Warren quoted me:
I advocate Range over Condorcet, as a public proposal. Assigning points from
1 to 10 is already familiar to people..
I reply now:
Well, lets say that RV is probably more winnable. But I now feel that its
better to be more ambitious and ask for SSD. But, if it should turn out that
Condorcet cant be gotten, because its unfamiliar to people, or perceived
as complicated, then yes, RV would be a good proposal. Having gotten
agreement about RV, one could then point out that Approval is the simplest
RV, the 0,1 RV. The easily implemented and easily voted RV is Approval. Yes,
easily voted. Weve done polls on EM using Approval, RV, and rank-balloting.
Approval was by far the easiest to vote. On the other hand, due to
peculiarities of our political system and electorate, RV might give better
results in U.S. public elections than Approval would.
Warrens quote of me continues:
:.
But if it's a question of which I'd prefer if I could enact whatever
single-winner reform I wanted, I'd choose Ranked-Pairs(wv) or the wv version
of BeatpathWinner/CSSD. [Editor's note: these are two Condorcet methods that
Ossipoff particularly likes.]
I reply now:
Now I prefer SSD for public elections. CSSD or BeatpathWinner (theyre
equivalent) for organizations and committees with few voters. SSD is
equivalent to those two when the voters are so numerous that there are no
pair wise ties. SSD is my best recommendation for public elections.
Warrens quote of me continues:
Why would I choose Condorcet if the enactment decision were entirely up to
me? Because, with Condorcet(wv), the voter who feels that it's necessary to
fully support Gore against Bush will still be fully helping Nader beat Gore.
(End quote.)
In contrast, Ossipoff feels that in range voting, you can fully support
Nader versus Gore, or fully support Gore versus Bush, but not both at the
same time.
I Reply now:
Not only do I feel that, but its grossly obvious to anyone, or should be.
Warren replies:
Reply to Ossipoff: That was an appealing point by Ossipoff, although in
fact, I suspect Ossipoff is wrong. I am not precisely sure what "fully
supporting A versus B" means to him
I reply now:
Ive stated on EM what I mean by fully voting X over Y. You fully vote X
over Y, if, in the comparison between X and Y, youre helping X all you can.
By the comparison between X and Y, I mean, for Condorcet, the pair-wise
vote-count for X and Y. Of course for RV it just refers to the comparison of
the points received by X and Y.
Warren points out that Condorcet doesnt meet the Participation Criterion.
As I said in my other posting today, Participation isnt about a strategy
dilemma. Its about an embarrassment. All methods can encounter an
embarrassment of some kind. Of course its up to Warren what is important to
him, and he isnt wrong, whatever may be his choice about what is important
to him. But, speaking for myself, Im more interested in avoiding strategy
dilemma. Im more interested in avoiding a need for a voter to abandon his
genuine preferences for strategic reasons. The best you can say about RV is
that it wont force you to vote someone over your favorite for strategic
reasons. I dont want the lesser-of-2-evils problem.
When voters are strategically prevented from voting their genuine
preferences, or forced to choose which preferences to dilute, as will happen
in RV, democracy loses.
But if Warren has a quibble about what it means to fully vote X over Y, then
I refer him to my criteria SFC, GSFC, and SDSC. Those criteria are met by
SSD and other good wv Condorcet versions. Those are my main justification
for Condorcet. RV fails all of those criteria. RV offers FBC and WDSC, but,
for me (and choices like this are individual choices) that doesnt even come
close to the value of SFC, GSFC & SDSC.
Mike Ossipoff
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