I'm retiring from voting systems. I'd been making a temporary postponement of my retirement, because I wanted to participate in the Range Voting organization. Then I also wanted to participate in the Condorcet project, and in some EM discussion. But now I"m retiring, and this time it's final.
My participation in voting systems is all or nothing. And nothing really means nothing. So I won't be checking EM, or other voting system mailing lists anymore, or in any way discussing voting systems. Rob-- You invited suggestions about your poll, and I'd like to offer a few: In the polls that I've conducted, except where automatic balloting limited what balloting I could use, I've included 3 kinds of balloting in each poll: Approval, ratings, and rankings. James' and your voting system polls have many candidates. Fifty, for James' poll. I believe you mentiond a hundred for your poll. Some say, and maybe it's true, that, when there are vary many candidates, rating is easier than ranking. Ok, so that's one reason to have ratings. Another reason to have ratings is just to find out what winner people's sincere ratings point to. But you should allow rankings too, in case some people prefer ranking. Especially people who might not vote for all the candidates. But, most important, you should include Approval balloting. For one thing, Approval is used by some rank methods, such as MDDA. And, more important, the Approval result is important and meaningful in itself. If everyone's sincerity (or good estimates of their utilities) can't be counted on, then Approval maximizes social utility more reliably than Range Voting does. As I said, in Approval, there's much less difference (if any) between a sincere ballot and a strategic ballot. As I've said, Approval may turn out to be too demanding for our public voters in our public elections. But your poll isn't a public election. The Approval result is maybe the most important result in polls. Approval is a lot better than most people think it is. The rankings (&/or rankings interpreted from ratings) should be counted by BeatpathWinner and MDDA. For some time I've advocated BeatpathWinner as the best rank-count for organizations, committees, meetings, and polls. That's because there generally isn't any lesser-of-2-evils problem there, so why not have BeatpathWinner's slightly improved majority enforcement (as compared to MDDA). But the most important value of better voting systems in organizations, committees, meetings and polls is the precedent that it can provide for those better methods in public elections. As I said before, that's where better voting systems really matter. So then, that means that organizations, committees, meetings and polls should be encouraged to use MDDA instead of BeatpathWinner or other Condorcet versions. So definitely do an MDDA count in your poll, ok? Chris Benham introduced MDD,ER-Bucklin(whole), and, for our current electorates, in our public elections, I consider that method to be the best that I've heard of. But MDD,ER-Bucklin(whole) doesn't have the brief definition of MDDA, and brevity of definition is very important for a public proposal. So I prefer MDDA for a public proposal. MDD,ER-Bucklin(whole) (which could be abbreviated MDDERBW) improves on MDDA by additionally meeting MMC (Mutual Majority Criterion). That provides a little more majority-enforcement, a little additional assurance that it's safe to vote Compromise below Favorite, but above Worst. But MDDA's SFC compliance is what provides the biggest guarantee in that regard. MDDA meets FBC, SFC, & SDSC. MDDERBW meets FBC, SFC, SDSC & MMC. But SFC is more important, and gives the biggest share of majority-enforcement, and so MMC doesn't add so much. Keven's MAMPO improves on MDDA by meeting the Plurality Criterion. But that's an aesthetic criterion, rather than a strategy guarantee criterion. I emphasize that Kevin proposed MDDA, as well as MAMPO. When counting MDDA in the poll, using the Approval ballot, disregard, for any voter, the preferences for candidates in his ranking below his approved candidates. In other words, treat his ballot as if it's truncated below his approved candidates. Mike Ossipoff _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
