On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 13:05:09 -0800 Russ Paielli wrote:
Daniel Bishop dbishop-at-neo.tamu.edu |EMlist| wrote:
Russ Paielli wrote:
I would start by simply choosing the CW if one exists, or paring the field down to the Smith set otherwise. Then I would eliminate the candidate with the lowest approval and repeat.
I thought of this yesterday while I was working out, and I thought I had come up with something big. Then I searched the EM archives and discovered that Kevin Venzke had mentioned it way back in 2003.
Oh, by the way, I would *not* allow equal rankings. Why not? I just don't like them.
Not a very convincing reason to me.
Well, at least it's honest!
They strike me as an unnecessary complication
How are they a complication? If anything, equal rankings make it *easier* to construct a pairwise matrix.
Equal rankings complicate matters for several reasons:
-- They create a potential debate about how they should be counted. Actually, this may not be an issue if you use the Condorcet-Approval hybrid scheme I explained above, so this objection may not be valid in this context. (The old "margins vs. wv" debate will be irrelevant!)
Agreed - but no bigger deal than many we discus - with wv is my thought.
-- They complicate the vote-counting procedure and corresponding software. This may seem trivial in an academic environment, but in the real world it will be another potential source of bugs.
It is trivial in the real world - a small detail on general design.
-- They complicate the voter interface and voting procedures. Yes, equal rankings are simple to implement with a vector of radio buttons next to each candidate's name, but I can virtually guarantee that such an interface will be considered unacceptable for general public use.
Actually, they simplify the rules for what I promote for paper ballots (we about MUST have paper for absentees, etc.) - suggesting that electronics should follow what is easy on paper. Specifically, let voter indicate rank as a single character in a field beside each candidate name. Some voters are going to enter duplicate ranks even if it is forbidden, so I suggest making it legal and counting accordingly.
-- Last but not least, they complicate the explanation of the method to the general public. Just getting the public to understand and accept ranked voting will be a major endeavor in itself. Any unnecessary complications will just irritate the public and provide ammunition for those who dismiss the method as too complicated.
Looks like I covered this above.
and little more than a way to game the system.
There's a potentially important practical advantage, in that it allows voters to cast a Cardinal Rankings-style ballot. For example, you could let:
Rank 1 = ideal candidate
Rank 2 = candidate I have minor disagreements with
Rank 3 = candidate I have major disagreements with
Rank 4 = candidate I wouldn't vote for even if he were running against Hitler and Stalin
I would let the voter rank as above, while seeing no particular value in it, since all I see is =, <, and >, based on comparing each pair of ranks.
I would not require ranking all, though reading a suggestion that ballot counters could supplement the ranking makes it time to think more.
I don't understand your point here. Are you ranking any of those candidates equal? And why would you even rank/approve the last candidate? Or are you proposing to rank more than one candidate at each of the four levels?
If there are a large number of candidates, this could be considerably easier for the voter than casting a fully-ranked ballot.
You wouldn't need to rank any more candidates than you would approve in an Approval election.
--Russ
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