At 03:50 AM 1/7/2008, Don&Cathy Hoffard wrote: >Abd ul-Rahman Wrote: > >The Range vote is a red herring, the same > objection would be made if this were an > Approval election with votes of 1/1/0 for ABC > from Clay and 1/0/0 for >Don. Don would then > complain that he did not get to cast a vote for > C. But he did have the opportunity to cast that vote: > >initially, and he chose not to cast it. > >You just took away my right to vote.
No. You still have one full vote. You don't have more. You may cast up to one vote in each pairwise election, but you cannot cast a sum of more than one vote across a series of pairwise elections. This is general Range theory, though it usually is not stated like this. It becomes obviously interesting if you look at utility analysis and at votes as bids. Every voter has a fixed amount to bid, for each candidate. Start out with plurality. You do not have the right you claimed. If the status quo were, say, IRV, which does allow such multiple votes (or any Condorcet method, better), you might well complain. However, there is some legal opinion precisely that those are violations of one-person one-vote. I'm not necessarily agreeing with that, but if we, again, look at an election as an auction, this is indeed what is happening. You have the sum of $1.00 to spend in an election. You are bidding on the election of candidates. If A is elected, you will consider your $1 well spent. If C is elected, it's worth nothing to you. How much is B worth? The election method is going to measure the total "worth" of the election, as determined by the voters in their sovereign discretion, and award the victory to the candidate who maximizes it. You can bid any amount you like (let's say, though, in increments of one penny) for each candidate. If you make no bid, it will be assumed that you have bid $0.00. (This is sum-of-votes, not average range, some Range advocates think Average Range is better, I think it is actually an error.) Except, of course, it is not your money you are bidding. It is the tax money, and it has been decided to give every voter 1.00 vote (call this 1 equal share of the total voting electorate) to "spend." If A>B is worth $1 to you and B>C is, you claim, worth $1 to you, then you are trying to spend $2. That is, you will bid $1 higher for B than A and $1 higher for B than C, so you should want to bid $2 for A over C. But you have only $1. So, if those relative utilities to you are accurate, you would bid 1, 0.5, 0. This means that you have a strong preference for A over C, compared to the preference for A over B and B over C. >You say I could have voted for C by voting for >(A>C>B) 1/1/0 (But if I did that I cant vote for A over B). That's right. Try that trick with Plurality. Approval gives you an additional choice, it does not take one away from you. Simply Count All the Votes, and you get a relatively advanced election system that solves the serious first-order spoiler effect, at no cost. Want something fancier? Sure. But whose money are you going to spend for it. Under current conditions in the U.S., the likelihood of a third party candidate winning a major election is close to zero (unless by serious vote-splitting, which is another problem, one where IRV can fall on its face. Approval would normally handle it -- but that's not the point here). (In nonpartisan local elections, it's another story, that too is a separate topic). In nearly all elections -- even local nonpartisan ones, there are usually two frontrunners, rarely more. Now, suppose your two favorites are the two frontrunners. How you vote under Approval depends on the preference strength. If they are really the same to you, vote for both. Why not? But if there is a significant difference, vote for one. That's extraordinarily easy, I'd suggest. What about the third? *It doesn't matter*. If you like the third as well, what a lucky voter you are! I've never been so lucky. (Except maybe in an upcoming primary....) But what if you favor the third party candidate? Again, it's easy. You vote for the third party candidate, and whether or not you vote for one of the frontrunners depends on whether or not you mind being irrelevant. As far as what *I* would do, you could indeed have your cake and eat it too. That is, I would not hold a simple approval election. I'd have an extra position for each candidate called "Favorite." If there is a candidate with a "Favorite" vote that beats the Approval winner (favorite is for this purpose the same as "approved"), there would be a runoff. I'd also hold a runoff whenever there was majority failure. A real runoff. Why? Well, there are easily shown situations where the first preference of a majority will be *rejected* by the majority if they know how the other voters feel. Further, a runoff tests preference strength. It gets clearer with Range Voting. If the majority preference is strong, to sum it up, the majority will turn out to vote in the runoff. If it is weak, they really don't care, they will tend not to turn out. It's a *rough* Range test, and it satisfies, in fact, the majority criterion under all definitions I know of. >With my vote of (A>C>B) of 10/1/0 I am saying >that I do have preference for C over B. Yes, you do have a preference. Confusing way to state it, by the way, changing the sequence of the votes. I did not state that you couldn't state that preference, I said that I think most people won't bother, and I wouldn't. How would I feel if that one tenth of a vote for C put C over the top to beat A? Probably not good! But what I would actually do would depend on preference strength. >With Approval voting you are not allowing me to >vote for a candidates that I like better than another. Not in multiple pairwise elections. Approval gives and takes away. Compare it with Plurality, not with higher resolution Range! (higher resolution Range is better, but the remaining question is whether or not it is worth the extra ballot space and voter effort. Probably, but will the voters buy that? If so, great. But getting Approval is hard enough. Get approval, and higher resolution Range methods will become a very obvious next step. Approval with fractional votes allowed. >You also took away Clays right to vote. >Clay can vote (A>B>C) 1/1/0 for A over C and B >over C but you are saying (with approval) that he can not vote for A over B. >He also indicated a preference of A over B with (10/9/0). A slight preference, and it might make a difference if I have my druthers and there are runoffs whenever majority preference is not clear. I'd want to see an approval cutoff in Range elections, a vote above a certain level is an explicit approval. It is the voter saying that the voter would vote Yes on the question "Shall this candidate be elected," preferring that election to further delay. Just as an Approval vote is such a Yes. > >(assuming 4 candidates(A/B/C/D)) >Now Plurality voting is limited to the following: >(1/0/0/0) or (0/1/0/0) or --- to (0/0/0/1) > >Approval voting is limited to the following: >(0/0/0/0) or (1/0/0/0) or (1/1/0/0) or --- (1/1/1/1) >This is clearly better than Plurality >voting. You have a lot more chances to express you opinions Yes. You lose the right to participate in one pairwise election, with one vote, but gain the right to participate in all the other pairwise elections. With three candidates, it's a gain. With two it's moot. With more candidates, it is more of a gain. >Preference voting is limited to the following: >Voting for A>B (1/0) or (0/1), and for A>C (1/0) or (0/1) and ---- etc. >In Pure Preference voting you have a ranking of >(A/B/C/D) states only that you prefer A>B and >A>D and they are treated the same. >This method clearly provides more options for the votes than Approval voting. >You may Approve of A and B but you still can have a preference of A over B >It also encompasses Approval voting if A=B (1/1) voting is allowed >A problem with Preference voting is that it does >not always come up with a clear winner. There are different kinds of preference voting. Some *allow* equal ranking. Such systems are actually Approval plus ranking options, similar to Bucklin voting, which was actually quite popular in the U.S. for a time, it appears. I mentioned before how it came to be outlawed in Minnesota. > Range voting is limited to the following: >(10/x/y/z) for A/B/C/D or any other combination (were x/y/z =< 10 and >= 0) >This method allows the voter to Quantify his >or her Preferences. A>B (10/9),--, or 10/0) >There are different forms of range voting, you >could used 10 but you could use 100 or 3 (3/2/1/0) >Range voting provides the maximum (or closes to >it) flexibility (options) for the voter. >Range voting however does add a lot more >complexities to the voting process, this makes >it more difficult to see the impact of ones vote. >And there may be the Problem of adding individual quantified preferences. Actually, Range voting is quite simple to count, and voters may, if they wish, vote it as Approval or Plurality. There is no need to add "individual quantified preferences" unless one wants to, it confers, under some conditions, a *small* strategic advantage to vote "sincerely," but more often, shifting the votes toward Approval style voting is individually optimal *if* one knows who is likely to win. It's obvious, really: put the voting power in the pairwise elections that count the most. If the method includes a pairwise test, as I've proposed, then one might vote 100 for a favorite and 99 for another, perhaps the preferred frontrunner. However, Range 100 is probably overkill. Do I really need to express votes in increments of 1/100 vote? I'd rather see lower resolution Range with a Favorite marker that is optional to use. The favorite is used to show just that, a favorite, but does not affect the Range vote, leaving one free to cast those votes without restriction. As I've mentioned, it could affect the outcome: if Favorite votes and equal approval votes at the top rank show that a particular candidate would beat the Range winner, there is then a runoff between such a winner (likely a Condorcet winner) and the Range winner. This kind of procedure is quite analogous to current practice in many jurisdictions of requiring a runoff when a majority has not expressed its preference. >A question voters need to ask is how much added complexities do they want. >Plurality has been with us for a couple of hundred years. Approval has been with us for a long, long time. It was used as part of the election of the Doge in Venice for *five hundred years*. It was used for hundreds of years, with a supermajority requirement, to elect Popes. It really is an obvious variation on Plurality (and may be used to elect by a plurality, which I dislike ... but still better than single-vote Plurality), one that simply counts all the votes. And I have *never* seen a good argument for not doing that, it's just been assumed, for a long, long time, that this is the way to do it. Robert's Rules instructs the clerk not to count overvoted ballots because they are "errors" and the "intended" vote can't be determined. In other words, the reason we don't count them is that they are errors and they are errors because the rules say not to count them. Plurality will *usually* choose the right winner, if there has been enough deliberation. What I've seen is that Approval can get there faster. A really good method is an Approval poll followed by an election by ordinary motion. I.e., there is a poll, and then someone moves "I move that we elect Mr. Approval Winner." That's open to amendment, like any ordinary motion; all votes are Yes/No until a majority is obtained. This method is Condorcet compliant, the only problem is that it can require a series of votes on various amendments and on the question of whether or not to proceed to a vote (typically a 2/3 majority required for that). But deliberative methods also incorporate, in actual practice, preference strength. Note that a minority can block the election, so there is a way that a strongly motivated minority can prevent the election of a disliked officer, thus compromise is encouraged so that officers enjoy broad support. Obviously, this works, it's been used for a *long* time. But a truly advanced method is also one of the simplest: Asset Voting. We'd thought until recently that it was invented by Warren Smith a few years ago, but, in fact, Lewis Carroll proposed it in the mid-19th century. Ideal for proportional representation; it's a trick. It's not actually an election in the ordinary sense, there need be no losers, though there are those who must compromise in order to be represented. There are ways to use Asset to implement a hybrid direct/representative democracy that avoids the hazards of each and probably brings the benefits of both. The basic idea of Asset is that you vote for anyone you choose. You can, in my interpretation, vote for yourself (you might be required to register as available). No votes are wasted because the candidate(s) who receive your vote may reassign it at will, the votes are "assets." In my simple version of asset, the ballot is an Approval ballot. If you cast more than one vote, your vote is divided up among those you vote for. Most people, looking at this for the first time, don't get it, as far as I've seen. They apply the assumptions of plurality-driven politics to Asset. There aren't any losers in Asset, the only people who don't find *chosen* representation are those who, if holding votes, are not willing to make the necessary compromises, plus those who voted for them. Note, also, that if someone gets more votes than the quota necessary to be elected (which I would make an *exact* quota, not the Droop quota), the excess votes are redistributable assets. As well, distributors of assets may assign votes in precinct blocks, *thus creating virtual districts*. If you voted in such a precinct, then, you would know exactly who your personal vote elected. (to high accuracy; because of the necessity of some slop in block assignment, it might be 99% of your vote that went to a winner. But, frankly, it all starts with Approval. Very, very simple method, very easy to implement (just strike a few sentences out of the election code), considered a quite good method by experts (*not* perfect except according to a few), ancient and honorable history, easy to vote (if you are a major party supporter, you can quite cheerfully continue to vote as you did before, it's probably your best vote anyway). Let's see, what's wrong with it? Well, it isn't perfect. If you are one of the few percent of voters who support a third party, it still leaves you with a choice: do you vote only for your favorite, or for your favorite *and* a preferred frontrunner? But that's a vast improvement over the current situation, and for everyone else, pretty much, it's no big change. Major party supporters may also decide to cast votes for third party candidates, to encourage their party to move in that direction. However, they would need to be aware that if enough voters think like them, the third party candidate could win. If they wouldn't like that, I wouldn't suggest doing that.... The compromises that Approval "asks" the voters to make are essentially the compromises that *society* must make in order to have elected officials with broad support. Approval certainly does not guarantee majority support (unless that is required by the rules), but it makes it easier to get there, quite possibly more efficiently than the commonly-proposed and much more complex and expensive Instant Runoff Voting. Bucklin is also pretty simple, easy to count and understand, and allows enough ranking to probably satisfy nearly everyone. In the classic Bucklin implementation, the third rank was a full approval rank with no overvoting restrictions. There were two single-vote ranks above that. I would allow all ranks to have multiple votes, I see no reason to toss the vote of someone who thinks that A and B are equally good. >If you ask voters to change to any of the other >methods above most would say No way all I want to do is Vote I'd say, "Let them, and count all their votes." What ever made us think that we needed to do anything else? (Approval is sometimes thought to violate one-person, one-vote, but, in fact, only one vote, at most, cast by an Approval voter ends up being effective -- or none are effective. The ineffective votes are all moot, they could be struck from the ballots and the outcome would not change. Only a vote cast for a winner is effective, in the end, and only one of those is allowed. The restriction becomes, "A voter may cast as much as one vote, and no more than one vote, toward the election of any candidate.") ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
