Re: [EM] Proportional, Accountable, Local (PAL) representation: isn't this a big deal?
OK, I'm turning into a bit of a spammer on this issue, but... Here's some discussion of PAL representation's legality in the UShttp://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/PAL_representation#Note_on_legality_in_US. A state could pass a law to use FMV (a true proportional system) until the anti-PR federal law is repealed, then automatically switch to PAL representation (an easy and smooth transition; FMV was a major inspiration for PAL). Basically, I think it's an important fact that FMV is the only known proportional system *compatible with current US federal law*. (There are no US constitutional barriers to PR, just federal law). Jameson Quinn Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] A new criterion: The Co-operation/Defection Criterion
Juho-- Yes, i should suggest the strategy-informing poll idea to progressive small parties and organizations. I'll be doing that. It could take a long time to get a new voting system, even locally. And even longer nationally. But, with honest and genuinely well-intentioned polling, we could _effectively_ have a better voting system right now. Plurality will be around for a long time, but effectively we can have Condorcet for 2012. Kevin-- I want to re-emphasize my answer to your question: Most definitely! It's better to elect a weak candidate than one with a larger pairwise opposition, due to how it affects defensive strategy need and dilemma. Jameson-- You wrote: That looks right. In fact, let's make it more extreme: 39 C 10 CA 21 AB 30 B According to the criterion as stated, A must win this election. But what if the honest preferences are actually: 21 AC 10 CA 39 CB 30 BC [endquote] If those are the sincere preferences in your example, then your example doesn't satisfy CD's premise. In your example, C is the Condorcet candidate, and A is the sincere Condorcet loser. Your example has zero voters preferring A and B to C. CD's premise stipulates that A is the Condorcet candidate and that there is a majority who prefer A and B to everyone else. So CD says nothing about what should happen, who should win, in that example. In your example, the A voters are reversing a preference, another violation of CD's premise stipulations. I'll take a look at the way your ballots derive from your sincere rankings. It isn't a CB example, but I'll check out the plausibility and badness of it as an MMPO example. You wrote: Moreover, even without this loophole, I just don't like how that first election looks. What first election? Are you referring to your voted ballots? A, with 31 votes total, the lowest of any candidate, wins? The only 1st choice B or C voters who expressed a choice between A and the alternative preferred A. I just can't imagine trying to convince people that that's the right answer. If there were more than three people in the room, you wouldn't get 5 words out before they started laughing and interrupting you with sarcasm. [endquote] You're saying that people will reject any voting system that doesn't uphold Plurality's standard. If you're right, then we can forget about replacing Plurality. You wrote: So, the only way to meet this criterion, is to never have the situation happen in the first place. It sounds impossible. Unless... [endquote] ??? The situation you describe doesn't satisfy CD's premise stipulations. Delegation proposals like SODA have been around for a very long time. They've been independently re-invented many times. It would be one way of getting rid of defensive strategy problems, as well as a 2nd election, but cheaper. But maybe illegal, maybe unconstitutional, and most likely would sound undemocratic to people and would be rejected by the public. Mike Ossipoff Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] A new criterion: The Co-operation/Defection Criterion
2011/10/25 MIKE OSSIPOFF nkk...@hotmail.com Juho-- Yes, i should suggest the strategy-informing poll idea to progressive small parties and organizations. I'll be doing that. It could take a long time to get a new voting system, even locally. And even longer nationally. But, with honest and genuinely well-intentioned polling, we could _effectively_ have a better voting system right now. Plurality will be around for a long time, but effectively we can have Condorcet for 2012. Kevin-- I want to re-emphasize my answer to your question: Most definitely! It's better to elect a weak candidate than one with a larger pairwise opposition, due to how it affects defensive strategy need and dilemma. Jameson-- You wrote: That looks right. In fact, let's make it more extreme: 39 C 10 CA 21 AB 30 B According to the criterion as stated, A must win this election. But what if the honest preferences are actually: 21 AC 10 CA 39 CB 30 BC [endquote] If those are the sincere preferences in your example, then your example doesn't satisfy CD's premise. My point is that there's no way to distinguish those honest preferences, from the honest preferences which do meet the criterion (that is, as voted except for B is really BA). In your example, C is the Condorcet candidate, and A is the sincere Condorcet loser. Your example has zero voters preferring A and B to C. CD's premise stipulates that A is the Condorcet candidate and that there is a majority who prefer A and B to everyone else. So CD says nothing about what should happen, who should win, in that example. Yes it does, because as far as it can tell, those votes could come from honest preferences which fall under the criterion. In your example, the A voters are reversing a preference, another violation of CD's premise stipulations. I'll take a look at the way your ballots derive from your sincere rankings. It isn't a CB example, but I'll check out the plausibility and badness of it as an MMPO example. You wrote: Moreover, even without this loophole, I just don't like how that first election looks. What first election? Are you referring to your voted ballots? Yes. What I meant was, even if those voted ballots reflect sincere preferences which meet the criterion, I would not be at all sure that A is the correct winner, as the criterion says they must be. A, with 31 votes total, the lowest of any candidate, wins? The only 1st choice B or C voters who expressed a choice between A and the alternative preferred A. I just can't imagine trying to convince people that that's the right answer. If there were more than three people in the room, you wouldn't get 5 words out before they started laughing and interrupting you with sarcasm. [endquote] You're saying that people will reject any voting system that doesn't uphold Plurality's standard. If you're right, then we can forget about replacing Plurality. No, I'm saying that if you overrule plurality, you should at least have some plausible reason to do so; and plausible implies, for instance, one that doesn't rely on inferring preferences which are not visible in the voted ballots. You wrote: So, the only way to meet this criterion, is to never have the situation happen in the first place. It sounds impossible. Unless... [endquote] ??? The situation you describe doesn't satisfy CD's premise stipulations. Yes it does. The voted ballots could come from a CD scenario, and a system has no way to distinguish if they don't. Delegation proposals like SODA have been around for a very long time. They've been independently re-invented many times. Of course. I don't see what you're trying to say. But note that SODA also has a delegation order which helps resolve this situation; this is a feature which I have not seen elsewhere. It would be one way of getting rid of defensive strategy problems, as well as a 2nd election, but cheaper. But maybe illegal, On what basis? Sounds like FUD. maybe unconstitutional, You're talking about the US constitution? The one that allowed appointed senators (until the 17th amendment) and still would allow at-large representatives or representatives from unequal-sized districts? Exactly where in The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Place of Chusing Senators (or even The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government) is the nature of a vote defined? Sorry, no way. and most likely would sound undemocratic to people SODA delegation is 100% optional. If you don't like the pre-announced preference order, don't delegate. Very simple. If there's anything undemocratic here, it's you telling me that I can't delegate even if I want to, not me
[EM] Results for Poll for Favorite Single-Winner Voting System
The results are in for the Poll for Favorite Single-Winner Voting System. Note that I deliberately used the word Favorite and not the word Best. The results indicate merely the preferences of the voters (a small and biased sample) and should not be take too seriously. I find the results interesting because they provide clues as to what people who like one voting system think of other voting systems. If the results below are not formatted correctly, this is also posted on my blog at http://www.openstv.org/node/165 Regardless of which way you count the votes, Instant Runoff Voting is the winner. Results are shown below for (1) Instant Runoff Voting, (2) Condorcet Voting, (3) Approval Voting, (4) Borda Count, and (5) Coombs Method. I find these all to provide interesting information. Ballots are available here: http://www.opavote.org/vote?ekey=agNzdHZyEAsSCEVsZWN0aW9uGO25GQw Instant Runoff Voting IRV had double the votes of the next runner up in the first round and maintained a clear lead through the end with a final tally of IRV 18 and Condorcet 11 with 3 exhausted votes. Some highlights: - The 2 Range Voting votes went to Condorcet and Approval. Not much of a surprise. - Of the 4 Approval votes, only 1 went to Condorcet with the other 3 being exhausted. I expected all of these to go to Condorcet. - Of the 5 Other, 3 went to IRV. I would have expected the Other votes be people who wanted something rather complex and would not be IRV supporters. Condorcet Voting This one mostly speaks for itself. I was surprised that Borda only beat Plurality by 12 to 7 and that there were a few people who voted Plurality higher than Approval, Range, Coombs, and Bucklin. Perhaps some voters did not know the details of these other voting systems. This illustrates a totally different problem with elections: unknowledgeable voters who don't take the time to learn about the candidates. Approval Voting This one has to be taken with a grain of salt. I counted a vote as an approval if the candidate was ranked. Since 14 voters ranked all the candidates and likely didn't actually approve of them all, I am overcounting. Nonetheless, there are some interesting nuggets. IRV, Condorcet, and Approval were all very close in the number of approvals. I'm surprised that Coombs is among the least approved as I think it is a good one (it was my first choice). Borda Count In doing the Borda Count, I completed the ballots, meaning that all unranked candidates on a ballot shared the remaining count for the ballot. The eliminates some of the impact of strategic voting with the Borda Count. Again, IRV, Condorcet, and Approval were all significantly ahead of the others. I find it interesting that Condorcet is much closer to IRV with this method. This is probably due to the fact that many Condorcet supporters strongly dislike IRV, while the converse is less likely to be true (in my opinion). Coombs Method Lastly, Coombs method. As I noted above, this was my first choice. With the Coombs method, the candidate with the most last place votes is eliminated at each round. Since centrist candidates are less likely to be eliminated, Coombs is more likely than IRV to elect the Condorcet winner. The least liked candidates in order are: (1) Plurality, (2) Other, (3) Borda, (4) Coombs, (5) Bucklin, (6) Range, (7) Approval, (8) Condorcet, and (9) IRV. Summary I hope you found this to be an interesting exercise. I will do it again for multi-winner voting systems next month. Please contact me directly to make nominations. -- Counting votes using Instant Runoff Voting. R|Instan|Plural|Condor|Borda |Approv|Range |Coombs|Buckli|Other |Exhaus |t runo|ity vo|cet vo|count |al vot|voting| metho|n syst| |ted |ff vot|ting |ting | |ing | |d |em| | |ing | | | | | | | | | 1|14| 0| 7| 0| 3| 2| 1| 0| 5| 0 |- | Count of first choices. 2|14| | 7| | 3| 2| 1| | 5| 0 |- | Count after eliminating Plurality voting, Borda count, and Bucklin | system and transferring votes. Since this is the first elimination | round, all candidates without any votes are eliminated. 3|15| | 7| | 3| 2| | | 5| 0 |- | Count after eliminating Coombs method and transferring votes. 4|15| | 8| | 4| | | |
Re: [EM] Proportional, Accountable, Local (PAL) representation: isn't this a big deal?
From: Jameson Quinn jameson.qu...@gmail.com Here's some discussion of PAL representation's legality in the UShttp://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/PAL_representation#Note_on_legality_in_US. A state could pass a law to use FMV (a true proportional system) until the anti-PR federal law is repealed, then automatically switch to PAL representation (an easy and smooth transition; FMV was a major inspiration for PAL). Basically, I think it's an important fact that FMV is the only known proportional system *compatible with current US federal law*. (There are no US constitutional barriers to PR, just federal law). Jameson, I believe the federal law applies only to federal elections. Thus a state could allocate its state legislative seats proportionately in any fair way that did not violate other laws. In general, Congress only passes electoral laws pertaining to federal elections. Isn't that so? I did not realize that Jefferson supported a proportional system of electing representatives. Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts. Renewable energy is homeland security. Fundamentals of Verifiable Elections http://kathydopp.com/wordpress/?p=174 View some of my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
