I agree with virtually everything you say here Abd ul. Kathy On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 9:42 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <[email protected]> wrote: > At 11:21 PM 3/7/2010, Kathy Dopp wrote: >> >> On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 9:08 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> > At 12:39 AM 3/7/2010, Kathy Dopp wrote: >> >> >> >> I've posted the latest plaintiffs' legal brief here. Plaintiffs >> >> Francisco rank only three version of IRV. >> >> >> >> http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?cat=8 >> > >> > It is actually brilliant. Yes; limited. My view is that IRV is generally >> > constitutional. I.e., if top two runoff is constitutional, full-ranking >> > IRV >> > is constitutional. >> >> Top-two allows *all* voters the opportunity to participate in the >> final election of who will govern, so is IMO clearly more >> constitutional than IRV which fails constitutionality in at least >> three ways: > > First of all, there is no controversy over the constitutionality of TTR. > There likewise is no controversy over the constitutionality of vote for one > Plurality. And, except for some narrow exceptions, there is no finding that > IRV is not constitutional anywhere, if full ranking is allowed. The instant > case is over the constitutionality of IRV with only three explicit ranks > allowed (and assumed bottom-ranking if the voter does not list the > candidate). > >> 1. fails to allow all voters to participate in the final >> decision-making process by excluding voters from the last round > > That's correct. But if full ranking is allowed, the "exclusion" is > debatable. I agree it's a problem, and so does Robert's Rules of Order. But, > notice, the issue might be decided on general public policy grounds, i.e., > does IRV make the situation worse for these possible excluded voters? If it > doesn't, I can anticipate that the defendants might argue, and the court > might agree, that the right of participation in the decision, over the > situation with plurality, is enhanced, not reduced. Courts will not always > decide on narrow technicalities. > > IRV is definitely problematic in many ways, but whether or not those rise to > a constitutional issue is not so obvious. I do agree that there is an issue > here, with twenty candidates and three ranks. With that many candidates and > only three ranks, there are quite likely real voters who have been prevented > from both voting sincerely (as promised) and participating in the final > decision. Note that if there is a majority required, as the initiative > pretended, there would be no problem. There would be a runoff, and the voter > would then not be deprived. So the real source of the problem is that the > method pretended to find majorities, in order to gain approval, but doesn't. > The ballot information pamphlet promised that the winner "would still be > required to gain a majority of votes," but did anyone notice that the > provisions themselves removed the requirement for a majority? > > Not enough attention was paid by the plaintiff attorneys to this blatant > deception of the voters in the initiative that implemented IRV. Of course, > if they had left in the requirement for a majority, as they pretended still > existed, then it would have become quickly visible that IRV was not avoiding > most runoffs, since whenever runoffs were required, it is rare that the > additional ranking found a majority, and this is a well-known behavior of > IRV in Australia, in the places where full ranking is not obligatory. > Australian voting systems experts consider using IRV without allowing full > ranking to be insane. And I think they might question the use of IRV in a > 20-candidate situation in any case! IRV works, sort of, with partisan > elections, much less well with nonpartisan ones. > >> 2. fails to treat all voters' ballots equally, counting the 2nd and >> lower rank choices of some, but not all, voters > > I agree that this is a problem, but its speculative that it will fly. > Bucklin, of course, has no such problem, and can use the same 3-rank ballot > as RCV, and, if a true majority is required, there is no penalty for > declining to rank more than one candidate. Either a majority will be found > that differs from your opinion, or you get to choose again in a runoff. It > is also possible to use a full-ranking Bucklin ballot, and it remains fairly > simple to count. If Bucklin is to be used as a plurality method, I'd say > this would be required on the same principles as it is not being suggested > that it's required for IRV. But I'd also allow equal ranking, it does no > harm and reduces ballot spoilage, and is actually a more accurate vote if > the voter has no significant preference between two candidates. > > (Equal ranking is already allowed, only it's restricted generally to bottom > rank. The proposal is to allow it at all ranks. Classic Bucklin, Duluth > variation, allowed equal ranking in third rank, the lowest approved rank. It > required exclusive ranking in first and second rank, but I see no reason to > require a voter who has no preference between two candidates to decide which > one to support. If the voter is supporting one, it would clearly indicate > that the voter also supports the other. And the analogy is to multiple > conflicting ballot questions; the common rule is that, if both pass, the one > with the most Yes votes prevails.) > >> 3. fails to provide voters with knowledge of the effect (positive or >> negative) of their votes on the candidates they rank due to its >> nonmonotonicity. > > Yes. With IRV, you can cause a candidate to lose if you vote for the > candidate. For clarity, here is how it happens. Suppose there are three > candidates, A, B, and C. Your favorite is A. Your vote for A could cause C > to be dropped. So then it's between A and C. But the C voters prefer B, in > their transfers, who beats A as a result. However, if you did not vote for A > (and someone like you, or a coin toss does this), then B is dropped, and A > wins over B. > > It gets complicated because not all voters will add additional votes. This > is not the only problem, because of another effect, Center Squeeze, where a > more strategic vote would be to skip over your favorite and vote first > preference for the compromise candidate whom you prefer over the IRV winner. > > Voting sincerely in IRV seems safer, but can produce worse results, so bad > that you'd have seen a better result if you stayed home and did not vote. > > And that appears to have actually happened in Burlington. If fewer > Republicans had voted for Wright, and instead decided to support the > compromise candidate that they clearly preferred from analysis of the ranked > votes, they'd have produced that result. > >> Top-two runoff treats all voters equally, allows all voters to >> participate, and allows all voters to cast a ballot with a positive >> effect on a candidate's chances of winning, (I.e. voters know which >> candidate they are helping to win each election.) > > Yes. The overall system still suffers from center squeeze, but it's possible > to fix that. Use Bucklin in both rounds! And allow write-in votes in the > runoff. Because of the use of Bucklin in the runoff, those preferring a > compromise candidate can still make a choice between the primary winners. > Theoretically optimal methods (in terms of decision quality) seek a majority > and don't stop until they find one, but the only possibly practical method > for public elections that could do this would be Asset Voting. > >> > They've hit on a technicality, the loss of equal >> > treatment of voters if the voter can't rank enough candidates, but as >> > they >> > point out, the deprivation of equal treatment can be quite small and be >> > unconstitutional. > > That's correct. But it must be very clear. I think they've shown it. > >> > >> > And there is a quick fix, of course. Instant Runoff Approval Voting. >> > Allow >> > the voters to mark as many candidates as they choose in each of the >> > three >> > ranks. Then use Bucklin procedure. And make this a primary round, hold a >> > runoff if there is no true majority found. What this will do is to >> > eliminate >> > *most* runoff elections. Not all. It's just a more efficient way of >> > finding >> > a majority in the primary. The same trick could be done with IRV, but, >> > note >> > this: IRV no longer would satisfy later-no-harm, and IRV does not count >> > all >> > the votes. Unless all the votes *are* counted, which would mean that one >> > would count lower ranked votes against non-eliminated higher-ranked >> > candidates. Bucklin does it much better and because there are no >> > eliminations in the primary rounds, it finds a candidate who is >> > supported by >> > more voters than any other. Because of the runff, voters need not, in >> > the >> > primary, support someone who is the "least evil." They can vote >> > sincerely. >> > They can bullet vote if they want. They can add alternate preferences if >> > they'd prefer these to a runoff (or if they'd want to see them get into >> > a >> > runoff). They choose. >> >> I agree with you and find no objection to Bucklin method or most other >> alternative voting methods that treat all voters' equally and is thus >> precinct-summable, but don't have time to thoroughly study it now. >> Interesting that this idea allows putting as many candidates as >> desired into a limited number of slots. I like that on first glance. > > Right. And if it is used with a majority requirement, it is simply a more > efficient method of finding a majority than plurality. It allows voters to > decide how much they care, would they rather make a compromise now, and > possibly avoid a runoff, or would they prefer to see a runoff between the > top two? Let the voters decide! Count All the Votes! > >> The Condorcet method would still be easy to count in that case too >> since an n x n matrix (where n = # candidates) would still work just >> fine. > > Well, easy compared to what? Compared to IRV, yes. Compared to Plurality or > Bucklin, no. > > Condorcet methods suffer from the same problem as afflicts many complex > voting systems: it requires voters to have much more knowledge than is > necessary to express a Favorite vote. That's the strength of Plurality, and > is why plurality, but with a majority requirement, is standard in direct > democracies. Top-two runoff works much better, because of the new, separate > focus on a limited set. (There are top-three runoff methods in use, by the > way, for example the Vermont gubernatorial election. The "runoff" is before > the legislature.) > > The big problem with TTR is that it can miss a compromise winner. Using a > preferential ballot with good rules there might be able to avoid this. The > sign that a compromise winner is being missed is majority failure! With good > rules, two-round runoff would hardly ever fail to find a majority, and could > only do better than the status quo, or it would default to it. That's why > Bucklin being inexpensive, easy to understand and vote, and quite good in > performance (by theoretical analysis and actual history of application) is > considered so important to me. > > I'd prefer Asset, which can be as simple as vote-for-one, though there are > obvious interpretations that would allow counting and using overvotes. Your > vote gets split between the candidates supported. (That's a bad idea with > Approval Voting, single-ballot, but Asset doesn't waste any votes.) > >> > From my analysis, IRV, however, would not find a majority in most of the >> > elections that went to instant runoff in San Francisco, and Bucklin >> > would >> > find it it in maybe half. But Bucklin is far less expensive to count, >> > it's >> > precinct summable, just count all the votes in each rank (typically >> > three >> > ranks were used) and report them separately. They can then be added >> > together. >> > >> > Bucklin was used in a lot of places in the U.S., at one time, pushing >> > 100. >> > The actual method was only found unconstitutional in one place, >> > Minnesota, >> > is a decision that was aware it was idiosyncratic. It was popular, the >> > Minnesotata Supreme Court decision was quite unpopular, the court notes >> > that >> > in its reconsideration. My guess is that political forces were >> > operating. >> > Some people did not want a good voting system, it's more difficult to >> > manipulate. >> > >> >> I like Bucklin. Too bad the MN Supremes shot it down. MN Supremes seem >> to make consistently poor decisions re. voting systems thus far, >> although perhaps with an "as-applied" case they'd do better. > > The MN decision was not replicated anywhere, and, as it was written, it did > also prohibit IRV. The decision was bad, and I wrote, years ago, that voting > systems activists should support the reversal of Brown v. Smallwood, which, > as written, prohibited all forms of preferential ballot. FairVote clouded > that over, pretending that the decision was only based on the Later-No-Harm > failure of Bucklin. If a majority is required, any preferential ballot > system, including IRV, will fail later-no-harm.... >
-- Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 "One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts." Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf Checking election outcome accuracy http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
