Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
Juho wrote: Many of the criteria would be nice to have. One must however remember that often they have two sides. Winning something in some area may mean losing something in another area (e.g. the LNH property of IRV has been discussed widely on this list recently) especially when trying to fix the last remaining problems of the Condorcet methods. And if one assumes that strategic voting will not be meaningful in the planned elections then one should pay attention also to performance with sincere votes, not only to the resistance against strategies. Different elections may also have different requirements, so the question of which one of the methods is best may depend also on what kind of winner one wants to get (e.g. in some cases the best winner could be found outside the Smith set). That's true. Some of the criteria are mutually exclusive, yet others are not. By picking criteria of worth, one might build a Pareto front: those methods on the front are those that fulfill as many criteria as possible subject to that some are mutually exclusive. If we didn't forget notable criteria (and thus exclude from the Pareto front methods that by all means should be there), then the front provides the best methods we can get. It's up to one's judgement which of the criteria count more, i.e. which method on the Pareto front one should pick. For convenience's sake, I've ignored the problem that criterion compliance might degrade the method's goodness when given honest votes, and that we don't know which criteria are mutually exclusive. For the former, we (E-M members) disagree about how to go about measuring how good results a method provides on honest votes, and for the latter, we can still build a Pareto front based on the methods we know so far - but it might be incomplete. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
Kathy Dopp wrote: Thanks Kristofer for the explanations. Do you know a good place that discusses the Ranked Pairs method of resolving cycles, or all the methods of resolving cycles? I would still like an example of a spoiler in Condorcet no matter how unlikely if possible. Thank you. Wikipedia explains Ranked Pairs well enough: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_Pairs It doesn't explain River, because that method is less known. In both Ranked Pairs and River, you first sort the majorities (A beats B) by magnitude, greatest first. In Ranked Pairs, you then go down the list, locking majorities except those that lead to a contradiction with what you've already locked (e.g. if you lock A beats B and B beats C, you can't lock C beats A), and at the end you have an ordering, and the candidate at the top of this ordering is the winner. In River, you do the same, except that you're also forbidden from locking a victory against someone who has already had a victory locked against him (e.g. A beats B, then you can't lock C beats B). The root of the tree diagram (base of the river) is the winner. As for a spoiler in your terms, consider this very simple election (showing the Condorcet paradox): 10: ABC 10: BCA 11: CAB If the method picks A, then B is a spoiler for C, because removing B leads C to win: 21: CA 10: AC If the method picks B, then C is a spoiler for A, because removing C leads A to win: 21: AB 10: BA If the method picks C, then A is a spoiler for B, because removing A leads B to win: 20: BC 11: CB. That should work for any election method that reduces to a majority vote when there are only two candidates, because, as I've shown, it doesn't matter which candidate is elected - you can still show there's a spoiler. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
Juho wrote: On Jan 22, 2010, at 12:05 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: Jonathan Lundell wrote: In that case it might be a good starting point to define spoiler, so we know what we've found when we find it. What's an example of an IRV spoiler who's not a pretty strong candidate? A very abstract concept of spoiler might be: denote f(X) the minimal number of ballot changes/additions required to make X the winner. Then a spoiler is a candidate with a high f-value relative to the number of ballots (thus hard to get to win), who, by his presence, still changes who wins. Determining f(x) for the various candidates would be very hard, though, and one also runs into the question of what threshold to say above this f-value, spoiler, below it, not a spoiler. Maybe one should add also the requirement that the spoiler makes the result worse from spoiler's or spoiler's supporters' point of view. Yes, although that cannot be mechanically tested. For some very strange methods, it might be true that adding a candidate changes the winner to someone who everybody who voted for the winner ranked ahead of him, but that would be a very strange method indeed. Another possible modification is not to require f(X) to be high. One would just see what would have happened with and without the spoiler. According to that definition also strong candidates (but not actual winners) could be spoilers. (Typically term spoiler refers to minor candidates since these discussions typically refer to a two-party set-up, but the corresponding scientific term might or might not be limited to minor candidates and/or this particular set-up.) Then a spoiler is just a candidate whose presence shows IIA failure, subject to that this IIA failure must happen in first place (the winner changes, not lower in the ranking). The definition of IIA implies that the candidate (spoiler) can't be the winner. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
Kathy Dopp wrote: Jonathan, Monotonicity is a mathematical concept that is fairly simple to describe. There is non-decreasing monotonicity, strictly increasing monotonicity, non-increasing monotonicity, etc. Arrow describes the concept re. elections fairly well in one of his fairness conditions. IRV/STV are the only alternative voting methods I am aware of that fail this monotonicity condition that Arrow's fairness condition requires but I have not studied all alternative methods so there must be others that fail Arrow's monotonicity criteria. Plurality elections do *not* fail this criteria which is why IRV/STV fail more of Arrow's fairness criteria than plurality does. The simplest way to state it in English is that the act of voting in any one election should be monotonically increasing by giving the voter the right to know that voting for a candidate always increases that candidate's chances of winning holding all other things constant (given the votes of other voters). In other words, mathematically, increasing the input or x value, always increases the output or y value in a monotonically increasing function. That could be interpreted in two ways. Do you mean that a voter adding a ballot that ranks A above B should not cause A to lose to B, or that if a ballot were replaced by one where A is moved further towards top rank, A shouldn't lose? Or both? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
On Jan 23, 2010, at 1:55 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: Juho wrote: On Jan 22, 2010, at 12:05 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: Jonathan Lundell wrote: In that case it might be a good starting point to define spoiler, so we know what we've found when we find it. What's an example of an IRV spoiler who's not a pretty strong candidate? A very abstract concept of spoiler might be: denote f(X) the minimal number of ballot changes/additions required to make X the winner. Then a spoiler is a candidate with a high f-value relative to the number of ballots (thus hard to get to win), who, by his presence, still changes who wins. Determining f(x) for the various candidates would be very hard, though, and one also runs into the question of what threshold to say above this f-value, spoiler, below it, not a spoiler. Maybe one should add also the requirement that the spoiler makes the result worse from spoiler's or spoiler's supporters' point of view. Yes, although that cannot be mechanically tested. For some very strange methods, it might be true that adding a candidate changes the winner to someone who everybody who voted for the winner ranked ahead of him, but that would be a very strange method indeed. Yes. And there are also situations where some of the supporters of the spoiler are happy with the changes but some are not. A theoretical definition of the spoiler property might require all supporters to be unhappy (if simpler that way). I was thinking also about methods like Borda where in 60: AB, 40: BA A wins but addition of B2 (= 60: ABB2, 40: BB2A) means that B wins. B2 in a way spoils the election in general (and from A point of view) but from B point of view B2 saves the election. B and B2 are maybe from the same party but B2 is just worse. The B party may make the decision on if B2 will be nominated as a candidate (not the A party (that would spoil the election from their point of view if they did so)). Another possible modification is not to require f(X) to be high. One would just see what would have happened with and without the spoiler. According to that definition also strong candidates (but not actual winners) could be spoilers. (Typically term spoiler refers to minor candidates since these discussions typically refer to a two-party set-up, but the corresponding scientific term might or might not be limited to minor candidates and/or this particular set-up.) Then a spoiler is just a candidate whose presence shows IIA failure, subject to that this IIA failure must happen in first place (the winner changes, not lower in the ranking). The definition of IIA implies that the candidate (spoiler) can't be the winner. ...plus the spoiling (not just changing) requirement. Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
Thanks again Kristofer for the explanations. Terrific. On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 10:41 AM, election-methods-requ...@lists.electorama.com wrote: From: Kristofer Munsterhjelm km-el...@broadpark.no To: kathy.d...@gmail.com Kathy Dopp wrote: Thanks Kristofer for the explanations. Do you know a good place that discusses the Ranked Pairs method of resolving cycles, or all the methods of resolving cycles? I would still like an example of a spoiler in Condorcet no matter how unlikely if possible. Thank you. Wikipedia explains Ranked Pairs well enough: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_Pairs It doesn't explain River, because that method is less known. In both Ranked Pairs and River, you first sort the majorities (A beats B) by magnitude, greatest first. In Ranked Pairs, you then go down the list, locking majorities except those that lead to a contradiction with what you've already locked (e.g. if you lock A beats B and B beats C, you can't lock C beats A), and at the end you have an ordering, and the candidate at the top of this ordering is the winner. In River, you do the same, except that you're also forbidden from locking a victory against someone who has already had a victory locked against him (e.g. A beats B, then you can't lock C beats B). The root of the tree diagram (base of the river) is the winner. As for a spoiler in your terms, consider this very simple election (showing the Condorcet paradox): 10: ABC 10: BCA 11: CAB If the method picks A, then B is a spoiler for C, because removing B leads C to win: 21: CA 10: AC If the method picks B, then C is a spoiler for A, because removing C leads A to win: 21: AB 10: BA If the method picks C, then A is a spoiler for B, because removing A leads B to win: 20: BC 11: CB. That should work for any election method that reduces to a majority vote when there are only two candidates, because, as I've shown, it doesn't matter which candidate is elected - you can still show there's a spoiler. Maybe one should add also the requirement that the spoiler makes the result worse from spoiler's or spoiler's supporters' point of view. Yes, although that cannot be mechanically tested. For some very strange methods, it might be true that adding a candidate changes the winner to someone who everybody who voted for the winner ranked ahead of him, but that would be a very strange method indeed. Another possible modification is not to require f(X) to be high. One would just see what would have happened with and without the spoiler. According to that definition also strong candidates (but not actual winners) could be spoilers. (Typically term spoiler refers to minor candidates since these discussions typically refer to a two-party set-up, but the corresponding scientific term might or might not be limited to minor candidates and/or this particular set-up.) Then a spoiler is just a candidate whose presence shows IIA failure, subject to that this IIA failure must happen in first place (the winner changes, not lower in the ranking). The definition of IIA implies that the candidate (spoiler) can't be the winner. From: Kristofer Munsterhjelm km-el...@broadpark.no To: kathy.d...@gmail.com As a note: some methods (most discussed here, actually) also permit both truncation and equal-ranking. If one takes that into account, the formulas become more complex still. Yet, on another level, this may not really matter. On the one hand, if From an election administration and public verifiability of the outcomes point of view, the complexity always matters. there'll ever just be a few candidates, the amount of information to transmit is managable. On the other, setting a hard limit to, say, no more than 5 candidates may participate in this election is rather inelegant, and I would say, unfair, and if the potential number of candidates can grow to any number, it doesn't matter what formula is being used as long as it's superpolynomial (and so the values grow very large very quickly). Truncation or no truncation, equal rank or not, the number of unique orderings grow in that manner. From: Kristofer Munsterhjelm km-el...@broadpark.no To: kathy.d...@gmail.com Monotonicity is a mathematical concept that is fairly simple to describe. There is non-decreasing monotonicity, strictly increasing monotonicity, non-increasing monotonicity, etc. Arrow describes the concept re. elections fairly well in one of his fairness conditions. IRV/STV are the only alternative voting methods I am aware of that fail this monotonicity condition that Arrow's fairness condition requires but I have not studied all alternative methods so there must be others that fail Arrow's monotonicity criteria. Plurality elections do *not* fail this criteria which is why IRV/STV fail more of Arrow's fairness criteria than plurality does. The simplest way to state it in English is that the act of voting in any one election
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
Kathy, Arrow never uses the word spoiler in his theorem (original nor revised version). You may be thinking about his independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) criterion. While this could be expanded to have some bearing on the concept of spoilers, it is not the same thing. Firstly, Arrow used IIA (as well as Pareto consistency and non-dictatorship) as desirable characteristics of a social ranking of options, not finding a single winner (or winning set). having a vote processing algorithm ignore rankings of irrelevant options, is not the same as ignoring non-winning options. Arrow himself gave examples of irrelevant options such as, an option that was not available at all (such as instantaneous teleportation, when establishing a social ordering of transportation options), or in the case of an election, a person who was not a candidate at all, or a candidate who died between the time ballots are cast, and tallied. While some election method experts may choose to give a broader interpretation of IIA by including non-winning candidates, Kathy, don't claim validity by pretending to cite Arrow for your non-standard definition of spoiler, which he never used. Terry Bouricius - Original Message - From: Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com To: Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 12:03 AM Subject: Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected Start telling the truth about IRV at Fairytale Vote, and then when people speak the truth about Fairytale Vote, it won't sound like a smear. If you don't like the sound of your own behavior when retold, try some different behavior, rather than falsely accusing others of smearing you when they tell the truth. The list of deliberate misinformation told by the Fairytale Vote group, if put together in one place, would reach to the moon most likely, as this one youtube video alludes to. Experts in election methods have had occasions to debunk the disinformation by Fairytale Vote sufficiently to know that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPCS-zWuel8 So continue to alter the definitions of commonly used words in order to make yourself right because that's the only way you can do that Terry. Your definition of spoiler alters the definition that was given by Arrow's theorem which is the one I choose to use, not the narrower one your organization uses in order to make the false claim that IRV solves the spoiler problem even though it obviously does not, and the Republican candidate acted as a spoiler to knock out the most popular Democratic candidate so that their least favorite, the left wing Progressive could win. Terry, just do not imagine that people do not see the trick you use of redefining words that have had a common meaning for decades. Cheers, Kathy On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 8:58 PM, Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net wrote: Kathy, I ask that you stop smearing me on this (and other) discussion lists. I did not alter any standard definition of spoilers. Webster's online for example defines it as: 1. A candidate with no chance of winning but who may draw enough votes to prevent one of the leading candidates from winning. This means a spoiler is a non-leading candidate with almost no chance of winning (I think the term minor is a fair way of stating that concisely) and not one of the leading candidates. Note also that the concept of having a chance to win suggests the term can be applied prospectively, prior to knowing what the ballots reveal. Kurt Wright, being perceived as a likely winners and who was in first place in the initial tally had an EXCELLENT chance of winning, and almost did in the runoff, and thus does not meet the standard definition of a spoiler. I will refrain from the majority discussion, as that is off topic. Terry Bouricius - Original Message - From: Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 4:32 PM Subject: Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected From: Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net To: Jonathan Lundell jlund...@pobox.com, Juho juho4...@yahoo.co.uk Jonathan makes an important point. The term spoiler means a minor candidate with a small percentage of the vote, who changes which of the other candidates wins by running. But Kathy and some others wish to expand the definition to include a front-runner. (Note that these IRV opponents refer to the top plurality vote-getter who narrowly lost the runoff in Burlington, Kurt Wright, as a spoiler who prevented the candidate in third place from winning. This is a dynamic worthy of analysis, but the word spoiler is never used by the media or political scientists when describing the plurality leader. Terry Bouricius Thanks for all the information re. Condorcet cycles and the unlikely cases of spoilers in Condorcet
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
On Jan 22, 2010, at 5:32 AM, Kathy Dopp wrote: On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 12:55 AM, Jonathan Lundell jlund...@pobox.com wrote: Arrow never used, never mind defined, the word spoiler. That is true. Back in Arrow's day, Back in Arrow's day? Like, um, today? the word spoiler was not used, but Arrow exactly and broadly describes the spoiler condition as one of his fairness criteria. Arrow defines IIA precisely. Spoiler, on the other hand, is a word in casual English defined, as are most such words, by its usage, which is generally a candidate with little or no chance of winning who affects the outcome negatively relative to their supporters' preferences--a restricted, somewhat fuzzy, subset of IIA violations. Study this to understand and was easy to find using google on Arrow's Fairness Criteria http://www.ctl.ua.edu/math103/Voting/whatdowe.htm#The%20Independence%20of%20Irrelevant%20Alternatives%20Criterion This reminds me of one of the plethora of other deliberately misleading claims of Fairytale Vote Stop. You're killing me. , they constantly cite Arrow's theorem as if that is a logical reason to support IRV when IRV fails more of Arrow's Fairness criteria than even plurality voting does because IRV fails the nonmonotoncity criteria in addition to the spoiler criteria described above which both IRV and plurality fail. Fairytale Vote might be able to fool some of the people all the time, but cannot fool all of the people all of the time like it would like to. Fairytale Vote redefines the spoiler condition to be only spoilers (nonwinning candidates whose presence in the election change who would otherwise win) who have small support among voters -- another very clever trick on their part to mislead the public into thinking that IRV is an improvement over plurality, even though it is much much worse and deprives voters of fundamental fairness and voting rights and eviscerates the ability of the public to oversee the integrity and accuracy of election outcomes. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
I meant back in the days when Arrow came up with his theorem concerning rank choice votes failing at least one of his fairness criteria. (IRV fails more of Arrow's fairness criteria than plurality and fails more of Arrow's criteria than all other alternative methods I've heard recommended.) Arrow, Kenneth J. (1951). Social Choice and Individual Values. Wiley, New York. ISBN 0-300-01364-7. 2nd ed. 1963 Back in 1951, although I see he has republished his book as late as 1963. Thassal. spoiler was not a common word back then. However nowadays most people think of a spoiler, just like Arrow's fairness criteria does, as a nonwinning candidate who spoils the election by causing a different candidate (less popular candidate) to win due to his presence in the election -- just like happened due to using IRV in Burlington's last mayoral election where Republican voters were fooled into thinking that their votes wouldn't be wasted and that they could vote sincerely and other Fairytales spread by the misnomered Fair Vote in order to promote IRV which eviscerates the ability of the public to oversee electoral integrity in addition to eviscerating voter rights and fairness. Fairytale Vote has truly been one of the most successful misleaders on the facts in recent years. Cheers, Kathy On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 10:46 AM, Jonathan Lundell jlund...@pobox.com wrote: On Jan 22, 2010, at 5:32 AM, Kathy Dopp wrote: On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 12:55 AM, Jonathan Lundell jlund...@pobox.com wrote: Arrow never used, never mind defined, the word spoiler. That is true. Back in Arrow's day, Back in Arrow's day? Like, um, today? the word spoiler was not used, but Arrow exactly and broadly describes the spoiler condition as one of his fairness criteria. Arrow defines IIA precisely. Spoiler, on the other hand, is a word in casual English defined, as are most such words, by its usage, which is generally a candidate with little or no chance of winning who affects the outcome negatively relative to their supporters' preferences--a restricted, somewhat fuzzy, subset of IIA violations. Study this to understand and was easy to find using google on Arrow's Fairness Criteria http://www.ctl.ua.edu/math103/Voting/whatdowe.htm#The%20Independence%20of%20Irrelevant%20Alternatives%20Criterion This reminds me of one of the plethora of other deliberately misleading claims of Fairytale Vote Stop. You're killing me. , they constantly cite Arrow's theorem as if that is a logical reason to support IRV when IRV fails more of Arrow's Fairness criteria than even plurality voting does because IRV fails the nonmonotoncity criteria in addition to the spoiler criteria described above which both IRV and plurality fail. Fairytale Vote might be able to fool some of the people all the time, but cannot fool all of the people all of the time like it would like to. Fairytale Vote redefines the spoiler condition to be only spoilers (nonwinning candidates whose presence in the election change who would otherwise win) who have small support among voters -- another very clever trick on their part to mislead the public into thinking that IRV is an improvement over plurality, even though it is much much worse and deprives voters of fundamental fairness and voting rights and eviscerates the ability of the public to oversee the integrity and accuracy of election outcomes. -- Kathy Dopp Town of Colonie, NY 12304 phone 518-952-4030 cell 518-505-0220 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf Checking election outcome accuracy --- Post-election audit sampling http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
On Jan 22, 2010, at 7:57 AM, Kathy Dopp wrote: I meant back in the days when Arrow came up with his theorem concerning rank choice votes failing at least one of his fairness criteria. (IRV fails more of Arrow's fairness criteria than plurality and fails more of Arrow's criteria than all other alternative methods I've heard recommended.) Arrow, Kenneth J. (1951). Social Choice and Individual Values. Wiley, New York. ISBN 0-300-01364-7. 2nd ed. 1963 Back in 1951, although I see he has republished his book as late as 1963. And I have a copy on my desk. He's been continuously publishing, with papers published in 2008 and 2009. None of them contain the word spoiler. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
On Jan 22, 2010, at 7:19 AM, Terry Bouricius wrote: Arrow never uses the word spoiler in his theorem (original nor revised version). You may be thinking about his independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) criterion. While this could be expanded to have some bearing on the concept of spoilers, it is not the same thing. Firstly, Arrow used IIA (as well as Pareto consistency and non-dictatorship) as desirable characteristics of a social ranking of options, not finding a single winner (or winning set). It's a point worth keeping in mind. We toss Arrow's Possibility Theorem around pretty loosely, when strictly speaking we should be talking about Gibbard-Satterthwaite, or (better yet) Duggan-Schwartz. There are, of course, family resemblances. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
At 12:03 AM 1/22/2010, Kathy Dopp wrote: Terry, just do not imagine that people do not see the trick you use of redefining words that have had a common meaning for decades. The biggest is majority, which has been redefined to mean something very different, which is then justified on a bogus analogy with real runoffs. majority has always been shorthand for containing a vote from a majority of ballots cast in an election, but this gets slipped into majority of ballots containing a vote for one of the top two remaining after eliminations. And the dirty little secret is that in most elections where there is no majority in first preference, i.e., when the sequential elimination retabulation is done, there is no majority -- real majority of *voters* -- after retabulation. If the Robert's Rules method is followed, the elimination continues one more step in that case, to find if there is a majority of votes who have ranked the candidate instead of refusing to vote for the candidate. Education on IRV doesn't say, unfortunately, that ranking a candidate is a form of vote for the candidate, and many or most voters imagine that ranking a candidate last is a vote against the candidate. Because it is actually a vote for the candidate against all the write-ins or minor candidates who can't be ranked, if the ranking is eliminated. No, if you want to vote against a candidate without taking a stand on every possible write-in, don't rank the candidate at all. That's why this majority redefinition is so pernicious; without realizing it, voters approving IRV have eliminated a majority requirement without being aware of it, having bought the propaganda that IRV guarantees a majority result. Top two runoff does guarantee a majority result (if write-ins are not allowed; if they are, it's possible for majority failure to occur, though rare). The classic case is in San Francisco, where the voter information pamphlet panel gave a neutral description of the measure that claimed something like winners will be required to gain a majority of the votes. It's very difficult to interpret that in a sane way to make it the truth, it's a deceptive statement, and it was, I'm sure, based on FairVote propaganda, and if the *accurate* statement had been made, the effect would have been very different. Winning candidates will have gained more votes than the leading opponent after the rest of the candidates and ballots which don't rank them have been eliminated. Mathematically, this is a majority, not of the votes, but of votes remaining after all but two candidates are eliminated and the ballots not ranking those two are eliminated as well. Will be required sounds like some standard which must be reached -- and thus which could fail -- and, since this redefined majority is a tautology, a mathematical construct of the method, that's deceptive. As I've pointed out, use the Robert's Rules method of counting, which continues to the last elimination, not terminating when there are only two candidates left, but seeking to find a complete majority, and we could then make a parallel claim. Candidate must receive unanimous support from votes cast. In Brown v. Smallwood, the Minnesota court noted, with approval, prior judgement in another state that wrote about the issue being a majority of voters rather than a majority of votes. Or was it plurality or language like that, I forget. It's too bad that they didn't follow what they apparently did not understand and failed to apply. Bucklin seeks to find a majority of *voters* who have approved a candidate. Not a majority of votes. The number of voters is the number of valid ballots. If the ballot is valid, votes on it are then considered, and if a majority is required, a winning threshold is established that then must be found or the election fails. Or the election is decided by plurality. IRV, in every implementation so far in political elections, is being decided by plurality, in most of the elections that go to instant runoff. But FairVote, even after all of this has been made abundantly clear, continues to promote the deceptive arguments, even if modified cleverly to make them not-exact-lies. That is, if you know the truth, you'd have to say that the FairVote propaganda is true, as to literal fact, but only deceptive as to impression created. And, of course, individual activists continue to promote the deceptive impression, probably not realizing that they are lying, or not caring. We will see that FairVote has turned the corner when it becomes willing to be fair. Thus Kathy's Fairytale Vote is quite on point. FairVote is selling false hopes, fairytales, based on a collection of misinformation and deceptive political argument, designed to play on voter ignorance of the complex issues of voting systems. And, long ago, Rob Richie indicated his contempt for the ivory-tower theorists who objected to his deceptions, on
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
On Jan 22, 2010, at 5:32 AM, Kathy Dopp wrote: This reminds me of one of the plethora of other deliberately misleading claims of Fairytale Vote, they constantly cite Arrow's theorem as if that is a logical reason to support IRV when IRV fails more of Arrow's Fairness criteria than even plurality voting does because IRV fails the nonmonotoncity criteria in addition to the spoiler criteria described above which both IRV and plurality fail. Arrow, Kenneth J. (1951). Social Choice and Individual Values. Wiley, New York. ISBN 0-300-01364-7. 2nd ed. 1963 Monotonicity, btw, doesn't appear as a criterion in Arrow's monograph on his Possibility Theorem, either. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
At 07:48 PM 1/21/2010, Kathy Dopp wrote: On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 7:34 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: At 04:41 PM 1/21/2010, Jonathan Lundell wrote: On Jan 21, 2010, at 1:32 PM, Kathy Dopp wrote: Terry, You cleverly conveniently change all the definitions whenver it is necessary to make yourself and Fairytale Vote right on the facts. Define spoiler, please, unambiguously. The term has usage, and must be understood from that. A formal definition, nailing it down, would be arbitrary. But Kathy's definition is one reasonable one that matches common usage. But there is another which is broader and, to distinguish this from the Abd ul, actually your definition below is *narrower* not broader, because it narrows the number of cases that fit the definition. That's correct. I wrote it backwards. Kathy is using the broader definition and my comment was confused, not in reality (that is, I wasn't confused myself) but in expression (I accidentally wrote it backwards). To summarize, the IIA definition is broad (and fairly clear with pure preferential voting, though it gets muddy as hell when we try to apply it to methods allowing equal ranking), and the common political usage, which FairVote relies upon, doesn't think of the N-major candidates problem when N is greater than 2, because that is, in the U.S., a rare situation (in partisan elections). It's predictable, though, in Burlington. In reality, both problems are serious. What I always called the first-order spoiler effect, to distinguish it from, say, center squeeze, however, only flips the result when the two leading candidates are close. The second-order effect, where there are more than two major candidates, can flip a 2:1 result (pairwise) so that the 1/3 candidate wins. I'd call that very serious. And it is *roughly* what happened in Burlington. Single-winner IRV is insupportable in contexts where there are three major parties, all reasonbly viable. Plurality is better, because, then, at least, voters know what they are dealing with, and if the Progressive candidate there really wants to insist, he or she might indeed cause the Republican to win. It's called responsibility, a concept lost on Ralph Nader in 2000. Or, in fact, he believed his propaganda: there was no difference between Gore and Bush. Really? Did you support Nader in 2000? Did you buy that argument? If you lived in Florida, where it was known to be a close election, and you voted for Nader, *you are responsible for what happened,* almost as much as those who voted for Bush. Call it half-responsible. I understand and sympathize with the problem. But there are much better fixes than IRV. The simple, low-cost but not *fully satisfactory* option is just to count all the damn votes. Approval, it becomes. But there is an obvious objection: if you supported Nader over Gore, you'd want to be able to express that. Hence a ranked approval method is actually quite on-point. And this was obvious a century ago, when it was tried extensively. Why was it stopped? Well, why was IRV stopped in Ann Arbor, MI, immediately after an election where it's clear the IRV result (a Democratic mayor, the first black mayor in Ann Arbor history) was better than electing the Republican. Let's see ... who would benefit from dumping IRV there? Lucky guess. And they had the means to do it: arrange a special election to dump IRV at a point where the students were out of town. Ann Arbor is a college town, and the Human Rights Party, very popular with students, was splitting the vote. So IRV was dumped, and this had nothing to do with fairness, it was pure political maneuvering. And the Democrats and the Greens (which the HRP became) didn't have the balls to go back and pull the same trick, they didn't even try. My guess is that the Democrats didn't want to cooperate with the Greens, because if they had, they'd have had, collectively, a majority. So the Democrats, my guess, are responsible for what happened in Ann Arbor, collectively with the Greens. Being in the majority doesn't help if the majority is internally divided and can't cooperate. If the method in Burlington goes back to a plurality method, say, the same applies. Progressives and Democrats, get it together and you will win. If you are divided, *they* will win. And you are collectively responsible for that. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
At 08:58 PM 1/21/2010, Terry Bouricius wrote: Kathy, I will refrain from the majority discussion, as that is off topic. It is very much on-topic. The spoiler effect is a problem because it can shift results from a true majority result to one actually opposed by a majority of voters. And this is the case with both versions of the spoiler effect, and it is why the spoiler effect is consider a harm. Eliminating one kind of spoiler effect, while leaving in place another which is actually more pernicious, as seen in Burlington, is foolish. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
Jonathan, Yes and no...You are correct that Arrow never uses the term monotonicity, but the concept is embodied in his second condition, called positive association. Terry - Original Message - From: Jonathan Lundell jlund...@pobox.com To: kathy.d...@gmail.com Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 12:47 PM Subject: Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected On Jan 22, 2010, at 5:32 AM, Kathy Dopp wrote: This reminds me of one of the plethora of other deliberately misleading claims of Fairytale Vote, they constantly cite Arrow's theorem as if that is a logical reason to support IRV when IRV fails more of Arrow's Fairness criteria than even plurality voting does because IRV fails the nonmonotoncity criteria in addition to the spoiler criteria described above which both IRV and plurality fail. Arrow, Kenneth J. (1951). Social Choice and Individual Values. Wiley, New York. ISBN 0-300-01364-7. 2nd ed. 1963 Monotonicity, btw, doesn't appear as a criterion in Arrow's monograph on his Possibility Theorem, either. 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] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
On Jan 22, 2010, at 10:30 AM, Terry Bouricius wrote: Jonathan, Yes and no...You are correct that Arrow never uses the term monotonicity, but the concept is embodied in his second condition, called positive association. Yes--I'm talking about terminology merely (that, and that monotonicity itself needs definition in a particular context). Terry - Original Message - From: Jonathan Lundell jlund...@pobox.com To: kathy.d...@gmail.com Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 12:47 PM Subject: Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected On Jan 22, 2010, at 5:32 AM, Kathy Dopp wrote: This reminds me of one of the plethora of other deliberately misleading claims of Fairytale Vote, they constantly cite Arrow's theorem as if that is a logical reason to support IRV when IRV fails more of Arrow's Fairness criteria than even plurality voting does because IRV fails the nonmonotoncity criteria in addition to the spoiler criteria described above which both IRV and plurality fail. Arrow, Kenneth J. (1951). Social Choice and Individual Values. Wiley, New York. ISBN 0-300-01364-7. 2nd ed. 1963 Monotonicity, btw, doesn't appear as a criterion in Arrow's monograph on his Possibility Theorem, either. 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] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
From: Jonathan Lundell jlund...@pobox.com To: Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net Cc: kathy.d...@gmail.com, election-methods@lists.electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected Message-ID: acf2480e-5c32-4678-8e29-500f743f5...@pobox.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Jan 22, 2010, at 10:30 AM, Terry Bouricius wrote: Jonathan, Yes and no...You are correct that Arrow never uses the term monotonicity, but the concept is embodied in his second condition, called positive association. Yes--I'm talking about terminology merely (that, and that monotonicity itself needs definition in a particular context). Jonathan, Monotonicity is a mathematical concept that is fairly simple to describe. There is non-decreasing monotonicity, strictly increasing monotonicity, non-increasing monotonicity, etc. Arrow describes the concept re. elections fairly well in one of his fairness conditions. IRV/STV are the only alternative voting methods I am aware of that fail this monotonicity condition that Arrow's fairness condition requires but I have not studied all alternative methods so there must be others that fail Arrow's monotonicity criteria. Plurality elections do *not* fail this criteria which is why IRV/STV fail more of Arrow's fairness criteria than plurality does. The simplest way to state it in English is that the act of voting in any one election should be monotonically increasing by giving the voter the right to know that voting for a candidate always increases that candidate's chances of winning holding all other things constant (given the votes of other voters). In other words, mathematically, increasing the input or x value, always increases the output or y value in a monotonically increasing function. IRV/STV are the only methods I know that fail the monotonicity test and thus deprive the voters the right to know what effect, positive or negative, their ballot will have on the candidates the voter votes for, but I'm sure there must be others. And please do not repeat the BS about plurality failing monotonicity because you incorrectly think of general and primary elections as being one election, because in each plurality election the voter retains the right to help the candidates of their choosing to win each election, so a voter can knowingly strategize effectively if the voter chooses to, unlike with IRV/STV where, for instance in the recent Aspen election if 75 fewer voters had voted for one of the city council members, he would have won instead of losing. What an insane voting method! -- Kathy Dopp Town of Colonie, NY 12304 phone 518-952-4030 cell 518-505-0220 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf Checking election outcome accuracy --- Post-election audit sampling http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
On Jan 21, 2010, at 9:29 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: robert bristow-johnson wrote: i think that the answer is no, if a Condorcet winner exists and that all bets are off if a CW does not exist, except, perhaps for these strategy-resistant methods such as Markus Schulze's method. i sorta understand it, but since he hangs here, i think Markus should address the question if the Schulze method is spoiler free. Most Condorcet related problems occur only when there is no Condorcet winner (i.e. there is a top level cycle in the group preferences). Sincere or artificially generated cycles are the root cause of both problems with sincere votes (e.g. spoiler related problems) and strategic voting related problems in Condorcet. Different Condorcet methods (e.g. Ranked Pairs, Schiulze) are quite similar in the sense that the basic vulnerabilities of Condorcet methods exist in all of them (e.g. the basic burial scenarios). Their differences between the most common Condorcet methods are quite small in the sense that in real life elections they almost always elect the same candidate. Their differences are mostly related to how well they can resist strategic voting. Another point of view is to compare which method elects the best/correct winner with sincere votes. What is good in all the common Condorcet methods is that their vulnerabilities to strategies (and their differences in general) may very well be so small in typical real elections (large, public, with independent voter decision making, with changing opinions and less than perfect poll information) that strategic voting will not be a problem. Also their differences with sincere votes (e.g. spoiler related problems) are quite small in real life elections. Here's one simple spoiler related example as a response to Kathy Dopp's request. 35: ABC 33: BCA 32: CAB I this example there are three candidates in a top level cycle. If any of the candidates would not run that would mean that there is a Condorcet winner, and that winner would be different in each case. Let's say that the method we use will pick A as the winner. If B would not run then the votes would be 35: AC, 33: CA, 32: CA and C would win. B is thus a spoiler from C's point of view. I note however that these spoiler cases in Condorcet are not as common as in many of the other methods. In practice it may be that there is no need to worry about these cases. Maybe Kathy Dopp's comparisons will reveal something about how problematic the spoiler effect is or is not in Condorcet. Not also that in the example above B was not a minor party candidate (often term spoiler refers to minor candidates) but a pretty strong candidate. MAM/Ranked Pairs is also pretty strategy-resistant and is easier to understand. Schulze has the advantage of producing better results in some cases (closer to Minmax), but if ability to describe to the public is important, then Ranked Pairs wins there. Could someone please provide me with an example of the spoiler effect occuring with the Condorcet method of counting rank choice ballots or tell me why the spoiler effect doesn't happen with Condorcet in a few words? (...) i would say that (with the CW existing), it's spoiler-proof. Yes. If there's a CW and a candidate is added, and that candidate doesn't create a cycle, then the winner doesn't change. All the tricky stuff happens when there is a cycle, or the candidate makes one. The advanced methods can claim further resistance: Schulze and Ranked Pairs both make their winner decision independent of candidates not in the Smith set. River is independent of Pareto- dominated alternatives - a candidate is Pareto-dominated if everybody who ranks both him and some other (specific) candidate, rank the other candidate above him (e.g. X is Pareto-dominated by Y if all voters who rank both X and Y say YX, and there's at least one such voter). I imagine these resistances would mostly come into play in smaller elections. Still, they're nice to have, and their existence immediately tells parties not to try exploiting certain weaknesses (because it won't work). Yes, in small elections (with few voters only) it may be possible to know the opinions of each voter and agree about the applied strategy with the strategizing voters. In typical large real life elections many of the vulnerabilities are not practical and sincere voting may be the best strategy to most if not all voters. Many of the criteria would be nice to have. One must however remember that often they have two sides. Winning something in some area may mean losing something in another area (e.g. the LNH property of IRV has been discussed widely on this list recently) especially when trying to fix the last remaining problems of the Condorcet methods. And if one assumes that strategic voting will not be meaningful in the planned
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
Thanks Kristofer for the explanations. Do you know a good place that discusses the Ranked Pairs method of resolving cycles, or all the methods of resolving cycles? I would still like an example of a spoiler in Condorcet no matter how unlikely if possible. Thank you. Kathy On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 2:29 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm km-el...@broadpark.no wrote: robert bristow-johnson wrote: i think that the answer is no, if a Condorcet winner exists and that all bets are off if a CW does not exist, except, perhaps for these strategy-resistant methods such as Markus Schulze's method. i sorta understand it, but since he hangs here, i think Markus should address the question if the Schulze method is spoiler free. MAM/Ranked Pairs is also pretty strategy-resistant and is easier to understand. Schulze has the advantage of producing better results in some cases (closer to Minmax), but if ability to describe to the public is important, then Ranked Pairs wins there. Could someone please provide me with an example of the spoiler effect occuring with the Condorcet method of counting rank choice ballots or tell me why the spoiler effect doesn't happen with Condorcet in a few words? (...) i would say that (with the CW existing), it's spoiler-proof. Yes. If there's a CW and a candidate is added, and that candidate doesn't create a cycle, then the winner doesn't change. All the tricky stuff happens when there is a cycle, or the candidate makes one. The advanced methods can claim further resistance: Schulze and Ranked Pairs both make their winner decision independent of candidates not in the Smith set. River is independent of Pareto-dominated alternatives - a candidate is Pareto-dominated if everybody who ranks both him and some other (specific) candidate, rank the other candidate above him (e.g. X is Pareto-dominated by Y if all voters who rank both X and Y say YX, and there's at least one such voter). I imagine these resistances would mostly come into play in smaller elections. Still, they're nice to have, and their existence immediately tells parties not to try exploiting certain weaknesses (because it won't work). -- Kathy Dopp Town of Colonie, NY 12304 phone 518-952-4030 cell 518-505-0220 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf Checking election outcome accuracy --- Post-election audit sampling http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
On Jan 21, 2010, at 1:03 AM, Juho wrote: What is good in all the common Condorcet methods is that their vulnerabilities to strategies (and their differences in general) may very well be so small in typical real elections (large, public, with independent voter decision making, with changing opinions and less than perfect poll information) that strategic voting will not be a problem. Also their differences with sincere votes (e.g. spoiler related problems) are quite small in real life elections. Here's one simple spoiler related example as a response to Kathy Dopp's request. 35: ABC 33: BCA 32: CAB I this example there are three candidates in a top level cycle. If any of the candidates would not run that would mean that there is a Condorcet winner, and that winner would be different in each case. Let's say that the method we use will pick A as the winner. If B would not run then the votes would be 35: AC, 33: CA, 32: CA and C would win. B is thus a spoiler from C's point of view. I note however that these spoiler cases in Condorcet are not as common as in many of the other methods. In practice it may be that there is no need to worry about these cases. Maybe Kathy Dopp's comparisons will reveal something about how problematic the spoiler effect is or is not in Condorcet. Not also that in the example above B was not a minor party candidate (often term spoiler refers to minor candidates) but a pretty strong candidate. In that case it might be a good starting point to define spoiler, so we know what we've found when we find it. What's an example of an IRV spoiler who's not a pretty strong candidate? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
well, since no one else responded... On Jan 21, 2010, at 9:21 AM, Kathy Dopp wrote: Thanks Kristofer for the explanations. Do you know a good place that discusses the Ranked Pairs method of resolving cycles, or all the methods of resolving cycles? Wikipedia. maybe start with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Voting_systems and see what you find from there. I would still like an example of a spoiler in Condorcet no matter how unlikely if possible. the spoiler would have to either push a nicely resolved election with a CW into a cycle and have the cycle resolved so that the earlier CW does not win or, if the election was in a cycle in the first place (but resolved to pick some winner), the spoiler would have to cause the election algorithm to choose a different winner (and not the spoiler). -- 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] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected tothe spoiler effect if any
Jonathan makes an important point. The term spoiler means a minor candidate with a small percentage of the vote, who changes which of the other candidates wins by running. But Kathy and some others wish to expand the definition to include a front-runner. (Note that these IRV opponents refer to the top plurality vote-getter who narrowly lost the runoff in Burlington, Kurt Wright, as a spoiler who prevented the candidate in third place from winning. This is a dynamic worthy of analysis, but the word spoiler is never used by the media or political scientists when describing the plurality leader. Terry Bouricius - Original Message - From: Jonathan Lundell jlund...@pobox.com To: Juho juho4...@yahoo.co.uk Cc: EM Methods election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 10:33 AM Subject: Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected tothe spoiler effect if any On Jan 21, 2010, at 1:03 AM, Juho wrote: What is good in all the common Condorcet methods is that their vulnerabilities to strategies (and their differences in general) may very well be so small in typical real elections (large, public, with independent voter decision making, with changing opinions and less than perfect poll information) that strategic voting will not be a problem. Also their differences with sincere votes (e.g. spoiler related problems) are quite small in real life elections. Here's one simple spoiler related example as a response to Kathy Dopp's request. 35: ABC 33: BCA 32: CAB I this example there are three candidates in a top level cycle. If any of the candidates would not run that would mean that there is a Condorcet winner, and that winner would be different in each case. Let's say that the method we use will pick A as the winner. If B would not run then the votes would be 35: AC, 33: CA, 32: CA and C would win. B is thus a spoiler from C's point of view. I note however that these spoiler cases in Condorcet are not as common as in many of the other methods. In practice it may be that there is no need to worry about these cases. Maybe Kathy Dopp's comparisons will reveal something about how problematic the spoiler effect is or is not in Condorcet. Not also that in the example above B was not a minor party candidate (often term spoiler refers to minor candidates) but a pretty strong candidate. In that case it might be a good starting point to define spoiler, so we know what we've found when we find it. What's an example of an IRV spoiler who's not a pretty strong candidate? 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] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
From: Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net To: Jonathan Lundell jlund...@pobox.com, Juho juho4...@yahoo.co.uk Jonathan makes an important point. The term spoiler means a minor candidate with a small percentage of the vote, who changes which of the other candidates wins by running. But Kathy and some others wish to expand the definition to include a front-runner. (Note that these IRV opponents refer to the top plurality vote-getter who narrowly lost the runoff in Burlington, Kurt Wright, as a spoiler who prevented the candidate in third place from winning. This is a dynamic worthy of analysis, but the word spoiler is never used by the media or political scientists when describing the plurality leader. Terry Bouricius Thanks for all the information re. Condorcet cycles and the unlikely cases of spoilers in Condorcet method of counting rank choice votes from Juho and Robert. Terry, You cleverly conveniently change all the definitions whenver it is necessary to make yourself and Fairytale Vote right on the facts. Let's see what some of them are: A spoiler is *not* according to you, a nonwinning candidate whose presence in the election changes who would otherwise be the winner, but only a particular type of spoiler that is a minor candidate. A majority of voters is *not* according to you, a majority out of all voters who cast ballots, but only out of voters whose ballots have not been exhausted by the time the final IRV counting round is done. A majority candidate, according to you, is *not* the Condorcet winner who a majority (and indeed the most#) of voters favor above all other candidates, but only a candidate who wins a majority in round one, or in the final IRV counting round out of unexhausted ballots after the Condorcet winner and other more majority-favorite winners are eliminated. Terry, redefine any word you want to and you make yourself right, even if most people do not agree with your definitions. It's a good strategy to mislead the public like Fairytale Vote has done. Kathy -- Kathy Dopp Town of Colonie, NY 12304 phone 518-952-4030 cell 518-505-0220 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf Checking election outcome accuracy --- Post-election audit sampling http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
robert bristow-johnson wrote: so, we have a CW... add a candidate, if that candidate does not become the winner, nor cause a cycle, then the Condorcet Winner we had before continues to be the CW with the added candidate. (boy, i guess we're rephrasing the same thing multiple times!) Yup. River is independent of Pareto-dominated alternatives - a candidate is Pareto-dominated if everybody who ranks both him and some other (specific) candidate, rank the other candidate above him (e.g. X is Pareto-dominated by Y if all voters who rank both X and Y say YX, and there's at least one such voter). i wouldn't mind if someone explains this. i don't know what Pareto-dominated is about. can someone expound? A is Pareto-dominated by B if all voters who express any difference in preference between A and B, prefer B to A. Note that a voter may simply leave both unranked - that wouldn't count towards either's Pareto dominance. If all voters equal-rank B and A, that doesn't count towards any Pareto-dominance, either. A is Pareto-dominated (period) if there's some other candidate by which it is Pareto-dominated. The strong Pareto criterion states that Pareto-dominated candidates shouldn't win. This makes sense, because say X won and was Pareto-dominated. Then people could (rightly) complain that everybody who expressed some preference between X and some other candidate Y, preferred Y, and therefore Y should have won. Independence from Pareto-dominated alternatives then simply means that Pareto-dominated candidates can't be spoilers either - they can't even change who wins. I imagine these resistances would mostly come into play in smaller elections. Still, they're nice to have, and their existence immediately tells parties not to try exploiting certain weaknesses (because it won't work). yes, that's the whole point. this is why i am not yet afraid of someone strategically voting to push a Condorcet election into a cycle. it would be an unsafe way to accomplish a political goal. how could anyone predict what would happen? A party might still try, thinking they could pull it off; but complying with a strategic criterion stops that dead, because there's no way it's going to work. It doesn't even have to entertain the thought of trying. With advanced methods, the barrier imposed by these criteria might be so steep that the only remaining strategies are those where a sizable fraction of the electorate has to cooperate, and then it's practically strategy-proof in large public elections (barring disorganized strategy like the a sizable fraction goes on a Burial spree because each individual voter thinks they have nothing to lose of Warren's DH3). Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
Jonathan Lundell wrote: In that case it might be a good starting point to define spoiler, so we know what we've found when we find it. What's an example of an IRV spoiler who's not a pretty strong candidate? A very abstract concept of spoiler might be: denote f(X) the minimal number of ballot changes/additions required to make X the winner. Then a spoiler is a candidate with a high f-value relative to the number of ballots (thus hard to get to win), who, by his presence, still changes who wins. Determining f(x) for the various candidates would be very hard, though, and one also runs into the question of what threshold to say above this f-value, spoiler, below it, not a spoiler. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
On Jan 21, 2010, at 5:33 PM, Jonathan Lundell wrote: On Jan 21, 2010, at 1:03 AM, Juho wrote: What is good in all the common Condorcet methods is that their vulnerabilities to strategies (and their differences in general) may very well be so small in typical real elections (large, public, with independent voter decision making, with changing opinions and less than perfect poll information) that strategic voting will not be a problem. Also their differences with sincere votes (e.g. spoiler related problems) are quite small in real life elections. Here's one simple spoiler related example as a response to Kathy Dopp's request. 35: ABC 33: BCA 32: CAB I this example there are three candidates in a top level cycle. If any of the candidates would not run that would mean that there is a Condorcet winner, and that winner would be different in each case. Let's say that the method we use will pick A as the winner. If B would not run then the votes would be 35: AC, 33: CA, 32: CA and C would win. B is thus a spoiler from C's point of view. I note however that these spoiler cases in Condorcet are not as common as in many of the other methods. In practice it may be that there is no need to worry about these cases. Maybe Kathy Dopp's comparisons will reveal something about how problematic the spoiler effect is or is not in Condorcet. Not also that in the example above B was not a minor party candidate (often term spoiler refers to minor candidates) but a pretty strong candidate. In that case it might be a good starting point to define spoiler, so we know what we've found when we find it. What's an example of an IRV spoiler who's not a pretty strong candidate? In Plurality a typical spoiler scenario is one where the spoiler is a minor candidate (e.g. Nader in the US presidential elections). In IRV the spoilers are typically stronger. Here's one IRV example where the centrist candidate (C) wins. 30: RCL 35: CLR 35: LCR Then we add one more candidate (C2, spoiler) that the R and L supporters strongly dislike. 30: RCLC2 15: CC2LR 20: C2CLR 35: LCRC2 As a result C will be eliminated first, R next, and since C2 is not a strong candidate L will win. C2 thus was a spoiler from C's point of view. C2 is not fully a minor candidate. Although C2 has no chances to win C2 has more first preference votes than C. In IRV this kind of chains of influence could be also longer (5 candidates, 6 candidates etc.), and as a result the spoilers could be more and more minor. But on the other hand the probability of such minor candidates spoiling the election is very low. So, in theory also very minor spoilers are possible but they don't seem probable in practice. This is related to the observation that while Plurality may be in trouble already when there are only two major candidates, main problems of IRV (and Approval and Range) seem to appear only when there are at least three credible candidates. Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
On Jan 22, 2010, at 12:05 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: Jonathan Lundell wrote: In that case it might be a good starting point to define spoiler, so we know what we've found when we find it. What's an example of an IRV spoiler who's not a pretty strong candidate? A very abstract concept of spoiler might be: denote f(X) the minimal number of ballot changes/additions required to make X the winner. Then a spoiler is a candidate with a high f-value relative to the number of ballots (thus hard to get to win), who, by his presence, still changes who wins. Determining f(x) for the various candidates would be very hard, though, and one also runs into the question of what threshold to say above this f-value, spoiler, below it, not a spoiler. Maybe one should add also the requirement that the spoiler makes the result worse from spoiler's or spoiler's supporters' point of view. Another possible modification is not to require f(X) to be high. One would just see what would have happened with and without the spoiler. According to that definition also strong candidates (but not actual winners) could be spoilers. (Typically term spoiler refers to minor candidates since these discussions typically refer to a two-party set- up, but the corresponding scientific term might or might not be limited to minor candidates and/or this particular set-up.) Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
At 04:41 PM 1/21/2010, Jonathan Lundell wrote: On Jan 21, 2010, at 1:32 PM, Kathy Dopp wrote: Terry, You cleverly conveniently change all the definitions whenver it is necessary to make yourself and Fairytale Vote right on the facts. Define spoiler, please, unambiguously. The term has usage, and must be understood from that. A formal definition, nailing it down, would be arbitrary. But Kathy's definition is one reasonable one that matches common usage. But there is another which is broader and, to distinguish this from the common usage, I call the common usage the first order spoiler effect. It refers to minor candidates, with hopelessly low support, who alter the outcome between two major candidates by drawing away votes preferentially from one, from voters who would otherwise vote for that one. The application most common is with plurality, but also top-two runoff and, similarly, IRV, where as little as one vote and some back luck in the resolution of a tie can cause the effect. To define this l.e. spoiler effect more crisply would be arbitrary. But then there is a more generalized spoiler effect, more commonly referred to as center squeeze. It's a spoiler effect, all right, in substance, because an extremist candidates, who would lose in a direct contest between either the centrist or the other extremist, draws enough higher preference votes away from the centrist to reduce that centrist below second rank in first preference. So this is an IIA problem. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 7:34 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: At 04:41 PM 1/21/2010, Jonathan Lundell wrote: On Jan 21, 2010, at 1:32 PM, Kathy Dopp wrote: Terry, You cleverly conveniently change all the definitions whenver it is necessary to make yourself and Fairytale Vote right on the facts. Define spoiler, please, unambiguously. The term has usage, and must be understood from that. A formal definition, nailing it down, would be arbitrary. But Kathy's definition is one reasonable one that matches common usage. But there is another which is broader and, to distinguish this from the Abd ul, actually your definition below is *narrower* not broader, because it narrows the number of cases that fit the definition. I simply took my broader definition that includes all cases of nonwinning candidates who alter election outcomes by their presence, from Arrow's fairness criteria which is describes less simply here: Arrow's Fairness Criteria http://www.ctl.ua.edu/math103/Voting/whatdowe.htm#The%20Independence%20of%20Irrelevant%20Alternatives%20Criterion So you see that my definition is actually Arrow's definition of spoiler, not my own original definition. Kathy common usage, I call the common usage the first order spoiler effect. It refers to minor candidates, with hopelessly low support, who alter the outcome between two major candidates by drawing away votes preferentially from one, from voters who would otherwise vote for that one. The application most common is with plurality, but also top-two runoff and, similarly, IRV, where as little as one vote and some back luck in the resolution of a tie can cause the effect. To define this l.e. spoiler effect more crisply would be arbitrary. But then there is a more generalized spoiler effect, more commonly referred to as center squeeze. It's a spoiler effect, all right, in substance, because an extremist candidates, who would lose in a direct contest between either the centrist or the other extremist, draws enough higher preference votes away from the centrist to reduce that centrist below second rank in first preference. So this is an IIA problem. -- Kathy Dopp Town of Colonie, NY 12304 phone 518-952-4030 cell 518-505-0220 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf Checking election outcome accuracy --- Post-election audit sampling http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
Kathy, I ask that you stop smearing me on this (and other) discussion lists. I did not alter any standard definition of spoilers. Webster's online for example defines it as: 1. A candidate with no chance of winning but who may draw enough votes to prevent one of the leading candidates from winning. This means a spoiler is a non-leading candidate with almost no chance of winning (I think the term minor is a fair way of stating that concisely) and not one of the leading candidates. Note also that the concept of having a chance to win suggests the term can be applied prospectively, prior to knowing what the ballots reveal. Kurt Wright, being perceived as a likely winners and who was in first place in the initial tally had an EXCELLENT chance of winning, and almost did in the runoff, and thus does not meet the standard definition of a spoiler. I will refrain from the majority discussion, as that is off topic. Terry Bouricius - Original Message - From: Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 4:32 PM Subject: Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected From: Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net To: Jonathan Lundell jlund...@pobox.com, Juho juho4...@yahoo.co.uk Jonathan makes an important point. The term spoiler means a minor candidate with a small percentage of the vote, who changes which of the other candidates wins by running. But Kathy and some others wish to expand the definition to include a front-runner. (Note that these IRV opponents refer to the top plurality vote-getter who narrowly lost the runoff in Burlington, Kurt Wright, as a spoiler who prevented the candidate in third place from winning. This is a dynamic worthy of analysis, but the word spoiler is never used by the media or political scientists when describing the plurality leader. Terry Bouricius Thanks for all the information re. Condorcet cycles and the unlikely cases of spoilers in Condorcet method of counting rank choice votes from Juho and Robert. Terry, You cleverly conveniently change all the definitions whenver it is necessary to make yourself and Fairytale Vote right on the facts. Let's see what some of them are: A spoiler is *not* according to you, a nonwinning candidate whose presence in the election changes who would otherwise be the winner, but only a particular type of spoiler that is a minor candidate. A majority of voters is *not* according to you, a majority out of all voters who cast ballots, but only out of voters whose ballots have not been exhausted by the time the final IRV counting round is done. A majority candidate, according to you, is *not* the Condorcet winner who a majority (and indeed the most#) of voters favor above all other candidates, but only a candidate who wins a majority in round one, or in the final IRV counting round out of unexhausted ballots after the Condorcet winner and other more majority-favorite winners are eliminated. Terry, redefine any word you want to and you make yourself right, even if most people do not agree with your definitions. It's a good strategy to mislead the public like Fairytale Vote has done. Kathy -- Kathy Dopp Town of Colonie, NY 12304 phone 518-952-4030 cell 518-505-0220 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf Checking election outcome accuracy --- Post-election audit sampling http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf 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] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
On Jan 21, 2010, at 8:58 PM, Terry Bouricius wrote: Kathy, I ask that you stop smearing me on this (and other) discussion lists. rots o' ruk. I did not alter any standard definition of spoilers. Webster's online for example defines it as: 1. A candidate with no chance of winning but who may draw enough votes to prevent one of the leading candidates from winning. This means a spoiler is a non-leading candidate with almost no chance of winning (I think the term minor is a fair way of stating that concisely) and not one of the leading candidates. Note also that the concept of having a chance to win suggests the term can be applied prospectively, prior to knowing what the ballots reveal. Kurt Wright, being perceived as a likely winners and who was in first place in the initial tally had an EXCELLENT chance of winning, and almost did in the runoff, and thus does not meet the standard definition of a spoiler. Terry, you may have read that i take some responsibility for also associating Wright as the spoiler by replacing almost no chance of winning to having lost in the definition. and i know that they are not the same thing. strictly speaking, Kurt Wright was not a spoiler because it is uncontroversial whether or not he had a chance of winning. that said, i believe that a spoiler-lite (a candidate who loses and whose presence in an election changes who the winner is) problem is still a problem. i think, in these parts, we call it Independence of irrelevant alternatives. IIA is spoiler-lite even if it is not always the spoiler scenario. -- 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] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
Start telling the truth about IRV at Fairytale Vote, and then when people speak the truth about Fairytale Vote, it won't sound like a smear. If you don't like the sound of your own behavior when retold, try some different behavior, rather than falsely accusing others of smearing you when they tell the truth. The list of deliberate misinformation told by the Fairytale Vote group, if put together in one place, would reach to the moon most likely, as this one youtube video alludes to. Experts in election methods have had occasions to debunk the disinformation by Fairytale Vote sufficiently to know that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPCS-zWuel8 So continue to alter the definitions of commonly used words in order to make yourself right because that's the only way you can do that Terry. Your definition of spoiler alters the definition that was given by Arrow's theorem which is the one I choose to use, not the narrower one your organization uses in order to make the false claim that IRV solves the spoiler problem even though it obviously does not, and the Republican candidate acted as a spoiler to knock out the most popular Democratic candidate so that their least favorite, the left wing Progressive could win. Terry, just do not imagine that people do not see the trick you use of redefining words that have had a common meaning for decades. Cheers, Kathy On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 8:58 PM, Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net wrote: Kathy, I ask that you stop smearing me on this (and other) discussion lists. I did not alter any standard definition of spoilers. Webster's online for example defines it as: 1. A candidate with no chance of winning but who may draw enough votes to prevent one of the leading candidates from winning. This means a spoiler is a non-leading candidate with almost no chance of winning (I think the term minor is a fair way of stating that concisely) and not one of the leading candidates. Note also that the concept of having a chance to win suggests the term can be applied prospectively, prior to knowing what the ballots reveal. Kurt Wright, being perceived as a likely winners and who was in first place in the initial tally had an EXCELLENT chance of winning, and almost did in the runoff, and thus does not meet the standard definition of a spoiler. I will refrain from the majority discussion, as that is off topic. Terry Bouricius - Original Message - From: Kathy Dopp kathy.d...@gmail.com To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 4:32 PM Subject: Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected From: Terry Bouricius ter...@burlingtontelecom.net To: Jonathan Lundell jlund...@pobox.com, Juho juho4...@yahoo.co.uk Jonathan makes an important point. The term spoiler means a minor candidate with a small percentage of the vote, who changes which of the other candidates wins by running. But Kathy and some others wish to expand the definition to include a front-runner. (Note that these IRV opponents refer to the top plurality vote-getter who narrowly lost the runoff in Burlington, Kurt Wright, as a spoiler who prevented the candidate in third place from winning. This is a dynamic worthy of analysis, but the word spoiler is never used by the media or political scientists when describing the plurality leader. Terry Bouricius Thanks for all the information re. Condorcet cycles and the unlikely cases of spoilers in Condorcet method of counting rank choice votes from Juho and Robert. Terry, You cleverly conveniently change all the definitions whenver it is necessary to make yourself and Fairytale Vote right on the facts. Let's see what some of them are: A spoiler is *not* according to you, a nonwinning candidate whose presence in the election changes who would otherwise be the winner, but only a particular type of spoiler that is a minor candidate. A majority of voters is *not* according to you, a majority out of all voters who cast ballots, but only out of voters whose ballots have not been exhausted by the time the final IRV counting round is done. A majority candidate, according to you, is *not* the Condorcet winner who a majority (and indeed the most#) of voters favor above all other candidates, but only a candidate who wins a majority in round one, or in the final IRV counting round out of unexhausted ballots after the Condorcet winner and other more majority-favorite winners are eliminated. Terry, redefine any word you want to and you make yourself right, even if most people do not agree with your definitions. It's a good strategy to mislead the public like Fairytale Vote has done. Kathy -- Kathy Dopp Town of Colonie, NY 12304 phone 518-952-4030 cell 518-505-0220 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected
On Jan 21, 2010, at 9:03 PM, Kathy Dopp wrote: Start telling the truth about IRV at Fairytale Vote, and then when people speak the truth about Fairytale Vote, it won't sound like a smear. Ha ha! I've been meaning to compliment you, Ms Dopp, on that sidesplitting line. It was really funny the first time, and it's gotten more hilarious each time you've used it since. How many times? I've lost count, to tell the truth, but please keep it up. Fairytale! Fantastic! I can't get enough. If you don't like the sound of your own behavior when retold, try some different behavior, rather than falsely accusing others of smearing you when they tell the truth. The list of deliberate misinformation told by the Fairytale Vote group, if put together in one place, would reach to the moon most likely, as this one youtube video alludes to. Experts in election methods have had occasions to debunk the disinformation by Fairytale Vote sufficiently to know that. Three times in one post. Just in case we readers don't get it the first or second time--the mark of a master comic. Thanks! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPCS-zWuel8 So continue to alter the definitions of commonly used words in order to make yourself right because that's the only way you can do that Terry. Your definition of spoiler alters the definition that was given by Arrow's theorem which is the one I choose to use, Arrow never used, never mind defined, the word spoiler. not the narrower one your organization uses in order to make the false claim that IRV solves the spoiler problem even though it obviously does not, and the Republican candidate acted as a spoiler to knock out the most popular Democratic candidate so that their least favorite, the left wing Progressive could win. Terry, just do not imagine that people do not see the trick you use of redefining words that have had a common meaning for decades. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
If the Condorcet method is susceptible to the phenomena of a nonwinning candidate whose presence in the election changes who would otherwise win the election, all else being equal. Could someone please provide me with an example of the spoiler effect occuring with the Condorcet method of counting rank choice ballots or tell me why the spoiler effect doesn't happen with Condorcet in a few words? Thanks. I'm devising an experiment to compare the Condorcet method with the IRV method of counting rank choice ballots and would like, if possible, to introduce subjects to the spoiler effect to see under what conditions they notice it occurs. I can easily generate spoiler scenarios with IRV but do not know how to generate spoiler scenarios with the Condorcet method and if it's not too much trouble, would appreciate an example if Condorcet is susceptible to spoilers. Thank you. -- Kathy Dopp Town of Colonie, NY 12304 phone 518-952-4030 cell 518-505-0220 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf Checking election outcome accuracy --- Post-election audit sampling http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
On Jan 20, 2010, at 7:10 PM, Kathy Dopp wrote: Is the Condorcet method susceptible to the phenomena of a nonwinning candidate whose presence in the election changes who would otherwise win the election, all else being equal? i changed the sentence form into a question. i hope that was okay, Kathy. don't wanna misquote anyone. i think that the answer is no, if a Condorcet winner exists and that all bets are off if a CW does not exist, except, perhaps for these strategy-resistant methods such as Markus Schulze's method. i sorta understand it, but since he hangs here, i think Markus should address the question if the Schulze method is spoiler free. Could someone please provide me with an example of the spoiler effect occuring with the Condorcet method of counting rank choice ballots or tell me why the spoiler effect doesn't happen with Condorcet in a few words? in the ranked-order ballot, no matter what their absolute ranks are, if A is ranked above B (or A is ranked while B is not), that counts as a vote for A. likewise for B ranked above A. doesn't matter if they were ranked 4th and 5th. just like the IRV final round between A and B, Condorcet will total how many votes with AB and compare that to votes where BA. whether C is in the race or not, for each individual ballot, if AB with C on the ballot, A would continue to be ranked above B (whether C is higher than either, in between, or below either). with the meaning of every ballot, regarding A and B, unchanged (whether C is there or not), the vote counts for AB and BA do not change. so every Condorcet tally not involving candidate C will remain unchanged, the tallies involving C are not there if C is removed. if A (or whoever is not C) was the Condorcet winner before C was removed, then the AX tally exceeds XA for any X. then A would continue to be ranked over all of the other remaining candidates with the same tallies as before even with C removed, because every tally not involving C would remain unchanged. i would say that (with the CW existing), it's spoiler-proof. Thanks. I'm devising an experiment to compare the Condorcet method with the IRV method of counting rank choice ballots and would like, if possible, to introduce subjects to the spoiler effect to see under what conditions they notice it occurs. do you want me to tell you how it occurred in Burlington in 2009? -- 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] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
Thanks Robert, My question was strictly about Condorcet and I know already how to generate IRV and spoiler cases, as I said. Are you claiming that Condorcet methods are never subjected to a case of a nonwinning candidate changing who would otherwise win? This seems logical, given the method and what you say below. However,... Do any others on this list agree though or if not, please provide an example? Thanks. Kathy On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 7:34 PM, robert bristow-johnson r...@audioimagination.com wrote: On Jan 20, 2010, at 7:10 PM, Kathy Dopp wrote: Is the Condorcet method susceptible to the phenomena of a nonwinning candidate whose presence in the election changes who would otherwise win the election, all else being equal? i changed the sentence form into a question. i hope that was okay, Kathy. don't wanna misquote anyone. i think that the answer is no, if a Condorcet winner exists and that all bets are off if a CW does not exist, except, perhaps for these strategy-resistant methods such as Markus Schulze's method. i sorta understand it, but since he hangs here, i think Markus should address the question if the Schulze method is spoiler free. Could someone please provide me with an example of the spoiler effect occuring with the Condorcet method of counting rank choice ballots or tell me why the spoiler effect doesn't happen with Condorcet in a few words? in the ranked-order ballot, no matter what their absolute ranks are, if A is ranked above B (or A is ranked while B is not), that counts as a vote for A. likewise for B ranked above A. doesn't matter if they were ranked 4th and 5th. just like the IRV final round between A and B, Condorcet will total how many votes with AB and compare that to votes where BA. whether C is in the race or not, for each individual ballot, if AB with C on the ballot, A would continue to be ranked above B (whether C is higher than either, in between, or below either). with the meaning of every ballot, regarding A and B, unchanged (whether C is there or not), the vote counts for AB and BA do not change. so every Condorcet tally not involving candidate C will remain unchanged, the tallies involving C are not there if C is removed. if A (or whoever is not C) was the Condorcet winner before C was removed, then the AX tally exceeds XA for any X. then A would continue to be ranked over all of the other remaining candidates with the same tallies as before even with C removed, because every tally not involving C would remain unchanged. i would say that (with the CW existing), it's spoiler-proof. Thanks. I'm devising an experiment to compare the Condorcet method with the IRV method of counting rank choice ballots and would like, if possible, to introduce subjects to the spoiler effect to see under what conditions they notice it occurs. do you want me to tell you how it occurred in Burlington in 2009? -- r b-j ...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Kathy Dopp Town of Colonie, NY 12304 phone 518-952-4030 cell 518-505-0220 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf Checking election outcome accuracy --- Post-election audit sampling http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
On Jan 20, 2010, at 7:54 PM, Kathy Dopp wrote: Thanks Robert, My question was strictly about Condorcet and I know already how to generate IRV and spoiler cases, as I said. Are you claiming that Condorcet methods are never subjected to a case of a nonwinning candidate changing who would otherwise win? i said only if there is a Condorcet winner. even though i don't think it would be at all commonplace, much of the discussion between the geeks here sometimes is about exactly what to do for Condorcet cycles. i'm less invested (hell, perhaps if there is a cycle we decide by IRV rules, or pick the candidate with the plurality 1st- choice vote, i really don't care that much) in whatever happens if there is no CW since i don't think it will happen often in real life. -- 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] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
robert bristow-johnson wrote: i think that the answer is no, if a Condorcet winner exists and that all bets are off if a CW does not exist, except, perhaps for these strategy-resistant methods such as Markus Schulze's method. i sorta understand it, but since he hangs here, i think Markus should address the question if the Schulze method is spoiler free. MAM/Ranked Pairs is also pretty strategy-resistant and is easier to understand. Schulze has the advantage of producing better results in some cases (closer to Minmax), but if ability to describe to the public is important, then Ranked Pairs wins there. Could someone please provide me with an example of the spoiler effect occuring with the Condorcet method of counting rank choice ballots or tell me why the spoiler effect doesn't happen with Condorcet in a few words? (...) i would say that (with the CW existing), it's spoiler-proof. Yes. If there's a CW and a candidate is added, and that candidate doesn't create a cycle, then the winner doesn't change. All the tricky stuff happens when there is a cycle, or the candidate makes one. The advanced methods can claim further resistance: Schulze and Ranked Pairs both make their winner decision independent of candidates not in the Smith set. River is independent of Pareto-dominated alternatives - a candidate is Pareto-dominated if everybody who ranks both him and some other (specific) candidate, rank the other candidate above him (e.g. X is Pareto-dominated by Y if all voters who rank both X and Y say YX, and there's at least one such voter). I imagine these resistances would mostly come into play in smaller elections. Still, they're nice to have, and their existence immediately tells parties not to try exploiting certain weaknesses (because it won't work). Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] I need an example of Condorcet method being subjected to the spoiler effect if any
On Jan 21, 2010, at 2:29 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: robert bristow-johnson wrote: i think that the answer is no, if a Condorcet winner exists and that all bets are off if a CW does not exist, except, perhaps for these strategy-resistant methods such as Markus Schulze's method. i sorta understand it, but since he hangs here, i think Markus should address the question if the Schulze method is spoiler free. MAM/Ranked Pairs is also pretty strategy-resistant and is easier to understand. Schulze has the advantage of producing better results in some cases (closer to Minmax), but if ability to describe to the public is important, then Ranked Pairs wins there. Could someone please provide me with an example of the spoiler effect occuring with the Condorcet method of counting rank choice ballots or tell me why the spoiler effect doesn't happen with Condorcet in a few words? (...) i would say that (with the CW existing), it's spoiler-proof. Yes. If there's a CW and a candidate is added, and that candidate doesn't create a cycle, then the winner doesn't change. and if that candidate that is added doesn't *win*. a spoiler is *not* a winner that when removed from the election and all ballots does not change who the winner is. a spoiler must be a loser to the election, whose presence changes who the winner is. i remember reading someone's poor attack on IRV (in local Burlington blogs) that claimed that Bob Kiss (who won Burlington's IRV election) was a spoiler. they were misusing or misunderstanding the concept of a 3rd-party candidate. (maybe somewhere else, a 3rd-party candidate can only hope to be a spoiler, but in Burlington a 3rd-party candidate can expect to win office once in a while. that's a little different.) so, we have a CW... add a candidate, if that candidate does not become the winner, nor cause a cycle, then the Condorcet Winner we had before continues to be the CW with the added candidate. (boy, i guess we're rephrasing the same thing multiple times!) All the tricky stuff happens when there is a cycle, or the candidate makes one. yup. The advanced methods can claim further resistance: Schulze and Ranked Pairs both make their winner decision independent of candidates not in the Smith set. this, i understand... River is independent of Pareto-dominated alternatives - a candidate is Pareto-dominated if everybody who ranks both him and some other (specific) candidate, rank the other candidate above him (e.g. X is Pareto-dominated by Y if all voters who rank both X and Y say YX, and there's at least one such voter). i wouldn't mind if someone explains this. i don't know what Pareto- dominated is about. can someone expound? I imagine these resistances would mostly come into play in smaller elections. Still, they're nice to have, and their existence immediately tells parties not to try exploiting certain weaknesses (because it won't work). yes, that's the whole point. this is why i am not yet afraid of someone strategically voting to push a Condorcet election into a cycle. it would be an unsafe way to accomplish a political goal. how could anyone predict what would happen? -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
