If there are economies of scale in running as a competitive candidate for an important or larger-scale, single-winner election, regardless of which election rule gets used, then we can expect the number of competitive candidates, i.e. candidates with an a prior chance of winning with a score-voting rule of greater than .01, to be relatively low. This would consequently lower the relative value of most alternatives to first-past-the-post, presuming the existence of multiple non-serious candidates, and make the short-term likelihood of successful adoption the key criterion for which alternative to first-past-the-post should be advocated by electoral analysts/reformers of good will. When I say good-will, I mean as opposed to those who might be supported by those who unduly benefit from the status-quo to muddy the waters and thereby divide electoral analysts/advocates.
If one did a Bayesian Regret analysis with seven candidates but drew the candidates from two different distribution, one with a good chance of winning and the other with a very small chance of winning in a fair contest then that might be a more realistic way to assess the relative value of different election rules. One might model the number of competitive candidates as being one plus the output of a Poisson random variable with a mean of one or one.five. It would likely be a lot more meaningful than if the a prior odds of winning of all seven candidates are the same, because in that case the odds of competitive three-way at the top election would be rather high. I think it's clear analytically that in a three-way competitive election, IRV is not as reliable in choosing the condorcet candidate or lowering Bayesian Regret. But I think there are good reasons to presume that in real life, in larger-scale single-winner elections that three-way competitive races will be relatively rare by the end of the election season, which is what counts for the evaluation of election rules: the preferences of voters on election day. dlw On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 2:02 PM, < [email protected]> wrote: > Send Election-Methods mailing list submissions to > [email protected] > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > > http://lists.electorama.com/listinfo.cgi/election-methods-electorama.com > > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > [email protected] > > You can reach the person managing the list at > [email protected] > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Election-Methods digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Approval Voting (David L Wetzell) > 2. WHICH VOTING SYSTEM(S) DO REAL VOTERS WANT - FINALLY, CLEAR > EVIDENCE EMERGES! (Warren D Smith) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 7 May 2013 14:21:48 -0500 > From: David L Wetzell <[email protected]> > To: EM <[email protected]> > Subject: [EM] Approval Voting > Message-ID: > <CAMyHmndPGozxU3JLdo= > [email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > In the scenario below. > > From: Jonathan Denn <[email protected]> > > In a three way race for POTUS. Let's say we have the traditional D and R. A > fringe third party candidate runs and is widely hated (H) by everyone > except his/her supporters. But the final results are > > H 34% > D 33% > R 33% > > Now the hated candidate is leader of the free world. > > In Approval Voting, I think it unlikely in this hyper-partisan country that > many voters will vote for D & R, and not H. So the results might very well > be the same. > > Is this a legit flaw for Approval? It seems quite plausible to me. > > dlw: But if Ds prefer Rs way over Hs and Rs prefer Ds way over Hs then > both parties could easily adopt a strategy of flipping a coin at the voting > booth and voting their approval for the other party's candidate over the Hs > candidate if they get heads. This would then make the %s, > H: 34% > D: 49.5+e% > R: 49.5+f% > > And so there'd be a 50-50 chance that either major-non-extremist party > would get elected depending on whether e><f. > > Now, I believe that the economies of scale in running a big campaign tends > to make a 3-way competitive election relatively unlikely, which in turn > tends to make most alternatives to FPTP of close to the same value-added. > This is why I believe the focus shd be on changing the mix of > single-winner and multi-winner/(quasi-)PR elections in such a way that will > tend to increase the % of competitive seats. That'll make it so there'd be > less acrimony, since neither of the (likely two) major parties would be > able to dominate the other and so it'd be rat'l for them to cooperate to > maintain their duopolistic positions. > dlw > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: < > http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20130507/aedfcc0a/attachment.html > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Tue, 7 May 2013 23:41:30 -0400 > From: Warren D Smith <[email protected]> > To: election-methods <[email protected]> > Subject: [EM] WHICH VOTING SYSTEM(S) DO REAL VOTERS WANT - FINALLY, > CLEAR EVIDENCE EMERGES! > Message-ID: > < > caajp7y0eue3x4vflxpazaqux3ko5+eo9wzj5ar1gjoa-i29...@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 > > Academics just conducted another study in 3 French towns (exit poll) > of several score voting schemes & approval voting in 2012 presidential > election. All produced the same winner as the official winner, > Hollande. > > I'm using the following paper by them (in French): > http://RangeVoting.org/France1220.pdf > > Anyhow, they appended a QUESTIONNAIRE to the approximately 2340 voters who > participated in this voting study, getting 80-95% response rates to > these additional questions. > > QUESTION 1 asked which type of voting they prefer. Apparently this > question was conducted using 4-choice plurality voting (sigh). 1958 > answered. > The 4 choices were: > I. Les deux regles ("the two rules??" does this mean the present > 2-round system? > Or does it mean "I want both approval and score voting"?) 27.53% > > II.Vote par approbation ("approval voting") 29.47% > > III.Vote par note ("score voting") 32.84% WINNER!! > > IV.Aucune des deux ("neither of them") 10.11% > > Can any French-speaker explain what the hell that was all about? > This question wording seems extremely poor. > Elsewhere in same paper the official system was described as > "Vote uninominal a deux tours (officiel)." > Fortunately, we can dodge all that since question 2 works excellently. > > QUESTION 2a asked for which kinds of elections approval voting system > should be used (or not). 4 subquestions: > > Elections presidentielles: 61%. > Elections legislatives: 57%. > Elections municipales: 61%. > Associations: 52%. > > QUESTION 2b asked for which kinds of elections score voting system > should be used (or not). same 4 subquestions: > > Elections presidentielles: 62%. > Elections legislatives: 55%. > Elections municipales: 66%. > Associations: 51%. > > Superb. Majority wants them for everything, and 61% is > equivalent to the largest ever USA presidential "landslides." > This to me is the first really convincing evidence the populace WANT > approval and range voting. > > Meanwhile there also is convincing poll evidence from UK, Australia, > and BC Canada > that voters do NOT want IRV (instant runoff, full rank ordering) if > choice is between IRV & plain plurality voting. > AUSTRALIA October 2010 nationwide professional telephone poll (NewsPoll > http://www.rangevoting.org/AustraliaNewsPollVoteStudy.pdf ) 1202 > random Australian adults: found that they prefer plain-plurality > voting versus the preferential (instant runoff) system they presently > use to elect their House. If forced to choose one, they'd choose to > abandon IRV ? the poll's result was 57% to 37% (with 5% don't > know/refuse). > UK: 5 May 2011 binding referendum asking voters to decide whether the > UK should switch from plurality to IRV voting, resulting in a massive > landslide victory (68% to 32% of the 19.3 million votes) for "stay > with plurality." > British Columbia Canada 12 May 2009: "switch to IRV" (from plain > plurality) got only 39.09% of the 1.65 million votes in referendum. > > And I just posted landslide poll evidence voters do NOT want "majority > judgment" with 7-point verbal scale, if choosing between it and > present 2-round plurality plus 2nd round runoff system: > FRANCE April 2011: > http:/rangevoting.org/Sondageopinionway.pdf > At the end of this poll of 1000, the pollees were asked WHICH voting method > they preferred: > 1. Traditional (plurality plus 2nd round runoff): 63% > 2. MJ (median-based with verbal 7-point scale): 36% > 3. Other/don't know: 1% > > Now returning to the academic study in the 3 towns, they trialed > DIFFERENT score voting systems in the 3 towns: > > TOWN...........TYPE OF SCORE VOTING TRIALED > Louvigny...............{-1, 0, +1} > St.Etienne.............{0, 1, 2} > Strasbourg............{0, 1, 2, ..., 19, 20} > > And the result of question 2b was that there was CLEARLY MORE SUPPORT for > {-1,0,+1} and {0,1,2} than for {0,1,2,...,19,20} but in contrast > question 2a got about the same support rates in all 3 towns. > > CONCLUSION: > Voters want: > > Avg-based score voting (unspecified numerical scale) > Approval voting > > 2-round plurality > MJ with 7-point verbal scale > > and > > plain plurality voting > IRV > > and > > Avg-based score voting with 3-point numerical scale (don't care if > {-1,0,+1} or {0,1,2}) > Avg-based score voting with 21-point numerical > scale. > > > > -- > Warren D. Smith > http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking > "endorse" as 1st step) > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Election-Methods mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.electorama.com/listinfo.cgi/election-methods-electorama.com > > > End of Election-Methods Digest, Vol 107, Issue 6 > ************************************************ >
---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
