[EM] Don't be so quick in handing out those Nobel prizes:

[Advance Copy]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 03/10/01
Forest Simmons,
     Don't be so quick in handing out those Nobel prizes, not yet.
     Mike Ossipoff has proposed something clever allright - a clever scheme
to allow a minority party candidate to win over a majority party candidate.
This is Mike's ongoing agenda.  You should take that into consideration
whenever you read any of his tripe.

     Consider an example: 60 A,  30 B,  10 C
     Now it would appear that the 60 A faction is a shoo-in to win this
election, but it will depend on one of four methods winning the methods
election, Plurality, Irving, Condorcet, or Bucklin.
     If the 60 A faction is careless and votes at random, each of these
four methods will only receive about fifteen votes.
     The 30 B faction needs Borda in order to have a chance of winning,
Approval would be better.  So, Borda gets thirty votes and is the winning
method because this is a `Plurality' election of the methods.
     Now, if enough of the 60 A faction carelessly made a choice for
candidate B, then candidate B is the winner, this is possible.

     How long is it going to take for you to see thru Mike. He's feeding
you Dingle Berry Pie and you are lapping it up.

     In order for the 60 A faction to protect itself under Mike's scheme,
it will need to always be on its toes by making sure that every one of
their supporters vote for the same method, Plurality, and bullet votes
their candidate A.  And, this will be necessary for every election.
     But, voters should be free to just vote their favorites without being
concerned about the schemes of Mike and others like him, are you like him?

     You call it ingenuity, I call it deception, not worthy of even a
consolation prize, let alone the Nobel prize.
     Think before you speak, is a good rule to follow, if you are going to
be reading Mike's material.

Donald Davison

  ------------ Original Letter -------------
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 14:34:17 -0800 (PST)
From: Forest Simmons <fsimmons at pcc.edu>
To: election-methods-list at eskimo.com
Subject: [EM] Voter's Choice

In his masterful article at

http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/vote/noagree.html

Mike Ossipoff proposes a clever meta-method called "voter's choice" to use
when there is no agreement among knowledgeable voters on which method to
use. I think Nobel Prizes have been given for less ingenuity.

Each voter votes his preferences among the candidates with the
understanding that his preferences will be used (along with everyone
else's) in all of the common methods (based on preference lists) to
determine winners for all of the methods. (There will be a Borda winner,
an IRV winner, a plurality winner, as well as winners for various versions
of Condorcet, etc.) The voter also indicates on his ballot which one of
those (as yet undetermined) winners he would like his final (plurality)
vote to go for. For example if he wants his final vote to go for the Borda
Count winner, and candidate A ends up winning the Borda Count, then his
final vote will go to candidate A. The candidate with the greatest number
of votes in this final plurality contest (not necessarily the plurality
winner in the list of method winners) is the grand winner.

This idea is very appealing to me, so I think it is worth extending to
include methods like CR and Approval (and now dyadic approval) that are
not based on (simple) preference lists. These other methods would be
accommodated if the voters were asked to rate each candidate on a scale of
zero to 100. And the preferences could be deduced from the order except
when two candidates received exactly the same rating.  In that case,
order could be imposed at random for the purposes of those methods that
require a complete preference list; after all that's what the voter would
have to do if he were required to show preferences where there was none.

It's amusing to ponder whether any further advantage could be eked out by
allowing voters to rate each of the methods (as well as the candidates).

Well, don't let it give you a headache.

Forest