Ooh... I think he's riled. (fwd)

[David Catchpole]

Date: Wed, 31 May 2000 08:52:37 +1000 (GMT+1000)
From: David Catchpole <s349436 at student.uq.edu.au>
To: Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
Cc: election-methods-list at egroups.com
Subject: Re: Ooh... I think he's riled.

Now, look, (I hate it when media interviewees use that cliche), I don't
like Approval, but the simple fact is this- Approval is a method that
restricts expression of preferences to a single comparison of one group of
candidates with another. That being said, if we are to apply principles of
voting to the _counting of votes_ without taking account of true utilities
/ preferences, Pareto efficiency is satisfied. If you were to say that
somehow this was confounded by the "hidden preferences" of the voters, you
would need to actually state the assumptions that relate the "hidden
preferences" to the expressed votes. I know for one thing that if I were
an A>B>C>D>E>F>G>H>I voter voting in Approval (as I have-
interesting side note- Australian Republican Movement Queensland
has(d) what is effectively an Approval system) without information
about any other voters I would not be voting ABCDEFGHI, which is simply an
expression of disinterest same as a blank paper. I would vote
ABCDE. Similarly a Catchy-like I>H>G>F>E>D>C>B>A voter would vote
IHGFE. You could then argue the problem that E won even though 99% of the
population preferred A. This is a legitimate problem (after all, I devised
it) (by the way that's not a serious comment, _OK?!_). The one you
provided was not. I made the assumption that an uninformed voter will fill
out half or slightly more of the ballot. You didn't make any assumptions
as to how the choice of vote occurred.

On Tue, 30 May 2000, Craig Carey wrote:

> At 10:12 30.05.00 +1000, David Catchpole wrote:
>  >On Tue, 30 May 2000, Craig Carey wrote:
>  >
>  >> Thanks David. It makes us all seem so thoughtless. I specifically
>  >> include you now that you said you are not impressed.
>  >
>  >What motivated my nasty message is the simple fact that you have indicated
>  >a posititve feature demonstrated by approval voting and most (if not
>  >basically all) methods- Pareto efficiency. In the case you give, 99% of
>  >the population are indifferent between all the candidates. That the other
>  >1% does have an opinion and expresses a preference for J means that the
>  >only preference expressed is that for J. For the election to be Pareto
>  >efficient, J must therefore win. It's quite defensible (and no mention of
>  >"mercurial lions" [W.T.F. ' Y.' T. 'B.?], this time around, please!)
>  >
> 
> It is fixed. But the "Ooh" comment and "riled" is not appropriate.
> 
> 
> What you are getting close to saying is that preferences don't
> indicate preferences. If that were fully true for the Approval Vote,
> it would "Limited Voting" as defined on
> http://www.mich.com/~donald/reassign2.html
> except that the number of votes may exceed the number of candidates,
> except that quite probably the ballot papers would not allow that.
> 
> You write "expresses a preference". This is what you can't assume is
> agreed with, at the EM List: in the Approval Voting system, then if it is
> not "Limited voting" then there may be an agreement that the 4th preference
> can be preferred to the 3rd, and the 2nd to the 1st.
> 
> This gets to a fundamental disagreement that in my opinion is seemingly
> inextirpable [a root unable to be pulled out] in the EM List. You
> wrote "That the other 1% does have..." or perhaps it could be "does not...".
> 
> At the EM list, the problem voting is not properly modelled. Fragments
> of female legs need to take their place along with real numbers in going
> into formula... I can't imagine a you could fix with, as they say in
> Auckland University, no force but the force of argument. To save a little
> time, I shall quote what I wrote on 30May00 to a rebel against the
> rejection of STV electorates and recommendation of a regional, not
> national top up scheme:
> 
>  >I quit the Election Methods List and they seem to be in error: [...]
>  >Lord Alexander wrote about shipping: if an engineer was learning
>  >about the stress that ships could endure, he would model the
>  >metal, and then consider only the model, not talk about ships
>  >[voters' wishes] when the model was in trouble, and the model
>  >when the ships were in trouble [no problem, their methods are
>  >ignored]. That may be enough to get rid of public interest
>  >and public good, in the theory of counting votes (and to defend
>  >a little more, [...]
> 
> The student may misunderstood the basics: "my nasty message [tut tut,
> not for a member of the EM List that knows that a loss of polite
> privateness can allows others to get unexpectedly ridiculed with
> numerical examples] ...  99% of the population are ...". Can you
> see a member of the public on tables holding voting papers?.
> 
> This goes to the heart of the question of competence. In such
>   circumstances perhaps you would not attribute an emotion to me in
>   subject headers.
> 
> That word expresses might mean votes.
> 
> I doubt that Pareto is an idea worth embracing.
> 
>  >> Until I had that message sent in, it might have been a method
>  >> for Australia, unless the Australians can identify bad methods
>  >> when they see them. Those EM people need to get a questionaire.
>  >> Can you do that for me David?.
>  >
>  >Explain.
> 
> When Mr Ossipoff wrote the readers found that they would let the man
> speak while the idea of preferences was implicitly implied to be not
> upheld.
> An alternative to that is having a common set of strict
> principles and have occassionally, an idea added and less often,
> a common idea lost. But instead it is a back-scratching collective of
> persons that don't reason enough to find how it is that they rejected
> an idea.
> 
> Mr Ossipoff is still an exception who makes matters more abstract as
> the faults of the idea start to get more concrete, i.e. he can sense
> a dispute and inform about that, e.g. by introducing probability,
> whereas many of the others seem to prefer privacy. The private proof.
> 
> I guess the question for me wrongly worded: maybe I ought stated it as
> a chance for you to personally reform the EM List.
> 
> 
> A chance to reform the EM List, and instead you wrote "Ooh .. Riled".
> The List is so concerned about not excluding bad ideas, it can't reject
> even good ideas.
> 
> 
>  >
>  >Concerns in the RW have prevented me from doing much work on issues
>  >pertinent to EM recently- however, I have done some, and what I've done
>  >has borne results. Your recent discovery of the Droop quota seems to bear
>  >out that you're not very good at taking on board work done before you.
>  >
> I would have been writing that if it were true, but Donaldson's
> Hare (or the public one) applies to winners and my tot/3 for 3 candidate
> elections and tot/4 for 4 candidate elections, to losers. One of the
> messages derived it as a generalisation of 50% quota that finds a
> winner.
> 
> Re Donaldson. I sent in an example suggesting Hare better than Droop.
> 
> If you were to prove rules conflict, then that would be difficult. But
> proving my rules contradict others can be easier, if a 3 candidate
> example can show that.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mr G. A. Craig Carey                          Auckland, New Zealand
> E-mail address: Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>,
> Metasearch: http://www.ijs.co.nz/info/snooz.htm
> Backup address: terratope at yahoo.com
> 
> 
> 

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