I have two basic assumptions:
States are willing to have a reasonable national count.
But some may not be willing to all go where I wish them to be -
letting their voters vote in Condorcet.
Still, some methods such as Range do not provide suitable information
for this purpose - my real goal for these is to have them use a
different, more compatible, method.
For example, a state could use Plurality for this race, whatever they
may choose to use in other races.
On Jul 2, 2009, at 7:51 PM, Raph Frank wrote:
On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 10:03 PM, Dave
Ketchum<[email protected]> wrote:
Each state controls how it interacts with its voters - so let them
choose
their own way, such that their voters' desires get properly added
into the
national X*X array.
This depends, there needs to be rules on what states can do.
For example, they could create the array so that it is
State winner>(others)
for all voters in the state.
I assume more cooperation than this.
In effect, this returns things to the current, pre-NPV, system.
Plurality:
A vote for candidate A is considered
A>(others)
This reads as giving the same power as if ranking ONE candidate in
Condorcet
- simple and declarably accurate.
It also means that only the expected national top-2 can get votes from
this state.
No, for EACH candidate gets treated as A in its turn.
Ofc, this isn't as extreme as currently, and if other states support
more open methods, at least candidates can gain publicity in one
election for a challenge on the next.
Condorcet:
Matrix is provided directly
IRV:
Here the voters could have ranked exactly as in Condorcet, but
standard IRV
counting does not extract all that the voters say. I would leave
it to the
state - perhaps they will do an X*X matrix. I do not like what I
read below
- better for such states to avoid such as IRV when they do not fit
with
what is reasonably the standard.
Right, if they collect ranked ballots, it would be best if they
publish the full results.
Since their voters are doing ranking, just as in Condorcet, they have
all the information to do an X*X array - but I avoid demanding that
they do such.
However you need to somehow handle the case where states use IRV.
For example, the State might have a rule that all EC votes for the
State are assigned to the IRV winner in the state, so they don't
publish ballot info.
The goal here is maximum practical cooperation - which includes their
EC votes getting based on the NPV winner - what I am trying for is
maximum validity for the NPV.
Approval/Range
For approval my first thought is that they are presumably doing
approval and
my first choice for them is whatever Condorcet states do when their
voters
vote with approval thinking.
Again, the States may not publish the date required.
I would agree that a voter who approved candidate A and B should
ideally be considered
A=B>(others).
However, you can't extract that info from the approval results.
For Range the thinking is much as I do above for IRV.
Again, if the full ballot info is released, it would be worth
converting the range votes into condorcet, but there is a need to
handle things if the State doesn't provide the info.
I think it best for the state to do the conversion, assuming they
insist on using a method for this race that requires painful
conversion - and, at that point, I prefer that that state have the
pain of converting.
It occurs to me that you could just include rules for comparisons
rather than trying to work out the votes for approval.
Approval
A: 800
B: 400
C: 300
Total 1500
Comparing A and B
800-400
This means that the votes are assumed to be
200: A=B
600: A>B
200: B
A>B: 600-200
Comparing B and C
400-300
B>C: 400-300
Comparing A and C
100: A=C
700: A
200: C
A>C: 700-200
Thus the rule when determining the pairwise comparisons is to assume
that the number of equality votes are minimum.
This may not even effect the result depending on completion method
used.
For example:
A: 800
C: 300
must be
A=C: X
A: 800-X
B: 300-X
Thus the win margin is (800-X) - (300-X) = 500. As long as the win
margin is all that matters we can determine the exact national result
without knowing exactly the number of ballots where there is a tie.
What follows puzzles. Thinking:
Approval can easily be restated in Condorcet.
Condorcet is my intended goal, so the state has info for an X*X
array.
Plurality I say to treat as if each of those votes was Condorcet
ranking a single candidate.
For IRV the ballots contained ranking but I leave open whether
the state chooses to see all that the ballots say.
Thus, approval, condorcet (if matrix is provided) and plurality
results can be converted to an exact matrix (or equivalent).
IRV cannot be fully supported, and ballot info is lost.
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