At 03:36 AM 12/25/2008, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
Do you think my runoff idea could work, or is it too complex?
For years, attempts were made to find a majority using advanced voting methods: in the U.S., Bucklin was claimed to do that, as it is currently being claimed for IRV. (Bucklin, in fact, may do it a little better than IRV, if voters vote similarly; my sense is that, in the U.S. at least, voters will respond to a three-rank Bucklin ballot much the same as an IRV one, so I consider it reasonable to look at analyzing IRV results by using the Bucklin method to count the ballots. If the assumption holds -- and prior experience with Bucklin seems to confirm it, Bucklin detects the majority support that is hidden under votes for the last-round candidates.
The methods generally failed; holding an actual runoff came to be seen as a more advanced reform, worth the cost. All this seems to have been forgotten in the current debate. Bucklin, IRV, at least one Condorcet method (Nansen's, apparently) have been used.
The error was in imagining that a single ballot could accomplish what takes two or more ballots. Even two ballots is a compromise, though, under the right conditions -- better primary methods -- not much of one.
When considering replacing Bucklin or IRV with top two runoff, what should have been done would have been keeping the majority requirement. This is actually what voters in San Jose (1998) and San Francisco (2002) were promised, but, in fact, the San Francisco proposition actually struck the majority requirement from the code. Promise them majority but given them a plurality.
If the methods hadn't been sold in the first place as being runoff replacements, we might have them still! The big argument against Bucklin, we've been told by FairVote (I don't necessarily trust it) was that it did not usually find a majority. There is little data for comparison, but I do know that quite a few Bucklin elections that didn't find a first preference majority *did* find a second or third round one, but in the long Alabama party primary series, apparently there was eventually little usage of the additional ranks. But even the 11% usage that existed could have been enough to allow the primary to find a compromise winner. What they should have done, in fact, was to require a runoff, just like they actually did, but continue to use a Bucklin ballot to try to find a majority. This would avoid, in my estimation, up to half of the runoffs. Since Bucklin is cheap to count and quite easy to vote, this would have been better than tossing preferential voting entirely.
Sure. Setting conditions for runoffs with a Condorcet method seems like a good idea to me. One basic possibility would be simple: A majority of voters should *approve* the winner. This is done by any of various devices; there could be a dummy candidate who is called "Approved." To indicate approval, this candidate would be ranked appropriately, all higher ranked candidates would be consider to get a vote for the purposes of determining a majority.
In Range, it could be pretty simple and could create a bit more accuracy in voting: consider a rating of midrange or higher to be approval. This doesn't directly affect the winner, except that it can trigger a runoff. Not ranking or rating sufficient candidates as approved can cause a need for a runoff. If voters prefer than to taking steps to find a decent compromise in the first ballot, *this should be their sovereign right.*
A Range ballot can be used for Condorcet analysis. Given the Range ballot, though, and that Range would tie very rarely, it seems reasonable to use highest Range rating in the Smith set, if there is a cycle, to resolve the cycle. Thus we'd have these conditions for a runoff:
(1) Majority failure, the Range winner is a Condorcet winner. (probably the most common). Top two runoff, the top two range sums.
(2) Majority failure, the Range winner is not a Condorcet winner. TTR, Range and Condorcet winner (cycles resolved using range sum).
(3) Majority, both Condorcet and Range, but Range winner differs from Condorcet winner. same result as (2).
(4) Majority for Range winner, not for Condorcet. or the reverse. I'm not sure what to do about this, it might be the same, or the majority winner might be chosen. A little study would, I think, come up with the best solution.
Range is theoretically optimal, as optimal as is possible given an assumption that most voters will vote a full strength vote in some pair. However, normalization or poor strategy can result in distortion of the Range votes compared to actual voter utilities. One of the symptoms of this might be Condorcet failure for the Range winner. If it is true that the Range winner truly is best, then we have a situation where the first preference of a majority might not be the Range winner, or, supposedly, the Range winner vs the Condorcet winner might award the election to the Condorcet winner. But, in fact, it is normal for small electorates to set aside the first preference of a majority in favor of some greater good. I see no reason not to extend that as a possibility to large electorates. My own opinion is that, *if the Range votes are accurate*, the Range winner will normally beat the Condorcet winner, because of differential turnout and weak preferences that reverse during the runoff campaign. On the other hand, having this runoff possibility answers the common objection to Range: majority criterion failure.
With a runoff system like this, MC failure doesn't occur, because the majority in the final and effective election has voted for the winner.
(That's not 100% absolute, if write-in votes are allowed in the runoff, as I believe they should. But if the runoff is, say, Bucklin, maybe two-rank, I think that spoiled majorities will be relatively rare, and that the elections that end up with a plurality would almost always be resolved the same way if an additional runoff were held. Thus, short of Asset Voting, this could be almost perfect.
Want perfect? Asset Voting, which bypasses the whole election method mess! Single-vote ballot works fine! And that's what many or even most voters know how to do best.
I originally proposed that the first reform in the U.S. to focus on was Open Voting, Count All the Votes, i.e., Approval, because of its terminal simplicity and the probability that no harm would be done, the scenarios of multiple majorities with a mediocre candidate elected are highly improbable. We might go many, many years before we see a multiple majority, and then it would be because two quite good candidates were running. We should be so lucky!
However, Bucklin, when a majority hasn't been found in a round, gradually becomes full Approval. The claim that Approval hasn't been used in the U.S. was just plain false, it's part of the Bucklin method. The use of the ranks, seeking a majority, makes Bucklin more likely to add additional approval, which is what ranking candidates in Bucklin must be considered. If they are used, that's what they are. My sense is that this is sufficiently adequate for voters as protection of their favorite; the only difference between this and IRV is that with IRV, your candidate has to be taken out and shot, er, eliminated, before your additional preference can be revealed, whereas with Bucklin, there are no eliminations, so, yes, your vote for another has effectively, and only if there is majority failure, just in that specific pairwise election, abstained, it has *not* actually "hurt" the candidate. And, in return, your candidate might actually win instead of being eliminated. Which one is help and which one is hurt?
In any case, it seems that Bucklin voters did add substantial numbers of additional preference votes, at least in the municipal elections.
So I've shifted to proposing Bucklin, though Approval remains a simple, do-no-harm, cost-free reform. Introduce it to a TTR system, some runoffs may be avoided. Introduce Bucklin, more.
There is a variant of Bucklin that was a Range method: Oklahoma. That alone should have received some attention! Unfortunately, I think no election was ever held, because the reformers overreached, and example of how a bright idea might not be. *Require all voters to use all three ranks!* I.e., don't count their vote if they don't. The very system used in Australia to guarantee a "majority." And, of course, under that situation, with full ranking, it is an absolute majority, if we disregard the spoiled ballots.
In any case, the Oklahoma court tossed it out because of that disregard of perfectly plain votes for a favorite. Rightly so, in that respect. What wasn't so right was that they did not merely declare that particular provision void, as the minority opinion claimed should have been done. They just voided the whole thing.
But Range Voting, a ranked form, was written into law in the U.S., I think it was about 1915. Dove v. Oglesby was the case, it's findable on the net. Lower ranked votes were assigned fractional values; I think it was 1/2 and 1/3. Relatively speaking, this would encourage additional ranking, I'd expect.
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