[EM] [Junk Election Methods] 05/03/02 - The Lower Choices are Mostly Junk:

[Dave Ketchum]

On Fri, 3 May 2002 06:18:29 -0400 Donald Davison wrote in part:

> 05/03/02 - The Lower Choices are Mostly Junk:
> 
> Layton: "However, in single winner elections how-to-vote cards are very
> important and followed by a large number of voters, which pretty much
> amounts to the same thing.  I'm not aware of any studies or concrete
> figures on exactly how many voters follow the cards, but anecdotal evidence
> suggests any close three way contests are more often than not decided on
> the preferences on the cards (ie, in a close-ish race between A, B & C, if
> A and B both "endorse" C to recieve their 2nd preferences, then C is likely
> to win whether he is the sincere IRV winner or not)."
> 
> Donald:  There is a message in what Layton has told us.  That message is
> that lower choices are not to be trusted.  This message should be recorded
> in the minds of those of you that are anti-IRV, for it is you people who
> say that `IRV does not use all the information'.  The information you are
> referring to is the lower choices, but those lower choices are suspect even
> in an IRVing election, and yet you insist on using more of them in your
> junk methods.


Seems to me that Donald was looking thru haze and saw a mirage that was 
not there.

As to "sincere" voters, we properly work toward all voters qualifying, but 
we have to count whatever they vote.

Mostly lower choices ARE junk, and not to be trusted.  This is an argument 
for NOT demanding that ranked ballot voters rank more candidates than they 
choose.

IRV AND Condorcet will usually decide elections based on the top few 
preferences from each voter:
      IRV, looking one rank at a time, will normally not even see the bottom.
      Condorcet, while looking at the whole ballot, sees little positive 
in the bottom ranks and therefore they matter little.  The anti-IRV 
argument comes from IRV sometimes not even seeing the second rank, when 
this is masked by a moderately popular candidate getting many first place 
votes, but not enough to deserve winning.
      A spoiler voter could fill the top ranks with spoiler votes and only 
list the significant contenders at the bottom:
           IRV will discard the spoilers, and still see that preference.
           Condorcet will still recognize the spoilers as losers, due to 
other voters, and see the preference between the significant contenders.

Dave Ketchum

> 
> You go around with your head in the air, pretending that there's some high
> intelligence in the lower choices, if only we would use the proper method
> to revel this wisdom - bullshit.
> 
> There is no more higher intelligence in the lower choices than someone
> reading a `How to Vote' card.  You don't need to be informed about the
> candidates in order to do that.  Have you people not heard the term
> `Garbage In - Garbage Out'.  The more garbage that is included in your
> favorite election method, the more garbage will be the results.  Condorcet
> will use three times as many of the lower choices than IRVing will use, so
> therefore the Condorcet result is three times more likely to be garbage.
> Approval will use six, and counting, times more of the lower choices, which
> means we can be sure the Approval results will be garbage results.
> 
> Regards,
>    Donald Davison, host of New Democracy at http://www.mich.com/~donald

-- 
  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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