On Jan 26, 2010, at 1:12 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
At 04:05 PM 1/25/2010, Juho wrote:
I reply to myself since I want to present one possible simple method
that combines Condorcet and added weight to first preferences
(something that IRV offers in its own peculiar way).
Let's add an approval cutoff in the Condorcet ballots.
Highly recommended. I also highly recommend explicit approval cutoff
on Range ballots, it then becomes possible to sense majority
approval, which is, in practice, quite important in the general
election case, allowing any method to be used with a standard
majority-of-the-votes approval requirement for any democratic
decision.
There are many (working) uses for an approval cutoff in ranked
ballots. But on the other hand they may add complexity and confusion
and not add anything essential. => Careful consideration needed.
The first
approach could be to accept only winners that have some agreed amount
of approvals. But I'll skip that approach and propose something
softer.
I.e., normally, a majority. Or sometimes lower than that, or some
margin of victory requirement that, ideally, is successful in
predicting majority approval in a runoff election.
A clear approval cutoff sounds too black and white to me
(unless there is already some agreed level of approval that must be
met).
I've proposed a midrange approval cutoff as standard in range
ballots because of the simplicity, and it dovetails with the concept
of equality of expression as to positive and negative opinion, and
allow discrimination of a "lesser-of-two-evils" vote from a "both
acceptable" vote. If our goal is broad public satisfaction as to
results, making decisions based on the lesser of two evils isn't a
good idea, unless, of course, it is the lesser of two evils itself,
with no better choice being possible!
The proposal is simply to add some more strength to opinions that
cross the approval cutoff.
Bucklin does that, basically, by only considering approval votes,
but it sets up a declining approval cutoff, typically in three
batches, loosely named as Favorite, Preferred, and Approved. I've
suggested that in a runoff voting situation, majority required,
"Approved" has a very specific meaning: it means "I would prefer to
see this candidate elected over holding a runoff election." Voters,
then, by what candidates they choose to approve given their overall
understanding of election possibilities, will sincerely vote this.
It makes no sense not to.
Bucklin is a bit simpler.
Ballot A>B>>C>D would be counted as 1 point
to pairwise comparisons A>B and C>D but some higher number of points
(e.g. 1.5) to comparisons A>C, A>D, B>C and B>D. This would introduce
some approval style strategic opportunities in the method but basic
ranking would stay as sincere as it was. I don't believe the approval
related strategic problems would be as bad in this method as in
Approval itself.
I suggest looking at Bucklin. In Oklahoma Bucklin, which was
declared unconstitutional before ever being used, fractional votes
were assigned to lower preferences, making this the first attempted
Range method in the U.S. It is a shame that the framers of the law
place mandatory ranking in it, in a misguided attempt to push for
majorities, for that was the basis for rejection, not the multiple-
vote aspect of Bucklin or the fractional votes.
Counting only first preferences would not be a good approach since it
should be possible to vote e.g. X>Y>>.... when X is my favourite
candidate of my favourite party and Y is the strongest candidate of
my
favourite party.
Bucklin allows this vote, easily. But parties would generally be
advised to avoid multiple candidates running in the same election.
It is a bad idea for many reasons, if they already know -- and they
should know -- which candidate is the strongest. It isn't just vote
splitting, it is splitting up campaign funding, much of which is
devoted to generating name and affinity to name.
It depends on the election if multiple candidates per party is
practical. Also scenarios with e.g. two left wing parties (minor and
major) should work.
Bucklin is ranked approval voting. Not for public elections yet, but
for theoretical consideration, I've proposed Range/Bucklin, where
the method simulates a series of repeated elections (not "runoff
elections" with reduced candidate sets, a basically bad idea, unless
very good selection of the candidate set is used that would include
any condorcet winner and any range winner, for starters) with
declining approval cutoff. The voter controls the level at which the
approval votes are cast.
This method then seeks to find majority approval, one step at a
time. It thus provides limited later-no-harm protection for the
voter, it only brings in lower preference votes at a point where
it's clear that a majority can't be found without them. And the
method might terminate at midrange, or perhaps a bit below midrange,
and this would, of course, affect voter strategy.
But something else becomes possible. The method sets up an incentive
for the voter to vote preferences accurately, I believe. If it does,
the method will vote intelligently in the voter's interest. Given
that, the range votes themselves, in toto, should be quite useful.
I'd suggest that whenever the range winner is different from the
Bucklin winner, as defined, and if the difference is significant
(which should be precisely defined, of course), the range winner
would be included in any runoff election.
Analysing methods like this could be quite complex, but the first
part (the Bucklin election) simulates what would happen in a real
series of repeated elections, missing only the additional advantages
of closer examination by the electorate, it is still based on a
snapshot on election day. The range analysis predicts two things:
overall real satisfaction including all ratings, and election
turnout in a runoff. Weak preferences don't encourage voters to turn
out and vote, so real preference strength is tested.
This latter phenomenon has generally been overlooked in considering
the effects and implications of runoff voting, and it probably
improves the quality of results according to absolute differential
utility summation.
This is just a simple method to demonstrate that if one wants to put
some extra weight on first preferences also Condorcet methods could
be
modified to cover such needs. There may be different requirements on
what kind of first preferences or "core support" should be given
additional weight. Depending on that definition also other kind of
Condorcet variants could be developed.
By definition, range methods put extra weight on first preferences,
if the voter chooses to express the first preference exclusively, as
does Bucklin, at least in the first round.
Range is also designed to elect candidates with no core support, e.g.
one that gets 60% of the points from all voters while all others have
only limited amount of strong support and no support from the rest.
IRV puts always main weight on first preferences (among the remaining
candidates).
This method could be used to reduce the chances of candidates from
minor parties (with no strong "core support") to win. I'm not saying
that that is a general target, but if someone wants to set that
target
then this type of approach could be used. The point is that Condorcet
could also emulate, approximate or even improve some of the
properties
of IRV if needed.
Sure. And allowing equal ranking would improve IRV, and keeping the
majority requirement for election, under some conditions, will also
improve IRV, probably greatly. (In real runoff elections with top
two runoff, which will almost always imitate IRV if a majority of
votes cast are required, and looking only at nonpartisan elections,
the runner-up goes on to win the runoff, whereas with IRV, it almost
never happens. Real runoff elections test voter preferences, and
weak preferences don't result in votes, as a general principle.
Thus, I expect, if voter turnout is considered, we can expect real
runoffs to pick the social utility maximizer of the candidates
eligible to receive votes in the runoff.)
Note that the form of IRV that Robert's Rules *actually* describes
(contrary to FairVote propaganda repeated all over the place)
requires a majority of votes or the election is repeated, without
eliminations. I believe new nominations are even required, but they
should certainly be allowed even if existing candidates were
automatically nominated, or some were automatically eliminated but
could be restored by some process.
Hey, what if any candidate could get on the runoff ballot if the
collection of such candidates guaranteed, by deposit, the payment of
the runoff election costs.... Or signatures of registered voters in
lieu of the payment or as part of it?
The idea would be to guarantee that a truly supported candidate
could keep in the race. If the candidate wins .... the public
treasury covers the payment. Not an idea thoroughly worked out, to
be sure.....
I guess many countries must have some rules like this (= allow all
candidates with sufficient support to run).
Juho
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