[EM] proxy ideas: continual consideration, and proxy committees
Hello James, I am Thomas from Germany. Sorry if my English is a bit strange. I am also a member of the Votorola-Project. I like very much, that you are doing theoretical work on this subject. As far as I'm aware, this is quite needed. In your paper you write about the one benefit of delegated voting, which has to do with division of labor. For example: I delegate my vote concerning all environmental issues to Greenpeace and they do the work for me. I.e. they become and stay experts in this field and they place my vote for me. Now this would already be a huge advantage (and it is partly implemented in Votorola already). But there is another great benefit, which not many people seem to know of, yet. And which is a core principle in Votorola. Maybe it is what you were pointing to here? Imagine, for example, that under my proposal, a lot of the people who held a lot of proxies would often get together with each other, and have discussions, debates, etc., with the aim of actually understanding each other's points of view in depth even when they were opposed, and working toward compromise or common ground. What I mean is: Vote delegation can also be used as a method for enabeling large-scale discourse. For example: I delegate my 10.000 received votes to Greenpeace not because I am an non-expert who wants them to do the work for me, but because I am an expert myself who wants to work together with them. Because of the votes behind me I have something to negotiate with. And since their position in a particular poll is very similiar to mine, they would only need to make a few minor changes and I could agree to them, i.e. delegate my votes to them. Together the two of us would be the winning team. ;-) This form of delegation is all about communication, negotiation, discourse, ... and the result is basically a collaborative writing of laws, plans etc. The amount and form of collaboration is structured by the weight of the votes. The use-case of this communicative delegation is probably more inside single polls than across many. But what is most fascinating to me: it seems to give the system an implicite tendency towards consensus, because it rewards synthesis with a competitor since this gives you (and your former competitor) more influence over the other competitors ... . A picture is often better than thousend words: http://u.zelea.com/w/User:ThomasvonderElbe_GmxDe/Communicative_Delegation I'm very curious about your opinion. And one short note: You write about deleting the votes after a certain time to avoid having e.g. 40-year old votes. There is also the idea of having votes rust, i.e. they loose weight over time until they are completely gone. Another aspect: Since all votes will have a timestamp, they can be filtered by age. As well as by age of the voters (if they give this information) or by their gender, nationality, ... . Greetings, Thomas von der Elbe Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Condorcet How?
On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 11:25 PM, Dave Ketchum da...@clarityconnect.com wrote: Write-ins permitted (if few write-ins expected, counters may lump all such as if a single candidate - if assumption correct the count verifies it; if incorrect, must recount). How do you handle write-ins. Are write-ins assumed to be equal last on all ballots which don't mention them? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Condorcet How?
On Apr 8, 2010, at 5:57 AM, Raph Frank wrote: On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 11:25 PM, Dave Ketchum da...@clarityconnect.com wrote: Write-ins permitted (if few write-ins expected, counters may lump all such as if a single candidate - if assumption correct the count verifies it; if incorrect, must recount). How do you handle write-ins. Are write-ins assumed to be equal last on all ballots which don't mention them? All the candidates not mentioned on a ballot need to have the same lack of ranking attended to. It is only by getting ranked by enough that a write-in earns individual attention. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Condorcet How?
On Apr 8, 2010, at 3:29 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: On Apr 7, 2010, at 6:25 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote: This is some thought about keeping it simple, yet doable. I will lean toward Ranked Pairs with margins, not sure what with margins does. There are different approaches to determining the strength of the pairwise comparisons. Let's say that there are 100 voters. 40 voters prefer A to B. 35 voters prefer B to A. The remaining 25 have not indicated any preference between A and B. The most common ways to measure how strongly the voters preferred A over B are margins and winning votes. In this example the margin of this comparison is 5 (40-35). Winning votes counts the votes that preferred the winner (A) over the loser (B). In this example the strength of B's defeat to A is 40. A's defeat strength (to B) is considered to be 0 since A won. Depending on which approach a Condorced method uses the winner may change. These two approaches differ only if some voters do not indicate any preference between A and B. For example margins considers victory 45 against 10 to be stronger than 49 against 48, but winning votes considers the latter opinion to be stronger. There are also other approaches like counting the opposing votes (without considering which one of the candidates wins). Or one could for example make the margins proportional to the number of voters that had an opinion = (40-35)/(40+35) or maybe 40/(40+35). But margins and winning votes are the ones that are most commonly used. i think that it's likely that in the worst case of a goddamn cycle, that probably Markus's method would better reflect the will of the voters than Tideman, but the two don't disagree with a cycle of 3 in the Smith set, and i think that if either were adopted, it would be a few millennia before there would be a Condorcet-decided election that would be decided differently between Tideman and Schulze. Yes, it could take a really long time before we would get a top level cycle with four or more members and where these two methods would give different winner, assuming that all candidates are ranked in all votes. We could however get much sooner a difference between a method that uses margins and a method that uses winning votes. The number of voters that do not take position on all pairwise comparisons may vary a lot between different pairwise comparisons. People may e.g. not rank the candidates of the competing wing/party. And if there are many candidates that are about equal in strength margins and winning votes could quite well elect a different winner. There are also different ways to solve the cycles. The Tideman and Schulze methods use both the approach of overruling some of the smallest expressed pairwise opinions, creating a linear social preference order, and they use chains of victories to determine the strength of each candidate. Some other methods like minmax base the decision solely on how each candidate relates pairwise to other candidates (at one step, i.e. paths of defeats are not considered). One key reason behind these various approaches to solving circular preferences is the interest to develop methods that are immune to clones. In practice this means interest not to punish or reward parties/wings if they nominate multiple candidates. Condorcet doesn't have problems with clones when there are no cycles. And clone problems in the presence of cycles may also be quite rare. But nevertheless, different approaches to solve these problems have been proposed. Just to mention one clone risk elimination approach that differs from the approach in the above mentioned two methods, one could explicitly indicate which candidates are considered to be clones. One could let the nominated candidates to be grouped so that they form a tree-like hierarchy. Defeats to candidates in another branch would be considered stronger than defeats within one branch. The simplest approach is to elect the candidate whose worst defeat is smallest. Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Condorcet How?
On Apr 7, 2010, at 8:29 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: On Apr 7, 2010, at 6:25 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote: This is some thought about keeping it simple, yet doable. I will lean toward Ranked Pairs with margins, not sure what with margins does. i'll read below... vs comparing per winning votes - each has backers. but amending toward other types of Condorcet should be doable. Voting: Voter can rank one or more candidates. Equal ranking permitted. Counters care only which of any pair of candidates ranks higher, not how voter decides on ranking. Write-ins permitted (if few write-ins expected, counters may lump all such as if a single candidate - if assumption correct the count verifies it; if incorrect, must recount). My thoughts are that supporting write-ins is worthy and doable, but am not excited about how. no sweatsky. and if some amazing political event is happening and some write-in may be winning, hand recount, examining the write-in entry and sorting is necessary in any case presently. this is so improbable, but if it were to happen, it would likely be common knowledge locally who the write-in insurgent candidate is. nonetheless, rules could be drawn such as: in the case that the aggregate write-in wins with the machine count, each precinct digs out the paper ballots (i think everyone should use optical scan which has paper backup inherent) and begins to examine and count who write-in is. as soon as, say, 10 write-ins that are for the same named candidate (say Joe Schmoe), then all ballots with write- in marked are separated as those for that named candidate and those that are not. so then you get a pile for write-in A who has a name, a pile for write-in B who need not be the same name, and a pile for all other ballots (with no write-in marked). Combine the first and last piles so now you have two piles: the first is just like a machine countable ballot but we know that write-in is Joe Schmoe. the second pile has write-in ranked, but the name written in is not Joe Schmoe. then the two piles can be run through the optical scan machine separately with the counters reset (zeroed) between each run. it would be like two sub-precinct subtotals, where tallies for every candidate pair (not involving write-in) can be summed, but not those involving write-in A and write-in B which are now treated as two separate candidates. but like all race pairs, the precinct subtotals for candidate pairs involving write-in A can summed, because (as Kathy would like) Condorcet is precinct summable. what would be *really* unlikely is that write-in B wins, and then you would have to likewise examine the pile of ballots with write-in B marked and repeat the write-in recount mess. the above is an idea for language dealing with the very unlikely case that write-in becomes the CW. otherwise, we don't care (but Freedom of Information Act should apply and the media should be able to examine the ballots to find out who that loser write-in candidate was). Counting: Besides the N*N matrix, I would add an N array to optimize this. Count each ranked candidate in the array. Later the array will be added into the matrix rows as if the ranked candidates won in every one of their pairs. This is correct for pairs with no ranking, and for pairs with one ranked. already this is complicated and someone in the One person, one vote crowd (the anti-IRVers) in Burlington would say that you're trying to pull one over on them. Ranked pairs need not be that complicated. So far we are just doing counting. After that, time to think of CW and cycles, and for methods such as ranked pairs mattering. Think of 10 candidates and a bunch of bullet voters. For each ballot its candidate needs counting in each of its 9 pairs. I would have the counters count such in its element in the N array, with all of the N array added into the N*N matrix in one step later. Try a voter ranking two of the 10 (should be common for those not doing bullet). Stepping two entries in the N array will get 16 entries in the matrix properly stepped. One entry will get stepped as if each ranked higher, so I have the counters adjusting for this as part of counting that ballot. For pairs w/winner and loser, every pair has a winner and loser, unless they tie give loser a negative count to adjust; no, just leave him alone. Explained above. for ties you can leave both winning; or mark both losing via negative counts. you don't need to be adjusting any other counts in the N*(N-1)/2 pairs, which is my preference of expressing the N*N matrix. i still find the N*N matrix to be a useless visual tool. i want to see N*(N-1)/2 pairs of numbers. that's how you visualize in a glance how Condorcet decides an election. this N*N matrix, such as it is, is just useless. Your preference over the matrix is interesting,
Re: [EM] Condorcet How?
At 05:57 AM 4/8/2010, Raph Frank wrote: On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 11:25 PM, Dave Ketchum da...@clarityconnect.com wrote: Write-ins permitted (if few write-ins expected, counters may lump all such as if a single candidate - if assumption correct the count verifies it; if incorrect, must recount). How do you handle write-ins. Are write-ins assumed to be equal last on all ballots which don't mention them? Yes. Average Range will treat them as abstentions from rating, but as votes, they are problematic. Only Asset Voting can truly fix this problem. However, there is another solution: require a majority. In that case, with good runoff rules, a write-in could get into a runoff election by causing majority failure, at some threshold or standard, one designed to catch write-ins that might win, given a chance. My proposal is to implement Bucklin as a runoff voting system and thus start to collect data that could then be used to determine future reforms. If the runoff allows write-ins, and the first election results show promise, a write-in candidacy at that point would be one where other voters were informed. Write-ins in a Bucklin runoff with, say, no more than three candidates, and a serious poll preceding it as the primary, is very interesting. And then, if this is put on the table, we will clearly run into the fact that established power almost certainly doesn't want write-ins to be viable, nor does it want third parties to have a chance. Instant runoff voting, almost certainly, confines winning to two major parties except in multiwinner elections (where it really isn't instant runoff, it's different.) In real runoff elections, write-ins sometimes win, even without a write-in runoff. All they have to do is make it up to second place. In fact, famous pathological elections are based on this, because the Condorcet winner got bumped down to third place. Lizard vs. Wizard. If the Wizard had been a write-in candidate, this would have been an example, but, since it was close between Duke (the Wizard) and Roemer, Duke wouldn't have made it into the runoff, but it would have been Roemer vs. the Lizard, and Roemer would have won, certainly. Bucklin would easily fix elections like this; and good runoff rules would detect a viable third candidate and include him or her. If it's top-two, then, for sure, write-ins should be allowed. With a Bucklin runoff, the voters who prefer a write-in (and they would have been in the majority, I believe, in Lizard v. Wizard) would have written in Roemer. And would have put in bottom approved rank, the Lizard. Duke would have ended up in third place in the end, even if he didn't get dropped in a Bucklin primary. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Condorcet How?
On Apr 8, 2010, at 2:02 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote: On Apr 7, 2010, at 8:29 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: On Apr 7, 2010, at 6:25 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote: This is some thought about keeping it simple, yet doable. I will lean toward Ranked Pairs with margins, not sure what with margins does. i'll read below... vs comparing per winning votes - each has backers. Juho just explained it, so now i know (earlier i had wondered if margins was a normalized or percentage beat strength). i've always thought that the Tideman RP was *only* framed in terms of margins. i do not know why anyone would back the winning votes metric for beat strength. but amending toward other types of Condorcet should be doable. Voting: Voter can rank one or more candidates. Equal ranking permitted. Counters care only which of any pair of candidates ranks higher, not how voter decides on ranking. Write-ins permitted (if few write-ins expected, counters may lump all such as if a single candidate - if assumption correct the count verifies it; if incorrect, must recount). My thoughts are that supporting write-ins is worthy and doable, but am not excited about how. i've thunked about it. just like supporting third parties and independent candidates (who get ballot access) is important (and is, indeed, why we are promoting preferential voting in the first place), for the same reason, i think the ability to deal with write-ins (but just *one* write-in per ballot) is also important. of course, nearly always, the aggregate write-in will not win, and then it doesn't matter who the folks are that are written in. (one point about the 2000 Bush v. Gore in Florida is that there were some idiots that checked a listed candidate and then also wrote that very same name in the write-in slot. the machine counter rejected these ballots as overvotes, but when the media hand-recounted Florida statewide and determined that, due to these overvotes, Gore won by 172 out of 5 million.) the issue is how to make legal verbiage for how to deal with the case where write-in wins. then, of course, a hand recount is necessary (perhaps assisted by the scanning machines) and a straight-forward procedure must have language that does not *assume* at the outset who the winning write-in is, but accomplishes the task. Counting: Besides the N*N matrix, I would add an N array to optimize this. Count each ranked candidate in the array. Later the array will be added into the matrix rows as if the ranked candidates won in every one of their pairs. This is correct for pairs with no ranking, and for pairs with one ranked. already this is complicated and someone in the One person, one vote crowd (the anti-IRVers) in Burlington would say that you're trying to pull one over on them. Ranked pairs need not be that complicated. So far we are just doing counting. After that, time to think of CW and cycles, and for methods such as ranked pairs mattering. Think of 10 candidates and a bunch of bullet voters. For each ballot its candidate needs counting in each of its 9 pairs. I would have the counters count such in its element in the N array, with all of the N array added into the N*N matrix in one step later. Try a voter ranking two of the 10 (should be common for those not doing bullet). Stepping two entries in the N array will get 16 entries in the matrix properly stepped. One entry will get stepped as if each ranked higher, so I have the counters adjusting for this as part of counting that ballot. you don't need to be adjusting any other counts in the N*(N-1)/2 pairs, which is my preference of expressing the N*N matrix. i still find the N*N matrix to be a useless visual tool. i want to see N*(N-1)/2 pairs of numbers. that's how you visualize in a glance how Condorcet decides an election. this N*N matrix, such as it is, is just useless. Your preference over the matrix is interesting, provided you keep your location of pairs understandable and get the same winner as the matrix would achieve. is this example (the 2009 Burlington mayoral race) clear enough?: M 4064 K 3477 587 M 4597 K 4313 W 3664 W 4061 933 252 M 4570 K 3944 W 3971 S 2997 S 3576 S 3793 1573 368 178 M 6263 K 5515 W 5270 S 5570 H 591 H 844 H 1310 H 721 5672 4671 3960 4849 it's just a visual rearrangement of the N*N matrix. it comes out as a triangle, instead of a square matrix (with a blank diagonal), and you can see clearly who beats who, and if the candidates are nicely ordered (as they were in 2009, it's unambiguously MKWSH) in a Condorcet sense. the number in brackets is the margin and is the first number that Tideman RP looks at to determine which (remaining) pair is committed to (and removed) in each scan. the clearest expression of voter
Re: [EM] Condorcet How?
On Apr 8, 2010, at 10:30 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote: i do not know why anyone would back the winning votes metric for beat strength. I guess the main driver has been that winning votes is more tolerant than margins against strategic burying in some scenarios. (There are however also corresponding strategy related claims/scenarios in the other direction too.) (The benefits of winning votes in the strategic scenarios might not outweigh the losses with sincere votes and losses in some other strategic scenarios, especially if strategic voting is marginal in all Condorcet methods when applied in typical political elections.) Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Condorcet How?
Hi, --- En date de : Jeu 8.4.10, robert bristow-johnson r...@audioimagination.com a écrit : Juho just explained it, so now i know (earlier i had wondered if margins was a normalized or percentage beat strength). i've always thought that the Tideman RP was *only* framed in terms of margins. i do not know why anyone would back the winning votes metric for beat strength. I would say this is more common than not in the history of this list. There are arguments dealing with strategic incentives, and risk of disaster. (There is on the other side the argument that margins allows full ranking while WV encourages truncation, but I think when voters actually do (full-rank) they will find themselves playing chicken in how each side ranks the main opposition.) Using margins fails Plurality (example: 7 AB, 5 B, 8 C elects A instead of B). Plurality basically says that A can't possibly be a better alternative than C. I more or less despise the election of A in this scenario: 49 A 24 B 27 CB I believe the possibility of this outcome is a disincentive for a candidate like C to run. Fundamentally, if I said only one thing: I don't believe that the margins ranking of defeat strength (resulting from its treatment of unranked candidates) is in agreement with what voters would expect and want. Kevin Venzke Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Condorcet How?
On Apr 8, 2010, at 11:00 PM, Kevin Venzke wrote: I more or less despise the election of A in this scenario: 49 A 24 B 27 CB I believe the possibility of this outcome is a disincentive for a candidate like C to run. The story behind these votes seems to be that C is ideologically close to B and its nomination makes A win instead of B. If C is ideologically close to B why don't the B voters vote BC (and make C win)? If C is ideologically far from B then most B voters may vote as they do now, but then maybe A voters should vote AB (and make B win) (since C seems to be closer to B than A). It is hard to find an explanation to sincere votes like this. Or are these maybe strategic votes, e.g. so that sincere AB voters have decided to vote A? Fundamentally, if I said only one thing: I don't believe that the margins ranking of defeat strength (resulting from its treatment of unranked candidates) is in agreement with what voters would expect and want. What would you consider to be a better approach than margins for sincere votes? (winning votes has also scenarios that may be questioned) (Note btw that in another mail I just mentioned also the possibility of allowing B and C to formally team up so that defeats within their team would not be considered as severe as defeats between A and the team.) Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Condorcet How?
Being the you that Raph was addressing, I offer what I was proposing. As the subject indicates, the topic is Condorcet voting. Also, listing a candidate who is on the ballot, and could be voted for as such, should be counted as a misdeed - such could be voted for in the normal manner without complicating life for those trying to count votes. But write-ins for those who could fill the office being voted for should identify such persons as valid candidates. These normally do not get enough votes to earn other than counting to verify they are too few to deserve more. In the rare case of more votes they should be treated as if actually nominated. As to equal last, not being mentioned should be treated the same as a not mentioned nominated candidate. Dave Ketchum On Apr 8, 2010, at 1:44 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: At 05:57 AM 4/8/2010, Raph Frank wrote: On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 11:25 PM, Dave Ketchum da...@clarityconnect.com wrote: Write-ins permitted (if few write-ins expected, counters may lump all such as if a single candidate - if assumption correct the count verifies it; if incorrect, must recount). How do you handle write-ins. Are write-ins assumed to be equal last on all ballots which don't mention them? Yes. Average Range will treat them as abstentions from rating, but as votes, they are problematic. Only Asset Voting can truly fix this problem. However, there is another solution: require a majority. In that case, with good runoff rules, a write-in could get into a runoff election by causing majority failure, at some threshold or standard, one designed to catch write-ins that might win, given a chance. My proposal is to implement Bucklin as a runoff voting system and thus start to collect data that could then be used to determine future reforms. If the runoff allows write-ins, and the first election results show promise, a write-in candidacy at that point would be one where other voters were informed. Write-ins in a Bucklin runoff with, say, no more than three candidates, and a serious poll preceding it as the primary, is very interesting. And then, if this is put on the table, we will clearly run into the fact that established power almost certainly doesn't want write-ins to be viable, nor does it want third parties to have a chance. Instant runoff voting, almost certainly, confines winning to two major parties except in multiwinner elections (where it really isn't instant runoff, it's different.) In real runoff elections, write-ins sometimes win, even without a write-in runoff. All they have to do is make it up to second place. In fact, famous pathological elections are based on this, because the Condorcet winner got bumped down to third place. Lizard vs. Wizard. If the Wizard had been a write-in candidate, this would have been an example, but, since it was close between Duke (the Wizard) and Roemer, Duke wouldn't have made it into the runoff, but it would have been Roemer vs. the Lizard, and Roemer would have won, certainly. Bucklin would easily fix elections like this; and good runoff rules would detect a viable third candidate and include him or her. If it's top-two, then, for sure, write-ins should be allowed. With a Bucklin runoff, the voters who prefer a write-in (and they would have been in the majority, I believe, in Lizard v. Wizard) would have written in Roemer. And would have put in bottom approved rank, the Lizard. Duke would have ended up in third place in the end, even if he didn't get dropped in a Bucklin primary. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Condorcet How?
Hi Juho, --- En date de : Jeu 8.4.10, Juho juho4...@yahoo.co.uk a écrit : I more or less despise the election of A in this scenario: 49 A 24 B 27 CB I believe the possibility of this outcome is a disincentive for a candidate like C to run. The story behind these votes seems to be that C is ideologically close to B and its nomination makes A win instead of B. If C is ideologically close to B why don't the B voters vote BC (and make C win)? Because the story is that C is not considered an established candidate (or a frontrunner), and the B voters (if they actually prefer C, which is not something I mean to suggest) will not condescend to rank C. Depending on the method, they could hand the election to C by ranking C, and/or alternatively compel C supporters to not vote sincerely. The best scenario is for C to be able to run, be voted for sincerely, and either win, or not affect the outcome at all. If C is ideologically far from B then most B voters may vote as they do now, but then maybe A voters should vote AB (and make B win) (since C seems to be closer to B than A). It is hard to find an explanation to sincere votes like this. Or are these maybe strategic votes, e.g. so that sincere AB voters have decided to vote A? The A voters will not vote AB because A and B are considered the frontrunners. (i.e. that is the scenario that concerns me.) Fundamentally, if I said only one thing: I don't believe that the margins ranking of defeat strength (resulting from its treatment of unranked candidates) is in agreement with what voters would expect and want. What would you consider to be a better approach than margins for sincere votes? (winning votes has also scenarios that may be questioned) Maybe Range? I guess I don't see that question as interesting or useful. (Note btw that in another mail I just mentioned also the possibility of allowing B and C to formally team up so that defeats within their team would not be considered as severe as defeats between A and the team.) This doesn't interest me much (same as Forest's suggestion of pre- election agreements in DYN) because I'm not interested in the case that a single party (for all practical purposes) nominates two candidates. I don't think that will normally happen or be desirable under any method. What I'm concerned with is the viability of a third option and voting for the third option. Kevin Venzke Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Condorcet How?
On Apr 8, 2010, at 8:03 PM, Kevin Venzke wrote: Hi Juho, --- En date de : Jeu 8.4.10, Juho juho4...@yahoo.co.uk a écrit : I more or less despise the election of A in this scenario: 49 A 24 B 27 CB I believe the possibility of this outcome is a disincentive for a candidate like C to run. There are often vote counts near the edge of some rule applying that can please/annoy some. IRV is much more able to offer annoying results. Here a couple less votes for A, or a couple more for B, would have made a change. The many B, combined with a high CB count, is suspect - more like a construction for a debate than a believable election count. The story behind these votes seems to be that C is ideologically close to B and its nomination makes A win instead of B. If C is ideologically close to B why don't the B voters vote BC (and make C win)? Because the story is that C is not considered an established candidate (or a frontrunner), and the B voters (if they actually prefer C, which is not something I mean to suggest) will not condescend to rank C. Depending on the method, they could hand the election to C by ranking C, and/or alternatively compel C supporters to not vote sincerely. The best scenario is for C to be able to run, be voted for sincerely, and either win, or not affect the outcome at all. Again, counts near an edge can please or annoy. Supporting the scenario you describe could result in some other problems. If C is ideologically far from B then most B voters may vote as they do now, but then maybe A voters should vote AB (and make B win) (since C seems to be closer to B than A). It is hard to find an explanation to sincere votes like this. Or are these maybe strategic votes, e.g. so that sincere AB voters have decided to vote A? The A voters will not vote AB because A and B are considered the frontrunners. (i.e. that is the scenario that concerns me.) It makes sense for A and B to be enemies. The B/C pattern is the one that is suspect. Fundamentally, if I said only one thing: I don't believe that the margins ranking of defeat strength (resulting from its treatment of unranked candidates) is in agreement with what voters would expect and want. What would you consider to be a better approach than margins for sincere votes? (winning votes has also scenarios that may be questioned) Maybe Range? I guess I don't see that question as interesting or useful. (Note btw that in another mail I just mentioned also the possibility of allowing B and C to formally team up so that defeats within their team would not be considered as severe as defeats between A and the team.) This doesn't interest me much (same as Forest's suggestion of pre- election agreements in DYN) because I'm not interested in the case that a single party (for all practical purposes) nominates two candidates. I don't think that will normally happen or be desirable under any method. What I'm concerned with is the viability of a third option and voting for the third option. Having third parties gives additional opportunity for clones - better to learn to minimize the damage clones can cause. It is the ability to vote for more than one, and have difference in liking be expressible, that puts methods such as Score and Condorcet ahead of Plurality. While we can talk of making them better, they start as an improvement. Dave Ketchum Kevin Venzke Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Condorcet How?
Hi Dave, --- En date de : Jeu 8.4.10, Dave Ketchum da...@clarityconnect.com a écrit : --- En date de : Jeu 8.4.10, Juho juho4...@yahoo.co.uk a écrit : I more or less despise the election of A in this scenario: 49 A 24 B 27 CB I believe the possibility of this outcome is a disincentive for a candidate like C to run. There are often vote counts near the edge of some rule applying that can please/annoy some. IRV is much more able to offer annoying results. I'm not comparing to IRV. But I use the same scenario to show why I don't like IRV as I do for margins. Here a couple less votes for A, or a couple more for B, would have made a change. Yes, but I don't know what difference that makes. Voters who want to vote for C do not know what the totals will be. They'll have to take a risk, and I don't think it's necessary to make them have that risk. If the C voters accidentally give the election to A, simply by voting sincerely for their favorite candidate, it will be no consolation that it *almost* didn't happen that way. The many B, combined with a high CB count, is suspect - more like a construction for a debate than a believable election count. You can change 19 of the 24 B votes into BC votes with the same result. That would make B and C almost clones. The story behind these votes seems to be that C is ideologically close to B and its nomination makes A win instead of B. If C is ideologically close to B why don't the B voters vote BC (and make C win)? Because the story is that C is not considered an established candidate (or a frontrunner), and the B voters (if they actually prefer C, which is not something I mean to suggest) will not condescend to rank C. Depending on the method, they could hand the election to C by ranking C, and/or alternatively compel C supporters to not vote sincerely. The best scenario is for C to be able to run, be voted for sincerely, and either win, or not affect the outcome at all. Again, counts near an edge can please or annoy. Being near an edge just means the result is close to being changed. But my complaint has nothing to do with how the result is changed near the edge. You can take it away from the edge if you want, by making A weaker, but to me that makes the scenario look less realistic. Supporting the scenario you describe could result in some other problems. If you want to advocate margins, then feel free, I won't stop you. But there could be problems is not an argument. This doesn't interest me much (same as Forest's suggestion of pre- election agreements in DYN) because I'm not interested in the case that a single party (for all practical purposes) nominates two candidates. I don't think that will normally happen or be desirable under any method. What I'm concerned with is the viability of a third option and voting for the third option. Having third parties gives additional opportunity for clones - better to learn to minimize the damage clones can cause. I don't know what this means. In practice I don't believe that parties will nominate clones, because it's inherently hazardous, even when the method is clone-proof. That means it's better to worry about three- candidate scenarios without clones. Even if parties could harmlessly nominate clones, I don't think this would be all that advantageous. It's not the kind of additional choice I care about offering to voters. So I don't mind if a method does nothing to facilitate it. Kevin Venzke Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
