At 04:17 PM 7/3/2013, Jameson Quinn wrote:
2013/7/3 Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <<mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.com>a...@lomaxdesign.com>
EMAV is not a known method, it's brand new, I just announced it, and
this is a general post, not about details about the specific method.
I find it encouraging that you make a distinction between which
methods you'd mention on a "general" and a "details" post. My
current push with MAV is intended for "general" posts; I'm not
trying to suppress "details" discussion.
No problem with you being encouraged, but ... "general post" really
mean that this wasn't about Bucklin or EMAV or MAV or any other
specific method, and I simply mentioned "Bucklin" as a possibility
for Burlington in a discussion about FairVote, and that name was used
there for the reasons I stated: FairVote has created much content
about "Bucklin." Mostly misleading.
Q2. Is there anything that would convince you to switch to saying "MAV"?
Not in that context, not yet.
You gave a qualified response, when I wanted an unqualified one.
What would it take in some other context, or later? A million dollars?
That might do it. How many times do I need to say it? There are
limits, you know.
BR data showing it's better than EMAV for some voter model?
Sure, if the voter model was reasonably realistic. By the way, EMAV
produces the same results as MAV and ordinary Bucklin under many
circumstances, and when it doesn't, it's Range, which has superior
BR. So I would not hold my breath for those BR statistics showing
what you propose.
The caveat: I'm suspecting from what is below that Jemeson has some
models of voter behavior that I find quite strange. Some aspects of
this do reflect common opinion among voting systems activists,
particularly the idea that Score strategy requires extreme ratings.
That has never been shown, and neglects the complexity of voter
motivations, i.e., the *values* that drive strategy.
Naive game theory is well-known to come up with paradoxes, when real
people have no trouble with supposedly difficult choices.
Survey data showing voters love it?
Sure. Real voters in real elections or imaginary voters in imaginary
elections? Real voters participating in an imaginary election? I have
suggested in the past that we do focus groups on certain issues
before committing organizationally to some position or strategy.
This is the CES, so "focus groups" are not about deciding what is
"best," from the point of view of voting system behavior, but rather
what *communicates* to voters and what appeals to them. What do they
need to know? What do they want? What do they stand for?
Comment: To me, "Bucklin" is not a system, but a class of systems;
at a minimum, it would include all different Progressive-era systems
which were called "Bucklin" at the time, but to me, it includes all
descending-approval-threshold-until-majority systems (including for
instance MJ, GMJ, MCA, and MAV.)
My comments were referring to the class of systems, but also
specifically to Bucklin -- which primarily means those early systems
-- and FairVote propaganda was about "Bucklin."
Of course I'd love to promote EMAV, but promotion is not my primary goal.
The subject post was written to review Richie's response to the
Burlington debacle, and traditional Bucklin -- say, three-rank,
mandatory single votes in first and second rank, almost exactly the
same as some of the old implementations -- would have fixed the
Burlington problem easily. That does *not* mean that this would be ideal.
As to MAV, I'd support it if the "regression" were *necessary.* I
don't see it as that, and the fallback to higher preferences clearly
moves away from maximizing expressed utilities.
1. MAV's "regression" is no more artificial than original-Bucklin's
"inclusion".
That's bizarre. Bucklin simply counts the votes in each rank, seeking
a majority, and adds them in sequence. When it finds a majority, it
completes, candidate with the most votes wins. MAV does not use the
last-amalgamated vote, but backs up ("regresses") to the previous
count. It has the data, then ignores it, using it *only* to
distiguish a candidate as approved.
Bucklin is "instant runoff approval." It simulates a series of
approval elections with declining approval cutoff. It's extremely
easy to understand this, and multiple approvals always existed as a
possiblity in Approval, and they actually happened with Bucklin.
Nobody challenged that has being improper in any way. That fits with
tradition with respect to multiple ballot questions, the common usage
where multiple approvals are possible. The candidate with the most
votes wins. That's consident with the Arizona constitution. (The only
question will be about those uncounted votes at lower preferences,
where they exist.)
It is simpler to explain ordinary Bucklin, because the winner rule
does not change. Most votes.
MAV requires "backing up."
Now, from the point of view of utility expression, there is something
very different going on. A Bucklin ballot is *not* an approval
ballot, where all approvals are equal in representation of utility.
It's obvious that the higher ranks are more preferred, that the voter
will have higher satisfaction with the election of the higher-ranked candidate.
Basic Bucklin amalgamation, used in all three methods until a
majority is found or multiple majorities are found, suppresses that
preference information. The ballot is obviously a range ballot, if it
is ER allowed in all ranks, and ranks can be skipped. So range data
is available.
MAV does not use the full range data, qua range.
In many elections, regular Bucklin, MAV, and EMAV will produce the
same result. The difference appears in two places: if there is a
multiple majority, and if there is no majority. The first can be
expected to be relatively rare in a mature system. However, there is
a fear of it, that shows up in LnH fear.
Ordinary Bucklin maximizes this, because the votes collapse to equal value.
MAV minimizes it, because a multiple majority is then backed up to
consider only the higher preferences, so the voter's lower preference
vote that created a multiple majority is taken out and the voter's
higher preference stands.
EMAV treats the situation with balance. It's very much like Range
voting, and I'd expect EMAV strategy to be very similar.
Bucklin, in general, was not designed to maximize utility. It was
designed to be majority-seeking. EMAV keeps that, and continues to
respect the right of decision by a majority, but then uses range
amalgamation, known to be superior as to BR, where there are multiple
majorities or majority failure.
Voters have a choice whether or not to add those lower preferences.
How they do that, quite sure, will be correlated with their actual
preference strengths. Sane Bucklin strategy would involve voting a
sane Range ballot, essentially.
For instance, any Bucklin method could be described using
antiapproval-style bottom-up vote summing, in which case
original-Bucklin would be the one with a "regression" and MAV would
be a straightforward count.
Try it and see if you can describe it simply. "Bottom up" does not
describe a series of elections, each one depending on the previous
one. Your process is essentially backing up to create the past from
the future. You are stretching for proof, Jameson.
2. By the same token, it's also no further from maximizing expressed
utilities than original-Bucklin.
Ah, MAV probably errs in the opposite direction. That is it
under-utilizes the approval data from the multiple majority rank,
while MAV over-utilizes it.
Jameson, I'm not getting that you actually understand EMAV. You may
understand this or that about it, but not the historic and
utility-sum arguments.
Maybe it will help if I mention that I've long considered Bucklin as
a stepping-stone to Range, that I'd see Bucklin sequential
amalgamation eventually disappearing, replaced with something simpler.
3. The purpose of the MAV rule is that it is strategically
relatively "safe" to add a second-to-bottom rating.
That's correct. Without "backup," the danger is that the first
preference is suppressed, made equal with the lower preference. MAV
strips the second preference. EMAV gives the lower preference a 1/2
or 1/4 vote (if the higher preference was at top rating).
The equal vote only happens if no other majority is found, if the
lower preference has a majority and nobody else does at that rank.
But I actually don't like this. I'd rather use the pure range data
from a range ballot. I rather do this in a runoff system, or what
might be more likely to happen, with nonpartisan elections, an open
range primary with top two plus Condorcet (if exists) nomination for
the general election, followed by a range ballot for the general election.
EMAV is an intermediate method. It straddles the majority and range worlds.
The only way it could cause preferred candidate to lose is if it
caused a multiple majority AND the other candidate had more higher
ratings. This is both an unlikely circumstance, as it would mean
that the other candidate's supporters were being significantly less
strategic than your faction; and, in the rare cases where it does
occur, acceptable from a utilitarian point of view, as in this case
it's probably the other candidate who's the utility maximizer. It's
also perfectly clear from an expressive point of view; that is, in
the rare cases where doing so was strategically suboptimal, it will
be easy to "read" the likely result of a repeated election with
strategic voters on all sides, and to choose whether that is
preferable than the weak cooperation.
We need to study some examples.
I understand that it was frustrating for you that I appeared to
support MAV, for a short time, but I think that we were pandering to
some shallow arguments, that we don't need to avoid the "chicken
dilemma," and that using the range ratings adequately addresses the concern.
What evidence would convince you that you are wrong about the chicken dilemma?
For me to answer that, I need a statement that is wrong. What is it?
I've written a lot about the chicken dilemma. What, specifically, is
allegedly "wrong"?
Above, I wrote that "we don't need to avoid the "chicken dilemma." I
consider the chicken dilemma to represent the essential choices that
voters make when there are more than two candidates. It's not
avoidable without damaging the amalgamation process. Now, have I
proven this rigorously?
No. But every attempt I've seen to eliminate the chicken dilemma does
apparently damage social utility.
It's fine if you ask for evidence that you think doesn't exist,
but if you think your argument is unfalsifiable by any possible
evidence, something is wrong.
What's the argument?
In my ontology, "wrong" is neither right nor wrong. It is generally a
disempowering judgment that does not take responsibility for choices.
And that judgment is itself only a stand, not an absolute truth.
I.e.:
original Bucklin: with a multiple majority, all at or above the
found majority rating are collapsed to approval. Same with majority
failure. The result is that a lower preference may count *the same*
as a higher one. It's the "approval problem"
MAV: under the multiple majority at a lower preference rule, the
system ignores the lower preference votes, using only higher-level
approval information. It does count the lower preference votes, but
not to distinguish between those candidates. I haven't done so, but
I could show some problem scenarios. It solves the "approval
problem," but at the cost of apparent expressed utility.
Here's some exactly symmetrical arguments for MAV:
MAV: with a multiple majority against, all at or below the found
majority rating are collapsed to antiapproval.
I'm lost immediately. Disoriented. Someone just turned my planet
upside down and wants me to consider the laws of nature from that
perspective. Sure, it should be equivalent. But, Jameson, I'm not going there.
Same with majority failure. The result is that a higher preference
may count *the same* as a lower one. It's the "approval problem"
Original Bucklin: under the multiple majority at a higher preference
rule, the system ignores the higher antipreference votes, using only
lower-level antiapproval information. It does count the higher
antipreference votes, but not to distinguish between those
candidates. I haven't done so, but I could show some problem
scenarios. It solves the "approval problem," but at the cost of
apparent expressed utility.
Wasted.
I have no doubt that original Bucklin, even properly analyzed --
which Warren did not do -- loses some expressed utility. I'd expect
MAV to do so in the opposite direction. EMAV would fall in the middle.
EMAV: The system uses all the votes in the two cases (multiple
majority and majority failure.) Thus lower preference votes do
count, but only at deprecated value. The difference between full
preference and minimal approval is 1/2 vote. The difference between
full prefeence and the below-approval rank that is above maximum
opposition is 3/4 vote. So EMAV is intermediate to original Bucklin and MAV.
No. GMJ or MJ are intermediate.
GMJ and MJ are *also* intermediate. Jameson, in pursuit of attempting
to make me wrong, you are losing perspective.
EMAV throws the Bucklin principle out the window,
Silly. It uses the Bucklin principle, flipping to Range only in the
ambiguous situations.
which means that in many or most elections, even if you have
perfect knowledge of other voters, no non-extreme ballot is
strategically optimal.
You have made that up about Range. I can take that apart easily.
Shall we look at that.
This is a comment about Range, not about EMAV or Bucklin.
Thus, EMAV will encourage many more voters to exaggerate than in
other rated Bucklin systems, including MJ, GMJ, MAV, MCA, Original
Bucklin, Bucklin//Condorcet, etc. The quality of the ballot
information, and its usefulness for analysis (be it score,
Condorcet, or other) will be lower.
This is FairVote thinking, ultimately. It assumes that voters are
controlled by a deathly fear of "harming their favorite." Real voters
liberally voted lower preferences in the contested public elections.
There was one exception that I know of, I think there was a single
San Francisco election where they didn't. Election conditions vary.
The same argument could be used against Approval, for sure, and
against Range, in general. EMAV is designed as a transitional system,
to introduce a range ballot and to allow its evaluation under certain
circumstances as Range.
I have challenged, many times, the whole concept of "exaggeration" as
applied to Range voting. Voters will vote their preferences. Some
will not understand at first, but that won't lead them *far* astray.
There is a whole history of the claim of "exaggeration" as respects
Range. It is not an honorable history. It's essentially an oxymoron.
This is the foundation of it, right with approval: the voter
supposedly approves of two candidates, but votes only for one,
because they prefer that one.
There is no absolute condition called "approval." Approval is a
*choice,* so what is really being said is that the voter chooses two
candidates, but only chooses one.
Yes, there may be strategic pressure; the voter makes the choice by
balancing *preference strength* with *election probabilities.*
This is the ordinary process of choice in life. We do it all the time.
The more I discuss it, Jameson, the more I'm convinced, so far. If I
had time, I'd do the BR studies myself. But I don't.
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