[EM] Quick elimination of useless rules: my Meta-rules

[David Catchpole]

Problem is though that the US Presidential election system distorts the
vote by its "winner takes all" selection of delegates from each
State. Meaning, say, a huge number of voters in a huge State like
California have their vote float away into insignificance 'cause they
didn't support the plurality winner in that State.

On Tue, 3 Oct 2000, Craig Carey wrote:

> 
> What are the seeming comments against the Electoral College for?.
> It provides proportionality by providing a weighted summing of the
> votes. A page here shows the weights. The pages allows a conclusion
> that Demorep's wee comments adverse to the Electoral College would
> be opposed California and Texas and other states.
> 
> The list probab
> 
> 
> 
> At 01:52 02.10.00 -0400 Monday, DEMOREP1 at aol.com wrote:
>  >CVD is more than a little unhappy with Plurality (FPP) (i.e. minority rule
>  >for single winner offices).
>  >
>  >U.S.A. voters are rather simple minded regarding math due to the massively
>  >rotten public schools.
>  >
>  >Thus, Condorcet (head to head) math is somewhat difficult for lots of
>  >ex-public school folks (notwithstanding the listings of various head to head
>  >matches of sports teams).
>  >
>  >40 of the 50 U.S. States use plurality in primary elections. 10 have top 2
>  >runoff primary elections (to get some attempt at majority rule at least in
>  >primary nominees).  Many local governments have nonpartisan top 2N primary
>  >elections (N to be elected).
>  >
>  >Few, if any, governments in the U.S. have runoff general elections if no
>  >candidate gets a majority (happening more often with more minor parties in
>  >more local elections).
>  >
>  >The above is why I suggest a simple YES/NO vote for single winner offices
>  >(i.e. a variant of simple Approval) as the first (and only) step (until 
> there
>  >is widespread usage of Number Voting (1, 2, etc.) for proportional
>  >representation elections) (to produce my suggested YES/NO, Number voting for
>  >head to head, and summing of place votes if there is no head to head winner).
>  >
>  >The very dangerous and evil machinations of the 12th Amendment of the U.S.
>  >Constitution on 7 Nov 2000 may easily produce a U.S. President who gets
>  >elected in the infamous so-called *Electoral College* (538 partisan robot
>  >Electors, 270 majority) with a minority of the popular votes (by the real
>  >voters) AND gets less popular votes than the other major party candidate.
>  >
>  >The resulting uproar may produce some immediate and very serious movement 
> for
>  >election method reforms for such office (and thus other offices such as 
> state
>  >governor, city mayors, etc.)-- i.e. the EM list should try and get its act
>  >together as an semi-emergency matter.
> 
> -----------
> 
> The list ought set for itself an aim that no new rule is added without it
> threatening another rule. Here is Mr Schulze: is he adding one rule or two,
> in this next comment?:
> 
> 
> At 02:35 02.10.00 +0200 Monday, Markus Schulze wrote:
> ...
>  >I consider the independence from clones criterion to be more
>  >important than the participation criterion. Therefore I prefer
>  >IRV to FPP.
>  >
>  >Markus Schulze
> 
> Which rules are displaced?. It seems to not interest Mr Schulze.
> I fancy it doesn't interest me. The smorgasboard of EM rule theory: tried
> and proven to produce no results over 3 years. How long has it actually
> been Markus?.
> 
> There is probability near 1 that these simple questions over incompatibility
> can be answered using 3 or 4 papers in a 3 candidate election examples. The
> 'clones criteria' is rather difficult to understand. Mr Schulze should have
> a mathematical formula (in my opinion) and not try to use English to
> explain it. I had trouble with the explanation. Do try to define it say
> using a formula that has a variable representing the number 7, when it is
> making a Boolean statement about the 7th preference.
> 
> I dispute the "participation criteria" because it is very weak.
> I seem to recall that Mr Schulze never defined it for cases when there is
> more than 1 winner. I'd reject Markus Schulze's participation axiom with
> unaltering finality on these two grounds:
> (1) It is not defined for all numbers of candidates, nc=1,2,3,4,...,
>      and numbers of winners, nw, where 0<=nw<=nc.
> (2) It is too weak compared to P1. I suppose that P1 implies it. It has
>      every appearance of being a useless idea [permitted paths have to lines
>      through vertices.
> 
> Since there is such a bad tendency of writers to become secretive when
> their own very bad ideas are questioned, maybe the list [for the moments
> while I am still subscribed] could test all the rules against these
> next meta-rules. The leave carnage of the list's rules ideas, and in
> my opinion, they don't seem to get rid of a single rule that should be
> retained
> 
> The Carey Meta-rules:
> 
> (I) The relative power of the rule does not decline too rapidly as the
>      numbers of winners approaches being infinite. If there is  a violation
>      of this, then the number of candidates when the rule has 1/100-th of
>      the influence a good rule would have, can be calculated. We can
>      devise definitions that return the sequence that has element NC[k]
>      equal to the number of candidates when the rule has a constraining
>      power equal to ((1/1000)**k)*(a power it ought have).
> 
> (2) The rule is well defined for all numbers of candidates nc, and all
>      numbers of winners, where nc,nw=0,1,2,3,4,..., 0<=nw<=nc.
> 
> (3) Rules that seem to do something in a simplex of possible elections
>      should be of the fullest power. For example, if they prohibit 10
>      different papers alterations, then the rule must be investigated to
>      see why it can't restrict all linear combinations (with non-negative
>      weights) of those 10 types of alterations of papers. Another example
>      is making a statement about one paper being rewritten as another,
>      when the rule can be fixed into a statement that is of the form of
>      constraining alterations of the full set of winners [not 1 winner
>      since 2 meta-rules that out] into ANY other paper. Monotonicity can
>      be strengthened into P1 [if truncation resistance is held, and
>      meta-rule 3 therefore rules out use of monotonicity when truncation
>      resistance is held.
> 
> (4) Rules must be defined and they must be of use mathematically.
>      This seems a little suspect. I intend to rule out rules that alter
>      one paper into two. While such a rule can be written down, i.e.
>      defined, it is not a rule that would be used. When Mike Ossipoff
>      explains rules to the list and explains corollaries (if ever) then
>      that is "not a use of the rule". Most of the time Mike Ossipoff is
>      using a copy and that and the original are not free of the use of
>      undefined variables. A rule that is in the axioms and that is not
>      ever used in the derivations can't be doing much more than
>      threatening the consistency of the axioms.
> 
> 
> -------------
> 
> Regarding meta-rule (2) I comment:  There are documents
>      around penned by Mr Rob Lanphier (one a www.dmoz.org?) saying
>      that this list discussed 1-winner elections. It is discouraged by old
>      documents, to discuss modern voting theory at the Election Methods
>      list. The EM list is founded upon a 1-winner vision that should make
>      it useless to all that is alive or dead. In an anology with free
>      societies, there are not hidden beliefs that the number of winners
>      is equal to 1. Rob Lanphier probably should make a public statement.
>      His original intent might have been to keep the list limited to
>      discussing the idealism reducing Condorcet method, but the same rule
>      is now ruling against discussions of the hardly more useful repaired
>      Condorcet variants. I know what the subscribers want to tell me:
>      these rules are just there for the tiny minority of mathematically
>      minded morons and the real experts in voting theory can have upto
>      6-10 different definitions of the same rules and shift and slur
>      between them without noting or understanding that. It is adverse to
>      progress.
> 
> Mr Commissar Spitzin Terrog, Mr Blinker Kretney and Bart Approval
> Lossy Junior. (unsubscribed), and Mr Marijuana Bristle Floating Pea, and
> Mr Renewed Moderator of the Reformed Single Holy Cross (fell from the
> Internet), and the CVD Retardation and Mathematics Secretions Protection
> Council (a reformed Board) and Bathyclese -- they all could have some of
> these rules ruled out. By the time you read down to here, some of them
> have already rejected all of the meta rules. My P1 is perhaps one of
> the most significant discoveries in preferential voting theory in recent
> time and so far none of these messages posters have warmed to the task
> of thinking about it sufficiently to reject it or say it is...a bad
> rule. Let's see what Demorep makes of Meta-rules.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

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"I only said we'd make it across"
				-"Road Trip"