Re: [EM] IRV vs Plurality
okay, Abd ul, i once got suckered into responding to a big long thing you made in response to me. you probably seen it, but the list hasn't because it exceeded some size limit. so i'm gonna snip at the first place to respond and i'll ask that the next issue area get its separate email thread (we might even spawn new subject lines). i just can't deal with size explosion to this degree. On Jan 17, 2010, at 12:53 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: At 01:44 AM 1/15/2010, robert bristow-johnson wrote: but the problem with considering *more* than pure ranking (Range) is that it requires too much information from the voter. and the problem with *less* (Approval or FPTP) is that it obtains too little information from the voter. There is a common error here, which is to assume that Range requires too much information from the voter. well, it does force the voter to consider the questions oh, i hate this guy 28% more than i hate the other guy, so how do i rate each candidate in range? the range rating values are a superset of the adjacent integer rankings from a ranked-order ballot like one for Condorcet, IRV, Borda. in the ranked-order ballot, all the voter has to decide is who she would vote for in adjacent candidates: ABC. she doesn't have to decide how much more she likes B over C than how much A is over B. one is a quick set of qualitative decisions. the other makes it a quantitative issue, and that's when a lot of us get out our dartboard. i don't think making threshold decision based on the precise sum of a bunch of noisy numbers (which is what Range is when we use our dartboards to score a candidate) does much other than to add the means of the noisy numbers and a sum of zero-mean random numbers which throws a little bit of dice into the mix before using the threshold comparison and determining the winner. so it requires thinking that we wouldn't have to do otherwise. if we don't feel like thinking that seriously, it becomes a big noisy threshold on the means of stable ranks. that's sorta like Borda and does become the equivalent if people's evaluations of candidates sorta linear. First of all, Approval is Range, simply the most basic Range method. it's Range with 1-bit binary values. So what you have is a contradiction: Range requires both too much and too little information. Surely it depends on the specific Range implementation. yes it does. of course the answer is (if i may appeal to an audio image) that what we *normally* mean when we say Range is were the sliders for each candidate are either continuous or have many discrete values (say 10 or 100). a two-position slider is what we call a switch. requires one bit of information. that's getting qualitatively different. either you are at the minimum number of levels (or bits of information in the slider position) or you're not. perhaps a 3-position slider can be Actively Disapprove, no opinion - neutral, and Actively Approve perhaps a 4-position slider can be Actively Disapprove, no opinion - neutral, and Actively Approve and Hey, I really like this guy! perhaps a 5-position slider can be This guy is crap, Actively Disapprove, no opinion - neutral, and Actively Approve and Hey, I really like this guy! we can continue on like this with more discrete levels and all we'll get are gradations of the above. it's all a matter of degree. but the 2-position slider is a 1-bit piece of information: No,Yes, that's the minimum a voter has to judge. that's qualitatively different. here's why: with the multi-level (3 or more), then order has to be considered with candidates that you approve or disapprove. but the multi-level or continuous slider (3+) requires *more* than just ordering information (who is preferred to whom?), it requires *spacing* information. like i hate candidate D worse than i hate C whom i dislike more than B whom i like less than A. you have to decide that D is twice as badder than C than C is badder than B or some other value judgement. what if you just don't feel like making such a precise judgement? then you get your dartboard. -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] IRV vs Plurality (Dave Ketchum) (Kathy Dopp)
robert bristow-johnson wrote: On Jan 16, 2010, at 5:02 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: robert bristow-johnson wrote: On Jan 16, 2010, at 3:41 PM, Kathy Dopp wrote: Exactly as I tried to point out to you, you were either disallowing voters to rank only two candidates or to rank all three. no, it has nothing at all to do with allowing or disallowing the voters to I see I was correct and you are disallowing voters to rank only two candidates and have, as Abd ul also pointed out to you, left 3 choose 2 or 6 possible choices out of your list. because all unmarked candidates are tied for last place, when there is only one unmarked candidate, there is *no* consequential difference between leaving that candidate unmarked or marking that candidate last. Is that true in IRV? Consider a vote of the sort: A B where A and B are eliminated. Then this would be an empty vote, I think, and so be removed from the count, whereas if it had been A B C it would count as one point for C. now lemme see, if there are three candidates, how are two of them eliminated before the IRV final round? Ah, I see. The only way for that to happen is if both B and C tie for last, in which case A wins by default. Thus it only matters if there are more than three candidates, i.e. when both ABC and AB votes are truncated. think about it little bit, Kristofer, it *is* a useful fiction to leave the 2 bottom candidates (of 5) out of consideration (so one can get a grip of what happened in Burlington VT in 2009), but once you've done that (and you're considering only what happens between the remaining 3), the 9 numbers that are the only tallies you need to consider *any* counting scenario, IRV, Condorcet, Plurality of 1st choice, tallies for 1st or 2nd choice (some people in Burlington have suggested that as the number to use to determine the weakest candidate to eliminate in an IRV round), whatever, are: 1332 MKW 767 MWK 455 M 2043 KMW 371 KWM 568 K 1513 WMK 495 WKM 1289 W with exactly those three candidates in consideration, what consequential difference would it make in IRV (or any other rule of tabulation) if the [1332 MKW] pile was split into two piles; [MKW] and [MK] that totaled 1332? those 9 numbers could certainly be determined in individual precincts and meaningfully summed at City Hall or the campaign headquarters of either candidate. I'm not sure if it would be equivalent in Borda, however. Some ways of extending Borda to incomplete (truncated) ballots suggest that you give the last candidate 1 point, the next to last 2, etc, so that for A B B gets one point and A two, whereas for A B C A gets three. It would also make a difference if the election method in question uses no opinion the way Warren's Range extension does: that no opinion is to provide no information at all (alters neither the numerator nor denominator of the average). Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] IRV vs Plurality
robert bristow-johnson wrote: we can continue on like this with more discrete levels and all we'll get are gradations of the above. it's all a matter of degree. but the 2-position slider is a 1-bit piece of information: No,Yes, that's the minimum a voter has to judge. that's qualitatively different. here's why: with the multi-level (3 or more), then order has to be considered with candidates that you approve or disapprove. but the multi-level or continuous slider (3+) requires *more* than just ordering information (who is preferred to whom?), it requires *spacing* information. like i hate candidate D worse than i hate C whom i dislike more than B whom i like less than A. you have to decide that D is twice as badder than C than C is badder than B or some other value judgement. what if you just don't feel like making such a precise judgement? then you get your dartboard. To me, it seems that the method becomes Approval-like when (number of graduations) is less than (number of candidates). When that is the case, you *have* to rate some candidates equal, unless you opt not to rate them at all. That won't make much of a difference when the number of candidates is huge (100 or so), but then, rating 100 candidates would be a pain. I'd say it would be better to just have plain yes/no Approval for a first round, then pick the 5-10 most approved for a second round (using Range, Condorcet, whatever). Or use minmax approval or PAV or somesuch, as long as it homes in on the likely winners of a full vote. I guess that if you (hypothetically speaking) like Range, you could argue that while there's a dartboard effect, the noise is unbiased and so will cancel itself out given enough voters: the voters may not hit exactly at the satisfaction point, but close enough. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Fw: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairer than IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws
Hi Chris, I respond to your claims below. On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Chris Benham cbenha...@yahoo.com.au wrote: - Forwarded Message From: Chris Benham cbenha...@yahoo.com.au To: EM election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Fri, 15 January, 2010 4:21:31 AM Subject: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairer than IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws Kathy Dopp wrote (11 Jan 2010): snip IRV/STV is fundamentally unfair because a large group of persons whose first choice loses, never has their 2nd choice counted, unlike some other voters. It's a highly inequitable method. snip Kathy Dopp wrote (13 Jan 2010): For those who need a system for substituting for a top-two runoff election, I devised two fair methods to suggest to her that do not have all the flaws of IRV/STV. (They both may've been devised by others before me. My goal was to create a fair method without IRV/STV's flaws which solve the problem of one person/one vote which is necessary to get a voting method approved by US courts. -- I believe that these alternative systems (below) are also susceptible to the spoiler effect of a nonwinning candidate changing who wins the election, although I believe that there is a significant difference between the alternative methods below and plurality and IRV where a majority opposed candidate may win the election. In other words, I believe that the winner due to a spoiler in the alternative method below is more likely to be a majority favorite. If majority opposed means having a majority-strength pairwise loss, then there is no decisive method that assures that no such candidate can win. You could be right on that statement Chris. I wasn't thinking about all the possibilities when I wrote the above. I'm not sure what Kathy means by a majority favorite. That phrase is usually taken to refer to a candidate that is strictly top-ranked by more than half the voters. The Majority Favorite criterion is met by IRV and Plurality among many others, but not by Borda or Range. Sorry. I should use the phrase Condorcet winner for what I mean. Both methods below solve the problem of every voter having a vote of value one and, unlike IRV, treat all voters alike by counting all their choices So, here are two possible methods that are fairer than IRV/STV and which are monotonic (unlike IRV/STV): 1. A rank choice ballot method: Any number of candidates may be running for office and any number allowed to be ranked on the ballot. Voter ranks one candidate vote =1 Voter ranks two candidates, denominator is 1+2 = 3 votes are worth 2/3 and 1/3 for first and second ranked candidates Voter ranks three candidates, denominator is 1+2+3=6 votes are worth 3/6 and 2/6 and 1/6 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice respectively Voter ranks four candidates, denominator is 1+2+3+4=10 votes are worth 4/10, 3/10, 2/10, and 1/10 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd and 4th choice respectively ETC. Just follow the same pattern 51: AB 40: B 09: CA A: (51 x 2/3 = 34) + (9 x 1/3 = 3) = 37. B: (40 x 1 = 40) + (51 x 1/3 = 17) = 57 C: (9 x 2/3) = 6. Kathy's proposed point score method here elects B in violation of Majority Favourite. Yes. But also notice that B is also a majority favorite in that 91 voters out of 100 prefer B over C and 40/100 prefer B strongly enough to bullet vote, so the vast majority of voters should be happy with this result, unlike with IRV where a majority may think that the elected candidate is the worst choice, as happened in Burlington, VT mayoral election. Also of course if the A supporters had not ranked B then A would have won, a big violation of Later-no-Harm. Later-no-harm is a very bad feature of IRV that prevents IRV from finding majority-favorite compromise candidates and tends to elect extreme right or extreme left candidates. In any negotiation, it is necessary to reveal the 2nd choices of all parties early on, not hide 2nd choices entirely of some voters and never consider them at all like IRV does to most voters in many elections. 2. A point system where a total number of points per voter per contest may be allocated by the voter to any of the candidates running for office: Two candidates running for office, give all voters 2+1=3 votes to cast. They may cast all three votes for one candidate or split the votes any way between the two. Three candidates running for office, give all voters 3+2+1=6 votes to cast. They may cast all six votes for one candidate or split the votes any way they like between the three. Four candidates running for office, give all voters 4+3+2+1=10 votes to cast. They may cast all ten votes for one candidate or split the votes any way they like between the four. Five candidates running for office, give all voters 5+4+3+2+1=15 votes to cast. They may cast all 15 votes for one candidate or split the votes any way they like. This
Re: [EM] IRV vs Plurality
For the record, I like approval voting and think it would be among the best, if not the best, first step as an alternative voting method to plurality. However, I also think Condorcet is OK as long as voters are not required to rank all choices, to alleviate the point Abd ul mentions below somewhat. Really, the only methods I would object to are the fundamentally unfair ones like IRV/STV that treat voters' votes differentially and thus produce very undesirable election results and remove the rights of some voters to fully participate. Approval, if courts OK it, is by far the simplest to count, audit, explain to voters, etc. and is probably the best first step. Using IRV/STV as a first step may turn off people to alternative electoral methods for a very long time after they realize how deeply they've been misled on how it works, its effects, etc. I am now going to, for the most part, soon drop out of participation in this list again for the Spring semester at college. Kathy On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:53 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: At 01:44 AM 1/15/2010, robert bristow-johnson wrote: but the problem with considering *more* than pure ranking (Range) is that it requires too much information from the voter. and the problem with *less* (Approval or FPTP) is that it obtains too little information from the voter. There is a common error here, which is to assume that Range requires too much information from the voter. First of all, Approval is Range, simply the most basic Range method. So what you have is a contradiction: Range requires both too much and too little information. Surely it depends on the specific Range implementation. But there is a more fundamental error: that of requirement. Voters may vote in Approval, and Range, as they would vote in Plurality, if they want, and for most voters, this is a simple and powerful strategy. If they favor a frontrunner, and if there are only two frontrunners (the normal situation!), whatever else they would do would be moot for election purposes. But they could cast votes to show support, which has other salutary effects. That, in fact, is why Warren Smith calls Range an incubator for minor parties. It allows them to show their natural support, neither more nor less. The only issue about voting strategy arises in a real three-way race, which is not common. Most voters, however, would be reasonably served by a very simple strategy. Vote first for your favorite candidate, no strategy necessary or even useful. Then consider the frontrunners, however many there are, it's the set of candidates that you think have a prayer of winning, and vote for your favorite of them. (in Approval, that's it, in Range, it means vote max or maybe just short of max). Is your favorite one of the frontrunners?. Vote minimum rating (i.e., in Approval, don't vote at all for) the worst candidate, with no strategic considerations at all. Vote similarly for the worst frontrunner: minimum rating or just a tad higher if the system allows it. And then where do you vote for the rest of the candidates, the ones in the middle? Well, pay attention first to any remaining frontrunners. (In most elections, there aren't any left, but we are now talking about a situation where there are three or more, and we should remember that this is rare.) My own conclusion from study of the game theory involved is that possible expected improvement from seriously optimizing Range votes is small at best over simply voting sincere ratings, and as long as preference order isn't reversed, it's all likely to average out. At worst, from clear exaggeration in order to gain some strategic advantage, it's possible to cast a vote that will leave behind serious regret once you know the outcome. When you have ranked the frontrunners where it seems right, then fill in any remaining candidates you want to rate. If it gets crowded, equal rank a candidate being added with the one already ranked. Rating equals ranking with the option of equal ranking. Equal preference strength expression (i.e., if one spreads the candidates through the rating space evenly) is Borda count. If you don't like that, if it seems to be off, then fix it. Spread some ratings apart, which necessarily compresses some. Don't hesitate to equal rank if you have any difficulty deciding which of two candidates are better. The fact that you have difficulty is a clear indication that you don't have a strong preference! I would not spend a lot of time actually doing the ranking/rating. The hard part is learning enough about the candidates to have a foundation for opinions. So if I don't have enough information to do that, I don't have strong preferences! and so voting is easy, if I simply express that. I can spread my vote over the full range if I think that my intuition might be valuable (it can be! -- but it may also be vulnerable to media manipulation). My choice. Range
[EM] IRV vs Plurality ( Kristofer Munsterhjelm )
Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote (17 Jan 2010): To me, it seems that the method becomes Approval-like when (number of graduations) is less than (number of candidates). When that is the case, you *have* to rate some candidates equal, unless you opt not to rate them at all. That won't make much of a difference when the number of candidates is huge (100 or so), but then, rating 100 candidates would be a pain. I'd say it would be better to just have plain yes/no Approval for a first round, then pick the 5-10 most approved for a second round (using Range, Condorcet, whatever). Or use minmax approval or PAV or somesuch, as long as it homes in on the likely winners of a full vote. Simply using plain Approval to reduce the field to the top x point scorers who then compete in the final round seems unsatifactory to me because of the Rich Party incentive (clone problem) for parties to field x candidates; and because of the tempting Push-over (turkey raising) strategy incentive. Chris Benham __ See what's on at the movies in your area. Find out now: http://au.movies.yahoo.com/session-times/ Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] IRV vs Plurality
At 03:01 AM 1/17/2010, robert bristow-johnson wrote: On Jan 17, 2010, at 12:53 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: There is a common error here, which is to assume that Range requires too much information from the voter. well, it does force the voter to consider the questions oh, i hate this guy 28% more than i hate the other guy, so how do i rate each candidate in range? the range rating values are a superset of the adjacent integer rankings from a ranked-order ballot like one for Condorcet, IRV, Borda. Part of the problem is the way in which Range has been presented. It isn't really rating candidates, though that can be part of the process. It's *voting.* The simplest way to describe Range, and to think about it, is that it is Approval Voting with fractional votes allowed. Not required. There is a whole debate among students of Range about using average vote rather than sum of votes. The difference is that with sum of votes, we have a traditional Approval voting system, which always uses sum of votes. Not average vote. (Average vote is meaningless, really, unless the ballot asks for Yes or No or Approve/Disapprove for each candidate). Average vote doesn't consider majority at all. Naturally, I support sum of votes, and though average vote is interesting (in terms of understanding the future of a candidate), it isn't *voting*, which in it's basic form, is seeking for a majority of voters to vote for a candidate for the candidate to win. Is voting 1/100 vote for a candidate voting for a candidate? I would try to make ballot instructions make it clear that the voter is casting fractional votes, and probably shouldn't vote for a candidate at all if the voter isn't willing to support the candidate against others. That makes the decision much easier. in the ranked-order ballot, all the voter has to decide is who she would vote for in adjacent candidates: ABC. she doesn't have to decide how much more she likes B over C than how much A is over B. one is a quick set of qualitative decisions. the other makes it a quantitative issue, and that's when a lot of us get out our dartboard. Sure. But you don't have to make those quantitative decisions if you don't want to. It's optional, and, in fact, I prefer that voters not cast fractional votes unless they are easy for them to decide. i don't think making threshold decision based on the precise sum of a bunch of noisy numbers (which is what Range is when we use our dartboards to score a candidate) does much other than to add the means of the noisy numbers and a sum of zero-mean random numbers which throws a little bit of dice into the mix before using the threshold comparison and determining the winner. The numbers can be noisy, but surely you know that adding certain kinds of noise can improve the accuracy of a feedback system! They aren't actually noise, they are noisy. The averages provide information, and the very fact of the existence of fractional votes -- even just one! -- improves the utility of the system, that's been shown. so it requires thinking that we wouldn't have to do otherwise. if we don't feel like thinking that seriously, it becomes a big noisy threshold on the means of stable ranks. that's sorta like Borda and does become the equivalent if people's evaluations of candidates sorta linear. First of all, Approval is Range, simply the most basic Range method. it's Range with 1-bit binary values. Yup. Range 1, I call it, which means that there are two possible votes, generally with one being the default. Approval voting is Plurality voting, with the *option* of voting for more than one. Most voters, under normal conditions in the U.S., don't need to do it! So what you have is a contradiction: Range requires both too much and too little information. Surely it depends on the specific Range implementation. yes it does. of course the answer is (if i may appeal to an audio image) that what we *normally* mean when we say Range is were the sliders for each candidate are either continuous or have many discrete values (say 10 or 100). Only Smith considers a continuous slider, and I prefer, simply, to consider that what separates Range from Approval is the ability to cast fractional votes. Freedom from the voter. Sure: if you have freedom you have more choices and, gosh, you might even be tempted to *think*! Tell me, do you want voters to think or do you think of voting systems as a device that extracts information from voters without them thinking about it? And making actual decisions? a two-position slider is what we call a switch. requires one bit of information. that's getting qualitatively different. either you are at the minimum number of levels (or bits of information in the slider position) or you're not. And all the switches are off by default. So, don't want to do much work? First option: don't vote at all! Leave it to others who know more and care more. And this
Re: [EM] Fw: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairer than IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws
At 08:38 AM 1/17/2010, Kathy Dopp wrote: Also of course if the A supporters had not ranked B then A would have won, a big violation of Later-no-Harm. Later-no-harm is a very bad feature of IRV that prevents IRV from finding majority-favorite compromise candidates and tends to elect extreme right or extreme left candidates. In any negotiation, it is necessary to reveal the 2nd choices of all parties early on, not hide 2nd choices entirely of some voters and never consider them at all like IRV does to most voters in many elections. Chris is Australian, and is one of a rare breed: someone who actually understands STV and supports it for single-winner because of LNH satisfaction. Of course, LNH is a criterion disliked by many voting system experts, and it's based on a political concept which is, quite as you say, contrary to sensible negotiation process. In rational process, people start by advocating their first preference, and will only disclose lower preferences if the preference strength of the favorite over the lower ones is low or zero. Then, as they become aware of the first preferences of others, they will start to disclose lower preferences. The more eager they are to find consensus, the sooner they will do this. In Range, they *may* do it immediately, or they may conceal those preferences, it is their option. My problem with straight Range voting is precisely because it too-quickly bypasses the normal strategy. And it will be less effective because of this. However, Bucklin does imitate the rational process, and Range/Bucklin would do it even more accurately. The voter discloses to the method, as it were, as if the ballot becomes the voter's agent, true relative utilities. That becomes the optimum strategy! The system then slides down the voter's established utilities, starting out by bullet voting for the favorite or any equally rated candidates. Not finding a majority, it then clicks down the scale for all voters and checks again, and it keeps doing this until it finds a majority winner. If it's a deterministic election, it will go all the way down to the lowest non-zero rating. But I greatly prefer only setting a winner if a true majority approval is found, thus the method sticks with the tradition, a tradition which has centuries of experience behind it, and which is only abandoned in public elections in the name of efficiency over democracy. There is a name for that choice. Fascism. But I'm not claiming that plurality is fascist, just that some aspects of some of the arguments for it are. What I'd do with Range/Bucklin is to use it to discover if there is a majority winner with the Bucklin process. Then I'd count all the votes for all candidates. If sum of votes indicates a different winner, I'd hold a runoff. If not, that's it. If there is no majority-approved winner, there is a runoff. I'll defer, for a moment, the question of candidate eliminations. Ultimately, I prefer no eliminations, or, at most, only ballot listing eliminations, write-ins still allowed. Or perhaps the candidates are listed on the second ballot with their Range ratings from the first election, so voters have that information handy and can make reasonable compromises right there. And the second election might be pure Bucklin (i.e., Approval/Bucklin). And what happens if there is no majority in the runoff? In democratic organizations, they just keep at it until they get a majority. If there is a harm from the office not being filled, well, that's pressure to make a compromise. If the majority of people don't want to fill the office by finding a majority compromise, we have a loss of democracy, I call it the tyranny of the past. It was decided, that, in the future, decisions would be made with less than a majority. However, there is an option. If there is a question asked on the ballot, Shall this election be awarded to the candidate with the most votes, even if there is no majority, the majority will have determined on an election unconditionally if more voters vote yes on that question than vote no. But under current conditions, we wouldn't ask that question. We might be afraid of the answer we get. Those who are in power fear that the power might evaporate, and often come to not trust the people. Systemic problem, I'm not blaming anyone. Yes. *Any* system that guarantees the principle of one-person/one-vote as some US judges insist on, has the feature that it encourages bullet voting. Actually, there are few decisions that insist on a narrow interpretation of one-person, one-vote. Minnesota is in an odd situation now, but I should really read the recent decision. Brown v. Smallwood was an anomaly, not confirmed anywhere else. What is important is that, in the end, everyone gets equal voting power, without discrimination. Taking this principle to the end conclusions, though, plurality has some severe problems, so does IRV. Approval, in
Re: [EM] IRV vs Plurality (Dave Ketchum)
Cutting to the chase, the fundamental error has been to assume that write-in or so-called inconsequential candidates can be batch- eliminated before having results from the whole election. No precinct knows what can be eliminated until it has the results from other precincts for the first round. Further a method must accomodate not just a most-common scenario but also all possible scenarios. Runoff voting in general encourages candidate counts to increase. Cf. San Francisco. We are talking about the matrix size necessary to fully canvass an IRV election centrally from initial data provided by each precinct. That initial data might categorize all write-candidates into a single pile, but the risk is that if reports from other precincts indicate possible significance, it would be necessary to ask the precincts to tabulate the write-in pile. If you did this with so-called minor candidates, you'd see a lawsuit, which is less likely with write-ins. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Fw: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairerthan IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws
Kathy, you wrotesnip ...unlike with IRV where a majority may think that the elected candidate is the worst choice, as happened in Burlington, VT mayoral election. snip That is incorrect for Burlington, (the IRV winner was the second Condorcet-winner if the actual Condorcet-winner is removed, and favored above the other three candidates.) And it is a fundamental fact that the IRV winner can never be a candidate that the majority think is the worst choice. IRV can never elect the Condorcet-loser. The ultimate winner must be preferred above the other finalist in the last round of the tally. It is PLURALITY voting, which you support, that often DOES elect the Condorcet-loser, who a majority agree is the worst choice. Terry Bouricius - Original Message - From: Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com To: Chris Benham cbenha...@yahoo.com.au; EM election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 8:38 AM Subject: Re: [EM] Fw: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairerthan IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws Hi Chris, I respond to your claims below. On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Chris Benham cbenha...@yahoo.com.au wrote: - Forwarded Message From: Chris Benham cbenha...@yahoo.com.au To: EM election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Fri, 15 January, 2010 4:21:31 AM Subject: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairer than IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws Kathy Dopp wrote (11 Jan 2010): snip IRV/STV is fundamentally unfair because a large group of persons whose first choice loses, never has their 2nd choice counted, unlike some other voters. It's a highly inequitable method. snip Kathy Dopp wrote (13 Jan 2010): For those who need a system for substituting for a top-two runoff election, I devised two fair methods to suggest to her that do not have all the flaws of IRV/STV. (They both may've been devised by others before me. My goal was to create a fair method without IRV/STV's flaws which solve the problem of one person/one vote which is necessary to get a voting method approved by US courts. -- I believe that these alternative systems (below) are also susceptible to the spoiler effect of a nonwinning candidate changing who wins the election, although I believe that there is a significant difference between the alternative methods below and plurality and IRV where a majority opposed candidate may win the election. In other words, I believe that the winner due to a spoiler in the alternative method below is more likely to be a majority favorite. If majority opposed means having a majority-strength pairwise loss, then there is no decisive method that assures that no such candidate can win. You could be right on that statement Chris. I wasn't thinking about all the possibilities when I wrote the above. I'm not sure what Kathy means by a majority favorite. That phrase is usually taken to refer to a candidate that is strictly top-ranked by more than half the voters. The Majority Favorite criterion is met by IRV and Plurality among many others, but not by Borda or Range. Sorry. I should use the phrase Condorcet winner for what I mean. Both methods below solve the problem of every voter having a vote of value one and, unlike IRV, treat all voters alike by counting all their choices So, here are two possible methods that are fairer than IRV/STV and which are monotonic (unlike IRV/STV): 1. A rank choice ballot method: Any number of candidates may be running for office and any number allowed to be ranked on the ballot. Voter ranks one candidate vote =1 Voter ranks two candidates, denominator is 1+2 = 3 votes are worth 2/3 and 1/3 for first and second ranked candidates Voter ranks three candidates, denominator is 1+2+3=6 votes are worth 3/6 and 2/6 and 1/6 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice respectively Voter ranks four candidates, denominator is 1+2+3+4=10 votes are worth 4/10, 3/10, 2/10, and 1/10 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd and 4th choice respectively ETC. Just follow the same pattern 51: AB 40: B 09: CA A: (51 x 2/3 = 34) + (9 x 1/3 = 3) = 37. B: (40 x 1 = 40) + (51 x 1/3 = 17) = 57 C: (9 x 2/3) = 6. Kathy's proposed point score method here elects B in violation of Majority Favourite. Yes. But also notice that B is also a majority favorite in that 91 voters out of 100 prefer B over C and 40/100 prefer B strongly enough to bullet vote, so the vast majority of voters should be happy with this result, unlike with IRV where a majority may think that the elected candidate is the worst choice, as happened in Burlington, VT mayoral election. Also of course if the A supporters had not ranked B then A would have won, a big violation of Later-no-Harm. Later-no-harm is a very bad feature of IRV that prevents IRV from finding majority-favorite compromise candidates and tends to elect extreme right or extreme left candidates. In any negotiation,
Re: [EM] Fw: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairerthan IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:34 PM, Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net wrote: Kathy, you wrotesnip ...unlike with IRV where a majority may think that the elected candidate is the worst choice, as happened in Burlington, VT mayoral election. To clarify, what I meant to say is that in Burlington, the IRV winner was the worst choice of a majority of voters *out of the three candidates who were viable*. There are many other voting methods that do not share that flaw with IRV/STV. In fact do any alternatives to plurality share that IRV/STV flaw? snip That is incorrect for Burlington, (the IRV winner was the second Condorcet-winner if the actual Condorcet-winner is removed, and favored above the other three candidates.) And it is a fundamental fact that the IRV winner can never be a candidate that the majority think is the worst choice. IRV can never elect the Condorcet-loser. The ultimate winner must be preferred above the other finalist in the last round of the tally. It is PLURALITY voting, which you support, that often DOES elect the Condorcet-loser, who a majority agree is the worst choice. You are distorting the facts again Terry. If you want to know what I support, ask or read my posts. I clearly support plurality if the choice is between IRV/STV and plurality because IRV/STV are *much worse* than plurality in a variety of ways. However, given the choice between plurality and virtually any other alternative voting method I've heard proposed on this list, I support the alternatives. Please try to stop making personal attacks and distorting the facts about people, whenever the facts on the issues are not on your side. It's not pretty Terry. Kathy Terry Bouricius - Original Message - From: Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com To: Chris Benham cbenha...@yahoo.com.au; EM election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 8:38 AM Subject: Re: [EM] Fw: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairerthan IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws Hi Chris, I respond to your claims below. On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Chris Benham cbenha...@yahoo.com.au wrote: - Forwarded Message From: Chris Benham cbenha...@yahoo.com.au To: EM election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Fri, 15 January, 2010 4:21:31 AM Subject: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairer than IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws Kathy Dopp wrote (11 Jan 2010): snip IRV/STV is fundamentally unfair because a large group of persons whose first choice loses, never has their 2nd choice counted, unlike some other voters. It's a highly inequitable method. snip Kathy Dopp wrote (13 Jan 2010): For those who need a system for substituting for a top-two runoff election, I devised two fair methods to suggest to her that do not have all the flaws of IRV/STV. (They both may've been devised by others before me. My goal was to create a fair method without IRV/STV's flaws which solve the problem of one person/one vote which is necessary to get a voting method approved by US courts. -- I believe that these alternative systems (below) are also susceptible to the spoiler effect of a nonwinning candidate changing who wins the election, although I believe that there is a significant difference between the alternative methods below and plurality and IRV where a majority opposed candidate may win the election. In other words, I believe that the winner due to a spoiler in the alternative method below is more likely to be a majority favorite. If majority opposed means having a majority-strength pairwise loss, then there is no decisive method that assures that no such candidate can win. You could be right on that statement Chris. I wasn't thinking about all the possibilities when I wrote the above. I'm not sure what Kathy means by a majority favorite. That phrase is usually taken to refer to a candidate that is strictly top-ranked by more than half the voters. The Majority Favorite criterion is met by IRV and Plurality among many others, but not by Borda or Range. Sorry. I should use the phrase Condorcet winner for what I mean. Both methods below solve the problem of every voter having a vote of value one and, unlike IRV, treat all voters alike by counting all their choices So, here are two possible methods that are fairer than IRV/STV and which are monotonic (unlike IRV/STV): 1. A rank choice ballot method: Any number of candidates may be running for office and any number allowed to be ranked on the ballot. Voter ranks one candidate vote =1 Voter ranks two candidates, denominator is 1+2 = 3 votes are worth 2/3 and 1/3 for first and second ranked candidates Voter ranks three candidates, denominator is 1+2+3=6 votes are worth 3/6 and 2/6 and 1/6 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice respectively Voter ranks four candidates, denominator is 1+2+3+4=10 votes are worth
Re: [EM] Fw: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairerthan IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws
Kathy, You still have it wrong. You wrote To clarify, what I meant to say is that in Burlington, the IRV winner was the worst choice of a majority of voters *out of the three candidates who were viable*. No, among the top three the IRV winner, Kiss, was not less preferred than Wright. Both Kiss and Montroll were preferred by more voters over Wright. Among the three candidates who were viable it was the first round plurality leader, Wright, who was the Condorcet-loser, not Kiss. The real world choice in Burlington today is between plurality and IRV. You have stated, that in this case you prefer Plurality, which allows the Condorcet-loser to be declared the winner. I agree that there is a powerful intellectual case for a Condorcet solution, but that is not on the table (even though I helped Robert Bristow-Johnson try to get it into the hopper for consideration.) Condorcet, so far, has not been able to get any traction with folks in Burlington, or in any other jurisdiction in the world. Condorcet advocates may want to focus their attention on Aspen, where the risk is that ranked ballots may be abandoned, if IRV is repealed. Promoting Condorcet as an alternate direction to go there seems to be a natural for advocates. Terry Bouricius - Original Message - From: Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com To: Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 1:38 PM Subject: Re: [EM] Fw: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairerthan IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:34 PM, Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net wrote: Kathy, you wrotesnip ...unlike with IRV where a majority may think that the elected candidate is the worst choice, as happened in Burlington, VT mayoral election. To clarify, what I meant to say is that in Burlington, the IRV winner was the worst choice of a majority of voters *out of the three candidates who were viable*. There are many other voting methods that do not share that flaw with IRV/STV. In fact do any alternatives to plurality share that IRV/STV flaw? snip That is incorrect for Burlington, (the IRV winner was the second Condorcet-winner if the actual Condorcet-winner is removed, and favored above the other three candidates.) And it is a fundamental fact that the IRV winner can never be a candidate that the majority think is the worst choice. IRV can never elect the Condorcet-loser. The ultimate winner must be preferred above the other finalist in the last round of the tally. It is PLURALITY voting, which you support, that often DOES elect the Condorcet-loser, who a majority agree is the worst choice. You are distorting the facts again Terry. If you want to know what I support, ask or read my posts. I clearly support plurality if the choice is between IRV/STV and plurality because IRV/STV are *much worse* than plurality in a variety of ways. However, given the choice between plurality and virtually any other alternative voting method I've heard proposed on this list, I support the alternatives. Please try to stop making personal attacks and distorting the facts about people, whenever the facts on the issues are not on your side. It's not pretty Terry. Kathy Terry Bouricius - Original Message - From: Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com To: Chris Benham cbenha...@yahoo.com.au; EM election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 8:38 AM Subject: Re: [EM] Fw: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairerthan IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws Hi Chris, I respond to your claims below. On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Chris Benham cbenha...@yahoo.com.au wrote: - Forwarded Message From: Chris Benham cbenha...@yahoo.com.au To: EM election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Fri, 15 January, 2010 4:21:31 AM Subject: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairer than IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws Kathy Dopp wrote (11 Jan 2010): snip IRV/STV is fundamentally unfair because a large group of persons whose first choice loses, never has their 2nd choice counted, unlike some other voters. It's a highly inequitable method. snip Kathy Dopp wrote (13 Jan 2010): For those who need a system for substituting for a top-two runoff election, I devised two fair methods to suggest to her that do not have all the flaws of IRV/STV. (They both may've been devised by others before me. My goal was to create a fair method without IRV/STV's flaws which solve the problem of one person/one vote which is necessary to get a voting method approved by US courts. -- I believe that these alternative systems (below) are also susceptible to the spoiler effect of a nonwinning candidate changing who wins the election, although I believe that there is a significant difference between the alternative methods below and
[EM] Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairer than IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws
Abd Lomax wrote (17 Jan 2010): snip Chris is Australian, and is one of a rare breed: someone who actually understands STV and supports it for single-winner because of LNH satisfaction. Of course, LNH is a criterion disliked by many voting system experts, and it's based on a political concept which is, quite as you say, contrary to sensible negotiation process. snip I endorse IRV (Alternative Vote, with voters able to strictly rank from the top however many candidates they choose) as a good method, much better than Plurality or TTR, and the best of the methods that are invulnerable to Burial and meet Later-no-Harm. Some of us see elections as primarily a contest and not a negotiation process. I endorse IRV because it has a maximal set of (what I consider to be) desirable criterion compliances: Majority for Solid Coalitions (aka Mutual Majority) Woodall's Plurality criterion Mutual Dominant Third Condorcet Loser Burial Invulnerability Later-no-Harm Later-no-Help Mono-add-Top Mono-add-Plump (implied by mono-add-top) Mono-append Irrelevant Ballots Clone-Winner Clone-Loser (together these two add up to Clone Independence) As far as I can tell, the only real points of dissatisfaction with IRV in Australia are (a) that in some jurisdictions the voter is not allowed to truncate (on pain of his/her vote being binned as invalid) and (b) that it isn't multi-winner PR so that minor parties can be fairly represented. I gather the Irish are also reasonably satisfied with it for the election of their President. snip I've really come to like Bucklin, because it allows voters to exercise full power for one candidate at the outset, then add, *if they choose to do so*, alternative approved candidates. snip The version of Bucklin Abd advocates (using ratings ballots with voters able to give as many candidates they like the same rating and also able to skip slots) tends to be strategically equivalent to Approval but entices voters to play silly strategy games sitting out rounds. It would be better if 3-slot ballots are used, in which case it is the same thing as (one of the versions of) Majority Choice Approval (MCA). IMO the best method that meets Favourite Betrayal (and also the best 3-slot ballot method) is Strong Minimal Defence, Top Ratings: *Voters fill out 3-slot ratings ballots, default rating is bottom-most (indicating least preferred and not approved). Interpreting top and middle rating as approval, disqualify all candidates with an approval score lower than their maximum approval-opposition (MAO) score. (X's MAO score is the approval score of the most approved candidate on ballots that don't approve X). Elect the undisqualified candidate with the highest top-ratings score.* Unlike MCA/Bucklin this fails Later-no-Help (as well as LNHarm) so the voters have a less strong incentive to truncate. Unlike MCA/Bucklin this meets Irrelevant Ballots. In MCA candidate X could be declared the winner in the first round, and then it is found that a small number of voters had been wrongly excluded and these new voters choose to openly bullet-vote for nobody (perhaps themselves as write-ins) and then their additional ballots raise the majority threshold and trigger a second round in which X loses. I can't take seriously any method that fails Irrelevant Ballots. Compliance with Favourite Betrayal is incompatible with Condorcet. If you are looking for a relatively simple Condorcet method, I recommend Smith//Approval (ranking): *Voters rank from the top candidates they approve. Equal-ranking is allowed. Interpreting being ranked above at least one other candidate as approval, elect the most approved member of the Smith set (the smallest non-empty set S of candidates that pairwise beat all the outside-S candidates).* Chris Benham __ See what's on at the movies in your area.. Find out now: http://au.movies.yahoo.com/session-times/ Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Fw: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairerthan IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws
Kathy, You still are miss-stating the Burlington situation. Nearly every political scientist would say that Wright and Kiss were the two strongest candidates. Most political observers would agree that the term the two strongest candidates does not include the third place plurality candidate, Montroll, who you wish to include. Under election rules used in any government election in the world, whether a plurality election or a traditional runoff election, Montroll would lose as the third place candidate. The fact that IRV introduced ranked ballots allows us to see that his broader second-choice appeal made him the Condorcet-winner, but it is at least debatable as to whether the term strongest is the appropriate term to be applied to a candidate who could be in last place in a plurality situation. Though your term the two strongest candidates CAN be re-interpreted to mean what you want it to mean, I don't think you can make that statement without a caveat to explain that you mean something different than what any layperson would assume you mean. Terry - Original Message - From: Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com To: Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 2:10 PM Subject: Re: [EM] Fw: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairerthan IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 1:54 PM, Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net wrote: Kathy, You still have it wrong. You wrote To clarify, what I meant to say is that in Burlington, the IRV winner was the worst choice of a majority of voters *out of the three candidates who were viable*. Yes. Sorry. Of the two strongest candidates then. You're right. Thanks for the correction. Kathy No, among the top three the IRV winner, Kiss, was not less preferred than Wright. Both Kiss and Montroll were preferred by more voters over Wright. Among the three candidates who were viable it was the first round plurality leader, Wright, who was the Condorcet-loser, not Kiss. The real world choice in Burlington today is between plurality and IRV. You have stated, that in this case you prefer Plurality, which allows the Condorcet-loser to be declared the winner. I agree that there is a powerful intellectual case for a Condorcet solution, but that is not on the table (even though I helped Robert Bristow-Johnson try to get it into the hopper for consideration.) Condorcet, so far, has not been able to get any traction with folks in Burlington, or in any other jurisdiction in the world. Condorcet advocates may want to focus their attention on Aspen, where the risk is that ranked ballots may be abandoned, if IRV is repealed. Promoting Condorcet as an alternate direction to go there seems to be a natural for advocates. Terry Bouricius - Original Message - From: Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com To: Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 1:38 PM Subject: Re: [EM] Fw: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairerthan IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:34 PM, Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net wrote: Kathy, you wrotesnip ...unlike with IRV where a majority may think that the elected candidate is the worst choice, as happened in Burlington, VT mayoral election. To clarify, what I meant to say is that in Burlington, the IRV winner was the worst choice of a majority of voters *out of the three candidates who were viable*. There are many other voting methods that do not share that flaw with IRV/STV. In fact do any alternatives to plurality share that IRV/STV flaw? snip That is incorrect for Burlington, (the IRV winner was the second Condorcet-winner if the actual Condorcet-winner is removed, and favored above the other three candidates.) And it is a fundamental fact that the IRV winner can never be a candidate that the majority think is the worst choice. IRV can never elect the Condorcet-loser. The ultimate winner must be preferred above the other finalist in the last round of the tally. It is PLURALITY voting, which you support, that often DOES elect the Condorcet-loser, who a majority agree is the worst choice. You are distorting the facts again Terry. If you want to know what I support, ask or read my posts. I clearly support plurality if the choice is between IRV/STV and plurality because IRV/STV are *much worse* than plurality in a variety of ways. However, given the choice between plurality and virtually any other alternative voting method I've heard proposed on this list, I support the alternatives. Please try to stop making personal attacks and distorting the facts about people, whenever the facts on the issues are not on your side. It's not pretty Terry. Kathy Terry Bouricius - Original Message - From: Kathy Dopp
Re: [EM] Fw: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairerthan IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws
On Jan 17, 2010, at 3:53 PM, Terry Bouricius wrote: Nearly every political scientist would say that Wright and Kiss were the two strongest candidates. before or after the election? before the election, i'm not sure that was true. they might have said that Kiss and Montroll were the two strongest candidates *after* the election, the political scientists/observers are reverberating the official election results determined by rules which are presently under debate. Most political observers would agree that the term the two strongest candidates does not include the third place plurality candidate, only because the election rules in effect do not put the 3rd place candidate (according to the rules) in the top two. if the election rules were changed, then what would the political scientists or observers say? Under election rules used in any government election in the world, whether a plurality election or a traditional runoff election, Montroll would lose as the third place candidate. and i've pointed that out a few times. and Montroll would not have been in the runoff. and, it's possible that with reduced turnout, that the biggest loser (from the Condorcet POV) would have won subsequently pissing off 66% of the town. The fact that IRV introduced ranked ballots allows us to see that his broader second-choice appeal made him the Condorcet- winner, but it is at least debatable as to whether the term strongest is the appropriate term to be applied to a candidate who could be in last place in a plurality situation. yes, it's debatable and, since there are 3 different methods all lifting up different declared winners, it's subjective. -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
