hi,
this is my first post to this list. i subscribed to it a while ago
after some internet searching on issues regarding multi-candidate
elections which i did after our recent mayoral race in Burlington
Vermont (dunno if you heard about it or not).
On Oct 12, 2009, at 2:22 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote:
To look for a better sway to resolve cycles is worthy. However, I
still do not see the gain in what you offer, considering the expense.
Each of the members of a cycle would be winner if only one of them
ran.
When they are close to a tie it matters little which wins.
it's true that the metric of disappointment or even a measure of
sense of unfairness in the election result would not be *much* affected,
When far away the deciding is easy.
sure. but that only means that it's a good thing to focus on what
isn't easy. unless one thinks that there is virtually no
*likelihood* of the close election.
We have many competing methods already - choosing among them
needs more effort than has happened,
a simple rule that is meaningful to principles of democracy is the
most salient. negative reasoning is perfectly valid in considering
different methods (it is perfectly valid to choose the lesser of
evils). at the most superficial level, i am convinced that a simple
Condorcet rule works and is solid. if a Condorcet winner exists,
what principle of democracy is fulfilled in giving the election to a
different candidate when a majority of voters have expressed on their
ballots that the prefer some other specific candidate (the Condorcet
winner)?
in considering different methods of resolving a Condorcet cycle
(which, frankly, i doubt has any likelihood in an electorate mostly
distributed along a single political spectrum (Nader voters in 2000
would not likely choose Bush as their 2nd choice over Gore), i think
that choosing between different Condorcet methods has less salience
or urgency than getting *some* Condorcet method. but some method
needs to be enacted along with adopting Condorcet.
supposedly the Schulze beatpath method is supposed to be the most
optimal for theoretical reasons (i understand what the goal of the
Schulze method is, but not all of the mathematical steps), but it is
also important to have a deterministic and monotonic measure of voter
support that is understandable to the less scholarly. some advocate
the Tideman ranked pair method as such. perhaps a simple elimination
scheme similar to IRV (but, after elimination, the following round is
decided by Condorcet rules). it wouldn't break my heart if the
candidate (in the Smith set) that is eliminated is the lowest ranking
among 1st-choice votes or even transferred votes not originally a 1st
choice for the Smith candidate . and some even advocate deciding an
election by the common IRV rules (single transferable vote) if it's a
Condorcet paradox. i care less about which of these are used than i
care about getting Condorcet. being a resident and voter in
Burlington VT might hint to y'all for why.
Step 1: For each ranked ballot, create a matrix for each
pairwise vote,
based on the distance and direction between each candidate.
For example,
on the ballot A>B>C, you would get:
-2 -1 0 1 2
AB 0 0 0 1 0
BA 0 1 0 0 0
AC 0 0 0 0 1
CA 1 0 0 0 0
BC 0 0 0 1 0
CB 0 1 0 0 0
like Borda, i wonder what eternal principle determines the weightings
you've assigned. all we know is this voter likes A better than C and
B better than C. but we do not know how much more this voter prefers
B over C. maybe this voter thinks that both B and C are two pieces
of crap, but flipped a coin as to which was worse (which is the main
reason i see no reason, whether it's Condorcet or IRV, that ties
shouldn't be allowed, even ties for 1st choice). or maybe the voter
only thinks that C is a piece of crap and flipped a coin between A
and B. there is no way to know (without range voting which i also
don't like).
that is the reason i am not excited about this method, nor Borda. no
arbitrary thresholds or quantitative weightings (unless they are
unavoidable) should be required in the method. if such are used in
resolving a Condorcet paradox, i'm much less bothered (since i think
such is so unlikely, far less likely than IRV rejecting the Condorcet
winner), but i do not see why a simpler method (like either
elimination or ranked-pairs) would do less well. Tideman ranked-
pairs or some simple elimination would have more transparency and
confidence of the electorate than any complicated scheme, including
this one or Schulze which might be better from the artificial
threshold and weighting POV.
also, politically, i think it is unwise to attach to legislation
adopting Condorcet any ancillary method (for resolving cycles and
ties) that is complicated and looks funky. that, to me, includes
chance methods (drawing lots among the Smith set in case of a cycle
to select a winner) which qualify as "funky". if there is absolute
symmetry in the breakdown of ballots among Smith set candidates
(after all the recounts and nasty litigation), that is the only time
that lots should be drawn.
BTW, if anyone is interested, they can go to fairvote blog at http://
www.fairvote.org/blog/ and read some back-and-forth between myself
and some IRV proponents, mostly Rob Ritchie. i also have an analysis/
polemic about what happened in the Burlington mayoral election last
March on Town Meeting day. i'll send it to whoever asks. i think
the 2009 Burlington election is the perfect case study for what can
screw up with IRV (as well as what it can be expected to accomplish)
in terms of the *very* goals that motivated the use of IRV in the
first place. please lemme know if you want a pdf of this (it's about
6 quick pages).
regards to all,
--
r b-j [email protected]
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
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