[EM] 1-person-1-vote has been abandoned?

Dave Ketchum davek at clarityconnect.com
Thu Dec 12 20:57:22 PST 2002


What I see here:
      NO complaint as to my interpretation of what 1P1V should be about.
      Added thought as to how this interacts with some methods.

A thought to aim the emphasis a bit:
      I called IRV possibly open to debate for the possibility of 
strategic voting.  I see the average voter as hearing of this as too 
complex and take advantage of personally, but possible to suspect that an 
enemy may understand it well enough to thus change the odds.
      For Condorcet voting - I hear nothing about strategy, and therefore 
no complexity to be concerned about.
      For Condorcet completion methods - we are only into resolving near 
ties.  Certainly there should have been debate among those who are into 
such things before choosing one, but the average voter is only into the 
results being believable, without necessarily understanding the exact method.

On Thu, 12 Dec 2002 15:16:46 -0800 (PST) Alex Small wrote:

> Dave Ketchum said:
> 
>>One condition I would apply to methods - a method too complex for many
>>voters to understand should properly be rejected for this defect.
>>
>>This rule clearly accepts Plurality, Approval, and Condorcet.
>>
> 
> Um, I wouldn't say that all Condorcet completion methods pass this rule. 
> Cursory reading of some descriptions has left me a little confused.  Sure,
> if I sat down and thought it thru I would understand it.  Still, I suspect
> the public would deem many Condorcet completion methods too complicated to
> bother with (which is not the same as too complicated to understand when
> people have finite time and even more finite interest).
> 

As I say above, some complexity is tolerable here - still, it KISS makes 
sense.

> 
>>IRV might be open to debate for the possibility of strategic voting - and
>>that perhaps being considered to be too hard to understand.
>>
> 
> The basic mechanics of IRV are quite easy to understand.  The strategic
> issues can certainly require a little more attention to understand.
> 
> However, the endless debates on this list over some aspects of Condorcet
> completion methods suggest to me that the public will deem some of those
> issues too complicated to bother with.
> 
> Finally, as I've said before, until Condorcet advocates reach a consensus
> over the proper method of resolving cycles, Condorcet doesn't stand a
> chance in any sort of public debate.  The various rated methods (Approval,
> CR, Majority Choice Approval, and Proxy Approval) stand a much better
> chance because of their simplicity and relative lack of paradoxes.
> 

Agreed there is a Condorcet cycles problem.  There were some words on EM 
recently - seemed incomplete but I did not have time then to ask the next 
questions.

> 
> Alex

-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    http://www.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
   Dave Ketchum    108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708    607-687-5026
              Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
                    If you want peace, work for justice.

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