Re: [EM] SodaHead online Approval Voting poll
Without experiential knowledge the crazies will dominate and sure enough that is exactly what appears to be happening in the comments to the poll. The recipe for change (IMHO of course) in the US is as follows: 1. choose the minimal change that will fix the problem. 2. create a site where people can play with the new option along side plurality. 3. have a suite of sound bites available to fight off the mind numbingly stupid objections that will come in. Repeat them often and loud. The only viable method is approval. I put together a site intended to allow playing with approval side by side with plurality (www.approvalvote.org) but never finished it. There are lots of others I imagine. Maybe I'll finish mine ... Sound bites might include things like: Imagine one hundred candidates on the ballot, what is your one vote worth in that situation? I'm sure this list can come up with much better ones... Matt -=- (sent from my phone, please pardon any spelling errs) - Original message - I know that online polls are silly. But thousands of people see them, and if they see that the idea actually has support, some of them will be more open to consider if it has merit. Jameson -- Forwarded message -- Subject: [CES #4978] SodaHead Asks Readers about Approval Voting This is a poll that SodaHead posted. It has a bunch of comments, most of pretty low quality. Feel free to change that. Link: http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/should-voters-be-allowed-to-pick-multiple-candidates/question-2526939/ Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Anyone got a good analysis on limitations of approval and range voting? (long)
On Tuesday 10 November 2009 03:37:56 am Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
Matthew Welland wrote:
So, to re-frame my question. What is the fatal flaw with approval? I'm
not interested in subtle flaws that result in imperfect results. I'm
interested in flaws that result in big problems such as those we see
with plurality and IRV.
IMHO, it is that you need concurrent polling in order to consistently
elect a good winner. If you don't have polling and thus don't know where
to put the cutoff (between approve and not-approve), you'll face the
Burr dilemma: If you prefer A B C, if you approve both A and B,
you might get B instead of A, but if you approve only A, you might get
C!
This seems to me to be a minor, not major, flaw. Having to vote A B to
hedge your bets is not ideal but you might even be able to argue some
benefits to it. A will see B as a serious threat and vice versa. They may
make adjustments to their stands on issues to accommodate voters like you.
Approval voting is enough to bring competition for votes back into the arena
and I think it makes negative campaigning a very risky strategy.
Also, again, your single vote is irrelevant. It is the aggregate of
thousands or millions of votes that will make or break A vs. B. How many
feel so strongly against A that they cannot vote for him or her?
The binary nature of approval is washed out by large numbers just as a class
D amplifier can directly produce smooth analog waveforms out of a pure 1 or 0
signal.
Thus the kind of Approval that homes in on a good winner employs
feedback. The method is no longer Approval alone, but Approval plus
polling. That /can/ work (people approve {Nader, Gore} if Nader has
fewer votes than Gore, so that Bush doesn't win from the split, but only
approve either Nader or Gore if both are large), but why should we need
to be burdened with the feedback?
Sure, in any real election there will be many dynamics at work. Feedback
polls, debates etc. will all improve an election. Approval might benefit from
feedback but I don't see why it becomes fatally flawed without it, only
mildly flawed.
Some, like Abd, argue that we always reason based on others' positions
to know how much we can demand, and so that this is a feature rather
than a bug. That doesn't quite sound right to me. In any event, if you
want Approval + bargaining (which the feedback resolves to), make that
claim. Approval alone, without feedback, will be subject to the flaws
mentioned earlier, however.
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Anyone got a good analysis on limitations of approval andrange voting? (long)
On Tuesday 10 November 2009 03:57:34 am you wrote: Dear Matthew, you wrote: Suite of complicated systems that strive to reach Condorcet ideals. 1. No regular bloke would ever trust 'em because you can't explain how they work in one or two sentences. Well, here's a very simple Condorcet system which can easily be explained in two sentences: 1. Let voters vote on candidate pairs, successively replacing the loser with a different candidate, in a random order of candidates. 2. As soon as all candidates have been included, the winner of the last pair is declared the overall winner. This system is arguably the earliest example of a Condorcet system. It was devised by Ramon Llull in the 13th century and was successfully used for elections in monastaries. It is easily understood by the common man since it resembles a procedure frequently used in child play. That is an excellent description. Thanks. I've always liked that specific system and think being Condorcet compliant makes great sense in smaller elections or where a perfect choice is critical. Implementing it on a large scale seems tough and actually voting in it seems tedious. If there are N candidates am I forced to make N-1 decisions? If there is a short circuit way to do the vote then it might be workable. The improvement over approval still seems marginal, especially in large elections and I think the cost for implementing, tabulating and voting is much higher, Yours, Jobst Matthew Welland schrieb: Thanks all for the discussion and pointers. I still can't concretely conclude anything yet but here are some rambling and random thoughts based on what was said and my prior experiences. Plurality 1. Leads to two lowest common denominator parties which are not accountable to the voters. This conclusion supported by real world observation. 2. Feels right to the non-critical mind, one man, one vote 3. Very fast at the polls Approval 1. Encourages participation of minor parties and thus should keep the big guys paying attention to a wider base. 2. Almost zero marginal implementation cost. Hanging chads count just fine :) 3. Understandable by anyone but feels wrong at first not fair, you get more than one vote. 4. Apparently has a terrible flaw but no one seems to be able to articulate it in layman terms. No real world experience available to illustrate the problem. Here is where I need to learn more. Data provided to date is unconvincing to me. 5. Does not meet the desire of some to be able to differentiate between I like, I like a lot etc. (note: this seems like perfectionism to me. Large numbers of voters and opinions all over the bell curve should make individual expression at the greater level of granularity irrelevant.) 6. Very fast at the polls. Pick yer favorites and head home for beer and telly. Range 1. Can break the vicious cycle of plurality 2. Not voting for someone at all can have a strong influence on election outcome. This is very non-intuitive and would take some getting used to. 3. Allows for nuanced voting. 4. Pain in the ass at the polls (relatively speaking). You can't safely disregard the candidates you don't care about so you *have* to assign everyone a ranking, possibly addressable by defaulting to zero for all candidates? This is considered a feature and I agree it has merit. But in reality it is a deal breaker for joe six pack and co. (and for lazy sobs like me). IRV 1. Demonstrably broken. 'nuff said. Suite of complicated systems that strive to reach Condorcet ideals. 1. No regular bloke would ever trust 'em because you can't explain how they work in one or two sentences. 2. Technically superior to other systems. 3. Not clear what problem with approval they would solve. Unless you are a perfectionist and insist that individuals express nuances of opinion... Some time ago I put together a site (primitive and unfinished[i]) to promote approval voting and in the process I spent a lot of time trying different systems on the web and repeatedly testing my own site. I noticed some interesting things from all that playing around. 1. It was very uncomfortable to go back to plurality after trying other systems. It feels unfair and broken. 2. It was very tedious voting in any of the ranking systems. 3. Approval felt boring but good. I have checked in on this list now and then and I admit I don't have the time or skills to follow all the arguments but it strikes me that approval voting is good enough to break the deadlock, at least in US politics and that it doesn't have any major flaws. The very understandable desire to be able to articulate in a finer grained way in your vote is perfectionism. With millions
Re: [EM] Anyone got a good analysis on limitations of approval andrange voting? (long)
Thanks all for the discussion and pointers. I still can't concretely conclude anything yet but here are some rambling and random thoughts based on what was said and my prior experiences. Plurality Leads to two lowest common denominator parties which are not accountable to the voters. This conclusion supported by real world observation. Feels right to the non-critical mind, one man, one vote Very fast at the polls Approval Encourages participation of minor parties and thus should keep the big guys paying attention to a wider base. Almost zero marginal implementation cost. Hanging chads count just fine :) Understandable by anyone but feels wrong at first not fair, you get more than one vote. Apparently has a terrible flaw but no one seems to be able to articulate it in layman terms. No real world experience available to illustrate the problem. Here is where I need to learn more. Data provided to date is unconvincing to me. Does not meet the desire of some to be able to differentiate between I like, I like a lot etc. (note: this seems like perfectionism to me. Large numbers of voters and opinions all over the bell curve should make individual expression at the greater level of granularity irrelevant.) Very fast at the polls. Pick yer favorites and head home for beer and telly. Range Can break the vicious cycle of plurality Not voting for someone at all can have a strong influence on election outcome. This is very non-intuitive and would take some getting used to. Allows for nuanced voting. Pain in the ass at the polls (relatively speaking). You can't safely disregard the candidates you don't care about so you *have* to assign everyone a ranking, possibly addressable by defaulting to zero for all candidates? This is considered a feature and I agree it has merit. But in reality it is a deal breaker for joe six pack and co. (and for lazy sobs like me). IRV Demonstrably broken. 'nuff said. Suite of complicated systems that strive to reach Condorcet ideals. No regular bloke would ever trust 'em because you can't explain how they work in one or two sentences. Technically superior to other systems. Not clear what problem with approval they would solve. Unless you are a perfectionist and insist that individuals express nuances of opinion... Some time ago I put together a site (primitive and unfinished[i]) to promote approval voting and in the process I spent a lot of time trying different systems on the web and repeatedly testing my own site. I noticed some interesting things from all that playing around. It was very uncomfortable to go back to plurality after trying other systems. It feels unfair and broken. It was very tedious voting in any of the ranking systems. Approval felt boring but good. I have checked in on this list now and then and I admit I don't have the time or skills to follow all the arguments but it strikes me that approval voting is good enough to break the deadlock, at least in US politics and that it doesn't have any major flaws. The very understandable desire to be able to articulate in a finer grained way in your vote is perfectionism. With millions of voters, for every person on the fence about a particular candidate there will be some to either side who will essentially make or break the vote. If you are on the fence, approve or disapprove, it won't matter. So, to re-frame my question. What is the fatal flaw with approval? I'm not interested in subtle flaws that result in imperfect results. I'm interested in flaws that result in big problems such as those we see with plurality and IRV. [i] www.approvalvote.org Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Anyone got a good analysis on limitations of approval and range voting?
It seems to me that approval and range voting eliminate most of the strategic opportunity in single winner elections and the marginal improvement of other methods is fairly small. Can anyone point me to analysis, preferably at a layman level, that contradicts or supports this assertion? Or, in succinct terms, what are the strategic flaws in approval or range voting? Thanks, Matt -=- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
