Abd ul, I agree with virtually everything you say here. However, I would also consider that an excellent system for electing one winner would be "approval, every voter votes for up to two candidates, followed by a runoff of the top two vote getters". It solves some of the problems of a simple runoff election, avoids the spoiler effect I think, and is very fair. Although it does seem to always require a runoff election.
Kathy > Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 20:09:50 -0400 > From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <[email protected]> > To: robert bristow-johnson <[email protected]>, Jameson Quinn > <[email protected]> > Cc: EM Methods <[email protected]>, clay shentrup > <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [EM] The worst about each system; Approval Preferential > Voting (new name for an MCA-like system) > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed > > At 02:30 PM 5/26/2010, robert bristow-johnson wrote: > >>On May 25, 2010, at 1:20 PM, Jameson Quinn wrote: >> >>>What are the worst aspects of each major voting system? >>> >>>-Plurality: Everything. It routinely requires dishonest strategy >>>from a large minority, or even a majority, of voters. Enough said. >> >>except some unnamed folks here (whose posts i don't see anymore) think >>that it's better than IRV. > > I am *so* relieved that Mr. B-J doesn't have to suffer through my > posts any more. He should have done this long ago. > > Is Plurality better than IRV? Under some conditions. > > You are a small town. You hold nonpartisan elections, with a small > number of candidates. Plurality is better than IRV. Why? I'll just > start with a few: > > 1. IRV under the general conditions of nonpartisan elections almost > never changes the result from Plurality. People don't realize this > because they tend to think of "spoiler effect," which usually depends > on partisan elections and a small party or independent candidate > pulling off a few votes that flips the election. IRV can fix that, > but at huge cost, and, notice, it is turning a victory for one > almost-winner into that for the other almost-winner. Many imagine > that IRV would have rescued the nation from George Bush, but it is > far from obvious. It might have made a difficult canvass into a > totally insane impossible one. The fact is that in nonpartisan > elections, that phenomenon seems to almost never influence the > outcome. IRV doesn't flip results in nonpartisan elections. > > 2. When the method is plurality, people know that if they vote for > their favorite, if their favorite is not going to win, they are > wasting their vote. IRV can create that impression, but it is a false > one under center squeeze conditions. By voting for their favorite and > thus concealing their preference for the candidate who would be the > majority winner, underneath their favorite who runs second in > first-preference votes, and who maintains that until the last round, > they have wasted their vote, they might as well have stayed home. > Just like Plurality. But they know it, so they can make an intelligent choice. > > 3. Plurality is much easier to canvass. It's also, in a small town, > easier to vote. Just vote for your favorite, hang the "strategy." > People do accept plurality results as fair, and in small town > government, when Plurality is the method, not very many offices have > three candidates, so it's moot. The problem in small towns is more, > sometimes, in getting *anyone* to run! > > But I personally believe that finding a majority is important, > because it is more unifying. IRV, quite simply, doesn't do this, the > majority it manufactures is, too often, faux. Since top two runoff > has some of the same problems as IRV -- but it functions better in > terms of results than IRV -- I suggest using a better advanced method > for the primary, one that is actually designed to seek true > majorities, unlike IRV, and that certainly does it better than IRV. > And that's Bucklin, and it is easy to vote and canvass, and there are > no reports in the historical record otherwise. It was tried in > approximately ninety towns in the U.S., in roughly 1910-1920 (a far > wider application than FairVote has managed, without the central > organization pushing it), and it was used for party primary > elections, apparently, for much longer. It's alleged "failures" > disappear if it is used in its best application, as a way of finding > majorities without a runoff. It does it, often. And when it fails to > do so, instead of using it to elect by plurality, just hold the > runoff! Compared to plurality, you have not lost anything, and you > have gained a great deal. > > In particular, Bucklin does very well at allowing sincere first > preference expression. That is very important to voters! It is very > flexible for voters in how to add additional approvals, and this > becomes much less of a worry in a runoff system. Voters can make > their decision on adding second preferences, or third preferences, > with a simple question: which do you prefer, to add lower preferences > or to have this election go into a runoff? If you don't mind a > runoff, you are completely free to truncate, if that makes sense to > you. Most people, historically, in major Bucklin elections, did add > additional preferences. But we don't have a lot of data. There is a > project for an enterprising student! > >>>-Approval: divisiveness. >>... >>>-Range: Strategy is too powerful. >> >>i couldn't get the guys at ESF to even acknowledge the obvious >>strategic considerations a voter would face with Approval or Range. >>they just say that "it's mathematically proven" to be better than >>anything else. Clay Shentrup needs to get on this list and start >>defending his position rather than expecting me to do the same on his >>list. >> >>Clay, i'll take you on here on EM, but not on ESF. it takes too much >>time and is a far less objective context. > > The arguments are the same regardless of the list. On the ESF list, > you'll get more participation from experts in Range, that's all. > Here, you'll get a bit more from people who don't like Range. But > your arguments don't get better in one list vs. the other. To B-J, > though, it's personal, and personal face is involved, hence his preference. > > I've seen approval in real use in a real organization, to make > choices efficiently. It was the opposite of divisive. The proof was > that a ratification vote, where the approval results had been > something like 98%/65% for the top two (out of many options, > plurality and repeated ballot would have taken much longer to find a > majority, or would have chosen the 65% immediately, it was the status > quo and was very popular before the discussion, and remained about as > popular), was unanimous. The 98% became 100%. > > This election was a good example of how the majority criterion can be > defective. Before the polling, first preference would have been the > 65%. Not only a majority, almost a supermajority. But once it was > seen how much more acceptable the 98% option was, the 65% voters > changed their minds. They no longer preferred their original first > preference because, guess what? People actually consider the benefit > to the organization of unity. If every time you have an election, you > offend a third of the people, the organization gradually gets weaker. > If the election had been Range, it would have been even more obvious. > Those who preferred the status quo were familiar with it and did not > realize the depth of opposition. The opposition was actually offended > by the status quo, and it was a religious issue. Classic Range voting > Condorcet criterion failure.... I.e., classic Range voting success. > > Range and Approval are basically the same method, Range just allows > finer distinctions to be expressed. Strategy in Range is no more > powerful than in Plurality. Indeed, Range and Approval default to > Plurality if voted that way. Except that I don't like them as > plurality methods, I prefer, greatly, that majority approval is > required. And that requires that sometimes there be at least two > polls. In pure democratic practice, the number of polls is unlimited, > and that's the standard for elections under Robert's Rules, which are > certainly widely used. > > Voting systems are not just for political application, they are general. > > And, in any case, listing the systems like this is narrow-minded. The > best systems are probably hybrids of some kind. It is entirely > possible to have a hybrid Range/Bucklin system that is also > Condorcet-compliant. It merely takes, probably only in a fraction of > elections, a runoff. > > (Usually, the Range winner and the Approval (Bucklin) winner and the > Condorcet winner will be the same. Runoffs are only needed, perhaps, > to deal with majority failure or the rarer multiple majority problem, > that a multiple majority might not actually reflect wider approval, > but poor strategic decisions.) > > What Approval can do for small organizations that can vote directly > is to make the repeated ballot procedure (which is normally > vote-for-one) more efficient. The only problem with Approval in a > repeated ballot contest is the contingency that a ballot comes up > with two majorities, and there is a simple fix: ratify the result! In > public elections, there is already the tradition and law that if two > conflicting ballot questions pass, the one with the most votes > prevails. If people don't like that, they could hold a runoff. > Nowhere have I seen that done with conflicting ballot questions, > though. It was assumed that the most widely acceptable result was better. > > It is claimed that more advanced systems are harder to vote. There is > no evidence for that. A hybrid Range/Bucklin/Condorcet system would > be, probably, easier to vote than Plurality, because it is not > difficult to pick favorites and to rank. This is actually an argument > that FairVote makes, and it's often true, it is simply not the whole > truth. In particular, if it's hard to rank two candidates, it should > be simple to equally rank. A Bucklin voter can simply bullet vote, if > anything else is difficult for the voter, and voters should know that > this is perfectly okay, and, in a runoff system, it's also quite > safe. Ranking candidates according to what is easy, and not ranking > the rest, with good ballot and system design, then uses the ranking > as evidence of clear -- i.e., relatively strong -- preference, and > the not-ranking as lack of preference. Isn't that what it means? > > -- 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 View my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051 ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
