Jameson,
"...But I don't think it's realistic..."
I don't think any of the "multiple majorities" scenarios are very realistic.
Irrespective of how they are resolved,
all voters who regard one or more of the viable candidates as unacceptable will
have a strong incentive to top-rate all the candidates they regard as
acceptable, out of fear that an unacceptable candidate gets a majority before
their vote can help all the acceptable ones.
I still say that your suggestion only increases that incentive (even though
maybe more psychologically than likely to cause extra actual post-election
regret).
Forget about using the mechanism for resolving the (probably very rare)
multiple-majorities scenario to try to gain some whiff of "later-no-harm".
BTW, the "Majority Choice Approval" Bucklin-like method using ratings (or
grading) ballots, simply elected the candidate whose majority tally was the
biggest. I also prefer that to your suggestion. It and yours are simpler to
count than the Mike Ossipoff idea I support.
I'm very glad to hear you think IBIFA is a great method.
I'll stop quibbling about how you classify it.
"Condorcet is too complex."
Does that mean that you don't care that it fails FBC?Condorcet//Approval is
pretty simple (and IMO quite good).
Am I right in assuming that you only like methods that meet FBC or Condorcet
and maybe Mono-raise? And/or are biased towards electing centrists? And for
some or all of these reasons you don't like IRV?
Chris Benham
Jameson Quinn wrote (27 June 2013):
2013/6/27 Chris Benham <[email protected]>
Jameson,
>
>
>"I don't see it..."
>
>Say on an ABCD grading ballot you give your Lesser Evil X a B, and then in the
>second round both X and your Greater Evil Y reach the majority threshold. In
>that case you obviously might have cause to regret that you didn't give X an
>A.
OK, I see what you're saying now.
But I don't think it's realistic. If X and Y both reach a majority at B, then
there are some voters giving both of them a B or above. This looks a lot more
like a chicken dilemma situation between two similar frontrunners, than like a
situation where X versus Y is a gaping difference which justifies the use of a
just-in-case strategy for a low-probability occurrence. Especially because, in
a chicken dilemma situation, multiple majorities would tend to slide down
towards the second-to-bottom rating, not up at the second-to-top one.
>
>That is why your suggestion makes it (even) less safe to not simply give all
>the acceptable candidates an A.
>
>"I think that's [IBIFA] a great method, but I would classify it as "improved
>Condorcet" rather than "Bucklin-like".
>
>No. There isn't any pairwise component in the algorithm, and unlike the
>"Improved Condorcet" methods it doesn't directly aim to come as close as
>possible to meeting Condorcet without violating Favorite Betrayal.
There is no pairwise component in the narrowest sense, but it still is only
summable at (R-1)*(N²), which is actually worse than a regular Condorcet method.
Again, I think this method would deliver excellent results, and I see why it is
in certain ways akin to a Bucklin or median method. But its quasi-pairwise
counting complexity still makes me see it as more similar to improved Condorcet
methods than to Bucklin ones.
>
>But another method I support is in that category, "TTPBA//TR". Mike Ossipoff
>promoted it as "Improved Condorcet, Top" (or ICT).
>
>http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2012-January/029577.html
>
>
Right, there's a lot of good methods out there. Any of these would satisfy me
as more resistant to strategy than either Condorcet or Score. And those two in
turn are quite satisfactory as being at least as good as approval with more
expressivity, and approval is satisfactory as being a giant and strict
improvement over plurality. Great.
And I like to talk about the relative merits of each proposal here on the list.
But if we talk like this in front of non-mathematical voters, we'll only turn
them off. We need simple proposals. Approval is step one; most of us agree on
that. But some voters, like Bruce Gilson, will never be satisfied with approval
because it doesn't feel expressive enough.
So I think it's worth having a second option to offer. To me, pitching Score
feels dishonest: "Look at this great system! Amazing great things it can do!
(But watch out, if you vote other than approval-style, you'll probably regret
it.)" Condorcet is too complex. I want a simple, good system. MAV would fit the
bill. If you have another proposal that would, then the way to get me onto your
side is to demonstrate that it has more supporters than just you. That goes for
you, Chris, and also for you, Abd.
Jameson
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