On Mon, 1 Apr 2002 12:42:03 -0800 (PST) Forest Simmons wrote: > On Sun, 31 Mar 2002, Adam Tarr wrote: > > >>Dave wrote: >> >> >>>I have nothing nice to say about Approval, noting that no one seems able >>>to give me useful guidelines as to how well I should have to like a >>>candidate to say "approve". >>> >>Rob LeGrand came up with a decent strategy that makes a lot of >>sense. Approve every candidate you like more than the front runner, and >>approve the front runner if you like him/her more than the second-place >>candidate. This requires knowing who's top two in the polls, but this is a >>pretty good bet in a large election. >> > > Here's another approach that is near optimal in practice: > > (1) rank the candidates as you would for your favorite Condorcet method. > (2) convert the ranks to Borda scores by subtracting from the number of > candidates. > (3) adjust the numbers so that they better reflect your relative > intensities of preference or "utilities" for the candidates. Call these > numbers "ratings." > (4) assign subjective probabilities of winning for each candidate. > (5) multiply the ratings by the respective probabilities and add the > results to get what we will call the expected winner rating (EWR). > (6) approve all of the candidates that you have rated above this EWR. > > In the case of zero information all of the probabilities would be equal, > so you would be approving by the "above mean utility strategy" which is > often advocated as near optimal for the zero-info case. In other words, > this strategy is a straight-forward extension of the above mean utility > strategy.
With my voter hat on, these strange sentences cannot be worth trying to decipher. With my student hat on, prospects do not look much better. > > <snip> > >>Approval certainly has its places. If I had to advocate wide-scale single >>winner voting reform to a large group that was not familiar with it, my >>inclination is to advocate approval voting. It's simple and it's an >>obvious improvement over plurality. But if I'm trying to turn around an >>IRV advocate, I would definitely jump straight to advocating Condorcet >>voting. Once someone has accepted the concept of ranked ballots, they have >>a certain intuitive appeal that's hard to give up. It's hard to convince >>someone who's bought into IRV that you get better results with plain old >>unranked approval ballots. But a few simple examples will convince all but >>the most hardheaded IRV advocate that Condorcet is superior. >> > > Yes, if they are willing to fill out the IRV ballots, show them what those > ballots can do, given half a chance. I miss understanding how filling out Condorcet ballots, or even the identical IRV ballots (unless IRV inspires an attempt at strategy), is so complicated. Simply indicate my strongest preferences until I get down to not worth bothering with - what could be simpler? It is the vote counting and calculating that contains any complexity. > > Better yet, show them the advantages of CR ballots where you don't have to > pretend that all of your preferences are of equal intensity. > > Most people don't have the patience to rank two dozen candidates. Giving > each a grade of A,B,C,D,F or (default) E, is easier. But, in IRV or Condorcet, I quit as soon as I have said all I care to say. Assigning grades is a complication that is not worth the pain. > > [The reason I believe the default grade should be E, is that F should be > reserved for someone that you are sure about being no good. But beware, > this convention might backfire if you allow election of someone with a > majority of below D grades.] > > > Forest -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.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.
