[EM] (no subject)
I missed the fact that Dave was answering my question here, and so I'll reply to his answer: I'd said: "Approved" ratings wins. The result? Well, we'd be electing the most approved candidate, wouldn't we. Who can criticize that? >* Dave says: *>* * >* The voter who did not have equal liking for all Approved. * ** *[endquote]* ** *Ok, Dave is saying that that voter could complain about electing the most approved candidate, the* *candidate to whom most people have given an approval. * ** *One can only wonder how that voter would criticize electing the candidate to whom the most voters* *have given an approval.* ** *Dave is welcome to share with us the complaint that that voter could make. Dave, don't forget to include* *that voter's justification for his complaint. Let your hypothetical voter tell us what is wrong with electing the candidate* *to whom the most voters have given an approval.* ** *But I'm going to guess what Dave means. He's saying that he wants more; he wants something else. He wants* *the expressivity of rank balloting. No matter how much Dave wants that, it doesn't amount to something wrong* *with electing the candidate to whom the most candidates have given an approval.* ** *Certainly Dave can make that complaint--that he wants something more. But his complaint and ambitions don't amount* *to an answer to my question (when I asked who could object to electing the candidate to whom the most voters have* *given an approval.* ** *The rank-balloting advocates' ohjection, desire and ambition certainly deserves to be answered. I will answer it in a subsequent* *post (though I answered it to a large extent in the part of my article that discusses Approval's advantages--I invite Dave to re-read that part).* ** *Quite aside from that, is the important question that can be asked about any propoesd replacement for Plurality:* ** *"Is this method going to turn out to be worse than Plurality? Does it have unforseen consequences and problems that will have* *some unspecified disastrous effect?"* ** *I know that I've already addressed this problem, and pointed out that Approval's stark, elegant, transparent simplicity doesn't leave* *any room for that question. That was why I asked who could object to electing the candidate to whom the most voters have given an* *approval.* ** *You see, it's one thing to say, "I want something even better. I claim that there can be more, and I want to ask for more!"* ** *But it's quite another thing to be able to claim that the method will be worse than Plurality. It was regarding that, that I asked my* *question, "Who could object...". * ** *I'm addressing the person who wants to keep Plurality. The person who wants to say thalt Approval would be worse than Plurality.* ** *One question that I'd ask that person is, "Ok, then what's wrong with electing the candidate whom the most people have approved?"* ** *I'd also remind that person that the only difference between Approval and Plurality is that the person who, in Pluralilty approves a compromise candidate* *who isn't his favorite, would, in Approval, be able to also approve everyone he likes more, including his favorite(s). People are then supporting* *candidates whom they like more. The winner will be someone who is more liked by all of those people. Thats's another thing that would be difficult for the Plurality-defender to object to.* ** *Another question that I'd ask the Plurality-defender is; What's wrong with letting each voter have equal power to rate each candidate? ...equal power to give to each candidate one point or 0 points? ...or, which amounts to the same, to give to each candidate an "Approved" rating or an "Unapproved" rating?* ** *In fact, what's wrong with getting rid of Plurality's forced falsification (which I described in the article)? * ** *It's easy to show that Approval will be an improvement on Plurality, and nothing but an improvement. That can't be said for more complicated methods, such as the rank-balloting contraptions.* ** *I've already said all this in the article. With any method more complicated than Approval, the public aren't going to be able to be sure that it* *won't make things worse. Rank methods are contraptions. How many peoiple will feel confident that they know what those complicated* *contraptions will do? And what they'll do wrong sometimes? Opponents, media, etc. will be able to take full advantage of that* *uncertainty.* ** *I've already said that, if it could be enacted, and if people could understand or trust its FBC compliance, I'd like ICT as the my favorite choice of voting system. But those conditions don't obtain, and so I don't propose ICT, or any other rank method.* ** *Mike Ossipoff* ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Election thinking,
Mr. Ossipoff writes much about Approval, saying that is as far as we can get. I say elections are important and that readers should respond to the importance. I go thru the series, hitting on the reasons for stepping thru Plurality, Approval, and Condorcet, suggesting that Condorcet is a target more should be working toward. I was in a hurry, so did not go into detail about Condorcet. Since I handed this out a couple hours ago there has been little time for others to react. DWK On Apr 22, 2012, at 9:49 PM, Adrian Tawfik wrote: I think it is good to have the issue analysed from multiple perspectives. If someone want to write a different article than Mr. Ossipoff, than we can definitely incorporate it on the website. I'm not sure what you believe Mr. Ossipoff left out, can you clarify? I think the best thing is to print Mr. Ossipoff's article and also have different articles that look at other solutions. There a million articles lurking in the work that you all do. I would love to have any of you write about election method reform but also any aspect of democracy that you think is important. Democracy is a big subject and very complex but it is the foundation of modern life. What do you think? From: Dave Ketchum To: election-methods Methods Cc: Adrian Tawfik Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2012 8:41 PM Subject: Election thinking, Seemed to me Mike left out some important thoughts - can we do better? On Apr 21, 2012, at 3:41 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote, as: Article, with the added paragraph and some better wording > > Adrian and EM: > Elections are important to many organizations - and important that they help the voters express their desires effectively. Important enough that voters should see to it, whatever it takes, that they get the information they need and that their thoughts find their way correctly to whoever is responsible for responding. This article's topic is election methods. Normally candidates get nominated, and can campaign as needed. Even with these, write-in voting should almost always be permitted - there is almost always the possibility of a nominated candidate becoming unsuitable too late for formal replacement. > > Our current voting system, of course, is the vote-for-1 method. Also called > "Plurality", or the "single mark method". > > In our Plurality elections, we often hear people saying that they're going > to vote for someone they don't really like, because he/she is the > "lesser-of-2-evils". Note that they're voting for someone they don't like, > and not voting for the people they really do like, because the people they like are > perceived as unwinnable. A related possibility is voting for the unwinnable candidate and letting the "worst-of-2-evils" win. A possibility that helps, sometimes, is to be permitted to Approve as many candidates as the voter likes best - protecting against the "worst-of-2-evils" winning. This Approval method is a trivial expense and trivial improvement over Plurality voting. > The candidate with the most > "Approved" ratings wins. The result? Well, we'd be electing the most > approved candidate, wouldn't we. Who can criticize that? The voter who did not have equal liking for all Approved. There are many voting methods to choose from, so we will only mention a few here: .Condorcet - really a family of methods - variations on a design using ranking. One can use a single rank value for one candidate (same value as Plurality), or several (same value as Approval). A voter can also use different ranks, using higher ranks for those most preferred, and leaving unranked those least-liked. Here each pair of candidates is in a two-party race counting how many voters rank one, or rank one higher than the other. The candidate winning all of its races wins but, if none, the one coming closest wins. .IRV - a Condorcet method, though a voter can use each rank number only once and the counting is different. Considering only each voter's top rank, see if there is a winner. If not, discard the top rank for the least-liked candidate and move each such ballot to next candidate. The discarding sounds good, and usually discards truly least-liked. Trouble is. the truly best-liked may have been hidden behind lesser- liked by enough voters to have been discarded as least-liked. ..Score - voters rate each candidate and ratings are added to determine winner. Tricky because making a rating higher or lower can affect who wins. DWK 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] Election thinking,
Replying to Dave: On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 8:41 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote: > Seemed to me Mike left out some important thoughts - can we do better? > > On Apr 21, 2012, at 3:41 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote, as: > Article, with the added paragraph and some better wording > >> >> Adrian and EM: >> >> Mike adds: I want to clarify that the text quoted from me so far, >> consists only of "Adrian and EM". The text following these lines is from >> Dave. He quotes me later. I'll indicate where that is. >> >> >> > > Elections are important to many organizations - and important that they > help the voters express their desires effectively. Important enough that > voters should see to it, whatever it takes, that they get the information > they need and that their thoughts find their way correctly to whoever is > responsible for responding. > > This article's topic is election methods. > > Normally candidates get nominated, and can campaign as needed. Even with > these, write-in voting should almost always be permitted - there is almost > always the possibility of a nominated candidate becoming unsuitable too > late for formal replacement. > >> Dave quotes me here: >> > > Our current voting system, of course, is the vote-for-1 method. Also >> called >> "Plurality", or the "single mark method". >> >> In our Plurality elections, we often hear people saying that they're going >> to vote for someone they don't really like, because he/she is the >> "lesser-of-2-evils". Note that they're voting for someone they don't like, >> and not voting for the people they really do like, because the people >> they like are >> perceived as unwinnable. >> > > Dave replies: > > > A related possibility is voting for the unwinnable candidate and letting the "worst-of-2-evils" win. [endquote] Not just related--It's definitely part of the scenario to which I refer. What Dave mentioned above is the possibility that scares millions of voters into voting for a Democrat that they don't really like. Dave continues: A possibility that helps, sometimes, is to be permitted to Approve as many candidates as the voter likes best - protecting against the "worst-of-2-evils" winning. [endquote] Yes, that's the solution that I discuss in my article. Dave continues: This Approval method is a trivial expense and trivial improvement over Plurality voting. [endquote] Richard Fobes, one of the two organizers and writers of the Declaration, has wisely invited people to comment on _errors regarding objective fact_ in the articles posted here. Any such objections should be accompanied by supporting arguments and facts. Dave, in the above-quoted statement by you, you aren't doing that. To avoid letting these group-criticisms of articles turn into the usual mess, would you please confine yourself to statements to criticisms of errors regarding objective, verifiable fact? If you want to make other comments, criticisms of a voting system, and not abide by that rule, please clearly label your post at the top, or in the subject-line, as "personal opinion". There's nothing wrong with expressing personal opinioin.I'll answer yours here. But kindly distinguish clearly between your factual criticism of an article, vs expressions of your personal opinion about a voting system. Now, to answer your uinsupported personal opinion expressed above, I'll re-copy it here: This Approval method is a trivial expense [I take that to mean that you agree with me, that Approval won't have a significant set-up cost, for the changeover from Plurality to Approval. Dave continued: and trivial improvement over Plurality voting. [endquote] I've thorougly described Approval's improvement over Plurality voting, and Approval's advantages over other reforms. In fact, I covered those subjects in my article, the one that Dave is commenting on. Dave continues: The candidate with the most "Approved" ratings wins. The result? Well, we'd be electing the most approved candidate, wouldn't we. Who can criticize that? > Dave says: > > The voter who did not have equal liking for all Approved. [endquote] What? Did anyone say that the voter had to have equal liking for all approved? I was afraid that this would happen, if this serious article-evaluation is conducted on EM. Maybe a better solution would be to set up a "reply-to-all" e-mail group discussion, among Adrian and some EM members who are appointed by Fobes and Quinn. That would keep the careless, irrelevant statements and unsupported personal opinion ouf of the serious evaluation of articles. I'm not criticizing expression of personal opinion, or discussion of advantages and disadvantages of voting systems--In fact, I engage in it myself. But I clearly distinguish it from the serious article-evaluation that Fobes spoke of. Ok, clearly, in this part of the e-mail, we're not talking about a particular article anymore, and now it's just a discussion of voting systems. A legitimate subject, and I'm glad to reply. Da
Re: [EM] Election thinking,
I think it is good to have the issue analysed from multiple perspectives. If someone want to write a different article than Mr. Ossipoff, than we can definitely incorporate it on the website. I'm not sure what you believe Mr. Ossipoff left out, can you clarify? I think the best thing is to print Mr. Ossipoff's article and also have different articles that look at other solutions. There a million articles lurking in the work that you all do. I would love to have any of you write about election method reform but also any aspect of democracy that you think is important. Democracy is a big subject and very complex but it is the foundation of modern life. What do you think? From: Dave Ketchum To: election-methods Methods Cc: Adrian Tawfik Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2012 8:41 PM Subject: Election thinking, Seemed to me Mike left out some important thoughts - can we do better? On Apr 21, 2012, at 3:41 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote, as: Article, with the added paragraph and some better wording > > Adrian and EM: > Elections are important to many organizations - and important that they help the voters express their desires effectively. Important enough that voters should see to it, whatever it takes, that they get the information they need and that their thoughts find their way correctly to whoever is responsible for responding. This article's topic is election methods. Normally candidates get nominated, and can campaign as needed. Even with these, write-in voting should almost always be permitted - there is almost always the possibility of a nominated candidate becoming unsuitable too late for formal replacement. > > Our current voting system, of course, is the vote-for-1 method. Also called > "Plurality", or the "single mark method". > > In our Plurality elections, we often hear people saying that they're going > to vote for someone they don't really like, because he/she is the > "lesser-of-2-evils". Note that they're voting for someone they don't like, > and not voting for the people they really do like, because the people they > like are > perceived as unwinnable. A related possibility is voting for the unwinnable candidate and letting the "worst-of-2-evils" win. A possibility that helps, sometimes, is to be permitted to Approve as many candidates as the voter likes best - protecting against the "worst-of-2-evils" winning. This Approval method is a trivial expense and trivial improvement over Plurality voting. > The candidate with the most > "Approved" ratings wins. The result? Well, we'd be electing the most > approved candidate, wouldn't we. Who can criticize that? The voter who did not have equal liking for all Approved. There are many voting methods to choose from, so we will only mention a few here: . Condorcet - really a family of methods - variations on a design using ranking. One can use a single rank value for one candidate (same value as Plurality), or several (same value as Approval). A voter can also use different ranks, using higher ranks for those most preferred, and leaving unranked those least-liked. Here each pair of candidates is in a two-party race counting how many voters rank one, or rank one higher than the other. The candidate winning all of its races wins but, if none, the one coming closest wins. . IRV - a Condorcet method, though a voter can use each rank number only once and the counting is different. Considering only each voter's top rank, see if there is a winner. If not, discard the top rank for the least-liked candidate and move each such ballot to next candidate. The discarding sounds good, and usually discards truly least-liked. Trouble is. the truly best-liked may have been hidden behind lesser-liked by enough voters to have been discarded as least-liked. .. Score - voters rate each candidate and ratings are added to determine winner. Tricky because making a rating higher or lower can affect who wins. DWK Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Election thinking,
Seemed to me Mike left out some important thoughts - can we do better? On Apr 21, 2012, at 3:41 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote, as: Article, with the added paragraph and some better wording Adrian and EM: Elections are important to many organizations - and important that they help the voters express their desires effectively. Important enough that voters should see to it, whatever it takes, that they get the information they need and that their thoughts find their way correctly to whoever is responsible for responding. This article's topic is election methods. Normally candidates get nominated, and can campaign as needed. Even with these, write-in voting should almost always be permitted - there is almost always the possibility of a nominated candidate becoming unsuitable too late for formal replacement. Our current voting system, of course, is the vote-for-1 method. Also called "Plurality", or the "single mark method". In our Plurality elections, we often hear people saying that they're going to vote for someone they don't really like, because he/she is the "lesser-of-2-evils". Note that they're voting for someone they don't like, and not voting for the people they really do like, because the people they like are perceived as unwinnable. A related possibility is voting for the unwinnable candidate and letting the "worst-of-2-evils" win. A possibility that helps, sometimes, is to be permitted to Approve as many candidates as the voter likes best - protecting against the "worst-of-2-evils" winning. This Approval method is a trivial expense and trivial improvement over Plurality voting. The candidate with the most "Approved" ratings wins. The result? Well, we'd be electing the most approved candidate, wouldn't we. Who can criticize that? The voter who did not have equal liking for all Approved. There are many voting methods to choose from, so we will only mention a few here: . Condorcet - really a family of methods - variations on a design using ranking. One can use a single rank value for one candidate (same value as Plurality), or several (same value as Approval). A voter can also use different ranks, using higher ranks for those most preferred, and leaving unranked those least-liked. Here each pair of candidates is in a two-party race counting how many voters rank one, or rank one higher than the other. The candidate winning all of its races wins but, if none, the one coming closest wins. . IRV - a Condorcet method, though a voter can use each rank number only once and the counting is different. Considering only each voter's top rank, see if there is a winner. If not, discard the top rank for the least-liked candidate and move each such ballot to next candidate. The discarding sounds good, and usually discards truly least-liked. Trouble is. the truly best-liked may have been hidden behind lesser- liked by enough voters to have been discarded as least-liked. .. Score - voters rate each candidate and ratings are added to determine winner. Tricky because making a rating higher or lower can affect who wins. DWK Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Democracy Chronicles, introductions
Thank you everyone for your help so far. It has been very nice to be so warmly received by your colleagues. The first article has been published! You can find it at the link below. I want to encourage everyone to make comments or suggestions to Mr. Fobes' personal introduction that he posted recently. It will be important to make the first articles as good as possible to get readers interested. Of course, we can't expect everyone to write an introduction, so if necessary I will make later introductions to the interviews. If anyone who hasn't answered the questions would like to do so, please feel free to post your answers to this forum and we will add you on to the end of the series. Thank you again to Mr. Fobes for his crucial help. I hope that the interviews are a big hit! Also, Mr. Ossipoff, seperate from the interview articles, has written his own article covering his favorite voting methods that will be published on our website. If anyone wishes to do the same, please let me know I would love to hear from you. Here is the published article about the Declaration: http://www.democracychronicles.com/2012/04/22/exclusive-democracy-chronicles-interviews-election-experts/ Adrian Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Democracy Chronicles, introductions
Adrian Tawfik at Democracy Chronicles requested that I supply him with an introduction to myself for the article that contains my answers to his interview questions. I'm thinking that everyone else who also answered his interview questions will need to supply an introduction, and I figure that all of us will want to elaborate on the brief comment that appears next to our name on the Declaration. As long as we are writing introductions that will be published, we might as well also use the opportunity to learn more about each other, and share ideas about what to write. Plus, if any of us includes a statement that defies the principles of mathematics, such an error can be pointed out prior to publication. With that in mind, here is my suggestion for an introductory paragraph about me: begin intro Richard Fobes, who has a degree in physics (and whose last name rhymes with robes), became involved with election-method reform when he realized, while writing his book titled "The Creative Problem Solver's Toolbox" [link], that most of the world's problems can be solved, but the current voting methods used throughout the world are so primitive that citizens are unable to elect the problem-solving leaders they want. That insight motivated him to spend time over the last two decades developing -- including writing open-source software for -- a system of voting methods that he calls "VoteFair ranking." The core of the system is VoteFair popularity ranking, which is mathematically equivalent to the Condorcet-Kemeny method, which is one of the methods supported by the "Declaration of Election-Method Reform Advocates." At his VoteFair.org [link] website, Fobes offers a free service of calculating VoteFair ranking results, and a number of organizations have used the service to elect their officers. The only people who have objected to the results have been incumbents who failed to get reelected. At that site Fobes also hosts an American Idol poll that allows fans of the TV show to rank the show's singers according to who is their favorite, who is their second favorite, and so on down to who they like the least, and the calculations reveal the overall ranking. Based on the results, Fobes writes commentaries that anticipate and explain so-called "surprise" results in terms of important voting concepts, especially vote splitting, vote concentration, and strategic voting. end intro Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
