Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Dave Ketchum]

I will discus only IRV vs Condorcet.

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:45:47 +0100 James Gilmour wrote:

Aaron Armitage > Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 1:11 AM

IRV and all 
other ranked choice systems ask for the same input from 
voters



This is where you make your first mistake.  IRV and other ranked choice voting 
system do not all ask for the same input from the
voters.  IRV asks voters to mark preferences in the knowledge that those 
preferences will be used as contingency choices, so that a
later preference can in no way affect the chance of election of an earlier 
preference.  Some other ranked choice voting systems, in
a variety of different ways, make simultaneous use of all the preference 
information recorded on the ballot paper, such that the
later preferences can affect the chances of election of the earlier 
preferences.  The voters know in advance which counting rules
will be used in any particular election and modify their marking of preferences 
accordingly.  So the inputs are not the same.

While the meaning of ranking is not identical, few voters should 
notice the difference.


In both the voter lists first the most desired candidate.

In Condorcet all that the voter says will be part of the tournament.

In IRV candidates will be considered only after those the voter lists 
first have lost.


Method matters little since preference controls electability.



and produce the same kind of output, namely a single 
winner. 



Here is your second mistake.  Both kinds of voting system do result in the 
election of a single winner, but the outcome (output) can
be quite different in terms of what that winner represents.  In the case of IRV 
that winner is the contingency choice, with all the
implications of that.  In Condorcet, the winner may be decided in a very 
different way from IRV and represent something very
different in relation to the voters.  In a Borda count, the winner may 
represent some sort of compromise even when there is one
candidate who has an absolute majority of the first preference votes.  So all 
these outputs are quite different.

Who cares that the method of doing the analysis varies since the 
result is usually an identical winner?
 IRV, often not looking at all that the voter says, sometimes 
selects winners other than who the voters truly prefer.
 Condorcet, when presented with a near tie among three or more, 
invests effort IRV does not attempt to match in deciding on the best 
winner.



For you to say they differ so fundamentally that no 
common standard can be appealed to looks an awful lot like 
special pleading.



There was no special pleading  -  just a request that the differences in the 
inputs and outputs be recognised for what they are -
fundamental - and not ignored.



And how can you argue that we should adopt 
IRV instead of Condorcet or Borda or Bucklin if you have to 
common standard from which to argue that IRV is better?



I don't think I have said anywhere that "we" should adopt IRV instead of the 
other voting systems, but since you ask:

I would reject Borda because it can elect a candidate other than the one with 
an absolute majority of the first preference votes.

I would reject Buckilin because it does not comply with "one person, one vote".

I am VERY sympathetic to Condorcet and think the basic concept is "sellable" to the 
electors (presented as a "head-to-head
tournament"), despite the inevitable opposition of most politicians, big 
business and the media moguls.  I foresee bigger problems
in selling any of various cycle-breaking and tie-breaking solutions that have 
been proposed.  But the real problem with Condorcet is
the weak Condorcet winner.  It is my judgement (based on long experience as a 
practical reformer, but only in the UK) that such an
outcome would not be politically acceptable to the electorate in an election to 
public office.  Such a winner would, of course, be
the real Condorcet winner, but that would not, of itself, make the result 
politically acceptable to real voters.


This truly is a challenge, but might we be able to package the 
arguments more usefully?


Most elections have only one or two serious candidates.  Therefore a 
serious candidate is going to win:

 Sensible to just vote for one of these as in Plurality.
 Those wishing to can do ranking.  Their vote for a serious 
candidate (or even both of such) will get counted as above; their 
votes for other candidates will be too few to matter.


Elections with more serious candidates may become more common:
 Voting ala Plurality remains doable - just less adequate for 
most voters.

 Ranking allows more voters to express their desires.
 Primaries become less useful because there is no need for 
parties to try to prevent having multiple candidates in the general 
election.


"cycle-breaking and tie-breaking"?  This is one topic - near enough to 
a tie to need analysis.  I claim it does not happen often enough that 
most voters should demand

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Aaron Armitage]

--- On Tue, 7/29/08, Terry Bouricius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> From: Terry Bouricius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], election-methods@lists.electorama.com
> Date: Tuesday, July 29, 2008, 1:19 PM
> Aaron,
> 
> Just four little points to what Aaron Armitage wrote...
> 
> 1. 
> "You claim, in short, that using the same inputs
> differently makes them 
> different inputs, and that producing the same kind of
> outcome differently 
> makes it a different outcome."
> 
> 
> I believe James was arguing that while a voter's
> preferences in her mind 
> might be the same, but knowing whether the ballot would be
> counted using 
> one method or another set of vote processing rules (with or
> without 
> later-no-harm protection, for example) will change how the
> voter will mark 
> the ballot. Or put another way, two ballots with identical
> rankings on 
> them may in fact reflect very different actual preferences
> by these two 
> voters depending on which vote processing rule is going to
> be used. Thus, 
> one can't simply say inputs (if one means actual voter
> preferences) are 
> identical by looking at the rankings without regard to the
> vote processing 
> rule in place.
> 

But voters' sincere preferences aren't the input for any voting system
because we don't have access to them. Every ranked ballot system works with
ordered lists of candidates provided by voters. I know that strategic
voters will adjust how they use the input based on their understanding of
the exact mechanism by which the input is turned into an outcome (that's
the definition of a strategic voter). But susceptibility to these kinds of
manipulations is simply one more way of comparing what remain different
ways of converting the same kinds of inputs into the same kinds of
results; in fact, several of the social choice criteria directly relate to
strategic vulnerability. We're talking about how well Condorcet and IRV
perform the same function, not two different functions.

> 2.  
> "Under any definition of "one person, on
> vote" that Bucklin fails, IRV 
> also
> fails. But that wouldn't be a proper definition
> anyway."
>  
> 
> Not so. A single transferable vote is very different than a
> Bucklin 
> additive vote. Under IRV each voter has one vote for one
> candidate counted 
> in the final tally. Under Bucklin, voter A may have one
> vote in the final 
> tally, but voter B has two votes for two candidates in
> opposition. One 
> court ruled that Bucklin violated the one vote-one person
> concept, while 
> another court ruled that IRV upheld it. Since these were
> different courts, 
> it certainly isn't conclusive, but the difference is
> significant. I 
> personally think that methods like Bucklin and Approval
> might be seen as 
> satisfying one-person one-vote (nearly as well as IRV)
> because a "vote" is 
> an expression of the voters choice on the matter at hand,
> and all voters 
> have equal rights to mark the ballot with no class of
> voters getting an 
> automatic advantage.
> 

But voter A is the strategic voter and has an advantage over voter B, who
has voluntarily diluted his voting strength by voting sincerely. The one
person one vote objection was to allowing voters any fallback position at
all, which IRV also does.

> 
> 3. 
> "Take an example. Louisiana uses the same election
> system that France 
> does,
> and it malfunctioned the same way in both places; a
> crypto-fascist got
> enough votes to make it to the runoff, produced a fair
> amount of panic, 
> and
> duly lost to an opponent whose only real selling point was
> being the only
> alternative."
> 
> 
> But the method is not IRV. In France with sequential
> elimination, all 
> experts agree that le Pen would not have made it into the
> final runoff, 
> and that Jospin would have been the finalist with Chirac.
> Louisiana is a 
> better example, though still weak...since we can't know
> for sure how IRV 
> in a single November election rather than the lower turnout
> October 
> primary Duke passed through, would have changed voter
> turnout and 
> outcomes.
> 

Yes, of course I know it wasn't IRV. That's why I tried to make reasonable
guesses about what might have happened, rather than just repeating what
did. Even though the particular contingent facts of the election might
have gone differently, my overall point stands: there are very reasonable
scenarios where the majority preference for the CW over the IRV winner is
a serious and substantively-based preference, rather than an artifact of
strategic voters' using the CW as a placeholder. Many if not most voters,
if allowed to truncate, will omit unknown candidates altogether.


  

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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Terry Bouricius]

Aaron,

Just four little points to what Aaron Armitage wrote...

1. 
"You claim, in short, that using the same inputs differently makes them 
different inputs, and that producing the same kind of outcome differently 
makes it a different outcome."


I believe James was arguing that while a voter's preferences in her mind 
might be the same, but knowing whether the ballot would be counted using 
one method or another set of vote processing rules (with or without 
later-no-harm protection, for example) will change how the voter will mark 
the ballot. Or put another way, two ballots with identical rankings on 
them may in fact reflect very different actual preferences by these two 
voters depending on which vote processing rule is going to be used. Thus, 
one can't simply say inputs (if one means actual voter preferences) are 
identical by looking at the rankings without regard to the vote processing 
rule in place.

2.  
"Under any definition of "one person, on vote" that Bucklin fails, IRV 
also
fails. But that wouldn't be a proper definition anyway."
 

Not so. A single transferable vote is very different than a Bucklin 
additive vote. Under IRV each voter has one vote for one candidate counted 
in the final tally. Under Bucklin, voter A may have one vote in the final 
tally, but voter B has two votes for two candidates in opposition. One 
court ruled that Bucklin violated the one vote-one person concept, while 
another court ruled that IRV upheld it. Since these were different courts, 
it certainly isn't conclusive, but the difference is significant. I 
personally think that methods like Bucklin and Approval might be seen as 
satisfying one-person one-vote (nearly as well as IRV) because a "vote" is 
an expression of the voters choice on the matter at hand, and all voters 
have equal rights to mark the ballot with no class of voters getting an 
automatic advantage.


3. 
"Take an example. Louisiana uses the same election system that France 
does,
and it malfunctioned the same way in both places; a crypto-fascist got
enough votes to make it to the runoff, produced a fair amount of panic, 
and
duly lost to an opponent whose only real selling point was being the only
alternative."


But the method is not IRV. In France with sequential elimination, all 
experts agree that le Pen would not have made it into the final runoff, 
and that Jospin would have been the finalist with Chirac. Louisiana is a 
better example, though still weak...since we can't know for sure how IRV 
in a single November election rather than the lower turnout October 
primary Duke passed through, would have changed voter turnout and 
outcomes.

4. My last point is one of general agreement with Aaron...I agree that we 
should try to use criteria definitions that allow all single-winner voting 
methods to be compared...but that is much trickier than it at first 
appears. 


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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Aaron Armitage]

--- On Tue, 7/29/08, James Gilmour <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> From: James Gilmour <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting
> To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
> Date: Tuesday, July 29, 2008, 3:45 AM
> Aaron Armitage > Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 1:11 AM
> > IRV and all 
> > other ranked choice systems ask for the same input
> from 
> > voters
> 
> This is where you make your first mistake.  IRV and other
> ranked choice voting system do not all ask for the same
> input from the
> voters.  IRV asks voters to mark preferences in the
> knowledge that those preferences will be used as
> contingency choices, so that a
> later preference can in no way affect the chance of
> election of an earlier preference.  Some other ranked
> choice voting systems, in
> a variety of different ways, make simultaneous use of all
> the preference information recorded on the ballot paper,
> such that the
> later preferences can affect the chances of election of the
> earlier preferences.  The voters know in advance which
> counting rules
> will be used in any particular election and modify their
> marking of preferences accordingly.  So the inputs are not
> the same.
> 
> 
> > and produce the same kind of output, namely a single 
> > winner. 
> 
> Here is your second mistake.  Both kinds of voting system
> do result in the election of a single winner, but the
> outcome (output) can
> be quite different in terms of what that winner represents.
>  In the case of IRV that winner is the contingency choice,
> with all the
> implications of that.  In Condorcet, the winner may be
> decided in a very different way from IRV and represent
> something very
> different in relation to the voters.  In a Borda count, the
> winner may represent some sort of compromise even when there
> is one
> candidate who has an absolute majority of the first
> preference votes.  So all these outputs are quite
> different.
> 

You claim, in short, that using the same inputs differently makes them 
different inputs, and that producing the same kind of outcome differently makes 
it a different outcome. But you began by contrasting IRV to "social
choice" methods like Condorcet and Borda, even though Condorcet and Borda
treat the inputs very differently and informed voters will presumably take
that into account when they make their rankings. Are Borda and Condorcet
also incommensurable, or just IRV?

In general, if we followed your logic we couldn't compare different ways
of doing the same thing, since if they handled their inputs the same and
their results represented the same thing -- that is, the same internal
process -- they wouldn't be different methods. A hybrid car uses its gas
differently and drives the wheels differently; can we directly compare
a hybrid's fuel efficiency to a straight internal combustion car's fuel
efficiency, or do we decide that because a non-hybrid isn't trying to be a
hybrid it can get away with being less efficient?

 


> I would reject Buckilin because it does not comply with
> "one person, one vote".
> 

Under any definition of "one person, on vote" that Bucklin fails, IRV also
fails. But that wouldn't be a proper definition anyway.

> I am VERY sympathetic to Condorcet and think the basic
> concept is "sellable" to the electors (presented
> as a "head-to-head
> tournament"), despite the inevitable opposition of
> most politicians, big business and the media moguls.  I
> foresee bigger problems
> in selling any of various cycle-breaking and tie-breaking
> solutions that have been proposed.  But the real problem
> with Condorcet is
> the weak Condorcet winner.  It is my judgement (based on
> long experience as a practical reformer, but only in the
> UK) that such an
> outcome would not be politically acceptable to the
> electorate in an election to public office.  Such a winner
> would, of course, be
> the real Condorcet winner, but that would not, of itself,
> make the result politically acceptable to real voters.
> 

Every scenario for this that I've seen assumes two strong candidates and
a third candidate who is only a placeholder; in other words, it implicitly
assumes that only serious candidates will be the Republican and the
Democrat, or the Conservative and the Labourite or Liberal Democrat, or
whatever the local equivalents are. But what happened to all the serious
admonitions to consider how the system will change people's behavior? In
a Condorcet election there's no reason there would only be two major
candidates, and a public thinking in terms of Condorcet would have a 
completely different understanding of what strong and weak 

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[James Gilmour]

Aaron Armitage > Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2008 1:11 AM
> IRV and all 
> other ranked choice systems ask for the same input from 
> voters

This is where you make your first mistake.  IRV and other ranked choice voting 
system do not all ask for the same input from the
voters.  IRV asks voters to mark preferences in the knowledge that those 
preferences will be used as contingency choices, so that a
later preference can in no way affect the chance of election of an earlier 
preference.  Some other ranked choice voting systems, in
a variety of different ways, make simultaneous use of all the preference 
information recorded on the ballot paper, such that the
later preferences can affect the chances of election of the earlier 
preferences.  The voters know in advance which counting rules
will be used in any particular election and modify their marking of preferences 
accordingly.  So the inputs are not the same.


> and produce the same kind of output, namely a single 
> winner. 

Here is your second mistake.  Both kinds of voting system do result in the 
election of a single winner, but the outcome (output) can
be quite different in terms of what that winner represents.  In the case of IRV 
that winner is the contingency choice, with all the
implications of that.  In Condorcet, the winner may be decided in a very 
different way from IRV and represent something very
different in relation to the voters.  In a Borda count, the winner may 
represent some sort of compromise even when there is one
candidate who has an absolute majority of the first preference votes.  So all 
these outputs are quite different.


> For you to say they differ so fundamentally that no 
> common standard can be appealed to looks an awful lot like 
> special pleading.

There was no special pleading  -  just a request that the differences in the 
inputs and outputs be recognised for what they are -
fundamental - and not ignored.


> And how can you argue that we should adopt 
> IRV instead of Condorcet or Borda or Bucklin if you have to 
> common standard from which to argue that IRV is better?

I don't think I have said anywhere that "we" should adopt IRV instead of the 
other voting systems, but since you ask:

I would reject Borda because it can elect a candidate other than the one with 
an absolute majority of the first preference votes.

I would reject Buckilin because it does not comply with "one person, one vote".

I am VERY sympathetic to Condorcet and think the basic concept is "sellable" to 
the electors (presented as a "head-to-head
tournament"), despite the inevitable opposition of most politicians, big 
business and the media moguls.  I foresee bigger problems
in selling any of various cycle-breaking and tie-breaking solutions that have 
been proposed.  But the real problem with Condorcet is
the weak Condorcet winner.  It is my judgement (based on long experience as a 
practical reformer, but only in the UK) that such an
outcome would not be politically acceptable to the electorate in an election to 
public office.  Such a winner would, of course, be
the real Condorcet winner, but that would not, of itself, make the result 
politically acceptable to real voters.

IRV has, of course, a corresponding "political" weakness, in that it can reject 
the candidate who might be everyone's second choice
(the Condorcet winner).  But experience shows that the electors are prepared to 
accept that outcome.

James Gilmour







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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Dave Ketchum]

Aaron's words make sense, but perhaps I can do better talking about 
two methods that, while using the same ballots but going at the task 
in different ways, usually agree as to winner.


IRV looks only at best liked, discards candidate with fewest such 
votes, and repeats until a winner remains.


Condorcet looks at ALL the ballot rankings, discards candidate liked 
less when compared with each other candidate, and repeats until no 
such candidates remain.


Since IRV only looks at momentarily best liked, it can discard 
candidates Condorcet would see many voters truly liking better.


Condorcet can complete this part with three or more candidates 
remaining because they are in near ties such as A>B and B>C and C>A. 
This is called a cycle and requires special analysis to decide which 
member should win.
 Note that cycles require a mixture of voters with differing 
goals - no one voter can vote all the inequalities described above.


DWK

On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:10:49 -0700 (PDT) Aaron Armitage wrote:

--- On Mon, 7/28/08, James Gilmour <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:



That all ranked ballot voting systems must be assessed
using criteria and tests that can be applied to them all,
is your view, and
it may be the view of others.  But I would suggest it
ignores some fundamental differences between the voting
systems.  IRV in
particular makes no pretence at complying with a range of
social choice criteria  -  it is a complete different kind
of voting
system.



I find this a really astonishing thing to say. IRV and all other ranked
choice systems ask for the same input from voters and produce the same kind
of output, namely a single winner. For you to say they differ so
fundamentally that no common standard can be appealed to looks an awful lot
like special pleading. And how can you argue that we should adopt IRV
instead of Condorcet or Borda or Bucklin if you have to common standard
from which to argue that IRV is better? Or is it only the criteria that
put IRV in a bad light that are irrelevant?

--
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
 Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
   Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
 If you want peace, work for justice.




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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Aaron Armitage]

--- On Mon, 7/28/08, James Gilmour <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> That all ranked ballot voting systems must be assessed
> using criteria and tests that can be applied to them all,
> is your view, and
> it may be the view of others.  But I would suggest it
> ignores some fundamental differences between the voting
> systems.  IRV in
> particular makes no pretence at complying with a range of
> social choice criteria  -  it is a complete different kind
> of voting
> system.

I find this a really astonishing thing to say. IRV and all other ranked
choice systems ask for the same input from voters and produce the same kind
of output, namely a single winner. For you to say they differ so
fundamentally that no common standard can be appealed to looks an awful lot
like special pleading. And how can you argue that we should adopt IRV
instead of Condorcet or Borda or Bucklin if you have to common standard
from which to argue that IRV is better? Or is it only the criteria that
put IRV in a bad light that are irrelevant?


  

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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Aaron Armitage]

--- On Mon, 7/28/08, Chris Benham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> From: Chris Benham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re:RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting
> To: "EM" 
> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Date: Monday, July 28, 2008, 9:57 AM
> Aaron,
> "In an important respect, Condorcet is more natural
> than IRV: if a majority prefers Brad over Carter, this
> preference exists whether the voting system does anything
> with it, or even elicits enough information to determine
> that it exists. "
> Yes, except that "Condorcet" is a criterion and 
> IRV is a method, and  "more natural" doesn't
> have a precise meaning.
> 

I think the meaning of "more natural" was sufficiently clarified by my
explanation, namely that Condorcet methods are based on a property that
exists in the preferences themselves, rather than being an artifact of the
counting rules. Which is why there can be such a thing as a Condorcet
criterion; it refers to a real correspondence between the rankings
provided and the result produced.

> "Condorcet simply discovers and applies this
> preference. IRV, on the other hand, elicits enough
> information to discover it exists, but may decide to ignore
> it based purely on procedural grounds. There are no good
> reasons for this, ever."
> IRV meets Later-no-Harm and  Later-no-Help and  is immune
> to Burial strategy, and these properties are incompatible
> with the Condorcet criterion.
> Some people think these "reasons" are
> "good". 

I know some people claim that there are good reasons to use non-Condorcet
methods. I claim that when it gets down to installing a candidate over a
candidate who beat him, which all non-Condorcet methods do sometimes (or
else they'd be Condorcet methods), those reasons aren't good enough.

Suppose my preference is Andrea > Brad > Carter, and Brad > Carter is a
majority preference, but Andrea > Brad and Andrea > Carter isn't. Under
IRV, I am sometimes (but not always) forced to hold on to Andrea
until I no longer have any chance of helping Brad beat Carter, even if my
preferences are more like Andrea > Brad > Carter. This quality strikes 
me as perverse. Nevertheless, Condorcet's failure of LNH is connected to
a serious weakness, vulnerability to burial. But this means that when my
later preferences do "hurt" my favorite, things are as they should be 
because it means I didn't create an artificial cycle.

> BTW, which of the many methods that meet the Condorcet
> criterion is your favourite? 
> Chris Benham
> 

You're really asking which completion method is my favorite, and I don't
have any strong preferences. I believe an actual runoff for the Smith set
would be the most appropriate: it would give voters a chance to reconsider
with their attention focused on only the serious candidates, and make
strategy harder to use. If, for example, the cycle existed because a large
number of ballots were Republican > Green > Democrat, the Democrats will
have an opportunity to use counter-strategy, or even make the apparent
manipulation a campaign issue. It's not really reasonable to have a third
or later vote, so some reasonable completion method will need to be used.


  

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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[James Gilmour]

Kristofer
> Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 10:58 AM
> James Gilmour wrote:
> >> it would have to look at the entire ballot.
> > 
> > That is a consequence of your interpretation of how the  voting 
> > system
> > is supposed to work and what the voting system is supposed to be 
> > doing.  But that's not what IRV is about.  As I said in the previous 
> > message, the origins of IRV are in the Exhaustive Ballot, and in the 
> > Exhaustive Ballot there is no possibility of looking "at the entire 
> > ballot".  IRV is not about satisfying a set of criteria derived from 
> > social choice philosophy.
> 
> In taking the "people out of the loop" in all rounds but the  first,  the
> reduction of Exhaustive Ballot to IRV turns IRV into yet another ranked 
> ballot method. Thus it wouldn't matter if IRV originates in Exhaustive 
> Ballot or not, because it has to stand as a ranked ballot method among 
> other ranked ballot methods, using criteria and tests that can be 
> applied to all of them.

That all ranked ballot voting systems must be assessed using criteria and tests 
that can be applied to them all, is your view, and
it may be the view of others.  But I would suggest it ignores some fundamental 
differences between the voting systems.  IRV in
particular makes no pretence at complying with a range of social choice 
criteria  -  it is a complete different kind of voting
system.  When I mark my preferences in an IRV ballot I take into account that 
the counting rules will be IRV rules.  If the counting
rules would use the preferences in a different way, e.g. a Borda count, then I 
might well mark my presences in a different order  -
I certainly would have a lot more to think about.

Of course, anyone is perfectly entitled to say that some (or any) social choice 
voting system is preferable to some (or any)
non-social choice voting system, and that would be a valid comparison.  But 
that is a completely different argument.  My concern was
that a voting system, in this case IRV, was being judged by criteria that are 
not at all relevant to it.



> 
> > If you want something that only a social choice approach can deliver,
> > then clearly IRV is not for you.  But that does not make Kathy Dopp's 
> > original statement a valid criticism of IRV.
> 
> Wouldn't it be, from a social choice point of view if no other?

Kathy Dopp's comment was based on an interpretation of "majority" that was not 
relevant to IRV.  What she really wanted to say, was
that IRV should not be used because it fails to meet one or more social choice 
criteria.  But as I have said before, that is a
completely different argument, and it is a valid argument.


> 
> >> Or more concrete: if you want the sort of compromise that Condorcet 
> >> gives (and you don't think that's a "weak centrist"), then you 
> >> can't have LNHarm. I don't think you can have LNHelp either, but 
> >> I'm not sure about that.
> > 
> > I agree, but one could I think reasonably argue in the specific case
> > of Condorcet that it does comply with LNHarm (at least, in Condorcet 
> > where there were no cycles or ties).  Your higher preferences are 
> > always placed above your lower preferences in the Condorcet 
> > "head-to-head" comparisons.  So YOUR lower preference can never harm 
> > YOUR higher preference.  But that is certainly not true for many other 
> > social choice voting systems that use the preference information in a 
> > quite different way.
> 
> That's true; it's the cycles that cause the problem. Still, Woodall's
> proof shows that it's possible to make a ballot set with no CW in a way 
>   that no matter who wins, it's possible to append a later preference to 
> some of the ballots so that another candidate becomes the CW. 
> The problem is in the transition between cycle and non-cycle, so inasfar 
> as Condorcet winners usually occur, the Condorcet method passes LNHarm; 
> but since cycles can occur, that means Condorcet is incompatible with 
> LNHarm.
> 
> If we look at it from what you call the social choice point of view,
> then what has happened that makes Condorcet fail LNHarm is that it's 
> used a later preference to find the Condorcet winner that it didn't know 
> of, had it only used earlier preferences.

Here it seems you are agreeing with me, that Condorcet conforms to LNHarm in 
the absence of cycles or ties, but that all the
cycle-breaking and tie-breaking methods would cause it to fail that criterion.


> >>> "Many" on this list may think that, but it is my experience of 
> >>> more than 45 years as a practical reformer explaining voting 
> >>> systems to real electors, that 'later no harm' does matter greatly 
> >>> to ordinary electors.  If they think the voting system will not 
> >>> comply with 'later no harm', their immediate reaction is to say 
> >>> "I'm not going to mark a second or any further preference because 
> >>> that will hurt my first choice candidate  - the one I most want to 
> >>> see elected."  And of course, if you once

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

(Oops, seems I sent this only to James Gilmour. Let's try again. )

James Gilmour wrote:

>> it would have to look at the entire ballot.
>
> That is a consequence of your interpretation of how the voting system
> is supposed to work and what the voting system is supposed to
> be doing.  But that's not what IRV is about.  As I said in the
> previous message, the origins of IRV are in the Exhaustive Ballot,
> and in the Exhaustive Ballot there is no possibility of looking "at
> the entire ballot".  IRV is not about satisfying a set of criteria
> derived from social choice philosophy.

In taking the "people out of the loop" in all rounds but the first, the 
reduction of Exhaustive Ballot to IRV turns IRV into yet another ranked 
ballot method. Thus it wouldn't matter if IRV originates in Exhaustive 
Ballot or not, because it has to stand as a ranked ballot method among 
other ranked ballot methods, using criteria and tests that can be 
applied to all of them.


> If you want something that only a social choice approach can deliver,
> then clearly IRV is not for you.  But that does not make Kathy
> Dopp's original statement a valid criticism of IRV.

Wouldn't it be, from a social choice point of view if no other?

>> Or more concrete: if you want the sort of compromise that Condorcet
>> gives (and you don't think that's a "weak centrist"), then you can't
>> have LNHarm. I don't think you can have LNHelp either, but I'm not
>> sure about that.
>
> I agree, but one could I think reasonably argue in the specific case
> of Condorcet that it does comply with LNHarm (at least, in Condorcet
> where there were no cycles or ties).  Your higher preferences are
> always placed above your lower preferences in the Condorcet
> "head-to-head" comparisons.  So YOUR lower preference can never harm
> YOUR higher preference.  But that is certainly not true for many other
> social choice voting systems that use the preference information in a
> quite different way.

That's true; it's the cycles that cause the problem. Still, Woodall's 
proof shows that it's possible to make a ballot set with no CW in a way 
 that no matter who wins, it's possible to append a later preference to 
some of the ballots so that another candidate becomes the CW.
The problem is in the transition between cycle and non-cycle, so inasfar 
as Condorcet winners usually occur, the Condorcet method passes LNHarm; 
but since cycles can occur, that means Condorcet is incompatible with 
LNHarm.


If we look at it from what you call the social choice point of view, 
then what has happened that makes Condorcet fail LNHarm is that it's 
used a later preference to find the Condorcet winner that it didn't know 
of, had it only used earlier preferences.


>>> "Many" on this list may think that, but it is my experience of more
>>> than 45 years as a practical reformer explaining voting systems to
>>> real electors, that 'later no harm' does matter greatly to ordinary
>>> electors.  If they think the voting system will not comply with
>>> 'later no harm', their immediate reaction is to say "I'm not going
>>> to mark a second or any further preference because that will hurt my
>>> first choice candidate  - the one I most want to see elected."  And
>>> of course, if you once depart from 'later no harm' you open the way
>>> to all sorts of strategic voting that just cannot work in a 'later
>>> no harm' IRV (or STV) public election with large numbers of voters.

>> If the method fails LNHarm about as often as it fails LNHelp,  then
>> that argument should fail, because bullet voting may harm your other
>> choices as much (or more, no way to know in general) as consistently
>> voting all of them will. Ceteris paribus, it's better to have a
>> method that passes both of the LNHs than neither (since you get
>> strategy in the latter case), but the hit you take might not be as
>> serious as it seems at first.
>
> Your argument in respect of bullet voting in IRV is based on a
> misinterpretation of what that voter has said to the Returning
> Officer.  Because IRV conforms to LNHarm, a bullet vote, or any
> truncation, is a voter saying "After this point, I opt out and leave
> any choice among the other candidates to the other voters."  Such a
> voter has no "other choices".  So there is no question of harming them
> or helping them.

That wasn't an argument against bullet voting in IRV. I know that IRV 
satisfies both LNHarm and LNHelp (it's also nonmonotonic, which is a 
consequence of that it satisfies both and Mutual Majority; but that's 
not relevant to the case here).


What I'm saying, regarding voting systems that fail LNH, is that you can 
divide strategies into those that every voter would use just to maximize 
the power of the ballot, and those that require information to pull off. 
If a voting system satisfies neither of the LNHs, and the rate of 
failure is balanced (doesn't consistently harm earlier candidates nor 
consistently help earlier candidates), then ordinar

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Chris Benham]

Aaron,
"In an important respect, Condorcet is more natural than IRV: if a majority 
prefers Brad over Carter, this preference exists whether the voting system does 
anything with it, or even elicits enough information to determine that it 
exists. "
Yes, except that "Condorcet" is a criterion and  IRV is a method, and  "more 
natural" doesn't have a precise meaning.

"Condorcet simply discovers and applies this preference. IRV, on the other 
hand, elicits enough information to discover it exists, but may decide to 
ignore it based purely on procedural grounds. There are no good reasons for 
this, ever."
IRV meets Later-no-Harm and  Later-no-Help and  is immune to Burial strategy, 
and these properties are incompatible with the Condorcet criterion.
Some people think these "reasons" are "good". 
""Core support" is a bogus reason: every time IRV chooses someone other than 
the plurality winner you're letting an overall majority trump a comparison of 
core supporters. But other times IRV will fail to do this, for reasons that 
simply don't exist apart from the system itself."
"Core support"  is  IMO just propaganda designed to reassure the public that 
IRV isn't  too radical a change from FPP.
BTW, which of the many methods that meet the Condorcet criterion is your 
favourite? 
Chris Benham


Aaron Armitage  wrote (Sun Jul 27,2008): 
Of course every reason you might offer for choosing one system over another is 
based on an idea of what a reasonable decision rule for making collective 
decisions in very large groups should look like. This is true for IRV advocate 
no less than advocates for other systems; where the system came from is beside 
the point, especially since most jurisdictions have never used the Exhaustive 
Ballot.

In an important respect, Condorcet is more natural than IRV: if a majority 
prefers Brad over Carter, this preference exists whether the voting system does 
anything with it, or even elicits enough information to determine that it 
exists. Condorcet simply discovers and applies this preference. IRV, on the 
other hand, elicits enough information to discover it exists, but may decide to 
ignore it based purely on procedural grounds. There are no good reasons for 
this, ever. "Core support" is a bogus reason: every time IRV chooses someone 
other than the plurality winner you're letting an overall majority trump a 
comparison of core supporters. But other times IRV will fail to do this, for 
reasons that simply don't exist apart from the system itself.


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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[James Gilmour]

Abd ul-Rahman Lomax > Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 5:35 AM
> >As I said in the previous message, the origins of IRV are in the Exhaustive 
> >Ballot,
> >and in the Exhaustive Ballot there is no possibility of looking "at the 
> >entire ballot".
> 
> Can you provide a source for the claim that "the origins of IRV are 
> in the Exhaustive Ballot"?

No. None of the sources that are readily to hand gives any dates when the 
Alternative Vote (the much older UK name for IRV) was
first seen as an administrative improvement for the Second Ballot and the 
Exhaustive Ballot.

James Gilmour

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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Dave Ketchum]

On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:30:10 -0400 Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
...
Actually, the term in the first sentence is "majority rule," which, in 
actual operation, makes decisions always between two alternatives, 
minimized to Yes or No on a single question. 

...
It could be made compatible, and the method is obvious, and is precisely 
what Robert's Rules of order describes as how it would be used. A true 
majority is required to win. IRV then becomes a method of finding 
majorities, provided that enough voters add enough ranked choices. If 
all voters rank all the candidates, a majority is guaranteed. 


We happily complain about others' seen misuse of "majority".  Seems to 
mew the above is misuse.


If every voter ranks every candidate, then you have managed a infinity 
of yeses, zero noes, and nothing to indicate which candidate has won. 
 True that the ranking identifies a winner but, if we were looking at 
the ranking, we would have no need to demand the complete ranking 
specified above.


Elsewhere I argue for Condorcet as better than IRV - for more 
completely counting voters' complete preferences.


There I argue for abandonment, or at least relaxation of, majority 
requirements, because voter have more completely expressed their desires.

...
--
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   Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 09:30 AM 7/27/2008, James Gilmour wrote:
As I said in the previous message, the origins of IRV are in the 
Exhaustive Ballot,
and in the Exhaustive Ballot there is no possibility of looking "at 
the entire ballot".


Can you provide a source for the claim that "the origins of IRV are 
in the Exhaustive Ballot"?



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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 07:06 PM 7/26/2008, James Gilmour wrote:

Kathy Dopp  > Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2008 5:20 AM
> "Later-No-Harm", however, is incompatible with the basic
> principles of majority rule, which requires compromise if
> decisions are to be made. That's because the peculiar design
> of sequential elimination guarantees -- if a majority is not
> required -- that a lower preference cannot harm a higher
> preference, because the lower preferences are only considered
> if a higher one is eliminated.

The meaning of the second sentence isn't completely clear to me, but 
I am fairly sure there is a perverse interpretation of

"majority" in the first sentence.


Actually, the term in the first sentence is "majority rule," which, 
in actual operation, makes decisions always between two alternatives, 
minimized to Yes or No on a single question. Compromises are made for 
efficiency, with various degrees of damage to majority rule. The 
traditional method is very simple: a motion for an action, seconded. 
Discussion. Amendment, each amendment being treated as if it were its 
own motion, which it is. A calling of the question, typically by 
supermajority (2/3 for Robert's Rules, but it is always possible for 
a majority to bypass this, with some damage to collegiality and a 
general sense that the majority is playing fair). And then vote, and 
if a true majority of those voting is not obtained, the motion fails 
and the status quo continues.


Deliberative process, as described, breaks down if every voter 
insists on their first preference, without compromise until it has 
been proven beyond doubt that the first preference cannot be 
obtained. Generally, in deliberative process, there is no such 
elimination. What was rejected before can be recalled and considered again.


For Later-no-Harm to function, candidates must actually be 
eliminated. That doesn't happen under deliberative process. Now, for 
efficiency, there are voting methods that allow more than one 
candidate to be considered at a time. Plurality is one such. In 
deliberative process, there is no harm if the winner obtains a 
majority, in a Plurality election where voters are properly informed 
and make the necessary compromises as they vote. But it's tricky to 
do that optimally, so voters might compromise when they don't need to, etc.


Efficient methods would allow voters to indicate preference strength, 
and Range Voting is really the method that does this most accurately. 
If voters do this sincerely, the method will predict which candidate 
would enjoy the maximum overall satisfaction as rated by the voters 
themselves. (The question of sincere voting in Range is a complex 
one, with common assumptions being made that are actually 
self-contradictory, i.e., weak preferences expressed strongly. Why? 
If it is not merely an accident, it would be because the voter wants 
the favorite to win, enough to risk loss from not giving some 
preference strength to another pairwise election. But that's a strong 
preference!) But I would not consider a decision made by Range Voting 
to be a democratic decision *unless the approval of a majority for 
that outcome were explicit.*


IRV, as implemented everywhere I've seen it, will elect by plurality. 
That is, it will elect even though a majority of voters voted for 
someone else and not for the winner. That is, in case it needs to be 
said, a majority  who showed up and voted, who did not care to vote 
for the IRV winner, who, by the only means allowed that didn't 
require some other vote offensive to the voter, voted *against* the 
winner. IRV, as used, is incompatible with majority rule.


It could be made compatible, and the method is obvious, and is 
precisely what Robert's Rules of order describes as how it would be 
used. A true majority is required to win. IRV then becomes a method 
of finding majorities, provided that enough voters add enough ranked 
choices. If all voters rank all the candidates, a majority is 
guaranteed. But when full ranking is optional -- and it must be 
optional for the method to be fully democratic -- majority failure 
can occur, and thus, Robert's Rules notes, "the election must be 
repeated." They have in mind repetition with no elimination. What 
I've realized -- and I never saw this in print anywhere -- is that 
top-two runoff, in some places, actually doesn't eliminate any 
candidates, it merely restricts who is on the ballot and, it has been 
proven, this doesn't prevent a write-in from winning. So there is, 
technically, no elimination, and IRV under such circumstances would 
be a clear improvement over plurality, by eliminating some 
unnecessary runoffs. Turns out, though, that it would only eliminate 
maybe one-third of runoffs in a place like San Francisco. Bucklin 
voting, using the same ballot, and probably seeing the same voting 
patterns, would probably eliminate about half of them. Approval would 
probably do about the same.


  An IRV election is an Exhaustive Ballot 

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Aaron Armitage]

--- On Sun, 7/27/08, Terry Bouricius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> From: Terry Bouricius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting
> To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
> Date: Sunday, July 27, 2008, 3:32 PM
> Different election methods provide different incentives to 
> candidates...Under IRV, or two-round runoff, a candidate
> who is nobody's 
> first choice cannot win (they will be eliminated) even if
> this candidate 
> would be a good compromise (or merely an inoffensive
> candidate avoiding 
> all controversial issues), whereas under Condorcet or Borda
> (for example) 
> a candidate who is nobody's first choice CAN win. Thus
> IRV prompts 
> candidates to "stand-out" enough to win a lot of
> FIRST choices and reach 
> out for second choices as well, while that strategy of
> stressing first 
> choices may hurt the candidate under Condorcet or Borda.
> IRV advocates 
> argue (rightly, I think) that it strikes a favorable
> balance between 
> seeking first choices ("core" support) and
> alternate rankings ("broad" 
> support), when compared to methods that disregard whether a
> candidate 
> received any first preferences.
> 

Why are you assuming that standing out means taking clear policy positions? It 
could just as easy mean running more ads than anyone else or having a more 
telegenic family or a more famous name. There are a lot of voters who base 
their first, not their later, preferences on just those things, and we know 
that because they're often enough to carry a plurality election which only 
considers first preferences. For that matter, "core support" could mean nothing 
more than coming second to last all the way to the end. That's unlikely, but no 
more unlikely than a candidate with no first-place support running a campaign 
strong enough to make him a Condorcet winner.

Regardless of whether voters are making a good choice, if a majority favors one 
candidate over another, none of us, FairVote included, are qualified to tell it 
that it must take the candidate it voted AGAINST just to satisfy some airy 
theoretical concern about having the "right" amount of first-place support, as 
if we could even tell what that is. It's especially senseless when the people 
who advocate setting aside a majority vote to satisfy their theories will turn 
around and act like populists attacking the ivory tower when anyone brings up 
theoretical criteria that actually make sense.


  

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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Juho]

 this preference exists whether the voting system does
anything with it"...is that the voting method in use will affect  
candidate
behavior, and thus may result in Brad NOT being actually preferred  
over
Carter under a different voting method. In other words, voter  
preferences
among candidates (whether scores, or rankings) are not actually  
"given,"
as we assume when working out models (A>B>C), but will change  
depending on

what campaign style is rewarded by the voting method in use.

Terry Bouricius


- Original Message -
From: "Aaron Armitage" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: 
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 2:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting


--- On Sun, 7/27/08, James Gilmour <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:



That is a consequence of your interpretation of how the
voting system is supposed to work and what the voting
system is supposed to
be doing.  But that's not what IRV is about.  As I said
in the previous message, the origins of IRV are in the
Exhaustive Ballot,
and in the Exhaustive Ballot there is no possibility of
looking "at the entire ballot".  IRV is not about
satisfying a set of
criteria derived from social choice philosophy.



Of course every reason you might offer for choosing one system over
another is based on an idea of what a reasonable decision rule for  
making
collective decisions in very large groups should look like. This is  
true

for IRV advocate no less than advocates for other systems; where the
system came from is beside the point, especially since most  
jurisdictions

have never used the Exhaustive Ballot.

In an important respect, Condorcet is more natural than IRV: if a  
majority
prefers Brad over Carter, this preference exists whether the voting  
system

does anything with it, or even elicits enough information to determine
that it exists. Condorcet simply discovers and applies this  
preference.
IRV, on the other hand, elicits enough information to discover it  
exists,
but may decide to ignore it based purely on procedural grounds.  
There are
no good reasons for this, ever. "Core support" is a bogus reason:  
every
time IRV chooses someone other than the plurality winner you're  
letting an
overall majority trump a comparison of core supporters. But other  
times
IRV will fail to do this, for reasons that simply don't exist apart  
from

the system itself.




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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Terry Bouricius]

Different election methods provide different incentives to 
candidates...Under IRV, or two-round runoff, a candidate who is nobody's 
first choice cannot win (they will be eliminated) even if this candidate 
would be a good compromise (or merely an inoffensive candidate avoiding 
all controversial issues), whereas under Condorcet or Borda (for example) 
a candidate who is nobody's first choice CAN win. Thus IRV prompts 
candidates to "stand-out" enough to win a lot of FIRST choices and reach 
out for second choices as well, while that strategy of stressing first 
choices may hurt the candidate under Condorcet or Borda. IRV advocates 
argue (rightly, I think) that it strikes a favorable balance between 
seeking first choices ("core" support) and alternate rankings ("broad" 
support), when compared to methods that disregard whether a candidate 
received any first preferences.

Terry Bouricius

- Original Message - 
From: "Aaron Armitage" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: 
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 4:21 PM
Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting





--- On Sun, 7/27/08, Terry Bouricius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> From: Terry Bouricius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting
> To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
> Date: Sunday, July 27, 2008, 2:26 PM
> While I agree that "core support" is not always
> well measured by first
> choices (multiple clones can make all these clones appear
> to have little
> "core" support, where any of them would appear to
> have massive core
> support running alone). However, I think the concept of
> "core support" is
> still an important factor in multi-candidate elections.
> While I think
> Condorcet methods are much better than most methods, I
> remain concerned
> that it may, in fact, reward inoffensive candidates who
> successfully hide
> their policy positions, rather than just true
> "compromise" candidates.
> Voters tend to have clear opinions of candidates at the top
> and bottom of
> their preference rankings, leaving the door open for
> inoffensive
> candidates who have avoided revealing any controversial
> views, to become
> EVERY voter's second choice ("at least he must be
> better than X") and
> likely Condorcet winner. The voting method will cause
> candidates to tailor
> their campaigns accordingly, and I fear Condorcet
> encourages candidates to
> limit voter information and instead campaign with slogans
> like "I am the
> candidate who listen to you" and policy will become
> even LESS discussed in
> campaigns than is already the case in the U.S.
>
> So an important caveat to the assertion that "if a
> majority prefers Brad
> over Carter, this preference exists whether the voting
> system does
> anything with it"...is that the voting method in use
> will affect candidate
> behavior, and thus may result in Brad NOT being actually
> preferred over
> Carter under a different voting method. In other words,
> voter preferences
> among candidates (whether scores, or rankings) are not
> actually "given,"
> as we assume when working out models (A>B>C), but
> will change depending on
> what campaign style is rewarded by the voting method in
> use.
>
> Terry Bouricius
>
>


I'm not sure this objection applies much more strongly to Condorcet 
methods than any other single-winner system; a candidate with any possible 
rough edges taken off will always have more appeal to moderates and 
low-information voters than one who takes clear policy positions. The 
closest thing to a real solution is to use proportional multi-winner 
elections wherever possible.




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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Aaron Armitage]

--- On Sun, 7/27/08, Terry Bouricius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> From: Terry Bouricius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting
> To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
> Date: Sunday, July 27, 2008, 2:26 PM
> While I agree that "core support" is not always
> well measured by first 
> choices (multiple clones can make all these clones appear
> to have little 
> "core" support, where any of them would appear to
> have massive core 
> support running alone). However, I think the concept of
> "core support" is 
> still an important factor in multi-candidate elections.
> While I think 
> Condorcet methods are much better than most methods, I
> remain concerned 
> that it may, in fact, reward inoffensive candidates who
> successfully hide 
> their policy positions, rather than just true
> "compromise" candidates. 
> Voters tend to have clear opinions of candidates at the top
> and bottom of 
> their preference rankings, leaving the door open for
> inoffensive 
> candidates who have avoided revealing any controversial
> views, to become 
> EVERY voter's second choice ("at least he must be
> better than X") and 
> likely Condorcet winner. The voting method will cause
> candidates to tailor 
> their campaigns accordingly, and I fear Condorcet
> encourages candidates to 
> limit voter information and instead campaign with slogans
> like "I am the 
> candidate who listen to you" and policy will become
> even LESS discussed in 
> campaigns than is already the case in the U.S.
> 
> So an important caveat to the assertion that "if a
> majority prefers Brad 
> over Carter, this preference exists whether the voting
> system does 
> anything with it"...is that the voting method in use
> will affect candidate 
> behavior, and thus may result in Brad NOT being actually
> preferred over 
> Carter under a different voting method. In other words,
> voter preferences 
> among candidates (whether scores, or rankings) are not
> actually "given," 
> as we assume when working out models (A>B>C), but
> will change depending on 
> what campaign style is rewarded by the voting method in
> use.
> 
> Terry Bouricius
> 
> 


I'm not sure this objection applies much more strongly to Condorcet methods 
than any other single-winner system; a candidate with any possible rough edges 
taken off will always have more appeal to moderates and low-information voters 
than one who takes clear policy positions. The closest thing to a real solution 
is to use proportional multi-winner elections wherever possible.


  

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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Dave Ketchum]

HUH!!!  How did we get here, where the topic is IRV???

Plurality with runoff:  If Plurality fails to produce a winner. then 
the leading candidates - usually two - are voted on in a separate 
election.


Exhaustive Ballot:  If Plurality fails to produce a winner, then the 
candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and a further round of 
voting occurs.  This process is repeated for as many rounds as 
necessary until one candidate has a majority.  NOT GOOD to risk having 
many such rounds in a public election with thousands of voters.


IRV (Instant Runoff Voting):  Can be thought of as a descendant of 
either of the above, with the voter permitted to rank multiple 
candidates on a single ballot and the counters to consider only the 
top ranked in each round.  If Plurality fails to produce a winner, 
then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated from all 
ballots, all thus exhausted ballots discarded, and a further round of 
counting occurs.  This process is repeated for as many rounds as 
necessary until one candidate has a majority.


I have not done LNH analysis.

On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:06:51 +0100 James Gilmour wrote:

Kathy Dopp  > Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2008 5:20 AM

"Later-No-Harm", however, is incompatible with the basic 
principles of majority rule, which requires compromise if 
decisions are to be made. That's because the peculiar design 
of sequential elimination guarantees -- if a majority is not 
required -- that a lower preference cannot harm a higher 
preference, because the lower preferences are only considered 
if a higher one is eliminated.



The meaning of the second sentence isn't completely clear to me, but I am 
fairly sure there is a perverse interpretation of
"majority" in the first sentence.  An IRV election is an Exhaustive Ballot 
election contracted into one voting event, instead of
being spread over several rounds in which the one candidate with fewest votes 
is eliminated at each round.  It is no surprise that
the numbers of voters participating varies from round to round  -  usually a 
progressive (or severe) decline.  The votes in an


IRV election might look like this:
>
> Round 1
> A   4,000
> B   3,000
  C>A   400
  C>B 1,400
  C 200
  D>B   100
  D 900
> Total voting 10,000
>
> Round 2
 A   4,000
 B   3,100
 C>A   400
 C>B 1,400
 C 200
 Total voting 9,100
>
> Round 3
 A  4,400
 B  4,500
 Total voting 8,900.
>
B is the majority winner in Round 3, that is to say, the majority 
winner of those voters then voting.


DWK


Exhaustive Ballot election might look like this:

Round 1 
A  4,000
B  3,000
C  2,000
D  1,000
Total voting 10,000

Round 2
A  3,500
B  2,500
C  1,500
Total voting 7,500

Round 3
A  3,000
B  2,000
Total voting 5,000.

A is the majority winner in Round 3, that is to say, the majority winner of 
those voters then voting.   And IRV satisfies that
criterion  -  and the Exhaustive Ballot is the valid comparison for IRV 
(because that is the origin of IRV).  The only difference is
that to ensure the integrity of the count (accounting for all ballot papers at 
all stages of the count), the ballot papers (votes)
of those who opt out at the later stages (rounds) are recorded as 
"non-transferable".



But many think that 
later-no-harm is undesirable



"Many" on this list may think that, but it is my experience of more than 45 
years as a practical reformer explaining voting systems
to real electors, that 'later no harm' does matter greatly to ordinary 
electors.  If they think the voting system will not comply
with 'later no harm', their immediate reaction is to say "I'm not going to mark 
a second or any further preference because that will
hurt my first choice candidate  - the one I most want to see elected."  And of 
course, if you once depart from 'later no harm' you
open the way to all sorts of strategic voting that just cannot work in a 'later 
no harm' IRV (or STV) public election with large
numbers of voters.



But many think that 
later-no-harm is undesirable because it interferes with the 
process of equitable compromise that is essential to the 
social cooperation that voting is supposed to facilitate. If 
I am negotiating with my neighbor, and his preferred option 
differs from mine, if I reveal that some compromise option is 
acceptable to me, before I'm certain that my favorite won't 
be chosen, then I may "harm" the chance of my favorite being 
chosen. If the method my neighbor and I used to help us make 
the decision *requires* later-no-harm, it will interfere with 
the negotiation process, make it more difficult to find 
mutually acceptable solutions. 



This is all irrelevant because in a public election there is no negotiation 
between voter and voter or between voter and candidate.
I know that there are proposal for voting system that would incorporate 
"negotiation" of various kinds, but none of those was under
discussion here.

James Gilmour

--
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Terry Bouricius]

While I agree that "core support" is not always well measured by first 
choices (multiple clones can make all these clones appear to have little 
"core" support, where any of them would appear to have massive core 
support running alone). However, I think the concept of "core support" is 
still an important factor in multi-candidate elections. While I think 
Condorcet methods are much better than most methods, I remain concerned 
that it may, in fact, reward inoffensive candidates who successfully hide 
their policy positions, rather than just true "compromise" candidates. 
Voters tend to have clear opinions of candidates at the top and bottom of 
their preference rankings, leaving the door open for inoffensive 
candidates who have avoided revealing any controversial views, to become 
EVERY voter's second choice ("at least he must be better than X") and 
likely Condorcet winner. The voting method will cause candidates to tailor 
their campaigns accordingly, and I fear Condorcet encourages candidates to 
limit voter information and instead campaign with slogans like "I am the 
candidate who listen to you" and policy will become even LESS discussed in 
campaigns than is already the case in the U.S.

So an important caveat to the assertion that "if a majority prefers Brad 
over Carter, this preference exists whether the voting system does 
anything with it"...is that the voting method in use will affect candidate 
behavior, and thus may result in Brad NOT being actually preferred over 
Carter under a different voting method. In other words, voter preferences 
among candidates (whether scores, or rankings) are not actually "given," 
as we assume when working out models (A>B>C), but will change depending on 
what campaign style is rewarded by the voting method in use.

Terry Bouricius


- Original Message - 
From: "Aaron Armitage" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: 
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 2:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting


--- On Sun, 7/27/08, James Gilmour <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>
> That is a consequence of your interpretation of how the
> voting system is supposed to work and what the voting
> system is supposed to
> be doing.  But that's not what IRV is about.  As I said
> in the previous message, the origins of IRV are in the
> Exhaustive Ballot,
> and in the Exhaustive Ballot there is no possibility of
> looking "at the entire ballot".  IRV is not about
> satisfying a set of
> criteria derived from social choice philosophy.
>

Of course every reason you might offer for choosing one system over 
another is based on an idea of what a reasonable decision rule for making 
collective decisions in very large groups should look like. This is true 
for IRV advocate no less than advocates for other systems; where the 
system came from is beside the point, especially since most jurisdictions 
have never used the Exhaustive Ballot.

In an important respect, Condorcet is more natural than IRV: if a majority 
prefers Brad over Carter, this preference exists whether the voting system 
does anything with it, or even elicits enough information to determine 
that it exists. Condorcet simply discovers and applies this preference. 
IRV, on the other hand, elicits enough information to discover it exists, 
but may decide to ignore it based purely on procedural grounds. There are 
no good reasons for this, ever. "Core support" is a bogus reason: every 
time IRV chooses someone other than the plurality winner you're letting an 
overall majority trump a comparison of core supporters. But other times 
IRV will fail to do this, for reasons that simply don't exist apart from 
the system itself.




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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Aaron Armitage]

--- On Sun, 7/27/08, James Gilmour <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> 
> That is a consequence of your interpretation of how the
> voting system is supposed to work and what the voting
> system is supposed to
> be doing.  But that's not what IRV is about.  As I said
> in the previous message, the origins of IRV are in the
> Exhaustive Ballot,
> and in the Exhaustive Ballot there is no possibility of
> looking "at the entire ballot".  IRV is not about
> satisfying a set of
> criteria derived from social choice philosophy.
> 

Of course every reason you might offer for choosing one system over another is 
based on an idea of what a reasonable decision rule for making collective 
decisions in very large groups should look like. This is true for IRV advocate 
no less than advocates for other systems; where the system came from is beside 
the point, especially since most jurisdictions have never used the Exhaustive 
Ballot.

In an important respect, Condorcet is more natural than IRV: if a majority 
prefers Brad over Carter, this preference exists whether the voting system does 
anything with it, or even elicits enough information to determine that it 
exists. Condorcet simply discovers and applies this preference. IRV, on the 
other hand, elicits enough information to discover it exists, but may decide to 
ignore it based purely on procedural grounds. There are no good reasons for 
this, ever. "Core support" is a bogus reason: every time IRV chooses someone 
other than the plurality winner you're letting an overall majority trump a 
comparison of core supporters. But other times IRV will fail to do this, for 
reasons that simply don't exist apart from the system itself.


  

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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[James Gilmour]

Kristofer Munsterhjelm > Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 12:04 PM
> To the degree that finding a good choice requires one to make a 
> compromise, and the method is supposed to be "as close to deliberation 
> as one can get", 

That is your interpretation of what the voting system is supposed to be.


> it would have to look at the entire ballot. 

That is a consequence of your interpretation of how the voting system is 
supposed to work and what the voting system is supposed to
be doing.  But that's not what IRV is about.  As I said in the previous 
message, the origins of IRV are in the Exhaustive Ballot,
and in the Exhaustive Ballot there is no possibility of looking "at the entire 
ballot".  IRV is not about satisfying a set of
criteria derived from social choice philosophy.

If you want something that only a social choice approach can deliver, then 
clearly IRV is not for you.  But that does not make Kathy
Dopp's original statement a valid criticism of IRV.


> Now you may say that in real deliberation, as in a parliament, a participant 
> doesn't 
> know of future choices of the others -- but it lets them change their 
> minds between each balloting, which no ranked method can do. 

In a parliament it is more likely that the participants might know (or have a 
reasonable idea about) the future choices of other
participants, but that's not relevant to voters in public elections.


> The best a ranked method can do is to use preferences to find something 
> that can be agreed by all, and for that, Kathy's "LNH incompatibility" 
> argument holds.

This has validity ONLY if you set the premise that a social choice solution is 
required of the voting system.  I am well aware that
the social choice approach dominates on this list, but that is not the only way 
of looking at voting systems.  Nor does it validate
a spurious argument.


> Or more concrete: if you want the sort of compromise that Condorcet 
> gives (and you don't think that's a "weak centrist"), then you can't 
> have LNHarm. I don't think you can have LNHelp either, but 
> I'm not sure about that.

I agree, but one could I think reasonably argue in the specific case of 
Condorcet that it does comply with LNHarm (at least, in
Condorcet where there were no cycles or ties).  Your higher preferences are 
always placed above your lower preferences in the
Condorcet "head-to-head" comparisons.  So YOUR lower preference can never harm 
YOUR higher preference.  But that is certainly not
true for many other social choice voting systems that use the preference 
information in a quite different way.


> > Round 1 
> > A  4,000
> > B  3,000
> > C  2,000
> > D  1,000
> > Total voting 10,000
> > 
> > Round 2
> > A  3,500
> > B  2,500
> > C  1,500
> > Total voting 7,500
> > 
> > Round 3
> > A  3,000
> > B  2,000
> > Total voting 5,000.
> > 
> > A is the majority winner in Round 3, that is to say, the 
> majority winner of those voters then voting.   And IRV satisfies that
> > criterion  -  and the Exhaustive Ballot is the valid comparison for 
> > IRV (because that is the origin of IRV).  The only difference is that 
> > to ensure the integrity of the count (accounting for all ballot papers 
> > at all stages of the count), the ballot papers (votes) of those who 
> > opt out at the later stages (rounds) are recorded as 
> > "non-transferable".
> 
> Any elimination method can have that criterion. As long as you don't 
> break early, after sufficient eliminations there'll be only two 
> candidates remaining. At that point, they're either tied or one of them 
> has a majority of those voters when voting. It doesn't matter if you use 
> Borda-elimination, IRV, average Plurality elimination (Carey's Q 
> method), or the exhaustive version of Coombs.
> 
> I seem to remember one on this list saying something to the effect of 
> "if you want to see how spurious this reasoning is, just take the 
> elimination process one step further and then you'll always have 
> unanimity!  Except it isn't."

This reasoning (in relation to the Exhaustive Ballot and to IRV) is not 
spurious, and if anyone seriously suggested it was spurious
it would show just how desperate they had become in looking for arguments to 
bolster an unsustainable proposition.

> 
> > "Many" on this list may think that, but it is my experience of more 
> > than 45 years as a practical reformer explaining voting systems to 
> > real electors, that 'later no harm' does matter greatly to ordinary 
> > electors.  If they think the voting system will not comply with 'later 
> > no harm', their immediate reaction is to say "I'm not going to mark a 
> > second or any further preference because that will hurt my first 
> > choice candidate  - the one I most want to see elected."  And of 
> > course, if you once depart from 'later no harm' you open the way to 
> > all sorts of strategic voting that just cannot work in a 'later no 
> > harm' IRV (or STV) public election with large numbers of voters.
> 
> If the met

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

James Gilmour wrote:

Kathy Dopp  > Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2008 5:20 AM
"Later-No-Harm", however, is incompatible with the basic 
principles of majority rule, which requires compromise if 
decisions are to be made. That's because the peculiar design 
of sequential elimination guarantees -- if a majority is not 
required -- that a lower preference cannot harm a higher 
preference, because the lower preferences are only considered 
if a higher one is eliminated.


The meaning of the second sentence isn't completely clear to me, but I am 
fairly sure there is a perverse interpretation of
"majority" in the first sentence.  An IRV election is an Exhaustive Ballot 
election contracted into one voting event, instead of
being spread over several rounds in which the one candidate with fewest votes 
is eliminated at each round.  It is no surprise that
the numbers of voters participating varies from round to round  -  usually a 
progressive (or severe) decline.  The votes in an
Exhaustive Ballot election might look like this:


To the degree that finding a good choice requires one to make a 
compromise, and the method is supposed to be "as close to deliberation 
as one can get", it would have to look at the entire ballot. Now you may 
say that in real deliberation, as in a parliament, a participant doesn't 
know of future choices of the others -- but it lets them change their 
minds between each balloting, which no ranked method can do. The best a 
ranked method can do is to use preferences to find something that can be 
agreed by all, and for that, Kathy's "LNH incompatibility" argument holds.


Or more concrete: if you want the sort of compromise that Condorcet 
gives (and you don't think that's a "weak centrist"), then you can't 
have LNHarm. I don't think you can have LNHelp either, but I'm not sure 
about that.



Round 1 
A  4,000
B  3,000
C  2,000
D  1,000
Total voting 10,000

Round 2
A  3,500
B  2,500
C  1,500
Total voting 7,500

Round 3
A  3,000
B  2,000
Total voting 5,000.

A is the majority winner in Round 3, that is to say, the majority winner of 
those voters then voting.   And IRV satisfies that
criterion  -  and the Exhaustive Ballot is the valid comparison for IRV 
(because that is the origin of IRV).  The only difference is
that to ensure the integrity of the count (accounting for all ballot papers at 
all stages of the count), the ballot papers (votes)
of those who opt out at the later stages (rounds) are recorded as 
"non-transferable".


Any elimination method can have that criterion. As long as you don't 
break early, after sufficient eliminations there'll be only two 
candidates remaining. At that point, they're either tied or one of them 
has a majority of those voters when voting. It doesn't matter if you use 
Borda-elimination, IRV, average Plurality elimination (Carey's Q 
method), or the exhaustive version of Coombs.


I seem to remember one on this list saying something to the effect of 
"if you want to see how spurious this reasoning is, just take the 
elimination process one step further and then you'll always have 
unanimity! Except it isn't."



"Many" on this list may think that, but it is my experience of more than 45 
years as a practical reformer explaining voting systems
to real electors, that 'later no harm' does matter greatly to ordinary 
electors.  If they think the voting system will not comply
with 'later no harm', their immediate reaction is to say "I'm not going to mark 
a second or any further preference because that will
hurt my first choice candidate  - the one I most want to see elected."  And of 
course, if you once depart from 'later no harm' you
open the way to all sorts of strategic voting that just cannot work in a 'later 
no harm' IRV (or STV) public election with large
numbers of voters.


If the method fails LNHarm about as often as it fails LNHelp, then that 
argument should fail, because bullet voting may harm your other choices 
as much (or more, no way to know in general) as consistently voting all 
of them will. Ceteris paribus, it's better to have a method that passes 
both of the LNHs than neither (since you get strategy in the latter 
case), but the hit you take might not be as serious as it seems at first.


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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[James Gilmour]

Kathy Dopp  > Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2008 5:20 AM
> "Later-No-Harm", however, is incompatible with the basic 
> principles of majority rule, which requires compromise if 
> decisions are to be made. That's because the peculiar design 
> of sequential elimination guarantees -- if a majority is not 
> required -- that a lower preference cannot harm a higher 
> preference, because the lower preferences are only considered 
> if a higher one is eliminated.

The meaning of the second sentence isn't completely clear to me, but I am 
fairly sure there is a perverse interpretation of
"majority" in the first sentence.  An IRV election is an Exhaustive Ballot 
election contracted into one voting event, instead of
being spread over several rounds in which the one candidate with fewest votes 
is eliminated at each round.  It is no surprise that
the numbers of voters participating varies from round to round  -  usually a 
progressive (or severe) decline.  The votes in an
Exhaustive Ballot election might look like this:

Round 1 
A  4,000
B  3,000
C  2,000
D  1,000
Total voting 10,000

Round 2
A  3,500
B  2,500
C  1,500
Total voting 7,500

Round 3
A  3,000
B  2,000
Total voting 5,000.

A is the majority winner in Round 3, that is to say, the majority winner of 
those voters then voting.   And IRV satisfies that
criterion  -  and the Exhaustive Ballot is the valid comparison for IRV 
(because that is the origin of IRV).  The only difference is
that to ensure the integrity of the count (accounting for all ballot papers at 
all stages of the count), the ballot papers (votes)
of those who opt out at the later stages (rounds) are recorded as 
"non-transferable".


> But many think that 
> later-no-harm is undesirable

"Many" on this list may think that, but it is my experience of more than 45 
years as a practical reformer explaining voting systems
to real electors, that 'later no harm' does matter greatly to ordinary 
electors.  If they think the voting system will not comply
with 'later no harm', their immediate reaction is to say "I'm not going to mark 
a second or any further preference because that will
hurt my first choice candidate  - the one I most want to see elected."  And of 
course, if you once depart from 'later no harm' you
open the way to all sorts of strategic voting that just cannot work in a 'later 
no harm' IRV (or STV) public election with large
numbers of voters.


> But many think that 
> later-no-harm is undesirable because it interferes with the 
> process of equitable compromise that is essential to the 
> social cooperation that voting is supposed to facilitate. If 
> I am negotiating with my neighbor, and his preferred option 
> differs from mine, if I reveal that some compromise option is 
> acceptable to me, before I'm certain that my favorite won't 
> be chosen, then I may "harm" the chance of my favorite being 
> chosen. If the method my neighbor and I used to help us make 
> the decision *requires* later-no-harm, it will interfere with 
> the negotiation process, make it more difficult to find 
> mutually acceptable solutions. 

This is all irrelevant because in a public election there is no negotiation 
between voter and voter or between voter and candidate.
I know that there are proposal for voting system that would incorporate 
"negotiation" of various kinds, but none of those was under
discussion here.

James Gilmour

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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Jul 5, 2008, at 6:13 AM, James Gilmour wrote:


Abd ul-Rahman Lomax > Sent: Monday, June 23, 2008 7:19 PM

But, in the United States, where I live, IRV
isn't replacing pure FPTP. It's replacing Top Two
Runoff (TTR). And it is pretty clear to me that
TTR is superior in just about every way,


I suspect all such judgements must in the end be matters of opinion,  
but the French Presidential election of 2002 shows the major
failing of Top-Two Run-Off.  I think many commentators would take  
the view that IRV would have been superior to TTRO in that

election.

Had that election been by Exhaustive Ballot (eliminating one  
candidate in each round) or by IRV, I am fairly sure that the final
contest would not have been between Chirac and Le Pen.  It is also  
reasonable to suggest that, in such circumstances, the eventual
winner would not have been Chirac, but a candidate much more  
representative of the voters.  The implications of a different result
for French politics during the subsequent five years would be pure  
speculation on my part, so I'll leave it there.


An additional word on IRV vs TTR in San Francisco.

One of the main arguments for moving from TTR to IRV in SF was the  
extremely low turnout in runoff elections--I suppose that's the TTR  
equivalent of massive ballot truncation. I don't have the figures at  
hand, but turnout for SF runoffs has been laughably low.


The limitation to three rankings is a function of the existing mark- 
sense voting equipment. Presumably this limitation will be addressed  
in time.


While SF IRV elections are nominally non-partisan, there are  
effectively three (sometimes four) parties: business-oriented  
Democrats, progressive Democrats, Greens, and from time to time  
Republicans. The boundaries are fuzzy, and coalitions are fluid. With,  
as Abd points out, as many as 22 candidates on the ballot, this  
environment seems far from ideal for TTR.



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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[James Gilmour]

Abd ul-Rahman Lomax > Sent: Monday, June 23, 2008 7:19 PM
> But, in the United States, where I live, IRV 
> isn't replacing pure FPTP. It's replacing Top Two 
> Runoff (TTR). And it is pretty clear to me that 
> TTR is superior in just about every way,

I suspect all such judgements must in the end be matters of opinion, but the 
French Presidential election of 2002 shows the major
failing of Top-Two Run-Off.  I think many commentators would take the view that 
IRV would have been superior to TTRO in that
election.  

Had that election been by Exhaustive Ballot (eliminating one candidate in each 
round) or by IRV, I am fairly sure that the final
contest would not have been between Chirac and Le Pen.  It is also reasonable 
to suggest that, in such circumstances, the eventual
winner would not have been Chirac, but a candidate much more representative of 
the voters.  The implications of a different result
for French politics during the subsequent five years would be pure speculation 
on my part, so I'll leave it there.

James Gilmour

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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 01:09 PM 6/23/2008, Stéphane Rouillon wrote:
After a nice discussion about keeping cool, 
usually a great idea if one can manage it. On the 
other hand, sometimes getting a little hot can get things done.



So now can you acknoledge that IRV is better than FPTP ?
I can accpet IRV being worst than any other 
method (even if I do not agree all the time)

but FPTP has to be worst!


I would once have agreed with this, and, still, 
under some conditions, would agree that IRV is, 
in some ways, better than Plurality. However, it 
also can be worse in some ways, and there's the 
rub: what is the balance? Political activists, 
once they've made a decision -- and they tend not 
to be the best of decision-makers, not thoroughly 
investigating before deciding -- they become like 
a guided missile that can't be recalled, it will 
continue trying to hit its target even if it 
would become obvious, to an intelligent pilot, 
that it is an Iranian Airbus rather than a military jet.


But, in the United States, where I live, IRV 
isn't replacing pure FPTP. It's replacing Top Two 
Runoff (TTR). And it is pretty clear to me that 
TTR is superior in just about every way, that 
common arguments used to claim the reverse are 
spurious, and that the one possible superiority, 
cost, becomes, actually, an argument for 
different reforms, not IRV, with its quirks and 
its typical reproduction of Plurality results in 
nonpartisan elections, and, in partisan 
elections, its reproduction of TTR problems without the ameliorating factors.


Why is IRV being pushed in the U.S. as if it were 
a positive reform? The initiative did not come 
from voting systems experts. It came from 
political activists, interested in proportional 
representation. The history is pretty clear: 
There was a conference in the early 1990s to 
consider how to bring PR to the U.S. Out of that 
conference (but not by the conference itself, it 
was a small group who acted on their own), came 
the formation of the Center for Proportional 
Representation, I think it was called. At some 
point, I'm not clear when, they changed their 
name to the Center for Voting and Democracy, to 
represent a wider focus and to match the strategy that had been developed.


Possibly the best method in common use for 
Proportional Representation is Single 
Transferable Vote. We now know how to do it 
better, to be sure, but STV is pretty good, and 
it gets better the more members districts have. 
Now, problem is, STV is a complicated voting 
system, more complicated even than IRV, because 
the vote transfers get pretty hairy as members 
are elected. (I'm assuming that one of the better 
methods is being used. STV if it is just the 
"top" candidates isn't so good, it's going to 
imitate, more or less, plurality-at-large.) This 
was considered an obstacle, and correctly so. 
There are other methods which aren't so 
difficult, that can be even more accurately 
proportional and simpler for voters, but 
remember, these were not voting systems experts 
and they didn't want to invent something new. 
(Though, in my opinion, the *best* method, and 
surely the simplest, would be Asset Voting, as 
first described by Lewis Carroll in the early 
1880s and reinvented by Mike Ossipoff, Warren 
Smith, and possibly others, recently.)


What to do? I can imagine the excitement when the 
name "Instant runoff voting" was proposed. Runoff 
voting was in used in the U.S., and it costs 
money to hold those runoff elections. The extra 
cost of STV could be justified by the cost 
savings from runoffs. So if they could get 
jurisdictions using top two runoff to establish 
IRV, it would then be a smaller step for these 
jurisdictions to move to proportional representation.


It was a political strategy, and it did not take 
into account the serious problems of IRV. For 
starters, IRV is used in two-party systems, and 
its effect is to protect the major parties from 
election spoilage by minor parties. It does allow 
third parties to exist, but makes it very 
difficult for them to actually thrive. Because of 
PR in the Senate, I think it is, they can 
exercise some power. But they don't win seats in 
the House where IRV is used. (I'm could be 
getting things mixed up, but we have Australian 
readers who, I'm sure, will correct me if I get it wrong.)


STV is a good multiwinner method, as I mentioned, 
for proportional representation, because the 
members it elects are clearly good choices, 
except for the last one. When you are electing 
many members, that the last member can be a bit 
off doesn't matter so much. But when that's the only one elected 


Further, IRV as generally used in Australia 
(Preferential Voting) is different from IRV as 
being implemented here. First of all, full 
ranking of all candidates is required, or the 
ballot is informal and is not counted. This has 
two consequences: a majority is always found, but 
the majority can be, to some extent, coerced, and 
"donkey voting" is com

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Juho]

On Jun 26, 2008, at 0:54 , Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:


Note that the utilities of B and C were 123 and 99. I didn't anchor
the scale in any way but numbers around 100 could still be "above
average politician".


"Above average" among what sample? Certainly not this one!


The sample was the politicians of your country (+ other candidates).  
Maybe their utility is typically around 30. (Utility 543 was possibly  
for yourself or your friend.)



I think three frontrunners is not a very distant scenario. I also
think spoilers are quite possible in Range and Approval. Some spoiler
scenarios were already mentioned in this thread. You also already
replied to Chris Benham on the McCain-Obama-Clinton example in
another mail (and therefore I'll try to be brief here).


While three frontrunners is certainly possible in theory, it's rare  
in a two-party system, it happens in certain ways.


But I assume the idea was to enrich the typical "two parties, two  
candidates and minor spoilers" set-up. If the small party candidates  
will stay minor candidates with no chances of being elected forever  
then we could use e.g. a method where the ballot has first one  
option, D or R, and then a write-in field where you can write any  
minor candidate name (or several) but that field will be ignored in  
the counting process. I mean that there must be at least three viable  
candidates in some elections if any any of the minor candidates are  
ever expected to raise from the "joke category" upwards (well, unless  
the changes always happen so quickly that the old leading candidates/ 
parties are already at the "joke category" at the time of the election.)


Juho






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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Juho]

On Jun 25, 2008, at 4:26 , Kathy Dopp wrote:


1. the method of keeping my house cool in summer and warm in winter (I
do set a furnace to 64 degrees F in the winter days and 53 degrees F
at night but the house usually stays much warmer) is low-tech and is
architectural (I did my own architecture)


A massive pile of rocks inside the house?

2. requires some human intervention (perhaps 3 or 4 minutes twice  
per day).


Let the sun in, stop the heat going out, let the coolness of night  
get in, lock the heat in?



Any guesses on why my grass stays green without any water in a very
dry climate, although all my neighbors do water their lawns?


Maybe lots of water inside the house instead of stone?

Sorry for not including any EM related test in this mail.

Juho






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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 02:45 PM 6/24/2008, Juho wrote:

On Jun 24, 2008, at 3:10 , Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:


 Or if A and B are the strongest candidates then maybe
strategically A=10, B=0, C=0.



 In Approval the voter might vote A=1,
B=0, C=0. Or if B and C are the strongest candidates then maybe A=1,
B=1, C=0.


If it were me, I might be buying tickets out of the country. That
is *really* bad. *Sincere normalized rating, unmodified by election
probabilities, is almost zero.*

Voters with utilities like this, if they believe A doesn't have a
prayer, tend to not vote.


Note that the utilities of B and C were 123 and 99. I didn't anchor
the scale in any way but numbers around 100 could still be "above
average politician".


"Above average" among what sample? Certainly not this one!


I think three frontrunners is not a very distant scenario. I also
think spoilers are quite possible in Range and Approval. Some spoiler
scenarios were already mentioned in this thread. You also already
replied to Chris Benham on the McCain-Obama-Clinton example in
another mail (and therefore I'll try to be brief here).


While three frontrunners is certainly possible in theory, it's rare 
in a two-party system, it happens in certain ways.



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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 01:51 PM 6/24/2008, Chris Benham wrote:



- Original Message 
From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
No. That fight is over the Democratic Party nomination and
endorsement. It means that the whole apparatus of the Democratic
Party is devoted to one candidate, which is, of course, strongly in
the interest of the Democratic Party.


You know that that is somewhat beside the point. But I get the impression
that most of the money goes directly to the campaigns of the individual
candidates and that the media attention is mainly focused on the individual
candidates, rather than say  "the policies of the Democratic Party" 
irrespective

of who is their endorsed candidate.


Actually not beside the point. Media attention is, of course, focused 
on the candidates. *In the primary.* And then on one candidate from 
both major parties *in the general election.*


If we were to try to combine the primaries with the general election, 
which is what happened in Louisiana, we'd have similar problems with 
vote-splitting. Primaries aren't an indispensable part of the U.S. 
political system; used to be that state parties elected delegates, 
and delegates made the decision. It was actually a better system, in 
my opinion. Decided whom to run in a general election is a terribly 
complicated decision, the question isn't only "who is best," but also 
"who is electable." Instead of expensive primary races, I'd focus on 
much cheaper methods of making sure that the party convention is very 
representative and trustworthy. Guess what method(s) I'd use, Chris?


Then, the drama of the convention brings free publicity, much better 
than happens now with rubber-stamp conventions where nothing really 
exciting happens, they are just big celebrations. And the real money 
is then saved for the real election. While it's true that the primary 
system allows a candidate to "show his or her stuff" under difficult 
conditions, one single race isn't really enough to test that well.



>Why not simply endorse both candidates?  After all, one cannot
>possibly spoil the election for the other because Approval has
>no spoiler problem. Voters simply approve candidates or not
>completely regardless of what other candidates are on the ballot,
>right?


Sure. If we imagine that somehow the parties have decided not to
nominate candidates, snowballs in hell nevermind, running both Obama
and Clinton against a single McCain would probaby result in very
common double-voting. Now, if Obama and Clinton heavily campaign
against each other, slinging mud, etc, trying to convince the voters
that the other one is practically the devil, nobody would benefit
from this except McCain. Which is quite why we don't do things this
way. Parties in Australia don't run multiple candidates for the same
single-winner office, do they?



No, but very closely allied candidates sometimes run against each other,
such as a candidate each from both Coalition partners (the Liberals and
the Nationals).


I consider the Coalition partners to be the same party, effectively, 
and usually they don't run two candidates in the same race. It would 
be interesting to see what happened where they do. It could be that 
the pact broke down, or it could be that it was safe. With IRV, a 
certain amount of this could be done safely. But if there was a real 
race with the other leg of the tripod, the splitting of campaign 
effort could result in a bad result. I think that's important to 
realize. It's not just what's on the ballot and how the votes are 
counted. That may be less than half of what's involved.



I don't see how the split-vote problem in Approval is a "very different
animal than the split vote problem in Plurality".  To me it is just much
less severe. The "split-vote problem in IRV"  is much less and normally
unnoticable.


You have to understand how Plurality works: it works through 
processes outside the ballot, it works through party nominations. 
Split vote happens when a third party throws a monkey wrench in the 
process. Under those conditions, Approval fixes the problem quite as 
well as IRV, without the fuss. Bucklin *clearly* fixes it. If a 
supporter of a third party isn't going to add an additional vote in 
Bucklin, they are going to truncate in IRV. Pretty much the same with Approval.


However, what happens if that third party gets on the order of 
one-third the first-preference vote? This is where IRV can clearly 
break down. Approval as a plurality method can do poorly as well, 
though not generally as poorly. And, of course, if a majority is 
required, Approval should come out just fine.



I think in the US scenario with voluntary voting, if  both Clinton and
Obama ran McCain would have less chance of winning with IRV
than with Approval or Range or Bucklin or any other reasonable
method that springs to mind. This is because both Clinton and
Obama have their enthusiastic supporters some of whom wouldn't
bother voting if their favourite wasn't runn

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Kathy Dopp]

On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 2:43 PM,
> Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:45:56 +0300
> From: Juho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

> On Jun 24, 2008, at 7:41 , Kathy Dopp wrote:
>
>> How does the grass in my lawn stay green when I never water or irrigate it 
>> and I live in a very dry climate?
>>
>> How does my house heat up to 80 degrees Farenheit inside during the winter 
>> even when it is below freezing outside - without using any fossil fuels and 
>> without burning any wood?
>
> Since you live (at least relatively) close to Yellowstone you might
> have one cold and one hot well available. The grass would also
> benefit of that, unless it is made of plastic.
>

Hi Juho

OK. Another good guess however it would have to be an awfully long
pipe to reach a hotsprings from my house because the nearest one is
over 20 miles drive away or over a huge mountain pass about 2,500 ft
higher than my home which is only open in the summers.

Shall I give you the answers?

Hint:

1. the method of keeping my house cool in summer and warm in winter (I
do set a furnace to 64 degrees F in the winter days and 53 degrees F
at night but the house usually stays much warmer) is low-tech and is
architectural (I did my own architecture)

2. requires some human intervention (perhaps 3 or 4 minutes twice per day).

3. the climate here in Utah is very different from yours in England.
It is much dryer here.

Any guesses on why my grass stays green without any water in a very
dry climate, although all my neighbors do water their lawns?

BTW, on voting issues, I updated this today in preparation for a radio
interview.  There are few places that have more secretive elections
than where I live now and this is my proposal for fixing that:

http://utahcountvotes.org/legislature/UTLegislativeElectionReform.pdf

Kathy

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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham) (tidied-up re-post)

[Chris Benham]

At 12:55 AM 6/23/2008, Chris Benham wrote:
>Kathy,
>
>Imagine  that  Approval is used to elect the  US President and
>as in the current campaign the Republicans  are fielding one
>candidate, McCain.  Does that mean that the big fight for the
>Democrat nomination between  Clinton and Obama we've just
>seen would in the Approval scenario be completely unnecessary?

Abd:
"No. That fight is over the Democratic Party nomination and 
endorsement. It means that the whole apparatus of the Democratic 
Party is devoted to one candidate, which is, of course, strongly in 
the interest of the Democratic Party."

Chris:
 You know that that is somewhat beside the point. But I get the impression
that most of the money goes directly to the campaigns of the individual
candidates and that the media attention is mainly focused on the individual
candidates, rather than say  "the policies of the Democratic Party" irrespective
of who is their endorsed candidate.

>Why not simply endorse both candidates?  After all, one cannot
>possibly spoil the election for the other because Approval has
>no spoiler problem. Voters simply approve candidates or not
>completely regardless of what other candidates are on the ballot,
>right?
Abd:
"Sure. If we imagine that somehow the parties have decided not to 
nominate candidates, snowballs in hell nevermind, running both Obama 
and Clinton against a single McCain would probaby result in very 
common double-voting. Now, if Obama and Clinton heavily campaign 
against each other, slinging mud, etc, trying to convince the voters 
that the other one is practically the devil, nobody would benefit 
from this except McCain. Which is quite why we don't do things this 
way. Parties in Australia don't run multiple candidates for the same 
single-winner office, do they?"
Chris:
 No, but very closely allied candidates sometimes run against each other,
such as a candidate each from both Coalition partners (the Liberals and
the Nationals).
Abd:  
"The problem, were it Approval, wouldn't be so much the voting method. 
(Which, by the way, loses most of the problems it has if a majority 
is required or there is a runoff). It would be the rest of the 
system, the process by which voters become informed, or deluded, 
depending on your point of view.

>I  think that in practical effect Approval  does have a "spoiler" or
>split-vote problem  that would be sufficient for the Democrats to
>still want to endorse one candidate only.

There are *lots* of reasons why the Democrats would want to do that. 
Or any party. This is a red herring argument. The "split vote 
problem" in Approval is a very different animal than the split vote 
problem in Plurality, or, for that matter, in IRV."
Chris:
 I don't see how the split-vote problem in Approval is a "very different
animal than the split vote problem in Plurality".  To me it is just much
less severe. The "split-vote problem in IRV"  is much less and normally
unnoticable.
 
I think in the US scenario with voluntary voting, if  both Clinton and
Obama ran McCain would have less chance of winning with IRV
than with Approval or Range or Bucklin or any other reasonable
method that springs to mind. This is because both Clinton and
Obama have their enthusiastic supporters some of whom wouldn't
bother voting if their favourite wasn't running, but if their favourite
was running they would show up and (at the urging of their favourite)
rank both Clinton and Obama  above McCain.

IRV, meeting both Majority for Solid Coalitions and  Later-no-Harm
has no  "defection  incentive" like other methods.
 
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2006-November/018844.html
 


>What I actually wrote in my initial post on the 5  "fairness
>principles in your paper (regarding IIA):
>
>In practical effect  *no* method meets this.Approval and Range can 
>be said to meet
>Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) only if the votes are 
>interpreted as the voters giving
>ratings on some fixed scale that is independent of the actual candidates.
Abd:
"No, that's not correct. Perhaps it would be useful if you actually 
state the version of IIA you are using. Usually, it refers to adding 
or subtracting a candidate without changing the "preference order" of 
the other candidates, but if you are going to use it with Range and 
Approval, you have to modify it; the basic modification is that the 
Range Votes or Approval Votes don't change, and all that happens is 
that a new candidate is added to the ballot or taken off the ballot."

Chris:
 If  the voters rate the candidates on some fixed scale that is independent
of the candidates, then by definition the Range or Approval votes would
be unchanged by adding (or removing) a candidate. What's "not correct"
about it?  
Abd:
"If voters are allowed to actually change their votes, *no method 
meets IIA.* Simple proof: there is a candidate whose name is a 
trigger for a long-hidden internal program that causes human beings 
to fall i

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting - Not What It Seems

[Chris Benham]

Hello,
Continuing my commentry on Kathy Dopp's anti-IRV paper, under
"Flaws of  Instant Runoff  Voting" we find:
"13. 
voters may not be allowed to participate in the final selection round of an IRV 
election
because all their choices were eliminated before the last counting round."

The only way voters  may "not be allowed to participate in the final selection 
round
of an IRV election" is if  they are restricted from ranking  as many candidates 
as they
wish, a restriction that I strongly oppose (and doesn't exist in Australia).

Presumably Kathy thinks it is a bad thing that some voters aren't allowed to 
participate
in the final IRV selection round, so we can logically infer that Kathy prefers 
IRV with
unrestricted ranking to IRV with restricted ranking, right?  Wrong. Further 
down the
paper she writes:"Restricting the ranking depth of ranked choice ballots could 
improve IRV methods
by reducing noise and making it easier for voters."

Kathy, your hero Abd ul Lomax disagrees! He recently wrote:
"If you are going to use a preferential ballot, with STV as the method, 
allowing full ranking is important."

 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RangeVoting/message/8276

"STV" stands for  'Single Transferable Vote'.  IRV  is single-winner STV.

Chris BenhamNot all voters or ballots are treated equally: Unlike with actual 
runoff elections, some IRV


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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Juho]

On Jun 24, 2008, at 7:41 , Kathy Dopp wrote:


How does the grass in my lawn stay green when I never water or
irrigate it and I live in a very dry climate?

How does my house heat up to 80 degrees Farenheit inside during the
winter even when it is below freezing outside - without using any
fossil fuels and without burning any wood?


Since you live (at least relatively) close to Yellowstone you might  
have one cold and one hot well available. The grass would also  
benefit of that, unless it is made of plastic.


Juho





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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Juho]

On Jun 24, 2008, at 3:10 , Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:


 Or if A and B are the strongest candidates then maybe
strategically A=10, B=0, C=0.



 In Approval the voter might vote A=1,
B=0, C=0. Or if B and C are the strongest candidates then maybe A=1,
B=1, C=0.


If it were me, I might be buying tickets out of the country. That  
is *really* bad. *Sincere normalized rating, unmodified by election  
probabilities, is almost zero.*


Voters with utilities like this, if they believe A doesn't have a  
prayer, tend to not vote.


Note that the utilities of B and C were 123 and 99. I didn't anchor  
the scale in any way but numbers around 100 could still be "above  
average politician".



The sincere opinions/utilities A=543, B=123, C=99 were valid in all
the cases but typical voter behaviour in Range and Approval was to
normalize the vote and maybe to vote strategically depending on who
the strongest candidates are. The ratings given to the candidates
varied although the opinions/utilities stayed the same all the time.

This changing behaviour may sometimes lead to one of the candidates
being a spoiler.


Plurality, if voters vote sincerely, guarantees the spoiler effect.  
It's part of the method. Range allows something different, but  
nobody coerces voters. *Voters* can decide to act in ways that  
mimic the spoiler effect, but it's not intrinsic to the method, and  
if voters vote with any reasonable understanding at all, there is  
no spoiler effect with any significant frequency with Range or  
Approval.


How many voters in 2000 would not have known that Bush and Gore  
were the frontrunners? The decision in Approval is quite simple: if  
you want to influence the election, vote for one of the  
frontrunners, period. Indeed, it gets tricky when there are three  
frontrunners, but that is vanishingly rare in the U.S.


I think three frontrunners is not a very distant scenario. I also  
think spoilers are quite possible in Range and Approval. Some spoiler  
scenarios were already mentioned in this thread. You also already  
replied to Chris Benham on the McCain-Obama-Clinton example in  
another mail (and therefore I'll try to be brief here).


The Democrats would do wisely if they would not nominate the second  
candidate as a "spoiler" even if the campaign would not be a mud  
slinging campaign. And Clinton would do wisely (from the D party  
point of view) if she would not accept a nomination by some other  
party close to Democrats. And in a close election any candidate close  
to Democrats would probably do wisely (from D point of view) if he/ 
she didn't join the race (since Republicans are more likely to rate  
all Democrat resembling candidates at 0 than Democrat like voters  
would rate all Democrat like candidates at max points).


Juho






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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Chris Benham]

- Original Message 
From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Chris Benham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; EM 
Sent: Tuesday, 24 June, 2008 10:01:46 AM
Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

At 12:55 AM 6/23/2008, Chris Benham wrote:
>Kathy,
>
>Imagine  that  Approval is used to elect the  US President and
>as in the current campaign the Republicans  are fielding one
>candidate, McCain.  Does that mean that the big fight for the
>Democrat nomination between  Clinton and Obama we've just
>seen would in the Approval scenario be completely unnecessary?

No. That fight is over the Democratic Party nomination and 
endorsement. It means that the whole apparatus of the Democratic 
Party is devoted to one candidate, which is, of course, strongly in 
the interest of the Democratic Party.
You know that that is somewhat beside the point. But I get the impression
that most of the money goes directly to the campaigns of the individual
candidates and that the media attention is mainly focused on the individual
candidates, rather than say  "the policies of the Democratic Party" irrespective
of who is their endorsed candidate.

>Why not simply endorse both candidates?  After all, one cannot
>possibly spoil the election for the other because Approval has
>no spoiler problem. Voters simply approve candidates or not
>completely regardless of what other candidates are on the ballot,
>right?

Sure. If we imagine that somehow the parties have decided not to 
nominate candidates, snowballs in hell nevermind, running both Obama 
and Clinton against a single McCain would probaby result in very 
common double-voting. Now, if Obama and Clinton heavily campaign 
against each other, slinging mud, etc, trying to convince the voters 
that the other one is practically the devil, nobody would benefit 
from this except McCain. Which is quite why we don't do things this 
way. Parties in Australia don't run multiple candidates for the same 
single-winner office, do they?
No, but very closely allied candidates sometimes run against each other,
such as a candidate each from both Coalition partners (the Liberals and
the Nationals).  

The problem, were it Approval, wouldn't be so much the voting method. 
(Which, by the way, loses most of the problems it has if a majority 
is required or there is a runoff). It would be the rest of the 
system, the process by which voters become informed, or deluded, 
depending on your point of view.

>I  think that in practical effect Approval  does have a "spoiler" or
>split-vote problem  that would be sufficient for the Democrats to
>still want to endorse one candidate only.

There are *lots* of reasons why the Democrats would want to do that. 
Or any party. This is a red herring argument. The "split vote 
problem" in Approval is a very different animal than the split vote 
problem in Plurality, or, for that matter, in IRV.
I don't see how the split-vote problem in Approval is a "very different
animal than the split vote problem in Plurality".  To me it is just much
less severe. The "split-vote problem in IRV"  is much less and normally
unnoticable.
I think in the US scenario with voluntary voting, if  both Clinton and
Obama ran McCain would have less chance of winning with IRV
than with Approval or Range or Bucklin or any other reasonable
method that springs to mind. This is because both Clinton and
Obama have their enthusiastic supporters some of whom wouldn't
bother voting if their favourite wasn't running, but if their favourite
was running they would show up and (at the urging of their favourite)
rank both Clinton and Obama  above McCain.

IRV, meeting both Majority for Solid Coalitions and  Later-no-Harm
has no  "defection  incentive" like other methods.
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2006-November/018844.html


>What I actually wrote in my initial post on the 5  "fairness
>principles in your paper (regarding IIA):
>
>In practical effect  *no* method meets this.Approval and Range can 
>be said to meet
>Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) only if the votes are 
>interpreted as the voters giving
>ratings on some fixed scale that is independent of the actual candidates.

No, that's not correct. Perhaps it would be useful if you actually 
state the version of IIA you are using. Usually, it refers to adding 
or subtracting a candidate without changing the "preference order" of 
the other candidates, but if you are going to use it with Range and 
Approval, you have to modify it; the basic modification is that the 
Range Votes or Approval Votes don't change, and all that happens is 
that a new candidate is added to the ballot or taken off the ballot.
If  the voters rate the candidates on some fixed scale that is 

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Kathy Dopp]

On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 11:09 AM, Stéphane Rouillon
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Finally a question for my vacations!
>
> I would use geothermia. Simply dig a long tube in the ground with the two
> halfs at different underground level and put the ends at differents levels
> of your house. It should pump cool air
> from the underground to your basement, when it gets hot then to the upstairs
> where it goes through the second end far underground and back in the cycle.
> what is important is that the length
> of the underground tubes is long enough so the pumping effect can drag the
> hot air form upstairs
> stronger then the boussinesq force keeps it elevated (hot air is lighter).

Hi Stephane,

What a great idea. Would that work?  Or would one need to pump fluid
or to use a fan to pump air around such tubes into the ground?  I like
it.

However, that is *not* how I keep my house below 68/74 approx degrees
downstairs/upstairs.

It was in the 90s again here today and my house inside is now 68/72
degrees downstairs/upstairs even though I have no air conditioning or
swamp cooler.

Hints:

1. I do not live in a cave .
.
2.   Components of how my house stays cool in summer are related to
how it warms itself without a furnace or a heater of any kind in
winter.

3. I live in a high mountain desert.

>
> So now can you acknoledge that IRV is better than FPTP ?

I just counted to see how many of the "17 flaws of IRV" listed in my
paper, also apply to plurality voting - only 3.  So, since IRV (to my
count) has at least 14 flaws that plurality voting does not have, and
only 3 benefits over plurality (including one benefit that is only a
perceived rather thant an actual benefit), I would say that plurality
voting is far superior to IRV IMO.  My paper's URL is here:
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf


> I can accpet IRV being worst than any other method (even if I do not agree
> all the time)
> but FPTP has to be worst!

Nope. IRV is the worst voting method I have seen, except for the one
that Chris showed us on this list of converting voter ratings to
approval votes for N-1 candidates, but then I haven't seen all the
voting methods people may have dreamed up - and do not want to.

I would like to see a picture of your idea for digging holes with
pipes to keep houses cool as my current method only works to the great
extent that it does in certain climes. The area were I live is only
about 17 miles away as the crow flies from some hot springs (volcanic
activity) beneath the crust  where it looks from the lay of the land
like the entire town is situated in an old small caldera volcano, so
those homes in that nearby town could probably not use your method.

I live a few hundred miles or more South of Yellowstone Park.  I
believe that Yellowstone is the largest known caldera volcano in the
world. When Yellowstone explodes again,  hot lava may land on my roof,
and I would try to escape by driving South since the ash would travel
East with the Jet Stream air current around the globe.

However, under and around my town are old Silver mines that do have
cool 50 degree air in them, but I live in a meadow.

After you solve the first puzzle, I have two other puzzles for you.

How does the grass in my lawn stay green when I never water or
irrigate it and I live in a very dry climate?

How does my house heat up to 80 degrees Farenheit inside during the
winter even when it is below freezing outside - without using any
fossil fuels and without burning any wood?

Kathy

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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Dave Ketchum]

On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:55:20 -0700 (PDT) Chris Benham wrote:

Kathy,
 
Imagine  that  Approval is used to elect the  US President and

as in the current campaign the Republicans  are fielding one
candidate, McCain.  Does that mean that the big fight for the
Democrat nomination between  Clinton and Obama we've just
seen would in the Approval scenario be completely unnecessary?
 


Why not simply endorse both candidates?  After all, one cannot
possibly spoil the election for the other because Approval has
no spoiler problem. Voters simply approve candidates or not
completely regardless of what other candidates are on the ballot,
right?
 
BUT, Approval is unable to be told that, while both Democrats are seen as 
better than McCain, one is MUCH better than the other.


 
 
I  think that in practical effect Approval  does have a "spoiler" or

split-vote problem  that would be sufficient for the Democrats to
still want to endorse one candidate only.

 
What I actually wrote in my initial post on the 5  "fairness

principles in your paper (regarding IIA):
 
In practical effect  *no* method meets this.Approval and Range can be 
said to meet 
Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) only if the votes are 
interpreted as the voters giving
ratings on some fixed scale that is independent of the actual candidates. 

On this perverse interpretation Approval and Range do not reduce to  FPP 
in the 2 candidate election,

in violation of  Dopp's "fairness principle 4":

"Any candidate who is the favorite [first] choice of a majority of 
voters should win."
 
(approval or non-approval counts as "rating" on a 2-point  scale).
 
This latter point you seem to implicitly acknowledge in one of your 
recent posts:
 


"In actuality, if these are the same voters both before and after you
add another candidate C, then your first example with two candidates,
to be consistent with your second example with three candidates should
be:

25 A
40 AB
35 B

so that B wins in the first example AND in the second when another
candidate is introduced."
 



Chris Benham

--
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 Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 12:55 AM 6/23/2008, Chris Benham wrote:

Kathy,

Imagine  that  Approval is used to elect the  US President and
as in the current campaign the Republicans  are fielding one
candidate, McCain.  Does that mean that the big fight for the
Democrat nomination between  Clinton and Obama we've just
seen would in the Approval scenario be completely unnecessary?


No. That fight is over the Democratic Party nomination and 
endorsement. It means that the whole apparatus of the Democratic 
Party is devoted to one candidate, which is, of course, strongly in 
the interest of the Democratic Party.



Why not simply endorse both candidates?  After all, one cannot
possibly spoil the election for the other because Approval has
no spoiler problem. Voters simply approve candidates or not
completely regardless of what other candidates are on the ballot,
right?


Sure. If we imagine that somehow the parties have decided not to 
nominate candidates, snowballs in hell nevermind, running both Obama 
and Clinton against a single McCain would probaby result in very 
common double-voting. Now, if Obama and Clinton heavily campaign 
against each other, slinging mud, etc, trying to convince the voters 
that the other one is practically the devil, nobody would benefit 
from this except McCain. Which is quite why we don't do things this 
way. Parties in Australia don't run multiple candidates for the same 
single-winner office, do they?


The problem, were it Approval, wouldn't be so much the voting method. 
(Which, by the way, loses most of the problems it has if a majority 
is required or there is a runoff). It would be the rest of the 
system, the process by which voters become informed, or deluded, 
depending on your point of view.



I  think that in practical effect Approval  does have a "spoiler" or
split-vote problem  that would be sufficient for the Democrats to
still want to endorse one candidate only.


There are *lots* of reasons why the Democrats would want to do that. 
Or any party. This is a red herring argument. The "split vote 
problem" in Approval is a very different animal than the split vote 
problem in Plurality, or, for that matter, in IRV.



What I actually wrote in my initial post on the 5  "fairness
principles in your paper (regarding IIA):

In practical effect  *no* method meets this.Approval and Range can 
be said to meet
Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) only if the votes are 
interpreted as the voters giving

ratings on some fixed scale that is independent of the actual candidates.


No, that's not correct. Perhaps it would be useful if you actually 
state the version of IIA you are using. Usually, it refers to adding 
or subtracting a candidate without changing the "preference order" of 
the other candidates, but if you are going to use it with Range and 
Approval, you have to modify it; the basic modification is that the 
Range Votes or Approval Votes don't change, and all that happens is 
that a new candidate is added to the ballot or taken off the ballot.


If voters are allowed to actually change their votes, *no method 
meets IIA.* Simple proof: there is a candidate whose name is a 
trigger for a long-hidden internal program that causes human beings 
to fall into a trance when they contemplate whether or not to vote 
for a candidate, and they leave the booth with false memories of what 
happened (really happens with trance, sometimes, i.e, false memory). 
The voters see this new name on the ballot, and regardless of how 
they would have voted, they become incapable of voting, so all 
candidates tie with no votes. And thus the winner could change.


On this perverse interpretation Approval and Range do not reduce 
to  FPP in the 2 candidate election,

in violation of  Dopp's "fairness principle 4":

"Any candidate who is the favorite [first] choice of a majority of 
voters should win."


(approval or non-approval counts as "rating" on a 2-point  scale).


Chris, you should look at Dhillon and Mertens, "Relative 
Utilitarianism," where they purport to prove that Range Voting is a 
unique solution to a version of Arrow's voting axioms that 
accommodate Range Voting. Relative Utilitarianism refers to "votes" 
which are "normalized von Neuman-Morgenstern utilities in the range 
of 0-1. I.e., Range Voting. Warren Smith is actually not in outer 
space on this (their work preceded his).


Because of the normalization, in the two candidate case, Majority is 
satisfied. Because vN-M utilities are modified by probabilities, it 
gets complicated in the three-candidate case, where RU is considered 
the unique solution. If I remember correctly. I'm hoping to help get 
a popularization of Dhillon and Mertens prepared, it's needed. Smith 
calls their use of symbols "Notation from Hell." And he's familiar 
with the conventions!




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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 12:23 PM 6/23/2008, Juho wrote:
Let's assume that our voter has fixed preferences of A=543, B=123,

C=99. The election method is either Range with values from 0 to 10 or
Approval.

If the election has two candidates, B and C, the voter might vote in
Range B=10, C=0 and in Approval B=1, C=0. We can assume that the
voter will normalize the vote and rank one of the candidates at 10
(or 1 in Approval) and one at 0.


Right. However, let's do the full normalization for the total 
candidate set, first, otherwise the absolute utilities, which may be 
on the Heaven-Hell scale, could be misleading. Normalizing, we have

A: 10.00
B:  0.54
C:  0.00

In other words, B, compared to A, is almost as bad as C.


If the election has three candidates the voter might vote in Range
A=10, B=1, C=0.


Maybe. More likely, because it doesn't make much difference to the voter:


 Or if A and B are the strongest candidates then maybe
strategically A=10, B=0, C=0.



 In Approval the voter might vote A=1,
B=0, C=0. Or if B and C are the strongest candidates then maybe A=1,
B=1, C=0.


If it were me, I might be buying tickets out of the country. That is 
*really* bad. *Sincere normalized rating, unmodified by election 
probabilities, is almost zero.*


Voters with utilities like this, if they believe A doesn't have a 
prayer, tend to not vote. If this were Plurality, they would not vote 
for B under just about any circumstances. If it were Optional 
Preferential Voting, they'd truncate. A preference increment of 1/20 
range is quite possibly not reliably determinable. I think that 1/10 
is hard to tell. The reasons for wanting higher resolution range have 
to do with an ability to express preference with less effect 
strategicically. So, given utilities like those above, I might vote A 
100, B 1, C 0. If I could tell a difference.



The sincere opinions/utilities A=543, B=123, C=99 were valid in all
the cases but typical voter behaviour in Range and Approval was to
normalize the vote and maybe to vote strategically depending on who
the strongest candidates are. The ratings given to the candidates
varied although the opinions/utilities stayed the same all the time.

This changing behaviour may sometimes lead to one of the candidates
being a spoiler.


Plurality, if voters vote sincerely, guarantees the spoiler effect. 
It's part of the method. Range allows something different, but nobody 
coerces voters. *Voters* can decide to act in ways that mimic the 
spoiler effect, but it's not intrinsic to the method, and if voters 
vote with any reasonable understanding at all, there is no spoiler 
effect with any significant frequency with Range or Approval.


How many voters in 2000 would not have known that Bush and Gore were 
the frontrunners? The decision in Approval is quite simple: if you 
want to influence the election, vote for one of the frontrunners, 
period. Indeed, it gets tricky when there are three frontrunners, but 
that is vanishingly rare in the U.S.


If it had been Approval, would Nader still have been a spoiler? 
(Assuming he was, there is some possible controversy about that, 
though I do accept the reality of it myself.) Suppose he had not run. 
How would his supporters have voted? The question is, if they 
believed his arguments or voted for him because they already felt 
that way, that there was no important difference between Bush and 
Gore, they might not have voted at all. It's entirely possible that 
the Nader candidacy increased turnout, for people who wanted to vote 
for him. The real question is how many Gore votes disappeared into 
the Nader rabbit-hole.


Probably some. That election, in Florida, which was itself a crisis 
point, exquisitely sensitive, was very close, the official margin 
(never mind the actual votes) was 0.009%. But then we'd have to look 
at other possible spoilers in the other direction. Buchanan. Brown. 
Both of them might have taken Bush votes.


Here is the point: With Range or Approval, voters would not be 
*forced* to make the choice. They still might. Same with IRV (which 
can generally be considered to fix the minor candidate version of the 
spoiler effect, just about its one good feature). If voters are 
convinced by Nader that there is no difference between Bush and Gore, 
they might well truncate with IRV just as well. Indeed, there were 
some arguments from this side that it was better for Bush to win, 
because it made things worse than thus people would be more motivated 
to seek better solutions. (This is a very dangerous argument, and 
never mind that it contradicts the argument that Bush and Gore are 
the same. But I've heard people make this very argument, in person. 
I'll admit it makes me angry: they are responsible, then, for the 
deaths of those who needlessly died because of their desire to make 
things worse. The ends do *not* justify the means. The means *are* 
the ends, that is all we have: what we do. We don't control "ends.")


What if Florida had an early open

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Stéphane Rouillon]

Finally a question for my vacations!

I would use geothermia. Simply dig a long tube in the ground with the two 
halfs at different underground level and put the ends at differents levels 
of your house. It should pump cool air
from the underground to your basement, when it gets hot then to the upstairs 
where it goes through the second end far underground and back in the cycle. 
what is important is that the length
of the underground tubes is long enough so the pumping effect can drag the 
hot air form upstairs

stronger then the boussinesq force keeps it elevated (hot air is lighter).

So now can you acknoledge that IRV is better than FPTP ?
I can accpet IRV being worst than any other method (even if I do not agree 
all the time)

but FPTP has to be worst!

Steph, the canadian engineer in vacation in Cuba
PS: Maybe I should dig holes in the hotel, it is so hot!


From: "Kathy Dopp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris 
Benham)

Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:28:06 -0600

On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 5:00 PM,
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Send Election-Methods mailing list submissions to
>election-methods@lists.electorama.com
>
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>
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> than "Re: Contents of Election-Methods digest..."

> From: Juho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris

>
> Although Chris' voters changed their vote they didn't change their
> opinions between the elections. If there are new candidates they may be 
better than the old ones


Juho,  In Chris' approval example, voters changed their approval votes
for the existing candidates, not simply added approvals for new
candidates.  The spoiler is a "nonwinning" candidate who changes the
outcome of an election. I.e. If the new candidate wins, or does not
change the outcome, he is not a spoiler.

Apparently the voters *did* change their opinions between elections
judging from their ballots - rather than using mindreading.  Now of
course if you and Chris read all the voters' minds and every voter in
the world thinks exactly like you and Chris imagine them to, then I am
wrong. However, I prefer thinking that I can *not* know how all voters
think or would strategize and to simply judge what a voting method
does given the actual votes.

Hey since you guys seem to think you are much smarter than I am and
you like puzzles, solve this little (true situation) puzzle:

The temperature outside my house is 90+ degrees today and inside my
house is 68 degrees downstairs and 74 degrees upstairs at 5:20 p.m and
this is the hottest it will get inside my house today. Yet I have no
air conditioner, no fan, no swamp cooler, etc.  These same
temperatures (roughly) exist inside and outside my house during the
entire summer.

How do I keep my house under 68 degrees inside (downstairs) and under
74 degrees (upstairs) all summer with no air conditioner or swamp
cooler when it is routinely in the 90s outside?

Cheers,

Kathy

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




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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Juho]

On Jun 23, 2008, at 2:28 , Kathy Dopp wrote:


Although Chris' voters changed their vote they didn't change their
opinions between the elections. If there are new candidates they  
may be better than the old ones


Juho,  In Chris' approval example, voters changed their approval votes
for the existing candidates, not simply added approvals for new
candidates.


Here's one explanation to why this happened.

Let's assume that our voter has fixed preferences of A=543, B=123,  
C=99. The election method is either Range with values from 0 to 10 or  
Approval.


If the election has two candidates, B and C, the voter might vote in  
Range B=10, C=0 and in Approval B=1, C=0. We can assume that the  
voter will normalize the vote and rank one of the candidates at 10  
(or 1 in Approval) and one at 0.


If the election has three candidates the voter might vote in Range  
A=10, B=1, C=0. Or if A and B are the strongest candidates then maybe  
strategically A=10, B=0, C=0. In Approval the voter might vote A=1,  
B=0, C=0. Or if B and C are the strongest candidates then maybe A=1,  
B=1, C=0.


The sincere opinions/utilities A=543, B=123, C=99 were valid in all  
the cases but typical voter behaviour in Range and Approval was to  
normalize the vote and maybe to vote strategically depending on who  
the strongest candidates are. The ratings given to the candidates  
varied although the opinions/utilities stayed the same all the time.


This changing behaviour may sometimes lead to one of the candidates  
being a spoiler.



The temperature outside my house is 90+ degrees today and inside my
house is 68 degrees downstairs and 74 degrees upstairs at 5:20 p.m and
this is the hottest it will get inside my house today. Yet I have no
air conditioner, no fan, no swamp cooler, etc.  These same
temperatures (roughly) exist inside and outside my house during the
entire summer.

How do I keep my house under 68 degrees inside (downstairs) and under
74 degrees (upstairs) all summer with no air conditioner or swamp
cooler when it is routinely in the 90s outside?


A large cellar or other heat/cold storage capabilities would help.  
Maybe also modern windows, isolation and cool nights.


Juho





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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Chris Benham]

Kathy,
Imagine  that  Approval is used to elect the  US President and 
as in the current campaign the Republicans  are fielding one
candidate, McCain.  Does that mean that the big fight for the
Democrat nomination between  Clinton and Obama we've just
seen would in the Approval scenario be completely unnecessary?

Why not simply endorse both candidates?  After all, one cannot
possibly spoil the election for the other because Approval has
no spoiler problem. Voters simply approve candidates or not
completely regardless of what other candidates are on the ballot,
right?

I  think that in practical effect Approval  does have a "spoiler" or
split-vote problem  that would be sufficient for the Democrats to
still want to endorse one candidate only.


What I actually wrote in my initial post on the 5  "fairness
principles in your paper (regarding IIA):

In practical effect  *no* method meets this.Approval and Range can be said to 
meet  
Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) only if the votes are interpreted 
as the voters giving 
ratings on some fixed scale that is independent of the actual candidates. 

On this perverse interpretation Approval and Range do not reduce to  FPP in the 
2 candidate election,
in violation of  Dopp's "fairness principle 4":

"Any candidate who is the favorite [first] choice of a majority of voters 
should win."
(approval or non-approval counts as "rating" on a 2-point  scale).

This latter point you seem to implicitly acknowledge in one of your recent 
posts:

"In actuality, if these are the same voters both before and after you
add another candidate C, then your first example with two candidates,
to be consistent with your second example with three candidates should
be:

25 A
40 AB
35 B

so that B wins in the first example AND in the second when another
candidate is introduced."


Chris Benham


  Get the name you always wanted with the new y7mail email address.
www.yahoo7.com.au/mail
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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Chris Benham]

Kathy,
Imagine  that  Approval is used to elect the  US President and 
as in the current campaign the Republicans  are fielding one
candidate, McCain.  Does that mean that the big fight for the
Democrat nomination between  Clinton and Obama we've just
seen would in the Approval scenario be completely unnecessary?

Why not simply endorse both candidates?  After all, one cannot
possibly spoil the election for the other because Approval has
no spoiler problem. Voters simply approve candidates or not
completely regardless of what other candidates are on the ballot,
right?

I  think that in practical effect Approval  does have a "spoiler" or
split-vote problem  that would be sufficient for the Democrats to
still want to endorse one candidate only.


What I actually wrote in my initial post on the 5  "fairness
principles in your paper (regarding IIA):

In practical effect  *no* method meets this.Approval and Range can be said to 
meet  
Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) only if the votes are interpreted 
as the voters giving 
ratings on some fixed scale that is independent of the actual candidates. 

On this perverse interpretation Approval and Range do not reduce to  FPP in the 
2 candidate election,
in violation of  Dopp's "fairness principle 4":

"Any candidate who is the favorite [first] choice of a majority of voters 
should win."
(approval or non-approval counts as "rating" on a 2-point  scale).

This latter point you seem to implicitly acknowledge in one of your recent 
posts:

"In actuality, if these are the same voters both before and after you
add another candidate C, then your first example with two candidates,
to be consistent with your second example with three candidates should
be:

25 A
40 AB
35 B

so that B wins in the first example AND in the second when another
candidate is introduced."


Chris Benham


  Get the name you always wanted with the new y7mail email address.
www.yahoo7.com.au/mail
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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 01:17 PM 6/22/2008, James Gilmour wrote:

Kathy Dopp > Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2008 4:53 AM
> I try not to waste time
> on stupid ideas and I've already wasted over 6 weeks of this
> year considering IRV which is an incredibly stupid voting
> method at first glance after 15 minutes of study IMO.

So what does this tell us about the many thousands of public 
elections and civic organisation elections that have been conducted by
the IRV voting system since it was introduced for public elections 
around 100 years ago?


For starters, what is being proposed in the U.S. isn't that system. 
It wasn't called "instant runoff voting," and the rules are 
different. Smoke that! 



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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Kathy Dopp]

On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 5:00 PM,
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Send Election-Methods mailing list submissions to
>election-methods@lists.electorama.com
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>
> http://lists.electorama.com/listinfo.cgi/election-methods-electorama.com
>
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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> than "Re: Contents of Election-Methods digest..."

> From: Juho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris

>
> Although Chris' voters changed their vote they didn't change their
> opinions between the elections. If there are new candidates they may be 
> better than the old ones

Juho,  In Chris' approval example, voters changed their approval votes
for the existing candidates, not simply added approvals for new
candidates.  The spoiler is a "nonwinning" candidate who changes the
outcome of an election. I.e. If the new candidate wins, or does not
change the outcome, he is not a spoiler.

Apparently the voters *did* change their opinions between elections
judging from their ballots - rather than using mindreading.  Now of
course if you and Chris read all the voters' minds and every voter in
the world thinks exactly like you and Chris imagine them to, then I am
wrong. However, I prefer thinking that I can *not* know how all voters
think or would strategize and to simply judge what a voting method
does given the actual votes.

Hey since you guys seem to think you are much smarter than I am and
you like puzzles, solve this little (true situation) puzzle:

The temperature outside my house is 90+ degrees today and inside my
house is 68 degrees downstairs and 74 degrees upstairs at 5:20 p.m and
this is the hottest it will get inside my house today. Yet I have no
air conditioner, no fan, no swamp cooler, etc.  These same
temperatures (roughly) exist inside and outside my house during the
entire summer.

How do I keep my house under 68 degrees inside (downstairs) and under
74 degrees (upstairs) all summer with no air conditioner or swamp
cooler when it is routinely in the 90s outside?

Cheers,

Kathy

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

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Dave Ketchum]

Tells us little since this is one person's opinion.

IRV lets voters state their desires more completely than Plurality and is 
often better at picking a winner - but sometimes fails badly, so:


Not too bad when you do not know of better.
I join Kathy in wantng to move to better.

DWK

On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:17:06 +0100 James Gilmour wrote:

Kathy Dopp > Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2008 4:53 AM

I try not to waste time 
on stupid ideas and I've already wasted over 6 weeks of this 
year considering IRV which is an incredibly stupid voting 
method at first glance after 15 minutes of study IMO.



So what does this tell us about the many thousands of public elections and 
civic organisation elections that have been conducted by
the IRV voting system since it was introduced for public elections around 100 
years ago?

James Gilmour

--
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
 Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
   Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
 If you want peace, work for justice.




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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Terry Bouricius]

A brief reaction to some of Abd's commentary on my simple example of how
Range can suffer from spoiler dynamics...

Abd wrote 
A new candidate, C, is considered "fantastic" by 25/55 of the A
supporters. So they switch their votes. As would be expected, surely,
from such an introduction, results can change. But Bouricius has
made, actually, quite a preposterous assumption. He's assuming black
and white ratings for all other voters. Nearly half the A supporters
think C is so much better than A that they think he's better than A
by as much as A is than B, yet, *none* of the other voters are moved
by this candidate? So it is *not* an "entirely plausible scenario."


Firstly, a scenario doesn't need to be  highly plausible to prove that a
method can violate a criterion. And yet, I repeat my assertion that my
example is highly plausible. To make it even more plausible I will also
assume some of the previous A voters who didn't think C was fantastic
thought C was somewhere between A and B in worthiness, so give C a 5, and
some others who are on the other side of issue X think C is worse than B,
so elevate B to 5 and give C 0. Of course for realism I could say some use
scores of 3, 7, etc., but the average of 5 just makes the math easier to
follow. I'll even throw in some modifications in how the B voters score
candidates with the entry of C for even more "realism." Let's say most (25
of 45) view A and C as clones (on the issues they care about) and give
both 0, but that ten voters agree on issue X with candidate C and ten
disagree on issue X, so ten give C a 5, but the other ten elevate A to a 5
so they can score C lower than A at 0. Thus we have results as follows
(I can send anyone who wants a spreadsheet showing this):
A=475
B= 500
C= 400
Thus in this completely plausible Range spoiler scenario, C has again
spoiled A's election and changed B from a loser to a winner.

Much of the rest of Abd's conjecture about likely voter behavior assumes
accurate polling information is widely available and voters use smart
strategic calculations in hopes of avoiding the spoiler problem. That same
hope sometimes allows a spoiler scenario to be avoided under traditional
plurality (FPTP) rules, but the fact remains that both methods are prone
to spoiler problems.

-Terry Bouricius
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(802) 864-8382



- Original Message - 
From: "Abd ul-Rahman Lomax" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Terry Bouricius" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;

Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2008 1:57 PM
Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris
Benham)


At 12:35 PM 6/22/2008, Terry Bouricius wrote:
>Ms. Dopp has requested a clearer example of how Range and Approval voting
>can experience a spoiler scenario (through violation of the Independence
>of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) Criterion). Although her inability to
>follow Chris's logic led her to use extremely disrespectful language, I
>will assume she was having a bad day and was just extremely frustrated.

Perhaps. Or perhaps she was the newcomer saying that the emperor has
no clothes, which can be extraordinarily rude, if you think about it.

>Here is a simple example, that I hope she can follow...

Certainly I'll look at it closely!

>How a voter scores a particular candidate (or whether the candidate is on
>the positive or negative side of an approval cut-off) depends on what
>other candidates the voter has to compare the candidate to.

The word "score" as being used by Bouricius implies relative scoring,
most notably what in Range would be called "normalization." These are
*not* absolute ratings, and aren't commensurable from one voter to
another between various election configurations.


>If the voter thinks candidate A is okay, and B is horrible in a two way
>race, the voter will likely score A as a 10 and B as a 0 (approve A and
>not approve B). [Rather than insert an Approval Voting translation for
>each point from here on I will just use a Range example, though the
>dynamic is the same.]

Yes. That's correct. But the same, of course, is true if B is merely
less than okay. Bouricius is teetering, here, on confusing Range with
Approval. Voter's don't "score" candidates in Approval except as A
and B, and we may assume some underlying rating, which will be,
properly, continuous, not set up in discreet steps from 0 to 10. And,
because this is a single voter, normalization has no effect. The only
thing that has an effect is where the voter sets the approval cutoff,
which is a decision made -- quite properly -- based on the election
environment. In recent posts to the Range Voting list, Smith has
shown how serial Approval elections cause voters to lower their
approval cutoff, perhaps, as new candidates are also introduced as
compromises.

>If there are 100 voters an

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Juho]

On Jun 22, 2008, at 22:33 , Kathy Dopp wrote:


In fact, I would oppose any voting method which did "not" violate
Chris' new condition that even when voters change their votes, the
winner should stay the same.


Although Chris' voters changed their vote they didn't change their  
opinions between the elections. If there are new candidates they may  
be better than the old ones and also e.g. in FPP one would vote those  
instead of the ones one voted when the new candidates were not  
available.


In Approval voting typically is strategically planned in the sense  
that in order to cast a vote with some meaningful impact on the  
outcome (or to follow the optimal strategy) one typically should  
select the candidates that one approves based on the available  
candidates, one's own preferences and on how one expects others to  
vote. That is why it makes sense to individual voters to approve  
different candidate sets in different elections.


Juho





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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Juho]

Yes, this was an excellent (clear basic) example as well. The  
introduction of new candidates definitely changes the scoring of the  
candidates by the voters.


One can study also voter specific absolute scoring that never changes  
despite of changes in the candidate list. This is a theoretical  
option that assumes fully sincere ratings based on some absolute  
scale (where each voter has himself/herself frozen 0 and 10 at some  
fixed positions, or alternatively the election organizer has given  
those fixed points, e.g. 0="totally unacceptable", 10="best possible  
person in the world"). The examples assumed normalized Range votes  
(where voters typically use both 0 and 10 in their ballot).


In real life competitive elections normalized votes are of course  
typical (in Range one may also get lots of exaggerated votes where  
voter uses mostly 0 and 10 and seldom any intermediate values), which  
makes the examples much more realistic than the theoretical absolute  
scale approach that I mentioned above.


Juho



On Jun 22, 2008, at 19:35 , Terry Bouricius wrote:

Ms. Dopp has requested a clearer example of how Range and Approval  
voting
can experience a spoiler scenario (through violation of the  
Independence

of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) Criterion). Although her inability to
follow Chris's logic led her to use extremely disrespectful  
language, I
will assume she was having a bad day and was just extremely  
frustrated.


Here is a simple example, that I hope she can follow...

How a voter scores a particular candidate (or whether the candidate  
is on

the positive or negative side of an approval cut-off) depends on what
other candidates the voter has to compare the candidate to.

If the voter thinks candidate A is okay, and B is horrible in a two  
way
race, the voter will likely score A as a 10 and B as a 0 (approve A  
and

not approve B). [Rather than insert an Approval Voting translation for
each point from here on I will just use a Range example, though the
dynamic is the same.]

If there are 100 voters and  55 prefer A>B and 45 B>A, this two-way  
race
could end with a total score of 550 for A (55 voters giving a 10  
and 45
giving a 0) to 450 for B. Thus A is both the de facto majority  
choice as

well as the Range score winner.

Now comes the spoiler...What if candidate C decides to run as well? It
happens that a significant portion (let's say 25 out of the 55) of the
former A supporters who care most about issue X view candidate C as a
fantastically superior candidate to A or B (though they still prefer A
over B as well). It seems likely that many of these voters would  
feel the

need to reduce the score of ten they otherwise would give to A to make
room on the scale so they can indicate how superior C is to A.  
These 25
voters might now score the candidates as follows, A=5, B=0, and  
C=10. In

other words, the score that A now receives from some voters depends on
whether C has entered the race. The B supporters who generally  
don't care
much about issue X view C as just another version of A, so give  
this new
candidate a 0 as well. Under this entirely plausible scenario, with  
C in
the race, now the total scores might be A now only gets 425 (30 x  
10 and

25 x 5), while B still gets 450 (45 x 10) and C gets 250 (25 x 10).

Thus C has "spoiled" the race for A. The entry of C caused B to go  
from a

loser to a winner.

The identical dynamic can be demonstrated for Approval Voting using  
voter
decisions about where to draw their approval cut-off line, once C  
enters

the race.


-Terry Bouricius
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(802) 864-8382



- Original Message -
From: "Kathy Dopp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: 
Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2008 8:54 PM
Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris
Benham)


Chris,

You example clearly does not provide an example of approval voting
being subjected to the spoiler effect.

You managed to invent a really bad voting method (asking voters for
ratings and then converting their ratings to approval/disapproval by
your new voting method) and applied your method of conversions to your
own example, but it has nothing to do with either range or approval
voting methods.

Chris, This is the LAST time I will take any of my time to respond to
any of your emails since your emails either lack any logic or show
that you did not take the time to read and study either Abd ul's email
rebuttals of Fair Vote or the paper I wrote and I don't have time to
waste on annoying silliness.

On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 5:03 PM,  > Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 > Ok.
Suppose? the method is Approval, there are two candidates (A and B)
and the voters'

utilities (sincere ratings on some fixed scale independent of the
candidates) are:
40: A100, B98
25: A98,?? B1
35: B100, A1


OK. Then if this example is counted using approval voting by removing
the ratings for these vo

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Kathy Dopp]

Chris,

This is what you are now claiming is a "fairness" condition:

... that to be fair, the winner of an election must not change with
the introduction of a new nonwinning candidate, even if the voters
change their votes for the prior (old) candidates.

As a voter, I would object to this "fairness" condition that requires
any different vote I cast after changing my mind about which
candidates to "approve" should not count towards who wins the election
contest.

In fact, I would oppose any voting method which did "not" violate
Chris' new condition that even when voters change their votes, the
winner should stay the same.

As his example shows, he changes the voters' votes as follows:

65 A
35 B

to

40 AB
25 A
35 B

Yet Chris expects the same candidate A to win in the second example,
where B win.s instead

So Chris's new "fairness" condition does not even require the
introduction of any third candidate, it just requires that the winner
of the election stay the same even if voters change their votes for
the same candidates.

I.e. In short, "the actual votes which voters cast should not count
towards who wins" is Chris' new fairness condition, which I hope that
every voting system will violate Chris' version of the IIA "fairness"
condition.

Cheers,

Kathy


Cheers,

Kathy

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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Chris Benham]

Abd,

 "When you assume a set of ratings which are clearly normalized, 
they are no longer independent and absolute, and conclusions drawn 
from them, based on the introduction of a new candidate or a 
candidate withdrawal, are no longer valid. By using normalized 
utilities, and assuming that they remain the same, Chris has made a 
preposterous assumption, so no wonder his results are defective."
The utilities I gave were not normalised, they were absolute.  The only
"prepostrous assumptions" I made were that in a 2-candidate election
the voters would  'strategically' only approve the candidate they prefer
to the other, and with 3 candidates the voters might approve the 2 candidates
they  like nearly the same and much better than the third candidate.
"Range and Approval do not violate IIA as originally interpreted. 
However, it's possible to reinterpret IIA to apply it to 
nonpreferential ballots, in a particular way, and Range and Approval 
can thus be made to violate this new version of the criterion. 
Essentially, if voters change their votes as a result of the 
introduction of new candidates, a different result may occur that 
doesn't involve that new candidate being a winner. "


That is right.  But interpreting Range and Approval in the way needed
for it to meet IIA  means that it fails  even 2-candidate Majority Favourite,
so it doesn't magically evade Arrow's Impossibility Theorem.


"So does Approval satisfy the Majority Criterion?"

No, as stated in Kathy Dopp's paper.
"However, Woodall, it seems, may have thought differently, since, if I 
recall correctly, he considered Plurality as failing Majority."
As has been pointed out to you more than once, Woodall's version of 
"Majority" is equivalent to  Majority for Solid Coalitions (aka Mutual
Majority) which FPP ("First Preference Plurality") can't meet because
it only considers first preferences. 
Chris Benham


Abd ul Lomax wrote  (Sun Jun 22 10:01:40 PDT 2008 ):
At 03:58 AM 6/22/2008, Chris Benham wrote:

>Kathy,
>I choose my words carefully.
>
>"You managed to invent a really bad voting method (asking voters for
>ratings and then converting their ratings to approval/disapproval by
>your new voting method) and applied your method of conversions to your
>own example, but it has nothing to do with either range or approval
>voting methods."
>
>Apart from a passing reference to Range the only voting method I discussed
>or referred to was Approval.
>I didn't suggest that voters be "asked for ratings".
>40: A100, B98
>25: A98,   B1
>35: B100, A1
>These numbers I gave  represent nothing outside the heads of the 
>individual voters.
>I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear enough.  This corresponds with 
>the use in
>EM circles of the word  "utilities".

On one level, Chris is correct. However, that Kathy didn't 
"understand" that points out a problem that may be obvious to a 
relatively newcomer to the topic of alternative voting systems (Dopp) 
but not so obvious to someone who has been immersed in the topic for 
years. When you assume a set of ratings which are clearly normalized, 
they are no longer independent and absolute, and conclusions drawn 
from them, based on the introduction of a new candidate or a 
candidate withdrawal, are no longer valid. By using normalized 
utilities, and assuming that they remain the same, Chris has made a 
preposterous assumption, so no wonder his results are defective.

Range and Approval do not violate IIA as originally interpreted. 
However, it's possible to reinterpret IIA to apply it to 
nonpreferential ballots, in a particular way, and Range and Approval 
can thus be made to violate this new version of the criterion. 
Essentially, if voters change their votes as a result of the 
introduction of new candidates, a different result may occur that 
doesn't involve that new candidate being a winner. Chris and I have 
had this discussion many times as it relates to the Majority Criterion

If a majority of voters express their strict preference for a 
candidate in Approval, that candidate must win. But if they dilute 
that expression with approval of another candidate, that candidate 
might lose (to a candidate with a *larger* majority). So does 
Approval satisfy the Majority Criterion? It depends on the definition 
and, problem was, the original criterion did not contemplate equal 
approval of candidates at the "top of their preference lists," and 
there was no distinction made between preference lists and actual 
votes in the election. A complete ranking was simply assumed. 
However, Woodall, it seems, may have thought differently, since, if I 
recall correctly, he considered Plurality as failing Majority. I'd 
have to review this to make sure I got it right



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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 12:35 PM 6/22/2008, Terry Bouricius wrote:

Ms. Dopp has requested a clearer example of how Range and Approval voting
can experience a spoiler scenario (through violation of the Independence
of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) Criterion). Although her inability to
follow Chris's logic led her to use extremely disrespectful language, I
will assume she was having a bad day and was just extremely frustrated.


Perhaps. Or perhaps she was the newcomer saying that the emperor has 
no clothes, which can be extraordinarily rude, if you think about it.



Here is a simple example, that I hope she can follow...


Certainly I'll look at it closely!


How a voter scores a particular candidate (or whether the candidate is on
the positive or negative side of an approval cut-off) depends on what
other candidates the voter has to compare the candidate to.


The word "score" as being used by Bouricius implies relative scoring, 
most notably what in Range would be called "normalization." These are 
*not* absolute ratings, and aren't commensurable from one voter to 
another between various election configurations.




If the voter thinks candidate A is okay, and B is horrible in a two way
race, the voter will likely score A as a 10 and B as a 0 (approve A and
not approve B). [Rather than insert an Approval Voting translation for
each point from here on I will just use a Range example, though the
dynamic is the same.]


Yes. That's correct. But the same, of course, is true if B is merely 
less than okay. Bouricius is teetering, here, on confusing Range with 
Approval. Voter's don't "score" candidates in Approval except as A 
and B, and we may assume some underlying rating, which will be, 
properly, continuous, not set up in discreet steps from 0 to 10. And, 
because this is a single voter, normalization has no effect. The only 
thing that has an effect is where the voter sets the approval cutoff, 
which is a decision made -- quite properly -- based on the election 
environment. In recent posts to the Range Voting list, Smith has 
shown how serial Approval elections cause voters to lower their 
approval cutoff, perhaps, as new candidates are also introduced as compromises.



If there are 100 voters and  55 prefer A>B and 45 B>A, this two-way race
could end with a total score of 550 for A (55 voters giving a 10 and 45
giving a 0) to 450 for B. Thus A is both the de facto majority choice as
well as the Range score winner.


Using "score," multiplied by 10, for Approval results looks to me 
like Bouricius is setting something up.



Now comes the spoiler...What if candidate C decides to run as well? It
happens that a significant portion (let's say 25 out of the 55) of the
former A supporters who care most about issue X view candidate C as a
fantastically superior candidate to A or B (though they still prefer A
over B as well). It seems likely that many of these voters would feel the
need to reduce the score of ten they otherwise would give to A to make
room on the scale so they can indicate how superior C is to A. These 25
voters might now score the candidates as follows, A=5, B=0, and C=10. In
other words, the score that A now receives from some voters depends on
whether C has entered the race. The B supporters who generally don't care
much about issue X view C as just another version of A, so give this new
candidate a 0 as well. Under this entirely plausible scenario, with C in
the race, now the total scores might be A now only gets 425 (30 x 10 and
25 x 5), while B still gets 450 (45 x 10) and C gets 250 (25 x 10).


This is such a complex explanation that, at first sight, I'm tempted 
to totally ignore it. Sigh.


A new candidate, C, is considered "fantastic" by 25/55 of the A 
supporters. So they switch their votes. As would be expected, surely, 
from such an introduction, results can change. But Bouricius has 
made, actually, quite a preposterous assumption. He's assuming black 
and white ratings for all other voters. Nearly half the A supporters 
think C is so much better than A that they think he's better than A 
by as much as A is than B, yet, *none* of the other voters are moved 
by this candidate? So it is *not* an "entirely plausible scenario."


The real matter is much simpler.

First of all, technical compliance with election criteria can be 
highly misleading. As an example, Approval is commonly asserted to 
fail the Majority Criterion, and supposedly this is a bad thing. 
After all, majority rule and all that. However, Approval only fails 
the special definitions of the Majority Criterion invented to deal 
with the problem of applying it to methods which allow equal ranking 
at the top. And so whether it fails or not depends on the precise 
definition, it's no longer "objective." Secondly, even granting these 
definitions, what are the conditions under which it fails? It fails 
when more than one candidate is approved by a majority. How common is 
this? Not terribly! It practically never would happen in a two-p

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[James Gilmour]

Kathy Dopp > Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2008 4:53 AM
> I try not to waste time 
> on stupid ideas and I've already wasted over 6 weeks of this 
> year considering IRV which is an incredibly stupid voting 
> method at first glance after 15 minutes of study IMO.

So what does this tell us about the many thousands of public elections and 
civic organisation elections that have been conducted by
the IRV voting system since it was introduced for public elections around 100 
years ago?

James Gilmour

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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 03:58 AM 6/22/2008, Chris Benham wrote:


Kathy,
I choose my words carefully.

"You managed to invent a really bad voting method (asking voters for
ratings and then converting their ratings to approval/disapproval by
your new voting method) and applied your method of conversions to your
own example, but it has nothing to do with either range or approval
voting methods."

Apart from a passing reference to Range the only voting method I discussed
or referred to was Approval.
I didn't suggest that voters be "asked for ratings".
40: A100, B98
25: A98,   B1
35: B100, A1
These numbers I gave  represent nothing outside the heads of the 
individual voters.
I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear enough.  This corresponds with 
the use in

EM circles of the word  "utilities".


On one level, Chris is correct. However, that Kathy didn't 
"understand" that points out a problem that may be obvious to a 
relatively newcomer to the topic of alternative voting systems (Dopp) 
but not so obvious to someone who has been immersed in the topic for 
years. When you assume a set of ratings which are clearly normalized, 
they are no longer independent and absolute, and conclusions drawn 
from them, based on the introduction of a new candidate or a 
candidate withdrawal, are no longer valid. By using normalized 
utilities, and assuming that they remain the same, Chris has made a 
preposterous assumption, so no wonder his results are defective.


Range and Approval do not violate IIA as originally interpreted. 
However, it's possible to reinterpret IIA to apply it to 
nonpreferential ballots, in a particular way, and Range and Approval 
can thus be made to violate this new version of the criterion. 
Essentially, if voters change their votes as a result of the 
introduction of new candidates, a different result may occur that 
doesn't involve that new candidate being a winner. Chris and I have 
had this discussion many times as it relates to the Majority Criterion


If a majority of voters express their strict preference for a 
candidate in Approval, that candidate must win. But if they dilute 
that expression with approval of another candidate, that candidate 
might lose (to a candidate with a *larger* majority). So does 
Approval satisfy the Majority Criterion? It depends on the definition 
and, problem was, the original criterion did not contemplate equal 
approval of candidates at the "top of their preference lists," and 
there was no distinction made between preference lists and actual 
votes in the election. A complete ranking was simply assumed. 
However, Woodall, it seems, may have thought differently, since, if I 
recall correctly, he considered Plurality as failing Majority. I'd 
have to review this to make sure I got it right



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

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Terry Bouricius]

Ms. Dopp has requested a clearer example of how Range and Approval voting 
can experience a spoiler scenario (through violation of the Independence 
of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) Criterion). Although her inability to 
follow Chris's logic led her to use extremely disrespectful language, I 
will assume she was having a bad day and was just extremely frustrated.

Here is a simple example, that I hope she can follow...

How a voter scores a particular candidate (or whether the candidate is on 
the positive or negative side of an approval cut-off) depends on what 
other candidates the voter has to compare the candidate to.

If the voter thinks candidate A is okay, and B is horrible in a two way 
race, the voter will likely score A as a 10 and B as a 0 (approve A and 
not approve B). [Rather than insert an Approval Voting translation for 
each point from here on I will just use a Range example, though the 
dynamic is the same.]

If there are 100 voters and  55 prefer A>B and 45 B>A, this two-way race 
could end with a total score of 550 for A (55 voters giving a 10 and 45 
giving a 0) to 450 for B. Thus A is both the de facto majority choice as 
well as the Range score winner.

Now comes the spoiler...What if candidate C decides to run as well? It 
happens that a significant portion (let's say 25 out of the 55) of the 
former A supporters who care most about issue X view candidate C as a 
fantastically superior candidate to A or B (though they still prefer A 
over B as well). It seems likely that many of these voters would feel the 
need to reduce the score of ten they otherwise would give to A to make 
room on the scale so they can indicate how superior C is to A. These 25 
voters might now score the candidates as follows, A=5, B=0, and C=10. In 
other words, the score that A now receives from some voters depends on 
whether C has entered the race. The B supporters who generally don't care 
much about issue X view C as just another version of A, so give this new 
candidate a 0 as well. Under this entirely plausible scenario, with C in 
the race, now the total scores might be A now only gets 425 (30 x 10 and 
25 x 5), while B still gets 450 (45 x 10) and C gets 250 (25 x 10).

Thus C has "spoiled" the race for A. The entry of C caused B to go from a 
loser to a winner.

The identical dynamic can be demonstrated for Approval Voting using voter 
decisions about where to draw their approval cut-off line, once C enters 
the race.


-Terry Bouricius
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(802) 864-8382



- Original Message - 
From: "Kathy Dopp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: 
Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2008 8:54 PM
Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris 
Benham)


Chris,

You example clearly does not provide an example of approval voting
being subjected to the spoiler effect.

You managed to invent a really bad voting method (asking voters for
ratings and then converting their ratings to approval/disapproval by
your new voting method) and applied your method of conversions to your
own example, but it has nothing to do with either range or approval
voting methods.

Chris, This is the LAST time I will take any of my time to respond to
any of your emails since your emails either lack any logic or show
that you did not take the time to read and study either Abd ul's email
rebuttals of Fair Vote or the paper I wrote and I don't have time to
waste on annoying silliness.

On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 5:03 PM,  > Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 > Ok.
Suppose? the method is Approval, there are two candidates (A and B)
and the voters'
> utilities (sincere ratings on some fixed scale independent of the 
> candidates) are:
> 40: A100, B98
> 25: A98,?? B1
> 35: B100, A1

OK. Then if this example is counted using approval voting by removing
the ratings for these voters, there is a TIE since 100% of voters
approve of both A and B.

>
> I assume that with just 2 candidates, all voters will simply approve the 
> one they prefer to
> the other, to give the Approval result:
> 65: A
> 35: B

OK. This is a completely separate example of approval voting than your
first example.  BTW, in any election:

1.  voters have to make a choice on how they vote and cannot vote more
than one way in the same election using one ballot, and

2. the election has to be either conducted via one election method or
another - I.e. approval voting is analogous to rating candidates 0
(not approved) or 1 (approved), and so your above example shows ALL
candidates are approved if one tries to switch that to approval from
ratings.

In this example A wins.

> A wins. Now suppose that a third candidate (C) is introduced, and 
> including this extra
> candidate the voters'? utilities are:
>
>
> 40: A100, B98, C1
> 25: C100, A98,?B1
> 35: B100, C98, A1

OK. In this example, removing the ratings to get approval voting
example (a third exampl

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Kathy Dopp]

On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 1:58 AM, Chris Benham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>
> Apart from a passing reference to Range the only voting method I discussed
> or referred to was Approval.

OK Chris,

Let us look at your alleged two examples of "approval" voting. LOOK at
what you gave us:

65 A
35 B

then you gave
40 AB
25 CA
35 BC

What you did was CHANGE the votes of 40 of the 65 people who did not
approve of B in the first example, so that 40 of them all of a
suddenly approve of B now in the second example. Which is it?  Do
these 40 people approve of B or not?  Apparently you simply alter the
votes of your voters in the second example to get the result that you
want and hope that people will not notice your slight of hand.

In actuality, if these are the same voters both before and after you
add another candidate C, then your first example with two candidates,
to be consistent with your second example with three candidates should
be:

25 A
40 AB
35 B

so that B wins in the first example AND in the second when another
candidate is introduced.

Or alternatively, if you want to give an honest logically consistent
example by altering your second case with three candidates to be
consistent with the first case with two instead, it would be:

40 A
25 CA
35 BC

so that A wins in both the first and second example.

Your manipulating and changing the candidates whom voters approve of
all of a sudden when you add another candidate - well this type of
trick is very consistent with the tactics of Fair Vote and IRV
proponents and not only does not impress me, its lack of honesty
offends me.

Again Chris, I would like to be working on more productive pursuits
than discussing this nonsense with you.  Please try to find an honest
example where voters' opinions of the first two candidates do not
change when you add a third candidate and I believe that you will find
that you cannot

Cheers,

Katy

>
> Chris  Benham
>
>
>
> Kathy Dopp kathy.dopp at gmail.com
> Sat Jun 21 17:54:52 PDT 2008
> Chris,
>
> You example clearly does not provide an example of approval voting
> being subjected to the spoiler effect.
>
> You managed to invent a really bad voting method (asking voters for
> ratings and then converting their ratings to approval/disapproval by
> your new voting method) and applied your method of conversions to your
> own example, but it has nothing to do with either range or approval
> voting methods.
>
> Chris, This is the LAST time I will take any of my time to respond to
> any of your emails since your emails either lack any logic or show
> that you did not take the time to read and study either Abd ul's email
> rebuttals of Fair Vote or the paper I wrote and I don't have time to
> waste on annoying silliness.
>
> On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 5:03 PM,  > Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 > Ok.
> Suppose the method is Approval, there are two candidates (A and B)
> and the voters'
>>utilities (sincere ratings on some fixed scale independent of the candidates) 
>>are:
>>40: A100, B98
>>25: A98, B1
>>35: B100, A1
>
> OK. Then if this example is counted using approval voting by removing
> the ratings for these voters, there is a TIE since 100% of voters
> approve of both A and B.
>
>>
>>I assume that with just 2 candidates, all voters will simply approve the one 
>>they prefer to
>>the other, to give the Approval result:
>>65: A
>>35: B
>
> OK. This is a completely separate example of approval voting than your
> first example.  BTW, in any election:
>
> 1.  voters have to make a choice on how they vote and cannot vote more
> than one way in the same election using one ballot, and
>
> 2. the election has to be either conducted via one election method or
> another - I.e. approval voting is analogous to rating candidates 0
> (not approved) or 1 (approved), and so your above example shows ALL
> candidates are approved if one tries to switch that to approval from
> ratings.
>
> In this example A wins.
>
>>A wins. Now suppose that a third candidate (C) is introduced, and including 
>>this extra
>>candidate the voters' utilities are:
>>
>>
>>40: A100, B98, C1
>>25: C100, A98,B1
>>35: B100, C98, A1
>
> OK. In this example, removing the ratings to get approval voting
> example (a third example related to neither of the first two, ALL
> voters approve of A, B, and C and so A, B, and C are TIED again. It
> seems like a pretty unlikely scenario, but then I suppose it is
> possible.
>
>>Now all the voters have one candidate they like very much, another they like 
>>nearly as much,
>>and one they like very much less. The voters best zero-information strategy 
>>is to all approve 2
>>candidates, to give the Approval ballots:
>>40: AB
>>25: CA
>>35: BC
>
> OK, in THIS (yet another separate example of approval voting which is
> not related to either of your prior examples in any way except by
> dropping particular candidates from prior examples), B wins.
>
> You are capable of understanding I hope that this example is entirely
> different from your prior exa

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Juho]

On Jun 22, 2008, at 6:52 , Kathy Dopp wrote:


5. Change the rules (or is the rule for your new voting method always
"approve a number of top candidates equal to the total number of
candidates minus one" for each voter?) and this time drop all except
the top two choices of voters and give the remaining candidates one
approval vote each.


In the examples voters seem to have range style personal utilities,  
based on which they then decide how to vote in Approval. The election  
method can thus be basic Approval (as Chris said).


The key assumption seems to be that the available set of candidates  
may influence on which ones will be approved (i.e. irrelevant  
alternatives may have an impact in Approval). For example, if there  
are only "good" candidates then the voter is likely to approve some  
of them and not approve some of them. If one adds some "bad"  
candidates to the candidate list then the voter possibly approves all  
the "good" candidates (although their utility values are still the  
same) and does not approve the "bad" candidates.


In the examples of Chris it was always quite clear which candidates  
were the better ones and which ones were the worse ones if the voter  
wants to split them in two groups (which is a sensible approach to  
vote in Approval).


Juho






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Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Chris Benham]

Kathy,
I choose my words carefully. 

"You managed to invent a really bad voting method (asking voters for
ratings and then converting their ratings to approval/disapproval by
your new voting method) and applied your method of conversions to your
own example, but it has nothing to do with either range or approval
voting methods."


Apart from a passing reference to Range the only voting method I discussed
or referred to was Approval. 
I didn't suggest that voters be "asked for ratings".
40: A100, B98
25: A98,   B1
35: B100, A1
These numbers I gave  represent nothing outside the heads of the individual 
voters.
I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear enough.  This corresponds with the use in 
EM circles of the word  "utilities".

Chris  Benham



Kathy Dopp kathy.dopp at gmail.com 
Sat Jun 21 17:54:52 PDT 2008 
Chris,

You example clearly does not provide an example of approval voting
being subjected to the spoiler effect.

You managed to invent a really bad voting method (asking voters for
ratings and then converting their ratings to approval/disapproval by
your new voting method) and applied your method of conversions to your
own example, but it has nothing to do with either range or approval
voting methods.

Chris, This is the LAST time I will take any of my time to respond to
any of your emails since your emails either lack any logic or show
that you did not take the time to read and study either Abd ul's email
rebuttals of Fair Vote or the paper I wrote and I don't have time to
waste on annoying silliness.

On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 5:03 PM,  > Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 > Ok.
Suppose the method is Approval, there are two candidates (A and B)
and the voters'
>utilities (sincere ratings on some fixed scale independent of the candidates) 
>are:
>40: A100, B98
>25: A98, B1
>35: B100, A1

OK. Then if this example is counted using approval voting by removing
the ratings for these voters, there is a TIE since 100% of voters
approve of both A and B.

>
>I assume that with just 2 candidates, all voters will simply approve the one 
>they prefer to
>the other, to give the Approval result:
>65: A
>35: B

OK. This is a completely separate example of approval voting than your
first example.  BTW, in any election:

1.  voters have to make a choice on how they vote and cannot vote more
than one way in the same election using one ballot, and

2. the election has to be either conducted via one election method or
another - I.e. approval voting is analogous to rating candidates 0
(not approved) or 1 (approved), and so your above example shows ALL
candidates are approved if one tries to switch that to approval from
ratings.

In this example A wins.

>A wins. Now suppose that a third candidate (C) is introduced, and including 
>this extra
>candidate the voters' utilities are:
>
>
>40: A100, B98, C1
>25: C100, A98,B1
>35: B100, C98, A1

OK. In this example, removing the ratings to get approval voting
example (a third example related to neither of the first two, ALL
voters approve of A, B, and C and so A, B, and C are TIED again. It
seems like a pretty unlikely scenario, but then I suppose it is
possible.

>Now all the voters have one candidate they like very much, another they like 
>nearly as much,
>and one they like very much less. The voters best zero-information strategy is 
>to all approve 2
>candidates, to give the Approval ballots:
>40: AB
>25: CA
>35: BC

OK, in THIS (yet another separate example of approval voting which is
not related to either of your prior examples in any way except by
dropping particular candidates from prior examples), B wins.

You are capable of understanding I hope that this example is entirely
different from your prior examples and that none of your examples are
of the same approval election?

If you are illogically claiming that these three entirely separate
examples are the same you must (I am guessing) be thinking in
backwards fashion that you can devine voter ratings from approval
ballots or that you can delusionally know how all voters would change
ratings to approval votes and vice-versa.

I.e. Certainly you must agree that:

1. voters must decide ONE way to cast their ONE ballot, and

2. it is not humanly possible to devine what ratings voters would give
to each candidate from looking at their approval voting ballots
because IF you are talking about APPROVAL voting, then there ARE NO
RATINGS, and you might agree that no one has superhuman powers to know
by looking at approval ballots, the ratings voters would give.

Chris, If you want to provide an example that makes a lick of sense
and does not assume that you can magically read all voters' minds, and
is logical and valid for EITHER approval or range voting which
exhibits the spoiler effect, then you must find an example that is
RANGE voting alone or an example which is APPROVAL voting that
exhibits the spoiler effect; or alternatively use only 0's and 1's to
signify your approval voting ratings.

Approval voting is analogous to giving a ra

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Chris Benham]

Kathy,
I choose my words carefully. 

"You managed to invent a really bad voting method (asking voters for
ratings and then converting their ratings to approval/disapproval by
your new voting method) and applied your method of conversions to your
own example, but it has nothing to do with either range or approval
voting methods."


Apart from a passing reference to Range the only voting method I discussed
or referred to was Approval. 
I didn't suggest that voters be "asked for ratings".
40: A100, B98
25: A98,   B1
35: B100, A1
These numbers I gave  represent nothing outside the heads of the individual 
voters.
I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear enough.  This corresponds with the use in 
EM circles of the word  "utilities".

Chris  Benham



Kathy Dopp kathy.dopp at gmail.com 
Sat Jun 21 17:54:52 PDT 2008 
Chris,

You example clearly does not provide an example of approval voting
being subjected to the spoiler effect.

You managed to invent a really bad voting method (asking voters for
ratings and then converting their ratings to approval/disapproval by
your new voting method) and applied your method of conversions to your
own example, but it has nothing to do with either range or approval
voting methods.

Chris, This is the LAST time I will take any of my time to respond to
any of your emails since your emails either lack any logic or show
that you did not take the time to read and study either Abd ul's email
rebuttals of Fair Vote or the paper I wrote and I don't have time to
waste on annoying silliness.

On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 5:03 PM,  > Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 > Ok.
Suppose the method is Approval, there are two candidates (A and B)
and the voters'
>utilities (sincere ratings on some fixed scale independent of the candidates) 
>are:
>40: A100, B98
>25: A98, B1
>35: B100, A1

OK. Then if this example is counted using approval voting by removing
the ratings for these voters, there is a TIE since 100% of voters
approve of both A and B.

>
>I assume that with just 2 candidates, all voters will simply approve the one 
>they prefer to
>the other, to give the Approval result:
>65: A
>35: B

OK. This is a completely separate example of approval voting than your
first example.  BTW, in any election:

1.  voters have to make a choice on how they vote and cannot vote more
than one way in the same election using one ballot, and

2. the election has to be either conducted via one election method or
another - I.e. approval voting is analogous to rating candidates 0
(not approved) or 1 (approved), and so your above example shows ALL
candidates are approved if one tries to switch that to approval from
ratings.

In this example A wins.

>A wins. Now suppose that a third candidate (C) is introduced, and including 
>this extra
>candidate the voters' utilities are:
>
>
>40: A100, B98, C1
>25: C100, A98,B1
>35: B100, C98, A1

OK. In this example, removing the ratings to get approval voting
example (a third example related to neither of the first two, ALL
voters approve of A, B, and C and so A, B, and C are TIED again. It
seems like a pretty unlikely scenario, but then I suppose it is
possible.

>Now all the voters have one candidate they like very much, another they like 
>nearly as much,
>and one they like very much less. The voters best zero-information strategy is 
>to all approve 2
>candidates, to give the Approval ballots:
>40: AB
>25: CA
>35: BC

OK, in THIS (yet another separate example of approval voting which is
not related to either of your prior examples in any way except by
dropping particular candidates from prior examples), B wins.

You are capable of understanding I hope that this example is entirely
different from your prior examples and that none of your examples are
of the same approval election?

If you are illogically claiming that these three entirely separate
examples are the same you must (I am guessing) be thinking in
backwards fashion that you can devine voter ratings from approval
ballots or that you can delusionally know how all voters would change
ratings to approval votes and vice-versa.

I.e. Certainly you must agree that:

1. voters must decide ONE way to cast their ONE ballot, and

2. it is not humanly possible to devine what ratings voters would give
to each candidate from looking at their approval voting ballots
because IF you are talking about APPROVAL voting, then there ARE NO
RATINGS, and you might agree that no one has superhuman powers to know
by looking at approval ballots, the ratings voters would give.

Chris, If you want to provide an example that makes a lick of sense
and does not assume that you can magically read all voters' minds, and
is logical and valid for EITHER approval or range voting which
exhibits the spoiler effect, then you must find an example that is
RANGE voting alone or an example which is APPROVAL voting that
exhibits the spoiler effect; or alternatively use only 0's and 1's to
signify your approval voting ratings.

Approval voting is analogous to giving a ra

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Kathy Dopp]

On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 5:03 PM,

Sorry bout my impatience Chris, but I try not to waste time on stupid
ideas and I've already wasted over 6 weeks of this year considering
IRV which is an incredibly stupid voting method at first glance after
15 minutes of study IMO.  We cannot train our brains to solve the
tough problems of life and think clearly while wasting brain cycles
studying dumb ideas like the new voting method you just introduced us
to in your email - which I will precisely describe for you here so
that you can hopefully understand how little it has to do with either
range or approval voting methods:

1. Have voters rate the two candidates in the race from 1 to 100

> 40: A100, B98
> 25: A98,?? B1
> 35: B100, A1


2.  Vote counting method: Drop all but the top choices of voters who
have just rated the same candidates from 1 to 100 and give each
remaining candidate one approval vote.

> 65: A
> 35: B

3. The winner is the candidate with the most first choice "approval" votes.

4. Introduce a third candidate and have voters rate him as well, using
the prior ratings for the first two candidates, so this example of a
rating voting system is the same except for the additional candidate
for voter ratings.

>
> 40: A100, B98, C1
> 25: C100, A98,?B1
> 35: B100, C98, A1

5. Change the rules (or is the rule for your new voting method always
"approve a number of top candidates equal to the total number of
candidates minus one" for each voter?) and this time drop all except
the top two choices of voters and give the remaining candidates one
approval vote each.

> candidates, to give the Approval ballots:
> 40: AB
> 25: CA
> 35: BC

Voila. This hair-brained voting method DOES exhibit the spoiler
effect!  Good going Chris. While I will bet that you can invent any
number of hair-brained voting methods which violate the spoiler effect
like this

"voter-ratings-from-1-to-100-converted-to-top(N-1) candidate approvals
worth 1 each" where N is equal to the number of total candidates,

your example shows ZIP about the approval method. However, in your
example the two range voting examples (with and without the third
party candidate) show *no* spoiler effect. B wins both times.

PLEASE try to use the range or approval voting methods, rather than
inventing a new method that no one would ever think was a good idea,
as you did above, when you try to come up with an example which is
supposed to show how the range or approval methods are susceptible to
the spoiler effect.

I hope I have adequately described your method here so that you
understand that it is not the same as approval voting.

Please do not send us any more ill-considered emails Chris.  Some of
us have more important things to get done than to discuss hair-brained
voting schemes like IRV and the method you just proposed as being
equivalent to approval voting but which is not even close to it.

Cheers,

Kathy

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

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting (Chris Benham)

[Kathy Dopp]

Chris,

You example clearly does not provide an example of approval voting
being subjected to the spoiler effect.

You managed to invent a really bad voting method (asking voters for
ratings and then converting their ratings to approval/disapproval by
your new voting method) and applied your method of conversions to your
own example, but it has nothing to do with either range or approval
voting methods.

Chris, This is the LAST time I will take any of my time to respond to
any of your emails since your emails either lack any logic or show
that you did not take the time to read and study either Abd ul's email
rebuttals of Fair Vote or the paper I wrote and I don't have time to
waste on annoying silliness.

On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 5:03 PM,  > Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 > Ok.
Suppose? the method is Approval, there are two candidates (A and B)
and the voters'
> utilities (sincere ratings on some fixed scale independent of the candidates) 
> are:
> 40: A100, B98
> 25: A98,?? B1
> 35: B100, A1

OK. Then if this example is counted using approval voting by removing
the ratings for these voters, there is a TIE since 100% of voters
approve of both A and B.

>
> I assume that with just 2 candidates, all voters will simply approve the one 
> they prefer to
> the other, to give the Approval result:
> 65: A
> 35: B

OK. This is a completely separate example of approval voting than your
first example.  BTW, in any election:

1.  voters have to make a choice on how they vote and cannot vote more
than one way in the same election using one ballot, and

2. the election has to be either conducted via one election method or
another - I.e. approval voting is analogous to rating candidates 0
(not approved) or 1 (approved), and so your above example shows ALL
candidates are approved if one tries to switch that to approval from
ratings.

In this example A wins.

> A wins. Now suppose that a third candidate (C) is introduced, and including 
> this extra
> candidate the voters'? utilities are:
>
>
> 40: A100, B98, C1
> 25: C100, A98,?B1
> 35: B100, C98, A1

OK. In this example, removing the ratings to get approval voting
example (a third example related to neither of the first two, ALL
voters approve of A, B, and C and so A, B, and C are TIED again. It
seems like a pretty unlikely scenario, but then I suppose it is
possible.

> Now all the voters have one candidate they like very much, another they like 
> nearly as much,
> and one they like very much less.? The voters best zero-information strategy 
> is to all approve? 2
> candidates, to give the Approval ballots:
> 40: AB
> 25: CA
> 35: BC

OK, in THIS (yet another separate example of approval voting which is
not related to either of your prior examples in any way except by
dropping particular candidates from prior examples), B wins.

You are capable of understanding I hope that this example is entirely
different from your prior examples and that none of your examples are
of the same approval election?

If you are illogically claiming that these three entirely separate
examples are the same you must (I am guessing) be thinking in
backwards fashion that you can devine voter ratings from approval
ballots or that you can delusionally know how all voters would change
ratings to approval votes and vice-versa.

I.e. Certainly you must agree that:

1. voters must decide ONE way to cast their ONE ballot, and

2. it is not humanly possible to devine what ratings voters would give
to each candidate from looking at their approval voting ballots
because IF you are talking about APPROVAL voting, then there ARE NO
RATINGS, and you might agree that no one has superhuman powers to know
by looking at approval ballots, the ratings voters would give.

Chris, If you want to provide an example that makes a lick of sense
and does not assume that you can magically read all voters' minds, and
is logical and valid for EITHER approval or range voting which
exhibits the spoiler effect, then you must find an example that is
RANGE voting alone or an example which is APPROVAL voting that
exhibits the spoiler effect; or alternatively use only 0's and 1's to
signify your approval voting ratings.

Approval voting is analogous to giving a rating of 1 or 0, not the
example you gave.

So Chris, go back to the drawing board and eventually I believe that
you will discover that you can NOT come up with a valid example of
either approval or range voting that is susceptible to the spoiler
effect.

I.e. If you want to give an example where approval voting fails, use 1
or 0 for your approval/disapproval for candidates. Otherwise come up
with a range voting example, but your twisting all logic like you have
done in order to come up with a fake example is very annoying because
it is so stupid, and I am simply *not* going to respond to any more
illogical silliness on your part Chris; nor am I going to continue to
waste my time copying and pasting sentences from this list or from my
paper which you have not bothered to read.

Ta

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Chris Benham]

Kathy,
All of your points have already been addressed in my paper or by Abd
ul Rahman Lomax on this list.

For example, re "later no harm":

I gather you are referring to Abd's  "Dopp: 15. “Violates some election 
fairness principles .""
post.  I hadn't  read that because it was part of a series attacking a FairVote 
page that 
in turn was purporting to debunk a version of your paper that you had announced 
was soon
to be superseded. Now that I know that you agree with it and that it fully 
applies to the 
newest version of your paper, I'll get around to studying it and responding.

http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2008-June/021745.html

BTW, you are in point of fact, incorrect that some voting methods do
not meet Arrow's "independence of alternatives" condition, that is
unless, like Arrow, you are excluding all rating voting methods like
range and approval voting.  If I am wrong in this, then you will be
able to provide an example using the range or approval voting method
which does not meet this Arrows' condition that "the introduction of a
nonwinning candidate changes the outcome of who wins", not merely make
the claim without any supporting example.
Ok. Suppose  the method is Approval, there are two candidates (A and B) and the 
voters'
utilities (sincere ratings on some fixed scale independent of the candidates) 
are:
40: A100, B98
25: A98,   B1
35: B100, A1

I assume that with just 2 candidates, all voters will simply approve the one 
they prefer to
the other, to give the Approval result:
65: A
35: B
A wins. Now suppose that a third candidate (C) is introduced, and including 
this extra
candidate the voters'  utilities are:


40: A100, B98, C1
25: C100, A98, B1
35: B100, C98, A1
Now all the voters have one candidate they like very much, another they like 
nearly as much, 
and one they like very much less.  The voters best zero-information strategy is 
to all approve  2 
candidates, to give the Approval ballots:
40: AB
25: CA
35: BC
I assume that you (Kathy) agrees that this is a reasonable way for these voters 
to vote,
because this is the Approval election in Appendix A (example 2) in your paper, 
with the
voters having the same sincere rankings.

Now B wins. IIA says that the winner must either remain A or change to the new 
candidate C.

You can say that Approval meets IIA if you assume that the voted approvals in 
the 2
candidate election are absolute (by some fixed standard independent of the 
candidates)
so that the entry of a new candidate can have no effect on the voters' approval 
or non-approval
of the original candidates.

BTW, I think the particular chosen "wording" of IIA is a sophist attempt to 
make Approval
and Range's alleged meeting of it look more plausible.  I think it is also 
supposed to go
the other way as well, i.e. dropping a non-winning candidate shouldn't change 
the result.
On the  "cast ballots" Approval meets this. It means if we work my example 
backwards and
go from  3 candidates to 2, then after dropping C we get these Approval ballots:
40: AB
25: A
35: B
B still wins, but obviously in practice if we were having a fresh election 
without C then not
many voters would approve both the candidates.


Chris Benham




Kathy Dopp kathy.dopp at gmail.com 
Fri Jun 20 21:20:05 PDT 2008 


> Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:29:17 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Chris Benham 
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting -
> Since I regard? "IRV" (the Alternative Vote,?unlimited strict 
> ranking?"version") as
> one of? the good methods, the best in my judgement of the methods that meet
> Later-no-Harm,?I am encouraged to respond? to Kathy Dopp's anti-IRV propaganda
> piece.
>

Chris,

All of your points have already been addressed in my paper or by Abd
ul Rahman Lomax on this list.

For example, re "later no harm":

"Later-No-Harm", that a lower preference cannot harm a higher
preference, is FairVote's favorite election criterion.

"Later-No-Harm", however, is incompatible with the basic principles of
majority rule, which requires compromise if decisions are to be made.
That's because the peculiar design of sequential elimination
guarantees -- if a majority is not required -- that a lower preference
cannot harm a higher preference, because the lower preferences are
only considered if a higher one is eliminated. But many think that
later-no-harm is undesirable because it interferes with the process of
equitable compromise that is essential to the social cooperation that
voting is supposed to facilitate. If I am negotiating with my
neighbor, and his preferred option differs from mine, if I reveal that
some compromise option is acceptable to me, before I'm certain that my
favorite won't be chosen, then I may "harm" the

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting

[Kathy Dopp]

> Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:29:17 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Chris Benham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting -
> Since I regard? "IRV" (the Alternative Vote,?unlimited strict 
> ranking?"version") as
> one of? the good methods, the best in my judgement of the methods that meet
> Later-no-Harm,?I am encouraged to respond? to Kathy Dopp's anti-IRV propaganda
> piece.
>

Chris,

All of your points have already been addressed in my paper or by Abd
ul Rahman Lomax on this list.

For example, re "later no harm":

"Later-No-Harm", that a lower preference cannot harm a higher
preference, is FairVote's favorite election criterion.

"Later-No-Harm", however, is incompatible with the basic principles of
majority rule, which requires compromise if decisions are to be made.
That's because the peculiar design of sequential elimination
guarantees -- if a majority is not required -- that a lower preference
cannot harm a higher preference, because the lower preferences are
only considered if a higher one is eliminated. But many think that
later-no-harm is undesirable because it interferes with the process of
equitable compromise that is essential to the social cooperation that
voting is supposed to facilitate. If I am negotiating with my
neighbor, and his preferred option differs from mine, if I reveal that
some compromise option is acceptable to me, before I'm certain that my
favorite won't be chosen, then I may "harm" the chance of my favorite
being chosen. If the method my neighbor and I used to help us make the
decision *requires* later-no-harm, it will interfere with the
negotiation process, make it more difficult to find mutually
acceptable solutions. On the other hand, the "harm" in Bucklin method
of counting votes only occurs if your favorite doesn't win by a
majority in the first round.

BTW, you are in point of fact, incorrect that some voting methods do
not meet Arrow's "independence of alternatives" condition, that is
unless, like Arrow, you are excluding all rating voting methods like
range and approval voting.  If I am wrong in this, then you will be
able to provide an example using the range or approval voting method
which does not meet this Arrows' condition that "the introduction of a
nonwinning candidate changes the outcome of who wins", not merely make
the claim without any supporting example.
--

All your questions are either already answered in my paper somewhere
or are deliberately not addressed in my paper because the topic of the
paper is restricted to the flaws and benefits of the IRV method and
only touches on other topics only as necessary to provide an overview,
as in the recent appendix supplied by voting system experts.  Please
re-read my paper again and I am certain that you will see this.

Thank you for correcting my grammatical mistake in using "criteria"
where I should have used "criterion".

Cheers,

Kathy Dopp

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

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting - Not What It Seems

[Chris Benham]

Hello,
Since I regard  "IRV" (the Alternative Vote, unlimited strict 
ranking "version") as 
one of  the good methods, the best in my judgement of the methods that meet
Later-no-Harm, I am encouraged to respond  to Kathy Dopp's anti-IRV propaganda
piece.


Some Fairness Principles for Voting MethodsConditions have been proposed to 
judge 
whether or not voting and vote-counting methods result in fair or in non-fair, 
paradoxical 
election results.

1. The addition of an alternative (candidate) who does not win should not 
affect the outcome.
If you have an election contest where candidate A wins, and you introduce a new 
candidate C,
then either candidate A should still win, or candidate C should now win. In 
other words, spoilers
should not be possible or the addition of an alternative (or candidate) that 
doesn't win should not
affect the outcome.

This is some times called "independence of irrelevant alternatives" that says 
that the collective
preference order of any pair of alternatives x and y must depend solely on the 
individual voters'
preferences between these alternatives and not on their preferences for other 
irrelevant (nonwinning)
alternatives.
IRV does 
elections where "spoilers" determined who won, neither does the existing 
plurality voting
method meet this condition.
do seem to meet this fairness condition.not meet this condition of fairness. 
(See appendix A.) As we’ve seen from prior U.S.ix Other alternative voting 
methods, such as approval or range voting


In practical effect  *no* method meets this.Approval and Range can be said to 
meet  
Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) only if the votes are interpreted 
as the voters giving 
ratings on some fixed scale that is independent of the actual candidates. 

On this perverse interpretation Approval and Range do not reduce to  FPP in the 
2 candidate election,
in violation of  Dopp's "fairness principle 4":

.Any candidate who is the favorite [first] choice of a majority of voters 
should win

I don't see what IIA actually has to do with "fairness". To me it is only about 
congruity or 
mathematical elegance.
2. 
must be preferred to alternative y in the collective preference order
result]. This is some times called the "Pareto condition" that says whenever 
all individuals prefer
an alternative x to another y then x must be preferred to y in the collective 
preference order. It is
possible to find examples of when IRV and plurality voting violate this 
fairness condition.Whenever all individuals prefer an alternative x to another 
alternative y then alternative xx [the final election

No it isn't.  And why in a single-winner election method do we care about the 
whole "collective
preference order"  instead of just the winner?

(See appendix B.)

There is no example of IRV or  plurality voting failing Pareto in appendix B, 
only one of  Approval
meeting it.3. The candidate who wins should have received a majority of voters’ 
votes.Some jurisdictions require winning candidates to have a majority (more 
votes than 50% of the
ballots cast by voters).


Maybe so, but should they?  I gather that if this requirement isn't met, the 
decision on who
fills the office is taken out of the hands of the voters.  Some voting methods, 
such as plurality voting and IRV 
condition. Actual top-two runoff elections do.do not meet this


Only if "voters" means only those who showed up for the second round. Say in a 
3 candidate
election, I can't see any justification for making this big distinction between 
a "majority" in the
second round of  Top-Two Runoff (TTR)  and the majority of voters who 
participate in the 
second round of  IRV.

Kathy, do you insist that the election method requires voters to make second 
trip to the polls
whenever the first doesn't produce a winner who "receives a majority of voters' 
votes"?

Two-round methods can have their plusses, but in general I think it is more 
appropriate to
compare IRV only with other decisive single-round methods.

But while we're here, IRV (Alternative Vote, unlimited ranking)  dominates TTR 
in terms of
criterion compliances, including those that relate to  "majority rule".  Both 
TTR and IRV 
meet  Condorcet Loser, but IRV (Alt.V, unlimited ranking) has the extra 
advantages over 
plurality voting (FPP) of meeting Majority for Solid Coalitions (aka Mutual 
Majority), Mutual
Dominant Third, and  Clone-Winner.

4. 
IRV does not always pick a majority winner out of all ballots cast, IRV 
proponents emphasize
that 
candidate as the winner. However, the existing plurality voting method also 
meets this condition,
which IRV proponents call the "majority criteria".Any candidate who is the 
favorite [first] choice of a majority of voters should win. Whileif a majority 
winner exists among voters’ first choices, then IRV will always select this



I think some call this the "Majority Criterion" ("criteria" is the plural of 
*criterion*).  I and others 
prefer the name "Majority Favorite".  It isn

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting - Not What ItSeems

[James Gilmour]

Chris
I had no problem in Copying & Pasting from the PDF file given at the link in 
Kathy Dopp's e-mailed version of the revised news
release:

The full report "Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting - 17 Flaws and 3 Benefits" 
is found on-line at
   
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf

James


> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On 
> Behalf Of Chris Benham
> Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 5:07 AM
> To: EM
> Cc: Kathy Dopp
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff 
> Voting - Not What ItSeems
> 
> 
> Does anyone know of any way of getting access to some version 
>  of Kathy Dopp's IRV paper from which it is possible to copy 
> and paste?
> 
> Chris Benham
> Kathy Dopp kathy.dopp at gmail.com 
> Mon Jun 16 15:14:22 PDT 2008 
> 
> RELEASE:  Instant Runoff Voting - Not What It Seems
> By The National Election Data Archive
> Park City, UT June 16, 2008

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

Re: [Election-Methods] RELEASE: Instant Runoff Voting - Not What It Seems

[Chris Benham]

Does anyone know of any way of getting access to some version  of
Kathy Dopp's IRV paper from which it is possible to copy and paste?

Chris Benham
Kathy Dopp kathy.dopp at gmail.com 
Mon Jun 16 15:14:22 PDT 2008 

RELEASE:  Instant Runoff Voting - Not What It Seems
By The National Election Data Archive
Park City, UT June 16, 2008



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