[EM] Student government - what voting system to recommend?

[Howard Swerdfeger]

Tim Hull wrote:
> That's the answer to what would likely happen if Range voting were
> implemented anywhere of significance - cards like those used in Australia
> would appear telling voters how to vote.  Granted, it would probably happen
> under any preferential system, but in range it is almost guaranteed that
> bullet voting would be encouraged "except" by minor party candidates, which
> MAY recommend voting for major party candidates as well.
> 
> Though I like the basic idea of range, I will say I have reconsidered
> somewhat when it comes to contentious elections.  In this case, I do see it
> degenerating into Approval really fast.  While Approval is a decent system
> (better than FPTP for sure), third parties would still have significant
> trouble breaking through (major parties will always bullet vote, and a 
> large
> number of third-party supporters will vote for the major party as well). We
> may see "shifts" between one party being major and another being major from
> election to election as voting results start to demonstrate shifts in
> support and voters vote accordingly, but it seems like each election will
> continue to be a basically two-party competition in and of itself.
> 
> In my mind, that leaves IRV and Condorcet as serious voting reform
> proposals.  While IRV isn't the best thing in the world (it can screw up
> when a new party becomes "major" in an election), it could help third
> parties with a solid coalition with a major party (i.e. nearly all 
> Democrats

you might want to reconsider your position on IRV
as shown here:
http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/
it produces can produce some very dysfunctional results, and in some 4 
party cases produces results that would be considered worse then plurality.


> vote Green #2, and all Greens vote Democrat #2).  It does suffer from the
> "center squeeze", though.  Condorcet, on the other hand, does not suffer
> from the center squeeze.  However, it suffers from the opposite problem -
> the so-called "Pro Wrestler" or "Loony" syndrome in an election with a
> couple polarized candidates and a weak centrist or joke candidate.  In my
> student government elections, I picture this being a candidate walking
> around campus in a clown suit and winning based on becoming everybody's #2.
> Also, Condorcet's later-no-harm failure may mean people give a less sincere
> ranking than in IRV, though this failure is far less so than in range.

This is a potential problem with all pure Condorcet methods.
It might be able to be overcome with some restrictions
Candidate must have >5% first preference votes or be one of the top 5 
candidates in number of first preference votes.
Or some other restriction might help.

> However, PR still seems like the primary thing to shoot for - single winner
> elections really aren't any good in achieving better representation.  For
> that reason, I can see the logic of those pushing IRV with the intent of
> moving in a PR direction.  I will say that, given honest voters and an
> absence of "Loony" type candidates, Condorcet produces better results and
> seems better.  However, it is more complex - and is yet another system to
> discuss. I really think that STV should be the real goal, with IRV used in
> single-winner elections (when necessary) for consistency - party lists are
> rotten by comparison, and no other system has been tested and proven for
> multiwinner to the extent of STV.

I agree STV is a very good system, but a lot depends on the DM, I would 
suggest 5-9 is a good DM.
closer to the 5 side if you expect lots of candidates
closer to the 9 side if you expect fewer.

While I agree party lists are "rotten".

there are lots of other multi winner PR systems, that don't require a 
party list
MMP where the "top-up" comes from the best of the losers.



> 
> Thus, I plan on moving in an IRV+STV direction as far as my reforms (with
> multiwinner STV used for 70% of the seats on my student government i.e. all
> of the multi-seat districts).



> 
> Tim
> On 4/25/07, Howard Swerdfeger <electorama.com at howard.swerdfeger.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
>> > At 06:41 PM 4/24/2007, Juho wrote:
>>   >>> If you vote Approval style, you fail to express your true
>> >>> appreciation of the candidates, and this can backfire.
>> >> Yes, but typically/statistically Approval strategy improves the
>> outcome.
>> >
>> > No. Check out Warren's simulations. Sincere voting (which means
>> > expressing weak preferences as weak votes) produces the best
>> > outcomes. Approval style produces acceptable outcomes, relative to
>> > some other methods.
>>
>> You are making assumptions about what is "best".
>>
>> On a side note: I still have not found the definition of the Individual
>> Utility Function used in the simulations talked about at 'rangevoting.org
>> '.
>> I am willing to accept there Society Utility function as the Sum of
>> Individual Utilities. Did they use U(v, c) = 1/R? Or did they use
>> something else? how does the choice of the Utility function affect the
>> simulation results.
>>
>>
>> >>> I say that we are not going to really know until we see real
>> >>> elections using Range. The alleged devolution to Approval is not a
>> >>> serious harm. It would only mean that some ballot space and a
>> >>> counting effort had been wasted.
>> >> Yes, Range could be roughly as good as Approval (with some wasted
>> >> effort, and ability to cast weak votes). The biggest hiccups might
>> >> come in the form of people realizing that their vote was weak
>> >> although they didn't understand that when they voted, or if some
>> >> candidate won as a result of efficient use of strategic voting.
>> >
>> > That actually doesn't happen easily under Range (the latter).
>> > Basically, the most "efficient" strategy for winning is to get as
>> > many of your supporters as possible to bullet-vote for you. However,
>> > this can backfire, if you offend those who might otherwise like you
>> > but consider your recommendation that you vote against your favorite
>> > to be quite offensive. I know it would offend me!
>>
>> Then how do you explain Voting cards!
>> http://www.australianpolitics.com/images/qld/2001-htv-cook.jpg
>> They are the an emergence of candidates telling voters how to vote.
>>
>> >
>> > Can you imagine how it would look of a candidate steps in front of
>> > the cameras and says: "Don't vote sincerely, it might cause me to
>> > lose. Vote only for me!"
>> >
>> > Political suicide, that's what it would be, if the election were
>> > Range. Instead, candidates, as now, will simply try to convince
>> > voters that they are the best, and it is possible, but not certain,
>> > that they will refrain, a little more, from trying to tear down their
>> > opponents, for fear of alienating their supporters and thus losing 
>> those
>> votes.
>> >
>> >>>> Rating the least preferred candidate at 0 reduces the probability of
>> >>>> that candidate getting elected (and doesn't carry any risks with 
>> it).
>> >>> But from the conditions of the problem, there was no risk of that.
>> >>> No, I don't buy it. (By the way, none of us involved with Range
>> >>> would recommend giving the "least preferred candidate" any other
>> >>> vote than the minimum. I assumed that PW was being given a 1
>> >>> because voters somewhat liked him, there were *worse* candidates
>> >>> involved.
>> >> There were no worse candidates involved. The voter liked PW somewhat.
>> >> But since PW was the least liked candidate and the voter wanted to
>> >> avoid electing him, giving him 0 was a perfect solution. (I thus used
>> >> sincere utility based ratings instead of normalized ones.)
>> >
>> > And this is correct voting! Basically, the supposed "sincere" votes
>> > from which the method devolved into Approval were ignorant votes. I'd
>> > really suggest that ballot instructions be explicit, suggesting that
>> > you vote the max for your favorite, the min for your least preferred,
>> > and whatever you want for the rest.... Range votes are *relative*
>> > votes. If there were a dozen candidates, and all were quite well
>> > qualified, we still need to pick one and we will want to pick the
>> > best. To get good information from the voters, we need them to
>> > normalize their votes. Otherwise, the necessary resolution is lost.
>> > If on some absolute scale, all the candidates are 10s, on what basis
>> > would we choose between them?
>> >
>> > No, Range is about *relative* utility. But I prefer to think of voter
>> > satisfaction. It is about rating candidates as to how satisfied you
>> > will be if they are elected, with max rating meaning maximally
>> > satisfied, and min rating meaning maximally dissatisfied. Relatively
>> > speaking. You might actually be satisfied in an absolute sense with
>> > any of them, or with none of them.
>> >
>> >>> But this contradicts the assumed initial sincere vote! If you want
>> >>> this, why would you vote A=9, B=8 in the first place? By voting
>> >>> this way, you are saying that B winning is almost as satisfactory
>> >>> to you as A winning!
>> >> The voter voted originally sincerely since voters were given the
>> >> impression that they should write one's sincere preferences on the
>> >> ballot.
>> >
>> > The ballot instructions were, "Write your sincere preferences on the
>> ballot"?
>> >
>> > When you vote a ranked ballot, and some systems require full ranking,
>> > you are putting one candidate at the top and one at the bottom. Some
>> > allow you to put more than one in each of these positions, or in
>> > intermediate positions. The method essentially normalizes your vote,
>> > making it equivalent to a range of 0% to 100% in Range. But ranked
>> > methods don't consider preferences strength, though some impute it,
>> > in a way, by considering "defeat strength."
>> >
>> >>  Candidate B winning would be quite satisfactory to this
>> >> voter. The voter however wants to make A the winner if he can choose
>> >> between A and B. If A and B were the only candidates, voting A=max,
>> >> B=min would be also risk free.
>> >>
>> >>> I think that people can and will understand that democracy is often
>> >>> about making compromises. It is *not* about crushing the opposition!
>> >> I agree, but competitiveness exists despite of this, and that may
>> >> lead to voting with maximum power etc.
>> >
>> > Range limits "maximum power" to one vote per voter. And we recommend
>> > and generally assume that all voters, with rare exceptions, will vote
>> > with maximum power. That is, they will rank one max and one min and
>> > they will array the others as they choose. This is maximum power. It
>> > won't "lead" to this condition, this *is* Range.
>> >
>> >
>> >>> "Vote -1 to vote against a candidate, vote +1 to vote for the
>> >>> candidate, and vote zero or leave a candidate unrated to have an
>> >>> intermediate effect. The candidate with the greatest sum of votes
>> >>> will win."
>> >> Note that negative votes carry some risks.
>> >
>> > The issue here is where the default vote is for abstentions. The
>> > standard in original Range proposals was that it was zero,
>> > effectively. Average vote disregards abstentions, which is its own
>> > problem and requires a "quorum rule" to avoid obvious bad outcomes.
>> > Using negative votes is a means of making the default be other than
>> > zero, that's all. The range I suggested makes the default be midrange.
>> >
>> >
>> >>  Let's say there are three
>> >> major parties with one candidate each, and many totally unknown
>> >> candidates. All major parties are afraid of each others and will give
>> >> lots of negative votes to both competing party candidates. The sum of
>> >> all major party candidates may go below 0.
>> >
>> > This situation is a setup for a bad outcome. Be careful not to blame
>> > the voting method for the total disarray and disunity of the
>> > electorate! Given the setup, it is not clear that there is *any* good
>> outcome!
>> >
>> >>  Some unknown candidate is
>> >> mentioned only in very few ballots (let's say his/her family members
>> >> supporting and one neighbour opposing). His score will however be
>> >> positive and he will be elected, not the well known candidates whose
>> >> score was negative.
>> >
>> > That's correct. But something was totally neglected in this analysis.
>> > That candidate is only going to have a couple of votes above zero.
>> > But the conditions were that there were *many* candidates. Surely
>> > there is at least one of them who is well-enough known and
>> > well-enough liked that the candidate gets more than a couple of votes!
>> >
>> > Really, if it is true that there are more people in a society opposed
>> > to a candidate than favor him or her, do you think the candidate
>> > should be elected! There is a simple solution to the problem given,
>> > which is a ratification step or runoff. (Not a top-two runoff, but a
>> > runoff between, say, the votes analyzed as sum and the votes analyzed
>> > as raw, abstentions zero.)
>> >
>> > The problem, if it is a problem -- I'm not sure it is -- could be
>> > addressed by setting the default lower:
>> >
>> > -1: Disliked
>> > 0: Acceptable
>> > 1: Good
>> > 2: Preferred.
>> >
>> > Or, alternatively, the simpler Range 3 implementation with blank
>> > votes defined as -1/2 vote. Or perhaps even some smaller negative
>> > value, like -1/10. Something to reflect the value that the winner,
>> > preferably, should be well enough known that the candidate is rated
>> > by most voters.
>> >
>> > This is a question regarding how to treat blank votes. It's an
>> > unresolved issue among Range advocates.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >>> [I suggested that there be a runoff between the Range winner and a
>> >>> Condorcet winner, if they differ]
>> >>>> Let's assume that a Condorcet winner exists. In this case this 
>> method
>> >>>> could be said to be a method where the voters are given a second
>> >>>> chance to think again if the Range winner could be seen as a "good
>> >>>> compromise" even though the majority could easily vote as in the
>> >>>> first round and elect the Condorcet winner.
>> >>> Yes. That is, the original ballot analysis showed that this C.
>> >>> winner was rated higher than the Range winner on a majority of
>> >>> ballots.
>> >>>
>> >>>>  I'm not sure this method
>> >>>> would be a very practical method in real life large elections but in
>> >>>> principle the idea of "recommending" the Range winner to the voters
>> >>>> is a positive idea. Some strategies where people would try to
>> >>>> influence who the Range winner will be could take place (i.e. the
>> >>>> Range winner of the second round would not be the sincere range
>> >>>> winner).
>> >>> I think Juho means that the Range winner of the *first* round would
>> >>> not be the sincere Range winner. If there is a second round, it is
>> >>> not held as a Range election. It is a straight which-of-these-two-
>> >>> shall-be-elected vote. Voters will know, this time, if the first
>> >>> election was sincere, which candidate will be most broadly
>> >>> acceptable. Which is more important to them, for their preference
>> >>> to win or for the most broadly acceptable candidate to win?
>> >>> Majority rule.
>> >>>
>> >>> I'd suggest that if their preference was weak, the majority might
>> >>> prefer the Range winner, on reflection. But if their preference was
>> >>> strong, they might insist upon it.
>> >> If the first round votes were sincere the Condorcet winner will be
>> >> preferred over the Range winner by majority (since the definition of
>> >> Condorcet winner says so). The Range winner would however be better
>> >> if measured as sum of satisfaction of the voters (if that is what the
>> >> voters marked in the ballots). The opinions could however change
>> >> before the second round as a result of publishing the fact that there
>> >> was a Range winner that was different from the Condorcet winner, and
>> >> the range winner could be supported by a majority at the second round
>> >> (depends on the level of competitiveness etc.).
>> >>
>> >> Juho
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
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