some good Condorcet methods
> are:..."
>
> I do think the PR section could be significantly shortened.
>
> I made a few changes.  Feel free to review, roll back, and discuss if you
> think I have erred.
>
> ~ Andy Jennings
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 9:25 PM, Richard Fobes <
> electionmeth...@votefair.org> wrote:
>
> On 9/7/2011 2:09 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:
> > I still think the 12 page declaration (incl table of contents) needs an
> > executive summary. The table of contents does not in my honest opinion
> > give good enough information.
>
>
> I agree that the declaration needs an executive summary.  Here is what I've
> come up with as a first draft:
>
> - Executive Summary -
>
> This declaration, which has been signed by election-method experts from
> around the world, publicly denounces the use of plurality voting in
> governmental elections.  Plurality voting mistakenly assumes that the
> candidate who receives the most ballot marks – on single-mark ballots – is
> the most popular.  Plurality voting also suffers from vote splitting, which
> is what forces political parties to offer only a single choice in each
> election.
>
> As replacements for plurality voting, this declaration recommends four
> significantly fairer election methods, namely, in alphabetical order:
> Approval voting, any Condorcet method, Majority Judgment voting, and Range
> voting.  These methods use better ballots – namely the Approval ballot,
> Ranked ballot, and Score ballot – to collect much more preference
> information compared to plurality's primitive single-mark ballot.
>
> The lack of awareness about plurality voting's unfairness arises from its
> use of single-mark ballots, which not only fail to collect enough
> information to correctly identify the most popular candidate, but also fail
> to collect enough information to produce proof or evidence of the unfair
> results.
>
> Computer technology now makes it easy to count better ballots and correctly
> identify who deserves to win.  All the supported methods are based on the
> fact that a majority of voters, not just a plurality of voters, must approve
> or prefer the winning candidate in order to produce fairer results.
>
> In spite of the academically recognized, well-known unfairness of plurality
> voting, it is used throughout Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States,
> and to some extent nearly every democracy around the world.  As a
> consequence of adopting fairer election methods, this declaration's signers
> expect the benefits to include a dramatically reduced gap between voters and
> government, more easily -- and fairly -- resolved political conflicts, and
> significantly increased economic prosperity for any region that adopts
> fairer election methods.
>
> Significantly the election-method experts do not support the use of
> instant-runoff voting, which is also known as the alternative vote. This
> method is based on the mistaken belief that the candidate with the fewest
> plurality votes is the least popular candidate.
>
> The four supported methods also can be adopted for use in non-governmental
> situations, such as electing an organization's officers, making democratic
> decisions, and electing corporate board members.
>
> The signers of this declaration do not share any common political beliefs,
> and are confident that the recommended election reforms will not favor any
> particular political parties or political orientations. Their clearly stated
> goal is to improve election fairness by replacing primitive plurality voting
> with any of the fairer supported methods. Their expectation is that a higher
> level of democracy will lead to higher standards of living, reduced
> conflicts, and widespread greater economic prosperity, just as replacing
> monarchies and dictatorships with plurality voting has produced dramatic and
> widespread benefits.
>
> The sign

Re: [EM] Executive Summary for Declaration

[Toby Pereira]

I think the executive summary needs to mention that plurality = First Past the 
Post. The term plurality is basically never used in the UK and most people 
wouldn't know what it means, so to cover as many countries as we can, we need 
to use the terms that each country uses.


From: Andy Jennings 
To: electionmeth...@votefair.org
Cc: election-meth...@electorama.com
Sent: Thursday, 8 September 2011, 6:49
Subject: Re: [EM] Executive Summary for Declaration


I do like the executive summary.  Maybe it's a little too long?

I think we could do without the sentence "Some good Condorcet methods are:..."

I do think the PR section could be significantly shortened.

I made a few changes.  Feel free to review, roll back, and discuss if you think 
I have erred.

~ Andy Jennings



On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 9:25 PM, Richard Fobes  
wrote:

On 9/7/2011 2:09 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:
>> I still think the 12 page declaration (incl table of contents) needs an
>> executive summary. The table of contents does not in my honest opinion
>> give good enough information.
>
>
>I agree that the declaration needs an executive summary.  Here is what I've 
>come up with as a first draft:
>
>- Executive Summary -
>
>This declaration, which has been signed by election-method experts from around 
>the world, publicly denounces the use of plurality voting in governmental 
>elections.  Plurality voting mistakenly assumes that the candidate who 
>receives the most ballot marks – on single-mark ballots – is the most popular. 
> Plurality voting also suffers from vote splitting, which is what forces 
>political parties to offer only a single choice in each election.
>
>As replacements for plurality voting, this declaration recommends four 
>significantly fairer election methods, namely, in alphabetical order: Approval 
>voting, any Condorcet method, Majority Judgment voting, and Range voting.  
>These methods use better ballots – namely the Approval ballot, Ranked ballot, 
>and Score ballot – to collect much more preference information compared to 
>plurality's primitive single-mark ballot.
>
>The lack of awareness about plurality voting's unfairness arises from its use 
>of single-mark ballots, which not only fail to collect enough information to 
>correctly identify the most popular candidate, but also fail to collect enough 
>information to produce proof or evidence of the unfair results.
>
>Computer technology now makes it easy to count better ballots and correctly 
>identify who deserves to win.  All the supported methods are based on the fact 
>that a majority of voters, not just a plurality of voters, must approve or 
>prefer the winning candidate in order to produce fairer results.
>
>In spite of the academically recognized, well-known unfairness of plurality 
>voting, it is used throughout Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, 
>and to some extent nearly every democracy around the world.  As a consequence 
>of adopting fairer election methods, this declaration's signers expect the 
>benefits to include a dramatically reduced gap between voters and government, 
>more easily -- and fairly -- resolved political conflicts, and significantly 
>increased economic prosperity for any region that adopts fairer election 
>methods.
>
>Significantly the election-method experts do not support the use of 
>instant-runoff voting, which is also known as the alternative vote. This 
>method is based on the mistaken belief that the candidate with the fewest 
>plurality votes is the least popular candidate.
>
>The four supported methods also can be adopted for use in non-governmental 
>situations, such as electing an organization's officers, making democratic 
>decisions, and electing corporate board members.
>
>The signers of this declaration do not share any common political beliefs, and 
>are confident that the recommended election reforms will not favor any 
>particular political parties or political orientations. Their clearly stated 
>goal is to improve election fairness by replacing primitive plurality voting 
>with any of the fairer supported methods. Their expectation is that a higher 
>level of democracy will lead to higher standards of living, reduced conflicts, 
>and widespread greater economic prosperity, just as replacing monarchies and 
>dictatorships with plurality voting has produced dramatic and widespread 
>benefits.
>
>The signers urge everyone to learn more about how voting should be done – 
>using Approval voting, Condorcet methods, Majority Judgment voting, or Range 
>voting – and begin adopting the supported voting methods in whatever 
>situations currently, yet inappropriately, use plurality voting.
>
>- end -
>
>It mentions some concepts that c

Re: [EM] Executive Summary for Declaration

[Richard Fobes]

On 9/7/2011 10:49 PM, Andy Jennings wrote:

I do like the executive summary.  Maybe it's a little too long?

I think we could do without the sentence "Some good Condorcet methods
are:..."

I do think the PR section could be significantly shortened.

I made a few changes.  Feel free to review, roll back, and discuss if
you think I have erred.

~ Andy Jennings


Thanks for the feedback about my version of the executive summary. I can 
shorten it if others also like it.


My executive summary has disappeared from the Google Docs document, so 
I'm waiting for more feedback to find out what the "consensus" is. There 
are two other summaries there, but they have not been posted on the forum.


Switching to talking about the declaration itself:

I like the improvements you made!  Thanks!

Removing the names of the "good" Condorcet methods is not acceptable. 
(We can change the word "good" if that's the issue.)


Already we dropped "Condorcet-Tideman" (ranked pairs) from the list 
because Tideman himself prefers Condorcet-IRV (according to what I 
understand from Jameson Quinn).


Originally the statement said that all the supported methods have been 
used to elect officials in organizations, but I had to change that to 
"our four supported methods" because Condorcet-IRV and 
Condorcet-Approval have not been used to elect officials (if I 
understand Jameson Quinn correctly).


Listing specific Condorcet methods is essential. (As an exaggerated 
similarity, imagine expressing support for Bucklin methods and then not 
mentioning Majority Judgement as a specifically supported method.) The 
differences between the Condorcet methods are significant, especially in 
terms of how easy or hard they are to explain. The fact that they 
produce very similar results is just part of the picture.


And we don't want someone taking the words "any of the Condorcet 
methods" literally, choosing an obscure Condorcet method that no one 
really supports, trying to get an organization to adopt it, and then 
having to answer the question "has it ever been used to elect 
officials?" with a "no". We want to fully support what we say we support.


Personally I'd be happy to drop the reference to Condorcet-Approval, but 
I'm assuming that Approval advocates would not approve.


Richard Fobes


Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Re: [EM] Executive Summary for Declaration

[Andy Jennings]

I do like the executive summary.  Maybe it's a little too long?

I think we could do without the sentence "Some good Condorcet methods
are:..."

I do think the PR section could be significantly shortened.

I made a few changes.  Feel free to review, roll back, and discuss if you
think I have erred.

~ Andy Jennings



On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 9:25 PM, Richard Fobes
wrote:

> On 9/7/2011 2:09 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:
> > I still think the 12 page declaration (incl table of contents) needs an
> > executive summary. The table of contents does not in my honest opinion
> > give good enough information.
>
>
> I agree that the declaration needs an executive summary.  Here is what I've
> come up with as a first draft:
>
> - Executive Summary -
>
> This declaration, which has been signed by election-method experts from
> around the world, publicly denounces the use of plurality voting in
> governmental elections.  Plurality voting mistakenly assumes that the
> candidate who receives the most ballot marks – on single-mark ballots – is
> the most popular.  Plurality voting also suffers from vote splitting, which
> is what forces political parties to offer only a single choice in each
> election.
>
> As replacements for plurality voting, this declaration recommends four
> significantly fairer election methods, namely, in alphabetical order:
> Approval voting, any Condorcet method, Majority Judgment voting, and Range
> voting.  These methods use better ballots – namely the Approval ballot,
> Ranked ballot, and Score ballot – to collect much more preference
> information compared to plurality's primitive single-mark ballot.
>
> The lack of awareness about plurality voting's unfairness arises from its
> use of single-mark ballots, which not only fail to collect enough
> information to correctly identify the most popular candidate, but also fail
> to collect enough information to produce proof or evidence of the unfair
> results.
>
> Computer technology now makes it easy to count better ballots and correctly
> identify who deserves to win.  All the supported methods are based on the
> fact that a majority of voters, not just a plurality of voters, must approve
> or prefer the winning candidate in order to produce fairer results.
>
> In spite of the academically recognized, well-known unfairness of plurality
> voting, it is used throughout Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States,
> and to some extent nearly every democracy around the world.  As a
> consequence of adopting fairer election methods, this declaration's signers
> expect the benefits to include a dramatically reduced gap between voters and
> government, more easily -- and fairly -- resolved political conflicts, and
> significantly increased economic prosperity for any region that adopts
> fairer election methods.
>
> Significantly the election-method experts do not support the use of
> instant-runoff voting, which is also known as the alternative vote. This
> method is based on the mistaken belief that the candidate with the fewest
> plurality votes is the least popular candidate.
>
> The four supported methods also can be adopted for use in non-governmental
> situations, such as electing an organization's officers, making democratic
> decisions, and electing corporate board members.
>
> The signers of this declaration do not share any common political beliefs,
> and are confident that the recommended election reforms will not favor any
> particular political parties or political orientations. Their clearly stated
> goal is to improve election fairness by replacing primitive plurality voting
> with any of the fairer supported methods. Their expectation is that a higher
> level of democracy will lead to higher standards of living, reduced
> conflicts, and widespread greater economic prosperity, just as replacing
> monarchies and dictatorships with plurality voting has produced dramatic and
> widespread benefits.
>
> The signers urge everyone to learn more about how voting should be done –
> using Approval voting, Condorcet methods, Majority Judgment voting, or Range
> voting – and begin adopting the supported voting methods in whatever
> situations currently, yet inappropriately, use plurality voting.
>
> - end -
>
> It mentions some concepts that currently aren't in the declaration itself,
> so if this executive summary is liked, adjustments will need to be made in
> either this summary or in the declaration.
>
> Also note that this summary does not mention PR. We still need to decide
> what to do about that section. It is long yet just says we like PR but
> oppose closed-list PR.
>
> Richard Fobes
>
>
> On 9/7/2011 2:09 PM, Peter Zbornik wrote:
>
>> Dear Jameson,
>>
>> I still think the 12 page declaration (incl table of contents) needs an
>> executive summary. The table of contents does not in my honest oppinion
>> give good enough information.
>>
>> An executive summary is standard when writing policy recommendations
>> like this, and you