Adrian, although I do not think that readers will misunderstand the
words "mathematically equivalent," Kristofer has been insistent that he
does not like that wording, so let's change the wording accordingly:
"... VoteFair popularity ranking, which virtually always identifies the
same election winner as the Condorcet-Kemeny method, one of the methods
supported by ..."
Eliminating the word "mathematical" should make Kristofer happy, based
on what he says in a recent message. And the word "virtually" will be
recognized by anyone as a qualification of the word "always." And
referring to the winner without referring to the "results" -- which in
the Condorcet-Kemeny method includes a full ranking of all choices --
will avoid an issue that is not worth explaining in this article.
Clarification for forum purposes: The full ranking from most popular,
second-most popular, and so on down to least popular can differ between
the Condorcet-Kemeny method and the VoteFair ranking software, and that
accounts for the largest number of cases in which there is a difference.
Out of those cases a much smaller number of cases could involve a
difference in who is declared the winner (the highest-ranked choice),
but that can only happen if there are more than six candidates in the
Smith set (although I have not yet had time to reply to Jameson
regarding the proof of this point), which is covered by the word
"election" before the word "winner" because real elections do not have
that many candidates in the Smith set. Non-election situations, such as
the ranking of 100 songs, would have a reasonable (yet still unlikely)
chance of having more than six choices in the Smith set.
Further clarification for forum purposes: The statement in the revised
wording for this Democracy Chronicles article refers to the VoteFair
ranking software, which is not the same as saying that VoteFair
popularity ranking does not intend to duplicate Condorcet-Kemeny results
in all cases. (First I want to characterize the cases in which they
differ as being so convoluted in terms of voter preferences that the
difference is not significant for the purposes of use in an election
[remembering that there must be more than six candidates in the Smith
set in order for the top-ranked-choice difference to occur].)
Adrian, very importantly, I recommend revising the article's words
"diverse group of election experts" and "election reform advocate" to
use the phrases "election-method experts" and "election-method reform
advocate" because our topic ("election-method" reform) is a subset of
"election reform," and we do not claim to be "election experts" -- which
would offend people who study voter registration, voter turnout, and
many other characteristics of real elections.
I approve the article if the phrase "election-method" is used.
The only other edit might be to hyphenate the phrase "round-off" in the
words "... compensate for any round off errors ...". Actually I think
the correct spelling in an academic article might be "roundoff" as a
single word (but I'm not sure), but that would be confusing to
non-academic readers.
Thank you for your great work Adrian! And especially thank you for your
patience in dealing with those of us who choose our words so carefully
as a result of discussing our mathematically rigorous topic.
As for an image, you have my permission to use the graphic in the upper
left of the VoteFair.org home page:
http://www.votefair.org/index.html
(The same image appears on the BanSingleMarkBallots.org website, but
that is not an official choice, just an image that fills the spot until
something better is presented.)
Or, if you prefer to use the cover of my book, you have my permission to
use it at [http://www.solutionscreative.com/ehu_cover.html], but please
keep in mind that my goal for this article is to promote the
VoteFair.org website, and secondarily mentioning (and linking to) my
creative-problem-solving book as credibility for my problem-solving
skills, so this article should not contain a link that (also) promotes
my election-method-reform book unless you use that cover for your image
(in which case for this article I prefer that you link to the Google
Books version at [http://books.google.com/books?id=UOf86S4Lc-YC] where
people can read some of it for free).
Speaking of images, if you are interested in the voting-related cartoons
in "Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S. Elections," you are welcome to
use them in a separate cartoon-only series.
Again, thank you Adrian for connecting us with people who can benefit
from our deep understanding of election methods.
Richard Fobes
On 4/28/2012 9:38 AM, Adrian Tawfik wrote:
As long as everyone is somewhat comfortable with keeping the "mathematically
equivalent"
wording, I think we can move forward with the article. I put together the more
complete
text of the article with the interview included and some additions to the
introto remind
readers of the group and the series of articles. I am hoping we can
finishdiscussion of
the article and publish this week.Please make any suggestions for changes before
mid-week and I will go ahead and publish. Don't worry about formatting
because I will
clean the article up for publication.
Mr. Fobes,
If you have any images from Votefair I can use on the article or any other
images, please
let me know. I have been reliant of Flickr and Wikipedia for the entire
website. Thanks.
The
Fobes article:
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Election Reformer Speaks With Democracy Chronicles!
Author and Activist Richard Fobes Discusses His Ideas For Election Reform in
the US
Over the course of a series of articles Democracy Chronicles is
presenting the results of the fascinating interviews we have conducted with
prominent signers of the group that published the 'Declaration of
Election-Method
Reform Advocates'. The interviews will cover the opinions of a diverse group
of
election experts from around the world. These interviews could not have
been
accomplished without the determined help of author and election reform advocate
Richard Fobes. In a small token of our appreciation for his efforts, we are
publishing his interview here as the first of the series of interviews
exclusively on Democracy Chronicles.
Richard Fobes, who has a degree in physics, became involved with
election-method reform when he
realized, while writing his book titled "The Creative Problem Solver's
Toolbox" [link], that most of the world's problems can be solved, but
the current voting methods used throughout the world are so primitive
that citizens are unable to elect the problem-solving leaders they want.
That insight motivated him to spend time over the last two decades
developing and writing open-source software for a system of
voting methods that he calls "VoteFair ranking." The core of the system
is VoteFair popularity ranking, which is mathematically equivalent to
the Condorcet-Kemeny method, one of the methods supported by
the "Declaration of Election-Method Reform Advocates."
At his VoteFair.org [link] website, Fobes offers a free service of
calculating VoteFair ranking results, and a number of organizations have
used the service to elect their officers.
At that site Fobes also hosts an American Idol poll that allows fans of
the TV show to rank the show's singers according to who is their
favorite, who is their second favorite, and so on down to who they like
the least, and the calculations reveal the overall ranking. Based on the
results, Fobes writes commentaries that anticipate and explain so-called
"surprise" results in terms of important voting concepts, especially
vote splitting, vote concentration, and strategic voting.
Below, Mr. Fobes answers the questions of Democracy Chronicles' Adrian
Tawfik who recently conducted the interview online:
/Democracy Chronicles: Briefly explain what characteristics you think
are most important for a voting method to have?/
Richard Fobes: To produce fair results, a voting method should look
deeply into the voter preferences.The current approach of voters only
being allowed to mark a single choice, and then using an overly
simplistic counting method (plurality), is a huge failure to look
beneath the surface of voter preferences.In contrast, I think a voter
should be allowed to rank all the candidates from most preferred to
least preferred, and the counting method should fully rank all the
choices from most popular and second-most popular down to least
popular.If a method correctly identifies the least-popular choice, then
voters can better trust that the method also correctly identifies who
deserves to win.
/Democracy Chronicles: What do you think is the most important election
reform needed where you live (either locally or nationally)? Why is this
reform important?/
Richard Fobes: I believe that the election reform that is most needed in
the United States is to ban the use of single-mark ballots in
Congressional elections, including primary elections.This ban would
allow us, the majority of voters, to fill Congress with problem-solving
leaders instead of special-interest puppets.This reform is more
important than reforming Presidential elections because the job of the
President is to enforce the laws that Congress writes, and because it
would dramatically weaken Congressional lobbyists (who have far more
power than Presidential advisers).
/Democracy Chronicles: What is your opinion on other aspects of election
reform such as reforming money's role in politics or redistricting
(particularly in the US but very interested as well concerning election
reforms internationally)?/
Richard Fobes: Banning single-mark ballots in Congressional elections
would eliminate vote splitting, which is a weakness of plurality
counting that the biggest campaign contributors have learned to exploit
in ways that involve money.Using better ballots and better counting
methods would enable a problem-solving leader to more easily win a
Congressional (primary or general) election running against a
money-backed incumbent, even if the money-backed incumbent greatly
outspent the reform-minded candidate.
I believe that the solution to the redistricting problem in the United
States (and similarly in each state) is to slightly more than double the
size of Congressional districts, and then fill each district's second
seat with the candidate who is most popular among the voters who are not
well-represented by the winner of the first seat, which is what
"VoteFair representation ranking" deeply calculates.In a typical such
district, one Republican and one Democrat would win that district's two
seats, regardless of where the district boundaries are drawn.
Additionally a few "proportional" seats would be filled based on the
voters' party-preference information, with the candidate being selected
by "VoteFair partial-proportional ranking."This adjustment would
compensate for any round off errors that occur in filling the
district-based seats, and would ensure that the majority of each state's
Congressional representatives are from the same political party as the
state's majority of voters.To the extent that the Republican Party and
the Democratic Party continue to be excessively influenced by money
instead of votes, third-party candidates would win the proportional
seats, and that outcome would force the two main parties to adopt at
least some of the reforms promoted by the most popular third parties.
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