[EM] From an UnHoly Crusade to Carry Over Voting:

[I Like Irving]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 02/11/01
Hi Mike, on Tuesday, the 6th of February, you wrote:

>Yes, Don, it would be funny if it weren't so regrettable for electoral
>reform.
>
>By the way, what inspired this letter? I haven't written about IRVies
>in the last few days.

Don: You did mention the Irvies about eight days ago. Then I was running
behind in answering my emal. I felt we should drop you a note for an update
on your unholy crusade. We is me and Voltaire's cat who says: (Hello and Ha
Ha to you).
     Speaking of crusades, did you know that one of the Crusades to the
holy land, started by a priest, was taken over by rabble that elected a
goat to head the Crusade. The record does not tell us which election method
was used.
     When the time comes for you to elect a goat to head your crusade,
which election method will you be using?  The record does tell us that the
goat was soon eaten, so you don't want to run for the position of goat,
stick to being the High Priest of your crusade, you'll live longer.

>If you're implying that all the busy little marching IRVies are too
>numerous to successfully oppose, then maybe you're right. But in no
>way does that mean that we shouldn't keep telling people about IRV's
>faults, about its complete inadequacy as a "reform".
>
>That's because the more we register these facts in the public record,
>(and the fact that we've made this information amply available to the
>IRVies), then, later, when IRV fails in use, or when people generally
>find out about how good it really isn't, the more difficult it will
>be for the IRVies to explain why they pushed it on the public so
>aggressively, and why they didn't share with the public any of the
>information about IRV's serious problems. They won't be able to say
>that they didn't know.

Don: Oh Boy, somebody's really going to get it now. (Voltaire's cat:
Assuming Mike is correct, which is a stretch)

>Now, Don, can I entertain you with an amusing IRV story?

Don: Yes, by all means. (Voltaire's cat: I love amusing stories)

>Candidate Sleazeworth is going to lose the Presidential election, but
>then the media publish some newly-discovered information about
>Sleazeworth's contributors, and the relationship between his contributions
>and his policies and broken promises. As a result,
>a number of Sleazeworth's supporters who were going to rank him 1st
>in the IRV election, are so disgusted and angry that they decide to
>instead rank Sleazeworth last.
>
>But because they do that, now Sleazeworth wins, though he'd have lost
>if those people had left him in 1st place.

Don: When does this story become amusing?  (when the goat comes back to life)

>Someone could say that IRV didn't respond very well to what those
>people wanted to do. Some people would question the value of any
>device or system that does the opposite of what its users are trying
>to make it do.

Don: That's awful!  (if true)

>That problem is known as "nonmonotonicity". If you prefer, we can
>just call it "opposite response".

Don: I have no preference, whatever is good for you. (I vote gobbledegook)

>And it will happen, though it won't happen every time. That result
>is nonsense. Any voting system that would do that is nonsense. IRV
>is nonsense.

Don: Is three nonsenses the same as one amusing story?  (was that his punch
line?)
     Yes, was that the punch line of your story? (if so, it's anticlimactic)
     Sorry mike, but the punch line went over my head.  (and then dropped
like a dead goat)

>But IRV has other problems that will happen even more often. IRVies
>like to boast that IRV lets you vote all of your preferences, but they
>forget that it doesn't necessarily count them. When your traveling
>vote hasn't yet reached a compromise candidate whom you need, then
>he can get eliminated because you didn't insincerely vote him in 1st
>place.

Don: Now, you're being amusing. (in a dark sort of way)

>In IRV, you have one vote that can only be on one candidate at a time.

Don: Yes Mike, that is so, that is the policy of an election, one
     person - one vote. (And, that's the way it should be)

>How likely is it that it will be where you need it, at the
>right time? Don't count on it. Sometimes your last choice will win
>because you didn't insincerely rank some lesser-evil in 1st place.

Don: One of your choices won, that's good, right?
     (Wrong!  He wants all his choices to win)
     Mike, you must accept the fact that most candidates will lose.

>The IRVies, so enthusiastic about being able to vote all of their
>preferences, similar to someone sitting in the driver's seat
>of a car that's up on blocks, having fun turning the steering wheel
>back and forth.

Don: So, that is what you consider to be fun. Tell me, do you still
     have that Model A Ford up on blocks in your front yard?  (Not
     just any Model A, but a Model A with a Rumble Seat, that's class).

>At least Approval actually reliably counts every preference that you vote.

Don: This is the weakness of Approval Voting, this weakness will
     allow your lower choices to help defeat your first choice.
     The best method is the method that uses the least number of
     lower choices. Irving uses the least number of lower choices
     to arive at a winner.

>Sure, you can't vote all of your preferences, but at least Approval
>counts every preference that you consider important enough to be one
>of those that you express (at the expense of some other preference(s)).

Don: Oh yes, it counts them allright, but it gives your last choice
     the same value at the same time as your first choice. This may
     be acceptable to someone who is not informed enough to select one
     most preferred candidate, but most people want to pick one
     candidate over all the others.
     (If he can't pick one candidate, he should forget about voting
     and let the informed voters decide the election)

>I like to be the one to decide which of my pairwise preferences will
>be counted. IRVies apparently prefer that to be idiosyncratically
>decided by IRV.

Don: If so, then you should pick Irving as your method of choice,
     because with it you can decide which preference you want to
     be your first and most preferred choice. (He will not be able
     to do that with Approval Voting).

>Of course Condorcet counts all the preferences that you vote.
>
>Mike Ossipoff

Don: And like Approval Voting, that is the weakness of Condorcet too,
     it also uses your lower choices to help defeat your first choice.
     You should learn to have a first choice that you care about.
     You should learn to love Irving and be happy.
     (Voltaire's cat: A happy Mike the Terrible, now there's an
     oxymoron if I ever seen one.)

Don: Enough small talk fun, I now come to the real reason for this post to
you, Mike. I have another suggested single seat election method I want to
tell you about. I call it Carry Over Voting. It is sort of a proportional
method for a single winner. It gets its proportionality by carrying over
unused votes to the next election.
     The lead candidate is the winner.  A quota equal to fifty percent of
the total votes are subtracted from the votes of the elected candidate,
with the plus or minus surplus being carried over to the next election. All
the votes of the losing candidates are also carried over to the next
election. The number of times each sum of votes are to be carried over to
future elections can be limited to one or two or whatever.
     This method will allow a sizable minority to be able to elect the
executive officer or the district representative now and then.
     The forwarded letter below prompted me to think of this method.

Regards, Donald Davison

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
  ------------ Original Letter ------------
To: instantrunoff <instantrunoff at yahoogroups.com>
From: Marjorie and Jim Mullany <marjames at twrol.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 20:24:08 -0700
Subject: [instantrunoff] minority rule

Hi, All.

    In New Mexico it is against the state constitution to hold runoff
elections for any major elections. I wrote to an acquaintance in the
state legislature who has introduced at least two proposals to amend the
constitution, but they died. She told me that minorities here are
strongly opposed to runoffs of any kind, as they have historically hurt
the minority interest. This kind of stumped me, I don't know how to
argue against this because I don't see the sense in it, beyond a basic
desire to circumvent the will of the majority. Perhaps the winner take
all system is the key to minority rule.
    This is a pretty difficult subject, I apologize if this offends
anyone. Does anyone care to comment on this issue?

    Sincerely, Marj Mullany

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -02/10/01
Dear Marj Mullany,

     Yes, I will comment on this issue. I start with the self-evident math
of a minority faction. Even a sizable minority has less votes than a
majority, which means that it does not have enough votes to win an election
that contains only one or two strong contenders.  But a sizable minority
could win now and then under other conditions:
   1) If the election had three or four sizable factions:
   2) And the minority is one of the sizable factions:
   3) And there is no runoff policy - Plurality (FPTP) must be the method:
     Under these conditions a sizable minority should expect to win now and
then.  Without all these conditions, they have little chance of winning.
     It would be more correct to say that the winner take all system is key
to occasional rule by a sizable minority.

     Here are some examples from real elections in the real world:
     The most famous is the election of Jesse Venture. The election was a
three way contest between three sizable factions. There was no majority
winner and no runoff policy. Jesse Venture was the lead vote gather and the
declared winner.
     Chicago: Three sizable factions, a black male, a white woman, and the
late mayor Daley's son. There was no majority winner and no runoff policy.
The black male was the lead vote gather and the declared winner.
     A southern state: Three sizable factions, one black and two white
males.  Again there was no majority and again the black male was the lead
vote gather, but this time the black male was not declared the winner
because this election has a runoff policy. One of the white candidates won
the runoff. The black candidate went to court claiming that the runoff
policy was racist. He lost his case.

     Everbody would like to see someone like themselves in government, at
least now and then.
     We need to think about this.  Proportional representation will bring
different people into one branch of our government.  An executive officer
can bring different people into government by way of his appointments, but
what about the executive himself?
     Should we have some method that will now and then elect an executive
officer that looks different than the majority?  If so, how do we do this?

     I have a suggested election method. I call it Carry Over Voting. It is
sort of a proportional method for a single winner election. It gets its
proportionality by carrying over unused votes to the next election.
     The lead candidate is the winner. A quota equal to fifty percent of
the total votes are subtracted from the votes of the elected candidate,
with the plus or minus surplus being carried over to the next election. All
the votes of the losing candidates are also carried over to the next
election. The number of times each sum of votes are to be carried over to
future elections can be limited to one or two or whatever.
     This method will allow a sizable minority to be able to elect the
executive officer or the district representative now and then.

Regards, Donald Davison

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 02/14/01
Note: My internet provider has been having trouble with the email service
for the last four days, 02/10 to 02/13, inclusive.
     Just think, four days worth of email lost, gone into one of the black
holes of the internet, and I'm still alive, will wonders ever cease to
exist.
     Anyway, if anyone wrote anything of importance during that time, I did
not see it.

  Regards, Donald Davison - Host of New Democracy,  www.mich.com/~donald

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   |                         Q U O T A T I O N                         |
   |  "Democracy is a beautiful thing,                                 |
   |       except that part about letting just any old yokel vote."    |
   |                            - Age 10                               |
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