Housekeeping Letter

[Mike Ossipoff]

New Democracy writes:
> 
> New Year Greetings to all members of the Election Methods List,
> 
>      I wish all of you a great new year. I have some housekeeping left over
> from 1996 - a number of pending questions put to me that I am willing to
> answer again at this time - being as I am wearing my Math Hat today.
> 
> The questions are as follows:
> 
>    ONE: Why do I want the Coombs' points to be equal to the number of voters?
>    TWO: Why do I like to drop candidates?
>  THREE: Why do I think the voters will only make one Condorcet selection?
> 
> QUESTION ONE answer: If all the voters are equally represented in the
> Coombs' vote then the Coombs' vote will be equal to the number of voters.

Bald unsupported assertion. In, for instance, an Approval election,
between A, B, C, & D, if I vote for A & B, I'm saying that I vote
that A & B are better than C & D. My vote for A over B, A over D,
B over C & B over D isn't any stronger than anyone else's vote
to the contrary. I'm not given more power to outvote another
At his point someone can say that I'm looking at it pairwise,
and that that is prejudice. No, the election, as I explained
to Demorep too, is a _relative_ choice. Relative means with
respect to something else, in comparison with something else.
That's simply the nature of a multi-alternative election.

In particular, Don, which candidate, or which voter can say
that s/he was cheated because I got too many votes? Say B
wins the Approval election. B got more votes than C or D.
Can a C voter complain? More voters said they liked B better
than C than vice-versa. So what if I also said I liked A
better than C. I'm one of those voters who said that B
is better than C, and I was rightflly counted as such.
No, the C voter can't complain.

The same principle applies when voting for last choice.


> Equality in representation is "relevant to democracy". If the Coombs' tally
> is less than the number of voters that means that some voters are not
> represented in deciding which candidate to drop. If the Coombs' tally is



> more than the number of voters that means some voters are represented with
> more weight than others. Some voters could have two or three or more times
> weight than others.

Same unsupported assertion. 



>      The Coombs' tally and the number of voters must balance - something
> like double entry bookkeeping. Otherwise we could have results something
> like having more votes cast in an election than there were voters. If we

So what? There's no need for votes to equal voters unless you
want the Plurality system. There's no need for Coombs to be
about votes. My definition doesn't mention votes.

> had an election in which two hundred voters went to the polls but three
> hundred votes were cast we would be correct in saying that something was
> amiss. Our interest in having the votes cast be equal to the number of
> voters would be more than being "aesthetically pleasing on the surface".
> The same is true with the Coombs' vote - it is a question of being honest.

It's more a question of being all confused.

> 
> QUESTION TWO: "To Drop or Not to Drop - that is the question". We are only
> going to have one winner in a single seat election - the rest of the
> candidates are going to be dropped. An election is not a social event in
> which everyone is welcome to stay as long as possible and no one's feeling
> are going to be hurt - most of the candidates are going to be dropped. Some

Methods that remove a candidate based on looking only at part of
the rankings, like   1st choice or last choice, are obviously
doing so with incomplete information. That should be obvious
to anyone--well almost anyone.

> will be dropped before the general election by the instrument called the
> primary election. Of the ones that survive to the general election most
> will be dropped on the first tally because most single seat elections
> produce a winner with a majority on the first tally. This leaves the
> contests that have no clear winner - but even at this point most of these
> candidates will be losers.
>      The sooner we detect one of these losers and drop him the sooner we
> reveal the winner. How are we to detect one of the losers? In these unclear
> contests the run-off people will drop the last candidate of the first tally
> - the Coombs' people will drop the winner of the last set of selections -
> the Approval Voting and Broda people will not drop anyone until they

It isn't "Broda"; it's "Borda".


> declare a winner(with no majority)then they drop everyone else. The
> Condorcet people will do the most dropping of candidates. In each of their
> pairing run-offs the balance of the candidates are dropped. When they have
> a circular tie some of the solutions require dropping candidates. And when
> they finally declare a winner they also drop everyone else.

Well excuse us.


>      I am willing to consider other methods of detecting one of the losing
> candidates. Are there other methods besides run-off and Coombs that try to
> pick one of the losers?

Yes, lots. At least one mentioned in lots of books. But if I
named & described them here, that would just make me a party
to sending you off on another tangent. Your nearest university
library will describe the most popular proposals. Look inthe
subject catalog under "voting systems".

> 
> QUESTION THREE Answer: I have claimed a number of times that in a Condorcet
> election most of the people will only make one selection - I still hold the
> same belief - belief is the key word here - I have no proof. "The proof of

Thank you for admitting that. Don't forget to always represent it
as a belief rather than as a fact.


> the pudding will be in the eating". I do not favor the Condorcet method but
> I would like to see the results of as many election years as possible where
> Condorcet is being used. Does anyone have that information? Not data from
> some parlor game but a real election that has been held for a number of
> years. Until I see some proof I can only go on my logic.
>      My logic says that even if Condorcet is voted in as the single seat
> election method of a voting area there will be people who did not vote for
> it. If these people decide to continue not to favor Condorcet they can do
> that by only making one selection. Can Condorcet survive if forty-five

That's true of every rank-balloting voting system. The person who
refuses to use rank-balloting will still vote only a 1st choice,
no matter how the ranked ballots are counted.

> percent of the voters only make one selection? A Condorcet person should be

Yes, very nicely. No one should be forced to vote a 2nd choice. 
Condorcet isn't adversely affected by truncation. I've described its
truncation resistance property here many times. Anytime a voter
refuses to rank a needed compromise, no method, not even Condorcet
, can help hir. But that's the individual's right. No problem.

However, you haven't established that Condorcet would cause
that kind of voting. Your logic merely said that voters who
reject rank-balloting won't vote a 2nd choice, something equally
true in any system.

> able to answer this question better than I could. But - my logic also tells
> me that additional voters will begin to only make one selection when they
> realize that their other selections are being used to help some other
> candidate succeed while their first selection is still a contender. I have

Another thing that you assert without giving a reason. 

Look, I'll say it again: The only time when anyone would have a
defensive strategy motive to only vote for 1 candidate would
be under devious electorate conditions, conditions where the
offensive strategyk of order-reversal was likely. Some of us have
agreed that it is most unlikely that order-reversal would ever happen
on a scale sufficient to change an election result. Therefore, 
no one would need any kind of defensive strategy in Condorcet,
something that can't be said for any other method.

Besides, even under devious conditions, the only voter who'd
have a reason to vote only for hir 1st choice would be a voter
who believed that hir 1st choice is Condorcet winner, the
candidate who'd geat each one of the others in separate 2-candidate
races.

If you want to deny these things, then give your reason, show
an example. If not, then either drop it or blather on (I bet
I can predict which you'll do).

> stated this before.
>      If Condorcet ever gets voted in someplace I would like to be able to
> observe the results over the years - it would be "very interesting".

> 
>      Allow me to go back to the Primary election for a moment. What is the
> position of Condorcet people regarding the primary election? I would think
> that you people would be outraged because some of the candidates dropped
> have more support than some candidates that are held over. My view is that
> we should not have Primary elections - but that is a different topic.

We shouldn't have primary elections. I'm not outraged because
the primary drops candidates, but I still don't like it. If
I vote in the New Party primary, then I can't have any say
about whether or not Jackson will be in the general election.
With one big general election, and no primary, I could rank
the New Party candidates over the Democrats, and still rank
Jackson over Clinton.

> 
> Donald,
> 
> 

Mike Ossipoff



> 
> 
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