Re: [EM] the meaning of a vote (or lack thereof)
Warren Smith wrote: --no. A single ballot can change the outcome of an election. This is true in any election method which is capable of having at least two outcomes. Proof: simply change ballots one by one until the outcome changes. At the moment it changes, that single ballot changed an election outcome. QED. Your proof is flawed, of course. It assumes the election method would allow one to change ballots one by one until the outcome changes. Such gross manipulations are not permitted by the rules of any election method. The rules grant to the voter a single vote, and that is all. The challenge is to describe how the use of that vote could affect the outcome of the election, or of anything else in the objective world. How exactly could it? You know that it cannot. Earlier you wrote, 'The only genuinely meaningful thing is who won the election?' I agree that matters. But if the election method grants to the individual voter no influence over that outcome, then either: a) What the voter thinks is of no importance; or b) The election method is flawed. We cannot dismiss both of these. One of them must be true. -- Michael Allan Toronto, +1 416-699-9528 http://zelea.com/ Warren Smith wrote: Michael Allan: The effect however of a single ballot is exactly zero. It cannot change the outcome of the election, or anything else in the objective world. --no. A single ballot can change the outcome of an election. This is true in any election method which is capable of having at least two outcomes. Proof: simply change ballots one by one until the outcome changes. At the moment it changes, that single ballot changed an election outcome. QED. Also, even in elections which can only be changed by changing a set of (more than one) ballot, ballots still derive meaning from that. -- Warren D. Smith http://RangeVoting.org -- add your endorsement (by clicking endorse as 1st step) and math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/works.html Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Michael Allan wrote: Warren Smith wrote: Kenneth Arrow has worried that range-voting-type score votes might have no or unclear-to-Arrow meaning. In contrast, he considers rank-ordering-style votes to have a clear meaning. Nic Tideman has also expressed similar worries in email, but now about the lack of meaning of an approval-style vote. In contrast, I think Tideman regards a plurality-style name one candidate then shut up vote as having a clear meaning. E.g. what does a score of 6.5 mean, as opposed to a score of 6.1, on some ballot? But the Bayesian view is: whether or not Arrow or Tideman or somebody has a more-or-less muddled mental notion of the meaning of a ballot, is irrelevant. The only genuinely meaningful thing is who won the election? All meaning of any ballot therefore derives purely from the rules for mathematically obtaining the election-winner from the ballots. The effect however of a single ballot is exactly zero. It cannot change the outcome of the election, or anything else in the objective world. We might attach such meaning to the voting system as a whole, but not to the individual vote. On the effects of an individual vote, see also: How to fix the flawed Nash equilibrium concept for voting-theory purposes: http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2010-April/thread.html#25803 http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2010-April/thread.html#25840 ... All this analysis really tells us is the Bayesian view is correct. And certainly that any dismissal of range- or approval-style voting on the grounds of their claimed inherent lack of meaning, is hogwash. From the vantage of the voter, however, the critique retains force. It impacts not only range/approval, but also the single bullet and ranked ballot. No such ballot has any effect on the election and its meaning is therefore called into question. Most of an individual's actions in life have *some* possibility of effect and we can attach meaning to this. I can take responsibility for my actions, for example, by weighing the consequences. I can discuss the rights and wrongs of the matter with others. But not for voting. The voting system guarantees that my vote will have no effect and I would look rather foolish to suppose otherwise. This presents a serious problem. Do you agree? -- Michael Allan Toronto, +1 416-699-9528 http://zelea.com/ Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] the meaning of a vote (or lack thereof)
On 27.8.2011, at 2.13, Jonathan Lundell wrote: On Aug 26, 2011, at 1:17 PM, Juho Laatu wrote: On 24.8.2011, at 2.07, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: But back to a possible generic meaning of a score or cardinal rating: if you think that candidate X would vote like you on a random issue with probability p percent, then you could give candidate X a score that is p percent of the way between the lowest and highest possible range values. Note that this meaning is commensurable across the electorate. This is the best proposal so far since this takes us as far as offering commensurable ratings. Maybe we should add also voter specific weights to the different issues. Voters could start from the set of issues that the representative body or single representative covered during the last term. They could adjust those issues a bit to get a list of issues that are likely to emerge during the next term. That makes a list that is the same to all (and that makes the opinions therefore commensurable). Weighting makes the results more meaningful since to some voters some questions might be critical and others might be irrelevant. Without the weights the ratings might not reflect the preference order since we might have misbalance due to too many questions of one kind or due to questions of varying importance. In principle one could collect the opinions also indirectly by generating an explicit list of issues and asking voters to mark their opinion an weight on each issue. That list could be structured or allow voters to indicate the importance of each group of questions. It is however not obvious how the questions should be grouped. Grouping could also influence the results. It would be also difficult to the voter to estimate the level of overlap between different issues. In practice one may get equally good results by simply asking how much do you think you will agree with this candidate (from 100% to 0%). I'm repeating myself here, sorry, but... 1. Why isn't this replacing one ineffable candidate utility with n ineffable issue-agreement utilities (where each issue utility is the (signed) issue weight)? Maybe because the voter answers question how often do you agree instead of how strongly do you agree. Time and number of occurrences are commensurable but voters' interpretations of the chemical and physical reactions in their brain and heart are not (maybe one approach would be to use some instruments to measure brain and heart activity with some external device :-) ). With weights added the question continues ... and estimate the importance of those agreements. This is based purely on personal feelings as taken from the brain and heart, but that should not destroy commensurability since all the voters are still on the commensurable scale from 100% agreement to 0% agreement, and the voters are still supposed to answer question how often, if all issues would get the time that they deserve. The n issues could be all binary decisions, agree or disagree. In that case they are commensurable. If they are more complex, e.g. numeric decisions, then the voter must estimate the level of agreement somehow. Maybe the voter should decide on some hard limits to what is agreeable and then decide which candidates agree with him and which ones do not. Also numeric differences would do. This way we can (at least in principle) escape the non-commensurable strength of agreement questions. 2. One doesn't vote for a candidate strictly on predetermined issues. You don't know which issues will arise in the next 2-4-6-whatever years, and the work of an elected official (a president in particular, but also other offices) consists of more than voting on issues. Yes, but the set-up is the same for all voters. Voters will make wrong guesses on what will happen during the next term, but in principle they will all answer the same commensurable question and their answers will approximate this ideal. 3. What's an issue? Take the category of energy policy. Carbon tax? Trading credits? Nuclear energy (and its dozens of sub-issues)? Vehicle efficiency? Corn subsidies? Climate-change implications? Lots more, and not all orthogonal. Yes, all these. I addressed the orthogonality problem shortly by noting that the questions may overlap. When the voter estimates the weights he must also take into account the problems of overlapping. If the voter thinks there are two important questions, A and B, and there are three questions, A ok?, B ok? and B' ok?, then the voter should estimate the weights so that the answer there was only one B related question. The best way to do this is maybe just to ask the voter to give his best guess on the frequency of agreement with each candidate on questions that the voter considers important. Note that the answers would be commensurable even if the questions would overlap and not be orthogonal. That would just
Re: [EM] the meaning of a vote (or lack thereof)
On Aug 27, 2011, at 12:25 AM, Juho Laatu wrote: On 27.8.2011, at 2.13, Jonathan Lundell wrote: On Aug 26, 2011, at 1:17 PM, Juho Laatu wrote: On 24.8.2011, at 2.07, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: But back to a possible generic meaning of a score or cardinal rating: if you think that candidate X would vote like you on a random issue with probability p percent, then you could give candidate X a score that is p percent of the way between the lowest and highest possible range values. Note that this meaning is commensurable across the electorate. This is the best proposal so far since this takes us as far as offering commensurable ratings. Maybe we should add also voter specific weights to the different issues. Voters could start from the set of issues that the representative body or single representative covered during the last term. They could adjust those issues a bit to get a list of issues that are likely to emerge during the next term. That makes a list that is the same to all (and that makes the opinions therefore commensurable). Weighting makes the results more meaningful since to some voters some questions might be critical and others might be irrelevant. Without the weights the ratings might not reflect the preference order since we might have misbalance due to too many questions of one kind or due to questions of varying importance. In principle one could collect the opinions also indirectly by generating an explicit list of issues and asking voters to mark their opinion an weight on each issue. That list could be structured or allow voters to indicate the importance of each group of questions. It is however not obvious how the questions should be grouped. Grouping could also influence the results. It would be also difficult to the voter to estimate the level of overlap between different issues. In practice one may get equally good results by simply asking how much do you think you will agree with this candidate (from 100% to 0%). I'm repeating myself here, sorry, but... 1. Why isn't this replacing one ineffable candidate utility with n ineffable issue-agreement utilities (where each issue utility is the (signed) issue weight)? Maybe because the voter answers question how often do you agree instead of how strongly do you agree. Time and number of occurrences are commensurable but voters' interpretations of the chemical and physical reactions in their brain and heart are not (maybe one approach would be to use some instruments to measure brain and heart activity with some external device :-) ). With weights added the question continues ... and estimate the importance of those agreements. This is based purely on personal feelings as taken from the brain and heart, but that should not destroy commensurability since all the voters are still on the commensurable scale from 100% agreement to 0% agreement, and the voters are still supposed to answer question how often, if all issues would get the time that they deserve. Set aside the question of the meaningfulness or commensurability of utilities. My point is that such a scheme merely changes the need for a voter to determine one utility (for the candidate) to determining n utilities (for n issues). And the issues we care about tend not to be simple. The n issues could be all binary decisions, agree or disagree. In that case they are commensurable. If they are more complex, e.g. numeric decisions, then the voter must estimate the level of agreement somehow. Maybe the voter should decide on some hard limits to what is agreeable and then decide which candidates agree with him and which ones do not. Also numeric differences would do. This way we can (at least in principle) escape the non-commensurable strength of agreement questions. 2. One doesn't vote for a candidate strictly on predetermined issues. You don't know which issues will arise in the next 2-4-6-whatever years, and the work of an elected official (a president in particular, but also other offices) consists of more than voting on issues. Yes, but the set-up is the same for all voters. Voters will make wrong guesses on what will happen during the next term, but in principle they will all answer the same commensurable question and their answers will approximate this ideal. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] the meaning of a vote (or lack thereof)
On 27.8.2011, at 17.38, Jonathan Lundell wrote: On Aug 27, 2011, at 12:25 AM, Juho Laatu wrote: On 27.8.2011, at 2.13, Jonathan Lundell wrote: On Aug 26, 2011, at 1:17 PM, Juho Laatu wrote: On 24.8.2011, at 2.07, fsimm...@pcc.edu wrote: But back to a possible generic meaning of a score or cardinal rating: if you think that candidate X would vote like you on a random issue with probability p percent, then you could give candidate X a score that is p percent of the way between the lowest and highest possible range values. Note that this meaning is commensurable across the electorate. This is the best proposal so far since this takes us as far as offering commensurable ratings. Maybe we should add also voter specific weights to the different issues. Voters could start from the set of issues that the representative body or single representative covered during the last term. They could adjust those issues a bit to get a list of issues that are likely to emerge during the next term. That makes a list that is the same to all (and that makes the opinions therefore commensurable). Weighting makes the results more meaningful since to some voters some questions might be critical and others might be irrelevant. Without the weights the ratings might not reflect the preference order since we might have misbalance due to too many questions of one kind or due to questions of varying importance. In principle one could collect the opinions also indirectly by generating an explicit list of issues and asking voters to mark their opinion an weight on each issue. That list could be structured or allow voters to indicate the importance of each group of questions. It is however not obvious how the questions should be grouped. Grouping could also influence the results. It would be also difficult to the voter to estimate the level of overlap between different issues. In practice one may get equally good results by simply asking how much do you think you will agree with this candidate (from 100% to 0%). I'm repeating myself here, sorry, but... 1. Why isn't this replacing one ineffable candidate utility with n ineffable issue-agreement utilities (where each issue utility is the (signed) issue weight)? Maybe because the voter answers question how often do you agree instead of how strongly do you agree. Time and number of occurrences are commensurable but voters' interpretations of the chemical and physical reactions in their brain and heart are not (maybe one approach would be to use some instruments to measure brain and heart activity with some external device :-) ). With weights added the question continues ... and estimate the importance of those agreements. This is based purely on personal feelings as taken from the brain and heart, but that should not destroy commensurability since all the voters are still on the commensurable scale from 100% agreement to 0% agreement, and the voters are still supposed to answer question how often, if all issues would get the time that they deserve. Set aside the question of the meaningfulness or commensurability of utilities. My point is that such a scheme merely changes the need for a voter to determine one utility (for the candidate) to determining n utilities (for n issues). And the issues we care about tend not to be simple. I attempted to create a scenario where we do not try to measure utilities (= strength of personal feelings) but use some other units that can be measured (= same scale for all). In this case the unit of measure was the number of agreements of some given set of issues (taken from fsimmons' mail). If we use fsimmons' original scenario to compare voter opinions and candidate opinions using a fixed set of binary decisions, then the strength of feelings plays no role. We measure only if the voter agrees with some candidate. That should be commensurable. If we add weights, and consider also overlaps (/ non-orthogonality / grouping) of the issues, and if we have also other than binary decisions, we have to be careful not to include any strength of preference style measurements into the ballots. I hope my explanation managed to stay on the non-utility side also here. I tried to cover the problem of dividing one question to n smaller questions (whose answers might contain utility strength information) in the paragraph below. I hope the answers to the n smaller issues were not utility based, nor the way they are summed up (using weights and overlap estimates). My claim was thus that although I used weights that are based on personal feelings, the end result (= ratings of the ballots) would still measure the number of agreements rather than the strength of personal preferences. Let's take one of the small decisions. It could be a binary question on if we should have a new law L. Voters and candidates either agree or not. Every candidate gets
Re: [EM] the meaning of a vote (or lack thereof)
But not for voting. The voting system guarantees that my vote will have no effect and I would look rather foolish to suppose otherwise. This presents a serious problem. Do you agree? Dave Ketchum wrote: TRULY, this demonstrates lack of understanding of cause and effect. IF the flask capacity is 32 oz then pouring in 1 oz will: . Do nothing above filling if the flask starts with less than 31 oz. . Cause overflow if flask already full. In voting there is often a limit at which time one more would have an effect. If the act were pouring sodas into the Atlantic the limit would be far away. Please relate this to an election. Take an election for a US state governor, for example. Suppose I am eligible to vote. I say my vote cannot possibly affect the outcome of the election. You say it can, under certain conditions. Under what conditions exactly? Note my critique of Warren's proof in the other sub-thread: http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2011-August/028266.html -- Michael Allan Toronto, +1 416-699-9528 http://zelea.com/ Dave Ketchum wrote: A SAD weakness about what is being said. On Aug 24, 2011, at 12:55 PM, Fred Gohlke wrote: Michael Allan wrote: But not for voting. The voting system guarantees that my vote will have no effect and I would look rather foolish to suppose otherwise. This presents a serious problem. Do you agree? TRULY, this demonstrates lack of understanding of cause and effect. IF the flask capacity is 32 oz then pouring in 1 oz will: . Do nothing above filling if the flask starts with less than 31 oz. . Cause overflow if flask already full. In voting there is often a limit at which time one more would have an effect. If the act were pouring sodas into the Atlantic the limit would be far away. To which Warren Smith responded: --no. A single ballot can change the outcome of an election. This is true in any election method which is capable of having at least two outcomes. Proof: simply change ballots one by one until the outcome changes. At the moment it changes, that single ballot changed an election outcome. QED. BUT there could be many previous ballots of which none made any change. Since, as stated, A single ballot can change the outcome of an election. and This is true in any election method which is capable of having at least two outcomes., why would a voter prefer a new electoral method over the existing plurality method? From the voter's perspective, (s)he is already familiar with plurality, so , if the new method produces the same result, why change? Truly no reason PROVIDED the new method provides the same result, given the same input. Cui bono? Obviously, not the voter. When considering the 'meaning' of a vote, it is more important to examine the question of what the voter is voting for or against. Voting, of the type used in plurality contests, is profoundly undemocratic, not because of the vote-counting method, but because the people can only vote for or against candidates and issues chosen by those who control the political parties - the people Robert Michels' described as oligarchs. If the object of changing the electoral method is to build a more just and democratic government, the proposed methods must give the people a way to influence the choice of candidates and the issues on which they vote. Fred Gohlke Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] the meaning of a vote (or lack thereof)
On Aug 27, 2011, at 4:22 PM, Michael Allan wrote: But not for voting. The voting system guarantees that my vote will have no effect and I would look rather foolish to suppose otherwise. This presents a serious problem. Do you agree? Dave Ketchum wrote: TRULY, this demonstrates lack of understanding of cause and effect. IF the flask capacity is 32 oz then pouring in 1 oz will: . Do nothing above filling if the flask starts with less than 31 oz. . Cause overflow if flask already full. In voting there is often a limit at which time one more would have an effect. If the act were pouring sodas into the Atlantic the limit would be far away. Please relate this to an election. Take an election for a US state governor, for example. Suppose I am eligible to vote. I say my vote cannot possibly affect the outcome of the election. You say it can, under certain conditions. Under what conditions exactly? Conditions surrounding elections vary but, picking on a simple example, suppose that, without your vote, there are exactly nR and nD votes. If that is the total vote you get to decide the election by creating a majority with your vote. Or, suppose a count of nPoor, 1Fair, and nGood and thus Fair being the median before you and a twin vote. If such twins vote Poor, that and total count go up by 2, median goes up by 1 and is now Poor. If such twins vote Good, that and total count go up by 2, median goes up by 1 and is now Good. Note that single voters get no useful power in an election for governor, but a majority voting together do have the power (by combining their votes) to decide the election. Dave Ketchum Note my critique of Warren's proof in the other sub-thread: http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2011-August/028266.html -- Michael Allan Toronto, +1 416-699-9528 http://zelea.com/ Dave Ketchum wrote: A SAD weakness about what is being said. On Aug 24, 2011, at 12:55 PM, Fred Gohlke wrote: Michael Allan wrote: But not for voting. The voting system guarantees that my vote will have no effect and I would look rather foolish to suppose otherwise. This presents a serious problem. Do you agree? TRULY, this demonstrates lack of understanding of cause and effect. IF the flask capacity is 32 oz then pouring in 1 oz will: . Do nothing above filling if the flask starts with less than 31 oz. . Cause overflow if flask already full. In voting there is often a limit at which time one more would have an effect. If the act were pouring sodas into the Atlantic the limit would be far away. To which Warren Smith responded: --no. A single ballot can change the outcome of an election. This is true in any election method which is capable of having at least two outcomes. Proof: simply change ballots one by one until the outcome changes. At the moment it changes, that single ballot changed an election outcome. QED. BUT there could be many previous ballots of which none made any change. Since, as stated, A single ballot can change the outcome of an election. and This is true in any election method which is capable of having at least two outcomes., why would a voter prefer a new electoral method over the existing plurality method? From the voter's perspective, (s)he is already familiar with plurality, so , if the new method produces the same result, why change? Truly no reason PROVIDED the new method provides the same result, given the same input. Cui bono? Obviously, not the voter. When considering the 'meaning' of a vote, it is more important to examine the question of what the voter is voting for or against. Voting, of the type used in plurality contests, is profoundly undemocratic, not because of the vote-counting method, but because the people can only vote for or against candidates and issues chosen by those who control the political parties - the people Robert Michels' described as oligarchs. If the object of changing the electoral method is to build a more just and democratic government, the proposed methods must give the people a way to influence the choice of candidates and the issues on which they vote. Fred Gohlke Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] the meaning of a vote (or lack thereof)
Dave Ketchum wrote: Conditions surrounding elections vary but, picking on a simple example, suppose that, without your vote, there are exactly nR and nD votes. If that is the total vote you get to decide the election by creating a majority with your vote. What do nR and nD stand for? Or, suppose a count of nPoor, 1Fair, and nGood and thus Fair being the median before you and a twin vote. If such twins vote Poor, that and total count go up by 2, median goes up by 1 and is now Poor. If such twins vote Good, that and total count go up by 2, median goes up by 1 and is now Good. This example speaks of two votes, but the rules grant me only one. I am interested in the effects of that vote, and any meaning we can derive from them. I say there is none. Note that single voters get no useful power in an election for governor, but a majority voting together do have the power (by combining their votes) to decide the election. I believe that is true for all elections that are conducted by conventional methods, regardless of the ballot used - Plurality, Range, Condorcet or Approval. An individual's vote can have no useful effect on the outcome of the election, or on anything else in the objective world. Again it follows: (a) What the individual voter thinks is of no importance; or (b) The election method is flawed. Which of these statements is true? I think it must be (b). -- Michael Allan Toronto, +1 416-699-9528 http://zelea.com/ On Aug 27, 2011, at 4:22 PM, Michael Allan wrote: But not for voting. The voting system guarantees that my vote will have no effect and I would look rather foolish to suppose otherwise. This presents a serious problem. Do you agree? Dave Ketchum wrote: TRULY, this demonstrates lack of understanding of cause and effect. IF the flask capacity is 32 oz then pouring in 1 oz will: . Do nothing above filling if the flask starts with less than 31 oz. . Cause overflow if flask already full. In voting there is often a limit at which time one more would have an effect. If the act were pouring sodas into the Atlantic the limit would be far away. Please relate this to an election. Take an election for a US state governor, for example. Suppose I am eligible to vote. I say my vote cannot possibly affect the outcome of the election. You say it can, under certain conditions. Under what conditions exactly? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] the meaning of a vote (or lack thereof)
On Aug 27, 2011, at 9:23 PM, Michael Allan wrote: Dave Ketchum wrote: Conditions surrounding elections vary but, picking on a simple example, suppose that, without your vote, there are exactly nR and nD votes. If that is the total vote you get to decide the election by creating a majority with your vote. What do nR and nD stand for? ANY topic for which voters can choose among two goals. Or, suppose a count of nPoor, 1Fair, and nGood and thus Fair being the median before you and a twin vote. If such twins vote Poor, that and total count go up by 2, median goes up by 1 and is now Poor. If such twins vote Good, that and total count go up by 2, median goes up by 1 and is now Good. This example speaks of two votes, but the rules grant me only one. I am interested in the effects of that vote, and any meaning we can derive from them. I say there is none. Ok, so you vote alone. To work with that, whenever median is not an integer, subtract .5 to make it an integer. If you vote Poor, that and total count go up by 1, median is unchanged and is now Poor. If you vote Good, that and total count go up by 1, median is unchanged and remains Fair. Note that single voters get no useful power in an election for governor, but a majority voting together do have the power (by combining their votes) to decide the election. I believe that is true for all elections that are conducted by conventional methods, regardless of the ballot used - Plurality, Range, Condorcet or Approval. An individual's vote can have no useful effect on the outcome of the election, or on anything else in the objective world. Again it follows: (a) What the individual voter thinks is of no importance; or (b) The election method is flawed. Which of these statements is true? I think it must be (b). Agreed that a is not true though, as you point out, one voter, alone, changing a vote cannot be certain of changing the results. I do not see you proving that b is true. Flawed requires the method failing to provide the results it promises. Dave Ketchum -- Michael Allan Toronto, +1 416-699-9528 http://zelea.com/ On Aug 27, 2011, at 4:22 PM, Michael Allan wrote: But not for voting. The voting system guarantees that my vote will have no effect and I would look rather foolish to suppose otherwise. This presents a serious problem. Do you agree? Dave Ketchum wrote: TRULY, this demonstrates lack of understanding of cause and effect. IF the flask capacity is 32 oz then pouring in 1 oz will: . Do nothing above filling if the flask starts with less than 31 oz. . Cause overflow if flask already full. In voting there is often a limit at which time one more would have an effect. If the act were pouring sodas into the Atlantic the limit would be far away. Please relate this to an election. Take an election for a US state governor, for example. Suppose I am eligible to vote. I say my vote cannot possibly affect the outcome of the election. You say it can, under certain conditions. Under what conditions exactly? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
