Re: [EM] Record activity on the EM list?
Yes, there are areas where single-winner methods are more challenging. For example multi-winner STV works better than single-winner STV, and it is easier to collect sincere ratings in multi-winner methods than in single-winner methods. On the other hand the field of study may be wider in multi-winenr methods (a bit like N is more complicated than 1). In multi-winner methods we may have some additional aspects to study and solve like proportionality, geographical proportionality and the computational complexity related problems tend to cause problems. Individual problems may thus be more numerous in multi-winner methods although some individual problems may be more challenging in single-winner methods. Juho On 3.8.2011, at 19.35, James Gilmour wrote: Juho Laatu Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 6:04 AM Multi-winner methods are, if possible, even more complicated than single-winner methods. I disagree. It is much easier to obtain a satisfactory (representative, acceptable) outcome for a multi-winner election than it is to obtain a satisfactory (representative, acceptable) outcome for a single-winner election. Choosing a method to elect the candidate who best represents the voters in a single-winner election is the most difficult challenge in electoral science. As soon as you elect two or more candidates together, many of the problems disappear. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Record activity on the EM list?
There is only one real issue in elections: representation of the voters. If in a single winner partisan election the voters vote 51% for A and 49% for B, we have a major problem in representation. But if the voters vote in the same way (51% to 49%) in a two-member election, any sensible voting system will give one seat to A and one seat to B. Compared to that difference in providing representation of the voters, all the other differences between single-winner and multi-winner elections are trivial. James -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Juho Laatu Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2011 7:07 AM To: EM list Subject: Re: [EM] Record activity on the EM list? Yes, there are areas where single-winner methods are more challenging. For example multi-winner STV works better than single-winner STV, and it is easier to collect sincere ratings in multi-winner methods than in single-winner methods. On the other hand the field of study may be wider in multi-winenr methods (a bit like N is more complicated than 1). In multi-winner methods we may have some additional aspects to study and solve like proportionality, geographical proportionality and the computational complexity related problems tend to cause problems. Individual problems may thus be more numerous in multi-winner methods although some individual problems may be more challenging in single-winner methods. Juho On 3.8.2011, at 19.35, James Gilmour wrote: Juho Laatu Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2011 6:04 AM Multi-winner methods are, if possible, even more complicated than single-winner methods. I disagree. It is much easier to obtain a satisfactory (representative, acceptable) outcome for a multi-winner election than it is to obtain a satisfactory (representative, acceptable) outcome for a single-winner election. Choosing a method to elect the candidate who best represents the voters in a single-winner election is the most difficult challenge in electoral science. As soon as you elect two or more candidates together, many of the problems disappear. James Gilmour Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] SODA and the Condorcet criterion
Here's the new text on the SODA pagehttp://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/Simple_Optionally-Delegated_Approval#Criteria_Compliancerelating to the Condorcet criterion: It fails the Condorcet criterionhttp://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/Condorcet_criterion, although the majority Condorcet winner over the ranking-augmented ballots is the unique strong, subgame-perfect equilibrium winner. That is to say that, the method would in fact pass the *majority* Condorcet winner criterion, assuming the following: - *Candidates are honest* in their pre-election rankings. This could be because they are innately unwilling to be dishonest, because they are unable to calculate a useful dishonest strategy, or, most likely, because they fear dishonesty would lose them delegated votes. That is, voters who disagreed with the dishonest rankings might vote approval-style instead of delegating, and voters who perceived the rankings as dishonest might thereby value the candidate less. - *Candidates are rationally strategic* in assigning their delegated vote. Since the assignments are sequential, game theory states that there is always a subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium, which is always unique except in some cases of tied preferences. - *Voters* are able to use the system to *express all relevant preferences*. That is to say, all voters fall into one of two groups: those who agree with their favored candidate's declared preference order and thus can fully express that by delegating their vote; or those who disagree with their favored candidate's preferences, but are aware of who the Condorcet winner is, and are able to use the approval-style ballot to express their preference between the CW and all second-place candidates. Second place means the Smith set if the Condorcet winner were removed from the election; thus, for this assumption to hold, each voter must prefer the CW to all members of this second-place Smith set or vice versa. That's obviously always true if there is a single second-place CW. The three assumptions above would probably not strictly hold true in a real-life election, but they usually would be close enough to ensure that the system does elect the CW. SODA does even better than this if there are only 3 candidates, or if the Condorcet winner goes first in the delegation assignment order, or if there are 4 candidates and the CW goes second. In any of those circumstances, under the assumptions above, it passes the *Condorcet* criterion, not just the majority Condorcet criterion. The important difference between the Condorcet criterion (beats all others pairwise) and the majority Condorcet criterion (beats all others pairwise by a strict majority) is that the former is clone-proof while the latter is not. Thus, with few enough strong candidates, SODA also passes the independence of clones criterionhttp://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/index.php?title=Independence_of_clones_criterionaction=editredlink=1 . Note that, although the circumstances where SODA passes the Condorcet criterion are hemmed in by assumptions, when it does pass, it does so in a perfectly strategy-proof sense. That is *not* true of any actual Condorcet system (that is, any system which universally passes the Condorcet criterion). Therefore, for rationally-strategic voters who believe that the above assumptions are likely to hold, *SODA may in fact pass the Condorcet criterion more often than a Condorcet system*. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] A DSV method inspired by SODA
I suspect that SODA would be Condorcet compliant (over ballots) if the first player was, not the DSC winner, but the DAC winner (re-ordering between each delegated assignment). I'll see if I can work up a proof on this. JQ 2011/7/30 fsimm...@pcc.edu One of the features of SODA is a step where the candidates decide what their approval cutoffs will be.on behalf of themselves and the voters for whom they are acting as proxies. One of the many novel features is that instead of making these decisions simultaneously, the candidates make them sequentially with full knowledge of the decisions of the candidates preceding them in the sequence. I wonder if anybody has ever tried a DSV (designated strategy voting) method based on these ideas. Here's one way it could go: Voters submit range ballots. Factions are amalgamated via weighted averages, so that each candidate ends up with one faction that counts according to its total weight. For large electorates, these faction scores will almost surely yield complete rankings of the candidates. From this point on, only these rankings will be used. The ratings were only needed for the purpose of amalgamating the factions. If we had started with rankings, we could have converted them to ratings via the method of my recent post under the subject Borda Done Right. In either case, once we have the rankings from the amalgamated factions we proceed as follows: Based on these rankings the DSC (descending solid coalitions) winner D is found. The D faction ranking determines the sequential order of play. When it is candidate X's turn in the order of play, X's approval cutoff decision is made automatically as follows: For each of the possible cutoffs, the winner is determined recursively (by running through the rest of the DSV tentatively). The cutoff that yields the best (i.e. highest ranked) candidate according to X's faction's ranking, is the cutoff that is applied to X's faction. After all of the cutoffs have been applied, the approval winner (based on those cutoffs) is elected. It would be too good to be true if this method turned out to be monotone. For that to be true moving up one position in the sequence of play could not hurt the winner. Although I think that this is probably usually true, I don't think that it is always true. Anybody know any different? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] A DSV method inspired by SODA
Of course DSC and DAC are the same when rankings are complete. I was only going to use it to determine the first player, and with amalgamated factions (almost surely) the rankings would be complete. Of course there are many variations of this DSV idea [e.g. we could use chiastic approval to pick the first player], but the main contribution of SODA is the idea of sequential determination of the approval cutoffs. That eliminates the need for mixed (i.e. probabilistic) strategies. In other words, it makes the DSV method deterministic instead of stochastic. I think a deterministic DSV method is easier to sell than a stochastic one, even though personally I would be happy with strategy A applied to the ballots one by one in some random order. In other words, the approval cutoff on the current ballot is next to the current approval winner on the side of the approval runnerup. If there is no CW, then the winner depends on the random order of the ballot processing. The public might have a hard time with that fact. - Original Message - From: Jameson Quinn Date: Thursday, August 4, 2011 7:41 am Subject: Re: [EM] A DSV method inspired by SODA To: fsimm...@pcc.edu Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com I suspect that SODA would be Condorcet compliant (over ballots) if the first player was, not the DSC winner, but the DAC winner (re-ordering between each delegated assignment). I'll see if I can work up a proof on this. JQ 2011/7/30 One of the features of SODA is a step where the candidates decide what their approval cutoffs will be.on behalf of themselves and the voters for whom they are acting as proxies. One of the many novel features is that instead of making these decisions simultaneously, the candidates make them sequentially with full knowledge of the decisions of the candidates preceding them in the sequence. I wonder if anybody has ever tried a DSV (designated strategy voting) method based on these ideas. Here's one way it could go: Voters submit range ballots. Factions are amalgamated via weighted averages, so that each candidate ends up with one faction that counts according to its total weight. For large electorates, these faction scores will almost surely yield complete rankings of the candidates. From this point on, only these rankings will be used. The ratings were only needed for the purpose of amalgamating the factions. If we had started with rankings, we could have converted them to ratings via the method of my recent post under the subject Borda Done Right. In either case, once we have the rankings from the amalgamated factions we proceed as follows: Based on these rankings the DSC (descending solid coalitions) winner D is found. The D faction ranking determines the sequential order of play. When it is candidate X's turn in the order of play, X's approval cutoff decision is made automatically as follows: For each of the possible cutoffs, the winner is determined recursively (by running through the rest of the DSV tentatively). The cutoff that yields the best (i.e. highest ranked) candidate according to X's faction's ranking, is the cutoff that is applied to X's faction. After all of the cutoffs have been applied, the approval winner (based on those cutoffs) is elected. It would be too good to be true if this method turned out to be monotone. For that to be true moving up one position in the sequence of play could not hurt the winner. Although I think that this is probably usually true, I don't think that it is always true. Anybody know any different? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] A DSV method inspired by SODA
2011/8/4 fsimm...@pcc.edu Of course DSC and DAC are the same when rankings are complete. I was only going to use it to determine the first player, and with amalgamated factions (almost surely) the rankings would be complete. Yes, understood. I on the other hand was speaking of using this within SODA itself, not within your SODA-inspired method. In SODA, tied candidate preferences are legal. I'd call the resulting method SODA-DAC. Plain SODA still uses the order based on current approval total, for simplicity. The results are equivalent for up to 3 candidates, and generally speaking as long as the CW makes a strong initial showing (goes first, or goes second of 4, or ) Of course there are many variations of this DSV idea [e.g. we could use chiastic approval to pick the first player], but the main contribution of SODA is the idea of sequential determination of the approval cutoffs. That eliminates the need for mixed (i.e. probabilistic) strategies. In other words, it makes the DSV method deterministic instead of stochastic. Again, understood. I think a deterministic DSV method is easier to sell than a stochastic one, even though personally I would be happy with strategy A applied to the ballots one by one in some random order. In other words, the approval cutoff on the current ballot is next to the current approval winner on the side of the approval runnerup. If there is no CW, then the winner depends on the random order of the ballot processing. The public might have a hard time with that fact. I agree. In particular, even I might have a hard time, if there weren't at least a deterministic pseudorandom number generator with a pre-declared seed. Even then, this process would be much more difficult to audit / recount than a deterministic one. So I agree that the player-order idea for making things deterministic is helpful. JQ Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Amalgamation details, hijacking, and free-riding
- Original Message - From: Jameson Quinn Date: Wednesday, August 3, 2011 4:10 pm Subject: Re: Amalgamation details, hijacking, and free-riding To: fsimm...@pcc.edu Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com 2011/8/3 So if the true preferences are 20 AB 45 C? 35 (something else), the C supporters could spare 21 voters to vote AC so that the amalgamated factions would become 41 AC 24 C? 35 (something else) . I can see where it is possible for such a move to payoff, but it seems fairly innocuos compared to other strategy problems like burial, compromising, chicken, etc. Not to me. I would be livid to find out my vote had been hijacked. All the other strategies you mention at least use a voter's own vote. Highjacking sounds bad, but it is just one form of over-riding votes. At least it doesn't over-ride your first place preference like the compromising incentive twists your arm to do. Every method eventually over-rides various preferences at some point in the process. Compromising is a form of extortion that blackmails you into expressing a false preference. That's the most egregious form. In other words, compromising forces you to either lie or lose. If somebody else highjacks, they lie to take advantage of you, but with much more risk than the liar who buries to take advantage of the CW supporters. For this kind of highjacking to work, the highjacking faction would have to have more than three times the support of the highjacked faction, as can be seen from the above example (which lacking that much support in the hijacking faction gives an obvious first place advantage to A). That kind of superiority is more than enough to over-ride pairwise wins in ranked pairs, river, beatpath, etc. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Amalgamation details, hijacking, and free-riding
2011/8/4 fsimm...@pcc.edu - Original Message - From: Jameson Quinn Date: Wednesday, August 3, 2011 4:10 pm Subject: Re: Amalgamation details, hijacking, and free-riding To: fsimm...@pcc.edu Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com 2011/8/3 So if the true preferences are 20 AB 45 C? 35 (something else), the C supporters could spare 21 voters to vote AC so that the amalgamated factions would become 41 AC 24 C? 35 (something else) . I can see where it is possible for such a move to payoff, but it seems fairly innocuos compared to other strategy problems like burial, compromising, chicken, etc. Not to me. I would be livid to find out my vote had been hijacked. All the other strategies you mention at least use a voter's own vote. Highjacking sounds bad, but it is just one form of over-riding votes. At least it doesn't over-ride your first place preference like the compromising incentive twists your arm to do. Every method eventually over-rides various preferences at some point in the process. Compromising is a form of extortion that blackmails you into expressing a false preference. That's the most egregious form. In other words, compromising forces you to either lie or lose. If somebody else highjacks, they lie to take advantage of you, but with much more risk than the liar who buries to take advantage of the CW supporters. For this kind of highjacking to work, the highjacking faction would have to have more than three times the support of the highjacked faction, as can be seen from the above example (which lacking that much support in the hijacking faction gives an obvious first place advantage to A). That kind of superiority is more than enough to over-ride pairwise wins in ranked pairs, river, beatpath, etc. This is only true if you define the hijacking faction in terms of the ultimate beneficiary, the winner. But a minor faction could hijack another minor faction to shift the frontrunner. I agree, it's unlikely. But the very possibility, to me, rankles more than the average strategy. In fact, I suspect it would open the process to legal challenges. Anyway, I don't see why it's necessary. All it gains you is summability; which is nice, but in the age of fast data pipelines it is not a necessity. JQ Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] SODA and the Condorcet criterion
I want to thank Jameson for taking the ball and running with it on SODA. I really appreciate his talented and energetic work on elaborating, explaining, and selling the method. It's exciting to me to see the possibilities. Here's more evidence of monotonicity: With a three candidate cycle x ABC y BCA z CAB if xyz, then A plays first, but B wins the election. If the B faction increases at the expense of the x faction so that yxz, then B goes first, and still wins! (because ACB is opposite the cyclic order of the beat cycle) The other nice thing about SODA and strong first play order is that it makes the game of chicken go away. Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 08:01:30 -0500 From: Jameson Quinn To: EM Subject: [EM] SODA and the Condorcet criterion Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Here's the new text on the SODA page Delegated_Approval#Criteria_Compliancerelatingto the Condorcet criterion: It fails the Condorcet criterion, although the majority Condorcet winner over the ranking- augmented ballots is the unique strong, subgame-perfect equilibrium winner. That is to say that, the method would in fact pass the *majority* Condorcet winner criterion,assuming the following: - *Candidates are honest* in their pre-election rankings. This could be because they are innately unwilling to be dishonest, because they are unable to calculate a useful dishonest strategy, or, most likely, because they fear dishonesty would lose them delegated votes. That is, voters who disagreed with the dishonest rankings might vote approval-style instead of delegating, and voters who perceived the rankings as dishonest might thereby value the candidate less. - *Candidates are rationally strategic* in assigning their delegated vote. Since the assignments are sequential, game theory states that there is always a subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium, which is always unique except in some cases of tied preferences. - *Voters* are able to use the system to *express all relevant preferences*. That is to say, all voters fall into one of two groups: those who agree with their favored candidate's declared preference order and thus can fully express that by delegating their vote; or those who disagree with their favored candidate's preferences, but are aware of who the Condorcet winner is, and are able to use the approval-style ballot to express their preference between the CW and all second-place candidates. Second place means the Smith set if the Condorcet winner were removed from the election; thus, for this assumption to hold, each voter must prefer the CW to all members of this second-place Smith set or vice versa. That's obviously always true if there is a single second-place CW. The three assumptions above would probably not strictly hold true in a real-life election, but they usually would be close enough to ensure that the system does elect the CW. SODA does even better than this if there are only 3 candidates, or if the Condorcet winner goes first in the delegation assignment order, or if there are 4 candidates and the CW goes second. In any of those circumstances,under the assumptions above, it passes the *Condorcet* criterion, not just the majority Condorcet criterion. The important difference between the Condorcet criterion (beats all others pairwise) and the majority Condorcetcriterion (beats all others pairwise by a strict majority) is that the former is clone-proof while the latter is not. Thus, with few enough strong candidates, SODA also passes the independence of clones criterion . Note that, although the circumstances where SODA passes the Condorcet criterion are hemmed in by assumptions, when it does pass, it does so in a perfectly strategy-proof sense. That is *not* true of any actual Condorcetsystem (that is, any system which universally passes the Condorcet criterion). Therefore, for rationally-strategic voters who believe that the above assumptions are likely to hold, *SODA may in fact pass the Condorcetcriterion more often than a Condorcet system*. -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: electorama.com/attachments/20110804/d8f85fc2/attachment-0001.htm Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] SODA and the Condorcet criterion
2011/8/4 fsimm...@pcc.edu I want to thank Jameson for taking the ball and running with it on SODA. I really appreciate his talented and energetic work on elaborating, explaining, and selling the method. Thank you. More stuff I've added to the SODA page recently: -I tried to unify the terminology. Voters can delegate their votes; Candidates receive delegated votes (not ballots), which they then use (I had been using assign, exercise, or share) by approving other candidates, who in turn receive these shared votes. I'd be open to suggestions to improve any of those terms, though I think consistency is more important than perfection. -I revamped the section on Advantages, and added a section on Electoral College compatibility. The latter contains proposed rules for using with the EC, for which I'm open to refinements or suggestions. Here are the sections as they stand: Advantages SODA has advantages for many groups. In fact, most of the advantages would fit in more than one of the categories below, so the division is somewhat arbitrary. Also, on the talk page (click discussion above) there are also two hard sell SODA pitches for two different audiences, which restate these advantages in more-opinionated terms. [edithttp://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/index.php?title=Simple_Optionally-Delegated_Approvalaction=editsection=10 ]For voters 1. SODA is extremely easy for the voters; in fact, *no voting system is simpler to vote*. (Plurality, by restricting you to only one vote, also makes it possible to mistakenly overvote, spoiling your ballot. There is no such way to accidentally invalidate your ballot under SODA. Also, both Plurality and Approval require a conscientious voter to consider strategy and polling status; SODA allows a simple bullet vote to still be strategically as strong as possible, regardless of the candidate standings.) 2. Under SODA, there is *no need for dishonesty* from individual voters. A voter can safely vote for any candidate that they honestly agree with, without fear of that vote being wasted; or safely vote an honest approval-style ballot, if they do not agree with any candidate's preference order. This is drastically different from plurality, where voters must dishonestly spurn spoiler candidates as a matter of course. 3. SODA *does not require you to trust any politician*. Any vote delegation is both safe (you can see where your delegated vote will go) and entirely optional. Any voter who dislikes the idea of their vote being delegated in a smoke-filled room, need not allow that to happen. [edithttp://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/index.php?title=Simple_Optionally-Delegated_Approvalaction=editsection=11 ]For society (results) 1. SODA is far *more likely to arrive at a majority result* than Plurality (or even IRV). Winners will thus have a clearer mandate. 2. SODA may be *more likely to elect the Condorcet winner* (aka pairwise champion, the candidate who could beat all others one-on-one) than *any other system* (except SODA-DAC http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/DAC). See the technical discussion in the prior section for the assumptions that would make this true. 3. However, unexpected, relatively unknown or *unqualified winners will be as rare or rarer under SODA* than under Approval or a Condorcet system. In a polarized society, Condorcet can have such a strong tendency to elect centrists that even unqualified, largely-unknown centrists have an advantage over better-known candidates; SODA will not have such a tendency unless the stronger candidates consciously choose this as a compromise. [edithttp://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/index.php?title=Simple_Optionally-Delegated_Approvalaction=editsection=12 ]For society (process) 1. Leaders of *minority factions would have an appropriate voice for their concerns*, although power would ultimately reside with any majority coalition which exists. In fact, you could say that SODA combines the best of both worlds - the negotiated, everyone-gets-a-voice coalitions of parliamentary government, with the decisive, buck-stops-here clear winner of a US-style system. 2. SODA would *reduce negative campaigns*. A negative attack against opponent A would often just shift votes to another opponent B who would end up sharing them back with A in the delegation round. Meanwhile, the candidate carrying out the attacks could also suffer with voters. 3. Like many other voting reforms, SODA would *reduce the influence of money* in political campaigns. Plurality, with its overriding need to be a frontrunner, exaggerates the importance of money. SODA in particular, by encouraging meaningful campaigns and get-out-the-vote operations by minor candidates, while still ensuring that the extra turnout those generated would have an effective impact in deciding between the major candidates, would help substitute grassroots
Re: [EM] [RangeVoting] Re: Range Voting As an Issue
Here I talk of moving up from FPP to Range or Condorcet. I do not get into other single-winner elections or into multi-winner elections - while such deserve considering, they distract from my primary goal, which is to promote moving upward without getting buried in details. Voters should see advantages in moving up to a better method. To vote for one, as in FPP: . In Range, assign your choice a maximum rating. . In Condorcet, simply rank your choice. Voting for two is using more power than FPP offers. Often there is a major pair of candidates for which you prefer one, and one other that you also want to vote for: For your second choice you could give the same rank or rating, or lower: . In Range you assign first choice maximum rating. Unrated share minimum. The farther you rate second below max, the stronger your vote for max over second. BUT, the nearer you rate second to unrated, the weaker you rate second over unrated. . In Condorcet, rank your first choice higher than your second. Voting for more is doable: . In Range your difference in rating between any two is how much you prefer the higher over the lower, and the sum of these differences decides which wins their race. . In Condorcet they count how many rank AB vs how many rank BA. Politicians may hesitate in moving up to more powerful methods. Range or Condorcet can cost more, but getting a truer reading as to voter choices can be worth the pain. Dave Ketchum On Aug 4, 2011, at 3:20 AM, bob wrote: --- In rangevot...@yahoogroups.com, thenewthirdparty thenewthirdparty@... wrote: Guys and Gals, I now see Range Voting as a very important component to getting third parties elected. But I don't see how the Range Voting group will ever change the minds of the public in order for it to be a reality. Does someone have thoughts on how to get your Range Voting plan voted into action? I would like to hear how Range Voting moves beyond more than just a good idea. I think we need to start a PAC or even maybe a party that has the sole objective of getting rid of plurality voting. We need to be able to communicate that competitive elections in which there is no vote splitting is the most important thing we can do to hold politicians accountable. We also need to be willing to vote for candidates who support getting rid of plurality regardless of what other positions that candidate holds. We need to communicate that once we get over this hump, we will no longer have to worry about having to vote for the lesser of two evils ever again. Another thing we can do is email and tweet news hosts like Rachael Maddow and ask them to do a segment on different voting systems. If we organize to tweet pundits at the same time, maybe they'll get the message. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] [RangeVoting] Re: Range Voting As an Issue
On Aug 4, 2011, at 3:20 AM, bob wrote: --- In rangevot...@yahoogroups.com, thenewthirdparty thenewthirdparty@... wrote: Guys and Gals, I now see Range Voting as a very important component to getting third parties elected. But I don't see how the Range Voting group will ever change the minds of the public in order for it to be a reality. and they haven't changed my mind about it, even though i'm not opposed to election policy reform nor of moving past FPP. i fully recognize why the simple vote-for-one ballot (either FPP or delayed-top-two-runoff) disadvantages third-party and independent candidates. this was a point i brought up during in Burlington IRV debate: one of the vocal opponents to IRV was, 3 years previously, a minor candidate for mayor in Burlington Vermont. i would almost say a non-serious candidate, but he got on the ballot (his name is Loyal Ploof). now he lost to the Prog candidate who was elected in 2006 and he was a sorta anti-establishment rabble rouser (if he could get a rabble). now (i told them this), suppose i'm standing in the rabble and Loyal says something that we all sorta know but the contending candidates aren't gonna bring up and i hear it and i say yeah, right! Loyal's right! maybe even he's a largely single-issue candidate, maybe not. but i want to send a message to city hall by voting for Loyal but the election between the real contenders might be close and my two-party contingency candidate may need my vote. so Loyal doesn't get it, because even if i agree with him and *want* to vote for him, i dare not. it's the typical Spoiler problem, that discourages voting for third-party or independent candidates. if they can never sufficient vote (because the race between credible candidates may be close) third parties cannot get off the ground and become contenders. but i was surprized that this guy who would directly benefit from a ranked ballot would be opposed to it. (he didn't like the Prog mayor and essentially jumped in the boat with the other Prog-haters that believed, falsely, that IRV specifically favored the Progs in Burlington.) that said, and to repeat that i also understand IRV to have *failed* in Burlington in 2009, i am not at all impressed with Range or Score voting for governmental elections (for certain Olympic sports, sure, but not for governmental elections). one of the complaints we have against both FPP and IRV (as we found out in Burlington in 2009) is placing obvious burdens of tactical voting on the electorate. we don't *like* having to forsake our favorite candidate in order to accomplish some other political imperative. FPP discourages the Nader voters from voting for their favorite candidate in 2000 by punishing them when it became clear that their vote cause Bush to be elected. and IRV discourages the GOP Prog-haters in Burlington from voting for their favorite candidate in 2009 when they discover that marking their favorite as #1 on the ballot actually caused the Prog to win. now, it's not the ranked ballot that failed these voters, it was the Hare-STV method of tabulating the vote. Condorcet would have taken the same ballot data and elected the candidate that was preferred by the electorate over any other specific candidate. The GOP who lost the most in the election would neither have gotten punished for their sincere 1st-choice vote (if IRV had survived, in 2012 these guys would be saying to themselves in the polls: I gotta choose between Liberal and More-Liberal, because if I vote for the guy I really like, More-Liberal gets elected), they would have been more satisfied with the Condorcet winner than with the IRV winner, who was their least favorite. And the Progs would have been more satisfied with the Condorcet winner than with the apparent FPP winner (the GOP), but they would be unhappy with the result due to rivalry the Progs and Dems have for the common liberal voter in this town. Ranked-choice voting requires less strategizing by the voter than Range because it requires less information. with a ranked ballot, all the voter needs to decide is who, in every contingency that matters to the voter, who he or she would vote for. they don't need to decide how much *more* they like Mother Teresa over Ghandi. If they really want to bury a third candidate, Stalin, they have to sacrifice their preference between the two virtuous and the election might be decided between them. Or maybe the election will turn out to be a battle between Stalin and Satan and they might rather live under Stalin than Satan, so they want to bump him up a little (leave Satan with a score of 0). but what if Satan wins because not enough voters scored Stalin up enough? or what if either Teresa or Ghandi lose to Stalin because too many voters scored Stalin too high (for fear of electing Satan)? what to do? what to do? but a ranked ballot is easy: Teresa Ghandi
