Approval Voting fish (3), selected replies

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

> >I assume that there will be only one winner. I don't know why
> >you limit voters to voting for only 80 of the 300 candidates,
> >but if voters are allowed 80 votes, then, for most of them, casting
> >only one vote is contrary to their best strategic interest. So
> >yes, voters should be made aware of that fact in that situation.
> >
>
>So there is admitted to be a serious problem that properly requires
>  education on how to strategically vote.

Like FPTP & the Alternative Vote, Approval requires strategy.
I've told you how easy Approval is if you know whom to vote for
in FPTP.

If you want something that does the best job of avoiding need
for strategy, then may I recomment Condorcet?


>VOTERS NEED TO BE EDUCATED On How To Strategically Vote, with the
>  Approval Voting method.

Wrong. They already know how to strategically vote in FPTP,
and, as I keep telling you, in Approval they merely vote for the
same candidate whom they need to vote for in FPTP, with the
difference that they can also vote for everyone whom they like
more.



> >
> >If you specify every rank position except for your last choice,
> >then it will be obvious who's the last choice to whom you're
> >giving zero votes.
> >
>You can't say "obvious" and mean true, because some preferential voting

It's obvious & true that in Borda you give no votes to your
last choice, and 1 vote to your 2nd to last choice, etc.

>  methods fail that. You should be writing on relative values, not absolute

Relative values? That's why you'd want a pairwise count method,
but be sure to pick a good one.

>  values ("zero votes").
>In fact the Approval Voting method fails that rule, and standard Borda
>  (as recently defined), passes that rule or test, which is that there is
>  invariance of outcome wrt. specifying and not specifying, the last
>  preference.

I hadn't heard about that rule before. In Approval it's always
to your advantage to not vote for your last choice. Why would
you want to?

>...
> >IRV is the name under which the Alternative Vote is being
> >promoted in the U.S. Single-winner STV. IRV stands for
> >Instant Runoff Voting. I use that name because it's used by
> >the promoters who are pushing that method here.
>
>IRV = AV

There's a problem with using "AV" to stand for the Alternative
Vote: In the U.S., "AV" is often used to stand for Approval
Voting. When a term has 2 different meanings, it's important not
to use it. I'll use "Alternative Vote", but if you say "AV",
lots of people will think you're talking about Approval Voting.

>
>...
>:>That is an key question: can all of the method's problems be made to
> >>  fully vanish by saying it is not a preferential voting method?.
> >
> >No, but it isn't reasonable to criticize it for not being what
> >it doesn't claim to be. A paintbrush isn't a paint-spraying machine,
>...
>Just to rephrase that: the Approval Voting method is a preferential
>  voting method that accepts (can accept) the same papers that the
>  AV Alternative Vote method. (Both are a set function of a vector of 
>reals.)

Wrong. Approval is not a preferential voting method, because
"preferential voting method" means a rank-balloting method.
Approval cannot accept the same papers that the Alternative Vote
uses. You really must let Approval's proponents define it.

>...
> >With IRV, a voter's preferences aren't reliably counted, since
> >the fact that they voted X over Y isn't counted if X is eliminated
> >before that voter's traveling vote reaches X.
>
>Every vote is ignored unless it close to traversing a point across
>  a win-lose boundary, i.e. near to having an effect.

Wrong again. The Alternative Vote ignores preferences that would
have an effect if they weren't ignored.
>
> >>Is the Approval Vote 'fully counting' the vote of voter Y, when
> >>  Voter Y has about 1/20th the power to influence of voter X, (or
> >>  exactly 1/20, as the number of candidates approaches being infinite).
>...
>
>The public education, that Mr Ossipoff was indicating needed, was to
>  educate voters that their vote could have 1/20 of the power that it
>  should have.

People are going to become more annoyed with me if I keep answering
things like that. No doubt people are already tired of those
comments & answers, and most likely few if any people are reading
this thread anymore. In some sense, you believe that statement
about 1/20 of the power. I have no idea what that means, or what
it refers to. Approval gives you a power that FPTP doesn't give
you: You can vote for as many as you want to. Approval doesn't
give you the power to express & have counted, fully & reliably
every preference that you want to. Neither does Borda or the
Alternative Vote.

Voters don't need to be educated on how to vote strategically.
They already do in FPTP, and surely they will in Approval too,
in the way that I've described to you so many times.

>
>What is it about the "utility" function that is desired by voters, to
>  such an extent that would explain why voter Y has:
>   (1) a need to be educated, and

The voter doesn't have a need to be educated. I don't oppose
education, and my web article on mathematical strategy for Approval
and FPTP shows that, but voters know how to strategize without
education, and their strategy would carry over easily to Approval,
as I've often described to you.

>
>Mr Ossipoff wrote that preferences voted for, should be "fully ..."
>  counted, and then did not say why the weight for the vote was about
>  1/20 of what it should be, if the vote was full.

I didn't say why that is because I have no idea what the statement
means.


>
>...
> >Nothing wrong with expressing your opinion, and others can
> >judge for themselves whether the arguments presented support
> >your claim.
> >
>
>Can any explain that the basis of the method: does it have a trace of
>  plausibility to it?. Whereas for large problems, Condorcet can't find
>  an answer for
>  0.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 of all elections,

You're probably referring that there won't always be one candidate
who beats each one of the others. For one thing, no one agrees
that it will be as rare as you say. And if you'd paid attention
to anything that's been said about Condorcet's method, you'd
know that Condorcet said what to do when no one beats everyone.
You've got to read before you write. People haven't got time
to read statements that you write when you don't have a clue about
the topic.


>Are utility functions desirable.
>
>Please define all concepts around this utility value and functions.
>It was an expectation.

I defined utility by saying that it's a numerical measure of the
desirability of having a candidate win.

>
>I have a method and it is based on 3 axioms that are known, The Approval
>  Vote has axiom hasn't it?.

It has a rule, which you should now be familiar with. It meets
some valuable criteria, one of which is my minimum requirement
for an adequate method (WDSC).


>
>
> >I claim that Approval is the 2nd best proposal because of the
> >criteria that it meets, and which nearly all rank methods fail.
> >WDSC, FBC, & SARC. Actually, as I said, no method other than
>
>I skipped over WDSC and apologies for that.
>
> >Approval meets FBC or SARC. Condorcet meets some valuable
> >criteria that Approval doesn't meet, but other rank methods
> >fail those too.
>
>FBC is contrived valueless overly weak rule.

Because Borda & the Alternative Vote don't meet it?
It's hardly a "weak" criterion, since there's only one method
that can meet it. Perhaps to you it's ok if voters have a strategic
need to vote a lower choice over their favorite, but few would
agree with you.



>
>This is SARC.
>
>:Strong Adverse Results Criterion (SARC):
>:
>:If a group of voters share the same preferences, and if they
>:all vote the same way, in a way that could, with some configuration
>:of the other people's votes, produce an outcome better than any
>:outcome that they could get in any other way, then the fact that
>:they showed up & voted in that way should never cause their
>:favorite to lose, or cause their last choice to win, if that
>:wouldn't have happened had they not showed up & voted.
>:
>
>Should "favorite" be pluralised?. If singular is correct then the
>  Approval Vote fails SARC.

Wrong again. The fact that you can vote for more than 1 candidate
in Approval doesn't mean that you have more than 1 favorite.

If you think Approval fails SARC, then you neglected to give an
example where you think that happens.

>
>The words "their last choice" refers to something that in general
>  does not exist and it is a constraint imposed too late saying that
>  if there are N candidates then the number of Approval-sub-votes must
>  equal N-1.

Come again? A voter's last choice generally doesn't exist?
Often someone has a last choice, and when he does, his participation
in an election by Alternative Vote will often cause the election
of that last choice. And that's true even if he votes sincerely.

>Also the words "some configuration" appear late enough to prompt doubt
>  that the paragraph translates readily into an existential logic

I don't know what kind of logic you're using. How does the
late appearance of "some configuration" prompt doubt about what
"some configuration" means?

>  formula. "Some configuration" in the paragraph really means "for all
>  configurations".

If I meant "for all configurations", then I would have said that.
I said "some configuration" because I meant "some configuration".

***

If anyone else is following this thread, will you let us know,
and maybe comment on whether you want it posted to the list?

***

>
>"Outcome better than" is largely undefined. It is anybody's guess
>  whether winners set W1 is better than winners set W2 when
>  #(P.W1) > #(P.W2), where C is the candidates receiving sub-votes
>  (and "." is set intersetion and "#" is the 'cardinal number of').
>  That failure to define does not occur when only 1 winner is elected.
>  Is  more that 1 winner specifically ruled out?.

No. And though I don't know what that paragraph means, "outcome
better than" was intended to mean "outcome that that group of
voters like better than". I was trying to shorten the wording
because it's a long paragraph.

You don't say what you mean by "P". That leaves your paragraph
without meaning. Also, the criterion says nothing about sub-votes,
whatever they are.

>
>If you were to say that SARC applies when there is just one winner,
>  then isn't this SARC a definition that applies to any preferential
>  voting method. It is good to see that the Approval Voting method has
>  rules that draw it into comparative competitve assessments.

SARC doesn't say anything about how many winners there are.
Ties are unusual in public elections, but the criterion doesn't
assume that there aren't any.

And yes, SARC applies to all methods. It's just that all but
one fail it.

Quite right. There are concrete ways to compare Approval with
other methods, including rank methods, and most rank methods
come out on the wrong end of that comparison.



>
> >> >> >Favorite-Betrayal Criterion (FBC):
> >> >> >
> >> >> >By voting a less-liked candidate over his favorite, a voter should
> >> >> >never gain an outcome that he likes better than any outcome that
> >> >> >he could get without voting a less-liked candidate over his
> >> >> >favorite.
> >>...
>:> >The words "over his favorite" doesn't mean that the Approval sub-votes

The words "over his favorite" say nothing about Approval sub-votes,
what ever they might be.

It's surely obvious that if you vote for Gore, but not for
Bush, that's how you vote Gore over Bush in a nonranked method.

> >>
> >> >remains constant. It changes during the voting, as more people
> >> >arrive at the polls. However, after the polling is over, then
> >> >the number of votes does remain constant, as it would with any
> >> >method. I'm not sure why you say that that makes the criterion
> >> >less valuable.
> >>
> >>This is a rule that people will not consider to be important.
> >>It says that adding a later preference shall not advantage a candidate
> >>  of an earlier preference. This is a rule that I would not bother
> >>  to impose upon a method. Is seems to be a cntrived rule that came
> >>  into existence to full up a nearly empty set of good qualities that
> >>  the Approval Vote has.
> >
> >Are you saying that it's good for a voter to have strategic
> >need to vote a lower choice over his favorite?
> >
> >If you believe that, then we've found the source of our
> >disagreement.
> >
>
>The FBC is very badly defined. What are the constraints on the number of
>  winners and the number of sub-votes?. What is a favorite?. How is
>  liking defined?. Why not just write this weak rule in a mathematical
>  formulation, using existential logic?.

Did I say there were constraints on the number of winners?
I still have no idea what a sub-vote is. For the definition
of a favorite, and the verb "like", I refer you to any dictionary.

But I'll save you the trouble of looking up "favorite": One's
favorite candidate is the candidate whom one likes more than
any other candidate. You say that there might be 2 that you
like equally. Fine, but there might also be just one that you
like better than all the others. That isn't unlikely, and
the fact that your methods can violate the terms of the criteriion
under those conditions means that your method fails the criterion.

Look, Craig, you're new to this subject. That's ok; I'm sure that
we all agree that people new to the subject should participate
by asking questions and also by stating their opinions. But
I suggest being a little more modest. Don't seek to refute us
by using terms whose meanings you don't know. Try harder to be
sure that your arguments will hold up.

What it means to say that a method passes or fails a criterion
may not be obvious, so let me clarify that, if under any
conditions permitted by the criterion's premise, there can be
even one example where the method being tested violates the
terms of the criterion's conclusion, then the method fails the
criterion.

You're finding out about this subject, but why not do so in
a more modest way. Don't arrive as a newcomer sure that you've
refuted us. Or if you think you have, say so politely, because
you could be wrong.

>
>In the meantime let's assume the Approval Vote has very few good 
> >properties.

No, let's not assume that :-) We don't assume something just
because you do. You've got to show us why. I realize that you've
said what you have to say about that. You haven't convinced me,
and probably haven't convinced anyone else who likes Approval.
I haven't convinced you either, and maybe, if we've all said
what we have to say, it's time to agree to disagree.

>...
> >But at least FPTP doesn't force you to give some points to all
> >but one of the candidates.
> >
>
>That is not such a good point actually, at least when truncated preferences
>  are allowed in the Borda method. Bart says that can be done, with a 3
>  candidate vote for (A..) having the weights (wrt. (A,B,C)): (1.5, 0, 0):

When giving zero to someone whom you don't rank requires you to
give less to the candidate(s) you do rank, that has the same
effect as being required to give point value to unranked candidates.

>
>
>At 17:46 03.03.00 , Bart Ingles wrote:
>...
> >The titles of the latter two apparently point out Saari's objection to
> >allowing voters to truncate ballots.  The version of Borda he favors
> >actually penalizes truncators more than the "standard" version.  To wit:
> >
> >Sincere Borda points with three candidates, for a single voter with
> >preferences ABC:
> >A = 2, B = 1, C = 0
> >
> >Points for same candidate who truncates (standard Borda):
> >A = 2, B = 0.5, C = 0.5  (or A=1.5, B = 0, C = 0)
> >
> >Points for truncator in Saari's version:
> >A = 1, B = 0, C = 0
> >
> >(I got this directly from Prof. Saari, in response to a question)
> >
> >-------------------------------------------------
>
>

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