Re: [EM] (no subject)
On Apr 22, 2012, at 11:14 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: 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). To try to sort out the question: . In Plurality voters objected to being unable to vote for more than one. . Approval is better, for having fixed that, so now voters wish they could express preferences as to which candidate they like better. 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? Proper question when considering any new method, whatever the current base may be. IRV is an example that scares thinkers. 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 You refer back to Plurality here - but from context we were at Approval and those of us who looked ahead realized that we need something better. DWK 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
[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
[EM] (no subject)
After posting today, I noticed the description of LRV. So my list of FBC/ABE methods wasn't complete, and there are 7 of them instead of 6. What are the entries for LRV in my FBC/ABE methods properties table? Mike Ossipoff Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] (no subject)
Robt Bristow-Johnson: I disagree. However, we don't really know the how the mechanics of approval will work out in practice. Abd Lomax: Well, that's not entirely true. Approval Voting was used for hundreds of years in Venice... --well, it'd be interesting to see your reactions to my attempt to investigate this very question in the about 45 Pope elections via approval voting. I repeat the URL for the summary: http://rangevoting.org/PopeSummary.html and the stories http://rangevoting.org/PopeElectionStories.html Read 'em, you'll be amused, horrified, and freaked out probably. It's amazing the shenanigans they did. You can try to analyse alternate histories in many cases (what would have happened with voting system X instead?). -- 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
Re: [EM] (no subject)
On Sep 3, 2010, at 2:52 PM, Warren Smith wrote: ... http://rangevoting.org/PopeElectionStories.html Read 'em, you'll be amused, horrified, and freaked out probably. It's amazing the shenanigans they did. and some of them shenanigans are documented in The Da Vinci Files. :-) -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] (no subject)
To everyone, I get these messages in digest form, so sometimes I miss things. If you have comments on my manuscript, go to my blog: http://votingmath.blogspot.com/2010/08/open-thread-for-comments-on-manuscript.html Warren, Thanks for the comments and the corrections. I have changed the paper to spell all names properly and give credit to Kevin Venzke. I now include a link to the Electowiki entry on MDDA as well as the longer article by you and Mike Ossipoff at RangeVoting.org. A table of contents is also a great suggestion, and I've added it. I don't have time to address everything now, but on the general issue of style, well, I plead guilty to many errors and thank you for the feedback. I'm a theoretical physicist, not a mathematician, and this is the first time I've tried to write something that involves a proof rather than a derivation or calculation. I'll work on it over time, but I can't promise immediate changes in the next draft. Not being a mathematician, I tried to emulate a lot of Saari's style from his book Basic Geometry of Voting since he is a pro and I use some geometrical ideas from his book. But clearly I have a long way to go. The idea of the linearity condition is simply that the statements being checked are all linear inequalities. In the very simplest case of plurality voting, candidate A would win if: f(votes for A) - f(votes for B) 0 AND f(votes for A) - f(votes for C) 0 AND etc. for all other candidates where f(votes for A) is the fraction of voters casting ballots for A. If we were doing a more complicated method, we'd specify more elaborate inequalities, regarding (perhaps) the fraction of voters giving A a certain number of points, or the fraction ranking A above B, or whatever. The key point is that those inequalities are all linear in the fraction casting each ballot type. However, somebody could always come along and say Hey, I want a rule where we check whether (f(votes for A))^2 - f(votes for B) 0! Why would somebody write down that rule? I dunno. Seems illogical. But they could. I wanted to exclude it from analysis, since every method that I'm aware of involves conditions that are linear in ballot types. A table summarizing methods is an excellent idea. A table explaining Type 1, Type 1b, Type 2, and Type 3 might still not make a lot of sense to a newbie, since these definitions all depend on properties of normal vectors, i.e. it is not immediately obvious what they have to do with practical statements about election methods like Whoever has the most points wins or Whoever beats all others pairwise wins or If there's no majority first choice then you eliminate the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes and transfer his ballots... etc. However, I might still put in a table to at least summarize these things for the technical reader trying to keep track, and a separate table with examples of SFBC-compliant methods in each category so that the non-technical reader gets a flavor for it. Thanks for the suggestion. As for * vs. x for multiplication, all I can say is that when I was writing my thesis I frequently used x and my advisor (a physicist) chided me gently for my unorthodox choice of multiplication symbol. Remember that x means cross product to many scientists and engineers. I have replaced * with \cdot, since it means scalar multiplied by to many people. Now somebody will no doubt accuse me of mixing in a dot product, and I'll change it to \times, and then somebody will complain that I'm doing topological products :) More later. Alex --- On Mon, 8/23/10, election-methods-requ...@lists.electorama.com election-methods-requ...@lists.electorama.com wrote: Message: 2 Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:43:38 -0400 From: Warren Smith warren@gmail.com To: election-methods election-meth...@electorama.com Subject: [EM] (no subject) Message-ID: aanlktim8snht88t_si9=n-0mtpw=fhn-8ags1do5l...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Dear Alex Small your FBC manuscript looks interesting. The typesetting is sometimes annoying (use of * for multiply). Kevin Venzke is quite right he invented MDDA not me. Ossipoff has 2 Fs. Warren D. Smith has a D. Your paper is long. It needs to be written to be more accessible. Think how to provide fast-access routes for the reader who wants to know certain things (make a list of what things various typical readers might want to know, and find a way to make them be able to find it fast). Like put a table of contents, table of FBC-complaint methods, index, I dunno. It is not easy for a newbie to quickly assimilate what's important in your paper. See also the end of http://rangevoting.org/FBCsurvey.html where the Smith-Simmons theorem is mentioned, see http://rangevoting.org/SimmonsSmithPf.html somehow I feel this theorem has heavy importance and you ought to discuss it to some degree. Among your SFBC compliant methods, you might want
[EM] (no subject)
Dear Alex Small your FBC manuscript looks interesting. The typesetting is sometimes annoying (use of * for multiply). Kevin Venzke is quite right he invented MDDA not me. Ossipoff has 2 Fs. Warren D. Smith has a D. Your paper is long. It needs to be written to be more accessible. Think how to provide fast-access routes for the reader who wants to know certain things (make a list of what things various typical readers might want to know, and find a way to make them be able to find it fast). Like put a table of contents, table of FBC-complaint methods, index, I dunno. It is not easy for a newbie to quickly assimilate what's important in your paper. See also the end of http://rangevoting.org/FBCsurvey.html where the Smith-Simmons theorem is mentioned, see http://rangevoting.org/SimmonsSmithPf.html somehow I feel this theorem has heavy importance and you ought to discuss it to some degree. Among your SFBC compliant methods, you might want to compare. Which should we like and why. But I haven't really read the thing yet :) -- 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
Re: [EM] (no subject)
The way I read it, it seems he suggests SFBC is too strong. If you insist upon SFBC, you get a method that treats at least the two first ranks equally, either directly (type 1) or indirectly (type 2). Thus you can either insist on SFBC and have methods that treat the top two of a voter's ranking equally, or you can relax it to FBC (and thus get MDDA and the likes) in which case only *sometimes* do the voters need to (have an incentive to) rank the top two equal. --yah, I am vaguely getting that sort of impression too. In which case, I say Small should just come out and SAY THAT. Take a clear succinct stand. Or at least offer it. -- 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
[EM] (no subject)
Admitting that I didn'f fully follow the topic: I think my selfish incentives are enough to make me vote. Maybe I have also altruistic incentives but they are surplus. Also, my selfish incentives in great part have ethical and community nature, but still selfish. How can a selfish motive have ethical nature? Simple. If I don't steal an exotic fruit from the supermarket, my motives have ethical nature, but some of them selfish: I don't want to be punished. So, what are my costs about the voting? Five minute walk to the place, five minute vote, and five minute walk back. (And consider that I like to walk, sometimes I do it just for recreation.) Knowing about politics I don't count as a cost. Even if I didn't have the right to vote, I would know about politics to make decisions about my life, to not look dumb when conversating, and from simple curiosity, which means something like hoping to utilize knowledge maybe somewhere, some time, in some field (but it's not as much a decision, as an instinct, evolution-made - not all of those work well, for example, our instinctous carbohydrate craving can make us less healthy, but curiosity is still okayy). So let's make the cost a dollar (this is not a very high GDP per capita country - Hungary). Let's see the plus side. In my country a million voter minus already would somehow endanger democracy. Let's suppose it's a 0.1 probability of a fascist dictatorship which kills me or makes my life as miserable as death with a 0.1 probability. So roughly my voting makes my life 0.0001 safer. Question is wheter my life is worth a hundred million dollars. I'm not sure. It's also important to note that in such magnitudes utility can not be considered as a linear function of money. (For Bill Gates, a million dollar plus doesn't mean nearly as much as for me would.) As a matter of fact, my voting or not voting makes more than one vote plus or minus because other people tend in this respect more to follow than to counterfollow my example. Since voting is considered as an ethical act, I vote to make my reputation better. I could maybe lie in this respect, but lying also has high costs. My family members know when I'm coming and going, I can be caught if something interesting happens in my voting place and I don't know about. This can be considered like this: for some extent I also protect other people from a fascist dictatorship, and they also protect me. So we have an agreement to vote. But my keeping of the agreement is not fully altruistic because others know what I do. Also, if something interesting happens in my voting place, it's good for me, I can talk about it, I can get some attention in the company, which is such a hard thing to do. Even if nothing particular happens, voting is a little bit fun. Maybe I forgot something, I don't know. Just one more note: Since the previus elections Hungarian Parlament created a law to make cheating less probable. By this, in every constituency, only one voting place is able to get votes from people who don't vote in their own dwelling place. In these places, some people waited for six hours in line to vote. I don't know what I would have done in this situation. Probably would have wait for my turn. Why? Would have this been able to explain by purely selfish motives? Maybe. Becaus if I do my thing in such circumstances, it makes me look even better before others. The probability of something interesting happens grows. And not only something to talk about: it can be an interesting experience. What people say in this situation? How the authorities react? Taking part is sometimes valueable because media often lie about events. If you are there, you have chance to know. Peter Barath nbsp;a href=http://ad.adverticum.net/b/cl,1,73468,1603402,1600294/click.prm; target=_blankbrAutót vásárol? Balesetmentesen vezet? Genertel kötelező szenzációs kedvezménnyel!br/a Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] (no subject)
Terry Bouricius: I'm not sure if it is quite at the layman level, but Prof. Nicloaus Tideman's recent book Collective Decisions and Voting has an analysis of vulnerability to strategic manipulation of virtually every single-winner voting method that has ever been proposed and concludes that Range Voting along with Borda and four other methods have defects that are so serious as to disqualify them from consideration. (page 238). Range Voting advocates on this list dispute his definition of resistance to strategy. A somewhat more accessible (and available online for free) analysis of strategic vulnerability of various methods is in this doctoral paper by James Green-Armytage (Strategic voting and Strategic Nomination: Comparing seven election methods). He found that Range and Approval were just about the worst in terms of manipulability. http://econ.ucsb.edu/graduate/PhDResearch/electionstrategy10b.pdf REPLY BY WDS: 1.Tideman's book and the flaws in its (poor) notion of resistance to strategy are discussed here: http://rangevoting.org/TidemanRev.html 2. Bouricius forgot to mention, same way he usually forgets to mention, that Tideman also found IRV to be unsupportable. 3.Armytage's ideas related ones are discussed in puzzle #112 here: http://rangevoting.org/PuzzlePage.html (I actually managed to prove a number of things Armytage could not, for example.) However Bayesian Regret is the right yardstick and Armytage's (while interesting) the wrong one. -- 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
Re: [EM] (no subject)
On Nov 8, 2009, at 10:00 AM, Warren Smith wrote: 2. Bouricius forgot to mention, same way he usually forgets to mention, that Tideman also found IRV to be unsupportable. conditionally supportable, actually. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
under a condition which is, in fact, violated. On 11/8/09, Jonathan Lundell jlund...@pobox.com wrote: On Nov 8, 2009, at 10:00 AM, Warren Smith wrote: 2. Bouricius forgot to mention, same way he usually forgets to mention, that Tideman also found IRV to be unsupportable. conditionally supportable, actually. -- 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
Re: [EM] (no subject)
Response to Warren... inserted below each of his points (marked by ***) Terry Bouricius - Original Message - From: Warren Smith warren@gmail.com To: election-methods election-meth...@electorama.com Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 1:00 PM Subject: [EM] (no subject) Terry Bouricius: I'm not sure if it is quite at the layman level, but Prof. Nicloaus Tideman's recent book Collective Decisions and Voting has an analysis of vulnerability to strategic manipulation of virtually every single-winner voting method that has ever been proposed and concludes that Range Voting along with Borda and four other methods have defects that are so serious as to disqualify them from consideration. (page 238). Range Voting advocates on this list dispute his definition of resistance to strategy. A somewhat more accessible (and available online for free) analysis of strategic vulnerability of various methods is in this doctoral paper by James Green-Armytage (Strategic voting and Strategic Nomination: Comparing seven election methods). He found that Range and Approval were just about the worst in terms of manipulability. http://econ.ucsb.edu/graduate/PhDResearch/electionstrategy10b.pdf REPLY BY WDS: 1.Tideman's book and the flaws in its (poor) notion of resistance to strategy are discussed here: http://rangevoting.org/TidemanRev.html *** 1. Tideman is quite careful and methodical in his analysis of resistance to strategy using real world election data as a basis for analysis. I agree, however, that his definition only covers a specific slice of strategy possibilities that his data allowed him to analyze, and he made no attempt to evaluate other kinds of possible startegy that Warren Smith and some others focus on. This does not mean Tideman's analysis is flawed, though it may be classified as incomplete. 2. Bouricius forgot to mention, same way he usually forgets to mention, that Tideman also found IRV to be unsupportable. *** 2. Warren Smith is wrong. He either hasn't read Tideman or is intentionally miss-representing Tideman here. On page 238 Tideman has a chart with five categories of summarizing his analysis of mehtods... First is Not supportable whcih includes Borda, Range, Dodgson, Copeland, Coombs and Est. centrality. The next category is Arguably inferior to maxmin which includes Condorcet, Simp. Dodgson, Nanson, Bucklin, Black, Young, and Wt. Condorcet. The third categroy is Supportable if ranking is infeasible which includes Plurality, Approval, and Two-ballot majority. The fourth category is Supportable if a matrix is uncalculable whcih includes only Alternative vote [IRV] The last category is Supportable if a matrix of majorities is calculable which includes Maxmin, Ranked Pairs, Schulze, Alt. Scwartz and Alt. Smith. Warren is assuming that a matrix is always calculable and thus the supportable category that includes only IRV is in fact null. However, that is not what Tideman is arguing (or why would he create the category if it was always empty)? Elsewhere he discusses the practical limitations of voting methods used for public elections including ease of voter acceptance and argues that a hypothetical improvement of a system that requires complexities such as matrices may be impractical in large scale elections. He writes on page 240 If it is feasible to require voters to rank options, then much more sophisticated processing is possible. However, it is conceivable that it would be feasible to require voters to rank options but not feasible to require vote-processors to produce a matrix of majorities. In this event the Alternative vote is supportable. 3.Armytage's ideas related ones are discussed in puzzle #112 here: http://rangevoting.org/PuzzlePage.html (I actually managed to prove a number of things Armytage could not, for example.) However Bayesian Regret is the right yardstick and Armytage's (while interesting) the wrong one. ***3. Warren Smith's conviction that Bayesian Regret is the gold standard for evaluating voting methods is not universally, nor even very widely held. It is a unique philosophical view held by those who subscribe to the Utilitarian philosphy, and is at least arguable. Many (most) people believe that when electing a single seat, the will of the majority should win out over the minority. This is necessarily rejected by the believers in Bayesian Regret and advocates of Range voting. -- 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 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
On Nov 2, 2009, at 12:57 PM, Juho wrote: Ok, these examples are sort of second level behind the hottest political arena. It makes sense not to involve party politics e.g. in decision making in the schools. Are there maybe counties/cities where the primary decision making body would have remained non- partisan? In California, my sense is that most city elections and some county elections are in fact (not just nominally) non-partisan. That's not true for larger cities and counties, where the nominally non-partisan seats tend to be the farm team for the major parties--it's how you get on the ladder to the show. Juho On Nov 2, 2009, at 4:40 PM, Jonathan Lundell wrote: On Nov 1, 2009, at 10:49 PM, Juho wrote: Firstly, STV-PR can be used in all public elections, including those that are non-partisan. Yes. Non-partisan multi-winner elections are however rare in politics. They may be more common e.g. when electing only a small number of representatives within a small community. Non-partisan multi-seat bodies compose the overwhelming majority of elected offices in California. All our local boards (county and city governing board, school boards, fire protection and sanitation districts) are elected this way, and would be prime candidates for STV. My sense is that this is fairly common across the US, though in some states some of these offices are partisan. There's plenty of scope for non-partisan PR. 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] (no subject)
On Nov 1, 2009, at 10:49 PM, Juho wrote: Firstly, STV-PR can be used in all public elections, including those that are non-partisan. Yes. Non-partisan multi-winner elections are however rare in politics. They may be more common e.g. when electing only a small number of representatives within a small community. Non-partisan multi-seat bodies compose the overwhelming majority of elected offices in California. All our local boards (county and city governing board, school boards, fire protection and sanitation districts) are elected this way, and would be prime candidates for STV. My sense is that this is fairly common across the US, though in some states some of these offices are partisan. There's plenty of scope for non-partisan PR. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
On Nov 1, 2009, at 8:28 PM, Raph Frank wrote: I made an attempt to create a basic explanation on an earlier post to this list: http://www.mail-archive.com/election-methods@lists.electorama.com/ msg04195.html which says: One of the hardest parts about PR-STV is actually explaining it. Anyway, this was an approach I was thinking of. I think it hits the main points by covering the reasons rather than the detailed maths. Most people in PR-STV countries understand the method, as they experience it from a voter's perspective, rather than a counter's perspective. PR-STV is based on 4 main principles: 1) Each voter gets 1 vote and they can vote for any candidate they want. ** All votes are equal. ** 2) The 5 candidates who get the most votes get a seat. I am assuming 5 seats are to be filled, but the system works for any number. 3) If you vote for a losing candidate, your vote is transferred to your next choice This reason for this rule is is so that you can safely give your first choice to your favourite even if he is a weak candidate. If he doesn't win, your vote will be transferred to your next highest choice, until it gets to a candidate who can win a seat. ** Voting for a weak candidate doesn't mean you are throwing your vote away. ** 4) If you vote for a candidate who gets more votes than he needs, the surplus is transferred to your next choice. whose *ballot* gets their vote transferred? it shouldn't matter in which order the counting is. if my ballot is needed to give the candidate what he needs, and your ballot isn't needed, then you got to influence the election of your next choice, but i did not. that can't be fair. -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject) STV transfer rules
robert bristow-johnson Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 5:44 PM whose *ballot* gets their vote transferred? it shouldn't matter in which order the counting is. if my ballot is needed to give the candidate what he needs, and your ballot isn't needed, then you got to influence the election of your next choice, but I did not. that can't be fair. Opinions differ on the importance of this feature - as can be seen from the continued acceptance in some jurisdictions of STV rules that treat ballots differently in this way. But if this feature is important in your assessment of fairness, then you could use either the WIGM (Weighted inclusive Gregory Method) version of STV-PR as implemented for the Scottish Local Government elections or Meek STV. In both of these STV-PR versions ALL of the candidate's ballots are transferred when any transfer of votes has to be made. Then there is no discrimination of the kind you describe between these voters. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.698 / Virus Database: 270.14.42/2473 - Release Date: 10/31/09 21:14:00 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject) STV transfer rules
On Nov 2, 2009, at 9:54 AM, James Gilmour wrote: robert bristow-johnson Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 5:44 PM whose *ballot* gets their vote transferred? it shouldn't matter in which order the counting is. if my ballot is needed to give the candidate what he needs, and your ballot isn't needed, then you got to influence the election of your next choice, but I did not. that can't be fair. Opinions differ on the importance of this feature - as can be seen from the continued acceptance in some jurisdictions of STV rules that treat ballots differently in this way. But if this feature is important in your assessment of fairness, then you could use either the WIGM (Weighted inclusive Gregory Method) version of STV-PR as implemented for the Scottish Local Government elections or Meek STV. In both of these STV-PR versions ALL of the candidate's ballots are transferred when any transfer of votes has to be made. Then there is no discrimination of the kind you describe between these voters. While Meek is preferable in this regard, even the random-transfer mechanism used by Cambridge MA is fair in the sense that all voters are treated equally--each has the same chance of having their ballot chosen for transfer, and with a sufficiently large election, the distribution is quite good. Still, I don't think anybody implementing STV these days is likely to use that particular mechanism. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 4:25 AM, robert bristow-johnson r...@audioimagination.com wrote: whose *ballot* gets their vote transferred? it shouldn't matter in which order the counting is. if my ballot is needed to give the candidate what he needs, and your ballot isn't needed, then you got to influence the election of your next choice, but i did not. that can't be fair. There are various ways of handling this. One option is to randomly select ballots equal to the size of the surplus and pass them on. On average, this will tend to give the same result, assuming a reasonably large numberr of votes are cast. If the quota was 20,000 and a candidate received 30,000 votes, then 10,000 ballots would be picked at random. This option is not favoured as it can lead to problems with recounting the votes and can make election verification harder, as it won't give the same result twice. Another option is to down weight the ballots and then pass them all on. In that case, all of the above ballots would have their weight reduced, so that they only count as 1/3 of a vote (the other 2/3 remains with the candidate who was elected). This is a slight complexity when a voter's vote is used to elect more than one candidate. You have to multiply all the weights by each other. For example, if after the transfer, some of those votes go to a candidate who gets 22,000 votes, then they would be down weighted a 2nd time. The new weight would be 1/3*(2/22) = 1/33 of a vote. Effectively, his vote was at 1/3 strength and 20/22 of that vote was consumed electing the 2nd candidate. In both cases, the order of the votes doesn't matter. There is also some more complex method called Meek's method which makes things even fairer. However, that requires a computer to determine the winner. It treates the votes ABCD and BCD the same if A is eliminated. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
Ok, these examples are sort of second level behind the hottest political arena. It makes sense not to involve party politics e.g. in decision making in the schools. Are there maybe counties/cities where the primary decision making body would have remained non-partisan? Juho On Nov 2, 2009, at 4:40 PM, Jonathan Lundell wrote: On Nov 1, 2009, at 10:49 PM, Juho wrote: Firstly, STV-PR can be used in all public elections, including those that are non-partisan. Yes. Non-partisan multi-winner elections are however rare in politics. They may be more common e.g. when electing only a small number of representatives within a small community. Non-partisan multi-seat bodies compose the overwhelming majority of elected offices in California. All our local boards (county and city governing board, school boards, fire protection and sanitation districts) are elected this way, and would be prime candidates for STV. My sense is that this is fairly common across the US, though in some states some of these offices are partisan. There's plenty of scope for non-partisan PR. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] (no subject)
I don't necessarily think that STV is better than an open party list system. But I'm a political realist, and I think that STV is the system that would be easiest to implement in America. With our loose coalition Democrat and Republican parties, and our large base of independents, people are too used to voting for the person and not the party to widely accept a system that forces voting for a party. Even if they do have a large say in said party. STV is proportional if people vote by party. It is also proportional if people vote by eye color. It's main problem is that it's complicated as hell to explain, and the opposition at the BC-STV referendum exploited this mercilessly. So the only real solution for proportional advocates seems to be to either find a billionaire willing to support the cause of STV, or to wait 100 years until Americas increasing polarization makes partisan voting seems not seem so obscene. Raph Frank wrote: On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 2:29 PM, Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com wrote: Rather than reply individually to the three response to my former post, I'll just make some observations: 1. It seems like the pro-IRV/STV group has begun to dominate this list, I am pro-PR-STV but against IRV. As with all election methods, it is a trade-off. The benefits of PR-STV outweigh the disadvantages. It gives max control to the voters while giving reasonable PR. The more seats elected the better. With small constituencies, it isn't so great. I guess my thoughts would be that PR is better than a single seat method, and PR-STV is better than a party list system. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
Anthony O'Neal Sent: Sunday, November 01, 2009 7:12 AM I don't necessarily think that STV is better than an open party list system. I think STV-PR is better than open-list party-list PR in three ways. Firstly, STV-PR can be used in all public elections, including those that are non-partisan. Secondly, STV-PR can deliver proportionality within individual political parties, where most open-list party-list systems will not. Thirdly, and rather more politically, STV-PR can shift the balance of power away from the parties to the voters, IF the voters decide to make than happen. But I'm a political realist, and I think that STV is the system that would be easiest to implement in America. With our loose coalition Democrat and Republican parties, and our large base of independents, people are too used to voting for the person and not the party to widely accept a system that forces voting for a party. Even if they do have a large say in said party. There are two other reasons why STV-PR might be the easiest to implement in situations where voters are used to voting in single-member districts (the appalling British legacy!). First is the simple practically of devising suitable STV multi-member electoral districts based on existing, recognised communities. Second is the voters' desire for a realistic element of local representation as well as for broad proportionality. STV is proportional if people vote by party. It is also proportional if people vote by eye color. Yes, and need not be either or - it can be both and. The voters can rank by party and then by eye colour. Or the voters can rank by eye colour and then by party. With STV-PR the voters are free to base their rankings of the candidates on as many dimensions as each voter wishes. It's main problem is that it's complicated as hell to explain, and the opposition at the BC-STV referendum exploited this mercilessly. Yes, a great deal can be made of this, and was by the opponents of reform in BC, but it need not be so. To obtain proportional representation we must elect several members together; each voter must have only one vote; and that vote must be transferable. The STV-PR counting procedure involves five basic steps: 1. Once the total number of valid ballots has been counted, the minimum number of votes a candidate needs to be elected is calculated - the 'threshold' or 'quota'. (This threshold is equivalent to the 'absolute majority' in a single-member electoral district.) 2. The ballots are sorted according to the first choices (rank #1) marked by the voters and the total number of first choice votes for each candidate is counted. 3. Any candidate whose vote equals or exceeds the threshold is elected. If any candidate has more votes than the threshold, that surplus above the threshold is transferred to remaining candidates in accordance with the second and later choices on the elected candidate's ballots. 4. If after the surpluses have been transferred some seats remain to be filled, the candidate with fewest votes is eliminated and that candidate's votes are transferred in accordance with the second and later choices marked on the ballots. 5. The transfers of votes continue, round by round, until all seats have been filled. Of course, the detailed instructions for the Returning Officer are a little more complex than that, but again can be set out quite simply, depending on the version of STV-PR adopted. One merit of the version of STV-PR used for the local government elections in Scotland in 2007 was the very simple principles. All surpluses must be transferred, largest first. Candidates with fewest votes must be eliminated one at a time. When any votes are to be transferred, all of the candidate's ballots must be transferred. These three principles greatly simplified the procedure, the regulations, the description and the explanation. It all becomes considerably more complicated when you have to make provision for deferring the transfer of small surpluses or for batch eliminations of several candidates together or electing by sub-stages during eliminations. So the only real solution for proportional advocates seems to be to either find a billionaire willing to support the cause of STV, or to wait 100 years until Americas increasing polarization makes partisan voting seems not seem so obscene. I wouldn't be so pessimistic. The more immediate targets should be those city councils and local boards that are very obviously unrepresentative, especially those already elected at large. Some State legislatures might also provide realistic prospects for reform. Although elected by FPTP from single-member districts, the US House of Representatives is not as unrepresentative as most assemblies elected in this way around the world (e.g. UK, Canada). That's probably why Federal electoral reform is not higher up the public agenda in the USA. James Gilmour No
Re: [EM] (no subject)
I made an attempt to create a basic explanation on an earlier post to this list: http://www.mail-archive.com/election-methods@lists.electorama.com/msg04195.html Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
On Nov 1, 2009, at 5:59 PM, James Gilmour wrote: Anthony O'Neal Sent: Sunday, November 01, 2009 7:12 AM I don't necessarily think that STV is better than an open party list system. I think STV-PR is better than open-list party-list PR in three ways. Firstly, STV-PR can be used in all public elections, including those that are non-partisan. Yes. Non-partisan multi-winner elections are however rare in politics. They may be more common e.g. when electing only a small number of representatives within a small community. Secondly, STV-PR can deliver proportionality within individual political parties, where most open-list party-list systems will not. Yes. List based methods typically don't do this. Tree method (see short description at the end of this mail) should maybe be classified as a variant of the open list method. It provides party internal proportionality on topics that are included in the tree hierarchy. Thirdly, and rather more politically, STV-PR can shift the balance of power away from the parties to the voters, IF the voters decide to make than happen. In this question STV and open lists are quite close to each others while closed lists leave more power to the party internal decisions. (Also in closed lists parties should nominate candidates that voters want to elect, but this process is one step more indirect than in STV and open lists, and therefore leaves more power to the party internal decisions.) I think there is a general need to empower the voters (that is the key idea of democracy) but that doesn't necessarily mean that we should take the power away from the parties. Having formal parties and other opinion groupings is a practical tool. Maybe parties should just be such that they reflect and drive topics that the voters want them to represent. (Non-working parties that have become tools of incumbent party officials and other limited interest groups could be classified as one form of corruption.) Party-less systems might be also one form of democracy but I'm not aware of any. Having parties simplifies (maybe oversimplifies) things a lot, but to some extent that may be necessary to make the politics understandable and easier to handle to the voters that are expected to rule (despite of not being experts in all the details). The ideal situation could thus be described also as empowering the voters, both directly and via parties. STV is proportional if people vote by party. It is also proportional if people vote by eye color. Yes, and need not be either or - it can be both and. The voters can rank by party and then by eye colour. Or the voters can rank by eye colour and then by party. With STV-PR the voters are free to base their rankings of the candidates on as many dimensions as each voter wishes. Yes. STV allows any criteria and related proportionality while for example the tree method supports proportionality only on topics that have been described in the tree hierarchy. That means simplification (both good and bad). That also makes the decisions more explicit (good). If there are many representatives with green eyes that may lead to something, or may be forgotten. If there are subgroups that explicitly are named to drive green eyed policy then that might have an impact and the developments and the role of the representatives that were elected as green eyed could be monitored by the voters easily. It's main problem is that it's complicated as hell to explain, and the opposition at the BC-STV referendum exploited this mercilessly. Yes, a great deal can be made of this, and was by the opponents of reform in BC, but it need not be so. ... Most election methods are complicated enough so that regular voters are not able to describe them in detail. What the voters need is a rough understanding on how the method works and some trust that the system works as planned. The complexity and whatever properties of the methods may be used in campaigns that promote or oppose different methods but I think that has often more to do with the art of campaigning than with the real benefits and problems of the methods in question. STV should thus not be doomed for this reason (although this may cause some problems to it, and the vote counting process is a bit heavier than in some other methods). Here are also some more possible comparison points between STV and open lists (and trees). - Open lists are summable and therefore easy to count and verify locally. STV requires centralized counting or centralized control of the local counting process. - Open lists have simple votes, which makes it less vulnerable to vote buying and coercion and maintains privacy better. - SImple counting process also allows the results to be counted quickly. - Open lists / party based systems (and subgroups in trees) tie candidates and representatives to some announced policy. STV
[EM] (no subject)
:( This is sad knews, no matter what the anti-STV fanatics say. STV had flaws, it's still a far better system than FPP. The anti-STV campaign put out a huge misinformation campaign which did nothing but say Hey look at how complicated STV is? AN ALGORITHM FOR VOTING! WHY EVEN HAVE VOTERS! It was stupid, and generations later BC is going to regret what they passed up. Kathy Dopp wrote: FYI, http://www.penmachine.com/2009/05/bc-voters-prefer-lame-status-quo The voters of BC were intelligent to reject STV because STV's inequitable treatment of voters' ballots (counting only some voters' 2nd and 3rd choices and not counting the 2nd choices of a large group of voters' whose 1st choice loses in the final counting round and not counting many voters' 2nd and 3rd choices until after those candidates have been eliminated) causes so many undesirable problems including electing majority *opposed* candidates and eliminating majority favored candidates, nonmonotonicity, eliminating many voters before the final counting round, making central counting necessary, making the counting complex to do by hand, making auditing the accuracy of the results very difficult, etc. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
On Sun, 9 Nov 2008 23:28:01 - James Gilmour wrote: There is only one legitimate interpretation of the AB ballot paper in a Condorcet count with regard to the C vs. D pair-wise contest - the voter has given the Returning Officer no information. No-one is entitled make any supposition - that voter has expressed no preference at all as between C and D. From: Dave Ketchum Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 12:24 AM Disagreed, for Condorcet will see that the voter has assigned equal rank. Will you please provide me with a reference to Condorcet election rules for a public election that instruct the Retuning Officer to interpret blanks on a ballot paper as equal rank? James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.9.0/1778 - Release Date: 09/11/2008 14:14 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
Kathy Dopp Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 2:17 AM Your statement oversimplifies and ignores details/differences between IRV and Condorcet. IRV proponents may pretend not to know that Condorcet methods do not exhibit most of the flaws of IRV counting methods. For example, Condorcet, to my knowledge treats all voters ballots equally, considers all choices on all ballots, If I have understood the various submissions correctly, the principal objection to IRV on THIS ground, is that the ballot papers of voters who express different numbers of preferences are thereby treated differently, and in such a way and to such an extent that these differences should render the IRV voting system unconstitutional. It is correct that Condorcet counting considers all the preferences marked on the ballot papers, in a sequence of pair-wise contests. However, Condorcet counting has no option but to treat differently the ballot papers of voters who have expressed different numbers of preferences, because such voters will be excluded from some of the pair-wise counts. If this difference in the treatment of ballot papers with different numbers of preferences would be a fatal flaw in IRV, would it not also be a fatal flaw in Condorcet counting, and indeed in any other voting system where voters may express different numbers of preferences? James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.9.0/1777 - Release Date: 09/11/2008 09:53 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
I have not inspected the affidavits for completeness or correctness. I am only comparing the methods. Assuming IRV's rules result in declaring A or B winner, it would not care or look at what this voter may have said about C or D. Condorcet looks at all that the voters say, and uses all of that in deciding on a winner - as to C and D the possibilities are: CD DC C=D = the voter indicates equal liking by giving them the same rank or by ranking neither. DWK On Sun, 9 Nov 2008 18:54:27 - James Gilmour wrote: Dave Ketchum Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 6:02 PM James seems to be stretching his interpretation a bit far. Agreed that, while the voter can choose to rank all candidates, the voter is permitted to omit those least desired. In Condorcet every ballot is counted. For each the counter considers EVERY pair of candidates, such as A and B. If the voter has indicated preferring AB, that is recorded toward A winning; likewise for BA. As to IRV, while using the same ballot, it only looks at enough to satisfy it purpose - which DOES NOT INCLUDE knowing whether the voters like A better than B. I am not stretching my interpretation too far. In elections to be counted by IRV or Condorcet rules voters will not mark preferences for candidates among whom they have no preferences. Thus in a four-candidate election, a ballot paper marked A, B indicates that this voter prefers A over B and prefers both A and B over both C and D, and it tells the Returning Officer that this voter has no preference between C and D. In contrast, a ballot paper marked A, B, C, D has given the Returning Officer information about all possible preference comparisons. It is clear from the affidavits that ONE of the objections to IRV is that the ballot paper marked A, B will be treated differently from the ballot paper marked A, B, C, D, and hence the voting system will treat the two respective voters differently (and to such an extent as to be unconstitutional). In a Condorcet count these two ballot papers (and hence the respective voters) would also be treated differently, because the voter who marked the A, B ballot paper could not contribute a vote to the C, D pair-wise contest that is an essential part of determining which candidate should be elected. My question was simply that if the effect of THIS difference in an IRV count is sufficient to make IRV counting unconstitutional, why would the effect of THIS difference in a Condorcet count not be sufficient to make Condorcet counting also unconstitutional? I could easily see how, on THIS ground, IRV counting and Condorcet counting could both be considered constitutional or could both be considered unconstitutional, but I have some difficulty is seeing how, on THIS ground, one could be considered constitutional and the other unconstitutional. James Gilmour On Sun, 9 Nov 2008 16:20:10 - James Gilmour wrote: Kathy Dopp Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 2:17 AM Your statement oversimplifies and ignores details/differences between IRV and Condorcet. IRV proponents may pretend not to know that Condorcet methods do not exhibit most of the flaws of IRV counting methods. For example, Condorcet, to my knowledge treats all voters ballots equally, considers all choices on all ballots, If I have understood the various submissions correctly, the principal objection to IRV on THIS ground, is that the ballot papers of voters who express different numbers of preferences are thereby treated differently, and in such a way and to such an extent that these differences should render the IRV voting system unconstitutional. It is correct that Condorcet counting considers all the preferences marked on the ballot papers, in a sequence of pair-wise contests. However, Condorcet counting has no option but to treat differently the ballot papers of voters who have expressed different numbers of preferences, because such voters will be excluded from some of the pair-wise counts. If this difference in the treatment of ballot papers with different numbers of preferences would be a fatal flaw in IRV, would it not also be a fatal flaw in Condorcet counting, and indeed in any other voting system where voters may express different numbers of preferences? James Gilmour -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. If you want peace, work for justice. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
Dave Ketchum Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 10:59 PM I have not inspected the affidavits for completeness or correctness. I am only comparing the methods. Assuming IRV's rules result in declaring A or B winner, it would not care or look at what this voter may have said about C or D. Condorcet looks at all that the voters say, and uses all of that in deciding on a winner - as to C and D the possibilities are: CD DC C=D = the voter indicates equal liking by giving them the same rank or by ranking neither. There is only one legitimate interpretation of the AB ballot paper in a Condorcet count with regard to the C vs. D pair-wise contest - the voter has given the Returning Officer no information. No-one is entitled make any supposition - that voter has expressed no preference at all as between C and D. However, all of this is totally irrelevant to what is in the affidavits and what my question was about. In the affidavits it is asserted that because IRV would treat differently the ballot papers marked ABCD and AB, this is ONE of the reasons why IRV counting should be declared unconstitutional. However, some of those who have taken this position, have in posts to this list, indicated that they would accept Condorcet counting. But Condorcet counting would also treat these two ballot papers differently. That leaves me genuinely puzzled as to how one such difference could be unconstitutional but the other not. This is a very important question because if IRV is held to be unconstitutional on THIS ground, then a whole raft of other voting systems, including Condorcet counting, would also have to be considered unconstitutional. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.9.0/1777 - Release Date: 09/11/2008 09:53 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
On Sun, 9 Nov 2008 23:28:01 - James Gilmour wrote: Dave Ketchum Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 10:59 PM I have not inspected the affidavits for completeness or correctness. I am only comparing the methods. Assuming IRV's rules result in declaring A or B winner, it would not care or look at what this voter may have said about C or D. Condorcet looks at all that the voters say, and uses all of that in deciding on a winner - as to C and D the possibilities are: CD DC C=D = the voter indicates equal liking by giving them the same rank or by ranking neither. There is only one legitimate interpretation of the AB ballot paper in a Condorcet count with regard to the C vs. D pair-wise contest - the voter has given the Returning Officer no information. No-one is entitled make any supposition - that voter has expressed no preference at all as between C and D. Disagreed, for Condorcet will see that the voter has assigned equal rank. However, all of this is totally irrelevant to what is in the affidavits and what my question was about. In the affidavits it is asserted that because IRV would treat differently the ballot papers marked ABCD and AB, this is ONE of the reasons why IRV counting should be declared unconstitutional. However, some of those who have taken this position, have in posts to this list, indicated that they would accept Condorcet counting. But Condorcet counting would also treat these two ballot papers differently. Now we are into adequacy of affidavits. If IRV assigns A or B as winner it will treat the ballots as identical, without caring what might be said about C or D. After assigning both A and B to be losers the remainder of the ballots will be considered: AB - all that this voter chose to say has been processed. CD - this voter's additional data will be considered. Leaves me voting for constitutionality - both voters were allowed to say as much as they chose to. That IRV's rules do not require using all data provided by voters is interesting, but the rules do not provide any way to use more. That leaves me genuinely puzzled as to how one such difference could be unconstitutional but the other not. This is a very important question because if IRV is held to be unconstitutional on THIS ground, then a whole raft of other voting systems, including Condorcet counting, would also have to be considered unconstitutional. James Gilmour -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. If you want peace, work for justice. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 9:20 AM, James Gilmour If I have understood the various submissions correctly, the principal objection to IRV on THIS ground, is that the ballot papers of voters who express different numbers of preferences are thereby treated differently, and in such a way and to such an extent that these differences should render the IRV voting system unconstitutional. False. That is not the only concern, but one of several obvious inequities in the IRV counting method, but I do not have time currently to continue this discussion on this list. Kathy Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 9:20 AM, James Gilmour If I have understood the various submissions correctly, the principal objection to IRV on THIS ground, is that the ballot papers of voters who express different numbers of preferences are thereby treated differently, and in such a way and to such an extent that these differences should render the IRV voting system unconstitutional. Kathy Dopp Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 7:06 PM False. That is not the only concern, but one of several obvious inequities in the IRV counting method, but I do not have time currently to continue this discussion on this list. At no time I have suggested anything other that this this was ONE of the objections to IRV. My reading of the affidavits is that is one of the principal objections and is important because it is a feature that is claimed to render IRV counting unconstitutional. It is total irrelevant to my question whether there are other possible objections to IRV and other objections in the affidavits. My question was simply about Condorcet counting in relation to the feature of IRV counting that was said to handle ballot papers with different numbers of preferences differently to an extent that was unconstitutional. I asked my question because it seemed from various posts on this list that some who considered IRV flawed in this way would consider Condorcet counting acceptable. This leaves me genuinely puzzled. James Gilmour No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.9.0/1777 - Release Date: 09/11/2008 09:53 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
James seems to be stretching his interpretation a bit far. Agreed that, while the voter can choose to rank all candidates, the voter is permitted to omit those least desired. In Condorcet every ballot is counted. For each the counter considers EVERY pair of candidates, such as A and B. If the voter has indicated preferring AB, that is recorded toward A winning; likewise for BA. As to IRV, while using the same ballot, it only looks at enough to satisfy it purpose - which DOES NOT INCLUDE knowing whether the voters like A better than B. DWK On Sun, 9 Nov 2008 16:20:10 - James Gilmour wrote: Kathy Dopp Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 2:17 AM Your statement oversimplifies and ignores details/differences between IRV and Condorcet. IRV proponents may pretend not to know that Condorcet methods do not exhibit most of the flaws of IRV counting methods. For example, Condorcet, to my knowledge treats all voters ballots equally, considers all choices on all ballots, If I have understood the various submissions correctly, the principal objection to IRV on THIS ground, is that the ballot papers of voters who express different numbers of preferences are thereby treated differently, and in such a way and to such an extent that these differences should render the IRV voting system unconstitutional. It is correct that Condorcet counting considers all the preferences marked on the ballot papers, in a sequence of pair-wise contests. However, Condorcet counting has no option but to treat differently the ballot papers of voters who have expressed different numbers of preferences, because such voters will be excluded from some of the pair-wise counts. If this difference in the treatment of ballot papers with different numbers of preferences would be a fatal flaw in IRV, would it not also be a fatal flaw in Condorcet counting, and indeed in any other voting system where voters may express different numbers of preferences? James Gilmour -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. If you want peace, work for justice. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] (no subject)
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 04:11:45 -0800 (PST) From: Chris Benham [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [EM] New MN court affidavits etc. (correction) Dave, Are you really comfortable supporting and supplying ammunition to a group of avowed FPP supporters in their effort to have IRV declared unconstitutional? Will you have any complaint when in future they are trying to do the same thing to some Condorcet method you like and IRV supporters help them on grounds like it fails Later-no-Harm, Later-no-Help, and probably? mono-add-top? Chris, Your statement oversimplifies and ignores details/differences between IRV and Condorcet. IRV proponents may pretend not to know that Condorcet methods do not exhibit most of the flaws of IRV counting methods. For example, Condorcet, to my knowledge treats all voters ballots equally, considers all choices on all ballots, is precinct, county, and state summable and thus would not be an obstacle to a national popular vote for President, produces fairer results, etc. Clearly to anyone willing to think about the specifics, any argument against Condorcet or range voting methods would not be able to make use of the ample arguments available to anyone who opposes counting methods like IRV, so such fear-mongering is wholly inappropriate. Kathy Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
