At 02:53 -0000 22.2.2002, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >http://users.erols.com/aejohns/node4.htm > >Another recent site about election methods.
Thank you, dear DEMOREP1, very much for this link. It addresses my question to this list in January 1998. I described various systems of voting on amendments. My chief worry was this: "I'm very dubious about the French system, because the voters can't put the amendments in an order of preference and they don't know which the alternatives are in a given vote. It might spread into Finland. Do I have cause for worry?" Quoting Lorrie Cranor (the current URL is http://lorrie.cranor.org/pubs/diss/), Johnsrud mentions the following relevant procedures: >The Amendment Procedure >The amendment procedure is widely used for parliamentary and board room >voting. This procedure pairs the proposal under consideration with the >status quo. If a variation on the proposal is introduced it is paired with >the proposal and voted on as an amendment prior to the final vote. If the >amendment succeeds, then the amended proposal is eventually paired with >the status quo in the final vote. Otherwise, the amendment is eliminated >prior to the final vote. This procedure is not neutral because it favors >the status quo in the absence of a Condorcet winner. >The Successive Procedure >Unlike the amendment procedure, the successive procedure is neutral. >However it does not select any winner in the absence of a Condorcet >winner, and may sometimes select no winner even when a Condorcet winner >exists. In this procedure the candidates are considered one at a time >until one has received the majority of votes or the list of candidates has >been exhausted. After the list has been exhausted the procedure may be >repeated (with the hope that some of the voters may change their votes) or >another procedure may be used. End of quote. The amendment procedure is the one used in English speaking countries, where only one motion or amendment can be before the meeting at one time. In other countries all the motions and amendments are voted upon at the end of the debate. The chair proposes the order for voting, but the meeting can change it. In Finland the vote is always between two alternatives. The proposal that gets the majority is put against the next one until each (each pair) has been voted upon. The final winner is not voted upon unless there's been a specific motion to reject. My understanding is that if there's a Condorcet winner this system finds it, regardless of the order of voting. Am I right? Strategic voting is not unknown in Parliament, so I presume it will affect the outcome. The successive procedure is the French procedure (this is not the official name, I'm just presuming it originated there), which is used in the EU, UN and most other international organizations, as well as Denmark, Germany and Austria, at least. The order of voting is the same as in Finland, the amendment that is most different from the main motion is voted upon first and then the next amendments in a descending order of difference, but the vote is always for or against, not between two alternative amendments. The voting is stopped if an amendment gains the majority. This is the part I don't understand: I wouldn't know what strategy to use because I dare not vote for my second preference if my first preference hasn't been voted on yet. Suppose I'm in a Globetrotters' Club that wants to make a trip. Stockholm, London, Dublin, Madrid and Rome have been proposed and seconded. I prefer Dublin and Rome is my second choice. The voting order would probably be Madrid - Rome - Dublin - London - Stockholm, determined by distance or cost. With the French procedure I wouldn't want to vote for Rome because it might gain the majority before I get to vote for Dublin. This must be the Favourite Betrayal Criterion. I think that this is a real problem, quite apart from the possible failure of the procedure to produce a winner. Can it affect the outcome and what strategy should one use? I've once voted in a class with French students and it was difficult. I shouted, rather rudely, "We need an alternative" at every point. I was given one but the next day the vote was cancelled because it had been done wrong. In 1998 DEMOREP1 suggested in his reply that one should check first which alternatives have a majority of yes votes (sort of approval?), and then: "The Condorcet method would then do the head to head pairings of all of such majority approved issues. If one issue beats each other, then it should be adopted. If there is not a single beats-all winner with 3 or more majority approved issues (as may be likely), then I suggest that the majority approved issue with the lowest number of first choices should lose. The head to head math would be redone. Repeat the cycle until there is a single winner." If I understand this correctly, there's no problem of strategy here, but there's again the possiblity of getting no winner and the number of votes could be increased. Also, there are occasions where I think we definitely need a winner. The procedures could be tweaked, of course. If the winner were the *last* proposal to gain majority in the French procedure, I think I could handle the strategy. Olli Salmi
