If you object to "plurality" as I used it below, then WHAT label would
you use for this major (often used) election method?
I did go to Robert's 10th which is not into our level of detail on
this topic (I see neither approval nor Condorcet mentioned).
I went to Wikipedia, which I see as agreeing with what I wrote as to
all three categories.
On Feb 13, 2010, at 4:33 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
At 11:55 PM 2/11/2010, Dave Ketchum wrote:
We all get careless and stumble, sooner or later!
But I choke on two details here:
You misuse the label "plurality" - having only the ability to vote
for
1 even though, for many races most intelligent voters will find there
is only one candidate deserving approval.
Even Approval has more power, letting voters vote for more than
one, though unable to differentiate.
Condorcet is another important step up, letting voters vote for
more than one while indicating which they like best.
Forcing voters to act as if they wanted to vote for more than they
wish to is a step backward, and should not pretend to be an asset for
a method.
I'm not following Mr. Ketchum's arguments here. But "plurality" was
used in a very ordinary sense. Any method which elects without a
vote of a majority of those who cast non-blank ballots in an
election is an election by plurality, using the definitions of
Robert's Rules (and of most parliamentary procedure manuals, I
believe, if not all). There is room for interpretation on whether or
not a non-blank ballot that does not contain a legal vote should be
included in the basis for majority, but no room for excluding from
the basis those who do cast a valid vote, but for a candidate that
is, say, later eliminated due to low vote count.
Hence almost all voting systems that have been considered, absent
vote coercion (as with mandatory full ranking or penalization of
partial ranking, as happens with some versions of Borda Count), are
"plurality methods," including Approval and Range and, the point
here, Condorcet methods.
I did incorrectly state the case at first, by showing lower rankings
that did add additional votes for other candidates by A. The example
was clearer with all bullet votes. What this points out is that a
ranking of, say, A>B>C>D>D>F>G>H is, from this point of view, a vote
for G over H. Should this be considered an "approval" of G? The
voter has expressed that, in an election between G and H, the voter
would prefer H, though, in fact, in a deep ranking like that, this
is probably noise for the most part. (Robson Rotation is, in fact,
used to eliminate some of this noise by averaging it out so that, at
least, it is not produced by ballot position.)
"Majority" is a word whose merits need more serious thought - see an
earlier post from today.
Ditto "runoffs".
Your words below seem intended as response - but I see little if
anything as to merits.
Dave Ketchum
Indeed. Voting systems theory, early on, focused on attempts to find
the ideal single-ballot system, from various perspectives. While
this is a theoretically interesting question, it essentially misled
the entire field when applied to real election reform, ignoring the
most widely used voting reform, top two runoff, as if it were merely
a more expensive and cumbersome version of Sri Lankan Contingent
vote. Or batch-elimination IRV, same thing. It isn't. It produces
different results than IRV, in about one-third of runoffs in
nonpartisan elections. (Probably in partisan elections, it produces
roughly the same results.)
In addition, this approach ignored the *universally used* direct
democratic method, repeated balloting, with no decision being made
without a majority of those voting supporting it. None. No exceptions.
Ignoring explicit voter approval, then, is one of the widespread
systemic errors. Another one, arising early on, was the assumption
that pure preference profiles were adequate to understand how voting
systems would amalgamate votes and produce a useful social ordering,
when, in fact, any sane method of studying how voting systems work
would realize that a strong preference is different from a weak or
barely detectable one, not to mention an indistiguishable one that
is forced by a voting system to be crammed into one of A>B or B>A,
with no allowance for A=B. And real, human, social decision-making
systems, outside of voting, do consider preference strength, very
much.
And any system that attempts to maximize benefit to a society based
on preference profiles would have to take preference strength into
account. That it may be difficult to do this, that it may be
difficult to determine commensurability, does not change this. What
we can see through the device of assuming absolute utilities for
voters in simulated elections is that the Condorcet Criterion and
the Majority Criterion, for similar reasons, can require
preposterous results, in situations where, with a single ballot and
no other amalgamation method operating, will produce a result that
will later, if it's tested, be *universally rejected.* I'd call that
a Bad Decision. And any system which considers preference strength,
that allows the expression of it and then uses that information for
other than simply resolving a Condorcet cycle, *must* fail the
Condorcet Criterion.
Originally, my assumption, as with many students of this field, was
that the Condorcet Criterion was the King of Criteria. Well, the
King has been dethroned. It's a good and useful criterion, it has a
place. But applied rigidly, it is quite possibly harmful.
I've argued that if ballots show a Condorcet winner, an election
should not resolve in favor of another candidate, except possibly in
situations where a legitimate cause of Condorcet failure can clearly
be identified and it can be known that voters would then reject the
Condorcet winner, knowing the results of the first election. Other
than that possibility, I would always want to see Condorcet failure
submitted again to the voters for review and possible confirmation
or rejection of the failure. Rejection of the failure would probably
mean election of the Condorcet winner, and, as long as the voters
can do this, it must be said that the *overall method* satisfies the
Criterion. It only looks like it didn't by not immediately jumping
for the Condorcet winner in a primary. The later ballot completely
supercedes the former, which is totally standard democratic process.
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