At 02\08\08 22:15 -0700 Thursday, Bart Ingles wrote: > > >Craig Carey wrote: >> >> http://www.fairvote.org/irv/faq.htm >> >> > Who opposes IRV? >> > >> > Little organized opposition to IRV exists. Election >> > officials are understandably cautious about a system that >> > may increase their workload, and some incumbents fear any >> > change to the system that elected them. If you can win an >> > election under a plurality or runoff system, however, the >> > odds are that you would also win under IRV. The exceptions >> > are rare but can be important. Examples include several >> > recent House races in New Mexico, where Green Party >> > candidates threw races to Republicans, and state legislative >> > races in Alaska in which Libertarians and Alaskan >> > Independent Party candidates knocked off Republicans. >> > >> > Some political minorities may believe that they can only win >> > representation in a plurality election. Such groups may >> > oppose IRV, but of course, in such situations, a larger >> > groups stands to gain representation by IRV. >> > >> >> At their own FAQ they assert that it is also "rare" for the Alternative >> Vote, to produce a different result from the result that >> First Past the Post ("a plurality election") would produce. > > >Sure it's rare. Both systems give the parties and voters incentive to >focus their support on the top two candidates. It's counterproductive >to allow a spoilers to gain too much ground, whether in Hare/IRV or in >First Past the Post. >
It is unsatisfactory how the CVD is ever unable to name the individual that creates their documents (and who named their method). I am not commenting on political parties and I am not ruling out that the method may provide linear additive biases to some candidate. Also I am not limiting the number of winners to 1. Just like how government departments are ideally expected to open when allowing companies to compete in contracts, so too ought comparisons be used. I am guessing that you had some principle that allowed the Approval Vote method to be compared against only a very limited range of options. Approval is not being named and it is not being compared. I myself prefer the view that view that spoilers are fully acceptable to an alternative where the Instant Runoff Vote methods ends up being photographed as being no more living than a charred Egyptian mummy that went through a fire. Something analogous to that most certainly could occur in the 22nd during a court case where the merits of IRV are considered. I guess it was assumed that I am uninterested in the spoilers issue. I ought be, since spoilers has no relevance to axioms guaranteeing fairness to individuals. But if still unacceptable then the problem of spoilers could be measured and the test applied. There is no test discernable when you write that FPTP has a problem. That very much does not say that there is a problem with STV but instead it defines something that has less than perfect precision and thus is not commenting on First Past the Post. Where is the test?. Approvalists and abandon themselves to whatever thoughts come their way, but maybe won't get a following. Proportionality counters FPTP style vote splitting (which is taken by me to be the same idea as the "spoliers" idea). If there is no other axiom countering spoliers, and I estimate that that is the case for my IFPP theory (there is only P2, P1/monotonicity, P4, embedding, and right number of winners), then you only need pick from the list. If it interests you, then which axiom is the problem ?. I.e. it may be tricky to motivate a question asking for a definition of a spoilers problem. I assume that Bart is roughly fully wrong, if implying that politicians regard vote splitting is a problem, because they can expand their considerations to include all the issues, e.g. actual real fairness, an increase of which may increase the spoilers vote splitting problem. I am suggesting that you are explaining that politicians (or someone) would use deft "thinking person's" reasoning that is wrong, since inconsiderate of the offsetting factors. E.g. monotonicity and equal suffrage. I.e. your position can be rejected irrespective of whether your view on spoilers was roughly correct. Again you are not asked to defined what a spoilers problem: what justifies it?. They may not be any actual real freedom to say that the spoilers problem must be less than a set of axioms would produce. The word "counterproductive" is used. Is that about the model or the people. If the people generate a lot of desire about some "counterproductive" force then absolutely none of that is relevant to the design or checking of methods unless some alteration to the axioms or tests occurs. I rule out fake electionmethods.org certifying since no one is interested in that. If there is a matter that affects the public's mind, e.g. an passing idealism of dissatisfaction, then what exactly is that mathematical correspondence of returning that back to the theory?. I have no idea, other than the weakening or elimination of an axiom. Bart: please list the axioms, or more than one set (there was a mention of more than one method). Any comments are better than nothing. If you have feelings about the question then they too lacking precision and an ability to test methods. I am not intending to define a spoilers problem since it can be reduced. It is an aim and not a strict rule, and being an aim, to consider it closely is the same as paying little attention to since it is constrained by the boundaries, i.e. by the strict rules providing fairness (affected by the particular axioms, or to be specific, my axioms defining fairnes). The word "counterproductive" does not seem to suggest fairness much. Was it constructed with an intent to provide connotations of fairness, and if not, maybe there is no thought at all for us if there is no consideration of the boundaries. It is like putting hard to derive, piece-wise linear limits at the lower end of a linear ramp: the actual equations of the ramp are simple. Did you mean "spoilers" when you wrote it?. Can you check any method that is provided to you?. I guess the answer is "no". How can you check for a spoliers problem yet not be able to check some methods under that test. There may be no more than some endearing idea that voters exist. We already believe that, but it does not assist in the assessing of never seen before methods. Any testing maybe can easily reject Approval for having the wrong lower limitations on proportionality. Perhaps you imagined that the set of methods that would be compared is very small, e.g. no bigger than the ones you mentioned plus maybe a few more methods. I don't see a test of fairness but you can free me from doubt by declaring that individual voters should ideally be subject to unfairness. If an estimate of vote splitting is defined to be the negative of some estimate of proportionality, then perhaps there is nothing to get assertive over, since there is a consensus that it indeed ought be reduced. Please say if proportionality is subject to strict fairness tests passing the whole preferential voting method. If the tests of fairness are withheld then the reason may be ignorance or concealment, neither of which enhance credibility before politicians intent to let the results fall as they after possible personal attempts to influence the outcome. Do please show the equations that permit an actual consideration of "vote splitting" of spoilers faults, no matter which preferential method (of the infinities possible) is being checked. Suppose I produce a sub-optimal modified Borda method. where is the public interest in respect of that method. If you can't check that method if asserting presumptively that an interest in the public is greater than that of candidates or minorities, then were is the rigorous but good enough argument, showing that an idea perfect method would not be rejected. Was there an intention to be earnest or frank when making comments [I presume I need not answer such a question myself.] If the public desire is not translated back into equations and the speaker upholds the Approval method, then why is there no rigour permitting comparisons of methods. We are running into the same principle that is often seen: the public only gets a stupid or suboptimal method if detectable specific references to the importance of the parties or the public. Are voters to be averaged?. Why abandon fairness for individuals in any complete absence of a showing that making the method good for individuals results in a method that is good enough for parties. An unhappy mayor could implement Bart's new idea of no vote splitting this: on the back of each ballot rules guaranteeing fairness for the individual have horizonal lines through them and some ill-defined idea of reducing vote splitting is on the backs of that papers instead. A moment's consideration of that indicates that voters do not want less vote splitting while believing they are closing finding out whether they can get reduced vote splitting and fairness for themselves and their candidates, at the same time. Perhaps Bart was offering an insight at how to make a statement, and the topic of the statement is not important. Politicians can see that as trait that they know well. Craig ---- For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em
