Re: [Election-Methods] Fwd: FYI - FairVote MN Responds to Lawsuit Against IRV
On Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:41:12 -0700 Kathy Dopp wrote: Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:55:41 -0500 From: Dave Ketchum [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RE : Re: Fwd: FYI - FairVote MN RespondstoLawsuit Against IRV James' discussion of history leading up to IRV makes sense, and IRV often doing counting second choices, etc., often resulting in better assignment of winners. Trouble is, often is not synonymous with always - leading to some of us backing Condorcet for using the same ballot and basic thoughts as IRV, but looking at all that the voter says. Sample election (admittedly biased): 27 Bush 26 Nader/Gore 24 Paul/Gore 23 Gore Voters agree, 73-27, to not liking Bush. IRV will first see that many Gore backers like Nader or Paul even better, forget Gore, and let Bush win over Nader, a 27-26 majority. Note that Nader backers, if they had suspected this outcome, could have omitted voting for Nader or Paul. Condorcet will see: 73 Gore winning over 27 Bush 47 Gore/26 Nader 49 Gore/24 Paul 27 Bush/26 Nader 27 Bush/24 Paul 26 Nader/24 Paul Dave, Well looks like I'm getting a quick lesson in the Condorcet method. I have to say that I like the Condorcet method better than IRV because it does seem to treat the ballots equally - as long as voters vote for the same number of candidates - but I still don't like it as much as a system that weights a voter's first choice more than a voter's second choice, and so forth. Worth thought. Still, without such, a voter uses highest rank as preferred above all others, and second highest rank as preferred above all except highest - do you really want more? Voting for an equal number of candidates matters little, though you can express dislike by ranking many higher than the disliked. If you are really trying to elect a candidate, you should run out of other preferred quickly - when might you really want to list 4 up front? When might you care if you have voted for the same number of candidates as some other voter? Said another way: When might you want to rank more than a couple above the unranked pack? How can another voter gain an advantage by ranking many? I want to permit the many, but see no actual value in using that permission. Question: I would think that most voters would vote for two candidates since that gives the voters essentially two votes for the one ballot, at least the way you've shown the tabulation. Depends - just being able to name two candidates has no value unless a voter has a desire to do such. In Gore/Nader/Bush: Bush voters usually will have no second choice for Bush losing. Nader backers almost certainly expect Nader to lose and want to offer Gore as backup. There could be useful choices of 3 or more candidates. Condorcet seems to treat all the choices of each voter the same also. I.e. If I vote for Nader/Paul - my votes for Nader and those for Paul count equally with each other. No ranking. Looks like I was careless with my symbols. I did intend for the first candidate listed to rank over what follows. Condorcet normally also permits multiple candidates to rank equally with each other. As to more likely symbols, ballots have to indicate in their own manner such as: Identical rank numbers mean equal rank. Different rank numbers indicate higher or lower (magnitude of difference should NOT matter - only direction). I prefer a weighted method where I can give my first choice a certain weight more than my second choice, but all the candidates I vote for are tabulated - so there are no elimination rounds. Perhaps helps to note that Condorcet counting is much as in a tournament. Assuming that you have decided on A and B as your top ranking candidates, voting this will not affect their relationship to each other - you only control the race between them via AB, A=B, and BA. Kathy -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. If you want peace, work for justice. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [Election-Methods] Fwd: FYI - FairVote MN Responds to Lawsuit Against IRV
On Dec 26, 2007 6:53 PM, Juho Laatu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Condocet methods do not put any additional weight on first position on the ballot. Vote GoreBushPaulNader is considered to be equally strong in saying Gore is better than Bush than e.g. vote NaderPaulGoreBush. Juho, Thanks for clarifying. I understand better the method now. So in Condocet, if you really dislike a particular candidate, it is best as a voter, to list all the other candidates in order of preference - except for the one you might dislike the most? With votes 25: AEB=C=D 25: BEA=C=D 25: CEA=B=D 25: DEA=B=C I do not get the = signs. Do you mean that voters are limited to listing two candidates in ranked order and that it does not really matter what they list as their third choice since all third choice candidates are equal? Condorcet methods elect E (since E would win any of the others 75-25 in a pairwise comparison). E didn't have a single first place supporter but many obviously considered E to be a good compromise. Is this ok to you? Yes. I think this Condocet method actually gives a reason for using ranking with multiple candidates. I think IRV is awful, but this seems to be OK. Condorcet methods simply collect the pairwise preferences from the ballots and base the decision on that data (without any potentially unfair elimination rounds). Yes. This is far fairer and makes more sense to me than IRV. Putting more weight on the first preferences is not used, mainly since it would then be more problematic to keep the method sufficiently strategy free (=voters can now quite safely mark their sincere preferences on the ballot). Yes that does seem true - although I have not sat down to really ponder and study it because I'm working on other things like achieving verifiably accurate vote counts which I believe are more crucial first steps. It is very important IMO that voters can actually mark their sincere preferences without having to strategize and hypothesize on what other voters may do to overcome the flaws of the system like is necessary with IRV. Kathy Juho -- Kathy Dopp The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author Kathy Dopp's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at P.O. Box 680192 Park City, UT 84068 phone 435-658-4657 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://electionarchive.org History of Confidence Election Auditing Development Overview of Election Auditing Fundamentals http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf Vote Yes on HR811 and S2295 http://electionmathematics.org/VoteYesHR811.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day, wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1816 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [Election-Methods] Fwd: FYI - FairVote MN Responds to Lawsuit Against IRV
Thanks Dave, I think I understand Condorcet now and what the = signs are for, and I like Condorcet and see no immediate drawbacks to its tabulation method like I do to the IRV tabulation method. I would urge that we get a handle on ensuring that our vote counts are accurate prior to using any but the simple one vote per one winner system though because our system is hopelessly wide-open to undetected outcome-determinative tampering and miscount now. I know of no other major industry that is not subjected to any scientific independent auditing. You guys might be happy to know that we're developing election auditing calculations that handle multi-candidate/multi-winner races. The most updated, correct, and simple explanation of the mathematics of calculating election auditing sample sizes is here: Mandatory Post-Election Vote Count Audits http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/UT/MandatoryVoteCountAudits.ppt and a smaller pdf version of the powerpoint presentation: http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/UT/VoteCountAudits.pdf Thanks for the lesson on Condorcet. Is this system in use anywhere yet? Kathy Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
