Re: [EM] Some chance for consensus revisited: Most simple solution

[Jobst Heitzig]

Hi Raph,

 The odds of it actually working are pretty low.  For it to work, all
 voters must be aware that C is a valid compromise.

Sure, that's the flipside of it being so ultimately simple. The easiest way to 
safeguard against a small number of non-cooperative voters would be to require 
only, say, 90% of the consensus ballots to have the same option ticked in 
order for that option to be elected. I guess that's what you mean by threshold:

 In practice, there needs to be a reasonable threshold.  There is
 always going to be a need to balance tyranny of the (N%) majority
 against the hold-out problem.

Even with a 90% threshold, a tyranny of a 90% majority can be avoided, but this 
requires another slight modification: Instead of on two separate ballots, every 
voter marks her favourite and consensus options on one ballot using markers 1 
and 2. Then a ballot is drawn at random. If at least 90% of all ballots mark 
the same option 2 as this drawn ballot does, then that option wins. Otherwise 
the option marked 1 on the drawn ballot wins. In this way, a bullet-voting 
faction of, say, 5%, allocates at least 5% winning probability to their 
favourite (as required by my interpretation of democratic method).

Yours, Jobst

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Re: [EM] STV and weighted positional methods

[Kathy Dopp]

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 8:24 AM, Raph Frank raph...@gmail.com wrote:


 Ok, so if there was 100 polling stations, you would pick say 5 of them and 
 then apply to be allowed to count those votes?

 If the results are the same as the official count, then it is likely
 that all 100 are the same (since you picked them at random, any group trying 
 to tamper with the results wouldn't have known which polling stations to 
 leave alone).

 This covers tampering where the tampering is small but in a large number of 
 the districts.

 If the fraudsters tampered a large amount but in a small number of polling 
 station, they would have a higher chance they would get away with it.

 You would also need to include in your check any polling stations with 
 suspicious results.  For example, if they don't match exit polling or if 
 their result is an outlier when compared to all the other polling stations.

Yes. I agree with you and have been recommending the same for years
and have been helping to develop the mathematics for calculating
sample sizes, and am in the process of writing a paper on how to do
the analysis of the discrepancies found in an audit.


 This method could also be applied in the IRV case if they use the central 
 office method (i.e. counts are performed in each polling station under the 
 direction of a central office).

 You would have a list of the results for each round from each polling station 
 and what candidates were eliminated.

Hmm. Have to think about that.  The mathematics is very different. And
to actually check that the overall tally is correct, you would have to
take a separate sample for each IRV/STV round from different poll
locs. It would be a very complex process and would take a lot lot more
auditing overall than in a plurality election or in an election using
any precinct-summable method.  Auditing IRV/STV in that way would take
a huge amount of effort and time and expense compared to auditing any
other voting method but I suppose is possible.  The amount of sorting
and resorting of the ballots alone would take a huge amount of time.
I'm not sure that it might be much simpler just to go ahead and do the
100% hand count.

I do not think that logically, the process you list below that checks
only one poll location, does anything to check that the overall
reported result is correct because as soon as you begin checking round
#2 the accuracy for that one poll loc depends on whether or not all
the other poll locs were accurately counted or not.  You need to
randomly sample poll locs separately for each round from the total
list of poll locs to use this method in a logically correct way.

I cannot imagine how anyone could want to make all that unnecessary
extra time, effort, and money for a system that is fundamentally
unfair like IRV/STV is when there are so many other better voting
methods.

Cheers,

Kathy


 You could then manually check a random set of the polling stations, i.e.

 Round 1:

 - Sort ballots into piles based on first choices
 - count each pile
 - make sure they match announced

 Round 2:

 - Check who was eliminated after round 1
 - Split his pile based on 2nd choices
 - count all the sub-piles
 - make sure they match the announced result

 and so on


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[EM] To see oursels as ithers see us

[Michael Allan]

Fred Gohlke wrote:

 I suspect you are right, even though ...

 O wad some Power the giftie gie us
  To see oursels as ithers see us!

Excellent!  May discussion be that gift!  Theory says so, if not the
bard.

 It seems sad that a passionate search for a more democratic electoral 
 method may be seen as anger by folks professing a belief in democracy. 
 Still, I shouldn't be surprised.  From what I've seen, many who profess 
 belief in democracy lack faith in the judgment of the people.

Faith may be too much to ask of them.  They may need to hear the
judgement before agreeing to it.  And we the people, we may need to
hear our collective voice in practice - to see oursels as ithers see
us - before we pass final judgement.

 re: (Your proposal is interesting, all the same.)

 I'm glad you find it so.  It would be helpful if you could outline
 its shortcomings.  I will, of course, express my point of view
 (passionately?)  in the hope we can isolate specific failings and
 reduce their adverse effect.

But I am sworn to a truce with you!  Critique of method is not
allowed.  (Nor is quibbling.  I have renamed the thread. :)

So I return the question in this form: What other election methods
have been proposed that are similar, either in purpose or technique,
to your own practical democracy?  Of those most similar, what are
their compartative strengths and weaknesses?

P.S.  Do you still prefer a CC for list posts?

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, 647-436-4521
http://zelea.com/


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