At 01:11 PM 12/2/2008, Terry Bouricius wrote:
Jonathan Lundell wrote regarding Approval voting strategy:
"It's also obvious that if, for whatever reason, I vote for candidate X, I
should vote for all the candidates that I prefer to X."
I note that Jonathan said the voter "should," rather than "would," which
is an important distinction...
That is not the only strategy, nor in some elections the most likely
strategy for many voters. If I prefer Y to X but love Z, yet also see Y as
the most likely challenger to my favored Z, I might well vote for X (since
I prefer X to W, whom I hate, and want W to come in dead last) assuming X
has little chance of winning or hurting Z any way, but skip Y, even though
I actually prefer Y to X, so as to not risk hurting Z, and also vote for
Z. You might say this is poor strategy, or illogical, but I am reasonably
certain it is the kind of strategy that would occur all the time.
This is Z>Y>X>W.
Terry is saying that he'd vote Z=X>Y=Z. Because he doesn't want to "hurt" Z.
Terry, it should be remembered, is a co-author with Richie of a paper
on IRV, introduced IRV legislation as a member of the Vermonth
legislature, and has remained a prominent advocate of IRV.
IRV advocates are a bit obsessed with Later No Harm. I think the
average voter doesn't think about it at all. When it is presented to
them as a really good reason to oppose Approval or Bucklin, they may
think, "That sounds good!" But they haven't considered the
implications. The implications of LNH are that the voter will not
reveal the information necessary to find a good overall compromise
until the voter's favorite has been executed, er, eliminated. Only
then, okay, now that this is simply impossible, may Z rest in peace,
I supported him until the bitter end, I'll tell you that I prefer Y
over all others. Of course, by this time Y might also have been
eliminated, whereas if I'd been a little more forthcoming, I might
have elected Y.
Instead, I get X or maybe even Z.
We see here that Terry has a strong preference against W. Is W a
possible winner? The vote for X makes no sense unless W could win. Y
is the "most likely challenger" to Z. How likely? Is this a three-way
election? Looks like it. Those elections are very unusual.
Let's give these some names. Z is Nader. Y is Gore. X is, say, a
libertarian, say Badnarik, and W is, well, W.
Terry gave the example generically, but I know he was active in the
Green Party, and I hope he'll forgive me if I make some assumptions,
just to discuss this.
Real election? Historically, Gore v. Bush. Nader is greatly preferred
by Terrill. The vote that doesn't seem to make sense here is the vote
for X. And since that is moot, this is, for all practical purposes, a
bullet vote for Nader, with a token of support tossed to Badnarik,
which must be seen as an extra-electoral statement. Its purpose is
not election. If X were a real possibility (a possible "challenger to
Z"), Terrill would not vote for X. (Gore was not "a possible
challenger to Nader." Nader simply wasn't on the map as a winner.
Take Gore off the ballot, does Nader win? No, Bush wins.)
Yes. A reasonably common voting pattern, very much equivalent to
voting for Nader alone in Florida. The only difference is the token,
harmless -- and cast only because harmless and moot for election
purposes -- vote for Badnarik. Perhaps Terry wants to signal the
major parties that they should pay more attention to libertarian
principles, which I'd consider commendable. (I'm a "progressive
libertarian" or "libertarian progressive." Between Obama and Ron
Paul, I'd hesitate a moment, then vote for Obama. Boy would I wish it
were Range so I could toss Ron Paul some points. Between Clinton and
Ron Paul, it would get tougher. Probably Clinton, dammit. I.e., I'd
really like an election system that allowed more expression. I am
*not* worried about "getting my favorite." I'm much more worried
about the overall process, and social unity, finding consensus on a
large scale. If we can do that, we can do better than we can do by
simply electing the best candidate in one election.)
However, if Terry would seriously regret the vote for Badnarik,
waking up Wednesday morning to find out that he wasn't as unique as
he thought and so many other voters voted that way that Badnarick
beat all the rest, I'd suggest, he shouldn't cast that vote. As it
was, though, and in similar situations, the contrary of what he said,
it is quite logical. And harmless. It was an "insincere" vote cast
for reasons other than determining the winner.
Normally, if there are no outside considerations like this, a voter
"should not" have voted for X but not for Y.
Approval does not require voters to vote a non-moot vote. IRV in some
places does. Mandatory full ranking, in Australia. You *will* vote
for all candidates but one, so we can put together our absolute
majority and pretend that we have a really fine democracy. Coercion
as a basis for democracy isn't brilliant.
It is not at all automatic that voters will cast a "sensible" vote.
It's their prerogative to vote how they choose. They are responsible
for the results, morally.
Now, Terry, there is available quite a good compromise, that allows
you to make your stand for Nader and participate in the real
election. *Technically,* it doesn't satisfy Later-No-Harm, but close.
It's Bucklin. It worked. Contrary to FairVote propaganda, Brown v.
Smallwood did not outlaw Duluth Bucklin because of Later-no-Harm
violation, that was a single sentence, dicta. There are numerous
statements in the decision, and the reaffirmation of it, showing that
the problem was a single voter, with a single vote, facing a
multiplicity of votes from other voters. The decision was against the
entire concept of casting alternative votes. Every
non-FairVote-affiliated lawyer asked for an opinion agreed that IRV
violated the Minnesota Constitution if Brown v. Smallwood stands.
Bucklin not only satisfies the stated purposes of IRV -- all except
for the highly questionable LNH criterion -- but is cheaper, saw
substantial use in the U.S. before, was very popular (read Brown v.
Smallwood! the Court noted that it was deciding against popular
opinion and, as well, broad legal opinion as well). Bucklin addresses
the common objection of people to IRV, the inability to indicate the
favorite. Bucklin says, okay, vote for your favorite, fine. If the
favorite wins by a majority, great. We are done.
But if there is majority failure, we take the lowest vote-getter in
terms of favorites (first preference) out back and shoot him. No,
that's IRV. Or might as well be. Getting the lowest first preference
vote is an unremediable sin, even if this candidate is everyone's
second choice and the result would be unanimity. Instead, we will
accept a plurality for the winner, who is usually the plurality winner, period.
With Bucklin, nobody is eliminated. The second preference votes are
added in, and if a candidate has a majority (determined on the
original basis, i.e, a majority of ballots contain a vote for this
candidate), done. Likewise to the third preference and, as you know,
the voter could add any number of candidates to the third rank.
Like, "anybody but Bush," i.e., every candidate on the ballot.
Bucklin allows anti-Plurality, in effect, should someone feel this appropriate.
Thanks for the example, I'd been thinking about such votes with
Approval and hadn't taken the time to explore it in writing. The
example shows Approval working as designed; Terry, what you seem to
have overlooked is that the "illogical" vote was simply dicta, with
no real effect.
One more possibility, though, should be explored. The election is
different, i.e., it is three-way. The Green Party, against all odds,
has clawed its way up and might actually win this election.
How do you vote? The same way, probably. It's up to you. Which is
more important to you, that Nader beat Gore or that Bush be defeated
by one of them? Your choice. That's the choice we want you to make.
You could express your sentiments and take actions more in accord
with them, probably, with Range. Approval is very simple, it's not a
highly sophisticated method, though the improvement over Plurality is
enormous, probably more than we get with IRV. At far lower cost.
Bucklin, though, does the good that IRV could do, without the bad.
We'd be more likely to extract that Gore > Bush vote out of you with
Bucklin than with pure Approval. Approval should only be compared
with Plurality, to start. IRV might perform better than Approval in
some elections, because of the Later No Harm issue that you raise. I
think that most voters don't vote that way, in fact. A Nader
supporter, seeing the move from Plurality to what I'm now calling
Open Voting -- Approval -- would probably be grateful for the
opportunity to add a vote that will count, and won't see a vote for
Gore as "harming Nader." At least not much. Certainly not in terms of
election outcome. Nor in vote count, if it's Open Voting.
IRV has this one good thing: it is *usually* true that adding a
second rank vote does not reduce the chances of the favorite. But
that's only because the method has artificially made it impossible
for that favorite to be elected. You not revealing your second
preference vote means that your vote can't help someone else until
your candidate is eliminated. But the same is true for other voters:
their second preferences won't be revealed until their candidate is
eliminated. It is *quite* possible that in a close election like you
posited, Nader would fail to be elected because of those other first
preference votes. So, sure, you won't be responsible for your
candidate's loss. Unless, of course, you are the one who chose that method!
Imagine if voters could pick the election method. Ballot is a
preferential ballot, say three-rank. Voters can vote on a question:
shall this election be canvassed using Bucklin or IRV? Wouldn't that
be interesting? Or, even better. The voter decides how their vote
will be counted. Let me describe that:
You have a check box: do not reveal my lower preference votes until
my higher preference votes are only for candidates not eliminated.
The counting method starts out as Bucklin. Except ballots with the
check mark are not considered as having any lower preference votes.
When Bucklin counting is done, and no majority has been found, then
IRV counting begins. Later-no-Harm compliant, fully, for the voters
who choose it.
Actually, it's interesting. There is a related possibility: IRV, but
with equal ranking allowed. IRV-Open Voting. Fewer spoiled ballots,
for starters. May be voted as Approval or IRV. May be voted as
Bucklin! (Don't want to harm your favorite, only rank one in first preference!
But three ranks could be adequate even for large elections. More
likely to find a true majority than IRV.
Down side: counting costs (quite like IRV, though perhaps a few more
second rounds avoided). Bucklin, just add up the votes, in three
stages, all of them precinct summable. The first hybrid I mentioned
would avoid IRV counting in up to half of the IRV elections that now
need sequential elimination.
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