From barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu  Mon Dec  1 16:15:30 2003
From: barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu (Steve Barney)
Date: Mon Dec  1 16:15:30 2003
Subject: [EM] "Consequences of Reversing Preferences"
Message-ID: <3FC91D60@webmail.uwosh.edu>

EM-List:

The following article grew out of a discussion of the "Reversal Symmetry 
Criterion," which I engaged in on this list 2 years ago 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/8272>.


Cheers!,
Steve Barney
Oshkosh, WI

PS: Note the 2nd author (me!).

  _____

Record: 1

Title: 	Consequences of Reversing Preferences.	
Author(s): 	Saari, Donald G. 1 dsarri at math.uci.edu

Barney, Steven 2 barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu 
Source: 	Mathematical Intelligencer; Fall2003, Vol. 25 Issue 4,
p17, 15p	
Document Type: 	Article	
Subject(s): 	RIKER, William

MATHEMATICAL analysis

MATHEMATICS

POLITICAL science

ELECTIONS 
Abstract: 	Reports on mathematical problems faced while declaring
the outcomes of an election. Impact of reversing the election ranking of
candidates on the outcome of an election; Positional methods used by
mathematician William Riker to address problems related to political
science; Mathematical ways to find out the reversed profile of a
candidate.	
Author Affiliation: 	1Department of Mathematics, University of
California Irvine, Irvine CA 92697-3875 USA.

2Department of Mathematics, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI
54901-863, USA.
ISSN: 	03436993	
Accession Number: 	11050766
 	
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Cut and Paste: <A
href="http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=11050766&db=afh">Consequence
s of Reversing Preferences.</A>
 	
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From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Mon Dec  1 17:42:28 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Mon Dec  1 17:42:28 2003
Subject: [EM] Weak FBC  and  equal-ranking-allowed  IRV
Message-ID: <3FCC02C9.1080903@bigpond.com>

  Dave,
A while back you were having a discussion with  Kevin Venzke (and 
 Donald) about how, if allowed,
equal-ranking  in IRV should be handled. Your most recent contribution:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-October/011085.html
On Mon.Oct.20, 2003  I  posted something pointing out that  whole-votes 
 equal-ranking-allowed IRV
doesn't really comply with weak FBC, but I finished with the sentence:

"I agree that the whole votes version is better because it does greatly
ameliorate the "favourite betrayal" problem."

I have changed my mind, and now agree with you that the split-votes version
is better. I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting
AB and the other half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting
A=B, and also that it is unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates
A and B by all voting either AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared
to a faction who support candidates C and D by all voting C=D.
Off-list, someone told me:
"Incidentally, Woodall calls "Symmetric-Completion" the ability to treat equal
equal rankings (or at least truncation) as equivalent to an equal mixture of every
possible strict ordering.  He speaks of methods passing or failing this standard..."
I like it.
 Whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed IRV is far too Approval-like,and I suggest that
it be called "Preferential Approval". It is not even clear to me that there is a 
better strategy in it than just giving out first preferences to all the candidates
you would approve under Approval.
Inspired by Kevin Venzke's high-resolution ratings ballot "Gradual Information Approval"
idea, I posted plain ranked-ballot "Gradual Information Runoff":
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-September/011003.html
In it I mentioned "equal preferences ok" and "no split votes". I have changed my mind 
about that and now think that if equal preferences (besides truncation) is allowed then
the vote should be split, so that each voter contributes no more than one vote in total
to candidates not marked "not viable". I could live with equal prefernces (except for
truncation) simply not being allowed. Compared to IRV, GIR trades in a little bit of
later-no-harm for a little bit of Condorcet compliance. With 3 candidates, it is 
equivalent to IRV.
I found this in the archives:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/1998-October/002214.html
In it is erroneously claimed that the split-votes version of equal-ranking IRV 
(and also,in effect, the normal equal-ranking not allowed version) fails "GITC"
(Generalised Independence from Twins Criterion), and has a "rich party" problem.
Elsewhere this fellow says that a "twin" is the same thing as a "clone", and gives 
this definition:
"clones 

A set of alternatives, X[1], X[2], .. X[m] is a clone set provided that for


every alternative Z, where Z is not one of X[1], .. X[m], the following is
true: 

Every ballot that ranks Z higher than one of X[1] .. X[m] ranks Z higher than
all of them.  Every ballot that ranks Z lower than one of them, ranks Z lower
than all of them.  No ballot ranks Z equal to any of them. 

As well, there must be at least one alternative outside the set of clones,
and at least two alternatives in the set of clones."

So therefore GTIC must be the same as Clone Independence, or as he puts it, this:

"Name:  Independence of Clones Criterion: ICC 

  Definition:  

  If there are alternatives X1, X2 ... Xn that are a 
 clone set <http://condorcet.org/emr/defn.shtml#clones>, and if one of these clones is 
 eliminated <http://condorcet.org/emr/defn.shtml#eliminate> from every ballot, then, if the winner for the old ballots 
was in the clone set, the winner for the new ballots must also be in the clone
set.  If an alternative outside the clone set won for the old ballots, the
same alternative must win for the new ballots."

Part of his post goes:
"2.  Give each of the alternatives an equal fraction of the vote.
So, for example, once A=B=C reaches the top of the ballot (through
elimination), each of A, B, and C will get 1/3 of a vote.  Once one
of them is eliminated, the each get 1/2.  And finally when two are
eliminated, 1.

This doesn't appear to have the problem I mentioned above, but it does
fail GITC.
Candidates are A and B, which are not twins, X and Y, which are. 

42 A B X Y
30 B X Y A
27 X=Y=B A
32 X Y B A
31 Y X B A"

X wins, but if Y is not there B wins. And so he concludes:
"So, having a twin caused X to win.  This is called the rich party problem 
because it means that parties that can afford to run more candidates will 
have an unfair advantage."

The big flaw in this argument is that the clone set is BXY.

 He continues:
"3. Just don't allow equal rankings, except by leaving candidates unranked.
This is the most obvious solution.  It is possible that the electorate
wouldn't understand, and use, equal rankings anyway.  And it passes
GITC.

Unfortunately, it passes GITC for the same kind of technical reasons
that make plurality pass GITC.  That is, because voters are forced
to distinguish between candidates randomly, even if they have no
preference, they will break up what based on their true preferences,
are twins.  However, the rich party problem remains."

Here I think that he is improperly classifying Plurality as not a ranked-ballot
method.

Chris Benham 










 





From dglaude at gmx.net  Mon Dec  1 19:43:27 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Mon Dec  1 19:43:27 2003
Subject: [EM] NI: making sense of the maths
Message-ID: <3FCBBEBE.6020209@gmx.net>

Please notice that I don't have a clue on the various advanced voting 
methods. ;-)

But I found this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/3243636.stm

As the count is underway BBC Parliament considers the electoral system 
for the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 determined that elections to the 108 
seat assembly should be by the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system.

This form of proportional representation (PR) was deemed most suitable 
for reflecting the voting preferences of diverse constituencies choosing 
from a variety of parties.

David GLAUDE






From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Mon Dec  1 22:52:01 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Mon Dec  1 22:52:01 2003
Subject: [EM] [Fwd: Weak FBC  and  equal-ranking-allowed  IRV]
Message-ID: <3FCCDFDE.3010800@bigpond.com>



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Weak FBC and equal-ranking-allowed IRV
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 13:41:05 +1030
From: Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com>
To: davek at clarityconnect.com, 
election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com



Dave,
A while back you were having a discussion with  Kevin Venzke (and Donald) about how,
if allowed,equal-ranking  in IRV should be handled. Your most recent contribution:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-October/011085.html
On Mon.Oct.20, 2003  I  posted something pointing out that  whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed 
IRV doesn't really comply with weak FBC, but I finished with the sentence:

"I agree that the whole votes version is better because it does greatly
ameliorate the "favourite betrayal" problem."

I have changed my mind, and now agree with you that the split-votes version is better. 
I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting AB and the other 
half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting A=B, and also that it is 
unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates A and B by all voting either 
AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared to a faction who support candidates 
C and D by all voting C=D.
Off-list, someone told me:
"Incidentally, Woodall calls "Symmetric-Completion" the ability to treat equal
equal rankings (or at least truncation) as equivalent to an equal mixture of every
possible strict ordering.  He speaks of methods passing or failing this standard..."
I like it.
 Whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed IRV is far too Approval-like,and I suggest that
it be called "Preferential Approval". It is not even clear to me that there is a 
better strategy in it than just giving out first preferences to all the candidates
you would approve under Approval.
Inspired by Kevin Venzke's high-resolution ratings ballot "Gradual Information Approval"
idea, I posted plain ranked-ballot "Gradual Information Runoff":
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-September/011003.html
In it I mentioned "equal preferences ok" and "no split votes". I have changed my mind 
about that and now think that if equal preferences (besides truncation) is allowed then
the vote should be split, so that each voter contributes no more than one vote in total
to candidates not marked "not viable". I could live with equal prefernces (except for
truncation) simply not being allowed. Compared to IRV, GIR trades in a little bit of
later-no-harm for a little bit of Condorcet compliance. With 3 candidates, it is 
equivalent to IRV.
I found this in the archives:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/1998-October/002214.html
In it is erroneously claimed that the split-votes version of equal-ranking IRV 
(and also,in effect, the normal equal-ranking not allowed version) fails "GITC"
(Generalised Independence from Twins Criterion), and has a "rich party" problem.
Elsewhere this fellow says that a "twin" is the same thing as a "clone", and gives 
this definition:
"clones 

A set of alternatives, X[1], X[2], .. X[m] is a clone set provided that for


every alternative Z, where Z is not one of X[1], .. X[m], the following is
true: 

Every ballot that ranks Z higher than one of X[1] .. X[m] ranks Z higher than
all of them.  Every ballot that ranks Z lower than one of them, ranks Z lower
than all of them.  No ballot ranks Z equal to any of them. 

As well, there must be at least one alternative outside the set of clones,
and at least two alternatives in the set of clones."

So therefore GTIC must be the same as Clone Independence, or as he puts it, this:

"Name:  Independence of Clones Criterion: ICC 

  Definition:  

  If there are alternatives X1, X2 ... Xn that are a 
 clone set , and if one of these clones is 
 eliminated  from every ballot, then, if the winner for the old ballots 
was in the clone set, the winner for the new ballots must also be in the clone
set.  If an alternative outside the clone set won for the old ballots, the
same alternative must win for the new ballots."

Part of his post goes:
"2.  Give each of the alternatives an equal fraction of the vote.
So, for example, once A=B=C reaches the top of the ballot (through
elimination), each of A, B, and C will get 1/3 of a vote.  Once one
of them is eliminated, the each get 1/2.  And finally when two are
eliminated, 1.

This doesn't appear to have the problem I mentioned above, but it does
fail GITC.
Candidates are A and B, which are not twins, X and Y, which are. 

42 A B X Y
30 B X Y A
27 X=Y=B A
32 X Y B A
31 Y X B A"

X wins, but if Y is not there B wins. And so he concludes:
"So, having a twin caused X to win.  This is called the rich party problem 
because it means that parties that can afford to run more candidates will 
have an unfair advantage."

The big flaw in this argument is that the clone set is BXY.

 He continues:
"3. Just don't allow equal rankings, except by leaving candidates unranked.
This is the most obvious solution.  It is possible that the electorate
wouldn't understand, and use, equal rankings anyway.  And it passes
GITC.

Unfortunately, it passes GITC for the same kind of technical reasons
that make plurality pass GITC.  That is, because voters are forced
to distinguish between candidates randomly, even if they have no
preference, they will break up what based on their true preferences,
are twins.  However, the rich party problem remains."

Here I think that he is improperly classifying Plurality as not a ranked-ballot
method.

Chris Benham 










 




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From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Mon Dec  1 23:16:02 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Mon Dec  1 23:16:02 2003
Subject: [EM]  Re: Weak FBC  and  equal-ranking-allowed  IRV
Message-ID: <3FCCE509.2040901@bigpond.com>



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [EM] Weak FBC and equal-ranking-allowed IRV
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2003 05:37:20 +1030
From: Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com>
To: election-methods-electorama.com-request at electorama.com





-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Fwd: Weak FBC and equal-ranking-allowed IRV]
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2003 05:24:22 +1030
From: Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com>
To: election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com





-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Weak FBC and equal-ranking-allowed IRV
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 13:41:05 +1030
From: Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com>
To: davek at clarityconnect.com, 
election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com



Dave,
A while back you were having a discussion with  Kevin Venzke (and Donald) about how,
if allowed,equal-ranking  in IRV should be handled. Your most recent contribution:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-October/011085.html
On Mon.Oct.20, 2003  I  posted something pointing out that  whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed 
IRV doesn't really comply with weak FBC, but I finished with the sentence:

"I agree that the whole votes version is better because it does greatly
ameliorate the "favourite betrayal" problem."

I have changed my mind, and now agree with you that the split-votes version is better. 
I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting AB and the other 
half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting A=B, and also that it is 
unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates A and B by all voting either 
AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared to a faction who support candidates 
C and D by all voting C=D.
Off-list, someone told me:
"Incidentally, Woodall calls "Symmetric-Completion" the ability to treat equal
equal rankings (or at least truncation) as equivalent to an equal mixture of every
possible strict ordering.  He speaks of methods passing or failing this standard..."
I like it.
 Whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed IRV is far too Approval-like,and I suggest that
it be called "Preferential Approval". It is not even clear to me that there is a 
better strategy in it than just giving out first preferences to all the candidates
you would approve under Approval.
Inspired by Kevin Venzke's high-resolution ratings ballot "Gradual Information Approval"
idea, I posted plain ranked-ballot "Gradual Information Runoff":
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-September/011003.html
In it I mentioned "equal preferences ok" and "no split votes". I have changed my mind 
about that and now think that if equal preferences (besides truncation) is allowed then
the vote should be split, so that each voter contributes no more than one vote in total
to candidates not marked "not viable". I could live with equal prefernces (except for
truncation) simply not being allowed. Compared to IRV, GIR trades in a little bit of
later-no-harm for a little bit of Condorcet compliance. With 3 candidates, it is 
equivalent to IRV.
I found this in the archives:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/1998-October/002214.html
In it is erroneously claimed that the split-votes version of equal-ranking IRV 
(and also,in effect, the normal equal-ranking not allowed version) fails "GITC"
(Generalised Independence from Twins Criterion), and has a "rich party" problem.
Elsewhere this fellow says that a "twin" is the same thing as a "clone", and gives 
this definition:
"clones 

A set of alternatives, X[1], X[2], .. X[m] is a clone set provided that for


every alternative Z, where Z is not one of X[1], .. X[m], the following is
true: 

Every ballot that ranks Z higher than one of X[1] .. X[m] ranks Z higher than
all of them.  Every ballot that ranks Z lower than one of them, ranks Z lower
than all of them.  No ballot ranks Z equal to any of them. 

As well, there must be at least one alternative outside the set of clones,
and at least two alternatives in the set of clones."

So therefore GTIC must be the same as Clone Independence, or as he puts it, this:

"Name:  Independence of Clones Criterion: ICC 

  Definition:  

  If there are alternatives X1, X2 ... Xn that are a 
 clone set , and if one of these clones is 
 eliminated  from every ballot, then, if the winner for the old ballots 
was in the clone set, the winner for the new ballots must also be in the clone
set.  If an alternative outside the clone set won for the old ballots, the
same alternative must win for the new ballots."

Part of his post goes:
"2.  Give each of the alternatives an equal fraction of the vote.
So, for example, once A=B=C reaches the top of the ballot (through
elimination), each of A, B, and C will get 1/3 of a vote.  Once one
of them is eliminated, the each get 1/2.  And finally when two are
eliminated, 1.

This doesn't appear to have the problem I mentioned above, but it does
fail GITC.
Candidates are A and B, which are not twins, X and Y, which are. 

42 A B X Y
30 B X Y A
27 X=Y=B A
32 X Y B A
31 Y X B A"

X wins, but if Y is not there B wins. And so he concludes:
"So, having a twin caused X to win.  This is called the rich party problem 
because it means that parties that can afford to run more candidates will 
have an unfair advantage."

The big flaw in this argument is that the clone set is BXY.

 He continues:
"3. Just don't allow equal rankings, except by leaving candidates unranked.
This is the most obvious solution.  It is possible that the electorate
wouldn't understand, and use, equal rankings anyway.  And it passes
GITC.

Unfortunately, it passes GITC for the same kind of technical reasons
that make plurality pass GITC.  That is, because voters are forced
to distinguish between candidates randomly, even if they have no
preference, they will break up what based on their true preferences,
are twins.  However, the rich party problem remains."

Here I think that he is improperly classifying Plurality as not a ranked-ballot
method.

Chris Benham 










 




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From jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk  Tue Dec  2 01:36:01 2003
From: jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk (James Gilmour)
Date: Tue Dec  2 01:36:01 2003
Subject: [EM] NI: making sense of the maths
In-Reply-To: <3FCBBEBE.6020209@gmx.net>
Message-ID: <000a01c3b8b7$9aab9d50$227d063e@u2amd>

You will find full details of STV-PR on the Electoral Reform Society's website at:
 http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/

The arithmetic is not complex, just tedious.
James



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec  2 06:13:05 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec  2 06:13:05 2003
Subject: [EM] "Consequences of Reversing Preferences"
Message-ID: <3FCC9D94.DE2C234@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Steve,

I have just read your paper:
http://hypatia.ss.uci.edu/imbs/tr/Final1.pdf

I am very disappointed that you mention neither
Tideman's ranked pairs method nor my beatpath
method in your paper. The ordinary reader will
get to the conclusion that all election methods
that satisfy reversal symmetry have some serious
drawbacks.

Markus Schulze


From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Tue Dec  2 15:28:02 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Tue Dec  2 15:28:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Another kind of approval equilibrium
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312021407160.6749-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

I have been considering various kinds of approval equilibria which have
the following common features:

(1) The candidates C1, C2, ... are considered to have respective
probabilities, P1, P2, ... of winning.

(2) Voter rankings or ratings are converted to approval ballots based on
these probabilities.

(3) The resulting approval ballots somehow confirm the prior probabilities
P1, P2, ... .

This kind of equilibrium is stable if it can be obtained by a process of
iteration of these three steps, where the "confirmation" in step three
improves despite round-off and other perturbations.

The hardest part is figuring out how to get winning probabilities out of a
set of approval ballots, since most of the time one candidate will have
greater approval than the others, and that would seem to make the
posterior winning probability for that candidate 100%, which turns out to
be problematic for various reasons that I won't bore you with in this
message.

For a while I was considering making winning probabilities proportional to
the tenth power of the candidates' approvals, so that a candidate with any
approval at all would have some positive chance of winning.

After rejecting that, I considered having winning probabilities
proportional to the number of approval votes above some quota, which could
even be tied to the highest approval: any candidate that gets within 10%
of the highest approval candidate gets a positive chance of winning, for
example.

These methods require a final drawing in which the respective candidates'
probabilities of winning are P1, P2, etc.

Until recently I didn't see anyway of avoiding this drawing, since just
picking the candidate with the highest probability would not be a true
equilibrium solution except in the case of P = 100 percent.

Why not just trust the polls?

Well polls don't really tell us winning probabilities; they just give us
approval counts from samples.

Is there any way to determine winning probabilities from mere approval
counts?

Only if there are no significant correlations among candidate preferences.

What if the polls accurately report the correlations as well, "30% of
those who approved A also approved B, etc?"

That would be better, especially if the polled voters are reporting their
approvals after hearing accurate approval results (including correlations)
from previous polls.

In other words, this is the kind of thing that improves with iteration.

So why not just collect the voters' CR ballots, and simulate the
iteration of polls until an equilibrium is reached (if there is one)?

That is roughly my current idea, but (as they say), "The devil is in the
details."

How does this avoid the drawing at the end?

Instead of "enforcing" the probabilities with a drawing, we just interpret
the non-zero probabilities as saying that in statistically similar
populations of voters, these other candidates have significant chances of
winning.


To Be Continued ...

Forest



From matt at tidalwave.net  Wed Dec  3 18:31:05 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Wed Dec  3 18:31:05 2003
Subject: [EM] Verifiable secure voting using dual half pixel receipts
Message-ID: <20031204022944.35CC5394C@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Thu Dec  4 15:32:10 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Thu Dec  4 15:32:10 2003
Subject: [EM] Another kind of approval equilibrium
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312021407160.6749-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312041335490.29534-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

This is a second installment on this topic.

In the first post on this topic, I finished with a claim that there is a
way to get around the final random drawing step (i.e. the "enforcing" of
the equilibrium probabilities) that was a feature of my previous
equilibrium methods.

The key idea that obviates the necessity of that drawing is the use of an
ensemble of statistically close ballot sets to find the probabilities.

Roughly speaking, suppose that E is a large (and randomly chosen)
collection of ballot sets which are close statistically to some ballot set
S of approval ballots, and suppose that candidate X is the approval winner
in 37 percent of the members of E. Then BEFORE tallying up the ballots of
collection S we could argue that X has about a 37 percent chance of being
the approval winner of ballot set S.

Furthermore, if the members of E are so close to S that it would be
difficult to distinguish them by any pre-election poll, then the 37
percent figure would be more reliable than any pre-election poll estimate.

There are many ways to generate a suitable ensemble E from a ballot set S,
but here is a simple method that is probably adequate:

Let N be the number of ballots in the ballot set S.

To get one member of E, randomly draw N ballots from S. Of course this
drawing must be "with replacement" in order to get anything different from
S itself.

To get additional members for E, repeat the procedure (using different
seeds for your random number generator).

At the risk of straining your patience, I wish to point out that if this
simple method of generating E is used, then it isn't really necessary to
generate E after all.  We can consider the ideal case of E consisting of
(one each of) all N^N possible results of such a drawing, and figure the
candidates' winning frequencies analytically from the statistics of the
ballot set S.

If S is a set of approval ballots, then the relevant statistics are the
sample means and covariances of the candidate approvals, a set of
M*(M+1)/2 numbers if there are M candidates.  Furthermore these statistics
are summable over the ballots.

One might object that once we know the approval means for S we know the
winner, so it doesn't make sense to consider the calculated frequencies as
probabilities.

In reply I enjoin you to remember that these statistics are unavailable to
the voters at the time of voting, but if they did have access to these
frequencies through some oracle, their best strategy would be to use them
exactly as they would bonafide probabilities.

Now leaving behind these technical and philosophical details, suppose that
we start with a set of N cardinal ratings (CR) ballots which rate M
candidates.

1. Initialize all winning probabilities P1, P2, ... as 1/M.

While no candidate has 100 percent probability of winning do

2. Use winning probabilities P1, P2, ...  and the "above the mean"
strategy to generate a set S of approval ballots.

3. Use this set S to update winning probabilities P1, P2, ... as per our
discussion above.

Repeat these two steps until the updated probabilities are within some
preset tolerance of the previous estimates.

4. Declare as winner the candidate with the most approval in the ballot
set S, as last updated in step 2 before exiting the loop.


That's my idea in a nutshell. Of course there are many possible
variations, including versions based on ranked ballots.

One variation that doesn't involve iteration would be to use Rob LeGrand's
ballot-by-ballot method one hundred times on the original set of ranked
ballots to get a reasonable estimate of the equilibrium probabilities, and
then use Joe Weinstein's "weighted median" method on ranked ballots for
the final outcome if the same candidate didn't win all one hundred times.


Forest



From robla at robla.net  Fri Dec  5 01:28:02 2003
From: robla at robla.net (Rob Lanphier)
Date: Fri Dec  5 01:28:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Appeal for better weblog polling (Electorama)
Message-ID: <3FCEFDA9.4080609@robla.net>

Hi all,

I'm all giddy because I've received the first external submission to the 
Electorama weblog (http://electorama.com/)

Here's an excerpt:
Crude Polling Hampers Sophisticated Political Discussions 
<http://electorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=54&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0>
wegerje writes: "/Internet based political discussion has become quite 
fashionable these days. The onset of the U.S. political season combined 
with the explosion of weblogs (Blogs) has created vibrant political 
websites. [..] A quick survey of the polls by anyone familiar with 
voting systems will soon reveal a glaring weakness among them, namely 
the acute need for multiple-choice and ranked polls./" Read more for an 
appeal to create better software for weblog polls.

http://electorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=54&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

I'm not sure if the author (Jeff Wegerson) is on this list, but his 
contact info is in the article, and I would presume he'll monitor a 
discussion up on Electorama should one develop.

Rob




From kjinnovation at earthlink.net  Fri Dec  5 02:45:02 2003
From: kjinnovation at earthlink.net (Ken Johnson)
Date: Fri Dec  5 02:45:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #374 - 1 msg
In-Reply-To: <20031204200230.27595.97766.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
References: <20031204200230.27595.97766.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <3FD06162.2090005@earthlink.net>


election-methods-electorama.com-request at electorama.com wrote:

>Message: 1
>From: matt at tidalwave.net
>Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 18:29:44 -0800 (PST)
>To: election-methods at electorama.com
>Subject: [EM] Verifiable secure voting using dual half pixel receipts
>Reply-To: matt at tidalwave.net
>
>Ken Johnson wrote:
>"As I understand it, a ballot receipt contains no information about the 
>voter's identity, which only becomes potentially knowable when the voter 
>presents the receipt for validation/verification. But how would the 
>process verify that only legally registered voters have voted, and that 
>no one voted twice? I don't quite understand the basis of the claim that 
>"...it can lift the requirement that voters must vote from their home 
>precinct ... inter-jurisdiction voting becomes workable ...".
>
>I respond:
>I assume that verifying only registered voters voted and no one voted twice would be done the same way this is currently done and the same ways your proposed method does.  For example, the voting machine would have to be reset by election volunteers after each vote before the next vote can occur.  Voters would have to sign in with an approved ID.  The voter registration data would be cross checked with other data bases. Etc.  Even your suggestion of machine readable stamps placed in  the registration logs immediately after the vote could be implemented to make it easier to verify that the number of votes and ballots match.
>
But are these processes workable without precinct-level voting? I had 
the impression that Chaum was implying this, but maybe his point was 
that the vote counting process (as opposed to voter verification) 
wouldn't be reliant on  precinct-level tallies.

>
>Ken Johnson wrote:
>"I question whether a method with this level of technical sophistication 
>and complexity would be practical or whether voters would trust the 
>"mathematical magic" behind the secure encryption scheme - especially in 
>emerging democracies where most voters may be barely literate, much less 
>computer literate or technologically literate. One particular weakness 
>is the reliance on a small number of "trustees" - holders of the private 
>encryption keys - to ensure voter secrecy. The trustees might have the 
>highest level of professionalism and integrity, but probably not much 
>technical sophistication or understanding of cryptography, so you might 
>find someday that a hacker has gotten hold of the private keys and 
>posted them on the Internet, along with all of the decrypted ballots."
>
>I respond:
>Keeping the secret keys secret is always essential to public/private key encryption.  Like the article says, government and businesses have been relying on this method for years now and so far it has been successful.  As I understand it the number of trustees (and therefore the number of private keys) can be increased or decreased to provide more or less secrecy protection.
>
Good points, but it could be argued that the method has not been very 
successful in societies where corruption is the norm and crooked public 
officials routinely pilfer vast sums of money from government and 
business accounts. The system's integrity ultimatly depends not on the 
encryption algorithm, but on the trustees' personal integrity and their 
susceptibility to being bribed, coerced, or duped into revealing their 
keys.

A more fundamental problem, I think, is one of voter perceptions and 
acceptance. Even if the process is provably secure, voters who don't 
understand the proof probably won't trust the system and won't vote. 
Look at it from the voter's perspective: You're given these two plastic 
sheets stuck together, which clearly show your vote. When you pull them 
apart the information seems to "magically" turn into garble, but you are 
told that (1) the information on your vote is still there on the 
receipt, which can be used to prove that your individual vote is 
correctly included in the final tally, and yet (2) no one can possibly 
find out from your receipt how you voted. Wouldn't the average voter be 
understandably mystified and baffled by this seeming contradiction? One 
thing you don't want an election process to do is mystify and baffle the 
voters.

>
>Ken Johnson wrote:
>"Following is an outline of a comparatively "low-tech" voting process 
>that I think probably accomplishes the same objectives as Chaum's 
>method, while overcoming its weaknesses. (Whether it actually does, I 
>pose as an open question.)"
>
>I respond:
>I disagree. I don't think your method accomplishes the same objectives.  For example, under the half pixel half receipt method it is likely that any attempt to swap a real voted ballot with a fraudulent replacement voted ballot would be detected.  Under your method anyone with access to the voted ballots, the ballot stamp, and the blank ballots could swap real voted ballots with his own fraudulent ballots without any chance of being detected (provided they could swap ballots when no one outside the vote rigging conspiracy who is willing to report the fraud was present as a witness).
>
>Ken then presented the properties and steps for his method of conducting secure elections which I won't repeat here.
>
>
>  
>
In retrospect, I think I agree that we do not accomplish the same 
objectives. The primary objective of Chaum's proposal appears to be to 
enable individual voters to ensure that their ballots are correctly 
included in the final tally, whereas my focus is more on verifying that 
the final tally is correct. For the latter objective, it is not 
sufficient to be able to prove that any particular valid ballot 
corresponds to a correctly-entered database record; you also have to 
determine (at least within reasonable statistical uncertainty) that 
every database record corresponds to a valid ballot, i.e., there is no 
ballot stuffing or "database stuffing".

I think Chaum's method would be no less susceptible to fraud than my 
proposal, at least in terms of guarding against ballot stuffing and 
excluding illegal votes. In either case, the system is dependent on the 
integrity and compentence of local election officials. However, ballot 
tampering or stuffing would not likely affect the outcome of the 
election unless there is widespread fraud across dozens or hundreds of 
precincts. It is unlikely that such widespread collusion could be 
coordinated or that it would go undetected.

I'm not opposed to using ballot receipts to enable voters to verify that 
their ballots were counted. (People who don't trust the receipts can 
just shred them.) But ballot receipts are not sufficient to validate the 
election tally, and I dont't think it should be the responsibility of 
the voters to validate the tally. My position is that election results 
ought to be independently and provably verified (at least within 
reasonable doubt), as a matter of routine election certification 
processes, by methods that do not require voters to retain and surrender 
their voting receipts.

Ken Johnson






From research at ijs.co.nz  Sat Dec  6 00:16:03 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Sat Dec  6 00:16:03 2003
Subject: [EM] Review of Reversing preference lists paper by Mr Barney, Mr D.
 G. Saari
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031206190419.053edf58@pop.qsi.net.nz>

>[EM] "Consequences of Reversing Preferences" 
>Markus Schulze markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de 
>Tue Dec 2 06:13:05 2003 
>
>Dear Steve,
>
>I have just read your paper:
>http://hypatia.ss.uci.edu/imbs/tr/Final1.pdf
>
>I am very disappointed that you mention neither
>Tideman's ranked pairs method nor my beatpath
>method in your paper. The ordinary reader will
>get to the conclusion that all election methods
>that satisfy reversal symmetry have some serious
>drawbacks.
>
>Markus Schulze

The paper is jointly authored by Mr D G Saari (who quit preferential
voting, it was said) and one Mr Steve Barney. I recall he was at this
list and I wrote adversely and no response occured. The PDF creating
program can be handy for those special where every reader would
assume that the statements are too valueless to be fit for a write-up.

Perhaps Mr Saari has not properly read the co-authored paper yet.
I suppose that much of the text with the triangle diagrams is
Mr Saari's.

Mr Riker, who suggested that methods should be monotonic, gets a
very minor mention:

| Among the widely used election methods are what William Riker [1982]
| calls positional methods. Riker, who was a pioneer in using
| mathematics to address problems from political science, coined the
| word ?positional?

Two other persons can be identified as participating in the
production of the PDF document, since page 1 says:

| Our thanks to Hannu Nurmi, Tom Ratliff, and two referees for their
| comments on an earlier version.


Now there is 4 names to bear in mind rather than two, and this paper
gets through the final checks.

Here is some text that is seemingly false for using only 2
significant digits when truthfulness would require nothing less than
an infinite number of significant digits.

| Theorem 7.
|
| For three candidates,the following probability statements hold for
| any probability distribution of voter profiles where, as the number
| of voters grows, the distribution is asymptotically independent with
| a common variance, and the mean has an equal number of voters of
| each type.
| 
| 1. A necessary and sufficient condition for a profile's of outcomes
| of all positional method outcomes to be reversed when the profile is
| reversed is for p's plurality and antiplurality outcomes to agree.
| The likelihood of such a behavior is 0.31.
|
| 2. A necessary and sufficient condition for a reversal effect to
| occur for the plurality outcome is that a profile's antiplurality
| outcome reverses the plurality outcome. This behavior occurs with
| probability 0.06.
|
| 3. A necessary and sufficient condition for a plurality (or
| antiplurality) top-reversal, or a two-winner reversal effect is for
| the profile to allow five different election rankings as the
| positional methods change (and the plurality outcome to be a strict
| ranking). This occurs with probability 0.19

When the text says that the likelihood of the behaviour is 0.31, we
know that the statement has got to be perfectly untrue since the
author is either covering up the use of a computer or else has
converted an infinite number of significant digits down to two.

Also the method that was tested on the computer (if any) is not
described in the section claiming to be a theorem. I would not say
that 'Theorem 7' is actually a theorem.

Actually there is no proof for that theorem. Surely Mr Saari and
reviewers Hannu Nurmi and Tom Ratliff saw that. Maybe the reviewers
can give advice but it might get disregarded.

Anyway, parts of the documents are apparently untrue.
When I look at the text I sense that it is fluid goo of falsehoods.
I do hope that Steve Barney will let us know who wrote it.

I am not aware of why probabilities were being computed. This is
not a review based on a proper reading of the document, not that
any is appropriate.


----

Mr Saari has thinking aberration that results in lengthy articles.

How is a preference beyond the 10,000-th going to affect the
winner ?. To brin the bottom preferences up to the top is no
hardly likely to be more important that some study of randomizing
preferences but not the top 1000.

Despite being 19 pages long its last lines contain a question and
speculation:

| But as s -> 1/2, a procedure becomes less susceptible to the
| Reversal components. Is there a connection? Probably, but it has not
| been established.

"Reversal components" is some idea that is best ignored.

The author(s) have the same worthless idea at the start of the paper:

| ... he [the chairperson] expected the voters to vote in the opposite
| way.As such,when tallying the ballots, he treated a first and last
| listed candidate, respectively, as the voter's last and first choice.1
|  Imagine the outcry if after retallying the ballots the chair reported
| that the election ranking remained unchanged; ...

There author wrote "Imagine the outcry" but at the start and at the end,
completely fails to say of the rule should be completely ignored. The
author is using the salesman trick of saying that others would agree.
The author seems to be unaware that good methods are not threatened
by fail results when tested with wrong rules.

The public is not so strung-out as to think that
  *  when some winners are known, and when
  *  preference lists that contain over 60 million named candidates
     are written back to front,
  *  and also when there is only 7 ballots (stored on an IDE hard disk of
     co-author Barney);
then there is an important relationship between who wins the first and
who wins the 2nd. I.e. the public would not believe that.

Maybe Steve Barney could post in the rule since the long paper failed
to focus on its central topic.

If the idea is worthless for over 99.9999983% of all elections, then
why would anybody spend time on producing diagrams in triangles ?.

Readers can briefly consider what reversing preferences in large
elections, and then be very confident that there is not any good
rule there in that topic, at all. The disappoints since it fails
to arrive at the wholly obvious conclusion, which is that there is
no political polytope testing rule based on reversing preferences.

It looked like Dr Saari was the last mathematician in USA that had
some special interest in preferential voting. If the paper is
published then it unquestionably will be seen that Dr Saari can't
identify the mistake of years earlier, where it was suggested
that reversing preferences was worth mentioning to some online
journalists. That could leave USA with 0 top experts.
The well known duality principle is presumably what Dr Saari would
have written on had the article been more politically useful.
I.e. that requirement that the same method results when winners
are swapped with losers, and the votes are negated.

I have read some of Mr Steve Barney's writings at the Election Methods
List, and in the past he didn't write back to me, and did run low
accuracy computer simulations using random numbers that tested minor
methods with totally worthless rules. That is precisely what a lot of
the PDF article was doing.

In the more political arena of STV variants, it can be assumed that
they don't mind if a perfectly unfair, unjust, or anti-political
method is failing the STV method.

The paper has diagrams in it too, and that is abnormal. In the
preferential voting, and the article is not really simple, the
dimension is high diagrams are replaced with algebra. The author of
of a competent article is more likely to spend time writing
new symbolic algebra software that can simplify polytope expressions.

The paper is not just exploring a wretched obviously wrong rule,
and then permitting only 3 candidates, but it seems to prohibit the
9 papers lacking a 3rd preference. Or at least, what else could this
mean?:

| Skepticism might be the kindest reaction to greet an announcement
| that the election ranking for a profile -- a listing which specifies
| the number of voters whose preferences are given by each (complete,
| transitive) ranking of the candidates is the same for the profile
| where each voter's preference ordering is reversed.

I suppose the word transitive applies to the symbols on the paper.
E.g., for this ballot paper "A B C",
it can be said that A is to the left of B, and B is to the left of C.

It is quite bad: 20 pages that fails to come to any conclusion about
a rule that is obviously worthless, and without good explanation
two more restrictions are piled onto that:
 * there is only 1 winner
 * and apparently all 3 preferences need to be written.

The authors of the papers are perhaps under the pairwise tradition
of tolerating corruptness in their method and vote-negating with
secret diversions of votes to the wrong candidates. The text of the
PDF file does not contain the words 'monotonic' and 'monotonicity'.

The paper uses Dr Saari's rotated-Aries symbol to indicate some
relation. That idea seems to have no place fair multiwinner
preferential voting theory.

The article does not contain the word "fair". I can't recall a
moment ever when an interest in being fair to others coexisted
with an interest in pairwise comparing.


Dr Saari should not have made the mistake about back-to-front
preferences in the first place. I could have used much text to
persuade Dr Saari but he is uncontactable as if beyond the reach
of telephone lines.

It was never the case that pairwise comparing is worth a tin of
fish to the designer of STV-like high quality preferential voting
methods that would be used in government elections.

Donald Saari should re-read the introduction since it is pathetic:

|  Imagine the outcry if after retallying the ballots the chair reported
| that the election ranking remained unchanged; ...

That looks like an argument that the CVD would use: "start to
proper influences from the clues that other mainlanders are now
plainly signalling to us". I guess that Steve Barney wrote
that. That is the same Steve that made one decision to not
reply to me. The expert in using wrong tests and coming in with
[printouts] lists of numbers.

Readers will expect a high probability of no outcry at all when
informed that a wretched wrong rule from a world of people who
make mistakes that members of the public can't themselves make,
fails some preferential voting method. A key detail is that the
rule fails the method that that public desires above all other
methods, a fairest method. Where are the error bounds?.

Looking at the wording more closely, it is in the Soc Choice
style, for the text "Imagine the outcry" is permitting no
outcry whatsoever.

The big issue here is that Donald Saari made a complete mistake
at the time of the last foray into back-to-front preference lists,
and if the silence is snapped with the publication of the paper
of Don and Steve, then it takes United States top expert, perhaps,
maybe 4 years or more to figure out errors that takes me seconds
to identify.

I see the reversal ideas dying when a very large number of
preferences, and possibly Mr Saari and Barney wave still time
until the final version of their paper is out, and then the new
issue of the number of candidates being restricted to only 3
has appeareed.

Many of us are not able to drop to the depths of irrationality
that seems to accompany a belief in transitivity of something
or other that is not a symbol on a list. For that idea,
Mr Donald G Saari uses the rotated Aries symbol.  Every paper
containing that symbol is set against the humana right of
equal suffrage, i.e. rules restricting the changes in winners
when papers are changed infinitesimally.
Reversing preferences has to be done infinitesimally or else on
that finding alone, the paper can discarded (easily without
being unfair too).

I got a comment from Mr Thomas Cool who said that Donald Saari
did not reply to him. Mr Saari's last response to this list
was troubling for it said he was just going to complete investigating
the topic of some super-linear (completely un-political) 3 candidate
methods. I am not sure about the 3 candidate part.
It could have been better if Donald Saari had of considered
methods good enough to actually use. So long as results are
plotted, thoroughness is fairly useless since the way of
presenting results becomes unusable as the problems get larger.

Dear Steve: which people needed that paper ?. Just the critics?,
or were you writing for a wider audience?.

Here ends the review of the two men who could mention the name
"Riker", and the idea of Mr Saari's trnsitivity, but who had no
space for the "fair" and "monotonic". A wrong rule can get
get into a disagreement with, at worst, all correct rules.

I can list the correct axioms in private.

I see that Mr Marcus Schulze got his comments very badly
designed. Mr Schulze wrote as if he failed to detect the worthlessness
of the paper of Mr Donald Saari and Mr Steve Barney.

I guess it is fixable for that was not a final release, but in
the Condorcet fanatic's world, things are basically not improving
all of the time.











Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>    Auckland, New Zealand
Freedom of Information America: http://listserv.syr.edu/archives/foi-l.html
Ontario Ombudsman's 1996 Fairness checklist:
    http://www.ijs.co.nz/fairness-standards.htm
Politicians-and-Polytopes, Single-Transferable-Vote, @yahoogroups.com




From matt at tidalwave.net  Sat Dec  6 12:43:01 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Sat Dec  6 12:43:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #374 - 1 msg
Message-ID: <20031206204209.8E30A726A@sitemail.everyone.net>

An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20031206/79aa4537/attachment.asc>

From dglaude at gmx.net  Sat Dec  6 12:49:01 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Sat Dec  6 12:49:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Fwd: [E-voting] STV and e-voting incompatible
References: <3FD23952.6304CE14@polarbears.com>
Message-ID: <31022.1070743689@www48.gmx.net>

Hello,
I already suggested on Election-Method mailing-list that advanced voting
system might require computer usage... and that computer assisted voting might
not be "democratic" and secure.

Now someone in Ireland show a good example of why those method might be even
worst if vote are published... (anonymously).

Feel free to comment... I have put the original author in Cc: and you find
the list address on the forwarded message.

I am not sure about the 500 million way of voting...
But I worked a lot with permutation in a steganography project... and with
sufficient number of candidate and choice to make, it is possible that all
voter have a uniquely identifiable vote. ;-)

And since for fairness, the database of vote must be publish for independant
review... I see no option.

David GLAUDE

PS: I have nothing against STV... only against e-voting.

--- Weitergeleitete Nachricht / Forwarded Message ---
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2003 20:17:22 +0000
From: Ciaran Quinn <election at polarbears.com>
To: Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting <e-voting at lists.stdlib.net>
Subject: [E-voting] STV and e-voting incompatible

I have just downloaded the election results for Dublin North and I have
just realised that there is a very simple way of selling one's vote
using e-voting.

There were 12 candidates in Dublin North. I estimate that there must be
almost 500 million possible vote combinations. If I wanted to buy votes
>from a group of voters, I would give them instructions of the sequence
in which they were to vote (eg I would give each voters a list of
numbers such as 3 5 10 2 1 6 9 4 8 11 7 12 showing them how to mark
their ballot paper. Each voter would get a slightly different
combination. When the election is over, all I would have to do is to
check which combinations occurred and pay the relevant voters).

This possibility means that the suggestion that voters would use their
VVAT paper ballot papers as receipts so that they would be paid is
absurd. 
They can already sell their votes using e-voting.

If selling votes is a concern, then e-voting and STV are incompatible.

Ciaran Quinn

_______________________________________________
E-voting mailing list
E-voting at lists.stdlib.net
http://lists.stdlib.net/mailman/listinfo/e-voting


-- 
+++ GMX - die erste Adresse f?r Mail, Message, More +++
Neu: Preissenkung f?r MMS und FreeMMS! http://www.gmx.net




From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Sat Dec  6 16:54:01 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Sat Dec  6 16:54:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Automated CR Strategy
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312041335490.29534-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312061549280.17430-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

The standard use of cardinal ratings (CR) ballots (awarding the win to the
candidate with the highest average rating) encourages strategic voting so
that voters in the know tend to vote exclusively at the extremes.

Is it possible to automate CR strategy well enough to eliminate the
advantage of the strategic voter over the naive voter?

Perhaps not in all cases, but in the case of large public elections, where
there is always an irreducible residue of statistical uncertainty, no
matter how carefully and honestly the polls are conducted, the answer to
this question is undoubtedly, yes!

What I have in mind is this: voters submit CR ballots in the form of
letter grades (A thru F or A thru Z, I don't care at this point), and then
these ballots are sampled statistically in a way that is an improvement on
any possible pre-election poll, but not so perfectly as to remove all
uncertainty.

This statistical information is used to get winning probabilities for the
various candidates.  If this is done correctly, these probabilities will
be more reliable than any that could be calculated from pre-election poll
results.

Each ballot is then transformed into an optimal ballot relative to these
estimated probabilities.

The candidate with the highest average rating on these transformed ballots
is the winner.

The only way a voter could get more reliable probability estimates would
be through some oracle or time machine.

If a voter takes it upon himself to vote at the extremes, these choices
will automatically be preserved by the transformation, since optimal
strategy preserves ratings at the extremes.

In summary, my idea is to take advantage of the pocket of uncertainty
inherent in public or private polls of large numbers of people to
virtually eliminate the advantage of sophisticated voters over naive
voters in the context of cardinal ratings with large numbers of voters.


Forest



From research at ijs.co.nz  Sun Dec  7 03:12:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Sun Dec  7 03:12:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Automated CR Strategy
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312061549280.17430-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.e
 du>
References: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312041335490.29534-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031207224638.050e9e60@pop.qsi.net.nz>


This is only of a draft quality and it only criticises Mr Forest Simmons.

My last message had missing "not"s. I think I have a solution for that
since by a simple argument I concluded that it was a hoax or mistake to
say that logic does not use negative numbers but instead 2 valued integers.
I noted something different: that (Exists Q)(X<Q<Y) does not run
correctly when X<Q means (not X) and Q, and all the 3 variables are
Boolean valued polytopes. I can't show "not" to be a problem while there
Boolean-ness is that, for that is arbitrary.

Has someone got Mr Donald Saari's address. I looked at his papers at
http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/ : it is on an n-body interaction using the
Newtonian gravity laws that emits a particle with at an infinite speed.
Apparently no one can produce any sort of example. The topic didn't
seem important. 

I am trying to send a message to Donald Davison and he has a dead e-mail
box.

========================================================================
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  ----- Transcript of session follows -----
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========================================================================


RESEARCH BY FOREST SIMMONS AT THE ELECTION METHODS LIST

Mr Forest Simmons is not providing all axioms and then inferring using
reasoning, a polytope expression that computes the winner. We could be
gets tiny bits of the fulls set of axioms needed before progress
can occur. But instead Mr Simmons is content to get the winners
wrong.

I wonder if Forest Simmons would tell us if he thought it was acceptable
to fire-bomb Dresden in World War II, given the plan over there to
produce a hopefully stable world government along inferior lines.

Have you given up Christianity ?. Given that there was so little on
who should win, I hope Alex does not object.

Counts of elections quite typically involve no use of statistics or
probably. A huge fraction of your messages suggest that you are letting
all readers know that probability is a fact. Certainly that appears to
always false.

Your latest thoughts on the why you can see probabilities but never
actually collect any of them, positions yourself to be about believable
as you would be if you wrote on your inferences on a few highway
structures of undetected midget colonies living on the surface of the
moon. You admitted that you had an interest in Christianity.

Don't you wish that after so very many messages to the Election Methods
List, that you actually knew something ?. You seem to be missing the
idea of a region of solutions with solutions separated by perfectly
flat n-dimensional faces. Such allows trivially allows the simultaneous
consideration of an infinity of solutions. The can be no choice when
the axioms are worded to provide a solution only implicitly.

However in addition to not having the probability numbers (as each
year passes) that that are the central substance of your writings, you
also lack principles and the all too common technique of using inference
and reasoning from known facts or definitions.

What your messages lack is *evidence* that you had even thought about
the topic of computing the correct winners given the counts of the
ballot papers. There is no chance that you would get the benefit of the
doubt.





At 2003-12-06 16:53 -0800 Saturday, Forest Simmons wrote:
>The standard use of cardinal ratings (CR) ballots (awarding the win to the
>candidate with the highest average rating) encourages strategic voting so
>that voters in the know tend to vote exclusively at the extremes.
>
>Is it possible to automate CR strategy well enough to eliminate the
>advantage of the strategic voter over the naive voter?
>
>Perhaps not in all cases, but in the case of large public elections, where
>there is always an irreducible residue of statistical uncertainty, no
>matter how carefully and honestly the polls are conducted, the answer to
>this question is undoubtedly, yes!
>
>What I have in mind is this: voters submit CR ballots in the form of
>letter grades (A thru F or A thru Z, I don't care at this point), and then
>these ballots are sampled statistically in a way that is an improvement on
>any possible pre-election poll, but not so perfectly as to remove all
>uncertainty.
>
>This statistical information is used to get winning probabilities for the
>various candidates.  If this is done correctly, these probabilities will
>be more reliable than any that could be calculated from pre-election poll
>results.
>
>Each ballot is then transformed into an optimal ballot relative to these
>estimated probabilities.
>
>The candidate with the highest average rating on these transformed ballots
>is the winner.
>
>The only way a voter could get more reliable probability estimates would
>be through some oracle or time machine.
>
>If a voter takes it upon himself to vote at the extremes, these choices
>will automatically be preserved by the transformation, since optimal
>strategy preserves ratings at the extremes.
>
>In summary, my idea is to take advantage of the pocket of uncertainty

You idea is to guide readers to the view that once they have an election
result, you will not consider the integers of and other information about
the result.



>inherent in public or private polls of large numbers of people to
>virtually eliminate the advantage of sophisticated voters over naive
>voters in the context of cardinal ratings with large numbers of voters.
>


You merely say that there is some problem. It is the same error that
economists could make.

There is no evidence that there is a problem. There is no indication of
a problem once you have said that there is a strategic problem.

If you wrote that monotonicity is sometimes removes som problems, then
the writing would be of a perfectly different character, for you would
be starting to comment inside of the topic of preferential voting.

If you aim is to make others beleive that you thought about voting, then
your style is lackign the full Magnum shooter gunning penetrating power
of pure rationality that C.S.Lewis indicated possible.

If some strategy problem existed then the way to remove it, would be much
 affected by the principles you have.

Instead of principles you tend to have calls for others to reply. That's
curious for possible quite a large number of people could help you. But
let them be efficient and direct you mind to the major central that you
have, which is that of ignoring all the ballot papers (perhaps pieces
of cardboard) that could be tipped out of a box and put on a table
immediately in front of you.

You still have got to get the evidence that the probability thinking is
even slightly true. Where would you start your search?. At the topic of
the heap of cardboard pieces, or at the bottom.

Students ought not ask for help. If you actually put trust in reasoning
then you might see as clearly as others how you can achieve while always
excluding both fact and principle.

A clampdown by you to silence could be the last thing that is hoped for:
it could have you talking about the Approval method.

The Approval method is a special case of a better method. You don't
talk about the better method that permits the method designer to
rule that the number of checkboxes is never equal to the number of
candidates. It is like you were at a hair solon and saw a glossy woman's
fashion magazine and fancied it was the Christian bible, and read that
the new fashion is the catchy word of Mr Brams: "Approval", and not man
alone could prevent the number of checkboxes equalling the number of
candidates.

You seem to write around the idea that there is some space and it
certainly gives no consideration to election results and hence winners
too and thus the idea of correctness and thus the idea that you won't
be ignored each time you write.

But you still have a space and write on probability numbers. Surely
the fuzziness of your universe can be modelled somehow using ellipsoids?.

We are missing out on ellipsoids, but you seem to call them numbers.
It seems that your fantasy of a space that is alternative to the one
permitting the right winners to be found, also is not something you
have seriously considered worthy of the EML list

So far you are not on track for developing ideas that are good enough
for USA's worst slum suburb in whichever city holds that.

While I write this, I imagine that you are holed out and the foremost
person in the EM List who will keep preaching at us and after what
seems to be an excessive number of calls for others to interact, you
might admit to what others have known all along: as a theorist you
full collection of relevant useful principles is missing.

I may be leaving in a few days or weeks and perhaps you would go back
that previous system that ran OK: you dropped out when I showed up.
Mr Schulze and the rest can suffer in silence.

Forest believes what ?. 





Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
Ada 95 programming language mailing lists: http://www.ijs.co.nz/ada_95.htm




From Dgamble997 at aol.com  Sun Dec  7 14:33:05 2003
From: Dgamble997 at aol.com (Dgamble997 at aol.com)
Date: Sun Dec  7 14:33:05 2003
Subject: [EM] Craig Carey's recent posts.
Message-ID: <d4.b6494e.2d050471@aol.com>

Craig,

Have you ever tried being nice to people?

David Gamble
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From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Mon Dec  8 13:50:31 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Mon Dec  8 13:50:31 2003
Subject: [EM] Automated CR Strategy
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20031207224638.050e9e60@pop.qsi.net.nz>
Message-ID: <20031208214723.69994.qmail@web13802.mail.yahoo.com>

Craig,

 --- Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz> a ?crit?: > 
> This is only of a draft quality and it only criticises Mr Forest Simmons.
> 

If you don't think an election method should have elements of randomness,
you could just say that.  It seems unnecessary to accuse Forest of being
deceptive.


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


____________________________________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!? -- Avec Yahoo! soyez au coeur de la r?colte de dons pour le T?l?thon.
http://fr.promotions.yahoo.com/caritatif/


From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Mon Dec  8 16:01:03 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Mon Dec  8 16:01:03 2003
Subject: [EM] Automated CR Strategy
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20031207224638.050e9e60@pop.qsi.net.nz>
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312081525230.7413-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

It seems to me that you are saying (as Kevin has deciphered) that you
don't like randomness in election methods.

But interesting large scale public elections always have uncertainty
associated with them both before and after the counting, no matter the
method.

Most election methods externalize the uncertainties, and their advocates
spend little effort (if any) considering how voters are supposed to cope
with the uncertainties.

Approval also externalizes the uncertainties, but Approval advocates
recognize (per force) that Approval voters must cope with them in order to
maximize their voting power.

I suspect this aspect of Approval voting is what makes you uncomfortable.

Also I notice that you are more comfortable with concrete details than
with abstract generalities.  You would rather see things up close than see
the distant view, if I am not mistaken.

You share this cognitive preference with many others, and that is fine.
But I like to try to establish an over view of the big picture before
diving into the details.

You remind me of a very intelligent student I once had in a multivariate
calculus class who had trouble communicating his solution processes
because of a type of autism that he had been diagnosed with as a child.

He was extremely impatient with general explanations, but give him a
couple of detailed examples, and he was off and running.

I'm not saying that you have autism, but your communications have an eerie
similarity to those of that student.

You may have something much more valuable to say than I do.  I wish you
much success in communicating it.

Forest



From barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu  Mon Dec  8 16:59:06 2003
From: barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu (Steve Barney)
Date: Mon Dec  8 16:59:06 2003
Subject: [EM] FWD: An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!
Message-ID: <3FD294EE@webmail.uwosh.edu>

Here's an interesting piece of histeria about voting machinery. What do you 
think of it?

Steve Barney

>===== Original Message From "Eric A. Smith" <snowdog at juno.ocn.ne.jp> =====
I'm writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightenedI'm 
writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightened.



My name is Eric Smith. I'm a journalist and IT instructor in Tokyo. And after 
three years of study I've come to a terrifying conclusion. As British security 
expert Scott Granneman put it: "the heart of American democracy is at risk."



The import of this threat cannot be overstated -- the issue is very real and 
very grave. The chilling, incontrovertible fact is that America's elections 
are being silently, deliberately and PERMANENTLY compromised. The problem lies 
in the rapid installation of unauditable, unverifiable DRE (Direct Recording 
Electronic) touchscreen voting machines in advance of the 2004 elections.



Just how vulnerable are these machines? Author Bev Harris's diagrammed 
analysis of the "hacking" of a Diebold "Accuvote" machine to reverse an 
election proves it's not just possible -- it's easy:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm#password



These e-voting machines are being quietly installed across the country in 
preparation for the 2004 election, as per the characteristically 
disingenuously-named "Help America Vote Act" President Bush mandated in the 
wake of the 2000 debacle.



Alarming summaries of independent research by Johns Hopkins and Rice 
University, MIT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and even Congress echo 
Harris's concerns:

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030724_evote_research_report.pdf

http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php

http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/crsreport.pdf



The full extent of the threat to our electoral process has been documented in 
Harris's explosive expose, "Black Box Voting", which  can be downloaded free 
of charge here:

http://www.talion.com/blackboxvoting.org.htm



In light of these stunning vulnerabilities, US Representative Rush Holt has 
sponsored "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003" which 
which calls for printed receipts for the 2004 and subsequent elections:

http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996



Unfortunately, Republican support hasn't been forthcoming, and the measure has 
stalled. Because of the stillborn status of Rep. Holt's initiative, the 
outlook for Americans is rapidly worsening to the point of emergency: 
primaries for the 2004 election will begin in two months.



And so, I'm writing to ask -- in fact to BEG -- for your help in seeking an 
immediate moratorium on the use of paperless, unverifiable e-vote machines in 
the 2004 election. The use of paper ballots may be the only interim solution 
to assure a verifiable election: DREs which produce verifiable paper receipts 
are available, but are not currently in widespread use.



An immediate legal injunction to halt the use of non-verifiable DREs in the 
2004 election is a stop-gap emergency measure, perhaps at this late date the 
only way to ensure the integrity of our Democratic process. Over the long 
term, lobbying for the implementation of Congressman Holt's Voter Integrity 
Act will provide a more permanent solution.



Today,  I'm asking you to aggressively and persistentky bring the legal and 
personnel resources of your organization into the effort to save our electoral 
process.  Before it's too late.



Steps you can take right now:



1.        Sign the online e-petitions at EFF and VerifiedVoting.org:

                http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

                http://www.verifiedvoting.org



2.        Bev Harris is in immediate need of attorneys for coordinating legal 
injunctions to stop insecure voting machine use before the 2004 primaries:

                Bevharriscontact at aol.com



3.        Solicit the help of your organization's members in lobbying Congress 
to support Rep. Holt's Voter Integrity Act:

                http://www.visi.com/juan/congress                           
http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996



            Just in from VerifiedVoting.org:

               DECEMBER 2nd - 8th IS HR2239 WEEK!!!

One more week until the Congressional session is over (probably).
One more week this year to make a huge difference.
One more week to call Representatives at 1-800-839-5276 and urge support.
Start today.


4.        Lobby your state's elections boards to require verifiable, secure 
voting machines:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html



5.        Contact your friends, family, associates and the media:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/

http://newslink.org

http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/



Act now - your country needs you. And the time is getting very, very short.



Tomorrow might be just one day too late.



sincerely,

Eric A. Smith

Tokyo, Japan

81-03-3959-5371





RESOURCES

Congress:

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/



State elections boards:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html



State Attorneys General (party affiliations listed):

http://www.naag.org/ag/full_ag_table.php



Rep. Rush Holt:

http://holt.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=holt&type=Contact%20Rush



E-mail campaign links:

http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

http://www.verifiedvoting.org



Alternative e-voting machines:

http://www.accupoll.com/

http://www.aitechnology.com/avantetech/home.html

http://www.vogueelection.com/



Media Contacts:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/

http://newslink.org

http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/



BACKGROUND

Compelling evidence for the gravity of the situation can be found in the 
following "smoking gun" internal emails from Diebold. As you've no doubt 
heard, the company began a desperate attempt at suppressing the distribution 
of these emails on the Internet, in a series of gag lawsuits succesfully 
countered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation last month.



One of these emails  -- from Lana Hires to Global Election Systems (now 
Diebold) -- baldly states how 16 THOUSAND e-votes for Gore were "disappeared" 
during the 2000 Presidential election. Hires frantically asks how she should 
explain this to an auditor:



<I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have 
been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave 
Al Gore a minus 16022 [votes] when it was uploaded. Will someone please 
explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of 
standing here "looking dumb"



Additional excerpts from the Diebold internal emails:



<For a demonstration I suggest you fake it. Progam them both so they look the 
same, and then just do the upload fro [sic] the AV. That is what we did in the 
last AT/AV demo.



<Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its 
contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new.



<Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I 
have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed.



<Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots. 
They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of polls 
on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry for 
Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the media, 
as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or print any 
Election Results before the Polls closed. However, if there is a way that we 
can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even better.



"Diebold - The face of modern ballot tampering"

http://www.bartcop.com/diebold.htm



"If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm



"How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election"

http://www.infernalpress.com/Columns/election.html



"Safeguarding the Vote"

http://www.yesmagazine.org./26courage/pibel.htm



"Electronic Voting Machines Blasted by Scientists, Hacked by Author"

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00198.htm



Last month, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley mandated that 
Californians be provided with a verifiable paper trail in future elections:

http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2003/03_106.pdf



From elloyd at lancaster.lib.pa.us  Thu Dec 11 12:05:41 2003
From: elloyd at lancaster.lib.pa.us (Eron Lloyd)
Date: Thu Dec 11 12:05:41 2003
Subject: [EM] FWD: An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!
In-Reply-To: <3FD294EE@webmail.uwosh.edu>
References: <3FD294EE@webmail.uwosh.edu>
Message-ID: <200312111504.28253.elloyd@lancaster.lib.pa.us>

I think a better phrase for it is valid concern. This issue to me is far more 
critical than just about anything else related to elections. If you haven't 
yet done some homework on this, it deserves it.

Eron

On Monday 08 December 2003 7:59 pm, Steve Barney wrote:
> Here's an interesting piece of histeria about voting machinery. What do you
> think of it?
>
> Steve Barney
>
> >===== Original Message From "Eric A. Smith" <snowdog at juno.ocn.ne.jp> =====
>
> I'm writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightenedI'm
> writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightened.
>
>
>
> My name is Eric Smith. I'm a journalist and IT instructor in Tokyo. And
> after three years of study I've come to a terrifying conclusion. As British
> security expert Scott Granneman put it: "the heart of American democracy is
> at risk."
>
>
>
> The import of this threat cannot be overstated -- the issue is very real
> and very grave. The chilling, incontrovertible fact is that America's
> elections are being silently, deliberately and PERMANENTLY compromised. The
> problem lies in the rapid installation of unauditable, unverifiable DRE
> (Direct Recording Electronic) touchscreen voting machines in advance of the
> 2004 elections.
>
>
>
> Just how vulnerable are these machines? Author Bev Harris's diagrammed
> analysis of the "hacking" of a Diebold "Accuvote" machine to reverse an
> election proves it's not just possible -- it's easy:
>
> http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm#password
>
>
>
> These e-voting machines are being quietly installed across the country in
> preparation for the 2004 election, as per the characteristically
> disingenuously-named "Help America Vote Act" President Bush mandated in the
> wake of the 2000 debacle.
>
>
>
> Alarming summaries of independent research by Johns Hopkins and Rice
> University, MIT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and even Congress echo
> Harris's concerns:
>
> http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030724_evote_research_report.pdf
>
> http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/
>
> http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php
>
> http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/crsreport.pdf
>
>
>
> The full extent of the threat to our electoral process has been documented
> in Harris's explosive expose, "Black Box Voting", which  can be downloaded
> free of charge here:
>
> http://www.talion.com/blackboxvoting.org.htm
>
>
>
> In light of these stunning vulnerabilities, US Representative Rush Holt has
> sponsored "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003"
> which which calls for printed receipts for the 2004 and subsequent
> elections:
>
> http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996
>
>
>
> Unfortunately, Republican support hasn't been forthcoming, and the measure
> has stalled. Because of the stillborn status of Rep. Holt's initiative, the
> outlook for Americans is rapidly worsening to the point of emergency:
> primaries for the 2004 election will begin in two months.
>
>
>
> And so, I'm writing to ask -- in fact to BEG -- for your help in seeking an
> immediate moratorium on the use of paperless, unverifiable e-vote machines
> in the 2004 election. The use of paper ballots may be the only interim
> solution to assure a verifiable election: DREs which produce verifiable
> paper receipts are available, but are not currently in widespread use.
>
>
>
> An immediate legal injunction to halt the use of non-verifiable DREs in the
> 2004 election is a stop-gap emergency measure, perhaps at this late date
> the only way to ensure the integrity of our Democratic process. Over the
> long term, lobbying for the implementation of Congressman Holt's Voter
> Integrity Act will provide a more permanent solution.
>
>
>
> Today,  I'm asking you to aggressively and persistentky bring the legal and
> personnel resources of your organization into the effort to save our
> electoral process.  Before it's too late.
>
>
>
> Steps you can take right now:
>
>
>
> 1.        Sign the online e-petitions at EFF and VerifiedVoting.org:
>
>                 http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821
>
>                 http://www.verifiedvoting.org
>
>
>
> 2.        Bev Harris is in immediate need of attorneys for coordinating
> legal injunctions to stop insecure voting machine use before the 2004
> primaries:
>
>                 Bevharriscontact at aol.com
>
>
>
> 3.        Solicit the help of your organization's members in lobbying
> Congress to support Rep. Holt's Voter Integrity Act:
>
>                 http://www.visi.com/juan/congress
> http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996
>
>
>
>             Just in from VerifiedVoting.org:
>
>                DECEMBER 2nd - 8th IS HR2239 WEEK!!!
>
> One more week until the Congressional session is over (probably).
> One more week this year to make a huge difference.
> One more week to call Representatives at 1-800-839-5276 and urge support.
> Start today.
>
>
> 4.        Lobby your state's elections boards to require verifiable, secure
> voting machines:
>
> http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html
>
>
>
> 5.        Contact your friends, family, associates and the media:
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/
>
> http://newslink.org
>
> http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/
>
>
>
> Act now - your country needs you. And the time is getting very, very short.
>
>
>
> Tomorrow might be just one day too late.
>
>
>
> sincerely,
>
> Eric A. Smith
>
> Tokyo, Japan
>
> 81-03-3959-5371
>
>
>
>
>
> RESOURCES
>
> Congress:
>
> http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
>
>
>
> State elections boards:
>
> http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html
>
>
>
> State Attorneys General (party affiliations listed):
>
> http://www.naag.org/ag/full_ag_table.php
>
>
>
> Rep. Rush Holt:
>
> http://holt.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=holt&type=Contact%20Rush
>
>
>
> E-mail campaign links:
>
> http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821
>
> http://www.verifiedvoting.org
>
>
>
> Alternative e-voting machines:
>
> http://www.accupoll.com/
>
> http://www.aitechnology.com/avantetech/home.html
>
> http://www.vogueelection.com/
>
>
>
> Media Contacts:
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/
>
> http://newslink.org
>
> http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/
>
>
>
> BACKGROUND
>
> Compelling evidence for the gravity of the situation can be found in the
> following "smoking gun" internal emails from Diebold. As you've no doubt
> heard, the company began a desperate attempt at suppressing the
> distribution of these emails on the Internet, in a series of gag lawsuits
> succesfully countered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation last month.
>
>
>
> One of these emails  -- from Lana Hires to Global Election Systems (now
> Diebold) -- baldly states how 16 THOUSAND e-votes for Gore were
> "disappeared" during the 2000 Presidential election. Hires frantically asks
> how she should explain this to an auditor:
>
>
>
> <I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have
> been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216
> gave Al Gore a minus 16022 [votes] when it was uploaded. Will someone
> please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor
> instead of standing here "looking dumb"
>
>
>
> Additional excerpts from the Diebold internal emails:
>
>
>
> <For a demonstration I suggest you fake it. Progam them both so they look
> the same, and then just do the upload fro [sic] the AV. That is what we did
> in the last AT/AV demo.
>
>
>
> <Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its
> contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new.
>
>
>
> <Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I
> have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed.
>
>
>
> <Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots.
> They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of
> polls on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry
> for Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the
> media, as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or
> print any Election Results before the Polls closed. However, if there is a
> way that we can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even
> better.
>
>
>
> "Diebold - The face of modern ballot tampering"
>
> http://www.bartcop.com/diebold.htm
>
>
>
> "If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"
>
> http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm
>
>
>
> "How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election"
>
> http://www.infernalpress.com/Columns/election.html
>
>
>
> "Safeguarding the Vote"
>
> http://www.yesmagazine.org./26courage/pibel.htm
>
>
>
> "Electronic Voting Machines Blasted by Scientists, Hacked by Author"
>
> http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00198.htm
>
>
>
> Last month, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley mandated that
> Californians be provided with a verifiable paper trail in future elections:
>
> http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2003/03_106.pdf
>
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 14 07:30:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 14 07:30:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Voting Matters, Issue 17
Message-ID: <3FDC8197.625F6EB2@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Hallo,

I have uploaded issue 17 (October 2003) of "Voting Matters" (208 kB):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/issue17.pdf

This issue contains the following papers:

1. Douglas R. Woodall, "QPQ, a quota-preferential STV-like
   election rule," page 1-7,

2. Joe Otten, "Fuller Disclosure than Intended," page 8,

3. Markus Schulze, "A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent
   Single-Winner Election Method," page 9-19,

4. James Gilmour, "Calculation of Transfer Values -- Proposal
   for STV-PR Rules for Local Government Elections in Scotland,"
   page 20-24.

Markus Schulze


From davek at clarityconnect.com  Mon Dec 15 01:55:02 2003
From: davek at clarityconnect.com (Dave Ketchum)
Date: Mon Dec 15 01:55:02 2003
Subject: [EM] An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!]
Message-ID: <3FDD852F.8070600@clarityconnect.com>

"URGENT" is the right adjective!

Those of you in smaller countries need not laugh at US stupidity - what 
makes you think you can force your country to invest in building your own, 
when your country can copy whatever the US has blessed, no matter how 
stupid that may be!

A TRUE voting machine is NOT a complex device, as such things go:
      Inform the voter as to the ballot, and accept the vote.
      Maintain totals to report at end of election.
      Keep a diary of what happens.  This I see as doing on a write-once 
CD.  Copies can be made at end of election so that all who care to can 
verify what was in the machine as a program.
      Use ONLY open source, so that it is possible to verify whether this 
truly is a voting machine.
      Do not be concerned with voter identity, ONLY with quantity.  If a 
voter is allowed to vote twice the quantity will be wrong unless some 
other voter is prevented from voting - and the deprived voter properly 
complains.  Attend to validation of voter identity elsewhere.
      ALL of machine components are OPEN SOURCE, to permit validation.
      Secrecy of what a voter votes SHALL BE ABSOLUTE.
      I care not whether something gets printed, PROVIDED secrecy is 
maintained.

What might I do with a black box?
      Keep records internally, to know truth.
      If counts get big enough, bias them - perhaps 110% of truth for 
friends and 90% of truth for enemies.  I do not get caught unless more 
than 90% of the enemy voters turn up with receipts to demonstrate their 
count was low.

What might I do if I am into paying for good votes and/or punishing bad 
ones, and the pretense at secrecy involved human elements?  Pay those 
humans to tell me what I wish to know.

SUMMARY:  We NEED open source.
      Do not care about printed receipts, EXCEPT not acceptable if they 
destroy secrecy.
      Rep. Holt's effort is not sufficient. 
      Do not care how bad Diebold black boxes may be - NEED defense 
against evil that may be done more carefully.

Of all this the OPEN SOURCE is the critical item that deserves an 
injunction to ban anything else.  Any vendor offering open source has a 
strong incentive toward producing a TRUE voting machine, for they should 
not want to get caught producing anything else.
      Voting machines are a special case for we MUST demand voter secrecy, 
and thus MUST want vendors to WANT to do it right.
      Further, if we frown on vendors copying each other - if we buy only 
open source then all can see whether there is any copying.

BTW - when does secrecy matter?
      It is maintainable and matters when the true counts are near to a 
tie - this is when those into evil get active.
      It is impossible, and does not matter as to winning elections, when 
all, or almost all, vote one way.  It is certain, on nearly so, that Joe 
voted with the majority.  Those into evil care not if they have such a 
strong win, and are losing so catastrophically as not to care about 
details if they fail so badly.

-------- Original Message --------
From: Steve Barney <barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu>
To: election-methods-list <election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com>
Subject: [EM] FWD: An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!
Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2003 18:59:03 -0600

Here's an interesting piece of histeria about voting machinery. What do you
think of it?

Steve Barney

 >===== Original Message From "Eric A. Smith" <snowdog at juno.ocn.ne.jp> =====
I'm writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightenedI'm
writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightened.



My name is Eric Smith. I'm a journalist and IT instructor in Tokyo. And after
three years of study I've come to a terrifying conclusion. As British 
security
expert Scott Granneman put it: "the heart of American democracy is at risk."



The import of this threat cannot be overstated -- the issue is very real and
very grave. The chilling, incontrovertible fact is that America's elections
are being silently, deliberately and PERMANENTLY compromised. The problem 
lies
in the rapid installation of unauditable, unverifiable DRE (Direct Recording
Electronic) touchscreen voting machines in advance of the 2004 elections.



Just how vulnerable are these machines? Author Bev Harris's diagrammed
analysis of the "hacking" of a Diebold "Accuvote" machine to reverse an
election proves it's not just possible -- it's easy:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm#password



These e-voting machines are being quietly installed across the country in
preparation for the 2004 election, as per the characteristically
disingenuously-named "Help America Vote Act" President Bush mandated in the
wake of the 2000 debacle.



Alarming summaries of independent research by Johns Hopkins and Rice
University, MIT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and even Congress echo
Harris's concerns:

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030724_evote_research_report.pdf

http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php

http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/crsreport.pdf



The full extent of the threat to our electoral process has been documented in
Harris's explosive expose, "Black Box Voting", which  can be downloaded free
of charge here:

http://www.talion.com/blackboxvoting.org.htm



In light of these stunning vulnerabilities, US Representative Rush Holt has
sponsored "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003" 
which
which calls for printed receipts for the 2004 and subsequent elections:

http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996



Unfortunately, Republican support hasn't been forthcoming, and the measure 
has
stalled. Because of the stillborn status of Rep. Holt's initiative, the
outlook for Americans is rapidly worsening to the point of emergency:
primaries for the 2004 election will begin in two months.



And so, I'm writing to ask -- in fact to BEG -- for your help in seeking an
immediate moratorium on the use of paperless, unverifiable e-vote machines in
the 2004 election. The use of paper ballots may be the only interim solution
to assure a verifiable election: DREs which produce verifiable paper receipts
are available, but are not currently in widespread use.



An immediate legal injunction to halt the use of non-verifiable DREs in the
2004 election is a stop-gap emergency measure, perhaps at this late date the
only way to ensure the integrity of our Democratic process. Over the long
term, lobbying for the implementation of Congressman Holt's Voter Integrity
Act will provide a more permanent solution.



Today,  I'm asking you to aggressively and persistentky bring the legal and
personnel resources of your organization into the effort to save our 
electoral
process.  Before it's too late.



Steps you can take right now:



1.        Sign the online e-petitions at EFF and VerifiedVoting.org:

                 http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

                 http://www.verifiedvoting.org



2.        Bev Harris is in immediate need of attorneys for coordinating legal
injunctions to stop insecure voting machine use before the 2004 primaries:

                 Bevharriscontact at aol.com



3.        Solicit the help of your organization's members in lobbying 
Congress
to support Rep. Holt's Voter Integrity Act:

                 http://www.visi.com/juan/congress
http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996



             Just in from VerifiedVoting.org:

                DECEMBER 2nd - 8th IS HR2239 WEEK!!!

One more week until the Congressional session is over (probably).
One more week this year to make a huge difference.
One more week to call Representatives at 1-800-839-5276 and urge support.
Start today.


4.        Lobby your state's elections boards to require verifiable, secure
voting machines:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html



5.        Contact your friends, family, associates and the media:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/

http://newslink.org

http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/



Act now - your country needs you. And the time is getting very, very short.



Tomorrow might be just one day too late.



sincerely,

Eric A. Smith

Tokyo, Japan

81-03-3959-5371





RESOURCES

Congress:

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/



State elections boards:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html



State Attorneys General (party affiliations listed):

http://www.naag.org/ag/full_ag_table.php



Rep. Rush Holt:

http://holt.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=holt&type=Contact%20Rush



E-mail campaign links:

http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

http://www.verifiedvoting.org



Alternative e-voting machines:

http://www.accupoll.com/

http://www.aitechnology.com/avantetech/home.html

http://www.vogueelection.com/



Media Contacts:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/

http://newslink.org

http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/



BACKGROUND

Compelling evidence for the gravity of the situation can be found in the
following "smoking gun" internal emails from Diebold. As you've no doubt
heard, the company began a desperate attempt at suppressing the distribution
of these emails on the Internet, in a series of gag lawsuits succesfully
countered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation last month.



One of these emails  -- from Lana Hires to Global Election Systems (now
Diebold) -- baldly states how 16 THOUSAND e-votes for Gore were "disappeared"
during the 2000 Presidential election. Hires frantically asks how she should
explain this to an auditor:



<I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have
been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 
gave
Al Gore a minus 16022 [votes] when it was uploaded. Will someone please
explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of
standing here "looking dumb"



Additional excerpts from the Diebold internal emails:



<For a demonstration I suggest you fake it. Progam them both so they look the
same, and then just do the upload fro [sic] the AV. That is what we did in 
the
last AT/AV demo.



<Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its
contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new.



<Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I
have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed.



<Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots.
They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of polls
on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry for
Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the media,
as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or print any
Election Results before the Polls closed. However, if there is a way that we
can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even better.



"Diebold - The face of modern ballot tampering"

http://www.bartcop.com/diebold.htm



"If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm



"How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election"

http://www.infernalpress.com/Columns/election.html



"Safeguarding the Vote"

http://www.yesmagazine.org./26courage/pibel.htm



"Electronic Voting Machines Blasted by Scientists, Hacked by Author"

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00198.htm



Last month, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley mandated that
Californians be provided with a verifiable paper trail in future elections:

http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2003/03_106.pdf
-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.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.



From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Mon Dec 15 12:24:03 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Mon Dec 15 12:24:03 2003
Subject: [EM] An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!]
In-Reply-To: <3FDD852F.8070600@clarityconnect.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312151212050.10962-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Dave Ketchum wrote:

>       Further, if we frown on vendors copying each other - if we buy only
> open source then all can see whether there is any copying.
>

What computer scientist would be so stupid that he couldn't figure out how
to write a "For Loop" for adding up a bunch of numbers?

That's the first assignment in computer science 101.

Why would he need to copy somebody else's code?

There is absolutely no excuse for hiding the source code.

It's not like Colonel Sanders' secret recipe of herbs and spices, for
Pete's sake; it's just addition, our common inheritance from Count Dracula
on Sesame Street!

Forest



From dglaude at gmx.net  Mon Dec 15 13:55:42 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Mon Dec 15 13:55:42 2003
Subject: [EM] An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!]
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312151212050.10962-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
References: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312151212050.10962-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
Message-ID: <3FDE292A.5040301@gmx.net>

Does anybody here believe a vendor will make any effort to write clean, 
standard, bug free, documented code if there is no reward for it, no 
penalty for ugly non-verifiable code and only insider will have a look 
at it?

Open Source, not Free Software (prefered) is the solution:
1) Only expert can read the code... 99.9% of the population must trust 
the other.
2) Durring the election, there is no way to know what software do run in 
the computer.

We have the code of Belgian e-voting system and we are unhappy with it:

http://www.afront.be/lib/vote.html
<<
Casual inspection off the code reveals obvious errors (3),(5) from which 
we deduce scant peer review of the code, if any, has taken place. Nor do 
we see evidence that somebody has tackled the problem of creating 
entropy for the encryption keys (2). Also troubling is the fact that 
keeping the voting anonymous isn't high on the priorities list: global 
and stack variables are not zeroed after their useful lifetime has 
expired (1).

1) You do NOT vote in secret.
2) Generating entropy is a detail left to the compiler, if at all.
3) Using variables outside their defined scope.
4) There's not enough space to write a 64-bit hash to the card, so only 
24 bits get written.
5) another OBVIOUS error that has escaped peer review:
 >>

As computer scientist... the one I like best is
void Generate_Mav_Session ()
{
    randomize();                // initializes random number generator

    for( int i=0; i < DESKEYLEN; i++)
       mavSessionKey [i] = random( 10) + '0'; // '0' to '9' is possible

    mavSessionKey [i] = 0;
}

A real compiler should not accept that...
After the loop, "i" should be undefined.
So saying "mavSessionKey [i] = 0;" should not compile and if it is 
compiled, then the behaviour is undefined and maybe unpredictable.

Will it be DESKEYLEN-1? DESKEYLEN? or DESKEYLEN+1? or it depend on stack 
usage durring interrupt (IRQ).

David GLAUDE

Forest Simmons wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Dave Ketchum wrote:
> 
>>      Further, if we frown on vendors copying each other - if we buy only
>>open source then all can see whether there is any copying.
> 
> What computer scientist would be so stupid that he couldn't figure out how
> to write a "For Loop" for adding up a bunch of numbers?
> 
> That's the first assignment in computer science 101.





From davek at clarityconnect.com  Mon Dec 15 21:21:01 2003
From: davek at clarityconnect.com (Dave Ketchum)
Date: Mon Dec 15 21:21:01 2003
Subject: [EM] An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!]
References: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312151212050.10962-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu> <3FDE292A.5040301@gmx.net>
Message-ID: <3FDE9658.7030301@clarityconnect.com>

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 22:35:38 +0100 David GLAUDE wrote:

> Does anybody here believe a vendor will make any effort to write clean, 
> standard, bug free, documented code if there is no reward for it, no 
> penalty for ugly non-verifiable code and only insider will have a look 
> at it?


Any PROPER contract has rewards for quality and penalties for failure.

"non-verifiable" reads as cause for rejection, though such a phrase may be 
hard to define.

"only insiders" is not acceptable - agreed the general public is neither 
able nor willing.  Some validation should get done by contract, but anyone 
willing should be permitted to inspect to their heart's content.

> 
> Open Source, not Free Software (prefered) is the solution:
> 1) Only expert can read the code... 99.9% of the population must trust 
> the other.


Not quite:
      Given a million population, that gives me 1,000 experts.  Only need 
a few of them working at it.
      The state, knowing of the experts, should test, rather than risking 
getting caught not taking this step.
      The vendors should not want to risk getting caught - and the 
contract should provide punishment:
           A little bit for the expectable unintentional errors.
           REAL punishment for deliberate false content.

As to debating validity of a particular set of tools, I am not prepared, 
nor is this amount of detail important this early.  Some words about 
quality can be useful.

Apparently "Open Source" identifies particular tools - I said "open 
source" to identify a way of proceeding without identifying particular tools.


> 2) Durring the election, there is no way to know what software do run in 
> the computer.


I do not have complete design, but my initial thoughts are:
      A write-ONCE CD is prepared containing program and ballot definition 
for this voting machine - leaving lots of empty space.
      Load machine ready to open polls, including something unique, 
perhaps partly contributed by poll watchers, such that content of this 
machine could not have been predicted ahead of time.
      Official invokes "Open Polls".  This locks machine 
against interference with its task.  It records current memory content on 
the CD, after which polls are open for voting.
      Votes get recorded on the CD at time polls close and perhaps during 
the election if volume requires this.  They are recorded in blocks which 
are constructed in memory with the votes in random order to preserve secrecy.
      Official invokes "Close Polls".  Machine records memory on the CD, 
after which it unlocks.
      Multiple copies of the CD should be made RIGHT NOW, such that those 
who wonder what was in the machine can look for themselves.

> 
> We have the code of Belgian e-voting system and we are unhappy with it:
> 
> http://www.afront.be/lib/vote.html
> <<
> Casual inspection off the code reveals obvious errors (3),(5) from which 
> we deduce scant peer review of the code, if any, has taken place. Nor do 
> we see evidence that somebody has tackled the problem of creating 
> entropy for the encryption keys (2). Also troubling is the fact that 
> keeping the voting anonymous isn't high on the priorities list: global 
> and stack variables are not zeroed after their useful lifetime has 
> expired (1).
> 
> 1) You do NOT vote in secret.
> 2) Generating entropy is a detail left to the compiler, if at all.
> 3) Using variables outside their defined scope.
> 4) There's not enough space to write a 64-bit hash to the card, so only 
> 24 bits get written.
> 5) another OBVIOUS error that has escaped peer review:
>  >>
> 
> As computer scientist... the one I like best is
> void Generate_Mav_Session ()
> {
>    randomize();                // initializes random number generator
> 
>    for( int i=0; i < DESKEYLEN; i++)
>       mavSessionKey [i] = random( 10) + '0'; // '0' to '9' is possible
> 
>    mavSessionKey [i] = 0;
> }

 From this distance I DO NOT KNOW what the language you are using might 
say about this.  If the compiler tolerates something the language forbids, 
THEN it is time to complain.
      Also time to complain about use of a language if THE LANGUAGE too 
permissive as to dangerous coding practices.

randomize catches my eye.  For MANY uses such a routine must produce a 
predictable result, to make tests repeatable.  For the randomizing of 
order of votes that I write of above, the location of the initial vote in 
the block must, itself, be random to preserve voter secrecy.

> 
> A real compiler should not accept that...
> After the loop, "i" should be undefined.
> So saying "mavSessionKey [i] = 0;" should not compile and if it is 
> compiled, then the behaviour is undefined and maybe unpredictable.
> 
> Will it be DESKEYLEN-1? DESKEYLEN? or DESKEYLEN+1? or it depend on stack 
> usage durring interrupt (IRQ).
> 
> David GLAUDE
> 
> Forest Simmons wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Dave Ketchum wrote:
>>
>>>      Further, if we frown on vendors copying each other - if we buy only
>>> open source then all can see whether there is any copying.
>>
>>
>> What computer scientist would be so stupid that he couldn't figure out how
>> to write a "For Loop" for adding up a bunch of numbers?
>>
>> That's the first assignment in computer science 101.
> 

Who, trying to solve the problem of constructing a voting machine, would 
not realize that, while the task is simple compared to many computer 
tasks, the above thought is not useful.  Among the considerations:
      There are many ways of voting, such a Plurality, Approval, IRV, 
Condorcet, etc.
      Write-ins must be attended to.
      Must check whether voter has completed all of the voting intended.
      Some voters need special services, such as being blind.
      Getting from a list of offices to be voted on, to a ballot that is 
convenient for the voter, without being especially demanding of the 
election official needing to solve the problem, is a NONtrivial task.
-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.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.



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 16 16:22:31 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 16 16:22:31 2003
Subject: [EM] Voting Matters, Issue 17
Message-ID: <3FDFA0F1.FBC51219@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Hallo,

I forward a conversation between Craig Carey and me about
issue 17 of Voting Matters.

**********************************************************

> To: single-transferable-vote at yahoogroups.com
> From: Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
> Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 23:09:23 +1300
> Subject: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
> http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-December/011387.html
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/12838
>
> --->
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
>
> >[EM] Voting Matters, Issue 17
> >Markus Schulze markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de
> >Sun Dec 14 07:30:01 2003
> >
> >...
> >I have uploaded issue 17 (October 2003) of "Voting Matters" (208 kB):
> >http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/issue17.pdf
> >
> >This issue contains the following papers:
> >
> >1. Douglas R. Woodall, "QPQ, a quota-preferential STV-like
> >   election rule," page 1-7,
> >
> >2. Joe Otten, "Fuller Disclosure than Intended," page 8,
> >
> >3. Markus Schulze, "A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent
> >   Single-Winner Election Method," page 9-19,
> >
> >4. James Gilmour, "Calculation of Transfer Values -- Proposal
> >   for STV-PR Rules for Local Government Elections in Scotland,"
> >   page 20-24.
> >
> >Markus Schulze
> _______________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
> Just in case members needed a review here is one
>
>
> (4) ---------------- [from below]
>
> I agree with the with the view of Mr Gilmour that more than 2
> significant digits is needed when computing STV.
>
>  * using only 2 decimal digits is arbitrary. I was assuming
>    that arbitrariness is a way a line of consideration that
>    can lead to rejection of a preferential voting method.
>
>   Possibly a superior idea to
>    * getting the correct leaders elected (i.e. "accuracy")
>   is:
>    * avoiding the arbitrariness that occurs when the winners
>      were wrong but there are other ways to get the winners
>      wrong. So the reasoning was inadequate.
>
>  Once replacing need-for-accuracy with a lack-of=-arbitrariness,
>   then to that can be added this idea:
>    * politicians might be right to reject a preferential voting
>      if it is arbitrary
>
> Minimal arbitrariness can allow the least popular candidate to
> be the winner.  Politicians can't use the word accuracy
> when talking about winners if not knowing who the correct
> winners are. They just won't do the maths of casting
> n-D shadows which is the best possible so not arbitrary.
>
>
>
> (1) ----------------
>
> (a) Mr Otten says that STV papers be kept secret. That article
> fails to be very clear on when. Governments could have their
> statistian produce hard to believe stroies on how it would be
> expensive to anonymize the ballot paper preferences. It could
> cost between 100 and 200 dollars.
>
> (b) Surely before the election the papers are already secret.
> Mr Wichmann missed these unclear parts of the paper:
> (b)(1) before vs after ?: when is secrecy needed ?
> The text of Mr Wichmann at the top suggests that secrecy
> maybe would occur long after the election is finished:
>
>      "The paper of Joe Otten arose from a
>       resolution put to the ERS AGM requesting
>       that the full election data of the
>       preferences specified should be available
>       for STV elections. (Such disclosure was
>       available for the three Irish constituencies
>       for which electronic voting was em-ployed in
>       the June 2002 elections.) The paper explains
>       a potential danger from full disclosure with
>       a proposed resolution."
>
>  * who is the wrong doer that would be thwarted by
>    secrecy over what is on STV ballot papers?.
>
> 
> (c)
> STV allows advantage to be gained by saying how to vote.
> The gain could be huge.
> But offender is the algorithm: it would divert votes from a
> possible winner to a 3rd candidate while simultaneously
> actually keeping the power under control. Elections are one
> process where the prime aim of people is to manipulate the
> results. So what is wrong with a candidate manipulating ?.
> Similarly the targetting of enemies is allowed. Suppose a
> Tory leader tripped and was zoomed in on by TV cameras after
> a Labour backbencher winked and whistled.
>
> Further suppose the Labour MP was not a corrupt person
> and thus not barred to national politics. It he is not
> guilty of corruptly tripping the man up, then it was
> excessively manipulative. But the aim in elections is for
> every voter to be maximally manipulative.
>
> A good reason from withholding information would be to
> stop wrongdoing by an individual. Maybe society gets harmed
> by the manipulation that STV could allow. But perhaps no
> court or judge has restarted an election because it was
> snowing on election day or etc.. A  solution could be to
> have a Green say
>  "You need and now want STV. Wrong results will follow
>   from the use of dumb preferential voting algorithms".
>
>
>
> (2) ----------------
>
> I have not looked at Mr Woodall's method.
>
> It could be tested numerically.
> E.g. this way:
> (1) for both 3 candidates and 4 candidates, it is better
>   in the 2 cases, or worse. Then maybe a 5 candidate
>   test could be put off.
> (2) 5 candidate testing is done and some more strict
>   rules may be needed.  That would involve days of
>   programming and more.
>
> I have already defined the fairness polytope and its
> dual for the 1 winner 4 candidate election. Porta
> can compute dual polytopes. That would be extended
> for 2w4c,1w5c,2w5c,3w5c,4w5c cases, Then hand
> steering of 2 points finds the longest line segment
> that violates a constraint. There may be too many
> papers for manual navigating when 5 candidates and
> 2 winners, for the truncating can only be done after
> the 2nd/last of papers naming both candidates.
> So an optimizer is needed and one that has a chance
> of finding an answer is one that locates the slope
> and position of the Boolean boundary. I assume that
> it still might not be written in 1 year's time. I
> don't know.
>
> The method of D R Woodall uses one by one eliminating
> which I assume is the source of the problems and so
> I don't suspect it would turn out to be a long
> lasting method.
>
> Both numerically and symbolically, a researcher has
> to develop general purpose solving tools that are
> likely to be useful outside of preferential voting.
> The non-linear optimizer is missing.
>
>
> (3) ----------------
>
> Mr Schulze's article.
>
> Before I get to that I quote this text of the editor, Mr Wichmann:
>
>      "It has been decided that the Editor should
>       ensure that the main points of such papers
>       are intelligible to non-mathematical readers
>       by placing an appropriate summary here."
>
> The whole article of Mr Schulze is unbelievable.
>
> A defective spot in Mr Schulze's article is this:
>
>      "4 Implementation
>       ...
>       It cannot be said frequently that the order
>       of the indices in the triple-loop of the
>       Floyd algorithm is not irrelevant."
>
> The principle of having the winner unaffected by the lettering
> might be failed.
>
> E.g. this could happen. (The only change is a reordering
> of ALL the for loops inside of the algorithm):
>
>   Harry (=#1) Winner
>   Horace (=#2) Loser
>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
>
>   Harry (=#2) Loser
>   Horace (=#1) Winner
>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
>
> Mr Schulze's "neutrality" principle prevents the problem (if
> any). The text  "neutral" is absent from the PDF article.
> An error at the top of the algorithm passes into the rest of
> the code and make analysis more complex.
>
> There ought be a program that tests and that writes out numbers.

**********************************************************

> To: single-transferable-vote at yahoogroups.com
> From: Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
> Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 15:40:28 +0100
> Subject: Re: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
> Dear Craig,
>
> you wrote (15 Dec 2003):
>
> > A defective spot in Mr Schulze's article is this:
> >
> >      "4 Implementation
> >       ...
> >       It cannot be said frequently that the order
> >       of the indices in the triple-loop of the
> >       Floyd algorithm is not irrelevant."
> >
> > The principle of having the winner unaffected by the lettering
> > might be failed.
> >
> > E.g. this could happen. (The only change is a reordering
> > of ALL the for loops inside of the algorithm):
> >
> >   Harry (=#1) Winner
> >   Horace (=#2) Loser
> >   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
> >
> >   Harry (=#2) Loser
> >   Horace (=#1) Winner
> >   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
>
> The Floyd algorithm is a shortest-path algorithm. When I said that
> "the order of the indices in the triple-loop of the Floyd algorithm
> is not irrelevant" then I meant that you have to consider the
> possible short cuts in the mentioned order. Otherwise the Floyd
> algorithm does not work (i.e. does not give the correct result).
>
> I wrote:
>
> > for i : = 1 to N do
> > for j : = 1 to N do
> > if ( i <> j ) then
> > for k : = 1 to N do
> > if ( i <> k ) then
> > if ( j <> k ) then
> >    {
> >     s : = min { p[j,i], p[i,k] } ;
> >     if ( p[j,k] < s ) then
> >     p[j,k] : = s ;
> >    }
>
> However, Mike Ossipoff always describes the Floyd algorithm as
> follows:
>
> > for i in range(N)
> > for j in range(N)
> > for k in range(N)
> >    low=min(B[A(i,j)],B[A(j,k)]
> >    if low>B[A(i,k)]
> >    B[A(i,k)]=low
>
> This does not work (i.e. this does not find the correct values
> for the shortest paths).
>
> Markus Schulze

**********************************************************

> To: single-transferable-vote at yahoogroups.com
> From: Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
> Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 15:35:22 +1300
> Subject: Re: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
> At 2003-12-15 15:40 +0100 Monday, Markus Schulze wrote:
> >Dear Craig,
> >
> >you wrote (15 Dec 2003):
> >
> >> A defective spot in Mr Schulze's article is this:
> >>
> >>      "4 Implementation
> >>       ...
> >>       It cannot be said frequently that the order
> >>       of the indices in the triple-loop of the
> >>       Floyd algorithm is not irrelevant."
> >>
>
> That is ambiguous and means: *all* 'for loops', or *some* of them
>
> >> The principle of having the winner unaffected by the lettering
> >> might be failed.
> >>
> >> E.g. this could happen. (The only change is a reordering
> >> of ALL the for loops inside of the algorithm):
> >>
> >>   Harry (=#1) Winner
> >>   Horace (=#2) Loser
> >>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
> >>
> >>   Harry (=#2) Loser
> >>   Horace (=#1) Winner
> >>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
> >
>
> I.e. secret internal relettering (or renaming or renumbering) inside
> of the algorithm affects who the winner is.
>
> You could answer these this question:
>
>   1. Does your method fail the test.
>
>     You could write a Monte-Carlo routine.
>
> It seems the McDougall Trust operation is prepared to leave no
> stone unturned in order to exclude me when decisions to reject
> (all or parts of) submitted articles are made. I don't know if I
> can get things into the journal.
>
>
> >The Floyd algorithm is a shortest-path algorithm. When I said that
> >"the order of the indices in the triple-loop of the Floyd algorithm
> >is not irrelevant" then I meant that you have to consider the
> >possible short cuts in the mentioned order. Otherwise the Floyd
> >algorithm does not work (i.e. does not give the correct result).
>
> I am expecting a rejection of the method, and not any clarification
> of previous wordings about the method.
>
> And as you know, there is other allegation that would make your method
> too unlike ST to ever promote here, which is that the specifiying or
> not specifying the very last preference affects the winners when in
> neither case there was a tie. Your algorithm creates the mistake in
> the first lines and then sends it into the cyclic washing machine of
> the for loops. It is plain when the algebra is done. I suppose the
> purpose is that you have no idea of what you are doing when designing
> and then have an idea that you should not discard the result.
>
> Since you prefer wording up ideas, how would you word uop the idea of
> not discarding an unsatisfactory method that obviously no one else
> would get serious over using. To fix the mistakes would lead to less
> complexity. So readers need not look at your arguments.
>
> It does not matter whether your method is monotonic: it should be
> rejected while people presume my allegations are correct.
>
>
> >I wrote:
> >
> >> for i : = 1 to N do
> >> for j : = 1 to N do
> >> if ( i <> j ) then
> >> for k : = 1 to N do
> >> if ( i <> k ) then
> >> if ( j <> k ) then
> >>    {
> >>     s : = min { p[j,i], p[i,k] } ;
> >>     if ( p[j,k] < s ) then
> >>     p[j,k] : = s ;
> >>    }
> >
>
> That is incomprehensible to me.
>
>
> >However, Mike Ossipoff always describes the Floyd algorithm as
> >follows: 
> >
> >> for i in range(N)
> >> for j in range(N)
> >> for k in range(N)
> >>    low=min(B[A(i,j)],B[A(j,k)]
> >>    if low>B[A(i,k)]
> >>    B[A(i,k)]=low
> >
> >This does not work (i.e. this does not find the correct values
> >for the shortest paths).
> >
>
> That is a dud argument or no argument.
>
> Your method is in the trash can for failing 2 tests. Can you get
> it out ? (rather than being creating natural language statements),
>
> I would not use the word correct but say "as intended". You seem
> to be in private communication with Mr Ossipoff.
>
> The main idea is that tests are ordered in a sequence and once a
> failure occurs, then there is no need to read about your untrusted
> arguments indicating that the method is failed under this particular
> check.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Regarding my comment on Mr Woodall's method, I missed a way to
> test the method and compare it with Meek STV. I could use REDLOG
> to derive a 2 winner 2 preference 4 candidate method and then simply
> see which of the 2 STV-like methods is most similar. REDLOG was
> making mistakes and I could have tried hard to debug the output
> of the German software. Due to the grand plan of eliminating the
> German university's QE solver, I am now unable to compare Meek STV
> with the D R Woodall method.
>
> Testing using a sequence of:
>    * 1 preference methods, then
>    * 2 preference methods, then
>    * 3 preference methods, ...;
> seems to be a bit plausible.
>
> Craig Carey

**********************************************************

> To: single-transferable-vote at yahoogroups.com
> From: Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
> Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 10:14:17 +0100
> Subject: Re: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
> Dear Craig,
>
> I wrote (15 Dec 2003):
> > The Floyd algorithm is a shortest-path algorithm. When I said that
> > "the order of the indices in the triple-loop of the Floyd algorithm
> > is not irrelevant" then I meant that you have to consider the
> > possible short cuts in the mentioned order. Otherwise the Floyd
> > algorithm does not work (i.e. does not give the correct result).
>
> You wrote (16 Dec 2003):
> > That is incomprehensible to me.
>
> You can find Floyd's shortest-path algorithm in many books on graph
> theory or combinatorial optimization. When you cannot find any good
> book on Floyd's shortest-path algorithm then I suggest that you
> should implement Dijkstra's shortest-path algorithm. Also Dijkstra's
> shortest-path algorithm has a runtime of O(N^3), where N is the
> number of candidates; the main reason why I use Floyd's algorithm
> and not Dijkstra's algorithm in my paper is that the source code
> of Dijkstra's algorithm is significantly longer. However, Dijkstra's
> algorithm is significantly less difficult to understand. ("Dijkstra"
> is also known as "Dykstra".)
>
> By the way: The proofs that my method is well defined and satisfies
> Pareto, monotonicity, resolvability, independence from clones,
> reversal symmetry, and Woodall's plurality criterion do not
> presume that I use Floyd's algorithm.
>
> You wrote (16 Dec 2003):
> > Since you prefer wording up ideas, how would you word uop the idea
> > of not discarding an unsatisfactory method that obviously no one
> > else would get serious over using.
>
> My method is already used by the "Software in the Public Interest"
> (SPI) project and the DEBIAN project.
>
> Markus Schulze

**********************************************************

> Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 08:25:39 +1300
> To: Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
> From: Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
> Subject: Single-Transferable-Vote: I moderated your addres
>
> To: Theoretician Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
> Subject: Re: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
>
> I am moderating your e-mail address : markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de
>
> I shall delay sending reasoning and I may not even send reasoning.
> But I would e-mail reasoning if you request that information.
>
> Remember that we know that you believe during these days when you
> try to present yourself as never having heard the word. The aspect
> of withholding leads me to moderate your future messages.
>
> Recall that you wrote this:
>
> __________________________>__
> At 1998-04-24 17:07 +0200 Friday, Markus Schulze wrote:
> >Dear Mike, dear David,
> >
> ...
> >   To my opinion, it is not possible, that B is elected, because
> >   this would be a violation of the Neutrality Criterion (i.e.,
> >   every candidate is treated equally), the Anonymity Criterion
> >   (i.e., every voter is treated equally) or the Weak Monotonicity
> ...
> >
> >Markus
> __________________________<__
>
> The words "not possible" seem to rule out that you were tentative and
> unsure, on the so called "neutrality" rule.
>
> Is it your opinion that the method in the PDF file passes a neutrality
> rule ?. If so, then there is the other rule about the last preference
> being without an improper influence.
>
> ---
>
> You seemed to be in the wrong in 1988 as well, in that there is no
> need for a neutrality rule unless the set of principles is wrong.
>
> Re=lettering a, neutrality failing, preferential voting method would
> make it be multivalued in general.
>
> The right rules and excluding neutrality, don't lead to multivalued
> winner sets.
>
> So neutrality is implied by other right rules.
>
> Omitting one rule may fail to delete the rule.
>
>
> At 2003-12-16 10:14 +0100 Tuesday, Markus Schulze wrote:
> >Dear Craig,
> >
> >I wrote (15 Dec 2003):
> >> The Floyd algorithm is a shortest-path algorithm. When I said that
> >> "the order of the indices in the triple-loop of the Floyd algorithm
> >> is not irrelevant" then I meant that you have to consider the
> >> possible short cuts in the mentioned order. Otherwise the Floyd
> >> algorithm does not work (i.e. does not give the correct result).
> >
> >You wrote (16 Dec 2003):
> >> That is incomprehensible to me.
> >
> >You can find Floyd's shortest-path algorithm in many books on graph
> >theory or combinatorial optimization. When you cannot find any good
> >book on Floyd's shortest-path algorithm then I suggest that you
> ...
>
>
>
> You failed to reply to what I wrote.
>
> I maintain the worlds best mailing list on preferential voting.
>
> I am blocking you because your omitted information.
>
> A best defence for you could be to say that you would be writing
> two messages and the 2nd message would answer the questions (so
> you have to write software too: I guess you already did that but
> are keeping the results and the existence of the software, secret).
> Also the defence would say that the first message should have
> mentioned that another was coming.
>
> I I wouldn't alter it too much since it is currently able to
> persuade.
>
> Like the McDougall Trust said to me, we shall see how it goes, ie.
> where you go from here. It seems "not possible" that a follower of
> pairwise comparing would want to make a method be fair to
> the smallest minorities.
>
> Craig Carey
> Auckland


From jarmyta at antioch-college.edu  Wed Dec 17 21:24:02 2003
From: jarmyta at antioch-college.edu (James Green-Armytage)
Date: Wed Dec 17 21:24:02 2003
Subject: [EM] a strategic problem and possible remedy for Condorcet-efficient voting methods
Message-ID: <fc.005b8ffc00a0ae15005b8ffc00a0ae15.a0ae68@mcgregor.edu>

Dear election method fans,

	Below is a proposal for a voting procedure, preceded by a rationale for
that proposal, in sort of a paperish format. I hope that you find it
interesting. 
	Also, I would greatly appreciate it if people could tell me whether
similar procedures have been proposed before. 
	You see, I'm kind of thinking about trying to apply to graduate school
for economics in the next year or two. That's my big dream right now, and
they say that it's easier to get in if you have published something. So I
thought that I should try to publish something on voting methods, since
that's sort of related to economics, and I don't know as much about other
branches of economics. I have a few ideas that I want to try publishing,
but this is the first one that I want to pursue... unless it has already
been proposed! So if it has been, please let me know (and be gentle...),
but if not, please give me credit if you repeat the ideas elsewhere. Also,
if it is a viable subject I was wondering if you all could give me
feedback and help get it into some sort of publishable shape (It probably
needs to be much shorter!), and maybe some advice as to where to submit it
to.
	So, anyway, I will greatly appreciate your feedback either way.

my best,
James Green-Armytage

____________________

A Strategic Problem and Possible Remedy for Condorcet-Efficient Voting
Methods
by James Green-Armytage

	In designing a single-winner voting procedure for the purpose of majority
rule, I take it as axiomatic that it should always select a Condorcet
winner when one exists, since a Condorcet winner is preferred by a
majority over all other candidates.
	However, it seems that any ranked ballot vote processing rule that is
completely Condorcet efficient is also vulnerable to manipulation using a
strategy known as ?burying,? or ?offensive order reversal.?
	Let me try to illustrate this strategy using an example. There are 3
candidates: A, B, and C. There are 100 voters. The sincere preferences of
the voters are as follows:

46: A>B>C
44: B>A>C
5: C>A>B
5: C>B>A

	A is the sincere Condorcet winner, with no cycles present. However, B
voters can ?bury? A on their ballots by voting him last, which produces
this result:

46: A>B>C
44: B>C>A
5: C>A>B
5: C>B>A

	The pairwise comparisons are as follows:

A:B = 51:49
A:C = 46:54
B:C = 90:10

	Minimax drops A?s defeat over B (which has a magnitude of 51 votes and a
margin of 2 votes), leaving B the winner. This strategy has clearly paid
off for the B voters. Ranked pairs and beatpath do the same thing as
minimax in this example and all others in this paper, but for simplicity?s
sake let?s assume that the completion method being used is minimax.
	If the 46 A>B>C voters find out that the B voters are planning to use
this strategy, can they do anything to stop it? Yes and no. If the ballots
cast by the other 54 voters in the second situation above remain the same,
there is nothing that the 46 A>B>C voters can do to get A elected. The
only thing that they can do is to threaten to elect candidate C if the B
voters do not drop their order reversal strategy. 
	Their means of carrying out this threat varies depending on whether we
are using a version of minimax that is based on dropping defeats of least
margin (difference between winning and losing vote totals in pairwise
comparison) or least magnitude (winning vote totals in pairwise
comparison).
	If we are using a magnitude-based method, then in order for C to win, C
must beat or tie B, or the magnitude of B?s defeat over C must be less
than the magnitude of A?s defeat over B. The A>B>C voters can achieve this
if at least 40 of them truncate their ballots, voting A>B=C. For example:

40: A>B=C
6: A>B>C
44: B>C>A
5: C>A>B
5: C>B>A

A:B = 51:49
A:C = 46:54
B:C = 50:10

	If we are using a margins-based method, then in order for C to win, C
must beat or tie B, or the margin of B?s defeat over C must be less than
the margin of A?s defeat over B. In this case truncation on the part of
the A voters will not suffice, and they are forced to do some order
reversal of their own in order to carry through their threat and prevent
the B voters from stealing the election. At least 34 of the 46 A>B>C
voters need to do this for it to work, for example:

34: A>C>B
12: A>B=C
5: C>A>B
5: C>B>A

A:B = 51:49
A:C = 46:54
B:C = 44:44

	So, these are some of the ways that A can derail the B voters? burying
strategy and punish them with the election of C. However, the election of
C is a very undesirable result in itself, and it is not clear whether the
A voters? threat will scare the B voters into voting sincerely, resulting
in the election of A. Perhaps the B voters will carry through their
burying plan, without the A voters following through on their threat. This
would result in the election of B. Perhaps the B voters will carry through
their burying plan, and the A voters will carry through their threat. This
would result in the election of C. Perhaps the 5 C>A>B voters will end the
trouble and prevent the danger of B?s election by voting A>C>B, thus
cementing A?s victory. Or perhaps those 5 voters will prefer to wait and
hope that the fight between A and B throws the election to C. Using a
margins-based version of minimax could add in some more complications,
including a situation where A and B throw the race to C without any
insincere intentions, but instead out of a sense of mutual paranoia that
the other group of voters will carry out a burial strategy.
	To make a long story short, the voters have entered into a complicated
strategy game, the outcome of which is unclear. In some ways it is
analogous to the game of chicken. The A voters? swerving could be not
carrying through their threat and allowing the B voters to successfully
use the burial strategy. The B voters? swerving could be voting sincerely
and allowing A to win. The car crash would be the election of C. 
	It is disturbing that it is possible for elections based on Condorcet?s
method to break down into this sort of situation as a result of the burial
strategy, that is an intense strategy game amongst the voters, with a
strong possibility of a highly unpopular candidate being elected. 
	Also, it is disturbing that the burial strategy can be effective in the
first place. Imagine that this example was a Presidential election in a
country with millions of voters, and that the figures represented
percentages of the turnout rather than single voters. The contest between
A and B would obviously be the main focus of the election, as 90% of the
voters prefer them to C. The 2% point difference in the pairwise contest
between A and B would represent thousands or millions of voters. If the B
voters pulled off an order reversal strategy under these conditions, the
democratic process would have been completely undermined.
	Of course, the chances of this happening in a public election are not
necessarily very great. Any candidate whose campaign staff called up
voters by the thousands and instructed them to cast an insincere vote
might be held up to a certain amount of public shame. However, a similar
effect might take place without a grand conspiracy, but as a result of a
simple notion among the voters that there might be some benefit in ranking
their sincere second favorite in last place, if she is the main
competition for their favorite.
	Well-coordinated and successful burial strategies might become more
likely given a smaller electorate where it is easier to figure out how
other people are voting and easier to create a strategy covertly. For
example, this might be a problem if Condorcet?s method was being used by a
council or legislature to decide on different versions of a bill or
various courses of action. 
	In any case the burial strategy can often backfire by leading to the
election of someone you like even less that the second or third-favorite
candidate you are trying to bury. Thus, there are many situations where
the incentive to engage in such a strategy is outweighed by its risk, and
the number of voters who try it will be too small to be decisive.
	But again, whether it is likely or not, the fact that a large-scale
burying strategy can conceivably happen is very disturbing, since its
effects can be so negative. 

	Whether a method offers incentives for burying strategies seems to be
related to whether reversing the order of later preferences on a ballot
can cause an earlier preference to be elected. For example, if a group of
voters rank 5 candidates in the order A>B>C>D>E, and C is elected, are
there any situations where that same group of voters could vote A>B>D>E>C,
and cause B to be elected instead, with all the other votes in the
election remaining constant?
	If so, then there will be situations where voters will have incentives to
rank their sincere second favorite in last place, or their sincere third
favorite in fourth place, and so on. That is, in changing the order of the
candidates from the sincere order, voters will insincerely downrank
particular candidates.
	Given different methods, there are different kinds of strategies that
involve downranking later preferences to help earlier preferences. Some
Condorcet-efficient methods such minimax, ranked pairs, beatpath, find a
completion winner by overruling some majority preferences in favor of
others. Given methods like these, groups of voters can sometimes benefit
by creating an artificial majority against one of their later preferences
which overrules a sincere majority against one of their earlier
preferences, causing the earlier preference to win. This is the burying
strategy as discussed above.
	Some Condorcet-efficient methods find a completion winner by reverting to
a different method that is not Condorcet-efficient, such as single
transferable vote or Borda. Given methods like these, groups of voters can
sometimes benefit by downranking one of their later preferences who is a
sincere Condorcet winner, so that the tally finds no Condorcet winner, and
the other method that is reverted to finds one of their earlier
preferences as the winner. In addition to giving voters truncation and
burying incentives in order to prevent a Condorcet winner from emerging,
these methods will also reintroduce the strategic incentives inherent in
their given completion method.
	Unfortunately, I think that all Condorcet efficient methods give some
strategic incentives for further downranking later preferences in order to
help earlier preferences. That is, take any ranked ballot voting method
that satisfies universal domain, anonymity, Pareto, non-dictatorship. If
it is a method where a group of voters reversing the order of options
ranked after some candidate B can?t change the result to B under any
circumstances, this implies that those rankings can?t be looked at while B
is still in consideration. That is, B must be eliminated before they are
looked at. If this voting method eliminates candidates before all the
rankings are looked at, then it will not be able to avoid eliminating a
Condorcet winner.
	Thus, it seems that all Condorcet-efficient methods can be undermined by
voter strategy. However, I don?t think that the correct response in light
of this is to give up on the Condorcet principle and stick with other
methods that don?t offer these particular incentives. For one thing, the
Condorcet criterion is a highly desirable one, and secondly, these methods
have strategic problems of their own.
	My thought is that we might be able to use a procedure which selects a
Condorcet winner when one exists, and yet which gives people some
opportunity to undo the effects of a burying strategy if one occurs.
	I propose that since no fully deterministic vote-processing rule can
satisfy both Condorcet efficiency and resistance to the burying strategy,
we should consider systems that incorporate further human choice and
judgement after the initial balloting. I will propose such a procedure for
use within legislative bodies, and then I will propose a slightly modified
procedure for use in public elections where a single representative is
being elected.

Proposal for use within legislative bodies:
	A. Discussion. Ranked vote. Go to B.
	B. Discussion. Yes-no vote on the winner from the previous ranked vote,
whether a Condorcet winner or the winner based on a chosen completion
method, such as ranked pairs or beatpath. If the relative majority votes
yes, then that option is selected as the final outcome. If the relative
majority votes no, return to A.
	Note: At any discussion stage, a particular option can be withdrawn,
either by the sponsor of that option, or by being nominated for withdrawal
and confirmed by a relative majority. Also, with the approval of a
relative majority, non-members of the Schwartz set from a previous ranked
balloting can be removed from further consideration. The purpose of these
measures is to simplify the process by eliminating options that can be
agreed to be irrelevant.

	This procedure gives legislators a chance to discuss the winner given by
a completion method, and make an attempt to determine whether a burying
strategy has taken place. For example, they might look over the ranked
votes cast by other legislators and see if two very similar options are
placed suspiciously far apart on the ballot. They may fail to detect a
burial strategy if it exists, but they at least have an opportunity.
	In general, the fact that the final outcome must be approved by a
relative majority ensures majority rule and prevents any strange surprises
from getting locked into place before people see them coming. It is
possible that legislators will wrestle with a variety of strategies and
counter strategies, drawing the process into several repetitions. However,
they have been given the best tools available for building a majority
decision. If the process goes into a deadlock where the amount of
repetitions exceed the patience of the legislature and the issue is
dropped, this is arguably a natural deadlock which could not be given a
truly satisfactory resolution by another method.

Proposal for use in public elections:
	A. Ranked vote. If a Condorcet winner exists, then this candidate is
selected as the final outcome. If no Condorcet winner exists, go to B.
	B. Yes-no vote on completion method winner from previous ranked vote. If
the relative majority votes yes, then this candidate is selected as the
final outcome. If the relative majority votes no, go to C.
	C. Ranked vote on candidates already included in the process. Return to B.
	Note: Stages B and C should be combined in a single balloting. If the
relative majority votes yes on the option presented by the previous ranked
vote, then the subsequent ranked vote is of course irrelevant. However, in
order to save time and resources (and keep turnout high) it is better to
perform the subsequent ranked vote at the same time as the yes-no vote.
The gap between the ballotings is a matter of preference. I imagine gaps
of a week or so.
	Note: Any candidate is free to withdraw in between ballotings, but no
candidates can enter beyond the initial vote. Thus, the number of
candidates can only decrease given subsequent rounds, simplifying the
process.

	The discussion that is an important part of this process would hopefully
still take place, but since it is a public situation with a large number
of voters, the discussion would rely on some types of media, and hence the
quality of deliberation would rely on the structure of public media.
	The only difference between A and C in the public elections version is
that a Condorcet winner in stage A is automatically selected, but a
Condorcet winner in stage C must be confirmed by a relative majority.
	The fact that a Condorcet winner from the initial vote is automatically
selected is a trouble-saving device which I have put into the public
elections version but not the legislative body version. It isn?t much
extra trouble for a legislature to take an extra vote to confirm a
Condorcet winner, but in a public election the cost and trouble of an
extra balloting would be significant.
	If a Condorcet winner exists in the initial vote, it is a fairly
trustworthy option to pick. Note that a group of voters can?t change a
candidate B from a non Condorcet winner to a Condorcet winner by changing
the order of candidates that they have ranked after candidate B. For
example, if a group of voters lists B as their first choice and B is still
not a Condorcet winner, there is nothing further that they can do to make
B a Condorcet winner.
	Obviously no effective burying strategy has taking place if there is a
Condorcet winner, because this strategy depends on a fabricated majority
overruling a genuine majority through a cycle.
	The possibility of a large number of repetitions of this process would be
more of a problem for a public election than for a legislative decision,
because of the larger cost of subsequent votes, and the possibility of
term limits. Hence, a question remains about whether to limit the number
of repetitions, and if so, how to do so. 
	One could go on repeating the process indefinitely until a relative
majority approved the outcome, taking majority no votes as an endorsement
of the status quo. At the end of a term limit, one would have to ask the
representative in question to step down in favor of a substitute such as a
Vice President, who would hold the office until the conclusion of the
ranked vote. However, this would be awkward, the repeated ballotings might
be expensive, and the instability of a temporary office holder might be
undesirable.
	One could place a specific the number of repetitions ahead of time, for
example declaring that the results of the fifth ranked vote were final and
binding. However, all of the strategic concerns relevant to
Condorcet-efficient method would apply here once again.
	Perhaps the solution is to declare a candidate to be the final selection
once they have been the winner of a certain number of ranked votes,
whether a clear Condorcet winner or based on a completion method. For
example, if a candidate A wins three separate ranked votes, candidate A is
 elected.
	Hopefully, however, these kinds of rule will never come into play. Even
if no Condorcet winner is found in the initial vote, one can hope that the
majority will approve whatever completion method winner is given, and
hence only one additional balloting will be necessary. The primary purpose
of the subsequent votes is to serve as a safeguard against burial
strategies, and if the majority is not convinced that such a strategy has
affected the outcome, they should approve the completion method winner.
Even if they do not approve the first winner that comes forward, I imagine
that the cycle should collapse into a Condorcet winner within a couple
rounds, through the withdrawal of other candidates in the cycle, or
through the consolidation of voters who were split between two candidates
to support a single candidate.

	I would recommend the legislative bodies procedure to any legislature or
council that can acquire the resources to process ranked ballots according
to a Condorcet completion method. I would recommend the public elections
procedure to any government that can acquire the resources to process
ranked ballots and to hold successive ballotings.



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Wed Dec 17 23:58:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Wed Dec 17 23:58:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd Algorithm?
Message-ID: <Law10-F40w21NFp8KOR00044585@hotmail.com>


Either Markus or Craig Carey, I'm not quite sure which, said:

>However, Mike Ossipoff always describes the Floyd algorithm as
>follows:
>
> > for i in range(N)
> > for j in range(N)
> > for k in range(N)
> >    low=min(B[A(i,j)],B[A(j,k)]
> >    if low>B[A(i,k)]
> >    B[A(i,k)]=low

Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm. I don't use that piece of 
code. It looks like it might be a tiny fraction of a Python strongests 
beatpaths program, with at least one of its lines partly erased.

I don't guarantee that it's part of anythng that I wrote, but, if it is, 
then let me explain the odd appearance of the arrays: Python, at least the 
version that I was using, doesn't have multidimensional arrays. It only has 
1-dimensional arrays. So I wrote a function to convert a 2-dimensional array 
position to a 1-dimensional array position. I called that function "A(i,j)". 
That 1-dimensional array position serves as the index variable for the 
strongest beatpaths array, B[A(i,j)].

The algorithm that I'll post, however, isn't written in any particular 
programming language. That will be posted within an hour or a half hour.

I do call a certain strongest beatpaths algorithm the Floyd algorithm, only 
because someone on this list told us that that's what that algorithm is 
called.

I've certainly never called it a shortest paths algorithm. It's purpose is 
to find the _strongest_ beatpath from each candidate to each other 
candidate. The strongest beatpath from Smith to Jones could also be the 
longest one. I have no idea what you're talking about when you refer to the 
shortest paths algorithm. Perhaps you're talking about a different algorithm 
from the strongest beatpaths algorithm.

The algorithm that I use was suggested by Steve Eppley. Apparently someone 
before him had described it. I don't claim to know what its official name 
is.

It's part of the algorithm that I send people for counting BeatpathWinner. 
I'll post that BeatpathWinner algorithm here in a few minutes.

Mike

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 02:45:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 02:45:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd Algorithm?
Message-ID: <3FE184B2.F932A832@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):

> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

> Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
> Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
> entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
> beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.

But the then used algorithm is clearly not the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

>    changing = 1
>
>    while changing:
>
>        changing = 0
>
>        for i in range(nc):
>            for j in range(nc):
>                for k in range(nc):
>
>                    dmin = min ( Def[i,j], Def[j,k] )
>
>                    if Def[i,k] < dmin:
>                        Def[i,k] = dmin
>                        changing = 1

The Floyd algorithm has a runtime O(N^3), where N is the number of
candidates. But what you call the "Floyd Algorithm" has a runtime
O(N^5).

******

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> It's part of the algorithm that I send people for counting
> BeatpathWinner. I'll post that BeatpathWinner algorithm here
> in a few minutes.

A correct version of the Floyd algorithm can be found in my paper
"A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 18 03:23:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Thu Dec 18 03:23:01 2003
Subject: [EM] BeatpathWinner Algorithm
Message-ID: <Law10-F118GTFc0imLv0003ce33@hotmail.com>

Here is an algorithm to implement BeatpathWinner. It seems to me that 
someone called the strongest beatpaths algorithm the Floyd algorithm. But 
maybe not. When Markus said that the fragment of code that he quoted didn't 
work to find the shortest path, he may have been referring to the overall 
algorithm or program from which his fragment was taken. That may well be, 
because the strongest beatpaths algorithm used here isn't intended to find 
shortest paths. It's intended to find strongest beatpaths.

BeatpathWinner Algorithm:

The algorithm below isn't written here in any
particular programming language. But it would only
require a few small  changes to make it into any
programming language.

Here's the BeatpathWinner algorithm:

First we make the strongest beatpaths array.

Place the defeat-strengths into the strongest
beatpaths array, B(i,j):

If i  beats j, then B(i,j) = the number of people who
have ranked i over j.

If i doesn't beat j, then B(i,j) = 0.

repeat = 1
while repeat = 1:
  change = 0
  for i = 1 to N
     for j =  1 to N
        for k = 1 to N
           least = min(B(i,j), B(j,k))
           if least > B(i,k):
              B(i,k) = least
              change =1
           endif
       endfor
    endfor
endfor
if change= 0
    repeat = 0
endif
endwhile

When this has been done, you have the strongest
beatpaths array, B(i,j), where B(i,j) is the strength
of the strongest beatpath from i to j. (If there's no
beatpath from i to j, then B(i,j) = 0).

Then B(i,j) is used to find the winners of
BeatpathWinner:

for i = 1 to N
win(i) = 1
endfor

for i = 1 to N
  for j = 1 to N
     if B(j,i) > B(i,j)
        win(i) = 0
     endif
  endfor
endfor

print "The winners are:"
for i = 1 to N
if win(i) = 1
    print i
endif
endfor

[end of BeatpathWinner algorithm]
_____

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 18 03:52:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Thu Dec 18 03:52:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Re:  Floyd algorithm?
Message-ID: <Law10-F95N7miR9Odut00005606@hotmail.com>

Markus said:

Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):

>Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

I reply:

Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly what you 
mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.

You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment, 
some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd 
algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment 
anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment the 
Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied 
fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

You continued:

But the then used algorithm is clearly not the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

I reply:

I couldn't care less if it's the Floyd algorithm. If it isn't, then I'll 
tell Russ to delete that name from the website. When we put it at the 
website, I at that time believed that it was the Floyd algorithm because it 
was the corrected versioin of something that you had posted to EM, calling 
it the Floyd algorithm.

What you'd posted differed by only making one pass throiugh the 3-candiate 
permutations. But one pass isn't guaranteed to find all the strongest 
beatpaths.

Now it occurs to me that maybe your Floyd algorithm isn't intended to do 
that. After all, you do call it the shortest-path algorithm, not the 
strongest path algorithm. I assumed at the time that your algorithm was 
supposed to find the strongest beatpaths, and that yoiu'd accidentally left 
out the code to repeat the passes till the task is complete. So I corrected 
what you'd posted so that it would do that, and called it the Floyd 
algorithm.

I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from you 
or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

But now I don't know if an algorithm for finding the strongest beatpaths is 
the same as the Floyd algorithm. You say it isn't. Fine. I'll tell Russ to 
delete that name from the website.

Now, Markus, understand this: I did call the algorithm from which you got 
your fragment the Floyd algorithm, because I thought that algorithm was what 
you were trying to write when you posted a "Floyd algorithm". I did not call 
your posted line-truncated fragment the Floyd algorithm, and that was what I 
was saying in my previoius posting here tonight.

I don't know if our strongest beatpaths algorithm is the Floyd algorithm, 
and I don't care. It finds strongest beatpaths. I'll tell Rus to delete the 
name.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 05:10:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 05:10:02 2003
Subject: [EM] BeatpathWinner Algorithm
Message-ID: <3FE1A6A0.C8253720@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear participants,

the correct version of the Floyd algorithm can be found in
Section 4 and in Appendix 3 of my paper "A New Monotonic
and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

Markus Schulze


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 05:10:04 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 05:10:04 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?
Message-ID: <3FE1A6B4.42E5AC72@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
> (http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):
>
> > Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
> > Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
> > entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
> > beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly
> what you mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.
>
> You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
> some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
> algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
> anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
> the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
> fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you call your implementation
"Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I misquoted you?

*********

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> I couldn't care less if it's the Floyd algorithm. If it isn't, then I'll
> tell Russ to delete that name from the website. When we put it at the
> website, I at that time believed that it was the Floyd algorithm because it
> was the corrected versioin of something that you had posted to EM, calling
> it the Floyd algorithm.
>
> What you'd posted differed by only making one pass throiugh the 3-candiate
> permutations. But one pass isn't guaranteed to find all the strongest
> beatpaths.
>
> Now it occurs to me that maybe your Floyd algorithm isn't intended to
> do that. After all, you do call it the shortest-path algorithm, not the
> strongest path algorithm. I assumed at the time that your algorithm was
> supposed to find the strongest beatpaths, and that yoiu'd accidentally left
> out the code to repeat the passes till the task is complete. So I corrected
> what you'd posted so that it would do that, and called it the Floyd
> algorithm.

What you call "the corrected versioin" is actually a falsified version.
When you use the correct order of the indices in the triple-loop, then
one pass through the 3-candidate permutations _does_ guarantee to find
all the strongest paths. Floyd proved this in 1962. This is the reason
why it is called the "Floyd algorithm".

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm
> from you or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

It is sad that you didn't get your strongest path algorithm from me
or Floyd; if you did it, it had a runtime of O(N^3) and not of O(N^5).

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 18 05:46:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Thu Dec 18 05:46:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Floyd algorithm?
Message-ID: <Law10-F57inarBU393I000455c2@hotmail.com>

I'd said, spelling it out very carefully for Markus:

>You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
>some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
>algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
>anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
>the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
>fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

Markus replied:

In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you call your implementation
"Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I misquoted you?

I reply:

Idiot, why don't you read the quoted passage above, from my e-mail. Did I 
deny that I'd called my implementation the Floyd algorithm? The only thing 
that I denied having called "the Floyd algorithm" was your poorly-copied, 
line-truncated fragment of a Python program. You had posted that fragment 
and said that I called it the Floyd algorithm.

Markus continued:

What you call "the corrected versioin" is actually a falsified version.

I reply:

I already clarified that the corrected version now apparently wasn't the 
Floyd algorithm. I already said that, at the time,  I believed that it was 
the Floyd algorithm because I believed that it was what you were trying to 
write, when you posted a procedure that you called the Floyd algorithm.

But, whether the version that I wrote is or is not the Floyd algorithm, it 
certainly finds the strongest beatpaths. I believe that I already clarified 
for you that I couldn't care less if that version is the Floyd algorithm.

You claim that  the  1-pass procedure that you posted finds the strongest 
beatpaths. Let's check it out and find out if it does.  What was the year, 
month, and day of  your posting in which you posted what you called the  
Floyd algorithm?

The Floyd algorithm is for finding shortest paths. Are you saying that it 
also finds strongest paths?
So then, are you saying that the shortest path from one candidate to another 
is necessarily the strongest path too?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Get dial-up Internet access now with our best offer: 6 months @$9.95/month!  
http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 07:35:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 07:35:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?
Message-ID: <3FE1C89C.1252854C@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
> (http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):
>
> > Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
> > Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
> > entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
> > beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly
> what you mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.
>
> You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
> some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
> algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
> anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
> the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
> fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you call your implementation
> "Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I misquoted you?

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> Idiot, why don't you read the quoted passage above, from my e-mail. Did I
> deny that I'd called my implementation the Floyd algorithm? The only thing
> that I denied having called "the Floyd algorithm" was your poorly-copied,
> line-truncated fragment of a Python program. You had posted that fragment
> and said that I called it the Floyd algorithm.

You are the idiot because you see no contradiction between the fact that
you call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" and the fact that you have
to admit that your Python program nowhere uses the Floyd algorithm.

******

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> You claim that  the  1-pass procedure that you posted finds the strongest
> beatpaths. Let's check it out and find out if it does.  What was the year,
> month, and day of  your posting in which you posted what you called the
> Floyd algorithm?

The Floyd algorithm has been proposed by Floyd (Robert W. Floyd, "Algorithm 97
(Shortest Path)," Communications of the ACM, vol. 5, p. 345, 1962).

Markus Schulze


From drernie at mac.com  Thu Dec 18 08:39:01 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Thu Dec 18 08:39:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?  - peace
In-Reply-To: <3FE1C89C.1252854C@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FE1C89C.1252854C@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <95FF01B8-3178-11D8-B986-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

Hi guys,

On Dec 18, 2003, at 7:32 AM, Markus Schulze wrote:
> You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
>> Idiot, why don't you read the quoted passage above, from my e-mail. 
>> Did I
>> deny that I'd called my implementation the Floyd algorithm? The only 
>> thing
>> that I denied having called "the Floyd algorithm" was your 
>> poorly-copied,
>> line-truncated fragment of a Python program. You had posted that 
>> fragment
>> and said that I called it the Floyd algorithm.
>
> You are the idiot because you see no contradiction between the fact 
> that
> you call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" and the fact that you 
> have
> to admit that your Python program nowhere uses the Floyd algorithm.

Can we chill? We're all Condorcet-lovers, after all.   Mike probably 
used the term Floyd inappropriately.   Markus probably cited a poor 
example.   Everybody makes mistakes.    No injury, no foul.

> You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
>> You claim that  the  1-pass procedure that you posted finds the 
>> strongest
>> beatpaths. Let's check it out and find out if it does.  What was the 
>> year,
>> month, and day of  your posting in which you posted what you called 
>> the
>> Floyd algorithm?
>
> The Floyd algorithm has been proposed by Floyd (Robert W. Floyd, 
> "Algorithm 97
> (Shortest Path)," Communications of the ACM, vol. 5, p. 345, 1962).

I suspect that we're really experiencing a clash of cultures.  Markus 
appears to be operating from a math/compsci perspective, where terms 
mean something different than they do in Mike.  As a physicist, I'm 
used to abusing mathematical terminology, so I can appreciate the 
dilemma. :-)

I suspect part of the problem is that the term 'shortest path'  in the 
Flloyd algorithm is used for finding what Mike calls a BeatPath.   The 
comparison of such paths to find the strongest beatpath is actually 
after the Flloyd algorithm.

There are some interesting differences between the two approaches, such 
as the use of absolute vs. relative weights, which may or may not be 
significant.  I'd be interested in hearing more about that.

-- Ernie P.

-----------
RadicalCentrism.org is an anti-partisan think tank near Sacramento, 
California, dedicated to developing and promoting the ideals of 
Reality, Character, Community and Humility as expressed in our Radical 
Centrist Manifesto: Ground Rules of Civil Society 
<http://RadicalCentrism.org/manifesto.html>



From research at ijs.co.nz  Thu Dec 18 09:42:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Thu Dec 18 09:42:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Rejecting the Schulze preferential voting method: a time for
 reform
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031219055006.04fa26e0@pop.qsi.net.nz>



I see that Marcus/Markus Schulze posted in 2 lines. While we wait
for the rest of the clipped communication (not conversation) I
post up some ideas. As ever, guessing is second to a catechistic
approach (with mind-changing over the answers allowed).


------------------------------

Mr Schulze did not reply to the issues which was that his method was
in the trash can and he had:
 1. got it to be biased in that same way that occurs for a method that
    always picks the 1st candidate on the list of candidates no matter
    what the votes are. I assume Mr Schulze agrees but he as usual he
    comment in response to every issue painting him up and not knowing
    how to design a preferential voting method.
 2. The presence of absence of the last preference affects who wins.

Both those ideas can indicate that the whole article was a junk and
trash. Mr Schulze wrote as if he could possibly begin to sense the
problem. With the idea that Mr Shulze can't understand everything that
much better theorists can precisely informa him of, I was going to
write a computer program to prove that his computer algorithm is
trash.

That follows his leaking following being moderated for censoring out
all information about the purpose for being so in the wrong which
the STV mailing list was certainly not getting adequately informed
about.

Mr Schulze has got a bias and I believe htat he has a purpose of
providing untrue information. The topic of how Mr Schulze can not
reply to 100% of the e-mails implying he start doing research into
nothing but his own trashy Schulze methods does not seem that
interesting. Why are core ideas of Condorcet so suboptimal since
proportionality and fairness are crushed/mangled together ?.

After these 5 years the ulitmate best Mr Schulze has been able to
do in the area of defending the garbage ideal, is to keep up the
pretense of never being able to identify the topic. That seems to be
the uniting ideal of Condorcet: even if Dr Dolittle's animals could
all understand why the lie of Condorcet pairwise comparing being
good is something so suboptimal that the method can't be said to be
optimal, the Condorcet believer would be suggesting he is following
the public idea that pairwise comparing is important. External is
idealized STV where both fairness and proportionally are both
perfectly defined and achieved except as best possible in the
circumstances.

Also Mr Schulze seems to get a few lines out every month to public
lists and constantly nothing at all to private e-mail. Teh big
aim in public mailing lists seems to be to drop names. When he
has a problem with transparency of purpose he slips into a dumb
mailing list - this one, where persons who know nothing and do
no useful research, congregate wishing that some religious man
unable to decide nothing is something and visa versa, would lead
them out.

In the grand sweep of Mr Schulzes exposition, he designed the
algorithm in the paper so the input is never votes. The preprocessing
stage that proves that the method is stupid, got censored out. It
is the case that reasoning indicates that Schulze's method should
be rejected instead of tested. 


Let's consider the algorithm itself. Here I quote from the VM 17
PDF file:

---
:     Suppose that d[X,Y] is the number of voters who
:     strictly prefer candidate X to candidate Y. Then the
:     Smith set is the smallest non-empty set of candidates
:     with d[A,B] > d[B,A] for each candidate B outside this
:     set.
---

The English text of Schulze probably seems to imply this
interpretation:

* Let there be only 3 candidates. Let the ballot papers be these:

2 (CA)
5 (CAB)
1 (CBA)

What is Mr Schulze's d[A,B] ?.

We could look at the computer algorithm source code but it takes
the "d" matrix as an input. The vote counting algorithm can't actually
accept votes.

The d[A,B] value would be:

 (Interpretation 1) the number 7, or
 (Interpretation 2) the number 5, or
 (Interpretation 3) the number 6, or
 (Interpretation 4) the number 4, or

I suppose Interpretations 3 and 4 can be rejected.

So dim are the followers of Condorcet that ruling out interpretations
using a correct reading of the text, could create a dispute.

For 5 years Schulze has be glued onto the falsehood and it seems
that in that time, evolution and pure thinking has brought to him
(a) a desire to censor out the perfectly wrong idea that pairwise
   comparing is not to be rejected
(b) for the STV community, he trashes their perfectly inconsistent
   views by presenting himself as needing exactly 2 words to
   "strictly prefer", Also the idea of summing is added with the
   relentlessly useless wording "the number of voters". If there are
   no voters, or the counts are non-integral or P2 is failed and the
   probing at negative numbers does not occur, that it would be
   false to conclude that the method is monotonic.

Here is the title of the paper:

  "A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method"

The publishing agency is the McDougall Trust.

Mr Shulze's credibility as theoriticians is incompatible with the
private e-mail messages from me to him on 3 October 2003 and 23
October 2003. At that time I was hampered by the ambiguous trashy
wording he relied upon.

Quoting from the 23 October document that comments narrowly on the
algorithm, I quote the method of the PDF VM 17 article:


| Markus Schulze, A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent
| Single-Winner Election Method, VOTING MATTERS, issue 17,
| September 2003
|
| Input: d[i,j] with i <> j is the number of voters who strictly
|                         prefer candidate i to candidate j.
| Output:  "w[i] = true" means that candidate i is a potential
|                         winner.
|          "w[i] = false" means that candidate i is not a
|                         potential winner.
| -- STEP 1
| for i := 1 to N do
|    for j := 1 to N do
|       if (i <> j) then p[i,j] := d[i,j] - d[j,i]; end if;
|    end loop;
| end loop;
| -- STEP 2
| for i := 1 to N do
|    for j := 1 to N do
|       if (i <> j) then
|          for k := 1 to N do
|             if (i <> k) then
|                if (j <> k) then
|                   s := min { p[j,i], p[i,k] };
|                   if (p[j,k] < s) then p[j,k] := s; end if;
|                end if;
|             end if;
|          end loop;
|       end if;
|    end loop;
| end loop;
|
| -- STEP 3
| for i := 1 to N do
|    w[i] := true ;
|    for j := 1 to N do
|       if (i <> j) then
|          if (p[j,i] > p[i,j]) then
|             w[i] := false ;
|          end if;
|       end if;
|    end loop;
| end loop;
| --------------

It is obvious from that Mr Schulze did not write any test at all that
attempts to clarify the words "strictly prefer".

Why Mr Schulze could not come to some clear conclusion in 1986 on how
to present with the fullest possible clarity the incompetently
pitiable deliberate error that subsequently guarantees that the
algorithm would be unfair, is baffling.

Here is the example again:

2 (CA)
5 (CAB)
1 (CBA)

The d[A,B] value:
 (Interpretation 1) the number 7, or
 (Interpretation 2) the number 5.

There are 2 cases (if not more)

(Case or Interpretation 1) The 2 is added to the 5.

  The article said "strictly prefer" instead of "prefer",  and I cant
  think of a purpose for that except to rule out this case.

  This case is so far acceptable but the whole method will not be.

(Case or Interpretation 2)
  In this case, the paper (CA) does not count towards candidate A.


Mr Schulze would be in the wrong IF ever saying that it is *obvious* that
these two cases have candidate 'A' being preferred by the same amount
against/over candidate 'B', when there are 5 or more candidates and
not 4 or less:

  (a) (C D A)
  (b) (C D A B)






Even in 1998 Mr Schulze's neutrality view appears to be a mistake.
Instead the illogic of having multivalued winners can be used.
The big argument here is that today Mr Schulze seems to reject
the neutrality rule since he could believe it would trash the [awful]
Schulze algorithm. The ideal course is to criticize Mr Schulze for
believing in the importance of the rule and again in 2003 for not
using it.

------------- example:

Suppose that the candidates are listed and the method makes the
first one listed, be the winner. So the method is faulty since it
fully ignores the ballot paper counts.

* External names: A, B
* Internal names: 1, 2
* External ballot papers:
    1 (A)
    9 (B) 
* Winner = candidate #1 = A

Re-letter externally and keep the algorithm unchanged:

* External names: B, A
* Internal names: 1, 2
* External ballot papers:
    1 (A)
    9 (B) 
* Winner = candidate #1 = B

The algorithm is returning the right number of winners, but it is
returning a multi-valued set of winners.

The definition of "multivalued". An exmaple: Log(1) is multivalued and
its values include: 0, 2*pi*i, 4*pi*i, etc.

Can Mr Shulze say what axioms lead to multivalued winner sets ?.

Why does he need a rule to stop neutrality violations and I do not.
If he disagrees and says that the rule is important it it does not
matter if it is redundant, then why was he maintaining such secrecy
on the topic of whether or not his method appearing in issue 17 of
Voting Matters fails ?. This is an argument is ambiguous, and unlike
the possible ambiguity of the Mr Schulze's "strictly prefer", the
persons creating the ambiguity is constructing the argument for all
the cases.

The Shulze algorithm has basic simple errors appearing in the very
first lines of the algorithm (Step 1). 

In Mr Schulzes world, he has got the typical Condorcet aim of
under-wording the theory of what actually happens when this paper

   1*(....A....B...)  Unnamed = ....

is altered into this paper:

   1*(....A....)  Unnamed = ....B....

Obviously what a *competent* government preferential voting method
expert will expect, is that there is no rule saying (somehow) that
A's standing with respect to B, is remains constant when that change
is done. Such a requirement would harm some other good principle.
If the theory is nearly optimal then it would be largely proportionality.

From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 11:24:09 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 11:24:09 2003
Subject: [EM] Rejecting the Schulze preferential voting method: a time for 
 reform
Message-ID: <3FE1FD49.F1E1C040@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

you wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> Let's consider the algorithm itself. Here I quote from the VM 17
> PDF file:
>
> ---
> :     Suppose that d[X,Y] is the number of voters who
> :     strictly prefer candidate X to candidate Y. Then the
> :     Smith set is the smallest non-empty set of candidates
> :     with d[A,B] > d[B,A] for each candidate B outside this
> :     set.
> ---
>
> The English text of Schulze probably seems to imply this
> interpretation:
>
> * Let there be only 3 candidates. Let the ballot papers be these:
>
> 2 (CA)
> 5 (CAB)
> 1 (CBA)
>
> What is Mr Schulze's d[A,B] ?.
>
> We could look at the computer algorithm source code but it takes
> the "d" matrix as an input. The vote counting algorithm can't actually
> accept votes.
>
> The d[A,B] value would be:
>
>  (Interpretation 1) the number 7, or
>  (Interpretation 2) the number 5, or
>  (Interpretation 3) the number 6, or
>  (Interpretation 4) the number 4, or
>
> I suppose Interpretations 3 and 4 can be rejected.
>
> ...

In the Introduction of the quoted paper, I write: "It is presumed
that each voter casts at least a partial ranking of all candidates."

Markus Schulze


From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Thu Dec 18 13:30:01 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Thu Dec 18 13:30:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312181237360.27475-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

For me two paramount criteria are

(1) simplicity of optimal or near optimal strategy, and

(2) as much voting power as possible consistent with (1).

There are various possible definitions of "voting power," but it should
have something to do with the probability of one ballot or set of ballots
being pivotal to the outcome in an election chosen at random from some
family of elections.



Here's a method that comes close to satisfying these criteria:

The method takes ranked ballots with equal rankings allowed, as input.

The method first applies Rob LeGrand's "ballot-by-ballot" version of
"strategy A" to all possible permutations of the ballot. [Yes, this method
is computationally intractable.]

If the same candidate wins for all permutations, then that candidate is
declared winner.

Else, Joe Weinstein's weighted median method is applied to determine the
winner.  A candidate's weight is the number of permutations that it won
(according to Rob) plus one (so that each candidate has non-zero weight).

Although this method is computationally intractable,the method winner can
be calculated with 99.9 percent accuracy without inordinate computational
burden, by use of montecarlo methods, for example.

The residual doubt is small compared to other sources of doubt in other
voting methods, especially the doubt that the votes were sincere, or the
doubt that the the voters were using their best strategy for maximizing
their voting power.

Note that the method is completely deterministic, but that practical
estimation of the method's winner may require something like montecarlo.

Perhaps the voters could get use to such an idea if they could see the
advantages of satisfying criteria one and two above.

Forest



From dglaude at gmx.net  Thu Dec 18 13:36:02 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Thu Dec 18 13:36:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?  - peace
In-Reply-To: <95FF01B8-3178-11D8-B986-000393CDCA50@mac.com>
References: <3FE1C89C.1252854C@alumni.tu-berlin.de> <95FF01B8-3178-11D8-B986-000393CDCA50@mac.com>
Message-ID: <3FE21D97.1010200@gmx.net>

Ernest Prabhakar wrote:

> Can we chill? We're all Condorcet-lovers, after all.   Mike probably 
> used the term Floyd inappropriately.   Markus probably cited a poor 
> example.   Everybody makes mistakes.    No injury, no foul.

I love flame war... especially those where I don't understand a word.

> I suspect that we're really experiencing a clash of cultures.  Markus 
> appears to be operating from a math/compsci perspective, where terms 
> mean something different than they do in Mike.  As a physicist, I'm used 
> to abusing mathematical terminology, so I can appreciate the dilemma. :-)

Where is Mike comming from then?

> I suspect part of the problem is that the term 'shortest path'  in the 
> Flloyd algorithm is used for finding what Mike calls a BeatPath.   The 
> comparison of such paths to find the strongest beatpath is actually 
> after the Flloyd algorithm.

Because I was not aware of the Flloyd algorithm...

I would like to learn something here.

I know a few 'shortest path' algorithm like "Dijkstra" and 
"Bellman-Ford". Dijkstra is having an 0(n*Log(n)) complexity (in time) 
and for the other... I don't remember but it is a more distributed 
algorithm.

Now sometime Markus talk about "strongest path" wich might be something 
completely different.

So for me all this discussion was completely confusing, and I would love 
some explanation...

But I think I have to aggree with Markus... 0(N^3) is better than 0(N^5).

David GLAUDE






From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 14:44:06 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 14:44:06 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?  - peace
Message-ID: <3FE22D54.A4AA77B3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear David,

you wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> I know a few 'shortest path' algorithm like "Dijkstra" and
> "Bellman-Ford". Dijkstra is having an 0(n*Log(n)) complexity (in time)
> and for the other... I don't remember but it is a more distributed
> algorithm.

Bellman-Ford, Dijkstra, and Floyd have the property that they all look
for possible short cuts until a termination criterion is met. They differ
only in the order in which the possible short cuts are considered.

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> Now sometime Markus talk about "strongest path" wich might be something 
> completely different.

"Strongest paths" and "shortest paths" are mathematically equivalent in
so far as both follow the same concept of short cuts. In the shortest
path problem, a short cut is a situation with p_old[j,k] > p[j,i] + p[i,k]
so that you can set p_new[j,k] = p[j,i] + p[i,k]. In the strongest path
problem, a short cut is a situation with p_old[j,k] < min ( p[j,i], p[i,k] )
so that you can set p_new[j,k] = min ( p[j,i], p[i,k] ).

By the way: In the scientific literature, "strongest paths" are called
"maximum capacity paths".

Markus Schulze


From stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca  Thu Dec 18 19:09:18 2003
From: stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca (Stephane Rouillon)
Date: Thu Dec 18 19:09:18 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?  - peace
References: <3FE22D54.A4AA77B3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <3FE26AE0.AB862976@sympatico.ca>

Markus Schulze a ?crit :

> Dear David,
>
> you wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> > I know a few 'shortest path' algorithm like "Dijkstra" and
> > "Bellman-Ford". Dijkstra is having an 0(n*Log(n)) complexity (in time)
> > and for the other... I don't remember but it is a more distributed
> > algorithm.

If I remember well one uses reaching to update labels the other pushing...
Am I right?

> Bellman-Ford, Dijkstra, and Floyd have the property that they all look
> for possible short cuts until a termination criterion is met. They differ
> only in the order in which the possible short cuts are considered.

I though that Floyd was an implementation of the maximum-flow problem,
which in my eye is not equivalent to a shortest path. The first is based on
capacities,
the other on costs...
But what do I know, I am just supposed to be a specialist in those matter,
I'm humble enough not to be sure.

> You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> > Now sometime Markus talk about "strongest path" wich might be something
> > completely different.
>
> "Strongest paths" and "shortest paths" are mathematically equivalent in
> so far as both follow the same concept of short cuts. In the shortest
> path problem, a short cut is a situation with p_old[j,k] > p[j,i] + p[i,k]
> so that you can set p_new[j,k] = p[j,i] + p[i,k]. In the strongest path
> problem, a short cut is a situation with p_old[j,k] < min ( p[j,i], p[i,k] )
> so that you can set p_new[j,k] = min ( p[j,i], p[i,k] ).
>
> By the way: In the scientific literature, "strongest paths" are called
> "maximum capacity paths".

That's what I call a maximum-flow path. I never imagined that election method
would
bring me right back to my thesis... Maybe it is a sign it is time to finish it.

> Markus Schulze
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Steph



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 19 01:38:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Fri Dec 19 01:38:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus's debate about what I allegedly said (Who but Markus cares?)
Message-ID: <Law10-F30NchHfij1c100020e3c@hotmail.com>

I'd said:

>You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
>some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
>algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
>anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
>the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
>fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

Markus's latest claims about that message:

You are the idiot because you see no contradiction between the fact that
you call your implementation "Floyd algorithm"

I reply:

Wrong. I don't call my implementation the Floyd algorithm. I made it as 
clear as possible for you that
I no longer call it that. I said that I'm going to ask Russ to delete that 
name from the website. Markus, does it occur to you that most of what you 
say isn't true?  Doesn't that bother you at all?

Yes, I had previously called my implementation the Floyd algorithm. I 
carefully explained to you how that came about, and I'm not going to repeat 
it again for  you. But I made it clear that I no longer call it the Floyd 
algorithm.

List members: In case you're new to this list, this is what Markus does. 
He'll latch on to some false claim about what someone said, and then he'll 
keep on re-asserting it, with more false statements in each new posting. If 
I keep replying to him, he'll go on like this for months. February will 
arrive and Markus will still be trying to argue that I claim that my 
implementation is the Floyd algorithm. Does that sound silly? Does it sound 
like a reallly stupidly trivial thing to be wasting people's time, and our 
archive space about? Sure, but apparently Markus really has nothing else to 
do. Evidently Markus is completely without a life.

List members are probably already getting tired of this stupid debate, which 
will go on for as long as I reply to Markus. He isn't really saying anything 
that deserves a reply, and so you'll be glad to hear that this will be my 
last reply to his sily debate in this thread. Typically Markus will then 
send a few more messages, but when he doesn't get a reply he'll quit. When I 
don't reply, that doesn't mean that Markus has said something irrefutable. 
It merely means that I'm no longer wasting my time on Markus.

Markus continued:

...and the fact that you have
to admit that your Python program nowhere uses the Floyd algorithm.

I reply:

Markus, you see, apparently doesn't read the messages that he replies to. 
I've been repeating (but to no avail) that now I don't  claim to know what 
the Floyd algorithm is, and nor do I care.

******

Markus continued:

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
>You claim that  the  1-pass procedure that you posted finds the strongest
>beatpaths. Let's check it out and find out if it does.  What was the year,
>month, and day of  your posting in which you posted what you called the
>Floyd algorithm?

The Floyd algorithm has been proposed by Floyd (Robert W. Floyd, "Algorithm 
97
(Shortest Path)," Communications of the ACM, vol. 5, p. 345, 1962).

I reply:

Excuse me, but did I ask who proposed the Floyd algorithm? I was referring 
to the one that you posted here some time ago. I was suggesting that we find 
it in the archives and find out if, without making more than one pass 
through the permutations, it finds the strongest beatpaths between each pair 
of candidates. So I repeat: What was the year, month and day that you posted 
that algorithm that you called the Floyd algorithm and claimed would find 
the strongest beatpaths with one pass through the permutations?

By the way, if, as you seem to be suggesting, the Floyd algorithm (the real 
one, I mean) finds the strongest paths between pairs of graph-nodes, even 
though the web articles say that it's intended to find the _shortest_ path, 
then, if that's so, ways of finding strongest paths were being discussed as 
early as 1962. If that's true, do you really believe that it never occurred 
to anyone to compare path strengths between two candidates, until you 
"invented" that idea in 1996?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Working moms: Find helpful tips here on managing kids, home, work ?  and 
yourself.   http://special.msn.com/msnbc/workingmom.armx



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 19 02:09:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Fri Dec 19 02:09:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
Message-ID: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>

Ernie,

You wrote:

Can we chill? We're all Condorcet-lovers, after all.   Mike probably
used the term Floyd inappropriately.

I reply:

But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything is 
the Floyd algorithm.
I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm that made as many 
permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd written it right, 
because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he really meant to write 
the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd algorithm. I said "Ok".
So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have no idea, but 
that's how he always is.

You continued:

I suspect that we're really experiencing a clash of cultures.

I reply:

Excuse me?

You continued:

Markus
appears to be operating from a math/compsci perspective

I reply:

Markus is operating in a "making-up-fictitious-quotes" perspective.

Math and comuter-science have nothing to do with it at all.

You continued:

, where terms
mean something different than they do in Mike.

I reply:

I agree that everything seems to mean something different to Markus. In 
particular, Markus evidently has a different perspective on the matter of 
whther he should check the accuracy of what he's about to post.

But if you're referring to mathematical terms, then tell me what 
mathematical term I have a different meaning for, resulting in the 
misunderstanding.

It isn't "Floyd algorithm", because I've already repeated many many times 
that I now don't claim to know what it means, and that the meaning of that 
term doesn't matter to me.

You continued:

As a physicist, I'm
used to abusing mathematical terminology, so I can appreciate the
dilemma. :-)

But what mathematical terminology is being abused now?

You continued:

I suspect part of the problem is that the term 'shortest path'  in the
Flloyd algorithm is used for finding what Mike calls a BeatPath.

I reply:

What I call a beatpath is a sequence of defeats from one candidate to 
another (informal definition).
So Floyd calls that a shortest path, and uses it to find a beatpath?

You continued:

The
comparison of such paths to find the strongest beatpath is actually
after the Flloyd algorithm.

I reply:

So something called "shortest paths" are used to find the strongest 
beatpath?

Ok.

I don't know if "shortest path" is a mathematical term, but I wasn't really 
taking a position on what it means. What I did say was that I agreed that 
the Floyd algorithm sounds different from our strongest beatpaths algorithm, 
because our algorithm seeks the strongest path betwen 2 candidates, not the 
shortest one.

But if you say that finding the shortest path between two candidates can 
somehow be part of some method for finding the strongest one, l of course 
wouldn't try to contradict you on that. It isn't something that I  would 
take a position on.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Tired of slow downloads? Compare online deals from your local high-speed 
providers now.  https://broadband.msn.com



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 19 06:10:05 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 19 06:10:05 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus's debate about what I allegedly said (Who but Markus 
 cares?)
Message-ID: <3FE2F247.F19CD794@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
> (http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):
>
> > Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
> > Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
> > entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
> > beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly
> what you mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.
>
> You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
> some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
> algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
> anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
> the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
> fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you call your implementation
> "Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I misquoted you?

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> Idiot, why don't you read the quoted passage above, from my e-mail. Did I
> deny that I'd called my implementation the Floyd algorithm? The only thing
> that I denied having called "the Floyd algorithm" was your poorly-copied,
> line-truncated fragment of a Python program. You had posted that fragment
> and said that I called it the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> You are the idiot because you see no contradiction between the fact that
> you call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" and the fact that you have
> to admit that your Python program nowhere uses the Floyd algorithm.

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Wrong. I don't call my implementation the Floyd algorithm. I made it as 
> clear as possible for you that I no longer call it that. I said that I'm
> going to ask Russ to delete that name from the website. Markus, does it
> occur to you that most of what you say isn't true?  Doesn't that bother
> you at all?
>
> Yes, I had previously called my implementation the Floyd algorithm. I
> carefully explained to you how that came about, and I'm not going to repeat
> it again for  you. But I made it clear that I no longer call it the Floyd
> algorithm.
>
> List members: In case you're new to this list, this is what Markus does.
> He'll latch on to some false claim about what someone said, and then he'll
> keep on re-asserting it, with more false statements in each new posting.
> If I keep replying to him, he'll go on like this for months. February
> will arrive and Markus will still be trying to argue that I claim that my
> implementation is the Floyd algorithm. Does that sound silly? Does it sound
> like a reallly stupidly trivial thing to be wasting people's time, and our
> archive space about? Sure, but apparently Markus really has nothing else to
> do. Evidently Markus is completely without a life.
>
> List members are probably already getting tired of this stupid debate, which
> will go on for as long as I reply to Markus. He isn't really saying anything
> that deserves a reply, and so you'll be glad to hear that this will be my
> last reply to his sily debate in this thread. Typically Markus will then
> send a few more messages, but when he doesn't get a reply he'll quit. When I
> don't reply, that doesn't mean that Markus has said something irrefutable.
> It merely means that I'm no longer wasting my time on Markus.
>
> Markus, you see, apparently doesn't read the messages that he replies to.
> I've been repeating (but to no avail) that now I don't  claim to know what
> the Floyd algorithm is, and nor do I care.

The problem with you is that you are unable to admit that you have made
a mistake (here: claiming that you have implemented the Floyd algorithm)
without bombarding with insults that person who pointed to this mistake.
Why are you unable to say something like?: "Yes, you are right. I mistakenly
called my implementation 'Floyd algorithm'. I will no longer call it 'Floyd
algorithm'. Thank you for pointing me to this mistake." or something like?:
"Thank you for explaining how the strongest paths can be calculated in a
runtime O(N^3). My implementation still has a runtime O(N^5)."

******

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Excuse me, but did I ask who proposed the Floyd algorithm? I was referring
> to the one that you posted here some time ago. I was suggesting that we find
> it in the archives and find out if, without making more than one pass
> through the permutations, it finds the strongest beatpaths between each pair
> of candidates. So I repeat: What was the year, month and day that you posted
> that algorithm that you called the Floyd algorithm and claimed would find
> the strongest beatpaths with one pass through the permutations?

I suggested to use the Floyd algorithm e.g. in my 6 Feb 2001 mail:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/6493
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2001-February/005093.html

in my 23 Feb 2001 mail:
http://www.topica.com/lists/RankedPairs/read/message.html?mid=1601349191

in my 14 Nov 2002 mail:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2002/debian-vote-200211/msg00035.html

and in my paper "A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent Single-Winner
Election Method":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

******

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> By the way, if, as you seem to be suggesting, the Floyd algorithm (the real
> one, I mean) finds the strongest paths between pairs of graph-nodes, even
> though the web articles say that it's intended to find the _shortest_ path,
> then, if that's so, ways of finding strongest paths were being discussed as
> early as 1962. If that's true, do you really believe that it never occurred
> to anyone to compare path strengths between two candidates, until you
> "invented" that idea in 1996?

When you believe that the Schulze method (aka Schwartz Sequential Dropping,
aka Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential Dropping, aka Beatpath Winner, aka
Beatpath Method, aka Path Winner, aka Path Voting, ...) has already been
proposed by other people, then you are invited to post the corresponding
paper.

******

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
> Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything
> is the Floyd algorithm. I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm
> that made as many permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd
> written it right, because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he really
> meant to write the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd algorithm.
> I said "Ok". So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have no
> idea, but that's how he always is.

Then, of course, it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" anymore. There was no need for you
to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

Markus Schulze


From malditomartin at yahoo.es  Fri Dec 19 06:56:48 2003
From: malditomartin at yahoo.es (=?iso-8859-1?q?Martin?=)
Date: Fri Dec 19 06:56:48 2003
Subject: [EM] unsuscribe
Message-ID: <20031219141837.86302.qmail@web11108.mail.yahoo.com>

 
 

_______________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Sorteos
?Ya puedes comprar Loter?a de Navidad!
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From rspeer at MIT.EDU  Fri Dec 19 07:27:02 2003
From: rspeer at MIT.EDU (Rob Speer)
Date: Fri Dec 19 07:27:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
References: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031219152557.GA11477@mit.edu>

On Fri, Dec 19, 2003 at 10:08:45AM +0000, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
> But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
> Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything 
> is the Floyd algorithm.
> I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm that made as many 
> permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd written it right, 
> because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he really meant to write 
> the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd algorithm. I said "Ok".
> So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have no idea, but 
> that's how he always is.

If you said "Ok", it would have been a great place to end the thread.
But it got lost in the mass of insults and flames being thrown back and
forth.

Markus is just doing what he does: he makes sure that voting terminology
used on this list is consistent, when so much of the available
information about voting terminology is inconsistent. Perhaps he's being
too harsh here or is even wrong about what you're referring to. People
make mistakes.

Terminology is a very important thing for people to agree on. It was
because of a conflict in terminology that I ended up in that stupid
flamewar with Eric.

It seems that the fiercest arguments can break out when the positions of
the arguers are closest. People like Donald Davidson and Craig Carey say
things that are much more inflammatory than any of this, but nobody
usually bothers to flame them.

-- 
Rob Speer



From dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk  Fri Dec 19 07:41:03 2003
From: dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk (Diana Galletly)
Date: Fri Dec 19 07:41:03 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
In-Reply-To: <20031219152557.GA11477@mit.edu>
References: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com> <20031219152557.GA11477@mit.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312191537250.13540@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003, Rob Speer wrote:

> People like Donald Davidson and Craig Carey say

Talking of Craig Carey, can someone please explain what his most
recent diatribe was on about?  And whether it's worth my while
worrying about?  (Since he's thrown Markus out of his private
party -- at least that's how it appears to outsiders -- I'd
like to know whether he actually has a point or is just excellent
at posturing.)

Diana.


From andru at cs.cornell.edu  Fri Dec 19 08:03:04 2003
From: andru at cs.cornell.edu (Andrew Myers)
Date: Fri Dec 19 08:03:04 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm
In-Reply-To: <20031219152702.19030.66063.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
References: <20031219152702.19030.66063.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <20031219160250.GA6837@balm.cs.cornell.edu>

Hi all,

The "Floyd algorithm" is usually called the Floyd-Warshall all-pairs shortest
path algorithm. This algorithm computes the cost of the "best path" in a
weighted, directed graph. The notion of 'best' and 'cost' are defined by two
operations we can call 'min' and '+', respectively. As long as the actual
mathematical operations have the right algebraic properties, the algorithm will
work. The core of the algorithm updates the matrix as follows:

    m[i][j] = 'min'(m[i][j], m[i][k] '+' m[k][j])

For example, if we choose 'min' = min and '+' = +, then the cost of a path
is the sum of the weights of the edges and the algorithm finds the lowest-cost
path.

If we choose 'min' = max and '+' = min, then the cost of a path is
the lowest-weight edge and the algorithm finds the highest-weight path.
This is the particular choice of operators that results in selecting
the beatpath winner.

Many other choices for 'min' and '+' are possible, of course.

When implemented correctly it has O(V^3) running time where V is the number of
vertices (nodes) in the graph.

-- Andrew Myers


From matt at tidalwave.net  Fri Dec 19 09:00:01 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Fri Dec 19 09:00:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
Message-ID: <20031219165215.E0A00AC78@sitemail.everyone.net>

An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20031219/564d543b/attachment.asc>

From drernie at mac.com  Fri Dec 19 09:30:02 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Fri Dec 19 09:30:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
References: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <EA5DD400-3248-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

I wrote:
> Can we chill?

Apparently the answer is "no".  :-)

Mike, Markus - as a newcomer to this arena, I have the greatest respect 
for both of you.   I think both of you are making valuable 
contributions to the field.   I think both of you are sincere and 
trying to do the best you can.    I am trying very hard to learn from 
both of you.  From what I've seen, both of you are willing to listen to 
constructive criticism, admit where you've made mistakes, and try to do 
the right thing.

At the same time, I feel like both of you are being just a little 
oversensitive on this issue.   I don't think either of you is 
deliberately overstating the facts.   And I can understand why you 
might be offended by the other person's tone.

However, I do feel that both of you are taking things a little too 
personally, and making too much of the other's slight lapses in 
terminology or etiquette.  Please, let it go.   We have far more 
important things to fight about.

-- Ernie P.



From drernie at mac.com  Fri Dec 19 10:09:02 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Fri Dec 19 10:09:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <20031219160250.GA6837@balm.cs.cornell.edu>
References: <20031219152702.19030.66063.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com> <20031219160250.GA6837@balm.cs.cornell.edu>
Message-ID: <4927B6FD-324E-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

Hi Andrew,

> The "Floyd algorithm" is usually called the Floyd-Warshall all-pairs 
> shortest
> path algorithm. This algorithm computes the cost of the "best path" in 
> a
> weighted, directed graph. The notion of 'best' and 'cost' are defined 
> by two
> operations we can call 'min' and '+', respectively....For example, if 
> we choose 'min' = min and '+' = +, then the cost of a path is the sum 
> of the weights of the edges and the algorithm finds the lowest-cost
> path. If we choose 'min' = max and '+' = min, then the cost of a path 
> is
> the lowest-weight edge and the algorithm finds the highest-weight path.

Thanks - this is awesome.  I think this highlights my biggest question 
about the Schulze method.  Essentially, Markus (and Mike) are 
recommending we treat the pairwise matrix of votes as defining a graph, 
where each candidate is a node and each vote count is a directed edge 
between two nodes.  This allows us to use standard mathematical 
techniques for traversing the graph, i.e., calculating the relative 
'strength' of two candidates.  Yes, Stef, time to finish that thesis, 
all this math really is the same.

Even if we agree to use a graph, and a particular graph-traversal 
algorithm, there's still a couple different ways to do the counting 
(i.e., to define the 'best' path we're searching for).

a) Use of 'shortest' path vs. 'strongest'

This is the issue you raise below:  do we add the paths along the way 
to get the 'length' of the path, or do we pick the 'weakest link' to 
measure the strength of path?

b) Use of relative wins vs. absolute votes

Do we count -all- the votes of A over B (A/B), or just net votes (A/B - 
B/A).

 From looking at their math, it appears that Markus ("Schulze method") 
is recommending:
a) shortest path
b) relative wins

while Mike ("beatpath") is recommending:
a) strongest path
b) absolute votes

These appear to be fundamental differences, independent of whether you 
use Floyd-Warshall or Dijkstra (or even when you can spell any of their 
names correctly, which I can't :-) for graph traversal.  That is, 
beatpath explicitly uses a slightly different set of assumptions than 
those used in the formal Schulze method.

Does anyone know if they're equivalent, or have any reason to argue 
(non-insultingly, please!) that one is better than the other?

-- Ernie P.


On Dec 19, 2003, at 8:02 AM, Andrew Myers wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> The "Floyd algorithm" is usually called the Floyd-Warshall all-pairs 
> shortest
> path algorithm. This algorithm computes the cost of the "best path" in 
> a
> weighted, directed graph. The notion of 'best' and 'cost' are defined 
> by two
> operations we can call 'min' and '+', respectively. As long as the 
> actual
> mathematical operations have the right algebraic properties, the 
> algorithm will
> work. The core of the algorithm updates the matrix as follows:
>
>     m[i][j] = 'min'(m[i][j], m[i][k] '+' m[k][j])
>
> For example, if we choose 'min' = min and '+' = +, then the cost of a 
> path
> is the sum of the weights of the edges and the algorithm finds the 
> lowest-cost
> path.
>
> If we choose 'min' = max and '+' = min, then the cost of a path is
> the lowest-weight edge and the algorithm finds the highest-weight path.
> This is the particular choice of operators that results in selecting
> the beatpath winner.
>
> Many other choices for 'min' and '+' are possible, of course.
>
> When implemented correctly it has O(V^3) running time where V is the 
> number of
> vertices (nodes) in the graph.
>
> -- Andrew Myers
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list 
> info



From andru at cs.cornell.edu  Fri Dec 19 11:09:12 2003
From: andru at cs.cornell.edu (Andrew Myers)
Date: Fri Dec 19 11:09:12 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <4927B6FD-324E-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>
References: <20031219152702.19030.66063.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com> <20031219160250.GA6837@balm.cs.cornell.edu> <4927B6FD-324E-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>
Message-ID: <20031219190713.GA7368@balm.cs.cornell.edu>

On Fri, Dec 19, 2003 at 10:08:02AM -0800, Ernest Prabhakar wrote:
> From looking at their math, it appears that Markus ("Schulze method") 
> is recommending:
> a) shortest path
> b) relative wins
> 
> while Mike ("beatpath") is recommending:
> a) strongest path
> b) absolute votes

As I understand it, they are both computing beatpath winners where
the goal is to find the strongest path using absolute votes.
The difference is that Markus is building on a more efficient algorithm,
the classic Floyd-Warshall algorithm. The key is to get the order
of the nested loops right so the algorithm converges in one pass.
This makes the algorithm simpler and asymptotically faster.
It is a dynamic programming algorithm; see any good algorithms
textbook (e.g., Cormen, Leiserson, and Rivest) for more details.

Unless there are a lot of candidates, it probably doesn't matter
much which algorithm is used.

-- Andrew Myers


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 19 11:33:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 19 11:33:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <3FE351F2.6BA9B886@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Ernest,

you wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Even if we agree to use a graph, and a particular graph-traversal
> algorithm, there's still a couple different ways to do the counting
> (i.e., to define the 'best' path we're searching for).

"Beatpath Method", "Beatpath Winner", "Path Voting", "Path Winner",
"Schwartz Sequential Dropping", "Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential
Dropping", and "Schulze Method" are only different names for the
same method.

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> From looking at their math, it appears that Markus ("Schulze method") 
> is recommending:
> a) shortest path
> b) relative wins
>
> while Mike ("beatpath") is recommending:
> a) strongest path
> b) absolute votes

We both are recommending strongest paths and absolute votes. There
is absolutely no difference between Mike's and my recommendation.

Markus Schulze


From drernie at mac.com  Fri Dec 19 12:06:39 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Fri Dec 19 12:06:39 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <3FE351F2.6BA9B886@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FE351F2.6BA9B886@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <86366664-325E-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

On Dec 19, 2003, at 11:30 AM, Markus Schulze wrote:
> We both are recommending strongest paths and absolute votes. There
> is absolutely no difference between Mike's and my recommendation.

Ah, thank you!  Sorry, I got confused between what you each recommended 
and what I was reading about the various algorithms.

I actually find the Floyd algorithm confusing, with all the indices.   
I think Dijkstra is not only clearer, but easier to implement using 
objects.  Here's some pseudo-Python code I've been working on, which I 
think implements the Schulze method via Dijkstra.

The main object is a 'Candidate (start, current, or beat) with the 
following fields:
- beats[] # list of candidates this one has beaten
- votes{} # dictionary of votes for this one against each other 
candidate
- strength # hold temporary path strengths; allows sorting to find 
'smallest'

def FindStrongestPaths(start):
"Find best paths to all candidates starting from candidate 'start'"
final = []
start.strength = HUGE_VAL # arbitrarily large, so anything is 'min' 
relative to it
unchecked = [start]
while (current = unchecked.smallest()): # removes and returns smallest 
elements
   final.append(current)
   for beat in current.beats: # loop over candidate current has beaten 
(i.e., neighbor nodes)
      strength = min(current.strength, current.votes[beat])
      if not final.contains(beat) and (not unchecked.contains(beat) or 
strength > beat.strength):
        beat.strength = strength
        if not unchecked.contains(beat): unchecked.append(beat)
     #endif
   #end for
#end while
#end def


Anyone care to check it for me (yes, I know its not legal python; done 
for clarity; I'm asking about the algorithm).

-- Ernie P.



From stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca  Fri Dec 19 12:36:01 2003
From: stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca (stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca)
Date: Fri Dec 19 12:36:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <20031219203542.UAMK13528.tomts24-srv.bellnexxia.net@smtp.bellnexxia.net>

Dear Ernest,

> Yes, Stef, time to finish that thesis, 
> all this math really is the same.


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 19 15:07:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 19 15:07:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <3FE38375.20BFE6D3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Ernest,

I don't know Python-ish pseudo-code. But in Pascal/C-ish pseudo-code
the Dijkstra algorithm (aka Dykstra algorithm) looks as follows when
the strength of a pairwise defeat is measured primarily by p1 (= the
absolute number of votes for the winner of this pairwise defeat) and
secondarily by p2 (= the margin of this pairwise defeat):

***

N is the number of candidates.

Input: d[i,j] with i <> j is the number of voters who strictly prefer
candidate i to candidate j.

Output: "w[i] = true" means that candidate i is a potential winner.
"w[i] = false" means that candidate i is not a potential winner.

***

for i : = 1 to N do
for j : = 1 to N do
if ( i <> j ) then
   {
    if ( d[i,j] > d[j,i] ) then
    d1[i,j] : = d[i,j] ;
    if ( d[i,j] <= d[j,i] ) then
    d1[i,j] : = -1 ;

    d2[i,j] : = d[i,j] - d[j,i] ;

    p1[i,j] : = d1[i,j] ;
    p2[i,j] : = d2[i,j] ;
   }

for i : = 1 to N do
   {
    for j : = 1 to N do
    unchecked[j] : = true ;

    unchecked[i] : = false ;

    for j : = 2 to N do
      {
       v : = - MAXINT ;
       w : = - MAXINT ;
       x : = 0 ;
       
       for k : = 1 to N do
       if ( unchecked[k] = true ) then
       if (( p1[i,k] > v ) or (( p1[i,k] = v ) and ( p2[i,k] > w ))) then
         {
          v : = p1[i,k] ;
          w : = p2[i,k] ;
          x : = k ;
         }

       unchecked[x] : = false ;

       for k : = 1 to N do
       if ( unchecked[k] = true ) then
          {
           s : = min { p1[i,x], d1[x,k] } ;
           if ( p1[i,x] < d1[x,k] ) then
           t : = p2[i,x] ;
           if ( p1[i,x] > d1[x,k] ) then
           t : = d2[x,k] ;
           if ( p1[i,x] = d1[x,k] ) then
           t : = min { p2[i,x], d2[x,k] } ;
           
          if (( p1[i,k] < s ) or
             (( p1[i,k] = s ) and ( p2[i,k] < t ))) then
             {
              p1[i,k] : = s ;
              p2[i,k] : = t ;
             }
          }
      }
   }

for i : = 1 to N do
   {
    w[i] : = true ;
    for j : = 1 to N do
    if ( i <> j ) then
    if (( p1[j,i] > p1[i,j] ) or
       (( p1[j,i] = p1[i,j] ) and ( p2[j,i] > p2[i,j] ))) then
    w[i] : = false ;
   }

Markus Schulze


From dglaude at gmx.net  Fri Dec 19 15:13:02 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Fri Dec 19 15:13:02 2003
Subject: [EM] What is this software MIKE is working on...
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
References: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <3FE38316.8060103@gmx.net>

One of the side effect of the Markus and Mike chat is that I understand 
Mike is programing something... The more I think about it, the more I 
believe it might be this:
http://www.fairvote.org/ChoicePlus/
http://votingsolutions.com/

If it is... I will come with more on that...

But if the author of that piece of code are on this list... I can talk 
about it here too.

David GLAUDE

MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
> 
> Ernie,
> 
> You wrote:
> 
> Can we chill? We're all Condorcet-lovers, after all.   Mike probably
> used the term Floyd inappropriately.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
> Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that 
> anything is the Floyd algorithm.
> I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm that made as many 
> permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd written it 
> right, because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he really meant 
> to write the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd algorithm. 
> I said "Ok".
> So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have no idea, 
> but that's how he always is.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> I suspect that we're really experiencing a clash of cultures.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Excuse me?
> 
> You continued:
> 
> Markus
> appears to be operating from a math/compsci perspective
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Markus is operating in a "making-up-fictitious-quotes" perspective.
> 
> Math and comuter-science have nothing to do with it at all.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> , where terms
> mean something different than they do in Mike.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> I agree that everything seems to mean something different to Markus. In 
> particular, Markus evidently has a different perspective on the matter 
> of whther he should check the accuracy of what he's about to post.
> 
> But if you're referring to mathematical terms, then tell me what 
> mathematical term I have a different meaning for, resulting in the 
> misunderstanding.
> 
> It isn't "Floyd algorithm", because I've already repeated many many 
> times that I now don't claim to know what it means, and that the meaning 
> of that term doesn't matter to me.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> As a physicist, I'm
> used to abusing mathematical terminology, so I can appreciate the
> dilemma. :-)
> 
> But what mathematical terminology is being abused now?
> 
> You continued:
> 
> I suspect part of the problem is that the term 'shortest path'  in the
> Flloyd algorithm is used for finding what Mike calls a BeatPath.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> What I call a beatpath is a sequence of defeats from one candidate to 
> another (informal definition).
> So Floyd calls that a shortest path, and uses it to find a beatpath?
> 
> You continued:
> 
> The
> comparison of such paths to find the strongest beatpath is actually
> after the Flloyd algorithm.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> So something called "shortest paths" are used to find the strongest 
> beatpath?
> 
> Ok.
> 
> I don't know if "shortest path" is a mathematical term, but I wasn't 
> really taking a position on what it means. What I did say was that I 
> agreed that the Floyd algorithm sounds different from our strongest 
> beatpaths algorithm, because our algorithm seeks the strongest path 
> betwen 2 candidates, not the shortest one.
> 
> But if you say that finding the shortest path between two candidates can 
> somehow be part of some method for finding the strongest one, l of 
> course wouldn't try to contradict you on that. It isn't something that 
> I  would take a position on.
> 
> Mike Ossipoff
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Tired of slow downloads? Compare online deals from your local high-speed 
> providers now.  https://broadband.msn.com
> 
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
> 
> 

-- 






From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 19 22:15:07 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 19 22:15:07 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <3FE3B95F.7F97A915@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Ernest,

you wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Let me put it another way.   Could you please explain in words why you
> feel it is necessary or useful to use *both* absolute votes and margins
> in the calculation?   Are the margins used simply to break a tie
> between absolute votes?  I think that's what is implied by the line:
> >            if ( p1[i,x] = d1[x,k] ) then
> >            t : = min { p2[i,x], d2[x,k] } ;

I consider the margins of defeats only when both defeats have the same
absolute number of votes for the winner. The aim is to make the method
more decisive without sacrificing any of the desired properties.

******

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Also, is there a particular mathematical or anti-strategic reason for
> randomizing the tie-breaking round, rather than just automatically
> picking the candidate who would have the best chance of winning such
> a random draw?

Plurality as a tie-breaking strategy violates independence of clones.

Markus Schulze


From research at ijs.co.nz  Fri Dec 19 23:56:01 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Fri Dec 19 23:56:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312181237360.27475-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.e
 du>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031220185208.04216fe0@pop.qsi.net.nz>

At 2003-12-18 13:29 -0800 Thursday, Forest Simmons wrote:
>For me two paramount criteria are
>
>(1) simplicity of optimal or near optimal strategy, and
>
>(2) as much voting power as possible consistent with (1).
>


That is not based on evidence, Mr Simmons.
The so called Schulze method (that recently appeared in a prestigious
English publication, namely Voting Matters (PDF files are around),
had the appearance of failing these strict rules:

(1) The number of winners should be correct.
   indicates that the Schulze method found the wrong number of winners.
   As might be expected, Mr Schulze has not commented on that or produced
   a defence against the allegation. In fact, so very complex is the method
   in its polytope form (and a optimal method would be much simpler), that
   the assumption should be that the method is guilty until cleared.

(2) The method should not have some bias. This fails methods that ignrore
   the votes and pick the first (not best) candidate on a list the method
   receives.

   Shulze's believed the count of the papers could be ignored and the number
   of voters could be counted. That is stupid and some people don't seem to
   be able to stop or explain themselves without pointing invalid assumptions.

(3) When the papers are like STV' the winners ought be insensitive to the
  presence or absence of the very last preference in one or more papers.
  That Schulze method seemed to fail this test.

THE EM LIST REALLY NEEDS SOFTWARE TO CHECK FOR BASIC MISTAKES IN THEIR
METHODS.

Outside of here the methods are simpler and the passes are found using 
arguments instead of with testing.



>There are various possible definitions of "voting power," but it should
>have something to do with the probability of one ballot or set of ballots
>being pivotal to the outcome in an election chosen at random from some
>family of elections.
>

That is dumb since it is vaguely stated and it makes use of probalities
that do not exist. I have already considered and partly solved the problem.

The only solution I found is to start off by never defining "the power of
a ballot paper.

Approximately, the fairness of an equal suffrage rule is written down in its
 2 parts:

[1] multiwinner monotonicity requiring 0 <= power
[2] multiwinner one man one vote requiring power <= 1


Here I write on the power of a single ballot paper.

Both those rules are infinitesimal (since fair). It would be suspect to
have power consider big changes in the votes.

A rule can only consider the facts, i.e. the changes in the votes and the
changes in the winners.

So the power number is only defined on ties.

It would not take account of Mr Simmons' probability since it was a lie
to say that they existed. Mr Simmons' apparently can write to me privately
but never actually sends out to me even one of these probability numbers.

It takes quite a few lines to write down a QE formula testing whether
a method passes the power<=1 rule. I was writing on power when writing
on P4 over a year ago, at politicians and polytopes.

Suppose the ballot paper being tested is x*(ABC), with its weight, x,
being a positive Real. Then the method can be failed by the 'as defined'
power<=1 part of the equal suffrage rule when it (ABC)-desirableness of
the winners can't be sustained|reproduced when its weight is positively
shifted onto only these shorter papers.  Each line provides a different
test:

|----------------------------
|  . .? {A,BC}
|  . .? {B,AC}
|  . .? {C,AB}
|  . .? {AB,AC}
|  . .? {AB,BC}
|  . .? {AC,BC}
|  . .? {A,B,C}
|  . .? {A,B,AC}
|  . .? {A,B,BC}
|  . .? {A,C,AB}
|  . .? {A,C,BC}
|  . .? {B,C,AB}
|  . .? {B,C,AC}
|  . .? {A,AB,AC}
|  . .? {B,AB,BC}
|  . .? {C,AC,BC}
|----------------------------


Note only does the number of lines increase rapidly as candidates are
added, but the desirableness value takes 2**nw values where nw is the number
of winners.

Nowthat it is known that the algebra can get simpler when rules are combined
with dual polytopes. it could save time to merge all rules (except the
Approvalishy proportionality aim) into a single rule. That would get the
word power matching up better with the words "equal suffrage".

To get the power, e.g. q, (which is a real numbe), it can be inserted into an
appropriate place in the QE formula.

Mr Simmons is still implying that probability exists which appears to be
a lie. I did ask for the probability numbers. This mailing list has seen
this precise problem of untrue claims that numbers exist, when I asked
Mr Ossipoff for some probability numbers,





>
>
>Here's a method that comes close to satisfying these criteria:
>
>The method takes ranked ballots with equal rankings allowed, as input.
>
>The method first applies Rob LeGrand's "ballot-by-ballot" version of
>"strategy A" to all possible permutations of the ballot. [Yes, this method
>is computationally intractable.]
>
>If the same candidate wins for all permutations, then that candidate is
>declared winner.
>


Maybe that creates a new method instead of passing or failing an
existing method. So the previous topic of power has left.


>Else, Joe Weinstein's weighted median method is applied to determine the
>winner.  A candidate's weight is the number of permutations that it won
>(according to Rob) plus one (so that each candidate has non-zero weight).
>
>Although this method is computationally intractable,the method winner can
>be calculated with 99.9 percent accuracy without inordinate computational
>burden, by use of montecarlo methods, for example.
>

Oh, THE random number generating algorithms are in the future.

E.g. in a computer existing in the year 2973 (in 23 April).

Is that why you can't ever seem to get a probability number out after
being asked for that ?.


>The residual doubt is small compared to other sources of doubt in other
>voting methods, especially the doubt that the votes were sincere, or the
>doubt that the the voters were using their best strategy for maximizing
>their voting power.

"votes" are sincere and it is not voters. Voters can be absent is some
elections trialling a method, and so can probability numbers be absent.


>
>Note that the method is completely deterministic,





From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 01:55:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 01:55:02 2003
Subject: [EM] RE: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #388 - 7 msgs
Message-ID: <Law10-F17mPRmlgF2a50004beb7@hotmail.com>


Someone wrote:

One of the side effect of the Markus and Mike chat is that I understand
Mike is programing something

I reply:

No. I'm not programming anything. Yes, quite some time ago I posted a Python 
program to implement BeatpathWinner. And yes, I re-posted the BeatpathWinner 
algorithm a few days ago, this time not in any particular programming 
language.

But I'm not now programming anything.

What started this discussion was when Markus said that my BeatpathWinner 
algorithm wouldn't work, because it isn't the Floyd algorithm, whatever that 
is.

The algorithm that Markus posted as the Floyd algorithm differs from mine 
(actually Steve Eppley's) by only making one pass through the 3-candidate 
permutations.

As I say in my reply to Ernie, my algorithm works. It looks at every 
permutation of 3 candidates, i, j, and k. If the beatpath from i to j, and 
the beatpath from j to k, are both stronger than the beatpath from i to k, 
then the value of the minimum of B(i,j) and B(j,k), which is the strength of 
the beatpath made by concatenating the ij and jk beatpaths, becomes the new 
value of B(i,k)--the strongest beatpath from i to j found as-yet at that 
time.

It repeatedly makes passes through the permutations until doing so doesn't 
make any changes. Then its task is completed. Each pass finds one or more 
new, longer beatpaths that replace a previous one that wasn't as strong.

The beatpaths that it initially looks at are single-step beatpaths, pairwise 
defeats. But, via the process described above, the algorithm eventually 
finds the strongest beatpath from each candidate to each other candidate.

If Markus believes that it doesn't work, I'd be curioius how he justifies 
that claim.But sometimes he says it merely takes longer to execute than the 
Floyd algorithm, and not that it doesn't work.

It was irresponsible for Markus to say that that BeatpathWinner algorithm 
wouldn't work, unless he can justify his claim, tell why he thinks it 
wouldn't work.

False statements, statements that he can't justify,  have always been 
Markus's stock-in-trade. But this time he's doing the disservice of 
misinforming people about a practical matter. But Markus doesn't care, he 
just enjoys being on the attack.

Now, Markus says that it's possible to find all the strongest beatpaths by 
making just one pass. He says the Floyd algorithm did that. According to 
websites that I looked at, the Floyd algorithm doesn't find strongest 
beatpaths, it finds shortest paths. I guess what Markus is saying is that it 
can be modified to find strongest beatpaths. He says that, by changing the 
order of the indexes in the line that tests and changes B(i,j) values, it 
can complete its job in one pass. But, if that's true when its job is 
finding the shortest path between each pair of graph-nodes, that may or may 
not mean that it's true when its job is finding the strongest beatpath from 
each candidate to each other candidate.

I'm not debating whether that's so. I don't know, and I don't reallly care. 
It doesn't matter because, though Markus says that the one-pass procedure is 
faster, both procedures are fast enough for all practical purposes.

As I said, the only reason why I said anything was because of Markus's 
mistaken statement that the BeatpathWinner algorithm wouldn't work.

Mike Ossipoff



That person continued:

... The more I think about it, the more I
believe it might be this:
http://www.fairvote.org/ChoicePlus/
http://votingsolutions.com/

I have nothing to do with the fairvote website. The other one, I'd have to 
check to find out what it is. But I'm not programming anything there. 
There's an interactive BeatpathWinner counting website, and it uses an 
algorithm similar to the one that I've posted here. But the website owner 
didn't get the algorithm from me, and I'm not working on it.

That person continued:

If it is... I will come with more on that...

I reply:

It isn't. I'm not programming anything there, and I'm not programming the 
BeatpathWinner algorithm. I did that a long time ago.
Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Grab our best dial-up Internet access offer: 6 months @$9.95/month.  
http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 02:11:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 02:11:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
Message-ID: <3FE41EF4.C7AB435E@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> That is not based on evidence, Mr Simmons.
> The so called Schulze method (that recently appeared in a prestigious
> English publication, namely Voting Matters (PDF files are around),
> had the appearance of failing these strict rules:
>
> (1) The number of winners should be correct.
>    indicates that the Schulze method found the wrong number of winners.
>    As might be expected, Mr Schulze has not commented on that or produced
>    a defence against the allegation. In fact, so very complex is the method
>    in its polytope form (and a optimal method would be much simpler), that
>    the assumption should be that the method is guilty until cleared.

In Section 3 of my paper, I prove that my method is well defined:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> (2) The method should not have some bias. This fails methods that ignrore
>    the votes and pick the first (not best) candidate on a list the method
>    receives.
>
>    Shulze's believed the count of the papers could be ignored and the number
>    of voters could be counted. That is stupid and some people don't seem to
>    be able to stop or explain themselves without pointing invalid assumptions.

You will have to rephrase this, because I have absolutely no idea what
you are talking about.

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> (3) When the papers are like STV' the winners ought be insensitive to the
>   presence or absence of the very last preference in one or more papers.
>   That Schulze method seemed to fail this test.

Please give a concrete example.

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 03:16:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 03:16:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Matt
Message-ID: <LAW10-F31WoqFXfyY0Q0004339f@hotmail.com>

Message: 3
From: matt at tidalwave.net
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 08:52:15 -0800 (PST)
To: election-methods at electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Reply to Ernie
Reply-To: matt at tidalwave.net

Matt said:

In this case the style of debater and the merit of the argument positively
correlate.  In other words, the debater that is polite, clear and helpful is
correct and the debaters that are impolite, confusing and derogatory are
incorrect.

(farther below, Matt clarifies that he's saying that Markus was the correct 
one)

I reply:

Sorry, but you're mistaken.

The "debate" was about whether or not I claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner 
algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Since I repeatedly clarified that, now 
that I've been told different, I now am not claiming that Steve's algorithm 
is the Floyd algorithm, Markus was incorrect when he kept repeating that I 
claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

That's the only issue that was being debated. On that issue, I was correct, 
and Markus was incorrect, because, during that discussion, I was longer 
claiming that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I wasn't debating which algorithm is better. I'd be lying if I claimed to 
know if one pass through the 3-candidate permutations can reliably find the 
strongest beatpath beween each ordered pair of candidates, as Markus claims, 
but I'm not debating that or denying it.

Matt continued:

Thank you Markus for your (unsuccesfull) efforts to help Mike improve the
program that his site promotes.

I reply:

Yes, when Markus said that Steve's algorithm doesn't work, Markus was 
unsuccessful in convincing me that it doesn't work. But you're sure that it 
doesn't work, right? :-)   I'm referring to the
BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted here a few days ago.

Or maybe the improvement that yoiu're referring to is the greater speed of 
the one-pass algorithm, assuming that it relliably works.

Let's suppose that it indeed works, and is faster than Steve's algorithm. 
Does that mean that we should use it to replace Steve's algorithm at the 
website, or that I should start sending it out to people who ask for an 
implementation algorithm. No, not really. Steve's algorilthm _obviously_ 
works. It's obvious that eventually the repeated passes will find the 
strongest beatpath between each orderred pair of candidates.

Even if the one-pass algorithm works, I'm not going to send it out, along 
with a proof for why it works. I prefer to not send something that requies 
me to convince someone and explain to them why it works, when it doesn't at 
first appear that it would.  I'll continue sending out the algorithm that 
obviously works, Steve's algorithm. Sorry, Matt.

Matt continues:

I have seen stubborness before but the
magnititude of this stubborness (over such a trivial yet clearcut issue!)
matches or exceeds the worst I can recall seeing before.

I reply:

What issue? There was no issue about the relative merits of the 2 
algorithms. Markus says that there's a 1-pass algorithm that works, and that 
it's faster. Though I told how I initially didn't believe that that could be 
done, I was _not_ debating that during the discussion. My position has been: 
I don't claim to know if that can work, but it isn't important.

The issue, as I said, was about whether I claim that Steve's program is the 
Floyd algorithm. Yes I agree that that's a trivial issue. And yes, I 
stubbornly maintain that I don't claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd 
algorithm :-)   How's that for stubborn?

Or is that you think that I'm stubborn because I don't replace Steve's 
algorithm with the putative one-pass algorithm? I've told you that I prefer 
something whose validity is obvious, something that doesn't require a proof 
to be sent with it, doesn't require as much explaining and convincing. How's 
that for stubborn? If Steve's algorithm runs for a half minute, and the 
one-pass algorithm runs for half a second, is half a minute really a big 
problem?

So you're saying that it's stubborn to not adopt the method that you like 
best?

But, at the time that you stated that I was stubborn, I hadn't yet said that 
I wasn't going to adopt the one-pass algorithm.  All I'd said at that time 
was that I don't know if Markus's one-pass algorithm works. I was being 
honest. I don't know that if it works. I haven't checked Floyd's 1962 proof, 
and I don't even know if that proof really applies to the job of finding 
strongest beatpaths. That isn't stubborn, it's honest.

So you're saying that it's stubborn not to take Markus's word for whatever 
he says, in spite of Markus's long history of mis-statements?

So it's really entirely unclear what you think that I was being stubborn 
about.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
It?s our best dial-up Internet access offer: 6 months @$9.95/month. Get it 
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 03:18:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 03:18:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ernie: What started the discussion about BeatpathWinner algorithms
Message-ID: <Law10-F125sdov6dU2y0000c980@hotmail.com>

Ernie wrote:

>I wrote:
>Can we chill?

Apparently the answer is "no".  :-)

I reply:

Well, I said that I was going to quit replying to Markus, and that then he'd 
stop his one-sided debate about something that he claims that I said several 
postings back. I fully understand that that discussion has been a waste of 
time, and that no one but Markus cares about his fictional claim about what 
I allegedly said. I was saying that in my reply.

I agree, then, that the debate about what I said or didn't say several 
postings back isn't important. I'm not trying to make it more important than 
it was, but I just want to comment that you're talking about it as if was a 
genuinely 2-sided problem. But it certainly was not. Markus wanted to keep 
on repeating his claim that I claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner algorithm is 
the Floyd algorithm, even though I was repeating in each reply that I'm now 
making no such claim. Is that a stupid debate, or what? But it wasn't a 
2-sided problem. It was a nuisance created and perpetuated by Markus, due to 
some peculiar personality defect that he suffers from, which makes him feel 
the need to behave in that manner.

You know, I haven't usually been posting here, or taking part in the 
discussions. What got me to post was Markus's claim that Steve Eppley's 
BeatpathWinner algorithm wouldn't work. Markus, you notice, forgot to tell 
us what makes him think that it wouldn't work.

The algorithm looks at each 3-candidate permutation-- i,j, & k. Where  
B(i,j) is the strength of the strongest beatpath so far found from i to j, 
the program asks if the minimum of B(i,j) & B(j,k) is greater than  B(i,k). 
If so, then  the beatpath made by concatenating the ij and jk beatpaths is 
stronger than  the ik beatpath, and therefore replaces it as the new value 
of B(i,j).

With each pass through the permutations, this algorithm finds a new, longer 
beatpath that is stronger than the previous beatpath between the same 
endpoints. Eventually the B(i,j) values will be as strong as they can 
get--there won't be a stronger beatpath from i to k than the current        
B(i,k). When the most recent pass doesn't change any B(i,j) values, the 
algorithm  has completed its job and it stops.

There's no question about whether it works. It works.

Markus, when he said that it wouldn't work, forgot to tell us what makes him 
think it wouldn't work. But that's typical for Markus. Statements that he 
can't justify are Markus's stock-in-trade.

By saying on the mailing list that that algorithm wouldn't work, Markus was 
misinforming list-members about a practical matter. Of course that's 
irresponsible, but Markus doesn't care. It's as if Markus feels a need to 
defend the honor of the Floyd algorithm by challenging this other algorithm 
that finds strongest beatpaths.

Markus claims that the Floyd algorithm, which finds _shortest_ paths between 
graph-nodes, can be modified so that it finds strongest beatpaths. He seems 
to be implying that if the Floyd algorithm can do its job in one pass, when 
its job is finding the shortest path, then it can also do its job in one 
pass when its job is finding the strongest beatpaths between the ordered 
pairs of candidates.

I haven't challenged that belief. Maybe it's true, maybe not. I don't care. 
Markus says that that one-pass algorithm is faster than Steve's algorithm. 
Fine, if true. I have no argument with that. But Steve's algorithm isn't 
going to take problematically long counting any actual election, and so it's 
reallly every bit as good as the one-pass algorithm, even if the one-pass 
algorithm works for finding strongest beatpaths.

But the problem has been that Markus hasn't been content to recognize a 
solution different from his favorite as being ok. Markus is just being 
Markus again.  Is it really necessary to fight about these 2 algorithms?  Of 
course not. I've answered Markus's mistaken claim, and I'm not interested in 
fighting about it or debating it with Markus.

What if it's true that Markus's one-pass algorithm works for finding 
strongest beatpaths, and does so faster than Steve's algorithm? Does Markus 
believe that, therefore, Steve's algorithm shouldn't be used or proposed, or 
sent to people who ask for an implementation algorithm? Steve's algorithm 
obviously works. If Markus's one-pass algorithm works, it isn't as obvious. 
I suppose that, when someone asks me for an implementation algorithm, I 
could send them the one-pass algorithm, along with a proof that it works 
(assuming that it does).  But the validity of Steve's algorithm is more 
obvious, and it woirks perfectly well. If it takes longer, that won't make 
any difference, in actual elections, with today's fast computers. Will 
Steve's program take 25 seconds instead of 5? Is that really a problem if it 
does? I continue to send out Steve's algorithm when someone asks for one, 
because it's obvious that it works. I don't even know if the one-pass 
algorithm works for finding strongest beatpaths. And, if it does work, I'd 
rather not have to prove that less obvious fact to people who request an 
implementation algorilthm.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 03:18:05 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 03:18:05 2003
Subject: [EM] Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #388 - 7 msgs
Message-ID: <3FE42979.21EAEF37@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> What started this discussion was when Markus said that my BeatpathWinner
> algorithm wouldn't work, because it isn't the Floyd algorithm, whatever
> that is.

Craig Carey claimed that my implementation of my method doesn't work
(presumably because it makes only one pass through the triple-loop).
I explained to Craig that it is true that when I had considered the
possible short cuts in that order that has been proposed by you then
my implementation would not have worked. But it has been proven by
Floyd that when the possible short cuts are considered in that very
special order that is used in my paper then it is guaranteed that one
pass through the triple-loop is sufficient to find all strongest paths.

******

You wrote (28 Feb 2001):
> This is the Floyd algorithm for making an array of greatest beatpath
> magnitudes between each pair of options:
>
> 1.Have a 2-dimensional array of defeat magnitudes between the pairs
> of options. Have 2 copies of that, one called defeats(i,j), and the
> other called beatpaths(i,j).
>
> 2.In both arrays, if i beats j, then the ij element is equal to the
> magnitude of i's defeat of j. If j beats i, then the ij element is
> zero. "ij" refers to the ij element of the beatpath(i,j) array.
>
> 3.For every 3-option permuation (i,j,k) that can be taken from the
> entire option set: If min(ij,jk) > ik then write min(ij,jk) to replace
> ij at the "ij" place in the beatpath(i,j) array.
>
> 4. Repeat #3 till that repetition doesn't change any of the entries
> in the beatpath(i,j) array.
>
> [end of greatest beatpath magnitude algorithm]

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from
> you [= Markus] or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

If you really got your strongest beatpaths algorithm from Steve Eppley
and not from Floyd or me then why did you call it "Floyd algorithm"?
I have explained the Floyd algorithm in a private mail (30 April 2000)
to David Catchpole, Blake Cretney, Steve Eppley, Rob Lanphier, Norman Petry,
and you. I don't remember that Steve Eppley called his implementation
"Floyd algorithm". Therefore, I guess that you have got your algorithm
from me, but that you have never understood this algorithm sufficiently
to implement it in such a manner that it has a runtime of O(N^3).

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 03:19:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 03:19:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Matt
Message-ID: <LAW10-F94wuwi7NPASU0002cb8c@hotmail.com>

Message: 3
From: matt at tidalwave.net
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 08:52:15 -0800 (PST)
To: election-methods at electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Reply to Ernie
Reply-To: matt at tidalwave.net

Matt said:

In this case the style of debater and the merit of the argument positively
correlate.  In other words, the debater that is polite, clear and helpful is
correct and the debaters that are impolite, confusing and derogatory are
incorrect.

(farther below, Matt clarifies that he's saying that Markus was the correct 
one)

I reply:

Sorry, but you're mistaken.

The "debate" was about whether or not I claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner 
algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Since I repeatedly clarified that, now 
that I've been told different, I now am not claiming that Steve's algorithm 
is the Floyd algorithm, Markus was incorrect when he kept repeating that I 
claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

That's the only issue that was being debated. On that issue, I was correct, 
and Markus was incorrect, because, during that discussion, I was longer 
claiming that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I wasn't debating which algorithm is better. I'd be lying if I claimed to 
know if one pass through the 3-candidate permutations can reliably find the 
strongest beatpath beween each ordered pair of candidates, as Markus claims, 
but I'm not debating that or denying it.

Matt continued:

Thank you Markus for your (unsuccesfull) efforts to help Mike improve the
program that his site promotes.

I reply:

Yes, when Markus said that Steve's algorithm doesn't work, Markus was 
unsuccessful in convincing me that it doesn't work. But you're sure that it 
doesn't work, right? :-)   I'm referring to the
BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted here a few days ago.

Or maybe the improvement that yoiu're referring to is the greater speed of 
the one-pass algorithm, assuming that it relliably works.

Let's suppose that it indeed works, and is faster than Steve's algorithm. 
Does that mean that we should use it to replace Steve's algorithm at the 
website, or that I should start sending it out to people who ask for an 
implementation algorithm. No, not really. Steve's algorilthm _obviously_ 
works. It's obvious that eventually the repeated passes will find the 
strongest beatpath between each orderred pair of candidates.

Even if the one-pass algorithm works, I'm not going to send it out, along 
with a proof for why it works. I prefer to not send something that requies 
me to convince someone and explain to them why it works, when it doesn't at 
first appear that it would.  I'll continue sending out the algorithm that 
obviously works, Steve's algorithm. Sorry, Matt.

Matt continues:

I have seen stubborness before but the
magnititude of this stubborness (over such a trivial yet clearcut issue!)
matches or exceeds the worst I can recall seeing before.

I reply:

What issue? There was no issue about the relative merits of the 2 
algorithms. Markus says that there's a 1-pass algorithm that works, and that 
it's faster. Though I told how I initially didn't believe that that could be 
done, I was _not_ debating that during the discussion. My position has been: 
I don't claim to know if that can work, but it isn't important.

The issue, as I said, was about whether I claim that Steve's program is the 
Floyd algorithm. Yes I agree that that's a trivial issue. And yes, I 
stubbornly maintain that I don't claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd 
algorithm :-)   How's that for stubborn?

Or is that you think that I'm stubborn because I don't replace Steve's 
algorithm with the putative one-pass algorithm? I've told you that I prefer 
something whose validity is obvious, something that doesn't require a proof 
to be sent with it, doesn't require as much explaining and convincing. How's 
that for stubborn? If Steve's algorithm runs for a half minute, and the 
one-pass algorithm runs for half a second, is half a minute really a big 
problem?

So you're saying that it's stubborn to not adopt the method that you like 
best?

But, at the time that you stated that I was stubborn, I hadn't yet said that 
I wasn't going to adopt the one-pass algorithm.  All I'd said at that time 
was that I don't know if Markus's one-pass algorithm works. I was being 
honest. I don't know that if it works. I haven't checked Floyd's 1962 proof, 
and I don't even know if that proof really applies to the job of finding 
strongest beatpaths. That isn't stubborn, it's honest.

So you're saying that it's stubborn not to take Markus's word for whatever 
he says, in spite of Markus's long history of mis-statements?

So it's really entirely unclear what you think that I was being stubborn 
about.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 05:07:12 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 05:07:12 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Rob Speer
Message-ID: <Law10-F95f8PYqK87Mi0000cb5d@hotmail.com>

Rob Speer wrote:

Markus is just doing what he does

I reply:

About that you'll get no argument from me  :-)

You continued:

: he makes sure that voting terminology
used on this list is consistent, when so much of the available
information about voting terminology is inconsistent.

I reply:

Not at all. That was not a debate about voting terminology. As soon as 
Markus said that Steve's BeatpathWinner algorithm isn't the Floyd algorithm, 
I said ok then I'm no longer claiming that it's the Floyd algorithm. I said 
that I'll ask the website owner to delete that name from it.

No, the debate was about whether I still claim that Steve's algorithm is the 
Floyd algorithm. It was a really silly debate, because I'd repeatedly said 
that I no longer claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I'm the first to admit that it was a silly issue that Markus insisted on 
pursuing.

You continued:

Terminology is a very important thing for people to agree on.

I reply:

But there was no disagreement on terminology. Only on the issue of whether I 
was still claiming that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 05:26:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 05:26:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus reply,  12/20/03
Message-ID: <LAW10-F79zm4XqO1LWN0004c684@hotmail.com>

Markus said:

The problem with you is that you are unable to admit that you have made
a mistake (here: claiming that you have implemented the Floyd algorithm)

I reply:

On the contrary, at the beginning of the discussion, when you said that 
Steve's algorithm isn't the Floyd algorithm,  I said ok, I no longer call it 
the Floyd algorithm, and I'm going to ask Russ to delete that name from it 
at the website. Check the archives. I said that at the beginning of the 
discussion. And you kept repeating that I claim that our implementation is 
the Floyd algorithm.

In your own most recent message, in fact, you copied one of the copies of my 
explanation of why I _previously_ believed that Steve's algorithm was the 
Floyd algorithm.

Here's a paragraph of mine that you copied in your most recent posting:

>, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything
>is the Floyd algorithm. I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm
>that made as many permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd
>written it right, because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he 
>really
>meant to write the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd 
>algorithm.
>I said "Ok".


Where were you when repeatedly expllined that to you? Out to lunch?


Markus continued:

without bombarding with insults that person who pointed to this mistake.

I reply:

I wasn't criticizing you for pointing out to me that Steve's algorithm isn't 
the Floyd algorithm, and that your writing of a 1-pass algorithm was 
intentional, and not an omission, and that that algorithm that you wrote is 
the Floyd algorithm.

No, I was only criticising you for continuing to repeat that I was 
continuing to claim that our implementation is the Floyd algorithm.

Markus continued:

Why are you unable to say something like?: "Yes, you are right. I mistakenly
called my implementation 'Floyd algorithm'. I will no longer call it 'Floyd
algorithm'.

I reply:

But I did say that. Take a look at the paragraph written by me that I 
copied, above, from your most recent posting. I've said that I no longer 
call it the Floyd algorithm. I've said that I was going to ask Russ to 
delete that name from the algorithm at the website. I carefully explained 
what had caused me to believe that it was the Floyd algorithm, saying that I 
no longer call it that.

Out to lunch?

It sounds as if what you're asking for is an apology for previously calling 
Steve's BeatpathWinner algorithm the Floyd algorithm. No apology, because 
you weren't wronged when I called Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm. 
Sorry, no apology. But notice that you do get an apology for the fact that 
there's no apology :-)

Markus continued:

[Markus said I could have said:] Thank you for pointing me to this mistake."

Ok, it's thanks that you want. While I'm at it, shall I thank you for 
posting your mistaken claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner algorithm doesn't 
work? If I'd thanked you for telling me that Steve's algotithm isnt the 
Floyd algorithm, would you then have been willing to stop repeating that I 
still claim that Steve's implementation is the Floyd algorithm?

Markus continued:

or something like?:

"Thank you for explaining how the strongest paths can be calculated in a
runtime O(N^3). My implementation still has a runtime O(N^5)."

I reply:

Well, you didhn't really show that. You claimed it. I'm not saying that it 
isn't true. As I said, the accuracy of your claim could be judged by finding 
Floyd's 1962 proof, and finding out if it even applies to the job of finding 
the strongest beatpath between each ordered pair of candidates. I'm not 
debating that or denying it. Maybe it's true that, as you say, all the 
strongest beatpaths can be found with one pass through the 3-candidate 
permutations.

You reallly need thanks, don't you? Ok, thank yoiu, Markus, for stating your 
claim. Now, can this debate end?


I'd said:

>But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
>Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything
>is the Floyd algorithm. I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm
>that made as many permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd
>written it right, because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he 
>really
>meant to write the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd 
>algorithm.
>I said "Ok". So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have 
>no
>idea, but that's how he always is.

Markus replied:

Then, of course, it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" anymore.

I reply:

Hello-o-o-o! That's what I've been repeating for you over and over again, to 
no avail.

Markus continued:

There was no need for you
to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

I reply:

I won't debate whether there was a need to insult you. But can you look at 
your ridiculous statement that I quoted directly above, and say that there 
wasn't a reason to call you an idiot?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 05:29:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 05:29:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Matt
Message-ID: <3FE43484.69991406@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> The "debate" was about whether or not I claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner
> algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Since I repeatedly clarified that, now
> that I've been told different, I now am not claiming that Steve's algorithm
> is the Floyd algorithm, Markus was incorrect when he kept repeating that I
> claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

Could you please forward that mail where Steve proposes this strongest path
algorithm?

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 05:41:28 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 05:41:28 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd reply to Markus on 12/20/03
Message-ID: <Law10-F105hRDT6Z3Ls0004c627@hotmail.com>

I'd said:

>What started this discussion was when Markus said that my BeatpathWinner
>algorithm wouldn't work, because it isn't the Floyd algorithm, whatever
>that is.

Markus replied:

Craig Carey claimed that my implementation of my method doesn't work
(presumably because it makes only one pass through the triple-loop).
I explained to Craig that it is true that when I had considered the
possible short cuts in that order that has been proposed by you then
my implementation would not have worked.

I reply:

Actually, you posted a fragment of our Python program and said that my 
algorithm won't work.

But if you're now backing down from that claim, that's good.

Markus quoted me:

You wrote (28 Feb 2001):
>This is the Floyd algorithm for making an array of greatest beatpath
>magnitudes between each pair of options:

I reply:

You see, Markus, this is why I refer to you as an idiot. Did I deny that, in 
Feb 2001, I was calling Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm.? No. I agreed 
that I'd formerly called that algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but that I no 
longer do. But you kept repeating that I continue to claim that my 
implementation is the Floyd algorilthm, though I kept trying to tell you 
that I no longer make any such claim.

And now you post a quote from 2001, apparently believing that it shows that 
you're right to say that, during this current discussion, I claim that 
Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

Seriously, Markus, all namecalling aside,there really is something wrong 
with you.

Ernie:

Can you really blame me for eventually beginning to make unflattering 
comments about this twit?

Markus continued:

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
>I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from
>you [= Markus] or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

If you really got your strongest beatpaths algorithm from Steve Eppley
and not from Floyd or me then why did you call it "Floyd algorithm"?

I reply:

How many times is it necessary to explain that to you. If I explain it to 
you now, one more time, are you just going to forget again?

Ok, Steve wrote the algorithm. Some time later, you posted something here 
that resembled Steve's algorithm, but which only made one pass through the 
3-candidate permutations. You called it the Floyd algorithm. I assumed that 
you must have accidentallly miscopied the algorithm, accidentally writing so 
that it only make one pass through the permutations. So, believing that 
"Floyd algorithm" is the name of the algorithm that you'd miscopied, and 
believing that it must make several passes, then it looked as if "Floyd 
algorithm" was the name of Steve's algorithm.

So I got the algorithm from Steve, and I got the name from you, because I 
believed that what you'd tried to copy was something that was the same as 
Steve's algorithm. Now, did it sink in this time, or are you going to ask 
the question again in a few days?

Markus continued:

I have explained the Floyd algorithm in a private mail (30 April 2000)
to David Catchpole, Blake Cretney, Steve Eppley, Rob Lanphier, Norman Petry,
and you. I don't remember that Steve Eppley called his implementation
"Floyd algorithm". Therefore, I guess that you have got your algorithm
from me

I reply:

That certainly follows if the fact that I got the name from you means that I 
got the algorithm from you. But it doesn't mean that. I got the name from 
you, and, believing that you'd miscopied something that was the same as 
Steve's algorithm led me to believe that "Floyd algorithm" was a name for 
Steve's algotithm, that they were the same.

Markus continued:

, but that you have never understood this algorithm sufficiently
to implement it in such a manner that it has a runtime of O(N^3).

I reply:

As I said, it seemed to me that you must have miscopied it, and that you'd 
tried to copy something that was the same as Steve's algorithm.

Mike Ossipoff

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From matt at tidalwave.net  Sat Dec 20 11:16:02 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Sat Dec 20 11:16:02 2003
Subject: [EM] RE: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #388 - 7 msgs
Message-ID: <20031220185436.E162B3946@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From drernie at mac.com  Sat Dec 20 19:58:08 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Sat Dec 20 19:58:08 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <3FE3B95F.7F97A915@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FE3B95F.7F97A915@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <D4FD5738-331F-11D8-B08B-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

Hi Markus,

On Dec 19, 2003, at 6:52 PM, Markus Schulze wrote:
> I consider the margins of defeats only when both defeats have the same
> absolute number of votes for the winner. The aim is to make the method
> more decisive without sacrificing any of the desired properties.

Ah, okay, that was hard for me to deduce from the original algorithm, 
where it seemed like you were primarily calculating margins. My 
implementation of this for object-oriented Dijkstra (using real Python 
code this time) is at the end.    The relevant section is here, where 
'rstrength', or relative strength, is used for the margin:

     # reset neighbor if unset or if new values would be better
     if next not in queue or\
        strength > self.strengthVS(next) or\
        strength == self.strengthVS(next) and rstrength > 
self.rstrengthVS(next):
       self.strengths[next.id] = strength
       self.rstrengths[next.id] = rstrength
       if next not in queue: queue.append(next)
       next.path[self.id] = current # remember beatpath predecessor
     #endif

That is, use the current calculated values for the strength of the path 
to this node if any of the following three conditions is true:
a) there are no other calculated values for this node ("next not in 
queue")
b) the strength (total votes) is better than the prior value ("strength 
 > self.strengthVS(next)")
c) the strength is equal, but the margin (rstrength) is better 
("rstrength > self.rstrengthVS(next)")

Does that look right to those who know what's going on? (apologies to 
people who don't do Python, but as you can see the code is vastly more 
compact, and I think far easier to follow).

I'm working on a well-formatted implementation of all this, which I 
hope will displace the other Condorcet implementations out there (and 
satisfy all the critics :-).

> You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
>> Also, is there a particular mathematical or anti-strategic reason for
>> randomizing the tie-breaking round, rather than just automatically
>> picking the candidate who would have the best chance of winning such
>> a random draw?
>
> Plurality as a tie-breaking strategy violates independence of clones.

Interesting.  Are you asserting that there is no deterministic 
tie-breaking algorithm that resists clones?  Does this mean that we 
really do need to keep track of all the actual ballots, and not just 
the Condorcet matrix?

-- Ernie P.

def findStrengths(self):
  "Find strongest paths to all candidates using Dijkstra, starting from 
self"
  self.initStrengths(max(self.votes)) # 'max_votes' is equivalent to 
'unset'
  current = self
  final = []
  queue = []

  while current:
   # declare this node's values as final
   final.append(current)

   # relax each of the neighbors (if not final)
   for next in current.beats:
     if next in final: continue

     # calculate (relative) strength, if this node were part of path
     strength = min(self.strengthVS(current), current.votesVS(next))
     rstrength = min(self.rstrengthVS(current), current.marginVS(next))

     # reset neighbor if unset or if new values would be better
     if next not in queue or\
        strength > self.strengthVS(next) or\
        strength == self.strengthVS(next) and rstrength > 
self.rstrengthVS(next):

	      self.strengths[next.id] = strength
	      self.rstrengths[next.id] = rstrength
	      if next not in queue: queue.append(next)
	      next.path[self.id] = current # remember beatpath predecessor
     #endif
   #end for

   # Remove and return weakest node from queue
   current = self.smallest(queue)
  #end while
#end findStrengths



From research at ijs.co.nz  Sat Dec 20 21:46:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Sat Dec 20 21:46:02 2003
Subject: The German loser (Re: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
In-Reply-To: <3FE41EF4.C7AB435E@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031221054743.050c6628@pop.qsi.net.nz>



I wrote this for the mailing list.
Currently I am not sending it there.
I have not observed anything good at that mailing list result from
e-mail (except Richard and MrCatchpole seemed to have an ability to
get influenced. I may have missed bits.).


________________________________________________________________________

To: election-methods at electorama.com
Subject: Is this actually true enough Marcus ? (Re: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria




At 2003-12-20 11:05 +0100 Saturday, Markus Schulze wrote:
...
>Craig Carey wrote (20 Dec 2003):
...
>> (1) The number of winners should be correct.
>>    indicates that the Schulze method found the wrong number of winners.
...
>In Section 3 of my paper, I prove that my method is well defined:
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf
>

The words "well-defined" are not defined in the paper.
Why don't you use your neutrality word.

I reject the idea that the arguments in your paper are correct. There are
a lot of serious problems ion your article.

Each of the errors could terminate an interest in you VM17 article.
In particular your ideal of:
 * missing out simple important tests
 * purporting to consider overly advanced rules, i.e. monotonicity
 * avoiding the mathematics of flats which is always avoided by you
   but probably never avoided by a person designing a preferential
   voting method but aiming to not expose a govt. public to unfairness
   if the method would be used.
 * having unfollowable arguments
 * claiming a pass occurred when that appears to be something that
   seems to be suspicious
 * failing to define the algorithm of the article
 * dropping in some anti-public nearly-ignored doctrines from Condorcet
   thinkers writings

In short, a method that won't have a place in history.

I made a possibly false asumption on how to interpret your ambiguity that
you put into the article (presumably because you were trying to censor
out a mention of the ghastly meritless unfair unjustified pairwise comparing
basis of it) and converted it to a a logic form. It was far too complex to
analyze precisely yet ti plain at the end that the number of winners it
found would probably be wrong.


>You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>> (2) The method should not have some bias. This fails methods that ignrore
>>    the votes and pick the first (not best) candidate on a list the method
>>    receives.
>>
>>    Shulze's believed the count of the papers could be ignored and the number
      [i.e. Mr Shulze or Mr Shulze's PDF article]

>>    of voters could be counted. That is stupid and some people don't seem to
>>    be able to stop or explain themselves without pointing invalid assumptions.
>
>You will have to rephrase this, because I have absolutely no idea what
>you are talking about.
>

In the last message I replied to, Mr Forest Simmons had
votes generated by random numbers. In the Shulze article, "strictly prefer"
has the number of voters counted. So "Strictly prefer" is applying to
voters.

All the claims of goodness must have been a lie, because:
 (a) you proof of goodness is done but it used voters (suppose so)
 (b) Simmon's random numbers are used;
 (c) now your proofs can't conclude anything yet the numbers and the
      method is the same
 (d) If God was going to hit you with a lightening bolt if you had of
     used the word "Vote" instead of "Voter" then please do tell me
     about it. In the absence of similar, I'll assume you can't even
     think with a truthfulness that is up to the task of correctly
     distinguishing between a cat, rat, dog, photo of a man, and bit of
     paper.
 (e) I will say that I do not understand. First I must ask if the
    audience wanted the false claim that voters voted. However the
    arguments and proofs are not all true. I am not studying the
    text, since your purpose is to advance unfairness. 


-----------------------------------
At 2003-12-19 06:37 +1300 Friday, Craig Carey wrote:
...
:
: In the grand sweep of Mr Schulzes exposition, he designed the
: algorithm in the paper so the input is never votes. The preprocessing
: stage that proves that the method is stupid, got censored out. It
                             [using the Condorcet thing]

: is the case that reasoning indicates that Schulze's method should
: be rejected instead of tested.
:
:
: Let's consider the algorithm itself. Here I quote from the VM 17
: PDF file:
:
: ---
: :     Suppose that d[X,Y] is the number of voters who
: :     strictly prefer candidate X to candidate Y. Then the
: :     Smith set is the smallest non-empty set of candidates
: :     with d[A,B] > d[B,A] for each candidate B outside this
: :     set.
: ---
:
: The English text of Schulze probably seems to imply this
: interpretation:
:
: * Let there be only 3 candidates. Let the ballot papers be these:
:
: 2 (CA)
: 5 (CAB)
: 1 (CBA)
:
: What is Mr Schulze's d[A,B] ?.
:
: We could look at the computer algorithm source code but it takes
: the "d" matrix as an input. The vote counting algorithm can't actually
: accept votes.
:
: The d[A,B] value would be:
:
:  (Interpretation 1) the number 7, or
:  (Interpretation 2) the number 5, or
:  (Interpretation 3) the number 6, or
:  (Interpretation 4) the number 4, or
:



>You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>> (3) When the papers are like STV' the winners ought be insensitive to the
>>   presence or absence of the very last preference in one or more papers.
>>   That Schulze method seemed to fail this test.
>
>Please give a concrete example.
>

Not very bright response.
A gauntlet for me perhaps. Your paper is so bad that it should
be you alone who does research. It is strange how you have so
very little interest in the actual words that you wrote. I guess
you don't care what you write. If so then there should be a check
to see if you are depressed. Also it would be useful to know if
you get more depressed, e.g. when criticised.

Mike is criticising you now.

I have already written the answer: it is that you didn't actually
define the method. That fact proves that your "well-definedness"
proof is fake. You clearly gave the wrong meaning to the English
words. hat is obviously so, it was actually referring to some
crap from the pairwise comparing religion.


--

I would have produced a computer program and prove that Schulze was
a failure. However there is no algorithm to test.

There are so many different correct criteria for rejecting your
paper. Designing while blind will be one of them. That does not
produce hope but instead it lowers the hope of the algorithm being
improved.

--

The Schulze paper arrived D.O.A (Dead on Arrival) at London --
since it didn't define "strictly prefer" well enough and with only
a reference to ballot paper instead of voters. Some places could
have 1/3 votes for prisoners (or fugitives from computational
symbolic algebra)

The STV community may be slow to absorb Mr Schulzes paper, using
this line of argument:

 * Mr Schulze must have been engtangled in complexity

 * The thing has to be built up and then it fails fundamental tests.
   The designer asks readers to test the thing.

 * If it had of passed the tests then the complexity would have been
   reduced. The designer maybe even failed to learn how extremely
   complex the method was.

 * Like I said privately, if a good job can't eb done without
   light then a switch can be turned on. But Mr Shulze is out of
   this world, for clearly such an avoidance of algebra must
   prevent the production of good methods. But tehre seems to be
   absolutely no complaints about anything from the world of
   algebra. A real mathematician can be blocked by a single
   issue in algebra. It is like Mr Schulze can shuffle to the
   right but it is impossible to rotate 180 degrees and then
   move in the opposing direction. Four years of EM and counting
   and still not even vague complaints about algebra.


Mr Schulze is starting to say that he does not understand.

That would be criticised by me over time.

Mr Shulze is setting out a new direction: designing while unable
to see everything, and we already have had years of no
achievement. Certainly outside of the world of pairwise comparing,
change can be quick and rapid. 


Here is that definedness test that passed a most undefined method:

: 3) Well-Definedness
:
: On first view, it is not clear whether the Schulze
: method is well defined. It seems to be possible that
: candidates disqualify each other in such a manner that
: there is no candidate A with p[A,B] >= p[B,A] for every
: other candidate B. However, the following proof
: demonstrates that path defeats are transitive. That
: means: When candidate A disqualifies candidate B and
: when candidate B disqualifies candidate C, then also
: candidate A disqualifies candidate C.
...
: Case 2: Suppose
: (9b) p[A,B] < p[B,C].
...
: Therefore, the relation defined by p[A,B] > p[B,A] is transitive.


Condorcet seems to have a monastery feel to it. They seemed to
be packed with woman dying with breast cancer, but that is
of course no about the public interest.

It could be a check that the number of winners are right.
I assume that sometimes the method finds 0 winners or 2 winers.

Who would finish up an argument that the number of winners is
correct using the words "[It] is transitive".
Transitivity is some properly requiring that the method is
too unfair (or too lacking in proportionality) for use in
a government election.

---


What seemed most interesting is that after a few easy lines of 
transforming the Schulze algorithm into a polytope format,
is appeared that all Condorcet variants must be rejected for
being affected by the presence or absence of the last
preference. I was constrained by having to guess at what
Mr SChulze's definition of the algorithm was.

For at least a year, when Mr Schulze was not writing privately,
he also did not e-mail the polytope formulation of the
algorithm that I had requested.

Had he responded to the information requested, then rapidly
I could have shown that Condorcet idealism leads to an
unacceptable defect that won't be OK in civil or computer science
department, elections.


If Mr Schulze believes that it takes >17.95% of his entire
life before he can repell off that evil called Condorcet, then
do please tell us, for the rest who use logic, the process
could take minutes or something.

German males [yeah] in the Internet have a technique of saying
that they do not understand. This is the 'gnome in the rock'
mastery of shooting up opponents in online arguments.

It permits them to not lose steadily in an argument when the
expectation is that they must have precise model of what it
is that the public interest is (constrained by the topic).



Craig Carey

politicians-and-polytopes








From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 23:21:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 23:21:01 2003
Subject: [EM] BeatpathWinner Algorithm
Message-ID: <Law10-F27AqpfkNsjUH0002646d@hotmail.com>

Just one more thing about this:

Markus said, in a posting that was replying to my recent posting of the 
BeatpathWinner algorithm (I posted it a few days ago):

Dear participants,

the correct version of the Floyd algorithm can be found in
Section 4 and in Appendix 3 of my paper "A New Monotonic
and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

I reply:

Though the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted isn't the Floyd 
algorilthm, it's still correct, because it does what it's intended to do. It 
makes the strongest-beatpaths array, the B(i,j) array in which each B(i,j) 
is the strength of the strongest beatpath from candidate i to candidate j.

If there is no beatpath from i to j, then B(i,j) = 0.

That algorithm wasn't written as an attempt to write the Floyd algorithm. It 
was written by people who had never heard of the Floyd algorithm. It was 
written to accomplish the pupose that it accomlishes. Only later, due to 
Markus's earlier post of something he called the Floyd algorithm (though it 
was about strongest paths rather than shortest paths), did I hear of the 
Floyd algorithm.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Have fun customizing MSN Messenger ? learn how here!  
http://www.msnmessenger-download.com/tracking/reach_customize



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 23:33:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 23:33:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <3FE4ADBE.CADD67E2@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Ernest,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> Ah, okay, that was hard for me to deduce from the original algorithm, 
> where it seemed like you were primarily calculating margins.

In Section 4 of my paper, I use margins. In Appendix 3 of my paper,
I use absolute numbers of votes for the winner. The pseudo-code for
the Dijkstra algorithm that I posted to you yesterday corresponds
to the algorithm in Appendix 3.

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> My implementation of this for object-oriented Dijkstra (using real
> Python code this time) is at the end.    The relevant section is here,
> where 'rstrength', or relative strength, is used for the margin:

Sorry, but I don't know Python.

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> Are you asserting that there is no deterministic tie-breaking algorithm
> that resists clones?  Does this mean that we really do need to keep
> track of all the actual ballots, and not just the Condorcet matrix?

I chose the "random ballot" tie-breaking strategy in such a manner that
the proofs that the proposed method satisfies Pareto, monotonicity,
independence from clones, etc. are as simple as possible. I am not
linked to this tie-breaking strategy.

Another possible tie-breaking strategy is to calculate a complete
ranking of all candidates (and not only of the potential winners)
with Tideman's ranked pairs method and to choose that potential
winner that is ranked highest in this ranking. With this tie-breaking
strategy none of the desirable properties of my beatpath method gets
lost.

However, for every anonymous and neutral single-winner election method
there are situations where this method doesn't find a unique winner.
Random ballot is sometimes the only way to get a winner without
having to violate independence of clones. But I don't think that
it is such a big problem when independence of clones is violated in
these extreme cases.

Markus Schulze


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 23:50:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 23:50:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #388 - 7 msgs
Message-ID: <3FE511D6.CB9F2E6D@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Matt,

you wrote to Mike Ossipoff (20 Dec 2003):
> To restore some credibility for yourself Mike, how about arranging
> to correct the code to make it O(N^3)?  All this time Mike is
> wasting futiley trying to beat down Markus could be better spent
> by soliciting help from someone who codes python to modify the
> code.  Then again, your attacks on Markus are so completely false
> and nasty that I really doubt there is anything you can do to
> restore your credibility with me.

Mike Ossipoff wrote (18 Dec 2003):

> repeat = 1
> while repeat = 1:
>   change = 0
>   for i = 1 to N
>      for j =  1 to N
>         for k = 1 to N
>            least = min(B(i,j), B(j,k))
>            if least > B(i,k):
>               B(i,k) = least
>               change =1
>            endif
>        endfor
>     endfor
> endfor
> if change= 0
>     repeat = 0
> endif
> endwhile

A compromise would be to write:

> repeat = 1
> while repeat = 1:
>   change = 0
>   for i = 1 to N
>      for j =  1 to N
>         for k = 1 to N
>            least = min(B(j,i), B(i,k))
>            if least > B(j,k):
>               B(j,k) = least
>               change =1
>            endif
>        endfor
>     endfor
> endfor
> if change= 0
>     repeat = 0
> endif
> endwhile

Here the professional mathematicians are satisfied because
it is garanteed that the triple-loop is passed only twice.
And those who don't have sufficient mathematical skills
to trust the Floyd algorithm have the while-loop as an
additional guaranty that the algorithm gives the correct
results.

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 23:53:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 23:53:01 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
Message-ID: <LAW10-F73SOJl6byoxx0004dbd9@hotmail.com>

Matt said:

I know about the Floyd algorithm

I reply.

Good for you, Matt.

Matt continued:

Markus provided us with references about that algorithm, as well as the code 
to implement it, in past discussions on this group with Mike over several 
years on this same issue.

I reply:

No, not really. I didn't discuss that algorithm with Markus for several 
years.

However I've already stated that he'd posted the algorithm some years ago, 
so it isn't quite clear why you feel a need to assert that.

Matt continued:

I followed the entire exchange here and Markus did not start the discussion 
with the false statement Mike claims.   On the contrary, I am certain that 
Markus explicitly acknowledged the python program would probably work as it 
is currently written.

I reply:

I quote from Markus's posting on 15 December, '03:

"However Mike Ossipoff always describes the Floyd algorithm as follows:

[followed by a fragment of a Python program, with some of the lines partly 
missing]

This does not work."

Matt, yoiu're wasting our time when you post demonstrably innacurate claims.

Matt continued:

To restore some credibility for yourself Mike...

I reply:

It isn't quite clear how Matt feels that I've lost "credibility". For 
instance, in this discussion, I have a much better statement-accuracy record 
than Matt does.

Matt continued:

..., how about arranging to correct the code to make it O(N^3)?

I reply:

Sorry, but no. I thought that I'd made it clear in my previous reply to you 
that I'm leaving the algorithm as-is, at the website, and in my replies to 
people who ask about implementation. As I said at that time, Steve's 
algorithm very obviously works. That's obvious at a glance. The 1-pass 
algorithm, even if it works, doesn't have anything like the obvious validity 
of Steve's algorilthm.
If I sent Markus's algorithm out in reply to people who ask about 
implementation, I'd have to convince them that it works, contrary to 
appearance.

And, as I likewise said before, the run-time of Steve's algorithm isn't 
going to be a problem anyway.

The websites that I've checked say that the Floyd algorithm finds shortest 
beatpaths. They didn't mention strongest beatpaths. Markus says that it can 
be modified for strongest beatpaths too (but that raises the question of 
whether, after modification, it's still the Floyd algorithm). Maybe when its 
job is to find shortest beatpaths it can complete the job in one pass. If 
so, maybe, when its job is modified to finding strongest beatpaths, it 
retains that capability.

Please note, Matt, that I don't take a position on that question, or make 
any challenge or issue about that. That hasn't been an issue here.

Matt continued:

All this time Mike is wasting futiley trying to beat down Markus...

I reply:

I've been futily trying to explain to Markus that I'm not claiming that 
Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Yes, I admit that that effort has 
been futile.

But you're being over-dramatic and silly when you say that I'm trying to 
beat him down. Maybe you meant to say "...beat Markus back."

Matt continued:

...could be better spent by soliciting help from someone who codes python to 
modify the code.

I reply:

No, I'm going to have to disappoint you on that. I'm not going to modify the 
strongest-beatpaths algorithm because you prefer a different one. But I 
certainly encourage you to use whichever one you prefer.

Then again, your attacks on Markus are so completely false...

I  reply:

Can you name one false thing I said about Markus? I merely pointed out the 
falsity of his continually-repeated statement that I claim that Steve's 
stongest beatpaths algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.That's really the only 
issue in the discussion.

Well, I also objected to his statement that our algorilthm doesn't work. My 
statement that he said that isn't a false statement either--I quoted his 
statement above in this message, and stated the date of his posting. Check 
it out if you don't believe it.

Matt continued:

...and nasty that I really doubt there is anything you can do to restore 
your credibility with me.

I reply:

I've lost Matt's credence :-)

As for "nasty", I always start out polite. You wouldn't notice this, but 
it's only after many repititions of Markus's misquotes that I stop being 
polilte.

You shouldn't think that I'm singling Markus out. For some people, at least, 
there's a natural tendency to put your gut feeling about someone over the 
actual facts of the discussion.

You, for example: You decided that you felt that I was being mean to Markus. 
Then, governed by your anger, and your natural protective instinct, you felt 
a need to refute what I was saying, a need to tell why Markus was the one 
who was right. Apparently that need was greater than your ability to read 
the postings and remember what I'd said, and what I hadn't said. So you 
began making refuting noises. These noises from you have been almost 
entirely vague, without specifying exactly which statement of mine was 
incorrect. The only exception to the vagueness was when you pinpointed an 
alleged mis-statement of mine: My statement that Markus had said that our 
algorithm doesn't work. (But check Markus's 15 Dec.  '03 posting).

Yoiur protectiveness toward Markus is laudable, and I'm not criticizing 
that. But you need to understand that you're one of those people who, when 
something angers you or arouses your protective instinct, is ruled entirely 
by emotion, so that you send to us a "refuting" posting that either refers 
to no actual statements (refutation pretty much requires that you say 
exactly what you're refuting), or else makes a quite false statement such as 
your claim that Markus didn't say that our algorithm didn't work.

So suggestion to you, Matt, is: If you want to refute something, find out 
specifically what statement you want to refute. Find a statement that is 
incorrect. Then tell us what it is that you want to refute. Then tell us why 
it isn't correct.

When you're vague, when you don''t tell us what you mean, people aren't 
going to know what you're trying to say. Good luck in future postings.

Mike Ossipoff


and that I don't intend to use something that doesn't have the obvious 
validity of Steve's algorithm. But I hadn't yet said that at the time that 
you posted your other message implying that there was

_________________________________________________________________
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http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 00:28:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 00:28:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Compromise for speed and obvious validity
Message-ID: <Law10-F72DSm5AGSvB80004e2b3@hotmail.com>

Sure, that compromise would be ok: The indices in the testing and 
re-assigning core of the loop
could be re-ordered so as to make more passes unnecessary, so that only 2 
passes would be made. If  the 2nd pass makes no changes, there's no 3rd 
pass. And the fact that the algorithm obviously repeats till no stonger 
beatpaths can be found between any ordered candidate pairs means that it 
still has the same obvious validity that it had before.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From Dgamble997 at aol.com  Sun Dec 21 00:29:01 2003
From: Dgamble997 at aol.com (Dgamble997 at aol.com)
Date: Sun Dec 21 00:29:01 2003
Subject: [EM] (no subject)
Message-ID: <3e.3943a22e.2d165516@aol.com>

Dear all

I find this "debate" about the Floyd Algorithm ( or more accurately who said 
what about who and when) extremely uninteresting and not very constructive.

Is it really that important to get the last word in?

David Gamble

PS This is the second time I've sent this E-mail have problems with the list 
cut off Mike and Markus in full flow?
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 00:57:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 00:57:02 2003
Subject: [EM] The request for Steve's count proposal
Message-ID: <LAW10-F75mNIql6cknJ0004daa0@hotmail.com>

Markus asked:

Could you please forward that mail where Steve proposes this strongest path
algorithm?

I reply:

It was in my mailbox years ago. I doubt that it's still there. If it is, and 
if I can quickly find it, I'll forward it.

I  don't know if Steve posted his strongest-beatpaths algorithm to EM.

But if you want a copy of it, you might want to ask him.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
It?s our best dial-up Internet access offer: 6 months @$9.95/month. Get it 
now!  http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From drernie at mac.com  Sun Dec 21 01:08:02 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:08:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <3FE38375.20BFE6D3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FE38375.20BFE6D3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <B98161F6-328E-11D8-B08B-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

On Dec 19, 2003, at 3:02 PM, Markus Schulze wrote:

> Dear Ernest,

Hi Markus,

Thanks for the prompt reply.
>
> I don't know Python-ish pseudo-code.

I'll try to find ways to make it more English-like, so the algorithm is 
clearer.

> But in Pascal/C-ish pseudo-code
> the Dijkstra algorithm (aka Dykstra algorithm) looks as follows when
> the strength of a pairwise defeat is measured primarily by p1 (= the
> absolute number of votes for the winner of this pairwise defeat) and
> secondarily by p2 (= the margin of this pairwise defeat):

<lots of code omitted>
Ouch.  That's why I no longer program in C (or procedural languages). 
:-)

Let me put it another way.   Could you please explain in words why you 
feel it is necessary or useful to use *both* absolute votes and margins 
in the calculation?   Are the margins used simply to break a tie 
between absolute votes?  I think that's what is implied by the line:
>            if ( p1[i,x] = d1[x,k] ) then
>            t : = min { p2[i,x], d2[x,k] } ;

Also, is there a particular mathematical or anti-strategic reason for 
randomizing the tie-breaking round, rather than just automatically 
picking the candidate who would have the best chance of winning such a 
random draw?

-- Ernie P.



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 21 01:12:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:12:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus reply,  12/20/03
Message-ID: <3FE46466.903B66BA@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> False statements, statements that he can't justify,  have always been
> Markus's stock-in-trade. But this time he's doing the disservice of
> misinforming people about a practical matter. But Markus doesn't care,
> he just enjoys being on the attack.

When someone proposes a faster algorithm for a given problem then
you shouldn't consider this to be an "attack".

******

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> I was only criticising you for continuing to repeat that I was
> continuing to claim that our implementation is the Floyd algorithm.
>
> (...)
>
> The debate was about whether I still claim that Steve's algorithm is
> the Floyd algorithm. It was a really silly debate, because I'd repeatedly
> said that I no longer claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.
>
> I'm the first to admit that it was a silly issue that Markus insisted on
> pursuing.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your implementation
is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this discussion with the
following statement (18 Dec 2003):

> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

It is obvious that when I made my statement that you call your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you have changed
your opinion recently. Therefore, your insulting replies are inappropriate.
Instead of saying "Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm." it would
have been better if you had said: "I don't call that the Floyd algorithm
anymore."

In so far as you only said without any explanations "I don't call that the
Floyd algorithm." and not "I don't call that the Floyd algorithm anymore."
it was clear that I would point you to a document where you call that the
Floyd algorithm.

By the way, you wrote (18 Dec 2003):

> I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from
> you or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

Could you please forward that mail where Steve proposes his strongest path
algorithm?

******

I wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> Then, of course, it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
> call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" anymore. There was no need for you
> to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> Hello-o-o-o! That's what I've been repeating for you over and over again, to
> no avail. I won't debate whether there was a need to insult you. But can you
> look at your ridiculous statement that I quoted directly above, and say that
> there wasn't a reason to call you an idiot?

When I say that "it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
call your implementation 'Floyd algorithm' anymore" then this doesn't mean
that I claim that you still call your implementation "Floyd algorithm".
It only means that this would have been sufficient and that there was no
need for you e.g. to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

******

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> You see, Markus, this is why I refer to you as an idiot. Did I deny that,
> in Feb 2001, I was calling Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm.? No. I
> agreed that I'd formerly called that algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but
> that I no longer do. But you kept repeating that I continue to claim that
> my implementation is the Floyd algorilthm, though I kept trying to tell
> you that I no longer make any such claim.
>
> And now you post a quote from 2001, apparently believing that it shows
> that you're right to say that, during this current discussion, I claim
> that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.
>
> Seriously, Markus, all namecalling aside,there really is something wrong
> with you.

Obviously, you are unable to see that when I ask you for an explanation why
you have used the term "Floyd algorithm" in the past in a given manner then
this doesn't include that I claim that you continue to use this term in this
manner.

By the way: Your recent mail exemplifies my observation that you are
unable to admit that you have made a mistake without bombarding with
insults that person who pointed you to this mistake. In the same mail
you admit that you have mistakenly believed Eppley's algorithm to be
Floyd's algorithm and you bombard me with insults.

Markus Schulze


From Dgamble997 at aol.com  Sun Dec 21 01:30:02 2003
From: Dgamble997 at aol.com (Dgamble997 at aol.com)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:30:02 2003
Subject: [EM] The Floyd Algorithm
Message-ID: <41.3828ffdf.2d15b56a@aol.com>

Dear all

I find this "debate" about the Floyd Algorithm ( or more accurately who said 
what about who and when) extremely uninteresting and not very constructive.

Is it really that important to get the last word in?

David Gamble

 
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From dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk  Sun Dec 21 01:45:01 2003
From: dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk (Diana Galletly)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:45:01 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-F73SOJl6byoxx0004dbd9@hotmail.com>
References: <LAW10-F73SOJl6byoxx0004dbd9@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312210922080.27069@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote (of Matt):

> Yoiur protectiveness toward Markus is laudable, and I'm not criticizing
> that. But you need to understand that you're one of those people who, when
> something angers you or arouses your protective instinct, is ruled entirely
> by emotion, so that you send to us a "refuting" posting that either refers
> to no actual statements (refutation pretty much requires that you say
> exactly what you're refuting), or else makes a quite false statement such as
> your claim that Markus didn't say that our algorithm didn't work.

I have been following this discussion with increasing amounts of
astonishment.  I can make neither head nor tail of what is going on.
My hypotheses thus far have been

(i) Only about half the mails are reaching Mike and Markus, such that
each believes that they have already said something that the other hasn't
seen.  So they become frustrated and believe that they are repeating
themselves over and over again (which in fact they are!) whilst the other
one has never seen the first instantiation of the message.  Perhaps they
have each other's messages filtered into /dev/null :-)

(ii) That whilst their written English appears to be pretty good, one or
the other of them has comprehension difficulties.

(iii) That one or the other of them is a computer rather than a person ;-)

Also I don't see the need for the insults.  Calling people "idiots", telling
them there must be something seriously wrong with them, and patronising
people by telling them that their reactions are driven by their emotions
rather than rationality is not helpful.

I was of the belief that both Mike and Markus are staunch Condorcetites.
Think how this petty squabble is just playing into the hands of someone
like Craig Carey, who also appears to use insults as his stock-in-trade
(as well as being pretty incomprehensible).

Diana.


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 21 01:47:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:47:02 2003
Subject: The German loser (Re: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
Message-ID: <3FE56965.9559A9D7@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

could you please post some examples to explain what you
are talking about?

Markus Schulze


From matt at tidalwave.net  Sun Dec 21 02:42:02 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Sun Dec 21 02:42:02 2003
Subject: [EM] EM] What is this software MIKE is working on...
Message-ID: <20031220074456.9FAF2E4B9@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 21 03:31:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 21 03:31:02 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
Message-ID: <3FE583D9.BBED4322@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

when I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
have changed your opinion recently. Craig Carey claimed that my
implementation of the Floyd algorithm doesn't work (presumably
because it makes only one pass through the triple-loop and
presumably because Craig believed because of the while-loop
in your implementation that the Floyd algorithm doesn't find
the strongest paths in a single pass through the triple-loop).
Therefore, I stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd
algorithm and that your algorithm doesn't find the strongest
paths in a single pass. But when one considers the possible
short cuts in that order that has been proposed by Floyd then
a single pass is sufficient.

******

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> That algorithm wasn't written as an attempt to write the Floyd
> algorithm. It was written by people who had never heard of the
> Floyd algorithm. It was written to accomplish the pupose that
> it accomlishes. Only later, due to Markus's earlier post of
> something he called the Floyd algorithm (though it was about
> strongest paths rather than shortest paths), did I hear of the
> Floyd algorithm.

Even though you write that you have never heard of the Floyd
algorithm, it is a matter of fact that you called your algorithm
"Floyd algorithm" e.g. in the source code of your Python program
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py). Therefore, when I
stress that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm then
this is a feasible observation and not an "attack". If you hadn't
mistakenly written that your implementation is the Floyd algorithm,
then there wouldn't have been a reason for me to stress that your
implementation is not the Floyd algorithm.

******

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> I've been futily trying to explain to Markus that I'm not claiming
> that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Yes, I admit that
> that effort has been futile.

When I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
have changed your opinion recently. In one of your recent mails,
you admitted that you mistakenly believed Eppley's algorithm to
be Floyd's algorithm and you admitted that you mistakenly called
Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's algorithm". Therefore, my criticism
was feasible and you admitted this. Therefore, there is absolutely
no justification for your insulting mails.

******

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> Can you name one false thing I said about Markus? I merely pointed
> out the falsity of his continually-repeated statement that I claim
> that Steve's stongest beatpaths algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.
> That's really the only issue in the discussion.

I don't claim that you continue to claim that Eppley's algorithm
is Floyd's algorithm. However, when I pointed (on 15 Dec 2003) to
the fact that you mistakenly called your implementation "Floyd
algorithm" this observation was true.

Markus Schulze


From research at ijs.co.nz  Sun Dec 21 10:13:06 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Sun Dec 21 10:13:06 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
In-Reply-To: <3FE583D9.BBED4322@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz>


At 2003-12-21 12:28 +0100 Sunday, Markus Schulze wrote:
>
>Dear Mike,
>
>when I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
>"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
>have changed your opinion recently. Craig Carey claimed that my
>implementation of the Floyd algorithm doesn't work (presumably
>because it makes only one pass through the triple-loop and
>presumably because Craig believed because of the while-loop


I wrote here to correct the wrong claim that I wrote so uselessly
on part of algorithm, and I reject that I could have possibly have
as irrational as Mr Schulze suggested with his speculation on what
I would have believed.

Also I never wrote on the Floyd *part*. Instead I wrote on the whole
algorithm. (I used only the name "Stage 2" for what Mr Schulze is
now calling the "Floyd algorithm". That is what the documents show.

I worded my comments so that a fault in part 2 created a fault in
the whole algorithm. That is totally different from criticising the
Floyd algorithm. Mr Schulze might have rejected my arguments after
I soundly argued that hje must reject his new seeming write-up of
the so called awfully unprincipled Schulze method, subsequently
identified as not even being defined in the articles submitted and
published.

** I did not claim that the Floyd algorithm "doesn't work". I simply
have a stable set of axioms that can be used as test. Mr Schulze
has probably an clear idea on what they are. Tests must be axioms
or else there is a huge slump in credibility and we end up with
errors like Mr Ossipoff's belief that inserting a preference for a
total loser should not upset the winner of previously winning
candidate owning a subsequent preference in the same ballot paper.

>in your implementation that the Floyd algorithm doesn't find
>the strongest paths in a single pass through the triple-loop).
>Therefore, I stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd
>algorithm and that your algorithm doesn't find the strongest
>paths in a single pass. But when one considers the possible
>short cuts in that order that has been proposed by Floyd then
>a single pass is sufficient.
>


Mr Shulze's seeminlgy recent (fully undefined) "well-definedness"
test, apparently passes fully undefined methods. So the reasoning
is suspect as well as the definitions, and I could not follow the
reasoning. S

I wish to note that Mr Markus Schulze is altering the wording according
to an estimate on whether disproving documents show up.

It won't be OK in politics. But this is just list for untrue statements
that have no place in the design of quality preferential voting methods
(particularly when Diana speaks. As for myself, shall be withdrawing
from this deep dark hole without much delay).

-----------------------

Mr Schulze actually seems to have receivied my e-mail containing the
algebra. It was dated 23 October 2003.
Its title was "Comments on the new Shulze voting method of Voting Matters 2003"

It was factual and withheld and its comments were the material and of
compelling importance to my communications with Mr Shulze in the last
week here at this list. It was the missing material part to my arguments
and it won't do for Mr Shulze to leave a suspicion that I was aiming to
produce clarifying summaries of allegations that never exists.

The poor members here do not like algebra, so they aggregate and don't
know what fairness is.  They maybe really are not so stupid that they
can't create truly better method, but all are out for lunch if the
topic of defining what better means shows up. After following it for
long enough, it seems that knowing nothing is the aim or a top aim.

Here is my not-edited log file record showing that Mr Schulze received
the e-mail where I tried to convert the entiire Shulze thing of the
(Voting Matter 17 PDF file and Shulze's submitted PDF), into a polytope:

--------------------------------------------------------------------
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:33 +1300 $2 Connecting to "mail.zrz.tu-berlin.de"
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:33 +1300 $2 DNS server responded with 0 (OK) [2]
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:33 +1300 $2 Connecting to "gr.mx0.global.net.uk"
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:34 +1300 $2 Connected
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:35 +1300 $2 Connected
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:35 +1300 $2 <<< 220 mx0.global.net.uk ESMTP Exim 3.36 #8 Thu, 23 Oct 2003 11:30:33 +0100
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:35 +1300 $2 >>> EHLO Merak
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:36 +1300 $2 <<< 250 HELP
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:36 +1300 $2 >>> MAIL From:<research at ijs.co.nz> SIZE=2321
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:36 +1300 $2 <<< 250 <research at ijs.co.nz> is syntactically correct
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:36 +1300 $2 >>> RCPT To:<brian.wichmann at totalise.co.uk>
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:37 +1300 $2 <<< 250 <brian.wichmann at totalise.co.uk> verified
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:37 +1300 $2 >>> DATA
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:37 +1300 $2 <<< 354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 <<< 250 OK id=1ACcjj-000IgF-00
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 *** <research at ijs.co.nz> <brian.wichmann at totalise.co.uk> 1 2321 00:00:01 OK
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 >>> QUIT
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 <<< 221 mx0.global.net.uk closing connection
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 Disconnected
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:40 +1300 $2 <<< 220 TU-Berlin.DE - ESMTP (exim-4.24) ready at Thu, 23 Oct 2003 12:30:38 +0200
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:40 +1300 $2 >>> EHLO Merak
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:40 +1300 $2 <<< 250 HELP
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:40 +1300 $2 >>> MAIL From:<research at ijs.co.nz> SIZE=2321
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:41 +1300 $2 <<< 250 OK
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:41 +1300 $2 >>> RCPT To:<markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:46 +1300 $2 <<< 250 Accepted
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:46 +1300 $2 >>> DATA
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:46 +1300 $2 <<< 354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 <<< 250 OK id=1ACcjs-0007Tq-Lo
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 *** <research at ijs.co.nz> <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de> 1 2321 00:00:01 OK
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 >>> QUIT
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 <<< 221 mail.zrz.tu-berlin.de closing connection
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 Disconnected
--------------------------------------------------------------------

( In the above:
    String $1 = "[00000C80] Thu, " or "[00000C90] Thu, "
    String $2 = "Client session"

The document got to him in my opinion.

I invite Mr Schulze to turn his mind to the question of the signficance
the fairly compelling algebraic founded suggestions that his paper is 
ass good as derailed train.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Mr Schulze just wrote this:

----------------------------
At 2003-12-21 10:35 +0100 Sunday, Markus Schulze wrote:
>Dear Craig,
>
>could you please post some examples to explain what you
>are talking about?
>
>Markus Schulze
----------------------------

Once again, the same problem seems to be present: Mr Schulze got symbolic
algebra evidence of amazing awful defects prohibiting all use of the
Schulze method (by every intelligent person and cockroaches too) in the
23 October 2003 e-mail. 

Actually Mr Ossipoff got a copy of an emended version dated 25-October-2003.
I sent that off to Mr Mike Ossipoff at "nkklrp at hotmail.com" on 21 December
2003.

It just looks like a request for information about a preferential
voting method that was not defined. However it looks like the chief
defendant has lost access to more than only his private e-mails
from October 2003. Praise our good fortune that he can still write his
name.



-----------------------------------


The Condorcet Winner ideal, was sighted dead on 5 September 2001.
Certainly Marcus would have known thoroughly that Condorcet technology is
awfully out of date and now proven to be inferior to (censored). Here is the
message:


At 2001-Sept-05 18:21 +1200 Wednesday, Craig Carey wrote:
...
>At 2001.Sept.04 16:40 -0400 Tuesday, Dave Ketchum wrote:
...
>This original "Fluffy" example has such problems with its numbers that new
>numbers could be used and the original discarded. Here is an improved
>version:
>
>       AB  48     : 1 winner        (no. 1)
>       B    3
>       CB  49
>
>     Condorcet: B wins   :   A:B = 48:52, B:C = 51:49, C:A = 49:48
>     FPTP:      C wins
>
>Candidate B wins, and: (1) the outcome is too different to First Past the
>Post to some, and (2) allowing that would lead into problems.
>
>Condorcet can be rejected for picking the wrong number of winners even
>without this example.
>
>If Mr Layton writes, perhaps an 'improved' Fluffy the Dog example could
>be named.
>
>
>At 2000.11.13 12:05 +1100 Monday, LAYTON Craig wrote:
> >There is basically one cogent criticism of all Condorcet systems, of which
> >you're all aware; that it puts too much importance on middle preferences,
> >especially when not all candidates or parties are known to voters.  Example:
> >
> >In a two candidate race:
> >A 51
> >C 49
> >
> >C wins
>  A wins
> >
> >A and C are diametrically opposed, there has been a long and dirty smear
> >campaign, so that C voters hate A and A voters hate C.  My dog, fluffy (B),
> >joins the race at the last minute;
> >
> >ABC 49
> >CBA 49
> >BAC 01
> >BCA 01
>             A:B = 49:51,  B:C = 51:49,  C:A = 50:50
> >
> >Fluffy is the Condorcet winner!.
>...


How can a dead method be noncontroversial, attainable, optimally satisfactory, 
and attainable ?.

Those are some traits of a fairest preferential voting method (not an algorithm).


----------------------------------------

How arbitrary: some privately belief on conduct with not even a single radiating
Argon gas atom illuminating the statement with the right stuff:


At 2003-12-21 09:33 +0000 Sunday, Diana Galletly <dag*000 at eng.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote (of Matt):
...
>Also I don't see the need for the insults.  Calling people "idiots", telling
>them there must be something seriously wrong with them, and patronising
>people by telling them that their reactions are driven by their emotions
>rather than rationality is not helpful.
>
>I was of the belief that both Mike and Markus are staunch Condorcetites.

Moronic and covert over how they checked their principles and still ended
up adhering to wrong ideals, is something Diana can inquire into.



>Think how this petty squabble is just playing into the hands of someone
>like Craig Carey, who also appears to use insults as his stock-in-trade
>(as well as being pretty incomprehensible).
>
>Diana.


Diana, my thinking here could be imagine by you to be like a very large
English church. Probing bits might not reveal a huge amount.

In 1999 the Election Methods List ad both drop outs and politeness.

Rather than reject bits of Diana's advice, it might be fairer to find out
more of her beliefs in the aim of estimating a date when Diana is likely
to drop out or quit.

---

So to conclude: I sent arguments to Mr Shulze and his guesswork on my
belief is unable to be created and maintained given the 23-October-2003
e-mail he got appealing him to contain his wrong thoughts, since so in
error. That never happened, and surely it would have been better if it
had of.


Craig Carey
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/politicians-and-polytopes
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote
Origin of 1/3 quota in IFPP:  http://www.ijs.co.nz/quota-13.htm
Use of QE solver REDLOG: http://www.ijs.co.nz/polytopes.htm






From dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk  Sun Dec 21 10:52:01 2003
From: dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk (Diana Galletly)
Date: Sun Dec 21 10:52:01 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz>
References: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz>
Message-ID: <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312211836070.595@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>

On Mon, 22 Dec 2003, Craig Carey wrote:

> It won't be OK in politics. But this is just list for untrue statements
> that have no place in the design of quality preferential voting methods
> (particularly when Diana speaks. As for myself, shall be withdrawing
> from this deep dark hole without much delay).

Er, show me where I have said something that is untrue?

It happens to be the case that if I post something that I later come
to realise is mistaken, I am *very* ready to apologise.

It may be that I have misinterpreted your messages, although since
your sentences often seem to be at best incomplete this might not
be surprising.

My understanding is that you are a supporter of STV (maybe even of IRV)?
Is this correct?

> The poor members here do not like algebra, so they aggregate and don't
> know what fairness is.

What proof have you that any of us dislike algebra?

> They maybe really are not so stupid that they can't create truly better
> method, but all are out for lunch if the topic of defining what better
> means shows up.

It seems to me that there are some people who want to a believe in a
one-size-fits-all system, for single winner elections, multi-winner
elections, referenda etc.

Personally, my interest is in referenda and, in particular, in determining
a system which doesn't cause widely varying results if just a few votes
change hands.

Calling me stupid will not get you far.  I am far from stupid, and
asserting that I am just because I happen to disagree with you, or
because you don't like the content of my messages, will not get me
to consider anything you have to say more carefully than I would were
you to be polite.

> How arbitrary: some privately belief on conduct with not even a single
> radiating Argon gas atom illuminating the statement with the right stuff:

This is an example of why I find your English hard to comprehend.  I
cannot even tell whether you are insulting or praising me -- I can read
it in both ways.  However, given your previous comment, I guess I should
take it as an insult.

> Rather than reject bits of Diana's advice, it might be fairer to find out
> more of her beliefs in the aim of estimating a date when Diana is likely
> to drop out or quit.

At the rate academic politics moves, some time in 2005 or 2006 I should
imagine.  I'm here for a reason, not for an argument.

Diana.


From gervase at group.force9.co.uk  Sun Dec 21 11:21:01 2003
From: gervase at group.force9.co.uk (Gervase Lam)
Date: Sun Dec 21 11:21:01 2003
Subject: [EM] "Paper" that mentions Kemeny Median
Message-ID: <E1AY98G-0003YI-Df.2003-12-21-19-20-52@cmailg2.svr.pol.co.uk>

Can anybody give an explanation of the Kemeny Median explained in the 
following PDF document:

<www.iiasa.ac.at/~marek/ftppub/Pubs/csm02/bury.pdf>

Is it the same as Kemeny-Young?  It's just that I don't understand all of 
the mathematical notation.

Here is the parent web page for the document, which interestingly is about 
a Systems Analysis Workshop rather than anything to do with voting.

<http://www.iiasa.ac.at/~marek/wrksp/csm02/>

Thanks,
Gervase.


From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Sun Dec 21 11:40:01 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Sun Dec 21 11:40:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Optional Later-no-harm  AER
Message-ID: <3FE6A03F.9000407@bigpond.com>

  An  idea for improving  Approval  Elimination Runoff   (an 
 Approval-STV hybrid) :

1: Voters rank the candidates and also place an Approval cutoff. 
 Truncation allowed, and if equal preferences are allowed
then the votes are split. Default placement of  the cutoff  can be 
either below  first preference or below lowest  ranked
not-in-last-place candidate.
2:  A candidate with a majority of first preferences is elected.  If  no 
candidate has a majority, then eliminate the candidate
with the fewest  approvals and  transfer preferences  IRV-style. 
Whenever  a candidate is the highest ranked of  those
remaining candidates on a majority of  the ballots that distinguish 
between them; then that candidate is elected.
3: If, after one or more eliminations, there are ballots that no longer 
make any approval distinction between the remaining
candidates, then those ballots that approve none of the remaining 
candidates shall be counted as approving the highest-ranked
of  them  and those ballots that approve all of  them will be counted as 
approving all  but the lowest-ranked.

This last feature is my new idea. Ranking but not approving  a candidate 
 can never harm an approved candidate, so voters
can have as much  Later-no-harm as they want.
Without this feature, AER  and other methods that use an  approval 
cutoff  give too big an advantage to well-informed
strategic voters. My idea is that as and when a  voter's approval cutoff 
 in it's original position becomes redundant/useless
(because it no longer distinguishes between the remaining candidates), 
it is moved the minimum distance neccessary for
this to be not the case.
Some people who are not  Condorcet fans have been down on the idea of  a 
 "low utility" CW with very few first preferences
winning. They can be reassured that with this method such a candidate 
cannot win unless they are explicitly  "approved" by
a significant  proportion  of  the voters.
This method  can easily be adapted  to elect more than one winner by  PR.
It  doesn't meet the Condorcet Criterion, but that is incompatible with 
Later-no-harm.
A while ago (Sat.Apr.13,2002) Adam Tarr  posted something on 
"Approval-Completed Condorcet".
In his example, these were the sincere preferences:

49: Bush>Gore>Nader
12: Gore>Bush>Nader
12: Gore>Nader>Bush
27: Nader>Gore>Bush
100 voters. Gore is the sincere CW.

With approval cutoffs, this was his problematic scenario:

49: Bush>>Nader>Gore
6: Gore>Bush>>Nader
6: Gore>>Bush>Nader
6: Gore>>Nader>Bush
6: Gore>Nader>>Bush
27: Nader>Gore>>Bush

"Now, Bush wins the approval runoff 55-51-33.  This is where ACC's favorite 
betrayal scenario comes in.  Since Bush wins the approval vote, the only 
way the majority can guarantee a Gore win is to make Gore the initial 
Condorcet winner, which requires that the Nader camp vote Gore in first place:"

My point is that this is no problem for AER. Nader is easily eliminated and then Gore
(the sincere CW) wins.

Chris Benham



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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 21 12:39:13 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 21 12:39:13 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
Message-ID: <3FE60484.9BC73431@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

you wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> I wrote here to correct the wrong claim that I wrote so uselessly
> on part of algorithm, and I reject that I could have possibly have
> as irrational as Mr Schulze suggested with his speculation on what
> I would have believed. (...) I did not claim that the Floyd algorithm
> "doesn't work".

However, on 15 Dec 2003, you wrote:
> A defective spot in Mr Schulze's article is this:
>
>      "4 Implementation
>       ...
>       It cannot be said frequently that the order
>       of the indices in the triple-loop of the
>       Floyd algorithm is not irrelevant."
>
> The principle of having the winner unaffected by the lettering
> might be failed. 
>
> E.g. this could happen. (The only change is a reordering
> of ALL the for loops inside of the algorithm):
>
>   Harry (=#1) Winner
>   Horace (=#2) Loser
>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
>
>   Harry (=#2) Loser
>   Horace (=#1) Winner
>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser

And in your 16 Dec 2003 mail, you claimed that "secret internal
relettering (or renaming or renumbering) inside of the algorithm
affects who the winner is." Thus, on the one side you call the
Floyd algorithm "defective" and claim that the result of the
Floyd algorithm depends on the lettering and on the other side
you write that you "did not claim that the Floyd algorithm
'doesn't work'".

Markus Schulze


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Sun Dec 21 12:40:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Sun Dec 21 12:40:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm question
Message-ID: <20031221203901.5119.qmail@web13809.mail.yahoo.com>

Does anyone have any idea if for the following ballots:

11 C>A
7 A
9 B
10 D>B

an election method which meets Later-no-harm can elect B?
If not, or probably not, what reasons can you see?

I know of two methods which meet later-no-harm (IRV and Woodall's
Descending Solid Coalitions) and they both pick C.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


___________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais !
Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com


From stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca  Sun Dec 21 13:40:08 2003
From: stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca (Stephane Rouillon)
Date: Sun Dec 21 13:40:08 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm question
References: <20031221203901.5119.qmail@web13809.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <3FE61232.E6A00BE2@sympatico.ca>

Finally, someone with a serious subject.

I have no idea of what is an exact definition of the Later-no-harm criteria.
So please tell me, so I can help you in your search.

You have owned it.

Steph

Kevin Venzke a ?crit :

> Does anyone have any idea if for the following ballots:
>
> 11 C>A
> 7 A
> 9 B
> 10 D>B
>
> an election method which meets Later-no-harm can elect B?
> If not, or probably not, what reasons can you see?
>
> I know of two methods which meet later-no-harm (IRV and Woodall's
> Descending Solid Coalitions) and they both pick C.
>
> Kevin Venzke
> stepjak at yahoo.fr
>
> ___________________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais !
> Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info



From rob at hypermatch.com  Sun Dec 21 14:37:03 2003
From: rob at hypermatch.com (Rob Brown)
Date: Sun Dec 21 14:37:03 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
In-Reply-To: <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312211836070.595@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>
References: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz>
 <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312211836070.595@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.0.20031221123415.01cf9060@mail.comcast.net>

I figured I'd pop out of lurk mode to mention that I, like Diana, have 
questioned whether some of the participants of this discussion are computer 
rather than human.....Craig's mangled vitriol in particular reads like its 
been round-tripped through the babelfish translator.

In any case this ridiculous flamefest has provided me some amusement, but 
not done a lot toward my taking this list seriously.  Maybe everybody could 
agree that if Craig and Mike would just kindly drop off the list for a 
month, everyone will just pretend this never happened when they come back?

-rob

At 10:51 AM 12/21/2003, Diana Galletly wrote:
>On Mon, 22 Dec 2003, Craig Carey wrote:
>
> > It won't be OK in politics. But this is just list for untrue statements
> > that have no place in the design of quality preferential voting methods
> > (particularly when Diana speaks. As for myself, shall be withdrawing
> > from this deep dark hole without much delay).
>
>Er, show me where I have said something that is untrue?
>
>It happens to be the case that if I post something that I later come
>to realise is mistaken, I am *very* ready to apologise.
>
>It may be that I have misinterpreted your messages, although since
>your sentences often seem to be at best incomplete this might not
>be surprising.
>
>My understanding is that you are a supporter of STV (maybe even of IRV)?
>Is this correct?
>
> > The poor members here do not like algebra, so they aggregate and don't
> > know what fairness is.
>
>What proof have you that any of us dislike algebra?
>
> > They maybe really are not so stupid that they can't create truly better
> > method, but all are out for lunch if the topic of defining what better
> > means shows up.
>
>It seems to me that there are some people who want to a believe in a
>one-size-fits-all system, for single winner elections, multi-winner
>elections, referenda etc.
>
>Personally, my interest is in referenda and, in particular, in determining
>a system which doesn't cause widely varying results if just a few votes
>change hands.
>
>Calling me stupid will not get you far.  I am far from stupid, and
>asserting that I am just because I happen to disagree with you, or
>because you don't like the content of my messages, will not get me
>to consider anything you have to say more carefully than I would were
>you to be polite.
>
> > How arbitrary: some privately belief on conduct with not even a single
> > radiating Argon gas atom illuminating the statement with the right stuff:
>
>This is an example of why I find your English hard to comprehend.  I
>cannot even tell whether you are insulting or praising me -- I can read
>it in both ways.  However, given your previous comment, I guess I should
>take it as an insult.
>
> > Rather than reject bits of Diana's advice, it might be fairer to find out
> > more of her beliefs in the aim of estimating a date when Diana is likely
> > to drop out or quit.
>
>At the rate academic politics moves, some time in 2005 or 2006 I should
>imagine.  I'm here for a reason, not for an argument.
>
>Diana.
>----
>Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 20:40:09 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 20:40:09 2003
Subject: [EM] Proof that Floyd's works in one pass?
Message-ID: <Law10-F95sCOt4p1Vfh00010ca8@hotmail.com>

Yesterday I asked Russ, the website owner, to re-arrange the indices in the 
core of the strongest-beatpaths algorithm, the part that tests and 
re-assigns the B(i,j). But today I wrote again and suggested that he not 
make that change until I send him a proof that it will achieve its intended 
result. But, when I wrote today, I said that we shouldn't call it the Floyd 
algorithm. I said that we should delete that name from it. Not only because 
of the order of the indices, but also because the websites say that the 
Floyd algorithm is for finding shortest paths, and I don't know if it's 
still the Floyd algorithm when it's modified to find strongest beatpaths.

If it's true that the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted a few days ago 
would find the strongest beatpath between each ordered pair of candidates if 
the indices were re-arranged, then would someone post a proof of that? Or 
the URL of a website that has a proof?

Also, if there's another algorilthm that would also have a running-time of a 
lower order than my Beatpath algorithm, would someone post it here, 
jargon-free and plain, as my BeatpathWinner algorithm was posted here a few 
days ago? Or post the URL of a website that has such a description of such 
an algorithm?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Get dial-up Internet access now with our best offer: 6 months @$9.95/month!  
http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 22:36:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 22:36:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Actual quotes for Markus
Message-ID: <Law10-F97B7BLA2t0ly00050b01@hotmail.com>

Markus said:

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>False statements, statements that he can't justify,  have always been
>Markus's stock-in-trade. But this time he's doing the disservice of
>misinforming people about a practical matter. But Markus doesn't care,
>he just enjoys being on the attack.

When someone proposes a faster algorithm for a given problem then
you shouldn't consider this to be an "attack".

I reply:

Excuse me, but did I ever object to your proposing a faster algorithm? It 
was abundantly clear from what I said that I was objecting to your ongoing 
claim that I claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

Diana's right: It's as if you don't read what you're replying to. I'm not so 
sure that you pass the Turing test.

Markus continued:

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your implementation
is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this discussion with the
following statement (18 Dec 2003): ...

>Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

Wrong. That posting is dated 17 December in the archives, not 18 December.

Immediately after that senbence, I said:

"I don't use that piece of code. It looks like it might be a tiny piece of a 
Pyhon strongest-beatpaths program, with at least one of its lines partly 
erased."

So it would be obvious to anyone but you that, at that time, I wasn't saying 
that I don't call the strongest-beatpaths algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but 
was only saying that I don't call your poorly-copied program-fragment the 
Floyd algorith.

A few paragraphs down in that same message, I said,

"I do call a certain strongest-beatpaths algorithm the Floyd algorithm, only 
because someone on this list told us that that's what the algorithm is 
called."

So, on the 17th, I was still calling our strongest-beatpaths algorithm the 
Floyd algorithm, and still believed that it was what you'd intended to write 
when you posted your Floyd algorilthm.

But on the 18th, I said that it semed to me that you had meant to say that 
our algorithm was the Floyd algoithm, but maybe not.

I then explained that it had seemed to me earlier that our algorithm was the 
same as what you'd
meant to write when you posted your Floyd algorithm, and that that was why I 
believed that our algorithm was the Floyd algorithm.

In that message, it's clear that I was no longer calling our algorithm the 
Floyd algorithm.

But, if that wasn't clear enough, on the same day, the 18th, I also posted:

"[Something to the effect of 'I'd thought that you'd meant our algorithm as 
the Floyd algorithm'] But if you say it isn't, fine. I'll tell Russ to 
delete that name from the website."

That makes it even more clear that, as of the 18th, I was no longer calling 
our algorithm the Floyd algorilthm.

Markus continued:

It is obvious that when I made my statement that you call your 
implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you have 
changed
your opinion recently.

I reply:

No reason at all...except for what I said  :-)

(on the 18th, and on numerous subsequent posts).

Masrkus continued:

Therefore, your insulting replies are inappropriate.
Instead of saying "Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm." it would
have been better if you had said: "I don't call that the Floyd algorithm
anymore."

I reply:

In English, "I don't call it that anymore" means "Though I called it that 
formerly, I no longer do."

So "anymore" merely emphasizes that what is not now true used to be true. It 
emphasizes the changing of a previously true fact. But in no way can 
"anymore" be said to be a necessary part of the grammatical construction for 
indicating the present tense.

You continued:

In so far as you only said without any explanations "I don't call that the
Floyd algorithm." and not "I don't call that the Floyd algorithm anymore."
it was clear that I would point you to a document where you call that the
Floyd algorithm.

I reply:

Correction: You pointed to a document in which I _called_ it the Floyd 
algorithm. You used the present tense. The document proves only that I 
called it the Floyd algorithm in 2001.

(though I said on the 17th December, 2003, that I still called it that as of 
that day)

That's why we have verb-tenses. So that people will know whether we're 
speaking of the present, the past, or the future. I spoke in the present 
tense. The present can refer to this moment, as when someone says, "I'm not 
smoking a cigarette". Or it can refer to something currently ongoing, as 
when someone says "I don't smoke". Then he's saying that not only is he not 
smoking at this moment, but he's also saying that this moment isn't part of 
an ongoing period during which smoking by him sometimes takes place. That's 
a well-established meaning of the present tense, and it was in that way that 
I meant the present tense. When he says "I don't smoke", in no way can you 
be justified in claiming that he's saying that he has never smoked.

If he says "I haven't smoked", then that's different.

I reply:

So when I said that I don't call it the Floyd algorithm, that doesn't mean 
that I've never called it the Floyd algorithm. It merely means that I 
currently don't call it that. When somone says "I don't call it that", does 
mean to you that  mean that he's saying that he has never called it that?

Now, on the 17th I was only saying that I don't call that program _fragment_ 
the Floyd algorilthm. But on subsequent days when I said that,  I made it 
clear that I don't call our strongest beatpaths algorithm the Floyd 
algorithm. My statements posted here on 18 December 2003 demonstrate that, 
from that time on, I haven't been calling it the Floyd algorithm.

By the way, you wrote (18 Dec 2003):

>I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from
>you or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

Could you please forward that mail where Steve proposes his strongest path
algorithm?

I reply:

It turns out that that message is no longer in my mailbox. That message was 
sent years ago, and my mailbox doesn't go back that far. I suggest that you 
write to Steve. He may still have a copy of the message. Or, if not, he may 
be able to tell you about the algorithm that he proposed.

******

I wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>Then, of course, it would have been sufficient for you to say that you 
>don't
>call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" anymore.

As I said, the word "anymore" is _not_ a necessary part of the grammatical 
construction for the present tense.

I said that I don't call it the Floyd algorithm. That means that now isn't 
part of an ongoing period during which I sometimes call it that. It doesn't 
mean that I've never called it that.

>There was no need for you
>to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

Do you really believe that I had no reason to get tired of repeatedly 
explaining the same things to you again and again, as you kept on repeating 
a false claim, as if you weren't reading the e-mail that you were "replying" 
to?

Markus continued:

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>Hello-o-o-o! That's what I've been repeating for you over and over again, 
>to
>no avail. I won't debate whether there was a need to insult you. But can 
>you
>look at your ridiculous statement that I quoted directly above, and say 
>that
>there wasn't a reason to call you an idiot?

When I say that "it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
call your implementation 'Floyd algorithm' anymore" then this doesn't mean
that I claim that you still call your implementation "Floyd algorithm".
It only means that this would have been sufficient and that there was no
need for you e.g. to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

I reply:

But the problem was that it _wasn't_ sufficient, because you were spamming 
this mailing list with repetion of a refuted claim, in direct violation of 
the rules of conduct posted at the list's homepage.

Markus continued:

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>You see, Markus, this is why I refer to you as an idiot. Did I deny that,
>in Feb 2001, I was calling Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm.? No. I
>agreed that I'd formerly called that algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but
>that I no longer do. But you kept repeating that I continue to claim that
>my implementation is the Floyd algorilthm, though I kept trying to tell
>you that I no longer make any such claim.
>
>And now you post a quote from 2001, apparently believing that it shows
>that you're right to say that, during this current discussion, I claim
>that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.
>
>Seriously, Markus, all namecalling aside,there really is something wrong
>with you.

Obviously, you are unable to see that when I ask you for an explanation why
you have used the term "Floyd algorithm" in the past in a given manner then
this doesn't include that I claim that you continue to use this term in this
manner.

I reply:

No. You didn't just ask for an explanation for why I previously used the 
term. You kept saying that I do use the term in that way. Check the 
archives.

And, as for why I previously used the term in that way, I answered that 
question on the 18th. If yoiu read what yoiu're replying to, you wouldn't 
have asked that question after that day.

Markus continued:

By the way: Your recent mail exemplifies my observation that you are
unable to admit that you have made a mistake

I reply:

Starting on the 18th, and then on every subsequent day, I clarified that I 
previously called it the Floyd algorithm, and that I (as of the 18th and 
after) took your word for it that it was not the Floyd algorilth, and said 
that I was going to ask Russ to delete that name from the website. Agan, 
Diana's rilght: What you say is completely unrelated to what you claim to be 
replying to.

Markus continued:

without bombarding with
insults that person who pointed you to this mistake.

I reply:

I never criticized you for pointing out that Steve's algorithm isn't the 
Floyd algorithm. More fiction on your part.

Markus continued:

In the same mail
you admit that you have mistakenly believed Eppley's algorithm to be
Floyd's algorithm

I reply:

You catch on fast :-)  At least now you've finally found out that I've been 
saying that all along.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 22:59:03 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 22:59:03 2003
Subject: [EM] Matt reply, 12/21/03
Message-ID: <Law10-F8hNfv57kVwyr00050a38@hotmail.com>

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Matt said:

It is the python code towards the bottom of http://www.electionmethods.org/
It says "Mike Ossipoff provided the algorithm, and Russ Paielli programmed 
it."
It also says:  "Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd 
Algorithm:" which prompted Markus to point out that it wasn't the O(N^3) 
Floyd Algorithm as coded but a less efficient O(N^5) algorithm.

I reply:

No, I'd have never objected to that. As soon as Markus said it wasn't the 
Floyd algorithm I said "Fine. I'll tell Russ to delete that name from the 
website.

What I disagreed with in Markus's posting was his statement that our 
algorithm doesn't work.

Matt continued, using the terminology of his subculture,:

Mike then went into a hissy fit.

I reply:

I stated that, contrary to what Markus posted,  our algothm works.

I immediately said that I took Markus's word for it that our algotithm isn't 
the Floyd algorithm.

No fit. Did I eventually become exasperated with Markus's repetition that I 
call Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm? Yes.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Check your PC for viruses with the FREE McAfee online computer scan.  
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 22 00:05:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Mon Dec 22 00:05:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Yet more Markus
Message-ID: <Law10-F55nDrfDYgl3l0002a006@hotmail.com>


Markus said:

when I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
have changed your opinion recently.

I reply:

Not only that, but I had not changed my opinion about that at that time. On 
17 December I said in a posting here that I, at that time, called our 
algorithm the Floyd algorithm.

No one is disputing the claim that I used to call it that. No one is 
criticizing you for making that observation on 15 December. It's when you 
kept saying it after 18 December that it was obviously false and was 
becoming reallly tiresome.

Markus continued:

[...]

Therefore, I stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd
algorithm and that your algorithm doesn't find the strongest
paths in a single pass.

I reply:

I've already quoted verbatim what you said. You said that our algorithm 
doesn't work.
But I'm not still on that. However you seem to still on that.

Markus continued:

But when one considers the possible
short cuts in that order that has been proposed by Floyd then
a single pass is sufficient.

I reply:

So you keep claiming. But are you able to  prove it? If so, then do so. And, 
  if you're unable to prove it, then post the web URL of someone who is able 
to prove it.

I'm not saying that it isn't true, only that you should prove it if you're 
going to say it.

Markus quoted me:

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
>That algorithm wasn't written as an attempt to write the Floyd
>algorithm. It was written by people who had never heard of the
>Floyd algorithm. It was written to accomplish the pupose that
>it accomlishes. Only later, due to Markus's earlier post of
>something he called the Floyd algorithm (though it was about
>strongest paths rather than shortest paths), did I hear of the
>Floyd algorithm.

Markus replied:

Even though you write that you have never heard of the Floyd
algorithm

I reply:

Excuse me Markus, but in what posting did I say that I've never heard of the 
Floyd algorithm? Certainly not in the paragraph that you quoted above. What 
I said in that posting was that our strongest-beatpaths algorilthmwas 
written by people who had never heard of the Floyd algorithm.

Listen carefully, Markus: "had" is different from "have".

I said "...people who had never heard of the Floyd algorithmn". You took 
that to mean that I have (up to this day) never heard of the Floyd 
algorithm. Does it occur to you that that was a ridiculous conclusion, 
considering that I've repeatedly mentioned the Floyd algorithm, from 17 
December to the present? Now, when a conclusion is ridiculous, just maybe 
it's incorrect. We have the perfect tense, and, distinct from that, we have 
the past-perfect or pluperfect tense. "...who had never heard of the Floyd 
algorithm" is the latter tense. It  refers to time previoius to the time 
that the sentence refers to. It's about time that was past with respect to 
the past time that the sentence refers to. To clairfy the difference, if I 
say "I haven't heard of the Floyd algorithm", that refers to time previous 
to, and up to, the present The perfect tense and the pluperfect tense are 
two different tenses, with different meanings.

I'm not criticizing you for mistaking those verb-tenses. But when you reach 
a conclusion as ridicoulous as the one that you reached, that should give 
you a clue that maybe you've misunderstood, and that you need to re-check 
what you think was said.

Markus continued:

it is a matter of fact that you called your algorithm
"Floyd algorithm" e.g. in the source code of your Python program
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py).

I reply:

I've never denied that, Markus.

Markus continued:

Therefore, when I
stress that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm then
this is a feasible observation and not an "attack".

I reply:

I never criticized you for saying that our implementation isn't the Floyd 
algorithm.

I haven't specifically said that anything was an attack. I said that you 
like to go on the attrack, and that's a good description of what you do. I 
also said that you must have nothing else to do, and that you evidently are 
completely without a life, and I stand by that statement.

Markus continued:

If you hadn't
mistakenly written that your implementation is the Floyd algorithm,
then there wouldn't have been a reason for me to stress that your
implementation is not the Floyd algorithm.

I reo;y:

No one has objected to your pointing out that it isn't the Floyd algorithm. 
All I said about that was that I took your word for it and would tell Russ 
to delete that name from it.

Markus continued:

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
>I've been futily trying to explain to Markus that I'm not claiming
>that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Yes, I admit that
>that effort has been futile.

When I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
have changed your opinion recently.

I reply:

You already said that, Markus, earlier in your posting. The answer is the 
same here: My opinion that our implmentation was the Floyd algorithm indeed 
had not changed as of that time. Additionally, on 17 December I stated that 
I call it the Floyd algorithm. But on the 18th I made it clear that that was 
no longer so, as of the 18th.

Markus continued:

In one of your recent mails,
you admitted that you mistakenly believed Eppley's algorithm to
be Floyd's algorithm and you admitted that you mistakenly called
Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's algorithm". Therefore, my criticism
was feasible

I reply:

Sure, if you want to repeat what I'd already said, that I mistakenly 
believed that you'd intended to write Steve's algorithm when you posted your 
Floyd algorithm, that's fine. I wasn't aware that it was criticism, and I've 
never objected to your pointiing that out.

But do you really believe that I'd agree that it wasn't the Floyd algorithm 
and then criticize you for saying that it isn't th eFloyd algorilthm? Again, 
a ridiculous conclulsion that should give you a clue that you need to 
re-check what you thought I wrote.

Does it occur to you how much of our time you're wasting because you draw 
those ridiculous conclusions, and then write about them instead of checking 
whether I really said what you initially believe I said? You're unbelievably 
sloppy.

Markus continued:

and you admitted this.

I reply:

If you admilt that I did you feel the need to keep re-asserting what was 
already admitted?

Markus continued:

Therefore, there is absolutely
no justification for your insulting mails.

I reply:

Sure there was and is, with the astoundingly ridiculous things that you come 
up with, such as saying that I claim to have never heard of the Floyd 
algorithm, because I said that our implementation was written by peoiple who 
had never heard of the Floyd algorilthm.

Markus continued:

I don't claim that you continue to claim that Eppley's algorithm
is Floyd's algorithm. However, when I pointed (on 15 Dec 2003) to
the fact that you mistakenly called your implementation "Floyd
algorithm" this observation was true.

I reply:

...and no one objected to your saying that then. But I objected to that same 
statement after 18 December, when I'd made it clear that I was no longer 
callling it the Floyd algorithm.

Mike Ossipoff

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From bartman at netgate.net  Mon Dec 22 00:43:02 2003
From: bartman at netgate.net (Bart Ingles)
Date: Mon Dec 22 00:43:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm question
References: <20031221203901.5119.qmail@web13809.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <3FE6AE3B.53B43546@netgate.net>

Random dictator can elect B 9/37 of the time, and presumably meets
later-no-harm.  In fact the 2nd choices are unused for that method.

I can't see much value in LNH as a criterion, unless getting voters to
rank as many candidates as possible is seen as an end in itself.

Bart


Kevin Venzke wrote:
> 
> Does anyone have any idea if for the following ballots:
> 
> 11 C>A
> 7 A
> 9 B
> 10 D>B
> 
> an election method which meets Later-no-harm can elect B?
> If not, or probably not, what reasons can you see?
> 
> I know of two methods which meet later-no-harm (IRV and Woodall's
> Descending Solid Coalitions) and they both pick C.
> 
> Kevin Venzke
> stepjak at yahoo.fr


From davek at clarityconnect.com  Mon Dec 22 01:04:01 2003
From: davek at clarityconnect.com (Dave Ketchum)
Date: Mon Dec 22 01:04:01 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
References: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz> <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312211836070.595@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk> <6.0.0.22.0.20031221123415.01cf9060@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <3FE6B33A.300@clarityconnect.com>

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 14:36:47 -0800 Rob Brown wrote on part:

> I figured I'd pop out of lurk mode to mention that I, like Diana, have 
> questioned whether some of the participants of this discussion are 
> computer rather than human.....Craig's mangled vitriol in particular 
> reads like its been round-tripped through the babelfish translator.
> 

Worth noting the "NZ" in Craig's address and realizing he speaks a 
different language, though deceptively similar to ours.

I remember many months ago his getting upset over the VERY UGLY insult 
someone had used about him.  The insult had not been meant, for the words 
were not insulting in American English.

BTW, to Craig:  you need to remember that what works for you at home is 
not necessarily workable here.

-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.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.



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 22 01:29:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Mon Dec 22 01:29:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Typo in "Proof that Floyd finishes in 1 pass?"
Message-ID: <Law10-F87jGUcdCzs4m00050d21@hotmail.com>


In an earlier message today, I said:

"If it's true that the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted a few days ago
would find the strongest beatpath between each ordered pair of candidates if
the indices were re-arranged, then would someone post a proof of that? Or
the URL of a website that has a proof?"

***

I accidentally left out the phrase "with only one pass".

I'm asking if anyone can prove that the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I 
posted a few days ago would find the strongest beatpath between each ordered 
pair of candidates _in one pass_ if the order of the indices were 
re-arranged.

If there's proof that the re-arrangement can accomplish that then I'll ask 
the website owner to re-arrange the indices in that way.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 22 01:54:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Mon Dec 22 01:54:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Winning-votes vs margins as a measure of defeat-strength
Message-ID: <Law10-F74muxcChxbm300050fd1@hotmail.com>




For Condorcet's method, I recommend that the strength
of pairwise defeats be measured by "winning-votes"
(wv). Winning votes says:

If X beats Y, then the strength of that defeat is measured by the number of 
people who ranked X over Y.

[end of definition]

Some others advocate using margins of defeat instead.

Here's why winning-votes is better.

Below is something that I send out to answer that question. But let me 
briefly say that one problem of margins is that the subtraction that it 
involves erases information about majorities, which is why margins has 
majority rule failures that wv doesn't have. One result is that wv meets the 
majority defensivse strategy criteria, SFC, GSFC, WDSC, and SDSC; and 
margins fails all those criteria. They're criteria intended to measure for 
the standards of majority rule, and minimizing need for defensive strategy. 
The definitions of those 4 criteria tell how complying methods (wv 
Condorclet) avoid certain avoidable defensive strategy needs.

Thoes criteria are defined at:

http://www.electionmethods.org

and

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


But there's also a basic ethical reason wv acts more justly than margins 
does:

When every candidate has a pairwise defeat by another
candidate, Condorcet's method, in all its versions,
solves that problem by sequentially dropping the
weaker defeats--or by sequentially keeping the
stronger defeats.

When everyone has a pairwise defeat, and we have to
elect someone anyway, then that means that we have to
ignore or disregard or overrule someone's pairwise
defeat(s)--when we elect someone in spite of his
having a pairwise defeat, a public statement that the
voters prefer someone else to him. So Condorcet has to choose which defeat 
to drop.

But dropping or ignoring a defeat is not something to
be taken lightly. It means that we're disregarding,
overruling, a statement made by the voting public,
when they indicated that they preferred one candidate
to another. And when we overrule that public choice,
we're overruling those voters who won that public
decision.


Suppose that, in the pairwise comparison betwen D & B,
D beats B, 60 to 50, meaning that 60 people ranked D
over B, and 50 people ranked B over D.

If we drop that defeat, overrule that public statement
that D is better than B, then we're also overruling
the 60 voters who won that public vote about that
2-way contest between D and B.

We want to minimize the number of voters whom we
overrule. So we measure the importance of a defeat by
the number of people who voted for that defeat.

Now, sometimes someone will say: But if you keep that
defeat, doesn't that mean that you're overrule the 50
voters who voted against it, the 50 voters who ranked
B over D? No! Those 50 voters were overruled by the
public vote in which the voters collectively said that
they prefer D to B. The only way that the voting
system overrules a public decision is when it drops a
defeat, when it overrules a public decision for one
candidate over another. We're not doing that when we
keep a defeat that the public chose.

That's why winning-votes (wv) is more democratic than
margins, more ethically fair.

But there's another reason why we prefer wv to
margins:
Nash Equilibrium:

A Nash equilibrium is an game outcome in which no one
player can improve the result for himself by changing
his play, if no one else changes their play.

In voting system discussion on the election-methods
mailing list, a "player" is taken to mean a
same-voting set of voters.

With the kind of Condorcet that measures defeats by
margins, as with IRV and Plurality, there are often situations
(configurations of sincere voter preferences) in which
the only Nash equilibria are ones in which some voters
vote someone over their favorite in order to protect
majority rule or protect the win of a Condorcet
candidate (a candidate who, when compared separately
to each one of the others, is preferred to him/her by
more people than vice-versa).

With Approval or wv Condorcet, every situation has at
least one Nash equilibrium in which no one reverses a
sincere preference.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Mon Dec 22 05:11:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Mon Dec 22 05:11:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Actual quotes for Markus
Message-ID: <3FE6ECC4.FFFA3285@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

when I wrote that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm,
then this was an observation and not an "attack". If you hadn't
mistakenly written (e.g. in the source code of your Python
program http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py) that your
implementation is the Floyd algorithm, then I wouldn't have
stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm.
In one of your recent mails, you admitted that you mistakenly
believed Eppley's algorithm to be Floyd's algorithm and you
admitted that you mistakenly called Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's
algorithm". Therefore, my criticism was feasible and you
admitted this. Therefore, there is absolutely no justification
for your insulting mails.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> Excuse me, but did I ever object to your proposing a faster
> algorithm? It was abundantly clear from what I said that I
> was objecting to your ongoing claim that I claim that Steve's
> algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> Markus wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> > I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your
> > implementation is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this
> > discussion with the following statement (18 Dec 2003): ...
> >
> > > Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.
>
> Wrong. That posting is dated 17 December in the archives, not
> 18 December.

My mailbox says: "Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"

It seems that your mail server uses UK time and not
California time.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> Immediately after that senbence, I said:
>
> "I don't use that piece of code. It looks like it might be a
> tiny piece of a Pyhon strongest-beatpaths program, with at
> least one of its lines partly erased."
>
> So it would be obvious to anyone but you that, at that time,
> I wasn't saying that I don't call the strongest-beatpaths
> algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but was only saying that I
> don't call your poorly-copied program-fragment the Floyd
> algorith.
>
> A few paragraphs down in that same message, I said,
>
> "I do call a certain strongest-beatpaths algorithm the Floyd
> algorithm, only because someone on this list told us that
> that's what the algorithm is called."
>
> So, on the 17th, I was still calling our strongest-beatpaths
> algorithm the Floyd algorithm, and still believed that it was
> what you'd intended to write when you posted your Floyd
> algorilthm.
>
> But on the 18th, I said that it semed to me that you had meant
> to say that our algorithm was the Floyd algoithm, but maybe not.
>
> I then explained that it had seemed to me earlier that our
> algorithm was the same as what you'd meant to write when you
> posted your Floyd algorithm, and that that was why I believed
> that our algorithm was the Floyd algorithm.
>
> In that message, it's clear that I was no longer calling our
> algorithm the Floyd algorithm.
>
> But, if that wasn't clear enough, on the same day, the 18th,
> I also posted:
>
> "[Something to the effect of 'I'd thought that you'd meant our
> algorithm as the Floyd algorithm'] But if you say it isn't, fine.
> I'll tell Russ to delete that name from the website."
>
> That makes it even more clear that, as of the 18th, I was no
> longer calling our algorithm the Floyd algorilthm.

Why is it so important for you to stress that since 18 Dec 2003
you are not longer calling Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's algorithm"?
When I wrote on 15 Dec 2003 that Eppley's algorithm is mistakenly
called "Floyd's algorithm" in the source code of your Phython
program this was a correct observation.

******

I wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> When I say that "it would have been sufficient for you to say that
> you don't call your implementation 'Floyd algorithm' anymore" then
> this doesn't mean that I claim that you still call your implementation
> "Floyd algorithm". It only means that this would have been sufficient
> and that there was no need for you e.g. to spam this mailing list with
> tons of insulting mails.

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> But the problem was that it _wasn't_ sufficient, because you were spamming 
> this mailing list with repetion of a refuted claim, in direct violation of 
> the rules of conduct posted at the list's homepage.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

******

I wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> Obviously, you are unable to see that when I ask you for an explanation why
> you have used the term "Floyd algorithm" in the past in a given manner then
> this doesn't include that I claim that you continue to use this term in this
> manner.

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> No. You didn't just ask for an explanation for why I previously used the 
> term. You kept saying that I do use the term in that way. Check the archives.
> And, as for why I previously used the term in that way, I answered that
> question on the 18th. If yoiu read what yoiu're replying to, you wouldn't
> have asked that question after that day.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> I immediately said that I took Markus's word for it that our algotithm
> isn't the Floyd algorithm. No fit. Did I eventually become exasperated
> with Markus's repetition that I call Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm?
> Yes.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> I haven't specifically said that anything was an attack. I said that you
> like to go on the attrack, and that's a good description of what you do. I
> also said that you must have nothing else to do, and that you evidently are
> completely without a life, and I stand by that statement.

Concerning the time you spend to spam mailing lists with insulting and
completely superfluous mails, I conclude that you are completely without
a life.

Markus Schulze


From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Mon Dec 22 08:17:02 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Mon Dec 22 08:17:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm  definition
Message-ID: <3FE7C23C.1090700@bigpond.com>

Quoting  D.R. Woodall,

"Later-no-harm:  Adding a later preference to a ballot should not harm 
any candidate already listed".

In other words, if  a method meets Later-no-harm then  voters can never 
get an advantage by truncating.
It is met by IRV, but is incompatible with  Condorcet.
I got this from what I found to be the very interesting and illuminating 
paper "Monotonicity and Single-Seat Election
Rules" by Woodall, and uploaded by  Marcus Schulze:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/wood1996.pdf

Chris Benham



From rspeer at MIT.EDU  Mon Dec 22 11:36:02 2003
From: rspeer at MIT.EDU (Rob Speer)
Date: Mon Dec 22 11:36:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Typo in "Proof that Floyd finishes in 1 pass?"
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F87jGUcdCzs4m00050d21@hotmail.com>
References: <Law10-F87jGUcdCzs4m00050d21@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031222193423.GA23743@mit.edu>

On Mon, Dec 22, 2003 at 09:28:37AM +0000, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
> I'm asking if anyone can prove that the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I 
> posted a few days ago would find the strongest beatpath between each 
> ordered pair of candidates _in one pass_ if the order of the indices were 
> re-arranged.

You accept that the Floyd-Warshall algorithm is proven, right? I don't
have my copy of CLR around.

Floyd-Warshall shortest paths is a special case of the Floyd-Warshall
algorithm, where the path weight is calculated with + and the minimum
is taken. Floyd-Warshall can also be used for the transitive closure, or
for beatpaths, because the algorithm doesn't depend on the particular
operations that are used.

-- 
Rob Speer



From Dgamble997 at aol.com  Mon Dec 22 11:46:02 2003
From: Dgamble997 at aol.com (Dgamble997 at aol.com)
Date: Mon Dec 22 11:46:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Two Questions for Craig Carey
Message-ID: <17e.2498109b.2d18a3b9@aol.com>

Craig

In the past you have been extremely critical of IRV , currently you are being 
extremely critical of Condorcet. What single seat method do you support?

You also repeatedly criticise methods for giving "wrong winners". In the 
example given below who, in your opinion, is the correct winner?

There are 100 votes and one seat is to be filled.

The ballot papers are as follows:

A>B>C   40
B>A>C   8
B>C>A   17
C>B>A   35

A is the Plurality winner, B is the Condorcet winner and C is the IRV winner. 
Who is the correct winner?

David Gamble

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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 22 23:54:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Mon Dec 22 23:54:02 2003
Subject: [EM] SSD is not BeatpathWinner
Message-ID: <Law10-F1112zSdwlDgQ0005442d@hotmail.com>

Markus often says that BeatpathWinner is the same as Cloneproof SSD (CSSD) 
and SSD. Actually no. SSD is a different method that can have different 
outcomes when there are pairwise ties.

It's true thatr CSSD and BeatpathWinner are equivalent, always give the same 
outcome.

In public elections, where pairwise ties are vanishingly rare, SSD chooses 
the same as CSSD, which means that, under those conditions, SSD chooses the 
same as BeatpathWinner.

But, aside from how they choose, there's an important difference between SSD 
and BeatpathWinner: Proposability.

SSD's definition, with its innermost unbeaten sets, is naturally and 
obviously motivated and justified. Innermost unbeaten sets are compelling.

BeatpathWinner's count rule has an arbitrary quality. It wouldn't have the 
acceptability of SSD. Or the acceptability of Ranked-Pairs either.

Maybe when Markus names those methods as being the same as BeatpathWinner, 
he'd like to take credit for all of them (assuming for the moment that he 
really did invent BeatpathWinner). Yes he did describe CSSD after proposing 
BeatpathWinner, pointing out the equivalence. But I doubt that he proposed 
SSD.

SSD was a colaboration from discussion with Steve Eppley. Neither of us knew 
of Markus's CSSD description at that time. Later, in a discussion in which a 
clone-independent method was desired, and in which someone else was 
proposing BeatpathWinner, a method not as obviously justified as SSD, I 
changed SSD to make it clone-independent--Cloneproof SSD (CSSD). Later I 
found out that Markus had described CSSD.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 01:48:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 01:48:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Condorcet for public proposals
Message-ID: <LAW10-F78P6LKg1bJj800054daa@hotmail.com>

When I found out about BeatpathWinner's brief algorithm and computer 
program, I began recommending for committees, organizations, and polls. That 
was largely because the brief BeatpathWinner program was the only one that 
I'd written. I had diffriculty setting aside the time that it would take to 
write the much longer programs for SSD and Ranked-Pairs.  So I was offering 
a BeatpathWinner program because that was all I had. People asked me where 
they could find a Ranked-Pairs program, and I had to say that I didn't know 
where they could find a wv RP program.

But all the time when I was recommending BeatpathWinner for committees, 
partly with the idea that the members of the committee, like me, would find 
a brief program more convenient, I was also saying that SSD, RP, and PC are 
the Condorcet versions to propose for public elections.

That's because those Condorcet versions are the ones with natural and 
obvious motivation and justification. Obviously, of those 3, PC isn't as 
good as the other 2.

CSSD and SSD differ in their stopping rule. SSD stops when someone is 
unbeaten. CSSD stops when there are no defeats among the candidates of the 
Schwartz set. When I initially suggested CSSD, no knowing about Markus's 
prior proposal, I was saying to stop when there are no cycles among the 
candidates of the current Schwartz set. When I heard about Markus's CSSD 
proposal, which worded the stopping rule in terms of defeats in the Schwartz 
set, instead of cycles, I adopted that wording, since defeats are a more 
natural notion than cycles. In that way, with CSSD, it's never necessary to 
mention cycles. Of course with SSD it's never necessary to mention cycles 
either.

Stopping the count when someone becomes unbeaten sounds much briefer, more 
natural, expected than stopping the count when there are no defeats among 
the candidates of the current Schwartz set. After all, the whole reason why 
a circular tie solution is needed was because initially no one was unbeaten. 
What could be more natural than to stop when someone becomes unbeaten.

As I was saying before, an innermost unbeaten set is compelling--It's 
obvious that the winner should come from that set. And that therefore the 
candidates of that set are the ones who should have their defeats dropped.


Here's how I define SSD:


Schwartz set definition:

1. An unbeaten set is a set of candidates none of whom are beaten by anyone 
outside that set.

2. An innermost unbeaten set is an unbeaten set that doesn't contain a 
smaller unbeaten set.

3. The Schwartz set is the set of candidates who are in innermost unbeaten 
sets.

SSD:

1. If any candidate is unbeaten, they win and the count ends.

2. Otherwise, determine which candidates are in the Schwartz set, counting 
only undropped defeats.

3. Drop the weakest defeat among the members of that set. Go to 1.

[end of SSD definition]


Ranked-Pairs is also obviously motivated and justified, and that makes it 
too a good proposal for public elections. Its definition is probably  
briefer than that of SSD, because SSD requires the Schwartz set to be 
defined. But RP loses some of its brevity when its midcount-tie-solution is 
specified.

Ranked-Pairs:

To "keep" a defeat means to record it as being kept.

In order of strongest defeats first, consider each defeat in turn as 
follows: Keep it doesn't conflict with already-kept defeats, by being in a 
cycle with them-- i.e., by being in a cycle consisting only of it and some 
already-kept defeats.

When all the defeats have been considered in that way, a candidate wins if 
s/he has no kept defeats.

[end of RP definition]

Ranked-Pairs isn't a descriptive definition. If it applies to RP at all, it 
could also apply to some other Condorcet versions. Steve Eppley has 
suggested a better name:

Maximize Affirmed Majorities (MAM). That name well describes what MAM does.

RP can have midcount ties, situations where there are 2 or more equally 
strongest as-yet unconsidered defeats. The problem is, which one should be 
considered first? It's said that, for the purpose of clone-independence and 
monotonicity, maybe the best way to solve that is to randomly chose the 
order in which to consider them. That doesn't sound like something that the 
public would like, however.

I suggested an RP midcount tie solution on this mailing list some time ago. 
It's based on the idea that a defeat is nullified if it's in a cycle with 
defeats that are all at least as strong as it is:

1. Call the equally strongest as-yet unconsidered defeats the "tie defeats".

2. Defeats that were kept before  keeping any tie defeats are called "old 
defeats".

3. A tie defeat is "qualified" if it isn't in a cycle consisting only of it 
and some old defeats.

4. Keep every qualified tie defeat that is not in a cycle each of whose 
members is either an old defeeat or a qualified tie defeat.

[end of "deterministic1" midcount tie solution definition]

In the EM discussion at that time, it was called deterministic1. Steve had 
already considered it.

I thought that was the brief midcount tie solution, till Eric suggested 
something briefer:

[using the same definitions as before]

Keep every tie defeat that isn't in a cycle consisting only of it and some 
old defeats.

[end of briefer midcount tie solution]

That's so much briefer that I immediately agreed that that's the one to 
offer for public proposals.

It could probably be worded so that it wouldn't be necessary to separately 
define tie defeats and old defeats.

In public elections, equal defeats are so rare that it doesn't reallly 
matter what the rule is for solving them. Brevity is all-importnat, and the 
brief midcount tie solution is the one to include in public MAM proposals.

As I've often said, the merit difference between MAM and SSD in public 
elections is negligible. The choice between those two should be based 
entirely on which is more likely to be accepted. Maybe a "focus group" 
public meeting or a poll should be done to chose.

If I was proposing only BeatpathWinner/CSSD for committees only because it 
was the only one that I had a count program written for, maybe that isn't 
the best way to choose a voting system. Maybe RP should be considered as a 
method for committees. Maybe a program should be written that implements 
CSSD by its own very plausible definition, rather than by BeatpathWinner. 
For a committee, the choice between CSSD and CSSD would obviously depend on 
whether an obvious stopping rule is more imporant than clone independence. 
Will clone advantage or disadvantage really happen often enough to cause 
factions to strategically introduce clones? I doiubt it.

As I said, it's been suggested that the MAM midcount tie solutions that I 
described might not be clone-independent &/or monotonic. How much of a 
problem is that? How likely is a faction to strategically run (or avoid) 
clones, on the chance that there will be equal defeats, in circumstances 
that favor or disfavor clones? Probably not so likely. How likely is someone 
to downrank his favorite so as to make him win in the unlikely event that a 
certain two defeats will be equal, and the other circumstances will be right 
for that particular candidate to benefit from the nonmonotonicy and from 
that voter's downranking strategy. It doesn't sound real likely, does it.

I've had good response to an SSD definition. SSD doesn't require any mention 
of cycles. MAM requires at least mention of defeats that conflict or are 
incompatible, etc. Someone might ask how defeats conflit, and then you're 
defining cycles to that person. With SSD you never have to speak of cycles, 
or incompatible defeats.

But SSD and MAM are both excellent public Condorcet proposals.

Sometimes we underestimate how resistant people might be to anything whose 
definition is longer than a line or two. Sure, anyone who is willilng to 
read the definitions of SSD and MAM will like them. But what about all those 
people who will reject them without being willing to read the definition, 
because they consider a short paragraph to be too long? For them, maybe 
Condorcet is a better idea.

Sure SSD & MAM are better, but if people insist on something more 
briefly-defined, them  Plain Condorcet (PC) is the thing:

If anyone is undefeated they win. Otherwise drop the weakest defeat. Repeat 
till someone is undefeated. They win.

[end of PC definition]

PC is called Basic Condorcet at the electionmethods website.

Sure, PC violates Condorcet Loser. But it would happen only rarely. It would 
be a peculiarly popular Condorcet loser who has fewer people preferring 
anyone else to him than anyone else does.

If a Condorcet Loser wins it would be an embarrassment. But the likely 
"badness" of that winner is reduced by the fact that he has the fewest 
people preferring anyone else to him.

Condorcet Loser could also be used against PC in campaigns, and that 
objection would have to be answered. For one thing, Condorcet Loser can't be 
used to oppose replacing Plurality with PC, because Plurality violates it 
too, probably more often.

Keep thiis in persepctive. Let's not exaggerate how likely or how much of a 
problem PC's ability to fail Condorcet Loser is.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From bjarke2003 at trebe.dk  Tue Dec 23 03:28:33 2003
From: bjarke2003 at trebe.dk (Bjarke Dahl Ebert)
Date: Tue Dec 23 03:28:33 2003
Subject: [EM] Election methods Wiki
Message-ID: <4668.194.239.238.130.1072178859.squirrel@webmail01.web10.dk>

Dear election methods fans,

I know about Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/), which have many pages about
election methods, but I know of no Wiki where election methods are being
_discussed_.
What I am missing, that a mailinglist cannot provide, is a medium where discussions
and consensus (or the lack thereof) about election methods can be _maintained_.

That is just what a Wiki can do. Therefore I propose that we set one up.
I would be happy to provide the web-space for it. See e.g.
http://trebe.dk/wiki/index.php/ElectionMethods/HomePage. It's almost empty now, but
I guess it could quickly be filled with something meaningful.

If such an initiative already exists, please inform me - I don't want to clone an
already existing Wiki.

Kind regards,
Bjarke




From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 23 05:58:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 23 05:58:02 2003
Subject: [EM] SSD is not BeatpathWinner
Message-ID: <3FE8498C.976D2813@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (23 Dec 2003):

> Maybe when Markus names those methods as being the same as BeatpathWinner,
> he'd like to take credit for all of them (assuming for the moment that he
> really did invent BeatpathWinner). Yes he did describe CSSD after proposing
> BeatpathWinner, pointing out the equivalence. But I doubt that he proposed
> SSD. SSD was a colaboration from discussion with Steve Eppley. Neither of us
> knew of Markus's CSSD description at that time. Later, in a discussion in
> which a clone-independent method was desired, and in which someone else was
> proposing BeatpathWinner, a method not as obviously justified as SSD, I
> changed SSD to make it clone-independent--Cloneproof SSD (CSSD). Later I
> found out that Markus had described CSSD.

In the voting recommendation to the DEBIAN project, you can find a very
interesting comment to this question. Norman Petry wrote (6 Feb 2001):

> Regardless of what names we use when referring to these methods during our
> committee discussions, I think it is appropriate that if one of these
> variants is recommended to Debian that it be named SCHULZE'S METHOD.  This
> is because:
>
> 1. Schulze, version 1: The 'Beat-Or-Tie-path' method was first proposed by
> Markus Schulze on Sat, 4 Oct 1997 (see EM Archives, "Re: Condorect sub-cycle
> rule").  Unfortunately, eGroups has not archived this message, but it can be
> found at Rob's site, in this text file (but mistakenly referred to there as
> "Tideman's Method"): http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em/archive/em.97q4
>
> 2. Schulze, version 2: The 'Schwartz Sequential Dropping' (SSD) method was
> first proposed by Markus Schulze on Mon, 10 Aug 1998.  His description can
> be found here:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/673
>
> 3. Schulze, version 3: The 'Cloneproof SSD' method was first proposed by
> Markus Schulze on Sat, 14 Nov 1998.  See:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/2291  As noted
> above, Markus' version of 'Cloneproof SSD' uses a slightly different (and
> imo better) tiebreaker than Mike's version, but the two methods are
> otherwise identical.
>
> 4. Beatpath Winner: This was not specifically proposed by Markus Schulze,
> but it is equivalent in terms of results to Cloneproof SSD.  It is the same
> as 'Beat-or-tie-path' winner, except that pairties in the matrix are zeroed
> out before paths are computed, so that tied values cannot be part of the
> paths used to determine the winner.
>
> Since Markus was the originator of the first three of these methods, and
> usually refers to all of them as "Schulze's Method", it seems appropriate to
> name them as he has done.

Another interesting question is: In so far as you considered neither
independence of clones nor reversal symmetry to be important, why
did you propose an election method that is more complicated than
Schwartz//MinMax(VotesAgainst)?

Markus Schulze


From andru at cs.cornell.edu  Tue Dec 23 08:57:08 2003
From: andru at cs.cornell.edu (Andrew Myers)
Date: Tue Dec 23 08:57:08 2003
Subject: [EM] Correctness of Floyd-Warshall for beatpaths
In-Reply-To: <20031222200333.2759.49760.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
References: <20031222200333.2759.49760.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <20031223165604.GA14116@balm.cs.cornell.edu>

Because there has been continuing concern about the algorithm, I looked
up more information in the standard textbook I referred to in an earlier
email (Cormen, Leiserson, and Rivest).

The Floyd-Warshall algorithm (so named because the algorithm was
proposed by Floyd but based on a theorem by Warshall) works on any
closed semiring. A semiring is defined by two operations (which I called
min and + in my earlier mail).  For computing beatpaths, the operations
are max and min respectively.  Showing that max and min define a
semiring, and that the required closure properties hold, is
straightforward. I refer those who are interested to the text above.

-- Andrew


From rspeer at MIT.EDU  Tue Dec 23 09:55:02 2003
From: rspeer at MIT.EDU (Rob Speer)
Date: Tue Dec 23 09:55:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Election methods Wiki
In-Reply-To: <4668.194.239.238.130.1072178859.squirrel@webmail01.web10.dk>
References: <4668.194.239.238.130.1072178859.squirrel@webmail01.web10.dk>
Message-ID: <20031223175309.GA26686@mit.edu>

On Tue, Dec 23, 2003 at 12:27:39PM +0100, Bjarke Dahl Ebert wrote:
> That is just what a Wiki can do. Therefore I propose that we set one up.
> I would be happy to provide the web-space for it. See e.g.
> http://trebe.dk/wiki/index.php/ElectionMethods/HomePage. It's almost empty now, but
> I guess it could quickly be filled with something meaningful.
> 
> If such an initiative already exists, please inform me - I don't want to clone an
> already existing Wiki.

I had been thinking that such a thing would be useful. Thank you for
setting it up.

The one thing I'm afraid of is that the fact that allows a Wiki to work
- namely, that you can trust your intended users not to want to
interfere with discussion - doesn't necessarily work regarding election
methods. People get _very_ political and defensive over election
methods, as we can see.

You should probably make a rule about /Talk pages, like Wikipedia. That
is, factual information about "Foo" goes on the Foo page, while
discussion, opinions, and arguments about Foo or the contents of the Foo
page go on Foo/Talk. Otherwise you're going to see, for example, this:

CSSD
* It always chooses a winner from the Smith Set.
* It is cloneproof.
* It does not meet the later-no-harm criterion.
* It does not meet the Participation criterion.
* It is a LOWER PREFERENCES METHOD supported only by FASCISTS who want
  to elect NADER and DISENFRANCHISE YOU!

-- 
Rob Speer



From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Tue Dec 23 14:49:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Tue Dec 23 14:49:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm, "Earlier-no-harm"
Message-ID: <20031223224748.8555.qmail@web13809.mail.yahoo.com>

Thanks to everyone who responded to my last message.

It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
this ballot."

(By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
but also deleting others.)

I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
"earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
ranked FIRST, (etc...)."

For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.

"Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A.

What do you think?

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


___________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 15:45:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 15:45:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus: Take it to individual e-mail or drop it. Don't post about it.
Message-ID: <Law10-F43h7iusuHX3A00017f71@hotmail.com>

Markus--

If you have anything further to say about what I believed or claimed about 
what was the Floyd algorithm at some previous time, summarize it in 
_individual_ e-mail (one message only). No more list e-mail. The members of 
this list aren't interested in what I believed about the Floyd algorithm in 
2001, etc. Some of them have said so. I've been telling you that from the 
start.

There won't be a reply unless one is requested. But of course in that case 
you wouldn't get the last word, because I'm only willing to get one more 
message about that.

So, for the last time, I will comment on what you've said:

I don't want any more messages from you about this via the mailing list.

You wrote:

when I wrote that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm,
then this was an observation and not an "attack". If you hadn't
mistakenly written (e.g. in the source code of your Python
program http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py) that your
implementation is the Floyd algorithm, then I wouldn't have
stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm.

I reply:

Are you aware that you said exactly that same thing in a previous message, 
and that I replied to it? Probably not.

At no time did I object or criticize when you stated that Steve's algorithm 
isn't the Floyd algorithm. All I said was that I'd take your word for that. 
"If you say it isn't, then fine. I'll tell Russ to delete that name from the 
website." Posted 18 December.

Markus continued:

In one of your recent mails, you admitted that you mistakenly
believed Eppley's algorithm to be Floyd's algorithm and you
admitted that you mistakenly called Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's
algorithm".

I reply:

I've been asserting those things ever since I stated them in postings of 18 
Decemeber.

You continued:

Therefore, my criticism was feasible and you
admitted this.

I reply:

What criticism? I wasn't aware that your information that that wasn't the 
Floyd algorilthm was criticism. But whatever it was, I never said it wasn't 
feasible. I did object to other behaviors and mis-statements of yours.

Markus continued:

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
>Excuse me, but did I ever object to your proposing a faster
>algorithm? It was abundantly clear from what I said that I
>was objecting to your ongoing claim that I claim that Steve's
>algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

I reply:

Good. I'm glad you're finally finished with that.

******

You'd said:

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
>Markus wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> > I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your
> > implementation is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this
> > discussion with the following statement (18 Dec 2003): ...
> >
> > > Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.
>

I replied:

>Wrong. That posting is dated 17 December in the archives, not
>18 December.

My mailbox says: "Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"

I reply:

I don't care what your mailbox says. The message's date in the archives is 
17 December.
Shoiuld we refer to message dates by what your mailbox says instead of what 
the archive says?

You continued:

It seems that your mail server uses UK time and not
California time.

I reply:

I was referring to the date listed in the archives.

If you're in the +1 timezone, then maybe it was past midnight for you, but 
not for the UK. That would explain why your mailbox's dating of the message 
is incorrect with respect to the archive's dating of it. In any case, the 
archives recorded dates are a better standard than your mailbox is.

You continued:

Why is it so important for you to stress that since 18 Dec 2003
you are not longer calling Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's algorithm"?
When I wrote on 15 Dec 2003 that Eppley's algorithm is mistakenly
called "Floyd's algorithm" in the source code of your Phython
program this was a correct observation.

I reply:

I never disagreed with your 15 December statrement on that.

Why do I say that I wasn't calling it that since 18 December? Because you 
were continuing to assert that I call it that. But now you're backed down 
from that assertion and admitted that I don't call it that.

Markus said:

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

I reply:

Good. That's an improvement. Previously you'd posted something I said in 
2001 as proof that I call Eppley's algorithm the Floyd algorithm, even 
thoiugh I'd clearly retracted that statement on 18 December, and every day 
thereafter.

******
You repeated:

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

I reply:

Wonderful. Better late than never.

You repeated again:

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

I reply:

Yes, we all get the idea.

Now, as I said, if you have anything further to say about that, send it as 
individual e-mail. Summarize it in one message only. But further postings 
from you here about that are unwelcome, to me, and to the other list 
members.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Make your home warm and cozy this winter with tips from MSN House & Home.  
http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 16:41:04 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 16:41:04 2003
Subject: [EM] RE: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #397 - 6 msgs
Message-ID: <LAW10-F79Lxlge13sR200057987@hotmail.com>

Markus said:

In the voting recommendation to the DEBIAN project, you can find a very
interesting comment to this question. Norman Petry wrote (6 Feb 2001):

>Regardless of what names we use when referring to these methods during our
>committee discussions, I think it is appropriate that if one of these
>variants is recommended to Debian that it be named SCHULZE'S METHOD.  This
>is because:
>
>1. Schulze, version 1: The 'Beat-Or-Tie-path' method was first proposed by
>Markus Schulze on Sat, 4 Oct 1997 (see EM Archives, "Re: Condorect 
>sub-cycle
>rule").  Unfortunately, eGroups has not archived this message, but it can 
>be
>found at Rob's site, in this text file (but mistakenly referred to there as
>"Tideman's Method"): http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em/archive/em.97q4

Norm, in that message, points out that "Schulze's method" uses 
beat-or-tie-paths rather than beatpaths. There's been some vagueness about 
which of those you refer to as "Schulze's method".

>
>2. Schulze, version 2: The 'Schwartz Sequential Dropping' (SSD) method was
>first proposed by Markus Schulze on Mon, 10 Aug 1998.  His description can
>be found here:
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/673

In that proposal, it isn't clear what you mean by "potential wininers". You 
don't define the term there. I suppose that if something is defined slopily 
or vaguely enough, that leaves much latitude for saying what it is.

No one can prove what you meant in that proposal.

In any case, I didn't mean to imply that I consider it important who first 
proposed SSD, or whether your proposal in '98 was SSD, CSSD, or neither.

>Markus' version of 'Cloneproof SSD' uses a slightly different (and
>imo better) tiebreaker than Mike's version, but the two methods are
>otherwise identical.

You'd suggested comparing margins when 2 opposing beatpaths (or 
beat-&-tie-paths?) are equal because their weakest defeat is equal. I hadn't 
bothered to add that, because I'm mostly interested in public elections, and 
because even in committees, equal opposing beatpaths won't be common. Of 
course there's nothing wrong with adding that provision.

There were aspects of your tie solution that you later retracted when you 
discovered that they had undesirable properties.

Markus said:

Another interesting question is: In so far as you considered neither
independence of clones nor reversal symmetry to be important, why
did you propose an election method that is more complicated than
Schwartz//MinMax(VotesAgainst)?

I reply:

I don't know what you mean by MinMax. MinMax has been used with so many 
meanings that it's quite useless as a method name. Perhaps you're using 
MinMax to refer to PC.

I agree that I don't consider reversal symmetry important. As for clone 
independence, it's desirable, but far from essential. But what I was saying 
in my recent message was that the clone independence _of a tiebreaker_ isn't 
important, because no one is going to have a strategy dilemma about what to 
do in order to take advantage of a tie. Ties of all kinds are vanishingly 
rare in public elections (unless Copeland is used). Even in committees, ties 
aren't common, and clone-independence of a tie solution isn't really 
important.

So far as I'm aware, SSD is clone-independent in public elections (where 
there are no pairwise ties), but not in coimmitees with few voters (where 
there might be pairwise ties).

MAM (Maximize Affirmed Majorities), also called Ranked-Pairs, is 
clone-independent in public elections and in committees.

Though clonen-independence is desirable, that isn't the main advantage, for 
me, that SSD and MAM have over PC. The more important advantages, for me, 
are:

1. PC fails Condorcet Loser, Majority Loser, and Mutual Majorilty (in 
descending order of likely importance in campaigns). Those criterion 
failures are important only because they could be used against a PC 
proposal. When those criteria are defined so as to meaningfully apply to all 
methods, Plurality fails them too, which of course greatly reduces their 
importance in campaigns to replace Plurality with PC. Still, possible 
criticism of PC in campaigns, by academics and IRV advocates is probably 
PC's main disadvantage with respect to SSD and MAM.

2. SSD and MAM have been shown to meet GSFC and SDSC. PC hasn't been shown 
to meet those criteria. If anyone can show that PC passes or fails those 
critreria, they're invited to do so.

I consider SFC and GSFC to be the biggest, and most exclusive advantages of 
Condorcet wv. The fact that SSD and MAM have been shown to meet GSFC 
greately increases their value.

GSFC is the deluxe SFC that applies even when there's no CW.

PC has been shown to meet SFC.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 17:40:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 17:40:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Retraction about IRV, Brams, and Later-No-Harm
Message-ID: <Law10-F77C6HixqDCZx00018435@hotmail.com>

What Brams showed was that, contrary to the frequent claims of IRV 
promoters, IRV gives strategic incentive to truncate one's ranking.

It was some time ago when I read of that, and a few minutes ago I posted, 
probably mistakenly, that Brams showed that IRV fails Later-No-Harm.

Most likely, in Brams' example, someone truncated, causing  a higher-ranked 
truncated candidate to beat a lower-ranked truncated candidate.

But, if IRV meets Later-No-Harm, that means little. IRV protects your 
favorite from your lower choices by eliminating your favorite before IRV 
lets you help your lower choices. IRV saves your favorite by eliminating 
him. A sort of electoral euthanasia.

If IRV's Later-No-Harm "advantage" is the kind of benefit that we get from 
Later-No-Harm, then it's questionable how important that criterion is.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 17:53:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 17:53:02 2003
Subject: [EM] IRV fails Later-No-Harm
Message-ID: <Law10-F242YiinhsI1z0003a096@hotmail.com>

Chris Benham wrote:

"Later-no-harm:  Adding a later preference to a ballot should not harm
any candidate already listed".

In other words, if  a method meets Later-no-harm then  voters can never
get an advantage by truncating.
It is met by IRV, but is incompatible with  Condorcet.
I got this from what I found to be the very interesting and illuminating
paper "Monotonicity and Single-Seat Election
Rules" by Woodall, and uploaded by  Marcus Schulze:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/wood1996.pdf

I reply:

Professor Steven Brams published an example in which IRV fails 
No-Later-Harm. I'd post the example, but I don't know where to look for it. 
You could find it just as well as I could.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 23 23:01:04 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 23 23:01:04 2003
Subject: [EM] Actual quotes for Markus
Message-ID: <3FE9394F.FE456897@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> If you have anything further to say about what I believed or claimed about
> what was the Floyd algorithm at some previous time, summarize it in
> _individual_ e-mail (one message only). No more list e-mail. The members of
> this list aren't interested in what I believed about the Floyd algorithm in
> 2001, etc. Some of them have said so. I've been telling you that from the
> start.

Then why did you start this thread at all? I don't care what you believed
when about the Floyd algorithm. But it is clear that when you mistakenly
called a different algorithm "Floyd algorithm" and when implementations to
calculate the strongest paths were discussed at this mailing list, then
it was necessary to stress that your use of the term "Floyd algorithm" was
incorrect.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> Markus wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> > I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your
> > implementation is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this
> > discussion with the following statement (18 Dec 2003): ...
> >
> > > Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.
>
> Wrong. That posting is dated 17 December in the archives, not
> 18 December.

I wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> My mailbox says: "Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"
>
> It seems that your mail server uses UK time and not
> California time.

You wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> I don't care what your mailbox says. The message's date in the archives
> is 17 December. Shoiuld we refer to message dates by what your mailbox
> says instead of what the archive says?
>
> If you're in the +1 timezone, then maybe it was past midnight for you,
> but not for the UK. That would explain why your mailbox's dating of the
> message is incorrect with respect to the archive's dating of it.

The reason why my mailbox says "Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"
is that your mail server uses UK time. I have received your mail at
18 Dec 2003 08:59:50 Central European Time.

Of most subscribers I don't know in which time zone they live. Therefore,
the only information that I have is the time zone used by their mail
servers.

You wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> In any case, the archives recorded dates are a better standard than your
> mailbox is.

As I am subscribed to this mailing list, I usually don't use the archives
to read current mails. By the way: This mailing list has 4 archives.

At Electorama, your mail is dated: "Wed Dec 17 23:58:01 2003"
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-December/011394.html

At eGroups, your mail is dated: "Thu Dec 18, 2003  7:57 am"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/12845

At Mail Archive, your mail is dated: "Thu, 18 Dec 2003 01:00:57 -0800"
http://www.mail-archive.com/election-methods-electorama.com%40electorama.com/msg01461.html

At Gmane, your mail is dated: "Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/3133

******

You wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> Now, as I said, if you have anything further to say about that, send it as
> individual e-mail. Summarize it in one message only. But further postings
> from you here about that are unwelcome, to me, and to the other list
> members.

Further postings from you here about that are not welcome, either.

Markus Schulze


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 23 23:01:09 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 23 23:01:09 2003
Subject: [EM] Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #397 - 6 msgs
Message-ID: <3FE93962.7965FE1B@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> I doubt that he [= Markus Schulze] proposed SSD.

You wrote (24 Dec 2003):
> In any case, I didn't mean to imply that I
> consider it important who first proposed SSD.

Good. That's an improvement.

Markus Schulze


From bartman at netgate.net  Tue Dec 23 23:57:01 2003
From: bartman at netgate.net (Bart Ingles)
Date: Tue Dec 23 23:57:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm  definition
References: <3FE7C23C.1090700@bigpond.com>
Message-ID: <3FE94661.A9255D9B@netgate.net>

This paper must be part of a series, as Woodall never explains his
assertion that "Of these three properties, Majority is far and away the
most important."  He seems to have his own definitions for monotonicity;
I hadn't seen these anywhere else.

But the publication appears to be devoted to issues surrounding STV, so
maybe some things are simply assumed here.

Bart


Chris Benham wrote:
> 
> Quoting  D.R. Woodall,
> 
> "Later-no-harm:  Adding a later preference to a ballot should not harm
> any candidate already listed".
> 
> In other words, if  a method meets Later-no-harm then  voters can never
> get an advantage by truncating.
> It is met by IRV, but is incompatible with  Condorcet.
> I got this from what I found to be the very interesting and illuminating
> paper "Monotonicity and Single-Seat Election
> Rules" by Woodall, and uploaded by  Marcus Schulze:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/wood1996.pdf


From research at ijs.co.nz  Wed Dec 24 00:31:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Wed Dec 24 00:31:02 2003
Subject: Election Methods List and lying vs justice (Re: [EM] Optional
  Later-no-harm  AER
In-Reply-To: <3FE6A03F.9000407@bigpond.com>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031224174405.05b11c88@pop.qsi.net.nz>


My last message (on casual *guessing* of the weightings of the "A over B"
subtotal has not arrived. It entered into the moderating. I had a bit of
an apology/retract for M. Schulze.

This list seems to lack a desire for truthful ideas and it recovers within
days from contact with corrections by reverting back to its error. Typically
without bothering to compare its ideas with replacements.

---

So this preferential voting method would collect information on
the parties the candidates are grouped into.

The class of methods might be useful when party members that use it
are reconciled to sacrificing their own interests (provied that
such exist).

---

I assume that the word "Approval" means that some sort of fluidic
mixing of intentions. As worded, that is awful.

The basic plan below seems to be to start of with a rejected method
and not get it out of that state. A 


At 2003-12-22 18:11 +1030 Monday, Chris Benham wrote:
>
> An  idea for improving  Approval  Elimination Runoff   (an  Approval-
> STV hybrid) :
>
> 1: Voters rank the candidates and also place an Approval cutoff.
> Truncation allowed, and if equal preferences are allowed then the
> votes are split. Default placement of  the cutoff  can be either below
> first preference or below lowest  ranked not-in-last-place candidate.
>
> 2:  A candidate with a majority of first preferences is elected.

So the whole method must be rejected (or the definition of it altered)
because it can't get the obviously correct answer in all 0 winner
elections. There is no requirement that the number of winners equal
one. It is about STV and Approval which do have obvious extensions to
the cases of 2,3, and 4, and 0, winners.


> If no candidate has a majority, then eliminate the candidate with the
> fewest  approvals and  transfer preferences  IRV-style. Whenever  a

The CVD published everlastingly false information saying that the
RCV of San Francisco of 2003, was IRV. RCV has does not allow a full
list of preferences and my claim is weakened (possibly eliminated) by
assuming that that is part of the method instead a restriction imposed
on it.

>
> In his example, these were the sincere preferences:
>

A truthful person can't confirm that the next 5 non-blank lines
are sincere or not. Try it for yourself Mr Benham.

> 49: Bush>Gore>Nader
> 12: Gore>Bush>Nader
> 12: Gore>Nader>Bush
> 27: Nader>Gore>Bush
> 100 voters. Gore is the sincere CW.
...

So you have a definition of the "Insincere Cee-Double-U" ?. Presumably
there never was a definition. Probably the quickest agreeable solution
is to say that the words "sincere CW" have an identical meaning to
the words "Condorcet winner".

It seems to be impossible to get the Condorcet winner and
monotonicity.

Is the list ignorant of that despite the extreme simplicity of
showing it ?, or is it rejecting (with no argument at all) a principle
that government users will be strongly in favour of. Additionally
rejection if finding out the method designers don't know what they are
doing. The 4th in the whole document of Mr Benham says "improving".

Persons guiding government agencies use this trick:
  * The method has to be rejected if it is based over a respect of
     the Condorcet winner.
  * No designer who has a respect for the Condorcet winner has a good
     method.

An STV expert is not waiting around for arguments on rules to allow
partial disagreement with the Condorcet winner. Since the Condorcet
winner was wrong in the first place (it has no natural multiwinner
extension) then an unsound arbitrary modification of an obviously
wrong 'CW' won't undo the rejection of the ideas of Mr Benham and
others.

This whole mailing list, after being so frequented by Markus Schulze
and Bathycles Crap, is running like a government checkup of a Thunderbirds
No. 2 vehicle. The government officials want a clean aircraft.
Just before it gets to them it flies for 30 metres through a muddy
syrupy lake, and Ms Penelope Shulze had to say a plainly ambiguous
line that said "we will send Thunderbirds Two through the muddy syrup
of Cloudy Water (CW) lake. After breaking through the surface of the
goo lake and settling on the shore of the cleansiness checking remotely
controlled robots of electoral office officials of cities, it failed.
They had eyes and could spot surface attachments.

If it had not of been for Penelope Shulze (or the script writers)
the Thunderbirds Two vehicle might have flow above the syrup lake's
surface.

Ms Penelope should get her brain examined: after a decision to send
so many into much it would be suspected that she has wood for brains.
However it could have be a script writer.  What was that "we will
smoke them [Democrats] out" comment of GWBush.

----------------------------------------------------------------



At 2003-12-23 23:47 +0100 Tuesday, Kevin Venzke wrote:
>Thanks to everyone who responded to my last message.
>
>It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
>as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
>should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
>this ballot."
>
>(By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
>additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
>but also deleting others.)
>
>I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
>"earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
>ranked FIRST, (etc...)."
>
>For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
>then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.
>

Clearly Mr Venkze has not ruled out the 2 winner case. If he has one
unstated restriction then it may take weeks or years before he finally
managed to get them all into the mailing list and nicely requoted
in each message.

Suppose the votes are this (2 winner case)

Election 1:
  10000 (D)
  1 (A=B=C>D>E), D should win and does

Election 2:
  10000 (D)
  1 (A>B>C>D>E) , both D and E lose says Mr Venkze

I assume that there is no need to get "A=B=C" precisely defined since
unknown disputes over definitions might be bounded by factors 6 or 1/6.


>"Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
>then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A.
>
>What do you think?

It looks like Mr Venkze won't accept one or both of these:

 * an axiom set from which a method is derived (a strange option given
    the theme of Mr Venkze's whole message), or

 * the principle that the number of winners be correct (i.e. he sometimes
    expects the number of winners be disagreeing with what was decided on
    before the public filled in the voting papers, providing a public 
    suitably exists).

--

I have never suspected that there is a good reason to use
   "Later No Harm"
instead of
   "Truncation Resistance".

"Permuting preferences before" and "permuting preferences after" are a
better wording of what is desired. I assume that if both are imposed
then the method degenerates into FPTP or something similar.

So there may need to be a redesign of the papers (and presumably
adding "=" won't produce insensitivity to permuting before). I would
prefer no redesign (while preferring methods better than the
second best AV n candidate 1 winner method) and instead allow elections
where voters could change their mind.


----------------------------------------------------------------


At 2003-12-21 14:36 -0800 Sunday, Rob Brown wrote:
>I figured I'd pop out of lurk mode to mention that I, like Diana, have 
>questioned whether some of the participants of this discussion are computer 
>rather than human.....Craig's mangled vitriol in particular reads like its 
>been round-tripped through the babelfish translator.
>
>In any case this ridiculous flamefest has provided me some amusement, but 
>not done a lot toward my taking this list seriously.  Maybe everybody could 
>agree that if Craig and Mike would just kindly drop off the list for a 
>month, everyone will just pretend this never happened when they come back?
>

I am dissatisfied with why this list lives in the wake amazingly
obvious mistakes. Some stupid tricks seem to advance it all
 * no comment; missing replies; no reasoning; nothing at an appropriate
    time. Only ideas so wrong that to say "withheld a response" would
    seem wrong
 * authoritarianism.  With Mr Ossipoff is has very low trustability, and
    here is an example of Mr Shulze:

Here is more comments on authoritarianism. (What is wrong with
authoritarianism is complex and all about correctness.) I quote:

------------------------
At 2003-December-23 14:56 +0100 Tuesday, Markus Schulze wrote:
...
>Another interesting question is: In so far as you considered neither
>independence of clones nor reversal symmetry to be important, why
>did you propose an election method that is more complicated than
>Schwartz//MinMax(VotesAgainst)?
------------------------

It is just like this:
"Independence of Clones" was found after the man put his arm down a
rat hole in a Berlin council tip yard, Newbies at the EM list can try
out the German trash tips. 

Here is a quick wording of a best rule preventing corruption:

   One Man One Vote rule (in a multiwinner form)

   For each positively weighted paper, the outcome of it can be
   obtained by a sum of positively weighted fragments, with the
   fragments being produced only by deletion and no reordering.
   The desirableness has to be maintained with shorter papers and
   it is measured using the paper's list, to convert winners into
   a base 2 Real number.

It is about right and if a little flawed then improved.

False propaganda is being sent into the mailing list by Mr Shulze
and it really seems to be dogged by a lack of argument. For an
expert in logic, Mr Shulze's use of

   "you considered neither [this] nor [that] [so] why ... ?

is misleading.

The full set of rules can be simple:
* Right number of winners (it looks like Mr Venkze rejected it)
* P2 (it looks like the whole EM list except me is too stupid to be
   able to cough up a speculation on it. Instead they should form
   an opinion on how it is necessary).
* Truncation Resistance and monotonicity and multiwinner monotonicity.
   Certainly politicians would be using a check like this, especially
   now that awful Alternative Vote is both a threat and performs
   quite badly under this type of test.
* Multiwinner One Man One Vote [as described above]
* Simple Approval style summing. [Mr Shulze has spent years of
  talking about Approval, but I guess he refuses to say that the
  proportionality aim is only the idea of Approval placed strictly
  behind other rules. He can talk about Approval for years so long
  as exulting in a desire to write and promote the idea, but it
  could be totally nothing for years if Mr Schulze gets serious on
  the idea that the idea is very important. The other principles
  might get rolled together under the name of EQUAL SUFFRAGE.

After reading Mr Schulze's messages, the whole mailing list is
running as if ghosts in the Hague and keen of leaving no reasoning
behind for intent to violate the human rights of the candidates
and hence their supporters.

Has anybody checked Mr Schulze's paw for rat bites ?.

There are a tiny number of right rules. About exactly 0% of the
time any any given 5yr interval I look, Mr Schulze is never
making an attempt to reject the simple rules on fairness.

A core idea is this:

 * Men have rights to complain about wrong shifting of votes
   causing harm

 * Then the method designer has to maximally deprive voters of a
   right to complain.

In USA, votes can be suddenly created electronically. The
multiwinner One Man One Vote rule does the same.

A political list identified simple rules since it is impossible
to undo that except that members would think lies and censor
that out. What exactly is the problem with solving the
algebra problems ?. Subscribers gets tiny little drooling
inquries (highly unconvincing when by Mr Forest Simmons).

It seems that members are running well in generating desires to
acquire everlastingly true ideas. The list is looking stupid and
evil today since I demonstrated that principles are simple.

In truth the maths is simple too. I identify the main problem as
the complexity of writing Ada 95 programs. It would be truly
suspect if people eventually produced a belief that they can't
do algebra since it seems that the algebra of 1 winner elections
is dead easy. Members can do better than secretly fantasize that
they flunks checkups on maths ability: instead they can positively
criticise mathematics and then promptly get suspected as being
incompetent or ignorant of their own topic or something similar.
We can't sort of 30 private e-mails and get it solved in 2
days like could happen at the single-transferable-vote mailing
list. It seems that 10 more years at Rob Lanphier's uncontrolled
mailing list may be arrive upon subscribers.














Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>    Auckland, New Zealand
Ontario Ombudsman's Fairness checklist:
     http://www.ijs.co.nz/fairness-standards.htm
PDF: http://www.ombudsman.on.ca/pdf/fairness_stds.pdf





From research at ijs.co.nz  Wed Dec 24 12:17:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Wed Dec 24 12:17:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Dan W-J; IRV is 2nd best (=worst); CVD tells Maryland 'no
 research ever'
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031225025330.03952310@pop.qsi.net.nz>


[1b] The Centre of Voting and Democracy told the State of Maryland that
   it does not do research into the best options. Instead it interests
   itself in equal voting minus the fairness-for-other-individuals parts
   or something

[1a] The Alternative Vote (1 winner STV) is 2nd best.



______________________________________________________________________

This can be named the Alternative Vote Twin Towers example: a support
rise that is nearly 50% in size and that is entirely FPTP papers, is
occuring while the candidate ('A') being supported changes into a
loser:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/message/244

+-----------------------------------+
|Winner: ? ?A? ? ?|Winner: ? ?B? ? ?|  Alternative Vote winners
+-----------------------------------+
| Tot: ? 513000? ?| Tot: ?1024001? ?|
+-----------------------------------+
|? ?A? ? ? 1001? ?|? ?A? ? 512000? ?| Change = +510999
| * BA ? ? ?999? ?|? ?BA ? ? 1001? ?| Change = +2
|? ?CBA? ? 1000? ?| * CBA? ? 1000? ?|
|? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|
|? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|
|? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|
|? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|
|? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|
|? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|
|? ?JBA? 128000? ?|? ?JBA? 128000? ?|
|? ?KBA? 256000? ?|? ?KBA? 256000? ?|
+-----------------------------------+


______________________________________________________________________


I doubt I can get this edited up properly. I am not sure but I may have
left too much in or out. I will CC this off to the CVD lawyer.
Presumably he has a stake in the CVD ideal of knowing far less than
very many people, about the stably named Alternative Vote [I won't
name it STV]

______________________________________________________________________

Since about 24 July 2003 the Instant Runoff Message of the
Maryland Center of Voting and Democracy, has been it has been
hooked onto a 1 winner preferential voting methods that is
NOT the best.

On that date I concluded about 5 days research and showed that
another 1 winner method was far fairer, i.e. more monotonic.

Readers may read the old message of July here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/message/248
    From:   Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz> 
    Date:  Thu Jul 24, 2003  10:44 pm
    Subject:  IRV measured: it is over 2x unfairer (than 1/3 quota AV)

It did not announced with a bigger show since I was writing on
San Francisco in those months a better method may be something that
is not good enough.

A search at the "Charities & Fundraisers" part of the Maryland state
website shows what it told the government that its purpose was:

|  "Purpose: Contributions will be used to further public
|   understanding of electoral rule changes and to support
|   efforts to improve elections and representation through
|   propretional representation and instant runoff voting."

    http://www.sos.state.md.us/sos/charity/html/cod.html

I will comment on the CVD written purpose given to the Maryland
government and estimate if they said they free themselves to promote
better voting systems than IRV.

(1) US "public understanding" is not mathematical.

(2) "rules changes" permits changes that lock out better possibilities.
   It also allows changes for the worse.

(3) "improving" US elections could be a sloshy test that lets in
   better methods that are 6x worse.

(4) A purpose to act around the Instant Runoff permits them to reject
   all better preferential voting methods. Doubtless they will do that
   without complaining a lot.

(5) The words representation and proportional are matching up with
  only the first of these two. IRV would passes (5a)'s rules and if
  the CVD is ignore (5b) (is the case) then its text ignores the
  case implying that IRV ought be improved:

 (5a) Summing right. Two cases:
   * Outside of preferential voting: the same percentages (maybe with
     added biases but not multiplied-in biases)
   * Inside of preferential voting: Block Vote style naming of a
     candidate causes its subtotal to be incremented by the weight
     of the paper.

 (5b) Strict rules protecting voters from dumb or unfair behaviour
   of the preferential voting method while they are doing "what if"s.

--

That seems to be extremely clear: the Centre of Voting and Democracy
gave awful principles to the state of Maryland that just make it
plain that it has no official intention of ever offering to any
city, another awful but clearly better option than the
Alternative Vote. If they say that they will do research and nothing
happens for decades (should be enough time to get San Francisco to
flip over to the England's Alternative Vote) then maybe the tax
exempt status would need defending.

"Public understanding" may mean training up Green youths on 1-2-3-ism
or something.

--------------------------------------------

The pictures in triangles show that a 1/3 quota would be just the thing
lead to a pass under a monotonicity test (if 3 candidates):
    http://www.ijs.co.nz/quota-13.htm

The method I tessted in just inserts the 1/3 quota in a partially
incorrect way, and compliance with monotonicity is only better and the
rule is still failed.

---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~

This is now defined to be the
    Rob Richie 1,2,3 preferential voting method,
    (a variant of the Alternative Vote):

(1) Eliminate all but the best 3 (while ignoring preferences except the
    first).

(2) [a>(a+b+c)/3, =(a>(b+c)/2)]
   Of the 3 remaining candidates, if only 1 candidate has more votes
   than the average of the other 2, then that candidate wins (i.e. the
   other 2 are under the 1/3 quota).

(3) Otherwise the Alternative Vote is used.
---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~

There are the 3 steps, hence the "1-2-3" or "123".
Remembering why IRV is the worst preferential voting methad that a city
is probably going to be sucked into using. can be as simple as 1-2-3.
(In New Zealand the Green party co-leader wrote it was as easy as
counting from 1 to 10, somewhere on greens.org.nz).

--------------------------------------------

The CVD (a strictly unjust personnel selecting algorithm promoter) actually
has a lawyer (who is a "field officer"):

   http://www.fairvote.org/about_us/johnson.htm
    [Mozilla 1.5 says the HTTP dates the page at 18-Nov-2003, 04:37]

| General Counsel
|
| Dan Johnson-Weinberger
|
| Dan Johnson-Weinberger is the Center's General Counsel. He is licensed
| to practice law in California and Illinois.
|
| Dan is a 1997 graduate of the University of Illinois (B.A. in
| economics and political science) and a 2000 graduate of the University
| of Chicago Law School.
|
| Dan has been published in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Roll
| Call, The Hill, the Daily Herald, the Chicago Reader, the Daily
| Southtown and the Miami Herald. He has appeared on National Public
| Radio and is an occasional guest on the nationally syndicated radio
| program Beyond The Beltway.
|
| In the last year and a half, Dan has spoken to classes and groups in
| Florida, Wisconsin, California, Illinois, Indiana and New York. He
| encourages invitations to speak to college classes or political
| groups.
|
| Dan spends the majority of his time in Chicago where he focuses on the
| drive to revive cumulative voting for the Illinois House of
| Representatives. He also spends time in Springfield, Illinois, where
| he lobbies the Illinois General Assembly, and was the main driver
| behind passage of a law that allows county boards to give cumulative
| voting rights.
|
| Dan helped to found the Midwest Democracy Center in 1995 with a group
| of Illinois electoral reformers (www.midwestdemocracy.org ). He worked
| on several political campaigns and enjoys walking precincts.
|
| Dan can be reached at djw at fairvote.org or by phone at 312.933.4890.
| His website is www.djw.info and his blog is www.djwinfo.blogspot.com
                                       http://www.djwinfo.blogspot.com
| (opinions expressed on his sites are his own and not necessarily
| shared by the Center). Inquiries are encouraged.
|
---------------


Mr W-J liked the Cumulative Vote.
(I.e. if voters should fill in 7 votes but fill in 2, then the paper's
weight is multiplied by 7/2, etc., etc.)

Seven-winner STV (say), is similar except it uses the weights from 1 to 1/7
instead of from 7 to 1.

The alternative is the Block Vote ('k seats, tick k checksboxes') which
does not multiply by a rational number.

A way to improve STV is remove the transfer values that make STV follow
the idea of the Cumulative Vote.

It would be replaced with the style of the Block Vote: no dividing by
a denominator.

Dan W-J got his CVD webpage to fail to say he liked IRV. However it says
he promoted the Cumulative Vote in Illinois. A way to improve the
proportionality of STV is hack out the Cumulative Vote theme in it.

I say that progress here has no analogy with Dan's interests (for
Illinois: decisions on Cumulative Vote are probably best made decisions
for local decisions).

----

Some story using model trains can supply an analogy to the plan to
remove transfer values from STV. Suppose the election elects 4 winners.

(1) Old STV case:
  Counting a weighted ballot paper, is like getting a model train up to
   speed as it rises over 1 track with 4 different slopes.

(2) STV replacement case:
  The paper can start 4 trains that each have a track with only 1 slope.
  Now the power<=1 rule can be failed more quickly.
  However some computer algorithm controls when and where the track
  bends and become horizontal and power is cut.  By some means, the
  rule is not violated, and the tracks have only a slope corresponding
  to a transfer value of 0 or 1.

(The idea of the description could be improved.)


---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Topic: IRV vs the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [of 1976]

    http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_ccpr.htm

| INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS
| ...
| Article 25 General comment on its implementation
|
| Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, without any of
| the distinctions mentioned in article 2 and without unreasonable
| restrictions:
     ...
|   (b) To vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which
|      shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by
|      secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of
|      the electors;
|   (c) ...


That UN text really seems to be not designed to eliminate IRV.
It does not split up maximal power voting rights up into 2 parts
(proportionality and some 0<=power<=1 rule(s)). Alternative maybe it
could be said that I have not got the 2 unified (it seems hard to do).

However when the IRV of the CVD is extrapolated into the UN rules,
it fails badly.

(Recently I posted up an example showing the cascading from some
probably nobody at the bottom, and at each cascade the quantity of
votes shifting doubled. It was losing FPTP votes. [Refer to: the 2003
messages with 49.9% in the subject fields].



---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Here is the CVD list of donors: http://www.fairvote.org/about_us/index.html :

----------------------------------------------------
|    Supporters of the Center
|
|    The following foundations have provided grants to the Center for its
|    programs. Those foundations with asterisks have provided support for
|    activities in 2003 and beyond.
|
|    * Arca Foundation
|    * San Francisco Foundation  http://www.sff.org/
|    * Deer Creek Foundation
|    * Solidago Foundation
|    * Ford Foundation
|    * Stern Family Fund  http://www.sternfund.org/
|    * HKH Foundation
|    * Stewart Mott Charitable Trust  http://www.srmtrust.org/main.asp
|    * Joyce Foundation  http://www.joycefdn.org/
|    * Vanguard Foundation  http://www.vanguardsf.org/
|    * McKay Foundation  http://www.mckayfund.org/
|    * Working Assets  http://www.workingassets.com/
|    * Open Society Institute  http://www.soros.org/
|    * Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation  http://www.zsr.org/
|    * Rockefellers Brothers Fund  http://www.rbf.org/
|    * and individuals from across the country
----------------------------------------------------

Not very interesting so far.

Since there was no link to the Ford Foundation website, I checked their
Grants database. It seems that the Ford Foundation stopped funding the CVD
(it is not perfectly clear that it did actually stop, but it seems
extremely likely).

The CVD got US$80,000 in 2002 AD.

Reference: http://www.fordfound.org/  : Grants section:
Under: "Peace and Social Justice / Governance and Civil Society / 2002"

---

A fairer IRV election has got more glass (or plastic) eyes that read
some extra checkboxes. If the Alternative Vote is used then the city
ought have a less proportional method if it gets something fair.





From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Wed Dec 24 15:31:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Wed Dec 24 15:31:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Dan W-J; IRV is 2nd best (=worst); CVD tells Maryland 'no 
 research ever'
Message-ID: <3FEA212F.DE487F69@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

you wrote (25 Dec 2003):
> This can be named the Alternative Vote Twin Towers example: a support
> rise that is nearly 50% in size and that is entirely FPTP papers, is
> occuring while the candidate ('A') being supported changes into a
> loser:
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/message/244
>
> +-----------------------------------+
> |Winner: ? ?A? ? ?|Winner: ? ?B? ? ?|  Alternative Vote winners
> +-----------------------------------+
> | Tot: ? 513000? ?| Tot: ?1024001? ?|
> +-----------------------------------+
> |? ?A? ? ? 1001? ?|? ?A? ? 512000? ?| Change = +510999
> | * BA ? ? ?999? ?|? ?BA ? ? 1001? ?| Change = +2
> |? ?CBA? ? 1000? ?| * CBA? ? 1000? ?|
> |? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|
> |? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|
> |? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|
> |? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|
> |? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|
> |? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|
> |? ?JBA? 128000? ?|? ?JBA? 128000? ?|
> |? ?KBA? 256000? ?|? ?KBA? 256000? ?|
> +-----------------------------------+

This is neither an example showing Alternative Voting violates
monotonicity nor an example showing Alternative Voting violates
participation. This is an example showing Alternative Voting
violates consistency. However, it has been demonstrated by
HP Young that only positional methods (e.g. FPP, Borda,
Approval Voting) satisfy consistency.

Markus Schulze


From donald at mich.com  Thu Dec 25 17:47:01 2003
From: donald at mich.com (Donald Davison)
Date: Thu Dec 25 17:47:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Diana asked about Craig Carey:
Message-ID: <v01520d00bc10931c32c1@[64.79.80.17]>

Diana wrote: "Talking of Craig Carey, can someone please explain what his
most recent diatribe was on about?  And whether it's worth my while
worrying about?  (Since he's thrown Markus out of his private party -- at
least that's how it appears to outsiders -- I'd like to know whether he
actually has a point or is just excellent at posturing.)"  Diana.


Dear Diana, Donald here, there are a number of persons on this list who
speak in gobbledegook.  Craig Carey is one of them, so if you don't
understand him, you can be pretty sure no one else does, but there will
come a time when these types of people will write something that is
understandable and that will be the time when you can learn where that
person is coming from, if he has a point, and if he is worth worrying
about.

Craig Carey has given himself away in the past and most likely will do so
again in the future, merely by writing something that is understandable.  I
can give you an example.

Craig has designed an election method, which he calls: `The Two Seat -
Three Candidate Method' and which he claims to be a variant of STV, you can
decide that.  Anyway it works as follows:  Ranked ballots, Droop quota,
first candidate with quota or quota plus surplus is elected to one of the
seats, then this candidates' quota and surplus are both transferred to the
next preferences. (Note: This method won first prize in a contest for best
variant of STV, a contest conducted by Craig on Craig's list.)

Can you see the problem here?  The quota that elected one member is now
being used to help elect the second member, or in other words, one quota
plus one vote has the power to elect both seats.  The other two near quotas
do not elect anyone.  This super-duper method by Craig is worst than
Plurality-at-Large, which would need fifty percent plus one to elect both
candidates.  I called him on this flaw in his method, but it was water off
a duck's back, he kept on promoting his method.

Craig is not alone in this lack of understanding of election methods.  On
the IRV list, someone asked if IRV could be used to elect two members to a
city council.  Dan, who is an official of the Center for Voting and
Democracy replied and suggested that IRV be run two times. Once to elect
one member and a second time to elect the second member, bypassing the name
of the first winner during the routine of the second run of IRV.

Dan is clearly showing that he does not understand how these election
methods work.  What he suggested is very close to Plurality-a-Large, that
is, the same majority gets to elect both members.

Anyway, if you chose not to read Craig's posts, you won't miss much, but on
the other hand, if you have time to kill (good for people who like their
time to be dead), you could skim over his posts seeking the rare moment
when a star will appear in the east and you will see something
understandable (wear your sunglasses, the glare is quite bright), then and
only then will you be able to look into that window to Craig's mind.

Are you strong enough for this???


Regards, Donald




From eric at ericgorr.net  Thu Dec 25 17:55:02 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Thu Dec 25 17:55:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
Message-ID: <a06020411bc1143510164@[192.168.1.3]>

I've added a brief, but complete (or at least it should be), 
description of the Ranked Pairs method implemented on my condorcet 
site (http://www.ericgorr.net/condorcet). You can get to it either by 
visiting the the main page or directly via this link:

   http://www.ericgorr.net/condorcet/RankedPairs/

Feel free to make any comments you like.

I plan to add several, descriptive, examples soon.

btw, I just learned that on the newest palm machines, running java 
applications are now possible. This resolves my dilemma on where to 
implement this method next...either under Java or PalmOS...in the 
coming months, you should see something appear, written in Java, 
which would be tested on a Mac and a Palm device.


From eric at ericgorr.net  Thu Dec 25 17:58:01 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Thu Dec 25 17:58:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Oh...
Message-ID: <a06020414bc1145a88d8f@[192.168.1.3]>

The method computation on my site is currently down because I have 
changed web hosts. Should have it up and running again by monday (and 
possibly tomorrow) when I regain ssh access and can compile the C++ 
source on the server.



From research at ijs.co.nz  Fri Dec 26 01:56:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Fri Dec 26 01:56:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Dan W-J; IRV is 2nd best (=worst); CVD tells Maryland
  'no  research ever'
In-Reply-To: <3FEA212F.DE487F69@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031226175627.04dbeb28@pop.qsi.net.nz>


My last message had missing "not"s. It is fixable by using a word like
"Is" in every space that the reader might suspect a "not" to be missing.



At 2003-12-25 00:28 +0100 Thursday, Markus Schulze wrote:
>Dear Craig,
>
>you wrote (25 Dec 2003):
>> This can be named the Alternative Vote Twin Towers example: a support
>> rise that is nearly 50% in size and that is entirely FPTP papers, is
>> occuring while the candidate ('A') being supported changes into a
>> loser:
>>
>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/message/244
>>
>> +-----------------------------------+
>> |Winner: ? ?A? ? ?|Winner: ? ?B? ? ?|  Alternative Vote winners
>> +-----------------------------------+
>> | Tot: ? 513000? ?| Tot: ?1024001? ?|
>> +-----------------------------------+
>> |? ?A? ? ? 1001? ?|? ?A? ? 512000? ?| Change = +510999
>> | * BA ? ? ?999? ?|? ?BA ? ? 1001? ?| Change = +2
>> |? ?CBA? ? 1000? ?| * CBA? ? 1000? ?|
>> |? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|
>> |? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|
>> |? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|
>> |? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|
>> |? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|
>> |? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|
>> |? ?JBA? 128000? ?|? ?JBA? 128000? ?|
>> |? ?KBA? 256000? ?|? ?KBA? 256000? ?|
>> +-----------------------------------+
>
>This is neither an example showing Alternative Voting violates
>monotonicity nor an example showing Alternative Voting violates
>participation. This is an example showing Alternative Voting
>violates consistency. However, it has been demonstrated by
>HP Young that only positional methods (e.g. FPP, Borda,
>Approval Voting) satisfy consistency.
>


One of the authors (Ron H. in Israel) of a participation axiom paper wrote
to me. I don't need his advice: his paper is unimportant since on the
participation axiom. It seemed to me his 1988? paper was very unique in
defining that same space that even now as I write, Mr Forest Simmons is
slowly groping towards knowing.

Shulze has his usual technique of getting that maximal onto the part that
is most likely to break when subjected to weight: i.e. a few words:
"participation", "consistency". All for no good purpose. I guess that
Mr Schulze wants me to say that I don't know the definition of one of the
words.

I protest over this technique of Mr Shulze.

 * the ideas behind the words are too poorly defined. I.e. vagueness.

 * STV experts must reject the ideas. In the case of participation it
   fails the STV meta-rule requiring rules to be powerful. It is not
   powerful in 2 ways: firstly it is only 1 winner, and it is assumed to
   be not constraining preferences other than the first. They are not
   incompetent.

 * Mr Schulze get corrected and does not admit and worse does not
   alter his ideas.
   Even today he believes he should use personal desire alone when
   selecting a rule and never ever use algebra or mathematics in
   an attempt to see if a rule is good or unacceptable. It is a
   non-stop circus of Mr Schulze using only wrong tests. He has got
   wrong tests ensuring that he will not improperly let people see
   if he is incorrectly holding an improper purpose. If readers
   suspect that I don't know what "consistency" got defined to be
   (OK for Mr Schulze if it never was defined to an STV-grade
   quality) then my failing a wrong test is not expected to raise
   questions on why Mr Schulze did not write much more precisely.

--

Mr Schulze's "Participation" is rejected for meta-rule agains weakness:

  1. it was undefined for support rises on the 2nd+ candidate

  2. it seems undefined in multiwinner elections since that quite
    probably would involve my base 2 number definition of what a
    paper desired. Nevertheless I shan't suggest that such an idea
    can be made to run acceptably in a revised Participation axiom

    It is too weak if considering a single new preference and hence
    only a single candidate. That would get the rule eliminated before
    an audience the world's best preferential voting method designers.

--

One of the big questions is why Mr Shulze bungled his PDF document
when using the same technique: he failed to define the method and
achieved that by giving inusfficient precise meaning to the words
"stricly prefer".

As readers would readily imagine, at no moment has Mr Markus
corrected that mistake. A paper that says nothing is not one that
Mr Schulze would fix up. It is the same theory: getting the public
to admit that they don't remember what a word or two means. Unless
it was jut a blunder.

---

Responding further, Mr Schulze failed to define the idea of "consistency".

It should start with a capital C, I suppose.

At the moment I have no idea what Mr Schulze means by "positional".
Clearly Mr Schulze has not got a good argument.

Ms Shulze is becoming one of the worlds more boring commentators
on research into preferential voting. In the last few months it was
becoming very clear that not only is Mr Schulze unwilling to define
the Schulze method (depsite producing an academic paper on it passing
it under scavanged under utterly worthless rules or with unfollowable
arguments, or whatever), but also he writes "[other person suggested
that it] doesn't work [i.e. Floyd algorithm isn't symmetric]" and
with any trace of a line by line analysis, he wants to leak out the
belief that the Schulze method has got to be symmetric if the
Floyd algorithm is symmetric. 

He does not even have an argument. All the arguments in his published
seemed to be perfectly untroubled by the truth that he totally
bungled the definition of the Schulze method so that it was missing
from the paper.

After years here disputing with Mr Ossipoff over which was admissable:
(1) Mr Ossipoff's wording
(2) some hoax agreement purporting to comprehend Mike Ossipoff's
   thinking;
it is now plain that Mr Schulze was preferring "(2)". 

I complain since I assess Mr Schulze has the so called Schulze method
of the October 2003 PDF file get the alternative that is absolutely
not the alternative suggested by the fairly plain English wording.

Obviously Mr Schulze implemented the technique all throughout his
writing of trying to blot the light out and stand in the path to
(um, total error) as the single authority. I.e. clarifications and
annotations and clarifying statements of the purpose are missing.
Similarly with analyses over the wording chosen, records of
communications with others disputing the wording, etc., are missing.

Mr Shulze ha a secret agenda for using undefined terms. If he believes
that leads to wins in public mailing lists then we should be told.

Normally Mr Schulze has wrong rules that do not model societies.

Evil ideas but concealed by Mr Schulze getting his paragraph to put
its weight on a few words he didn't feel like defining (or producing
references for) and which then crash as expected under criticism.

Something was a source of unfairness and Mr Schulze would win the
argument on whether it was his carefully/carelessly designed sentences
or not.

----

Let me return to this text:

>
>This is neither an example showing Alternative Voting violates
>monotonicity nor an example showing Alternative Voting violates
>participation. This is an example showing Alternative Voting
>violates consistency. However, it has been demonstrated by
>HP Young that only positional methods (e.g. FPP, Borda,
>Approval Voting) satisfy consistency.
>


(1) That example can perhaps imply that the Alternative Vote fails
a monotonocity test (if theorem is added) and it does not itself show
a failure of monotonicity.

I don't see why anybody should have any interest in what "consistency"
is, and in what "positional" means. While it seems that the "H" and the
"P" of Mr Young's name ought not be placed so close together, it does
not seem that any of his ideas are interesting in the context of the
example.

I found the example using initially mainly REDLOG to find a 4 candidate
example and then trial re paper to allow the number of candidates to
be increased.

Mr Schulze is trying to say that he read books. I am making it clear
that nothing at all that is of value might be obtained from me if
surviving here in the Election Methods List forum that is one of the
world's dumbest. Mr Schulze can't actually write at the PaP or STV
since dumb-as-a-dinosaur ponderous [lumbering, graceless, heavy,huge
labourius. Etymology: ponderosus, Latin, meaning, of great weight]
wordings and unfairness-allowing meanings if any meaning at all.

We might be right on the verge of a big improvement: e.g. I quit and
then the members renwew their religious vows to be unfair
to their fellow nat and be stumped for why that is but take solace in
the intellectual unity of being fried chips, damn, being friends.


//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


At 2003-12-25 20:50 -0500 Thursday, Donald Davison wrote:
>

...
>Dear Diana, Donald here, there are a number of persons on this list who
>speak in gobbledegook.

If Donald Davison is ever more alert, then that might be a time when he
can get the ">" characters lined up and properly quote text.

...
>do not elect anyone.  This super-duper method by Craig is worst than
>Plurality-at-Large, which would need fifty percent plus one to elect both
>candidates.  I called him on this flaw in his method, but it was water off

The method behaves as if it has two votes. So it can get suspected of
holding the power of 2 FPTP papers. But there is a specific rule preventing
it from having more power than one FPTP paper (no matter how many winners).

You can correctly hint that you are correct and I am wrong. But that is
not the same as showing me wrong since I correctly say that you can't
ever convert your success in raising doubt into a concluded proof that
successfully persuades.

If you reject me wrongly then you ar violating one of your own ideas, which
says that ballot papers ought get more and more power (up to the proper
limit) as improved variants/replacements of STV keep appearing.


>
>Craig is not alone in this lack of understanding of election methods.  On

You can't say I did not understand why you have fully failed to show that
my 2 winner 3 candidate IFPP method is failing a power<=1 rule. Your
argument was relying on a common agreement over a wrong principle.
To reject my method, a failure under a correct rule would be neeeded.

---------

Mr Davison on a 2 winner election

>the IRV list, someone asked if IRV could be used to elect two members to a
>city council.  Dan, who is an official of the Center for Voting and
>Democracy replied and suggested that IRV be run two times. Once to elect
>one member and a second time to elect the second member, bypassing the name
>of the first winner during the routine of the second run of IRV.
>
>Dan is clearly showing that he does not understand how these election
>methods work.  What he suggested is very close to Plurality-a-Large, that
>is, the same majority gets to elect both members.


It does sound quite bad.
Supposing the voters only once, they could use the analog of the
'1/3 quota unfairness to the 4th' method the 2 winner 3 candidate IFPP
being at the end. Something batter might be found.

If voters get 2 real votes then maybe the 1st could reduce the candidates
to 3 candidates, and 2nd could eliminate exactlyu one candidate.

You were running a dead pop.mich.* SMTP server for a while.

----

Mr Lanphier is withholding a shoot up of Condorcet (I posted while not
subscribed into a policy block to have such messages be blocked).
It explains that Mr Shulze has a greave problem with the last preference
in the idea of the weightings that papers are multiplied by when
contributing to the "prefers X over Y" subtotal, particularly in the
comparison of the 2 cases:
 (1) (...X...Y) : Y is the last preference
 (2) (...X...) : now Y shifted over the edge. 

Mr Schulze seems to aspire to hide the Condorcet destroying issue behind
only 2 words and blundered and causes his PDF article to fail to define
a Condorcet method.

The STV idealized view is that the P2 rules reigns (e.g. no winnner
changes on adding -2(A)+(AB)+(AC) if 3 candidates, etc.) and Alt.V passes
P2 already. Mr Schulze and al lthe rest of them (Mr Condorcet, etc.)
seem to be much too deep into the territory of arbitrariness and
standing against P2 is further unbreakable guarantee that they would
be rejected

Even worse is the exploding quantity of facets in the Condorcet variant
solutions. This is a new aspect to Condorcet that has not been
written on. It is like the number of facts is rising powers faster.

No one knows what the rules are. In idealized STV there are constant
rules that are totally indifferent to shifting changes in public
opinion. There appears to be no argument at all from Mr Schulze and
whatnot, on whether there is some good enough from the explosion
of rules and how everyone has not got rights while not identifying
what the average votes were.

Basic obvious errors with no defence. It is just like some fish
looking up through bits of grass and through the water saying:

  "what's the matter?: don't you believe in pairwise comparing?"





Craig Carey
Perfect voting methods: single-transerable-vote












From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 26 02:08:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 26 02:08:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
Message-ID: <3FEC0823.810DCB2A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Eric,

you wrote:

> If two or more pairwise defeats have an equal strength and the
> margins are also equal, they are considered to be equivalent.
> Starting with the strongest defeat, consider each defeat in
> sequence with previously kept defeats, if any. If two or more
> defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered together
> with previously kept defeats, if any. If any defeat under
> consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected. If any defeat
> under consideration is not apart of a cycle, it is kept.

I suggest that sentence 4 should be replaced by:

> If q equivalent defeats under consideration are parts of a cycle
> with previously kept defeats, the q! possible ways to consider
> one of these defeats after the other are considered separately.

Markus Schulze


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 26 03:05:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 26 03:05:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Dan W-J; IRV is 2nd best (=worst); CVD tells Maryland 'no 
 research ever'
Message-ID: <3FEC156A.FB33E727@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

your 25 Dec 2003 example is not an example showing that Alternative
Voting violates monotonicity. Your example lets me think that your
claim that Condorcet and monotonicity were incompatible is possibly
caused by a misunderstanding of what "monotonicity" means.

******

You wrote (26 Dec 2003):
> At the moment I have no idea what Mr Schulze means by "positional".

A "positional" single-winner election method has the following
properties:

   a1 >= a2 >= a3 >= ....

   a1, a2, a3, ... are defined in advance and do not depend on how
   the voters vote.

   Every candidate gets a1 points for every first preference,
   a2 points for every second preference, a3 points for every third
   preference, ...

   The probability that a given candidate is elected depends only on
   his number of points.

******

Examples:

FPP is a positional method with a1 = 1 and a2 = a3 = ... = 0.

Suppose N is the number of candidates.
Borda is a positional method with a1 = N-1, a2 = N-2, a3 = N-3, ...

Burnitz-Varrentrapp is a positional method with a1 = 1, a2 = 1/2,
a3 = 1/3, ...

******

You wrote (26 Dec 2003):
> It explains that Mr Shulze has a greave problem with the last preference
> in the idea of the weightings that papers are multiplied by when
> contributing to the "prefers X over Y" subtotal, particularly in the
> comparison of the 2 cases:
>  (1) (...X...Y) : Y is the last preference
>  (2) (...X...) : now Y shifted over the edge.

Could you please post some examples to explain what you
are talking about?

******

You wrote (26 Dec 2003):
> Basic obvious errors with no defence. It is just like some fish
> looking up through bits of grass and through the water saying:
>
>   "what's the matter?: don't you believe in pairwise comparing?"

In my paper, I prove e.g. that my method satisfies Pareto, monotonicity,
resolvability, independence of clones, and Woodall's plurality criterion.
None of these criteria implicitly or explicitly presumes that the used
election method is a pairwise method. Therefore, you don't have to
"believe in pairwise comparing" to see that my method satisfies many
criteria that are considered in the scientific literature to be
important.

Markus Schulze


From eric at ericgorr.net  Fri Dec 26 06:03:02 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Fri Dec 26 06:03:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <3FEC0823.810DCB2A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FEC0823.810DCB2A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <a06020416bc11ebd07f60@[192.168.1.3]>

At 11:06 AM +0100 12/26/03, Markus Schulze wrote:
>Dear Eric,
>
>you wrote:
>
>  > If two or more pairwise defeats have an equal strength and the
>>  margins are also equal, they are considered to be equivalent.
>>  Starting with the strongest defeat, consider each defeat in
>>  sequence with previously kept defeats, if any. If two or more
>>  defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered together
>  > with previously kept defeats, if any. If any defeat under
>>  consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected. If any defeat
>>  under consideration is not apart of a cycle, it is kept.
>
>I suggest that sentence 4 should be replaced by:
>
>   If q equivalent defeats under consideration are parts of a cycle
>   with previously kept defeats, the q! possible ways to consider
>   one of these defeats after the other are considered separately.

An interesting suggestion, but I fail to see how this would make 
things clearer.

At no point does the algorithm need to perform a q! operation.


-- 
== Eric Gorr ========= http://www.ericgorr.net ========= ICQ:9293199 ===
"Therefore the considerations of the intelligent always include both
benefit and harm." - Sun Tzu
== Insults, like violence, are the last refuge of the incompetent... ===


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 26 07:13:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 26 07:13:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
Message-ID: <3FEC4F97.C828D5C4@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Eric,

you wrote:

> If two or more pairwise defeats have an equal strength and the
> margins are also equal, they are considered to be equivalent.
> Starting with the strongest defeat, consider each defeat in
> sequence with previously kept defeats, if any. If two or more
> defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered together
> with previously kept defeats, if any. If any defeat under
> consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected. If any defeat
> under consideration is not apart of a cycle, it is kept.

Suppose AB and CD have the same strength. Suppose (a) locking only
AB would not create a directed cycle with already locked pairwise
defeats, (b) locking only CD would not create a directed cycle with
already locked pairwise defeats, but (c) locking both AB and CD
simultaneously would create a directed cycle with already locked
pairwise defeats.

Then I fear that your formulation could mistakenly be interpreted
in such a manner as if both pairwise defeats were rejected.

Markus Schulze


From eric at ericgorr.net  Fri Dec 26 08:46:12 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Fri Dec 26 08:46:12 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <3FEC4F97.C828D5C4@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FEC4F97.C828D5C4@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <a06020418bc1215a84e0d@[192.168.1.3]>

At 4:11 PM +0100 12/26/03, Markus Schulze wrote:
>Dear Eric,
>
>you wrote:
>
>>  If two or more pairwise defeats have an equal strength and the
>>  margins are also equal, they are considered to be equivalent.
>>  Starting with the strongest defeat, consider each defeat in
>>  sequence with previously kept defeats, if any. If two or more
>>  defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered together
>>  with previously kept defeats, if any. If any defeat under
>>  consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected. If any defeat
>>  under consideration is not apart of a cycle, it is kept.
>
>Suppose AB and CD have the same strength. Suppose (a) locking only
>AB would not create a directed cycle with already locked pairwise
>defeats, (b) locking only CD would not create a directed cycle with
>already locked pairwise defeats, but (c) locking both AB and CD
>simultaneously would create a directed cycle with already locked
>pairwise defeats.
>
>Then I fear that your formulation could mistakenly be interpreted
>in such a manner as if both pairwise defeats were rejected.

They should both be rejected as one could not determine which defeat 
should be kept, unless one would choose randomly between them, but 
then this would not be a 'deterministic' method.



-- 
== Eric Gorr ========= http://www.ericgorr.net ========= ICQ:9293199 ===
"Therefore the considerations of the intelligent always include both
benefit and harm." - Sun Tzu
== Insults, like violence, are the last refuge of the incompetent... ===


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 26 12:03:55 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 26 12:03:55 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
Message-ID: <3FEC931D.B259CA07@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Eric,

suppose that there are 4 candidates and that all pairwise
defeats A > B, B > C, C > D, D > A, B > D, and C > A have the
same strength. Then all 4 candidates are potential winners.

However, suppose that some voters rank candidate A higher so
that the pairwise defeats A > B, B > C, C > D, D > A, and B > D
still have the same strength and C > A is weaker than the other
pairwise defeats. Then you would reject A > B, B > C, C > D,
D > A, and B > D and keep C > A so that ranking candidate A
higher hurts him.

Markus Schulze


From eric at ericgorr.net  Fri Dec 26 12:30:01 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Fri Dec 26 12:30:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <3FEC931D.B259CA07@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FEC931D.B259CA07@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <a0602041abc1249c28437@[192.168.1.3]>

At 8:59 PM +0100 12/26/03, Markus Schulze wrote:

>suppose that there are 4 candidates and that all pairwise
>defeats A > B, B > C, C > D, D > A, B > D, and C > A have the
>same strength. Then all 4 candidates are potential winners.
>
>However, suppose that some voters rank candidate A higher so
>that the pairwise defeats A > B, B > C, C > D, D > A, and B > D
>still have the same strength and C > A is weaker than the other
>pairwise defeats. Then you would reject A > B, B > C, C > D,
>D > A, and B > D and keep C > A so that ranking candidate A
>higher hurts him.

Include that everyone has voted sincerely, and I don't see the problem.

With such a clearly divided electorate, where any of the candidates 
could win, this 'problem' seems illusory at best.




From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 26 22:10:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Fri Dec 26 22:10:01 2003
Subject: [EM] RE: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #401 - 1 msg
Message-ID: <LAW10-F112wVHCOMR4a0005ebca@hotmail.com>

>Suppose AB and CD have the same strength. Suppose (a) locking only
>AB would not create a directed cycle with already locked pairwise
>defeats, (b) locking only CD would not create a directed cycle with
>already locked pairwise defeats, but (c) locking both AB and CD
>simultaneously would create a directed cycle with already locked
>pairwise defeats.
>
>Then I fear that your formulation could mistakenly be interpreted
>in such a manner as if both pairwise defeats were rejected.

They should both be rejected as one could not determine which defeat
should be kept, unless one would choose randomly between them, but
then this would not be a 'deterministic' method.

I reply:

Yes, rejecting both would be most in keeping with the spirit of Eric's 
tied-defeats solution, and would be most what people would expect.

Of course wording that covers that should be included. Maybe it could be 
said in a way that covers all those possibilities inl one wording, without 
separate mention of the special case where 2 or more tied-defeats 
indivicuallly don't cycle with old-kept-defeats, but do so if boith are 
kept.

I'm for whateve tied-defeats solution is briefest and simplest in public 
proposals.

If the wording foir Eric's briefer solution starts getting too long, by 
having to cover that situation described above, then with its brevity 
somewhat eroded, it could be worth considering this slightly more elaborate 
solution that I named in a recent e-mail, for which that situation is 
already covered:

Slightly more elaborate and slightly better tied-defeats solution wording:

1. The equally strongest as-yet unconsidered defeats are called the 
"tied-defeats".

2. The defeats that were kept before any tied-defeats were kept are called 
the "old defeats".

3. Any tied defeat that isn't in a cycle consisting only of it and some old 
defeats is "qualified".

4. Keep any qualified defeat that isn't in a cycle each of whose members is 
either qualified or old.

That's much longer than Eric's brief solution. Maybe when Eric's wording is 
modified to cover the situation that Markus described, Eric's wording will 
still be briefer and simpler than this one. Still, this one is worth 
considering if the brief one loses too much of its brevity.

I'd like to add that the suggestion of looking at all q! possible 
consideration-orderings of the tied defeats is completely unacceptable for a 
publc proposal.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 26 23:23:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Fri Dec 26 23:23:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to James Green-Armytage--Condorcet strategy
Message-ID: <Law10-F111e5O25rrcv0005ea36@hotmail.com>

Janes--

That's a big subject.

You correctly point out that defensive strategy is a worse problem with 
margins than with winning-votes (wv).

Additionally, with wv, truncation can't steal the election from a 
well-supported CW, a CW who has a majority defeat against the truncators' 
candidate. That's the subject of the criterion SFC. GSFC generalizes SFC to 
situations where there's no CW. When defeats are measured by wv, then SSD 
and Ranked-Pairs meet the powerful GSFC. Plain Condorcet (PC) meets SFC.

In fact, SFC and GSFC describe plausible conditions under which, with 
complying methods (Condorcet wv), the majority who don't want X can be sure 
X won't win, _without having to do anything other than vote sincerel_. 
That's what I most like about Condorcet wv.

Your iniltial wording of the Condorcet count implies that defeats are 
measured by margins. That probably isn't intentional.

To put the problem in perspective, Condorcet wv has no defensive strategy 
need unless someone is going to try offensive order-reversal strategy. At 
its very worst, under less-than-likely worst-case conditions, Condorcet wv 
begins to share the strategy need that the other methods have all the time.

And, with Condorcet wv, in order for you to successfully steal the election, 
it's only possible if the people from whom you're stealing the election have 
tried to help you. Doesn't that make you feel proud of yourself? :-)

P.S. Don't expect them to rank your cxandidate again. Don't expect your 
winner to be able to show his face in public.

As you mentioned, it's like a game of chicken, when defensive truncation is 
threatened against would-be offensive order-reversers.

But please note that the supporters of the middle CW who is being protected 
will suffer less if no one chickens out, compared to how much the offensive 
order-reversers would suffer then. That's because, in your example, the C is 
farther away from the order-reversers than from the defenders.

Additionally, a defender has a more credible threat. A cat defending its 
territory has a more credible threat against an interloper than the other 
cat has. The defender, it's understood, is more willing to fight and risk 
getting hurt when defending what's rightfully his. This adds to the 
defenders' advantage in the game of chicken.

Sure, if no one chickens out, the result isn't desirable for the defenders 
either. Defensive truncation is a dominated strategy for them: But note that 
dominated deterrent strategies are common in legal systrems and in the 
animal kingdom. They wouldn't be used so much if they didn't work.

In public elections, effective offensive order-reversal would require public 
organizing. There' s just no way it could be done without its intended 
victims hearing about it and using defensive truncation.
So in public elections, offensive order-reversal is a losing proposition.

For all the above reasons, I don't consider offensive order-reversal a 
problem. Effectively, then, Condorcet wv is practically strategy-free. 
Remarkably strategy-free. No other method of comparable simplicity even 
comes close.

So, for that reason, I don't feel that it's necessary to include 
enhancements to further reduce that already near-nonexistent problem.

Of course, when Condorcet wv has been in use for a long time, and if by then 
people are discussing the order-reversal possibility, then, at that time, 
the anti-reversal enhancements could be proposed.

Even though I claim that they aren't needed in public Condorcet wv 
proposals, I'm going to discuss anti-reversal enhancements in a subsequent 
posting.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 27 00:01:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 27 00:01:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Anti-reversal enhancements for Condorcet
Message-ID: <Law10-F74X9Oc8sc0Gq0005efd2@hotmail.com>

James--

You described an anti-reversal enhancement that involved a 2nd balloting. 
Sure, a 2nd balloting can further reduce wv's already tiny offensive 
strategy problem, assuming that it ever becomes a problem.

But it's not necessary to hold a 2nd balloting anytime there's a circular 
tie, though that's one solution.

If a CW's support isn't indifferent, s/he'll be ranked over the reversers' 
candidate by a majority, meaning that for the reversers' candidate to win, 
everyone else must have even bigger majority against them.

So the 2nd balloting should only be triggered if there's an 
all-majority-defeats circular tie.

Here's what I've propsed as a 2nd ballot solution:

If there's a circular tie all of whose members have another member ranked 
over them by a majorith, then a 2nd balloting is held.

Before the 2nd balloting, the pairwise defeats will have been published, and 
order-reversal, if it happened, can be noticed.

In the 2nd balloting, the reversal can be countered. It can be punished by 
defensive truncation. Or, as in your example, the C voters could rank B 
equal to C. Note that, with wv, they only need rank B equal to C. In margins 
they'd often have to rank B _over_ C. That's a lot more to ask.

But another possibilit for the 2nd balloting is an Approval balloting. That 
simpler method won't produce another cycle, and the defense against the 
reversers would consist of their victimes not voting for the reversers' 
candidate. In that case the defensive truncation elects the CW.

The 2nd balloting pretty much eliminates whatever amount of reversal problem 
exists.

Something similar can be used for committees. I'd suggest it for an EM poll, 
for instance.

To a poll, I'd add the rule that, after the result is announced, there's 
about a week or half-week period during which anyone can truncate their 
ranking if they choose to, or can uprank an alternative to 1st place.

(I prefer open polls in which voters post their ballots. That's the way to 
have proven security.
But, as these ballots come in, reversal opportunities could be obvious to 
those who haven't voted yet. The defdensive strategy option avoids that 
reversal problem).

Either of those 2 enhanhancements, or something similar, could be used for 
committees.

Tom Roiund and Steve Eppley separately independently proposed the 
candidate-withdrawal option:

After an election result, any candidate can declare that he withdraws, and 
call for another count of the same ballots with his name deleted from them.

That also thwarts offensive order-reversal.

I notice that candidate-withdrawal is part of your proposal.

For 1-balloting elections, the voter could have the option of drawing a line 
in his ranking, to indicate that, in the event of an all-majority-beaten 
circular tie involving candidates above and below that line, he wants to 
drop the candidates below the line. Then the same ballots, with the 
candiddates dropped, would be recounted. That would be a powerful deterrent 
to offensive order-reversal.

I don't claim to have covered all the possible anti-reversal enhancements. 
We've discussed a few other ones.

For instance, a tentative possible solution involves giving the voter the 
option to indicate that, if there's an all-majority-beaten circular tie, and 
if groups of voters sharing the same 1st  choices have certain patterns of 
unanimity and non-unanimity within those groups, in their subsequent 
choices, that voter wants do delete certain candidates. That may catch be 
able to catch some offensive order-reversals. Obviously that isn't a 
complete detailed proposal.

Methods more fancy and complicated than Condorcet are discussed. Though all 
methods have strategy, there's always the possibility that one of those 
fancier methods will get rid of defensive strategy need, as I've defined it 
here. Or at least let defensive truncation elect the CW, without the use of 
a 2nd ballotiong.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From eric at ericgorr.net  Sat Dec 27 05:56:02 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Sat Dec 27 05:56:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-F112wVHCOMR4a0005ebca@hotmail.com>
References: <LAW10-F112wVHCOMR4a0005ebca@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <a0602041ebc133db3b13e@[192.168.1.3]>

At 6:09 AM +0000 12/27/03, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
>Of course wording that covers that should be included. Maybe it 
>could be said in a way that covers all those possibilities in one 
>wording, without separate mention of the special case where 2 or 
>more tied-defeats indivicuallly don't cycle with old-kept-defeats, 
>but do so if boith are kept.

Personally, I think I did cover this in #5. The case of multiple 
tied-defeats is covered by:

   If two or more defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered
   together with previously kept defeats, if any.

(#4 covered what is considered to be equivalent)

Now, in light of your comments, I think my statement:

   If any defeat under consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected.

Could be improved by changing it to:

   If any defeat under consideration, which has not yet been kept, is apart
   of a cycle, it is rejected.

Similarly,

   If any defeat under consideration, which has not yet been kept, is not apart
   of a cycle, it is kept.

I will probably also turn the word 'cycle' into a link with a more 
detailed description.


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Sat Dec 27 12:10:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Sat Dec 27 12:10:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm  definition
In-Reply-To: <3FE94661.A9255D9B@netgate.net>
Message-ID: <20031227201000.9811.qmail@web13805.mail.yahoo.com>

Bart,

 --- Bart Ingles <bartman at netgate.net> a ?crit?: > 
> This paper must be part of a series, as Woodall never explains his
> assertion that "Of these three properties, Majority is far and away the
> most important."  He seems to have his own definitions for monotonicity;
> I hadn't seen these anywhere else.
> 

(He comments on Majority as above, says Plurality is "also important, but
it is much less likely to be violated: every reasonable electoral system
seems to satisfy it, whereas many systems proposed or actually used ...
fail majority."  Condorcet is "a very attractive property" but it "leads
to problems with monotonicity.")

I think Woodall may consider Participation to be part of Monotonicity.  In
any case, another paper of his makes these claims:

A method that always elects a candidate with a majority-strength defeat
over every other candidate, cannot meet "Mono-raise-random" or 
"Mono-sub-top."  They say that X can't be harmed (made to lose, in
most cases) if X is raised on some ballots with the lower preferences
on those ballots replaced with anything valid; or (respectively) if
"some ballots that do not have X top are replaced by ballots that have
X top (and are otherwise arbitrary)".

A method that always elects a candidate with a defeat (of any strength)
over every other cannot, additionally can't meet "Mono-raise-delete"
and "Mono-sub-plump."  The former means X is raised, and the ranking
is truncated after him.  The latter means ballots which don't place X
first are replaced with ballots which bullet vote for X.

Also, a method cannot do all three of:
1. always elect a CW (defeats of any strength);
2. meet Plurality; and
3. Meet "Mono-add-top," meaning that random ballots may be added
with X ranked first, without causing X to lose.

And, a method can't do all four of:
1. always elect a CW with all majority-strength pairwise defeats;
2. meet Plurality;
3. meet "Symmetric-Completion"; and
4. meet "Mono-remove-bottom," meaning X can't be harmed if ballots
are removed which placed X (and only X) last.

Make what you will of all that...  I'm pretty sure I've reproduced
it accurately.


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


_________________________________________________________________
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From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Sat Dec 27 12:45:01 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Sat Dec 27 12:45:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20031224174405.05b11c88@pop.qsi.net.nz>
Message-ID: <20031227204412.74150.qmail@web13810.mail.yahoo.com>

(This message has quotes from three people.)

James Green-Armytage said:
> Very much off the cuff: isn't this somewhat related to the favorite betrayal 
> criterion? 

I think it is, but a more general version of it.

Mike Ossipoff said:
> If IRV's Later-No-Harm "advantage" is the kind of benefit that we get from 
> Later-No-Harm, then it's questionable how important that criterion is.

I agree, but I am somewhat interested in what other methods can be defined
which meet Later-no-Harm.  For example, Woodall's DSC method does not use
traveling votes.  It does eliminate candidates, although I'm not able to
say at present whether it does so in a manner analogous to IRV.

Anthony Duff suggested that MinMax meets Later-no-harm.  I don't think
that's correct, though.


 --- Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz> a ?crit?: > 
> At 2003-12-23 23:47 +0100 Tuesday, Kevin Venzke wrote:
> >Thanks to everyone who responded to my last message.
> >
> >It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
> >as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
> >should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
> >this ballot."
> >
> >(By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
> >additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
> >but also deleting others.)
> >
> >I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
> >"earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
> >ranked FIRST, (etc...)."
> >
> >For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
> >then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.
> >
> 
> Clearly Mr Venkze has not ruled out the 2 winner case. If he has one
> unstated restriction then it may take weeks or years before he finally
> managed to get them all into the mailing list and nicely requoted
> in each message.

"Earlier-no-harm" could work with any number of winners, although my
specific example assumed a single winner.  A zero-winner method, for
instance, could not fail Earlier-no-harm.

> 
> Suppose the votes are this (2 winner case)
> 
> Election 1:
>   10000 (D)
>   1 (A=B=C>D>E), D should win and does
> 
> Election 2:
>   10000 (D)
>   1 (A>B>C>D>E) , both D and E lose says Mr Venkze

But you can see that this example is not what I'm talking about, if you
look at the definition I wrote:
"Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked FIRST, 
should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of this ballot."

So if the winners of election 1 are D and one of ABC, then in election 2, 
according to "Earlier-no-harm," the winners must not become D and E.

> 
> I assume that there is no need to get "A=B=C" precisely defined since
> unknown disputes over definitions might be bounded by factors 6 or 1/6.

It means that A, B, and C are ranked equal to each other at the top of
the ballot.

> >"Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
> >then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A.
> >
> >What do you think?
> 
> It looks like Mr Venkze won't accept one or both of these:
> 
>  * an axiom set from which a method is derived (a strange option given
>     the theme of Mr Venkze's whole message), or

I defined an axiom, not a method.

>  * the principle that the number of winners be correct (i.e. he sometimes
>     expects the number of winners be disagreeing with what was decided on
>     before the public filled in the voting papers, providing a public 
>     suitably exists).

I did that in my example, but not in my definition.

> I have never suspected that there is a good reason to use
>    "Later No Harm"
> instead of
>    "Truncation Resistance".

"Later-no-harm" is more specific.  Perhaps "Later-no-harm" together with
"Later-no-help" are equivalent to "Truncation Resistance."

> "Permuting preferences before" and "permuting preferences after" are a
> better wording of what is desired. 

This would be harder to satisfy than what I defined.  My definition supposes
that the ballot is changed only by turning some "="s into ">"s.

> I assume that if both are imposed
> then the method degenerates into FPTP or something similar.

No, with FPTP you cannot "permute preferences before" the winner without a
risk of changing the winner.  ...Perhaps Coombs satisfies this?

> So there may need to be a redesign of the papers (and presumably
> adding "=" won't produce insensitivity to permuting before). I would
> prefer no redesign (while preferring methods better than the
> second best AV n candidate 1 winner method) and instead allow elections
> where voters could change their mind.

The voter can't change his mind.  (Actually, I thought you didn't believe
in voters.)  Presenting two scenarios side-by-side doesn't mean the voter
is changing his mind.

The point of earlier-no-harm is so that the voter can't protest "I voted
A>B>C and got F, when voting A=B=C would have gotten C elected."

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Sun Dec 28 05:48:02 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Sun Dec 28 05:48:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Later-no-harm  question
Message-ID: <3FEF8862.3060505@bigpond.com>

  On Mon. Dec.22, 2003 ,  Bart  Ingles wrote:

"I can't see much value in LNH as a criterion, unless getting voters to
rank as many candidates as possible is seen as an end in itself."

Meeting Later-no-harm is logically the same thing as being truncation-proof.

All methods that meet Later-no-harm must logically also meet Mono-add-top, but 
not vice versa.
"Mono-add-top" is a Woodall criterion which says that adding ballots that all give
first-preference to X must not harm X. It is met by IRV and Margins, but not by WV.

In trying to change from Plurality to a ranked-ballot method, Later-no-harm is an 
excellent selling-point to plurality-minded voters.

I think Later-no-harm should be considered together with Later-no-help. The two should
be in balance, ie the chances of a lower-preference helping or harming a higher-preference
should be the same. Otherwise "zero information strategy" (as something different from
sincere voting) can raise its ugly head. A method in which the chance of helping a higher
preference (by ranking a candidate) is greater than the chance of harming, can create
incentive to "random fill". A method such as Woodall's "Descending Acquiescing Coalitions"
(DAC) which fails Later-no-harm but meets Later-no-help might be Approvalish. His method
"Descending Solid Coalitions"(DSC) meets Later-no-harm but fails Later-no-help.
Another of his methods,"Descending Half-solid Coalitions"(DHSC), which actually fails both
criteria, might be preferable.

Chris Benham  


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From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Sun Dec 28 11:03:02 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Sun Dec 28 11:03:02 2003
Subject: [EM]  Re: Later-no-harm, "Earlier-no-harm"
Message-ID: <3FEFD213.1050504@bigpond.com>

On  Tue.Dec.23, 2003,  Kevin Venzke wrote:

"It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
this ballot."

(By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
but also deleting others.)"

Surely Later-no-harm is only applicable to ranked-ballot methods,and Approval
is not a ranked-ballot method. 
Other than trying to provide some ammunition for Approval versus IRV propaganda, 
is there any point to this new version?

On a posititive note, Kevin went on:
"I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
"earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
ranked FIRST, (etc...)."

For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.

"Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A."

I very much like the substance of this. On Mon.Dec.1,2003, I wrote:
"I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting AB and the other 
half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting A=B, and also that it is 
unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates A and B by all voting either 
AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared to a faction who support candidates 
C and D by all voting C=D."
The part after "and also.." I see as being equivalent to your "earlier-no-harm". I think 
I would sum up the idea behind your 2 "earlier-no-h..." criteria in a "Decisiveness Fairness
Standard" which says something like 
"a faction of voters who all vote a set of candidates over all other candidates should not be 
advantaged or disadvantaged by voting equal preferences (versus not)".
Have I been wrong to assume this is connected with Symetric Completion/fractional equal
preferences?
Quoting Woodall (in the context of equal preferences not being allowed except for truncation),

"Symetric Completion.
A trucated ballot should be treated in the same way as its symetric completion. (The symetric 
completion of a ballot is obtained by replacing it by all possible completions of it with 
equal weight chosen so that the total weight is 1. For example,if there are five candidates 
a,b,c,d,e, then the symetric completion of a ballot marked ab consists of six ballots, each 
with weight 1/6, marked abcde, abced, abdce, abdec,abecd, and abedc.)"

Can a method meet Earlier-no-harm/help without complying with SC?

Chris Benham













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From eric at ericgorr.net  Sun Dec 28 13:19:01 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Sun Dec 28 13:19:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <a0602041ebc133db3b13e@[192.168.1.3]>
References: <LAW10-F112wVHCOMR4a0005ebca@hotmail.com>
 <a0602041ebc133db3b13e@[192.168.1.3]>
Message-ID: <a06020401bc14f82464b3@[192.168.1.3]>

For anyone who is interested, the first example, of a few more I 
intend to finish covering Ranked Pairs (Deterministic #1-Winning 
Votes) , is now up at:

    http://www.ericgorr.net/condorcet/rankedpairs/example1/



From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Sun Dec 28 19:17:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Sun Dec 28 19:17:02 2003
Subject: [EM]  Re: Later-no-harm, "Earlier-no-harm"
In-Reply-To: <3FEFD213.1050504@bigpond.com>
Message-ID: <20031229031656.33863.qmail@web13805.mail.yahoo.com>

Chris,

 --- Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com> a ?crit :
> "Mono-add-top" is a Woodall criterion which says that adding ballots that all give
> first-preference to X must not harm X. It is met by IRV and Margins, but not by WV.

How did you find that Margins meets Mono-add-top?  I have a hard time 
believing that.


 --- Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com> a ?crit?: 
> On  Tue.Dec.23, 2003,  Kevin Venzke wrote:
> 
> "It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
> as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
> should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
> this ballot."
> 
> (By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
> additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
> but also deleting others.)"
> 
> Surely Later-no-harm is only applicable to ranked-ballot methods,and Approval
> is not a ranked-ballot method. 

According to Woodall, Approval fails Later-no-harm.

> Other than trying to provide some ammunition for Approval versus IRV propaganda, 
> is there any point to this new version?

On the contrary, I recognize it as a limitation that Approval passes
my definition.  I came up with it because it is simple, and because
it could be reversed to illustrate "earlier-no-harm."

> 
> On a posititive note, Kevin went on:
> "I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
> "earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
> ranked FIRST, (etc...)."
> 
> For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
> then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.
> 
> "Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
> then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A."
> 
> I very much like the substance of this. On Mon.Dec.1,2003, I wrote:
> "I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting AB and the other 
> half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting A=B, and also that it is 
> unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates A and B by all voting either 
> AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared to a faction who support candidates 
> C and D by all voting C=D."
> The part after "and also.." I see as being equivalent to your "earlier-no-harm". I think 
> I would sum up the idea behind your 2 "earlier-no-h..." criteria in a "Decisiveness Fairness
> Standard" which says something like 
> "a faction of voters who all vote a set of candidates over all other candidates should not be 
> advantaged or disadvantaged by voting equal preferences (versus not)".
> Have I been wrong to assume this is connected with Symetric Completion/fractional equal
> preferences?

If you're right, it's not because I thought it was.

Woodall groups SC, LNHarm, and LNHelp together, and that's the main reason
I have to suspect that there's a connection.

I think you're supposing that LNHarm with LNHelp together imply SC.  I
can't find anything to disprove that.  So I suppose ENHarm plus ENHelp
might imply a reversed kind of SC.

The point of "earlier-no-harm" is to remove the incentive to compromise by
upranking everyone to first.  That would remove the possibility of multiple
candidates being majority favorites unless the voters really felt that
way (or they didn't understand the method's features).

SC applied to candidates that the voter tied in first would not be
nearly as repugnant to me as SC applied to candidates that the voter
didn't rank at all.

> Can a method meet Earlier-no-harm/help without complying with SC?

I'm almost positive of that, since methods can meet LNHarm/help without
meeting SC.  I don't see a big difference between the two pairs.

I'll devise a method which meets Earlier-no-harm for the next time I post.
I doubt it will meet Majority, though.


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 28 21:54:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 28 21:54:02 2003
Subject: [EM] LNH, Mono-Add-Top, etc
Message-ID: <Law10-F24nTPFyCcTZ30004485a@hotmail.com>

Someone posted:

"Mono-add-top" is a Woodall criterion which says that adding ballots that 
all give
first-preference to X must not harm X. It is met by IRV and Margins, but not 
by WV.

I reply:

I'm not necessarily denying that, but can you demonstrate that those 
statements are correct?

Aside from that question, there are very many criteria, and all are failed 
by some methods.

It's been shown that all nonprobabilisitic methods can have incentive for 
strategy.

Predictably, different methods often have different strategy. Of those 
innumerable criteria, different methods meet different criteria.

Any criterion can be justified by someone saying "This criterion is 
important". In that way, there are a vast number of important critreria. A 
vast number of essential criteria, and no method meets them all.

When any one type of strategy incentive is looked at, it always looks 
undesirable, and a good-sounding argument can be made against whatever 
method has that strategy incentive. That's why you should keep in mind that 
no nonprobabilistic method is strategy-free. So it's a question of what kind 
of strategy incentive is worse.

No one can establish that one standad is more important than another. So, 
when  asserting the importance of one's favorite standard, one is always 
safe from being contradicted.

Majority rule is a widely accepted standard. The lesser-of-2-evils problem 
is notorious. With only very few exceptions, nearly all single-winner reform 
advocates want to get rid of that problem. The goal of getting rid of the 
lesser-of-2-evils (LO2E) problem therefore is a widely held standard, as is 
majorilty rule.

It's been shown here that wv and, in some ways, Approval too, beats Margins 
and IRV by those 2 very widely-recognized standards.

Say a majority of the voters prefer X to Y. Y is a "greater-evil" whom they 
don't want to win. What must they do in order to keep Y from winning? With 
wv and Approval they'll never have to reverse a preference in order to keep 
Y from winning. Wilth IRV and Margins they'll sometimes have to bury their 
favorite, vote someone over their favorite if they want to keep Y from 
winning.

So methods like IRV and Margins illustrate that a shoddy rank-method is 
worse than not using a rank-method.

I might ask you what good it does to guarantee that voting your favorite in 
first place can't hurt your favorite, when you strategically need to bury 
your favorite.

That criterion, the Weak Defensive Strategy Criterion, is a modest, minimal 
thing that we'd expect of a method that honors majority rule and doesn't 
have the worst form of the lesser-of-2-evils problem.

As I mentioned in an earier message, there are, with Margins and IRV, 
situations (configurations of voters' preferences) in which the only Nash 
equilibria are ones in which some voters vote someone over their favorite in 
order to protect majority rule or to protect the win of a CW. But, with wv 
and Approval, every situation has at least one Nash equilibrium in which no 
one reverses a preference.

That's obviously a sense in which it can be accurately said that wv and 
Approval are sincere methods and that Margins and IRV are not.

By the way, about LNH, I've probably already said this here, but the reason 
why IRV doesn't let you lower preferences hurt your favorite is that IRV 
eliminates your favorite before it lets you help your lower choices. IRV 
saves your favorite from harm from lower preferences by eliminating your 
favorite before letting you help your lower preferences. A sort of electoral 
euthanasia.

Someone said that because IRV doesn't let lower preferences hurt higher 
ones, that means that IRV has no incentive for truncation. That isn't quite 
so. Saying that lower preferences can't hurt higher ones isn't quite the 
same as saying that adding more candidates to your ranking can't worsen the 
outcome for you. As I said before, Professor Steven Brams published an 
example refuting the claim that IRV never rewards truncation.

All four majority defensive strategy criteria measure for the popular 
standards of majority rule and getting rid of the lesser-of-2-evils problem.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From anthony_duff at yahoo.com.au  Mon Dec 29 03:11:02 2003
From: anthony_duff at yahoo.com.au (=?iso-8859-1?q?Anthony=20Duff?=)
Date: Mon Dec 29 03:11:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
In-Reply-To: <20031227204412.74150.qmail@web13810.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20031229111026.8177.qmail@web40707.mail.yahoo.com>

 --- Kevin Venzke <stepjak at yahoo.fr> wrote: 

> 
> Anthony Duff suggested that MinMax meets Later-no-harm.  I don't
> think
> that's correct, though.

I made the suggestion on the basis of:
http://www.mail-archive.com/election-methods-electorama.com at lists.electorama.com/msg00018.html
(Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2003 17:53:42 -0800)

where Markus Schulze wrote"
"In another paper, Woodall proves that no election method can
simultaneously meet later-no-harm, later-no-help, monotonicity,
and mutual majority. Therefore, the fact that Minimax(pairwise
opposition) violates mutual majority in such a drastic manner
can be considered a consequence of the fact that it meets
later-no-harm, later-no-help, and monotonicity."



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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Mon Dec 29 10:19:09 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Mon Dec 29 10:19:09 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
Message-ID: <3FF06F95.8036802A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Hallo,

suppose N is the number of candidates. Suppose d[i,j]
with i <> j is the number of voters who strictly prefer
candidate i to candidate j. Suppose d[i,j] : = 0 for i = j.
Suppose d[i] : = max { d[i,j] | j = 1,...,N }.

Then Minimax(pairwise opposition) chooses the candidate i
with minimal d[i].

Minimax(pairwise opposition) satisfies later-no-harm because
ranking an additional candidate can only increase but not
decrease d[k] for every not ranked candidate k. However,
my claim that Minimax(pairwise opposition) satisfies
later-no-help was incorrect.

Markus Schulze


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Mon Dec 29 14:08:04 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Mon Dec 29 14:08:04 2003
Subject: [EM] "DOC," A method meeting ENHarm and Majority
Message-ID: <20031229213545.87279.qmail@web13811.mail.yahoo.com>

Here is a method that meets earlier-no-harm and Majority (or at least,
Majority Favorite).  It's called "Descending Opposing Coalitions" or
"DOC" and it's basically the flipped version of DSC.  Like DSC, I
believe it also meets Participation, Clone Independence, and a lot of
Monotonicity.

Every possible set of candidates is given a score equal to the number
of voters who voted that those candidates are strictly the worst of
all the candidates.  They're arranged in descending order of score.
The set of potential winners initially includes all the candidates.
Each set in the list is taken in turn, and all candidates in the set
are deleted from the set of potential winners, unless that would leave
no potential winners, in which case the set is ignored.  Last candidate
left is the winner.

If your ballot was A=B>C>D, changing it to A>B>C>D can only cause set
"BCD" to rise in the list.  All you're doing is making it more likely
that B, C, or D will be eliminated.  So DOC meets ENHarm but not ENHelp.

This meets Majority Favorite because if a majority rank A as their sole
favorite, then the set of all other candidates must be higher on the
list than any set which contains A.  I believe a similar argument can
be made that DOC meets Majority generally.

To my dismay, it seems that earlier-no-harm does not imply Strong FBC.
Consider:

11 C>A
7 A
9 B
10 D>B

C wins this.  (I'm not claiming this is a GOOD method.)  Note that, in
accordance with ENHarm, the D voters can't get anything by voting "D=B."
To make B win, they have to insincerely rank B first.  This is not a
failure of ENHarm, but it is a failure of FBC.

Do methods which satisfy later-no-harm (or earlier-no-harm) necessarily
have order-reversal incentive?


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From donald at mich.com  Mon Dec 29 22:20:13 2003
From: donald at mich.com (Donald Davison)
Date: Mon Dec 29 22:20:13 2003
Subject: [EM] Craig's Folly and Dan's Folly are two peas in a pod:
Message-ID: <v01520d00bc164c9e0470@[64.79.80.35]>

Greetings list members,

I had written:
"Craig is not alone in this lack of understanding of election methods.
On the IRV list, someone asked if IRV could be used to elect two
members to a city council.  Dan, who is an official of the Center for
Voting and Democracy replied and suggested that IRV be run two times.
Once to elect one member and a second time to elect the second member,
bypassing the name of the first winner during the routine of the
second run of IRV."

And Craig replied: "It does sound quite bad."


Donald here:  Hello Craig, good to see that we agree on something.

For the sake of a discussion I am going to give Dan's two seat method the
name of `Dan's Folly'.

It was no accident that I placed Dan's Folly after the text of your method
you call `2 winner 3 candidate IFPP'.  It was put there on purpose for you
and others to realize that the two methods were exactly the same.

Yes Craig, if you are the `Gifted Mathematician' that some love struck
female thinks you are, then you should have seen this to be true.  Maybe
you are also love struck, and being as love is blind, you have the perfect
excuse for not seeing things - you're off the hook.

Anyway, putting your love life aside, I will continue.

The two methods have all parts exactly the same:
    * They both use ranked ballots.
    * They both are two seat election methods.
    * They both elect the first candidate that has more than a quota.
      While IRV does not have an official quota, in this case the
      IRV first winner does win by more than what would be a quota.
    * They both transfer all ballots of the first winner to the next
      preferences.
    * They both elect the next leading candidate after the transfer
      as the second elected member.

The two methods are exactly the same, and being as we agree that one is
`quite bad', it only follows that both are quite bad.  A bad method by any
other name will still be bad.  Craig's Folly and Dan's Folly are two peas
in a pod.

You don't need to be a `Gifted Mathematician' to understand the math of
this logic. "If two methods are equal, then whatever is one of the methods,
the other method is the same."

This is the failure of your Craig's Folly `under a correct rule'.


Donald,




From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Mon Dec 29 22:45:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Mon Dec 29 22:45:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
In-Reply-To: <3FF06F95.8036802A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <20031229204134.87773.qmail@web13803.mail.yahoo.com>

Anthony Duff wrote:
>I made the suggestion on the basis of:
>where Markus Schulze wrote"
>"In another paper, Woodall proves that no election method can
>simultaneously meet later-no-harm, later-no-help, monotonicity,
>and mutual majority. Therefore, the fact that Minimax(pairwise
>opposition) violates mutual majority in such a drastic manner
>can be considered a consequence of the fact that it meets
>later-no-harm, later-no-help, and monotonicity."

I see; I didn't think you might be talking about opposition instead
of defeats.  Sorry.

Seems clear to me now.  Inserting a strict preference among candidates
otherwise ranked last can only hurt the candidates who remain last.

 --- Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de> a ?crit?: 
> Hallo,
> 
> suppose N is the number of candidates. Suppose d[i,j]
> with i <> j is the number of voters who strictly prefer
> candidate i to candidate j. Suppose d[i,j] : = 0 for i = j.
> Suppose d[i] : = max { d[i,j] | j = 1,...,N }.
> 
> Then Minimax(pairwise opposition) chooses the candidate i
> with minimal d[i].

Perhaps I am a flaming idiot, but shouldn't it be
d[i] := max { d[j,i] | j = 1,...,N }
?  You want votes against i, not i's votes against others, don't
you?

> 
> Minimax(pairwise opposition) satisfies later-no-harm because
> ranking an additional candidate can only increase but not
> decrease d[k] for every not ranked candidate k. However,
> my claim that Minimax(pairwise opposition) satisfies
> later-no-help was incorrect.

I can see this now, too.  Worsening someone's score could happen
to make a preferred candidate into the winner.  That is surely why
random filling always makes more sense than truncation.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 30 00:06:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 30 00:06:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Defensive truncation in wv Condorcet
Message-ID: <LAW10-F4556FtZo1P4l00065041@hotmail.com>

Kevin Venzke wrote:

I can see this now, too.  Worsening someone's score could happen
to make a preferred candidate into the winner.  That is surely why
random filling always makes more sense than truncation.

I reply:

Not always. If there's a danger or likelihooid of offensive order-reversal, 
and you want to deter it, then leave out of your ranking the candidate(s) 
whose voters are considering offensive order-reversal. Announce before the 
election that you are doing so and that you ask others to do so.

Mike Ossipoff

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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 30 01:16:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 30 01:16:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
Message-ID: <3FF12E33.7ED6ABCF@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Kevin,

you wrote (29 Dec 2003):
> Shouldn't it be d[i] := max { d[j,i] | j = 1,...,N } ?

Yes. You are right.

Markus Schulze


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Tue Dec 30 13:20:01 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Tue Dec 30 13:20:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Defensive truncation in wv Condorcet
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-F4556FtZo1P4l00065041@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031230211825.15833.qmail@web13803.mail.yahoo.com>

Mike,

My remarks were about MinMax (Pairwise Opposition), which elects the
candidate who minimizes the maximum votes against him in any pairwise
contest (be it victory or defeat).

Admittedly I don't know much about offensive strategy for this method.
Burial seems potentially effective.  But truncation doesn't appear to
be a useful strategy of any kind in "MMPO."

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr

 --- MIKE OSSIPOFF <nkklrp at hotmail.com> a ?crit?: > 
> Kevin Venzke wrote:
> 
> I can see this now, too.  Worsening someone's score could happen
> to make a preferred candidate into the winner.  That is surely why
> random filling always makes more sense than truncation.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Not always. If there's a danger or likelihooid of offensive order-reversal, 
> and you want to deter it, then leave out of your ranking the candidate(s) 
> whose voters are considering offensive order-reversal. Announce before the 
> election that you are doing so and that you ask others to do so.
> 
> Mike Ossipoff


_________________________________________________________________
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From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Tue Dec 30 13:48:11 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Tue Dec 30 13:48:11 2003
Subject: [EM] MinMax definition, Tideman properties
In-Reply-To: <3FF12E33.7ED6ABCF@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <20031230214751.71965.qmail@web13806.mail.yahoo.com>

Markus,

In Woodall's "Properties of single-winner preferential election rules II,"
bottom of page 11, the last paragraph reads:

"MinAGS (Minimum Augmented Gross Score) is also well-known as the minimax
method, abbreviated MM in [Monotonicity of single-seat preferential election
rules].  It elects the candidate X with the largest minimum augmented
gross score minags(X), which is the same as the candidate with the largest
minimum net score minns(X)."

The "augmented gross score" of A over B should be the number of voters
ranking A>B plus half the number of votes not distinguishing the two.

Despite the name "minimax," this definition looks for the maximum minimum.
This has confused me for some time.  Does the definition look right to
you?

Also, do you have an opinion as to whether Woodall is aware of Tideman(WV)?
He defines TidAGS and TidGS which to me appear to be Margins and All-Votes
respectively (page 14).  TidGS is supposed to have equivalent properties to
"D min GS," which is charted (page 17) as failing Condorcet.

Thanks for any help.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 30 18:43:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 30 18:43:02 2003
Subject: [EM] MinMax definition, Tideman properties
Message-ID: <3FF2373F.DB4E431B@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Kevin,

Woodall uses the following terminology:

   v is the number of voters.

   g(x,y) is the number of voters who strictly prefer
   candidate x to candidate y.

   n (x,y) := g(x,y) - g(y,x).
   g1(x,y) := 0.5 * [v + n(x,y)].
   g2(x,y) := v - g(y,x).

   mings(x)   := min { g (x,y) : y e C \ {x} }.
   minags(x)  := min { g1(x,y) : y e C \ {x} }.
   mindags(x) := min { g2(x,y) : y e C \ {x} }.
   minns(x)   := min { n (x,y) : y e C \ {x} } = 0.5 * [v + minags(x)].

   MinAGS (Minimum Augmented Gross Score) is also well known as the
   minimax method. It elects the candidate x with the largest minimum
   augmented gross score minags(x), which is the same as the candidate
   with the largest minimum net score minns(x).
   MinDAGS (Minimum Doubly Augmented Gross Score) elects the candidate
   x with the largest minimum doubly augmented gross score mindags(x).

******

So when we compare Woodall's terminology with the terminology used
in this mailing list then "g1" is "margins" and "g2" is "Minus Pairwise
Opposition". "MinAGS" is "MinMax(Margins)" and "MinDAGS" is
"MinMax(Pairwise Opposition)".

You wrote (30 Dec 2003):
> Despite the name "minimax," this definition looks for the maximum
> minimum. This has confused me for some time.  Does the definition
> look right to you?

When "margins" is being used then it is the same whether you use
the minimum maximum or the maximum minimum.

The reason why Woodall uses the maximum minimum in the definition
of "MinDAGS" is that he defines "mindags(x)" in such a manner that
mindags(x) decreases with increasing pairwise opposition because
of his definition of "g2".

******

You wrote (30 Dec 2003):
> Also, do you have an opinion as to whether Woodall is aware of
> Tideman(WV)? He defines TidAGS and TidGS which to me appear to be
> Margins and All-Votes respectively (page 14).  TidGS is supposed
> to have equivalent properties to "D min GS," which is charted
> (page 17) as failing Condorcet.

There is no need to define Tideman(WV). Already the fact that the
g(x,y) are sorted according to their strengths and that each g(x,y)
is taken in turn until you have a complete ranking of all candidates,
guarantees that those g(i,j) with g(i,j) < g(j,i) will never be
taken into consideration. I don't see yet why TidGS and TidDAGS
fail Condorcet(net) in table 2.

Markus Schulze


From moore3t1 at cox.net  Tue Dec 30 19:05:14 2003
From: moore3t1 at cox.net (Richard Moore)
Date: Tue Dec 30 19:05:14 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #405 - 5 msgs
In-Reply-To: <20031230200142.1136.41484.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
References: <20031230200142.1136.41484.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <3FF23C65.4070404@cox.net>

Donald Davison wrote:
> The two methods [2-pass IRV or "Dan's Folly", and 2-winner 3-candidate IFPP or "Craig's Folly"]
 > have all parts exactly the same:
>     * They both use ranked ballots.
>     * They both are two seat election methods.
>     * They both elect the first candidate that has more than a quota.
>       While IRV does not have an official quota, in this case the
>       IRV first winner does win by more than what would be a quota.
>     * They both transfer all ballots of the first winner to the next
>       preferences.
>     * They both elect the next leading candidate after the transfer
>       as the second elected member.
> 
> The two methods are exactly the same, and being as we agree that one is
> `quite bad', it only follows that both are quite bad.  A bad method by any
> other name will still be bad.  Craig's Folly and Dan's Folly are two peas
> in a pod.

Can anybody spot the flaw in Donald's logic here? In fact all of 
Donald's statements are true, but he reached an unsupported conclusion.

This is a subtle non sequitur. In the fourth statement, Donald says 
"They both transfer all ballots of the first winner to the next 
preferences." This is true. However, the "first winner" is not always 
the same in both methods.

Consider the following case:

32: ACB
64: BAC
33: CBA

The first winner in IRV is C. C's first place votes transfer to B. The 
second winner is B.

The first winner in IFPP is B. B's first place votes transfer to A. 
The second winner is A.

> You don't need to be a `Gifted Mathematician' to understand the math of
> this logic.

I guess the irony of this statement is unintentional.

  -- Richard



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 30 23:22:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 30 23:22:02 2003
Subject: [EM] "MinMax" can mean almost anything
Message-ID: <Law10-F34NM0bYagF1H00003637@hotmail.com>

Kevin said:

My remarks were about MinMax (Pairwise Opposition), which elects the
candidate who minimizes the maximum votes against him in any pairwise
contest (be it victory or defeat).

I repy:

I thought you were referring to PC, because some people on this list call PC 
"MinMax".

You see, this is why I've tried to discourage "MinMax" as a name for PC: 
"MinMax" is used with too many different meanings for it to be of any use as 
the name of a count method.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Working moms: Find helpful tips here on managing kids, home, work ?  and 
yourself.   http://special.msn.com/msnbc/workingmom.armx



From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Wed Dec 31 13:10:10 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Wed Dec 31 13:10:10 2003
Subject: [EM] "MinMax" can mean almost anything
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F34NM0bYagF1H00003637@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031231210926.25550.qmail@web13802.mail.yahoo.com>

Mike,

 --- MIKE OSSIPOFF <nkklrp at hotmail.com> a ?crit?: > 
> Kevin said:
> 
> My remarks were about MinMax (Pairwise Opposition), which elects the
> candidate who minimizes the maximum votes against him in any pairwise
> contest (be it victory or defeat).
> 
> I repy:
> 
> I thought you were referring to PC, because some people on this list call PC 
> "MinMax".
> 
> You see, this is why I've tried to discourage "MinMax" as a name for PC: 
> "MinMax" is used with too many different meanings for it to be of any use as 
> the name of a count method.

I have in the past used "MMPO" for "MinMax (Pairwise Opposition)."  If it
hasn't caught on, it's probably because I'm the only one who ever advocated it 
(with approval ballots).

I think "MinMax" is a good name for "PC" because it's descriptive.  Perhaps
it could be made more descriptive, though.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


_________________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais !
Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Wed Dec 31 13:39:01 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Wed Dec 31 13:39:01 2003
Subject: [EM] MinMax definition, Tideman properties
In-Reply-To: <3FF2373F.DB4E431B@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <20031231213747.29874.qmail@web13803.mail.yahoo.com>

Markus,

Thank you, that was helpful.

 --- Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de> a ?crit?: 
> Dear Kevin,
> 
> Woodall uses the following terminology:
>    g(x,y) is the number of voters who strictly prefer
>    candidate x to candidate y.
> 
>    mings(x)   := min { g (x,y) : y e C \ {x} }.

"mings" seems to be a rather useless figure.  If you clone a candidate
X to get X and Y, such that no voter distinguishes between X and Y,
mings(x) drops suddenly to 0.

> When "margins" is being used then it is the same whether you use
> the minimum maximum or the maximum minimum.
> 
> The reason why Woodall uses the maximum minimum in the definition
> of "MinDAGS" is that he defines "mindags(x)" in such a manner that
> mindags(x) decreases with increasing pairwise opposition because
> of his definition of "g2".

Ok.  I hadn't even attempted to figure out what MinDAGS was.

> There is no need to define Tideman(WV). Already the fact that the
> g(x,y) are sorted according to their strengths and that each g(x,y)
> is taken in turn until you have a complete ranking of all candidates,
> guarantees that those g(i,j) with g(i,j) < g(j,i) will never be
> taken into consideration. I don't see yet why TidGS and TidDAGS
> fail Condorcet(net) in table 2.

Ok.  So WV and All-Votes are equivalent with Tideman, but not Schulze.

I believe Woodall made a mistake.  It's clear that "D min GS" doesn't
meet Condorcet(net).  It is (page 18):

"DminGS is the set-intersection method in which each set X is given its
minimum gross score mings(X), defined by mings(X):=min{g(x,y) : x e X,
y e C \ X}."

Unlike TidGS, losing opposition votes can affect the winner.  So perhaps
Woodall didn't realize this is not the case with TidGS.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


_________________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais !
Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com


From barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu  Mon Dec  1 16:15:30 2003
From: barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu (Steve Barney)
Date: Mon Dec  1 16:15:30 2003
Subject: [EM] "Consequences of Reversing Preferences"
Message-ID: <3FC91D60@webmail.uwosh.edu>

EM-List:

The following article grew out of a discussion of the "Reversal Symmetry 
Criterion," which I engaged in on this list 2 years ago 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/8272>.


Cheers!,
Steve Barney
Oshkosh, WI

PS: Note the 2nd author (me!).

  _____

Record: 1

Title: 	Consequences of Reversing Preferences.	
Author(s): 	Saari, Donald G. 1 dsarri at math.uci.edu

Barney, Steven 2 barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu 
Source: 	Mathematical Intelligencer; Fall2003, Vol. 25 Issue 4,
p17, 15p	
Document Type: 	Article	
Subject(s): 	RIKER, William

MATHEMATICAL analysis

MATHEMATICS

POLITICAL science

ELECTIONS 
Abstract: 	Reports on mathematical problems faced while declaring
the outcomes of an election. Impact of reversing the election ranking of
candidates on the outcome of an election; Positional methods used by
mathematician William Riker to address problems related to political
science; Mathematical ways to find out the reversed profile of a
candidate.	
Author Affiliation: 	1Department of Mathematics, University of
California Irvine, Irvine CA 92697-3875 USA.

2Department of Mathematics, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI
54901-863, USA.
ISSN: 	03436993	
Accession Number: 	11050766
 	
Persistent Link to this Article:
http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=11050766&db=afh
 	
Cut and Paste: <A
href="http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=11050766&db=afh">Consequence
s of Reversing Preferences.</A>
 	
Database:	Academic Search Elite	
Notes:	Polk Library owns this journal in print or microform
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From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Mon Dec  1 17:42:28 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Mon Dec  1 17:42:28 2003
Subject: [EM] Weak FBC  and  equal-ranking-allowed  IRV
Message-ID: <3FCC02C9.1080903@bigpond.com>

  Dave,
A while back you were having a discussion with  Kevin Venzke (and 
 Donald) about how, if allowed,
equal-ranking  in IRV should be handled. Your most recent contribution:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-October/011085.html
On Mon.Oct.20, 2003  I  posted something pointing out that  whole-votes 
 equal-ranking-allowed IRV
doesn't really comply with weak FBC, but I finished with the sentence:

"I agree that the whole votes version is better because it does greatly
ameliorate the "favourite betrayal" problem."

I have changed my mind, and now agree with you that the split-votes version
is better. I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting
AB and the other half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting
A=B, and also that it is unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates
A and B by all voting either AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared
to a faction who support candidates C and D by all voting C=D.
Off-list, someone told me:
"Incidentally, Woodall calls "Symmetric-Completion" the ability to treat equal
equal rankings (or at least truncation) as equivalent to an equal mixture of every
possible strict ordering.  He speaks of methods passing or failing this standard..."
I like it.
 Whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed IRV is far too Approval-like,and I suggest that
it be called "Preferential Approval". It is not even clear to me that there is a 
better strategy in it than just giving out first preferences to all the candidates
you would approve under Approval.
Inspired by Kevin Venzke's high-resolution ratings ballot "Gradual Information Approval"
idea, I posted plain ranked-ballot "Gradual Information Runoff":
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-September/011003.html
In it I mentioned "equal preferences ok" and "no split votes". I have changed my mind 
about that and now think that if equal preferences (besides truncation) is allowed then
the vote should be split, so that each voter contributes no more than one vote in total
to candidates not marked "not viable". I could live with equal prefernces (except for
truncation) simply not being allowed. Compared to IRV, GIR trades in a little bit of
later-no-harm for a little bit of Condorcet compliance. With 3 candidates, it is 
equivalent to IRV.
I found this in the archives:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/1998-October/002214.html
In it is erroneously claimed that the split-votes version of equal-ranking IRV 
(and also,in effect, the normal equal-ranking not allowed version) fails "GITC"
(Generalised Independence from Twins Criterion), and has a "rich party" problem.
Elsewhere this fellow says that a "twin" is the same thing as a "clone", and gives 
this definition:
"clones 

A set of alternatives, X[1], X[2], .. X[m] is a clone set provided that for


every alternative Z, where Z is not one of X[1], .. X[m], the following is
true: 

Every ballot that ranks Z higher than one of X[1] .. X[m] ranks Z higher than
all of them.  Every ballot that ranks Z lower than one of them, ranks Z lower
than all of them.  No ballot ranks Z equal to any of them. 

As well, there must be at least one alternative outside the set of clones,
and at least two alternatives in the set of clones."

So therefore GTIC must be the same as Clone Independence, or as he puts it, this:

"Name:  Independence of Clones Criterion: ICC 

  Definition:  

  If there are alternatives X1, X2 ... Xn that are a 
 clone set <http://condorcet.org/emr/defn.shtml#clones>, and if one of these clones is 
 eliminated <http://condorcet.org/emr/defn.shtml#eliminate> from every ballot, then, if the winner for the old ballots 
was in the clone set, the winner for the new ballots must also be in the clone
set.  If an alternative outside the clone set won for the old ballots, the
same alternative must win for the new ballots."

Part of his post goes:
"2.  Give each of the alternatives an equal fraction of the vote.
So, for example, once A=B=C reaches the top of the ballot (through
elimination), each of A, B, and C will get 1/3 of a vote.  Once one
of them is eliminated, the each get 1/2.  And finally when two are
eliminated, 1.

This doesn't appear to have the problem I mentioned above, but it does
fail GITC.
Candidates are A and B, which are not twins, X and Y, which are. 

42 A B X Y
30 B X Y A
27 X=Y=B A
32 X Y B A
31 Y X B A"

X wins, but if Y is not there B wins. And so he concludes:
"So, having a twin caused X to win.  This is called the rich party problem 
because it means that parties that can afford to run more candidates will 
have an unfair advantage."

The big flaw in this argument is that the clone set is BXY.

 He continues:
"3. Just don't allow equal rankings, except by leaving candidates unranked.
This is the most obvious solution.  It is possible that the electorate
wouldn't understand, and use, equal rankings anyway.  And it passes
GITC.

Unfortunately, it passes GITC for the same kind of technical reasons
that make plurality pass GITC.  That is, because voters are forced
to distinguish between candidates randomly, even if they have no
preference, they will break up what based on their true preferences,
are twins.  However, the rich party problem remains."

Here I think that he is improperly classifying Plurality as not a ranked-ballot
method.

Chris Benham 










 





From dglaude at gmx.net  Mon Dec  1 19:43:27 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Mon Dec  1 19:43:27 2003
Subject: [EM] NI: making sense of the maths
Message-ID: <3FCBBEBE.6020209@gmx.net>

Please notice that I don't have a clue on the various advanced voting 
methods. ;-)

But I found this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/3243636.stm

As the count is underway BBC Parliament considers the electoral system 
for the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 determined that elections to the 108 
seat assembly should be by the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system.

This form of proportional representation (PR) was deemed most suitable 
for reflecting the voting preferences of diverse constituencies choosing 
from a variety of parties.

David GLAUDE






From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Mon Dec  1 22:52:01 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Mon Dec  1 22:52:01 2003
Subject: [EM] [Fwd: Weak FBC  and  equal-ranking-allowed  IRV]
Message-ID: <3FCCDFDE.3010800@bigpond.com>



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Weak FBC and equal-ranking-allowed IRV
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 13:41:05 +1030
From: Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com>
To: davek at clarityconnect.com, 
election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com



Dave,
A while back you were having a discussion with  Kevin Venzke (and Donald) about how,
if allowed,equal-ranking  in IRV should be handled. Your most recent contribution:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-October/011085.html
On Mon.Oct.20, 2003  I  posted something pointing out that  whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed 
IRV doesn't really comply with weak FBC, but I finished with the sentence:

"I agree that the whole votes version is better because it does greatly
ameliorate the "favourite betrayal" problem."

I have changed my mind, and now agree with you that the split-votes version is better. 
I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting AB and the other 
half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting A=B, and also that it is 
unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates A and B by all voting either 
AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared to a faction who support candidates 
C and D by all voting C=D.
Off-list, someone told me:
"Incidentally, Woodall calls "Symmetric-Completion" the ability to treat equal
equal rankings (or at least truncation) as equivalent to an equal mixture of every
possible strict ordering.  He speaks of methods passing or failing this standard..."
I like it.
 Whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed IRV is far too Approval-like,and I suggest that
it be called "Preferential Approval". It is not even clear to me that there is a 
better strategy in it than just giving out first preferences to all the candidates
you would approve under Approval.
Inspired by Kevin Venzke's high-resolution ratings ballot "Gradual Information Approval"
idea, I posted plain ranked-ballot "Gradual Information Runoff":
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-September/011003.html
In it I mentioned "equal preferences ok" and "no split votes". I have changed my mind 
about that and now think that if equal preferences (besides truncation) is allowed then
the vote should be split, so that each voter contributes no more than one vote in total
to candidates not marked "not viable". I could live with equal prefernces (except for
truncation) simply not being allowed. Compared to IRV, GIR trades in a little bit of
later-no-harm for a little bit of Condorcet compliance. With 3 candidates, it is 
equivalent to IRV.
I found this in the archives:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/1998-October/002214.html
In it is erroneously claimed that the split-votes version of equal-ranking IRV 
(and also,in effect, the normal equal-ranking not allowed version) fails "GITC"
(Generalised Independence from Twins Criterion), and has a "rich party" problem.
Elsewhere this fellow says that a "twin" is the same thing as a "clone", and gives 
this definition:
"clones 

A set of alternatives, X[1], X[2], .. X[m] is a clone set provided that for


every alternative Z, where Z is not one of X[1], .. X[m], the following is
true: 

Every ballot that ranks Z higher than one of X[1] .. X[m] ranks Z higher than
all of them.  Every ballot that ranks Z lower than one of them, ranks Z lower
than all of them.  No ballot ranks Z equal to any of them. 

As well, there must be at least one alternative outside the set of clones,
and at least two alternatives in the set of clones."

So therefore GTIC must be the same as Clone Independence, or as he puts it, this:

"Name:  Independence of Clones Criterion: ICC 

  Definition:  

  If there are alternatives X1, X2 ... Xn that are a 
 clone set , and if one of these clones is 
 eliminated  from every ballot, then, if the winner for the old ballots 
was in the clone set, the winner for the new ballots must also be in the clone
set.  If an alternative outside the clone set won for the old ballots, the
same alternative must win for the new ballots."

Part of his post goes:
"2.  Give each of the alternatives an equal fraction of the vote.
So, for example, once A=B=C reaches the top of the ballot (through
elimination), each of A, B, and C will get 1/3 of a vote.  Once one
of them is eliminated, the each get 1/2.  And finally when two are
eliminated, 1.

This doesn't appear to have the problem I mentioned above, but it does
fail GITC.
Candidates are A and B, which are not twins, X and Y, which are. 

42 A B X Y
30 B X Y A
27 X=Y=B A
32 X Y B A
31 Y X B A"

X wins, but if Y is not there B wins. And so he concludes:
"So, having a twin caused X to win.  This is called the rich party problem 
because it means that parties that can afford to run more candidates will 
have an unfair advantage."

The big flaw in this argument is that the clone set is BXY.

 He continues:
"3. Just don't allow equal rankings, except by leaving candidates unranked.
This is the most obvious solution.  It is possible that the electorate
wouldn't understand, and use, equal rankings anyway.  And it passes
GITC.

Unfortunately, it passes GITC for the same kind of technical reasons
that make plurality pass GITC.  That is, because voters are forced
to distinguish between candidates randomly, even if they have no
preference, they will break up what based on their true preferences,
are twins.  However, the rich party problem remains."

Here I think that he is improperly classifying Plurality as not a ranked-ballot
method.

Chris Benham 










 




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From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Mon Dec  1 23:16:02 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Mon Dec  1 23:16:02 2003
Subject: [EM]  Re: Weak FBC  and  equal-ranking-allowed  IRV
Message-ID: <3FCCE509.2040901@bigpond.com>



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [EM] Weak FBC and equal-ranking-allowed IRV
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2003 05:37:20 +1030
From: Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com>
To: election-methods-electorama.com-request at electorama.com





-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Fwd: Weak FBC and equal-ranking-allowed IRV]
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2003 05:24:22 +1030
From: Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com>
To: election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com





-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Weak FBC and equal-ranking-allowed IRV
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 13:41:05 +1030
From: Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com>
To: davek at clarityconnect.com, 
election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com



Dave,
A while back you were having a discussion with  Kevin Venzke (and Donald) about how,
if allowed,equal-ranking  in IRV should be handled. Your most recent contribution:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-October/011085.html
On Mon.Oct.20, 2003  I  posted something pointing out that  whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed 
IRV doesn't really comply with weak FBC, but I finished with the sentence:

"I agree that the whole votes version is better because it does greatly
ameliorate the "favourite betrayal" problem."

I have changed my mind, and now agree with you that the split-votes version is better. 
I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting AB and the other 
half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting A=B, and also that it is 
unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates A and B by all voting either 
AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared to a faction who support candidates 
C and D by all voting C=D.
Off-list, someone told me:
"Incidentally, Woodall calls "Symmetric-Completion" the ability to treat equal
equal rankings (or at least truncation) as equivalent to an equal mixture of every
possible strict ordering.  He speaks of methods passing or failing this standard..."
I like it.
 Whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed IRV is far too Approval-like,and I suggest that
it be called "Preferential Approval". It is not even clear to me that there is a 
better strategy in it than just giving out first preferences to all the candidates
you would approve under Approval.
Inspired by Kevin Venzke's high-resolution ratings ballot "Gradual Information Approval"
idea, I posted plain ranked-ballot "Gradual Information Runoff":
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-September/011003.html
In it I mentioned "equal preferences ok" and "no split votes". I have changed my mind 
about that and now think that if equal preferences (besides truncation) is allowed then
the vote should be split, so that each voter contributes no more than one vote in total
to candidates not marked "not viable". I could live with equal prefernces (except for
truncation) simply not being allowed. Compared to IRV, GIR trades in a little bit of
later-no-harm for a little bit of Condorcet compliance. With 3 candidates, it is 
equivalent to IRV.
I found this in the archives:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/1998-October/002214.html
In it is erroneously claimed that the split-votes version of equal-ranking IRV 
(and also,in effect, the normal equal-ranking not allowed version) fails "GITC"
(Generalised Independence from Twins Criterion), and has a "rich party" problem.
Elsewhere this fellow says that a "twin" is the same thing as a "clone", and gives 
this definition:
"clones 

A set of alternatives, X[1], X[2], .. X[m] is a clone set provided that for


every alternative Z, where Z is not one of X[1], .. X[m], the following is
true: 

Every ballot that ranks Z higher than one of X[1] .. X[m] ranks Z higher than
all of them.  Every ballot that ranks Z lower than one of them, ranks Z lower
than all of them.  No ballot ranks Z equal to any of them. 

As well, there must be at least one alternative outside the set of clones,
and at least two alternatives in the set of clones."

So therefore GTIC must be the same as Clone Independence, or as he puts it, this:

"Name:  Independence of Clones Criterion: ICC 

  Definition:  

  If there are alternatives X1, X2 ... Xn that are a 
 clone set , and if one of these clones is 
 eliminated  from every ballot, then, if the winner for the old ballots 
was in the clone set, the winner for the new ballots must also be in the clone
set.  If an alternative outside the clone set won for the old ballots, the
same alternative must win for the new ballots."

Part of his post goes:
"2.  Give each of the alternatives an equal fraction of the vote.
So, for example, once A=B=C reaches the top of the ballot (through
elimination), each of A, B, and C will get 1/3 of a vote.  Once one
of them is eliminated, the each get 1/2.  And finally when two are
eliminated, 1.

This doesn't appear to have the problem I mentioned above, but it does
fail GITC.
Candidates are A and B, which are not twins, X and Y, which are. 

42 A B X Y
30 B X Y A
27 X=Y=B A
32 X Y B A
31 Y X B A"

X wins, but if Y is not there B wins. And so he concludes:
"So, having a twin caused X to win.  This is called the rich party problem 
because it means that parties that can afford to run more candidates will 
have an unfair advantage."

The big flaw in this argument is that the clone set is BXY.

 He continues:
"3. Just don't allow equal rankings, except by leaving candidates unranked.
This is the most obvious solution.  It is possible that the electorate
wouldn't understand, and use, equal rankings anyway.  And it passes
GITC.

Unfortunately, it passes GITC for the same kind of technical reasons
that make plurality pass GITC.  That is, because voters are forced
to distinguish between candidates randomly, even if they have no
preference, they will break up what based on their true preferences,
are twins.  However, the rich party problem remains."

Here I think that he is improperly classifying Plurality as not a ranked-ballot
method.

Chris Benham 










 




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From jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk  Tue Dec  2 01:36:01 2003
From: jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk (James Gilmour)
Date: Tue Dec  2 01:36:01 2003
Subject: [EM] NI: making sense of the maths
In-Reply-To: <3FCBBEBE.6020209@gmx.net>
Message-ID: <000a01c3b8b7$9aab9d50$227d063e@u2amd>

You will find full details of STV-PR on the Electoral Reform Society's website at:
 http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/

The arithmetic is not complex, just tedious.
James



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec  2 06:13:05 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec  2 06:13:05 2003
Subject: [EM] "Consequences of Reversing Preferences"
Message-ID: <3FCC9D94.DE2C234@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Steve,

I have just read your paper:
http://hypatia.ss.uci.edu/imbs/tr/Final1.pdf

I am very disappointed that you mention neither
Tideman's ranked pairs method nor my beatpath
method in your paper. The ordinary reader will
get to the conclusion that all election methods
that satisfy reversal symmetry have some serious
drawbacks.

Markus Schulze


From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Tue Dec  2 15:28:02 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Tue Dec  2 15:28:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Another kind of approval equilibrium
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312021407160.6749-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

I have been considering various kinds of approval equilibria which have
the following common features:

(1) The candidates C1, C2, ... are considered to have respective
probabilities, P1, P2, ... of winning.

(2) Voter rankings or ratings are converted to approval ballots based on
these probabilities.

(3) The resulting approval ballots somehow confirm the prior probabilities
P1, P2, ... .

This kind of equilibrium is stable if it can be obtained by a process of
iteration of these three steps, where the "confirmation" in step three
improves despite round-off and other perturbations.

The hardest part is figuring out how to get winning probabilities out of a
set of approval ballots, since most of the time one candidate will have
greater approval than the others, and that would seem to make the
posterior winning probability for that candidate 100%, which turns out to
be problematic for various reasons that I won't bore you with in this
message.

For a while I was considering making winning probabilities proportional to
the tenth power of the candidates' approvals, so that a candidate with any
approval at all would have some positive chance of winning.

After rejecting that, I considered having winning probabilities
proportional to the number of approval votes above some quota, which could
even be tied to the highest approval: any candidate that gets within 10%
of the highest approval candidate gets a positive chance of winning, for
example.

These methods require a final drawing in which the respective candidates'
probabilities of winning are P1, P2, etc.

Until recently I didn't see anyway of avoiding this drawing, since just
picking the candidate with the highest probability would not be a true
equilibrium solution except in the case of P = 100 percent.

Why not just trust the polls?

Well polls don't really tell us winning probabilities; they just give us
approval counts from samples.

Is there any way to determine winning probabilities from mere approval
counts?

Only if there are no significant correlations among candidate preferences.

What if the polls accurately report the correlations as well, "30% of
those who approved A also approved B, etc?"

That would be better, especially if the polled voters are reporting their
approvals after hearing accurate approval results (including correlations)
from previous polls.

In other words, this is the kind of thing that improves with iteration.

So why not just collect the voters' CR ballots, and simulate the
iteration of polls until an equilibrium is reached (if there is one)?

That is roughly my current idea, but (as they say), "The devil is in the
details."

How does this avoid the drawing at the end?

Instead of "enforcing" the probabilities with a drawing, we just interpret
the non-zero probabilities as saying that in statistically similar
populations of voters, these other candidates have significant chances of
winning.


To Be Continued ...

Forest



From matt at tidalwave.net  Wed Dec  3 18:31:05 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Wed Dec  3 18:31:05 2003
Subject: [EM] Verifiable secure voting using dual half pixel receipts
Message-ID: <20031204022944.35CC5394C@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Thu Dec  4 15:32:10 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Thu Dec  4 15:32:10 2003
Subject: [EM] Another kind of approval equilibrium
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312021407160.6749-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312041335490.29534-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

This is a second installment on this topic.

In the first post on this topic, I finished with a claim that there is a
way to get around the final random drawing step (i.e. the "enforcing" of
the equilibrium probabilities) that was a feature of my previous
equilibrium methods.

The key idea that obviates the necessity of that drawing is the use of an
ensemble of statistically close ballot sets to find the probabilities.

Roughly speaking, suppose that E is a large (and randomly chosen)
collection of ballot sets which are close statistically to some ballot set
S of approval ballots, and suppose that candidate X is the approval winner
in 37 percent of the members of E. Then BEFORE tallying up the ballots of
collection S we could argue that X has about a 37 percent chance of being
the approval winner of ballot set S.

Furthermore, if the members of E are so close to S that it would be
difficult to distinguish them by any pre-election poll, then the 37
percent figure would be more reliable than any pre-election poll estimate.

There are many ways to generate a suitable ensemble E from a ballot set S,
but here is a simple method that is probably adequate:

Let N be the number of ballots in the ballot set S.

To get one member of E, randomly draw N ballots from S. Of course this
drawing must be "with replacement" in order to get anything different from
S itself.

To get additional members for E, repeat the procedure (using different
seeds for your random number generator).

At the risk of straining your patience, I wish to point out that if this
simple method of generating E is used, then it isn't really necessary to
generate E after all.  We can consider the ideal case of E consisting of
(one each of) all N^N possible results of such a drawing, and figure the
candidates' winning frequencies analytically from the statistics of the
ballot set S.

If S is a set of approval ballots, then the relevant statistics are the
sample means and covariances of the candidate approvals, a set of
M*(M+1)/2 numbers if there are M candidates.  Furthermore these statistics
are summable over the ballots.

One might object that once we know the approval means for S we know the
winner, so it doesn't make sense to consider the calculated frequencies as
probabilities.

In reply I enjoin you to remember that these statistics are unavailable to
the voters at the time of voting, but if they did have access to these
frequencies through some oracle, their best strategy would be to use them
exactly as they would bonafide probabilities.

Now leaving behind these technical and philosophical details, suppose that
we start with a set of N cardinal ratings (CR) ballots which rate M
candidates.

1. Initialize all winning probabilities P1, P2, ... as 1/M.

While no candidate has 100 percent probability of winning do

2. Use winning probabilities P1, P2, ...  and the "above the mean"
strategy to generate a set S of approval ballots.

3. Use this set S to update winning probabilities P1, P2, ... as per our
discussion above.

Repeat these two steps until the updated probabilities are within some
preset tolerance of the previous estimates.

4. Declare as winner the candidate with the most approval in the ballot
set S, as last updated in step 2 before exiting the loop.


That's my idea in a nutshell. Of course there are many possible
variations, including versions based on ranked ballots.

One variation that doesn't involve iteration would be to use Rob LeGrand's
ballot-by-ballot method one hundred times on the original set of ranked
ballots to get a reasonable estimate of the equilibrium probabilities, and
then use Joe Weinstein's "weighted median" method on ranked ballots for
the final outcome if the same candidate didn't win all one hundred times.


Forest



From robla at robla.net  Fri Dec  5 01:28:02 2003
From: robla at robla.net (Rob Lanphier)
Date: Fri Dec  5 01:28:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Appeal for better weblog polling (Electorama)
Message-ID: <3FCEFDA9.4080609@robla.net>

Hi all,

I'm all giddy because I've received the first external submission to the 
Electorama weblog (http://electorama.com/)

Here's an excerpt:
Crude Polling Hampers Sophisticated Political Discussions 
<http://electorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=54&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0>
wegerje writes: "/Internet based political discussion has become quite 
fashionable these days. The onset of the U.S. political season combined 
with the explosion of weblogs (Blogs) has created vibrant political 
websites. [..] A quick survey of the polls by anyone familiar with 
voting systems will soon reveal a glaring weakness among them, namely 
the acute need for multiple-choice and ranked polls./" Read more for an 
appeal to create better software for weblog polls.

http://electorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=54&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

I'm not sure if the author (Jeff Wegerson) is on this list, but his 
contact info is in the article, and I would presume he'll monitor a 
discussion up on Electorama should one develop.

Rob




From kjinnovation at earthlink.net  Fri Dec  5 02:45:02 2003
From: kjinnovation at earthlink.net (Ken Johnson)
Date: Fri Dec  5 02:45:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #374 - 1 msg
In-Reply-To: <20031204200230.27595.97766.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
References: <20031204200230.27595.97766.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <3FD06162.2090005@earthlink.net>


election-methods-electorama.com-request at electorama.com wrote:

>Message: 1
>From: matt at tidalwave.net
>Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 18:29:44 -0800 (PST)
>To: election-methods at electorama.com
>Subject: [EM] Verifiable secure voting using dual half pixel receipts
>Reply-To: matt at tidalwave.net
>
>Ken Johnson wrote:
>"As I understand it, a ballot receipt contains no information about the 
>voter's identity, which only becomes potentially knowable when the voter 
>presents the receipt for validation/verification. But how would the 
>process verify that only legally registered voters have voted, and that 
>no one voted twice? I don't quite understand the basis of the claim that 
>"...it can lift the requirement that voters must vote from their home 
>precinct ... inter-jurisdiction voting becomes workable ...".
>
>I respond:
>I assume that verifying only registered voters voted and no one voted twice would be done the same way this is currently done and the same ways your proposed method does.  For example, the voting machine would have to be reset by election volunteers after each vote before the next vote can occur.  Voters would have to sign in with an approved ID.  The voter registration data would be cross checked with other data bases. Etc.  Even your suggestion of machine readable stamps placed in  the registration logs immediately after the vote could be implemented to make it easier to verify that the number of votes and ballots match.
>
But are these processes workable without precinct-level voting? I had 
the impression that Chaum was implying this, but maybe his point was 
that the vote counting process (as opposed to voter verification) 
wouldn't be reliant on  precinct-level tallies.

>
>Ken Johnson wrote:
>"I question whether a method with this level of technical sophistication 
>and complexity would be practical or whether voters would trust the 
>"mathematical magic" behind the secure encryption scheme - especially in 
>emerging democracies where most voters may be barely literate, much less 
>computer literate or technologically literate. One particular weakness 
>is the reliance on a small number of "trustees" - holders of the private 
>encryption keys - to ensure voter secrecy. The trustees might have the 
>highest level of professionalism and integrity, but probably not much 
>technical sophistication or understanding of cryptography, so you might 
>find someday that a hacker has gotten hold of the private keys and 
>posted them on the Internet, along with all of the decrypted ballots."
>
>I respond:
>Keeping the secret keys secret is always essential to public/private key encryption.  Like the article says, government and businesses have been relying on this method for years now and so far it has been successful.  As I understand it the number of trustees (and therefore the number of private keys) can be increased or decreased to provide more or less secrecy protection.
>
Good points, but it could be argued that the method has not been very 
successful in societies where corruption is the norm and crooked public 
officials routinely pilfer vast sums of money from government and 
business accounts. The system's integrity ultimatly depends not on the 
encryption algorithm, but on the trustees' personal integrity and their 
susceptibility to being bribed, coerced, or duped into revealing their 
keys.

A more fundamental problem, I think, is one of voter perceptions and 
acceptance. Even if the process is provably secure, voters who don't 
understand the proof probably won't trust the system and won't vote. 
Look at it from the voter's perspective: You're given these two plastic 
sheets stuck together, which clearly show your vote. When you pull them 
apart the information seems to "magically" turn into garble, but you are 
told that (1) the information on your vote is still there on the 
receipt, which can be used to prove that your individual vote is 
correctly included in the final tally, and yet (2) no one can possibly 
find out from your receipt how you voted. Wouldn't the average voter be 
understandably mystified and baffled by this seeming contradiction? One 
thing you don't want an election process to do is mystify and baffle the 
voters.

>
>Ken Johnson wrote:
>"Following is an outline of a comparatively "low-tech" voting process 
>that I think probably accomplishes the same objectives as Chaum's 
>method, while overcoming its weaknesses. (Whether it actually does, I 
>pose as an open question.)"
>
>I respond:
>I disagree. I don't think your method accomplishes the same objectives.  For example, under the half pixel half receipt method it is likely that any attempt to swap a real voted ballot with a fraudulent replacement voted ballot would be detected.  Under your method anyone with access to the voted ballots, the ballot stamp, and the blank ballots could swap real voted ballots with his own fraudulent ballots without any chance of being detected (provided they could swap ballots when no one outside the vote rigging conspiracy who is willing to report the fraud was present as a witness).
>
>Ken then presented the properties and steps for his method of conducting secure elections which I won't repeat here.
>
>
>  
>
In retrospect, I think I agree that we do not accomplish the same 
objectives. The primary objective of Chaum's proposal appears to be to 
enable individual voters to ensure that their ballots are correctly 
included in the final tally, whereas my focus is more on verifying that 
the final tally is correct. For the latter objective, it is not 
sufficient to be able to prove that any particular valid ballot 
corresponds to a correctly-entered database record; you also have to 
determine (at least within reasonable statistical uncertainty) that 
every database record corresponds to a valid ballot, i.e., there is no 
ballot stuffing or "database stuffing".

I think Chaum's method would be no less susceptible to fraud than my 
proposal, at least in terms of guarding against ballot stuffing and 
excluding illegal votes. In either case, the system is dependent on the 
integrity and compentence of local election officials. However, ballot 
tampering or stuffing would not likely affect the outcome of the 
election unless there is widespread fraud across dozens or hundreds of 
precincts. It is unlikely that such widespread collusion could be 
coordinated or that it would go undetected.

I'm not opposed to using ballot receipts to enable voters to verify that 
their ballots were counted. (People who don't trust the receipts can 
just shred them.) But ballot receipts are not sufficient to validate the 
election tally, and I dont't think it should be the responsibility of 
the voters to validate the tally. My position is that election results 
ought to be independently and provably verified (at least within 
reasonable doubt), as a matter of routine election certification 
processes, by methods that do not require voters to retain and surrender 
their voting receipts.

Ken Johnson






From research at ijs.co.nz  Sat Dec  6 00:16:03 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Sat Dec  6 00:16:03 2003
Subject: [EM] Review of Reversing preference lists paper by Mr Barney, Mr D.
 G. Saari
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031206190419.053edf58@pop.qsi.net.nz>

>[EM] "Consequences of Reversing Preferences" 
>Markus Schulze markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de 
>Tue Dec 2 06:13:05 2003 
>
>Dear Steve,
>
>I have just read your paper:
>http://hypatia.ss.uci.edu/imbs/tr/Final1.pdf
>
>I am very disappointed that you mention neither
>Tideman's ranked pairs method nor my beatpath
>method in your paper. The ordinary reader will
>get to the conclusion that all election methods
>that satisfy reversal symmetry have some serious
>drawbacks.
>
>Markus Schulze

The paper is jointly authored by Mr D G Saari (who quit preferential
voting, it was said) and one Mr Steve Barney. I recall he was at this
list and I wrote adversely and no response occured. The PDF creating
program can be handy for those special where every reader would
assume that the statements are too valueless to be fit for a write-up.

Perhaps Mr Saari has not properly read the co-authored paper yet.
I suppose that much of the text with the triangle diagrams is
Mr Saari's.

Mr Riker, who suggested that methods should be monotonic, gets a
very minor mention:

| Among the widely used election methods are what William Riker [1982]
| calls positional methods. Riker, who was a pioneer in using
| mathematics to address problems from political science, coined the
| word ?positional?

Two other persons can be identified as participating in the
production of the PDF document, since page 1 says:

| Our thanks to Hannu Nurmi, Tom Ratliff, and two referees for their
| comments on an earlier version.


Now there is 4 names to bear in mind rather than two, and this paper
gets through the final checks.

Here is some text that is seemingly false for using only 2
significant digits when truthfulness would require nothing less than
an infinite number of significant digits.

| Theorem 7.
|
| For three candidates,the following probability statements hold for
| any probability distribution of voter profiles where, as the number
| of voters grows, the distribution is asymptotically independent with
| a common variance, and the mean has an equal number of voters of
| each type.
| 
| 1. A necessary and sufficient condition for a profile's of outcomes
| of all positional method outcomes to be reversed when the profile is
| reversed is for p's plurality and antiplurality outcomes to agree.
| The likelihood of such a behavior is 0.31.
|
| 2. A necessary and sufficient condition for a reversal effect to
| occur for the plurality outcome is that a profile's antiplurality
| outcome reverses the plurality outcome. This behavior occurs with
| probability 0.06.
|
| 3. A necessary and sufficient condition for a plurality (or
| antiplurality) top-reversal, or a two-winner reversal effect is for
| the profile to allow five different election rankings as the
| positional methods change (and the plurality outcome to be a strict
| ranking). This occurs with probability 0.19

When the text says that the likelihood of the behaviour is 0.31, we
know that the statement has got to be perfectly untrue since the
author is either covering up the use of a computer or else has
converted an infinite number of significant digits down to two.

Also the method that was tested on the computer (if any) is not
described in the section claiming to be a theorem. I would not say
that 'Theorem 7' is actually a theorem.

Actually there is no proof for that theorem. Surely Mr Saari and
reviewers Hannu Nurmi and Tom Ratliff saw that. Maybe the reviewers
can give advice but it might get disregarded.

Anyway, parts of the documents are apparently untrue.
When I look at the text I sense that it is fluid goo of falsehoods.
I do hope that Steve Barney will let us know who wrote it.

I am not aware of why probabilities were being computed. This is
not a review based on a proper reading of the document, not that
any is appropriate.


----

Mr Saari has thinking aberration that results in lengthy articles.

How is a preference beyond the 10,000-th going to affect the
winner ?. To brin the bottom preferences up to the top is no
hardly likely to be more important that some study of randomizing
preferences but not the top 1000.

Despite being 19 pages long its last lines contain a question and
speculation:

| But as s -> 1/2, a procedure becomes less susceptible to the
| Reversal components. Is there a connection? Probably, but it has not
| been established.

"Reversal components" is some idea that is best ignored.

The author(s) have the same worthless idea at the start of the paper:

| ... he [the chairperson] expected the voters to vote in the opposite
| way.As such,when tallying the ballots, he treated a first and last
| listed candidate, respectively, as the voter's last and first choice.1
|  Imagine the outcry if after retallying the ballots the chair reported
| that the election ranking remained unchanged; ...

There author wrote "Imagine the outcry" but at the start and at the end,
completely fails to say of the rule should be completely ignored. The
author is using the salesman trick of saying that others would agree.
The author seems to be unaware that good methods are not threatened
by fail results when tested with wrong rules.

The public is not so strung-out as to think that
  *  when some winners are known, and when
  *  preference lists that contain over 60 million named candidates
     are written back to front,
  *  and also when there is only 7 ballots (stored on an IDE hard disk of
     co-author Barney);
then there is an important relationship between who wins the first and
who wins the 2nd. I.e. the public would not believe that.

Maybe Steve Barney could post in the rule since the long paper failed
to focus on its central topic.

If the idea is worthless for over 99.9999983% of all elections, then
why would anybody spend time on producing diagrams in triangles ?.

Readers can briefly consider what reversing preferences in large
elections, and then be very confident that there is not any good
rule there in that topic, at all. The disappoints since it fails
to arrive at the wholly obvious conclusion, which is that there is
no political polytope testing rule based on reversing preferences.

It looked like Dr Saari was the last mathematician in USA that had
some special interest in preferential voting. If the paper is
published then it unquestionably will be seen that Dr Saari can't
identify the mistake of years earlier, where it was suggested
that reversing preferences was worth mentioning to some online
journalists. That could leave USA with 0 top experts.
The well known duality principle is presumably what Dr Saari would
have written on had the article been more politically useful.
I.e. that requirement that the same method results when winners
are swapped with losers, and the votes are negated.

I have read some of Mr Steve Barney's writings at the Election Methods
List, and in the past he didn't write back to me, and did run low
accuracy computer simulations using random numbers that tested minor
methods with totally worthless rules. That is precisely what a lot of
the PDF article was doing.

In the more political arena of STV variants, it can be assumed that
they don't mind if a perfectly unfair, unjust, or anti-political
method is failing the STV method.

The paper has diagrams in it too, and that is abnormal. In the
preferential voting, and the article is not really simple, the
dimension is high diagrams are replaced with algebra. The author of
of a competent article is more likely to spend time writing
new symbolic algebra software that can simplify polytope expressions.

The paper is not just exploring a wretched obviously wrong rule,
and then permitting only 3 candidates, but it seems to prohibit the
9 papers lacking a 3rd preference. Or at least, what else could this
mean?:

| Skepticism might be the kindest reaction to greet an announcement
| that the election ranking for a profile -- a listing which specifies
| the number of voters whose preferences are given by each (complete,
| transitive) ranking of the candidates is the same for the profile
| where each voter's preference ordering is reversed.

I suppose the word transitive applies to the symbols on the paper.
E.g., for this ballot paper "A B C",
it can be said that A is to the left of B, and B is to the left of C.

It is quite bad: 20 pages that fails to come to any conclusion about
a rule that is obviously worthless, and without good explanation
two more restrictions are piled onto that:
 * there is only 1 winner
 * and apparently all 3 preferences need to be written.

The authors of the papers are perhaps under the pairwise tradition
of tolerating corruptness in their method and vote-negating with
secret diversions of votes to the wrong candidates. The text of the
PDF file does not contain the words 'monotonic' and 'monotonicity'.

The paper uses Dr Saari's rotated-Aries symbol to indicate some
relation. That idea seems to have no place fair multiwinner
preferential voting theory.

The article does not contain the word "fair". I can't recall a
moment ever when an interest in being fair to others coexisted
with an interest in pairwise comparing.


Dr Saari should not have made the mistake about back-to-front
preferences in the first place. I could have used much text to
persuade Dr Saari but he is uncontactable as if beyond the reach
of telephone lines.

It was never the case that pairwise comparing is worth a tin of
fish to the designer of STV-like high quality preferential voting
methods that would be used in government elections.

Donald Saari should re-read the introduction since it is pathetic:

|  Imagine the outcry if after retallying the ballots the chair reported
| that the election ranking remained unchanged; ...

That looks like an argument that the CVD would use: "start to
proper influences from the clues that other mainlanders are now
plainly signalling to us". I guess that Steve Barney wrote
that. That is the same Steve that made one decision to not
reply to me. The expert in using wrong tests and coming in with
[printouts] lists of numbers.

Readers will expect a high probability of no outcry at all when
informed that a wretched wrong rule from a world of people who
make mistakes that members of the public can't themselves make,
fails some preferential voting method. A key detail is that the
rule fails the method that that public desires above all other
methods, a fairest method. Where are the error bounds?.

Looking at the wording more closely, it is in the Soc Choice
style, for the text "Imagine the outcry" is permitting no
outcry whatsoever.

The big issue here is that Donald Saari made a complete mistake
at the time of the last foray into back-to-front preference lists,
and if the silence is snapped with the publication of the paper
of Don and Steve, then it takes United States top expert, perhaps,
maybe 4 years or more to figure out errors that takes me seconds
to identify.

I see the reversal ideas dying when a very large number of
preferences, and possibly Mr Saari and Barney wave still time
until the final version of their paper is out, and then the new
issue of the number of candidates being restricted to only 3
has appeareed.

Many of us are not able to drop to the depths of irrationality
that seems to accompany a belief in transitivity of something
or other that is not a symbol on a list. For that idea,
Mr Donald G Saari uses the rotated Aries symbol.  Every paper
containing that symbol is set against the humana right of
equal suffrage, i.e. rules restricting the changes in winners
when papers are changed infinitesimally.
Reversing preferences has to be done infinitesimally or else on
that finding alone, the paper can discarded (easily without
being unfair too).

I got a comment from Mr Thomas Cool who said that Donald Saari
did not reply to him. Mr Saari's last response to this list
was troubling for it said he was just going to complete investigating
the topic of some super-linear (completely un-political) 3 candidate
methods. I am not sure about the 3 candidate part.
It could have been better if Donald Saari had of considered
methods good enough to actually use. So long as results are
plotted, thoroughness is fairly useless since the way of
presenting results becomes unusable as the problems get larger.

Dear Steve: which people needed that paper ?. Just the critics?,
or were you writing for a wider audience?.

Here ends the review of the two men who could mention the name
"Riker", and the idea of Mr Saari's trnsitivity, but who had no
space for the "fair" and "monotonic". A wrong rule can get
get into a disagreement with, at worst, all correct rules.

I can list the correct axioms in private.

I see that Mr Marcus Schulze got his comments very badly
designed. Mr Schulze wrote as if he failed to detect the worthlessness
of the paper of Mr Donald Saari and Mr Steve Barney.

I guess it is fixable for that was not a final release, but in
the Condorcet fanatic's world, things are basically not improving
all of the time.











Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>    Auckland, New Zealand
Freedom of Information America: http://listserv.syr.edu/archives/foi-l.html
Ontario Ombudsman's 1996 Fairness checklist:
    http://www.ijs.co.nz/fairness-standards.htm
Politicians-and-Polytopes, Single-Transferable-Vote, @yahoogroups.com




From matt at tidalwave.net  Sat Dec  6 12:43:01 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Sat Dec  6 12:43:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #374 - 1 msg
Message-ID: <20031206204209.8E30A726A@sitemail.everyone.net>

An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
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From dglaude at gmx.net  Sat Dec  6 12:49:01 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Sat Dec  6 12:49:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Fwd: [E-voting] STV and e-voting incompatible
References: <3FD23952.6304CE14@polarbears.com>
Message-ID: <31022.1070743689@www48.gmx.net>

Hello,
I already suggested on Election-Method mailing-list that advanced voting
system might require computer usage... and that computer assisted voting might
not be "democratic" and secure.

Now someone in Ireland show a good example of why those method might be even
worst if vote are published... (anonymously).

Feel free to comment... I have put the original author in Cc: and you find
the list address on the forwarded message.

I am not sure about the 500 million way of voting...
But I worked a lot with permutation in a steganography project... and with
sufficient number of candidate and choice to make, it is possible that all
voter have a uniquely identifiable vote. ;-)

And since for fairness, the database of vote must be publish for independant
review... I see no option.

David GLAUDE

PS: I have nothing against STV... only against e-voting.

--- Weitergeleitete Nachricht / Forwarded Message ---
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2003 20:17:22 +0000
From: Ciaran Quinn <election at polarbears.com>
To: Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting <e-voting at lists.stdlib.net>
Subject: [E-voting] STV and e-voting incompatible

I have just downloaded the election results for Dublin North and I have
just realised that there is a very simple way of selling one's vote
using e-voting.

There were 12 candidates in Dublin North. I estimate that there must be
almost 500 million possible vote combinations. If I wanted to buy votes
>from a group of voters, I would give them instructions of the sequence
in which they were to vote (eg I would give each voters a list of
numbers such as 3 5 10 2 1 6 9 4 8 11 7 12 showing them how to mark
their ballot paper. Each voter would get a slightly different
combination. When the election is over, all I would have to do is to
check which combinations occurred and pay the relevant voters).

This possibility means that the suggestion that voters would use their
VVAT paper ballot papers as receipts so that they would be paid is
absurd. 
They can already sell their votes using e-voting.

If selling votes is a concern, then e-voting and STV are incompatible.

Ciaran Quinn

_______________________________________________
E-voting mailing list
E-voting at lists.stdlib.net
http://lists.stdlib.net/mailman/listinfo/e-voting


-- 
+++ GMX - die erste Adresse f?r Mail, Message, More +++
Neu: Preissenkung f?r MMS und FreeMMS! http://www.gmx.net




From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Sat Dec  6 16:54:01 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Sat Dec  6 16:54:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Automated CR Strategy
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312041335490.29534-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312061549280.17430-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

The standard use of cardinal ratings (CR) ballots (awarding the win to the
candidate with the highest average rating) encourages strategic voting so
that voters in the know tend to vote exclusively at the extremes.

Is it possible to automate CR strategy well enough to eliminate the
advantage of the strategic voter over the naive voter?

Perhaps not in all cases, but in the case of large public elections, where
there is always an irreducible residue of statistical uncertainty, no
matter how carefully and honestly the polls are conducted, the answer to
this question is undoubtedly, yes!

What I have in mind is this: voters submit CR ballots in the form of
letter grades (A thru F or A thru Z, I don't care at this point), and then
these ballots are sampled statistically in a way that is an improvement on
any possible pre-election poll, but not so perfectly as to remove all
uncertainty.

This statistical information is used to get winning probabilities for the
various candidates.  If this is done correctly, these probabilities will
be more reliable than any that could be calculated from pre-election poll
results.

Each ballot is then transformed into an optimal ballot relative to these
estimated probabilities.

The candidate with the highest average rating on these transformed ballots
is the winner.

The only way a voter could get more reliable probability estimates would
be through some oracle or time machine.

If a voter takes it upon himself to vote at the extremes, these choices
will automatically be preserved by the transformation, since optimal
strategy preserves ratings at the extremes.

In summary, my idea is to take advantage of the pocket of uncertainty
inherent in public or private polls of large numbers of people to
virtually eliminate the advantage of sophisticated voters over naive
voters in the context of cardinal ratings with large numbers of voters.


Forest



From research at ijs.co.nz  Sun Dec  7 03:12:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Sun Dec  7 03:12:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Automated CR Strategy
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312061549280.17430-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.e
 du>
References: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312041335490.29534-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031207224638.050e9e60@pop.qsi.net.nz>


This is only of a draft quality and it only criticises Mr Forest Simmons.

My last message had missing "not"s. I think I have a solution for that
since by a simple argument I concluded that it was a hoax or mistake to
say that logic does not use negative numbers but instead 2 valued integers.
I noted something different: that (Exists Q)(X<Q<Y) does not run
correctly when X<Q means (not X) and Q, and all the 3 variables are
Boolean valued polytopes. I can't show "not" to be a problem while there
Boolean-ness is that, for that is arbitrary.

Has someone got Mr Donald Saari's address. I looked at his papers at
http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/ : it is on an n-body interaction using the
Newtonian gravity laws that emits a particle with at an infinite speed.
Apparently no one can produce any sort of example. The topic didn't
seem important. 

I am trying to send a message to Donald Davison and he has a dead e-mail
box.

========================================================================
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The original message was received at Fri, 05 Dec 2003 06:21:04 +1300

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<donald at pop.mich.com>

  ----- Transcript of session follows -----
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Original-Recipient: RFC822; <donald at pop.mich.com>
Final-Recipient: RFC822; <donald at pop.mich.com>
Action: failed
Last-Attempt-Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2003 06:21:04 +1300

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Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2003 05:43:53 +1300
========================================================================


RESEARCH BY FOREST SIMMONS AT THE ELECTION METHODS LIST

Mr Forest Simmons is not providing all axioms and then inferring using
reasoning, a polytope expression that computes the winner. We could be
gets tiny bits of the fulls set of axioms needed before progress
can occur. But instead Mr Simmons is content to get the winners
wrong.

I wonder if Forest Simmons would tell us if he thought it was acceptable
to fire-bomb Dresden in World War II, given the plan over there to
produce a hopefully stable world government along inferior lines.

Have you given up Christianity ?. Given that there was so little on
who should win, I hope Alex does not object.

Counts of elections quite typically involve no use of statistics or
probably. A huge fraction of your messages suggest that you are letting
all readers know that probability is a fact. Certainly that appears to
always false.

Your latest thoughts on the why you can see probabilities but never
actually collect any of them, positions yourself to be about believable
as you would be if you wrote on your inferences on a few highway
structures of undetected midget colonies living on the surface of the
moon. You admitted that you had an interest in Christianity.

Don't you wish that after so very many messages to the Election Methods
List, that you actually knew something ?. You seem to be missing the
idea of a region of solutions with solutions separated by perfectly
flat n-dimensional faces. Such allows trivially allows the simultaneous
consideration of an infinity of solutions. The can be no choice when
the axioms are worded to provide a solution only implicitly.

However in addition to not having the probability numbers (as each
year passes) that that are the central substance of your writings, you
also lack principles and the all too common technique of using inference
and reasoning from known facts or definitions.

What your messages lack is *evidence* that you had even thought about
the topic of computing the correct winners given the counts of the
ballot papers. There is no chance that you would get the benefit of the
doubt.





At 2003-12-06 16:53 -0800 Saturday, Forest Simmons wrote:
>The standard use of cardinal ratings (CR) ballots (awarding the win to the
>candidate with the highest average rating) encourages strategic voting so
>that voters in the know tend to vote exclusively at the extremes.
>
>Is it possible to automate CR strategy well enough to eliminate the
>advantage of the strategic voter over the naive voter?
>
>Perhaps not in all cases, but in the case of large public elections, where
>there is always an irreducible residue of statistical uncertainty, no
>matter how carefully and honestly the polls are conducted, the answer to
>this question is undoubtedly, yes!
>
>What I have in mind is this: voters submit CR ballots in the form of
>letter grades (A thru F or A thru Z, I don't care at this point), and then
>these ballots are sampled statistically in a way that is an improvement on
>any possible pre-election poll, but not so perfectly as to remove all
>uncertainty.
>
>This statistical information is used to get winning probabilities for the
>various candidates.  If this is done correctly, these probabilities will
>be more reliable than any that could be calculated from pre-election poll
>results.
>
>Each ballot is then transformed into an optimal ballot relative to these
>estimated probabilities.
>
>The candidate with the highest average rating on these transformed ballots
>is the winner.
>
>The only way a voter could get more reliable probability estimates would
>be through some oracle or time machine.
>
>If a voter takes it upon himself to vote at the extremes, these choices
>will automatically be preserved by the transformation, since optimal
>strategy preserves ratings at the extremes.
>
>In summary, my idea is to take advantage of the pocket of uncertainty

You idea is to guide readers to the view that once they have an election
result, you will not consider the integers of and other information about
the result.



>inherent in public or private polls of large numbers of people to
>virtually eliminate the advantage of sophisticated voters over naive
>voters in the context of cardinal ratings with large numbers of voters.
>


You merely say that there is some problem. It is the same error that
economists could make.

There is no evidence that there is a problem. There is no indication of
a problem once you have said that there is a strategic problem.

If you wrote that monotonicity is sometimes removes som problems, then
the writing would be of a perfectly different character, for you would
be starting to comment inside of the topic of preferential voting.

If you aim is to make others beleive that you thought about voting, then
your style is lackign the full Magnum shooter gunning penetrating power
of pure rationality that C.S.Lewis indicated possible.

If some strategy problem existed then the way to remove it, would be much
 affected by the principles you have.

Instead of principles you tend to have calls for others to reply. That's
curious for possible quite a large number of people could help you. But
let them be efficient and direct you mind to the major central that you
have, which is that of ignoring all the ballot papers (perhaps pieces
of cardboard) that could be tipped out of a box and put on a table
immediately in front of you.

You still have got to get the evidence that the probability thinking is
even slightly true. Where would you start your search?. At the topic of
the heap of cardboard pieces, or at the bottom.

Students ought not ask for help. If you actually put trust in reasoning
then you might see as clearly as others how you can achieve while always
excluding both fact and principle.

A clampdown by you to silence could be the last thing that is hoped for:
it could have you talking about the Approval method.

The Approval method is a special case of a better method. You don't
talk about the better method that permits the method designer to
rule that the number of checkboxes is never equal to the number of
candidates. It is like you were at a hair solon and saw a glossy woman's
fashion magazine and fancied it was the Christian bible, and read that
the new fashion is the catchy word of Mr Brams: "Approval", and not man
alone could prevent the number of checkboxes equalling the number of
candidates.

You seem to write around the idea that there is some space and it
certainly gives no consideration to election results and hence winners
too and thus the idea of correctness and thus the idea that you won't
be ignored each time you write.

But you still have a space and write on probability numbers. Surely
the fuzziness of your universe can be modelled somehow using ellipsoids?.

We are missing out on ellipsoids, but you seem to call them numbers.
It seems that your fantasy of a space that is alternative to the one
permitting the right winners to be found, also is not something you
have seriously considered worthy of the EML list

So far you are not on track for developing ideas that are good enough
for USA's worst slum suburb in whichever city holds that.

While I write this, I imagine that you are holed out and the foremost
person in the EM List who will keep preaching at us and after what
seems to be an excessive number of calls for others to interact, you
might admit to what others have known all along: as a theorist you
full collection of relevant useful principles is missing.

I may be leaving in a few days or weeks and perhaps you would go back
that previous system that ran OK: you dropped out when I showed up.
Mr Schulze and the rest can suffer in silence.

Forest believes what ?. 





Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
Ada 95 programming language mailing lists: http://www.ijs.co.nz/ada_95.htm




From Dgamble997 at aol.com  Sun Dec  7 14:33:05 2003
From: Dgamble997 at aol.com (Dgamble997 at aol.com)
Date: Sun Dec  7 14:33:05 2003
Subject: [EM] Craig Carey's recent posts.
Message-ID: <d4.b6494e.2d050471@aol.com>

Craig,

Have you ever tried being nice to people?

David Gamble
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From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Mon Dec  8 13:50:31 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Mon Dec  8 13:50:31 2003
Subject: [EM] Automated CR Strategy
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20031207224638.050e9e60@pop.qsi.net.nz>
Message-ID: <20031208214723.69994.qmail@web13802.mail.yahoo.com>

Craig,

 --- Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz> a ?crit?: > 
> This is only of a draft quality and it only criticises Mr Forest Simmons.
> 

If you don't think an election method should have elements of randomness,
you could just say that.  It seems unnecessary to accuse Forest of being
deceptive.


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


____________________________________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!? -- Avec Yahoo! soyez au coeur de la r?colte de dons pour le T?l?thon.
http://fr.promotions.yahoo.com/caritatif/


From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Mon Dec  8 16:01:03 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Mon Dec  8 16:01:03 2003
Subject: [EM] Automated CR Strategy
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20031207224638.050e9e60@pop.qsi.net.nz>
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312081525230.7413-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

It seems to me that you are saying (as Kevin has deciphered) that you
don't like randomness in election methods.

But interesting large scale public elections always have uncertainty
associated with them both before and after the counting, no matter the
method.

Most election methods externalize the uncertainties, and their advocates
spend little effort (if any) considering how voters are supposed to cope
with the uncertainties.

Approval also externalizes the uncertainties, but Approval advocates
recognize (per force) that Approval voters must cope with them in order to
maximize their voting power.

I suspect this aspect of Approval voting is what makes you uncomfortable.

Also I notice that you are more comfortable with concrete details than
with abstract generalities.  You would rather see things up close than see
the distant view, if I am not mistaken.

You share this cognitive preference with many others, and that is fine.
But I like to try to establish an over view of the big picture before
diving into the details.

You remind me of a very intelligent student I once had in a multivariate
calculus class who had trouble communicating his solution processes
because of a type of autism that he had been diagnosed with as a child.

He was extremely impatient with general explanations, but give him a
couple of detailed examples, and he was off and running.

I'm not saying that you have autism, but your communications have an eerie
similarity to those of that student.

You may have something much more valuable to say than I do.  I wish you
much success in communicating it.

Forest



From barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu  Mon Dec  8 16:59:06 2003
From: barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu (Steve Barney)
Date: Mon Dec  8 16:59:06 2003
Subject: [EM] FWD: An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!
Message-ID: <3FD294EE@webmail.uwosh.edu>

Here's an interesting piece of histeria about voting machinery. What do you 
think of it?

Steve Barney

>===== Original Message From "Eric A. Smith" <snowdog at juno.ocn.ne.jp> =====
I'm writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightenedI'm 
writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightened.



My name is Eric Smith. I'm a journalist and IT instructor in Tokyo. And after 
three years of study I've come to a terrifying conclusion. As British security 
expert Scott Granneman put it: "the heart of American democracy is at risk."



The import of this threat cannot be overstated -- the issue is very real and 
very grave. The chilling, incontrovertible fact is that America's elections 
are being silently, deliberately and PERMANENTLY compromised. The problem lies 
in the rapid installation of unauditable, unverifiable DRE (Direct Recording 
Electronic) touchscreen voting machines in advance of the 2004 elections.



Just how vulnerable are these machines? Author Bev Harris's diagrammed 
analysis of the "hacking" of a Diebold "Accuvote" machine to reverse an 
election proves it's not just possible -- it's easy:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm#password



These e-voting machines are being quietly installed across the country in 
preparation for the 2004 election, as per the characteristically 
disingenuously-named "Help America Vote Act" President Bush mandated in the 
wake of the 2000 debacle.



Alarming summaries of independent research by Johns Hopkins and Rice 
University, MIT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and even Congress echo 
Harris's concerns:

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030724_evote_research_report.pdf

http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php

http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/crsreport.pdf



The full extent of the threat to our electoral process has been documented in 
Harris's explosive expose, "Black Box Voting", which  can be downloaded free 
of charge here:

http://www.talion.com/blackboxvoting.org.htm



In light of these stunning vulnerabilities, US Representative Rush Holt has 
sponsored "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003" which 
which calls for printed receipts for the 2004 and subsequent elections:

http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996



Unfortunately, Republican support hasn't been forthcoming, and the measure has 
stalled. Because of the stillborn status of Rep. Holt's initiative, the 
outlook for Americans is rapidly worsening to the point of emergency: 
primaries for the 2004 election will begin in two months.



And so, I'm writing to ask -- in fact to BEG -- for your help in seeking an 
immediate moratorium on the use of paperless, unverifiable e-vote machines in 
the 2004 election. The use of paper ballots may be the only interim solution 
to assure a verifiable election: DREs which produce verifiable paper receipts 
are available, but are not currently in widespread use.



An immediate legal injunction to halt the use of non-verifiable DREs in the 
2004 election is a stop-gap emergency measure, perhaps at this late date the 
only way to ensure the integrity of our Democratic process. Over the long 
term, lobbying for the implementation of Congressman Holt's Voter Integrity 
Act will provide a more permanent solution.



Today,  I'm asking you to aggressively and persistentky bring the legal and 
personnel resources of your organization into the effort to save our electoral 
process.  Before it's too late.



Steps you can take right now:



1.        Sign the online e-petitions at EFF and VerifiedVoting.org:

                http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

                http://www.verifiedvoting.org



2.        Bev Harris is in immediate need of attorneys for coordinating legal 
injunctions to stop insecure voting machine use before the 2004 primaries:

                Bevharriscontact at aol.com



3.        Solicit the help of your organization's members in lobbying Congress 
to support Rep. Holt's Voter Integrity Act:

                http://www.visi.com/juan/congress                           
http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996



            Just in from VerifiedVoting.org:

               DECEMBER 2nd - 8th IS HR2239 WEEK!!!

One more week until the Congressional session is over (probably).
One more week this year to make a huge difference.
One more week to call Representatives at 1-800-839-5276 and urge support.
Start today.


4.        Lobby your state's elections boards to require verifiable, secure 
voting machines:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html



5.        Contact your friends, family, associates and the media:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/

http://newslink.org

http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/



Act now - your country needs you. And the time is getting very, very short.



Tomorrow might be just one day too late.



sincerely,

Eric A. Smith

Tokyo, Japan

81-03-3959-5371





RESOURCES

Congress:

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/



State elections boards:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html



State Attorneys General (party affiliations listed):

http://www.naag.org/ag/full_ag_table.php



Rep. Rush Holt:

http://holt.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=holt&type=Contact%20Rush



E-mail campaign links:

http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

http://www.verifiedvoting.org



Alternative e-voting machines:

http://www.accupoll.com/

http://www.aitechnology.com/avantetech/home.html

http://www.vogueelection.com/



Media Contacts:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/

http://newslink.org

http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/



BACKGROUND

Compelling evidence for the gravity of the situation can be found in the 
following "smoking gun" internal emails from Diebold. As you've no doubt 
heard, the company began a desperate attempt at suppressing the distribution 
of these emails on the Internet, in a series of gag lawsuits succesfully 
countered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation last month.



One of these emails  -- from Lana Hires to Global Election Systems (now 
Diebold) -- baldly states how 16 THOUSAND e-votes for Gore were "disappeared" 
during the 2000 Presidential election. Hires frantically asks how she should 
explain this to an auditor:



<I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have 
been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave 
Al Gore a minus 16022 [votes] when it was uploaded. Will someone please 
explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of 
standing here "looking dumb"



Additional excerpts from the Diebold internal emails:



<For a demonstration I suggest you fake it. Progam them both so they look the 
same, and then just do the upload fro [sic] the AV. That is what we did in the 
last AT/AV demo.



<Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its 
contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new.



<Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I 
have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed.



<Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots. 
They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of polls 
on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry for 
Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the media, 
as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or print any 
Election Results before the Polls closed. However, if there is a way that we 
can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even better.



"Diebold - The face of modern ballot tampering"

http://www.bartcop.com/diebold.htm



"If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm



"How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election"

http://www.infernalpress.com/Columns/election.html



"Safeguarding the Vote"

http://www.yesmagazine.org./26courage/pibel.htm



"Electronic Voting Machines Blasted by Scientists, Hacked by Author"

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00198.htm



Last month, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley mandated that 
Californians be provided with a verifiable paper trail in future elections:

http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2003/03_106.pdf



From elloyd at lancaster.lib.pa.us  Thu Dec 11 12:05:41 2003
From: elloyd at lancaster.lib.pa.us (Eron Lloyd)
Date: Thu Dec 11 12:05:41 2003
Subject: [EM] FWD: An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!
In-Reply-To: <3FD294EE@webmail.uwosh.edu>
References: <3FD294EE@webmail.uwosh.edu>
Message-ID: <200312111504.28253.elloyd@lancaster.lib.pa.us>

I think a better phrase for it is valid concern. This issue to me is far more 
critical than just about anything else related to elections. If you haven't 
yet done some homework on this, it deserves it.

Eron

On Monday 08 December 2003 7:59 pm, Steve Barney wrote:
> Here's an interesting piece of histeria about voting machinery. What do you
> think of it?
>
> Steve Barney
>
> >===== Original Message From "Eric A. Smith" <snowdog at juno.ocn.ne.jp> =====
>
> I'm writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightenedI'm
> writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightened.
>
>
>
> My name is Eric Smith. I'm a journalist and IT instructor in Tokyo. And
> after three years of study I've come to a terrifying conclusion. As British
> security expert Scott Granneman put it: "the heart of American democracy is
> at risk."
>
>
>
> The import of this threat cannot be overstated -- the issue is very real
> and very grave. The chilling, incontrovertible fact is that America's
> elections are being silently, deliberately and PERMANENTLY compromised. The
> problem lies in the rapid installation of unauditable, unverifiable DRE
> (Direct Recording Electronic) touchscreen voting machines in advance of the
> 2004 elections.
>
>
>
> Just how vulnerable are these machines? Author Bev Harris's diagrammed
> analysis of the "hacking" of a Diebold "Accuvote" machine to reverse an
> election proves it's not just possible -- it's easy:
>
> http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm#password
>
>
>
> These e-voting machines are being quietly installed across the country in
> preparation for the 2004 election, as per the characteristically
> disingenuously-named "Help America Vote Act" President Bush mandated in the
> wake of the 2000 debacle.
>
>
>
> Alarming summaries of independent research by Johns Hopkins and Rice
> University, MIT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and even Congress echo
> Harris's concerns:
>
> http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030724_evote_research_report.pdf
>
> http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/
>
> http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php
>
> http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/crsreport.pdf
>
>
>
> The full extent of the threat to our electoral process has been documented
> in Harris's explosive expose, "Black Box Voting", which  can be downloaded
> free of charge here:
>
> http://www.talion.com/blackboxvoting.org.htm
>
>
>
> In light of these stunning vulnerabilities, US Representative Rush Holt has
> sponsored "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003"
> which which calls for printed receipts for the 2004 and subsequent
> elections:
>
> http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996
>
>
>
> Unfortunately, Republican support hasn't been forthcoming, and the measure
> has stalled. Because of the stillborn status of Rep. Holt's initiative, the
> outlook for Americans is rapidly worsening to the point of emergency:
> primaries for the 2004 election will begin in two months.
>
>
>
> And so, I'm writing to ask -- in fact to BEG -- for your help in seeking an
> immediate moratorium on the use of paperless, unverifiable e-vote machines
> in the 2004 election. The use of paper ballots may be the only interim
> solution to assure a verifiable election: DREs which produce verifiable
> paper receipts are available, but are not currently in widespread use.
>
>
>
> An immediate legal injunction to halt the use of non-verifiable DREs in the
> 2004 election is a stop-gap emergency measure, perhaps at this late date
> the only way to ensure the integrity of our Democratic process. Over the
> long term, lobbying for the implementation of Congressman Holt's Voter
> Integrity Act will provide a more permanent solution.
>
>
>
> Today,  I'm asking you to aggressively and persistentky bring the legal and
> personnel resources of your organization into the effort to save our
> electoral process.  Before it's too late.
>
>
>
> Steps you can take right now:
>
>
>
> 1.        Sign the online e-petitions at EFF and VerifiedVoting.org:
>
>                 http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821
>
>                 http://www.verifiedvoting.org
>
>
>
> 2.        Bev Harris is in immediate need of attorneys for coordinating
> legal injunctions to stop insecure voting machine use before the 2004
> primaries:
>
>                 Bevharriscontact at aol.com
>
>
>
> 3.        Solicit the help of your organization's members in lobbying
> Congress to support Rep. Holt's Voter Integrity Act:
>
>                 http://www.visi.com/juan/congress
> http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996
>
>
>
>             Just in from VerifiedVoting.org:
>
>                DECEMBER 2nd - 8th IS HR2239 WEEK!!!
>
> One more week until the Congressional session is over (probably).
> One more week this year to make a huge difference.
> One more week to call Representatives at 1-800-839-5276 and urge support.
> Start today.
>
>
> 4.        Lobby your state's elections boards to require verifiable, secure
> voting machines:
>
> http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html
>
>
>
> 5.        Contact your friends, family, associates and the media:
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/
>
> http://newslink.org
>
> http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/
>
>
>
> Act now - your country needs you. And the time is getting very, very short.
>
>
>
> Tomorrow might be just one day too late.
>
>
>
> sincerely,
>
> Eric A. Smith
>
> Tokyo, Japan
>
> 81-03-3959-5371
>
>
>
>
>
> RESOURCES
>
> Congress:
>
> http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
>
>
>
> State elections boards:
>
> http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html
>
>
>
> State Attorneys General (party affiliations listed):
>
> http://www.naag.org/ag/full_ag_table.php
>
>
>
> Rep. Rush Holt:
>
> http://holt.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=holt&type=Contact%20Rush
>
>
>
> E-mail campaign links:
>
> http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821
>
> http://www.verifiedvoting.org
>
>
>
> Alternative e-voting machines:
>
> http://www.accupoll.com/
>
> http://www.aitechnology.com/avantetech/home.html
>
> http://www.vogueelection.com/
>
>
>
> Media Contacts:
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/
>
> http://newslink.org
>
> http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/
>
>
>
> BACKGROUND
>
> Compelling evidence for the gravity of the situation can be found in the
> following "smoking gun" internal emails from Diebold. As you've no doubt
> heard, the company began a desperate attempt at suppressing the
> distribution of these emails on the Internet, in a series of gag lawsuits
> succesfully countered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation last month.
>
>
>
> One of these emails  -- from Lana Hires to Global Election Systems (now
> Diebold) -- baldly states how 16 THOUSAND e-votes for Gore were
> "disappeared" during the 2000 Presidential election. Hires frantically asks
> how she should explain this to an auditor:
>
>
>
> <I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have
> been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216
> gave Al Gore a minus 16022 [votes] when it was uploaded. Will someone
> please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor
> instead of standing here "looking dumb"
>
>
>
> Additional excerpts from the Diebold internal emails:
>
>
>
> <For a demonstration I suggest you fake it. Progam them both so they look
> the same, and then just do the upload fro [sic] the AV. That is what we did
> in the last AT/AV demo.
>
>
>
> <Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its
> contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new.
>
>
>
> <Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I
> have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed.
>
>
>
> <Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots.
> They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of
> polls on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry
> for Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the
> media, as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or
> print any Election Results before the Polls closed. However, if there is a
> way that we can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even
> better.
>
>
>
> "Diebold - The face of modern ballot tampering"
>
> http://www.bartcop.com/diebold.htm
>
>
>
> "If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"
>
> http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm
>
>
>
> "How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election"
>
> http://www.infernalpress.com/Columns/election.html
>
>
>
> "Safeguarding the Vote"
>
> http://www.yesmagazine.org./26courage/pibel.htm
>
>
>
> "Electronic Voting Machines Blasted by Scientists, Hacked by Author"
>
> http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00198.htm
>
>
>
> Last month, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley mandated that
> Californians be provided with a verifiable paper trail in future elections:
>
> http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2003/03_106.pdf
>
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 14 07:30:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 14 07:30:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Voting Matters, Issue 17
Message-ID: <3FDC8197.625F6EB2@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Hallo,

I have uploaded issue 17 (October 2003) of "Voting Matters" (208 kB):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/issue17.pdf

This issue contains the following papers:

1. Douglas R. Woodall, "QPQ, a quota-preferential STV-like
   election rule," page 1-7,

2. Joe Otten, "Fuller Disclosure than Intended," page 8,

3. Markus Schulze, "A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent
   Single-Winner Election Method," page 9-19,

4. James Gilmour, "Calculation of Transfer Values -- Proposal
   for STV-PR Rules for Local Government Elections in Scotland,"
   page 20-24.

Markus Schulze


From davek at clarityconnect.com  Mon Dec 15 01:55:02 2003
From: davek at clarityconnect.com (Dave Ketchum)
Date: Mon Dec 15 01:55:02 2003
Subject: [EM] An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!]
Message-ID: <3FDD852F.8070600@clarityconnect.com>

"URGENT" is the right adjective!

Those of you in smaller countries need not laugh at US stupidity - what 
makes you think you can force your country to invest in building your own, 
when your country can copy whatever the US has blessed, no matter how 
stupid that may be!

A TRUE voting machine is NOT a complex device, as such things go:
      Inform the voter as to the ballot, and accept the vote.
      Maintain totals to report at end of election.
      Keep a diary of what happens.  This I see as doing on a write-once 
CD.  Copies can be made at end of election so that all who care to can 
verify what was in the machine as a program.
      Use ONLY open source, so that it is possible to verify whether this 
truly is a voting machine.
      Do not be concerned with voter identity, ONLY with quantity.  If a 
voter is allowed to vote twice the quantity will be wrong unless some 
other voter is prevented from voting - and the deprived voter properly 
complains.  Attend to validation of voter identity elsewhere.
      ALL of machine components are OPEN SOURCE, to permit validation.
      Secrecy of what a voter votes SHALL BE ABSOLUTE.
      I care not whether something gets printed, PROVIDED secrecy is 
maintained.

What might I do with a black box?
      Keep records internally, to know truth.
      If counts get big enough, bias them - perhaps 110% of truth for 
friends and 90% of truth for enemies.  I do not get caught unless more 
than 90% of the enemy voters turn up with receipts to demonstrate their 
count was low.

What might I do if I am into paying for good votes and/or punishing bad 
ones, and the pretense at secrecy involved human elements?  Pay those 
humans to tell me what I wish to know.

SUMMARY:  We NEED open source.
      Do not care about printed receipts, EXCEPT not acceptable if they 
destroy secrecy.
      Rep. Holt's effort is not sufficient. 
      Do not care how bad Diebold black boxes may be - NEED defense 
against evil that may be done more carefully.

Of all this the OPEN SOURCE is the critical item that deserves an 
injunction to ban anything else.  Any vendor offering open source has a 
strong incentive toward producing a TRUE voting machine, for they should 
not want to get caught producing anything else.
      Voting machines are a special case for we MUST demand voter secrecy, 
and thus MUST want vendors to WANT to do it right.
      Further, if we frown on vendors copying each other - if we buy only 
open source then all can see whether there is any copying.

BTW - when does secrecy matter?
      It is maintainable and matters when the true counts are near to a 
tie - this is when those into evil get active.
      It is impossible, and does not matter as to winning elections, when 
all, or almost all, vote one way.  It is certain, on nearly so, that Joe 
voted with the majority.  Those into evil care not if they have such a 
strong win, and are losing so catastrophically as not to care about 
details if they fail so badly.

-------- Original Message --------
From: Steve Barney <barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu>
To: election-methods-list <election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com>
Subject: [EM] FWD: An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!
Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2003 18:59:03 -0600

Here's an interesting piece of histeria about voting machinery. What do you
think of it?

Steve Barney

 >===== Original Message From "Eric A. Smith" <snowdog at juno.ocn.ne.jp> =====
I'm writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightenedI'm
writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightened.



My name is Eric Smith. I'm a journalist and IT instructor in Tokyo. And after
three years of study I've come to a terrifying conclusion. As British 
security
expert Scott Granneman put it: "the heart of American democracy is at risk."



The import of this threat cannot be overstated -- the issue is very real and
very grave. The chilling, incontrovertible fact is that America's elections
are being silently, deliberately and PERMANENTLY compromised. The problem 
lies
in the rapid installation of unauditable, unverifiable DRE (Direct Recording
Electronic) touchscreen voting machines in advance of the 2004 elections.



Just how vulnerable are these machines? Author Bev Harris's diagrammed
analysis of the "hacking" of a Diebold "Accuvote" machine to reverse an
election proves it's not just possible -- it's easy:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm#password



These e-voting machines are being quietly installed across the country in
preparation for the 2004 election, as per the characteristically
disingenuously-named "Help America Vote Act" President Bush mandated in the
wake of the 2000 debacle.



Alarming summaries of independent research by Johns Hopkins and Rice
University, MIT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and even Congress echo
Harris's concerns:

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030724_evote_research_report.pdf

http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php

http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/crsreport.pdf



The full extent of the threat to our electoral process has been documented in
Harris's explosive expose, "Black Box Voting", which  can be downloaded free
of charge here:

http://www.talion.com/blackboxvoting.org.htm



In light of these stunning vulnerabilities, US Representative Rush Holt has
sponsored "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003" 
which
which calls for printed receipts for the 2004 and subsequent elections:

http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996



Unfortunately, Republican support hasn't been forthcoming, and the measure 
has
stalled. Because of the stillborn status of Rep. Holt's initiative, the
outlook for Americans is rapidly worsening to the point of emergency:
primaries for the 2004 election will begin in two months.



And so, I'm writing to ask -- in fact to BEG -- for your help in seeking an
immediate moratorium on the use of paperless, unverifiable e-vote machines in
the 2004 election. The use of paper ballots may be the only interim solution
to assure a verifiable election: DREs which produce verifiable paper receipts
are available, but are not currently in widespread use.



An immediate legal injunction to halt the use of non-verifiable DREs in the
2004 election is a stop-gap emergency measure, perhaps at this late date the
only way to ensure the integrity of our Democratic process. Over the long
term, lobbying for the implementation of Congressman Holt's Voter Integrity
Act will provide a more permanent solution.



Today,  I'm asking you to aggressively and persistentky bring the legal and
personnel resources of your organization into the effort to save our 
electoral
process.  Before it's too late.



Steps you can take right now:



1.        Sign the online e-petitions at EFF and VerifiedVoting.org:

                 http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

                 http://www.verifiedvoting.org



2.        Bev Harris is in immediate need of attorneys for coordinating legal
injunctions to stop insecure voting machine use before the 2004 primaries:

                 Bevharriscontact at aol.com



3.        Solicit the help of your organization's members in lobbying 
Congress
to support Rep. Holt's Voter Integrity Act:

                 http://www.visi.com/juan/congress
http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996



             Just in from VerifiedVoting.org:

                DECEMBER 2nd - 8th IS HR2239 WEEK!!!

One more week until the Congressional session is over (probably).
One more week this year to make a huge difference.
One more week to call Representatives at 1-800-839-5276 and urge support.
Start today.


4.        Lobby your state's elections boards to require verifiable, secure
voting machines:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html



5.        Contact your friends, family, associates and the media:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/

http://newslink.org

http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/



Act now - your country needs you. And the time is getting very, very short.



Tomorrow might be just one day too late.



sincerely,

Eric A. Smith

Tokyo, Japan

81-03-3959-5371





RESOURCES

Congress:

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/



State elections boards:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html



State Attorneys General (party affiliations listed):

http://www.naag.org/ag/full_ag_table.php



Rep. Rush Holt:

http://holt.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=holt&type=Contact%20Rush



E-mail campaign links:

http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

http://www.verifiedvoting.org



Alternative e-voting machines:

http://www.accupoll.com/

http://www.aitechnology.com/avantetech/home.html

http://www.vogueelection.com/



Media Contacts:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/

http://newslink.org

http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/



BACKGROUND

Compelling evidence for the gravity of the situation can be found in the
following "smoking gun" internal emails from Diebold. As you've no doubt
heard, the company began a desperate attempt at suppressing the distribution
of these emails on the Internet, in a series of gag lawsuits succesfully
countered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation last month.



One of these emails  -- from Lana Hires to Global Election Systems (now
Diebold) -- baldly states how 16 THOUSAND e-votes for Gore were "disappeared"
during the 2000 Presidential election. Hires frantically asks how she should
explain this to an auditor:



<I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have
been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 
gave
Al Gore a minus 16022 [votes] when it was uploaded. Will someone please
explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of
standing here "looking dumb"



Additional excerpts from the Diebold internal emails:



<For a demonstration I suggest you fake it. Progam them both so they look the
same, and then just do the upload fro [sic] the AV. That is what we did in 
the
last AT/AV demo.



<Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its
contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new.



<Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I
have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed.



<Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots.
They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of polls
on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry for
Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the media,
as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or print any
Election Results before the Polls closed. However, if there is a way that we
can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even better.



"Diebold - The face of modern ballot tampering"

http://www.bartcop.com/diebold.htm



"If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm



"How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election"

http://www.infernalpress.com/Columns/election.html



"Safeguarding the Vote"

http://www.yesmagazine.org./26courage/pibel.htm



"Electronic Voting Machines Blasted by Scientists, Hacked by Author"

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00198.htm



Last month, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley mandated that
Californians be provided with a verifiable paper trail in future elections:

http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2003/03_106.pdf
-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.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.



From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Mon Dec 15 12:24:03 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Mon Dec 15 12:24:03 2003
Subject: [EM] An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!]
In-Reply-To: <3FDD852F.8070600@clarityconnect.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312151212050.10962-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Dave Ketchum wrote:

>       Further, if we frown on vendors copying each other - if we buy only
> open source then all can see whether there is any copying.
>

What computer scientist would be so stupid that he couldn't figure out how
to write a "For Loop" for adding up a bunch of numbers?

That's the first assignment in computer science 101.

Why would he need to copy somebody else's code?

There is absolutely no excuse for hiding the source code.

It's not like Colonel Sanders' secret recipe of herbs and spices, for
Pete's sake; it's just addition, our common inheritance from Count Dracula
on Sesame Street!

Forest



From dglaude at gmx.net  Mon Dec 15 13:55:42 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Mon Dec 15 13:55:42 2003
Subject: [EM] An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!]
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312151212050.10962-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
References: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312151212050.10962-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
Message-ID: <3FDE292A.5040301@gmx.net>

Does anybody here believe a vendor will make any effort to write clean, 
standard, bug free, documented code if there is no reward for it, no 
penalty for ugly non-verifiable code and only insider will have a look 
at it?

Open Source, not Free Software (prefered) is the solution:
1) Only expert can read the code... 99.9% of the population must trust 
the other.
2) Durring the election, there is no way to know what software do run in 
the computer.

We have the code of Belgian e-voting system and we are unhappy with it:

http://www.afront.be/lib/vote.html
<<
Casual inspection off the code reveals obvious errors (3),(5) from which 
we deduce scant peer review of the code, if any, has taken place. Nor do 
we see evidence that somebody has tackled the problem of creating 
entropy for the encryption keys (2). Also troubling is the fact that 
keeping the voting anonymous isn't high on the priorities list: global 
and stack variables are not zeroed after their useful lifetime has 
expired (1).

1) You do NOT vote in secret.
2) Generating entropy is a detail left to the compiler, if at all.
3) Using variables outside their defined scope.
4) There's not enough space to write a 64-bit hash to the card, so only 
24 bits get written.
5) another OBVIOUS error that has escaped peer review:
 >>

As computer scientist... the one I like best is
void Generate_Mav_Session ()
{
    randomize();                // initializes random number generator

    for( int i=0; i < DESKEYLEN; i++)
       mavSessionKey [i] = random( 10) + '0'; // '0' to '9' is possible

    mavSessionKey [i] = 0;
}

A real compiler should not accept that...
After the loop, "i" should be undefined.
So saying "mavSessionKey [i] = 0;" should not compile and if it is 
compiled, then the behaviour is undefined and maybe unpredictable.

Will it be DESKEYLEN-1? DESKEYLEN? or DESKEYLEN+1? or it depend on stack 
usage durring interrupt (IRQ).

David GLAUDE

Forest Simmons wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Dave Ketchum wrote:
> 
>>      Further, if we frown on vendors copying each other - if we buy only
>>open source then all can see whether there is any copying.
> 
> What computer scientist would be so stupid that he couldn't figure out how
> to write a "For Loop" for adding up a bunch of numbers?
> 
> That's the first assignment in computer science 101.





From davek at clarityconnect.com  Mon Dec 15 21:21:01 2003
From: davek at clarityconnect.com (Dave Ketchum)
Date: Mon Dec 15 21:21:01 2003
Subject: [EM] An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!]
References: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312151212050.10962-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu> <3FDE292A.5040301@gmx.net>
Message-ID: <3FDE9658.7030301@clarityconnect.com>

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 22:35:38 +0100 David GLAUDE wrote:

> Does anybody here believe a vendor will make any effort to write clean, 
> standard, bug free, documented code if there is no reward for it, no 
> penalty for ugly non-verifiable code and only insider will have a look 
> at it?


Any PROPER contract has rewards for quality and penalties for failure.

"non-verifiable" reads as cause for rejection, though such a phrase may be 
hard to define.

"only insiders" is not acceptable - agreed the general public is neither 
able nor willing.  Some validation should get done by contract, but anyone 
willing should be permitted to inspect to their heart's content.

> 
> Open Source, not Free Software (prefered) is the solution:
> 1) Only expert can read the code... 99.9% of the population must trust 
> the other.


Not quite:
      Given a million population, that gives me 1,000 experts.  Only need 
a few of them working at it.
      The state, knowing of the experts, should test, rather than risking 
getting caught not taking this step.
      The vendors should not want to risk getting caught - and the 
contract should provide punishment:
           A little bit for the expectable unintentional errors.
           REAL punishment for deliberate false content.

As to debating validity of a particular set of tools, I am not prepared, 
nor is this amount of detail important this early.  Some words about 
quality can be useful.

Apparently "Open Source" identifies particular tools - I said "open 
source" to identify a way of proceeding without identifying particular tools.


> 2) Durring the election, there is no way to know what software do run in 
> the computer.


I do not have complete design, but my initial thoughts are:
      A write-ONCE CD is prepared containing program and ballot definition 
for this voting machine - leaving lots of empty space.
      Load machine ready to open polls, including something unique, 
perhaps partly contributed by poll watchers, such that content of this 
machine could not have been predicted ahead of time.
      Official invokes "Open Polls".  This locks machine 
against interference with its task.  It records current memory content on 
the CD, after which polls are open for voting.
      Votes get recorded on the CD at time polls close and perhaps during 
the election if volume requires this.  They are recorded in blocks which 
are constructed in memory with the votes in random order to preserve secrecy.
      Official invokes "Close Polls".  Machine records memory on the CD, 
after which it unlocks.
      Multiple copies of the CD should be made RIGHT NOW, such that those 
who wonder what was in the machine can look for themselves.

> 
> We have the code of Belgian e-voting system and we are unhappy with it:
> 
> http://www.afront.be/lib/vote.html
> <<
> Casual inspection off the code reveals obvious errors (3),(5) from which 
> we deduce scant peer review of the code, if any, has taken place. Nor do 
> we see evidence that somebody has tackled the problem of creating 
> entropy for the encryption keys (2). Also troubling is the fact that 
> keeping the voting anonymous isn't high on the priorities list: global 
> and stack variables are not zeroed after their useful lifetime has 
> expired (1).
> 
> 1) You do NOT vote in secret.
> 2) Generating entropy is a detail left to the compiler, if at all.
> 3) Using variables outside their defined scope.
> 4) There's not enough space to write a 64-bit hash to the card, so only 
> 24 bits get written.
> 5) another OBVIOUS error that has escaped peer review:
>  >>
> 
> As computer scientist... the one I like best is
> void Generate_Mav_Session ()
> {
>    randomize();                // initializes random number generator
> 
>    for( int i=0; i < DESKEYLEN; i++)
>       mavSessionKey [i] = random( 10) + '0'; // '0' to '9' is possible
> 
>    mavSessionKey [i] = 0;
> }

 From this distance I DO NOT KNOW what the language you are using might 
say about this.  If the compiler tolerates something the language forbids, 
THEN it is time to complain.
      Also time to complain about use of a language if THE LANGUAGE too 
permissive as to dangerous coding practices.

randomize catches my eye.  For MANY uses such a routine must produce a 
predictable result, to make tests repeatable.  For the randomizing of 
order of votes that I write of above, the location of the initial vote in 
the block must, itself, be random to preserve voter secrecy.

> 
> A real compiler should not accept that...
> After the loop, "i" should be undefined.
> So saying "mavSessionKey [i] = 0;" should not compile and if it is 
> compiled, then the behaviour is undefined and maybe unpredictable.
> 
> Will it be DESKEYLEN-1? DESKEYLEN? or DESKEYLEN+1? or it depend on stack 
> usage durring interrupt (IRQ).
> 
> David GLAUDE
> 
> Forest Simmons wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Dave Ketchum wrote:
>>
>>>      Further, if we frown on vendors copying each other - if we buy only
>>> open source then all can see whether there is any copying.
>>
>>
>> What computer scientist would be so stupid that he couldn't figure out how
>> to write a "For Loop" for adding up a bunch of numbers?
>>
>> That's the first assignment in computer science 101.
> 

Who, trying to solve the problem of constructing a voting machine, would 
not realize that, while the task is simple compared to many computer 
tasks, the above thought is not useful.  Among the considerations:
      There are many ways of voting, such a Plurality, Approval, IRV, 
Condorcet, etc.
      Write-ins must be attended to.
      Must check whether voter has completed all of the voting intended.
      Some voters need special services, such as being blind.
      Getting from a list of offices to be voted on, to a ballot that is 
convenient for the voter, without being especially demanding of the 
election official needing to solve the problem, is a NONtrivial task.
-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.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.



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 16 16:22:31 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 16 16:22:31 2003
Subject: [EM] Voting Matters, Issue 17
Message-ID: <3FDFA0F1.FBC51219@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Hallo,

I forward a conversation between Craig Carey and me about
issue 17 of Voting Matters.

**********************************************************

> To: single-transferable-vote at yahoogroups.com
> From: Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
> Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 23:09:23 +1300
> Subject: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
> http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-December/011387.html
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/12838
>
> --->
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
>
> >[EM] Voting Matters, Issue 17
> >Markus Schulze markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de
> >Sun Dec 14 07:30:01 2003
> >
> >...
> >I have uploaded issue 17 (October 2003) of "Voting Matters" (208 kB):
> >http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/issue17.pdf
> >
> >This issue contains the following papers:
> >
> >1. Douglas R. Woodall, "QPQ, a quota-preferential STV-like
> >   election rule," page 1-7,
> >
> >2. Joe Otten, "Fuller Disclosure than Intended," page 8,
> >
> >3. Markus Schulze, "A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent
> >   Single-Winner Election Method," page 9-19,
> >
> >4. James Gilmour, "Calculation of Transfer Values -- Proposal
> >   for STV-PR Rules for Local Government Elections in Scotland,"
> >   page 20-24.
> >
> >Markus Schulze
> _______________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
> Just in case members needed a review here is one
>
>
> (4) ---------------- [from below]
>
> I agree with the with the view of Mr Gilmour that more than 2
> significant digits is needed when computing STV.
>
>  * using only 2 decimal digits is arbitrary. I was assuming
>    that arbitrariness is a way a line of consideration that
>    can lead to rejection of a preferential voting method.
>
>   Possibly a superior idea to
>    * getting the correct leaders elected (i.e. "accuracy")
>   is:
>    * avoiding the arbitrariness that occurs when the winners
>      were wrong but there are other ways to get the winners
>      wrong. So the reasoning was inadequate.
>
>  Once replacing need-for-accuracy with a lack-of=-arbitrariness,
>   then to that can be added this idea:
>    * politicians might be right to reject a preferential voting
>      if it is arbitrary
>
> Minimal arbitrariness can allow the least popular candidate to
> be the winner.  Politicians can't use the word accuracy
> when talking about winners if not knowing who the correct
> winners are. They just won't do the maths of casting
> n-D shadows which is the best possible so not arbitrary.
>
>
>
> (1) ----------------
>
> (a) Mr Otten says that STV papers be kept secret. That article
> fails to be very clear on when. Governments could have their
> statistian produce hard to believe stroies on how it would be
> expensive to anonymize the ballot paper preferences. It could
> cost between 100 and 200 dollars.
>
> (b) Surely before the election the papers are already secret.
> Mr Wichmann missed these unclear parts of the paper:
> (b)(1) before vs after ?: when is secrecy needed ?
> The text of Mr Wichmann at the top suggests that secrecy
> maybe would occur long after the election is finished:
>
>      "The paper of Joe Otten arose from a
>       resolution put to the ERS AGM requesting
>       that the full election data of the
>       preferences specified should be available
>       for STV elections. (Such disclosure was
>       available for the three Irish constituencies
>       for which electronic voting was em-ployed in
>       the June 2002 elections.) The paper explains
>       a potential danger from full disclosure with
>       a proposed resolution."
>
>  * who is the wrong doer that would be thwarted by
>    secrecy over what is on STV ballot papers?.
>
> 
> (c)
> STV allows advantage to be gained by saying how to vote.
> The gain could be huge.
> But offender is the algorithm: it would divert votes from a
> possible winner to a 3rd candidate while simultaneously
> actually keeping the power under control. Elections are one
> process where the prime aim of people is to manipulate the
> results. So what is wrong with a candidate manipulating ?.
> Similarly the targetting of enemies is allowed. Suppose a
> Tory leader tripped and was zoomed in on by TV cameras after
> a Labour backbencher winked and whistled.
>
> Further suppose the Labour MP was not a corrupt person
> and thus not barred to national politics. It he is not
> guilty of corruptly tripping the man up, then it was
> excessively manipulative. But the aim in elections is for
> every voter to be maximally manipulative.
>
> A good reason from withholding information would be to
> stop wrongdoing by an individual. Maybe society gets harmed
> by the manipulation that STV could allow. But perhaps no
> court or judge has restarted an election because it was
> snowing on election day or etc.. A  solution could be to
> have a Green say
>  "You need and now want STV. Wrong results will follow
>   from the use of dumb preferential voting algorithms".
>
>
>
> (2) ----------------
>
> I have not looked at Mr Woodall's method.
>
> It could be tested numerically.
> E.g. this way:
> (1) for both 3 candidates and 4 candidates, it is better
>   in the 2 cases, or worse. Then maybe a 5 candidate
>   test could be put off.
> (2) 5 candidate testing is done and some more strict
>   rules may be needed.  That would involve days of
>   programming and more.
>
> I have already defined the fairness polytope and its
> dual for the 1 winner 4 candidate election. Porta
> can compute dual polytopes. That would be extended
> for 2w4c,1w5c,2w5c,3w5c,4w5c cases, Then hand
> steering of 2 points finds the longest line segment
> that violates a constraint. There may be too many
> papers for manual navigating when 5 candidates and
> 2 winners, for the truncating can only be done after
> the 2nd/last of papers naming both candidates.
> So an optimizer is needed and one that has a chance
> of finding an answer is one that locates the slope
> and position of the Boolean boundary. I assume that
> it still might not be written in 1 year's time. I
> don't know.
>
> The method of D R Woodall uses one by one eliminating
> which I assume is the source of the problems and so
> I don't suspect it would turn out to be a long
> lasting method.
>
> Both numerically and symbolically, a researcher has
> to develop general purpose solving tools that are
> likely to be useful outside of preferential voting.
> The non-linear optimizer is missing.
>
>
> (3) ----------------
>
> Mr Schulze's article.
>
> Before I get to that I quote this text of the editor, Mr Wichmann:
>
>      "It has been decided that the Editor should
>       ensure that the main points of such papers
>       are intelligible to non-mathematical readers
>       by placing an appropriate summary here."
>
> The whole article of Mr Schulze is unbelievable.
>
> A defective spot in Mr Schulze's article is this:
>
>      "4 Implementation
>       ...
>       It cannot be said frequently that the order
>       of the indices in the triple-loop of the
>       Floyd algorithm is not irrelevant."
>
> The principle of having the winner unaffected by the lettering
> might be failed.
>
> E.g. this could happen. (The only change is a reordering
> of ALL the for loops inside of the algorithm):
>
>   Harry (=#1) Winner
>   Horace (=#2) Loser
>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
>
>   Harry (=#2) Loser
>   Horace (=#1) Winner
>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
>
> Mr Schulze's "neutrality" principle prevents the problem (if
> any). The text  "neutral" is absent from the PDF article.
> An error at the top of the algorithm passes into the rest of
> the code and make analysis more complex.
>
> There ought be a program that tests and that writes out numbers.

**********************************************************

> To: single-transferable-vote at yahoogroups.com
> From: Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
> Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 15:40:28 +0100
> Subject: Re: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
> Dear Craig,
>
> you wrote (15 Dec 2003):
>
> > A defective spot in Mr Schulze's article is this:
> >
> >      "4 Implementation
> >       ...
> >       It cannot be said frequently that the order
> >       of the indices in the triple-loop of the
> >       Floyd algorithm is not irrelevant."
> >
> > The principle of having the winner unaffected by the lettering
> > might be failed.
> >
> > E.g. this could happen. (The only change is a reordering
> > of ALL the for loops inside of the algorithm):
> >
> >   Harry (=#1) Winner
> >   Horace (=#2) Loser
> >   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
> >
> >   Harry (=#2) Loser
> >   Horace (=#1) Winner
> >   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
>
> The Floyd algorithm is a shortest-path algorithm. When I said that
> "the order of the indices in the triple-loop of the Floyd algorithm
> is not irrelevant" then I meant that you have to consider the
> possible short cuts in the mentioned order. Otherwise the Floyd
> algorithm does not work (i.e. does not give the correct result).
>
> I wrote:
>
> > for i : = 1 to N do
> > for j : = 1 to N do
> > if ( i <> j ) then
> > for k : = 1 to N do
> > if ( i <> k ) then
> > if ( j <> k ) then
> >    {
> >     s : = min { p[j,i], p[i,k] } ;
> >     if ( p[j,k] < s ) then
> >     p[j,k] : = s ;
> >    }
>
> However, Mike Ossipoff always describes the Floyd algorithm as
> follows:
>
> > for i in range(N)
> > for j in range(N)
> > for k in range(N)
> >    low=min(B[A(i,j)],B[A(j,k)]
> >    if low>B[A(i,k)]
> >    B[A(i,k)]=low
>
> This does not work (i.e. this does not find the correct values
> for the shortest paths).
>
> Markus Schulze

**********************************************************

> To: single-transferable-vote at yahoogroups.com
> From: Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
> Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 15:35:22 +1300
> Subject: Re: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
> At 2003-12-15 15:40 +0100 Monday, Markus Schulze wrote:
> >Dear Craig,
> >
> >you wrote (15 Dec 2003):
> >
> >> A defective spot in Mr Schulze's article is this:
> >>
> >>      "4 Implementation
> >>       ...
> >>       It cannot be said frequently that the order
> >>       of the indices in the triple-loop of the
> >>       Floyd algorithm is not irrelevant."
> >>
>
> That is ambiguous and means: *all* 'for loops', or *some* of them
>
> >> The principle of having the winner unaffected by the lettering
> >> might be failed.
> >>
> >> E.g. this could happen. (The only change is a reordering
> >> of ALL the for loops inside of the algorithm):
> >>
> >>   Harry (=#1) Winner
> >>   Horace (=#2) Loser
> >>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
> >>
> >>   Harry (=#2) Loser
> >>   Horace (=#1) Winner
> >>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
> >
>
> I.e. secret internal relettering (or renaming or renumbering) inside
> of the algorithm affects who the winner is.
>
> You could answer these this question:
>
>   1. Does your method fail the test.
>
>     You could write a Monte-Carlo routine.
>
> It seems the McDougall Trust operation is prepared to leave no
> stone unturned in order to exclude me when decisions to reject
> (all or parts of) submitted articles are made. I don't know if I
> can get things into the journal.
>
>
> >The Floyd algorithm is a shortest-path algorithm. When I said that
> >"the order of the indices in the triple-loop of the Floyd algorithm
> >is not irrelevant" then I meant that you have to consider the
> >possible short cuts in the mentioned order. Otherwise the Floyd
> >algorithm does not work (i.e. does not give the correct result).
>
> I am expecting a rejection of the method, and not any clarification
> of previous wordings about the method.
>
> And as you know, there is other allegation that would make your method
> too unlike ST to ever promote here, which is that the specifiying or
> not specifying the very last preference affects the winners when in
> neither case there was a tie. Your algorithm creates the mistake in
> the first lines and then sends it into the cyclic washing machine of
> the for loops. It is plain when the algebra is done. I suppose the
> purpose is that you have no idea of what you are doing when designing
> and then have an idea that you should not discard the result.
>
> Since you prefer wording up ideas, how would you word uop the idea of
> not discarding an unsatisfactory method that obviously no one else
> would get serious over using. To fix the mistakes would lead to less
> complexity. So readers need not look at your arguments.
>
> It does not matter whether your method is monotonic: it should be
> rejected while people presume my allegations are correct.
>
>
> >I wrote:
> >
> >> for i : = 1 to N do
> >> for j : = 1 to N do
> >> if ( i <> j ) then
> >> for k : = 1 to N do
> >> if ( i <> k ) then
> >> if ( j <> k ) then
> >>    {
> >>     s : = min { p[j,i], p[i,k] } ;
> >>     if ( p[j,k] < s ) then
> >>     p[j,k] : = s ;
> >>    }
> >
>
> That is incomprehensible to me.
>
>
> >However, Mike Ossipoff always describes the Floyd algorithm as
> >follows: 
> >
> >> for i in range(N)
> >> for j in range(N)
> >> for k in range(N)
> >>    low=min(B[A(i,j)],B[A(j,k)]
> >>    if low>B[A(i,k)]
> >>    B[A(i,k)]=low
> >
> >This does not work (i.e. this does not find the correct values
> >for the shortest paths).
> >
>
> That is a dud argument or no argument.
>
> Your method is in the trash can for failing 2 tests. Can you get
> it out ? (rather than being creating natural language statements),
>
> I would not use the word correct but say "as intended". You seem
> to be in private communication with Mr Ossipoff.
>
> The main idea is that tests are ordered in a sequence and once a
> failure occurs, then there is no need to read about your untrusted
> arguments indicating that the method is failed under this particular
> check.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Regarding my comment on Mr Woodall's method, I missed a way to
> test the method and compare it with Meek STV. I could use REDLOG
> to derive a 2 winner 2 preference 4 candidate method and then simply
> see which of the 2 STV-like methods is most similar. REDLOG was
> making mistakes and I could have tried hard to debug the output
> of the German software. Due to the grand plan of eliminating the
> German university's QE solver, I am now unable to compare Meek STV
> with the D R Woodall method.
>
> Testing using a sequence of:
>    * 1 preference methods, then
>    * 2 preference methods, then
>    * 3 preference methods, ...;
> seems to be a bit plausible.
>
> Craig Carey

**********************************************************

> To: single-transferable-vote at yahoogroups.com
> From: Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
> Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 10:14:17 +0100
> Subject: Re: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
> Dear Craig,
>
> I wrote (15 Dec 2003):
> > The Floyd algorithm is a shortest-path algorithm. When I said that
> > "the order of the indices in the triple-loop of the Floyd algorithm
> > is not irrelevant" then I meant that you have to consider the
> > possible short cuts in the mentioned order. Otherwise the Floyd
> > algorithm does not work (i.e. does not give the correct result).
>
> You wrote (16 Dec 2003):
> > That is incomprehensible to me.
>
> You can find Floyd's shortest-path algorithm in many books on graph
> theory or combinatorial optimization. When you cannot find any good
> book on Floyd's shortest-path algorithm then I suggest that you
> should implement Dijkstra's shortest-path algorithm. Also Dijkstra's
> shortest-path algorithm has a runtime of O(N^3), where N is the
> number of candidates; the main reason why I use Floyd's algorithm
> and not Dijkstra's algorithm in my paper is that the source code
> of Dijkstra's algorithm is significantly longer. However, Dijkstra's
> algorithm is significantly less difficult to understand. ("Dijkstra"
> is also known as "Dykstra".)
>
> By the way: The proofs that my method is well defined and satisfies
> Pareto, monotonicity, resolvability, independence from clones,
> reversal symmetry, and Woodall's plurality criterion do not
> presume that I use Floyd's algorithm.
>
> You wrote (16 Dec 2003):
> > Since you prefer wording up ideas, how would you word uop the idea
> > of not discarding an unsatisfactory method that obviously no one
> > else would get serious over using.
>
> My method is already used by the "Software in the Public Interest"
> (SPI) project and the DEBIAN project.
>
> Markus Schulze

**********************************************************

> Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 08:25:39 +1300
> To: Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
> From: Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
> Subject: Single-Transferable-Vote: I moderated your addres
>
> To: Theoretician Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
> Subject: Re: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
>
> I am moderating your e-mail address : markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de
>
> I shall delay sending reasoning and I may not even send reasoning.
> But I would e-mail reasoning if you request that information.
>
> Remember that we know that you believe during these days when you
> try to present yourself as never having heard the word. The aspect
> of withholding leads me to moderate your future messages.
>
> Recall that you wrote this:
>
> __________________________>__
> At 1998-04-24 17:07 +0200 Friday, Markus Schulze wrote:
> >Dear Mike, dear David,
> >
> ...
> >   To my opinion, it is not possible, that B is elected, because
> >   this would be a violation of the Neutrality Criterion (i.e.,
> >   every candidate is treated equally), the Anonymity Criterion
> >   (i.e., every voter is treated equally) or the Weak Monotonicity
> ...
> >
> >Markus
> __________________________<__
>
> The words "not possible" seem to rule out that you were tentative and
> unsure, on the so called "neutrality" rule.
>
> Is it your opinion that the method in the PDF file passes a neutrality
> rule ?. If so, then there is the other rule about the last preference
> being without an improper influence.
>
> ---
>
> You seemed to be in the wrong in 1988 as well, in that there is no
> need for a neutrality rule unless the set of principles is wrong.
>
> Re=lettering a, neutrality failing, preferential voting method would
> make it be multivalued in general.
>
> The right rules and excluding neutrality, don't lead to multivalued
> winner sets.
>
> So neutrality is implied by other right rules.
>
> Omitting one rule may fail to delete the rule.
>
>
> At 2003-12-16 10:14 +0100 Tuesday, Markus Schulze wrote:
> >Dear Craig,
> >
> >I wrote (15 Dec 2003):
> >> The Floyd algorithm is a shortest-path algorithm. When I said that
> >> "the order of the indices in the triple-loop of the Floyd algorithm
> >> is not irrelevant" then I meant that you have to consider the
> >> possible short cuts in the mentioned order. Otherwise the Floyd
> >> algorithm does not work (i.e. does not give the correct result).
> >
> >You wrote (16 Dec 2003):
> >> That is incomprehensible to me.
> >
> >You can find Floyd's shortest-path algorithm in many books on graph
> >theory or combinatorial optimization. When you cannot find any good
> >book on Floyd's shortest-path algorithm then I suggest that you
> ...
>
>
>
> You failed to reply to what I wrote.
>
> I maintain the worlds best mailing list on preferential voting.
>
> I am blocking you because your omitted information.
>
> A best defence for you could be to say that you would be writing
> two messages and the 2nd message would answer the questions (so
> you have to write software too: I guess you already did that but
> are keeping the results and the existence of the software, secret).
> Also the defence would say that the first message should have
> mentioned that another was coming.
>
> I I wouldn't alter it too much since it is currently able to
> persuade.
>
> Like the McDougall Trust said to me, we shall see how it goes, ie.
> where you go from here. It seems "not possible" that a follower of
> pairwise comparing would want to make a method be fair to
> the smallest minorities.
>
> Craig Carey
> Auckland


From jarmyta at antioch-college.edu  Wed Dec 17 21:24:02 2003
From: jarmyta at antioch-college.edu (James Green-Armytage)
Date: Wed Dec 17 21:24:02 2003
Subject: [EM] a strategic problem and possible remedy for Condorcet-efficient voting methods
Message-ID: <fc.005b8ffc00a0ae15005b8ffc00a0ae15.a0ae68@mcgregor.edu>

Dear election method fans,

	Below is a proposal for a voting procedure, preceded by a rationale for
that proposal, in sort of a paperish format. I hope that you find it
interesting. 
	Also, I would greatly appreciate it if people could tell me whether
similar procedures have been proposed before. 
	You see, I'm kind of thinking about trying to apply to graduate school
for economics in the next year or two. That's my big dream right now, and
they say that it's easier to get in if you have published something. So I
thought that I should try to publish something on voting methods, since
that's sort of related to economics, and I don't know as much about other
branches of economics. I have a few ideas that I want to try publishing,
but this is the first one that I want to pursue... unless it has already
been proposed! So if it has been, please let me know (and be gentle...),
but if not, please give me credit if you repeat the ideas elsewhere. Also,
if it is a viable subject I was wondering if you all could give me
feedback and help get it into some sort of publishable shape (It probably
needs to be much shorter!), and maybe some advice as to where to submit it
to.
	So, anyway, I will greatly appreciate your feedback either way.

my best,
James Green-Armytage

____________________

A Strategic Problem and Possible Remedy for Condorcet-Efficient Voting
Methods
by James Green-Armytage

	In designing a single-winner voting procedure for the purpose of majority
rule, I take it as axiomatic that it should always select a Condorcet
winner when one exists, since a Condorcet winner is preferred by a
majority over all other candidates.
	However, it seems that any ranked ballot vote processing rule that is
completely Condorcet efficient is also vulnerable to manipulation using a
strategy known as ?burying,? or ?offensive order reversal.?
	Let me try to illustrate this strategy using an example. There are 3
candidates: A, B, and C. There are 100 voters. The sincere preferences of
the voters are as follows:

46: A>B>C
44: B>A>C
5: C>A>B
5: C>B>A

	A is the sincere Condorcet winner, with no cycles present. However, B
voters can ?bury? A on their ballots by voting him last, which produces
this result:

46: A>B>C
44: B>C>A
5: C>A>B
5: C>B>A

	The pairwise comparisons are as follows:

A:B = 51:49
A:C = 46:54
B:C = 90:10

	Minimax drops A?s defeat over B (which has a magnitude of 51 votes and a
margin of 2 votes), leaving B the winner. This strategy has clearly paid
off for the B voters. Ranked pairs and beatpath do the same thing as
minimax in this example and all others in this paper, but for simplicity?s
sake let?s assume that the completion method being used is minimax.
	If the 46 A>B>C voters find out that the B voters are planning to use
this strategy, can they do anything to stop it? Yes and no. If the ballots
cast by the other 54 voters in the second situation above remain the same,
there is nothing that the 46 A>B>C voters can do to get A elected. The
only thing that they can do is to threaten to elect candidate C if the B
voters do not drop their order reversal strategy. 
	Their means of carrying out this threat varies depending on whether we
are using a version of minimax that is based on dropping defeats of least
margin (difference between winning and losing vote totals in pairwise
comparison) or least magnitude (winning vote totals in pairwise
comparison).
	If we are using a magnitude-based method, then in order for C to win, C
must beat or tie B, or the magnitude of B?s defeat over C must be less
than the magnitude of A?s defeat over B. The A>B>C voters can achieve this
if at least 40 of them truncate their ballots, voting A>B=C. For example:

40: A>B=C
6: A>B>C
44: B>C>A
5: C>A>B
5: C>B>A

A:B = 51:49
A:C = 46:54
B:C = 50:10

	If we are using a margins-based method, then in order for C to win, C
must beat or tie B, or the margin of B?s defeat over C must be less than
the margin of A?s defeat over B. In this case truncation on the part of
the A voters will not suffice, and they are forced to do some order
reversal of their own in order to carry through their threat and prevent
the B voters from stealing the election. At least 34 of the 46 A>B>C
voters need to do this for it to work, for example:

34: A>C>B
12: A>B=C
5: C>A>B
5: C>B>A

A:B = 51:49
A:C = 46:54
B:C = 44:44

	So, these are some of the ways that A can derail the B voters? burying
strategy and punish them with the election of C. However, the election of
C is a very undesirable result in itself, and it is not clear whether the
A voters? threat will scare the B voters into voting sincerely, resulting
in the election of A. Perhaps the B voters will carry through their
burying plan, without the A voters following through on their threat. This
would result in the election of B. Perhaps the B voters will carry through
their burying plan, and the A voters will carry through their threat. This
would result in the election of C. Perhaps the 5 C>A>B voters will end the
trouble and prevent the danger of B?s election by voting A>C>B, thus
cementing A?s victory. Or perhaps those 5 voters will prefer to wait and
hope that the fight between A and B throws the election to C. Using a
margins-based version of minimax could add in some more complications,
including a situation where A and B throw the race to C without any
insincere intentions, but instead out of a sense of mutual paranoia that
the other group of voters will carry out a burial strategy.
	To make a long story short, the voters have entered into a complicated
strategy game, the outcome of which is unclear. In some ways it is
analogous to the game of chicken. The A voters? swerving could be not
carrying through their threat and allowing the B voters to successfully
use the burial strategy. The B voters? swerving could be voting sincerely
and allowing A to win. The car crash would be the election of C. 
	It is disturbing that it is possible for elections based on Condorcet?s
method to break down into this sort of situation as a result of the burial
strategy, that is an intense strategy game amongst the voters, with a
strong possibility of a highly unpopular candidate being elected. 
	Also, it is disturbing that the burial strategy can be effective in the
first place. Imagine that this example was a Presidential election in a
country with millions of voters, and that the figures represented
percentages of the turnout rather than single voters. The contest between
A and B would obviously be the main focus of the election, as 90% of the
voters prefer them to C. The 2% point difference in the pairwise contest
between A and B would represent thousands or millions of voters. If the B
voters pulled off an order reversal strategy under these conditions, the
democratic process would have been completely undermined.
	Of course, the chances of this happening in a public election are not
necessarily very great. Any candidate whose campaign staff called up
voters by the thousands and instructed them to cast an insincere vote
might be held up to a certain amount of public shame. However, a similar
effect might take place without a grand conspiracy, but as a result of a
simple notion among the voters that there might be some benefit in ranking
their sincere second favorite in last place, if she is the main
competition for their favorite.
	Well-coordinated and successful burial strategies might become more
likely given a smaller electorate where it is easier to figure out how
other people are voting and easier to create a strategy covertly. For
example, this might be a problem if Condorcet?s method was being used by a
council or legislature to decide on different versions of a bill or
various courses of action. 
	In any case the burial strategy can often backfire by leading to the
election of someone you like even less that the second or third-favorite
candidate you are trying to bury. Thus, there are many situations where
the incentive to engage in such a strategy is outweighed by its risk, and
the number of voters who try it will be too small to be decisive.
	But again, whether it is likely or not, the fact that a large-scale
burying strategy can conceivably happen is very disturbing, since its
effects can be so negative. 

	Whether a method offers incentives for burying strategies seems to be
related to whether reversing the order of later preferences on a ballot
can cause an earlier preference to be elected. For example, if a group of
voters rank 5 candidates in the order A>B>C>D>E, and C is elected, are
there any situations where that same group of voters could vote A>B>D>E>C,
and cause B to be elected instead, with all the other votes in the
election remaining constant?
	If so, then there will be situations where voters will have incentives to
rank their sincere second favorite in last place, or their sincere third
favorite in fourth place, and so on. That is, in changing the order of the
candidates from the sincere order, voters will insincerely downrank
particular candidates.
	Given different methods, there are different kinds of strategies that
involve downranking later preferences to help earlier preferences. Some
Condorcet-efficient methods such minimax, ranked pairs, beatpath, find a
completion winner by overruling some majority preferences in favor of
others. Given methods like these, groups of voters can sometimes benefit
by creating an artificial majority against one of their later preferences
which overrules a sincere majority against one of their earlier
preferences, causing the earlier preference to win. This is the burying
strategy as discussed above.
	Some Condorcet-efficient methods find a completion winner by reverting to
a different method that is not Condorcet-efficient, such as single
transferable vote or Borda. Given methods like these, groups of voters can
sometimes benefit by downranking one of their later preferences who is a
sincere Condorcet winner, so that the tally finds no Condorcet winner, and
the other method that is reverted to finds one of their earlier
preferences as the winner. In addition to giving voters truncation and
burying incentives in order to prevent a Condorcet winner from emerging,
these methods will also reintroduce the strategic incentives inherent in
their given completion method.
	Unfortunately, I think that all Condorcet efficient methods give some
strategic incentives for further downranking later preferences in order to
help earlier preferences. That is, take any ranked ballot voting method
that satisfies universal domain, anonymity, Pareto, non-dictatorship. If
it is a method where a group of voters reversing the order of options
ranked after some candidate B can?t change the result to B under any
circumstances, this implies that those rankings can?t be looked at while B
is still in consideration. That is, B must be eliminated before they are
looked at. If this voting method eliminates candidates before all the
rankings are looked at, then it will not be able to avoid eliminating a
Condorcet winner.
	Thus, it seems that all Condorcet-efficient methods can be undermined by
voter strategy. However, I don?t think that the correct response in light
of this is to give up on the Condorcet principle and stick with other
methods that don?t offer these particular incentives. For one thing, the
Condorcet criterion is a highly desirable one, and secondly, these methods
have strategic problems of their own.
	My thought is that we might be able to use a procedure which selects a
Condorcet winner when one exists, and yet which gives people some
opportunity to undo the effects of a burying strategy if one occurs.
	I propose that since no fully deterministic vote-processing rule can
satisfy both Condorcet efficiency and resistance to the burying strategy,
we should consider systems that incorporate further human choice and
judgement after the initial balloting. I will propose such a procedure for
use within legislative bodies, and then I will propose a slightly modified
procedure for use in public elections where a single representative is
being elected.

Proposal for use within legislative bodies:
	A. Discussion. Ranked vote. Go to B.
	B. Discussion. Yes-no vote on the winner from the previous ranked vote,
whether a Condorcet winner or the winner based on a chosen completion
method, such as ranked pairs or beatpath. If the relative majority votes
yes, then that option is selected as the final outcome. If the relative
majority votes no, return to A.
	Note: At any discussion stage, a particular option can be withdrawn,
either by the sponsor of that option, or by being nominated for withdrawal
and confirmed by a relative majority. Also, with the approval of a
relative majority, non-members of the Schwartz set from a previous ranked
balloting can be removed from further consideration. The purpose of these
measures is to simplify the process by eliminating options that can be
agreed to be irrelevant.

	This procedure gives legislators a chance to discuss the winner given by
a completion method, and make an attempt to determine whether a burying
strategy has taken place. For example, they might look over the ranked
votes cast by other legislators and see if two very similar options are
placed suspiciously far apart on the ballot. They may fail to detect a
burial strategy if it exists, but they at least have an opportunity.
	In general, the fact that the final outcome must be approved by a
relative majority ensures majority rule and prevents any strange surprises
from getting locked into place before people see them coming. It is
possible that legislators will wrestle with a variety of strategies and
counter strategies, drawing the process into several repetitions. However,
they have been given the best tools available for building a majority
decision. If the process goes into a deadlock where the amount of
repetitions exceed the patience of the legislature and the issue is
dropped, this is arguably a natural deadlock which could not be given a
truly satisfactory resolution by another method.

Proposal for use in public elections:
	A. Ranked vote. If a Condorcet winner exists, then this candidate is
selected as the final outcome. If no Condorcet winner exists, go to B.
	B. Yes-no vote on completion method winner from previous ranked vote. If
the relative majority votes yes, then this candidate is selected as the
final outcome. If the relative majority votes no, go to C.
	C. Ranked vote on candidates already included in the process. Return to B.
	Note: Stages B and C should be combined in a single balloting. If the
relative majority votes yes on the option presented by the previous ranked
vote, then the subsequent ranked vote is of course irrelevant. However, in
order to save time and resources (and keep turnout high) it is better to
perform the subsequent ranked vote at the same time as the yes-no vote.
The gap between the ballotings is a matter of preference. I imagine gaps
of a week or so.
	Note: Any candidate is free to withdraw in between ballotings, but no
candidates can enter beyond the initial vote. Thus, the number of
candidates can only decrease given subsequent rounds, simplifying the
process.

	The discussion that is an important part of this process would hopefully
still take place, but since it is a public situation with a large number
of voters, the discussion would rely on some types of media, and hence the
quality of deliberation would rely on the structure of public media.
	The only difference between A and C in the public elections version is
that a Condorcet winner in stage A is automatically selected, but a
Condorcet winner in stage C must be confirmed by a relative majority.
	The fact that a Condorcet winner from the initial vote is automatically
selected is a trouble-saving device which I have put into the public
elections version but not the legislative body version. It isn?t much
extra trouble for a legislature to take an extra vote to confirm a
Condorcet winner, but in a public election the cost and trouble of an
extra balloting would be significant.
	If a Condorcet winner exists in the initial vote, it is a fairly
trustworthy option to pick. Note that a group of voters can?t change a
candidate B from a non Condorcet winner to a Condorcet winner by changing
the order of candidates that they have ranked after candidate B. For
example, if a group of voters lists B as their first choice and B is still
not a Condorcet winner, there is nothing further that they can do to make
B a Condorcet winner.
	Obviously no effective burying strategy has taking place if there is a
Condorcet winner, because this strategy depends on a fabricated majority
overruling a genuine majority through a cycle.
	The possibility of a large number of repetitions of this process would be
more of a problem for a public election than for a legislative decision,
because of the larger cost of subsequent votes, and the possibility of
term limits. Hence, a question remains about whether to limit the number
of repetitions, and if so, how to do so. 
	One could go on repeating the process indefinitely until a relative
majority approved the outcome, taking majority no votes as an endorsement
of the status quo. At the end of a term limit, one would have to ask the
representative in question to step down in favor of a substitute such as a
Vice President, who would hold the office until the conclusion of the
ranked vote. However, this would be awkward, the repeated ballotings might
be expensive, and the instability of a temporary office holder might be
undesirable.
	One could place a specific the number of repetitions ahead of time, for
example declaring that the results of the fifth ranked vote were final and
binding. However, all of the strategic concerns relevant to
Condorcet-efficient method would apply here once again.
	Perhaps the solution is to declare a candidate to be the final selection
once they have been the winner of a certain number of ranked votes,
whether a clear Condorcet winner or based on a completion method. For
example, if a candidate A wins three separate ranked votes, candidate A is
 elected.
	Hopefully, however, these kinds of rule will never come into play. Even
if no Condorcet winner is found in the initial vote, one can hope that the
majority will approve whatever completion method winner is given, and
hence only one additional balloting will be necessary. The primary purpose
of the subsequent votes is to serve as a safeguard against burial
strategies, and if the majority is not convinced that such a strategy has
affected the outcome, they should approve the completion method winner.
Even if they do not approve the first winner that comes forward, I imagine
that the cycle should collapse into a Condorcet winner within a couple
rounds, through the withdrawal of other candidates in the cycle, or
through the consolidation of voters who were split between two candidates
to support a single candidate.

	I would recommend the legislative bodies procedure to any legislature or
council that can acquire the resources to process ranked ballots according
to a Condorcet completion method. I would recommend the public elections
procedure to any government that can acquire the resources to process
ranked ballots and to hold successive ballotings.



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Wed Dec 17 23:58:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Wed Dec 17 23:58:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd Algorithm?
Message-ID: <Law10-F40w21NFp8KOR00044585@hotmail.com>


Either Markus or Craig Carey, I'm not quite sure which, said:

>However, Mike Ossipoff always describes the Floyd algorithm as
>follows:
>
> > for i in range(N)
> > for j in range(N)
> > for k in range(N)
> >    low=min(B[A(i,j)],B[A(j,k)]
> >    if low>B[A(i,k)]
> >    B[A(i,k)]=low

Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm. I don't use that piece of 
code. It looks like it might be a tiny fraction of a Python strongests 
beatpaths program, with at least one of its lines partly erased.

I don't guarantee that it's part of anythng that I wrote, but, if it is, 
then let me explain the odd appearance of the arrays: Python, at least the 
version that I was using, doesn't have multidimensional arrays. It only has 
1-dimensional arrays. So I wrote a function to convert a 2-dimensional array 
position to a 1-dimensional array position. I called that function "A(i,j)". 
That 1-dimensional array position serves as the index variable for the 
strongest beatpaths array, B[A(i,j)].

The algorithm that I'll post, however, isn't written in any particular 
programming language. That will be posted within an hour or a half hour.

I do call a certain strongest beatpaths algorithm the Floyd algorithm, only 
because someone on this list told us that that's what that algorithm is 
called.

I've certainly never called it a shortest paths algorithm. It's purpose is 
to find the _strongest_ beatpath from each candidate to each other 
candidate. The strongest beatpath from Smith to Jones could also be the 
longest one. I have no idea what you're talking about when you refer to the 
shortest paths algorithm. Perhaps you're talking about a different algorithm 
from the strongest beatpaths algorithm.

The algorithm that I use was suggested by Steve Eppley. Apparently someone 
before him had described it. I don't claim to know what its official name 
is.

It's part of the algorithm that I send people for counting BeatpathWinner. 
I'll post that BeatpathWinner algorithm here in a few minutes.

Mike

_________________________________________________________________
Enjoy the holiday season with great tips from MSN.  
http://special.msn.com/network/happyholidays.armx



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 02:45:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 02:45:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd Algorithm?
Message-ID: <3FE184B2.F932A832@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):

> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

> Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
> Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
> entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
> beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.

But the then used algorithm is clearly not the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

>    changing = 1
>
>    while changing:
>
>        changing = 0
>
>        for i in range(nc):
>            for j in range(nc):
>                for k in range(nc):
>
>                    dmin = min ( Def[i,j], Def[j,k] )
>
>                    if Def[i,k] < dmin:
>                        Def[i,k] = dmin
>                        changing = 1

The Floyd algorithm has a runtime O(N^3), where N is the number of
candidates. But what you call the "Floyd Algorithm" has a runtime
O(N^5).

******

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> It's part of the algorithm that I send people for counting
> BeatpathWinner. I'll post that BeatpathWinner algorithm here
> in a few minutes.

A correct version of the Floyd algorithm can be found in my paper
"A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 18 03:23:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Thu Dec 18 03:23:01 2003
Subject: [EM] BeatpathWinner Algorithm
Message-ID: <Law10-F118GTFc0imLv0003ce33@hotmail.com>

Here is an algorithm to implement BeatpathWinner. It seems to me that 
someone called the strongest beatpaths algorithm the Floyd algorithm. But 
maybe not. When Markus said that the fragment of code that he quoted didn't 
work to find the shortest path, he may have been referring to the overall 
algorithm or program from which his fragment was taken. That may well be, 
because the strongest beatpaths algorithm used here isn't intended to find 
shortest paths. It's intended to find strongest beatpaths.

BeatpathWinner Algorithm:

The algorithm below isn't written here in any
particular programming language. But it would only
require a few small  changes to make it into any
programming language.

Here's the BeatpathWinner algorithm:

First we make the strongest beatpaths array.

Place the defeat-strengths into the strongest
beatpaths array, B(i,j):

If i  beats j, then B(i,j) = the number of people who
have ranked i over j.

If i doesn't beat j, then B(i,j) = 0.

repeat = 1
while repeat = 1:
  change = 0
  for i = 1 to N
     for j =  1 to N
        for k = 1 to N
           least = min(B(i,j), B(j,k))
           if least > B(i,k):
              B(i,k) = least
              change =1
           endif
       endfor
    endfor
endfor
if change= 0
    repeat = 0
endif
endwhile

When this has been done, you have the strongest
beatpaths array, B(i,j), where B(i,j) is the strength
of the strongest beatpath from i to j. (If there's no
beatpath from i to j, then B(i,j) = 0).

Then B(i,j) is used to find the winners of
BeatpathWinner:

for i = 1 to N
win(i) = 1
endfor

for i = 1 to N
  for j = 1 to N
     if B(j,i) > B(i,j)
        win(i) = 0
     endif
  endfor
endfor

print "The winners are:"
for i = 1 to N
if win(i) = 1
    print i
endif
endfor

[end of BeatpathWinner algorithm]
_____

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 18 03:52:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Thu Dec 18 03:52:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Re:  Floyd algorithm?
Message-ID: <Law10-F95N7miR9Odut00005606@hotmail.com>

Markus said:

Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):

>Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

I reply:

Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly what you 
mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.

You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment, 
some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd 
algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment 
anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment the 
Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied 
fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

You continued:

But the then used algorithm is clearly not the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

I reply:

I couldn't care less if it's the Floyd algorithm. If it isn't, then I'll 
tell Russ to delete that name from the website. When we put it at the 
website, I at that time believed that it was the Floyd algorithm because it 
was the corrected versioin of something that you had posted to EM, calling 
it the Floyd algorithm.

What you'd posted differed by only making one pass throiugh the 3-candiate 
permutations. But one pass isn't guaranteed to find all the strongest 
beatpaths.

Now it occurs to me that maybe your Floyd algorithm isn't intended to do 
that. After all, you do call it the shortest-path algorithm, not the 
strongest path algorithm. I assumed at the time that your algorithm was 
supposed to find the strongest beatpaths, and that yoiu'd accidentally left 
out the code to repeat the passes till the task is complete. So I corrected 
what you'd posted so that it would do that, and called it the Floyd 
algorithm.

I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from you 
or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

But now I don't know if an algorithm for finding the strongest beatpaths is 
the same as the Floyd algorithm. You say it isn't. Fine. I'll tell Russ to 
delete that name from the website.

Now, Markus, understand this: I did call the algorithm from which you got 
your fragment the Floyd algorithm, because I thought that algorithm was what 
you were trying to write when you posted a "Floyd algorithm". I did not call 
your posted line-truncated fragment the Floyd algorithm, and that was what I 
was saying in my previoius posting here tonight.

I don't know if our strongest beatpaths algorithm is the Floyd algorithm, 
and I don't care. It finds strongest beatpaths. I'll tell Rus to delete the 
name.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Working moms: Find helpful tips here on managing kids, home, work ?  and 
yourself.   http://special.msn.com/msnbc/workingmom.armx



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 05:10:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 05:10:02 2003
Subject: [EM] BeatpathWinner Algorithm
Message-ID: <3FE1A6A0.C8253720@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear participants,

the correct version of the Floyd algorithm can be found in
Section 4 and in Appendix 3 of my paper "A New Monotonic
and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

Markus Schulze


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 05:10:04 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 05:10:04 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?
Message-ID: <3FE1A6B4.42E5AC72@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
> (http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):
>
> > Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
> > Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
> > entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
> > beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly
> what you mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.
>
> You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
> some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
> algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
> anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
> the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
> fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you call your implementation
"Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I misquoted you?

*********

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> I couldn't care less if it's the Floyd algorithm. If it isn't, then I'll
> tell Russ to delete that name from the website. When we put it at the
> website, I at that time believed that it was the Floyd algorithm because it
> was the corrected versioin of something that you had posted to EM, calling
> it the Floyd algorithm.
>
> What you'd posted differed by only making one pass throiugh the 3-candiate
> permutations. But one pass isn't guaranteed to find all the strongest
> beatpaths.
>
> Now it occurs to me that maybe your Floyd algorithm isn't intended to
> do that. After all, you do call it the shortest-path algorithm, not the
> strongest path algorithm. I assumed at the time that your algorithm was
> supposed to find the strongest beatpaths, and that yoiu'd accidentally left
> out the code to repeat the passes till the task is complete. So I corrected
> what you'd posted so that it would do that, and called it the Floyd
> algorithm.

What you call "the corrected versioin" is actually a falsified version.
When you use the correct order of the indices in the triple-loop, then
one pass through the 3-candidate permutations _does_ guarantee to find
all the strongest paths. Floyd proved this in 1962. This is the reason
why it is called the "Floyd algorithm".

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm
> from you or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

It is sad that you didn't get your strongest path algorithm from me
or Floyd; if you did it, it had a runtime of O(N^3) and not of O(N^5).

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 18 05:46:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Thu Dec 18 05:46:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Floyd algorithm?
Message-ID: <Law10-F57inarBU393I000455c2@hotmail.com>

I'd said, spelling it out very carefully for Markus:

>You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
>some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
>algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
>anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
>the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
>fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

Markus replied:

In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you call your implementation
"Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I misquoted you?

I reply:

Idiot, why don't you read the quoted passage above, from my e-mail. Did I 
deny that I'd called my implementation the Floyd algorithm? The only thing 
that I denied having called "the Floyd algorithm" was your poorly-copied, 
line-truncated fragment of a Python program. You had posted that fragment 
and said that I called it the Floyd algorithm.

Markus continued:

What you call "the corrected versioin" is actually a falsified version.

I reply:

I already clarified that the corrected version now apparently wasn't the 
Floyd algorithm. I already said that, at the time,  I believed that it was 
the Floyd algorithm because I believed that it was what you were trying to 
write, when you posted a procedure that you called the Floyd algorithm.

But, whether the version that I wrote is or is not the Floyd algorithm, it 
certainly finds the strongest beatpaths. I believe that I already clarified 
for you that I couldn't care less if that version is the Floyd algorithm.

You claim that  the  1-pass procedure that you posted finds the strongest 
beatpaths. Let's check it out and find out if it does.  What was the year, 
month, and day of  your posting in which you posted what you called the  
Floyd algorithm?

The Floyd algorithm is for finding shortest paths. Are you saying that it 
also finds strongest paths?
So then, are you saying that the shortest path from one candidate to another 
is necessarily the strongest path too?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Get dial-up Internet access now with our best offer: 6 months @$9.95/month!  
http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 07:35:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 07:35:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?
Message-ID: <3FE1C89C.1252854C@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
> (http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):
>
> > Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
> > Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
> > entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
> > beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly
> what you mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.
>
> You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
> some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
> algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
> anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
> the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
> fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you call your implementation
> "Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I misquoted you?

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> Idiot, why don't you read the quoted passage above, from my e-mail. Did I
> deny that I'd called my implementation the Floyd algorithm? The only thing
> that I denied having called "the Floyd algorithm" was your poorly-copied,
> line-truncated fragment of a Python program. You had posted that fragment
> and said that I called it the Floyd algorithm.

You are the idiot because you see no contradiction between the fact that
you call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" and the fact that you have
to admit that your Python program nowhere uses the Floyd algorithm.

******

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> You claim that  the  1-pass procedure that you posted finds the strongest
> beatpaths. Let's check it out and find out if it does.  What was the year,
> month, and day of  your posting in which you posted what you called the
> Floyd algorithm?

The Floyd algorithm has been proposed by Floyd (Robert W. Floyd, "Algorithm 97
(Shortest Path)," Communications of the ACM, vol. 5, p. 345, 1962).

Markus Schulze


From drernie at mac.com  Thu Dec 18 08:39:01 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Thu Dec 18 08:39:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?  - peace
In-Reply-To: <3FE1C89C.1252854C@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FE1C89C.1252854C@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <95FF01B8-3178-11D8-B986-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

Hi guys,

On Dec 18, 2003, at 7:32 AM, Markus Schulze wrote:
> You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
>> Idiot, why don't you read the quoted passage above, from my e-mail. 
>> Did I
>> deny that I'd called my implementation the Floyd algorithm? The only 
>> thing
>> that I denied having called "the Floyd algorithm" was your 
>> poorly-copied,
>> line-truncated fragment of a Python program. You had posted that 
>> fragment
>> and said that I called it the Floyd algorithm.
>
> You are the idiot because you see no contradiction between the fact 
> that
> you call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" and the fact that you 
> have
> to admit that your Python program nowhere uses the Floyd algorithm.

Can we chill? We're all Condorcet-lovers, after all.   Mike probably 
used the term Floyd inappropriately.   Markus probably cited a poor 
example.   Everybody makes mistakes.    No injury, no foul.

> You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
>> You claim that  the  1-pass procedure that you posted finds the 
>> strongest
>> beatpaths. Let's check it out and find out if it does.  What was the 
>> year,
>> month, and day of  your posting in which you posted what you called 
>> the
>> Floyd algorithm?
>
> The Floyd algorithm has been proposed by Floyd (Robert W. Floyd, 
> "Algorithm 97
> (Shortest Path)," Communications of the ACM, vol. 5, p. 345, 1962).

I suspect that we're really experiencing a clash of cultures.  Markus 
appears to be operating from a math/compsci perspective, where terms 
mean something different than they do in Mike.  As a physicist, I'm 
used to abusing mathematical terminology, so I can appreciate the 
dilemma. :-)

I suspect part of the problem is that the term 'shortest path'  in the 
Flloyd algorithm is used for finding what Mike calls a BeatPath.   The 
comparison of such paths to find the strongest beatpath is actually 
after the Flloyd algorithm.

There are some interesting differences between the two approaches, such 
as the use of absolute vs. relative weights, which may or may not be 
significant.  I'd be interested in hearing more about that.

-- Ernie P.

-----------
RadicalCentrism.org is an anti-partisan think tank near Sacramento, 
California, dedicated to developing and promoting the ideals of 
Reality, Character, Community and Humility as expressed in our Radical 
Centrist Manifesto: Ground Rules of Civil Society 
<http://RadicalCentrism.org/manifesto.html>



From research at ijs.co.nz  Thu Dec 18 09:42:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Thu Dec 18 09:42:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Rejecting the Schulze preferential voting method: a time for
 reform
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031219055006.04fa26e0@pop.qsi.net.nz>



I see that Marcus/Markus Schulze posted in 2 lines. While we wait
for the rest of the clipped communication (not conversation) I
post up some ideas. As ever, guessing is second to a catechistic
approach (with mind-changing over the answers allowed).


------------------------------

Mr Schulze did not reply to the issues which was that his method was
in the trash can and he had:
 1. got it to be biased in that same way that occurs for a method that
    always picks the 1st candidate on the list of candidates no matter
    what the votes are. I assume Mr Schulze agrees but he as usual he
    comment in response to every issue painting him up and not knowing
    how to design a preferential voting method.
 2. The presence of absence of the last preference affects who wins.

Both those ideas can indicate that the whole article was a junk and
trash. Mr Schulze wrote as if he could possibly begin to sense the
problem. With the idea that Mr Shulze can't understand everything that
much better theorists can precisely informa him of, I was going to
write a computer program to prove that his computer algorithm is
trash.

That follows his leaking following being moderated for censoring out
all information about the purpose for being so in the wrong which
the STV mailing list was certainly not getting adequately informed
about.

Mr Schulze has got a bias and I believe htat he has a purpose of
providing untrue information. The topic of how Mr Schulze can not
reply to 100% of the e-mails implying he start doing research into
nothing but his own trashy Schulze methods does not seem that
interesting. Why are core ideas of Condorcet so suboptimal since
proportionality and fairness are crushed/mangled together ?.

After these 5 years the ulitmate best Mr Schulze has been able to
do in the area of defending the garbage ideal, is to keep up the
pretense of never being able to identify the topic. That seems to be
the uniting ideal of Condorcet: even if Dr Dolittle's animals could
all understand why the lie of Condorcet pairwise comparing being
good is something so suboptimal that the method can't be said to be
optimal, the Condorcet believer would be suggesting he is following
the public idea that pairwise comparing is important. External is
idealized STV where both fairness and proportionally are both
perfectly defined and achieved except as best possible in the
circumstances.

Also Mr Schulze seems to get a few lines out every month to public
lists and constantly nothing at all to private e-mail. Teh big
aim in public mailing lists seems to be to drop names. When he
has a problem with transparency of purpose he slips into a dumb
mailing list - this one, where persons who know nothing and do
no useful research, congregate wishing that some religious man
unable to decide nothing is something and visa versa, would lead
them out.

In the grand sweep of Mr Schulzes exposition, he designed the
algorithm in the paper so the input is never votes. The preprocessing
stage that proves that the method is stupid, got censored out. It
is the case that reasoning indicates that Schulze's method should
be rejected instead of tested. 


Let's consider the algorithm itself. Here I quote from the VM 17
PDF file:

---
:     Suppose that d[X,Y] is the number of voters who
:     strictly prefer candidate X to candidate Y. Then the
:     Smith set is the smallest non-empty set of candidates
:     with d[A,B] > d[B,A] for each candidate B outside this
:     set.
---

The English text of Schulze probably seems to imply this
interpretation:

* Let there be only 3 candidates. Let the ballot papers be these:

2 (CA)
5 (CAB)
1 (CBA)

What is Mr Schulze's d[A,B] ?.

We could look at the computer algorithm source code but it takes
the "d" matrix as an input. The vote counting algorithm can't actually
accept votes.

The d[A,B] value would be:

 (Interpretation 1) the number 7, or
 (Interpretation 2) the number 5, or
 (Interpretation 3) the number 6, or
 (Interpretation 4) the number 4, or

I suppose Interpretations 3 and 4 can be rejected.

So dim are the followers of Condorcet that ruling out interpretations
using a correct reading of the text, could create a dispute.

For 5 years Schulze has be glued onto the falsehood and it seems
that in that time, evolution and pure thinking has brought to him
(a) a desire to censor out the perfectly wrong idea that pairwise
   comparing is not to be rejected
(b) for the STV community, he trashes their perfectly inconsistent
   views by presenting himself as needing exactly 2 words to
   "strictly prefer", Also the idea of summing is added with the
   relentlessly useless wording "the number of voters". If there are
   no voters, or the counts are non-integral or P2 is failed and the
   probing at negative numbers does not occur, that it would be
   false to conclude that the method is monotonic.

Here is the title of the paper:

  "A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method"

The publishing agency is the McDougall Trust.

Mr Shulze's credibility as theoriticians is incompatible with the
private e-mail messages from me to him on 3 October 2003 and 23
October 2003. At that time I was hampered by the ambiguous trashy
wording he relied upon.

Quoting from the 23 October document that comments narrowly on the
algorithm, I quote the method of the PDF VM 17 article:


| Markus Schulze, A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent
| Single-Winner Election Method, VOTING MATTERS, issue 17,
| September 2003
|
| Input: d[i,j] with i <> j is the number of voters who strictly
|                         prefer candidate i to candidate j.
| Output:  "w[i] = true" means that candidate i is a potential
|                         winner.
|          "w[i] = false" means that candidate i is not a
|                         potential winner.
| -- STEP 1
| for i := 1 to N do
|    for j := 1 to N do
|       if (i <> j) then p[i,j] := d[i,j] - d[j,i]; end if;
|    end loop;
| end loop;
| -- STEP 2
| for i := 1 to N do
|    for j := 1 to N do
|       if (i <> j) then
|          for k := 1 to N do
|             if (i <> k) then
|                if (j <> k) then
|                   s := min { p[j,i], p[i,k] };
|                   if (p[j,k] < s) then p[j,k] := s; end if;
|                end if;
|             end if;
|          end loop;
|       end if;
|    end loop;
| end loop;
|
| -- STEP 3
| for i := 1 to N do
|    w[i] := true ;
|    for j := 1 to N do
|       if (i <> j) then
|          if (p[j,i] > p[i,j]) then
|             w[i] := false ;
|          end if;
|       end if;
|    end loop;
| end loop;
| --------------

It is obvious from that Mr Schulze did not write any test at all that
attempts to clarify the words "strictly prefer".

Why Mr Schulze could not come to some clear conclusion in 1986 on how
to present with the fullest possible clarity the incompetently
pitiable deliberate error that subsequently guarantees that the
algorithm would be unfair, is baffling.

Here is the example again:

2 (CA)
5 (CAB)
1 (CBA)

The d[A,B] value:
 (Interpretation 1) the number 7, or
 (Interpretation 2) the number 5.

There are 2 cases (if not more)

(Case or Interpretation 1) The 2 is added to the 5.

  The article said "strictly prefer" instead of "prefer",  and I cant
  think of a purpose for that except to rule out this case.

  This case is so far acceptable but the whole method will not be.

(Case or Interpretation 2)
  In this case, the paper (CA) does not count towards candidate A.


Mr Schulze would be in the wrong IF ever saying that it is *obvious* that
these two cases have candidate 'A' being preferred by the same amount
against/over candidate 'B', when there are 5 or more candidates and
not 4 or less:

  (a) (C D A)
  (b) (C D A B)






Even in 1998 Mr Schulze's neutrality view appears to be a mistake.
Instead the illogic of having multivalued winners can be used.
The big argument here is that today Mr Schulze seems to reject
the neutrality rule since he could believe it would trash the [awful]
Schulze algorithm. The ideal course is to criticize Mr Schulze for
believing in the importance of the rule and again in 2003 for not
using it.

------------- example:

Suppose that the candidates are listed and the method makes the
first one listed, be the winner. So the method is faulty since it
fully ignores the ballot paper counts.

* External names: A, B
* Internal names: 1, 2
* External ballot papers:
    1 (A)
    9 (B) 
* Winner = candidate #1 = A

Re-letter externally and keep the algorithm unchanged:

* External names: B, A
* Internal names: 1, 2
* External ballot papers:
    1 (A)
    9 (B) 
* Winner = candidate #1 = B

The algorithm is returning the right number of winners, but it is
returning a multi-valued set of winners.

The definition of "multivalued". An exmaple: Log(1) is multivalued and
its values include: 0, 2*pi*i, 4*pi*i, etc.

Can Mr Shulze say what axioms lead to multivalued winner sets ?.

Why does he need a rule to stop neutrality violations and I do not.
If he disagrees and says that the rule is important it it does not
matter if it is redundant, then why was he maintaining such secrecy
on the topic of whether or not his method appearing in issue 17 of
Voting Matters fails ?. This is an argument is ambiguous, and unlike
the possible ambiguity of the Mr Schulze's "strictly prefer", the
persons creating the ambiguity is constructing the argument for all
the cases.

The Shulze algorithm has basic simple errors appearing in the very
first lines of the algorithm (Step 1). 

In Mr Schulzes world, he has got the typical Condorcet aim of
under-wording the theory of what actually happens when this paper

   1*(....A....B...)  Unnamed = ....

is altered into this paper:

   1*(....A....)  Unnamed = ....B....

Obviously what a *competent* government preferential voting method
expert will expect, is that there is no rule saying (somehow) that
A's standing with respect to B, is remains constant when that change
is done. Such a requirement would harm some other good principle.
If the theory is nearly optimal then it would be largely proportionality.

From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 11:24:09 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 11:24:09 2003
Subject: [EM] Rejecting the Schulze preferential voting method: a time for 
 reform
Message-ID: <3FE1FD49.F1E1C040@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

you wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> Let's consider the algorithm itself. Here I quote from the VM 17
> PDF file:
>
> ---
> :     Suppose that d[X,Y] is the number of voters who
> :     strictly prefer candidate X to candidate Y. Then the
> :     Smith set is the smallest non-empty set of candidates
> :     with d[A,B] > d[B,A] for each candidate B outside this
> :     set.
> ---
>
> The English text of Schulze probably seems to imply this
> interpretation:
>
> * Let there be only 3 candidates. Let the ballot papers be these:
>
> 2 (CA)
> 5 (CAB)
> 1 (CBA)
>
> What is Mr Schulze's d[A,B] ?.
>
> We could look at the computer algorithm source code but it takes
> the "d" matrix as an input. The vote counting algorithm can't actually
> accept votes.
>
> The d[A,B] value would be:
>
>  (Interpretation 1) the number 7, or
>  (Interpretation 2) the number 5, or
>  (Interpretation 3) the number 6, or
>  (Interpretation 4) the number 4, or
>
> I suppose Interpretations 3 and 4 can be rejected.
>
> ...

In the Introduction of the quoted paper, I write: "It is presumed
that each voter casts at least a partial ranking of all candidates."

Markus Schulze


From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Thu Dec 18 13:30:01 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Thu Dec 18 13:30:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312181237360.27475-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

For me two paramount criteria are

(1) simplicity of optimal or near optimal strategy, and

(2) as much voting power as possible consistent with (1).

There are various possible definitions of "voting power," but it should
have something to do with the probability of one ballot or set of ballots
being pivotal to the outcome in an election chosen at random from some
family of elections.



Here's a method that comes close to satisfying these criteria:

The method takes ranked ballots with equal rankings allowed, as input.

The method first applies Rob LeGrand's "ballot-by-ballot" version of
"strategy A" to all possible permutations of the ballot. [Yes, this method
is computationally intractable.]

If the same candidate wins for all permutations, then that candidate is
declared winner.

Else, Joe Weinstein's weighted median method is applied to determine the
winner.  A candidate's weight is the number of permutations that it won
(according to Rob) plus one (so that each candidate has non-zero weight).

Although this method is computationally intractable,the method winner can
be calculated with 99.9 percent accuracy without inordinate computational
burden, by use of montecarlo methods, for example.

The residual doubt is small compared to other sources of doubt in other
voting methods, especially the doubt that the votes were sincere, or the
doubt that the the voters were using their best strategy for maximizing
their voting power.

Note that the method is completely deterministic, but that practical
estimation of the method's winner may require something like montecarlo.

Perhaps the voters could get use to such an idea if they could see the
advantages of satisfying criteria one and two above.

Forest



From dglaude at gmx.net  Thu Dec 18 13:36:02 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Thu Dec 18 13:36:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?  - peace
In-Reply-To: <95FF01B8-3178-11D8-B986-000393CDCA50@mac.com>
References: <3FE1C89C.1252854C@alumni.tu-berlin.de> <95FF01B8-3178-11D8-B986-000393CDCA50@mac.com>
Message-ID: <3FE21D97.1010200@gmx.net>

Ernest Prabhakar wrote:

> Can we chill? We're all Condorcet-lovers, after all.   Mike probably 
> used the term Floyd inappropriately.   Markus probably cited a poor 
> example.   Everybody makes mistakes.    No injury, no foul.

I love flame war... especially those where I don't understand a word.

> I suspect that we're really experiencing a clash of cultures.  Markus 
> appears to be operating from a math/compsci perspective, where terms 
> mean something different than they do in Mike.  As a physicist, I'm used 
> to abusing mathematical terminology, so I can appreciate the dilemma. :-)

Where is Mike comming from then?

> I suspect part of the problem is that the term 'shortest path'  in the 
> Flloyd algorithm is used for finding what Mike calls a BeatPath.   The 
> comparison of such paths to find the strongest beatpath is actually 
> after the Flloyd algorithm.

Because I was not aware of the Flloyd algorithm...

I would like to learn something here.

I know a few 'shortest path' algorithm like "Dijkstra" and 
"Bellman-Ford". Dijkstra is having an 0(n*Log(n)) complexity (in time) 
and for the other... I don't remember but it is a more distributed 
algorithm.

Now sometime Markus talk about "strongest path" wich might be something 
completely different.

So for me all this discussion was completely confusing, and I would love 
some explanation...

But I think I have to aggree with Markus... 0(N^3) is better than 0(N^5).

David GLAUDE






From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 14:44:06 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 14:44:06 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?  - peace
Message-ID: <3FE22D54.A4AA77B3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear David,

you wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> I know a few 'shortest path' algorithm like "Dijkstra" and
> "Bellman-Ford". Dijkstra is having an 0(n*Log(n)) complexity (in time)
> and for the other... I don't remember but it is a more distributed
> algorithm.

Bellman-Ford, Dijkstra, and Floyd have the property that they all look
for possible short cuts until a termination criterion is met. They differ
only in the order in which the possible short cuts are considered.

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> Now sometime Markus talk about "strongest path" wich might be something 
> completely different.

"Strongest paths" and "shortest paths" are mathematically equivalent in
so far as both follow the same concept of short cuts. In the shortest
path problem, a short cut is a situation with p_old[j,k] > p[j,i] + p[i,k]
so that you can set p_new[j,k] = p[j,i] + p[i,k]. In the strongest path
problem, a short cut is a situation with p_old[j,k] < min ( p[j,i], p[i,k] )
so that you can set p_new[j,k] = min ( p[j,i], p[i,k] ).

By the way: In the scientific literature, "strongest paths" are called
"maximum capacity paths".

Markus Schulze


From stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca  Thu Dec 18 19:09:18 2003
From: stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca (Stephane Rouillon)
Date: Thu Dec 18 19:09:18 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?  - peace
References: <3FE22D54.A4AA77B3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <3FE26AE0.AB862976@sympatico.ca>

Markus Schulze a ?crit :

> Dear David,
>
> you wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> > I know a few 'shortest path' algorithm like "Dijkstra" and
> > "Bellman-Ford". Dijkstra is having an 0(n*Log(n)) complexity (in time)
> > and for the other... I don't remember but it is a more distributed
> > algorithm.

If I remember well one uses reaching to update labels the other pushing...
Am I right?

> Bellman-Ford, Dijkstra, and Floyd have the property that they all look
> for possible short cuts until a termination criterion is met. They differ
> only in the order in which the possible short cuts are considered.

I though that Floyd was an implementation of the maximum-flow problem,
which in my eye is not equivalent to a shortest path. The first is based on
capacities,
the other on costs...
But what do I know, I am just supposed to be a specialist in those matter,
I'm humble enough not to be sure.

> You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> > Now sometime Markus talk about "strongest path" wich might be something
> > completely different.
>
> "Strongest paths" and "shortest paths" are mathematically equivalent in
> so far as both follow the same concept of short cuts. In the shortest
> path problem, a short cut is a situation with p_old[j,k] > p[j,i] + p[i,k]
> so that you can set p_new[j,k] = p[j,i] + p[i,k]. In the strongest path
> problem, a short cut is a situation with p_old[j,k] < min ( p[j,i], p[i,k] )
> so that you can set p_new[j,k] = min ( p[j,i], p[i,k] ).
>
> By the way: In the scientific literature, "strongest paths" are called
> "maximum capacity paths".

That's what I call a maximum-flow path. I never imagined that election method
would
bring me right back to my thesis... Maybe it is a sign it is time to finish it.

> Markus Schulze
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Steph



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 19 01:38:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Fri Dec 19 01:38:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus's debate about what I allegedly said (Who but Markus cares?)
Message-ID: <Law10-F30NchHfij1c100020e3c@hotmail.com>

I'd said:

>You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
>some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
>algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
>anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
>the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
>fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

Markus's latest claims about that message:

You are the idiot because you see no contradiction between the fact that
you call your implementation "Floyd algorithm"

I reply:

Wrong. I don't call my implementation the Floyd algorithm. I made it as 
clear as possible for you that
I no longer call it that. I said that I'm going to ask Russ to delete that 
name from the website. Markus, does it occur to you that most of what you 
say isn't true?  Doesn't that bother you at all?

Yes, I had previously called my implementation the Floyd algorithm. I 
carefully explained to you how that came about, and I'm not going to repeat 
it again for  you. But I made it clear that I no longer call it the Floyd 
algorithm.

List members: In case you're new to this list, this is what Markus does. 
He'll latch on to some false claim about what someone said, and then he'll 
keep on re-asserting it, with more false statements in each new posting. If 
I keep replying to him, he'll go on like this for months. February will 
arrive and Markus will still be trying to argue that I claim that my 
implementation is the Floyd algorithm. Does that sound silly? Does it sound 
like a reallly stupidly trivial thing to be wasting people's time, and our 
archive space about? Sure, but apparently Markus really has nothing else to 
do. Evidently Markus is completely without a life.

List members are probably already getting tired of this stupid debate, which 
will go on for as long as I reply to Markus. He isn't really saying anything 
that deserves a reply, and so you'll be glad to hear that this will be my 
last reply to his sily debate in this thread. Typically Markus will then 
send a few more messages, but when he doesn't get a reply he'll quit. When I 
don't reply, that doesn't mean that Markus has said something irrefutable. 
It merely means that I'm no longer wasting my time on Markus.

Markus continued:

...and the fact that you have
to admit that your Python program nowhere uses the Floyd algorithm.

I reply:

Markus, you see, apparently doesn't read the messages that he replies to. 
I've been repeating (but to no avail) that now I don't  claim to know what 
the Floyd algorithm is, and nor do I care.

******

Markus continued:

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
>You claim that  the  1-pass procedure that you posted finds the strongest
>beatpaths. Let's check it out and find out if it does.  What was the year,
>month, and day of  your posting in which you posted what you called the
>Floyd algorithm?

The Floyd algorithm has been proposed by Floyd (Robert W. Floyd, "Algorithm 
97
(Shortest Path)," Communications of the ACM, vol. 5, p. 345, 1962).

I reply:

Excuse me, but did I ask who proposed the Floyd algorithm? I was referring 
to the one that you posted here some time ago. I was suggesting that we find 
it in the archives and find out if, without making more than one pass 
through the permutations, it finds the strongest beatpaths between each pair 
of candidates. So I repeat: What was the year, month and day that you posted 
that algorithm that you called the Floyd algorithm and claimed would find 
the strongest beatpaths with one pass through the permutations?

By the way, if, as you seem to be suggesting, the Floyd algorithm (the real 
one, I mean) finds the strongest paths between pairs of graph-nodes, even 
though the web articles say that it's intended to find the _shortest_ path, 
then, if that's so, ways of finding strongest paths were being discussed as 
early as 1962. If that's true, do you really believe that it never occurred 
to anyone to compare path strengths between two candidates, until you 
"invented" that idea in 1996?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Working moms: Find helpful tips here on managing kids, home, work ?  and 
yourself.   http://special.msn.com/msnbc/workingmom.armx



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 19 02:09:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Fri Dec 19 02:09:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
Message-ID: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>

Ernie,

You wrote:

Can we chill? We're all Condorcet-lovers, after all.   Mike probably
used the term Floyd inappropriately.

I reply:

But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything is 
the Floyd algorithm.
I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm that made as many 
permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd written it right, 
because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he really meant to write 
the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd algorithm. I said "Ok".
So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have no idea, but 
that's how he always is.

You continued:

I suspect that we're really experiencing a clash of cultures.

I reply:

Excuse me?

You continued:

Markus
appears to be operating from a math/compsci perspective

I reply:

Markus is operating in a "making-up-fictitious-quotes" perspective.

Math and comuter-science have nothing to do with it at all.

You continued:

, where terms
mean something different than they do in Mike.

I reply:

I agree that everything seems to mean something different to Markus. In 
particular, Markus evidently has a different perspective on the matter of 
whther he should check the accuracy of what he's about to post.

But if you're referring to mathematical terms, then tell me what 
mathematical term I have a different meaning for, resulting in the 
misunderstanding.

It isn't "Floyd algorithm", because I've already repeated many many times 
that I now don't claim to know what it means, and that the meaning of that 
term doesn't matter to me.

You continued:

As a physicist, I'm
used to abusing mathematical terminology, so I can appreciate the
dilemma. :-)

But what mathematical terminology is being abused now?

You continued:

I suspect part of the problem is that the term 'shortest path'  in the
Flloyd algorithm is used for finding what Mike calls a BeatPath.

I reply:

What I call a beatpath is a sequence of defeats from one candidate to 
another (informal definition).
So Floyd calls that a shortest path, and uses it to find a beatpath?

You continued:

The
comparison of such paths to find the strongest beatpath is actually
after the Flloyd algorithm.

I reply:

So something called "shortest paths" are used to find the strongest 
beatpath?

Ok.

I don't know if "shortest path" is a mathematical term, but I wasn't really 
taking a position on what it means. What I did say was that I agreed that 
the Floyd algorithm sounds different from our strongest beatpaths algorithm, 
because our algorithm seeks the strongest path betwen 2 candidates, not the 
shortest one.

But if you say that finding the shortest path between two candidates can 
somehow be part of some method for finding the strongest one, l of course 
wouldn't try to contradict you on that. It isn't something that I  would 
take a position on.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Tired of slow downloads? Compare online deals from your local high-speed 
providers now.  https://broadband.msn.com



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 19 06:10:05 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 19 06:10:05 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus's debate about what I allegedly said (Who but Markus 
 cares?)
Message-ID: <3FE2F247.F19CD794@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
> (http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):
>
> > Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
> > Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
> > entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
> > beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly
> what you mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.
>
> You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
> some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
> algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
> anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
> the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
> fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you call your implementation
> "Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I misquoted you?

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> Idiot, why don't you read the quoted passage above, from my e-mail. Did I
> deny that I'd called my implementation the Floyd algorithm? The only thing
> that I denied having called "the Floyd algorithm" was your poorly-copied,
> line-truncated fragment of a Python program. You had posted that fragment
> and said that I called it the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> You are the idiot because you see no contradiction between the fact that
> you call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" and the fact that you have
> to admit that your Python program nowhere uses the Floyd algorithm.

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Wrong. I don't call my implementation the Floyd algorithm. I made it as 
> clear as possible for you that I no longer call it that. I said that I'm
> going to ask Russ to delete that name from the website. Markus, does it
> occur to you that most of what you say isn't true?  Doesn't that bother
> you at all?
>
> Yes, I had previously called my implementation the Floyd algorithm. I
> carefully explained to you how that came about, and I'm not going to repeat
> it again for  you. But I made it clear that I no longer call it the Floyd
> algorithm.
>
> List members: In case you're new to this list, this is what Markus does.
> He'll latch on to some false claim about what someone said, and then he'll
> keep on re-asserting it, with more false statements in each new posting.
> If I keep replying to him, he'll go on like this for months. February
> will arrive and Markus will still be trying to argue that I claim that my
> implementation is the Floyd algorithm. Does that sound silly? Does it sound
> like a reallly stupidly trivial thing to be wasting people's time, and our
> archive space about? Sure, but apparently Markus really has nothing else to
> do. Evidently Markus is completely without a life.
>
> List members are probably already getting tired of this stupid debate, which
> will go on for as long as I reply to Markus. He isn't really saying anything
> that deserves a reply, and so you'll be glad to hear that this will be my
> last reply to his sily debate in this thread. Typically Markus will then
> send a few more messages, but when he doesn't get a reply he'll quit. When I
> don't reply, that doesn't mean that Markus has said something irrefutable.
> It merely means that I'm no longer wasting my time on Markus.
>
> Markus, you see, apparently doesn't read the messages that he replies to.
> I've been repeating (but to no avail) that now I don't  claim to know what
> the Floyd algorithm is, and nor do I care.

The problem with you is that you are unable to admit that you have made
a mistake (here: claiming that you have implemented the Floyd algorithm)
without bombarding with insults that person who pointed to this mistake.
Why are you unable to say something like?: "Yes, you are right. I mistakenly
called my implementation 'Floyd algorithm'. I will no longer call it 'Floyd
algorithm'. Thank you for pointing me to this mistake." or something like?:
"Thank you for explaining how the strongest paths can be calculated in a
runtime O(N^3). My implementation still has a runtime O(N^5)."

******

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Excuse me, but did I ask who proposed the Floyd algorithm? I was referring
> to the one that you posted here some time ago. I was suggesting that we find
> it in the archives and find out if, without making more than one pass
> through the permutations, it finds the strongest beatpaths between each pair
> of candidates. So I repeat: What was the year, month and day that you posted
> that algorithm that you called the Floyd algorithm and claimed would find
> the strongest beatpaths with one pass through the permutations?

I suggested to use the Floyd algorithm e.g. in my 6 Feb 2001 mail:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/6493
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2001-February/005093.html

in my 23 Feb 2001 mail:
http://www.topica.com/lists/RankedPairs/read/message.html?mid=1601349191

in my 14 Nov 2002 mail:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2002/debian-vote-200211/msg00035.html

and in my paper "A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent Single-Winner
Election Method":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

******

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> By the way, if, as you seem to be suggesting, the Floyd algorithm (the real
> one, I mean) finds the strongest paths between pairs of graph-nodes, even
> though the web articles say that it's intended to find the _shortest_ path,
> then, if that's so, ways of finding strongest paths were being discussed as
> early as 1962. If that's true, do you really believe that it never occurred
> to anyone to compare path strengths between two candidates, until you
> "invented" that idea in 1996?

When you believe that the Schulze method (aka Schwartz Sequential Dropping,
aka Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential Dropping, aka Beatpath Winner, aka
Beatpath Method, aka Path Winner, aka Path Voting, ...) has already been
proposed by other people, then you are invited to post the corresponding
paper.

******

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
> Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything
> is the Floyd algorithm. I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm
> that made as many permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd
> written it right, because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he really
> meant to write the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd algorithm.
> I said "Ok". So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have no
> idea, but that's how he always is.

Then, of course, it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" anymore. There was no need for you
to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

Markus Schulze


From malditomartin at yahoo.es  Fri Dec 19 06:56:48 2003
From: malditomartin at yahoo.es (=?iso-8859-1?q?Martin?=)
Date: Fri Dec 19 06:56:48 2003
Subject: [EM] unsuscribe
Message-ID: <20031219141837.86302.qmail@web11108.mail.yahoo.com>

 
 

_______________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Sorteos
?Ya puedes comprar Loter?a de Navidad!
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From rspeer at MIT.EDU  Fri Dec 19 07:27:02 2003
From: rspeer at MIT.EDU (Rob Speer)
Date: Fri Dec 19 07:27:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
References: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031219152557.GA11477@mit.edu>

On Fri, Dec 19, 2003 at 10:08:45AM +0000, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
> But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
> Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything 
> is the Floyd algorithm.
> I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm that made as many 
> permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd written it right, 
> because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he really meant to write 
> the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd algorithm. I said "Ok".
> So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have no idea, but 
> that's how he always is.

If you said "Ok", it would have been a great place to end the thread.
But it got lost in the mass of insults and flames being thrown back and
forth.

Markus is just doing what he does: he makes sure that voting terminology
used on this list is consistent, when so much of the available
information about voting terminology is inconsistent. Perhaps he's being
too harsh here or is even wrong about what you're referring to. People
make mistakes.

Terminology is a very important thing for people to agree on. It was
because of a conflict in terminology that I ended up in that stupid
flamewar with Eric.

It seems that the fiercest arguments can break out when the positions of
the arguers are closest. People like Donald Davidson and Craig Carey say
things that are much more inflammatory than any of this, but nobody
usually bothers to flame them.

-- 
Rob Speer



From dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk  Fri Dec 19 07:41:03 2003
From: dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk (Diana Galletly)
Date: Fri Dec 19 07:41:03 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
In-Reply-To: <20031219152557.GA11477@mit.edu>
References: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com> <20031219152557.GA11477@mit.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312191537250.13540@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003, Rob Speer wrote:

> People like Donald Davidson and Craig Carey say

Talking of Craig Carey, can someone please explain what his most
recent diatribe was on about?  And whether it's worth my while
worrying about?  (Since he's thrown Markus out of his private
party -- at least that's how it appears to outsiders -- I'd
like to know whether he actually has a point or is just excellent
at posturing.)

Diana.


From andru at cs.cornell.edu  Fri Dec 19 08:03:04 2003
From: andru at cs.cornell.edu (Andrew Myers)
Date: Fri Dec 19 08:03:04 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm
In-Reply-To: <20031219152702.19030.66063.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
References: <20031219152702.19030.66063.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <20031219160250.GA6837@balm.cs.cornell.edu>

Hi all,

The "Floyd algorithm" is usually called the Floyd-Warshall all-pairs shortest
path algorithm. This algorithm computes the cost of the "best path" in a
weighted, directed graph. The notion of 'best' and 'cost' are defined by two
operations we can call 'min' and '+', respectively. As long as the actual
mathematical operations have the right algebraic properties, the algorithm will
work. The core of the algorithm updates the matrix as follows:

    m[i][j] = 'min'(m[i][j], m[i][k] '+' m[k][j])

For example, if we choose 'min' = min and '+' = +, then the cost of a path
is the sum of the weights of the edges and the algorithm finds the lowest-cost
path.

If we choose 'min' = max and '+' = min, then the cost of a path is
the lowest-weight edge and the algorithm finds the highest-weight path.
This is the particular choice of operators that results in selecting
the beatpath winner.

Many other choices for 'min' and '+' are possible, of course.

When implemented correctly it has O(V^3) running time where V is the number of
vertices (nodes) in the graph.

-- Andrew Myers


From matt at tidalwave.net  Fri Dec 19 09:00:01 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Fri Dec 19 09:00:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
Message-ID: <20031219165215.E0A00AC78@sitemail.everyone.net>

An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20031219/564d543b/attachment-0001.asc>

From drernie at mac.com  Fri Dec 19 09:30:02 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Fri Dec 19 09:30:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
References: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <EA5DD400-3248-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

I wrote:
> Can we chill?

Apparently the answer is "no".  :-)

Mike, Markus - as a newcomer to this arena, I have the greatest respect 
for both of you.   I think both of you are making valuable 
contributions to the field.   I think both of you are sincere and 
trying to do the best you can.    I am trying very hard to learn from 
both of you.  From what I've seen, both of you are willing to listen to 
constructive criticism, admit where you've made mistakes, and try to do 
the right thing.

At the same time, I feel like both of you are being just a little 
oversensitive on this issue.   I don't think either of you is 
deliberately overstating the facts.   And I can understand why you 
might be offended by the other person's tone.

However, I do feel that both of you are taking things a little too 
personally, and making too much of the other's slight lapses in 
terminology or etiquette.  Please, let it go.   We have far more 
important things to fight about.

-- Ernie P.



From drernie at mac.com  Fri Dec 19 10:09:02 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Fri Dec 19 10:09:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <20031219160250.GA6837@balm.cs.cornell.edu>
References: <20031219152702.19030.66063.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com> <20031219160250.GA6837@balm.cs.cornell.edu>
Message-ID: <4927B6FD-324E-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

Hi Andrew,

> The "Floyd algorithm" is usually called the Floyd-Warshall all-pairs 
> shortest
> path algorithm. This algorithm computes the cost of the "best path" in 
> a
> weighted, directed graph. The notion of 'best' and 'cost' are defined 
> by two
> operations we can call 'min' and '+', respectively....For example, if 
> we choose 'min' = min and '+' = +, then the cost of a path is the sum 
> of the weights of the edges and the algorithm finds the lowest-cost
> path. If we choose 'min' = max and '+' = min, then the cost of a path 
> is
> the lowest-weight edge and the algorithm finds the highest-weight path.

Thanks - this is awesome.  I think this highlights my biggest question 
about the Schulze method.  Essentially, Markus (and Mike) are 
recommending we treat the pairwise matrix of votes as defining a graph, 
where each candidate is a node and each vote count is a directed edge 
between two nodes.  This allows us to use standard mathematical 
techniques for traversing the graph, i.e., calculating the relative 
'strength' of two candidates.  Yes, Stef, time to finish that thesis, 
all this math really is the same.

Even if we agree to use a graph, and a particular graph-traversal 
algorithm, there's still a couple different ways to do the counting 
(i.e., to define the 'best' path we're searching for).

a) Use of 'shortest' path vs. 'strongest'

This is the issue you raise below:  do we add the paths along the way 
to get the 'length' of the path, or do we pick the 'weakest link' to 
measure the strength of path?

b) Use of relative wins vs. absolute votes

Do we count -all- the votes of A over B (A/B), or just net votes (A/B - 
B/A).

 From looking at their math, it appears that Markus ("Schulze method") 
is recommending:
a) shortest path
b) relative wins

while Mike ("beatpath") is recommending:
a) strongest path
b) absolute votes

These appear to be fundamental differences, independent of whether you 
use Floyd-Warshall or Dijkstra (or even when you can spell any of their 
names correctly, which I can't :-) for graph traversal.  That is, 
beatpath explicitly uses a slightly different set of assumptions than 
those used in the formal Schulze method.

Does anyone know if they're equivalent, or have any reason to argue 
(non-insultingly, please!) that one is better than the other?

-- Ernie P.


On Dec 19, 2003, at 8:02 AM, Andrew Myers wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> The "Floyd algorithm" is usually called the Floyd-Warshall all-pairs 
> shortest
> path algorithm. This algorithm computes the cost of the "best path" in 
> a
> weighted, directed graph. The notion of 'best' and 'cost' are defined 
> by two
> operations we can call 'min' and '+', respectively. As long as the 
> actual
> mathematical operations have the right algebraic properties, the 
> algorithm will
> work. The core of the algorithm updates the matrix as follows:
>
>     m[i][j] = 'min'(m[i][j], m[i][k] '+' m[k][j])
>
> For example, if we choose 'min' = min and '+' = +, then the cost of a 
> path
> is the sum of the weights of the edges and the algorithm finds the 
> lowest-cost
> path.
>
> If we choose 'min' = max and '+' = min, then the cost of a path is
> the lowest-weight edge and the algorithm finds the highest-weight path.
> This is the particular choice of operators that results in selecting
> the beatpath winner.
>
> Many other choices for 'min' and '+' are possible, of course.
>
> When implemented correctly it has O(V^3) running time where V is the 
> number of
> vertices (nodes) in the graph.
>
> -- Andrew Myers
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list 
> info



From andru at cs.cornell.edu  Fri Dec 19 11:09:12 2003
From: andru at cs.cornell.edu (Andrew Myers)
Date: Fri Dec 19 11:09:12 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <4927B6FD-324E-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>
References: <20031219152702.19030.66063.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com> <20031219160250.GA6837@balm.cs.cornell.edu> <4927B6FD-324E-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>
Message-ID: <20031219190713.GA7368@balm.cs.cornell.edu>

On Fri, Dec 19, 2003 at 10:08:02AM -0800, Ernest Prabhakar wrote:
> From looking at their math, it appears that Markus ("Schulze method") 
> is recommending:
> a) shortest path
> b) relative wins
> 
> while Mike ("beatpath") is recommending:
> a) strongest path
> b) absolute votes

As I understand it, they are both computing beatpath winners where
the goal is to find the strongest path using absolute votes.
The difference is that Markus is building on a more efficient algorithm,
the classic Floyd-Warshall algorithm. The key is to get the order
of the nested loops right so the algorithm converges in one pass.
This makes the algorithm simpler and asymptotically faster.
It is a dynamic programming algorithm; see any good algorithms
textbook (e.g., Cormen, Leiserson, and Rivest) for more details.

Unless there are a lot of candidates, it probably doesn't matter
much which algorithm is used.

-- Andrew Myers


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 19 11:33:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 19 11:33:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <3FE351F2.6BA9B886@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Ernest,

you wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Even if we agree to use a graph, and a particular graph-traversal
> algorithm, there's still a couple different ways to do the counting
> (i.e., to define the 'best' path we're searching for).

"Beatpath Method", "Beatpath Winner", "Path Voting", "Path Winner",
"Schwartz Sequential Dropping", "Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential
Dropping", and "Schulze Method" are only different names for the
same method.

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> From looking at their math, it appears that Markus ("Schulze method") 
> is recommending:
> a) shortest path
> b) relative wins
>
> while Mike ("beatpath") is recommending:
> a) strongest path
> b) absolute votes

We both are recommending strongest paths and absolute votes. There
is absolutely no difference between Mike's and my recommendation.

Markus Schulze


From drernie at mac.com  Fri Dec 19 12:06:39 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Fri Dec 19 12:06:39 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <3FE351F2.6BA9B886@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FE351F2.6BA9B886@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <86366664-325E-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

On Dec 19, 2003, at 11:30 AM, Markus Schulze wrote:
> We both are recommending strongest paths and absolute votes. There
> is absolutely no difference between Mike's and my recommendation.

Ah, thank you!  Sorry, I got confused between what you each recommended 
and what I was reading about the various algorithms.

I actually find the Floyd algorithm confusing, with all the indices.   
I think Dijkstra is not only clearer, but easier to implement using 
objects.  Here's some pseudo-Python code I've been working on, which I 
think implements the Schulze method via Dijkstra.

The main object is a 'Candidate (start, current, or beat) with the 
following fields:
- beats[] # list of candidates this one has beaten
- votes{} # dictionary of votes for this one against each other 
candidate
- strength # hold temporary path strengths; allows sorting to find 
'smallest'

def FindStrongestPaths(start):
"Find best paths to all candidates starting from candidate 'start'"
final = []
start.strength = HUGE_VAL # arbitrarily large, so anything is 'min' 
relative to it
unchecked = [start]
while (current = unchecked.smallest()): # removes and returns smallest 
elements
   final.append(current)
   for beat in current.beats: # loop over candidate current has beaten 
(i.e., neighbor nodes)
      strength = min(current.strength, current.votes[beat])
      if not final.contains(beat) and (not unchecked.contains(beat) or 
strength > beat.strength):
        beat.strength = strength
        if not unchecked.contains(beat): unchecked.append(beat)
     #endif
   #end for
#end while
#end def


Anyone care to check it for me (yes, I know its not legal python; done 
for clarity; I'm asking about the algorithm).

-- Ernie P.



From stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca  Fri Dec 19 12:36:01 2003
From: stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca (stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca)
Date: Fri Dec 19 12:36:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <20031219203542.UAMK13528.tomts24-srv.bellnexxia.net@smtp.bellnexxia.net>

Dear Ernest,

> Yes, Stef, time to finish that thesis, 
> all this math really is the same.


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 19 15:07:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 19 15:07:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <3FE38375.20BFE6D3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Ernest,

I don't know Python-ish pseudo-code. But in Pascal/C-ish pseudo-code
the Dijkstra algorithm (aka Dykstra algorithm) looks as follows when
the strength of a pairwise defeat is measured primarily by p1 (= the
absolute number of votes for the winner of this pairwise defeat) and
secondarily by p2 (= the margin of this pairwise defeat):

***

N is the number of candidates.

Input: d[i,j] with i <> j is the number of voters who strictly prefer
candidate i to candidate j.

Output: "w[i] = true" means that candidate i is a potential winner.
"w[i] = false" means that candidate i is not a potential winner.

***

for i : = 1 to N do
for j : = 1 to N do
if ( i <> j ) then
   {
    if ( d[i,j] > d[j,i] ) then
    d1[i,j] : = d[i,j] ;
    if ( d[i,j] <= d[j,i] ) then
    d1[i,j] : = -1 ;

    d2[i,j] : = d[i,j] - d[j,i] ;

    p1[i,j] : = d1[i,j] ;
    p2[i,j] : = d2[i,j] ;
   }

for i : = 1 to N do
   {
    for j : = 1 to N do
    unchecked[j] : = true ;

    unchecked[i] : = false ;

    for j : = 2 to N do
      {
       v : = - MAXINT ;
       w : = - MAXINT ;
       x : = 0 ;
       
       for k : = 1 to N do
       if ( unchecked[k] = true ) then
       if (( p1[i,k] > v ) or (( p1[i,k] = v ) and ( p2[i,k] > w ))) then
         {
          v : = p1[i,k] ;
          w : = p2[i,k] ;
          x : = k ;
         }

       unchecked[x] : = false ;

       for k : = 1 to N do
       if ( unchecked[k] = true ) then
          {
           s : = min { p1[i,x], d1[x,k] } ;
           if ( p1[i,x] < d1[x,k] ) then
           t : = p2[i,x] ;
           if ( p1[i,x] > d1[x,k] ) then
           t : = d2[x,k] ;
           if ( p1[i,x] = d1[x,k] ) then
           t : = min { p2[i,x], d2[x,k] } ;
           
          if (( p1[i,k] < s ) or
             (( p1[i,k] = s ) and ( p2[i,k] < t ))) then
             {
              p1[i,k] : = s ;
              p2[i,k] : = t ;
             }
          }
      }
   }

for i : = 1 to N do
   {
    w[i] : = true ;
    for j : = 1 to N do
    if ( i <> j ) then
    if (( p1[j,i] > p1[i,j] ) or
       (( p1[j,i] = p1[i,j] ) and ( p2[j,i] > p2[i,j] ))) then
    w[i] : = false ;
   }

Markus Schulze


From dglaude at gmx.net  Fri Dec 19 15:13:02 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Fri Dec 19 15:13:02 2003
Subject: [EM] What is this software MIKE is working on...
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
References: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <3FE38316.8060103@gmx.net>

One of the side effect of the Markus and Mike chat is that I understand 
Mike is programing something... The more I think about it, the more I 
believe it might be this:
http://www.fairvote.org/ChoicePlus/
http://votingsolutions.com/

If it is... I will come with more on that...

But if the author of that piece of code are on this list... I can talk 
about it here too.

David GLAUDE

MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
> 
> Ernie,
> 
> You wrote:
> 
> Can we chill? We're all Condorcet-lovers, after all.   Mike probably
> used the term Floyd inappropriately.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
> Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that 
> anything is the Floyd algorithm.
> I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm that made as many 
> permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd written it 
> right, because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he really meant 
> to write the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd algorithm. 
> I said "Ok".
> So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have no idea, 
> but that's how he always is.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> I suspect that we're really experiencing a clash of cultures.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Excuse me?
> 
> You continued:
> 
> Markus
> appears to be operating from a math/compsci perspective
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Markus is operating in a "making-up-fictitious-quotes" perspective.
> 
> Math and comuter-science have nothing to do with it at all.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> , where terms
> mean something different than they do in Mike.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> I agree that everything seems to mean something different to Markus. In 
> particular, Markus evidently has a different perspective on the matter 
> of whther he should check the accuracy of what he's about to post.
> 
> But if you're referring to mathematical terms, then tell me what 
> mathematical term I have a different meaning for, resulting in the 
> misunderstanding.
> 
> It isn't "Floyd algorithm", because I've already repeated many many 
> times that I now don't claim to know what it means, and that the meaning 
> of that term doesn't matter to me.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> As a physicist, I'm
> used to abusing mathematical terminology, so I can appreciate the
> dilemma. :-)
> 
> But what mathematical terminology is being abused now?
> 
> You continued:
> 
> I suspect part of the problem is that the term 'shortest path'  in the
> Flloyd algorithm is used for finding what Mike calls a BeatPath.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> What I call a beatpath is a sequence of defeats from one candidate to 
> another (informal definition).
> So Floyd calls that a shortest path, and uses it to find a beatpath?
> 
> You continued:
> 
> The
> comparison of such paths to find the strongest beatpath is actually
> after the Flloyd algorithm.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> So something called "shortest paths" are used to find the strongest 
> beatpath?
> 
> Ok.
> 
> I don't know if "shortest path" is a mathematical term, but I wasn't 
> really taking a position on what it means. What I did say was that I 
> agreed that the Floyd algorithm sounds different from our strongest 
> beatpaths algorithm, because our algorithm seeks the strongest path 
> betwen 2 candidates, not the shortest one.
> 
> But if you say that finding the shortest path between two candidates can 
> somehow be part of some method for finding the strongest one, l of 
> course wouldn't try to contradict you on that. It isn't something that 
> I  would take a position on.
> 
> Mike Ossipoff
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Tired of slow downloads? Compare online deals from your local high-speed 
> providers now.  https://broadband.msn.com
> 
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
> 
> 

-- 






From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 19 22:15:07 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 19 22:15:07 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <3FE3B95F.7F97A915@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Ernest,

you wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Let me put it another way.   Could you please explain in words why you
> feel it is necessary or useful to use *both* absolute votes and margins
> in the calculation?   Are the margins used simply to break a tie
> between absolute votes?  I think that's what is implied by the line:
> >            if ( p1[i,x] = d1[x,k] ) then
> >            t : = min { p2[i,x], d2[x,k] } ;

I consider the margins of defeats only when both defeats have the same
absolute number of votes for the winner. The aim is to make the method
more decisive without sacrificing any of the desired properties.

******

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Also, is there a particular mathematical or anti-strategic reason for
> randomizing the tie-breaking round, rather than just automatically
> picking the candidate who would have the best chance of winning such
> a random draw?

Plurality as a tie-breaking strategy violates independence of clones.

Markus Schulze


From research at ijs.co.nz  Fri Dec 19 23:56:01 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Fri Dec 19 23:56:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312181237360.27475-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.e
 du>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031220185208.04216fe0@pop.qsi.net.nz>

At 2003-12-18 13:29 -0800 Thursday, Forest Simmons wrote:
>For me two paramount criteria are
>
>(1) simplicity of optimal or near optimal strategy, and
>
>(2) as much voting power as possible consistent with (1).
>


That is not based on evidence, Mr Simmons.
The so called Schulze method (that recently appeared in a prestigious
English publication, namely Voting Matters (PDF files are around),
had the appearance of failing these strict rules:

(1) The number of winners should be correct.
   indicates that the Schulze method found the wrong number of winners.
   As might be expected, Mr Schulze has not commented on that or produced
   a defence against the allegation. In fact, so very complex is the method
   in its polytope form (and a optimal method would be much simpler), that
   the assumption should be that the method is guilty until cleared.

(2) The method should not have some bias. This fails methods that ignrore
   the votes and pick the first (not best) candidate on a list the method
   receives.

   Shulze's believed the count of the papers could be ignored and the number
   of voters could be counted. That is stupid and some people don't seem to
   be able to stop or explain themselves without pointing invalid assumptions.

(3) When the papers are like STV' the winners ought be insensitive to the
  presence or absence of the very last preference in one or more papers.
  That Schulze method seemed to fail this test.

THE EM LIST REALLY NEEDS SOFTWARE TO CHECK FOR BASIC MISTAKES IN THEIR
METHODS.

Outside of here the methods are simpler and the passes are found using 
arguments instead of with testing.



>There are various possible definitions of "voting power," but it should
>have something to do with the probability of one ballot or set of ballots
>being pivotal to the outcome in an election chosen at random from some
>family of elections.
>

That is dumb since it is vaguely stated and it makes use of probalities
that do not exist. I have already considered and partly solved the problem.

The only solution I found is to start off by never defining "the power of
a ballot paper.

Approximately, the fairness of an equal suffrage rule is written down in its
 2 parts:

[1] multiwinner monotonicity requiring 0 <= power
[2] multiwinner one man one vote requiring power <= 1


Here I write on the power of a single ballot paper.

Both those rules are infinitesimal (since fair). It would be suspect to
have power consider big changes in the votes.

A rule can only consider the facts, i.e. the changes in the votes and the
changes in the winners.

So the power number is only defined on ties.

It would not take account of Mr Simmons' probability since it was a lie
to say that they existed. Mr Simmons' apparently can write to me privately
but never actually sends out to me even one of these probability numbers.

It takes quite a few lines to write down a QE formula testing whether
a method passes the power<=1 rule. I was writing on power when writing
on P4 over a year ago, at politicians and polytopes.

Suppose the ballot paper being tested is x*(ABC), with its weight, x,
being a positive Real. Then the method can be failed by the 'as defined'
power<=1 part of the equal suffrage rule when it (ABC)-desirableness of
the winners can't be sustained|reproduced when its weight is positively
shifted onto only these shorter papers.  Each line provides a different
test:

|----------------------------
|  . .? {A,BC}
|  . .? {B,AC}
|  . .? {C,AB}
|  . .? {AB,AC}
|  . .? {AB,BC}
|  . .? {AC,BC}
|  . .? {A,B,C}
|  . .? {A,B,AC}
|  . .? {A,B,BC}
|  . .? {A,C,AB}
|  . .? {A,C,BC}
|  . .? {B,C,AB}
|  . .? {B,C,AC}
|  . .? {A,AB,AC}
|  . .? {B,AB,BC}
|  . .? {C,AC,BC}
|----------------------------


Note only does the number of lines increase rapidly as candidates are
added, but the desirableness value takes 2**nw values where nw is the number
of winners.

Nowthat it is known that the algebra can get simpler when rules are combined
with dual polytopes. it could save time to merge all rules (except the
Approvalishy proportionality aim) into a single rule. That would get the
word power matching up better with the words "equal suffrage".

To get the power, e.g. q, (which is a real numbe), it can be inserted into an
appropriate place in the QE formula.

Mr Simmons is still implying that probability exists which appears to be
a lie. I did ask for the probability numbers. This mailing list has seen
this precise problem of untrue claims that numbers exist, when I asked
Mr Ossipoff for some probability numbers,





>
>
>Here's a method that comes close to satisfying these criteria:
>
>The method takes ranked ballots with equal rankings allowed, as input.
>
>The method first applies Rob LeGrand's "ballot-by-ballot" version of
>"strategy A" to all possible permutations of the ballot. [Yes, this method
>is computationally intractable.]
>
>If the same candidate wins for all permutations, then that candidate is
>declared winner.
>


Maybe that creates a new method instead of passing or failing an
existing method. So the previous topic of power has left.


>Else, Joe Weinstein's weighted median method is applied to determine the
>winner.  A candidate's weight is the number of permutations that it won
>(according to Rob) plus one (so that each candidate has non-zero weight).
>
>Although this method is computationally intractable,the method winner can
>be calculated with 99.9 percent accuracy without inordinate computational
>burden, by use of montecarlo methods, for example.
>

Oh, THE random number generating algorithms are in the future.

E.g. in a computer existing in the year 2973 (in 23 April).

Is that why you can't ever seem to get a probability number out after
being asked for that ?.


>The residual doubt is small compared to other sources of doubt in other
>voting methods, especially the doubt that the votes were sincere, or the
>doubt that the the voters were using their best strategy for maximizing
>their voting power.

"votes" are sincere and it is not voters. Voters can be absent is some
elections trialling a method, and so can probability numbers be absent.


>
>Note that the method is completely deterministic,





From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 01:55:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 01:55:02 2003
Subject: [EM] RE: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #388 - 7 msgs
Message-ID: <Law10-F17mPRmlgF2a50004beb7@hotmail.com>


Someone wrote:

One of the side effect of the Markus and Mike chat is that I understand
Mike is programing something

I reply:

No. I'm not programming anything. Yes, quite some time ago I posted a Python 
program to implement BeatpathWinner. And yes, I re-posted the BeatpathWinner 
algorithm a few days ago, this time not in any particular programming 
language.

But I'm not now programming anything.

What started this discussion was when Markus said that my BeatpathWinner 
algorithm wouldn't work, because it isn't the Floyd algorithm, whatever that 
is.

The algorithm that Markus posted as the Floyd algorithm differs from mine 
(actually Steve Eppley's) by only making one pass through the 3-candidate 
permutations.

As I say in my reply to Ernie, my algorithm works. It looks at every 
permutation of 3 candidates, i, j, and k. If the beatpath from i to j, and 
the beatpath from j to k, are both stronger than the beatpath from i to k, 
then the value of the minimum of B(i,j) and B(j,k), which is the strength of 
the beatpath made by concatenating the ij and jk beatpaths, becomes the new 
value of B(i,k)--the strongest beatpath from i to j found as-yet at that 
time.

It repeatedly makes passes through the permutations until doing so doesn't 
make any changes. Then its task is completed. Each pass finds one or more 
new, longer beatpaths that replace a previous one that wasn't as strong.

The beatpaths that it initially looks at are single-step beatpaths, pairwise 
defeats. But, via the process described above, the algorithm eventually 
finds the strongest beatpath from each candidate to each other candidate.

If Markus believes that it doesn't work, I'd be curioius how he justifies 
that claim.But sometimes he says it merely takes longer to execute than the 
Floyd algorithm, and not that it doesn't work.

It was irresponsible for Markus to say that that BeatpathWinner algorithm 
wouldn't work, unless he can justify his claim, tell why he thinks it 
wouldn't work.

False statements, statements that he can't justify,  have always been 
Markus's stock-in-trade. But this time he's doing the disservice of 
misinforming people about a practical matter. But Markus doesn't care, he 
just enjoys being on the attack.

Now, Markus says that it's possible to find all the strongest beatpaths by 
making just one pass. He says the Floyd algorithm did that. According to 
websites that I looked at, the Floyd algorithm doesn't find strongest 
beatpaths, it finds shortest paths. I guess what Markus is saying is that it 
can be modified to find strongest beatpaths. He says that, by changing the 
order of the indexes in the line that tests and changes B(i,j) values, it 
can complete its job in one pass. But, if that's true when its job is 
finding the shortest path between each pair of graph-nodes, that may or may 
not mean that it's true when its job is finding the strongest beatpath from 
each candidate to each other candidate.

I'm not debating whether that's so. I don't know, and I don't reallly care. 
It doesn't matter because, though Markus says that the one-pass procedure is 
faster, both procedures are fast enough for all practical purposes.

As I said, the only reason why I said anything was because of Markus's 
mistaken statement that the BeatpathWinner algorithm wouldn't work.

Mike Ossipoff



That person continued:

... The more I think about it, the more I
believe it might be this:
http://www.fairvote.org/ChoicePlus/
http://votingsolutions.com/

I have nothing to do with the fairvote website. The other one, I'd have to 
check to find out what it is. But I'm not programming anything there. 
There's an interactive BeatpathWinner counting website, and it uses an 
algorithm similar to the one that I've posted here. But the website owner 
didn't get the algorithm from me, and I'm not working on it.

That person continued:

If it is... I will come with more on that...

I reply:

It isn't. I'm not programming anything there, and I'm not programming the 
BeatpathWinner algorithm. I did that a long time ago.
Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 02:11:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 02:11:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
Message-ID: <3FE41EF4.C7AB435E@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> That is not based on evidence, Mr Simmons.
> The so called Schulze method (that recently appeared in a prestigious
> English publication, namely Voting Matters (PDF files are around),
> had the appearance of failing these strict rules:
>
> (1) The number of winners should be correct.
>    indicates that the Schulze method found the wrong number of winners.
>    As might be expected, Mr Schulze has not commented on that or produced
>    a defence against the allegation. In fact, so very complex is the method
>    in its polytope form (and a optimal method would be much simpler), that
>    the assumption should be that the method is guilty until cleared.

In Section 3 of my paper, I prove that my method is well defined:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> (2) The method should not have some bias. This fails methods that ignrore
>    the votes and pick the first (not best) candidate on a list the method
>    receives.
>
>    Shulze's believed the count of the papers could be ignored and the number
>    of voters could be counted. That is stupid and some people don't seem to
>    be able to stop or explain themselves without pointing invalid assumptions.

You will have to rephrase this, because I have absolutely no idea what
you are talking about.

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> (3) When the papers are like STV' the winners ought be insensitive to the
>   presence or absence of the very last preference in one or more papers.
>   That Schulze method seemed to fail this test.

Please give a concrete example.

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 03:16:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 03:16:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Matt
Message-ID: <LAW10-F31WoqFXfyY0Q0004339f@hotmail.com>

Message: 3
From: matt at tidalwave.net
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 08:52:15 -0800 (PST)
To: election-methods at electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Reply to Ernie
Reply-To: matt at tidalwave.net

Matt said:

In this case the style of debater and the merit of the argument positively
correlate.  In other words, the debater that is polite, clear and helpful is
correct and the debaters that are impolite, confusing and derogatory are
incorrect.

(farther below, Matt clarifies that he's saying that Markus was the correct 
one)

I reply:

Sorry, but you're mistaken.

The "debate" was about whether or not I claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner 
algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Since I repeatedly clarified that, now 
that I've been told different, I now am not claiming that Steve's algorithm 
is the Floyd algorithm, Markus was incorrect when he kept repeating that I 
claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

That's the only issue that was being debated. On that issue, I was correct, 
and Markus was incorrect, because, during that discussion, I was longer 
claiming that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I wasn't debating which algorithm is better. I'd be lying if I claimed to 
know if one pass through the 3-candidate permutations can reliably find the 
strongest beatpath beween each ordered pair of candidates, as Markus claims, 
but I'm not debating that or denying it.

Matt continued:

Thank you Markus for your (unsuccesfull) efforts to help Mike improve the
program that his site promotes.

I reply:

Yes, when Markus said that Steve's algorithm doesn't work, Markus was 
unsuccessful in convincing me that it doesn't work. But you're sure that it 
doesn't work, right? :-)   I'm referring to the
BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted here a few days ago.

Or maybe the improvement that yoiu're referring to is the greater speed of 
the one-pass algorithm, assuming that it relliably works.

Let's suppose that it indeed works, and is faster than Steve's algorithm. 
Does that mean that we should use it to replace Steve's algorithm at the 
website, or that I should start sending it out to people who ask for an 
implementation algorithm. No, not really. Steve's algorilthm _obviously_ 
works. It's obvious that eventually the repeated passes will find the 
strongest beatpath between each orderred pair of candidates.

Even if the one-pass algorithm works, I'm not going to send it out, along 
with a proof for why it works. I prefer to not send something that requies 
me to convince someone and explain to them why it works, when it doesn't at 
first appear that it would.  I'll continue sending out the algorithm that 
obviously works, Steve's algorithm. Sorry, Matt.

Matt continues:

I have seen stubborness before but the
magnititude of this stubborness (over such a trivial yet clearcut issue!)
matches or exceeds the worst I can recall seeing before.

I reply:

What issue? There was no issue about the relative merits of the 2 
algorithms. Markus says that there's a 1-pass algorithm that works, and that 
it's faster. Though I told how I initially didn't believe that that could be 
done, I was _not_ debating that during the discussion. My position has been: 
I don't claim to know if that can work, but it isn't important.

The issue, as I said, was about whether I claim that Steve's program is the 
Floyd algorithm. Yes I agree that that's a trivial issue. And yes, I 
stubbornly maintain that I don't claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd 
algorithm :-)   How's that for stubborn?

Or is that you think that I'm stubborn because I don't replace Steve's 
algorithm with the putative one-pass algorithm? I've told you that I prefer 
something whose validity is obvious, something that doesn't require a proof 
to be sent with it, doesn't require as much explaining and convincing. How's 
that for stubborn? If Steve's algorithm runs for a half minute, and the 
one-pass algorithm runs for half a second, is half a minute really a big 
problem?

So you're saying that it's stubborn to not adopt the method that you like 
best?

But, at the time that you stated that I was stubborn, I hadn't yet said that 
I wasn't going to adopt the one-pass algorithm.  All I'd said at that time 
was that I don't know if Markus's one-pass algorithm works. I was being 
honest. I don't know that if it works. I haven't checked Floyd's 1962 proof, 
and I don't even know if that proof really applies to the job of finding 
strongest beatpaths. That isn't stubborn, it's honest.

So you're saying that it's stubborn not to take Markus's word for whatever 
he says, in spite of Markus's long history of mis-statements?

So it's really entirely unclear what you think that I was being stubborn 
about.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 03:18:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 03:18:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ernie: What started the discussion about BeatpathWinner algorithms
Message-ID: <Law10-F125sdov6dU2y0000c980@hotmail.com>

Ernie wrote:

>I wrote:
>Can we chill?

Apparently the answer is "no".  :-)

I reply:

Well, I said that I was going to quit replying to Markus, and that then he'd 
stop his one-sided debate about something that he claims that I said several 
postings back. I fully understand that that discussion has been a waste of 
time, and that no one but Markus cares about his fictional claim about what 
I allegedly said. I was saying that in my reply.

I agree, then, that the debate about what I said or didn't say several 
postings back isn't important. I'm not trying to make it more important than 
it was, but I just want to comment that you're talking about it as if was a 
genuinely 2-sided problem. But it certainly was not. Markus wanted to keep 
on repeating his claim that I claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner algorithm is 
the Floyd algorithm, even though I was repeating in each reply that I'm now 
making no such claim. Is that a stupid debate, or what? But it wasn't a 
2-sided problem. It was a nuisance created and perpetuated by Markus, due to 
some peculiar personality defect that he suffers from, which makes him feel 
the need to behave in that manner.

You know, I haven't usually been posting here, or taking part in the 
discussions. What got me to post was Markus's claim that Steve Eppley's 
BeatpathWinner algorithm wouldn't work. Markus, you notice, forgot to tell 
us what makes him think that it wouldn't work.

The algorithm looks at each 3-candidate permutation-- i,j, & k. Where  
B(i,j) is the strength of the strongest beatpath so far found from i to j, 
the program asks if the minimum of B(i,j) & B(j,k) is greater than  B(i,k). 
If so, then  the beatpath made by concatenating the ij and jk beatpaths is 
stronger than  the ik beatpath, and therefore replaces it as the new value 
of B(i,j).

With each pass through the permutations, this algorithm finds a new, longer 
beatpath that is stronger than the previous beatpath between the same 
endpoints. Eventually the B(i,j) values will be as strong as they can 
get--there won't be a stronger beatpath from i to k than the current        
B(i,k). When the most recent pass doesn't change any B(i,j) values, the 
algorithm  has completed its job and it stops.

There's no question about whether it works. It works.

Markus, when he said that it wouldn't work, forgot to tell us what makes him 
think it wouldn't work. But that's typical for Markus. Statements that he 
can't justify are Markus's stock-in-trade.

By saying on the mailing list that that algorithm wouldn't work, Markus was 
misinforming list-members about a practical matter. Of course that's 
irresponsible, but Markus doesn't care. It's as if Markus feels a need to 
defend the honor of the Floyd algorithm by challenging this other algorithm 
that finds strongest beatpaths.

Markus claims that the Floyd algorithm, which finds _shortest_ paths between 
graph-nodes, can be modified so that it finds strongest beatpaths. He seems 
to be implying that if the Floyd algorithm can do its job in one pass, when 
its job is finding the shortest path, then it can also do its job in one 
pass when its job is finding the strongest beatpaths between the ordered 
pairs of candidates.

I haven't challenged that belief. Maybe it's true, maybe not. I don't care. 
Markus says that that one-pass algorithm is faster than Steve's algorithm. 
Fine, if true. I have no argument with that. But Steve's algorithm isn't 
going to take problematically long counting any actual election, and so it's 
reallly every bit as good as the one-pass algorithm, even if the one-pass 
algorithm works for finding strongest beatpaths.

But the problem has been that Markus hasn't been content to recognize a 
solution different from his favorite as being ok. Markus is just being 
Markus again.  Is it really necessary to fight about these 2 algorithms?  Of 
course not. I've answered Markus's mistaken claim, and I'm not interested in 
fighting about it or debating it with Markus.

What if it's true that Markus's one-pass algorithm works for finding 
strongest beatpaths, and does so faster than Steve's algorithm? Does Markus 
believe that, therefore, Steve's algorithm shouldn't be used or proposed, or 
sent to people who ask for an implementation algorithm? Steve's algorithm 
obviously works. If Markus's one-pass algorithm works, it isn't as obvious. 
I suppose that, when someone asks me for an implementation algorithm, I 
could send them the one-pass algorithm, along with a proof that it works 
(assuming that it does).  But the validity of Steve's algorithm is more 
obvious, and it woirks perfectly well. If it takes longer, that won't make 
any difference, in actual elections, with today's fast computers. Will 
Steve's program take 25 seconds instead of 5? Is that really a problem if it 
does? I continue to send out Steve's algorithm when someone asks for one, 
because it's obvious that it works. I don't even know if the one-pass 
algorithm works for finding strongest beatpaths. And, if it does work, I'd 
rather not have to prove that less obvious fact to people who request an 
implementation algorilthm.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 03:18:05 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 03:18:05 2003
Subject: [EM] Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #388 - 7 msgs
Message-ID: <3FE42979.21EAEF37@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> What started this discussion was when Markus said that my BeatpathWinner
> algorithm wouldn't work, because it isn't the Floyd algorithm, whatever
> that is.

Craig Carey claimed that my implementation of my method doesn't work
(presumably because it makes only one pass through the triple-loop).
I explained to Craig that it is true that when I had considered the
possible short cuts in that order that has been proposed by you then
my implementation would not have worked. But it has been proven by
Floyd that when the possible short cuts are considered in that very
special order that is used in my paper then it is guaranteed that one
pass through the triple-loop is sufficient to find all strongest paths.

******

You wrote (28 Feb 2001):
> This is the Floyd algorithm for making an array of greatest beatpath
> magnitudes between each pair of options:
>
> 1.Have a 2-dimensional array of defeat magnitudes between the pairs
> of options. Have 2 copies of that, one called defeats(i,j), and the
> other called beatpaths(i,j).
>
> 2.In both arrays, if i beats j, then the ij element is equal to the
> magnitude of i's defeat of j. If j beats i, then the ij element is
> zero. "ij" refers to the ij element of the beatpath(i,j) array.
>
> 3.For every 3-option permuation (i,j,k) that can be taken from the
> entire option set: If min(ij,jk) > ik then write min(ij,jk) to replace
> ij at the "ij" place in the beatpath(i,j) array.
>
> 4. Repeat #3 till that repetition doesn't change any of the entries
> in the beatpath(i,j) array.
>
> [end of greatest beatpath magnitude algorithm]

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from
> you [= Markus] or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

If you really got your strongest beatpaths algorithm from Steve Eppley
and not from Floyd or me then why did you call it "Floyd algorithm"?
I have explained the Floyd algorithm in a private mail (30 April 2000)
to David Catchpole, Blake Cretney, Steve Eppley, Rob Lanphier, Norman Petry,
and you. I don't remember that Steve Eppley called his implementation
"Floyd algorithm". Therefore, I guess that you have got your algorithm
from me, but that you have never understood this algorithm sufficiently
to implement it in such a manner that it has a runtime of O(N^3).

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 03:19:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 03:19:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Matt
Message-ID: <LAW10-F94wuwi7NPASU0002cb8c@hotmail.com>

Message: 3
From: matt at tidalwave.net
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 08:52:15 -0800 (PST)
To: election-methods at electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Reply to Ernie
Reply-To: matt at tidalwave.net

Matt said:

In this case the style of debater and the merit of the argument positively
correlate.  In other words, the debater that is polite, clear and helpful is
correct and the debaters that are impolite, confusing and derogatory are
incorrect.

(farther below, Matt clarifies that he's saying that Markus was the correct 
one)

I reply:

Sorry, but you're mistaken.

The "debate" was about whether or not I claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner 
algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Since I repeatedly clarified that, now 
that I've been told different, I now am not claiming that Steve's algorithm 
is the Floyd algorithm, Markus was incorrect when he kept repeating that I 
claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

That's the only issue that was being debated. On that issue, I was correct, 
and Markus was incorrect, because, during that discussion, I was longer 
claiming that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I wasn't debating which algorithm is better. I'd be lying if I claimed to 
know if one pass through the 3-candidate permutations can reliably find the 
strongest beatpath beween each ordered pair of candidates, as Markus claims, 
but I'm not debating that or denying it.

Matt continued:

Thank you Markus for your (unsuccesfull) efforts to help Mike improve the
program that his site promotes.

I reply:

Yes, when Markus said that Steve's algorithm doesn't work, Markus was 
unsuccessful in convincing me that it doesn't work. But you're sure that it 
doesn't work, right? :-)   I'm referring to the
BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted here a few days ago.

Or maybe the improvement that yoiu're referring to is the greater speed of 
the one-pass algorithm, assuming that it relliably works.

Let's suppose that it indeed works, and is faster than Steve's algorithm. 
Does that mean that we should use it to replace Steve's algorithm at the 
website, or that I should start sending it out to people who ask for an 
implementation algorithm. No, not really. Steve's algorilthm _obviously_ 
works. It's obvious that eventually the repeated passes will find the 
strongest beatpath between each orderred pair of candidates.

Even if the one-pass algorithm works, I'm not going to send it out, along 
with a proof for why it works. I prefer to not send something that requies 
me to convince someone and explain to them why it works, when it doesn't at 
first appear that it would.  I'll continue sending out the algorithm that 
obviously works, Steve's algorithm. Sorry, Matt.

Matt continues:

I have seen stubborness before but the
magnititude of this stubborness (over such a trivial yet clearcut issue!)
matches or exceeds the worst I can recall seeing before.

I reply:

What issue? There was no issue about the relative merits of the 2 
algorithms. Markus says that there's a 1-pass algorithm that works, and that 
it's faster. Though I told how I initially didn't believe that that could be 
done, I was _not_ debating that during the discussion. My position has been: 
I don't claim to know if that can work, but it isn't important.

The issue, as I said, was about whether I claim that Steve's program is the 
Floyd algorithm. Yes I agree that that's a trivial issue. And yes, I 
stubbornly maintain that I don't claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd 
algorithm :-)   How's that for stubborn?

Or is that you think that I'm stubborn because I don't replace Steve's 
algorithm with the putative one-pass algorithm? I've told you that I prefer 
something whose validity is obvious, something that doesn't require a proof 
to be sent with it, doesn't require as much explaining and convincing. How's 
that for stubborn? If Steve's algorithm runs for a half minute, and the 
one-pass algorithm runs for half a second, is half a minute really a big 
problem?

So you're saying that it's stubborn to not adopt the method that you like 
best?

But, at the time that you stated that I was stubborn, I hadn't yet said that 
I wasn't going to adopt the one-pass algorithm.  All I'd said at that time 
was that I don't know if Markus's one-pass algorithm works. I was being 
honest. I don't know that if it works. I haven't checked Floyd's 1962 proof, 
and I don't even know if that proof really applies to the job of finding 
strongest beatpaths. That isn't stubborn, it's honest.

So you're saying that it's stubborn not to take Markus's word for whatever 
he says, in spite of Markus's long history of mis-statements?

So it's really entirely unclear what you think that I was being stubborn 
about.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 05:07:12 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 05:07:12 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Rob Speer
Message-ID: <Law10-F95f8PYqK87Mi0000cb5d@hotmail.com>

Rob Speer wrote:

Markus is just doing what he does

I reply:

About that you'll get no argument from me  :-)

You continued:

: he makes sure that voting terminology
used on this list is consistent, when so much of the available
information about voting terminology is inconsistent.

I reply:

Not at all. That was not a debate about voting terminology. As soon as 
Markus said that Steve's BeatpathWinner algorithm isn't the Floyd algorithm, 
I said ok then I'm no longer claiming that it's the Floyd algorithm. I said 
that I'll ask the website owner to delete that name from it.

No, the debate was about whether I still claim that Steve's algorithm is the 
Floyd algorithm. It was a really silly debate, because I'd repeatedly said 
that I no longer claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I'm the first to admit that it was a silly issue that Markus insisted on 
pursuing.

You continued:

Terminology is a very important thing for people to agree on.

I reply:

But there was no disagreement on terminology. Only on the issue of whether I 
was still claiming that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 05:26:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 05:26:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus reply,  12/20/03
Message-ID: <LAW10-F79zm4XqO1LWN0004c684@hotmail.com>

Markus said:

The problem with you is that you are unable to admit that you have made
a mistake (here: claiming that you have implemented the Floyd algorithm)

I reply:

On the contrary, at the beginning of the discussion, when you said that 
Steve's algorithm isn't the Floyd algorithm,  I said ok, I no longer call it 
the Floyd algorithm, and I'm going to ask Russ to delete that name from it 
at the website. Check the archives. I said that at the beginning of the 
discussion. And you kept repeating that I claim that our implementation is 
the Floyd algorithm.

In your own most recent message, in fact, you copied one of the copies of my 
explanation of why I _previously_ believed that Steve's algorithm was the 
Floyd algorithm.

Here's a paragraph of mine that you copied in your most recent posting:

>, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything
>is the Floyd algorithm. I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm
>that made as many permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd
>written it right, because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he 
>really
>meant to write the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd 
>algorithm.
>I said "Ok".


Where were you when repeatedly expllined that to you? Out to lunch?


Markus continued:

without bombarding with insults that person who pointed to this mistake.

I reply:

I wasn't criticizing you for pointing out to me that Steve's algorithm isn't 
the Floyd algorithm, and that your writing of a 1-pass algorithm was 
intentional, and not an omission, and that that algorithm that you wrote is 
the Floyd algorithm.

No, I was only criticising you for continuing to repeat that I was 
continuing to claim that our implementation is the Floyd algorithm.

Markus continued:

Why are you unable to say something like?: "Yes, you are right. I mistakenly
called my implementation 'Floyd algorithm'. I will no longer call it 'Floyd
algorithm'.

I reply:

But I did say that. Take a look at the paragraph written by me that I 
copied, above, from your most recent posting. I've said that I no longer 
call it the Floyd algorithm. I've said that I was going to ask Russ to 
delete that name from the algorithm at the website. I carefully explained 
what had caused me to believe that it was the Floyd algorithm, saying that I 
no longer call it that.

Out to lunch?

It sounds as if what you're asking for is an apology for previously calling 
Steve's BeatpathWinner algorithm the Floyd algorithm. No apology, because 
you weren't wronged when I called Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm. 
Sorry, no apology. But notice that you do get an apology for the fact that 
there's no apology :-)

Markus continued:

[Markus said I could have said:] Thank you for pointing me to this mistake."

Ok, it's thanks that you want. While I'm at it, shall I thank you for 
posting your mistaken claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner algorithm doesn't 
work? If I'd thanked you for telling me that Steve's algotithm isnt the 
Floyd algorithm, would you then have been willing to stop repeating that I 
still claim that Steve's implementation is the Floyd algorithm?

Markus continued:

or something like?:

"Thank you for explaining how the strongest paths can be calculated in a
runtime O(N^3). My implementation still has a runtime O(N^5)."

I reply:

Well, you didhn't really show that. You claimed it. I'm not saying that it 
isn't true. As I said, the accuracy of your claim could be judged by finding 
Floyd's 1962 proof, and finding out if it even applies to the job of finding 
the strongest beatpath between each ordered pair of candidates. I'm not 
debating that or denying it. Maybe it's true that, as you say, all the 
strongest beatpaths can be found with one pass through the 3-candidate 
permutations.

You reallly need thanks, don't you? Ok, thank yoiu, Markus, for stating your 
claim. Now, can this debate end?


I'd said:

>But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
>Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything
>is the Floyd algorithm. I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm
>that made as many permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd
>written it right, because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he 
>really
>meant to write the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd 
>algorithm.
>I said "Ok". So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have 
>no
>idea, but that's how he always is.

Markus replied:

Then, of course, it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" anymore.

I reply:

Hello-o-o-o! That's what I've been repeating for you over and over again, to 
no avail.

Markus continued:

There was no need for you
to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

I reply:

I won't debate whether there was a need to insult you. But can you look at 
your ridiculous statement that I quoted directly above, and say that there 
wasn't a reason to call you an idiot?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 05:29:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 05:29:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Matt
Message-ID: <3FE43484.69991406@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> The "debate" was about whether or not I claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner
> algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Since I repeatedly clarified that, now
> that I've been told different, I now am not claiming that Steve's algorithm
> is the Floyd algorithm, Markus was incorrect when he kept repeating that I
> claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

Could you please forward that mail where Steve proposes this strongest path
algorithm?

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 05:41:28 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 05:41:28 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd reply to Markus on 12/20/03
Message-ID: <Law10-F105hRDT6Z3Ls0004c627@hotmail.com>

I'd said:

>What started this discussion was when Markus said that my BeatpathWinner
>algorithm wouldn't work, because it isn't the Floyd algorithm, whatever
>that is.

Markus replied:

Craig Carey claimed that my implementation of my method doesn't work
(presumably because it makes only one pass through the triple-loop).
I explained to Craig that it is true that when I had considered the
possible short cuts in that order that has been proposed by you then
my implementation would not have worked.

I reply:

Actually, you posted a fragment of our Python program and said that my 
algorithm won't work.

But if you're now backing down from that claim, that's good.

Markus quoted me:

You wrote (28 Feb 2001):
>This is the Floyd algorithm for making an array of greatest beatpath
>magnitudes between each pair of options:

I reply:

You see, Markus, this is why I refer to you as an idiot. Did I deny that, in 
Feb 2001, I was calling Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm.? No. I agreed 
that I'd formerly called that algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but that I no 
longer do. But you kept repeating that I continue to claim that my 
implementation is the Floyd algorilthm, though I kept trying to tell you 
that I no longer make any such claim.

And now you post a quote from 2001, apparently believing that it shows that 
you're right to say that, during this current discussion, I claim that 
Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

Seriously, Markus, all namecalling aside,there really is something wrong 
with you.

Ernie:

Can you really blame me for eventually beginning to make unflattering 
comments about this twit?

Markus continued:

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
>I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from
>you [= Markus] or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

If you really got your strongest beatpaths algorithm from Steve Eppley
and not from Floyd or me then why did you call it "Floyd algorithm"?

I reply:

How many times is it necessary to explain that to you. If I explain it to 
you now, one more time, are you just going to forget again?

Ok, Steve wrote the algorithm. Some time later, you posted something here 
that resembled Steve's algorithm, but which only made one pass through the 
3-candidate permutations. You called it the Floyd algorithm. I assumed that 
you must have accidentallly miscopied the algorithm, accidentally writing so 
that it only make one pass through the permutations. So, believing that 
"Floyd algorithm" is the name of the algorithm that you'd miscopied, and 
believing that it must make several passes, then it looked as if "Floyd 
algorithm" was the name of Steve's algorithm.

So I got the algorithm from Steve, and I got the name from you, because I 
believed that what you'd tried to copy was something that was the same as 
Steve's algorithm. Now, did it sink in this time, or are you going to ask 
the question again in a few days?

Markus continued:

I have explained the Floyd algorithm in a private mail (30 April 2000)
to David Catchpole, Blake Cretney, Steve Eppley, Rob Lanphier, Norman Petry,
and you. I don't remember that Steve Eppley called his implementation
"Floyd algorithm". Therefore, I guess that you have got your algorithm
from me

I reply:

That certainly follows if the fact that I got the name from you means that I 
got the algorithm from you. But it doesn't mean that. I got the name from 
you, and, believing that you'd miscopied something that was the same as 
Steve's algorithm led me to believe that "Floyd algorithm" was a name for 
Steve's algotithm, that they were the same.

Markus continued:

, but that you have never understood this algorithm sufficiently
to implement it in such a manner that it has a runtime of O(N^3).

I reply:

As I said, it seemed to me that you must have miscopied it, and that you'd 
tried to copy something that was the same as Steve's algorithm.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From matt at tidalwave.net  Sat Dec 20 11:16:02 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Sat Dec 20 11:16:02 2003
Subject: [EM] RE: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #388 - 7 msgs
Message-ID: <20031220185436.E162B3946@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From drernie at mac.com  Sat Dec 20 19:58:08 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Sat Dec 20 19:58:08 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <3FE3B95F.7F97A915@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FE3B95F.7F97A915@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <D4FD5738-331F-11D8-B08B-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

Hi Markus,

On Dec 19, 2003, at 6:52 PM, Markus Schulze wrote:
> I consider the margins of defeats only when both defeats have the same
> absolute number of votes for the winner. The aim is to make the method
> more decisive without sacrificing any of the desired properties.

Ah, okay, that was hard for me to deduce from the original algorithm, 
where it seemed like you were primarily calculating margins. My 
implementation of this for object-oriented Dijkstra (using real Python 
code this time) is at the end.    The relevant section is here, where 
'rstrength', or relative strength, is used for the margin:

     # reset neighbor if unset or if new values would be better
     if next not in queue or\
        strength > self.strengthVS(next) or\
        strength == self.strengthVS(next) and rstrength > 
self.rstrengthVS(next):
       self.strengths[next.id] = strength
       self.rstrengths[next.id] = rstrength
       if next not in queue: queue.append(next)
       next.path[self.id] = current # remember beatpath predecessor
     #endif

That is, use the current calculated values for the strength of the path 
to this node if any of the following three conditions is true:
a) there are no other calculated values for this node ("next not in 
queue")
b) the strength (total votes) is better than the prior value ("strength 
 > self.strengthVS(next)")
c) the strength is equal, but the margin (rstrength) is better 
("rstrength > self.rstrengthVS(next)")

Does that look right to those who know what's going on? (apologies to 
people who don't do Python, but as you can see the code is vastly more 
compact, and I think far easier to follow).

I'm working on a well-formatted implementation of all this, which I 
hope will displace the other Condorcet implementations out there (and 
satisfy all the critics :-).

> You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
>> Also, is there a particular mathematical or anti-strategic reason for
>> randomizing the tie-breaking round, rather than just automatically
>> picking the candidate who would have the best chance of winning such
>> a random draw?
>
> Plurality as a tie-breaking strategy violates independence of clones.

Interesting.  Are you asserting that there is no deterministic 
tie-breaking algorithm that resists clones?  Does this mean that we 
really do need to keep track of all the actual ballots, and not just 
the Condorcet matrix?

-- Ernie P.

def findStrengths(self):
  "Find strongest paths to all candidates using Dijkstra, starting from 
self"
  self.initStrengths(max(self.votes)) # 'max_votes' is equivalent to 
'unset'
  current = self
  final = []
  queue = []

  while current:
   # declare this node's values as final
   final.append(current)

   # relax each of the neighbors (if not final)
   for next in current.beats:
     if next in final: continue

     # calculate (relative) strength, if this node were part of path
     strength = min(self.strengthVS(current), current.votesVS(next))
     rstrength = min(self.rstrengthVS(current), current.marginVS(next))

     # reset neighbor if unset or if new values would be better
     if next not in queue or\
        strength > self.strengthVS(next) or\
        strength == self.strengthVS(next) and rstrength > 
self.rstrengthVS(next):

	      self.strengths[next.id] = strength
	      self.rstrengths[next.id] = rstrength
	      if next not in queue: queue.append(next)
	      next.path[self.id] = current # remember beatpath predecessor
     #endif
   #end for

   # Remove and return weakest node from queue
   current = self.smallest(queue)
  #end while
#end findStrengths



From research at ijs.co.nz  Sat Dec 20 21:46:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Sat Dec 20 21:46:02 2003
Subject: The German loser (Re: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
In-Reply-To: <3FE41EF4.C7AB435E@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031221054743.050c6628@pop.qsi.net.nz>



I wrote this for the mailing list.
Currently I am not sending it there.
I have not observed anything good at that mailing list result from
e-mail (except Richard and MrCatchpole seemed to have an ability to
get influenced. I may have missed bits.).


________________________________________________________________________

To: election-methods at electorama.com
Subject: Is this actually true enough Marcus ? (Re: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria




At 2003-12-20 11:05 +0100 Saturday, Markus Schulze wrote:
...
>Craig Carey wrote (20 Dec 2003):
...
>> (1) The number of winners should be correct.
>>    indicates that the Schulze method found the wrong number of winners.
...
>In Section 3 of my paper, I prove that my method is well defined:
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf
>

The words "well-defined" are not defined in the paper.
Why don't you use your neutrality word.

I reject the idea that the arguments in your paper are correct. There are
a lot of serious problems ion your article.

Each of the errors could terminate an interest in you VM17 article.
In particular your ideal of:
 * missing out simple important tests
 * purporting to consider overly advanced rules, i.e. monotonicity
 * avoiding the mathematics of flats which is always avoided by you
   but probably never avoided by a person designing a preferential
   voting method but aiming to not expose a govt. public to unfairness
   if the method would be used.
 * having unfollowable arguments
 * claiming a pass occurred when that appears to be something that
   seems to be suspicious
 * failing to define the algorithm of the article
 * dropping in some anti-public nearly-ignored doctrines from Condorcet
   thinkers writings

In short, a method that won't have a place in history.

I made a possibly false asumption on how to interpret your ambiguity that
you put into the article (presumably because you were trying to censor
out a mention of the ghastly meritless unfair unjustified pairwise comparing
basis of it) and converted it to a a logic form. It was far too complex to
analyze precisely yet ti plain at the end that the number of winners it
found would probably be wrong.


>You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>> (2) The method should not have some bias. This fails methods that ignrore
>>    the votes and pick the first (not best) candidate on a list the method
>>    receives.
>>
>>    Shulze's believed the count of the papers could be ignored and the number
      [i.e. Mr Shulze or Mr Shulze's PDF article]

>>    of voters could be counted. That is stupid and some people don't seem to
>>    be able to stop or explain themselves without pointing invalid assumptions.
>
>You will have to rephrase this, because I have absolutely no idea what
>you are talking about.
>

In the last message I replied to, Mr Forest Simmons had
votes generated by random numbers. In the Shulze article, "strictly prefer"
has the number of voters counted. So "Strictly prefer" is applying to
voters.

All the claims of goodness must have been a lie, because:
 (a) you proof of goodness is done but it used voters (suppose so)
 (b) Simmon's random numbers are used;
 (c) now your proofs can't conclude anything yet the numbers and the
      method is the same
 (d) If God was going to hit you with a lightening bolt if you had of
     used the word "Vote" instead of "Voter" then please do tell me
     about it. In the absence of similar, I'll assume you can't even
     think with a truthfulness that is up to the task of correctly
     distinguishing between a cat, rat, dog, photo of a man, and bit of
     paper.
 (e) I will say that I do not understand. First I must ask if the
    audience wanted the false claim that voters voted. However the
    arguments and proofs are not all true. I am not studying the
    text, since your purpose is to advance unfairness. 


-----------------------------------
At 2003-12-19 06:37 +1300 Friday, Craig Carey wrote:
...
:
: In the grand sweep of Mr Schulzes exposition, he designed the
: algorithm in the paper so the input is never votes. The preprocessing
: stage that proves that the method is stupid, got censored out. It
                             [using the Condorcet thing]

: is the case that reasoning indicates that Schulze's method should
: be rejected instead of tested.
:
:
: Let's consider the algorithm itself. Here I quote from the VM 17
: PDF file:
:
: ---
: :     Suppose that d[X,Y] is the number of voters who
: :     strictly prefer candidate X to candidate Y. Then the
: :     Smith set is the smallest non-empty set of candidates
: :     with d[A,B] > d[B,A] for each candidate B outside this
: :     set.
: ---
:
: The English text of Schulze probably seems to imply this
: interpretation:
:
: * Let there be only 3 candidates. Let the ballot papers be these:
:
: 2 (CA)
: 5 (CAB)
: 1 (CBA)
:
: What is Mr Schulze's d[A,B] ?.
:
: We could look at the computer algorithm source code but it takes
: the "d" matrix as an input. The vote counting algorithm can't actually
: accept votes.
:
: The d[A,B] value would be:
:
:  (Interpretation 1) the number 7, or
:  (Interpretation 2) the number 5, or
:  (Interpretation 3) the number 6, or
:  (Interpretation 4) the number 4, or
:



>You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>> (3) When the papers are like STV' the winners ought be insensitive to the
>>   presence or absence of the very last preference in one or more papers.
>>   That Schulze method seemed to fail this test.
>
>Please give a concrete example.
>

Not very bright response.
A gauntlet for me perhaps. Your paper is so bad that it should
be you alone who does research. It is strange how you have so
very little interest in the actual words that you wrote. I guess
you don't care what you write. If so then there should be a check
to see if you are depressed. Also it would be useful to know if
you get more depressed, e.g. when criticised.

Mike is criticising you now.

I have already written the answer: it is that you didn't actually
define the method. That fact proves that your "well-definedness"
proof is fake. You clearly gave the wrong meaning to the English
words. hat is obviously so, it was actually referring to some
crap from the pairwise comparing religion.


--

I would have produced a computer program and prove that Schulze was
a failure. However there is no algorithm to test.

There are so many different correct criteria for rejecting your
paper. Designing while blind will be one of them. That does not
produce hope but instead it lowers the hope of the algorithm being
improved.

--

The Schulze paper arrived D.O.A (Dead on Arrival) at London --
since it didn't define "strictly prefer" well enough and with only
a reference to ballot paper instead of voters. Some places could
have 1/3 votes for prisoners (or fugitives from computational
symbolic algebra)

The STV community may be slow to absorb Mr Schulzes paper, using
this line of argument:

 * Mr Schulze must have been engtangled in complexity

 * The thing has to be built up and then it fails fundamental tests.
   The designer asks readers to test the thing.

 * If it had of passed the tests then the complexity would have been
   reduced. The designer maybe even failed to learn how extremely
   complex the method was.

 * Like I said privately, if a good job can't eb done without
   light then a switch can be turned on. But Mr Shulze is out of
   this world, for clearly such an avoidance of algebra must
   prevent the production of good methods. But tehre seems to be
   absolutely no complaints about anything from the world of
   algebra. A real mathematician can be blocked by a single
   issue in algebra. It is like Mr Schulze can shuffle to the
   right but it is impossible to rotate 180 degrees and then
   move in the opposing direction. Four years of EM and counting
   and still not even vague complaints about algebra.


Mr Schulze is starting to say that he does not understand.

That would be criticised by me over time.

Mr Shulze is setting out a new direction: designing while unable
to see everything, and we already have had years of no
achievement. Certainly outside of the world of pairwise comparing,
change can be quick and rapid. 


Here is that definedness test that passed a most undefined method:

: 3) Well-Definedness
:
: On first view, it is not clear whether the Schulze
: method is well defined. It seems to be possible that
: candidates disqualify each other in such a manner that
: there is no candidate A with p[A,B] >= p[B,A] for every
: other candidate B. However, the following proof
: demonstrates that path defeats are transitive. That
: means: When candidate A disqualifies candidate B and
: when candidate B disqualifies candidate C, then also
: candidate A disqualifies candidate C.
...
: Case 2: Suppose
: (9b) p[A,B] < p[B,C].
...
: Therefore, the relation defined by p[A,B] > p[B,A] is transitive.


Condorcet seems to have a monastery feel to it. They seemed to
be packed with woman dying with breast cancer, but that is
of course no about the public interest.

It could be a check that the number of winners are right.
I assume that sometimes the method finds 0 winners or 2 winers.

Who would finish up an argument that the number of winners is
correct using the words "[It] is transitive".
Transitivity is some properly requiring that the method is
too unfair (or too lacking in proportionality) for use in
a government election.

---


What seemed most interesting is that after a few easy lines of 
transforming the Schulze algorithm into a polytope format,
is appeared that all Condorcet variants must be rejected for
being affected by the presence or absence of the last
preference. I was constrained by having to guess at what
Mr SChulze's definition of the algorithm was.

For at least a year, when Mr Schulze was not writing privately,
he also did not e-mail the polytope formulation of the
algorithm that I had requested.

Had he responded to the information requested, then rapidly
I could have shown that Condorcet idealism leads to an
unacceptable defect that won't be OK in civil or computer science
department, elections.


If Mr Schulze believes that it takes >17.95% of his entire
life before he can repell off that evil called Condorcet, then
do please tell us, for the rest who use logic, the process
could take minutes or something.

German males [yeah] in the Internet have a technique of saying
that they do not understand. This is the 'gnome in the rock'
mastery of shooting up opponents in online arguments.

It permits them to not lose steadily in an argument when the
expectation is that they must have precise model of what it
is that the public interest is (constrained by the topic).



Craig Carey

politicians-and-polytopes








From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 23:21:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 23:21:01 2003
Subject: [EM] BeatpathWinner Algorithm
Message-ID: <Law10-F27AqpfkNsjUH0002646d@hotmail.com>

Just one more thing about this:

Markus said, in a posting that was replying to my recent posting of the 
BeatpathWinner algorithm (I posted it a few days ago):

Dear participants,

the correct version of the Floyd algorithm can be found in
Section 4 and in Appendix 3 of my paper "A New Monotonic
and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

I reply:

Though the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted isn't the Floyd 
algorilthm, it's still correct, because it does what it's intended to do. It 
makes the strongest-beatpaths array, the B(i,j) array in which each B(i,j) 
is the strength of the strongest beatpath from candidate i to candidate j.

If there is no beatpath from i to j, then B(i,j) = 0.

That algorithm wasn't written as an attempt to write the Floyd algorithm. It 
was written by people who had never heard of the Floyd algorithm. It was 
written to accomplish the pupose that it accomlishes. Only later, due to 
Markus's earlier post of something he called the Floyd algorithm (though it 
was about strongest paths rather than shortest paths), did I hear of the 
Floyd algorithm.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Have fun customizing MSN Messenger ? learn how here!  
http://www.msnmessenger-download.com/tracking/reach_customize



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 23:33:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 23:33:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <3FE4ADBE.CADD67E2@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Ernest,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> Ah, okay, that was hard for me to deduce from the original algorithm, 
> where it seemed like you were primarily calculating margins.

In Section 4 of my paper, I use margins. In Appendix 3 of my paper,
I use absolute numbers of votes for the winner. The pseudo-code for
the Dijkstra algorithm that I posted to you yesterday corresponds
to the algorithm in Appendix 3.

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> My implementation of this for object-oriented Dijkstra (using real
> Python code this time) is at the end.    The relevant section is here,
> where 'rstrength', or relative strength, is used for the margin:

Sorry, but I don't know Python.

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> Are you asserting that there is no deterministic tie-breaking algorithm
> that resists clones?  Does this mean that we really do need to keep
> track of all the actual ballots, and not just the Condorcet matrix?

I chose the "random ballot" tie-breaking strategy in such a manner that
the proofs that the proposed method satisfies Pareto, monotonicity,
independence from clones, etc. are as simple as possible. I am not
linked to this tie-breaking strategy.

Another possible tie-breaking strategy is to calculate a complete
ranking of all candidates (and not only of the potential winners)
with Tideman's ranked pairs method and to choose that potential
winner that is ranked highest in this ranking. With this tie-breaking
strategy none of the desirable properties of my beatpath method gets
lost.

However, for every anonymous and neutral single-winner election method
there are situations where this method doesn't find a unique winner.
Random ballot is sometimes the only way to get a winner without
having to violate independence of clones. But I don't think that
it is such a big problem when independence of clones is violated in
these extreme cases.

Markus Schulze


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 23:50:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 23:50:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #388 - 7 msgs
Message-ID: <3FE511D6.CB9F2E6D@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Matt,

you wrote to Mike Ossipoff (20 Dec 2003):
> To restore some credibility for yourself Mike, how about arranging
> to correct the code to make it O(N^3)?  All this time Mike is
> wasting futiley trying to beat down Markus could be better spent
> by soliciting help from someone who codes python to modify the
> code.  Then again, your attacks on Markus are so completely false
> and nasty that I really doubt there is anything you can do to
> restore your credibility with me.

Mike Ossipoff wrote (18 Dec 2003):

> repeat = 1
> while repeat = 1:
>   change = 0
>   for i = 1 to N
>      for j =  1 to N
>         for k = 1 to N
>            least = min(B(i,j), B(j,k))
>            if least > B(i,k):
>               B(i,k) = least
>               change =1
>            endif
>        endfor
>     endfor
> endfor
> if change= 0
>     repeat = 0
> endif
> endwhile

A compromise would be to write:

> repeat = 1
> while repeat = 1:
>   change = 0
>   for i = 1 to N
>      for j =  1 to N
>         for k = 1 to N
>            least = min(B(j,i), B(i,k))
>            if least > B(j,k):
>               B(j,k) = least
>               change =1
>            endif
>        endfor
>     endfor
> endfor
> if change= 0
>     repeat = 0
> endif
> endwhile

Here the professional mathematicians are satisfied because
it is garanteed that the triple-loop is passed only twice.
And those who don't have sufficient mathematical skills
to trust the Floyd algorithm have the while-loop as an
additional guaranty that the algorithm gives the correct
results.

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 23:53:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 23:53:01 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
Message-ID: <LAW10-F73SOJl6byoxx0004dbd9@hotmail.com>

Matt said:

I know about the Floyd algorithm

I reply.

Good for you, Matt.

Matt continued:

Markus provided us with references about that algorithm, as well as the code 
to implement it, in past discussions on this group with Mike over several 
years on this same issue.

I reply:

No, not really. I didn't discuss that algorithm with Markus for several 
years.

However I've already stated that he'd posted the algorithm some years ago, 
so it isn't quite clear why you feel a need to assert that.

Matt continued:

I followed the entire exchange here and Markus did not start the discussion 
with the false statement Mike claims.   On the contrary, I am certain that 
Markus explicitly acknowledged the python program would probably work as it 
is currently written.

I reply:

I quote from Markus's posting on 15 December, '03:

"However Mike Ossipoff always describes the Floyd algorithm as follows:

[followed by a fragment of a Python program, with some of the lines partly 
missing]

This does not work."

Matt, yoiu're wasting our time when you post demonstrably innacurate claims.

Matt continued:

To restore some credibility for yourself Mike...

I reply:

It isn't quite clear how Matt feels that I've lost "credibility". For 
instance, in this discussion, I have a much better statement-accuracy record 
than Matt does.

Matt continued:

..., how about arranging to correct the code to make it O(N^3)?

I reply:

Sorry, but no. I thought that I'd made it clear in my previous reply to you 
that I'm leaving the algorithm as-is, at the website, and in my replies to 
people who ask about implementation. As I said at that time, Steve's 
algorithm very obviously works. That's obvious at a glance. The 1-pass 
algorithm, even if it works, doesn't have anything like the obvious validity 
of Steve's algorilthm.
If I sent Markus's algorithm out in reply to people who ask about 
implementation, I'd have to convince them that it works, contrary to 
appearance.

And, as I likewise said before, the run-time of Steve's algorithm isn't 
going to be a problem anyway.

The websites that I've checked say that the Floyd algorithm finds shortest 
beatpaths. They didn't mention strongest beatpaths. Markus says that it can 
be modified for strongest beatpaths too (but that raises the question of 
whether, after modification, it's still the Floyd algorithm). Maybe when its 
job is to find shortest beatpaths it can complete the job in one pass. If 
so, maybe, when its job is modified to finding strongest beatpaths, it 
retains that capability.

Please note, Matt, that I don't take a position on that question, or make 
any challenge or issue about that. That hasn't been an issue here.

Matt continued:

All this time Mike is wasting futiley trying to beat down Markus...

I reply:

I've been futily trying to explain to Markus that I'm not claiming that 
Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Yes, I admit that that effort has 
been futile.

But you're being over-dramatic and silly when you say that I'm trying to 
beat him down. Maybe you meant to say "...beat Markus back."

Matt continued:

...could be better spent by soliciting help from someone who codes python to 
modify the code.

I reply:

No, I'm going to have to disappoint you on that. I'm not going to modify the 
strongest-beatpaths algorithm because you prefer a different one. But I 
certainly encourage you to use whichever one you prefer.

Then again, your attacks on Markus are so completely false...

I  reply:

Can you name one false thing I said about Markus? I merely pointed out the 
falsity of his continually-repeated statement that I claim that Steve's 
stongest beatpaths algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.That's really the only 
issue in the discussion.

Well, I also objected to his statement that our algorilthm doesn't work. My 
statement that he said that isn't a false statement either--I quoted his 
statement above in this message, and stated the date of his posting. Check 
it out if you don't believe it.

Matt continued:

...and nasty that I really doubt there is anything you can do to restore 
your credibility with me.

I reply:

I've lost Matt's credence :-)

As for "nasty", I always start out polite. You wouldn't notice this, but 
it's only after many repititions of Markus's misquotes that I stop being 
polilte.

You shouldn't think that I'm singling Markus out. For some people, at least, 
there's a natural tendency to put your gut feeling about someone over the 
actual facts of the discussion.

You, for example: You decided that you felt that I was being mean to Markus. 
Then, governed by your anger, and your natural protective instinct, you felt 
a need to refute what I was saying, a need to tell why Markus was the one 
who was right. Apparently that need was greater than your ability to read 
the postings and remember what I'd said, and what I hadn't said. So you 
began making refuting noises. These noises from you have been almost 
entirely vague, without specifying exactly which statement of mine was 
incorrect. The only exception to the vagueness was when you pinpointed an 
alleged mis-statement of mine: My statement that Markus had said that our 
algorithm doesn't work. (But check Markus's 15 Dec.  '03 posting).

Yoiur protectiveness toward Markus is laudable, and I'm not criticizing 
that. But you need to understand that you're one of those people who, when 
something angers you or arouses your protective instinct, is ruled entirely 
by emotion, so that you send to us a "refuting" posting that either refers 
to no actual statements (refutation pretty much requires that you say 
exactly what you're refuting), or else makes a quite false statement such as 
your claim that Markus didn't say that our algorithm didn't work.

So suggestion to you, Matt, is: If you want to refute something, find out 
specifically what statement you want to refute. Find a statement that is 
incorrect. Then tell us what it is that you want to refute. Then tell us why 
it isn't correct.

When you're vague, when you don''t tell us what you mean, people aren't 
going to know what you're trying to say. Good luck in future postings.

Mike Ossipoff


and that I don't intend to use something that doesn't have the obvious 
validity of Steve's algorithm. But I hadn't yet said that at the time that 
you posted your other message implying that there was

_________________________________________________________________
Make your home warm and cozy this winter with tips from MSN House & Home.  
http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 00:28:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 00:28:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Compromise for speed and obvious validity
Message-ID: <Law10-F72DSm5AGSvB80004e2b3@hotmail.com>

Sure, that compromise would be ok: The indices in the testing and 
re-assigning core of the loop
could be re-ordered so as to make more passes unnecessary, so that only 2 
passes would be made. If  the 2nd pass makes no changes, there's no 3rd 
pass. And the fact that the algorithm obviously repeats till no stonger 
beatpaths can be found between any ordered candidate pairs means that it 
still has the same obvious validity that it had before.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Check your PC for viruses with the FREE McAfee online computer scan.  
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963



From Dgamble997 at aol.com  Sun Dec 21 00:29:01 2003
From: Dgamble997 at aol.com (Dgamble997 at aol.com)
Date: Sun Dec 21 00:29:01 2003
Subject: [EM] (no subject)
Message-ID: <3e.3943a22e.2d165516@aol.com>

Dear all

I find this "debate" about the Floyd Algorithm ( or more accurately who said 
what about who and when) extremely uninteresting and not very constructive.

Is it really that important to get the last word in?

David Gamble

PS This is the second time I've sent this E-mail have problems with the list 
cut off Mike and Markus in full flow?
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 00:57:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 00:57:02 2003
Subject: [EM] The request for Steve's count proposal
Message-ID: <LAW10-F75mNIql6cknJ0004daa0@hotmail.com>

Markus asked:

Could you please forward that mail where Steve proposes this strongest path
algorithm?

I reply:

It was in my mailbox years ago. I doubt that it's still there. If it is, and 
if I can quickly find it, I'll forward it.

I  don't know if Steve posted his strongest-beatpaths algorithm to EM.

But if you want a copy of it, you might want to ask him.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
It?s our best dial-up Internet access offer: 6 months @$9.95/month. Get it 
now!  http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From drernie at mac.com  Sun Dec 21 01:08:02 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:08:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <3FE38375.20BFE6D3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FE38375.20BFE6D3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <B98161F6-328E-11D8-B08B-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

On Dec 19, 2003, at 3:02 PM, Markus Schulze wrote:

> Dear Ernest,

Hi Markus,

Thanks for the prompt reply.
>
> I don't know Python-ish pseudo-code.

I'll try to find ways to make it more English-like, so the algorithm is 
clearer.

> But in Pascal/C-ish pseudo-code
> the Dijkstra algorithm (aka Dykstra algorithm) looks as follows when
> the strength of a pairwise defeat is measured primarily by p1 (= the
> absolute number of votes for the winner of this pairwise defeat) and
> secondarily by p2 (= the margin of this pairwise defeat):

<lots of code omitted>
Ouch.  That's why I no longer program in C (or procedural languages). 
:-)

Let me put it another way.   Could you please explain in words why you 
feel it is necessary or useful to use *both* absolute votes and margins 
in the calculation?   Are the margins used simply to break a tie 
between absolute votes?  I think that's what is implied by the line:
>            if ( p1[i,x] = d1[x,k] ) then
>            t : = min { p2[i,x], d2[x,k] } ;

Also, is there a particular mathematical or anti-strategic reason for 
randomizing the tie-breaking round, rather than just automatically 
picking the candidate who would have the best chance of winning such a 
random draw?

-- Ernie P.



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 21 01:12:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:12:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus reply,  12/20/03
Message-ID: <3FE46466.903B66BA@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> False statements, statements that he can't justify,  have always been
> Markus's stock-in-trade. But this time he's doing the disservice of
> misinforming people about a practical matter. But Markus doesn't care,
> he just enjoys being on the attack.

When someone proposes a faster algorithm for a given problem then
you shouldn't consider this to be an "attack".

******

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> I was only criticising you for continuing to repeat that I was
> continuing to claim that our implementation is the Floyd algorithm.
>
> (...)
>
> The debate was about whether I still claim that Steve's algorithm is
> the Floyd algorithm. It was a really silly debate, because I'd repeatedly
> said that I no longer claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.
>
> I'm the first to admit that it was a silly issue that Markus insisted on
> pursuing.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your implementation
is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this discussion with the
following statement (18 Dec 2003):

> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

It is obvious that when I made my statement that you call your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you have changed
your opinion recently. Therefore, your insulting replies are inappropriate.
Instead of saying "Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm." it would
have been better if you had said: "I don't call that the Floyd algorithm
anymore."

In so far as you only said without any explanations "I don't call that the
Floyd algorithm." and not "I don't call that the Floyd algorithm anymore."
it was clear that I would point you to a document where you call that the
Floyd algorithm.

By the way, you wrote (18 Dec 2003):

> I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from
> you or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

Could you please forward that mail where Steve proposes his strongest path
algorithm?

******

I wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> Then, of course, it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
> call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" anymore. There was no need for you
> to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> Hello-o-o-o! That's what I've been repeating for you over and over again, to
> no avail. I won't debate whether there was a need to insult you. But can you
> look at your ridiculous statement that I quoted directly above, and say that
> there wasn't a reason to call you an idiot?

When I say that "it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
call your implementation 'Floyd algorithm' anymore" then this doesn't mean
that I claim that you still call your implementation "Floyd algorithm".
It only means that this would have been sufficient and that there was no
need for you e.g. to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

******

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> You see, Markus, this is why I refer to you as an idiot. Did I deny that,
> in Feb 2001, I was calling Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm.? No. I
> agreed that I'd formerly called that algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but
> that I no longer do. But you kept repeating that I continue to claim that
> my implementation is the Floyd algorilthm, though I kept trying to tell
> you that I no longer make any such claim.
>
> And now you post a quote from 2001, apparently believing that it shows
> that you're right to say that, during this current discussion, I claim
> that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.
>
> Seriously, Markus, all namecalling aside,there really is something wrong
> with you.

Obviously, you are unable to see that when I ask you for an explanation why
you have used the term "Floyd algorithm" in the past in a given manner then
this doesn't include that I claim that you continue to use this term in this
manner.

By the way: Your recent mail exemplifies my observation that you are
unable to admit that you have made a mistake without bombarding with
insults that person who pointed you to this mistake. In the same mail
you admit that you have mistakenly believed Eppley's algorithm to be
Floyd's algorithm and you bombard me with insults.

Markus Schulze


From Dgamble997 at aol.com  Sun Dec 21 01:30:02 2003
From: Dgamble997 at aol.com (Dgamble997 at aol.com)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:30:02 2003
Subject: [EM] The Floyd Algorithm
Message-ID: <41.3828ffdf.2d15b56a@aol.com>

Dear all

I find this "debate" about the Floyd Algorithm ( or more accurately who said 
what about who and when) extremely uninteresting and not very constructive.

Is it really that important to get the last word in?

David Gamble

 
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From dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk  Sun Dec 21 01:45:01 2003
From: dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk (Diana Galletly)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:45:01 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-F73SOJl6byoxx0004dbd9@hotmail.com>
References: <LAW10-F73SOJl6byoxx0004dbd9@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312210922080.27069@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote (of Matt):

> Yoiur protectiveness toward Markus is laudable, and I'm not criticizing
> that. But you need to understand that you're one of those people who, when
> something angers you or arouses your protective instinct, is ruled entirely
> by emotion, so that you send to us a "refuting" posting that either refers
> to no actual statements (refutation pretty much requires that you say
> exactly what you're refuting), or else makes a quite false statement such as
> your claim that Markus didn't say that our algorithm didn't work.

I have been following this discussion with increasing amounts of
astonishment.  I can make neither head nor tail of what is going on.
My hypotheses thus far have been

(i) Only about half the mails are reaching Mike and Markus, such that
each believes that they have already said something that the other hasn't
seen.  So they become frustrated and believe that they are repeating
themselves over and over again (which in fact they are!) whilst the other
one has never seen the first instantiation of the message.  Perhaps they
have each other's messages filtered into /dev/null :-)

(ii) That whilst their written English appears to be pretty good, one or
the other of them has comprehension difficulties.

(iii) That one or the other of them is a computer rather than a person ;-)

Also I don't see the need for the insults.  Calling people "idiots", telling
them there must be something seriously wrong with them, and patronising
people by telling them that their reactions are driven by their emotions
rather than rationality is not helpful.

I was of the belief that both Mike and Markus are staunch Condorcetites.
Think how this petty squabble is just playing into the hands of someone
like Craig Carey, who also appears to use insults as his stock-in-trade
(as well as being pretty incomprehensible).

Diana.


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 21 01:47:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:47:02 2003
Subject: The German loser (Re: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
Message-ID: <3FE56965.9559A9D7@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

could you please post some examples to explain what you
are talking about?

Markus Schulze


From matt at tidalwave.net  Sun Dec 21 02:42:02 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Sun Dec 21 02:42:02 2003
Subject: [EM] EM] What is this software MIKE is working on...
Message-ID: <20031220074456.9FAF2E4B9@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 21 03:31:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 21 03:31:02 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
Message-ID: <3FE583D9.BBED4322@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

when I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
have changed your opinion recently. Craig Carey claimed that my
implementation of the Floyd algorithm doesn't work (presumably
because it makes only one pass through the triple-loop and
presumably because Craig believed because of the while-loop
in your implementation that the Floyd algorithm doesn't find
the strongest paths in a single pass through the triple-loop).
Therefore, I stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd
algorithm and that your algorithm doesn't find the strongest
paths in a single pass. But when one considers the possible
short cuts in that order that has been proposed by Floyd then
a single pass is sufficient.

******

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> That algorithm wasn't written as an attempt to write the Floyd
> algorithm. It was written by people who had never heard of the
> Floyd algorithm. It was written to accomplish the pupose that
> it accomlishes. Only later, due to Markus's earlier post of
> something he called the Floyd algorithm (though it was about
> strongest paths rather than shortest paths), did I hear of the
> Floyd algorithm.

Even though you write that you have never heard of the Floyd
algorithm, it is a matter of fact that you called your algorithm
"Floyd algorithm" e.g. in the source code of your Python program
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py). Therefore, when I
stress that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm then
this is a feasible observation and not an "attack". If you hadn't
mistakenly written that your implementation is the Floyd algorithm,
then there wouldn't have been a reason for me to stress that your
implementation is not the Floyd algorithm.

******

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> I've been futily trying to explain to Markus that I'm not claiming
> that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Yes, I admit that
> that effort has been futile.

When I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
have changed your opinion recently. In one of your recent mails,
you admitted that you mistakenly believed Eppley's algorithm to
be Floyd's algorithm and you admitted that you mistakenly called
Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's algorithm". Therefore, my criticism
was feasible and you admitted this. Therefore, there is absolutely
no justification for your insulting mails.

******

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> Can you name one false thing I said about Markus? I merely pointed
> out the falsity of his continually-repeated statement that I claim
> that Steve's stongest beatpaths algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.
> That's really the only issue in the discussion.

I don't claim that you continue to claim that Eppley's algorithm
is Floyd's algorithm. However, when I pointed (on 15 Dec 2003) to
the fact that you mistakenly called your implementation "Floyd
algorithm" this observation was true.

Markus Schulze


From research at ijs.co.nz  Sun Dec 21 10:13:06 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Sun Dec 21 10:13:06 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
In-Reply-To: <3FE583D9.BBED4322@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz>


At 2003-12-21 12:28 +0100 Sunday, Markus Schulze wrote:
>
>Dear Mike,
>
>when I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
>"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
>have changed your opinion recently. Craig Carey claimed that my
>implementation of the Floyd algorithm doesn't work (presumably
>because it makes only one pass through the triple-loop and
>presumably because Craig believed because of the while-loop


I wrote here to correct the wrong claim that I wrote so uselessly
on part of algorithm, and I reject that I could have possibly have
as irrational as Mr Schulze suggested with his speculation on what
I would have believed.

Also I never wrote on the Floyd *part*. Instead I wrote on the whole
algorithm. (I used only the name "Stage 2" for what Mr Schulze is
now calling the "Floyd algorithm". That is what the documents show.

I worded my comments so that a fault in part 2 created a fault in
the whole algorithm. That is totally different from criticising the
Floyd algorithm. Mr Schulze might have rejected my arguments after
I soundly argued that hje must reject his new seeming write-up of
the so called awfully unprincipled Schulze method, subsequently
identified as not even being defined in the articles submitted and
published.

** I did not claim that the Floyd algorithm "doesn't work". I simply
have a stable set of axioms that can be used as test. Mr Schulze
has probably an clear idea on what they are. Tests must be axioms
or else there is a huge slump in credibility and we end up with
errors like Mr Ossipoff's belief that inserting a preference for a
total loser should not upset the winner of previously winning
candidate owning a subsequent preference in the same ballot paper.

>in your implementation that the Floyd algorithm doesn't find
>the strongest paths in a single pass through the triple-loop).
>Therefore, I stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd
>algorithm and that your algorithm doesn't find the strongest
>paths in a single pass. But when one considers the possible
>short cuts in that order that has been proposed by Floyd then
>a single pass is sufficient.
>


Mr Shulze's seeminlgy recent (fully undefined) "well-definedness"
test, apparently passes fully undefined methods. So the reasoning
is suspect as well as the definitions, and I could not follow the
reasoning. S

I wish to note that Mr Markus Schulze is altering the wording according
to an estimate on whether disproving documents show up.

It won't be OK in politics. But this is just list for untrue statements
that have no place in the design of quality preferential voting methods
(particularly when Diana speaks. As for myself, shall be withdrawing
from this deep dark hole without much delay).

-----------------------

Mr Schulze actually seems to have receivied my e-mail containing the
algebra. It was dated 23 October 2003.
Its title was "Comments on the new Shulze voting method of Voting Matters 2003"

It was factual and withheld and its comments were the material and of
compelling importance to my communications with Mr Shulze in the last
week here at this list. It was the missing material part to my arguments
and it won't do for Mr Shulze to leave a suspicion that I was aiming to
produce clarifying summaries of allegations that never exists.

The poor members here do not like algebra, so they aggregate and don't
know what fairness is.  They maybe really are not so stupid that they
can't create truly better method, but all are out for lunch if the
topic of defining what better means shows up. After following it for
long enough, it seems that knowing nothing is the aim or a top aim.

Here is my not-edited log file record showing that Mr Schulze received
the e-mail where I tried to convert the entiire Shulze thing of the
(Voting Matter 17 PDF file and Shulze's submitted PDF), into a polytope:

--------------------------------------------------------------------
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:33 +1300 $2 Connecting to "mail.zrz.tu-berlin.de"
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:33 +1300 $2 DNS server responded with 0 (OK) [2]
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:33 +1300 $2 Connecting to "gr.mx0.global.net.uk"
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:34 +1300 $2 Connected
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:35 +1300 $2 Connected
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:35 +1300 $2 <<< 220 mx0.global.net.uk ESMTP Exim 3.36 #8 Thu, 23 Oct 2003 11:30:33 +0100
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:35 +1300 $2 >>> EHLO Merak
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:36 +1300 $2 <<< 250 HELP
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:36 +1300 $2 >>> MAIL From:<research at ijs.co.nz> SIZE=2321
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:36 +1300 $2 <<< 250 <research at ijs.co.nz> is syntactically correct
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:36 +1300 $2 >>> RCPT To:<brian.wichmann at totalise.co.uk>
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:37 +1300 $2 <<< 250 <brian.wichmann at totalise.co.uk> verified
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:37 +1300 $2 >>> DATA
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:37 +1300 $2 <<< 354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 <<< 250 OK id=1ACcjj-000IgF-00
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 *** <research at ijs.co.nz> <brian.wichmann at totalise.co.uk> 1 2321 00:00:01 OK
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 >>> QUIT
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 <<< 221 mx0.global.net.uk closing connection
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 Disconnected
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:40 +1300 $2 <<< 220 TU-Berlin.DE - ESMTP (exim-4.24) ready at Thu, 23 Oct 2003 12:30:38 +0200
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:40 +1300 $2 >>> EHLO Merak
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:40 +1300 $2 <<< 250 HELP
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:40 +1300 $2 >>> MAIL From:<research at ijs.co.nz> SIZE=2321
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:41 +1300 $2 <<< 250 OK
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:41 +1300 $2 >>> RCPT To:<markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:46 +1300 $2 <<< 250 Accepted
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:46 +1300 $2 >>> DATA
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:46 +1300 $2 <<< 354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 <<< 250 OK id=1ACcjs-0007Tq-Lo
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 *** <research at ijs.co.nz> <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de> 1 2321 00:00:01 OK
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 >>> QUIT
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 <<< 221 mail.zrz.tu-berlin.de closing connection
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 Disconnected
--------------------------------------------------------------------

( In the above:
    String $1 = "[00000C80] Thu, " or "[00000C90] Thu, "
    String $2 = "Client session"

The document got to him in my opinion.

I invite Mr Schulze to turn his mind to the question of the signficance
the fairly compelling algebraic founded suggestions that his paper is 
ass good as derailed train.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Mr Schulze just wrote this:

----------------------------
At 2003-12-21 10:35 +0100 Sunday, Markus Schulze wrote:
>Dear Craig,
>
>could you please post some examples to explain what you
>are talking about?
>
>Markus Schulze
----------------------------

Once again, the same problem seems to be present: Mr Schulze got symbolic
algebra evidence of amazing awful defects prohibiting all use of the
Schulze method (by every intelligent person and cockroaches too) in the
23 October 2003 e-mail. 

Actually Mr Ossipoff got a copy of an emended version dated 25-October-2003.
I sent that off to Mr Mike Ossipoff at "nkklrp at hotmail.com" on 21 December
2003.

It just looks like a request for information about a preferential
voting method that was not defined. However it looks like the chief
defendant has lost access to more than only his private e-mails
from October 2003. Praise our good fortune that he can still write his
name.



-----------------------------------


The Condorcet Winner ideal, was sighted dead on 5 September 2001.
Certainly Marcus would have known thoroughly that Condorcet technology is
awfully out of date and now proven to be inferior to (censored). Here is the
message:


At 2001-Sept-05 18:21 +1200 Wednesday, Craig Carey wrote:
...
>At 2001.Sept.04 16:40 -0400 Tuesday, Dave Ketchum wrote:
...
>This original "Fluffy" example has such problems with its numbers that new
>numbers could be used and the original discarded. Here is an improved
>version:
>
>       AB  48     : 1 winner        (no. 1)
>       B    3
>       CB  49
>
>     Condorcet: B wins   :   A:B = 48:52, B:C = 51:49, C:A = 49:48
>     FPTP:      C wins
>
>Candidate B wins, and: (1) the outcome is too different to First Past the
>Post to some, and (2) allowing that would lead into problems.
>
>Condorcet can be rejected for picking the wrong number of winners even
>without this example.
>
>If Mr Layton writes, perhaps an 'improved' Fluffy the Dog example could
>be named.
>
>
>At 2000.11.13 12:05 +1100 Monday, LAYTON Craig wrote:
> >There is basically one cogent criticism of all Condorcet systems, of which
> >you're all aware; that it puts too much importance on middle preferences,
> >especially when not all candidates or parties are known to voters.  Example:
> >
> >In a two candidate race:
> >A 51
> >C 49
> >
> >C wins
>  A wins
> >
> >A and C are diametrically opposed, there has been a long and dirty smear
> >campaign, so that C voters hate A and A voters hate C.  My dog, fluffy (B),
> >joins the race at the last minute;
> >
> >ABC 49
> >CBA 49
> >BAC 01
> >BCA 01
>             A:B = 49:51,  B:C = 51:49,  C:A = 50:50
> >
> >Fluffy is the Condorcet winner!.
>...


How can a dead method be noncontroversial, attainable, optimally satisfactory, 
and attainable ?.

Those are some traits of a fairest preferential voting method (not an algorithm).


----------------------------------------

How arbitrary: some privately belief on conduct with not even a single radiating
Argon gas atom illuminating the statement with the right stuff:


At 2003-12-21 09:33 +0000 Sunday, Diana Galletly <dag*000 at eng.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote (of Matt):
...
>Also I don't see the need for the insults.  Calling people "idiots", telling
>them there must be something seriously wrong with them, and patronising
>people by telling them that their reactions are driven by their emotions
>rather than rationality is not helpful.
>
>I was of the belief that both Mike and Markus are staunch Condorcetites.

Moronic and covert over how they checked their principles and still ended
up adhering to wrong ideals, is something Diana can inquire into.



>Think how this petty squabble is just playing into the hands of someone
>like Craig Carey, who also appears to use insults as his stock-in-trade
>(as well as being pretty incomprehensible).
>
>Diana.


Diana, my thinking here could be imagine by you to be like a very large
English church. Probing bits might not reveal a huge amount.

In 1999 the Election Methods List ad both drop outs and politeness.

Rather than reject bits of Diana's advice, it might be fairer to find out
more of her beliefs in the aim of estimating a date when Diana is likely
to drop out or quit.

---

So to conclude: I sent arguments to Mr Shulze and his guesswork on my
belief is unable to be created and maintained given the 23-October-2003
e-mail he got appealing him to contain his wrong thoughts, since so in
error. That never happened, and surely it would have been better if it
had of.


Craig Carey
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/politicians-and-polytopes
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote
Origin of 1/3 quota in IFPP:  http://www.ijs.co.nz/quota-13.htm
Use of QE solver REDLOG: http://www.ijs.co.nz/polytopes.htm






From dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk  Sun Dec 21 10:52:01 2003
From: dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk (Diana Galletly)
Date: Sun Dec 21 10:52:01 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz>
References: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz>
Message-ID: <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312211836070.595@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>

On Mon, 22 Dec 2003, Craig Carey wrote:

> It won't be OK in politics. But this is just list for untrue statements
> that have no place in the design of quality preferential voting methods
> (particularly when Diana speaks. As for myself, shall be withdrawing
> from this deep dark hole without much delay).

Er, show me where I have said something that is untrue?

It happens to be the case that if I post something that I later come
to realise is mistaken, I am *very* ready to apologise.

It may be that I have misinterpreted your messages, although since
your sentences often seem to be at best incomplete this might not
be surprising.

My understanding is that you are a supporter of STV (maybe even of IRV)?
Is this correct?

> The poor members here do not like algebra, so they aggregate and don't
> know what fairness is.

What proof have you that any of us dislike algebra?

> They maybe really are not so stupid that they can't create truly better
> method, but all are out for lunch if the topic of defining what better
> means shows up.

It seems to me that there are some people who want to a believe in a
one-size-fits-all system, for single winner elections, multi-winner
elections, referenda etc.

Personally, my interest is in referenda and, in particular, in determining
a system which doesn't cause widely varying results if just a few votes
change hands.

Calling me stupid will not get you far.  I am far from stupid, and
asserting that I am just because I happen to disagree with you, or
because you don't like the content of my messages, will not get me
to consider anything you have to say more carefully than I would were
you to be polite.

> How arbitrary: some privately belief on conduct with not even a single
> radiating Argon gas atom illuminating the statement with the right stuff:

This is an example of why I find your English hard to comprehend.  I
cannot even tell whether you are insulting or praising me -- I can read
it in both ways.  However, given your previous comment, I guess I should
take it as an insult.

> Rather than reject bits of Diana's advice, it might be fairer to find out
> more of her beliefs in the aim of estimating a date when Diana is likely
> to drop out or quit.

At the rate academic politics moves, some time in 2005 or 2006 I should
imagine.  I'm here for a reason, not for an argument.

Diana.


From gervase at group.force9.co.uk  Sun Dec 21 11:21:01 2003
From: gervase at group.force9.co.uk (Gervase Lam)
Date: Sun Dec 21 11:21:01 2003
Subject: [EM] "Paper" that mentions Kemeny Median
Message-ID: <E1AY98G-0003YI-Df.2003-12-21-19-20-52@cmailg2.svr.pol.co.uk>

Can anybody give an explanation of the Kemeny Median explained in the 
following PDF document:

<www.iiasa.ac.at/~marek/ftppub/Pubs/csm02/bury.pdf>

Is it the same as Kemeny-Young?  It's just that I don't understand all of 
the mathematical notation.

Here is the parent web page for the document, which interestingly is about 
a Systems Analysis Workshop rather than anything to do with voting.

<http://www.iiasa.ac.at/~marek/wrksp/csm02/>

Thanks,
Gervase.


From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Sun Dec 21 11:40:01 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Sun Dec 21 11:40:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Optional Later-no-harm  AER
Message-ID: <3FE6A03F.9000407@bigpond.com>

  An  idea for improving  Approval  Elimination Runoff   (an 
 Approval-STV hybrid) :

1: Voters rank the candidates and also place an Approval cutoff. 
 Truncation allowed, and if equal preferences are allowed
then the votes are split. Default placement of  the cutoff  can be 
either below  first preference or below lowest  ranked
not-in-last-place candidate.
2:  A candidate with a majority of first preferences is elected.  If  no 
candidate has a majority, then eliminate the candidate
with the fewest  approvals and  transfer preferences  IRV-style. 
Whenever  a candidate is the highest ranked of  those
remaining candidates on a majority of  the ballots that distinguish 
between them; then that candidate is elected.
3: If, after one or more eliminations, there are ballots that no longer 
make any approval distinction between the remaining
candidates, then those ballots that approve none of the remaining 
candidates shall be counted as approving the highest-ranked
of  them  and those ballots that approve all of  them will be counted as 
approving all  but the lowest-ranked.

This last feature is my new idea. Ranking but not approving  a candidate 
 can never harm an approved candidate, so voters
can have as much  Later-no-harm as they want.
Without this feature, AER  and other methods that use an  approval 
cutoff  give too big an advantage to well-informed
strategic voters. My idea is that as and when a  voter's approval cutoff 
 in it's original position becomes redundant/useless
(because it no longer distinguishes between the remaining candidates), 
it is moved the minimum distance neccessary for
this to be not the case.
Some people who are not  Condorcet fans have been down on the idea of  a 
 "low utility" CW with very few first preferences
winning. They can be reassured that with this method such a candidate 
cannot win unless they are explicitly  "approved" by
a significant  proportion  of  the voters.
This method  can easily be adapted  to elect more than one winner by  PR.
It  doesn't meet the Condorcet Criterion, but that is incompatible with 
Later-no-harm.
A while ago (Sat.Apr.13,2002) Adam Tarr  posted something on 
"Approval-Completed Condorcet".
In his example, these were the sincere preferences:

49: Bush>Gore>Nader
12: Gore>Bush>Nader
12: Gore>Nader>Bush
27: Nader>Gore>Bush
100 voters. Gore is the sincere CW.

With approval cutoffs, this was his problematic scenario:

49: Bush>>Nader>Gore
6: Gore>Bush>>Nader
6: Gore>>Bush>Nader
6: Gore>>Nader>Bush
6: Gore>Nader>>Bush
27: Nader>Gore>>Bush

"Now, Bush wins the approval runoff 55-51-33.  This is where ACC's favorite 
betrayal scenario comes in.  Since Bush wins the approval vote, the only 
way the majority can guarantee a Gore win is to make Gore the initial 
Condorcet winner, which requires that the Nader camp vote Gore in first place:"

My point is that this is no problem for AER. Nader is easily eliminated and then Gore
(the sincere CW) wins.

Chris Benham



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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 21 12:39:13 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 21 12:39:13 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
Message-ID: <3FE60484.9BC73431@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

you wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> I wrote here to correct the wrong claim that I wrote so uselessly
> on part of algorithm, and I reject that I could have possibly have
> as irrational as Mr Schulze suggested with his speculation on what
> I would have believed. (...) I did not claim that the Floyd algorithm
> "doesn't work".

However, on 15 Dec 2003, you wrote:
> A defective spot in Mr Schulze's article is this:
>
>      "4 Implementation
>       ...
>       It cannot be said frequently that the order
>       of the indices in the triple-loop of the
>       Floyd algorithm is not irrelevant."
>
> The principle of having the winner unaffected by the lettering
> might be failed. 
>
> E.g. this could happen. (The only change is a reordering
> of ALL the for loops inside of the algorithm):
>
>   Harry (=#1) Winner
>   Horace (=#2) Loser
>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
>
>   Harry (=#2) Loser
>   Horace (=#1) Winner
>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser

And in your 16 Dec 2003 mail, you claimed that "secret internal
relettering (or renaming or renumbering) inside of the algorithm
affects who the winner is." Thus, on the one side you call the
Floyd algorithm "defective" and claim that the result of the
Floyd algorithm depends on the lettering and on the other side
you write that you "did not claim that the Floyd algorithm
'doesn't work'".

Markus Schulze


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Sun Dec 21 12:40:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Sun Dec 21 12:40:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm question
Message-ID: <20031221203901.5119.qmail@web13809.mail.yahoo.com>

Does anyone have any idea if for the following ballots:

11 C>A
7 A
9 B
10 D>B

an election method which meets Later-no-harm can elect B?
If not, or probably not, what reasons can you see?

I know of two methods which meet later-no-harm (IRV and Woodall's
Descending Solid Coalitions) and they both pick C.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


___________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais !
Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com


From stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca  Sun Dec 21 13:40:08 2003
From: stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca (Stephane Rouillon)
Date: Sun Dec 21 13:40:08 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm question
References: <20031221203901.5119.qmail@web13809.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <3FE61232.E6A00BE2@sympatico.ca>

Finally, someone with a serious subject.

I have no idea of what is an exact definition of the Later-no-harm criteria.
So please tell me, so I can help you in your search.

You have owned it.

Steph

Kevin Venzke a ?crit :

> Does anyone have any idea if for the following ballots:
>
> 11 C>A
> 7 A
> 9 B
> 10 D>B
>
> an election method which meets Later-no-harm can elect B?
> If not, or probably not, what reasons can you see?
>
> I know of two methods which meet later-no-harm (IRV and Woodall's
> Descending Solid Coalitions) and they both pick C.
>
> Kevin Venzke
> stepjak at yahoo.fr
>
> ___________________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais !
> Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info



From rob at hypermatch.com  Sun Dec 21 14:37:03 2003
From: rob at hypermatch.com (Rob Brown)
Date: Sun Dec 21 14:37:03 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
In-Reply-To: <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312211836070.595@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>
References: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz>
 <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312211836070.595@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.0.20031221123415.01cf9060@mail.comcast.net>

I figured I'd pop out of lurk mode to mention that I, like Diana, have 
questioned whether some of the participants of this discussion are computer 
rather than human.....Craig's mangled vitriol in particular reads like its 
been round-tripped through the babelfish translator.

In any case this ridiculous flamefest has provided me some amusement, but 
not done a lot toward my taking this list seriously.  Maybe everybody could 
agree that if Craig and Mike would just kindly drop off the list for a 
month, everyone will just pretend this never happened when they come back?

-rob

At 10:51 AM 12/21/2003, Diana Galletly wrote:
>On Mon, 22 Dec 2003, Craig Carey wrote:
>
> > It won't be OK in politics. But this is just list for untrue statements
> > that have no place in the design of quality preferential voting methods
> > (particularly when Diana speaks. As for myself, shall be withdrawing
> > from this deep dark hole without much delay).
>
>Er, show me where I have said something that is untrue?
>
>It happens to be the case that if I post something that I later come
>to realise is mistaken, I am *very* ready to apologise.
>
>It may be that I have misinterpreted your messages, although since
>your sentences often seem to be at best incomplete this might not
>be surprising.
>
>My understanding is that you are a supporter of STV (maybe even of IRV)?
>Is this correct?
>
> > The poor members here do not like algebra, so they aggregate and don't
> > know what fairness is.
>
>What proof have you that any of us dislike algebra?
>
> > They maybe really are not so stupid that they can't create truly better
> > method, but all are out for lunch if the topic of defining what better
> > means shows up.
>
>It seems to me that there are some people who want to a believe in a
>one-size-fits-all system, for single winner elections, multi-winner
>elections, referenda etc.
>
>Personally, my interest is in referenda and, in particular, in determining
>a system which doesn't cause widely varying results if just a few votes
>change hands.
>
>Calling me stupid will not get you far.  I am far from stupid, and
>asserting that I am just because I happen to disagree with you, or
>because you don't like the content of my messages, will not get me
>to consider anything you have to say more carefully than I would were
>you to be polite.
>
> > How arbitrary: some privately belief on conduct with not even a single
> > radiating Argon gas atom illuminating the statement with the right stuff:
>
>This is an example of why I find your English hard to comprehend.  I
>cannot even tell whether you are insulting or praising me -- I can read
>it in both ways.  However, given your previous comment, I guess I should
>take it as an insult.
>
> > Rather than reject bits of Diana's advice, it might be fairer to find out
> > more of her beliefs in the aim of estimating a date when Diana is likely
> > to drop out or quit.
>
>At the rate academic politics moves, some time in 2005 or 2006 I should
>imagine.  I'm here for a reason, not for an argument.
>
>Diana.
>----
>Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 20:40:09 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 20:40:09 2003
Subject: [EM] Proof that Floyd's works in one pass?
Message-ID: <Law10-F95sCOt4p1Vfh00010ca8@hotmail.com>

Yesterday I asked Russ, the website owner, to re-arrange the indices in the 
core of the strongest-beatpaths algorithm, the part that tests and 
re-assigns the B(i,j). But today I wrote again and suggested that he not 
make that change until I send him a proof that it will achieve its intended 
result. But, when I wrote today, I said that we shouldn't call it the Floyd 
algorithm. I said that we should delete that name from it. Not only because 
of the order of the indices, but also because the websites say that the 
Floyd algorithm is for finding shortest paths, and I don't know if it's 
still the Floyd algorithm when it's modified to find strongest beatpaths.

If it's true that the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted a few days ago 
would find the strongest beatpath between each ordered pair of candidates if 
the indices were re-arranged, then would someone post a proof of that? Or 
the URL of a website that has a proof?

Also, if there's another algorilthm that would also have a running-time of a 
lower order than my Beatpath algorithm, would someone post it here, 
jargon-free and plain, as my BeatpathWinner algorithm was posted here a few 
days ago? Or post the URL of a website that has such a description of such 
an algorithm?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Get dial-up Internet access now with our best offer: 6 months @$9.95/month!  
http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 22:36:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 22:36:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Actual quotes for Markus
Message-ID: <Law10-F97B7BLA2t0ly00050b01@hotmail.com>

Markus said:

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>False statements, statements that he can't justify,  have always been
>Markus's stock-in-trade. But this time he's doing the disservice of
>misinforming people about a practical matter. But Markus doesn't care,
>he just enjoys being on the attack.

When someone proposes a faster algorithm for a given problem then
you shouldn't consider this to be an "attack".

I reply:

Excuse me, but did I ever object to your proposing a faster algorithm? It 
was abundantly clear from what I said that I was objecting to your ongoing 
claim that I claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

Diana's right: It's as if you don't read what you're replying to. I'm not so 
sure that you pass the Turing test.

Markus continued:

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your implementation
is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this discussion with the
following statement (18 Dec 2003): ...

>Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

Wrong. That posting is dated 17 December in the archives, not 18 December.

Immediately after that senbence, I said:

"I don't use that piece of code. It looks like it might be a tiny piece of a 
Pyhon strongest-beatpaths program, with at least one of its lines partly 
erased."

So it would be obvious to anyone but you that, at that time, I wasn't saying 
that I don't call the strongest-beatpaths algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but 
was only saying that I don't call your poorly-copied program-fragment the 
Floyd algorith.

A few paragraphs down in that same message, I said,

"I do call a certain strongest-beatpaths algorithm the Floyd algorithm, only 
because someone on this list told us that that's what the algorithm is 
called."

So, on the 17th, I was still calling our strongest-beatpaths algorithm the 
Floyd algorithm, and still believed that it was what you'd intended to write 
when you posted your Floyd algorilthm.

But on the 18th, I said that it semed to me that you had meant to say that 
our algorithm was the Floyd algoithm, but maybe not.

I then explained that it had seemed to me earlier that our algorithm was the 
same as what you'd
meant to write when you posted your Floyd algorithm, and that that was why I 
believed that our algorithm was the Floyd algorithm.

In that message, it's clear that I was no longer calling our algorithm the 
Floyd algorithm.

But, if that wasn't clear enough, on the same day, the 18th, I also posted:

"[Something to the effect of 'I'd thought that you'd meant our algorithm as 
the Floyd algorithm'] But if you say it isn't, fine. I'll tell Russ to 
delete that name from the website."

That makes it even more clear that, as of the 18th, I was no longer calling 
our algorithm the Floyd algorilthm.

Markus continued:

It is obvious that when I made my statement that you call your 
implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you have 
changed
your opinion recently.

I reply:

No reason at all...except for what I said  :-)

(on the 18th, and on numerous subsequent posts).

Masrkus continued:

Therefore, your insulting replies are inappropriate.
Instead of saying "Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm." it would
have been better if you had said: "I don't call that the Floyd algorithm
anymore."

I reply:

In English, "I don't call it that anymore" means "Though I called it that 
formerly, I no longer do."

So "anymore" merely emphasizes that what is not now true used to be true. It 
emphasizes the changing of a previously true fact. But in no way can 
"anymore" be said to be a necessary part of the grammatical construction for 
indicating the present tense.

You continued:

In so far as you only said without any explanations "I don't call that the
Floyd algorithm." and not "I don't call that the Floyd algorithm anymore."
it was clear that I would point you to a document where you call that the
Floyd algorithm.

I reply:

Correction: You pointed to a document in which I _called_ it the Floyd 
algorithm. You used the present tense. The document proves only that I 
called it the Floyd algorithm in 2001.

(though I said on the 17th December, 2003, that I still called it that as of 
that day)

That's why we have verb-tenses. So that people will know whether we're 
speaking of the present, the past, or the future. I spoke in the present 
tense. The present can refer to this moment, as when someone says, "I'm not 
smoking a cigarette". Or it can refer to something currently ongoing, as 
when someone says "I don't smoke". Then he's saying that not only is he not 
smoking at this moment, but he's also saying that this moment isn't part of 
an ongoing period during which smoking by him sometimes takes place. That's 
a well-established meaning of the present tense, and it was in that way that 
I meant the present tense. When he says "I don't smoke", in no way can you 
be justified in claiming that he's saying that he has never smoked.

If he says "I haven't smoked", then that's different.

I reply:

So when I said that I don't call it the Floyd algorithm, that doesn't mean 
that I've never called it the Floyd algorithm. It merely means that I 
currently don't call it that. When somone says "I don't call it that", does 
mean to you that  mean that he's saying that he has never called it that?

Now, on the 17th I was only saying that I don't call that program _fragment_ 
the Floyd algorilthm. But on subsequent days when I said that,  I made it 
clear that I don't call our strongest beatpaths algorithm the Floyd 
algorithm. My statements posted here on 18 December 2003 demonstrate that, 
from that time on, I haven't been calling it the Floyd algorithm.

By the way, you wrote (18 Dec 2003):

>I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from
>you or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

Could you please forward that mail where Steve proposes his strongest path
algorithm?

I reply:

It turns out that that message is no longer in my mailbox. That message was 
sent years ago, and my mailbox doesn't go back that far. I suggest that you 
write to Steve. He may still have a copy of the message. Or, if not, he may 
be able to tell you about the algorithm that he proposed.

******

I wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>Then, of course, it would have been sufficient for you to say that you 
>don't
>call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" anymore.

As I said, the word "anymore" is _not_ a necessary part of the grammatical 
construction for the present tense.

I said that I don't call it the Floyd algorithm. That means that now isn't 
part of an ongoing period during which I sometimes call it that. It doesn't 
mean that I've never called it that.

>There was no need for you
>to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

Do you really believe that I had no reason to get tired of repeatedly 
explaining the same things to you again and again, as you kept on repeating 
a false claim, as if you weren't reading the e-mail that you were "replying" 
to?

Markus continued:

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>Hello-o-o-o! That's what I've been repeating for you over and over again, 
>to
>no avail. I won't debate whether there was a need to insult you. But can 
>you
>look at your ridiculous statement that I quoted directly above, and say 
>that
>there wasn't a reason to call you an idiot?

When I say that "it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
call your implementation 'Floyd algorithm' anymore" then this doesn't mean
that I claim that you still call your implementation "Floyd algorithm".
It only means that this would have been sufficient and that there was no
need for you e.g. to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

I reply:

But the problem was that it _wasn't_ sufficient, because you were spamming 
this mailing list with repetion of a refuted claim, in direct violation of 
the rules of conduct posted at the list's homepage.

Markus continued:

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>You see, Markus, this is why I refer to you as an idiot. Did I deny that,
>in Feb 2001, I was calling Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm.? No. I
>agreed that I'd formerly called that algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but
>that I no longer do. But you kept repeating that I continue to claim that
>my implementation is the Floyd algorilthm, though I kept trying to tell
>you that I no longer make any such claim.
>
>And now you post a quote from 2001, apparently believing that it shows
>that you're right to say that, during this current discussion, I claim
>that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.
>
>Seriously, Markus, all namecalling aside,there really is something wrong
>with you.

Obviously, you are unable to see that when I ask you for an explanation why
you have used the term "Floyd algorithm" in the past in a given manner then
this doesn't include that I claim that you continue to use this term in this
manner.

I reply:

No. You didn't just ask for an explanation for why I previously used the 
term. You kept saying that I do use the term in that way. Check the 
archives.

And, as for why I previously used the term in that way, I answered that 
question on the 18th. If yoiu read what yoiu're replying to, you wouldn't 
have asked that question after that day.

Markus continued:

By the way: Your recent mail exemplifies my observation that you are
unable to admit that you have made a mistake

I reply:

Starting on the 18th, and then on every subsequent day, I clarified that I 
previously called it the Floyd algorithm, and that I (as of the 18th and 
after) took your word for it that it was not the Floyd algorilth, and said 
that I was going to ask Russ to delete that name from the website. Agan, 
Diana's rilght: What you say is completely unrelated to what you claim to be 
replying to.

Markus continued:

without bombarding with
insults that person who pointed you to this mistake.

I reply:

I never criticized you for pointing out that Steve's algorithm isn't the 
Floyd algorithm. More fiction on your part.

Markus continued:

In the same mail
you admit that you have mistakenly believed Eppley's algorithm to be
Floyd's algorithm

I reply:

You catch on fast :-)  At least now you've finally found out that I've been 
saying that all along.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 22:59:03 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 22:59:03 2003
Subject: [EM] Matt reply, 12/21/03
Message-ID: <Law10-F8hNfv57kVwyr00050a38@hotmail.com>

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Matt said:

It is the python code towards the bottom of http://www.electionmethods.org/
It says "Mike Ossipoff provided the algorithm, and Russ Paielli programmed 
it."
It also says:  "Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd 
Algorithm:" which prompted Markus to point out that it wasn't the O(N^3) 
Floyd Algorithm as coded but a less efficient O(N^5) algorithm.

I reply:

No, I'd have never objected to that. As soon as Markus said it wasn't the 
Floyd algorithm I said "Fine. I'll tell Russ to delete that name from the 
website.

What I disagreed with in Markus's posting was his statement that our 
algorithm doesn't work.

Matt continued, using the terminology of his subculture,:

Mike then went into a hissy fit.

I reply:

I stated that, contrary to what Markus posted,  our algothm works.

I immediately said that I took Markus's word for it that our algotithm isn't 
the Floyd algorithm.

No fit. Did I eventually become exasperated with Markus's repetition that I 
call Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm? Yes.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Check your PC for viruses with the FREE McAfee online computer scan.  
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 22 00:05:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Mon Dec 22 00:05:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Yet more Markus
Message-ID: <Law10-F55nDrfDYgl3l0002a006@hotmail.com>


Markus said:

when I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
have changed your opinion recently.

I reply:

Not only that, but I had not changed my opinion about that at that time. On 
17 December I said in a posting here that I, at that time, called our 
algorithm the Floyd algorithm.

No one is disputing the claim that I used to call it that. No one is 
criticizing you for making that observation on 15 December. It's when you 
kept saying it after 18 December that it was obviously false and was 
becoming reallly tiresome.

Markus continued:

[...]

Therefore, I stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd
algorithm and that your algorithm doesn't find the strongest
paths in a single pass.

I reply:

I've already quoted verbatim what you said. You said that our algorithm 
doesn't work.
But I'm not still on that. However you seem to still on that.

Markus continued:

But when one considers the possible
short cuts in that order that has been proposed by Floyd then
a single pass is sufficient.

I reply:

So you keep claiming. But are you able to  prove it? If so, then do so. And, 
  if you're unable to prove it, then post the web URL of someone who is able 
to prove it.

I'm not saying that it isn't true, only that you should prove it if you're 
going to say it.

Markus quoted me:

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
>That algorithm wasn't written as an attempt to write the Floyd
>algorithm. It was written by people who had never heard of the
>Floyd algorithm. It was written to accomplish the pupose that
>it accomlishes. Only later, due to Markus's earlier post of
>something he called the Floyd algorithm (though it was about
>strongest paths rather than shortest paths), did I hear of the
>Floyd algorithm.

Markus replied:

Even though you write that you have never heard of the Floyd
algorithm

I reply:

Excuse me Markus, but in what posting did I say that I've never heard of the 
Floyd algorithm? Certainly not in the paragraph that you quoted above. What 
I said in that posting was that our strongest-beatpaths algorilthmwas 
written by people who had never heard of the Floyd algorithm.

Listen carefully, Markus: "had" is different from "have".

I said "...people who had never heard of the Floyd algorithmn". You took 
that to mean that I have (up to this day) never heard of the Floyd 
algorithm. Does it occur to you that that was a ridiculous conclusion, 
considering that I've repeatedly mentioned the Floyd algorithm, from 17 
December to the present? Now, when a conclusion is ridiculous, just maybe 
it's incorrect. We have the perfect tense, and, distinct from that, we have 
the past-perfect or pluperfect tense. "...who had never heard of the Floyd 
algorithm" is the latter tense. It  refers to time previoius to the time 
that the sentence refers to. It's about time that was past with respect to 
the past time that the sentence refers to. To clairfy the difference, if I 
say "I haven't heard of the Floyd algorithm", that refers to time previous 
to, and up to, the present The perfect tense and the pluperfect tense are 
two different tenses, with different meanings.

I'm not criticizing you for mistaking those verb-tenses. But when you reach 
a conclusion as ridicoulous as the one that you reached, that should give 
you a clue that maybe you've misunderstood, and that you need to re-check 
what you think was said.

Markus continued:

it is a matter of fact that you called your algorithm
"Floyd algorithm" e.g. in the source code of your Python program
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py).

I reply:

I've never denied that, Markus.

Markus continued:

Therefore, when I
stress that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm then
this is a feasible observation and not an "attack".

I reply:

I never criticized you for saying that our implementation isn't the Floyd 
algorithm.

I haven't specifically said that anything was an attack. I said that you 
like to go on the attrack, and that's a good description of what you do. I 
also said that you must have nothing else to do, and that you evidently are 
completely without a life, and I stand by that statement.

Markus continued:

If you hadn't
mistakenly written that your implementation is the Floyd algorithm,
then there wouldn't have been a reason for me to stress that your
implementation is not the Floyd algorithm.

I reo;y:

No one has objected to your pointing out that it isn't the Floyd algorithm. 
All I said about that was that I took your word for it and would tell Russ 
to delete that name from it.

Markus continued:

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
>I've been futily trying to explain to Markus that I'm not claiming
>that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Yes, I admit that
>that effort has been futile.

When I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
have changed your opinion recently.

I reply:

You already said that, Markus, earlier in your posting. The answer is the 
same here: My opinion that our implmentation was the Floyd algorithm indeed 
had not changed as of that time. Additionally, on 17 December I stated that 
I call it the Floyd algorithm. But on the 18th I made it clear that that was 
no longer so, as of the 18th.

Markus continued:

In one of your recent mails,
you admitted that you mistakenly believed Eppley's algorithm to
be Floyd's algorithm and you admitted that you mistakenly called
Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's algorithm". Therefore, my criticism
was feasible

I reply:

Sure, if you want to repeat what I'd already said, that I mistakenly 
believed that you'd intended to write Steve's algorithm when you posted your 
Floyd algorithm, that's fine. I wasn't aware that it was criticism, and I've 
never objected to your pointiing that out.

But do you really believe that I'd agree that it wasn't the Floyd algorithm 
and then criticize you for saying that it isn't th eFloyd algorilthm? Again, 
a ridiculous conclulsion that should give you a clue that you need to 
re-check what you thought I wrote.

Does it occur to you how much of our time you're wasting because you draw 
those ridiculous conclusions, and then write about them instead of checking 
whether I really said what you initially believe I said? You're unbelievably 
sloppy.

Markus continued:

and you admitted this.

I reply:

If you admilt that I did you feel the need to keep re-asserting what was 
already admitted?

Markus continued:

Therefore, there is absolutely
no justification for your insulting mails.

I reply:

Sure there was and is, with the astoundingly ridiculous things that you come 
up with, such as saying that I claim to have never heard of the Floyd 
algorithm, because I said that our implementation was written by peoiple who 
had never heard of the Floyd algorilthm.

Markus continued:

I don't claim that you continue to claim that Eppley's algorithm
is Floyd's algorithm. However, when I pointed (on 15 Dec 2003) to
the fact that you mistakenly called your implementation "Floyd
algorithm" this observation was true.

I reply:

...and no one objected to your saying that then. But I objected to that same 
statement after 18 December, when I'd made it clear that I was no longer 
callling it the Floyd algorithm.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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http://join.msn.com/?PAGE=features/es



From bartman at netgate.net  Mon Dec 22 00:43:02 2003
From: bartman at netgate.net (Bart Ingles)
Date: Mon Dec 22 00:43:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm question
References: <20031221203901.5119.qmail@web13809.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <3FE6AE3B.53B43546@netgate.net>

Random dictator can elect B 9/37 of the time, and presumably meets
later-no-harm.  In fact the 2nd choices are unused for that method.

I can't see much value in LNH as a criterion, unless getting voters to
rank as many candidates as possible is seen as an end in itself.

Bart


Kevin Venzke wrote:
> 
> Does anyone have any idea if for the following ballots:
> 
> 11 C>A
> 7 A
> 9 B
> 10 D>B
> 
> an election method which meets Later-no-harm can elect B?
> If not, or probably not, what reasons can you see?
> 
> I know of two methods which meet later-no-harm (IRV and Woodall's
> Descending Solid Coalitions) and they both pick C.
> 
> Kevin Venzke
> stepjak at yahoo.fr


From davek at clarityconnect.com  Mon Dec 22 01:04:01 2003
From: davek at clarityconnect.com (Dave Ketchum)
Date: Mon Dec 22 01:04:01 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
References: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz> <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312211836070.595@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk> <6.0.0.22.0.20031221123415.01cf9060@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <3FE6B33A.300@clarityconnect.com>

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 14:36:47 -0800 Rob Brown wrote on part:

> I figured I'd pop out of lurk mode to mention that I, like Diana, have 
> questioned whether some of the participants of this discussion are 
> computer rather than human.....Craig's mangled vitriol in particular 
> reads like its been round-tripped through the babelfish translator.
> 

Worth noting the "NZ" in Craig's address and realizing he speaks a 
different language, though deceptively similar to ours.

I remember many months ago his getting upset over the VERY UGLY insult 
someone had used about him.  The insult had not been meant, for the words 
were not insulting in American English.

BTW, to Craig:  you need to remember that what works for you at home is 
not necessarily workable here.

-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.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.



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 22 01:29:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Mon Dec 22 01:29:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Typo in "Proof that Floyd finishes in 1 pass?"
Message-ID: <Law10-F87jGUcdCzs4m00050d21@hotmail.com>


In an earlier message today, I said:

"If it's true that the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted a few days ago
would find the strongest beatpath between each ordered pair of candidates if
the indices were re-arranged, then would someone post a proof of that? Or
the URL of a website that has a proof?"

***

I accidentally left out the phrase "with only one pass".

I'm asking if anyone can prove that the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I 
posted a few days ago would find the strongest beatpath between each ordered 
pair of candidates _in one pass_ if the order of the indices were 
re-arranged.

If there's proof that the re-arrangement can accomplish that then I'll ask 
the website owner to re-arrange the indices in that way.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 22 01:54:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Mon Dec 22 01:54:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Winning-votes vs margins as a measure of defeat-strength
Message-ID: <Law10-F74muxcChxbm300050fd1@hotmail.com>




For Condorcet's method, I recommend that the strength
of pairwise defeats be measured by "winning-votes"
(wv). Winning votes says:

If X beats Y, then the strength of that defeat is measured by the number of 
people who ranked X over Y.

[end of definition]

Some others advocate using margins of defeat instead.

Here's why winning-votes is better.

Below is something that I send out to answer that question. But let me 
briefly say that one problem of margins is that the subtraction that it 
involves erases information about majorities, which is why margins has 
majority rule failures that wv doesn't have. One result is that wv meets the 
majority defensivse strategy criteria, SFC, GSFC, WDSC, and SDSC; and 
margins fails all those criteria. They're criteria intended to measure for 
the standards of majority rule, and minimizing need for defensive strategy. 
The definitions of those 4 criteria tell how complying methods (wv 
Condorclet) avoid certain avoidable defensive strategy needs.

Thoes criteria are defined at:

http://www.electionmethods.org

and

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


But there's also a basic ethical reason wv acts more justly than margins 
does:

When every candidate has a pairwise defeat by another
candidate, Condorcet's method, in all its versions,
solves that problem by sequentially dropping the
weaker defeats--or by sequentially keeping the
stronger defeats.

When everyone has a pairwise defeat, and we have to
elect someone anyway, then that means that we have to
ignore or disregard or overrule someone's pairwise
defeat(s)--when we elect someone in spite of his
having a pairwise defeat, a public statement that the
voters prefer someone else to him. So Condorcet has to choose which defeat 
to drop.

But dropping or ignoring a defeat is not something to
be taken lightly. It means that we're disregarding,
overruling, a statement made by the voting public,
when they indicated that they preferred one candidate
to another. And when we overrule that public choice,
we're overruling those voters who won that public
decision.


Suppose that, in the pairwise comparison betwen D & B,
D beats B, 60 to 50, meaning that 60 people ranked D
over B, and 50 people ranked B over D.

If we drop that defeat, overrule that public statement
that D is better than B, then we're also overruling
the 60 voters who won that public vote about that
2-way contest between D and B.

We want to minimize the number of voters whom we
overrule. So we measure the importance of a defeat by
the number of people who voted for that defeat.

Now, sometimes someone will say: But if you keep that
defeat, doesn't that mean that you're overrule the 50
voters who voted against it, the 50 voters who ranked
B over D? No! Those 50 voters were overruled by the
public vote in which the voters collectively said that
they prefer D to B. The only way that the voting
system overrules a public decision is when it drops a
defeat, when it overrules a public decision for one
candidate over another. We're not doing that when we
keep a defeat that the public chose.

That's why winning-votes (wv) is more democratic than
margins, more ethically fair.

But there's another reason why we prefer wv to
margins:
Nash Equilibrium:

A Nash equilibrium is an game outcome in which no one
player can improve the result for himself by changing
his play, if no one else changes their play.

In voting system discussion on the election-methods
mailing list, a "player" is taken to mean a
same-voting set of voters.

With the kind of Condorcet that measures defeats by
margins, as with IRV and Plurality, there are often situations
(configurations of sincere voter preferences) in which
the only Nash equilibria are ones in which some voters
vote someone over their favorite in order to protect
majority rule or protect the win of a Condorcet
candidate (a candidate who, when compared separately
to each one of the others, is preferred to him/her by
more people than vice-versa).

With Approval or wv Condorcet, every situation has at
least one Nash equilibrium in which no one reverses a
sincere preference.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Mon Dec 22 05:11:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Mon Dec 22 05:11:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Actual quotes for Markus
Message-ID: <3FE6ECC4.FFFA3285@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

when I wrote that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm,
then this was an observation and not an "attack". If you hadn't
mistakenly written (e.g. in the source code of your Python
program http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py) that your
implementation is the Floyd algorithm, then I wouldn't have
stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm.
In one of your recent mails, you admitted that you mistakenly
believed Eppley's algorithm to be Floyd's algorithm and you
admitted that you mistakenly called Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's
algorithm". Therefore, my criticism was feasible and you
admitted this. Therefore, there is absolutely no justification
for your insulting mails.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> Excuse me, but did I ever object to your proposing a faster
> algorithm? It was abundantly clear from what I said that I
> was objecting to your ongoing claim that I claim that Steve's
> algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> Markus wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> > I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your
> > implementation is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this
> > discussion with the following statement (18 Dec 2003): ...
> >
> > > Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.
>
> Wrong. That posting is dated 17 December in the archives, not
> 18 December.

My mailbox says: "Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"

It seems that your mail server uses UK time and not
California time.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> Immediately after that senbence, I said:
>
> "I don't use that piece of code. It looks like it might be a
> tiny piece of a Pyhon strongest-beatpaths program, with at
> least one of its lines partly erased."
>
> So it would be obvious to anyone but you that, at that time,
> I wasn't saying that I don't call the strongest-beatpaths
> algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but was only saying that I
> don't call your poorly-copied program-fragment the Floyd
> algorith.
>
> A few paragraphs down in that same message, I said,
>
> "I do call a certain strongest-beatpaths algorithm the Floyd
> algorithm, only because someone on this list told us that
> that's what the algorithm is called."
>
> So, on the 17th, I was still calling our strongest-beatpaths
> algorithm the Floyd algorithm, and still believed that it was
> what you'd intended to write when you posted your Floyd
> algorilthm.
>
> But on the 18th, I said that it semed to me that you had meant
> to say that our algorithm was the Floyd algoithm, but maybe not.
>
> I then explained that it had seemed to me earlier that our
> algorithm was the same as what you'd meant to write when you
> posted your Floyd algorithm, and that that was why I believed
> that our algorithm was the Floyd algorithm.
>
> In that message, it's clear that I was no longer calling our
> algorithm the Floyd algorithm.
>
> But, if that wasn't clear enough, on the same day, the 18th,
> I also posted:
>
> "[Something to the effect of 'I'd thought that you'd meant our
> algorithm as the Floyd algorithm'] But if you say it isn't, fine.
> I'll tell Russ to delete that name from the website."
>
> That makes it even more clear that, as of the 18th, I was no
> longer calling our algorithm the Floyd algorilthm.

Why is it so important for you to stress that since 18 Dec 2003
you are not longer calling Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's algorithm"?
When I wrote on 15 Dec 2003 that Eppley's algorithm is mistakenly
called "Floyd's algorithm" in the source code of your Phython
program this was a correct observation.

******

I wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> When I say that "it would have been sufficient for you to say that
> you don't call your implementation 'Floyd algorithm' anymore" then
> this doesn't mean that I claim that you still call your implementation
> "Floyd algorithm". It only means that this would have been sufficient
> and that there was no need for you e.g. to spam this mailing list with
> tons of insulting mails.

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> But the problem was that it _wasn't_ sufficient, because you were spamming 
> this mailing list with repetion of a refuted claim, in direct violation of 
> the rules of conduct posted at the list's homepage.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

******

I wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> Obviously, you are unable to see that when I ask you for an explanation why
> you have used the term "Floyd algorithm" in the past in a given manner then
> this doesn't include that I claim that you continue to use this term in this
> manner.

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> No. You didn't just ask for an explanation for why I previously used the 
> term. You kept saying that I do use the term in that way. Check the archives.
> And, as for why I previously used the term in that way, I answered that
> question on the 18th. If yoiu read what yoiu're replying to, you wouldn't
> have asked that question after that day.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> I immediately said that I took Markus's word for it that our algotithm
> isn't the Floyd algorithm. No fit. Did I eventually become exasperated
> with Markus's repetition that I call Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm?
> Yes.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> I haven't specifically said that anything was an attack. I said that you
> like to go on the attrack, and that's a good description of what you do. I
> also said that you must have nothing else to do, and that you evidently are
> completely without a life, and I stand by that statement.

Concerning the time you spend to spam mailing lists with insulting and
completely superfluous mails, I conclude that you are completely without
a life.

Markus Schulze


From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Mon Dec 22 08:17:02 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Mon Dec 22 08:17:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm  definition
Message-ID: <3FE7C23C.1090700@bigpond.com>

Quoting  D.R. Woodall,

"Later-no-harm:  Adding a later preference to a ballot should not harm 
any candidate already listed".

In other words, if  a method meets Later-no-harm then  voters can never 
get an advantage by truncating.
It is met by IRV, but is incompatible with  Condorcet.
I got this from what I found to be the very interesting and illuminating 
paper "Monotonicity and Single-Seat Election
Rules" by Woodall, and uploaded by  Marcus Schulze:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/wood1996.pdf

Chris Benham



From rspeer at MIT.EDU  Mon Dec 22 11:36:02 2003
From: rspeer at MIT.EDU (Rob Speer)
Date: Mon Dec 22 11:36:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Typo in "Proof that Floyd finishes in 1 pass?"
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F87jGUcdCzs4m00050d21@hotmail.com>
References: <Law10-F87jGUcdCzs4m00050d21@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031222193423.GA23743@mit.edu>

On Mon, Dec 22, 2003 at 09:28:37AM +0000, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
> I'm asking if anyone can prove that the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I 
> posted a few days ago would find the strongest beatpath between each 
> ordered pair of candidates _in one pass_ if the order of the indices were 
> re-arranged.

You accept that the Floyd-Warshall algorithm is proven, right? I don't
have my copy of CLR around.

Floyd-Warshall shortest paths is a special case of the Floyd-Warshall
algorithm, where the path weight is calculated with + and the minimum
is taken. Floyd-Warshall can also be used for the transitive closure, or
for beatpaths, because the algorithm doesn't depend on the particular
operations that are used.

-- 
Rob Speer



From Dgamble997 at aol.com  Mon Dec 22 11:46:02 2003
From: Dgamble997 at aol.com (Dgamble997 at aol.com)
Date: Mon Dec 22 11:46:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Two Questions for Craig Carey
Message-ID: <17e.2498109b.2d18a3b9@aol.com>

Craig

In the past you have been extremely critical of IRV , currently you are being 
extremely critical of Condorcet. What single seat method do you support?

You also repeatedly criticise methods for giving "wrong winners". In the 
example given below who, in your opinion, is the correct winner?

There are 100 votes and one seat is to be filled.

The ballot papers are as follows:

A>B>C   40
B>A>C   8
B>C>A   17
C>B>A   35

A is the Plurality winner, B is the Condorcet winner and C is the IRV winner. 
Who is the correct winner?

David Gamble

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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 22 23:54:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Mon Dec 22 23:54:02 2003
Subject: [EM] SSD is not BeatpathWinner
Message-ID: <Law10-F1112zSdwlDgQ0005442d@hotmail.com>

Markus often says that BeatpathWinner is the same as Cloneproof SSD (CSSD) 
and SSD. Actually no. SSD is a different method that can have different 
outcomes when there are pairwise ties.

It's true thatr CSSD and BeatpathWinner are equivalent, always give the same 
outcome.

In public elections, where pairwise ties are vanishingly rare, SSD chooses 
the same as CSSD, which means that, under those conditions, SSD chooses the 
same as BeatpathWinner.

But, aside from how they choose, there's an important difference between SSD 
and BeatpathWinner: Proposability.

SSD's definition, with its innermost unbeaten sets, is naturally and 
obviously motivated and justified. Innermost unbeaten sets are compelling.

BeatpathWinner's count rule has an arbitrary quality. It wouldn't have the 
acceptability of SSD. Or the acceptability of Ranked-Pairs either.

Maybe when Markus names those methods as being the same as BeatpathWinner, 
he'd like to take credit for all of them (assuming for the moment that he 
really did invent BeatpathWinner). Yes he did describe CSSD after proposing 
BeatpathWinner, pointing out the equivalence. But I doubt that he proposed 
SSD.

SSD was a colaboration from discussion with Steve Eppley. Neither of us knew 
of Markus's CSSD description at that time. Later, in a discussion in which a 
clone-independent method was desired, and in which someone else was 
proposing BeatpathWinner, a method not as obviously justified as SSD, I 
changed SSD to make it clone-independent--Cloneproof SSD (CSSD). Later I 
found out that Markus had described CSSD.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 01:48:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 01:48:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Condorcet for public proposals
Message-ID: <LAW10-F78P6LKg1bJj800054daa@hotmail.com>

When I found out about BeatpathWinner's brief algorithm and computer 
program, I began recommending for committees, organizations, and polls. That 
was largely because the brief BeatpathWinner program was the only one that 
I'd written. I had diffriculty setting aside the time that it would take to 
write the much longer programs for SSD and Ranked-Pairs.  So I was offering 
a BeatpathWinner program because that was all I had. People asked me where 
they could find a Ranked-Pairs program, and I had to say that I didn't know 
where they could find a wv RP program.

But all the time when I was recommending BeatpathWinner for committees, 
partly with the idea that the members of the committee, like me, would find 
a brief program more convenient, I was also saying that SSD, RP, and PC are 
the Condorcet versions to propose for public elections.

That's because those Condorcet versions are the ones with natural and 
obvious motivation and justification. Obviously, of those 3, PC isn't as 
good as the other 2.

CSSD and SSD differ in their stopping rule. SSD stops when someone is 
unbeaten. CSSD stops when there are no defeats among the candidates of the 
Schwartz set. When I initially suggested CSSD, no knowing about Markus's 
prior proposal, I was saying to stop when there are no cycles among the 
candidates of the current Schwartz set. When I heard about Markus's CSSD 
proposal, which worded the stopping rule in terms of defeats in the Schwartz 
set, instead of cycles, I adopted that wording, since defeats are a more 
natural notion than cycles. In that way, with CSSD, it's never necessary to 
mention cycles. Of course with SSD it's never necessary to mention cycles 
either.

Stopping the count when someone becomes unbeaten sounds much briefer, more 
natural, expected than stopping the count when there are no defeats among 
the candidates of the current Schwartz set. After all, the whole reason why 
a circular tie solution is needed was because initially no one was unbeaten. 
What could be more natural than to stop when someone becomes unbeaten.

As I was saying before, an innermost unbeaten set is compelling--It's 
obvious that the winner should come from that set. And that therefore the 
candidates of that set are the ones who should have their defeats dropped.


Here's how I define SSD:


Schwartz set definition:

1. An unbeaten set is a set of candidates none of whom are beaten by anyone 
outside that set.

2. An innermost unbeaten set is an unbeaten set that doesn't contain a 
smaller unbeaten set.

3. The Schwartz set is the set of candidates who are in innermost unbeaten 
sets.

SSD:

1. If any candidate is unbeaten, they win and the count ends.

2. Otherwise, determine which candidates are in the Schwartz set, counting 
only undropped defeats.

3. Drop the weakest defeat among the members of that set. Go to 1.

[end of SSD definition]


Ranked-Pairs is also obviously motivated and justified, and that makes it 
too a good proposal for public elections. Its definition is probably  
briefer than that of SSD, because SSD requires the Schwartz set to be 
defined. But RP loses some of its brevity when its midcount-tie-solution is 
specified.

Ranked-Pairs:

To "keep" a defeat means to record it as being kept.

In order of strongest defeats first, consider each defeat in turn as 
follows: Keep it doesn't conflict with already-kept defeats, by being in a 
cycle with them-- i.e., by being in a cycle consisting only of it and some 
already-kept defeats.

When all the defeats have been considered in that way, a candidate wins if 
s/he has no kept defeats.

[end of RP definition]

Ranked-Pairs isn't a descriptive definition. If it applies to RP at all, it 
could also apply to some other Condorcet versions. Steve Eppley has 
suggested a better name:

Maximize Affirmed Majorities (MAM). That name well describes what MAM does.

RP can have midcount ties, situations where there are 2 or more equally 
strongest as-yet unconsidered defeats. The problem is, which one should be 
considered first? It's said that, for the purpose of clone-independence and 
monotonicity, maybe the best way to solve that is to randomly chose the 
order in which to consider them. That doesn't sound like something that the 
public would like, however.

I suggested an RP midcount tie solution on this mailing list some time ago. 
It's based on the idea that a defeat is nullified if it's in a cycle with 
defeats that are all at least as strong as it is:

1. Call the equally strongest as-yet unconsidered defeats the "tie defeats".

2. Defeats that were kept before  keeping any tie defeats are called "old 
defeats".

3. A tie defeat is "qualified" if it isn't in a cycle consisting only of it 
and some old defeats.

4. Keep every qualified tie defeat that is not in a cycle each of whose 
members is either an old defeeat or a qualified tie defeat.

[end of "deterministic1" midcount tie solution definition]

In the EM discussion at that time, it was called deterministic1. Steve had 
already considered it.

I thought that was the brief midcount tie solution, till Eric suggested 
something briefer:

[using the same definitions as before]

Keep every tie defeat that isn't in a cycle consisting only of it and some 
old defeats.

[end of briefer midcount tie solution]

That's so much briefer that I immediately agreed that that's the one to 
offer for public proposals.

It could probably be worded so that it wouldn't be necessary to separately 
define tie defeats and old defeats.

In public elections, equal defeats are so rare that it doesn't reallly 
matter what the rule is for solving them. Brevity is all-importnat, and the 
brief midcount tie solution is the one to include in public MAM proposals.

As I've often said, the merit difference between MAM and SSD in public 
elections is negligible. The choice between those two should be based 
entirely on which is more likely to be accepted. Maybe a "focus group" 
public meeting or a poll should be done to chose.

If I was proposing only BeatpathWinner/CSSD for committees only because it 
was the only one that I had a count program written for, maybe that isn't 
the best way to choose a voting system. Maybe RP should be considered as a 
method for committees. Maybe a program should be written that implements 
CSSD by its own very plausible definition, rather than by BeatpathWinner. 
For a committee, the choice between CSSD and CSSD would obviously depend on 
whether an obvious stopping rule is more imporant than clone independence. 
Will clone advantage or disadvantage really happen often enough to cause 
factions to strategically introduce clones? I doiubt it.

As I said, it's been suggested that the MAM midcount tie solutions that I 
described might not be clone-independent &/or monotonic. How much of a 
problem is that? How likely is a faction to strategically run (or avoid) 
clones, on the chance that there will be equal defeats, in circumstances 
that favor or disfavor clones? Probably not so likely. How likely is someone 
to downrank his favorite so as to make him win in the unlikely event that a 
certain two defeats will be equal, and the other circumstances will be right 
for that particular candidate to benefit from the nonmonotonicy and from 
that voter's downranking strategy. It doesn't sound real likely, does it.

I've had good response to an SSD definition. SSD doesn't require any mention 
of cycles. MAM requires at least mention of defeats that conflict or are 
incompatible, etc. Someone might ask how defeats conflit, and then you're 
defining cycles to that person. With SSD you never have to speak of cycles, 
or incompatible defeats.

But SSD and MAM are both excellent public Condorcet proposals.

Sometimes we underestimate how resistant people might be to anything whose 
definition is longer than a line or two. Sure, anyone who is willilng to 
read the definitions of SSD and MAM will like them. But what about all those 
people who will reject them without being willing to read the definition, 
because they consider a short paragraph to be too long? For them, maybe 
Condorcet is a better idea.

Sure SSD & MAM are better, but if people insist on something more 
briefly-defined, them  Plain Condorcet (PC) is the thing:

If anyone is undefeated they win. Otherwise drop the weakest defeat. Repeat 
till someone is undefeated. They win.

[end of PC definition]

PC is called Basic Condorcet at the electionmethods website.

Sure, PC violates Condorcet Loser. But it would happen only rarely. It would 
be a peculiarly popular Condorcet loser who has fewer people preferring 
anyone else to him than anyone else does.

If a Condorcet Loser wins it would be an embarrassment. But the likely 
"badness" of that winner is reduced by the fact that he has the fewest 
people preferring anyone else to him.

Condorcet Loser could also be used against PC in campaigns, and that 
objection would have to be answered. For one thing, Condorcet Loser can't be 
used to oppose replacing Plurality with PC, because Plurality violates it 
too, probably more often.

Keep thiis in persepctive. Let's not exaggerate how likely or how much of a 
problem PC's ability to fail Condorcet Loser is.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Make your home warm and cozy this winter with tips from MSN House & Home.  
http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From bjarke2003 at trebe.dk  Tue Dec 23 03:28:33 2003
From: bjarke2003 at trebe.dk (Bjarke Dahl Ebert)
Date: Tue Dec 23 03:28:33 2003
Subject: [EM] Election methods Wiki
Message-ID: <4668.194.239.238.130.1072178859.squirrel@webmail01.web10.dk>

Dear election methods fans,

I know about Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/), which have many pages about
election methods, but I know of no Wiki where election methods are being
_discussed_.
What I am missing, that a mailinglist cannot provide, is a medium where discussions
and consensus (or the lack thereof) about election methods can be _maintained_.

That is just what a Wiki can do. Therefore I propose that we set one up.
I would be happy to provide the web-space for it. See e.g.
http://trebe.dk/wiki/index.php/ElectionMethods/HomePage. It's almost empty now, but
I guess it could quickly be filled with something meaningful.

If such an initiative already exists, please inform me - I don't want to clone an
already existing Wiki.

Kind regards,
Bjarke




From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 23 05:58:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 23 05:58:02 2003
Subject: [EM] SSD is not BeatpathWinner
Message-ID: <3FE8498C.976D2813@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (23 Dec 2003):

> Maybe when Markus names those methods as being the same as BeatpathWinner,
> he'd like to take credit for all of them (assuming for the moment that he
> really did invent BeatpathWinner). Yes he did describe CSSD after proposing
> BeatpathWinner, pointing out the equivalence. But I doubt that he proposed
> SSD. SSD was a colaboration from discussion with Steve Eppley. Neither of us
> knew of Markus's CSSD description at that time. Later, in a discussion in
> which a clone-independent method was desired, and in which someone else was
> proposing BeatpathWinner, a method not as obviously justified as SSD, I
> changed SSD to make it clone-independent--Cloneproof SSD (CSSD). Later I
> found out that Markus had described CSSD.

In the voting recommendation to the DEBIAN project, you can find a very
interesting comment to this question. Norman Petry wrote (6 Feb 2001):

> Regardless of what names we use when referring to these methods during our
> committee discussions, I think it is appropriate that if one of these
> variants is recommended to Debian that it be named SCHULZE'S METHOD.  This
> is because:
>
> 1. Schulze, version 1: The 'Beat-Or-Tie-path' method was first proposed by
> Markus Schulze on Sat, 4 Oct 1997 (see EM Archives, "Re: Condorect sub-cycle
> rule").  Unfortunately, eGroups has not archived this message, but it can be
> found at Rob's site, in this text file (but mistakenly referred to there as
> "Tideman's Method"): http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em/archive/em.97q4
>
> 2. Schulze, version 2: The 'Schwartz Sequential Dropping' (SSD) method was
> first proposed by Markus Schulze on Mon, 10 Aug 1998.  His description can
> be found here:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/673
>
> 3. Schulze, version 3: The 'Cloneproof SSD' method was first proposed by
> Markus Schulze on Sat, 14 Nov 1998.  See:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/2291  As noted
> above, Markus' version of 'Cloneproof SSD' uses a slightly different (and
> imo better) tiebreaker than Mike's version, but the two methods are
> otherwise identical.
>
> 4. Beatpath Winner: This was not specifically proposed by Markus Schulze,
> but it is equivalent in terms of results to Cloneproof SSD.  It is the same
> as 'Beat-or-tie-path' winner, except that pairties in the matrix are zeroed
> out before paths are computed, so that tied values cannot be part of the
> paths used to determine the winner.
>
> Since Markus was the originator of the first three of these methods, and
> usually refers to all of them as "Schulze's Method", it seems appropriate to
> name them as he has done.

Another interesting question is: In so far as you considered neither
independence of clones nor reversal symmetry to be important, why
did you propose an election method that is more complicated than
Schwartz//MinMax(VotesAgainst)?

Markus Schulze


From andru at cs.cornell.edu  Tue Dec 23 08:57:08 2003
From: andru at cs.cornell.edu (Andrew Myers)
Date: Tue Dec 23 08:57:08 2003
Subject: [EM] Correctness of Floyd-Warshall for beatpaths
In-Reply-To: <20031222200333.2759.49760.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
References: <20031222200333.2759.49760.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <20031223165604.GA14116@balm.cs.cornell.edu>

Because there has been continuing concern about the algorithm, I looked
up more information in the standard textbook I referred to in an earlier
email (Cormen, Leiserson, and Rivest).

The Floyd-Warshall algorithm (so named because the algorithm was
proposed by Floyd but based on a theorem by Warshall) works on any
closed semiring. A semiring is defined by two operations (which I called
min and + in my earlier mail).  For computing beatpaths, the operations
are max and min respectively.  Showing that max and min define a
semiring, and that the required closure properties hold, is
straightforward. I refer those who are interested to the text above.

-- Andrew


From rspeer at MIT.EDU  Tue Dec 23 09:55:02 2003
From: rspeer at MIT.EDU (Rob Speer)
Date: Tue Dec 23 09:55:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Election methods Wiki
In-Reply-To: <4668.194.239.238.130.1072178859.squirrel@webmail01.web10.dk>
References: <4668.194.239.238.130.1072178859.squirrel@webmail01.web10.dk>
Message-ID: <20031223175309.GA26686@mit.edu>

On Tue, Dec 23, 2003 at 12:27:39PM +0100, Bjarke Dahl Ebert wrote:
> That is just what a Wiki can do. Therefore I propose that we set one up.
> I would be happy to provide the web-space for it. See e.g.
> http://trebe.dk/wiki/index.php/ElectionMethods/HomePage. It's almost empty now, but
> I guess it could quickly be filled with something meaningful.
> 
> If such an initiative already exists, please inform me - I don't want to clone an
> already existing Wiki.

I had been thinking that such a thing would be useful. Thank you for
setting it up.

The one thing I'm afraid of is that the fact that allows a Wiki to work
- namely, that you can trust your intended users not to want to
interfere with discussion - doesn't necessarily work regarding election
methods. People get _very_ political and defensive over election
methods, as we can see.

You should probably make a rule about /Talk pages, like Wikipedia. That
is, factual information about "Foo" goes on the Foo page, while
discussion, opinions, and arguments about Foo or the contents of the Foo
page go on Foo/Talk. Otherwise you're going to see, for example, this:

CSSD
* It always chooses a winner from the Smith Set.
* It is cloneproof.
* It does not meet the later-no-harm criterion.
* It does not meet the Participation criterion.
* It is a LOWER PREFERENCES METHOD supported only by FASCISTS who want
  to elect NADER and DISENFRANCHISE YOU!

-- 
Rob Speer



From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Tue Dec 23 14:49:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Tue Dec 23 14:49:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm, "Earlier-no-harm"
Message-ID: <20031223224748.8555.qmail@web13809.mail.yahoo.com>

Thanks to everyone who responded to my last message.

It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
this ballot."

(By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
but also deleting others.)

I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
"earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
ranked FIRST, (etc...)."

For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.

"Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A.

What do you think?

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


___________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais !
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 15:45:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 15:45:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus: Take it to individual e-mail or drop it. Don't post about it.
Message-ID: <Law10-F43h7iusuHX3A00017f71@hotmail.com>

Markus--

If you have anything further to say about what I believed or claimed about 
what was the Floyd algorithm at some previous time, summarize it in 
_individual_ e-mail (one message only). No more list e-mail. The members of 
this list aren't interested in what I believed about the Floyd algorithm in 
2001, etc. Some of them have said so. I've been telling you that from the 
start.

There won't be a reply unless one is requested. But of course in that case 
you wouldn't get the last word, because I'm only willing to get one more 
message about that.

So, for the last time, I will comment on what you've said:

I don't want any more messages from you about this via the mailing list.

You wrote:

when I wrote that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm,
then this was an observation and not an "attack". If you hadn't
mistakenly written (e.g. in the source code of your Python
program http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py) that your
implementation is the Floyd algorithm, then I wouldn't have
stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm.

I reply:

Are you aware that you said exactly that same thing in a previous message, 
and that I replied to it? Probably not.

At no time did I object or criticize when you stated that Steve's algorithm 
isn't the Floyd algorithm. All I said was that I'd take your word for that. 
"If you say it isn't, then fine. I'll tell Russ to delete that name from the 
website." Posted 18 December.

Markus continued:

In one of your recent mails, you admitted that you mistakenly
believed Eppley's algorithm to be Floyd's algorithm and you
admitted that you mistakenly called Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's
algorithm".

I reply:

I've been asserting those things ever since I stated them in postings of 18 
Decemeber.

You continued:

Therefore, my criticism was feasible and you
admitted this.

I reply:

What criticism? I wasn't aware that your information that that wasn't the 
Floyd algorilthm was criticism. But whatever it was, I never said it wasn't 
feasible. I did object to other behaviors and mis-statements of yours.

Markus continued:

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
>Excuse me, but did I ever object to your proposing a faster
>algorithm? It was abundantly clear from what I said that I
>was objecting to your ongoing claim that I claim that Steve's
>algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

I reply:

Good. I'm glad you're finally finished with that.

******

You'd said:

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
>Markus wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> > I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your
> > implementation is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this
> > discussion with the following statement (18 Dec 2003): ...
> >
> > > Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.
>

I replied:

>Wrong. That posting is dated 17 December in the archives, not
>18 December.

My mailbox says: "Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"

I reply:

I don't care what your mailbox says. The message's date in the archives is 
17 December.
Shoiuld we refer to message dates by what your mailbox says instead of what 
the archive says?

You continued:

It seems that your mail server uses UK time and not
California time.

I reply:

I was referring to the date listed in the archives.

If you're in the +1 timezone, then maybe it was past midnight for you, but 
not for the UK. That would explain why your mailbox's dating of the message 
is incorrect with respect to the archive's dating of it. In any case, the 
archives recorded dates are a better standard than your mailbox is.

You continued:

Why is it so important for you to stress that since 18 Dec 2003
you are not longer calling Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's algorithm"?
When I wrote on 15 Dec 2003 that Eppley's algorithm is mistakenly
called "Floyd's algorithm" in the source code of your Phython
program this was a correct observation.

I reply:

I never disagreed with your 15 December statrement on that.

Why do I say that I wasn't calling it that since 18 December? Because you 
were continuing to assert that I call it that. But now you're backed down 
from that assertion and admitted that I don't call it that.

Markus said:

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

I reply:

Good. That's an improvement. Previously you'd posted something I said in 
2001 as proof that I call Eppley's algorithm the Floyd algorithm, even 
thoiugh I'd clearly retracted that statement on 18 December, and every day 
thereafter.

******
You repeated:

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

I reply:

Wonderful. Better late than never.

You repeated again:

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

I reply:

Yes, we all get the idea.

Now, as I said, if you have anything further to say about that, send it as 
individual e-mail. Summarize it in one message only. But further postings 
from you here about that are unwelcome, to me, and to the other list 
members.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Make your home warm and cozy this winter with tips from MSN House & Home.  
http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 16:41:04 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 16:41:04 2003
Subject: [EM] RE: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #397 - 6 msgs
Message-ID: <LAW10-F79Lxlge13sR200057987@hotmail.com>

Markus said:

In the voting recommendation to the DEBIAN project, you can find a very
interesting comment to this question. Norman Petry wrote (6 Feb 2001):

>Regardless of what names we use when referring to these methods during our
>committee discussions, I think it is appropriate that if one of these
>variants is recommended to Debian that it be named SCHULZE'S METHOD.  This
>is because:
>
>1. Schulze, version 1: The 'Beat-Or-Tie-path' method was first proposed by
>Markus Schulze on Sat, 4 Oct 1997 (see EM Archives, "Re: Condorect 
>sub-cycle
>rule").  Unfortunately, eGroups has not archived this message, but it can 
>be
>found at Rob's site, in this text file (but mistakenly referred to there as
>"Tideman's Method"): http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em/archive/em.97q4

Norm, in that message, points out that "Schulze's method" uses 
beat-or-tie-paths rather than beatpaths. There's been some vagueness about 
which of those you refer to as "Schulze's method".

>
>2. Schulze, version 2: The 'Schwartz Sequential Dropping' (SSD) method was
>first proposed by Markus Schulze on Mon, 10 Aug 1998.  His description can
>be found here:
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/673

In that proposal, it isn't clear what you mean by "potential wininers". You 
don't define the term there. I suppose that if something is defined slopily 
or vaguely enough, that leaves much latitude for saying what it is.

No one can prove what you meant in that proposal.

In any case, I didn't mean to imply that I consider it important who first 
proposed SSD, or whether your proposal in '98 was SSD, CSSD, or neither.

>Markus' version of 'Cloneproof SSD' uses a slightly different (and
>imo better) tiebreaker than Mike's version, but the two methods are
>otherwise identical.

You'd suggested comparing margins when 2 opposing beatpaths (or 
beat-&-tie-paths?) are equal because their weakest defeat is equal. I hadn't 
bothered to add that, because I'm mostly interested in public elections, and 
because even in committees, equal opposing beatpaths won't be common. Of 
course there's nothing wrong with adding that provision.

There were aspects of your tie solution that you later retracted when you 
discovered that they had undesirable properties.

Markus said:

Another interesting question is: In so far as you considered neither
independence of clones nor reversal symmetry to be important, why
did you propose an election method that is more complicated than
Schwartz//MinMax(VotesAgainst)?

I reply:

I don't know what you mean by MinMax. MinMax has been used with so many 
meanings that it's quite useless as a method name. Perhaps you're using 
MinMax to refer to PC.

I agree that I don't consider reversal symmetry important. As for clone 
independence, it's desirable, but far from essential. But what I was saying 
in my recent message was that the clone independence _of a tiebreaker_ isn't 
important, because no one is going to have a strategy dilemma about what to 
do in order to take advantage of a tie. Ties of all kinds are vanishingly 
rare in public elections (unless Copeland is used). Even in committees, ties 
aren't common, and clone-independence of a tie solution isn't really 
important.

So far as I'm aware, SSD is clone-independent in public elections (where 
there are no pairwise ties), but not in coimmitees with few voters (where 
there might be pairwise ties).

MAM (Maximize Affirmed Majorities), also called Ranked-Pairs, is 
clone-independent in public elections and in committees.

Though clonen-independence is desirable, that isn't the main advantage, for 
me, that SSD and MAM have over PC. The more important advantages, for me, 
are:

1. PC fails Condorcet Loser, Majority Loser, and Mutual Majorilty (in 
descending order of likely importance in campaigns). Those criterion 
failures are important only because they could be used against a PC 
proposal. When those criteria are defined so as to meaningfully apply to all 
methods, Plurality fails them too, which of course greatly reduces their 
importance in campaigns to replace Plurality with PC. Still, possible 
criticism of PC in campaigns, by academics and IRV advocates is probably 
PC's main disadvantage with respect to SSD and MAM.

2. SSD and MAM have been shown to meet GSFC and SDSC. PC hasn't been shown 
to meet those criteria. If anyone can show that PC passes or fails those 
critreria, they're invited to do so.

I consider SFC and GSFC to be the biggest, and most exclusive advantages of 
Condorcet wv. The fact that SSD and MAM have been shown to meet GSFC 
greately increases their value.

GSFC is the deluxe SFC that applies even when there's no CW.

PC has been shown to meet SFC.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Working moms: Find helpful tips here on managing kids, home, work ?  and 
yourself.   http://special.msn.com/msnbc/workingmom.armx



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 17:40:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 17:40:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Retraction about IRV, Brams, and Later-No-Harm
Message-ID: <Law10-F77C6HixqDCZx00018435@hotmail.com>

What Brams showed was that, contrary to the frequent claims of IRV 
promoters, IRV gives strategic incentive to truncate one's ranking.

It was some time ago when I read of that, and a few minutes ago I posted, 
probably mistakenly, that Brams showed that IRV fails Later-No-Harm.

Most likely, in Brams' example, someone truncated, causing  a higher-ranked 
truncated candidate to beat a lower-ranked truncated candidate.

But, if IRV meets Later-No-Harm, that means little. IRV protects your 
favorite from your lower choices by eliminating your favorite before IRV 
lets you help your lower choices. IRV saves your favorite by eliminating 
him. A sort of electoral euthanasia.

If IRV's Later-No-Harm "advantage" is the kind of benefit that we get from 
Later-No-Harm, then it's questionable how important that criterion is.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Check your PC for viruses with the FREE McAfee online computer scan.  
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 17:53:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 17:53:02 2003
Subject: [EM] IRV fails Later-No-Harm
Message-ID: <Law10-F242YiinhsI1z0003a096@hotmail.com>

Chris Benham wrote:

"Later-no-harm:  Adding a later preference to a ballot should not harm
any candidate already listed".

In other words, if  a method meets Later-no-harm then  voters can never
get an advantage by truncating.
It is met by IRV, but is incompatible with  Condorcet.
I got this from what I found to be the very interesting and illuminating
paper "Monotonicity and Single-Seat Election
Rules" by Woodall, and uploaded by  Marcus Schulze:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/wood1996.pdf

I reply:

Professor Steven Brams published an example in which IRV fails 
No-Later-Harm. I'd post the example, but I don't know where to look for it. 
You could find it just as well as I could.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Have fun customizing MSN Messenger ? learn how here!  
http://www.msnmessenger-download.com/tracking/reach_customize



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 23 23:01:04 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 23 23:01:04 2003
Subject: [EM] Actual quotes for Markus
Message-ID: <3FE9394F.FE456897@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> If you have anything further to say about what I believed or claimed about
> what was the Floyd algorithm at some previous time, summarize it in
> _individual_ e-mail (one message only). No more list e-mail. The members of
> this list aren't interested in what I believed about the Floyd algorithm in
> 2001, etc. Some of them have said so. I've been telling you that from the
> start.

Then why did you start this thread at all? I don't care what you believed
when about the Floyd algorithm. But it is clear that when you mistakenly
called a different algorithm "Floyd algorithm" and when implementations to
calculate the strongest paths were discussed at this mailing list, then
it was necessary to stress that your use of the term "Floyd algorithm" was
incorrect.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> Markus wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> > I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your
> > implementation is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this
> > discussion with the following statement (18 Dec 2003): ...
> >
> > > Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.
>
> Wrong. That posting is dated 17 December in the archives, not
> 18 December.

I wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> My mailbox says: "Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"
>
> It seems that your mail server uses UK time and not
> California time.

You wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> I don't care what your mailbox says. The message's date in the archives
> is 17 December. Shoiuld we refer to message dates by what your mailbox
> says instead of what the archive says?
>
> If you're in the +1 timezone, then maybe it was past midnight for you,
> but not for the UK. That would explain why your mailbox's dating of the
> message is incorrect with respect to the archive's dating of it.

The reason why my mailbox says "Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"
is that your mail server uses UK time. I have received your mail at
18 Dec 2003 08:59:50 Central European Time.

Of most subscribers I don't know in which time zone they live. Therefore,
the only information that I have is the time zone used by their mail
servers.

You wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> In any case, the archives recorded dates are a better standard than your
> mailbox is.

As I am subscribed to this mailing list, I usually don't use the archives
to read current mails. By the way: This mailing list has 4 archives.

At Electorama, your mail is dated: "Wed Dec 17 23:58:01 2003"
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-December/011394.html

At eGroups, your mail is dated: "Thu Dec 18, 2003  7:57 am"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/12845

At Mail Archive, your mail is dated: "Thu, 18 Dec 2003 01:00:57 -0800"
http://www.mail-archive.com/election-methods-electorama.com%40electorama.com/msg01461.html

At Gmane, your mail is dated: "Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/3133

******

You wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> Now, as I said, if you have anything further to say about that, send it as
> individual e-mail. Summarize it in one message only. But further postings
> from you here about that are unwelcome, to me, and to the other list
> members.

Further postings from you here about that are not welcome, either.

Markus Schulze


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 23 23:01:09 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 23 23:01:09 2003
Subject: [EM] Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #397 - 6 msgs
Message-ID: <3FE93962.7965FE1B@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> I doubt that he [= Markus Schulze] proposed SSD.

You wrote (24 Dec 2003):
> In any case, I didn't mean to imply that I
> consider it important who first proposed SSD.

Good. That's an improvement.

Markus Schulze


From bartman at netgate.net  Tue Dec 23 23:57:01 2003
From: bartman at netgate.net (Bart Ingles)
Date: Tue Dec 23 23:57:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm  definition
References: <3FE7C23C.1090700@bigpond.com>
Message-ID: <3FE94661.A9255D9B@netgate.net>

This paper must be part of a series, as Woodall never explains his
assertion that "Of these three properties, Majority is far and away the
most important."  He seems to have his own definitions for monotonicity;
I hadn't seen these anywhere else.

But the publication appears to be devoted to issues surrounding STV, so
maybe some things are simply assumed here.

Bart


Chris Benham wrote:
> 
> Quoting  D.R. Woodall,
> 
> "Later-no-harm:  Adding a later preference to a ballot should not harm
> any candidate already listed".
> 
> In other words, if  a method meets Later-no-harm then  voters can never
> get an advantage by truncating.
> It is met by IRV, but is incompatible with  Condorcet.
> I got this from what I found to be the very interesting and illuminating
> paper "Monotonicity and Single-Seat Election
> Rules" by Woodall, and uploaded by  Marcus Schulze:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/wood1996.pdf


From research at ijs.co.nz  Wed Dec 24 00:31:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Wed Dec 24 00:31:02 2003
Subject: Election Methods List and lying vs justice (Re: [EM] Optional
  Later-no-harm  AER
In-Reply-To: <3FE6A03F.9000407@bigpond.com>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031224174405.05b11c88@pop.qsi.net.nz>


My last message (on casual *guessing* of the weightings of the "A over B"
subtotal has not arrived. It entered into the moderating. I had a bit of
an apology/retract for M. Schulze.

This list seems to lack a desire for truthful ideas and it recovers within
days from contact with corrections by reverting back to its error. Typically
without bothering to compare its ideas with replacements.

---

So this preferential voting method would collect information on
the parties the candidates are grouped into.

The class of methods might be useful when party members that use it
are reconciled to sacrificing their own interests (provied that
such exist).

---

I assume that the word "Approval" means that some sort of fluidic
mixing of intentions. As worded, that is awful.

The basic plan below seems to be to start of with a rejected method
and not get it out of that state. A 


At 2003-12-22 18:11 +1030 Monday, Chris Benham wrote:
>
> An  idea for improving  Approval  Elimination Runoff   (an  Approval-
> STV hybrid) :
>
> 1: Voters rank the candidates and also place an Approval cutoff.
> Truncation allowed, and if equal preferences are allowed then the
> votes are split. Default placement of  the cutoff  can be either below
> first preference or below lowest  ranked not-in-last-place candidate.
>
> 2:  A candidate with a majority of first preferences is elected.

So the whole method must be rejected (or the definition of it altered)
because it can't get the obviously correct answer in all 0 winner
elections. There is no requirement that the number of winners equal
one. It is about STV and Approval which do have obvious extensions to
the cases of 2,3, and 4, and 0, winners.


> If no candidate has a majority, then eliminate the candidate with the
> fewest  approvals and  transfer preferences  IRV-style. Whenever  a

The CVD published everlastingly false information saying that the
RCV of San Francisco of 2003, was IRV. RCV has does not allow a full
list of preferences and my claim is weakened (possibly eliminated) by
assuming that that is part of the method instead a restriction imposed
on it.

>
> In his example, these were the sincere preferences:
>

A truthful person can't confirm that the next 5 non-blank lines
are sincere or not. Try it for yourself Mr Benham.

> 49: Bush>Gore>Nader
> 12: Gore>Bush>Nader
> 12: Gore>Nader>Bush
> 27: Nader>Gore>Bush
> 100 voters. Gore is the sincere CW.
...

So you have a definition of the "Insincere Cee-Double-U" ?. Presumably
there never was a definition. Probably the quickest agreeable solution
is to say that the words "sincere CW" have an identical meaning to
the words "Condorcet winner".

It seems to be impossible to get the Condorcet winner and
monotonicity.

Is the list ignorant of that despite the extreme simplicity of
showing it ?, or is it rejecting (with no argument at all) a principle
that government users will be strongly in favour of. Additionally
rejection if finding out the method designers don't know what they are
doing. The 4th in the whole document of Mr Benham says "improving".

Persons guiding government agencies use this trick:
  * The method has to be rejected if it is based over a respect of
     the Condorcet winner.
  * No designer who has a respect for the Condorcet winner has a good
     method.

An STV expert is not waiting around for arguments on rules to allow
partial disagreement with the Condorcet winner. Since the Condorcet
winner was wrong in the first place (it has no natural multiwinner
extension) then an unsound arbitrary modification of an obviously
wrong 'CW' won't undo the rejection of the ideas of Mr Benham and
others.

This whole mailing list, after being so frequented by Markus Schulze
and Bathycles Crap, is running like a government checkup of a Thunderbirds
No. 2 vehicle. The government officials want a clean aircraft.
Just before it gets to them it flies for 30 metres through a muddy
syrupy lake, and Ms Penelope Shulze had to say a plainly ambiguous
line that said "we will send Thunderbirds Two through the muddy syrup
of Cloudy Water (CW) lake. After breaking through the surface of the
goo lake and settling on the shore of the cleansiness checking remotely
controlled robots of electoral office officials of cities, it failed.
They had eyes and could spot surface attachments.

If it had not of been for Penelope Shulze (or the script writers)
the Thunderbirds Two vehicle might have flow above the syrup lake's
surface.

Ms Penelope should get her brain examined: after a decision to send
so many into much it would be suspected that she has wood for brains.
However it could have be a script writer.  What was that "we will
smoke them [Democrats] out" comment of GWBush.

----------------------------------------------------------------



At 2003-12-23 23:47 +0100 Tuesday, Kevin Venzke wrote:
>Thanks to everyone who responded to my last message.
>
>It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
>as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
>should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
>this ballot."
>
>(By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
>additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
>but also deleting others.)
>
>I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
>"earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
>ranked FIRST, (etc...)."
>
>For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
>then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.
>

Clearly Mr Venkze has not ruled out the 2 winner case. If he has one
unstated restriction then it may take weeks or years before he finally
managed to get them all into the mailing list and nicely requoted
in each message.

Suppose the votes are this (2 winner case)

Election 1:
  10000 (D)
  1 (A=B=C>D>E), D should win and does

Election 2:
  10000 (D)
  1 (A>B>C>D>E) , both D and E lose says Mr Venkze

I assume that there is no need to get "A=B=C" precisely defined since
unknown disputes over definitions might be bounded by factors 6 or 1/6.


>"Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
>then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A.
>
>What do you think?

It looks like Mr Venkze won't accept one or both of these:

 * an axiom set from which a method is derived (a strange option given
    the theme of Mr Venkze's whole message), or

 * the principle that the number of winners be correct (i.e. he sometimes
    expects the number of winners be disagreeing with what was decided on
    before the public filled in the voting papers, providing a public 
    suitably exists).

--

I have never suspected that there is a good reason to use
   "Later No Harm"
instead of
   "Truncation Resistance".

"Permuting preferences before" and "permuting preferences after" are a
better wording of what is desired. I assume that if both are imposed
then the method degenerates into FPTP or something similar.

So there may need to be a redesign of the papers (and presumably
adding "=" won't produce insensitivity to permuting before). I would
prefer no redesign (while preferring methods better than the
second best AV n candidate 1 winner method) and instead allow elections
where voters could change their mind.


----------------------------------------------------------------


At 2003-12-21 14:36 -0800 Sunday, Rob Brown wrote:
>I figured I'd pop out of lurk mode to mention that I, like Diana, have 
>questioned whether some of the participants of this discussion are computer 
>rather than human.....Craig's mangled vitriol in particular reads like its 
>been round-tripped through the babelfish translator.
>
>In any case this ridiculous flamefest has provided me some amusement, but 
>not done a lot toward my taking this list seriously.  Maybe everybody could 
>agree that if Craig and Mike would just kindly drop off the list for a 
>month, everyone will just pretend this never happened when they come back?
>

I am dissatisfied with why this list lives in the wake amazingly
obvious mistakes. Some stupid tricks seem to advance it all
 * no comment; missing replies; no reasoning; nothing at an appropriate
    time. Only ideas so wrong that to say "withheld a response" would
    seem wrong
 * authoritarianism.  With Mr Ossipoff is has very low trustability, and
    here is an example of Mr Shulze:

Here is more comments on authoritarianism. (What is wrong with
authoritarianism is complex and all about correctness.) I quote:

------------------------
At 2003-December-23 14:56 +0100 Tuesday, Markus Schulze wrote:
...
>Another interesting question is: In so far as you considered neither
>independence of clones nor reversal symmetry to be important, why
>did you propose an election method that is more complicated than
>Schwartz//MinMax(VotesAgainst)?
------------------------

It is just like this:
"Independence of Clones" was found after the man put his arm down a
rat hole in a Berlin council tip yard, Newbies at the EM list can try
out the German trash tips. 

Here is a quick wording of a best rule preventing corruption:

   One Man One Vote rule (in a multiwinner form)

   For each positively weighted paper, the outcome of it can be
   obtained by a sum of positively weighted fragments, with the
   fragments being produced only by deletion and no reordering.
   The desirableness has to be maintained with shorter papers and
   it is measured using the paper's list, to convert winners into
   a base 2 Real number.

It is about right and if a little flawed then improved.

False propaganda is being sent into the mailing list by Mr Shulze
and it really seems to be dogged by a lack of argument. For an
expert in logic, Mr Shulze's use of

   "you considered neither [this] nor [that] [so] why ... ?

is misleading.

The full set of rules can be simple:
* Right number of winners (it looks like Mr Venkze rejected it)
* P2 (it looks like the whole EM list except me is too stupid to be
   able to cough up a speculation on it. Instead they should form
   an opinion on how it is necessary).
* Truncation Resistance and monotonicity and multiwinner monotonicity.
   Certainly politicians would be using a check like this, especially
   now that awful Alternative Vote is both a threat and performs
   quite badly under this type of test.
* Multiwinner One Man One Vote [as described above]
* Simple Approval style summing. [Mr Shulze has spent years of
  talking about Approval, but I guess he refuses to say that the
  proportionality aim is only the idea of Approval placed strictly
  behind other rules. He can talk about Approval for years so long
  as exulting in a desire to write and promote the idea, but it
  could be totally nothing for years if Mr Schulze gets serious on
  the idea that the idea is very important. The other principles
  might get rolled together under the name of EQUAL SUFFRAGE.

After reading Mr Schulze's messages, the whole mailing list is
running as if ghosts in the Hague and keen of leaving no reasoning
behind for intent to violate the human rights of the candidates
and hence their supporters.

Has anybody checked Mr Schulze's paw for rat bites ?.

There are a tiny number of right rules. About exactly 0% of the
time any any given 5yr interval I look, Mr Schulze is never
making an attempt to reject the simple rules on fairness.

A core idea is this:

 * Men have rights to complain about wrong shifting of votes
   causing harm

 * Then the method designer has to maximally deprive voters of a
   right to complain.

In USA, votes can be suddenly created electronically. The
multiwinner One Man One Vote rule does the same.

A political list identified simple rules since it is impossible
to undo that except that members would think lies and censor
that out. What exactly is the problem with solving the
algebra problems ?. Subscribers gets tiny little drooling
inquries (highly unconvincing when by Mr Forest Simmons).

It seems that members are running well in generating desires to
acquire everlastingly true ideas. The list is looking stupid and
evil today since I demonstrated that principles are simple.

In truth the maths is simple too. I identify the main problem as
the complexity of writing Ada 95 programs. It would be truly
suspect if people eventually produced a belief that they can't
do algebra since it seems that the algebra of 1 winner elections
is dead easy. Members can do better than secretly fantasize that
they flunks checkups on maths ability: instead they can positively
criticise mathematics and then promptly get suspected as being
incompetent or ignorant of their own topic or something similar.
We can't sort of 30 private e-mails and get it solved in 2
days like could happen at the single-transferable-vote mailing
list. It seems that 10 more years at Rob Lanphier's uncontrolled
mailing list may be arrive upon subscribers.














Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>    Auckland, New Zealand
Ontario Ombudsman's Fairness checklist:
     http://www.ijs.co.nz/fairness-standards.htm
PDF: http://www.ombudsman.on.ca/pdf/fairness_stds.pdf





From research at ijs.co.nz  Wed Dec 24 12:17:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Wed Dec 24 12:17:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Dan W-J; IRV is 2nd best (=worst); CVD tells Maryland 'no
 research ever'
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031225025330.03952310@pop.qsi.net.nz>


[1b] The Centre of Voting and Democracy told the State of Maryland that
   it does not do research into the best options. Instead it interests
   itself in equal voting minus the fairness-for-other-individuals parts
   or something

[1a] The Alternative Vote (1 winner STV) is 2nd best.



______________________________________________________________________

This can be named the Alternative Vote Twin Towers example: a support
rise that is nearly 50% in size and that is entirely FPTP papers, is
occuring while the candidate ('A') being supported changes into a
loser:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/message/244

+-----------------------------------+
|Winner: ? ?A? ? ?|Winner: ? ?B? ? ?|  Alternative Vote winners
+-----------------------------------+
| Tot: ? 513000? ?| Tot: ?1024001? ?|
+-----------------------------------+
|? ?A? ? ? 1001? ?|? ?A? ? 512000? ?| Change = +510999
| * BA ? ? ?999? ?|? ?BA ? ? 1001? ?| Change = +2
|? ?CBA? ? 1000? ?| * CBA? ? 1000? ?|
|? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|
|? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|
|? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|
|? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|
|? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|
|? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|
|? ?JBA? 128000? ?|? ?JBA? 128000? ?|
|? ?KBA? 256000? ?|? ?KBA? 256000? ?|
+-----------------------------------+


______________________________________________________________________


I doubt I can get this edited up properly. I am not sure but I may have
left too much in or out. I will CC this off to the CVD lawyer.
Presumably he has a stake in the CVD ideal of knowing far less than
very many people, about the stably named Alternative Vote [I won't
name it STV]

______________________________________________________________________

Since about 24 July 2003 the Instant Runoff Message of the
Maryland Center of Voting and Democracy, has been it has been
hooked onto a 1 winner preferential voting methods that is
NOT the best.

On that date I concluded about 5 days research and showed that
another 1 winner method was far fairer, i.e. more monotonic.

Readers may read the old message of July here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/message/248
    From:   Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz> 
    Date:  Thu Jul 24, 2003  10:44 pm
    Subject:  IRV measured: it is over 2x unfairer (than 1/3 quota AV)

It did not announced with a bigger show since I was writing on
San Francisco in those months a better method may be something that
is not good enough.

A search at the "Charities & Fundraisers" part of the Maryland state
website shows what it told the government that its purpose was:

|  "Purpose: Contributions will be used to further public
|   understanding of electoral rule changes and to support
|   efforts to improve elections and representation through
|   propretional representation and instant runoff voting."

    http://www.sos.state.md.us/sos/charity/html/cod.html

I will comment on the CVD written purpose given to the Maryland
government and estimate if they said they free themselves to promote
better voting systems than IRV.

(1) US "public understanding" is not mathematical.

(2) "rules changes" permits changes that lock out better possibilities.
   It also allows changes for the worse.

(3) "improving" US elections could be a sloshy test that lets in
   better methods that are 6x worse.

(4) A purpose to act around the Instant Runoff permits them to reject
   all better preferential voting methods. Doubtless they will do that
   without complaining a lot.

(5) The words representation and proportional are matching up with
  only the first of these two. IRV would passes (5a)'s rules and if
  the CVD is ignore (5b) (is the case) then its text ignores the
  case implying that IRV ought be improved:

 (5a) Summing right. Two cases:
   * Outside of preferential voting: the same percentages (maybe with
     added biases but not multiplied-in biases)
   * Inside of preferential voting: Block Vote style naming of a
     candidate causes its subtotal to be incremented by the weight
     of the paper.

 (5b) Strict rules protecting voters from dumb or unfair behaviour
   of the preferential voting method while they are doing "what if"s.

--

That seems to be extremely clear: the Centre of Voting and Democracy
gave awful principles to the state of Maryland that just make it
plain that it has no official intention of ever offering to any
city, another awful but clearly better option than the
Alternative Vote. If they say that they will do research and nothing
happens for decades (should be enough time to get San Francisco to
flip over to the England's Alternative Vote) then maybe the tax
exempt status would need defending.

"Public understanding" may mean training up Green youths on 1-2-3-ism
or something.

--------------------------------------------

The pictures in triangles show that a 1/3 quota would be just the thing
lead to a pass under a monotonicity test (if 3 candidates):
    http://www.ijs.co.nz/quota-13.htm

The method I tessted in just inserts the 1/3 quota in a partially
incorrect way, and compliance with monotonicity is only better and the
rule is still failed.

---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~

This is now defined to be the
    Rob Richie 1,2,3 preferential voting method,
    (a variant of the Alternative Vote):

(1) Eliminate all but the best 3 (while ignoring preferences except the
    first).

(2) [a>(a+b+c)/3, =(a>(b+c)/2)]
   Of the 3 remaining candidates, if only 1 candidate has more votes
   than the average of the other 2, then that candidate wins (i.e. the
   other 2 are under the 1/3 quota).

(3) Otherwise the Alternative Vote is used.
---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~

There are the 3 steps, hence the "1-2-3" or "123".
Remembering why IRV is the worst preferential voting methad that a city
is probably going to be sucked into using. can be as simple as 1-2-3.
(In New Zealand the Green party co-leader wrote it was as easy as
counting from 1 to 10, somewhere on greens.org.nz).

--------------------------------------------

The CVD (a strictly unjust personnel selecting algorithm promoter) actually
has a lawyer (who is a "field officer"):

   http://www.fairvote.org/about_us/johnson.htm
    [Mozilla 1.5 says the HTTP dates the page at 18-Nov-2003, 04:37]

| General Counsel
|
| Dan Johnson-Weinberger
|
| Dan Johnson-Weinberger is the Center's General Counsel. He is licensed
| to practice law in California and Illinois.
|
| Dan is a 1997 graduate of the University of Illinois (B.A. in
| economics and political science) and a 2000 graduate of the University
| of Chicago Law School.
|
| Dan has been published in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Roll
| Call, The Hill, the Daily Herald, the Chicago Reader, the Daily
| Southtown and the Miami Herald. He has appeared on National Public
| Radio and is an occasional guest on the nationally syndicated radio
| program Beyond The Beltway.
|
| In the last year and a half, Dan has spoken to classes and groups in
| Florida, Wisconsin, California, Illinois, Indiana and New York. He
| encourages invitations to speak to college classes or political
| groups.
|
| Dan spends the majority of his time in Chicago where he focuses on the
| drive to revive cumulative voting for the Illinois House of
| Representatives. He also spends time in Springfield, Illinois, where
| he lobbies the Illinois General Assembly, and was the main driver
| behind passage of a law that allows county boards to give cumulative
| voting rights.
|
| Dan helped to found the Midwest Democracy Center in 1995 with a group
| of Illinois electoral reformers (www.midwestdemocracy.org ). He worked
| on several political campaigns and enjoys walking precincts.
|
| Dan can be reached at djw at fairvote.org or by phone at 312.933.4890.
| His website is www.djw.info and his blog is www.djwinfo.blogspot.com
                                       http://www.djwinfo.blogspot.com
| (opinions expressed on his sites are his own and not necessarily
| shared by the Center). Inquiries are encouraged.
|
---------------


Mr W-J liked the Cumulative Vote.
(I.e. if voters should fill in 7 votes but fill in 2, then the paper's
weight is multiplied by 7/2, etc., etc.)

Seven-winner STV (say), is similar except it uses the weights from 1 to 1/7
instead of from 7 to 1.

The alternative is the Block Vote ('k seats, tick k checksboxes') which
does not multiply by a rational number.

A way to improve STV is remove the transfer values that make STV follow
the idea of the Cumulative Vote.

It would be replaced with the style of the Block Vote: no dividing by
a denominator.

Dan W-J got his CVD webpage to fail to say he liked IRV. However it says
he promoted the Cumulative Vote in Illinois. A way to improve the
proportionality of STV is hack out the Cumulative Vote theme in it.

I say that progress here has no analogy with Dan's interests (for
Illinois: decisions on Cumulative Vote are probably best made decisions
for local decisions).

----

Some story using model trains can supply an analogy to the plan to
remove transfer values from STV. Suppose the election elects 4 winners.

(1) Old STV case:
  Counting a weighted ballot paper, is like getting a model train up to
   speed as it rises over 1 track with 4 different slopes.

(2) STV replacement case:
  The paper can start 4 trains that each have a track with only 1 slope.
  Now the power<=1 rule can be failed more quickly.
  However some computer algorithm controls when and where the track
  bends and become horizontal and power is cut.  By some means, the
  rule is not violated, and the tracks have only a slope corresponding
  to a transfer value of 0 or 1.

(The idea of the description could be improved.)


---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Topic: IRV vs the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [of 1976]

    http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_ccpr.htm

| INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS
| ...
| Article 25 General comment on its implementation
|
| Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, without any of
| the distinctions mentioned in article 2 and without unreasonable
| restrictions:
     ...
|   (b) To vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which
|      shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by
|      secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of
|      the electors;
|   (c) ...


That UN text really seems to be not designed to eliminate IRV.
It does not split up maximal power voting rights up into 2 parts
(proportionality and some 0<=power<=1 rule(s)). Alternative maybe it
could be said that I have not got the 2 unified (it seems hard to do).

However when the IRV of the CVD is extrapolated into the UN rules,
it fails badly.

(Recently I posted up an example showing the cascading from some
probably nobody at the bottom, and at each cascade the quantity of
votes shifting doubled. It was losing FPTP votes. [Refer to: the 2003
messages with 49.9% in the subject fields].



---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Here is the CVD list of donors: http://www.fairvote.org/about_us/index.html :

----------------------------------------------------
|    Supporters of the Center
|
|    The following foundations have provided grants to the Center for its
|    programs. Those foundations with asterisks have provided support for
|    activities in 2003 and beyond.
|
|    * Arca Foundation
|    * San Francisco Foundation  http://www.sff.org/
|    * Deer Creek Foundation
|    * Solidago Foundation
|    * Ford Foundation
|    * Stern Family Fund  http://www.sternfund.org/
|    * HKH Foundation
|    * Stewart Mott Charitable Trust  http://www.srmtrust.org/main.asp
|    * Joyce Foundation  http://www.joycefdn.org/
|    * Vanguard Foundation  http://www.vanguardsf.org/
|    * McKay Foundation  http://www.mckayfund.org/
|    * Working Assets  http://www.workingassets.com/
|    * Open Society Institute  http://www.soros.org/
|    * Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation  http://www.zsr.org/
|    * Rockefellers Brothers Fund  http://www.rbf.org/
|    * and individuals from across the country
----------------------------------------------------

Not very interesting so far.

Since there was no link to the Ford Foundation website, I checked their
Grants database. It seems that the Ford Foundation stopped funding the CVD
(it is not perfectly clear that it did actually stop, but it seems
extremely likely).

The CVD got US$80,000 in 2002 AD.

Reference: http://www.fordfound.org/  : Grants section:
Under: "Peace and Social Justice / Governance and Civil Society / 2002"

---

A fairer IRV election has got more glass (or plastic) eyes that read
some extra checkboxes. If the Alternative Vote is used then the city
ought have a less proportional method if it gets something fair.





From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Wed Dec 24 15:31:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Wed Dec 24 15:31:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Dan W-J; IRV is 2nd best (=worst); CVD tells Maryland 'no 
 research ever'
Message-ID: <3FEA212F.DE487F69@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

you wrote (25 Dec 2003):
> This can be named the Alternative Vote Twin Towers example: a support
> rise that is nearly 50% in size and that is entirely FPTP papers, is
> occuring while the candidate ('A') being supported changes into a
> loser:
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/message/244
>
> +-----------------------------------+
> |Winner: ? ?A? ? ?|Winner: ? ?B? ? ?|  Alternative Vote winners
> +-----------------------------------+
> | Tot: ? 513000? ?| Tot: ?1024001? ?|
> +-----------------------------------+
> |? ?A? ? ? 1001? ?|? ?A? ? 512000? ?| Change = +510999
> | * BA ? ? ?999? ?|? ?BA ? ? 1001? ?| Change = +2
> |? ?CBA? ? 1000? ?| * CBA? ? 1000? ?|
> |? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|
> |? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|
> |? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|
> |? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|
> |? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|
> |? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|
> |? ?JBA? 128000? ?|? ?JBA? 128000? ?|
> |? ?KBA? 256000? ?|? ?KBA? 256000? ?|
> +-----------------------------------+

This is neither an example showing Alternative Voting violates
monotonicity nor an example showing Alternative Voting violates
participation. This is an example showing Alternative Voting
violates consistency. However, it has been demonstrated by
HP Young that only positional methods (e.g. FPP, Borda,
Approval Voting) satisfy consistency.

Markus Schulze


From donald at mich.com  Thu Dec 25 17:47:01 2003
From: donald at mich.com (Donald Davison)
Date: Thu Dec 25 17:47:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Diana asked about Craig Carey:
Message-ID: <v01520d00bc10931c32c1@[64.79.80.17]>

Diana wrote: "Talking of Craig Carey, can someone please explain what his
most recent diatribe was on about?  And whether it's worth my while
worrying about?  (Since he's thrown Markus out of his private party -- at
least that's how it appears to outsiders -- I'd like to know whether he
actually has a point or is just excellent at posturing.)"  Diana.


Dear Diana, Donald here, there are a number of persons on this list who
speak in gobbledegook.  Craig Carey is one of them, so if you don't
understand him, you can be pretty sure no one else does, but there will
come a time when these types of people will write something that is
understandable and that will be the time when you can learn where that
person is coming from, if he has a point, and if he is worth worrying
about.

Craig Carey has given himself away in the past and most likely will do so
again in the future, merely by writing something that is understandable.  I
can give you an example.

Craig has designed an election method, which he calls: `The Two Seat -
Three Candidate Method' and which he claims to be a variant of STV, you can
decide that.  Anyway it works as follows:  Ranked ballots, Droop quota,
first candidate with quota or quota plus surplus is elected to one of the
seats, then this candidates' quota and surplus are both transferred to the
next preferences. (Note: This method won first prize in a contest for best
variant of STV, a contest conducted by Craig on Craig's list.)

Can you see the problem here?  The quota that elected one member is now
being used to help elect the second member, or in other words, one quota
plus one vote has the power to elect both seats.  The other two near quotas
do not elect anyone.  This super-duper method by Craig is worst than
Plurality-at-Large, which would need fifty percent plus one to elect both
candidates.  I called him on this flaw in his method, but it was water off
a duck's back, he kept on promoting his method.

Craig is not alone in this lack of understanding of election methods.  On
the IRV list, someone asked if IRV could be used to elect two members to a
city council.  Dan, who is an official of the Center for Voting and
Democracy replied and suggested that IRV be run two times. Once to elect
one member and a second time to elect the second member, bypassing the name
of the first winner during the routine of the second run of IRV.

Dan is clearly showing that he does not understand how these election
methods work.  What he suggested is very close to Plurality-a-Large, that
is, the same majority gets to elect both members.

Anyway, if you chose not to read Craig's posts, you won't miss much, but on
the other hand, if you have time to kill (good for people who like their
time to be dead), you could skim over his posts seeking the rare moment
when a star will appear in the east and you will see something
understandable (wear your sunglasses, the glare is quite bright), then and
only then will you be able to look into that window to Craig's mind.

Are you strong enough for this???


Regards, Donald




From eric at ericgorr.net  Thu Dec 25 17:55:02 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Thu Dec 25 17:55:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
Message-ID: <a06020411bc1143510164@[192.168.1.3]>

I've added a brief, but complete (or at least it should be), 
description of the Ranked Pairs method implemented on my condorcet 
site (http://www.ericgorr.net/condorcet). You can get to it either by 
visiting the the main page or directly via this link:

   http://www.ericgorr.net/condorcet/RankedPairs/

Feel free to make any comments you like.

I plan to add several, descriptive, examples soon.

btw, I just learned that on the newest palm machines, running java 
applications are now possible. This resolves my dilemma on where to 
implement this method next...either under Java or PalmOS...in the 
coming months, you should see something appear, written in Java, 
which would be tested on a Mac and a Palm device.


From eric at ericgorr.net  Thu Dec 25 17:58:01 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Thu Dec 25 17:58:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Oh...
Message-ID: <a06020414bc1145a88d8f@[192.168.1.3]>

The method computation on my site is currently down because I have 
changed web hosts. Should have it up and running again by monday (and 
possibly tomorrow) when I regain ssh access and can compile the C++ 
source on the server.



From research at ijs.co.nz  Fri Dec 26 01:56:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Fri Dec 26 01:56:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Dan W-J; IRV is 2nd best (=worst); CVD tells Maryland
  'no  research ever'
In-Reply-To: <3FEA212F.DE487F69@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031226175627.04dbeb28@pop.qsi.net.nz>


My last message had missing "not"s. It is fixable by using a word like
"Is" in every space that the reader might suspect a "not" to be missing.



At 2003-12-25 00:28 +0100 Thursday, Markus Schulze wrote:
>Dear Craig,
>
>you wrote (25 Dec 2003):
>> This can be named the Alternative Vote Twin Towers example: a support
>> rise that is nearly 50% in size and that is entirely FPTP papers, is
>> occuring while the candidate ('A') being supported changes into a
>> loser:
>>
>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/message/244
>>
>> +-----------------------------------+
>> |Winner: ? ?A? ? ?|Winner: ? ?B? ? ?|  Alternative Vote winners
>> +-----------------------------------+
>> | Tot: ? 513000? ?| Tot: ?1024001? ?|
>> +-----------------------------------+
>> |? ?A? ? ? 1001? ?|? ?A? ? 512000? ?| Change = +510999
>> | * BA ? ? ?999? ?|? ?BA ? ? 1001? ?| Change = +2
>> |? ?CBA? ? 1000? ?| * CBA? ? 1000? ?|
>> |? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|
>> |? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|
>> |? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|
>> |? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|
>> |? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|
>> |? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|
>> |? ?JBA? 128000? ?|? ?JBA? 128000? ?|
>> |? ?KBA? 256000? ?|? ?KBA? 256000? ?|
>> +-----------------------------------+
>
>This is neither an example showing Alternative Voting violates
>monotonicity nor an example showing Alternative Voting violates
>participation. This is an example showing Alternative Voting
>violates consistency. However, it has been demonstrated by
>HP Young that only positional methods (e.g. FPP, Borda,
>Approval Voting) satisfy consistency.
>


One of the authors (Ron H. in Israel) of a participation axiom paper wrote
to me. I don't need his advice: his paper is unimportant since on the
participation axiom. It seemed to me his 1988? paper was very unique in
defining that same space that even now as I write, Mr Forest Simmons is
slowly groping towards knowing.

Shulze has his usual technique of getting that maximal onto the part that
is most likely to break when subjected to weight: i.e. a few words:
"participation", "consistency". All for no good purpose. I guess that
Mr Schulze wants me to say that I don't know the definition of one of the
words.

I protest over this technique of Mr Shulze.

 * the ideas behind the words are too poorly defined. I.e. vagueness.

 * STV experts must reject the ideas. In the case of participation it
   fails the STV meta-rule requiring rules to be powerful. It is not
   powerful in 2 ways: firstly it is only 1 winner, and it is assumed to
   be not constraining preferences other than the first. They are not
   incompetent.

 * Mr Schulze get corrected and does not admit and worse does not
   alter his ideas.
   Even today he believes he should use personal desire alone when
   selecting a rule and never ever use algebra or mathematics in
   an attempt to see if a rule is good or unacceptable. It is a
   non-stop circus of Mr Schulze using only wrong tests. He has got
   wrong tests ensuring that he will not improperly let people see
   if he is incorrectly holding an improper purpose. If readers
   suspect that I don't know what "consistency" got defined to be
   (OK for Mr Schulze if it never was defined to an STV-grade
   quality) then my failing a wrong test is not expected to raise
   questions on why Mr Schulze did not write much more precisely.

--

Mr Schulze's "Participation" is rejected for meta-rule agains weakness:

  1. it was undefined for support rises on the 2nd+ candidate

  2. it seems undefined in multiwinner elections since that quite
    probably would involve my base 2 number definition of what a
    paper desired. Nevertheless I shan't suggest that such an idea
    can be made to run acceptably in a revised Participation axiom

    It is too weak if considering a single new preference and hence
    only a single candidate. That would get the rule eliminated before
    an audience the world's best preferential voting method designers.

--

One of the big questions is why Mr Shulze bungled his PDF document
when using the same technique: he failed to define the method and
achieved that by giving inusfficient precise meaning to the words
"stricly prefer".

As readers would readily imagine, at no moment has Mr Markus
corrected that mistake. A paper that says nothing is not one that
Mr Schulze would fix up. It is the same theory: getting the public
to admit that they don't remember what a word or two means. Unless
it was jut a blunder.

---

Responding further, Mr Schulze failed to define the idea of "consistency".

It should start with a capital C, I suppose.

At the moment I have no idea what Mr Schulze means by "positional".
Clearly Mr Schulze has not got a good argument.

Ms Shulze is becoming one of the worlds more boring commentators
on research into preferential voting. In the last few months it was
becoming very clear that not only is Mr Schulze unwilling to define
the Schulze method (depsite producing an academic paper on it passing
it under scavanged under utterly worthless rules or with unfollowable
arguments, or whatever), but also he writes "[other person suggested
that it] doesn't work [i.e. Floyd algorithm isn't symmetric]" and
with any trace of a line by line analysis, he wants to leak out the
belief that the Schulze method has got to be symmetric if the
Floyd algorithm is symmetric. 

He does not even have an argument. All the arguments in his published
seemed to be perfectly untroubled by the truth that he totally
bungled the definition of the Schulze method so that it was missing
from the paper.

After years here disputing with Mr Ossipoff over which was admissable:
(1) Mr Ossipoff's wording
(2) some hoax agreement purporting to comprehend Mike Ossipoff's
   thinking;
it is now plain that Mr Schulze was preferring "(2)". 

I complain since I assess Mr Schulze has the so called Schulze method
of the October 2003 PDF file get the alternative that is absolutely
not the alternative suggested by the fairly plain English wording.

Obviously Mr Schulze implemented the technique all throughout his
writing of trying to blot the light out and stand in the path to
(um, total error) as the single authority. I.e. clarifications and
annotations and clarifying statements of the purpose are missing.
Similarly with analyses over the wording chosen, records of
communications with others disputing the wording, etc., are missing.

Mr Shulze ha a secret agenda for using undefined terms. If he believes
that leads to wins in public mailing lists then we should be told.

Normally Mr Schulze has wrong rules that do not model societies.

Evil ideas but concealed by Mr Schulze getting his paragraph to put
its weight on a few words he didn't feel like defining (or producing
references for) and which then crash as expected under criticism.

Something was a source of unfairness and Mr Schulze would win the
argument on whether it was his carefully/carelessly designed sentences
or not.

----

Let me return to this text:

>
>This is neither an example showing Alternative Voting violates
>monotonicity nor an example showing Alternative Voting violates
>participation. This is an example showing Alternative Voting
>violates consistency. However, it has been demonstrated by
>HP Young that only positional methods (e.g. FPP, Borda,
>Approval Voting) satisfy consistency.
>


(1) That example can perhaps imply that the Alternative Vote fails
a monotonocity test (if theorem is added) and it does not itself show
a failure of monotonicity.

I don't see why anybody should have any interest in what "consistency"
is, and in what "positional" means. While it seems that the "H" and the
"P" of Mr Young's name ought not be placed so close together, it does
not seem that any of his ideas are interesting in the context of the
example.

I found the example using initially mainly REDLOG to find a 4 candidate
example and then trial re paper to allow the number of candidates to
be increased.

Mr Schulze is trying to say that he read books. I am making it clear
that nothing at all that is of value might be obtained from me if
surviving here in the Election Methods List forum that is one of the
world's dumbest. Mr Schulze can't actually write at the PaP or STV
since dumb-as-a-dinosaur ponderous [lumbering, graceless, heavy,huge
labourius. Etymology: ponderosus, Latin, meaning, of great weight]
wordings and unfairness-allowing meanings if any meaning at all.

We might be right on the verge of a big improvement: e.g. I quit and
then the members renwew their religious vows to be unfair
to their fellow nat and be stumped for why that is but take solace in
the intellectual unity of being fried chips, damn, being friends.


//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


At 2003-12-25 20:50 -0500 Thursday, Donald Davison wrote:
>

...
>Dear Diana, Donald here, there are a number of persons on this list who
>speak in gobbledegook.

If Donald Davison is ever more alert, then that might be a time when he
can get the ">" characters lined up and properly quote text.

...
>do not elect anyone.  This super-duper method by Craig is worst than
>Plurality-at-Large, which would need fifty percent plus one to elect both
>candidates.  I called him on this flaw in his method, but it was water off

The method behaves as if it has two votes. So it can get suspected of
holding the power of 2 FPTP papers. But there is a specific rule preventing
it from having more power than one FPTP paper (no matter how many winners).

You can correctly hint that you are correct and I am wrong. But that is
not the same as showing me wrong since I correctly say that you can't
ever convert your success in raising doubt into a concluded proof that
successfully persuades.

If you reject me wrongly then you ar violating one of your own ideas, which
says that ballot papers ought get more and more power (up to the proper
limit) as improved variants/replacements of STV keep appearing.


>
>Craig is not alone in this lack of understanding of election methods.  On

You can't say I did not understand why you have fully failed to show that
my 2 winner 3 candidate IFPP method is failing a power<=1 rule. Your
argument was relying on a common agreement over a wrong principle.
To reject my method, a failure under a correct rule would be neeeded.

---------

Mr Davison on a 2 winner election

>the IRV list, someone asked if IRV could be used to elect two members to a
>city council.  Dan, who is an official of the Center for Voting and
>Democracy replied and suggested that IRV be run two times. Once to elect
>one member and a second time to elect the second member, bypassing the name
>of the first winner during the routine of the second run of IRV.
>
>Dan is clearly showing that he does not understand how these election
>methods work.  What he suggested is very close to Plurality-a-Large, that
>is, the same majority gets to elect both members.


It does sound quite bad.
Supposing the voters only once, they could use the analog of the
'1/3 quota unfairness to the 4th' method the 2 winner 3 candidate IFPP
being at the end. Something batter might be found.

If voters get 2 real votes then maybe the 1st could reduce the candidates
to 3 candidates, and 2nd could eliminate exactlyu one candidate.

You were running a dead pop.mich.* SMTP server for a while.

----

Mr Lanphier is withholding a shoot up of Condorcet (I posted while not
subscribed into a policy block to have such messages be blocked).
It explains that Mr Shulze has a greave problem with the last preference
in the idea of the weightings that papers are multiplied by when
contributing to the "prefers X over Y" subtotal, particularly in the
comparison of the 2 cases:
 (1) (...X...Y) : Y is the last preference
 (2) (...X...) : now Y shifted over the edge. 

Mr Schulze seems to aspire to hide the Condorcet destroying issue behind
only 2 words and blundered and causes his PDF article to fail to define
a Condorcet method.

The STV idealized view is that the P2 rules reigns (e.g. no winnner
changes on adding -2(A)+(AB)+(AC) if 3 candidates, etc.) and Alt.V passes
P2 already. Mr Schulze and al lthe rest of them (Mr Condorcet, etc.)
seem to be much too deep into the territory of arbitrariness and
standing against P2 is further unbreakable guarantee that they would
be rejected

Even worse is the exploding quantity of facets in the Condorcet variant
solutions. This is a new aspect to Condorcet that has not been
written on. It is like the number of facts is rising powers faster.

No one knows what the rules are. In idealized STV there are constant
rules that are totally indifferent to shifting changes in public
opinion. There appears to be no argument at all from Mr Schulze and
whatnot, on whether there is some good enough from the explosion
of rules and how everyone has not got rights while not identifying
what the average votes were.

Basic obvious errors with no defence. It is just like some fish
looking up through bits of grass and through the water saying:

  "what's the matter?: don't you believe in pairwise comparing?"





Craig Carey
Perfect voting methods: single-transerable-vote












From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 26 02:08:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 26 02:08:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
Message-ID: <3FEC0823.810DCB2A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Eric,

you wrote:

> If two or more pairwise defeats have an equal strength and the
> margins are also equal, they are considered to be equivalent.
> Starting with the strongest defeat, consider each defeat in
> sequence with previously kept defeats, if any. If two or more
> defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered together
> with previously kept defeats, if any. If any defeat under
> consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected. If any defeat
> under consideration is not apart of a cycle, it is kept.

I suggest that sentence 4 should be replaced by:

> If q equivalent defeats under consideration are parts of a cycle
> with previously kept defeats, the q! possible ways to consider
> one of these defeats after the other are considered separately.

Markus Schulze


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 26 03:05:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 26 03:05:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Dan W-J; IRV is 2nd best (=worst); CVD tells Maryland 'no 
 research ever'
Message-ID: <3FEC156A.FB33E727@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

your 25 Dec 2003 example is not an example showing that Alternative
Voting violates monotonicity. Your example lets me think that your
claim that Condorcet and monotonicity were incompatible is possibly
caused by a misunderstanding of what "monotonicity" means.

******

You wrote (26 Dec 2003):
> At the moment I have no idea what Mr Schulze means by "positional".

A "positional" single-winner election method has the following
properties:

   a1 >= a2 >= a3 >= ....

   a1, a2, a3, ... are defined in advance and do not depend on how
   the voters vote.

   Every candidate gets a1 points for every first preference,
   a2 points for every second preference, a3 points for every third
   preference, ...

   The probability that a given candidate is elected depends only on
   his number of points.

******

Examples:

FPP is a positional method with a1 = 1 and a2 = a3 = ... = 0.

Suppose N is the number of candidates.
Borda is a positional method with a1 = N-1, a2 = N-2, a3 = N-3, ...

Burnitz-Varrentrapp is a positional method with a1 = 1, a2 = 1/2,
a3 = 1/3, ...

******

You wrote (26 Dec 2003):
> It explains that Mr Shulze has a greave problem with the last preference
> in the idea of the weightings that papers are multiplied by when
> contributing to the "prefers X over Y" subtotal, particularly in the
> comparison of the 2 cases:
>  (1) (...X...Y) : Y is the last preference
>  (2) (...X...) : now Y shifted over the edge.

Could you please post some examples to explain what you
are talking about?

******

You wrote (26 Dec 2003):
> Basic obvious errors with no defence. It is just like some fish
> looking up through bits of grass and through the water saying:
>
>   "what's the matter?: don't you believe in pairwise comparing?"

In my paper, I prove e.g. that my method satisfies Pareto, monotonicity,
resolvability, independence of clones, and Woodall's plurality criterion.
None of these criteria implicitly or explicitly presumes that the used
election method is a pairwise method. Therefore, you don't have to
"believe in pairwise comparing" to see that my method satisfies many
criteria that are considered in the scientific literature to be
important.

Markus Schulze


From eric at ericgorr.net  Fri Dec 26 06:03:02 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Fri Dec 26 06:03:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <3FEC0823.810DCB2A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FEC0823.810DCB2A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <a06020416bc11ebd07f60@[192.168.1.3]>

At 11:06 AM +0100 12/26/03, Markus Schulze wrote:
>Dear Eric,
>
>you wrote:
>
>  > If two or more pairwise defeats have an equal strength and the
>>  margins are also equal, they are considered to be equivalent.
>>  Starting with the strongest defeat, consider each defeat in
>>  sequence with previously kept defeats, if any. If two or more
>>  defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered together
>  > with previously kept defeats, if any. If any defeat under
>>  consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected. If any defeat
>>  under consideration is not apart of a cycle, it is kept.
>
>I suggest that sentence 4 should be replaced by:
>
>   If q equivalent defeats under consideration are parts of a cycle
>   with previously kept defeats, the q! possible ways to consider
>   one of these defeats after the other are considered separately.

An interesting suggestion, but I fail to see how this would make 
things clearer.

At no point does the algorithm need to perform a q! operation.


-- 
== Eric Gorr ========= http://www.ericgorr.net ========= ICQ:9293199 ===
"Therefore the considerations of the intelligent always include both
benefit and harm." - Sun Tzu
== Insults, like violence, are the last refuge of the incompetent... ===


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 26 07:13:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 26 07:13:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
Message-ID: <3FEC4F97.C828D5C4@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Eric,

you wrote:

> If two or more pairwise defeats have an equal strength and the
> margins are also equal, they are considered to be equivalent.
> Starting with the strongest defeat, consider each defeat in
> sequence with previously kept defeats, if any. If two or more
> defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered together
> with previously kept defeats, if any. If any defeat under
> consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected. If any defeat
> under consideration is not apart of a cycle, it is kept.

Suppose AB and CD have the same strength. Suppose (a) locking only
AB would not create a directed cycle with already locked pairwise
defeats, (b) locking only CD would not create a directed cycle with
already locked pairwise defeats, but (c) locking both AB and CD
simultaneously would create a directed cycle with already locked
pairwise defeats.

Then I fear that your formulation could mistakenly be interpreted
in such a manner as if both pairwise defeats were rejected.

Markus Schulze


From eric at ericgorr.net  Fri Dec 26 08:46:12 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Fri Dec 26 08:46:12 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <3FEC4F97.C828D5C4@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FEC4F97.C828D5C4@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <a06020418bc1215a84e0d@[192.168.1.3]>

At 4:11 PM +0100 12/26/03, Markus Schulze wrote:
>Dear Eric,
>
>you wrote:
>
>>  If two or more pairwise defeats have an equal strength and the
>>  margins are also equal, they are considered to be equivalent.
>>  Starting with the strongest defeat, consider each defeat in
>>  sequence with previously kept defeats, if any. If two or more
>>  defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered together
>>  with previously kept defeats, if any. If any defeat under
>>  consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected. If any defeat
>>  under consideration is not apart of a cycle, it is kept.
>
>Suppose AB and CD have the same strength. Suppose (a) locking only
>AB would not create a directed cycle with already locked pairwise
>defeats, (b) locking only CD would not create a directed cycle with
>already locked pairwise defeats, but (c) locking both AB and CD
>simultaneously would create a directed cycle with already locked
>pairwise defeats.
>
>Then I fear that your formulation could mistakenly be interpreted
>in such a manner as if both pairwise defeats were rejected.

They should both be rejected as one could not determine which defeat 
should be kept, unless one would choose randomly between them, but 
then this would not be a 'deterministic' method.



-- 
== Eric Gorr ========= http://www.ericgorr.net ========= ICQ:9293199 ===
"Therefore the considerations of the intelligent always include both
benefit and harm." - Sun Tzu
== Insults, like violence, are the last refuge of the incompetent... ===


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 26 12:03:55 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 26 12:03:55 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
Message-ID: <3FEC931D.B259CA07@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Eric,

suppose that there are 4 candidates and that all pairwise
defeats A > B, B > C, C > D, D > A, B > D, and C > A have the
same strength. Then all 4 candidates are potential winners.

However, suppose that some voters rank candidate A higher so
that the pairwise defeats A > B, B > C, C > D, D > A, and B > D
still have the same strength and C > A is weaker than the other
pairwise defeats. Then you would reject A > B, B > C, C > D,
D > A, and B > D and keep C > A so that ranking candidate A
higher hurts him.

Markus Schulze


From eric at ericgorr.net  Fri Dec 26 12:30:01 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Fri Dec 26 12:30:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <3FEC931D.B259CA07@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FEC931D.B259CA07@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <a0602041abc1249c28437@[192.168.1.3]>

At 8:59 PM +0100 12/26/03, Markus Schulze wrote:

>suppose that there are 4 candidates and that all pairwise
>defeats A > B, B > C, C > D, D > A, B > D, and C > A have the
>same strength. Then all 4 candidates are potential winners.
>
>However, suppose that some voters rank candidate A higher so
>that the pairwise defeats A > B, B > C, C > D, D > A, and B > D
>still have the same strength and C > A is weaker than the other
>pairwise defeats. Then you would reject A > B, B > C, C > D,
>D > A, and B > D and keep C > A so that ranking candidate A
>higher hurts him.

Include that everyone has voted sincerely, and I don't see the problem.

With such a clearly divided electorate, where any of the candidates 
could win, this 'problem' seems illusory at best.




From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 26 22:10:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Fri Dec 26 22:10:01 2003
Subject: [EM] RE: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #401 - 1 msg
Message-ID: <LAW10-F112wVHCOMR4a0005ebca@hotmail.com>

>Suppose AB and CD have the same strength. Suppose (a) locking only
>AB would not create a directed cycle with already locked pairwise
>defeats, (b) locking only CD would not create a directed cycle with
>already locked pairwise defeats, but (c) locking both AB and CD
>simultaneously would create a directed cycle with already locked
>pairwise defeats.
>
>Then I fear that your formulation could mistakenly be interpreted
>in such a manner as if both pairwise defeats were rejected.

They should both be rejected as one could not determine which defeat
should be kept, unless one would choose randomly between them, but
then this would not be a 'deterministic' method.

I reply:

Yes, rejecting both would be most in keeping with the spirit of Eric's 
tied-defeats solution, and would be most what people would expect.

Of course wording that covers that should be included. Maybe it could be 
said in a way that covers all those possibilities inl one wording, without 
separate mention of the special case where 2 or more tied-defeats 
indivicuallly don't cycle with old-kept-defeats, but do so if boith are 
kept.

I'm for whateve tied-defeats solution is briefest and simplest in public 
proposals.

If the wording foir Eric's briefer solution starts getting too long, by 
having to cover that situation described above, then with its brevity 
somewhat eroded, it could be worth considering this slightly more elaborate 
solution that I named in a recent e-mail, for which that situation is 
already covered:

Slightly more elaborate and slightly better tied-defeats solution wording:

1. The equally strongest as-yet unconsidered defeats are called the 
"tied-defeats".

2. The defeats that were kept before any tied-defeats were kept are called 
the "old defeats".

3. Any tied defeat that isn't in a cycle consisting only of it and some old 
defeats is "qualified".

4. Keep any qualified defeat that isn't in a cycle each of whose members is 
either qualified or old.

That's much longer than Eric's brief solution. Maybe when Eric's wording is 
modified to cover the situation that Markus described, Eric's wording will 
still be briefer and simpler than this one. Still, this one is worth 
considering if the brief one loses too much of its brevity.

I'd like to add that the suggestion of looking at all q! possible 
consideration-orderings of the tied defeats is completely unacceptable for a 
publc proposal.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 26 23:23:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Fri Dec 26 23:23:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to James Green-Armytage--Condorcet strategy
Message-ID: <Law10-F111e5O25rrcv0005ea36@hotmail.com>

Janes--

That's a big subject.

You correctly point out that defensive strategy is a worse problem with 
margins than with winning-votes (wv).

Additionally, with wv, truncation can't steal the election from a 
well-supported CW, a CW who has a majority defeat against the truncators' 
candidate. That's the subject of the criterion SFC. GSFC generalizes SFC to 
situations where there's no CW. When defeats are measured by wv, then SSD 
and Ranked-Pairs meet the powerful GSFC. Plain Condorcet (PC) meets SFC.

In fact, SFC and GSFC describe plausible conditions under which, with 
complying methods (Condorcet wv), the majority who don't want X can be sure 
X won't win, _without having to do anything other than vote sincerel_. 
That's what I most like about Condorcet wv.

Your iniltial wording of the Condorcet count implies that defeats are 
measured by margins. That probably isn't intentional.

To put the problem in perspective, Condorcet wv has no defensive strategy 
need unless someone is going to try offensive order-reversal strategy. At 
its very worst, under less-than-likely worst-case conditions, Condorcet wv 
begins to share the strategy need that the other methods have all the time.

And, with Condorcet wv, in order for you to successfully steal the election, 
it's only possible if the people from whom you're stealing the election have 
tried to help you. Doesn't that make you feel proud of yourself? :-)

P.S. Don't expect them to rank your cxandidate again. Don't expect your 
winner to be able to show his face in public.

As you mentioned, it's like a game of chicken, when defensive truncation is 
threatened against would-be offensive order-reversers.

But please note that the supporters of the middle CW who is being protected 
will suffer less if no one chickens out, compared to how much the offensive 
order-reversers would suffer then. That's because, in your example, the C is 
farther away from the order-reversers than from the defenders.

Additionally, a defender has a more credible threat. A cat defending its 
territory has a more credible threat against an interloper than the other 
cat has. The defender, it's understood, is more willing to fight and risk 
getting hurt when defending what's rightfully his. This adds to the 
defenders' advantage in the game of chicken.

Sure, if no one chickens out, the result isn't desirable for the defenders 
either. Defensive truncation is a dominated strategy for them: But note that 
dominated deterrent strategies are common in legal systrems and in the 
animal kingdom. They wouldn't be used so much if they didn't work.

In public elections, effective offensive order-reversal would require public 
organizing. There' s just no way it could be done without its intended 
victims hearing about it and using defensive truncation.
So in public elections, offensive order-reversal is a losing proposition.

For all the above reasons, I don't consider offensive order-reversal a 
problem. Effectively, then, Condorcet wv is practically strategy-free. 
Remarkably strategy-free. No other method of comparable simplicity even 
comes close.

So, for that reason, I don't feel that it's necessary to include 
enhancements to further reduce that already near-nonexistent problem.

Of course, when Condorcet wv has been in use for a long time, and if by then 
people are discussing the order-reversal possibility, then, at that time, 
the anti-reversal enhancements could be proposed.

Even though I claim that they aren't needed in public Condorcet wv 
proposals, I'm going to discuss anti-reversal enhancements in a subsequent 
posting.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 27 00:01:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 27 00:01:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Anti-reversal enhancements for Condorcet
Message-ID: <Law10-F74X9Oc8sc0Gq0005efd2@hotmail.com>

James--

You described an anti-reversal enhancement that involved a 2nd balloting. 
Sure, a 2nd balloting can further reduce wv's already tiny offensive 
strategy problem, assuming that it ever becomes a problem.

But it's not necessary to hold a 2nd balloting anytime there's a circular 
tie, though that's one solution.

If a CW's support isn't indifferent, s/he'll be ranked over the reversers' 
candidate by a majority, meaning that for the reversers' candidate to win, 
everyone else must have even bigger majority against them.

So the 2nd balloting should only be triggered if there's an 
all-majority-defeats circular tie.

Here's what I've propsed as a 2nd ballot solution:

If there's a circular tie all of whose members have another member ranked 
over them by a majorith, then a 2nd balloting is held.

Before the 2nd balloting, the pairwise defeats will have been published, and 
order-reversal, if it happened, can be noticed.

In the 2nd balloting, the reversal can be countered. It can be punished by 
defensive truncation. Or, as in your example, the C voters could rank B 
equal to C. Note that, with wv, they only need rank B equal to C. In margins 
they'd often have to rank B _over_ C. That's a lot more to ask.

But another possibilit for the 2nd balloting is an Approval balloting. That 
simpler method won't produce another cycle, and the defense against the 
reversers would consist of their victimes not voting for the reversers' 
candidate. In that case the defensive truncation elects the CW.

The 2nd balloting pretty much eliminates whatever amount of reversal problem 
exists.

Something similar can be used for committees. I'd suggest it for an EM poll, 
for instance.

To a poll, I'd add the rule that, after the result is announced, there's 
about a week or half-week period during which anyone can truncate their 
ranking if they choose to, or can uprank an alternative to 1st place.

(I prefer open polls in which voters post their ballots. That's the way to 
have proven security.
But, as these ballots come in, reversal opportunities could be obvious to 
those who haven't voted yet. The defdensive strategy option avoids that 
reversal problem).

Either of those 2 enhanhancements, or something similar, could be used for 
committees.

Tom Roiund and Steve Eppley separately independently proposed the 
candidate-withdrawal option:

After an election result, any candidate can declare that he withdraws, and 
call for another count of the same ballots with his name deleted from them.

That also thwarts offensive order-reversal.

I notice that candidate-withdrawal is part of your proposal.

For 1-balloting elections, the voter could have the option of drawing a line 
in his ranking, to indicate that, in the event of an all-majority-beaten 
circular tie involving candidates above and below that line, he wants to 
drop the candidates below the line. Then the same ballots, with the 
candiddates dropped, would be recounted. That would be a powerful deterrent 
to offensive order-reversal.

I don't claim to have covered all the possible anti-reversal enhancements. 
We've discussed a few other ones.

For instance, a tentative possible solution involves giving the voter the 
option to indicate that, if there's an all-majority-beaten circular tie, and 
if groups of voters sharing the same 1st  choices have certain patterns of 
unanimity and non-unanimity within those groups, in their subsequent 
choices, that voter wants do delete certain candidates. That may catch be 
able to catch some offensive order-reversals. Obviously that isn't a 
complete detailed proposal.

Methods more fancy and complicated than Condorcet are discussed. Though all 
methods have strategy, there's always the possibility that one of those 
fancier methods will get rid of defensive strategy need, as I've defined it 
here. Or at least let defensive truncation elect the CW, without the use of 
a 2nd ballotiong.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From eric at ericgorr.net  Sat Dec 27 05:56:02 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Sat Dec 27 05:56:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-F112wVHCOMR4a0005ebca@hotmail.com>
References: <LAW10-F112wVHCOMR4a0005ebca@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <a0602041ebc133db3b13e@[192.168.1.3]>

At 6:09 AM +0000 12/27/03, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
>Of course wording that covers that should be included. Maybe it 
>could be said in a way that covers all those possibilities in one 
>wording, without separate mention of the special case where 2 or 
>more tied-defeats indivicuallly don't cycle with old-kept-defeats, 
>but do so if boith are kept.

Personally, I think I did cover this in #5. The case of multiple 
tied-defeats is covered by:

   If two or more defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered
   together with previously kept defeats, if any.

(#4 covered what is considered to be equivalent)

Now, in light of your comments, I think my statement:

   If any defeat under consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected.

Could be improved by changing it to:

   If any defeat under consideration, which has not yet been kept, is apart
   of a cycle, it is rejected.

Similarly,

   If any defeat under consideration, which has not yet been kept, is not apart
   of a cycle, it is kept.

I will probably also turn the word 'cycle' into a link with a more 
detailed description.


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Sat Dec 27 12:10:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Sat Dec 27 12:10:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm  definition
In-Reply-To: <3FE94661.A9255D9B@netgate.net>
Message-ID: <20031227201000.9811.qmail@web13805.mail.yahoo.com>

Bart,

 --- Bart Ingles <bartman at netgate.net> a ?crit?: > 
> This paper must be part of a series, as Woodall never explains his
> assertion that "Of these three properties, Majority is far and away the
> most important."  He seems to have his own definitions for monotonicity;
> I hadn't seen these anywhere else.
> 

(He comments on Majority as above, says Plurality is "also important, but
it is much less likely to be violated: every reasonable electoral system
seems to satisfy it, whereas many systems proposed or actually used ...
fail majority."  Condorcet is "a very attractive property" but it "leads
to problems with monotonicity.")

I think Woodall may consider Participation to be part of Monotonicity.  In
any case, another paper of his makes these claims:

A method that always elects a candidate with a majority-strength defeat
over every other candidate, cannot meet "Mono-raise-random" or 
"Mono-sub-top."  They say that X can't be harmed (made to lose, in
most cases) if X is raised on some ballots with the lower preferences
on those ballots replaced with anything valid; or (respectively) if
"some ballots that do not have X top are replaced by ballots that have
X top (and are otherwise arbitrary)".

A method that always elects a candidate with a defeat (of any strength)
over every other cannot, additionally can't meet "Mono-raise-delete"
and "Mono-sub-plump."  The former means X is raised, and the ranking
is truncated after him.  The latter means ballots which don't place X
first are replaced with ballots which bullet vote for X.

Also, a method cannot do all three of:
1. always elect a CW (defeats of any strength);
2. meet Plurality; and
3. Meet "Mono-add-top," meaning that random ballots may be added
with X ranked first, without causing X to lose.

And, a method can't do all four of:
1. always elect a CW with all majority-strength pairwise defeats;
2. meet Plurality;
3. meet "Symmetric-Completion"; and
4. meet "Mono-remove-bottom," meaning X can't be harmed if ballots
are removed which placed X (and only X) last.

Make what you will of all that...  I'm pretty sure I've reproduced
it accurately.


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Sat Dec 27 12:45:01 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Sat Dec 27 12:45:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20031224174405.05b11c88@pop.qsi.net.nz>
Message-ID: <20031227204412.74150.qmail@web13810.mail.yahoo.com>

(This message has quotes from three people.)

James Green-Armytage said:
> Very much off the cuff: isn't this somewhat related to the favorite betrayal 
> criterion? 

I think it is, but a more general version of it.

Mike Ossipoff said:
> If IRV's Later-No-Harm "advantage" is the kind of benefit that we get from 
> Later-No-Harm, then it's questionable how important that criterion is.

I agree, but I am somewhat interested in what other methods can be defined
which meet Later-no-Harm.  For example, Woodall's DSC method does not use
traveling votes.  It does eliminate candidates, although I'm not able to
say at present whether it does so in a manner analogous to IRV.

Anthony Duff suggested that MinMax meets Later-no-harm.  I don't think
that's correct, though.


 --- Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz> a ?crit?: > 
> At 2003-12-23 23:47 +0100 Tuesday, Kevin Venzke wrote:
> >Thanks to everyone who responded to my last message.
> >
> >It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
> >as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
> >should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
> >this ballot."
> >
> >(By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
> >additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
> >but also deleting others.)
> >
> >I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
> >"earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
> >ranked FIRST, (etc...)."
> >
> >For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
> >then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.
> >
> 
> Clearly Mr Venkze has not ruled out the 2 winner case. If he has one
> unstated restriction then it may take weeks or years before he finally
> managed to get them all into the mailing list and nicely requoted
> in each message.

"Earlier-no-harm" could work with any number of winners, although my
specific example assumed a single winner.  A zero-winner method, for
instance, could not fail Earlier-no-harm.

> 
> Suppose the votes are this (2 winner case)
> 
> Election 1:
>   10000 (D)
>   1 (A=B=C>D>E), D should win and does
> 
> Election 2:
>   10000 (D)
>   1 (A>B>C>D>E) , both D and E lose says Mr Venkze

But you can see that this example is not what I'm talking about, if you
look at the definition I wrote:
"Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked FIRST, 
should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of this ballot."

So if the winners of election 1 are D and one of ABC, then in election 2, 
according to "Earlier-no-harm," the winners must not become D and E.

> 
> I assume that there is no need to get "A=B=C" precisely defined since
> unknown disputes over definitions might be bounded by factors 6 or 1/6.

It means that A, B, and C are ranked equal to each other at the top of
the ballot.

> >"Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
> >then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A.
> >
> >What do you think?
> 
> It looks like Mr Venkze won't accept one or both of these:
> 
>  * an axiom set from which a method is derived (a strange option given
>     the theme of Mr Venkze's whole message), or

I defined an axiom, not a method.

>  * the principle that the number of winners be correct (i.e. he sometimes
>     expects the number of winners be disagreeing with what was decided on
>     before the public filled in the voting papers, providing a public 
>     suitably exists).

I did that in my example, but not in my definition.

> I have never suspected that there is a good reason to use
>    "Later No Harm"
> instead of
>    "Truncation Resistance".

"Later-no-harm" is more specific.  Perhaps "Later-no-harm" together with
"Later-no-help" are equivalent to "Truncation Resistance."

> "Permuting preferences before" and "permuting preferences after" are a
> better wording of what is desired. 

This would be harder to satisfy than what I defined.  My definition supposes
that the ballot is changed only by turning some "="s into ">"s.

> I assume that if both are imposed
> then the method degenerates into FPTP or something similar.

No, with FPTP you cannot "permute preferences before" the winner without a
risk of changing the winner.  ...Perhaps Coombs satisfies this?

> So there may need to be a redesign of the papers (and presumably
> adding "=" won't produce insensitivity to permuting before). I would
> prefer no redesign (while preferring methods better than the
> second best AV n candidate 1 winner method) and instead allow elections
> where voters could change their mind.

The voter can't change his mind.  (Actually, I thought you didn't believe
in voters.)  Presenting two scenarios side-by-side doesn't mean the voter
is changing his mind.

The point of earlier-no-harm is so that the voter can't protest "I voted
A>B>C and got F, when voting A=B=C would have gotten C elected."

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Sun Dec 28 05:48:02 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Sun Dec 28 05:48:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Later-no-harm  question
Message-ID: <3FEF8862.3060505@bigpond.com>

  On Mon. Dec.22, 2003 ,  Bart  Ingles wrote:

"I can't see much value in LNH as a criterion, unless getting voters to
rank as many candidates as possible is seen as an end in itself."

Meeting Later-no-harm is logically the same thing as being truncation-proof.

All methods that meet Later-no-harm must logically also meet Mono-add-top, but 
not vice versa.
"Mono-add-top" is a Woodall criterion which says that adding ballots that all give
first-preference to X must not harm X. It is met by IRV and Margins, but not by WV.

In trying to change from Plurality to a ranked-ballot method, Later-no-harm is an 
excellent selling-point to plurality-minded voters.

I think Later-no-harm should be considered together with Later-no-help. The two should
be in balance, ie the chances of a lower-preference helping or harming a higher-preference
should be the same. Otherwise "zero information strategy" (as something different from
sincere voting) can raise its ugly head. A method in which the chance of helping a higher
preference (by ranking a candidate) is greater than the chance of harming, can create
incentive to "random fill". A method such as Woodall's "Descending Acquiescing Coalitions"
(DAC) which fails Later-no-harm but meets Later-no-help might be Approvalish. His method
"Descending Solid Coalitions"(DSC) meets Later-no-harm but fails Later-no-help.
Another of his methods,"Descending Half-solid Coalitions"(DHSC), which actually fails both
criteria, might be preferable.

Chris Benham  


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From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Sun Dec 28 11:03:02 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Sun Dec 28 11:03:02 2003
Subject: [EM]  Re: Later-no-harm, "Earlier-no-harm"
Message-ID: <3FEFD213.1050504@bigpond.com>

On  Tue.Dec.23, 2003,  Kevin Venzke wrote:

"It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
this ballot."

(By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
but also deleting others.)"

Surely Later-no-harm is only applicable to ranked-ballot methods,and Approval
is not a ranked-ballot method. 
Other than trying to provide some ammunition for Approval versus IRV propaganda, 
is there any point to this new version?

On a posititive note, Kevin went on:
"I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
"earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
ranked FIRST, (etc...)."

For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.

"Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A."

I very much like the substance of this. On Mon.Dec.1,2003, I wrote:
"I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting AB and the other 
half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting A=B, and also that it is 
unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates A and B by all voting either 
AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared to a faction who support candidates 
C and D by all voting C=D."
The part after "and also.." I see as being equivalent to your "earlier-no-harm". I think 
I would sum up the idea behind your 2 "earlier-no-h..." criteria in a "Decisiveness Fairness
Standard" which says something like 
"a faction of voters who all vote a set of candidates over all other candidates should not be 
advantaged or disadvantaged by voting equal preferences (versus not)".
Have I been wrong to assume this is connected with Symetric Completion/fractional equal
preferences?
Quoting Woodall (in the context of equal preferences not being allowed except for truncation),

"Symetric Completion.
A trucated ballot should be treated in the same way as its symetric completion. (The symetric 
completion of a ballot is obtained by replacing it by all possible completions of it with 
equal weight chosen so that the total weight is 1. For example,if there are five candidates 
a,b,c,d,e, then the symetric completion of a ballot marked ab consists of six ballots, each 
with weight 1/6, marked abcde, abced, abdce, abdec,abecd, and abedc.)"

Can a method meet Earlier-no-harm/help without complying with SC?

Chris Benham













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From eric at ericgorr.net  Sun Dec 28 13:19:01 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Sun Dec 28 13:19:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <a0602041ebc133db3b13e@[192.168.1.3]>
References: <LAW10-F112wVHCOMR4a0005ebca@hotmail.com>
 <a0602041ebc133db3b13e@[192.168.1.3]>
Message-ID: <a06020401bc14f82464b3@[192.168.1.3]>

For anyone who is interested, the first example, of a few more I 
intend to finish covering Ranked Pairs (Deterministic #1-Winning 
Votes) , is now up at:

    http://www.ericgorr.net/condorcet/rankedpairs/example1/



From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Sun Dec 28 19:17:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Sun Dec 28 19:17:02 2003
Subject: [EM]  Re: Later-no-harm, "Earlier-no-harm"
In-Reply-To: <3FEFD213.1050504@bigpond.com>
Message-ID: <20031229031656.33863.qmail@web13805.mail.yahoo.com>

Chris,

 --- Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com> a ?crit :
> "Mono-add-top" is a Woodall criterion which says that adding ballots that all give
> first-preference to X must not harm X. It is met by IRV and Margins, but not by WV.

How did you find that Margins meets Mono-add-top?  I have a hard time 
believing that.


 --- Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com> a ?crit?: 
> On  Tue.Dec.23, 2003,  Kevin Venzke wrote:
> 
> "It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
> as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
> should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
> this ballot."
> 
> (By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
> additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
> but also deleting others.)"
> 
> Surely Later-no-harm is only applicable to ranked-ballot methods,and Approval
> is not a ranked-ballot method. 

According to Woodall, Approval fails Later-no-harm.

> Other than trying to provide some ammunition for Approval versus IRV propaganda, 
> is there any point to this new version?

On the contrary, I recognize it as a limitation that Approval passes
my definition.  I came up with it because it is simple, and because
it could be reversed to illustrate "earlier-no-harm."

> 
> On a posititive note, Kevin went on:
> "I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
> "earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
> ranked FIRST, (etc...)."
> 
> For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
> then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.
> 
> "Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
> then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A."
> 
> I very much like the substance of this. On Mon.Dec.1,2003, I wrote:
> "I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting AB and the other 
> half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting A=B, and also that it is 
> unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates A and B by all voting either 
> AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared to a faction who support candidates 
> C and D by all voting C=D."
> The part after "and also.." I see as being equivalent to your "earlier-no-harm". I think 
> I would sum up the idea behind your 2 "earlier-no-h..." criteria in a "Decisiveness Fairness
> Standard" which says something like 
> "a faction of voters who all vote a set of candidates over all other candidates should not be 
> advantaged or disadvantaged by voting equal preferences (versus not)".
> Have I been wrong to assume this is connected with Symetric Completion/fractional equal
> preferences?

If you're right, it's not because I thought it was.

Woodall groups SC, LNHarm, and LNHelp together, and that's the main reason
I have to suspect that there's a connection.

I think you're supposing that LNHarm with LNHelp together imply SC.  I
can't find anything to disprove that.  So I suppose ENHarm plus ENHelp
might imply a reversed kind of SC.

The point of "earlier-no-harm" is to remove the incentive to compromise by
upranking everyone to first.  That would remove the possibility of multiple
candidates being majority favorites unless the voters really felt that
way (or they didn't understand the method's features).

SC applied to candidates that the voter tied in first would not be
nearly as repugnant to me as SC applied to candidates that the voter
didn't rank at all.

> Can a method meet Earlier-no-harm/help without complying with SC?

I'm almost positive of that, since methods can meet LNHarm/help without
meeting SC.  I don't see a big difference between the two pairs.

I'll devise a method which meets Earlier-no-harm for the next time I post.
I doubt it will meet Majority, though.


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 28 21:54:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 28 21:54:02 2003
Subject: [EM] LNH, Mono-Add-Top, etc
Message-ID: <Law10-F24nTPFyCcTZ30004485a@hotmail.com>

Someone posted:

"Mono-add-top" is a Woodall criterion which says that adding ballots that 
all give
first-preference to X must not harm X. It is met by IRV and Margins, but not 
by WV.

I reply:

I'm not necessarily denying that, but can you demonstrate that those 
statements are correct?

Aside from that question, there are very many criteria, and all are failed 
by some methods.

It's been shown that all nonprobabilisitic methods can have incentive for 
strategy.

Predictably, different methods often have different strategy. Of those 
innumerable criteria, different methods meet different criteria.

Any criterion can be justified by someone saying "This criterion is 
important". In that way, there are a vast number of important critreria. A 
vast number of essential criteria, and no method meets them all.

When any one type of strategy incentive is looked at, it always looks 
undesirable, and a good-sounding argument can be made against whatever 
method has that strategy incentive. That's why you should keep in mind that 
no nonprobabilistic method is strategy-free. So it's a question of what kind 
of strategy incentive is worse.

No one can establish that one standad is more important than another. So, 
when  asserting the importance of one's favorite standard, one is always 
safe from being contradicted.

Majority rule is a widely accepted standard. The lesser-of-2-evils problem 
is notorious. With only very few exceptions, nearly all single-winner reform 
advocates want to get rid of that problem. The goal of getting rid of the 
lesser-of-2-evils (LO2E) problem therefore is a widely held standard, as is 
majorilty rule.

It's been shown here that wv and, in some ways, Approval too, beats Margins 
and IRV by those 2 very widely-recognized standards.

Say a majority of the voters prefer X to Y. Y is a "greater-evil" whom they 
don't want to win. What must they do in order to keep Y from winning? With 
wv and Approval they'll never have to reverse a preference in order to keep 
Y from winning. Wilth IRV and Margins they'll sometimes have to bury their 
favorite, vote someone over their favorite if they want to keep Y from 
winning.

So methods like IRV and Margins illustrate that a shoddy rank-method is 
worse than not using a rank-method.

I might ask you what good it does to guarantee that voting your favorite in 
first place can't hurt your favorite, when you strategically need to bury 
your favorite.

That criterion, the Weak Defensive Strategy Criterion, is a modest, minimal 
thing that we'd expect of a method that honors majority rule and doesn't 
have the worst form of the lesser-of-2-evils problem.

As I mentioned in an earier message, there are, with Margins and IRV, 
situations (configurations of voters' preferences) in which the only Nash 
equilibria are ones in which some voters vote someone over their favorite in 
order to protect majority rule or to protect the win of a CW. But, with wv 
and Approval, every situation has at least one Nash equilibrium in which no 
one reverses a preference.

That's obviously a sense in which it can be accurately said that wv and 
Approval are sincere methods and that Margins and IRV are not.

By the way, about LNH, I've probably already said this here, but the reason 
why IRV doesn't let you lower preferences hurt your favorite is that IRV 
eliminates your favorite before it lets you help your lower choices. IRV 
saves your favorite from harm from lower preferences by eliminating your 
favorite before letting you help your lower preferences. A sort of electoral 
euthanasia.

Someone said that because IRV doesn't let lower preferences hurt higher 
ones, that means that IRV has no incentive for truncation. That isn't quite 
so. Saying that lower preferences can't hurt higher ones isn't quite the 
same as saying that adding more candidates to your ranking can't worsen the 
outcome for you. As I said before, Professor Steven Brams published an 
example refuting the claim that IRV never rewards truncation.

All four majority defensive strategy criteria measure for the popular 
standards of majority rule and getting rid of the lesser-of-2-evils problem.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From anthony_duff at yahoo.com.au  Mon Dec 29 03:11:02 2003
From: anthony_duff at yahoo.com.au (=?iso-8859-1?q?Anthony=20Duff?=)
Date: Mon Dec 29 03:11:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
In-Reply-To: <20031227204412.74150.qmail@web13810.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20031229111026.8177.qmail@web40707.mail.yahoo.com>

 --- Kevin Venzke <stepjak at yahoo.fr> wrote: 

> 
> Anthony Duff suggested that MinMax meets Later-no-harm.  I don't
> think
> that's correct, though.

I made the suggestion on the basis of:
http://www.mail-archive.com/election-methods-electorama.com at lists.electorama.com/msg00018.html
(Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2003 17:53:42 -0800)

where Markus Schulze wrote"
"In another paper, Woodall proves that no election method can
simultaneously meet later-no-harm, later-no-help, monotonicity,
and mutual majority. Therefore, the fact that Minimax(pairwise
opposition) violates mutual majority in such a drastic manner
can be considered a consequence of the fact that it meets
later-no-harm, later-no-help, and monotonicity."



http://personals.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Personals
New people, new possibilities. FREE for a limited time.


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Mon Dec 29 10:19:09 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Mon Dec 29 10:19:09 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
Message-ID: <3FF06F95.8036802A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Hallo,

suppose N is the number of candidates. Suppose d[i,j]
with i <> j is the number of voters who strictly prefer
candidate i to candidate j. Suppose d[i,j] : = 0 for i = j.
Suppose d[i] : = max { d[i,j] | j = 1,...,N }.

Then Minimax(pairwise opposition) chooses the candidate i
with minimal d[i].

Minimax(pairwise opposition) satisfies later-no-harm because
ranking an additional candidate can only increase but not
decrease d[k] for every not ranked candidate k. However,
my claim that Minimax(pairwise opposition) satisfies
later-no-help was incorrect.

Markus Schulze


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Mon Dec 29 14:08:04 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Mon Dec 29 14:08:04 2003
Subject: [EM] "DOC," A method meeting ENHarm and Majority
Message-ID: <20031229213545.87279.qmail@web13811.mail.yahoo.com>

Here is a method that meets earlier-no-harm and Majority (or at least,
Majority Favorite).  It's called "Descending Opposing Coalitions" or
"DOC" and it's basically the flipped version of DSC.  Like DSC, I
believe it also meets Participation, Clone Independence, and a lot of
Monotonicity.

Every possible set of candidates is given a score equal to the number
of voters who voted that those candidates are strictly the worst of
all the candidates.  They're arranged in descending order of score.
The set of potential winners initially includes all the candidates.
Each set in the list is taken in turn, and all candidates in the set
are deleted from the set of potential winners, unless that would leave
no potential winners, in which case the set is ignored.  Last candidate
left is the winner.

If your ballot was A=B>C>D, changing it to A>B>C>D can only cause set
"BCD" to rise in the list.  All you're doing is making it more likely
that B, C, or D will be eliminated.  So DOC meets ENHarm but not ENHelp.

This meets Majority Favorite because if a majority rank A as their sole
favorite, then the set of all other candidates must be higher on the
list than any set which contains A.  I believe a similar argument can
be made that DOC meets Majority generally.

To my dismay, it seems that earlier-no-harm does not imply Strong FBC.
Consider:

11 C>A
7 A
9 B
10 D>B

C wins this.  (I'm not claiming this is a GOOD method.)  Note that, in
accordance with ENHarm, the D voters can't get anything by voting "D=B."
To make B win, they have to insincerely rank B first.  This is not a
failure of ENHarm, but it is a failure of FBC.

Do methods which satisfy later-no-harm (or earlier-no-harm) necessarily
have order-reversal incentive?


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


___________________________________________________________
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From donald at mich.com  Mon Dec 29 22:20:13 2003
From: donald at mich.com (Donald Davison)
Date: Mon Dec 29 22:20:13 2003
Subject: [EM] Craig's Folly and Dan's Folly are two peas in a pod:
Message-ID: <v01520d00bc164c9e0470@[64.79.80.35]>

Greetings list members,

I had written:
"Craig is not alone in this lack of understanding of election methods.
On the IRV list, someone asked if IRV could be used to elect two
members to a city council.  Dan, who is an official of the Center for
Voting and Democracy replied and suggested that IRV be run two times.
Once to elect one member and a second time to elect the second member,
bypassing the name of the first winner during the routine of the
second run of IRV."

And Craig replied: "It does sound quite bad."


Donald here:  Hello Craig, good to see that we agree on something.

For the sake of a discussion I am going to give Dan's two seat method the
name of `Dan's Folly'.

It was no accident that I placed Dan's Folly after the text of your method
you call `2 winner 3 candidate IFPP'.  It was put there on purpose for you
and others to realize that the two methods were exactly the same.

Yes Craig, if you are the `Gifted Mathematician' that some love struck
female thinks you are, then you should have seen this to be true.  Maybe
you are also love struck, and being as love is blind, you have the perfect
excuse for not seeing things - you're off the hook.

Anyway, putting your love life aside, I will continue.

The two methods have all parts exactly the same:
    * They both use ranked ballots.
    * They both are two seat election methods.
    * They both elect the first candidate that has more than a quota.
      While IRV does not have an official quota, in this case the
      IRV first winner does win by more than what would be a quota.
    * They both transfer all ballots of the first winner to the next
      preferences.
    * They both elect the next leading candidate after the transfer
      as the second elected member.

The two methods are exactly the same, and being as we agree that one is
`quite bad', it only follows that both are quite bad.  A bad method by any
other name will still be bad.  Craig's Folly and Dan's Folly are two peas
in a pod.

You don't need to be a `Gifted Mathematician' to understand the math of
this logic. "If two methods are equal, then whatever is one of the methods,
the other method is the same."

This is the failure of your Craig's Folly `under a correct rule'.


Donald,




From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Mon Dec 29 22:45:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Mon Dec 29 22:45:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
In-Reply-To: <3FF06F95.8036802A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <20031229204134.87773.qmail@web13803.mail.yahoo.com>

Anthony Duff wrote:
>I made the suggestion on the basis of:
>where Markus Schulze wrote"
>"In another paper, Woodall proves that no election method can
>simultaneously meet later-no-harm, later-no-help, monotonicity,
>and mutual majority. Therefore, the fact that Minimax(pairwise
>opposition) violates mutual majority in such a drastic manner
>can be considered a consequence of the fact that it meets
>later-no-harm, later-no-help, and monotonicity."

I see; I didn't think you might be talking about opposition instead
of defeats.  Sorry.

Seems clear to me now.  Inserting a strict preference among candidates
otherwise ranked last can only hurt the candidates who remain last.

 --- Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de> a ?crit?: 
> Hallo,
> 
> suppose N is the number of candidates. Suppose d[i,j]
> with i <> j is the number of voters who strictly prefer
> candidate i to candidate j. Suppose d[i,j] : = 0 for i = j.
> Suppose d[i] : = max { d[i,j] | j = 1,...,N }.
> 
> Then Minimax(pairwise opposition) chooses the candidate i
> with minimal d[i].

Perhaps I am a flaming idiot, but shouldn't it be
d[i] := max { d[j,i] | j = 1,...,N }
?  You want votes against i, not i's votes against others, don't
you?

> 
> Minimax(pairwise opposition) satisfies later-no-harm because
> ranking an additional candidate can only increase but not
> decrease d[k] for every not ranked candidate k. However,
> my claim that Minimax(pairwise opposition) satisfies
> later-no-help was incorrect.

I can see this now, too.  Worsening someone's score could happen
to make a preferred candidate into the winner.  That is surely why
random filling always makes more sense than truncation.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 30 00:06:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 30 00:06:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Defensive truncation in wv Condorcet
Message-ID: <LAW10-F4556FtZo1P4l00065041@hotmail.com>

Kevin Venzke wrote:

I can see this now, too.  Worsening someone's score could happen
to make a preferred candidate into the winner.  That is surely why
random filling always makes more sense than truncation.

I reply:

Not always. If there's a danger or likelihooid of offensive order-reversal, 
and you want to deter it, then leave out of your ranking the candidate(s) 
whose voters are considering offensive order-reversal. Announce before the 
election that you are doing so and that you ask others to do so.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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time only! http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 30 01:16:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 30 01:16:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
Message-ID: <3FF12E33.7ED6ABCF@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Kevin,

you wrote (29 Dec 2003):
> Shouldn't it be d[i] := max { d[j,i] | j = 1,...,N } ?

Yes. You are right.

Markus Schulze


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Tue Dec 30 13:20:01 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Tue Dec 30 13:20:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Defensive truncation in wv Condorcet
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-F4556FtZo1P4l00065041@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031230211825.15833.qmail@web13803.mail.yahoo.com>

Mike,

My remarks were about MinMax (Pairwise Opposition), which elects the
candidate who minimizes the maximum votes against him in any pairwise
contest (be it victory or defeat).

Admittedly I don't know much about offensive strategy for this method.
Burial seems potentially effective.  But truncation doesn't appear to
be a useful strategy of any kind in "MMPO."

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr

 --- MIKE OSSIPOFF <nkklrp at hotmail.com> a ?crit?: > 
> Kevin Venzke wrote:
> 
> I can see this now, too.  Worsening someone's score could happen
> to make a preferred candidate into the winner.  That is surely why
> random filling always makes more sense than truncation.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Not always. If there's a danger or likelihooid of offensive order-reversal, 
> and you want to deter it, then leave out of your ranking the candidate(s) 
> whose voters are considering offensive order-reversal. Announce before the 
> election that you are doing so and that you ask others to do so.
> 
> Mike Ossipoff


_________________________________________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Tue Dec 30 13:48:11 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Tue Dec 30 13:48:11 2003
Subject: [EM] MinMax definition, Tideman properties
In-Reply-To: <3FF12E33.7ED6ABCF@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <20031230214751.71965.qmail@web13806.mail.yahoo.com>

Markus,

In Woodall's "Properties of single-winner preferential election rules II,"
bottom of page 11, the last paragraph reads:

"MinAGS (Minimum Augmented Gross Score) is also well-known as the minimax
method, abbreviated MM in [Monotonicity of single-seat preferential election
rules].  It elects the candidate X with the largest minimum augmented
gross score minags(X), which is the same as the candidate with the largest
minimum net score minns(X)."

The "augmented gross score" of A over B should be the number of voters
ranking A>B plus half the number of votes not distinguishing the two.

Despite the name "minimax," this definition looks for the maximum minimum.
This has confused me for some time.  Does the definition look right to
you?

Also, do you have an opinion as to whether Woodall is aware of Tideman(WV)?
He defines TidAGS and TidGS which to me appear to be Margins and All-Votes
respectively (page 14).  TidGS is supposed to have equivalent properties to
"D min GS," which is charted (page 17) as failing Condorcet.

Thanks for any help.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 30 18:43:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 30 18:43:02 2003
Subject: [EM] MinMax definition, Tideman properties
Message-ID: <3FF2373F.DB4E431B@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Kevin,

Woodall uses the following terminology:

   v is the number of voters.

   g(x,y) is the number of voters who strictly prefer
   candidate x to candidate y.

   n (x,y) := g(x,y) - g(y,x).
   g1(x,y) := 0.5 * [v + n(x,y)].
   g2(x,y) := v - g(y,x).

   mings(x)   := min { g (x,y) : y e C \ {x} }.
   minags(x)  := min { g1(x,y) : y e C \ {x} }.
   mindags(x) := min { g2(x,y) : y e C \ {x} }.
   minns(x)   := min { n (x,y) : y e C \ {x} } = 0.5 * [v + minags(x)].

   MinAGS (Minimum Augmented Gross Score) is also well known as the
   minimax method. It elects the candidate x with the largest minimum
   augmented gross score minags(x), which is the same as the candidate
   with the largest minimum net score minns(x).
   MinDAGS (Minimum Doubly Augmented Gross Score) elects the candidate
   x with the largest minimum doubly augmented gross score mindags(x).

******

So when we compare Woodall's terminology with the terminology used
in this mailing list then "g1" is "margins" and "g2" is "Minus Pairwise
Opposition". "MinAGS" is "MinMax(Margins)" and "MinDAGS" is
"MinMax(Pairwise Opposition)".

You wrote (30 Dec 2003):
> Despite the name "minimax," this definition looks for the maximum
> minimum. This has confused me for some time.  Does the definition
> look right to you?

When "margins" is being used then it is the same whether you use
the minimum maximum or the maximum minimum.

The reason why Woodall uses the maximum minimum in the definition
of "MinDAGS" is that he defines "mindags(x)" in such a manner that
mindags(x) decreases with increasing pairwise opposition because
of his definition of "g2".

******

You wrote (30 Dec 2003):
> Also, do you have an opinion as to whether Woodall is aware of
> Tideman(WV)? He defines TidAGS and TidGS which to me appear to be
> Margins and All-Votes respectively (page 14).  TidGS is supposed
> to have equivalent properties to "D min GS," which is charted
> (page 17) as failing Condorcet.

There is no need to define Tideman(WV). Already the fact that the
g(x,y) are sorted according to their strengths and that each g(x,y)
is taken in turn until you have a complete ranking of all candidates,
guarantees that those g(i,j) with g(i,j) < g(j,i) will never be
taken into consideration. I don't see yet why TidGS and TidDAGS
fail Condorcet(net) in table 2.

Markus Schulze


From moore3t1 at cox.net  Tue Dec 30 19:05:14 2003
From: moore3t1 at cox.net (Richard Moore)
Date: Tue Dec 30 19:05:14 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #405 - 5 msgs
In-Reply-To: <20031230200142.1136.41484.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
References: <20031230200142.1136.41484.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <3FF23C65.4070404@cox.net>

Donald Davison wrote:
> The two methods [2-pass IRV or "Dan's Folly", and 2-winner 3-candidate IFPP or "Craig's Folly"]
 > have all parts exactly the same:
>     * They both use ranked ballots.
>     * They both are two seat election methods.
>     * They both elect the first candidate that has more than a quota.
>       While IRV does not have an official quota, in this case the
>       IRV first winner does win by more than what would be a quota.
>     * They both transfer all ballots of the first winner to the next
>       preferences.
>     * They both elect the next leading candidate after the transfer
>       as the second elected member.
> 
> The two methods are exactly the same, and being as we agree that one is
> `quite bad', it only follows that both are quite bad.  A bad method by any
> other name will still be bad.  Craig's Folly and Dan's Folly are two peas
> in a pod.

Can anybody spot the flaw in Donald's logic here? In fact all of 
Donald's statements are true, but he reached an unsupported conclusion.

This is a subtle non sequitur. In the fourth statement, Donald says 
"They both transfer all ballots of the first winner to the next 
preferences." This is true. However, the "first winner" is not always 
the same in both methods.

Consider the following case:

32: ACB
64: BAC
33: CBA

The first winner in IRV is C. C's first place votes transfer to B. The 
second winner is B.

The first winner in IFPP is B. B's first place votes transfer to A. 
The second winner is A.

> You don't need to be a `Gifted Mathematician' to understand the math of
> this logic.

I guess the irony of this statement is unintentional.

  -- Richard



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 30 23:22:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 30 23:22:02 2003
Subject: [EM] "MinMax" can mean almost anything
Message-ID: <Law10-F34NM0bYagF1H00003637@hotmail.com>

Kevin said:

My remarks were about MinMax (Pairwise Opposition), which elects the
candidate who minimizes the maximum votes against him in any pairwise
contest (be it victory or defeat).

I repy:

I thought you were referring to PC, because some people on this list call PC 
"MinMax".

You see, this is why I've tried to discourage "MinMax" as a name for PC: 
"MinMax" is used with too many different meanings for it to be of any use as 
the name of a count method.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Working moms: Find helpful tips here on managing kids, home, work ?  and 
yourself.   http://special.msn.com/msnbc/workingmom.armx



From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Wed Dec 31 13:10:10 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Wed Dec 31 13:10:10 2003
Subject: [EM] "MinMax" can mean almost anything
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F34NM0bYagF1H00003637@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031231210926.25550.qmail@web13802.mail.yahoo.com>

Mike,

 --- MIKE OSSIPOFF <nkklrp at hotmail.com> a ?crit?: > 
> Kevin said:
> 
> My remarks were about MinMax (Pairwise Opposition), which elects the
> candidate who minimizes the maximum votes against him in any pairwise
> contest (be it victory or defeat).
> 
> I repy:
> 
> I thought you were referring to PC, because some people on this list call PC 
> "MinMax".
> 
> You see, this is why I've tried to discourage "MinMax" as a name for PC: 
> "MinMax" is used with too many different meanings for it to be of any use as 
> the name of a count method.

I have in the past used "MMPO" for "MinMax (Pairwise Opposition)."  If it
hasn't caught on, it's probably because I'm the only one who ever advocated it 
(with approval ballots).

I think "MinMax" is a good name for "PC" because it's descriptive.  Perhaps
it could be made more descriptive, though.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


_________________________________________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Wed Dec 31 13:39:01 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Wed Dec 31 13:39:01 2003
Subject: [EM] MinMax definition, Tideman properties
In-Reply-To: <3FF2373F.DB4E431B@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <20031231213747.29874.qmail@web13803.mail.yahoo.com>

Markus,

Thank you, that was helpful.

 --- Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de> a ?crit?: 
> Dear Kevin,
> 
> Woodall uses the following terminology:
>    g(x,y) is the number of voters who strictly prefer
>    candidate x to candidate y.
> 
>    mings(x)   := min { g (x,y) : y e C \ {x} }.

"mings" seems to be a rather useless figure.  If you clone a candidate
X to get X and Y, such that no voter distinguishes between X and Y,
mings(x) drops suddenly to 0.

> When "margins" is being used then it is the same whether you use
> the minimum maximum or the maximum minimum.
> 
> The reason why Woodall uses the maximum minimum in the definition
> of "MinDAGS" is that he defines "mindags(x)" in such a manner that
> mindags(x) decreases with increasing pairwise opposition because
> of his definition of "g2".

Ok.  I hadn't even attempted to figure out what MinDAGS was.

> There is no need to define Tideman(WV). Already the fact that the
> g(x,y) are sorted according to their strengths and that each g(x,y)
> is taken in turn until you have a complete ranking of all candidates,
> guarantees that those g(i,j) with g(i,j) < g(j,i) will never be
> taken into consideration. I don't see yet why TidGS and TidDAGS
> fail Condorcet(net) in table 2.

Ok.  So WV and All-Votes are equivalent with Tideman, but not Schulze.

I believe Woodall made a mistake.  It's clear that "D min GS" doesn't
meet Condorcet(net).  It is (page 18):

"DminGS is the set-intersection method in which each set X is given its
minimum gross score mings(X), defined by mings(X):=min{g(x,y) : x e X,
y e C \ X}."

Unlike TidGS, losing opposition votes can affect the winner.  So perhaps
Woodall didn't realize this is not the case with TidGS.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu  Mon Dec  1 16:15:30 2003
From: barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu (Steve Barney)
Date: Mon Dec  1 16:15:30 2003
Subject: [EM] "Consequences of Reversing Preferences"
Message-ID: <3FC91D60@webmail.uwosh.edu>

EM-List:

The following article grew out of a discussion of the "Reversal Symmetry 
Criterion," which I engaged in on this list 2 years ago 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/8272>.


Cheers!,
Steve Barney
Oshkosh, WI

PS: Note the 2nd author (me!).

  _____

Record: 1

Title: 	Consequences of Reversing Preferences.	
Author(s): 	Saari, Donald G. 1 dsarri at math.uci.edu

Barney, Steven 2 barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu 
Source: 	Mathematical Intelligencer; Fall2003, Vol. 25 Issue 4,
p17, 15p	
Document Type: 	Article	
Subject(s): 	RIKER, William

MATHEMATICAL analysis

MATHEMATICS

POLITICAL science

ELECTIONS 
Abstract: 	Reports on mathematical problems faced while declaring
the outcomes of an election. Impact of reversing the election ranking of
candidates on the outcome of an election; Positional methods used by
mathematician William Riker to address problems related to political
science; Mathematical ways to find out the reversed profile of a
candidate.	
Author Affiliation: 	1Department of Mathematics, University of
California Irvine, Irvine CA 92697-3875 USA.

2Department of Mathematics, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI
54901-863, USA.
ISSN: 	03436993	
Accession Number: 	11050766
 	
Persistent Link to this Article:
http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=11050766&db=afh
 	
Cut and Paste: <A
href="http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=11050766&db=afh">Consequence
s of Reversing Preferences.</A>
 	
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From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Mon Dec  1 17:42:28 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Mon Dec  1 17:42:28 2003
Subject: [EM] Weak FBC  and  equal-ranking-allowed  IRV
Message-ID: <3FCC02C9.1080903@bigpond.com>

  Dave,
A while back you were having a discussion with  Kevin Venzke (and 
 Donald) about how, if allowed,
equal-ranking  in IRV should be handled. Your most recent contribution:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-October/011085.html
On Mon.Oct.20, 2003  I  posted something pointing out that  whole-votes 
 equal-ranking-allowed IRV
doesn't really comply with weak FBC, but I finished with the sentence:

"I agree that the whole votes version is better because it does greatly
ameliorate the "favourite betrayal" problem."

I have changed my mind, and now agree with you that the split-votes version
is better. I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting
AB and the other half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting
A=B, and also that it is unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates
A and B by all voting either AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared
to a faction who support candidates C and D by all voting C=D.
Off-list, someone told me:
"Incidentally, Woodall calls "Symmetric-Completion" the ability to treat equal
equal rankings (or at least truncation) as equivalent to an equal mixture of every
possible strict ordering.  He speaks of methods passing or failing this standard..."
I like it.
 Whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed IRV is far too Approval-like,and I suggest that
it be called "Preferential Approval". It is not even clear to me that there is a 
better strategy in it than just giving out first preferences to all the candidates
you would approve under Approval.
Inspired by Kevin Venzke's high-resolution ratings ballot "Gradual Information Approval"
idea, I posted plain ranked-ballot "Gradual Information Runoff":
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-September/011003.html
In it I mentioned "equal preferences ok" and "no split votes". I have changed my mind 
about that and now think that if equal preferences (besides truncation) is allowed then
the vote should be split, so that each voter contributes no more than one vote in total
to candidates not marked "not viable". I could live with equal prefernces (except for
truncation) simply not being allowed. Compared to IRV, GIR trades in a little bit of
later-no-harm for a little bit of Condorcet compliance. With 3 candidates, it is 
equivalent to IRV.
I found this in the archives:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/1998-October/002214.html
In it is erroneously claimed that the split-votes version of equal-ranking IRV 
(and also,in effect, the normal equal-ranking not allowed version) fails "GITC"
(Generalised Independence from Twins Criterion), and has a "rich party" problem.
Elsewhere this fellow says that a "twin" is the same thing as a "clone", and gives 
this definition:
"clones 

A set of alternatives, X[1], X[2], .. X[m] is a clone set provided that for


every alternative Z, where Z is not one of X[1], .. X[m], the following is
true: 

Every ballot that ranks Z higher than one of X[1] .. X[m] ranks Z higher than
all of them.  Every ballot that ranks Z lower than one of them, ranks Z lower
than all of them.  No ballot ranks Z equal to any of them. 

As well, there must be at least one alternative outside the set of clones,
and at least two alternatives in the set of clones."

So therefore GTIC must be the same as Clone Independence, or as he puts it, this:

"Name:  Independence of Clones Criterion: ICC 

  Definition:  

  If there are alternatives X1, X2 ... Xn that are a 
 clone set <http://condorcet.org/emr/defn.shtml#clones>, and if one of these clones is 
 eliminated <http://condorcet.org/emr/defn.shtml#eliminate> from every ballot, then, if the winner for the old ballots 
was in the clone set, the winner for the new ballots must also be in the clone
set.  If an alternative outside the clone set won for the old ballots, the
same alternative must win for the new ballots."

Part of his post goes:
"2.  Give each of the alternatives an equal fraction of the vote.
So, for example, once A=B=C reaches the top of the ballot (through
elimination), each of A, B, and C will get 1/3 of a vote.  Once one
of them is eliminated, the each get 1/2.  And finally when two are
eliminated, 1.

This doesn't appear to have the problem I mentioned above, but it does
fail GITC.
Candidates are A and B, which are not twins, X and Y, which are. 

42 A B X Y
30 B X Y A
27 X=Y=B A
32 X Y B A
31 Y X B A"

X wins, but if Y is not there B wins. And so he concludes:
"So, having a twin caused X to win.  This is called the rich party problem 
because it means that parties that can afford to run more candidates will 
have an unfair advantage."

The big flaw in this argument is that the clone set is BXY.

 He continues:
"3. Just don't allow equal rankings, except by leaving candidates unranked.
This is the most obvious solution.  It is possible that the electorate
wouldn't understand, and use, equal rankings anyway.  And it passes
GITC.

Unfortunately, it passes GITC for the same kind of technical reasons
that make plurality pass GITC.  That is, because voters are forced
to distinguish between candidates randomly, even if they have no
preference, they will break up what based on their true preferences,
are twins.  However, the rich party problem remains."

Here I think that he is improperly classifying Plurality as not a ranked-ballot
method.

Chris Benham 










 





From dglaude at gmx.net  Mon Dec  1 19:43:27 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Mon Dec  1 19:43:27 2003
Subject: [EM] NI: making sense of the maths
Message-ID: <3FCBBEBE.6020209@gmx.net>

Please notice that I don't have a clue on the various advanced voting 
methods. ;-)

But I found this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/3243636.stm

As the count is underway BBC Parliament considers the electoral system 
for the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 determined that elections to the 108 
seat assembly should be by the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system.

This form of proportional representation (PR) was deemed most suitable 
for reflecting the voting preferences of diverse constituencies choosing 
from a variety of parties.

David GLAUDE






From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Mon Dec  1 22:52:01 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Mon Dec  1 22:52:01 2003
Subject: [EM] [Fwd: Weak FBC  and  equal-ranking-allowed  IRV]
Message-ID: <3FCCDFDE.3010800@bigpond.com>



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Weak FBC and equal-ranking-allowed IRV
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 13:41:05 +1030
From: Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com>
To: davek at clarityconnect.com, 
election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com



Dave,
A while back you were having a discussion with  Kevin Venzke (and Donald) about how,
if allowed,equal-ranking  in IRV should be handled. Your most recent contribution:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-October/011085.html
On Mon.Oct.20, 2003  I  posted something pointing out that  whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed 
IRV doesn't really comply with weak FBC, but I finished with the sentence:

"I agree that the whole votes version is better because it does greatly
ameliorate the "favourite betrayal" problem."

I have changed my mind, and now agree with you that the split-votes version is better. 
I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting AB and the other 
half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting A=B, and also that it is 
unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates A and B by all voting either 
AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared to a faction who support candidates 
C and D by all voting C=D.
Off-list, someone told me:
"Incidentally, Woodall calls "Symmetric-Completion" the ability to treat equal
equal rankings (or at least truncation) as equivalent to an equal mixture of every
possible strict ordering.  He speaks of methods passing or failing this standard..."
I like it.
 Whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed IRV is far too Approval-like,and I suggest that
it be called "Preferential Approval". It is not even clear to me that there is a 
better strategy in it than just giving out first preferences to all the candidates
you would approve under Approval.
Inspired by Kevin Venzke's high-resolution ratings ballot "Gradual Information Approval"
idea, I posted plain ranked-ballot "Gradual Information Runoff":
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-September/011003.html
In it I mentioned "equal preferences ok" and "no split votes". I have changed my mind 
about that and now think that if equal preferences (besides truncation) is allowed then
the vote should be split, so that each voter contributes no more than one vote in total
to candidates not marked "not viable". I could live with equal prefernces (except for
truncation) simply not being allowed. Compared to IRV, GIR trades in a little bit of
later-no-harm for a little bit of Condorcet compliance. With 3 candidates, it is 
equivalent to IRV.
I found this in the archives:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/1998-October/002214.html
In it is erroneously claimed that the split-votes version of equal-ranking IRV 
(and also,in effect, the normal equal-ranking not allowed version) fails "GITC"
(Generalised Independence from Twins Criterion), and has a "rich party" problem.
Elsewhere this fellow says that a "twin" is the same thing as a "clone", and gives 
this definition:
"clones 

A set of alternatives, X[1], X[2], .. X[m] is a clone set provided that for


every alternative Z, where Z is not one of X[1], .. X[m], the following is
true: 

Every ballot that ranks Z higher than one of X[1] .. X[m] ranks Z higher than
all of them.  Every ballot that ranks Z lower than one of them, ranks Z lower
than all of them.  No ballot ranks Z equal to any of them. 

As well, there must be at least one alternative outside the set of clones,
and at least two alternatives in the set of clones."

So therefore GTIC must be the same as Clone Independence, or as he puts it, this:

"Name:  Independence of Clones Criterion: ICC 

  Definition:  

  If there are alternatives X1, X2 ... Xn that are a 
 clone set , and if one of these clones is 
 eliminated  from every ballot, then, if the winner for the old ballots 
was in the clone set, the winner for the new ballots must also be in the clone
set.  If an alternative outside the clone set won for the old ballots, the
same alternative must win for the new ballots."

Part of his post goes:
"2.  Give each of the alternatives an equal fraction of the vote.
So, for example, once A=B=C reaches the top of the ballot (through
elimination), each of A, B, and C will get 1/3 of a vote.  Once one
of them is eliminated, the each get 1/2.  And finally when two are
eliminated, 1.

This doesn't appear to have the problem I mentioned above, but it does
fail GITC.
Candidates are A and B, which are not twins, X and Y, which are. 

42 A B X Y
30 B X Y A
27 X=Y=B A
32 X Y B A
31 Y X B A"

X wins, but if Y is not there B wins. And so he concludes:
"So, having a twin caused X to win.  This is called the rich party problem 
because it means that parties that can afford to run more candidates will 
have an unfair advantage."

The big flaw in this argument is that the clone set is BXY.

 He continues:
"3. Just don't allow equal rankings, except by leaving candidates unranked.
This is the most obvious solution.  It is possible that the electorate
wouldn't understand, and use, equal rankings anyway.  And it passes
GITC.

Unfortunately, it passes GITC for the same kind of technical reasons
that make plurality pass GITC.  That is, because voters are forced
to distinguish between candidates randomly, even if they have no
preference, they will break up what based on their true preferences,
are twins.  However, the rich party problem remains."

Here I think that he is improperly classifying Plurality as not a ranked-ballot
method.

Chris Benham 










 




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From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Mon Dec  1 23:16:02 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Mon Dec  1 23:16:02 2003
Subject: [EM]  Re: Weak FBC  and  equal-ranking-allowed  IRV
Message-ID: <3FCCE509.2040901@bigpond.com>



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [EM] Weak FBC and equal-ranking-allowed IRV
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2003 05:37:20 +1030
From: Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com>
To: election-methods-electorama.com-request at electorama.com





-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Fwd: Weak FBC and equal-ranking-allowed IRV]
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2003 05:24:22 +1030
From: Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com>
To: election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com





-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Weak FBC and equal-ranking-allowed IRV
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 13:41:05 +1030
From: Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com>
To: davek at clarityconnect.com, 
election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com



Dave,
A while back you were having a discussion with  Kevin Venzke (and Donald) about how,
if allowed,equal-ranking  in IRV should be handled. Your most recent contribution:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-October/011085.html
On Mon.Oct.20, 2003  I  posted something pointing out that  whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed 
IRV doesn't really comply with weak FBC, but I finished with the sentence:

"I agree that the whole votes version is better because it does greatly
ameliorate the "favourite betrayal" problem."

I have changed my mind, and now agree with you that the split-votes version is better. 
I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting AB and the other 
half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting A=B, and also that it is 
unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates A and B by all voting either 
AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared to a faction who support candidates 
C and D by all voting C=D.
Off-list, someone told me:
"Incidentally, Woodall calls "Symmetric-Completion" the ability to treat equal
equal rankings (or at least truncation) as equivalent to an equal mixture of every
possible strict ordering.  He speaks of methods passing or failing this standard..."
I like it.
 Whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed IRV is far too Approval-like,and I suggest that
it be called "Preferential Approval". It is not even clear to me that there is a 
better strategy in it than just giving out first preferences to all the candidates
you would approve under Approval.
Inspired by Kevin Venzke's high-resolution ratings ballot "Gradual Information Approval"
idea, I posted plain ranked-ballot "Gradual Information Runoff":
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-September/011003.html
In it I mentioned "equal preferences ok" and "no split votes". I have changed my mind 
about that and now think that if equal preferences (besides truncation) is allowed then
the vote should be split, so that each voter contributes no more than one vote in total
to candidates not marked "not viable". I could live with equal prefernces (except for
truncation) simply not being allowed. Compared to IRV, GIR trades in a little bit of
later-no-harm for a little bit of Condorcet compliance. With 3 candidates, it is 
equivalent to IRV.
I found this in the archives:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/1998-October/002214.html
In it is erroneously claimed that the split-votes version of equal-ranking IRV 
(and also,in effect, the normal equal-ranking not allowed version) fails "GITC"
(Generalised Independence from Twins Criterion), and has a "rich party" problem.
Elsewhere this fellow says that a "twin" is the same thing as a "clone", and gives 
this definition:
"clones 

A set of alternatives, X[1], X[2], .. X[m] is a clone set provided that for


every alternative Z, where Z is not one of X[1], .. X[m], the following is
true: 

Every ballot that ranks Z higher than one of X[1] .. X[m] ranks Z higher than
all of them.  Every ballot that ranks Z lower than one of them, ranks Z lower
than all of them.  No ballot ranks Z equal to any of them. 

As well, there must be at least one alternative outside the set of clones,
and at least two alternatives in the set of clones."

So therefore GTIC must be the same as Clone Independence, or as he puts it, this:

"Name:  Independence of Clones Criterion: ICC 

  Definition:  

  If there are alternatives X1, X2 ... Xn that are a 
 clone set , and if one of these clones is 
 eliminated  from every ballot, then, if the winner for the old ballots 
was in the clone set, the winner for the new ballots must also be in the clone
set.  If an alternative outside the clone set won for the old ballots, the
same alternative must win for the new ballots."

Part of his post goes:
"2.  Give each of the alternatives an equal fraction of the vote.
So, for example, once A=B=C reaches the top of the ballot (through
elimination), each of A, B, and C will get 1/3 of a vote.  Once one
of them is eliminated, the each get 1/2.  And finally when two are
eliminated, 1.

This doesn't appear to have the problem I mentioned above, but it does
fail GITC.
Candidates are A and B, which are not twins, X and Y, which are. 

42 A B X Y
30 B X Y A
27 X=Y=B A
32 X Y B A
31 Y X B A"

X wins, but if Y is not there B wins. And so he concludes:
"So, having a twin caused X to win.  This is called the rich party problem 
because it means that parties that can afford to run more candidates will 
have an unfair advantage."

The big flaw in this argument is that the clone set is BXY.

 He continues:
"3. Just don't allow equal rankings, except by leaving candidates unranked.
This is the most obvious solution.  It is possible that the electorate
wouldn't understand, and use, equal rankings anyway.  And it passes
GITC.

Unfortunately, it passes GITC for the same kind of technical reasons
that make plurality pass GITC.  That is, because voters are forced
to distinguish between candidates randomly, even if they have no
preference, they will break up what based on their true preferences,
are twins.  However, the rich party problem remains."

Here I think that he is improperly classifying Plurality as not a ranked-ballot
method.

Chris Benham 










 




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From jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk  Tue Dec  2 01:36:01 2003
From: jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk (James Gilmour)
Date: Tue Dec  2 01:36:01 2003
Subject: [EM] NI: making sense of the maths
In-Reply-To: <3FCBBEBE.6020209@gmx.net>
Message-ID: <000a01c3b8b7$9aab9d50$227d063e@u2amd>

You will find full details of STV-PR on the Electoral Reform Society's website at:
 http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/

The arithmetic is not complex, just tedious.
James



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec  2 06:13:05 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec  2 06:13:05 2003
Subject: [EM] "Consequences of Reversing Preferences"
Message-ID: <3FCC9D94.DE2C234@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Steve,

I have just read your paper:
http://hypatia.ss.uci.edu/imbs/tr/Final1.pdf

I am very disappointed that you mention neither
Tideman's ranked pairs method nor my beatpath
method in your paper. The ordinary reader will
get to the conclusion that all election methods
that satisfy reversal symmetry have some serious
drawbacks.

Markus Schulze


From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Tue Dec  2 15:28:02 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Tue Dec  2 15:28:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Another kind of approval equilibrium
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312021407160.6749-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

I have been considering various kinds of approval equilibria which have
the following common features:

(1) The candidates C1, C2, ... are considered to have respective
probabilities, P1, P2, ... of winning.

(2) Voter rankings or ratings are converted to approval ballots based on
these probabilities.

(3) The resulting approval ballots somehow confirm the prior probabilities
P1, P2, ... .

This kind of equilibrium is stable if it can be obtained by a process of
iteration of these three steps, where the "confirmation" in step three
improves despite round-off and other perturbations.

The hardest part is figuring out how to get winning probabilities out of a
set of approval ballots, since most of the time one candidate will have
greater approval than the others, and that would seem to make the
posterior winning probability for that candidate 100%, which turns out to
be problematic for various reasons that I won't bore you with in this
message.

For a while I was considering making winning probabilities proportional to
the tenth power of the candidates' approvals, so that a candidate with any
approval at all would have some positive chance of winning.

After rejecting that, I considered having winning probabilities
proportional to the number of approval votes above some quota, which could
even be tied to the highest approval: any candidate that gets within 10%
of the highest approval candidate gets a positive chance of winning, for
example.

These methods require a final drawing in which the respective candidates'
probabilities of winning are P1, P2, etc.

Until recently I didn't see anyway of avoiding this drawing, since just
picking the candidate with the highest probability would not be a true
equilibrium solution except in the case of P = 100 percent.

Why not just trust the polls?

Well polls don't really tell us winning probabilities; they just give us
approval counts from samples.

Is there any way to determine winning probabilities from mere approval
counts?

Only if there are no significant correlations among candidate preferences.

What if the polls accurately report the correlations as well, "30% of
those who approved A also approved B, etc?"

That would be better, especially if the polled voters are reporting their
approvals after hearing accurate approval results (including correlations)
from previous polls.

In other words, this is the kind of thing that improves with iteration.

So why not just collect the voters' CR ballots, and simulate the
iteration of polls until an equilibrium is reached (if there is one)?

That is roughly my current idea, but (as they say), "The devil is in the
details."

How does this avoid the drawing at the end?

Instead of "enforcing" the probabilities with a drawing, we just interpret
the non-zero probabilities as saying that in statistically similar
populations of voters, these other candidates have significant chances of
winning.


To Be Continued ...

Forest



From matt at tidalwave.net  Wed Dec  3 18:31:05 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Wed Dec  3 18:31:05 2003
Subject: [EM] Verifiable secure voting using dual half pixel receipts
Message-ID: <20031204022944.35CC5394C@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Thu Dec  4 15:32:10 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Thu Dec  4 15:32:10 2003
Subject: [EM] Another kind of approval equilibrium
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312021407160.6749-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312041335490.29534-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

This is a second installment on this topic.

In the first post on this topic, I finished with a claim that there is a
way to get around the final random drawing step (i.e. the "enforcing" of
the equilibrium probabilities) that was a feature of my previous
equilibrium methods.

The key idea that obviates the necessity of that drawing is the use of an
ensemble of statistically close ballot sets to find the probabilities.

Roughly speaking, suppose that E is a large (and randomly chosen)
collection of ballot sets which are close statistically to some ballot set
S of approval ballots, and suppose that candidate X is the approval winner
in 37 percent of the members of E. Then BEFORE tallying up the ballots of
collection S we could argue that X has about a 37 percent chance of being
the approval winner of ballot set S.

Furthermore, if the members of E are so close to S that it would be
difficult to distinguish them by any pre-election poll, then the 37
percent figure would be more reliable than any pre-election poll estimate.

There are many ways to generate a suitable ensemble E from a ballot set S,
but here is a simple method that is probably adequate:

Let N be the number of ballots in the ballot set S.

To get one member of E, randomly draw N ballots from S. Of course this
drawing must be "with replacement" in order to get anything different from
S itself.

To get additional members for E, repeat the procedure (using different
seeds for your random number generator).

At the risk of straining your patience, I wish to point out that if this
simple method of generating E is used, then it isn't really necessary to
generate E after all.  We can consider the ideal case of E consisting of
(one each of) all N^N possible results of such a drawing, and figure the
candidates' winning frequencies analytically from the statistics of the
ballot set S.

If S is a set of approval ballots, then the relevant statistics are the
sample means and covariances of the candidate approvals, a set of
M*(M+1)/2 numbers if there are M candidates.  Furthermore these statistics
are summable over the ballots.

One might object that once we know the approval means for S we know the
winner, so it doesn't make sense to consider the calculated frequencies as
probabilities.

In reply I enjoin you to remember that these statistics are unavailable to
the voters at the time of voting, but if they did have access to these
frequencies through some oracle, their best strategy would be to use them
exactly as they would bonafide probabilities.

Now leaving behind these technical and philosophical details, suppose that
we start with a set of N cardinal ratings (CR) ballots which rate M
candidates.

1. Initialize all winning probabilities P1, P2, ... as 1/M.

While no candidate has 100 percent probability of winning do

2. Use winning probabilities P1, P2, ...  and the "above the mean"
strategy to generate a set S of approval ballots.

3. Use this set S to update winning probabilities P1, P2, ... as per our
discussion above.

Repeat these two steps until the updated probabilities are within some
preset tolerance of the previous estimates.

4. Declare as winner the candidate with the most approval in the ballot
set S, as last updated in step 2 before exiting the loop.


That's my idea in a nutshell. Of course there are many possible
variations, including versions based on ranked ballots.

One variation that doesn't involve iteration would be to use Rob LeGrand's
ballot-by-ballot method one hundred times on the original set of ranked
ballots to get a reasonable estimate of the equilibrium probabilities, and
then use Joe Weinstein's "weighted median" method on ranked ballots for
the final outcome if the same candidate didn't win all one hundred times.


Forest



From robla at robla.net  Fri Dec  5 01:28:02 2003
From: robla at robla.net (Rob Lanphier)
Date: Fri Dec  5 01:28:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Appeal for better weblog polling (Electorama)
Message-ID: <3FCEFDA9.4080609@robla.net>

Hi all,

I'm all giddy because I've received the first external submission to the 
Electorama weblog (http://electorama.com/)

Here's an excerpt:
Crude Polling Hampers Sophisticated Political Discussions 
<http://electorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=54&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0>
wegerje writes: "/Internet based political discussion has become quite 
fashionable these days. The onset of the U.S. political season combined 
with the explosion of weblogs (Blogs) has created vibrant political 
websites. [..] A quick survey of the polls by anyone familiar with 
voting systems will soon reveal a glaring weakness among them, namely 
the acute need for multiple-choice and ranked polls./" Read more for an 
appeal to create better software for weblog polls.

http://electorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=54&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

I'm not sure if the author (Jeff Wegerson) is on this list, but his 
contact info is in the article, and I would presume he'll monitor a 
discussion up on Electorama should one develop.

Rob




From kjinnovation at earthlink.net  Fri Dec  5 02:45:02 2003
From: kjinnovation at earthlink.net (Ken Johnson)
Date: Fri Dec  5 02:45:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #374 - 1 msg
In-Reply-To: <20031204200230.27595.97766.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
References: <20031204200230.27595.97766.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <3FD06162.2090005@earthlink.net>


election-methods-electorama.com-request at electorama.com wrote:

>Message: 1
>From: matt at tidalwave.net
>Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 18:29:44 -0800 (PST)
>To: election-methods at electorama.com
>Subject: [EM] Verifiable secure voting using dual half pixel receipts
>Reply-To: matt at tidalwave.net
>
>Ken Johnson wrote:
>"As I understand it, a ballot receipt contains no information about the 
>voter's identity, which only becomes potentially knowable when the voter 
>presents the receipt for validation/verification. But how would the 
>process verify that only legally registered voters have voted, and that 
>no one voted twice? I don't quite understand the basis of the claim that 
>"...it can lift the requirement that voters must vote from their home 
>precinct ... inter-jurisdiction voting becomes workable ...".
>
>I respond:
>I assume that verifying only registered voters voted and no one voted twice would be done the same way this is currently done and the same ways your proposed method does.  For example, the voting machine would have to be reset by election volunteers after each vote before the next vote can occur.  Voters would have to sign in with an approved ID.  The voter registration data would be cross checked with other data bases. Etc.  Even your suggestion of machine readable stamps placed in  the registration logs immediately after the vote could be implemented to make it easier to verify that the number of votes and ballots match.
>
But are these processes workable without precinct-level voting? I had 
the impression that Chaum was implying this, but maybe his point was 
that the vote counting process (as opposed to voter verification) 
wouldn't be reliant on  precinct-level tallies.

>
>Ken Johnson wrote:
>"I question whether a method with this level of technical sophistication 
>and complexity would be practical or whether voters would trust the 
>"mathematical magic" behind the secure encryption scheme - especially in 
>emerging democracies where most voters may be barely literate, much less 
>computer literate or technologically literate. One particular weakness 
>is the reliance on a small number of "trustees" - holders of the private 
>encryption keys - to ensure voter secrecy. The trustees might have the 
>highest level of professionalism and integrity, but probably not much 
>technical sophistication or understanding of cryptography, so you might 
>find someday that a hacker has gotten hold of the private keys and 
>posted them on the Internet, along with all of the decrypted ballots."
>
>I respond:
>Keeping the secret keys secret is always essential to public/private key encryption.  Like the article says, government and businesses have been relying on this method for years now and so far it has been successful.  As I understand it the number of trustees (and therefore the number of private keys) can be increased or decreased to provide more or less secrecy protection.
>
Good points, but it could be argued that the method has not been very 
successful in societies where corruption is the norm and crooked public 
officials routinely pilfer vast sums of money from government and 
business accounts. The system's integrity ultimatly depends not on the 
encryption algorithm, but on the trustees' personal integrity and their 
susceptibility to being bribed, coerced, or duped into revealing their 
keys.

A more fundamental problem, I think, is one of voter perceptions and 
acceptance. Even if the process is provably secure, voters who don't 
understand the proof probably won't trust the system and won't vote. 
Look at it from the voter's perspective: You're given these two plastic 
sheets stuck together, which clearly show your vote. When you pull them 
apart the information seems to "magically" turn into garble, but you are 
told that (1) the information on your vote is still there on the 
receipt, which can be used to prove that your individual vote is 
correctly included in the final tally, and yet (2) no one can possibly 
find out from your receipt how you voted. Wouldn't the average voter be 
understandably mystified and baffled by this seeming contradiction? One 
thing you don't want an election process to do is mystify and baffle the 
voters.

>
>Ken Johnson wrote:
>"Following is an outline of a comparatively "low-tech" voting process 
>that I think probably accomplishes the same objectives as Chaum's 
>method, while overcoming its weaknesses. (Whether it actually does, I 
>pose as an open question.)"
>
>I respond:
>I disagree. I don't think your method accomplishes the same objectives.  For example, under the half pixel half receipt method it is likely that any attempt to swap a real voted ballot with a fraudulent replacement voted ballot would be detected.  Under your method anyone with access to the voted ballots, the ballot stamp, and the blank ballots could swap real voted ballots with his own fraudulent ballots without any chance of being detected (provided they could swap ballots when no one outside the vote rigging conspiracy who is willing to report the fraud was present as a witness).
>
>Ken then presented the properties and steps for his method of conducting secure elections which I won't repeat here.
>
>
>  
>
In retrospect, I think I agree that we do not accomplish the same 
objectives. The primary objective of Chaum's proposal appears to be to 
enable individual voters to ensure that their ballots are correctly 
included in the final tally, whereas my focus is more on verifying that 
the final tally is correct. For the latter objective, it is not 
sufficient to be able to prove that any particular valid ballot 
corresponds to a correctly-entered database record; you also have to 
determine (at least within reasonable statistical uncertainty) that 
every database record corresponds to a valid ballot, i.e., there is no 
ballot stuffing or "database stuffing".

I think Chaum's method would be no less susceptible to fraud than my 
proposal, at least in terms of guarding against ballot stuffing and 
excluding illegal votes. In either case, the system is dependent on the 
integrity and compentence of local election officials. However, ballot 
tampering or stuffing would not likely affect the outcome of the 
election unless there is widespread fraud across dozens or hundreds of 
precincts. It is unlikely that such widespread collusion could be 
coordinated or that it would go undetected.

I'm not opposed to using ballot receipts to enable voters to verify that 
their ballots were counted. (People who don't trust the receipts can 
just shred them.) But ballot receipts are not sufficient to validate the 
election tally, and I dont't think it should be the responsibility of 
the voters to validate the tally. My position is that election results 
ought to be independently and provably verified (at least within 
reasonable doubt), as a matter of routine election certification 
processes, by methods that do not require voters to retain and surrender 
their voting receipts.

Ken Johnson






From research at ijs.co.nz  Sat Dec  6 00:16:03 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Sat Dec  6 00:16:03 2003
Subject: [EM] Review of Reversing preference lists paper by Mr Barney, Mr D.
 G. Saari
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031206190419.053edf58@pop.qsi.net.nz>

>[EM] "Consequences of Reversing Preferences" 
>Markus Schulze markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de 
>Tue Dec 2 06:13:05 2003 
>
>Dear Steve,
>
>I have just read your paper:
>http://hypatia.ss.uci.edu/imbs/tr/Final1.pdf
>
>I am very disappointed that you mention neither
>Tideman's ranked pairs method nor my beatpath
>method in your paper. The ordinary reader will
>get to the conclusion that all election methods
>that satisfy reversal symmetry have some serious
>drawbacks.
>
>Markus Schulze

The paper is jointly authored by Mr D G Saari (who quit preferential
voting, it was said) and one Mr Steve Barney. I recall he was at this
list and I wrote adversely and no response occured. The PDF creating
program can be handy for those special where every reader would
assume that the statements are too valueless to be fit for a write-up.

Perhaps Mr Saari has not properly read the co-authored paper yet.
I suppose that much of the text with the triangle diagrams is
Mr Saari's.

Mr Riker, who suggested that methods should be monotonic, gets a
very minor mention:

| Among the widely used election methods are what William Riker [1982]
| calls positional methods. Riker, who was a pioneer in using
| mathematics to address problems from political science, coined the
| word ?positional?

Two other persons can be identified as participating in the
production of the PDF document, since page 1 says:

| Our thanks to Hannu Nurmi, Tom Ratliff, and two referees for their
| comments on an earlier version.


Now there is 4 names to bear in mind rather than two, and this paper
gets through the final checks.

Here is some text that is seemingly false for using only 2
significant digits when truthfulness would require nothing less than
an infinite number of significant digits.

| Theorem 7.
|
| For three candidates,the following probability statements hold for
| any probability distribution of voter profiles where, as the number
| of voters grows, the distribution is asymptotically independent with
| a common variance, and the mean has an equal number of voters of
| each type.
| 
| 1. A necessary and sufficient condition for a profile's of outcomes
| of all positional method outcomes to be reversed when the profile is
| reversed is for p's plurality and antiplurality outcomes to agree.
| The likelihood of such a behavior is 0.31.
|
| 2. A necessary and sufficient condition for a reversal effect to
| occur for the plurality outcome is that a profile's antiplurality
| outcome reverses the plurality outcome. This behavior occurs with
| probability 0.06.
|
| 3. A necessary and sufficient condition for a plurality (or
| antiplurality) top-reversal, or a two-winner reversal effect is for
| the profile to allow five different election rankings as the
| positional methods change (and the plurality outcome to be a strict
| ranking). This occurs with probability 0.19

When the text says that the likelihood of the behaviour is 0.31, we
know that the statement has got to be perfectly untrue since the
author is either covering up the use of a computer or else has
converted an infinite number of significant digits down to two.

Also the method that was tested on the computer (if any) is not
described in the section claiming to be a theorem. I would not say
that 'Theorem 7' is actually a theorem.

Actually there is no proof for that theorem. Surely Mr Saari and
reviewers Hannu Nurmi and Tom Ratliff saw that. Maybe the reviewers
can give advice but it might get disregarded.

Anyway, parts of the documents are apparently untrue.
When I look at the text I sense that it is fluid goo of falsehoods.
I do hope that Steve Barney will let us know who wrote it.

I am not aware of why probabilities were being computed. This is
not a review based on a proper reading of the document, not that
any is appropriate.


----

Mr Saari has thinking aberration that results in lengthy articles.

How is a preference beyond the 10,000-th going to affect the
winner ?. To brin the bottom preferences up to the top is no
hardly likely to be more important that some study of randomizing
preferences but not the top 1000.

Despite being 19 pages long its last lines contain a question and
speculation:

| But as s -> 1/2, a procedure becomes less susceptible to the
| Reversal components. Is there a connection? Probably, but it has not
| been established.

"Reversal components" is some idea that is best ignored.

The author(s) have the same worthless idea at the start of the paper:

| ... he [the chairperson] expected the voters to vote in the opposite
| way.As such,when tallying the ballots, he treated a first and last
| listed candidate, respectively, as the voter's last and first choice.1
|  Imagine the outcry if after retallying the ballots the chair reported
| that the election ranking remained unchanged; ...

There author wrote "Imagine the outcry" but at the start and at the end,
completely fails to say of the rule should be completely ignored. The
author is using the salesman trick of saying that others would agree.
The author seems to be unaware that good methods are not threatened
by fail results when tested with wrong rules.

The public is not so strung-out as to think that
  *  when some winners are known, and when
  *  preference lists that contain over 60 million named candidates
     are written back to front,
  *  and also when there is only 7 ballots (stored on an IDE hard disk of
     co-author Barney);
then there is an important relationship between who wins the first and
who wins the 2nd. I.e. the public would not believe that.

Maybe Steve Barney could post in the rule since the long paper failed
to focus on its central topic.

If the idea is worthless for over 99.9999983% of all elections, then
why would anybody spend time on producing diagrams in triangles ?.

Readers can briefly consider what reversing preferences in large
elections, and then be very confident that there is not any good
rule there in that topic, at all. The disappoints since it fails
to arrive at the wholly obvious conclusion, which is that there is
no political polytope testing rule based on reversing preferences.

It looked like Dr Saari was the last mathematician in USA that had
some special interest in preferential voting. If the paper is
published then it unquestionably will be seen that Dr Saari can't
identify the mistake of years earlier, where it was suggested
that reversing preferences was worth mentioning to some online
journalists. That could leave USA with 0 top experts.
The well known duality principle is presumably what Dr Saari would
have written on had the article been more politically useful.
I.e. that requirement that the same method results when winners
are swapped with losers, and the votes are negated.

I have read some of Mr Steve Barney's writings at the Election Methods
List, and in the past he didn't write back to me, and did run low
accuracy computer simulations using random numbers that tested minor
methods with totally worthless rules. That is precisely what a lot of
the PDF article was doing.

In the more political arena of STV variants, it can be assumed that
they don't mind if a perfectly unfair, unjust, or anti-political
method is failing the STV method.

The paper has diagrams in it too, and that is abnormal. In the
preferential voting, and the article is not really simple, the
dimension is high diagrams are replaced with algebra. The author of
of a competent article is more likely to spend time writing
new symbolic algebra software that can simplify polytope expressions.

The paper is not just exploring a wretched obviously wrong rule,
and then permitting only 3 candidates, but it seems to prohibit the
9 papers lacking a 3rd preference. Or at least, what else could this
mean?:

| Skepticism might be the kindest reaction to greet an announcement
| that the election ranking for a profile -- a listing which specifies
| the number of voters whose preferences are given by each (complete,
| transitive) ranking of the candidates is the same for the profile
| where each voter's preference ordering is reversed.

I suppose the word transitive applies to the symbols on the paper.
E.g., for this ballot paper "A B C",
it can be said that A is to the left of B, and B is to the left of C.

It is quite bad: 20 pages that fails to come to any conclusion about
a rule that is obviously worthless, and without good explanation
two more restrictions are piled onto that:
 * there is only 1 winner
 * and apparently all 3 preferences need to be written.

The authors of the papers are perhaps under the pairwise tradition
of tolerating corruptness in their method and vote-negating with
secret diversions of votes to the wrong candidates. The text of the
PDF file does not contain the words 'monotonic' and 'monotonicity'.

The paper uses Dr Saari's rotated-Aries symbol to indicate some
relation. That idea seems to have no place fair multiwinner
preferential voting theory.

The article does not contain the word "fair". I can't recall a
moment ever when an interest in being fair to others coexisted
with an interest in pairwise comparing.


Dr Saari should not have made the mistake about back-to-front
preferences in the first place. I could have used much text to
persuade Dr Saari but he is uncontactable as if beyond the reach
of telephone lines.

It was never the case that pairwise comparing is worth a tin of
fish to the designer of STV-like high quality preferential voting
methods that would be used in government elections.

Donald Saari should re-read the introduction since it is pathetic:

|  Imagine the outcry if after retallying the ballots the chair reported
| that the election ranking remained unchanged; ...

That looks like an argument that the CVD would use: "start to
proper influences from the clues that other mainlanders are now
plainly signalling to us". I guess that Steve Barney wrote
that. That is the same Steve that made one decision to not
reply to me. The expert in using wrong tests and coming in with
[printouts] lists of numbers.

Readers will expect a high probability of no outcry at all when
informed that a wretched wrong rule from a world of people who
make mistakes that members of the public can't themselves make,
fails some preferential voting method. A key detail is that the
rule fails the method that that public desires above all other
methods, a fairest method. Where are the error bounds?.

Looking at the wording more closely, it is in the Soc Choice
style, for the text "Imagine the outcry" is permitting no
outcry whatsoever.

The big issue here is that Donald Saari made a complete mistake
at the time of the last foray into back-to-front preference lists,
and if the silence is snapped with the publication of the paper
of Don and Steve, then it takes United States top expert, perhaps,
maybe 4 years or more to figure out errors that takes me seconds
to identify.

I see the reversal ideas dying when a very large number of
preferences, and possibly Mr Saari and Barney wave still time
until the final version of their paper is out, and then the new
issue of the number of candidates being restricted to only 3
has appeareed.

Many of us are not able to drop to the depths of irrationality
that seems to accompany a belief in transitivity of something
or other that is not a symbol on a list. For that idea,
Mr Donald G Saari uses the rotated Aries symbol.  Every paper
containing that symbol is set against the humana right of
equal suffrage, i.e. rules restricting the changes in winners
when papers are changed infinitesimally.
Reversing preferences has to be done infinitesimally or else on
that finding alone, the paper can discarded (easily without
being unfair too).

I got a comment from Mr Thomas Cool who said that Donald Saari
did not reply to him. Mr Saari's last response to this list
was troubling for it said he was just going to complete investigating
the topic of some super-linear (completely un-political) 3 candidate
methods. I am not sure about the 3 candidate part.
It could have been better if Donald Saari had of considered
methods good enough to actually use. So long as results are
plotted, thoroughness is fairly useless since the way of
presenting results becomes unusable as the problems get larger.

Dear Steve: which people needed that paper ?. Just the critics?,
or were you writing for a wider audience?.

Here ends the review of the two men who could mention the name
"Riker", and the idea of Mr Saari's trnsitivity, but who had no
space for the "fair" and "monotonic". A wrong rule can get
get into a disagreement with, at worst, all correct rules.

I can list the correct axioms in private.

I see that Mr Marcus Schulze got his comments very badly
designed. Mr Schulze wrote as if he failed to detect the worthlessness
of the paper of Mr Donald Saari and Mr Steve Barney.

I guess it is fixable for that was not a final release, but in
the Condorcet fanatic's world, things are basically not improving
all of the time.











Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>    Auckland, New Zealand
Freedom of Information America: http://listserv.syr.edu/archives/foi-l.html
Ontario Ombudsman's 1996 Fairness checklist:
    http://www.ijs.co.nz/fairness-standards.htm
Politicians-and-Polytopes, Single-Transferable-Vote, @yahoogroups.com




From matt at tidalwave.net  Sat Dec  6 12:43:01 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Sat Dec  6 12:43:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #374 - 1 msg
Message-ID: <20031206204209.8E30A726A@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From dglaude at gmx.net  Sat Dec  6 12:49:01 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Sat Dec  6 12:49:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Fwd: [E-voting] STV and e-voting incompatible
References: <3FD23952.6304CE14@polarbears.com>
Message-ID: <31022.1070743689@www48.gmx.net>

Hello,
I already suggested on Election-Method mailing-list that advanced voting
system might require computer usage... and that computer assisted voting might
not be "democratic" and secure.

Now someone in Ireland show a good example of why those method might be even
worst if vote are published... (anonymously).

Feel free to comment... I have put the original author in Cc: and you find
the list address on the forwarded message.

I am not sure about the 500 million way of voting...
But I worked a lot with permutation in a steganography project... and with
sufficient number of candidate and choice to make, it is possible that all
voter have a uniquely identifiable vote. ;-)

And since for fairness, the database of vote must be publish for independant
review... I see no option.

David GLAUDE

PS: I have nothing against STV... only against e-voting.

--- Weitergeleitete Nachricht / Forwarded Message ---
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2003 20:17:22 +0000
From: Ciaran Quinn <election at polarbears.com>
To: Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting <e-voting at lists.stdlib.net>
Subject: [E-voting] STV and e-voting incompatible

I have just downloaded the election results for Dublin North and I have
just realised that there is a very simple way of selling one's vote
using e-voting.

There were 12 candidates in Dublin North. I estimate that there must be
almost 500 million possible vote combinations. If I wanted to buy votes
>from a group of voters, I would give them instructions of the sequence
in which they were to vote (eg I would give each voters a list of
numbers such as 3 5 10 2 1 6 9 4 8 11 7 12 showing them how to mark
their ballot paper. Each voter would get a slightly different
combination. When the election is over, all I would have to do is to
check which combinations occurred and pay the relevant voters).

This possibility means that the suggestion that voters would use their
VVAT paper ballot papers as receipts so that they would be paid is
absurd. 
They can already sell their votes using e-voting.

If selling votes is a concern, then e-voting and STV are incompatible.

Ciaran Quinn

_______________________________________________
E-voting mailing list
E-voting at lists.stdlib.net
http://lists.stdlib.net/mailman/listinfo/e-voting


-- 
+++ GMX - die erste Adresse f?r Mail, Message, More +++
Neu: Preissenkung f?r MMS und FreeMMS! http://www.gmx.net




From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Sat Dec  6 16:54:01 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Sat Dec  6 16:54:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Automated CR Strategy
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312041335490.29534-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312061549280.17430-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

The standard use of cardinal ratings (CR) ballots (awarding the win to the
candidate with the highest average rating) encourages strategic voting so
that voters in the know tend to vote exclusively at the extremes.

Is it possible to automate CR strategy well enough to eliminate the
advantage of the strategic voter over the naive voter?

Perhaps not in all cases, but in the case of large public elections, where
there is always an irreducible residue of statistical uncertainty, no
matter how carefully and honestly the polls are conducted, the answer to
this question is undoubtedly, yes!

What I have in mind is this: voters submit CR ballots in the form of
letter grades (A thru F or A thru Z, I don't care at this point), and then
these ballots are sampled statistically in a way that is an improvement on
any possible pre-election poll, but not so perfectly as to remove all
uncertainty.

This statistical information is used to get winning probabilities for the
various candidates.  If this is done correctly, these probabilities will
be more reliable than any that could be calculated from pre-election poll
results.

Each ballot is then transformed into an optimal ballot relative to these
estimated probabilities.

The candidate with the highest average rating on these transformed ballots
is the winner.

The only way a voter could get more reliable probability estimates would
be through some oracle or time machine.

If a voter takes it upon himself to vote at the extremes, these choices
will automatically be preserved by the transformation, since optimal
strategy preserves ratings at the extremes.

In summary, my idea is to take advantage of the pocket of uncertainty
inherent in public or private polls of large numbers of people to
virtually eliminate the advantage of sophisticated voters over naive
voters in the context of cardinal ratings with large numbers of voters.


Forest



From research at ijs.co.nz  Sun Dec  7 03:12:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Sun Dec  7 03:12:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Automated CR Strategy
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312061549280.17430-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.e
 du>
References: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312041335490.29534-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031207224638.050e9e60@pop.qsi.net.nz>


This is only of a draft quality and it only criticises Mr Forest Simmons.

My last message had missing "not"s. I think I have a solution for that
since by a simple argument I concluded that it was a hoax or mistake to
say that logic does not use negative numbers but instead 2 valued integers.
I noted something different: that (Exists Q)(X<Q<Y) does not run
correctly when X<Q means (not X) and Q, and all the 3 variables are
Boolean valued polytopes. I can't show "not" to be a problem while there
Boolean-ness is that, for that is arbitrary.

Has someone got Mr Donald Saari's address. I looked at his papers at
http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/ : it is on an n-body interaction using the
Newtonian gravity laws that emits a particle with at an infinite speed.
Apparently no one can produce any sort of example. The topic didn't
seem important. 

I am trying to send a message to Donald Davison and he has a dead e-mail
box.

========================================================================
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The original message was received at Fri, 05 Dec 2003 06:21:04 +1300

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Final-Recipient: RFC822; <donald at pop.mich.com>
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========================================================================


RESEARCH BY FOREST SIMMONS AT THE ELECTION METHODS LIST

Mr Forest Simmons is not providing all axioms and then inferring using
reasoning, a polytope expression that computes the winner. We could be
gets tiny bits of the fulls set of axioms needed before progress
can occur. But instead Mr Simmons is content to get the winners
wrong.

I wonder if Forest Simmons would tell us if he thought it was acceptable
to fire-bomb Dresden in World War II, given the plan over there to
produce a hopefully stable world government along inferior lines.

Have you given up Christianity ?. Given that there was so little on
who should win, I hope Alex does not object.

Counts of elections quite typically involve no use of statistics or
probably. A huge fraction of your messages suggest that you are letting
all readers know that probability is a fact. Certainly that appears to
always false.

Your latest thoughts on the why you can see probabilities but never
actually collect any of them, positions yourself to be about believable
as you would be if you wrote on your inferences on a few highway
structures of undetected midget colonies living on the surface of the
moon. You admitted that you had an interest in Christianity.

Don't you wish that after so very many messages to the Election Methods
List, that you actually knew something ?. You seem to be missing the
idea of a region of solutions with solutions separated by perfectly
flat n-dimensional faces. Such allows trivially allows the simultaneous
consideration of an infinity of solutions. The can be no choice when
the axioms are worded to provide a solution only implicitly.

However in addition to not having the probability numbers (as each
year passes) that that are the central substance of your writings, you
also lack principles and the all too common technique of using inference
and reasoning from known facts or definitions.

What your messages lack is *evidence* that you had even thought about
the topic of computing the correct winners given the counts of the
ballot papers. There is no chance that you would get the benefit of the
doubt.





At 2003-12-06 16:53 -0800 Saturday, Forest Simmons wrote:
>The standard use of cardinal ratings (CR) ballots (awarding the win to the
>candidate with the highest average rating) encourages strategic voting so
>that voters in the know tend to vote exclusively at the extremes.
>
>Is it possible to automate CR strategy well enough to eliminate the
>advantage of the strategic voter over the naive voter?
>
>Perhaps not in all cases, but in the case of large public elections, where
>there is always an irreducible residue of statistical uncertainty, no
>matter how carefully and honestly the polls are conducted, the answer to
>this question is undoubtedly, yes!
>
>What I have in mind is this: voters submit CR ballots in the form of
>letter grades (A thru F or A thru Z, I don't care at this point), and then
>these ballots are sampled statistically in a way that is an improvement on
>any possible pre-election poll, but not so perfectly as to remove all
>uncertainty.
>
>This statistical information is used to get winning probabilities for the
>various candidates.  If this is done correctly, these probabilities will
>be more reliable than any that could be calculated from pre-election poll
>results.
>
>Each ballot is then transformed into an optimal ballot relative to these
>estimated probabilities.
>
>The candidate with the highest average rating on these transformed ballots
>is the winner.
>
>The only way a voter could get more reliable probability estimates would
>be through some oracle or time machine.
>
>If a voter takes it upon himself to vote at the extremes, these choices
>will automatically be preserved by the transformation, since optimal
>strategy preserves ratings at the extremes.
>
>In summary, my idea is to take advantage of the pocket of uncertainty

You idea is to guide readers to the view that once they have an election
result, you will not consider the integers of and other information about
the result.



>inherent in public or private polls of large numbers of people to
>virtually eliminate the advantage of sophisticated voters over naive
>voters in the context of cardinal ratings with large numbers of voters.
>


You merely say that there is some problem. It is the same error that
economists could make.

There is no evidence that there is a problem. There is no indication of
a problem once you have said that there is a strategic problem.

If you wrote that monotonicity is sometimes removes som problems, then
the writing would be of a perfectly different character, for you would
be starting to comment inside of the topic of preferential voting.

If you aim is to make others beleive that you thought about voting, then
your style is lackign the full Magnum shooter gunning penetrating power
of pure rationality that C.S.Lewis indicated possible.

If some strategy problem existed then the way to remove it, would be much
 affected by the principles you have.

Instead of principles you tend to have calls for others to reply. That's
curious for possible quite a large number of people could help you. But
let them be efficient and direct you mind to the major central that you
have, which is that of ignoring all the ballot papers (perhaps pieces
of cardboard) that could be tipped out of a box and put on a table
immediately in front of you.

You still have got to get the evidence that the probability thinking is
even slightly true. Where would you start your search?. At the topic of
the heap of cardboard pieces, or at the bottom.

Students ought not ask for help. If you actually put trust in reasoning
then you might see as clearly as others how you can achieve while always
excluding both fact and principle.

A clampdown by you to silence could be the last thing that is hoped for:
it could have you talking about the Approval method.

The Approval method is a special case of a better method. You don't
talk about the better method that permits the method designer to
rule that the number of checkboxes is never equal to the number of
candidates. It is like you were at a hair solon and saw a glossy woman's
fashion magazine and fancied it was the Christian bible, and read that
the new fashion is the catchy word of Mr Brams: "Approval", and not man
alone could prevent the number of checkboxes equalling the number of
candidates.

You seem to write around the idea that there is some space and it
certainly gives no consideration to election results and hence winners
too and thus the idea of correctness and thus the idea that you won't
be ignored each time you write.

But you still have a space and write on probability numbers. Surely
the fuzziness of your universe can be modelled somehow using ellipsoids?.

We are missing out on ellipsoids, but you seem to call them numbers.
It seems that your fantasy of a space that is alternative to the one
permitting the right winners to be found, also is not something you
have seriously considered worthy of the EML list

So far you are not on track for developing ideas that are good enough
for USA's worst slum suburb in whichever city holds that.

While I write this, I imagine that you are holed out and the foremost
person in the EM List who will keep preaching at us and after what
seems to be an excessive number of calls for others to interact, you
might admit to what others have known all along: as a theorist you
full collection of relevant useful principles is missing.

I may be leaving in a few days or weeks and perhaps you would go back
that previous system that ran OK: you dropped out when I showed up.
Mr Schulze and the rest can suffer in silence.

Forest believes what ?. 





Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
Ada 95 programming language mailing lists: http://www.ijs.co.nz/ada_95.htm




From Dgamble997 at aol.com  Sun Dec  7 14:33:05 2003
From: Dgamble997 at aol.com (Dgamble997 at aol.com)
Date: Sun Dec  7 14:33:05 2003
Subject: [EM] Craig Carey's recent posts.
Message-ID: <d4.b6494e.2d050471@aol.com>

Craig,

Have you ever tried being nice to people?

David Gamble
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From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Mon Dec  8 13:50:31 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Mon Dec  8 13:50:31 2003
Subject: [EM] Automated CR Strategy
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20031207224638.050e9e60@pop.qsi.net.nz>
Message-ID: <20031208214723.69994.qmail@web13802.mail.yahoo.com>

Craig,

 --- Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz> a ?crit?: > 
> This is only of a draft quality and it only criticises Mr Forest Simmons.
> 

If you don't think an election method should have elements of randomness,
you could just say that.  It seems unnecessary to accuse Forest of being
deceptive.


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


____________________________________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!? -- Avec Yahoo! soyez au coeur de la r?colte de dons pour le T?l?thon.
http://fr.promotions.yahoo.com/caritatif/


From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Mon Dec  8 16:01:03 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Mon Dec  8 16:01:03 2003
Subject: [EM] Automated CR Strategy
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20031207224638.050e9e60@pop.qsi.net.nz>
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312081525230.7413-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

It seems to me that you are saying (as Kevin has deciphered) that you
don't like randomness in election methods.

But interesting large scale public elections always have uncertainty
associated with them both before and after the counting, no matter the
method.

Most election methods externalize the uncertainties, and their advocates
spend little effort (if any) considering how voters are supposed to cope
with the uncertainties.

Approval also externalizes the uncertainties, but Approval advocates
recognize (per force) that Approval voters must cope with them in order to
maximize their voting power.

I suspect this aspect of Approval voting is what makes you uncomfortable.

Also I notice that you are more comfortable with concrete details than
with abstract generalities.  You would rather see things up close than see
the distant view, if I am not mistaken.

You share this cognitive preference with many others, and that is fine.
But I like to try to establish an over view of the big picture before
diving into the details.

You remind me of a very intelligent student I once had in a multivariate
calculus class who had trouble communicating his solution processes
because of a type of autism that he had been diagnosed with as a child.

He was extremely impatient with general explanations, but give him a
couple of detailed examples, and he was off and running.

I'm not saying that you have autism, but your communications have an eerie
similarity to those of that student.

You may have something much more valuable to say than I do.  I wish you
much success in communicating it.

Forest



From barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu  Mon Dec  8 16:59:06 2003
From: barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu (Steve Barney)
Date: Mon Dec  8 16:59:06 2003
Subject: [EM] FWD: An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!
Message-ID: <3FD294EE@webmail.uwosh.edu>

Here's an interesting piece of histeria about voting machinery. What do you 
think of it?

Steve Barney

>===== Original Message From "Eric A. Smith" <snowdog at juno.ocn.ne.jp> =====
I'm writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightenedI'm 
writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightened.



My name is Eric Smith. I'm a journalist and IT instructor in Tokyo. And after 
three years of study I've come to a terrifying conclusion. As British security 
expert Scott Granneman put it: "the heart of American democracy is at risk."



The import of this threat cannot be overstated -- the issue is very real and 
very grave. The chilling, incontrovertible fact is that America's elections 
are being silently, deliberately and PERMANENTLY compromised. The problem lies 
in the rapid installation of unauditable, unverifiable DRE (Direct Recording 
Electronic) touchscreen voting machines in advance of the 2004 elections.



Just how vulnerable are these machines? Author Bev Harris's diagrammed 
analysis of the "hacking" of a Diebold "Accuvote" machine to reverse an 
election proves it's not just possible -- it's easy:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm#password



These e-voting machines are being quietly installed across the country in 
preparation for the 2004 election, as per the characteristically 
disingenuously-named "Help America Vote Act" President Bush mandated in the 
wake of the 2000 debacle.



Alarming summaries of independent research by Johns Hopkins and Rice 
University, MIT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and even Congress echo 
Harris's concerns:

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030724_evote_research_report.pdf

http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php

http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/crsreport.pdf



The full extent of the threat to our electoral process has been documented in 
Harris's explosive expose, "Black Box Voting", which  can be downloaded free 
of charge here:

http://www.talion.com/blackboxvoting.org.htm



In light of these stunning vulnerabilities, US Representative Rush Holt has 
sponsored "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003" which 
which calls for printed receipts for the 2004 and subsequent elections:

http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996



Unfortunately, Republican support hasn't been forthcoming, and the measure has 
stalled. Because of the stillborn status of Rep. Holt's initiative, the 
outlook for Americans is rapidly worsening to the point of emergency: 
primaries for the 2004 election will begin in two months.



And so, I'm writing to ask -- in fact to BEG -- for your help in seeking an 
immediate moratorium on the use of paperless, unverifiable e-vote machines in 
the 2004 election. The use of paper ballots may be the only interim solution 
to assure a verifiable election: DREs which produce verifiable paper receipts 
are available, but are not currently in widespread use.



An immediate legal injunction to halt the use of non-verifiable DREs in the 
2004 election is a stop-gap emergency measure, perhaps at this late date the 
only way to ensure the integrity of our Democratic process. Over the long 
term, lobbying for the implementation of Congressman Holt's Voter Integrity 
Act will provide a more permanent solution.



Today,  I'm asking you to aggressively and persistentky bring the legal and 
personnel resources of your organization into the effort to save our electoral 
process.  Before it's too late.



Steps you can take right now:



1.        Sign the online e-petitions at EFF and VerifiedVoting.org:

                http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

                http://www.verifiedvoting.org



2.        Bev Harris is in immediate need of attorneys for coordinating legal 
injunctions to stop insecure voting machine use before the 2004 primaries:

                Bevharriscontact at aol.com



3.        Solicit the help of your organization's members in lobbying Congress 
to support Rep. Holt's Voter Integrity Act:

                http://www.visi.com/juan/congress                           
http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996



            Just in from VerifiedVoting.org:

               DECEMBER 2nd - 8th IS HR2239 WEEK!!!

One more week until the Congressional session is over (probably).
One more week this year to make a huge difference.
One more week to call Representatives at 1-800-839-5276 and urge support.
Start today.


4.        Lobby your state's elections boards to require verifiable, secure 
voting machines:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html



5.        Contact your friends, family, associates and the media:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/

http://newslink.org

http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/



Act now - your country needs you. And the time is getting very, very short.



Tomorrow might be just one day too late.



sincerely,

Eric A. Smith

Tokyo, Japan

81-03-3959-5371





RESOURCES

Congress:

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/



State elections boards:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html



State Attorneys General (party affiliations listed):

http://www.naag.org/ag/full_ag_table.php



Rep. Rush Holt:

http://holt.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=holt&type=Contact%20Rush



E-mail campaign links:

http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

http://www.verifiedvoting.org



Alternative e-voting machines:

http://www.accupoll.com/

http://www.aitechnology.com/avantetech/home.html

http://www.vogueelection.com/



Media Contacts:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/

http://newslink.org

http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/



BACKGROUND

Compelling evidence for the gravity of the situation can be found in the 
following "smoking gun" internal emails from Diebold. As you've no doubt 
heard, the company began a desperate attempt at suppressing the distribution 
of these emails on the Internet, in a series of gag lawsuits succesfully 
countered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation last month.



One of these emails  -- from Lana Hires to Global Election Systems (now 
Diebold) -- baldly states how 16 THOUSAND e-votes for Gore were "disappeared" 
during the 2000 Presidential election. Hires frantically asks how she should 
explain this to an auditor:



<I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have 
been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave 
Al Gore a minus 16022 [votes] when it was uploaded. Will someone please 
explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of 
standing here "looking dumb"



Additional excerpts from the Diebold internal emails:



<For a demonstration I suggest you fake it. Progam them both so they look the 
same, and then just do the upload fro [sic] the AV. That is what we did in the 
last AT/AV demo.



<Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its 
contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new.



<Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I 
have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed.



<Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots. 
They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of polls 
on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry for 
Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the media, 
as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or print any 
Election Results before the Polls closed. However, if there is a way that we 
can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even better.



"Diebold - The face of modern ballot tampering"

http://www.bartcop.com/diebold.htm



"If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm



"How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election"

http://www.infernalpress.com/Columns/election.html



"Safeguarding the Vote"

http://www.yesmagazine.org./26courage/pibel.htm



"Electronic Voting Machines Blasted by Scientists, Hacked by Author"

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00198.htm



Last month, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley mandated that 
Californians be provided with a verifiable paper trail in future elections:

http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2003/03_106.pdf



From elloyd at lancaster.lib.pa.us  Thu Dec 11 12:05:41 2003
From: elloyd at lancaster.lib.pa.us (Eron Lloyd)
Date: Thu Dec 11 12:05:41 2003
Subject: [EM] FWD: An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!
In-Reply-To: <3FD294EE@webmail.uwosh.edu>
References: <3FD294EE@webmail.uwosh.edu>
Message-ID: <200312111504.28253.elloyd@lancaster.lib.pa.us>

I think a better phrase for it is valid concern. This issue to me is far more 
critical than just about anything else related to elections. If you haven't 
yet done some homework on this, it deserves it.

Eron

On Monday 08 December 2003 7:59 pm, Steve Barney wrote:
> Here's an interesting piece of histeria about voting machinery. What do you
> think of it?
>
> Steve Barney
>
> >===== Original Message From "Eric A. Smith" <snowdog at juno.ocn.ne.jp> =====
>
> I'm writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightenedI'm
> writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightened.
>
>
>
> My name is Eric Smith. I'm a journalist and IT instructor in Tokyo. And
> after three years of study I've come to a terrifying conclusion. As British
> security expert Scott Granneman put it: "the heart of American democracy is
> at risk."
>
>
>
> The import of this threat cannot be overstated -- the issue is very real
> and very grave. The chilling, incontrovertible fact is that America's
> elections are being silently, deliberately and PERMANENTLY compromised. The
> problem lies in the rapid installation of unauditable, unverifiable DRE
> (Direct Recording Electronic) touchscreen voting machines in advance of the
> 2004 elections.
>
>
>
> Just how vulnerable are these machines? Author Bev Harris's diagrammed
> analysis of the "hacking" of a Diebold "Accuvote" machine to reverse an
> election proves it's not just possible -- it's easy:
>
> http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm#password
>
>
>
> These e-voting machines are being quietly installed across the country in
> preparation for the 2004 election, as per the characteristically
> disingenuously-named "Help America Vote Act" President Bush mandated in the
> wake of the 2000 debacle.
>
>
>
> Alarming summaries of independent research by Johns Hopkins and Rice
> University, MIT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and even Congress echo
> Harris's concerns:
>
> http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030724_evote_research_report.pdf
>
> http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/
>
> http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php
>
> http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/crsreport.pdf
>
>
>
> The full extent of the threat to our electoral process has been documented
> in Harris's explosive expose, "Black Box Voting", which  can be downloaded
> free of charge here:
>
> http://www.talion.com/blackboxvoting.org.htm
>
>
>
> In light of these stunning vulnerabilities, US Representative Rush Holt has
> sponsored "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003"
> which which calls for printed receipts for the 2004 and subsequent
> elections:
>
> http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996
>
>
>
> Unfortunately, Republican support hasn't been forthcoming, and the measure
> has stalled. Because of the stillborn status of Rep. Holt's initiative, the
> outlook for Americans is rapidly worsening to the point of emergency:
> primaries for the 2004 election will begin in two months.
>
>
>
> And so, I'm writing to ask -- in fact to BEG -- for your help in seeking an
> immediate moratorium on the use of paperless, unverifiable e-vote machines
> in the 2004 election. The use of paper ballots may be the only interim
> solution to assure a verifiable election: DREs which produce verifiable
> paper receipts are available, but are not currently in widespread use.
>
>
>
> An immediate legal injunction to halt the use of non-verifiable DREs in the
> 2004 election is a stop-gap emergency measure, perhaps at this late date
> the only way to ensure the integrity of our Democratic process. Over the
> long term, lobbying for the implementation of Congressman Holt's Voter
> Integrity Act will provide a more permanent solution.
>
>
>
> Today,  I'm asking you to aggressively and persistentky bring the legal and
> personnel resources of your organization into the effort to save our
> electoral process.  Before it's too late.
>
>
>
> Steps you can take right now:
>
>
>
> 1.        Sign the online e-petitions at EFF and VerifiedVoting.org:
>
>                 http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821
>
>                 http://www.verifiedvoting.org
>
>
>
> 2.        Bev Harris is in immediate need of attorneys for coordinating
> legal injunctions to stop insecure voting machine use before the 2004
> primaries:
>
>                 Bevharriscontact at aol.com
>
>
>
> 3.        Solicit the help of your organization's members in lobbying
> Congress to support Rep. Holt's Voter Integrity Act:
>
>                 http://www.visi.com/juan/congress
> http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996
>
>
>
>             Just in from VerifiedVoting.org:
>
>                DECEMBER 2nd - 8th IS HR2239 WEEK!!!
>
> One more week until the Congressional session is over (probably).
> One more week this year to make a huge difference.
> One more week to call Representatives at 1-800-839-5276 and urge support.
> Start today.
>
>
> 4.        Lobby your state's elections boards to require verifiable, secure
> voting machines:
>
> http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html
>
>
>
> 5.        Contact your friends, family, associates and the media:
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/
>
> http://newslink.org
>
> http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/
>
>
>
> Act now - your country needs you. And the time is getting very, very short.
>
>
>
> Tomorrow might be just one day too late.
>
>
>
> sincerely,
>
> Eric A. Smith
>
> Tokyo, Japan
>
> 81-03-3959-5371
>
>
>
>
>
> RESOURCES
>
> Congress:
>
> http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
>
>
>
> State elections boards:
>
> http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html
>
>
>
> State Attorneys General (party affiliations listed):
>
> http://www.naag.org/ag/full_ag_table.php
>
>
>
> Rep. Rush Holt:
>
> http://holt.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=holt&type=Contact%20Rush
>
>
>
> E-mail campaign links:
>
> http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821
>
> http://www.verifiedvoting.org
>
>
>
> Alternative e-voting machines:
>
> http://www.accupoll.com/
>
> http://www.aitechnology.com/avantetech/home.html
>
> http://www.vogueelection.com/
>
>
>
> Media Contacts:
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/
>
> http://newslink.org
>
> http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/
>
>
>
> BACKGROUND
>
> Compelling evidence for the gravity of the situation can be found in the
> following "smoking gun" internal emails from Diebold. As you've no doubt
> heard, the company began a desperate attempt at suppressing the
> distribution of these emails on the Internet, in a series of gag lawsuits
> succesfully countered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation last month.
>
>
>
> One of these emails  -- from Lana Hires to Global Election Systems (now
> Diebold) -- baldly states how 16 THOUSAND e-votes for Gore were
> "disappeared" during the 2000 Presidential election. Hires frantically asks
> how she should explain this to an auditor:
>
>
>
> <I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have
> been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216
> gave Al Gore a minus 16022 [votes] when it was uploaded. Will someone
> please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor
> instead of standing here "looking dumb"
>
>
>
> Additional excerpts from the Diebold internal emails:
>
>
>
> <For a demonstration I suggest you fake it. Progam them both so they look
> the same, and then just do the upload fro [sic] the AV. That is what we did
> in the last AT/AV demo.
>
>
>
> <Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its
> contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new.
>
>
>
> <Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I
> have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed.
>
>
>
> <Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots.
> They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of
> polls on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry
> for Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the
> media, as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or
> print any Election Results before the Polls closed. However, if there is a
> way that we can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even
> better.
>
>
>
> "Diebold - The face of modern ballot tampering"
>
> http://www.bartcop.com/diebold.htm
>
>
>
> "If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"
>
> http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm
>
>
>
> "How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election"
>
> http://www.infernalpress.com/Columns/election.html
>
>
>
> "Safeguarding the Vote"
>
> http://www.yesmagazine.org./26courage/pibel.htm
>
>
>
> "Electronic Voting Machines Blasted by Scientists, Hacked by Author"
>
> http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00198.htm
>
>
>
> Last month, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley mandated that
> Californians be provided with a verifiable paper trail in future elections:
>
> http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2003/03_106.pdf
>
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 14 07:30:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 14 07:30:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Voting Matters, Issue 17
Message-ID: <3FDC8197.625F6EB2@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Hallo,

I have uploaded issue 17 (October 2003) of "Voting Matters" (208 kB):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/issue17.pdf

This issue contains the following papers:

1. Douglas R. Woodall, "QPQ, a quota-preferential STV-like
   election rule," page 1-7,

2. Joe Otten, "Fuller Disclosure than Intended," page 8,

3. Markus Schulze, "A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent
   Single-Winner Election Method," page 9-19,

4. James Gilmour, "Calculation of Transfer Values -- Proposal
   for STV-PR Rules for Local Government Elections in Scotland,"
   page 20-24.

Markus Schulze


From davek at clarityconnect.com  Mon Dec 15 01:55:02 2003
From: davek at clarityconnect.com (Dave Ketchum)
Date: Mon Dec 15 01:55:02 2003
Subject: [EM] An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!]
Message-ID: <3FDD852F.8070600@clarityconnect.com>

"URGENT" is the right adjective!

Those of you in smaller countries need not laugh at US stupidity - what 
makes you think you can force your country to invest in building your own, 
when your country can copy whatever the US has blessed, no matter how 
stupid that may be!

A TRUE voting machine is NOT a complex device, as such things go:
      Inform the voter as to the ballot, and accept the vote.
      Maintain totals to report at end of election.
      Keep a diary of what happens.  This I see as doing on a write-once 
CD.  Copies can be made at end of election so that all who care to can 
verify what was in the machine as a program.
      Use ONLY open source, so that it is possible to verify whether this 
truly is a voting machine.
      Do not be concerned with voter identity, ONLY with quantity.  If a 
voter is allowed to vote twice the quantity will be wrong unless some 
other voter is prevented from voting - and the deprived voter properly 
complains.  Attend to validation of voter identity elsewhere.
      ALL of machine components are OPEN SOURCE, to permit validation.
      Secrecy of what a voter votes SHALL BE ABSOLUTE.
      I care not whether something gets printed, PROVIDED secrecy is 
maintained.

What might I do with a black box?
      Keep records internally, to know truth.
      If counts get big enough, bias them - perhaps 110% of truth for 
friends and 90% of truth for enemies.  I do not get caught unless more 
than 90% of the enemy voters turn up with receipts to demonstrate their 
count was low.

What might I do if I am into paying for good votes and/or punishing bad 
ones, and the pretense at secrecy involved human elements?  Pay those 
humans to tell me what I wish to know.

SUMMARY:  We NEED open source.
      Do not care about printed receipts, EXCEPT not acceptable if they 
destroy secrecy.
      Rep. Holt's effort is not sufficient. 
      Do not care how bad Diebold black boxes may be - NEED defense 
against evil that may be done more carefully.

Of all this the OPEN SOURCE is the critical item that deserves an 
injunction to ban anything else.  Any vendor offering open source has a 
strong incentive toward producing a TRUE voting machine, for they should 
not want to get caught producing anything else.
      Voting machines are a special case for we MUST demand voter secrecy, 
and thus MUST want vendors to WANT to do it right.
      Further, if we frown on vendors copying each other - if we buy only 
open source then all can see whether there is any copying.

BTW - when does secrecy matter?
      It is maintainable and matters when the true counts are near to a 
tie - this is when those into evil get active.
      It is impossible, and does not matter as to winning elections, when 
all, or almost all, vote one way.  It is certain, on nearly so, that Joe 
voted with the majority.  Those into evil care not if they have such a 
strong win, and are losing so catastrophically as not to care about 
details if they fail so badly.

-------- Original Message --------
From: Steve Barney <barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu>
To: election-methods-list <election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com>
Subject: [EM] FWD: An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!
Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2003 18:59:03 -0600

Here's an interesting piece of histeria about voting machinery. What do you
think of it?

Steve Barney

 >===== Original Message From "Eric A. Smith" <snowdog at juno.ocn.ne.jp> =====
I'm writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightenedI'm
writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightened.



My name is Eric Smith. I'm a journalist and IT instructor in Tokyo. And after
three years of study I've come to a terrifying conclusion. As British 
security
expert Scott Granneman put it: "the heart of American democracy is at risk."



The import of this threat cannot be overstated -- the issue is very real and
very grave. The chilling, incontrovertible fact is that America's elections
are being silently, deliberately and PERMANENTLY compromised. The problem 
lies
in the rapid installation of unauditable, unverifiable DRE (Direct Recording
Electronic) touchscreen voting machines in advance of the 2004 elections.



Just how vulnerable are these machines? Author Bev Harris's diagrammed
analysis of the "hacking" of a Diebold "Accuvote" machine to reverse an
election proves it's not just possible -- it's easy:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm#password



These e-voting machines are being quietly installed across the country in
preparation for the 2004 election, as per the characteristically
disingenuously-named "Help America Vote Act" President Bush mandated in the
wake of the 2000 debacle.



Alarming summaries of independent research by Johns Hopkins and Rice
University, MIT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and even Congress echo
Harris's concerns:

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030724_evote_research_report.pdf

http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php

http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/crsreport.pdf



The full extent of the threat to our electoral process has been documented in
Harris's explosive expose, "Black Box Voting", which  can be downloaded free
of charge here:

http://www.talion.com/blackboxvoting.org.htm



In light of these stunning vulnerabilities, US Representative Rush Holt has
sponsored "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003" 
which
which calls for printed receipts for the 2004 and subsequent elections:

http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996



Unfortunately, Republican support hasn't been forthcoming, and the measure 
has
stalled. Because of the stillborn status of Rep. Holt's initiative, the
outlook for Americans is rapidly worsening to the point of emergency:
primaries for the 2004 election will begin in two months.



And so, I'm writing to ask -- in fact to BEG -- for your help in seeking an
immediate moratorium on the use of paperless, unverifiable e-vote machines in
the 2004 election. The use of paper ballots may be the only interim solution
to assure a verifiable election: DREs which produce verifiable paper receipts
are available, but are not currently in widespread use.



An immediate legal injunction to halt the use of non-verifiable DREs in the
2004 election is a stop-gap emergency measure, perhaps at this late date the
only way to ensure the integrity of our Democratic process. Over the long
term, lobbying for the implementation of Congressman Holt's Voter Integrity
Act will provide a more permanent solution.



Today,  I'm asking you to aggressively and persistentky bring the legal and
personnel resources of your organization into the effort to save our 
electoral
process.  Before it's too late.



Steps you can take right now:



1.        Sign the online e-petitions at EFF and VerifiedVoting.org:

                 http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

                 http://www.verifiedvoting.org



2.        Bev Harris is in immediate need of attorneys for coordinating legal
injunctions to stop insecure voting machine use before the 2004 primaries:

                 Bevharriscontact at aol.com



3.        Solicit the help of your organization's members in lobbying 
Congress
to support Rep. Holt's Voter Integrity Act:

                 http://www.visi.com/juan/congress
http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996



             Just in from VerifiedVoting.org:

                DECEMBER 2nd - 8th IS HR2239 WEEK!!!

One more week until the Congressional session is over (probably).
One more week this year to make a huge difference.
One more week to call Representatives at 1-800-839-5276 and urge support.
Start today.


4.        Lobby your state's elections boards to require verifiable, secure
voting machines:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html



5.        Contact your friends, family, associates and the media:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/

http://newslink.org

http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/



Act now - your country needs you. And the time is getting very, very short.



Tomorrow might be just one day too late.



sincerely,

Eric A. Smith

Tokyo, Japan

81-03-3959-5371





RESOURCES

Congress:

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/



State elections boards:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html



State Attorneys General (party affiliations listed):

http://www.naag.org/ag/full_ag_table.php



Rep. Rush Holt:

http://holt.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=holt&type=Contact%20Rush



E-mail campaign links:

http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

http://www.verifiedvoting.org



Alternative e-voting machines:

http://www.accupoll.com/

http://www.aitechnology.com/avantetech/home.html

http://www.vogueelection.com/



Media Contacts:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/

http://newslink.org

http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/



BACKGROUND

Compelling evidence for the gravity of the situation can be found in the
following "smoking gun" internal emails from Diebold. As you've no doubt
heard, the company began a desperate attempt at suppressing the distribution
of these emails on the Internet, in a series of gag lawsuits succesfully
countered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation last month.



One of these emails  -- from Lana Hires to Global Election Systems (now
Diebold) -- baldly states how 16 THOUSAND e-votes for Gore were "disappeared"
during the 2000 Presidential election. Hires frantically asks how she should
explain this to an auditor:



<I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have
been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 
gave
Al Gore a minus 16022 [votes] when it was uploaded. Will someone please
explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of
standing here "looking dumb"



Additional excerpts from the Diebold internal emails:



<For a demonstration I suggest you fake it. Progam them both so they look the
same, and then just do the upload fro [sic] the AV. That is what we did in 
the
last AT/AV demo.



<Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its
contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new.



<Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I
have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed.



<Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots.
They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of polls
on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry for
Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the media,
as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or print any
Election Results before the Polls closed. However, if there is a way that we
can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even better.



"Diebold - The face of modern ballot tampering"

http://www.bartcop.com/diebold.htm



"If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm



"How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election"

http://www.infernalpress.com/Columns/election.html



"Safeguarding the Vote"

http://www.yesmagazine.org./26courage/pibel.htm



"Electronic Voting Machines Blasted by Scientists, Hacked by Author"

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00198.htm



Last month, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley mandated that
Californians be provided with a verifiable paper trail in future elections:

http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2003/03_106.pdf
-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.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.



From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Mon Dec 15 12:24:03 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Mon Dec 15 12:24:03 2003
Subject: [EM] An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!]
In-Reply-To: <3FDD852F.8070600@clarityconnect.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312151212050.10962-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Dave Ketchum wrote:

>       Further, if we frown on vendors copying each other - if we buy only
> open source then all can see whether there is any copying.
>

What computer scientist would be so stupid that he couldn't figure out how
to write a "For Loop" for adding up a bunch of numbers?

That's the first assignment in computer science 101.

Why would he need to copy somebody else's code?

There is absolutely no excuse for hiding the source code.

It's not like Colonel Sanders' secret recipe of herbs and spices, for
Pete's sake; it's just addition, our common inheritance from Count Dracula
on Sesame Street!

Forest



From dglaude at gmx.net  Mon Dec 15 13:55:42 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Mon Dec 15 13:55:42 2003
Subject: [EM] An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!]
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312151212050.10962-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
References: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312151212050.10962-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
Message-ID: <3FDE292A.5040301@gmx.net>

Does anybody here believe a vendor will make any effort to write clean, 
standard, bug free, documented code if there is no reward for it, no 
penalty for ugly non-verifiable code and only insider will have a look 
at it?

Open Source, not Free Software (prefered) is the solution:
1) Only expert can read the code... 99.9% of the population must trust 
the other.
2) Durring the election, there is no way to know what software do run in 
the computer.

We have the code of Belgian e-voting system and we are unhappy with it:

http://www.afront.be/lib/vote.html
<<
Casual inspection off the code reveals obvious errors (3),(5) from which 
we deduce scant peer review of the code, if any, has taken place. Nor do 
we see evidence that somebody has tackled the problem of creating 
entropy for the encryption keys (2). Also troubling is the fact that 
keeping the voting anonymous isn't high on the priorities list: global 
and stack variables are not zeroed after their useful lifetime has 
expired (1).

1) You do NOT vote in secret.
2) Generating entropy is a detail left to the compiler, if at all.
3) Using variables outside their defined scope.
4) There's not enough space to write a 64-bit hash to the card, so only 
24 bits get written.
5) another OBVIOUS error that has escaped peer review:
 >>

As computer scientist... the one I like best is
void Generate_Mav_Session ()
{
    randomize();                // initializes random number generator

    for( int i=0; i < DESKEYLEN; i++)
       mavSessionKey [i] = random( 10) + '0'; // '0' to '9' is possible

    mavSessionKey [i] = 0;
}

A real compiler should not accept that...
After the loop, "i" should be undefined.
So saying "mavSessionKey [i] = 0;" should not compile and if it is 
compiled, then the behaviour is undefined and maybe unpredictable.

Will it be DESKEYLEN-1? DESKEYLEN? or DESKEYLEN+1? or it depend on stack 
usage durring interrupt (IRQ).

David GLAUDE

Forest Simmons wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Dave Ketchum wrote:
> 
>>      Further, if we frown on vendors copying each other - if we buy only
>>open source then all can see whether there is any copying.
> 
> What computer scientist would be so stupid that he couldn't figure out how
> to write a "For Loop" for adding up a bunch of numbers?
> 
> That's the first assignment in computer science 101.





From davek at clarityconnect.com  Mon Dec 15 21:21:01 2003
From: davek at clarityconnect.com (Dave Ketchum)
Date: Mon Dec 15 21:21:01 2003
Subject: [EM] An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!]
References: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312151212050.10962-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu> <3FDE292A.5040301@gmx.net>
Message-ID: <3FDE9658.7030301@clarityconnect.com>

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 22:35:38 +0100 David GLAUDE wrote:

> Does anybody here believe a vendor will make any effort to write clean, 
> standard, bug free, documented code if there is no reward for it, no 
> penalty for ugly non-verifiable code and only insider will have a look 
> at it?


Any PROPER contract has rewards for quality and penalties for failure.

"non-verifiable" reads as cause for rejection, though such a phrase may be 
hard to define.

"only insiders" is not acceptable - agreed the general public is neither 
able nor willing.  Some validation should get done by contract, but anyone 
willing should be permitted to inspect to their heart's content.

> 
> Open Source, not Free Software (prefered) is the solution:
> 1) Only expert can read the code... 99.9% of the population must trust 
> the other.


Not quite:
      Given a million population, that gives me 1,000 experts.  Only need 
a few of them working at it.
      The state, knowing of the experts, should test, rather than risking 
getting caught not taking this step.
      The vendors should not want to risk getting caught - and the 
contract should provide punishment:
           A little bit for the expectable unintentional errors.
           REAL punishment for deliberate false content.

As to debating validity of a particular set of tools, I am not prepared, 
nor is this amount of detail important this early.  Some words about 
quality can be useful.

Apparently "Open Source" identifies particular tools - I said "open 
source" to identify a way of proceeding without identifying particular tools.


> 2) Durring the election, there is no way to know what software do run in 
> the computer.


I do not have complete design, but my initial thoughts are:
      A write-ONCE CD is prepared containing program and ballot definition 
for this voting machine - leaving lots of empty space.
      Load machine ready to open polls, including something unique, 
perhaps partly contributed by poll watchers, such that content of this 
machine could not have been predicted ahead of time.
      Official invokes "Open Polls".  This locks machine 
against interference with its task.  It records current memory content on 
the CD, after which polls are open for voting.
      Votes get recorded on the CD at time polls close and perhaps during 
the election if volume requires this.  They are recorded in blocks which 
are constructed in memory with the votes in random order to preserve secrecy.
      Official invokes "Close Polls".  Machine records memory on the CD, 
after which it unlocks.
      Multiple copies of the CD should be made RIGHT NOW, such that those 
who wonder what was in the machine can look for themselves.

> 
> We have the code of Belgian e-voting system and we are unhappy with it:
> 
> http://www.afront.be/lib/vote.html
> <<
> Casual inspection off the code reveals obvious errors (3),(5) from which 
> we deduce scant peer review of the code, if any, has taken place. Nor do 
> we see evidence that somebody has tackled the problem of creating 
> entropy for the encryption keys (2). Also troubling is the fact that 
> keeping the voting anonymous isn't high on the priorities list: global 
> and stack variables are not zeroed after their useful lifetime has 
> expired (1).
> 
> 1) You do NOT vote in secret.
> 2) Generating entropy is a detail left to the compiler, if at all.
> 3) Using variables outside their defined scope.
> 4) There's not enough space to write a 64-bit hash to the card, so only 
> 24 bits get written.
> 5) another OBVIOUS error that has escaped peer review:
>  >>
> 
> As computer scientist... the one I like best is
> void Generate_Mav_Session ()
> {
>    randomize();                // initializes random number generator
> 
>    for( int i=0; i < DESKEYLEN; i++)
>       mavSessionKey [i] = random( 10) + '0'; // '0' to '9' is possible
> 
>    mavSessionKey [i] = 0;
> }

 From this distance I DO NOT KNOW what the language you are using might 
say about this.  If the compiler tolerates something the language forbids, 
THEN it is time to complain.
      Also time to complain about use of a language if THE LANGUAGE too 
permissive as to dangerous coding practices.

randomize catches my eye.  For MANY uses such a routine must produce a 
predictable result, to make tests repeatable.  For the randomizing of 
order of votes that I write of above, the location of the initial vote in 
the block must, itself, be random to preserve voter secrecy.

> 
> A real compiler should not accept that...
> After the loop, "i" should be undefined.
> So saying "mavSessionKey [i] = 0;" should not compile and if it is 
> compiled, then the behaviour is undefined and maybe unpredictable.
> 
> Will it be DESKEYLEN-1? DESKEYLEN? or DESKEYLEN+1? or it depend on stack 
> usage durring interrupt (IRQ).
> 
> David GLAUDE
> 
> Forest Simmons wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Dave Ketchum wrote:
>>
>>>      Further, if we frown on vendors copying each other - if we buy only
>>> open source then all can see whether there is any copying.
>>
>>
>> What computer scientist would be so stupid that he couldn't figure out how
>> to write a "For Loop" for adding up a bunch of numbers?
>>
>> That's the first assignment in computer science 101.
> 

Who, trying to solve the problem of constructing a voting machine, would 
not realize that, while the task is simple compared to many computer 
tasks, the above thought is not useful.  Among the considerations:
      There are many ways of voting, such a Plurality, Approval, IRV, 
Condorcet, etc.
      Write-ins must be attended to.
      Must check whether voter has completed all of the voting intended.
      Some voters need special services, such as being blind.
      Getting from a list of offices to be voted on, to a ballot that is 
convenient for the voter, without being especially demanding of the 
election official needing to solve the problem, is a NONtrivial task.
-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.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.



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 16 16:22:31 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 16 16:22:31 2003
Subject: [EM] Voting Matters, Issue 17
Message-ID: <3FDFA0F1.FBC51219@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Hallo,

I forward a conversation between Craig Carey and me about
issue 17 of Voting Matters.

**********************************************************

> To: single-transferable-vote at yahoogroups.com
> From: Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
> Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 23:09:23 +1300
> Subject: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
> http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-December/011387.html
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/12838
>
> --->
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
>
> >[EM] Voting Matters, Issue 17
> >Markus Schulze markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de
> >Sun Dec 14 07:30:01 2003
> >
> >...
> >I have uploaded issue 17 (October 2003) of "Voting Matters" (208 kB):
> >http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/issue17.pdf
> >
> >This issue contains the following papers:
> >
> >1. Douglas R. Woodall, "QPQ, a quota-preferential STV-like
> >   election rule," page 1-7,
> >
> >2. Joe Otten, "Fuller Disclosure than Intended," page 8,
> >
> >3. Markus Schulze, "A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent
> >   Single-Winner Election Method," page 9-19,
> >
> >4. James Gilmour, "Calculation of Transfer Values -- Proposal
> >   for STV-PR Rules for Local Government Elections in Scotland,"
> >   page 20-24.
> >
> >Markus Schulze
> _______________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
> Just in case members needed a review here is one
>
>
> (4) ---------------- [from below]
>
> I agree with the with the view of Mr Gilmour that more than 2
> significant digits is needed when computing STV.
>
>  * using only 2 decimal digits is arbitrary. I was assuming
>    that arbitrariness is a way a line of consideration that
>    can lead to rejection of a preferential voting method.
>
>   Possibly a superior idea to
>    * getting the correct leaders elected (i.e. "accuracy")
>   is:
>    * avoiding the arbitrariness that occurs when the winners
>      were wrong but there are other ways to get the winners
>      wrong. So the reasoning was inadequate.
>
>  Once replacing need-for-accuracy with a lack-of=-arbitrariness,
>   then to that can be added this idea:
>    * politicians might be right to reject a preferential voting
>      if it is arbitrary
>
> Minimal arbitrariness can allow the least popular candidate to
> be the winner.  Politicians can't use the word accuracy
> when talking about winners if not knowing who the correct
> winners are. They just won't do the maths of casting
> n-D shadows which is the best possible so not arbitrary.
>
>
>
> (1) ----------------
>
> (a) Mr Otten says that STV papers be kept secret. That article
> fails to be very clear on when. Governments could have their
> statistian produce hard to believe stroies on how it would be
> expensive to anonymize the ballot paper preferences. It could
> cost between 100 and 200 dollars.
>
> (b) Surely before the election the papers are already secret.
> Mr Wichmann missed these unclear parts of the paper:
> (b)(1) before vs after ?: when is secrecy needed ?
> The text of Mr Wichmann at the top suggests that secrecy
> maybe would occur long after the election is finished:
>
>      "The paper of Joe Otten arose from a
>       resolution put to the ERS AGM requesting
>       that the full election data of the
>       preferences specified should be available
>       for STV elections. (Such disclosure was
>       available for the three Irish constituencies
>       for which electronic voting was em-ployed in
>       the June 2002 elections.) The paper explains
>       a potential danger from full disclosure with
>       a proposed resolution."
>
>  * who is the wrong doer that would be thwarted by
>    secrecy over what is on STV ballot papers?.
>
> 
> (c)
> STV allows advantage to be gained by saying how to vote.
> The gain could be huge.
> But offender is the algorithm: it would divert votes from a
> possible winner to a 3rd candidate while simultaneously
> actually keeping the power under control. Elections are one
> process where the prime aim of people is to manipulate the
> results. So what is wrong with a candidate manipulating ?.
> Similarly the targetting of enemies is allowed. Suppose a
> Tory leader tripped and was zoomed in on by TV cameras after
> a Labour backbencher winked and whistled.
>
> Further suppose the Labour MP was not a corrupt person
> and thus not barred to national politics. It he is not
> guilty of corruptly tripping the man up, then it was
> excessively manipulative. But the aim in elections is for
> every voter to be maximally manipulative.
>
> A good reason from withholding information would be to
> stop wrongdoing by an individual. Maybe society gets harmed
> by the manipulation that STV could allow. But perhaps no
> court or judge has restarted an election because it was
> snowing on election day or etc.. A  solution could be to
> have a Green say
>  "You need and now want STV. Wrong results will follow
>   from the use of dumb preferential voting algorithms".
>
>
>
> (2) ----------------
>
> I have not looked at Mr Woodall's method.
>
> It could be tested numerically.
> E.g. this way:
> (1) for both 3 candidates and 4 candidates, it is better
>   in the 2 cases, or worse. Then maybe a 5 candidate
>   test could be put off.
> (2) 5 candidate testing is done and some more strict
>   rules may be needed.  That would involve days of
>   programming and more.
>
> I have already defined the fairness polytope and its
> dual for the 1 winner 4 candidate election. Porta
> can compute dual polytopes. That would be extended
> for 2w4c,1w5c,2w5c,3w5c,4w5c cases, Then hand
> steering of 2 points finds the longest line segment
> that violates a constraint. There may be too many
> papers for manual navigating when 5 candidates and
> 2 winners, for the truncating can only be done after
> the 2nd/last of papers naming both candidates.
> So an optimizer is needed and one that has a chance
> of finding an answer is one that locates the slope
> and position of the Boolean boundary. I assume that
> it still might not be written in 1 year's time. I
> don't know.
>
> The method of D R Woodall uses one by one eliminating
> which I assume is the source of the problems and so
> I don't suspect it would turn out to be a long
> lasting method.
>
> Both numerically and symbolically, a researcher has
> to develop general purpose solving tools that are
> likely to be useful outside of preferential voting.
> The non-linear optimizer is missing.
>
>
> (3) ----------------
>
> Mr Schulze's article.
>
> Before I get to that I quote this text of the editor, Mr Wichmann:
>
>      "It has been decided that the Editor should
>       ensure that the main points of such papers
>       are intelligible to non-mathematical readers
>       by placing an appropriate summary here."
>
> The whole article of Mr Schulze is unbelievable.
>
> A defective spot in Mr Schulze's article is this:
>
>      "4 Implementation
>       ...
>       It cannot be said frequently that the order
>       of the indices in the triple-loop of the
>       Floyd algorithm is not irrelevant."
>
> The principle of having the winner unaffected by the lettering
> might be failed.
>
> E.g. this could happen. (The only change is a reordering
> of ALL the for loops inside of the algorithm):
>
>   Harry (=#1) Winner
>   Horace (=#2) Loser
>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
>
>   Harry (=#2) Loser
>   Horace (=#1) Winner
>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
>
> Mr Schulze's "neutrality" principle prevents the problem (if
> any). The text  "neutral" is absent from the PDF article.
> An error at the top of the algorithm passes into the rest of
> the code and make analysis more complex.
>
> There ought be a program that tests and that writes out numbers.

**********************************************************

> To: single-transferable-vote at yahoogroups.com
> From: Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
> Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 15:40:28 +0100
> Subject: Re: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
> Dear Craig,
>
> you wrote (15 Dec 2003):
>
> > A defective spot in Mr Schulze's article is this:
> >
> >      "4 Implementation
> >       ...
> >       It cannot be said frequently that the order
> >       of the indices in the triple-loop of the
> >       Floyd algorithm is not irrelevant."
> >
> > The principle of having the winner unaffected by the lettering
> > might be failed.
> >
> > E.g. this could happen. (The only change is a reordering
> > of ALL the for loops inside of the algorithm):
> >
> >   Harry (=#1) Winner
> >   Horace (=#2) Loser
> >   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
> >
> >   Harry (=#2) Loser
> >   Horace (=#1) Winner
> >   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
>
> The Floyd algorithm is a shortest-path algorithm. When I said that
> "the order of the indices in the triple-loop of the Floyd algorithm
> is not irrelevant" then I meant that you have to consider the
> possible short cuts in the mentioned order. Otherwise the Floyd
> algorithm does not work (i.e. does not give the correct result).
>
> I wrote:
>
> > for i : = 1 to N do
> > for j : = 1 to N do
> > if ( i <> j ) then
> > for k : = 1 to N do
> > if ( i <> k ) then
> > if ( j <> k ) then
> >    {
> >     s : = min { p[j,i], p[i,k] } ;
> >     if ( p[j,k] < s ) then
> >     p[j,k] : = s ;
> >    }
>
> However, Mike Ossipoff always describes the Floyd algorithm as
> follows:
>
> > for i in range(N)
> > for j in range(N)
> > for k in range(N)
> >    low=min(B[A(i,j)],B[A(j,k)]
> >    if low>B[A(i,k)]
> >    B[A(i,k)]=low
>
> This does not work (i.e. this does not find the correct values
> for the shortest paths).
>
> Markus Schulze

**********************************************************

> To: single-transferable-vote at yahoogroups.com
> From: Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
> Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 15:35:22 +1300
> Subject: Re: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
> At 2003-12-15 15:40 +0100 Monday, Markus Schulze wrote:
> >Dear Craig,
> >
> >you wrote (15 Dec 2003):
> >
> >> A defective spot in Mr Schulze's article is this:
> >>
> >>      "4 Implementation
> >>       ...
> >>       It cannot be said frequently that the order
> >>       of the indices in the triple-loop of the
> >>       Floyd algorithm is not irrelevant."
> >>
>
> That is ambiguous and means: *all* 'for loops', or *some* of them
>
> >> The principle of having the winner unaffected by the lettering
> >> might be failed.
> >>
> >> E.g. this could happen. (The only change is a reordering
> >> of ALL the for loops inside of the algorithm):
> >>
> >>   Harry (=#1) Winner
> >>   Horace (=#2) Loser
> >>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
> >>
> >>   Harry (=#2) Loser
> >>   Horace (=#1) Winner
> >>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
> >
>
> I.e. secret internal relettering (or renaming or renumbering) inside
> of the algorithm affects who the winner is.
>
> You could answer these this question:
>
>   1. Does your method fail the test.
>
>     You could write a Monte-Carlo routine.
>
> It seems the McDougall Trust operation is prepared to leave no
> stone unturned in order to exclude me when decisions to reject
> (all or parts of) submitted articles are made. I don't know if I
> can get things into the journal.
>
>
> >The Floyd algorithm is a shortest-path algorithm. When I said that
> >"the order of the indices in the triple-loop of the Floyd algorithm
> >is not irrelevant" then I meant that you have to consider the
> >possible short cuts in the mentioned order. Otherwise the Floyd
> >algorithm does not work (i.e. does not give the correct result).
>
> I am expecting a rejection of the method, and not any clarification
> of previous wordings about the method.
>
> And as you know, there is other allegation that would make your method
> too unlike ST to ever promote here, which is that the specifiying or
> not specifying the very last preference affects the winners when in
> neither case there was a tie. Your algorithm creates the mistake in
> the first lines and then sends it into the cyclic washing machine of
> the for loops. It is plain when the algebra is done. I suppose the
> purpose is that you have no idea of what you are doing when designing
> and then have an idea that you should not discard the result.
>
> Since you prefer wording up ideas, how would you word uop the idea of
> not discarding an unsatisfactory method that obviously no one else
> would get serious over using. To fix the mistakes would lead to less
> complexity. So readers need not look at your arguments.
>
> It does not matter whether your method is monotonic: it should be
> rejected while people presume my allegations are correct.
>
>
> >I wrote:
> >
> >> for i : = 1 to N do
> >> for j : = 1 to N do
> >> if ( i <> j ) then
> >> for k : = 1 to N do
> >> if ( i <> k ) then
> >> if ( j <> k ) then
> >>    {
> >>     s : = min { p[j,i], p[i,k] } ;
> >>     if ( p[j,k] < s ) then
> >>     p[j,k] : = s ;
> >>    }
> >
>
> That is incomprehensible to me.
>
>
> >However, Mike Ossipoff always describes the Floyd algorithm as
> >follows: 
> >
> >> for i in range(N)
> >> for j in range(N)
> >> for k in range(N)
> >>    low=min(B[A(i,j)],B[A(j,k)]
> >>    if low>B[A(i,k)]
> >>    B[A(i,k)]=low
> >
> >This does not work (i.e. this does not find the correct values
> >for the shortest paths).
> >
>
> That is a dud argument or no argument.
>
> Your method is in the trash can for failing 2 tests. Can you get
> it out ? (rather than being creating natural language statements),
>
> I would not use the word correct but say "as intended". You seem
> to be in private communication with Mr Ossipoff.
>
> The main idea is that tests are ordered in a sequence and once a
> failure occurs, then there is no need to read about your untrusted
> arguments indicating that the method is failed under this particular
> check.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Regarding my comment on Mr Woodall's method, I missed a way to
> test the method and compare it with Meek STV. I could use REDLOG
> to derive a 2 winner 2 preference 4 candidate method and then simply
> see which of the 2 STV-like methods is most similar. REDLOG was
> making mistakes and I could have tried hard to debug the output
> of the German software. Due to the grand plan of eliminating the
> German university's QE solver, I am now unable to compare Meek STV
> with the D R Woodall method.
>
> Testing using a sequence of:
>    * 1 preference methods, then
>    * 2 preference methods, then
>    * 3 preference methods, ...;
> seems to be a bit plausible.
>
> Craig Carey

**********************************************************

> To: single-transferable-vote at yahoogroups.com
> From: Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
> Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 10:14:17 +0100
> Subject: Re: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
> Dear Craig,
>
> I wrote (15 Dec 2003):
> > The Floyd algorithm is a shortest-path algorithm. When I said that
> > "the order of the indices in the triple-loop of the Floyd algorithm
> > is not irrelevant" then I meant that you have to consider the
> > possible short cuts in the mentioned order. Otherwise the Floyd
> > algorithm does not work (i.e. does not give the correct result).
>
> You wrote (16 Dec 2003):
> > That is incomprehensible to me.
>
> You can find Floyd's shortest-path algorithm in many books on graph
> theory or combinatorial optimization. When you cannot find any good
> book on Floyd's shortest-path algorithm then I suggest that you
> should implement Dijkstra's shortest-path algorithm. Also Dijkstra's
> shortest-path algorithm has a runtime of O(N^3), where N is the
> number of candidates; the main reason why I use Floyd's algorithm
> and not Dijkstra's algorithm in my paper is that the source code
> of Dijkstra's algorithm is significantly longer. However, Dijkstra's
> algorithm is significantly less difficult to understand. ("Dijkstra"
> is also known as "Dykstra".)
>
> By the way: The proofs that my method is well defined and satisfies
> Pareto, monotonicity, resolvability, independence from clones,
> reversal symmetry, and Woodall's plurality criterion do not
> presume that I use Floyd's algorithm.
>
> You wrote (16 Dec 2003):
> > Since you prefer wording up ideas, how would you word uop the idea
> > of not discarding an unsatisfactory method that obviously no one
> > else would get serious over using.
>
> My method is already used by the "Software in the Public Interest"
> (SPI) project and the DEBIAN project.
>
> Markus Schulze

**********************************************************

> Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 08:25:39 +1300
> To: Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
> From: Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
> Subject: Single-Transferable-Vote: I moderated your addres
>
> To: Theoretician Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
> Subject: Re: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
>
> I am moderating your e-mail address : markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de
>
> I shall delay sending reasoning and I may not even send reasoning.
> But I would e-mail reasoning if you request that information.
>
> Remember that we know that you believe during these days when you
> try to present yourself as never having heard the word. The aspect
> of withholding leads me to moderate your future messages.
>
> Recall that you wrote this:
>
> __________________________>__
> At 1998-04-24 17:07 +0200 Friday, Markus Schulze wrote:
> >Dear Mike, dear David,
> >
> ...
> >   To my opinion, it is not possible, that B is elected, because
> >   this would be a violation of the Neutrality Criterion (i.e.,
> >   every candidate is treated equally), the Anonymity Criterion
> >   (i.e., every voter is treated equally) or the Weak Monotonicity
> ...
> >
> >Markus
> __________________________<__
>
> The words "not possible" seem to rule out that you were tentative and
> unsure, on the so called "neutrality" rule.
>
> Is it your opinion that the method in the PDF file passes a neutrality
> rule ?. If so, then there is the other rule about the last preference
> being without an improper influence.
>
> ---
>
> You seemed to be in the wrong in 1988 as well, in that there is no
> need for a neutrality rule unless the set of principles is wrong.
>
> Re=lettering a, neutrality failing, preferential voting method would
> make it be multivalued in general.
>
> The right rules and excluding neutrality, don't lead to multivalued
> winner sets.
>
> So neutrality is implied by other right rules.
>
> Omitting one rule may fail to delete the rule.
>
>
> At 2003-12-16 10:14 +0100 Tuesday, Markus Schulze wrote:
> >Dear Craig,
> >
> >I wrote (15 Dec 2003):
> >> The Floyd algorithm is a shortest-path algorithm. When I said that
> >> "the order of the indices in the triple-loop of the Floyd algorithm
> >> is not irrelevant" then I meant that you have to consider the
> >> possible short cuts in the mentioned order. Otherwise the Floyd
> >> algorithm does not work (i.e. does not give the correct result).
> >
> >You wrote (16 Dec 2003):
> >> That is incomprehensible to me.
> >
> >You can find Floyd's shortest-path algorithm in many books on graph
> >theory or combinatorial optimization. When you cannot find any good
> >book on Floyd's shortest-path algorithm then I suggest that you
> ...
>
>
>
> You failed to reply to what I wrote.
>
> I maintain the worlds best mailing list on preferential voting.
>
> I am blocking you because your omitted information.
>
> A best defence for you could be to say that you would be writing
> two messages and the 2nd message would answer the questions (so
> you have to write software too: I guess you already did that but
> are keeping the results and the existence of the software, secret).
> Also the defence would say that the first message should have
> mentioned that another was coming.
>
> I I wouldn't alter it too much since it is currently able to
> persuade.
>
> Like the McDougall Trust said to me, we shall see how it goes, ie.
> where you go from here. It seems "not possible" that a follower of
> pairwise comparing would want to make a method be fair to
> the smallest minorities.
>
> Craig Carey
> Auckland


From jarmyta at antioch-college.edu  Wed Dec 17 21:24:02 2003
From: jarmyta at antioch-college.edu (James Green-Armytage)
Date: Wed Dec 17 21:24:02 2003
Subject: [EM] a strategic problem and possible remedy for Condorcet-efficient voting methods
Message-ID: <fc.005b8ffc00a0ae15005b8ffc00a0ae15.a0ae68@mcgregor.edu>

Dear election method fans,

	Below is a proposal for a voting procedure, preceded by a rationale for
that proposal, in sort of a paperish format. I hope that you find it
interesting. 
	Also, I would greatly appreciate it if people could tell me whether
similar procedures have been proposed before. 
	You see, I'm kind of thinking about trying to apply to graduate school
for economics in the next year or two. That's my big dream right now, and
they say that it's easier to get in if you have published something. So I
thought that I should try to publish something on voting methods, since
that's sort of related to economics, and I don't know as much about other
branches of economics. I have a few ideas that I want to try publishing,
but this is the first one that I want to pursue... unless it has already
been proposed! So if it has been, please let me know (and be gentle...),
but if not, please give me credit if you repeat the ideas elsewhere. Also,
if it is a viable subject I was wondering if you all could give me
feedback and help get it into some sort of publishable shape (It probably
needs to be much shorter!), and maybe some advice as to where to submit it
to.
	So, anyway, I will greatly appreciate your feedback either way.

my best,
James Green-Armytage

____________________

A Strategic Problem and Possible Remedy for Condorcet-Efficient Voting
Methods
by James Green-Armytage

	In designing a single-winner voting procedure for the purpose of majority
rule, I take it as axiomatic that it should always select a Condorcet
winner when one exists, since a Condorcet winner is preferred by a
majority over all other candidates.
	However, it seems that any ranked ballot vote processing rule that is
completely Condorcet efficient is also vulnerable to manipulation using a
strategy known as ?burying,? or ?offensive order reversal.?
	Let me try to illustrate this strategy using an example. There are 3
candidates: A, B, and C. There are 100 voters. The sincere preferences of
the voters are as follows:

46: A>B>C
44: B>A>C
5: C>A>B
5: C>B>A

	A is the sincere Condorcet winner, with no cycles present. However, B
voters can ?bury? A on their ballots by voting him last, which produces
this result:

46: A>B>C
44: B>C>A
5: C>A>B
5: C>B>A

	The pairwise comparisons are as follows:

A:B = 51:49
A:C = 46:54
B:C = 90:10

	Minimax drops A?s defeat over B (which has a magnitude of 51 votes and a
margin of 2 votes), leaving B the winner. This strategy has clearly paid
off for the B voters. Ranked pairs and beatpath do the same thing as
minimax in this example and all others in this paper, but for simplicity?s
sake let?s assume that the completion method being used is minimax.
	If the 46 A>B>C voters find out that the B voters are planning to use
this strategy, can they do anything to stop it? Yes and no. If the ballots
cast by the other 54 voters in the second situation above remain the same,
there is nothing that the 46 A>B>C voters can do to get A elected. The
only thing that they can do is to threaten to elect candidate C if the B
voters do not drop their order reversal strategy. 
	Their means of carrying out this threat varies depending on whether we
are using a version of minimax that is based on dropping defeats of least
margin (difference between winning and losing vote totals in pairwise
comparison) or least magnitude (winning vote totals in pairwise
comparison).
	If we are using a magnitude-based method, then in order for C to win, C
must beat or tie B, or the magnitude of B?s defeat over C must be less
than the magnitude of A?s defeat over B. The A>B>C voters can achieve this
if at least 40 of them truncate their ballots, voting A>B=C. For example:

40: A>B=C
6: A>B>C
44: B>C>A
5: C>A>B
5: C>B>A

A:B = 51:49
A:C = 46:54
B:C = 50:10

	If we are using a margins-based method, then in order for C to win, C
must beat or tie B, or the margin of B?s defeat over C must be less than
the margin of A?s defeat over B. In this case truncation on the part of
the A voters will not suffice, and they are forced to do some order
reversal of their own in order to carry through their threat and prevent
the B voters from stealing the election. At least 34 of the 46 A>B>C
voters need to do this for it to work, for example:

34: A>C>B
12: A>B=C
5: C>A>B
5: C>B>A

A:B = 51:49
A:C = 46:54
B:C = 44:44

	So, these are some of the ways that A can derail the B voters? burying
strategy and punish them with the election of C. However, the election of
C is a very undesirable result in itself, and it is not clear whether the
A voters? threat will scare the B voters into voting sincerely, resulting
in the election of A. Perhaps the B voters will carry through their
burying plan, without the A voters following through on their threat. This
would result in the election of B. Perhaps the B voters will carry through
their burying plan, and the A voters will carry through their threat. This
would result in the election of C. Perhaps the 5 C>A>B voters will end the
trouble and prevent the danger of B?s election by voting A>C>B, thus
cementing A?s victory. Or perhaps those 5 voters will prefer to wait and
hope that the fight between A and B throws the election to C. Using a
margins-based version of minimax could add in some more complications,
including a situation where A and B throw the race to C without any
insincere intentions, but instead out of a sense of mutual paranoia that
the other group of voters will carry out a burial strategy.
	To make a long story short, the voters have entered into a complicated
strategy game, the outcome of which is unclear. In some ways it is
analogous to the game of chicken. The A voters? swerving could be not
carrying through their threat and allowing the B voters to successfully
use the burial strategy. The B voters? swerving could be voting sincerely
and allowing A to win. The car crash would be the election of C. 
	It is disturbing that it is possible for elections based on Condorcet?s
method to break down into this sort of situation as a result of the burial
strategy, that is an intense strategy game amongst the voters, with a
strong possibility of a highly unpopular candidate being elected. 
	Also, it is disturbing that the burial strategy can be effective in the
first place. Imagine that this example was a Presidential election in a
country with millions of voters, and that the figures represented
percentages of the turnout rather than single voters. The contest between
A and B would obviously be the main focus of the election, as 90% of the
voters prefer them to C. The 2% point difference in the pairwise contest
between A and B would represent thousands or millions of voters. If the B
voters pulled off an order reversal strategy under these conditions, the
democratic process would have been completely undermined.
	Of course, the chances of this happening in a public election are not
necessarily very great. Any candidate whose campaign staff called up
voters by the thousands and instructed them to cast an insincere vote
might be held up to a certain amount of public shame. However, a similar
effect might take place without a grand conspiracy, but as a result of a
simple notion among the voters that there might be some benefit in ranking
their sincere second favorite in last place, if she is the main
competition for their favorite.
	Well-coordinated and successful burial strategies might become more
likely given a smaller electorate where it is easier to figure out how
other people are voting and easier to create a strategy covertly. For
example, this might be a problem if Condorcet?s method was being used by a
council or legislature to decide on different versions of a bill or
various courses of action. 
	In any case the burial strategy can often backfire by leading to the
election of someone you like even less that the second or third-favorite
candidate you are trying to bury. Thus, there are many situations where
the incentive to engage in such a strategy is outweighed by its risk, and
the number of voters who try it will be too small to be decisive.
	But again, whether it is likely or not, the fact that a large-scale
burying strategy can conceivably happen is very disturbing, since its
effects can be so negative. 

	Whether a method offers incentives for burying strategies seems to be
related to whether reversing the order of later preferences on a ballot
can cause an earlier preference to be elected. For example, if a group of
voters rank 5 candidates in the order A>B>C>D>E, and C is elected, are
there any situations where that same group of voters could vote A>B>D>E>C,
and cause B to be elected instead, with all the other votes in the
election remaining constant?
	If so, then there will be situations where voters will have incentives to
rank their sincere second favorite in last place, or their sincere third
favorite in fourth place, and so on. That is, in changing the order of the
candidates from the sincere order, voters will insincerely downrank
particular candidates.
	Given different methods, there are different kinds of strategies that
involve downranking later preferences to help earlier preferences. Some
Condorcet-efficient methods such minimax, ranked pairs, beatpath, find a
completion winner by overruling some majority preferences in favor of
others. Given methods like these, groups of voters can sometimes benefit
by creating an artificial majority against one of their later preferences
which overrules a sincere majority against one of their earlier
preferences, causing the earlier preference to win. This is the burying
strategy as discussed above.
	Some Condorcet-efficient methods find a completion winner by reverting to
a different method that is not Condorcet-efficient, such as single
transferable vote or Borda. Given methods like these, groups of voters can
sometimes benefit by downranking one of their later preferences who is a
sincere Condorcet winner, so that the tally finds no Condorcet winner, and
the other method that is reverted to finds one of their earlier
preferences as the winner. In addition to giving voters truncation and
burying incentives in order to prevent a Condorcet winner from emerging,
these methods will also reintroduce the strategic incentives inherent in
their given completion method.
	Unfortunately, I think that all Condorcet efficient methods give some
strategic incentives for further downranking later preferences in order to
help earlier preferences. That is, take any ranked ballot voting method
that satisfies universal domain, anonymity, Pareto, non-dictatorship. If
it is a method where a group of voters reversing the order of options
ranked after some candidate B can?t change the result to B under any
circumstances, this implies that those rankings can?t be looked at while B
is still in consideration. That is, B must be eliminated before they are
looked at. If this voting method eliminates candidates before all the
rankings are looked at, then it will not be able to avoid eliminating a
Condorcet winner.
	Thus, it seems that all Condorcet-efficient methods can be undermined by
voter strategy. However, I don?t think that the correct response in light
of this is to give up on the Condorcet principle and stick with other
methods that don?t offer these particular incentives. For one thing, the
Condorcet criterion is a highly desirable one, and secondly, these methods
have strategic problems of their own.
	My thought is that we might be able to use a procedure which selects a
Condorcet winner when one exists, and yet which gives people some
opportunity to undo the effects of a burying strategy if one occurs.
	I propose that since no fully deterministic vote-processing rule can
satisfy both Condorcet efficiency and resistance to the burying strategy,
we should consider systems that incorporate further human choice and
judgement after the initial balloting. I will propose such a procedure for
use within legislative bodies, and then I will propose a slightly modified
procedure for use in public elections where a single representative is
being elected.

Proposal for use within legislative bodies:
	A. Discussion. Ranked vote. Go to B.
	B. Discussion. Yes-no vote on the winner from the previous ranked vote,
whether a Condorcet winner or the winner based on a chosen completion
method, such as ranked pairs or beatpath. If the relative majority votes
yes, then that option is selected as the final outcome. If the relative
majority votes no, return to A.
	Note: At any discussion stage, a particular option can be withdrawn,
either by the sponsor of that option, or by being nominated for withdrawal
and confirmed by a relative majority. Also, with the approval of a
relative majority, non-members of the Schwartz set from a previous ranked
balloting can be removed from further consideration. The purpose of these
measures is to simplify the process by eliminating options that can be
agreed to be irrelevant.

	This procedure gives legislators a chance to discuss the winner given by
a completion method, and make an attempt to determine whether a burying
strategy has taken place. For example, they might look over the ranked
votes cast by other legislators and see if two very similar options are
placed suspiciously far apart on the ballot. They may fail to detect a
burial strategy if it exists, but they at least have an opportunity.
	In general, the fact that the final outcome must be approved by a
relative majority ensures majority rule and prevents any strange surprises
from getting locked into place before people see them coming. It is
possible that legislators will wrestle with a variety of strategies and
counter strategies, drawing the process into several repetitions. However,
they have been given the best tools available for building a majority
decision. If the process goes into a deadlock where the amount of
repetitions exceed the patience of the legislature and the issue is
dropped, this is arguably a natural deadlock which could not be given a
truly satisfactory resolution by another method.

Proposal for use in public elections:
	A. Ranked vote. If a Condorcet winner exists, then this candidate is
selected as the final outcome. If no Condorcet winner exists, go to B.
	B. Yes-no vote on completion method winner from previous ranked vote. If
the relative majority votes yes, then this candidate is selected as the
final outcome. If the relative majority votes no, go to C.
	C. Ranked vote on candidates already included in the process. Return to B.
	Note: Stages B and C should be combined in a single balloting. If the
relative majority votes yes on the option presented by the previous ranked
vote, then the subsequent ranked vote is of course irrelevant. However, in
order to save time and resources (and keep turnout high) it is better to
perform the subsequent ranked vote at the same time as the yes-no vote.
The gap between the ballotings is a matter of preference. I imagine gaps
of a week or so.
	Note: Any candidate is free to withdraw in between ballotings, but no
candidates can enter beyond the initial vote. Thus, the number of
candidates can only decrease given subsequent rounds, simplifying the
process.

	The discussion that is an important part of this process would hopefully
still take place, but since it is a public situation with a large number
of voters, the discussion would rely on some types of media, and hence the
quality of deliberation would rely on the structure of public media.
	The only difference between A and C in the public elections version is
that a Condorcet winner in stage A is automatically selected, but a
Condorcet winner in stage C must be confirmed by a relative majority.
	The fact that a Condorcet winner from the initial vote is automatically
selected is a trouble-saving device which I have put into the public
elections version but not the legislative body version. It isn?t much
extra trouble for a legislature to take an extra vote to confirm a
Condorcet winner, but in a public election the cost and trouble of an
extra balloting would be significant.
	If a Condorcet winner exists in the initial vote, it is a fairly
trustworthy option to pick. Note that a group of voters can?t change a
candidate B from a non Condorcet winner to a Condorcet winner by changing
the order of candidates that they have ranked after candidate B. For
example, if a group of voters lists B as their first choice and B is still
not a Condorcet winner, there is nothing further that they can do to make
B a Condorcet winner.
	Obviously no effective burying strategy has taking place if there is a
Condorcet winner, because this strategy depends on a fabricated majority
overruling a genuine majority through a cycle.
	The possibility of a large number of repetitions of this process would be
more of a problem for a public election than for a legislative decision,
because of the larger cost of subsequent votes, and the possibility of
term limits. Hence, a question remains about whether to limit the number
of repetitions, and if so, how to do so. 
	One could go on repeating the process indefinitely until a relative
majority approved the outcome, taking majority no votes as an endorsement
of the status quo. At the end of a term limit, one would have to ask the
representative in question to step down in favor of a substitute such as a
Vice President, who would hold the office until the conclusion of the
ranked vote. However, this would be awkward, the repeated ballotings might
be expensive, and the instability of a temporary office holder might be
undesirable.
	One could place a specific the number of repetitions ahead of time, for
example declaring that the results of the fifth ranked vote were final and
binding. However, all of the strategic concerns relevant to
Condorcet-efficient method would apply here once again.
	Perhaps the solution is to declare a candidate to be the final selection
once they have been the winner of a certain number of ranked votes,
whether a clear Condorcet winner or based on a completion method. For
example, if a candidate A wins three separate ranked votes, candidate A is
 elected.
	Hopefully, however, these kinds of rule will never come into play. Even
if no Condorcet winner is found in the initial vote, one can hope that the
majority will approve whatever completion method winner is given, and
hence only one additional balloting will be necessary. The primary purpose
of the subsequent votes is to serve as a safeguard against burial
strategies, and if the majority is not convinced that such a strategy has
affected the outcome, they should approve the completion method winner.
Even if they do not approve the first winner that comes forward, I imagine
that the cycle should collapse into a Condorcet winner within a couple
rounds, through the withdrawal of other candidates in the cycle, or
through the consolidation of voters who were split between two candidates
to support a single candidate.

	I would recommend the legislative bodies procedure to any legislature or
council that can acquire the resources to process ranked ballots according
to a Condorcet completion method. I would recommend the public elections
procedure to any government that can acquire the resources to process
ranked ballots and to hold successive ballotings.



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Wed Dec 17 23:58:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Wed Dec 17 23:58:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd Algorithm?
Message-ID: <Law10-F40w21NFp8KOR00044585@hotmail.com>


Either Markus or Craig Carey, I'm not quite sure which, said:

>However, Mike Ossipoff always describes the Floyd algorithm as
>follows:
>
> > for i in range(N)
> > for j in range(N)
> > for k in range(N)
> >    low=min(B[A(i,j)],B[A(j,k)]
> >    if low>B[A(i,k)]
> >    B[A(i,k)]=low

Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm. I don't use that piece of 
code. It looks like it might be a tiny fraction of a Python strongests 
beatpaths program, with at least one of its lines partly erased.

I don't guarantee that it's part of anythng that I wrote, but, if it is, 
then let me explain the odd appearance of the arrays: Python, at least the 
version that I was using, doesn't have multidimensional arrays. It only has 
1-dimensional arrays. So I wrote a function to convert a 2-dimensional array 
position to a 1-dimensional array position. I called that function "A(i,j)". 
That 1-dimensional array position serves as the index variable for the 
strongest beatpaths array, B[A(i,j)].

The algorithm that I'll post, however, isn't written in any particular 
programming language. That will be posted within an hour or a half hour.

I do call a certain strongest beatpaths algorithm the Floyd algorithm, only 
because someone on this list told us that that's what that algorithm is 
called.

I've certainly never called it a shortest paths algorithm. It's purpose is 
to find the _strongest_ beatpath from each candidate to each other 
candidate. The strongest beatpath from Smith to Jones could also be the 
longest one. I have no idea what you're talking about when you refer to the 
shortest paths algorithm. Perhaps you're talking about a different algorithm 
from the strongest beatpaths algorithm.

The algorithm that I use was suggested by Steve Eppley. Apparently someone 
before him had described it. I don't claim to know what its official name 
is.

It's part of the algorithm that I send people for counting BeatpathWinner. 
I'll post that BeatpathWinner algorithm here in a few minutes.

Mike

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 02:45:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 02:45:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd Algorithm?
Message-ID: <3FE184B2.F932A832@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):

> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

> Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
> Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
> entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
> beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.

But the then used algorithm is clearly not the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

>    changing = 1
>
>    while changing:
>
>        changing = 0
>
>        for i in range(nc):
>            for j in range(nc):
>                for k in range(nc):
>
>                    dmin = min ( Def[i,j], Def[j,k] )
>
>                    if Def[i,k] < dmin:
>                        Def[i,k] = dmin
>                        changing = 1

The Floyd algorithm has a runtime O(N^3), where N is the number of
candidates. But what you call the "Floyd Algorithm" has a runtime
O(N^5).

******

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> It's part of the algorithm that I send people for counting
> BeatpathWinner. I'll post that BeatpathWinner algorithm here
> in a few minutes.

A correct version of the Floyd algorithm can be found in my paper
"A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 18 03:23:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Thu Dec 18 03:23:01 2003
Subject: [EM] BeatpathWinner Algorithm
Message-ID: <Law10-F118GTFc0imLv0003ce33@hotmail.com>

Here is an algorithm to implement BeatpathWinner. It seems to me that 
someone called the strongest beatpaths algorithm the Floyd algorithm. But 
maybe not. When Markus said that the fragment of code that he quoted didn't 
work to find the shortest path, he may have been referring to the overall 
algorithm or program from which his fragment was taken. That may well be, 
because the strongest beatpaths algorithm used here isn't intended to find 
shortest paths. It's intended to find strongest beatpaths.

BeatpathWinner Algorithm:

The algorithm below isn't written here in any
particular programming language. But it would only
require a few small  changes to make it into any
programming language.

Here's the BeatpathWinner algorithm:

First we make the strongest beatpaths array.

Place the defeat-strengths into the strongest
beatpaths array, B(i,j):

If i  beats j, then B(i,j) = the number of people who
have ranked i over j.

If i doesn't beat j, then B(i,j) = 0.

repeat = 1
while repeat = 1:
  change = 0
  for i = 1 to N
     for j =  1 to N
        for k = 1 to N
           least = min(B(i,j), B(j,k))
           if least > B(i,k):
              B(i,k) = least
              change =1
           endif
       endfor
    endfor
endfor
if change= 0
    repeat = 0
endif
endwhile

When this has been done, you have the strongest
beatpaths array, B(i,j), where B(i,j) is the strength
of the strongest beatpath from i to j. (If there's no
beatpath from i to j, then B(i,j) = 0).

Then B(i,j) is used to find the winners of
BeatpathWinner:

for i = 1 to N
win(i) = 1
endfor

for i = 1 to N
  for j = 1 to N
     if B(j,i) > B(i,j)
        win(i) = 0
     endif
  endfor
endfor

print "The winners are:"
for i = 1 to N
if win(i) = 1
    print i
endif
endfor

[end of BeatpathWinner algorithm]
_____

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 18 03:52:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Thu Dec 18 03:52:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Re:  Floyd algorithm?
Message-ID: <Law10-F95N7miR9Odut00005606@hotmail.com>

Markus said:

Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):

>Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

I reply:

Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly what you 
mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.

You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment, 
some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd 
algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment 
anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment the 
Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied 
fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

You continued:

But the then used algorithm is clearly not the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

I reply:

I couldn't care less if it's the Floyd algorithm. If it isn't, then I'll 
tell Russ to delete that name from the website. When we put it at the 
website, I at that time believed that it was the Floyd algorithm because it 
was the corrected versioin of something that you had posted to EM, calling 
it the Floyd algorithm.

What you'd posted differed by only making one pass throiugh the 3-candiate 
permutations. But one pass isn't guaranteed to find all the strongest 
beatpaths.

Now it occurs to me that maybe your Floyd algorithm isn't intended to do 
that. After all, you do call it the shortest-path algorithm, not the 
strongest path algorithm. I assumed at the time that your algorithm was 
supposed to find the strongest beatpaths, and that yoiu'd accidentally left 
out the code to repeat the passes till the task is complete. So I corrected 
what you'd posted so that it would do that, and called it the Floyd 
algorithm.

I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from you 
or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

But now I don't know if an algorithm for finding the strongest beatpaths is 
the same as the Floyd algorithm. You say it isn't. Fine. I'll tell Russ to 
delete that name from the website.

Now, Markus, understand this: I did call the algorithm from which you got 
your fragment the Floyd algorithm, because I thought that algorithm was what 
you were trying to write when you posted a "Floyd algorithm". I did not call 
your posted line-truncated fragment the Floyd algorithm, and that was what I 
was saying in my previoius posting here tonight.

I don't know if our strongest beatpaths algorithm is the Floyd algorithm, 
and I don't care. It finds strongest beatpaths. I'll tell Rus to delete the 
name.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 05:10:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 05:10:02 2003
Subject: [EM] BeatpathWinner Algorithm
Message-ID: <3FE1A6A0.C8253720@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear participants,

the correct version of the Floyd algorithm can be found in
Section 4 and in Appendix 3 of my paper "A New Monotonic
and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

Markus Schulze


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 05:10:04 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 05:10:04 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?
Message-ID: <3FE1A6B4.42E5AC72@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
> (http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):
>
> > Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
> > Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
> > entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
> > beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly
> what you mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.
>
> You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
> some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
> algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
> anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
> the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
> fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you call your implementation
"Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I misquoted you?

*********

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> I couldn't care less if it's the Floyd algorithm. If it isn't, then I'll
> tell Russ to delete that name from the website. When we put it at the
> website, I at that time believed that it was the Floyd algorithm because it
> was the corrected versioin of something that you had posted to EM, calling
> it the Floyd algorithm.
>
> What you'd posted differed by only making one pass throiugh the 3-candiate
> permutations. But one pass isn't guaranteed to find all the strongest
> beatpaths.
>
> Now it occurs to me that maybe your Floyd algorithm isn't intended to
> do that. After all, you do call it the shortest-path algorithm, not the
> strongest path algorithm. I assumed at the time that your algorithm was
> supposed to find the strongest beatpaths, and that yoiu'd accidentally left
> out the code to repeat the passes till the task is complete. So I corrected
> what you'd posted so that it would do that, and called it the Floyd
> algorithm.

What you call "the corrected versioin" is actually a falsified version.
When you use the correct order of the indices in the triple-loop, then
one pass through the 3-candidate permutations _does_ guarantee to find
all the strongest paths. Floyd proved this in 1962. This is the reason
why it is called the "Floyd algorithm".

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm
> from you or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

It is sad that you didn't get your strongest path algorithm from me
or Floyd; if you did it, it had a runtime of O(N^3) and not of O(N^5).

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 18 05:46:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Thu Dec 18 05:46:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Floyd algorithm?
Message-ID: <Law10-F57inarBU393I000455c2@hotmail.com>

I'd said, spelling it out very carefully for Markus:

>You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
>some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
>algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
>anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
>the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
>fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

Markus replied:

In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you call your implementation
"Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I misquoted you?

I reply:

Idiot, why don't you read the quoted passage above, from my e-mail. Did I 
deny that I'd called my implementation the Floyd algorithm? The only thing 
that I denied having called "the Floyd algorithm" was your poorly-copied, 
line-truncated fragment of a Python program. You had posted that fragment 
and said that I called it the Floyd algorithm.

Markus continued:

What you call "the corrected versioin" is actually a falsified version.

I reply:

I already clarified that the corrected version now apparently wasn't the 
Floyd algorithm. I already said that, at the time,  I believed that it was 
the Floyd algorithm because I believed that it was what you were trying to 
write, when you posted a procedure that you called the Floyd algorithm.

But, whether the version that I wrote is or is not the Floyd algorithm, it 
certainly finds the strongest beatpaths. I believe that I already clarified 
for you that I couldn't care less if that version is the Floyd algorithm.

You claim that  the  1-pass procedure that you posted finds the strongest 
beatpaths. Let's check it out and find out if it does.  What was the year, 
month, and day of  your posting in which you posted what you called the  
Floyd algorithm?

The Floyd algorithm is for finding shortest paths. Are you saying that it 
also finds strongest paths?
So then, are you saying that the shortest path from one candidate to another 
is necessarily the strongest path too?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 07:35:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 07:35:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?
Message-ID: <3FE1C89C.1252854C@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
> (http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):
>
> > Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
> > Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
> > entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
> > beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly
> what you mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.
>
> You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
> some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
> algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
> anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
> the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
> fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you call your implementation
> "Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I misquoted you?

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> Idiot, why don't you read the quoted passage above, from my e-mail. Did I
> deny that I'd called my implementation the Floyd algorithm? The only thing
> that I denied having called "the Floyd algorithm" was your poorly-copied,
> line-truncated fragment of a Python program. You had posted that fragment
> and said that I called it the Floyd algorithm.

You are the idiot because you see no contradiction between the fact that
you call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" and the fact that you have
to admit that your Python program nowhere uses the Floyd algorithm.

******

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> You claim that  the  1-pass procedure that you posted finds the strongest
> beatpaths. Let's check it out and find out if it does.  What was the year,
> month, and day of  your posting in which you posted what you called the
> Floyd algorithm?

The Floyd algorithm has been proposed by Floyd (Robert W. Floyd, "Algorithm 97
(Shortest Path)," Communications of the ACM, vol. 5, p. 345, 1962).

Markus Schulze


From drernie at mac.com  Thu Dec 18 08:39:01 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Thu Dec 18 08:39:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?  - peace
In-Reply-To: <3FE1C89C.1252854C@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FE1C89C.1252854C@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <95FF01B8-3178-11D8-B986-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

Hi guys,

On Dec 18, 2003, at 7:32 AM, Markus Schulze wrote:
> You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
>> Idiot, why don't you read the quoted passage above, from my e-mail. 
>> Did I
>> deny that I'd called my implementation the Floyd algorithm? The only 
>> thing
>> that I denied having called "the Floyd algorithm" was your 
>> poorly-copied,
>> line-truncated fragment of a Python program. You had posted that 
>> fragment
>> and said that I called it the Floyd algorithm.
>
> You are the idiot because you see no contradiction between the fact 
> that
> you call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" and the fact that you 
> have
> to admit that your Python program nowhere uses the Floyd algorithm.

Can we chill? We're all Condorcet-lovers, after all.   Mike probably 
used the term Floyd inappropriately.   Markus probably cited a poor 
example.   Everybody makes mistakes.    No injury, no foul.

> You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
>> You claim that  the  1-pass procedure that you posted finds the 
>> strongest
>> beatpaths. Let's check it out and find out if it does.  What was the 
>> year,
>> month, and day of  your posting in which you posted what you called 
>> the
>> Floyd algorithm?
>
> The Floyd algorithm has been proposed by Floyd (Robert W. Floyd, 
> "Algorithm 97
> (Shortest Path)," Communications of the ACM, vol. 5, p. 345, 1962).

I suspect that we're really experiencing a clash of cultures.  Markus 
appears to be operating from a math/compsci perspective, where terms 
mean something different than they do in Mike.  As a physicist, I'm 
used to abusing mathematical terminology, so I can appreciate the 
dilemma. :-)

I suspect part of the problem is that the term 'shortest path'  in the 
Flloyd algorithm is used for finding what Mike calls a BeatPath.   The 
comparison of such paths to find the strongest beatpath is actually 
after the Flloyd algorithm.

There are some interesting differences between the two approaches, such 
as the use of absolute vs. relative weights, which may or may not be 
significant.  I'd be interested in hearing more about that.

-- Ernie P.

-----------
RadicalCentrism.org is an anti-partisan think tank near Sacramento, 
California, dedicated to developing and promoting the ideals of 
Reality, Character, Community and Humility as expressed in our Radical 
Centrist Manifesto: Ground Rules of Civil Society 
<http://RadicalCentrism.org/manifesto.html>



From research at ijs.co.nz  Thu Dec 18 09:42:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Thu Dec 18 09:42:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Rejecting the Schulze preferential voting method: a time for
 reform
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031219055006.04fa26e0@pop.qsi.net.nz>



I see that Marcus/Markus Schulze posted in 2 lines. While we wait
for the rest of the clipped communication (not conversation) I
post up some ideas. As ever, guessing is second to a catechistic
approach (with mind-changing over the answers allowed).


------------------------------

Mr Schulze did not reply to the issues which was that his method was
in the trash can and he had:
 1. got it to be biased in that same way that occurs for a method that
    always picks the 1st candidate on the list of candidates no matter
    what the votes are. I assume Mr Schulze agrees but he as usual he
    comment in response to every issue painting him up and not knowing
    how to design a preferential voting method.
 2. The presence of absence of the last preference affects who wins.

Both those ideas can indicate that the whole article was a junk and
trash. Mr Schulze wrote as if he could possibly begin to sense the
problem. With the idea that Mr Shulze can't understand everything that
much better theorists can precisely informa him of, I was going to
write a computer program to prove that his computer algorithm is
trash.

That follows his leaking following being moderated for censoring out
all information about the purpose for being so in the wrong which
the STV mailing list was certainly not getting adequately informed
about.

Mr Schulze has got a bias and I believe htat he has a purpose of
providing untrue information. The topic of how Mr Schulze can not
reply to 100% of the e-mails implying he start doing research into
nothing but his own trashy Schulze methods does not seem that
interesting. Why are core ideas of Condorcet so suboptimal since
proportionality and fairness are crushed/mangled together ?.

After these 5 years the ulitmate best Mr Schulze has been able to
do in the area of defending the garbage ideal, is to keep up the
pretense of never being able to identify the topic. That seems to be
the uniting ideal of Condorcet: even if Dr Dolittle's animals could
all understand why the lie of Condorcet pairwise comparing being
good is something so suboptimal that the method can't be said to be
optimal, the Condorcet believer would be suggesting he is following
the public idea that pairwise comparing is important. External is
idealized STV where both fairness and proportionally are both
perfectly defined and achieved except as best possible in the
circumstances.

Also Mr Schulze seems to get a few lines out every month to public
lists and constantly nothing at all to private e-mail. Teh big
aim in public mailing lists seems to be to drop names. When he
has a problem with transparency of purpose he slips into a dumb
mailing list - this one, where persons who know nothing and do
no useful research, congregate wishing that some religious man
unable to decide nothing is something and visa versa, would lead
them out.

In the grand sweep of Mr Schulzes exposition, he designed the
algorithm in the paper so the input is never votes. The preprocessing
stage that proves that the method is stupid, got censored out. It
is the case that reasoning indicates that Schulze's method should
be rejected instead of tested. 


Let's consider the algorithm itself. Here I quote from the VM 17
PDF file:

---
:     Suppose that d[X,Y] is the number of voters who
:     strictly prefer candidate X to candidate Y. Then the
:     Smith set is the smallest non-empty set of candidates
:     with d[A,B] > d[B,A] for each candidate B outside this
:     set.
---

The English text of Schulze probably seems to imply this
interpretation:

* Let there be only 3 candidates. Let the ballot papers be these:

2 (CA)
5 (CAB)
1 (CBA)

What is Mr Schulze's d[A,B] ?.

We could look at the computer algorithm source code but it takes
the "d" matrix as an input. The vote counting algorithm can't actually
accept votes.

The d[A,B] value would be:

 (Interpretation 1) the number 7, or
 (Interpretation 2) the number 5, or
 (Interpretation 3) the number 6, or
 (Interpretation 4) the number 4, or

I suppose Interpretations 3 and 4 can be rejected.

So dim are the followers of Condorcet that ruling out interpretations
using a correct reading of the text, could create a dispute.

For 5 years Schulze has be glued onto the falsehood and it seems
that in that time, evolution and pure thinking has brought to him
(a) a desire to censor out the perfectly wrong idea that pairwise
   comparing is not to be rejected
(b) for the STV community, he trashes their perfectly inconsistent
   views by presenting himself as needing exactly 2 words to
   "strictly prefer", Also the idea of summing is added with the
   relentlessly useless wording "the number of voters". If there are
   no voters, or the counts are non-integral or P2 is failed and the
   probing at negative numbers does not occur, that it would be
   false to conclude that the method is monotonic.

Here is the title of the paper:

  "A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method"

The publishing agency is the McDougall Trust.

Mr Shulze's credibility as theoriticians is incompatible with the
private e-mail messages from me to him on 3 October 2003 and 23
October 2003. At that time I was hampered by the ambiguous trashy
wording he relied upon.

Quoting from the 23 October document that comments narrowly on the
algorithm, I quote the method of the PDF VM 17 article:


| Markus Schulze, A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent
| Single-Winner Election Method, VOTING MATTERS, issue 17,
| September 2003
|
| Input: d[i,j] with i <> j is the number of voters who strictly
|                         prefer candidate i to candidate j.
| Output:  "w[i] = true" means that candidate i is a potential
|                         winner.
|          "w[i] = false" means that candidate i is not a
|                         potential winner.
| -- STEP 1
| for i := 1 to N do
|    for j := 1 to N do
|       if (i <> j) then p[i,j] := d[i,j] - d[j,i]; end if;
|    end loop;
| end loop;
| -- STEP 2
| for i := 1 to N do
|    for j := 1 to N do
|       if (i <> j) then
|          for k := 1 to N do
|             if (i <> k) then
|                if (j <> k) then
|                   s := min { p[j,i], p[i,k] };
|                   if (p[j,k] < s) then p[j,k] := s; end if;
|                end if;
|             end if;
|          end loop;
|       end if;
|    end loop;
| end loop;
|
| -- STEP 3
| for i := 1 to N do
|    w[i] := true ;
|    for j := 1 to N do
|       if (i <> j) then
|          if (p[j,i] > p[i,j]) then
|             w[i] := false ;
|          end if;
|       end if;
|    end loop;
| end loop;
| --------------

It is obvious from that Mr Schulze did not write any test at all that
attempts to clarify the words "strictly prefer".

Why Mr Schulze could not come to some clear conclusion in 1986 on how
to present with the fullest possible clarity the incompetently
pitiable deliberate error that subsequently guarantees that the
algorithm would be unfair, is baffling.

Here is the example again:

2 (CA)
5 (CAB)
1 (CBA)

The d[A,B] value:
 (Interpretation 1) the number 7, or
 (Interpretation 2) the number 5.

There are 2 cases (if not more)

(Case or Interpretation 1) The 2 is added to the 5.

  The article said "strictly prefer" instead of "prefer",  and I cant
  think of a purpose for that except to rule out this case.

  This case is so far acceptable but the whole method will not be.

(Case or Interpretation 2)
  In this case, the paper (CA) does not count towards candidate A.


Mr Schulze would be in the wrong IF ever saying that it is *obvious* that
these two cases have candidate 'A' being preferred by the same amount
against/over candidate 'B', when there are 5 or more candidates and
not 4 or less:

  (a) (C D A)
  (b) (C D A B)






Even in 1998 Mr Schulze's neutrality view appears to be a mistake.
Instead the illogic of having multivalued winners can be used.
The big argument here is that today Mr Schulze seems to reject
the neutrality rule since he could believe it would trash the [awful]
Schulze algorithm. The ideal course is to criticize Mr Schulze for
believing in the importance of the rule and again in 2003 for not
using it.

------------- example:

Suppose that the candidates are listed and the method makes the
first one listed, be the winner. So the method is faulty since it
fully ignores the ballot paper counts.

* External names: A, B
* Internal names: 1, 2
* External ballot papers:
    1 (A)
    9 (B) 
* Winner = candidate #1 = A

Re-letter externally and keep the algorithm unchanged:

* External names: B, A
* Internal names: 1, 2
* External ballot papers:
    1 (A)
    9 (B) 
* Winner = candidate #1 = B

The algorithm is returning the right number of winners, but it is
returning a multi-valued set of winners.

The definition of "multivalued". An exmaple: Log(1) is multivalued and
its values include: 0, 2*pi*i, 4*pi*i, etc.

Can Mr Shulze say what axioms lead to multivalued winner sets ?.

Why does he need a rule to stop neutrality violations and I do not.
If he disagrees and says that the rule is important it it does not
matter if it is redundant, then why was he maintaining such secrecy
on the topic of whether or not his method appearing in issue 17 of
Voting Matters fails ?. This is an argument is ambiguous, and unlike
the possible ambiguity of the Mr Schulze's "strictly prefer", the
persons creating the ambiguity is constructing the argument for all
the cases.

The Shulze algorithm has basic simple errors appearing in the very
first lines of the algorithm (Step 1). 

In Mr Schulzes world, he has got the typical Condorcet aim of
under-wording the theory of what actually happens when this paper

   1*(....A....B...)  Unnamed = ....

is altered into this paper:

   1*(....A....)  Unnamed = ....B....

Obviously what a *competent* government preferential voting method
expert will expect, is that there is no rule saying (somehow) that
A's standing with respect to B, is remains constant when that change
is done. Such a requirement would harm some other good principle.
If the theory is nearly optimal then it would be largely proportionality.

From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 11:24:09 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 11:24:09 2003
Subject: [EM] Rejecting the Schulze preferential voting method: a time for 
 reform
Message-ID: <3FE1FD49.F1E1C040@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

you wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> Let's consider the algorithm itself. Here I quote from the VM 17
> PDF file:
>
> ---
> :     Suppose that d[X,Y] is the number of voters who
> :     strictly prefer candidate X to candidate Y. Then the
> :     Smith set is the smallest non-empty set of candidates
> :     with d[A,B] > d[B,A] for each candidate B outside this
> :     set.
> ---
>
> The English text of Schulze probably seems to imply this
> interpretation:
>
> * Let there be only 3 candidates. Let the ballot papers be these:
>
> 2 (CA)
> 5 (CAB)
> 1 (CBA)
>
> What is Mr Schulze's d[A,B] ?.
>
> We could look at the computer algorithm source code but it takes
> the "d" matrix as an input. The vote counting algorithm can't actually
> accept votes.
>
> The d[A,B] value would be:
>
>  (Interpretation 1) the number 7, or
>  (Interpretation 2) the number 5, or
>  (Interpretation 3) the number 6, or
>  (Interpretation 4) the number 4, or
>
> I suppose Interpretations 3 and 4 can be rejected.
>
> ...

In the Introduction of the quoted paper, I write: "It is presumed
that each voter casts at least a partial ranking of all candidates."

Markus Schulze


From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Thu Dec 18 13:30:01 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Thu Dec 18 13:30:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312181237360.27475-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

For me two paramount criteria are

(1) simplicity of optimal or near optimal strategy, and

(2) as much voting power as possible consistent with (1).

There are various possible definitions of "voting power," but it should
have something to do with the probability of one ballot or set of ballots
being pivotal to the outcome in an election chosen at random from some
family of elections.



Here's a method that comes close to satisfying these criteria:

The method takes ranked ballots with equal rankings allowed, as input.

The method first applies Rob LeGrand's "ballot-by-ballot" version of
"strategy A" to all possible permutations of the ballot. [Yes, this method
is computationally intractable.]

If the same candidate wins for all permutations, then that candidate is
declared winner.

Else, Joe Weinstein's weighted median method is applied to determine the
winner.  A candidate's weight is the number of permutations that it won
(according to Rob) plus one (so that each candidate has non-zero weight).

Although this method is computationally intractable,the method winner can
be calculated with 99.9 percent accuracy without inordinate computational
burden, by use of montecarlo methods, for example.

The residual doubt is small compared to other sources of doubt in other
voting methods, especially the doubt that the votes were sincere, or the
doubt that the the voters were using their best strategy for maximizing
their voting power.

Note that the method is completely deterministic, but that practical
estimation of the method's winner may require something like montecarlo.

Perhaps the voters could get use to such an idea if they could see the
advantages of satisfying criteria one and two above.

Forest



From dglaude at gmx.net  Thu Dec 18 13:36:02 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Thu Dec 18 13:36:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?  - peace
In-Reply-To: <95FF01B8-3178-11D8-B986-000393CDCA50@mac.com>
References: <3FE1C89C.1252854C@alumni.tu-berlin.de> <95FF01B8-3178-11D8-B986-000393CDCA50@mac.com>
Message-ID: <3FE21D97.1010200@gmx.net>

Ernest Prabhakar wrote:

> Can we chill? We're all Condorcet-lovers, after all.   Mike probably 
> used the term Floyd inappropriately.   Markus probably cited a poor 
> example.   Everybody makes mistakes.    No injury, no foul.

I love flame war... especially those where I don't understand a word.

> I suspect that we're really experiencing a clash of cultures.  Markus 
> appears to be operating from a math/compsci perspective, where terms 
> mean something different than they do in Mike.  As a physicist, I'm used 
> to abusing mathematical terminology, so I can appreciate the dilemma. :-)

Where is Mike comming from then?

> I suspect part of the problem is that the term 'shortest path'  in the 
> Flloyd algorithm is used for finding what Mike calls a BeatPath.   The 
> comparison of such paths to find the strongest beatpath is actually 
> after the Flloyd algorithm.

Because I was not aware of the Flloyd algorithm...

I would like to learn something here.

I know a few 'shortest path' algorithm like "Dijkstra" and 
"Bellman-Ford". Dijkstra is having an 0(n*Log(n)) complexity (in time) 
and for the other... I don't remember but it is a more distributed 
algorithm.

Now sometime Markus talk about "strongest path" wich might be something 
completely different.

So for me all this discussion was completely confusing, and I would love 
some explanation...

But I think I have to aggree with Markus... 0(N^3) is better than 0(N^5).

David GLAUDE






From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 14:44:06 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 14:44:06 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?  - peace
Message-ID: <3FE22D54.A4AA77B3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear David,

you wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> I know a few 'shortest path' algorithm like "Dijkstra" and
> "Bellman-Ford". Dijkstra is having an 0(n*Log(n)) complexity (in time)
> and for the other... I don't remember but it is a more distributed
> algorithm.

Bellman-Ford, Dijkstra, and Floyd have the property that they all look
for possible short cuts until a termination criterion is met. They differ
only in the order in which the possible short cuts are considered.

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> Now sometime Markus talk about "strongest path" wich might be something 
> completely different.

"Strongest paths" and "shortest paths" are mathematically equivalent in
so far as both follow the same concept of short cuts. In the shortest
path problem, a short cut is a situation with p_old[j,k] > p[j,i] + p[i,k]
so that you can set p_new[j,k] = p[j,i] + p[i,k]. In the strongest path
problem, a short cut is a situation with p_old[j,k] < min ( p[j,i], p[i,k] )
so that you can set p_new[j,k] = min ( p[j,i], p[i,k] ).

By the way: In the scientific literature, "strongest paths" are called
"maximum capacity paths".

Markus Schulze


From stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca  Thu Dec 18 19:09:18 2003
From: stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca (Stephane Rouillon)
Date: Thu Dec 18 19:09:18 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?  - peace
References: <3FE22D54.A4AA77B3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <3FE26AE0.AB862976@sympatico.ca>

Markus Schulze a ?crit :

> Dear David,
>
> you wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> > I know a few 'shortest path' algorithm like "Dijkstra" and
> > "Bellman-Ford". Dijkstra is having an 0(n*Log(n)) complexity (in time)
> > and for the other... I don't remember but it is a more distributed
> > algorithm.

If I remember well one uses reaching to update labels the other pushing...
Am I right?

> Bellman-Ford, Dijkstra, and Floyd have the property that they all look
> for possible short cuts until a termination criterion is met. They differ
> only in the order in which the possible short cuts are considered.

I though that Floyd was an implementation of the maximum-flow problem,
which in my eye is not equivalent to a shortest path. The first is based on
capacities,
the other on costs...
But what do I know, I am just supposed to be a specialist in those matter,
I'm humble enough not to be sure.

> You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> > Now sometime Markus talk about "strongest path" wich might be something
> > completely different.
>
> "Strongest paths" and "shortest paths" are mathematically equivalent in
> so far as both follow the same concept of short cuts. In the shortest
> path problem, a short cut is a situation with p_old[j,k] > p[j,i] + p[i,k]
> so that you can set p_new[j,k] = p[j,i] + p[i,k]. In the strongest path
> problem, a short cut is a situation with p_old[j,k] < min ( p[j,i], p[i,k] )
> so that you can set p_new[j,k] = min ( p[j,i], p[i,k] ).
>
> By the way: In the scientific literature, "strongest paths" are called
> "maximum capacity paths".

That's what I call a maximum-flow path. I never imagined that election method
would
bring me right back to my thesis... Maybe it is a sign it is time to finish it.

> Markus Schulze
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Steph



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 19 01:38:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Fri Dec 19 01:38:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus's debate about what I allegedly said (Who but Markus cares?)
Message-ID: <Law10-F30NchHfij1c100020e3c@hotmail.com>

I'd said:

>You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
>some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
>algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
>anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
>the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
>fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

Markus's latest claims about that message:

You are the idiot because you see no contradiction between the fact that
you call your implementation "Floyd algorithm"

I reply:

Wrong. I don't call my implementation the Floyd algorithm. I made it as 
clear as possible for you that
I no longer call it that. I said that I'm going to ask Russ to delete that 
name from the website. Markus, does it occur to you that most of what you 
say isn't true?  Doesn't that bother you at all?

Yes, I had previously called my implementation the Floyd algorithm. I 
carefully explained to you how that came about, and I'm not going to repeat 
it again for  you. But I made it clear that I no longer call it the Floyd 
algorithm.

List members: In case you're new to this list, this is what Markus does. 
He'll latch on to some false claim about what someone said, and then he'll 
keep on re-asserting it, with more false statements in each new posting. If 
I keep replying to him, he'll go on like this for months. February will 
arrive and Markus will still be trying to argue that I claim that my 
implementation is the Floyd algorithm. Does that sound silly? Does it sound 
like a reallly stupidly trivial thing to be wasting people's time, and our 
archive space about? Sure, but apparently Markus really has nothing else to 
do. Evidently Markus is completely without a life.

List members are probably already getting tired of this stupid debate, which 
will go on for as long as I reply to Markus. He isn't really saying anything 
that deserves a reply, and so you'll be glad to hear that this will be my 
last reply to his sily debate in this thread. Typically Markus will then 
send a few more messages, but when he doesn't get a reply he'll quit. When I 
don't reply, that doesn't mean that Markus has said something irrefutable. 
It merely means that I'm no longer wasting my time on Markus.

Markus continued:

...and the fact that you have
to admit that your Python program nowhere uses the Floyd algorithm.

I reply:

Markus, you see, apparently doesn't read the messages that he replies to. 
I've been repeating (but to no avail) that now I don't  claim to know what 
the Floyd algorithm is, and nor do I care.

******

Markus continued:

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
>You claim that  the  1-pass procedure that you posted finds the strongest
>beatpaths. Let's check it out and find out if it does.  What was the year,
>month, and day of  your posting in which you posted what you called the
>Floyd algorithm?

The Floyd algorithm has been proposed by Floyd (Robert W. Floyd, "Algorithm 
97
(Shortest Path)," Communications of the ACM, vol. 5, p. 345, 1962).

I reply:

Excuse me, but did I ask who proposed the Floyd algorithm? I was referring 
to the one that you posted here some time ago. I was suggesting that we find 
it in the archives and find out if, without making more than one pass 
through the permutations, it finds the strongest beatpaths between each pair 
of candidates. So I repeat: What was the year, month and day that you posted 
that algorithm that you called the Floyd algorithm and claimed would find 
the strongest beatpaths with one pass through the permutations?

By the way, if, as you seem to be suggesting, the Floyd algorithm (the real 
one, I mean) finds the strongest paths between pairs of graph-nodes, even 
though the web articles say that it's intended to find the _shortest_ path, 
then, if that's so, ways of finding strongest paths were being discussed as 
early as 1962. If that's true, do you really believe that it never occurred 
to anyone to compare path strengths between two candidates, until you 
"invented" that idea in 1996?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Working moms: Find helpful tips here on managing kids, home, work ?  and 
yourself.   http://special.msn.com/msnbc/workingmom.armx



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 19 02:09:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Fri Dec 19 02:09:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
Message-ID: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>

Ernie,

You wrote:

Can we chill? We're all Condorcet-lovers, after all.   Mike probably
used the term Floyd inappropriately.

I reply:

But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything is 
the Floyd algorithm.
I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm that made as many 
permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd written it right, 
because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he really meant to write 
the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd algorithm. I said "Ok".
So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have no idea, but 
that's how he always is.

You continued:

I suspect that we're really experiencing a clash of cultures.

I reply:

Excuse me?

You continued:

Markus
appears to be operating from a math/compsci perspective

I reply:

Markus is operating in a "making-up-fictitious-quotes" perspective.

Math and comuter-science have nothing to do with it at all.

You continued:

, where terms
mean something different than they do in Mike.

I reply:

I agree that everything seems to mean something different to Markus. In 
particular, Markus evidently has a different perspective on the matter of 
whther he should check the accuracy of what he's about to post.

But if you're referring to mathematical terms, then tell me what 
mathematical term I have a different meaning for, resulting in the 
misunderstanding.

It isn't "Floyd algorithm", because I've already repeated many many times 
that I now don't claim to know what it means, and that the meaning of that 
term doesn't matter to me.

You continued:

As a physicist, I'm
used to abusing mathematical terminology, so I can appreciate the
dilemma. :-)

But what mathematical terminology is being abused now?

You continued:

I suspect part of the problem is that the term 'shortest path'  in the
Flloyd algorithm is used for finding what Mike calls a BeatPath.

I reply:

What I call a beatpath is a sequence of defeats from one candidate to 
another (informal definition).
So Floyd calls that a shortest path, and uses it to find a beatpath?

You continued:

The
comparison of such paths to find the strongest beatpath is actually
after the Flloyd algorithm.

I reply:

So something called "shortest paths" are used to find the strongest 
beatpath?

Ok.

I don't know if "shortest path" is a mathematical term, but I wasn't really 
taking a position on what it means. What I did say was that I agreed that 
the Floyd algorithm sounds different from our strongest beatpaths algorithm, 
because our algorithm seeks the strongest path betwen 2 candidates, not the 
shortest one.

But if you say that finding the shortest path between two candidates can 
somehow be part of some method for finding the strongest one, l of course 
wouldn't try to contradict you on that. It isn't something that I  would 
take a position on.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Tired of slow downloads? Compare online deals from your local high-speed 
providers now.  https://broadband.msn.com



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 19 06:10:05 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 19 06:10:05 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus's debate about what I allegedly said (Who but Markus 
 cares?)
Message-ID: <3FE2F247.F19CD794@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
> (http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):
>
> > Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
> > Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
> > entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
> > beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly
> what you mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.
>
> You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
> some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
> algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
> anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
> the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
> fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you call your implementation
> "Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I misquoted you?

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> Idiot, why don't you read the quoted passage above, from my e-mail. Did I
> deny that I'd called my implementation the Floyd algorithm? The only thing
> that I denied having called "the Floyd algorithm" was your poorly-copied,
> line-truncated fragment of a Python program. You had posted that fragment
> and said that I called it the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> You are the idiot because you see no contradiction between the fact that
> you call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" and the fact that you have
> to admit that your Python program nowhere uses the Floyd algorithm.

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Wrong. I don't call my implementation the Floyd algorithm. I made it as 
> clear as possible for you that I no longer call it that. I said that I'm
> going to ask Russ to delete that name from the website. Markus, does it
> occur to you that most of what you say isn't true?  Doesn't that bother
> you at all?
>
> Yes, I had previously called my implementation the Floyd algorithm. I
> carefully explained to you how that came about, and I'm not going to repeat
> it again for  you. But I made it clear that I no longer call it the Floyd
> algorithm.
>
> List members: In case you're new to this list, this is what Markus does.
> He'll latch on to some false claim about what someone said, and then he'll
> keep on re-asserting it, with more false statements in each new posting.
> If I keep replying to him, he'll go on like this for months. February
> will arrive and Markus will still be trying to argue that I claim that my
> implementation is the Floyd algorithm. Does that sound silly? Does it sound
> like a reallly stupidly trivial thing to be wasting people's time, and our
> archive space about? Sure, but apparently Markus really has nothing else to
> do. Evidently Markus is completely without a life.
>
> List members are probably already getting tired of this stupid debate, which
> will go on for as long as I reply to Markus. He isn't really saying anything
> that deserves a reply, and so you'll be glad to hear that this will be my
> last reply to his sily debate in this thread. Typically Markus will then
> send a few more messages, but when he doesn't get a reply he'll quit. When I
> don't reply, that doesn't mean that Markus has said something irrefutable.
> It merely means that I'm no longer wasting my time on Markus.
>
> Markus, you see, apparently doesn't read the messages that he replies to.
> I've been repeating (but to no avail) that now I don't  claim to know what
> the Floyd algorithm is, and nor do I care.

The problem with you is that you are unable to admit that you have made
a mistake (here: claiming that you have implemented the Floyd algorithm)
without bombarding with insults that person who pointed to this mistake.
Why are you unable to say something like?: "Yes, you are right. I mistakenly
called my implementation 'Floyd algorithm'. I will no longer call it 'Floyd
algorithm'. Thank you for pointing me to this mistake." or something like?:
"Thank you for explaining how the strongest paths can be calculated in a
runtime O(N^3). My implementation still has a runtime O(N^5)."

******

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Excuse me, but did I ask who proposed the Floyd algorithm? I was referring
> to the one that you posted here some time ago. I was suggesting that we find
> it in the archives and find out if, without making more than one pass
> through the permutations, it finds the strongest beatpaths between each pair
> of candidates. So I repeat: What was the year, month and day that you posted
> that algorithm that you called the Floyd algorithm and claimed would find
> the strongest beatpaths with one pass through the permutations?

I suggested to use the Floyd algorithm e.g. in my 6 Feb 2001 mail:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/6493
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2001-February/005093.html

in my 23 Feb 2001 mail:
http://www.topica.com/lists/RankedPairs/read/message.html?mid=1601349191

in my 14 Nov 2002 mail:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2002/debian-vote-200211/msg00035.html

and in my paper "A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent Single-Winner
Election Method":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

******

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> By the way, if, as you seem to be suggesting, the Floyd algorithm (the real
> one, I mean) finds the strongest paths between pairs of graph-nodes, even
> though the web articles say that it's intended to find the _shortest_ path,
> then, if that's so, ways of finding strongest paths were being discussed as
> early as 1962. If that's true, do you really believe that it never occurred
> to anyone to compare path strengths between two candidates, until you
> "invented" that idea in 1996?

When you believe that the Schulze method (aka Schwartz Sequential Dropping,
aka Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential Dropping, aka Beatpath Winner, aka
Beatpath Method, aka Path Winner, aka Path Voting, ...) has already been
proposed by other people, then you are invited to post the corresponding
paper.

******

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
> Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything
> is the Floyd algorithm. I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm
> that made as many permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd
> written it right, because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he really
> meant to write the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd algorithm.
> I said "Ok". So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have no
> idea, but that's how he always is.

Then, of course, it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" anymore. There was no need for you
to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

Markus Schulze


From malditomartin at yahoo.es  Fri Dec 19 06:56:48 2003
From: malditomartin at yahoo.es (=?iso-8859-1?q?Martin?=)
Date: Fri Dec 19 06:56:48 2003
Subject: [EM] unsuscribe
Message-ID: <20031219141837.86302.qmail@web11108.mail.yahoo.com>

 
 

_______________________________________________________________
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From rspeer at MIT.EDU  Fri Dec 19 07:27:02 2003
From: rspeer at MIT.EDU (Rob Speer)
Date: Fri Dec 19 07:27:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
References: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031219152557.GA11477@mit.edu>

On Fri, Dec 19, 2003 at 10:08:45AM +0000, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
> But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
> Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything 
> is the Floyd algorithm.
> I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm that made as many 
> permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd written it right, 
> because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he really meant to write 
> the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd algorithm. I said "Ok".
> So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have no idea, but 
> that's how he always is.

If you said "Ok", it would have been a great place to end the thread.
But it got lost in the mass of insults and flames being thrown back and
forth.

Markus is just doing what he does: he makes sure that voting terminology
used on this list is consistent, when so much of the available
information about voting terminology is inconsistent. Perhaps he's being
too harsh here or is even wrong about what you're referring to. People
make mistakes.

Terminology is a very important thing for people to agree on. It was
because of a conflict in terminology that I ended up in that stupid
flamewar with Eric.

It seems that the fiercest arguments can break out when the positions of
the arguers are closest. People like Donald Davidson and Craig Carey say
things that are much more inflammatory than any of this, but nobody
usually bothers to flame them.

-- 
Rob Speer



From dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk  Fri Dec 19 07:41:03 2003
From: dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk (Diana Galletly)
Date: Fri Dec 19 07:41:03 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
In-Reply-To: <20031219152557.GA11477@mit.edu>
References: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com> <20031219152557.GA11477@mit.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312191537250.13540@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003, Rob Speer wrote:

> People like Donald Davidson and Craig Carey say

Talking of Craig Carey, can someone please explain what his most
recent diatribe was on about?  And whether it's worth my while
worrying about?  (Since he's thrown Markus out of his private
party -- at least that's how it appears to outsiders -- I'd
like to know whether he actually has a point or is just excellent
at posturing.)

Diana.


From andru at cs.cornell.edu  Fri Dec 19 08:03:04 2003
From: andru at cs.cornell.edu (Andrew Myers)
Date: Fri Dec 19 08:03:04 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm
In-Reply-To: <20031219152702.19030.66063.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
References: <20031219152702.19030.66063.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <20031219160250.GA6837@balm.cs.cornell.edu>

Hi all,

The "Floyd algorithm" is usually called the Floyd-Warshall all-pairs shortest
path algorithm. This algorithm computes the cost of the "best path" in a
weighted, directed graph. The notion of 'best' and 'cost' are defined by two
operations we can call 'min' and '+', respectively. As long as the actual
mathematical operations have the right algebraic properties, the algorithm will
work. The core of the algorithm updates the matrix as follows:

    m[i][j] = 'min'(m[i][j], m[i][k] '+' m[k][j])

For example, if we choose 'min' = min and '+' = +, then the cost of a path
is the sum of the weights of the edges and the algorithm finds the lowest-cost
path.

If we choose 'min' = max and '+' = min, then the cost of a path is
the lowest-weight edge and the algorithm finds the highest-weight path.
This is the particular choice of operators that results in selecting
the beatpath winner.

Many other choices for 'min' and '+' are possible, of course.

When implemented correctly it has O(V^3) running time where V is the number of
vertices (nodes) in the graph.

-- Andrew Myers


From matt at tidalwave.net  Fri Dec 19 09:00:01 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Fri Dec 19 09:00:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
Message-ID: <20031219165215.E0A00AC78@sitemail.everyone.net>

An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20031219/564d543b/attachment-0002.asc>

From drernie at mac.com  Fri Dec 19 09:30:02 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Fri Dec 19 09:30:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
References: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <EA5DD400-3248-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

I wrote:
> Can we chill?

Apparently the answer is "no".  :-)

Mike, Markus - as a newcomer to this arena, I have the greatest respect 
for both of you.   I think both of you are making valuable 
contributions to the field.   I think both of you are sincere and 
trying to do the best you can.    I am trying very hard to learn from 
both of you.  From what I've seen, both of you are willing to listen to 
constructive criticism, admit where you've made mistakes, and try to do 
the right thing.

At the same time, I feel like both of you are being just a little 
oversensitive on this issue.   I don't think either of you is 
deliberately overstating the facts.   And I can understand why you 
might be offended by the other person's tone.

However, I do feel that both of you are taking things a little too 
personally, and making too much of the other's slight lapses in 
terminology or etiquette.  Please, let it go.   We have far more 
important things to fight about.

-- Ernie P.



From drernie at mac.com  Fri Dec 19 10:09:02 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Fri Dec 19 10:09:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <20031219160250.GA6837@balm.cs.cornell.edu>
References: <20031219152702.19030.66063.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com> <20031219160250.GA6837@balm.cs.cornell.edu>
Message-ID: <4927B6FD-324E-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

Hi Andrew,

> The "Floyd algorithm" is usually called the Floyd-Warshall all-pairs 
> shortest
> path algorithm. This algorithm computes the cost of the "best path" in 
> a
> weighted, directed graph. The notion of 'best' and 'cost' are defined 
> by two
> operations we can call 'min' and '+', respectively....For example, if 
> we choose 'min' = min and '+' = +, then the cost of a path is the sum 
> of the weights of the edges and the algorithm finds the lowest-cost
> path. If we choose 'min' = max and '+' = min, then the cost of a path 
> is
> the lowest-weight edge and the algorithm finds the highest-weight path.

Thanks - this is awesome.  I think this highlights my biggest question 
about the Schulze method.  Essentially, Markus (and Mike) are 
recommending we treat the pairwise matrix of votes as defining a graph, 
where each candidate is a node and each vote count is a directed edge 
between two nodes.  This allows us to use standard mathematical 
techniques for traversing the graph, i.e., calculating the relative 
'strength' of two candidates.  Yes, Stef, time to finish that thesis, 
all this math really is the same.

Even if we agree to use a graph, and a particular graph-traversal 
algorithm, there's still a couple different ways to do the counting 
(i.e., to define the 'best' path we're searching for).

a) Use of 'shortest' path vs. 'strongest'

This is the issue you raise below:  do we add the paths along the way 
to get the 'length' of the path, or do we pick the 'weakest link' to 
measure the strength of path?

b) Use of relative wins vs. absolute votes

Do we count -all- the votes of A over B (A/B), or just net votes (A/B - 
B/A).

 From looking at their math, it appears that Markus ("Schulze method") 
is recommending:
a) shortest path
b) relative wins

while Mike ("beatpath") is recommending:
a) strongest path
b) absolute votes

These appear to be fundamental differences, independent of whether you 
use Floyd-Warshall or Dijkstra (or even when you can spell any of their 
names correctly, which I can't :-) for graph traversal.  That is, 
beatpath explicitly uses a slightly different set of assumptions than 
those used in the formal Schulze method.

Does anyone know if they're equivalent, or have any reason to argue 
(non-insultingly, please!) that one is better than the other?

-- Ernie P.


On Dec 19, 2003, at 8:02 AM, Andrew Myers wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> The "Floyd algorithm" is usually called the Floyd-Warshall all-pairs 
> shortest
> path algorithm. This algorithm computes the cost of the "best path" in 
> a
> weighted, directed graph. The notion of 'best' and 'cost' are defined 
> by two
> operations we can call 'min' and '+', respectively. As long as the 
> actual
> mathematical operations have the right algebraic properties, the 
> algorithm will
> work. The core of the algorithm updates the matrix as follows:
>
>     m[i][j] = 'min'(m[i][j], m[i][k] '+' m[k][j])
>
> For example, if we choose 'min' = min and '+' = +, then the cost of a 
> path
> is the sum of the weights of the edges and the algorithm finds the 
> lowest-cost
> path.
>
> If we choose 'min' = max and '+' = min, then the cost of a path is
> the lowest-weight edge and the algorithm finds the highest-weight path.
> This is the particular choice of operators that results in selecting
> the beatpath winner.
>
> Many other choices for 'min' and '+' are possible, of course.
>
> When implemented correctly it has O(V^3) running time where V is the 
> number of
> vertices (nodes) in the graph.
>
> -- Andrew Myers
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list 
> info



From andru at cs.cornell.edu  Fri Dec 19 11:09:12 2003
From: andru at cs.cornell.edu (Andrew Myers)
Date: Fri Dec 19 11:09:12 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <4927B6FD-324E-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>
References: <20031219152702.19030.66063.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com> <20031219160250.GA6837@balm.cs.cornell.edu> <4927B6FD-324E-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>
Message-ID: <20031219190713.GA7368@balm.cs.cornell.edu>

On Fri, Dec 19, 2003 at 10:08:02AM -0800, Ernest Prabhakar wrote:
> From looking at their math, it appears that Markus ("Schulze method") 
> is recommending:
> a) shortest path
> b) relative wins
> 
> while Mike ("beatpath") is recommending:
> a) strongest path
> b) absolute votes

As I understand it, they are both computing beatpath winners where
the goal is to find the strongest path using absolute votes.
The difference is that Markus is building on a more efficient algorithm,
the classic Floyd-Warshall algorithm. The key is to get the order
of the nested loops right so the algorithm converges in one pass.
This makes the algorithm simpler and asymptotically faster.
It is a dynamic programming algorithm; see any good algorithms
textbook (e.g., Cormen, Leiserson, and Rivest) for more details.

Unless there are a lot of candidates, it probably doesn't matter
much which algorithm is used.

-- Andrew Myers


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 19 11:33:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 19 11:33:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <3FE351F2.6BA9B886@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Ernest,

you wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Even if we agree to use a graph, and a particular graph-traversal
> algorithm, there's still a couple different ways to do the counting
> (i.e., to define the 'best' path we're searching for).

"Beatpath Method", "Beatpath Winner", "Path Voting", "Path Winner",
"Schwartz Sequential Dropping", "Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential
Dropping", and "Schulze Method" are only different names for the
same method.

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> From looking at their math, it appears that Markus ("Schulze method") 
> is recommending:
> a) shortest path
> b) relative wins
>
> while Mike ("beatpath") is recommending:
> a) strongest path
> b) absolute votes

We both are recommending strongest paths and absolute votes. There
is absolutely no difference between Mike's and my recommendation.

Markus Schulze


From drernie at mac.com  Fri Dec 19 12:06:39 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Fri Dec 19 12:06:39 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <3FE351F2.6BA9B886@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FE351F2.6BA9B886@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <86366664-325E-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

On Dec 19, 2003, at 11:30 AM, Markus Schulze wrote:
> We both are recommending strongest paths and absolute votes. There
> is absolutely no difference between Mike's and my recommendation.

Ah, thank you!  Sorry, I got confused between what you each recommended 
and what I was reading about the various algorithms.

I actually find the Floyd algorithm confusing, with all the indices.   
I think Dijkstra is not only clearer, but easier to implement using 
objects.  Here's some pseudo-Python code I've been working on, which I 
think implements the Schulze method via Dijkstra.

The main object is a 'Candidate (start, current, or beat) with the 
following fields:
- beats[] # list of candidates this one has beaten
- votes{} # dictionary of votes for this one against each other 
candidate
- strength # hold temporary path strengths; allows sorting to find 
'smallest'

def FindStrongestPaths(start):
"Find best paths to all candidates starting from candidate 'start'"
final = []
start.strength = HUGE_VAL # arbitrarily large, so anything is 'min' 
relative to it
unchecked = [start]
while (current = unchecked.smallest()): # removes and returns smallest 
elements
   final.append(current)
   for beat in current.beats: # loop over candidate current has beaten 
(i.e., neighbor nodes)
      strength = min(current.strength, current.votes[beat])
      if not final.contains(beat) and (not unchecked.contains(beat) or 
strength > beat.strength):
        beat.strength = strength
        if not unchecked.contains(beat): unchecked.append(beat)
     #endif
   #end for
#end while
#end def


Anyone care to check it for me (yes, I know its not legal python; done 
for clarity; I'm asking about the algorithm).

-- Ernie P.



From stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca  Fri Dec 19 12:36:01 2003
From: stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca (stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca)
Date: Fri Dec 19 12:36:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <20031219203542.UAMK13528.tomts24-srv.bellnexxia.net@smtp.bellnexxia.net>

Dear Ernest,

> Yes, Stef, time to finish that thesis, 
> all this math really is the same.


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 19 15:07:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 19 15:07:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <3FE38375.20BFE6D3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Ernest,

I don't know Python-ish pseudo-code. But in Pascal/C-ish pseudo-code
the Dijkstra algorithm (aka Dykstra algorithm) looks as follows when
the strength of a pairwise defeat is measured primarily by p1 (= the
absolute number of votes for the winner of this pairwise defeat) and
secondarily by p2 (= the margin of this pairwise defeat):

***

N is the number of candidates.

Input: d[i,j] with i <> j is the number of voters who strictly prefer
candidate i to candidate j.

Output: "w[i] = true" means that candidate i is a potential winner.
"w[i] = false" means that candidate i is not a potential winner.

***

for i : = 1 to N do
for j : = 1 to N do
if ( i <> j ) then
   {
    if ( d[i,j] > d[j,i] ) then
    d1[i,j] : = d[i,j] ;
    if ( d[i,j] <= d[j,i] ) then
    d1[i,j] : = -1 ;

    d2[i,j] : = d[i,j] - d[j,i] ;

    p1[i,j] : = d1[i,j] ;
    p2[i,j] : = d2[i,j] ;
   }

for i : = 1 to N do
   {
    for j : = 1 to N do
    unchecked[j] : = true ;

    unchecked[i] : = false ;

    for j : = 2 to N do
      {
       v : = - MAXINT ;
       w : = - MAXINT ;
       x : = 0 ;
       
       for k : = 1 to N do
       if ( unchecked[k] = true ) then
       if (( p1[i,k] > v ) or (( p1[i,k] = v ) and ( p2[i,k] > w ))) then
         {
          v : = p1[i,k] ;
          w : = p2[i,k] ;
          x : = k ;
         }

       unchecked[x] : = false ;

       for k : = 1 to N do
       if ( unchecked[k] = true ) then
          {
           s : = min { p1[i,x], d1[x,k] } ;
           if ( p1[i,x] < d1[x,k] ) then
           t : = p2[i,x] ;
           if ( p1[i,x] > d1[x,k] ) then
           t : = d2[x,k] ;
           if ( p1[i,x] = d1[x,k] ) then
           t : = min { p2[i,x], d2[x,k] } ;
           
          if (( p1[i,k] < s ) or
             (( p1[i,k] = s ) and ( p2[i,k] < t ))) then
             {
              p1[i,k] : = s ;
              p2[i,k] : = t ;
             }
          }
      }
   }

for i : = 1 to N do
   {
    w[i] : = true ;
    for j : = 1 to N do
    if ( i <> j ) then
    if (( p1[j,i] > p1[i,j] ) or
       (( p1[j,i] = p1[i,j] ) and ( p2[j,i] > p2[i,j] ))) then
    w[i] : = false ;
   }

Markus Schulze


From dglaude at gmx.net  Fri Dec 19 15:13:02 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Fri Dec 19 15:13:02 2003
Subject: [EM] What is this software MIKE is working on...
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
References: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <3FE38316.8060103@gmx.net>

One of the side effect of the Markus and Mike chat is that I understand 
Mike is programing something... The more I think about it, the more I 
believe it might be this:
http://www.fairvote.org/ChoicePlus/
http://votingsolutions.com/

If it is... I will come with more on that...

But if the author of that piece of code are on this list... I can talk 
about it here too.

David GLAUDE

MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
> 
> Ernie,
> 
> You wrote:
> 
> Can we chill? We're all Condorcet-lovers, after all.   Mike probably
> used the term Floyd inappropriately.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
> Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that 
> anything is the Floyd algorithm.
> I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm that made as many 
> permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd written it 
> right, because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he really meant 
> to write the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd algorithm. 
> I said "Ok".
> So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have no idea, 
> but that's how he always is.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> I suspect that we're really experiencing a clash of cultures.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Excuse me?
> 
> You continued:
> 
> Markus
> appears to be operating from a math/compsci perspective
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Markus is operating in a "making-up-fictitious-quotes" perspective.
> 
> Math and comuter-science have nothing to do with it at all.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> , where terms
> mean something different than they do in Mike.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> I agree that everything seems to mean something different to Markus. In 
> particular, Markus evidently has a different perspective on the matter 
> of whther he should check the accuracy of what he's about to post.
> 
> But if you're referring to mathematical terms, then tell me what 
> mathematical term I have a different meaning for, resulting in the 
> misunderstanding.
> 
> It isn't "Floyd algorithm", because I've already repeated many many 
> times that I now don't claim to know what it means, and that the meaning 
> of that term doesn't matter to me.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> As a physicist, I'm
> used to abusing mathematical terminology, so I can appreciate the
> dilemma. :-)
> 
> But what mathematical terminology is being abused now?
> 
> You continued:
> 
> I suspect part of the problem is that the term 'shortest path'  in the
> Flloyd algorithm is used for finding what Mike calls a BeatPath.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> What I call a beatpath is a sequence of defeats from one candidate to 
> another (informal definition).
> So Floyd calls that a shortest path, and uses it to find a beatpath?
> 
> You continued:
> 
> The
> comparison of such paths to find the strongest beatpath is actually
> after the Flloyd algorithm.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> So something called "shortest paths" are used to find the strongest 
> beatpath?
> 
> Ok.
> 
> I don't know if "shortest path" is a mathematical term, but I wasn't 
> really taking a position on what it means. What I did say was that I 
> agreed that the Floyd algorithm sounds different from our strongest 
> beatpaths algorithm, because our algorithm seeks the strongest path 
> betwen 2 candidates, not the shortest one.
> 
> But if you say that finding the shortest path between two candidates can 
> somehow be part of some method for finding the strongest one, l of 
> course wouldn't try to contradict you on that. It isn't something that 
> I  would take a position on.
> 
> Mike Ossipoff
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Tired of slow downloads? Compare online deals from your local high-speed 
> providers now.  https://broadband.msn.com
> 
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
> 
> 

-- 






From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 19 22:15:07 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 19 22:15:07 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <3FE3B95F.7F97A915@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Ernest,

you wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Let me put it another way.   Could you please explain in words why you
> feel it is necessary or useful to use *both* absolute votes and margins
> in the calculation?   Are the margins used simply to break a tie
> between absolute votes?  I think that's what is implied by the line:
> >            if ( p1[i,x] = d1[x,k] ) then
> >            t : = min { p2[i,x], d2[x,k] } ;

I consider the margins of defeats only when both defeats have the same
absolute number of votes for the winner. The aim is to make the method
more decisive without sacrificing any of the desired properties.

******

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Also, is there a particular mathematical or anti-strategic reason for
> randomizing the tie-breaking round, rather than just automatically
> picking the candidate who would have the best chance of winning such
> a random draw?

Plurality as a tie-breaking strategy violates independence of clones.

Markus Schulze


From research at ijs.co.nz  Fri Dec 19 23:56:01 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Fri Dec 19 23:56:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312181237360.27475-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.e
 du>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031220185208.04216fe0@pop.qsi.net.nz>

At 2003-12-18 13:29 -0800 Thursday, Forest Simmons wrote:
>For me two paramount criteria are
>
>(1) simplicity of optimal or near optimal strategy, and
>
>(2) as much voting power as possible consistent with (1).
>


That is not based on evidence, Mr Simmons.
The so called Schulze method (that recently appeared in a prestigious
English publication, namely Voting Matters (PDF files are around),
had the appearance of failing these strict rules:

(1) The number of winners should be correct.
   indicates that the Schulze method found the wrong number of winners.
   As might be expected, Mr Schulze has not commented on that or produced
   a defence against the allegation. In fact, so very complex is the method
   in its polytope form (and a optimal method would be much simpler), that
   the assumption should be that the method is guilty until cleared.

(2) The method should not have some bias. This fails methods that ignrore
   the votes and pick the first (not best) candidate on a list the method
   receives.

   Shulze's believed the count of the papers could be ignored and the number
   of voters could be counted. That is stupid and some people don't seem to
   be able to stop or explain themselves without pointing invalid assumptions.

(3) When the papers are like STV' the winners ought be insensitive to the
  presence or absence of the very last preference in one or more papers.
  That Schulze method seemed to fail this test.

THE EM LIST REALLY NEEDS SOFTWARE TO CHECK FOR BASIC MISTAKES IN THEIR
METHODS.

Outside of here the methods are simpler and the passes are found using 
arguments instead of with testing.



>There are various possible definitions of "voting power," but it should
>have something to do with the probability of one ballot or set of ballots
>being pivotal to the outcome in an election chosen at random from some
>family of elections.
>

That is dumb since it is vaguely stated and it makes use of probalities
that do not exist. I have already considered and partly solved the problem.

The only solution I found is to start off by never defining "the power of
a ballot paper.

Approximately, the fairness of an equal suffrage rule is written down in its
 2 parts:

[1] multiwinner monotonicity requiring 0 <= power
[2] multiwinner one man one vote requiring power <= 1


Here I write on the power of a single ballot paper.

Both those rules are infinitesimal (since fair). It would be suspect to
have power consider big changes in the votes.

A rule can only consider the facts, i.e. the changes in the votes and the
changes in the winners.

So the power number is only defined on ties.

It would not take account of Mr Simmons' probability since it was a lie
to say that they existed. Mr Simmons' apparently can write to me privately
but never actually sends out to me even one of these probability numbers.

It takes quite a few lines to write down a QE formula testing whether
a method passes the power<=1 rule. I was writing on power when writing
on P4 over a year ago, at politicians and polytopes.

Suppose the ballot paper being tested is x*(ABC), with its weight, x,
being a positive Real. Then the method can be failed by the 'as defined'
power<=1 part of the equal suffrage rule when it (ABC)-desirableness of
the winners can't be sustained|reproduced when its weight is positively
shifted onto only these shorter papers.  Each line provides a different
test:

|----------------------------
|  . .? {A,BC}
|  . .? {B,AC}
|  . .? {C,AB}
|  . .? {AB,AC}
|  . .? {AB,BC}
|  . .? {AC,BC}
|  . .? {A,B,C}
|  . .? {A,B,AC}
|  . .? {A,B,BC}
|  . .? {A,C,AB}
|  . .? {A,C,BC}
|  . .? {B,C,AB}
|  . .? {B,C,AC}
|  . .? {A,AB,AC}
|  . .? {B,AB,BC}
|  . .? {C,AC,BC}
|----------------------------


Note only does the number of lines increase rapidly as candidates are
added, but the desirableness value takes 2**nw values where nw is the number
of winners.

Nowthat it is known that the algebra can get simpler when rules are combined
with dual polytopes. it could save time to merge all rules (except the
Approvalishy proportionality aim) into a single rule. That would get the
word power matching up better with the words "equal suffrage".

To get the power, e.g. q, (which is a real numbe), it can be inserted into an
appropriate place in the QE formula.

Mr Simmons is still implying that probability exists which appears to be
a lie. I did ask for the probability numbers. This mailing list has seen
this precise problem of untrue claims that numbers exist, when I asked
Mr Ossipoff for some probability numbers,





>
>
>Here's a method that comes close to satisfying these criteria:
>
>The method takes ranked ballots with equal rankings allowed, as input.
>
>The method first applies Rob LeGrand's "ballot-by-ballot" version of
>"strategy A" to all possible permutations of the ballot. [Yes, this method
>is computationally intractable.]
>
>If the same candidate wins for all permutations, then that candidate is
>declared winner.
>


Maybe that creates a new method instead of passing or failing an
existing method. So the previous topic of power has left.


>Else, Joe Weinstein's weighted median method is applied to determine the
>winner.  A candidate's weight is the number of permutations that it won
>(according to Rob) plus one (so that each candidate has non-zero weight).
>
>Although this method is computationally intractable,the method winner can
>be calculated with 99.9 percent accuracy without inordinate computational
>burden, by use of montecarlo methods, for example.
>

Oh, THE random number generating algorithms are in the future.

E.g. in a computer existing in the year 2973 (in 23 April).

Is that why you can't ever seem to get a probability number out after
being asked for that ?.


>The residual doubt is small compared to other sources of doubt in other
>voting methods, especially the doubt that the votes were sincere, or the
>doubt that the the voters were using their best strategy for maximizing
>their voting power.

"votes" are sincere and it is not voters. Voters can be absent is some
elections trialling a method, and so can probability numbers be absent.


>
>Note that the method is completely deterministic,





From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 01:55:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 01:55:02 2003
Subject: [EM] RE: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #388 - 7 msgs
Message-ID: <Law10-F17mPRmlgF2a50004beb7@hotmail.com>


Someone wrote:

One of the side effect of the Markus and Mike chat is that I understand
Mike is programing something

I reply:

No. I'm not programming anything. Yes, quite some time ago I posted a Python 
program to implement BeatpathWinner. And yes, I re-posted the BeatpathWinner 
algorithm a few days ago, this time not in any particular programming 
language.

But I'm not now programming anything.

What started this discussion was when Markus said that my BeatpathWinner 
algorithm wouldn't work, because it isn't the Floyd algorithm, whatever that 
is.

The algorithm that Markus posted as the Floyd algorithm differs from mine 
(actually Steve Eppley's) by only making one pass through the 3-candidate 
permutations.

As I say in my reply to Ernie, my algorithm works. It looks at every 
permutation of 3 candidates, i, j, and k. If the beatpath from i to j, and 
the beatpath from j to k, are both stronger than the beatpath from i to k, 
then the value of the minimum of B(i,j) and B(j,k), which is the strength of 
the beatpath made by concatenating the ij and jk beatpaths, becomes the new 
value of B(i,k)--the strongest beatpath from i to j found as-yet at that 
time.

It repeatedly makes passes through the permutations until doing so doesn't 
make any changes. Then its task is completed. Each pass finds one or more 
new, longer beatpaths that replace a previous one that wasn't as strong.

The beatpaths that it initially looks at are single-step beatpaths, pairwise 
defeats. But, via the process described above, the algorithm eventually 
finds the strongest beatpath from each candidate to each other candidate.

If Markus believes that it doesn't work, I'd be curioius how he justifies 
that claim.But sometimes he says it merely takes longer to execute than the 
Floyd algorithm, and not that it doesn't work.

It was irresponsible for Markus to say that that BeatpathWinner algorithm 
wouldn't work, unless he can justify his claim, tell why he thinks it 
wouldn't work.

False statements, statements that he can't justify,  have always been 
Markus's stock-in-trade. But this time he's doing the disservice of 
misinforming people about a practical matter. But Markus doesn't care, he 
just enjoys being on the attack.

Now, Markus says that it's possible to find all the strongest beatpaths by 
making just one pass. He says the Floyd algorithm did that. According to 
websites that I looked at, the Floyd algorithm doesn't find strongest 
beatpaths, it finds shortest paths. I guess what Markus is saying is that it 
can be modified to find strongest beatpaths. He says that, by changing the 
order of the indexes in the line that tests and changes B(i,j) values, it 
can complete its job in one pass. But, if that's true when its job is 
finding the shortest path between each pair of graph-nodes, that may or may 
not mean that it's true when its job is finding the strongest beatpath from 
each candidate to each other candidate.

I'm not debating whether that's so. I don't know, and I don't reallly care. 
It doesn't matter because, though Markus says that the one-pass procedure is 
faster, both procedures are fast enough for all practical purposes.

As I said, the only reason why I said anything was because of Markus's 
mistaken statement that the BeatpathWinner algorithm wouldn't work.

Mike Ossipoff



That person continued:

... The more I think about it, the more I
believe it might be this:
http://www.fairvote.org/ChoicePlus/
http://votingsolutions.com/

I have nothing to do with the fairvote website. The other one, I'd have to 
check to find out what it is. But I'm not programming anything there. 
There's an interactive BeatpathWinner counting website, and it uses an 
algorithm similar to the one that I've posted here. But the website owner 
didn't get the algorithm from me, and I'm not working on it.

That person continued:

If it is... I will come with more on that...

I reply:

It isn't. I'm not programming anything there, and I'm not programming the 
BeatpathWinner algorithm. I did that a long time ago.
Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 02:11:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 02:11:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
Message-ID: <3FE41EF4.C7AB435E@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> That is not based on evidence, Mr Simmons.
> The so called Schulze method (that recently appeared in a prestigious
> English publication, namely Voting Matters (PDF files are around),
> had the appearance of failing these strict rules:
>
> (1) The number of winners should be correct.
>    indicates that the Schulze method found the wrong number of winners.
>    As might be expected, Mr Schulze has not commented on that or produced
>    a defence against the allegation. In fact, so very complex is the method
>    in its polytope form (and a optimal method would be much simpler), that
>    the assumption should be that the method is guilty until cleared.

In Section 3 of my paper, I prove that my method is well defined:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> (2) The method should not have some bias. This fails methods that ignrore
>    the votes and pick the first (not best) candidate on a list the method
>    receives.
>
>    Shulze's believed the count of the papers could be ignored and the number
>    of voters could be counted. That is stupid and some people don't seem to
>    be able to stop or explain themselves without pointing invalid assumptions.

You will have to rephrase this, because I have absolutely no idea what
you are talking about.

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> (3) When the papers are like STV' the winners ought be insensitive to the
>   presence or absence of the very last preference in one or more papers.
>   That Schulze method seemed to fail this test.

Please give a concrete example.

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 03:16:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 03:16:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Matt
Message-ID: <LAW10-F31WoqFXfyY0Q0004339f@hotmail.com>

Message: 3
From: matt at tidalwave.net
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 08:52:15 -0800 (PST)
To: election-methods at electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Reply to Ernie
Reply-To: matt at tidalwave.net

Matt said:

In this case the style of debater and the merit of the argument positively
correlate.  In other words, the debater that is polite, clear and helpful is
correct and the debaters that are impolite, confusing and derogatory are
incorrect.

(farther below, Matt clarifies that he's saying that Markus was the correct 
one)

I reply:

Sorry, but you're mistaken.

The "debate" was about whether or not I claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner 
algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Since I repeatedly clarified that, now 
that I've been told different, I now am not claiming that Steve's algorithm 
is the Floyd algorithm, Markus was incorrect when he kept repeating that I 
claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

That's the only issue that was being debated. On that issue, I was correct, 
and Markus was incorrect, because, during that discussion, I was longer 
claiming that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I wasn't debating which algorithm is better. I'd be lying if I claimed to 
know if one pass through the 3-candidate permutations can reliably find the 
strongest beatpath beween each ordered pair of candidates, as Markus claims, 
but I'm not debating that or denying it.

Matt continued:

Thank you Markus for your (unsuccesfull) efforts to help Mike improve the
program that his site promotes.

I reply:

Yes, when Markus said that Steve's algorithm doesn't work, Markus was 
unsuccessful in convincing me that it doesn't work. But you're sure that it 
doesn't work, right? :-)   I'm referring to the
BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted here a few days ago.

Or maybe the improvement that yoiu're referring to is the greater speed of 
the one-pass algorithm, assuming that it relliably works.

Let's suppose that it indeed works, and is faster than Steve's algorithm. 
Does that mean that we should use it to replace Steve's algorithm at the 
website, or that I should start sending it out to people who ask for an 
implementation algorithm. No, not really. Steve's algorilthm _obviously_ 
works. It's obvious that eventually the repeated passes will find the 
strongest beatpath between each orderred pair of candidates.

Even if the one-pass algorithm works, I'm not going to send it out, along 
with a proof for why it works. I prefer to not send something that requies 
me to convince someone and explain to them why it works, when it doesn't at 
first appear that it would.  I'll continue sending out the algorithm that 
obviously works, Steve's algorithm. Sorry, Matt.

Matt continues:

I have seen stubborness before but the
magnititude of this stubborness (over such a trivial yet clearcut issue!)
matches or exceeds the worst I can recall seeing before.

I reply:

What issue? There was no issue about the relative merits of the 2 
algorithms. Markus says that there's a 1-pass algorithm that works, and that 
it's faster. Though I told how I initially didn't believe that that could be 
done, I was _not_ debating that during the discussion. My position has been: 
I don't claim to know if that can work, but it isn't important.

The issue, as I said, was about whether I claim that Steve's program is the 
Floyd algorithm. Yes I agree that that's a trivial issue. And yes, I 
stubbornly maintain that I don't claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd 
algorithm :-)   How's that for stubborn?

Or is that you think that I'm stubborn because I don't replace Steve's 
algorithm with the putative one-pass algorithm? I've told you that I prefer 
something whose validity is obvious, something that doesn't require a proof 
to be sent with it, doesn't require as much explaining and convincing. How's 
that for stubborn? If Steve's algorithm runs for a half minute, and the 
one-pass algorithm runs for half a second, is half a minute really a big 
problem?

So you're saying that it's stubborn to not adopt the method that you like 
best?

But, at the time that you stated that I was stubborn, I hadn't yet said that 
I wasn't going to adopt the one-pass algorithm.  All I'd said at that time 
was that I don't know if Markus's one-pass algorithm works. I was being 
honest. I don't know that if it works. I haven't checked Floyd's 1962 proof, 
and I don't even know if that proof really applies to the job of finding 
strongest beatpaths. That isn't stubborn, it's honest.

So you're saying that it's stubborn not to take Markus's word for whatever 
he says, in spite of Markus's long history of mis-statements?

So it's really entirely unclear what you think that I was being stubborn 
about.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 03:18:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 03:18:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ernie: What started the discussion about BeatpathWinner algorithms
Message-ID: <Law10-F125sdov6dU2y0000c980@hotmail.com>

Ernie wrote:

>I wrote:
>Can we chill?

Apparently the answer is "no".  :-)

I reply:

Well, I said that I was going to quit replying to Markus, and that then he'd 
stop his one-sided debate about something that he claims that I said several 
postings back. I fully understand that that discussion has been a waste of 
time, and that no one but Markus cares about his fictional claim about what 
I allegedly said. I was saying that in my reply.

I agree, then, that the debate about what I said or didn't say several 
postings back isn't important. I'm not trying to make it more important than 
it was, but I just want to comment that you're talking about it as if was a 
genuinely 2-sided problem. But it certainly was not. Markus wanted to keep 
on repeating his claim that I claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner algorithm is 
the Floyd algorithm, even though I was repeating in each reply that I'm now 
making no such claim. Is that a stupid debate, or what? But it wasn't a 
2-sided problem. It was a nuisance created and perpetuated by Markus, due to 
some peculiar personality defect that he suffers from, which makes him feel 
the need to behave in that manner.

You know, I haven't usually been posting here, or taking part in the 
discussions. What got me to post was Markus's claim that Steve Eppley's 
BeatpathWinner algorithm wouldn't work. Markus, you notice, forgot to tell 
us what makes him think that it wouldn't work.

The algorithm looks at each 3-candidate permutation-- i,j, & k. Where  
B(i,j) is the strength of the strongest beatpath so far found from i to j, 
the program asks if the minimum of B(i,j) & B(j,k) is greater than  B(i,k). 
If so, then  the beatpath made by concatenating the ij and jk beatpaths is 
stronger than  the ik beatpath, and therefore replaces it as the new value 
of B(i,j).

With each pass through the permutations, this algorithm finds a new, longer 
beatpath that is stronger than the previous beatpath between the same 
endpoints. Eventually the B(i,j) values will be as strong as they can 
get--there won't be a stronger beatpath from i to k than the current        
B(i,k). When the most recent pass doesn't change any B(i,j) values, the 
algorithm  has completed its job and it stops.

There's no question about whether it works. It works.

Markus, when he said that it wouldn't work, forgot to tell us what makes him 
think it wouldn't work. But that's typical for Markus. Statements that he 
can't justify are Markus's stock-in-trade.

By saying on the mailing list that that algorithm wouldn't work, Markus was 
misinforming list-members about a practical matter. Of course that's 
irresponsible, but Markus doesn't care. It's as if Markus feels a need to 
defend the honor of the Floyd algorithm by challenging this other algorithm 
that finds strongest beatpaths.

Markus claims that the Floyd algorithm, which finds _shortest_ paths between 
graph-nodes, can be modified so that it finds strongest beatpaths. He seems 
to be implying that if the Floyd algorithm can do its job in one pass, when 
its job is finding the shortest path, then it can also do its job in one 
pass when its job is finding the strongest beatpaths between the ordered 
pairs of candidates.

I haven't challenged that belief. Maybe it's true, maybe not. I don't care. 
Markus says that that one-pass algorithm is faster than Steve's algorithm. 
Fine, if true. I have no argument with that. But Steve's algorithm isn't 
going to take problematically long counting any actual election, and so it's 
reallly every bit as good as the one-pass algorithm, even if the one-pass 
algorithm works for finding strongest beatpaths.

But the problem has been that Markus hasn't been content to recognize a 
solution different from his favorite as being ok. Markus is just being 
Markus again.  Is it really necessary to fight about these 2 algorithms?  Of 
course not. I've answered Markus's mistaken claim, and I'm not interested in 
fighting about it or debating it with Markus.

What if it's true that Markus's one-pass algorithm works for finding 
strongest beatpaths, and does so faster than Steve's algorithm? Does Markus 
believe that, therefore, Steve's algorithm shouldn't be used or proposed, or 
sent to people who ask for an implementation algorithm? Steve's algorithm 
obviously works. If Markus's one-pass algorithm works, it isn't as obvious. 
I suppose that, when someone asks me for an implementation algorithm, I 
could send them the one-pass algorithm, along with a proof that it works 
(assuming that it does).  But the validity of Steve's algorithm is more 
obvious, and it woirks perfectly well. If it takes longer, that won't make 
any difference, in actual elections, with today's fast computers. Will 
Steve's program take 25 seconds instead of 5? Is that really a problem if it 
does? I continue to send out Steve's algorithm when someone asks for one, 
because it's obvious that it works. I don't even know if the one-pass 
algorithm works for finding strongest beatpaths. And, if it does work, I'd 
rather not have to prove that less obvious fact to people who request an 
implementation algorilthm.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Check your PC for viruses with the FREE McAfee online computer scan.  
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 03:18:05 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 03:18:05 2003
Subject: [EM] Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #388 - 7 msgs
Message-ID: <3FE42979.21EAEF37@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> What started this discussion was when Markus said that my BeatpathWinner
> algorithm wouldn't work, because it isn't the Floyd algorithm, whatever
> that is.

Craig Carey claimed that my implementation of my method doesn't work
(presumably because it makes only one pass through the triple-loop).
I explained to Craig that it is true that when I had considered the
possible short cuts in that order that has been proposed by you then
my implementation would not have worked. But it has been proven by
Floyd that when the possible short cuts are considered in that very
special order that is used in my paper then it is guaranteed that one
pass through the triple-loop is sufficient to find all strongest paths.

******

You wrote (28 Feb 2001):
> This is the Floyd algorithm for making an array of greatest beatpath
> magnitudes between each pair of options:
>
> 1.Have a 2-dimensional array of defeat magnitudes between the pairs
> of options. Have 2 copies of that, one called defeats(i,j), and the
> other called beatpaths(i,j).
>
> 2.In both arrays, if i beats j, then the ij element is equal to the
> magnitude of i's defeat of j. If j beats i, then the ij element is
> zero. "ij" refers to the ij element of the beatpath(i,j) array.
>
> 3.For every 3-option permuation (i,j,k) that can be taken from the
> entire option set: If min(ij,jk) > ik then write min(ij,jk) to replace
> ij at the "ij" place in the beatpath(i,j) array.
>
> 4. Repeat #3 till that repetition doesn't change any of the entries
> in the beatpath(i,j) array.
>
> [end of greatest beatpath magnitude algorithm]

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from
> you [= Markus] or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

If you really got your strongest beatpaths algorithm from Steve Eppley
and not from Floyd or me then why did you call it "Floyd algorithm"?
I have explained the Floyd algorithm in a private mail (30 April 2000)
to David Catchpole, Blake Cretney, Steve Eppley, Rob Lanphier, Norman Petry,
and you. I don't remember that Steve Eppley called his implementation
"Floyd algorithm". Therefore, I guess that you have got your algorithm
from me, but that you have never understood this algorithm sufficiently
to implement it in such a manner that it has a runtime of O(N^3).

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 03:19:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 03:19:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Matt
Message-ID: <LAW10-F94wuwi7NPASU0002cb8c@hotmail.com>

Message: 3
From: matt at tidalwave.net
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 08:52:15 -0800 (PST)
To: election-methods at electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Reply to Ernie
Reply-To: matt at tidalwave.net

Matt said:

In this case the style of debater and the merit of the argument positively
correlate.  In other words, the debater that is polite, clear and helpful is
correct and the debaters that are impolite, confusing and derogatory are
incorrect.

(farther below, Matt clarifies that he's saying that Markus was the correct 
one)

I reply:

Sorry, but you're mistaken.

The "debate" was about whether or not I claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner 
algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Since I repeatedly clarified that, now 
that I've been told different, I now am not claiming that Steve's algorithm 
is the Floyd algorithm, Markus was incorrect when he kept repeating that I 
claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

That's the only issue that was being debated. On that issue, I was correct, 
and Markus was incorrect, because, during that discussion, I was longer 
claiming that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I wasn't debating which algorithm is better. I'd be lying if I claimed to 
know if one pass through the 3-candidate permutations can reliably find the 
strongest beatpath beween each ordered pair of candidates, as Markus claims, 
but I'm not debating that or denying it.

Matt continued:

Thank you Markus for your (unsuccesfull) efforts to help Mike improve the
program that his site promotes.

I reply:

Yes, when Markus said that Steve's algorithm doesn't work, Markus was 
unsuccessful in convincing me that it doesn't work. But you're sure that it 
doesn't work, right? :-)   I'm referring to the
BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted here a few days ago.

Or maybe the improvement that yoiu're referring to is the greater speed of 
the one-pass algorithm, assuming that it relliably works.

Let's suppose that it indeed works, and is faster than Steve's algorithm. 
Does that mean that we should use it to replace Steve's algorithm at the 
website, or that I should start sending it out to people who ask for an 
implementation algorithm. No, not really. Steve's algorilthm _obviously_ 
works. It's obvious that eventually the repeated passes will find the 
strongest beatpath between each orderred pair of candidates.

Even if the one-pass algorithm works, I'm not going to send it out, along 
with a proof for why it works. I prefer to not send something that requies 
me to convince someone and explain to them why it works, when it doesn't at 
first appear that it would.  I'll continue sending out the algorithm that 
obviously works, Steve's algorithm. Sorry, Matt.

Matt continues:

I have seen stubborness before but the
magnititude of this stubborness (over such a trivial yet clearcut issue!)
matches or exceeds the worst I can recall seeing before.

I reply:

What issue? There was no issue about the relative merits of the 2 
algorithms. Markus says that there's a 1-pass algorithm that works, and that 
it's faster. Though I told how I initially didn't believe that that could be 
done, I was _not_ debating that during the discussion. My position has been: 
I don't claim to know if that can work, but it isn't important.

The issue, as I said, was about whether I claim that Steve's program is the 
Floyd algorithm. Yes I agree that that's a trivial issue. And yes, I 
stubbornly maintain that I don't claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd 
algorithm :-)   How's that for stubborn?

Or is that you think that I'm stubborn because I don't replace Steve's 
algorithm with the putative one-pass algorithm? I've told you that I prefer 
something whose validity is obvious, something that doesn't require a proof 
to be sent with it, doesn't require as much explaining and convincing. How's 
that for stubborn? If Steve's algorithm runs for a half minute, and the 
one-pass algorithm runs for half a second, is half a minute really a big 
problem?

So you're saying that it's stubborn to not adopt the method that you like 
best?

But, at the time that you stated that I was stubborn, I hadn't yet said that 
I wasn't going to adopt the one-pass algorithm.  All I'd said at that time 
was that I don't know if Markus's one-pass algorithm works. I was being 
honest. I don't know that if it works. I haven't checked Floyd's 1962 proof, 
and I don't even know if that proof really applies to the job of finding 
strongest beatpaths. That isn't stubborn, it's honest.

So you're saying that it's stubborn not to take Markus's word for whatever 
he says, in spite of Markus's long history of mis-statements?

So it's really entirely unclear what you think that I was being stubborn 
about.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 05:07:12 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 05:07:12 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Rob Speer
Message-ID: <Law10-F95f8PYqK87Mi0000cb5d@hotmail.com>

Rob Speer wrote:

Markus is just doing what he does

I reply:

About that you'll get no argument from me  :-)

You continued:

: he makes sure that voting terminology
used on this list is consistent, when so much of the available
information about voting terminology is inconsistent.

I reply:

Not at all. That was not a debate about voting terminology. As soon as 
Markus said that Steve's BeatpathWinner algorithm isn't the Floyd algorithm, 
I said ok then I'm no longer claiming that it's the Floyd algorithm. I said 
that I'll ask the website owner to delete that name from it.

No, the debate was about whether I still claim that Steve's algorithm is the 
Floyd algorithm. It was a really silly debate, because I'd repeatedly said 
that I no longer claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I'm the first to admit that it was a silly issue that Markus insisted on 
pursuing.

You continued:

Terminology is a very important thing for people to agree on.

I reply:

But there was no disagreement on terminology. Only on the issue of whether I 
was still claiming that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 05:26:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 05:26:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus reply,  12/20/03
Message-ID: <LAW10-F79zm4XqO1LWN0004c684@hotmail.com>

Markus said:

The problem with you is that you are unable to admit that you have made
a mistake (here: claiming that you have implemented the Floyd algorithm)

I reply:

On the contrary, at the beginning of the discussion, when you said that 
Steve's algorithm isn't the Floyd algorithm,  I said ok, I no longer call it 
the Floyd algorithm, and I'm going to ask Russ to delete that name from it 
at the website. Check the archives. I said that at the beginning of the 
discussion. And you kept repeating that I claim that our implementation is 
the Floyd algorithm.

In your own most recent message, in fact, you copied one of the copies of my 
explanation of why I _previously_ believed that Steve's algorithm was the 
Floyd algorithm.

Here's a paragraph of mine that you copied in your most recent posting:

>, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything
>is the Floyd algorithm. I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm
>that made as many permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd
>written it right, because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he 
>really
>meant to write the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd 
>algorithm.
>I said "Ok".


Where were you when repeatedly expllined that to you? Out to lunch?


Markus continued:

without bombarding with insults that person who pointed to this mistake.

I reply:

I wasn't criticizing you for pointing out to me that Steve's algorithm isn't 
the Floyd algorithm, and that your writing of a 1-pass algorithm was 
intentional, and not an omission, and that that algorithm that you wrote is 
the Floyd algorithm.

No, I was only criticising you for continuing to repeat that I was 
continuing to claim that our implementation is the Floyd algorithm.

Markus continued:

Why are you unable to say something like?: "Yes, you are right. I mistakenly
called my implementation 'Floyd algorithm'. I will no longer call it 'Floyd
algorithm'.

I reply:

But I did say that. Take a look at the paragraph written by me that I 
copied, above, from your most recent posting. I've said that I no longer 
call it the Floyd algorithm. I've said that I was going to ask Russ to 
delete that name from the algorithm at the website. I carefully explained 
what had caused me to believe that it was the Floyd algorithm, saying that I 
no longer call it that.

Out to lunch?

It sounds as if what you're asking for is an apology for previously calling 
Steve's BeatpathWinner algorithm the Floyd algorithm. No apology, because 
you weren't wronged when I called Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm. 
Sorry, no apology. But notice that you do get an apology for the fact that 
there's no apology :-)

Markus continued:

[Markus said I could have said:] Thank you for pointing me to this mistake."

Ok, it's thanks that you want. While I'm at it, shall I thank you for 
posting your mistaken claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner algorithm doesn't 
work? If I'd thanked you for telling me that Steve's algotithm isnt the 
Floyd algorithm, would you then have been willing to stop repeating that I 
still claim that Steve's implementation is the Floyd algorithm?

Markus continued:

or something like?:

"Thank you for explaining how the strongest paths can be calculated in a
runtime O(N^3). My implementation still has a runtime O(N^5)."

I reply:

Well, you didhn't really show that. You claimed it. I'm not saying that it 
isn't true. As I said, the accuracy of your claim could be judged by finding 
Floyd's 1962 proof, and finding out if it even applies to the job of finding 
the strongest beatpath between each ordered pair of candidates. I'm not 
debating that or denying it. Maybe it's true that, as you say, all the 
strongest beatpaths can be found with one pass through the 3-candidate 
permutations.

You reallly need thanks, don't you? Ok, thank yoiu, Markus, for stating your 
claim. Now, can this debate end?


I'd said:

>But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
>Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything
>is the Floyd algorithm. I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm
>that made as many permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd
>written it right, because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he 
>really
>meant to write the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd 
>algorithm.
>I said "Ok". So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have 
>no
>idea, but that's how he always is.

Markus replied:

Then, of course, it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" anymore.

I reply:

Hello-o-o-o! That's what I've been repeating for you over and over again, to 
no avail.

Markus continued:

There was no need for you
to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

I reply:

I won't debate whether there was a need to insult you. But can you look at 
your ridiculous statement that I quoted directly above, and say that there 
wasn't a reason to call you an idiot?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 05:29:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 05:29:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Matt
Message-ID: <3FE43484.69991406@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> The "debate" was about whether or not I claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner
> algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Since I repeatedly clarified that, now
> that I've been told different, I now am not claiming that Steve's algorithm
> is the Floyd algorithm, Markus was incorrect when he kept repeating that I
> claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

Could you please forward that mail where Steve proposes this strongest path
algorithm?

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 05:41:28 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 05:41:28 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd reply to Markus on 12/20/03
Message-ID: <Law10-F105hRDT6Z3Ls0004c627@hotmail.com>

I'd said:

>What started this discussion was when Markus said that my BeatpathWinner
>algorithm wouldn't work, because it isn't the Floyd algorithm, whatever
>that is.

Markus replied:

Craig Carey claimed that my implementation of my method doesn't work
(presumably because it makes only one pass through the triple-loop).
I explained to Craig that it is true that when I had considered the
possible short cuts in that order that has been proposed by you then
my implementation would not have worked.

I reply:

Actually, you posted a fragment of our Python program and said that my 
algorithm won't work.

But if you're now backing down from that claim, that's good.

Markus quoted me:

You wrote (28 Feb 2001):
>This is the Floyd algorithm for making an array of greatest beatpath
>magnitudes between each pair of options:

I reply:

You see, Markus, this is why I refer to you as an idiot. Did I deny that, in 
Feb 2001, I was calling Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm.? No. I agreed 
that I'd formerly called that algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but that I no 
longer do. But you kept repeating that I continue to claim that my 
implementation is the Floyd algorilthm, though I kept trying to tell you 
that I no longer make any such claim.

And now you post a quote from 2001, apparently believing that it shows that 
you're right to say that, during this current discussion, I claim that 
Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

Seriously, Markus, all namecalling aside,there really is something wrong 
with you.

Ernie:

Can you really blame me for eventually beginning to make unflattering 
comments about this twit?

Markus continued:

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
>I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from
>you [= Markus] or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

If you really got your strongest beatpaths algorithm from Steve Eppley
and not from Floyd or me then why did you call it "Floyd algorithm"?

I reply:

How many times is it necessary to explain that to you. If I explain it to 
you now, one more time, are you just going to forget again?

Ok, Steve wrote the algorithm. Some time later, you posted something here 
that resembled Steve's algorithm, but which only made one pass through the 
3-candidate permutations. You called it the Floyd algorithm. I assumed that 
you must have accidentallly miscopied the algorithm, accidentally writing so 
that it only make one pass through the permutations. So, believing that 
"Floyd algorithm" is the name of the algorithm that you'd miscopied, and 
believing that it must make several passes, then it looked as if "Floyd 
algorithm" was the name of Steve's algorithm.

So I got the algorithm from Steve, and I got the name from you, because I 
believed that what you'd tried to copy was something that was the same as 
Steve's algorithm. Now, did it sink in this time, or are you going to ask 
the question again in a few days?

Markus continued:

I have explained the Floyd algorithm in a private mail (30 April 2000)
to David Catchpole, Blake Cretney, Steve Eppley, Rob Lanphier, Norman Petry,
and you. I don't remember that Steve Eppley called his implementation
"Floyd algorithm". Therefore, I guess that you have got your algorithm
from me

I reply:

That certainly follows if the fact that I got the name from you means that I 
got the algorithm from you. But it doesn't mean that. I got the name from 
you, and, believing that you'd miscopied something that was the same as 
Steve's algorithm led me to believe that "Floyd algorithm" was a name for 
Steve's algotithm, that they were the same.

Markus continued:

, but that you have never understood this algorithm sufficiently
to implement it in such a manner that it has a runtime of O(N^3).

I reply:

As I said, it seemed to me that you must have miscopied it, and that you'd 
tried to copy something that was the same as Steve's algorithm.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From matt at tidalwave.net  Sat Dec 20 11:16:02 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Sat Dec 20 11:16:02 2003
Subject: [EM] RE: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #388 - 7 msgs
Message-ID: <20031220185436.E162B3946@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From drernie at mac.com  Sat Dec 20 19:58:08 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Sat Dec 20 19:58:08 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <3FE3B95F.7F97A915@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FE3B95F.7F97A915@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <D4FD5738-331F-11D8-B08B-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

Hi Markus,

On Dec 19, 2003, at 6:52 PM, Markus Schulze wrote:
> I consider the margins of defeats only when both defeats have the same
> absolute number of votes for the winner. The aim is to make the method
> more decisive without sacrificing any of the desired properties.

Ah, okay, that was hard for me to deduce from the original algorithm, 
where it seemed like you were primarily calculating margins. My 
implementation of this for object-oriented Dijkstra (using real Python 
code this time) is at the end.    The relevant section is here, where 
'rstrength', or relative strength, is used for the margin:

     # reset neighbor if unset or if new values would be better
     if next not in queue or\
        strength > self.strengthVS(next) or\
        strength == self.strengthVS(next) and rstrength > 
self.rstrengthVS(next):
       self.strengths[next.id] = strength
       self.rstrengths[next.id] = rstrength
       if next not in queue: queue.append(next)
       next.path[self.id] = current # remember beatpath predecessor
     #endif

That is, use the current calculated values for the strength of the path 
to this node if any of the following three conditions is true:
a) there are no other calculated values for this node ("next not in 
queue")
b) the strength (total votes) is better than the prior value ("strength 
 > self.strengthVS(next)")
c) the strength is equal, but the margin (rstrength) is better 
("rstrength > self.rstrengthVS(next)")

Does that look right to those who know what's going on? (apologies to 
people who don't do Python, but as you can see the code is vastly more 
compact, and I think far easier to follow).

I'm working on a well-formatted implementation of all this, which I 
hope will displace the other Condorcet implementations out there (and 
satisfy all the critics :-).

> You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
>> Also, is there a particular mathematical or anti-strategic reason for
>> randomizing the tie-breaking round, rather than just automatically
>> picking the candidate who would have the best chance of winning such
>> a random draw?
>
> Plurality as a tie-breaking strategy violates independence of clones.

Interesting.  Are you asserting that there is no deterministic 
tie-breaking algorithm that resists clones?  Does this mean that we 
really do need to keep track of all the actual ballots, and not just 
the Condorcet matrix?

-- Ernie P.

def findStrengths(self):
  "Find strongest paths to all candidates using Dijkstra, starting from 
self"
  self.initStrengths(max(self.votes)) # 'max_votes' is equivalent to 
'unset'
  current = self
  final = []
  queue = []

  while current:
   # declare this node's values as final
   final.append(current)

   # relax each of the neighbors (if not final)
   for next in current.beats:
     if next in final: continue

     # calculate (relative) strength, if this node were part of path
     strength = min(self.strengthVS(current), current.votesVS(next))
     rstrength = min(self.rstrengthVS(current), current.marginVS(next))

     # reset neighbor if unset or if new values would be better
     if next not in queue or\
        strength > self.strengthVS(next) or\
        strength == self.strengthVS(next) and rstrength > 
self.rstrengthVS(next):

	      self.strengths[next.id] = strength
	      self.rstrengths[next.id] = rstrength
	      if next not in queue: queue.append(next)
	      next.path[self.id] = current # remember beatpath predecessor
     #endif
   #end for

   # Remove and return weakest node from queue
   current = self.smallest(queue)
  #end while
#end findStrengths



From research at ijs.co.nz  Sat Dec 20 21:46:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Sat Dec 20 21:46:02 2003
Subject: The German loser (Re: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
In-Reply-To: <3FE41EF4.C7AB435E@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031221054743.050c6628@pop.qsi.net.nz>



I wrote this for the mailing list.
Currently I am not sending it there.
I have not observed anything good at that mailing list result from
e-mail (except Richard and MrCatchpole seemed to have an ability to
get influenced. I may have missed bits.).


________________________________________________________________________

To: election-methods at electorama.com
Subject: Is this actually true enough Marcus ? (Re: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria




At 2003-12-20 11:05 +0100 Saturday, Markus Schulze wrote:
...
>Craig Carey wrote (20 Dec 2003):
...
>> (1) The number of winners should be correct.
>>    indicates that the Schulze method found the wrong number of winners.
...
>In Section 3 of my paper, I prove that my method is well defined:
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf
>

The words "well-defined" are not defined in the paper.
Why don't you use your neutrality word.

I reject the idea that the arguments in your paper are correct. There are
a lot of serious problems ion your article.

Each of the errors could terminate an interest in you VM17 article.
In particular your ideal of:
 * missing out simple important tests
 * purporting to consider overly advanced rules, i.e. monotonicity
 * avoiding the mathematics of flats which is always avoided by you
   but probably never avoided by a person designing a preferential
   voting method but aiming to not expose a govt. public to unfairness
   if the method would be used.
 * having unfollowable arguments
 * claiming a pass occurred when that appears to be something that
   seems to be suspicious
 * failing to define the algorithm of the article
 * dropping in some anti-public nearly-ignored doctrines from Condorcet
   thinkers writings

In short, a method that won't have a place in history.

I made a possibly false asumption on how to interpret your ambiguity that
you put into the article (presumably because you were trying to censor
out a mention of the ghastly meritless unfair unjustified pairwise comparing
basis of it) and converted it to a a logic form. It was far too complex to
analyze precisely yet ti plain at the end that the number of winners it
found would probably be wrong.


>You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>> (2) The method should not have some bias. This fails methods that ignrore
>>    the votes and pick the first (not best) candidate on a list the method
>>    receives.
>>
>>    Shulze's believed the count of the papers could be ignored and the number
      [i.e. Mr Shulze or Mr Shulze's PDF article]

>>    of voters could be counted. That is stupid and some people don't seem to
>>    be able to stop or explain themselves without pointing invalid assumptions.
>
>You will have to rephrase this, because I have absolutely no idea what
>you are talking about.
>

In the last message I replied to, Mr Forest Simmons had
votes generated by random numbers. In the Shulze article, "strictly prefer"
has the number of voters counted. So "Strictly prefer" is applying to
voters.

All the claims of goodness must have been a lie, because:
 (a) you proof of goodness is done but it used voters (suppose so)
 (b) Simmon's random numbers are used;
 (c) now your proofs can't conclude anything yet the numbers and the
      method is the same
 (d) If God was going to hit you with a lightening bolt if you had of
     used the word "Vote" instead of "Voter" then please do tell me
     about it. In the absence of similar, I'll assume you can't even
     think with a truthfulness that is up to the task of correctly
     distinguishing between a cat, rat, dog, photo of a man, and bit of
     paper.
 (e) I will say that I do not understand. First I must ask if the
    audience wanted the false claim that voters voted. However the
    arguments and proofs are not all true. I am not studying the
    text, since your purpose is to advance unfairness. 


-----------------------------------
At 2003-12-19 06:37 +1300 Friday, Craig Carey wrote:
...
:
: In the grand sweep of Mr Schulzes exposition, he designed the
: algorithm in the paper so the input is never votes. The preprocessing
: stage that proves that the method is stupid, got censored out. It
                             [using the Condorcet thing]

: is the case that reasoning indicates that Schulze's method should
: be rejected instead of tested.
:
:
: Let's consider the algorithm itself. Here I quote from the VM 17
: PDF file:
:
: ---
: :     Suppose that d[X,Y] is the number of voters who
: :     strictly prefer candidate X to candidate Y. Then the
: :     Smith set is the smallest non-empty set of candidates
: :     with d[A,B] > d[B,A] for each candidate B outside this
: :     set.
: ---
:
: The English text of Schulze probably seems to imply this
: interpretation:
:
: * Let there be only 3 candidates. Let the ballot papers be these:
:
: 2 (CA)
: 5 (CAB)
: 1 (CBA)
:
: What is Mr Schulze's d[A,B] ?.
:
: We could look at the computer algorithm source code but it takes
: the "d" matrix as an input. The vote counting algorithm can't actually
: accept votes.
:
: The d[A,B] value would be:
:
:  (Interpretation 1) the number 7, or
:  (Interpretation 2) the number 5, or
:  (Interpretation 3) the number 6, or
:  (Interpretation 4) the number 4, or
:



>You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>> (3) When the papers are like STV' the winners ought be insensitive to the
>>   presence or absence of the very last preference in one or more papers.
>>   That Schulze method seemed to fail this test.
>
>Please give a concrete example.
>

Not very bright response.
A gauntlet for me perhaps. Your paper is so bad that it should
be you alone who does research. It is strange how you have so
very little interest in the actual words that you wrote. I guess
you don't care what you write. If so then there should be a check
to see if you are depressed. Also it would be useful to know if
you get more depressed, e.g. when criticised.

Mike is criticising you now.

I have already written the answer: it is that you didn't actually
define the method. That fact proves that your "well-definedness"
proof is fake. You clearly gave the wrong meaning to the English
words. hat is obviously so, it was actually referring to some
crap from the pairwise comparing religion.


--

I would have produced a computer program and prove that Schulze was
a failure. However there is no algorithm to test.

There are so many different correct criteria for rejecting your
paper. Designing while blind will be one of them. That does not
produce hope but instead it lowers the hope of the algorithm being
improved.

--

The Schulze paper arrived D.O.A (Dead on Arrival) at London --
since it didn't define "strictly prefer" well enough and with only
a reference to ballot paper instead of voters. Some places could
have 1/3 votes for prisoners (or fugitives from computational
symbolic algebra)

The STV community may be slow to absorb Mr Schulzes paper, using
this line of argument:

 * Mr Schulze must have been engtangled in complexity

 * The thing has to be built up and then it fails fundamental tests.
   The designer asks readers to test the thing.

 * If it had of passed the tests then the complexity would have been
   reduced. The designer maybe even failed to learn how extremely
   complex the method was.

 * Like I said privately, if a good job can't eb done without
   light then a switch can be turned on. But Mr Shulze is out of
   this world, for clearly such an avoidance of algebra must
   prevent the production of good methods. But tehre seems to be
   absolutely no complaints about anything from the world of
   algebra. A real mathematician can be blocked by a single
   issue in algebra. It is like Mr Schulze can shuffle to the
   right but it is impossible to rotate 180 degrees and then
   move in the opposing direction. Four years of EM and counting
   and still not even vague complaints about algebra.


Mr Schulze is starting to say that he does not understand.

That would be criticised by me over time.

Mr Shulze is setting out a new direction: designing while unable
to see everything, and we already have had years of no
achievement. Certainly outside of the world of pairwise comparing,
change can be quick and rapid. 


Here is that definedness test that passed a most undefined method:

: 3) Well-Definedness
:
: On first view, it is not clear whether the Schulze
: method is well defined. It seems to be possible that
: candidates disqualify each other in such a manner that
: there is no candidate A with p[A,B] >= p[B,A] for every
: other candidate B. However, the following proof
: demonstrates that path defeats are transitive. That
: means: When candidate A disqualifies candidate B and
: when candidate B disqualifies candidate C, then also
: candidate A disqualifies candidate C.
...
: Case 2: Suppose
: (9b) p[A,B] < p[B,C].
...
: Therefore, the relation defined by p[A,B] > p[B,A] is transitive.


Condorcet seems to have a monastery feel to it. They seemed to
be packed with woman dying with breast cancer, but that is
of course no about the public interest.

It could be a check that the number of winners are right.
I assume that sometimes the method finds 0 winners or 2 winers.

Who would finish up an argument that the number of winners is
correct using the words "[It] is transitive".
Transitivity is some properly requiring that the method is
too unfair (or too lacking in proportionality) for use in
a government election.

---


What seemed most interesting is that after a few easy lines of 
transforming the Schulze algorithm into a polytope format,
is appeared that all Condorcet variants must be rejected for
being affected by the presence or absence of the last
preference. I was constrained by having to guess at what
Mr SChulze's definition of the algorithm was.

For at least a year, when Mr Schulze was not writing privately,
he also did not e-mail the polytope formulation of the
algorithm that I had requested.

Had he responded to the information requested, then rapidly
I could have shown that Condorcet idealism leads to an
unacceptable defect that won't be OK in civil or computer science
department, elections.


If Mr Schulze believes that it takes >17.95% of his entire
life before he can repell off that evil called Condorcet, then
do please tell us, for the rest who use logic, the process
could take minutes or something.

German males [yeah] in the Internet have a technique of saying
that they do not understand. This is the 'gnome in the rock'
mastery of shooting up opponents in online arguments.

It permits them to not lose steadily in an argument when the
expectation is that they must have precise model of what it
is that the public interest is (constrained by the topic).



Craig Carey

politicians-and-polytopes








From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 23:21:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 23:21:01 2003
Subject: [EM] BeatpathWinner Algorithm
Message-ID: <Law10-F27AqpfkNsjUH0002646d@hotmail.com>

Just one more thing about this:

Markus said, in a posting that was replying to my recent posting of the 
BeatpathWinner algorithm (I posted it a few days ago):

Dear participants,

the correct version of the Floyd algorithm can be found in
Section 4 and in Appendix 3 of my paper "A New Monotonic
and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

I reply:

Though the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted isn't the Floyd 
algorilthm, it's still correct, because it does what it's intended to do. It 
makes the strongest-beatpaths array, the B(i,j) array in which each B(i,j) 
is the strength of the strongest beatpath from candidate i to candidate j.

If there is no beatpath from i to j, then B(i,j) = 0.

That algorithm wasn't written as an attempt to write the Floyd algorithm. It 
was written by people who had never heard of the Floyd algorithm. It was 
written to accomplish the pupose that it accomlishes. Only later, due to 
Markus's earlier post of something he called the Floyd algorithm (though it 
was about strongest paths rather than shortest paths), did I hear of the 
Floyd algorithm.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 23:33:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 23:33:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <3FE4ADBE.CADD67E2@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Ernest,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> Ah, okay, that was hard for me to deduce from the original algorithm, 
> where it seemed like you were primarily calculating margins.

In Section 4 of my paper, I use margins. In Appendix 3 of my paper,
I use absolute numbers of votes for the winner. The pseudo-code for
the Dijkstra algorithm that I posted to you yesterday corresponds
to the algorithm in Appendix 3.

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> My implementation of this for object-oriented Dijkstra (using real
> Python code this time) is at the end.    The relevant section is here,
> where 'rstrength', or relative strength, is used for the margin:

Sorry, but I don't know Python.

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> Are you asserting that there is no deterministic tie-breaking algorithm
> that resists clones?  Does this mean that we really do need to keep
> track of all the actual ballots, and not just the Condorcet matrix?

I chose the "random ballot" tie-breaking strategy in such a manner that
the proofs that the proposed method satisfies Pareto, monotonicity,
independence from clones, etc. are as simple as possible. I am not
linked to this tie-breaking strategy.

Another possible tie-breaking strategy is to calculate a complete
ranking of all candidates (and not only of the potential winners)
with Tideman's ranked pairs method and to choose that potential
winner that is ranked highest in this ranking. With this tie-breaking
strategy none of the desirable properties of my beatpath method gets
lost.

However, for every anonymous and neutral single-winner election method
there are situations where this method doesn't find a unique winner.
Random ballot is sometimes the only way to get a winner without
having to violate independence of clones. But I don't think that
it is such a big problem when independence of clones is violated in
these extreme cases.

Markus Schulze


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 23:50:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 23:50:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #388 - 7 msgs
Message-ID: <3FE511D6.CB9F2E6D@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Matt,

you wrote to Mike Ossipoff (20 Dec 2003):
> To restore some credibility for yourself Mike, how about arranging
> to correct the code to make it O(N^3)?  All this time Mike is
> wasting futiley trying to beat down Markus could be better spent
> by soliciting help from someone who codes python to modify the
> code.  Then again, your attacks on Markus are so completely false
> and nasty that I really doubt there is anything you can do to
> restore your credibility with me.

Mike Ossipoff wrote (18 Dec 2003):

> repeat = 1
> while repeat = 1:
>   change = 0
>   for i = 1 to N
>      for j =  1 to N
>         for k = 1 to N
>            least = min(B(i,j), B(j,k))
>            if least > B(i,k):
>               B(i,k) = least
>               change =1
>            endif
>        endfor
>     endfor
> endfor
> if change= 0
>     repeat = 0
> endif
> endwhile

A compromise would be to write:

> repeat = 1
> while repeat = 1:
>   change = 0
>   for i = 1 to N
>      for j =  1 to N
>         for k = 1 to N
>            least = min(B(j,i), B(i,k))
>            if least > B(j,k):
>               B(j,k) = least
>               change =1
>            endif
>        endfor
>     endfor
> endfor
> if change= 0
>     repeat = 0
> endif
> endwhile

Here the professional mathematicians are satisfied because
it is garanteed that the triple-loop is passed only twice.
And those who don't have sufficient mathematical skills
to trust the Floyd algorithm have the while-loop as an
additional guaranty that the algorithm gives the correct
results.

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 23:53:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 23:53:01 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
Message-ID: <LAW10-F73SOJl6byoxx0004dbd9@hotmail.com>

Matt said:

I know about the Floyd algorithm

I reply.

Good for you, Matt.

Matt continued:

Markus provided us with references about that algorithm, as well as the code 
to implement it, in past discussions on this group with Mike over several 
years on this same issue.

I reply:

No, not really. I didn't discuss that algorithm with Markus for several 
years.

However I've already stated that he'd posted the algorithm some years ago, 
so it isn't quite clear why you feel a need to assert that.

Matt continued:

I followed the entire exchange here and Markus did not start the discussion 
with the false statement Mike claims.   On the contrary, I am certain that 
Markus explicitly acknowledged the python program would probably work as it 
is currently written.

I reply:

I quote from Markus's posting on 15 December, '03:

"However Mike Ossipoff always describes the Floyd algorithm as follows:

[followed by a fragment of a Python program, with some of the lines partly 
missing]

This does not work."

Matt, yoiu're wasting our time when you post demonstrably innacurate claims.

Matt continued:

To restore some credibility for yourself Mike...

I reply:

It isn't quite clear how Matt feels that I've lost "credibility". For 
instance, in this discussion, I have a much better statement-accuracy record 
than Matt does.

Matt continued:

..., how about arranging to correct the code to make it O(N^3)?

I reply:

Sorry, but no. I thought that I'd made it clear in my previous reply to you 
that I'm leaving the algorithm as-is, at the website, and in my replies to 
people who ask about implementation. As I said at that time, Steve's 
algorithm very obviously works. That's obvious at a glance. The 1-pass 
algorithm, even if it works, doesn't have anything like the obvious validity 
of Steve's algorilthm.
If I sent Markus's algorithm out in reply to people who ask about 
implementation, I'd have to convince them that it works, contrary to 
appearance.

And, as I likewise said before, the run-time of Steve's algorithm isn't 
going to be a problem anyway.

The websites that I've checked say that the Floyd algorithm finds shortest 
beatpaths. They didn't mention strongest beatpaths. Markus says that it can 
be modified for strongest beatpaths too (but that raises the question of 
whether, after modification, it's still the Floyd algorithm). Maybe when its 
job is to find shortest beatpaths it can complete the job in one pass. If 
so, maybe, when its job is modified to finding strongest beatpaths, it 
retains that capability.

Please note, Matt, that I don't take a position on that question, or make 
any challenge or issue about that. That hasn't been an issue here.

Matt continued:

All this time Mike is wasting futiley trying to beat down Markus...

I reply:

I've been futily trying to explain to Markus that I'm not claiming that 
Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Yes, I admit that that effort has 
been futile.

But you're being over-dramatic and silly when you say that I'm trying to 
beat him down. Maybe you meant to say "...beat Markus back."

Matt continued:

...could be better spent by soliciting help from someone who codes python to 
modify the code.

I reply:

No, I'm going to have to disappoint you on that. I'm not going to modify the 
strongest-beatpaths algorithm because you prefer a different one. But I 
certainly encourage you to use whichever one you prefer.

Then again, your attacks on Markus are so completely false...

I  reply:

Can you name one false thing I said about Markus? I merely pointed out the 
falsity of his continually-repeated statement that I claim that Steve's 
stongest beatpaths algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.That's really the only 
issue in the discussion.

Well, I also objected to his statement that our algorilthm doesn't work. My 
statement that he said that isn't a false statement either--I quoted his 
statement above in this message, and stated the date of his posting. Check 
it out if you don't believe it.

Matt continued:

...and nasty that I really doubt there is anything you can do to restore 
your credibility with me.

I reply:

I've lost Matt's credence :-)

As for "nasty", I always start out polite. You wouldn't notice this, but 
it's only after many repititions of Markus's misquotes that I stop being 
polilte.

You shouldn't think that I'm singling Markus out. For some people, at least, 
there's a natural tendency to put your gut feeling about someone over the 
actual facts of the discussion.

You, for example: You decided that you felt that I was being mean to Markus. 
Then, governed by your anger, and your natural protective instinct, you felt 
a need to refute what I was saying, a need to tell why Markus was the one 
who was right. Apparently that need was greater than your ability to read 
the postings and remember what I'd said, and what I hadn't said. So you 
began making refuting noises. These noises from you have been almost 
entirely vague, without specifying exactly which statement of mine was 
incorrect. The only exception to the vagueness was when you pinpointed an 
alleged mis-statement of mine: My statement that Markus had said that our 
algorithm doesn't work. (But check Markus's 15 Dec.  '03 posting).

Yoiur protectiveness toward Markus is laudable, and I'm not criticizing 
that. But you need to understand that you're one of those people who, when 
something angers you or arouses your protective instinct, is ruled entirely 
by emotion, so that you send to us a "refuting" posting that either refers 
to no actual statements (refutation pretty much requires that you say 
exactly what you're refuting), or else makes a quite false statement such as 
your claim that Markus didn't say that our algorithm didn't work.

So suggestion to you, Matt, is: If you want to refute something, find out 
specifically what statement you want to refute. Find a statement that is 
incorrect. Then tell us what it is that you want to refute. Then tell us why 
it isn't correct.

When you're vague, when you don''t tell us what you mean, people aren't 
going to know what you're trying to say. Good luck in future postings.

Mike Ossipoff


and that I don't intend to use something that doesn't have the obvious 
validity of Steve's algorithm. But I hadn't yet said that at the time that 
you posted your other message implying that there was

_________________________________________________________________
Make your home warm and cozy this winter with tips from MSN House & Home.  
http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 00:28:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 00:28:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Compromise for speed and obvious validity
Message-ID: <Law10-F72DSm5AGSvB80004e2b3@hotmail.com>

Sure, that compromise would be ok: The indices in the testing and 
re-assigning core of the loop
could be re-ordered so as to make more passes unnecessary, so that only 2 
passes would be made. If  the 2nd pass makes no changes, there's no 3rd 
pass. And the fact that the algorithm obviously repeats till no stonger 
beatpaths can be found between any ordered candidate pairs means that it 
still has the same obvious validity that it had before.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Check your PC for viruses with the FREE McAfee online computer scan.  
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963



From Dgamble997 at aol.com  Sun Dec 21 00:29:01 2003
From: Dgamble997 at aol.com (Dgamble997 at aol.com)
Date: Sun Dec 21 00:29:01 2003
Subject: [EM] (no subject)
Message-ID: <3e.3943a22e.2d165516@aol.com>

Dear all

I find this "debate" about the Floyd Algorithm ( or more accurately who said 
what about who and when) extremely uninteresting and not very constructive.

Is it really that important to get the last word in?

David Gamble

PS This is the second time I've sent this E-mail have problems with the list 
cut off Mike and Markus in full flow?
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 00:57:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 00:57:02 2003
Subject: [EM] The request for Steve's count proposal
Message-ID: <LAW10-F75mNIql6cknJ0004daa0@hotmail.com>

Markus asked:

Could you please forward that mail where Steve proposes this strongest path
algorithm?

I reply:

It was in my mailbox years ago. I doubt that it's still there. If it is, and 
if I can quickly find it, I'll forward it.

I  don't know if Steve posted his strongest-beatpaths algorithm to EM.

But if you want a copy of it, you might want to ask him.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
It?s our best dial-up Internet access offer: 6 months @$9.95/month. Get it 
now!  http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From drernie at mac.com  Sun Dec 21 01:08:02 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:08:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <3FE38375.20BFE6D3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FE38375.20BFE6D3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <B98161F6-328E-11D8-B08B-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

On Dec 19, 2003, at 3:02 PM, Markus Schulze wrote:

> Dear Ernest,

Hi Markus,

Thanks for the prompt reply.
>
> I don't know Python-ish pseudo-code.

I'll try to find ways to make it more English-like, so the algorithm is 
clearer.

> But in Pascal/C-ish pseudo-code
> the Dijkstra algorithm (aka Dykstra algorithm) looks as follows when
> the strength of a pairwise defeat is measured primarily by p1 (= the
> absolute number of votes for the winner of this pairwise defeat) and
> secondarily by p2 (= the margin of this pairwise defeat):

<lots of code omitted>
Ouch.  That's why I no longer program in C (or procedural languages). 
:-)

Let me put it another way.   Could you please explain in words why you 
feel it is necessary or useful to use *both* absolute votes and margins 
in the calculation?   Are the margins used simply to break a tie 
between absolute votes?  I think that's what is implied by the line:
>            if ( p1[i,x] = d1[x,k] ) then
>            t : = min { p2[i,x], d2[x,k] } ;

Also, is there a particular mathematical or anti-strategic reason for 
randomizing the tie-breaking round, rather than just automatically 
picking the candidate who would have the best chance of winning such a 
random draw?

-- Ernie P.



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 21 01:12:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:12:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus reply,  12/20/03
Message-ID: <3FE46466.903B66BA@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> False statements, statements that he can't justify,  have always been
> Markus's stock-in-trade. But this time he's doing the disservice of
> misinforming people about a practical matter. But Markus doesn't care,
> he just enjoys being on the attack.

When someone proposes a faster algorithm for a given problem then
you shouldn't consider this to be an "attack".

******

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> I was only criticising you for continuing to repeat that I was
> continuing to claim that our implementation is the Floyd algorithm.
>
> (...)
>
> The debate was about whether I still claim that Steve's algorithm is
> the Floyd algorithm. It was a really silly debate, because I'd repeatedly
> said that I no longer claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.
>
> I'm the first to admit that it was a silly issue that Markus insisted on
> pursuing.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your implementation
is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this discussion with the
following statement (18 Dec 2003):

> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

It is obvious that when I made my statement that you call your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you have changed
your opinion recently. Therefore, your insulting replies are inappropriate.
Instead of saying "Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm." it would
have been better if you had said: "I don't call that the Floyd algorithm
anymore."

In so far as you only said without any explanations "I don't call that the
Floyd algorithm." and not "I don't call that the Floyd algorithm anymore."
it was clear that I would point you to a document where you call that the
Floyd algorithm.

By the way, you wrote (18 Dec 2003):

> I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from
> you or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

Could you please forward that mail where Steve proposes his strongest path
algorithm?

******

I wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> Then, of course, it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
> call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" anymore. There was no need for you
> to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> Hello-o-o-o! That's what I've been repeating for you over and over again, to
> no avail. I won't debate whether there was a need to insult you. But can you
> look at your ridiculous statement that I quoted directly above, and say that
> there wasn't a reason to call you an idiot?

When I say that "it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
call your implementation 'Floyd algorithm' anymore" then this doesn't mean
that I claim that you still call your implementation "Floyd algorithm".
It only means that this would have been sufficient and that there was no
need for you e.g. to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

******

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> You see, Markus, this is why I refer to you as an idiot. Did I deny that,
> in Feb 2001, I was calling Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm.? No. I
> agreed that I'd formerly called that algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but
> that I no longer do. But you kept repeating that I continue to claim that
> my implementation is the Floyd algorilthm, though I kept trying to tell
> you that I no longer make any such claim.
>
> And now you post a quote from 2001, apparently believing that it shows
> that you're right to say that, during this current discussion, I claim
> that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.
>
> Seriously, Markus, all namecalling aside,there really is something wrong
> with you.

Obviously, you are unable to see that when I ask you for an explanation why
you have used the term "Floyd algorithm" in the past in a given manner then
this doesn't include that I claim that you continue to use this term in this
manner.

By the way: Your recent mail exemplifies my observation that you are
unable to admit that you have made a mistake without bombarding with
insults that person who pointed you to this mistake. In the same mail
you admit that you have mistakenly believed Eppley's algorithm to be
Floyd's algorithm and you bombard me with insults.

Markus Schulze


From Dgamble997 at aol.com  Sun Dec 21 01:30:02 2003
From: Dgamble997 at aol.com (Dgamble997 at aol.com)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:30:02 2003
Subject: [EM] The Floyd Algorithm
Message-ID: <41.3828ffdf.2d15b56a@aol.com>

Dear all

I find this "debate" about the Floyd Algorithm ( or more accurately who said 
what about who and when) extremely uninteresting and not very constructive.

Is it really that important to get the last word in?

David Gamble

 
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From dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk  Sun Dec 21 01:45:01 2003
From: dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk (Diana Galletly)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:45:01 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-F73SOJl6byoxx0004dbd9@hotmail.com>
References: <LAW10-F73SOJl6byoxx0004dbd9@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312210922080.27069@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote (of Matt):

> Yoiur protectiveness toward Markus is laudable, and I'm not criticizing
> that. But you need to understand that you're one of those people who, when
> something angers you or arouses your protective instinct, is ruled entirely
> by emotion, so that you send to us a "refuting" posting that either refers
> to no actual statements (refutation pretty much requires that you say
> exactly what you're refuting), or else makes a quite false statement such as
> your claim that Markus didn't say that our algorithm didn't work.

I have been following this discussion with increasing amounts of
astonishment.  I can make neither head nor tail of what is going on.
My hypotheses thus far have been

(i) Only about half the mails are reaching Mike and Markus, such that
each believes that they have already said something that the other hasn't
seen.  So they become frustrated and believe that they are repeating
themselves over and over again (which in fact they are!) whilst the other
one has never seen the first instantiation of the message.  Perhaps they
have each other's messages filtered into /dev/null :-)

(ii) That whilst their written English appears to be pretty good, one or
the other of them has comprehension difficulties.

(iii) That one or the other of them is a computer rather than a person ;-)

Also I don't see the need for the insults.  Calling people "idiots", telling
them there must be something seriously wrong with them, and patronising
people by telling them that their reactions are driven by their emotions
rather than rationality is not helpful.

I was of the belief that both Mike and Markus are staunch Condorcetites.
Think how this petty squabble is just playing into the hands of someone
like Craig Carey, who also appears to use insults as his stock-in-trade
(as well as being pretty incomprehensible).

Diana.


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 21 01:47:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:47:02 2003
Subject: The German loser (Re: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
Message-ID: <3FE56965.9559A9D7@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

could you please post some examples to explain what you
are talking about?

Markus Schulze


From matt at tidalwave.net  Sun Dec 21 02:42:02 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Sun Dec 21 02:42:02 2003
Subject: [EM] EM] What is this software MIKE is working on...
Message-ID: <20031220074456.9FAF2E4B9@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 21 03:31:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 21 03:31:02 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
Message-ID: <3FE583D9.BBED4322@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

when I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
have changed your opinion recently. Craig Carey claimed that my
implementation of the Floyd algorithm doesn't work (presumably
because it makes only one pass through the triple-loop and
presumably because Craig believed because of the while-loop
in your implementation that the Floyd algorithm doesn't find
the strongest paths in a single pass through the triple-loop).
Therefore, I stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd
algorithm and that your algorithm doesn't find the strongest
paths in a single pass. But when one considers the possible
short cuts in that order that has been proposed by Floyd then
a single pass is sufficient.

******

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> That algorithm wasn't written as an attempt to write the Floyd
> algorithm. It was written by people who had never heard of the
> Floyd algorithm. It was written to accomplish the pupose that
> it accomlishes. Only later, due to Markus's earlier post of
> something he called the Floyd algorithm (though it was about
> strongest paths rather than shortest paths), did I hear of the
> Floyd algorithm.

Even though you write that you have never heard of the Floyd
algorithm, it is a matter of fact that you called your algorithm
"Floyd algorithm" e.g. in the source code of your Python program
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py). Therefore, when I
stress that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm then
this is a feasible observation and not an "attack". If you hadn't
mistakenly written that your implementation is the Floyd algorithm,
then there wouldn't have been a reason for me to stress that your
implementation is not the Floyd algorithm.

******

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> I've been futily trying to explain to Markus that I'm not claiming
> that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Yes, I admit that
> that effort has been futile.

When I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
have changed your opinion recently. In one of your recent mails,
you admitted that you mistakenly believed Eppley's algorithm to
be Floyd's algorithm and you admitted that you mistakenly called
Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's algorithm". Therefore, my criticism
was feasible and you admitted this. Therefore, there is absolutely
no justification for your insulting mails.

******

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> Can you name one false thing I said about Markus? I merely pointed
> out the falsity of his continually-repeated statement that I claim
> that Steve's stongest beatpaths algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.
> That's really the only issue in the discussion.

I don't claim that you continue to claim that Eppley's algorithm
is Floyd's algorithm. However, when I pointed (on 15 Dec 2003) to
the fact that you mistakenly called your implementation "Floyd
algorithm" this observation was true.

Markus Schulze


From research at ijs.co.nz  Sun Dec 21 10:13:06 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Sun Dec 21 10:13:06 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
In-Reply-To: <3FE583D9.BBED4322@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz>


At 2003-12-21 12:28 +0100 Sunday, Markus Schulze wrote:
>
>Dear Mike,
>
>when I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
>"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
>have changed your opinion recently. Craig Carey claimed that my
>implementation of the Floyd algorithm doesn't work (presumably
>because it makes only one pass through the triple-loop and
>presumably because Craig believed because of the while-loop


I wrote here to correct the wrong claim that I wrote so uselessly
on part of algorithm, and I reject that I could have possibly have
as irrational as Mr Schulze suggested with his speculation on what
I would have believed.

Also I never wrote on the Floyd *part*. Instead I wrote on the whole
algorithm. (I used only the name "Stage 2" for what Mr Schulze is
now calling the "Floyd algorithm". That is what the documents show.

I worded my comments so that a fault in part 2 created a fault in
the whole algorithm. That is totally different from criticising the
Floyd algorithm. Mr Schulze might have rejected my arguments after
I soundly argued that hje must reject his new seeming write-up of
the so called awfully unprincipled Schulze method, subsequently
identified as not even being defined in the articles submitted and
published.

** I did not claim that the Floyd algorithm "doesn't work". I simply
have a stable set of axioms that can be used as test. Mr Schulze
has probably an clear idea on what they are. Tests must be axioms
or else there is a huge slump in credibility and we end up with
errors like Mr Ossipoff's belief that inserting a preference for a
total loser should not upset the winner of previously winning
candidate owning a subsequent preference in the same ballot paper.

>in your implementation that the Floyd algorithm doesn't find
>the strongest paths in a single pass through the triple-loop).
>Therefore, I stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd
>algorithm and that your algorithm doesn't find the strongest
>paths in a single pass. But when one considers the possible
>short cuts in that order that has been proposed by Floyd then
>a single pass is sufficient.
>


Mr Shulze's seeminlgy recent (fully undefined) "well-definedness"
test, apparently passes fully undefined methods. So the reasoning
is suspect as well as the definitions, and I could not follow the
reasoning. S

I wish to note that Mr Markus Schulze is altering the wording according
to an estimate on whether disproving documents show up.

It won't be OK in politics. But this is just list for untrue statements
that have no place in the design of quality preferential voting methods
(particularly when Diana speaks. As for myself, shall be withdrawing
from this deep dark hole without much delay).

-----------------------

Mr Schulze actually seems to have receivied my e-mail containing the
algebra. It was dated 23 October 2003.
Its title was "Comments on the new Shulze voting method of Voting Matters 2003"

It was factual and withheld and its comments were the material and of
compelling importance to my communications with Mr Shulze in the last
week here at this list. It was the missing material part to my arguments
and it won't do for Mr Shulze to leave a suspicion that I was aiming to
produce clarifying summaries of allegations that never exists.

The poor members here do not like algebra, so they aggregate and don't
know what fairness is.  They maybe really are not so stupid that they
can't create truly better method, but all are out for lunch if the
topic of defining what better means shows up. After following it for
long enough, it seems that knowing nothing is the aim or a top aim.

Here is my not-edited log file record showing that Mr Schulze received
the e-mail where I tried to convert the entiire Shulze thing of the
(Voting Matter 17 PDF file and Shulze's submitted PDF), into a polytope:

--------------------------------------------------------------------
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:33 +1300 $2 Connecting to "mail.zrz.tu-berlin.de"
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:33 +1300 $2 DNS server responded with 0 (OK) [2]
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:33 +1300 $2 Connecting to "gr.mx0.global.net.uk"
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:34 +1300 $2 Connected
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:35 +1300 $2 Connected
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:35 +1300 $2 <<< 220 mx0.global.net.uk ESMTP Exim 3.36 #8 Thu, 23 Oct 2003 11:30:33 +0100
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:35 +1300 $2 >>> EHLO Merak
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:36 +1300 $2 <<< 250 HELP
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:36 +1300 $2 >>> MAIL From:<research at ijs.co.nz> SIZE=2321
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:36 +1300 $2 <<< 250 <research at ijs.co.nz> is syntactically correct
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:36 +1300 $2 >>> RCPT To:<brian.wichmann at totalise.co.uk>
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:37 +1300 $2 <<< 250 <brian.wichmann at totalise.co.uk> verified
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:37 +1300 $2 >>> DATA
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:37 +1300 $2 <<< 354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 <<< 250 OK id=1ACcjj-000IgF-00
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 *** <research at ijs.co.nz> <brian.wichmann at totalise.co.uk> 1 2321 00:00:01 OK
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 >>> QUIT
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 <<< 221 mx0.global.net.uk closing connection
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 Disconnected
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:40 +1300 $2 <<< 220 TU-Berlin.DE - ESMTP (exim-4.24) ready at Thu, 23 Oct 2003 12:30:38 +0200
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:40 +1300 $2 >>> EHLO Merak
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:40 +1300 $2 <<< 250 HELP
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:40 +1300 $2 >>> MAIL From:<research at ijs.co.nz> SIZE=2321
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:41 +1300 $2 <<< 250 OK
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:41 +1300 $2 >>> RCPT To:<markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:46 +1300 $2 <<< 250 Accepted
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:46 +1300 $2 >>> DATA
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:46 +1300 $2 <<< 354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 <<< 250 OK id=1ACcjs-0007Tq-Lo
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 *** <research at ijs.co.nz> <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de> 1 2321 00:00:01 OK
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 >>> QUIT
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 <<< 221 mail.zrz.tu-berlin.de closing connection
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 Disconnected
--------------------------------------------------------------------

( In the above:
    String $1 = "[00000C80] Thu, " or "[00000C90] Thu, "
    String $2 = "Client session"

The document got to him in my opinion.

I invite Mr Schulze to turn his mind to the question of the signficance
the fairly compelling algebraic founded suggestions that his paper is 
ass good as derailed train.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Mr Schulze just wrote this:

----------------------------
At 2003-12-21 10:35 +0100 Sunday, Markus Schulze wrote:
>Dear Craig,
>
>could you please post some examples to explain what you
>are talking about?
>
>Markus Schulze
----------------------------

Once again, the same problem seems to be present: Mr Schulze got symbolic
algebra evidence of amazing awful defects prohibiting all use of the
Schulze method (by every intelligent person and cockroaches too) in the
23 October 2003 e-mail. 

Actually Mr Ossipoff got a copy of an emended version dated 25-October-2003.
I sent that off to Mr Mike Ossipoff at "nkklrp at hotmail.com" on 21 December
2003.

It just looks like a request for information about a preferential
voting method that was not defined. However it looks like the chief
defendant has lost access to more than only his private e-mails
from October 2003. Praise our good fortune that he can still write his
name.



-----------------------------------


The Condorcet Winner ideal, was sighted dead on 5 September 2001.
Certainly Marcus would have known thoroughly that Condorcet technology is
awfully out of date and now proven to be inferior to (censored). Here is the
message:


At 2001-Sept-05 18:21 +1200 Wednesday, Craig Carey wrote:
...
>At 2001.Sept.04 16:40 -0400 Tuesday, Dave Ketchum wrote:
...
>This original "Fluffy" example has such problems with its numbers that new
>numbers could be used and the original discarded. Here is an improved
>version:
>
>       AB  48     : 1 winner        (no. 1)
>       B    3
>       CB  49
>
>     Condorcet: B wins   :   A:B = 48:52, B:C = 51:49, C:A = 49:48
>     FPTP:      C wins
>
>Candidate B wins, and: (1) the outcome is too different to First Past the
>Post to some, and (2) allowing that would lead into problems.
>
>Condorcet can be rejected for picking the wrong number of winners even
>without this example.
>
>If Mr Layton writes, perhaps an 'improved' Fluffy the Dog example could
>be named.
>
>
>At 2000.11.13 12:05 +1100 Monday, LAYTON Craig wrote:
> >There is basically one cogent criticism of all Condorcet systems, of which
> >you're all aware; that it puts too much importance on middle preferences,
> >especially when not all candidates or parties are known to voters.  Example:
> >
> >In a two candidate race:
> >A 51
> >C 49
> >
> >C wins
>  A wins
> >
> >A and C are diametrically opposed, there has been a long and dirty smear
> >campaign, so that C voters hate A and A voters hate C.  My dog, fluffy (B),
> >joins the race at the last minute;
> >
> >ABC 49
> >CBA 49
> >BAC 01
> >BCA 01
>             A:B = 49:51,  B:C = 51:49,  C:A = 50:50
> >
> >Fluffy is the Condorcet winner!.
>...


How can a dead method be noncontroversial, attainable, optimally satisfactory, 
and attainable ?.

Those are some traits of a fairest preferential voting method (not an algorithm).


----------------------------------------

How arbitrary: some privately belief on conduct with not even a single radiating
Argon gas atom illuminating the statement with the right stuff:


At 2003-12-21 09:33 +0000 Sunday, Diana Galletly <dag*000 at eng.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote (of Matt):
...
>Also I don't see the need for the insults.  Calling people "idiots", telling
>them there must be something seriously wrong with them, and patronising
>people by telling them that their reactions are driven by their emotions
>rather than rationality is not helpful.
>
>I was of the belief that both Mike and Markus are staunch Condorcetites.

Moronic and covert over how they checked their principles and still ended
up adhering to wrong ideals, is something Diana can inquire into.



>Think how this petty squabble is just playing into the hands of someone
>like Craig Carey, who also appears to use insults as his stock-in-trade
>(as well as being pretty incomprehensible).
>
>Diana.


Diana, my thinking here could be imagine by you to be like a very large
English church. Probing bits might not reveal a huge amount.

In 1999 the Election Methods List ad both drop outs and politeness.

Rather than reject bits of Diana's advice, it might be fairer to find out
more of her beliefs in the aim of estimating a date when Diana is likely
to drop out or quit.

---

So to conclude: I sent arguments to Mr Shulze and his guesswork on my
belief is unable to be created and maintained given the 23-October-2003
e-mail he got appealing him to contain his wrong thoughts, since so in
error. That never happened, and surely it would have been better if it
had of.


Craig Carey
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/politicians-and-polytopes
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote
Origin of 1/3 quota in IFPP:  http://www.ijs.co.nz/quota-13.htm
Use of QE solver REDLOG: http://www.ijs.co.nz/polytopes.htm






From dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk  Sun Dec 21 10:52:01 2003
From: dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk (Diana Galletly)
Date: Sun Dec 21 10:52:01 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz>
References: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz>
Message-ID: <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312211836070.595@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>

On Mon, 22 Dec 2003, Craig Carey wrote:

> It won't be OK in politics. But this is just list for untrue statements
> that have no place in the design of quality preferential voting methods
> (particularly when Diana speaks. As for myself, shall be withdrawing
> from this deep dark hole without much delay).

Er, show me where I have said something that is untrue?

It happens to be the case that if I post something that I later come
to realise is mistaken, I am *very* ready to apologise.

It may be that I have misinterpreted your messages, although since
your sentences often seem to be at best incomplete this might not
be surprising.

My understanding is that you are a supporter of STV (maybe even of IRV)?
Is this correct?

> The poor members here do not like algebra, so they aggregate and don't
> know what fairness is.

What proof have you that any of us dislike algebra?

> They maybe really are not so stupid that they can't create truly better
> method, but all are out for lunch if the topic of defining what better
> means shows up.

It seems to me that there are some people who want to a believe in a
one-size-fits-all system, for single winner elections, multi-winner
elections, referenda etc.

Personally, my interest is in referenda and, in particular, in determining
a system which doesn't cause widely varying results if just a few votes
change hands.

Calling me stupid will not get you far.  I am far from stupid, and
asserting that I am just because I happen to disagree with you, or
because you don't like the content of my messages, will not get me
to consider anything you have to say more carefully than I would were
you to be polite.

> How arbitrary: some privately belief on conduct with not even a single
> radiating Argon gas atom illuminating the statement with the right stuff:

This is an example of why I find your English hard to comprehend.  I
cannot even tell whether you are insulting or praising me -- I can read
it in both ways.  However, given your previous comment, I guess I should
take it as an insult.

> Rather than reject bits of Diana's advice, it might be fairer to find out
> more of her beliefs in the aim of estimating a date when Diana is likely
> to drop out or quit.

At the rate academic politics moves, some time in 2005 or 2006 I should
imagine.  I'm here for a reason, not for an argument.

Diana.


From gervase at group.force9.co.uk  Sun Dec 21 11:21:01 2003
From: gervase at group.force9.co.uk (Gervase Lam)
Date: Sun Dec 21 11:21:01 2003
Subject: [EM] "Paper" that mentions Kemeny Median
Message-ID: <E1AY98G-0003YI-Df.2003-12-21-19-20-52@cmailg2.svr.pol.co.uk>

Can anybody give an explanation of the Kemeny Median explained in the 
following PDF document:

<www.iiasa.ac.at/~marek/ftppub/Pubs/csm02/bury.pdf>

Is it the same as Kemeny-Young?  It's just that I don't understand all of 
the mathematical notation.

Here is the parent web page for the document, which interestingly is about 
a Systems Analysis Workshop rather than anything to do with voting.

<http://www.iiasa.ac.at/~marek/wrksp/csm02/>

Thanks,
Gervase.


From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Sun Dec 21 11:40:01 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Sun Dec 21 11:40:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Optional Later-no-harm  AER
Message-ID: <3FE6A03F.9000407@bigpond.com>

  An  idea for improving  Approval  Elimination Runoff   (an 
 Approval-STV hybrid) :

1: Voters rank the candidates and also place an Approval cutoff. 
 Truncation allowed, and if equal preferences are allowed
then the votes are split. Default placement of  the cutoff  can be 
either below  first preference or below lowest  ranked
not-in-last-place candidate.
2:  A candidate with a majority of first preferences is elected.  If  no 
candidate has a majority, then eliminate the candidate
with the fewest  approvals and  transfer preferences  IRV-style. 
Whenever  a candidate is the highest ranked of  those
remaining candidates on a majority of  the ballots that distinguish 
between them; then that candidate is elected.
3: If, after one or more eliminations, there are ballots that no longer 
make any approval distinction between the remaining
candidates, then those ballots that approve none of the remaining 
candidates shall be counted as approving the highest-ranked
of  them  and those ballots that approve all of  them will be counted as 
approving all  but the lowest-ranked.

This last feature is my new idea. Ranking but not approving  a candidate 
 can never harm an approved candidate, so voters
can have as much  Later-no-harm as they want.
Without this feature, AER  and other methods that use an  approval 
cutoff  give too big an advantage to well-informed
strategic voters. My idea is that as and when a  voter's approval cutoff 
 in it's original position becomes redundant/useless
(because it no longer distinguishes between the remaining candidates), 
it is moved the minimum distance neccessary for
this to be not the case.
Some people who are not  Condorcet fans have been down on the idea of  a 
 "low utility" CW with very few first preferences
winning. They can be reassured that with this method such a candidate 
cannot win unless they are explicitly  "approved" by
a significant  proportion  of  the voters.
This method  can easily be adapted  to elect more than one winner by  PR.
It  doesn't meet the Condorcet Criterion, but that is incompatible with 
Later-no-harm.
A while ago (Sat.Apr.13,2002) Adam Tarr  posted something on 
"Approval-Completed Condorcet".
In his example, these were the sincere preferences:

49: Bush>Gore>Nader
12: Gore>Bush>Nader
12: Gore>Nader>Bush
27: Nader>Gore>Bush
100 voters. Gore is the sincere CW.

With approval cutoffs, this was his problematic scenario:

49: Bush>>Nader>Gore
6: Gore>Bush>>Nader
6: Gore>>Bush>Nader
6: Gore>>Nader>Bush
6: Gore>Nader>>Bush
27: Nader>Gore>>Bush

"Now, Bush wins the approval runoff 55-51-33.  This is where ACC's favorite 
betrayal scenario comes in.  Since Bush wins the approval vote, the only 
way the majority can guarantee a Gore win is to make Gore the initial 
Condorcet winner, which requires that the Nader camp vote Gore in first place:"

My point is that this is no problem for AER. Nader is easily eliminated and then Gore
(the sincere CW) wins.

Chris Benham



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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 21 12:39:13 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 21 12:39:13 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
Message-ID: <3FE60484.9BC73431@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

you wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> I wrote here to correct the wrong claim that I wrote so uselessly
> on part of algorithm, and I reject that I could have possibly have
> as irrational as Mr Schulze suggested with his speculation on what
> I would have believed. (...) I did not claim that the Floyd algorithm
> "doesn't work".

However, on 15 Dec 2003, you wrote:
> A defective spot in Mr Schulze's article is this:
>
>      "4 Implementation
>       ...
>       It cannot be said frequently that the order
>       of the indices in the triple-loop of the
>       Floyd algorithm is not irrelevant."
>
> The principle of having the winner unaffected by the lettering
> might be failed. 
>
> E.g. this could happen. (The only change is a reordering
> of ALL the for loops inside of the algorithm):
>
>   Harry (=#1) Winner
>   Horace (=#2) Loser
>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
>
>   Harry (=#2) Loser
>   Horace (=#1) Winner
>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser

And in your 16 Dec 2003 mail, you claimed that "secret internal
relettering (or renaming or renumbering) inside of the algorithm
affects who the winner is." Thus, on the one side you call the
Floyd algorithm "defective" and claim that the result of the
Floyd algorithm depends on the lettering and on the other side
you write that you "did not claim that the Floyd algorithm
'doesn't work'".

Markus Schulze


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Sun Dec 21 12:40:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Sun Dec 21 12:40:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm question
Message-ID: <20031221203901.5119.qmail@web13809.mail.yahoo.com>

Does anyone have any idea if for the following ballots:

11 C>A
7 A
9 B
10 D>B

an election method which meets Later-no-harm can elect B?
If not, or probably not, what reasons can you see?

I know of two methods which meet later-no-harm (IRV and Woodall's
Descending Solid Coalitions) and they both pick C.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


___________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais !
Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com


From stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca  Sun Dec 21 13:40:08 2003
From: stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca (Stephane Rouillon)
Date: Sun Dec 21 13:40:08 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm question
References: <20031221203901.5119.qmail@web13809.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <3FE61232.E6A00BE2@sympatico.ca>

Finally, someone with a serious subject.

I have no idea of what is an exact definition of the Later-no-harm criteria.
So please tell me, so I can help you in your search.

You have owned it.

Steph

Kevin Venzke a ?crit :

> Does anyone have any idea if for the following ballots:
>
> 11 C>A
> 7 A
> 9 B
> 10 D>B
>
> an election method which meets Later-no-harm can elect B?
> If not, or probably not, what reasons can you see?
>
> I know of two methods which meet later-no-harm (IRV and Woodall's
> Descending Solid Coalitions) and they both pick C.
>
> Kevin Venzke
> stepjak at yahoo.fr
>
> ___________________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais !
> Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info



From rob at hypermatch.com  Sun Dec 21 14:37:03 2003
From: rob at hypermatch.com (Rob Brown)
Date: Sun Dec 21 14:37:03 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
In-Reply-To: <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312211836070.595@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>
References: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz>
 <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312211836070.595@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.0.20031221123415.01cf9060@mail.comcast.net>

I figured I'd pop out of lurk mode to mention that I, like Diana, have 
questioned whether some of the participants of this discussion are computer 
rather than human.....Craig's mangled vitriol in particular reads like its 
been round-tripped through the babelfish translator.

In any case this ridiculous flamefest has provided me some amusement, but 
not done a lot toward my taking this list seriously.  Maybe everybody could 
agree that if Craig and Mike would just kindly drop off the list for a 
month, everyone will just pretend this never happened when they come back?

-rob

At 10:51 AM 12/21/2003, Diana Galletly wrote:
>On Mon, 22 Dec 2003, Craig Carey wrote:
>
> > It won't be OK in politics. But this is just list for untrue statements
> > that have no place in the design of quality preferential voting methods
> > (particularly when Diana speaks. As for myself, shall be withdrawing
> > from this deep dark hole without much delay).
>
>Er, show me where I have said something that is untrue?
>
>It happens to be the case that if I post something that I later come
>to realise is mistaken, I am *very* ready to apologise.
>
>It may be that I have misinterpreted your messages, although since
>your sentences often seem to be at best incomplete this might not
>be surprising.
>
>My understanding is that you are a supporter of STV (maybe even of IRV)?
>Is this correct?
>
> > The poor members here do not like algebra, so they aggregate and don't
> > know what fairness is.
>
>What proof have you that any of us dislike algebra?
>
> > They maybe really are not so stupid that they can't create truly better
> > method, but all are out for lunch if the topic of defining what better
> > means shows up.
>
>It seems to me that there are some people who want to a believe in a
>one-size-fits-all system, for single winner elections, multi-winner
>elections, referenda etc.
>
>Personally, my interest is in referenda and, in particular, in determining
>a system which doesn't cause widely varying results if just a few votes
>change hands.
>
>Calling me stupid will not get you far.  I am far from stupid, and
>asserting that I am just because I happen to disagree with you, or
>because you don't like the content of my messages, will not get me
>to consider anything you have to say more carefully than I would were
>you to be polite.
>
> > How arbitrary: some privately belief on conduct with not even a single
> > radiating Argon gas atom illuminating the statement with the right stuff:
>
>This is an example of why I find your English hard to comprehend.  I
>cannot even tell whether you are insulting or praising me -- I can read
>it in both ways.  However, given your previous comment, I guess I should
>take it as an insult.
>
> > Rather than reject bits of Diana's advice, it might be fairer to find out
> > more of her beliefs in the aim of estimating a date when Diana is likely
> > to drop out or quit.
>
>At the rate academic politics moves, some time in 2005 or 2006 I should
>imagine.  I'm here for a reason, not for an argument.
>
>Diana.
>----
>Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 20:40:09 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 20:40:09 2003
Subject: [EM] Proof that Floyd's works in one pass?
Message-ID: <Law10-F95sCOt4p1Vfh00010ca8@hotmail.com>

Yesterday I asked Russ, the website owner, to re-arrange the indices in the 
core of the strongest-beatpaths algorithm, the part that tests and 
re-assigns the B(i,j). But today I wrote again and suggested that he not 
make that change until I send him a proof that it will achieve its intended 
result. But, when I wrote today, I said that we shouldn't call it the Floyd 
algorithm. I said that we should delete that name from it. Not only because 
of the order of the indices, but also because the websites say that the 
Floyd algorithm is for finding shortest paths, and I don't know if it's 
still the Floyd algorithm when it's modified to find strongest beatpaths.

If it's true that the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted a few days ago 
would find the strongest beatpath between each ordered pair of candidates if 
the indices were re-arranged, then would someone post a proof of that? Or 
the URL of a website that has a proof?

Also, if there's another algorilthm that would also have a running-time of a 
lower order than my Beatpath algorithm, would someone post it here, 
jargon-free and plain, as my BeatpathWinner algorithm was posted here a few 
days ago? Or post the URL of a website that has such a description of such 
an algorithm?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Get dial-up Internet access now with our best offer: 6 months @$9.95/month!  
http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 22:36:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 22:36:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Actual quotes for Markus
Message-ID: <Law10-F97B7BLA2t0ly00050b01@hotmail.com>

Markus said:

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>False statements, statements that he can't justify,  have always been
>Markus's stock-in-trade. But this time he's doing the disservice of
>misinforming people about a practical matter. But Markus doesn't care,
>he just enjoys being on the attack.

When someone proposes a faster algorithm for a given problem then
you shouldn't consider this to be an "attack".

I reply:

Excuse me, but did I ever object to your proposing a faster algorithm? It 
was abundantly clear from what I said that I was objecting to your ongoing 
claim that I claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

Diana's right: It's as if you don't read what you're replying to. I'm not so 
sure that you pass the Turing test.

Markus continued:

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your implementation
is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this discussion with the
following statement (18 Dec 2003): ...

>Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

Wrong. That posting is dated 17 December in the archives, not 18 December.

Immediately after that senbence, I said:

"I don't use that piece of code. It looks like it might be a tiny piece of a 
Pyhon strongest-beatpaths program, with at least one of its lines partly 
erased."

So it would be obvious to anyone but you that, at that time, I wasn't saying 
that I don't call the strongest-beatpaths algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but 
was only saying that I don't call your poorly-copied program-fragment the 
Floyd algorith.

A few paragraphs down in that same message, I said,

"I do call a certain strongest-beatpaths algorithm the Floyd algorithm, only 
because someone on this list told us that that's what the algorithm is 
called."

So, on the 17th, I was still calling our strongest-beatpaths algorithm the 
Floyd algorithm, and still believed that it was what you'd intended to write 
when you posted your Floyd algorilthm.

But on the 18th, I said that it semed to me that you had meant to say that 
our algorithm was the Floyd algoithm, but maybe not.

I then explained that it had seemed to me earlier that our algorithm was the 
same as what you'd
meant to write when you posted your Floyd algorithm, and that that was why I 
believed that our algorithm was the Floyd algorithm.

In that message, it's clear that I was no longer calling our algorithm the 
Floyd algorithm.

But, if that wasn't clear enough, on the same day, the 18th, I also posted:

"[Something to the effect of 'I'd thought that you'd meant our algorithm as 
the Floyd algorithm'] But if you say it isn't, fine. I'll tell Russ to 
delete that name from the website."

That makes it even more clear that, as of the 18th, I was no longer calling 
our algorithm the Floyd algorilthm.

Markus continued:

It is obvious that when I made my statement that you call your 
implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you have 
changed
your opinion recently.

I reply:

No reason at all...except for what I said  :-)

(on the 18th, and on numerous subsequent posts).

Masrkus continued:

Therefore, your insulting replies are inappropriate.
Instead of saying "Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm." it would
have been better if you had said: "I don't call that the Floyd algorithm
anymore."

I reply:

In English, "I don't call it that anymore" means "Though I called it that 
formerly, I no longer do."

So "anymore" merely emphasizes that what is not now true used to be true. It 
emphasizes the changing of a previously true fact. But in no way can 
"anymore" be said to be a necessary part of the grammatical construction for 
indicating the present tense.

You continued:

In so far as you only said without any explanations "I don't call that the
Floyd algorithm." and not "I don't call that the Floyd algorithm anymore."
it was clear that I would point you to a document where you call that the
Floyd algorithm.

I reply:

Correction: You pointed to a document in which I _called_ it the Floyd 
algorithm. You used the present tense. The document proves only that I 
called it the Floyd algorithm in 2001.

(though I said on the 17th December, 2003, that I still called it that as of 
that day)

That's why we have verb-tenses. So that people will know whether we're 
speaking of the present, the past, or the future. I spoke in the present 
tense. The present can refer to this moment, as when someone says, "I'm not 
smoking a cigarette". Or it can refer to something currently ongoing, as 
when someone says "I don't smoke". Then he's saying that not only is he not 
smoking at this moment, but he's also saying that this moment isn't part of 
an ongoing period during which smoking by him sometimes takes place. That's 
a well-established meaning of the present tense, and it was in that way that 
I meant the present tense. When he says "I don't smoke", in no way can you 
be justified in claiming that he's saying that he has never smoked.

If he says "I haven't smoked", then that's different.

I reply:

So when I said that I don't call it the Floyd algorithm, that doesn't mean 
that I've never called it the Floyd algorithm. It merely means that I 
currently don't call it that. When somone says "I don't call it that", does 
mean to you that  mean that he's saying that he has never called it that?

Now, on the 17th I was only saying that I don't call that program _fragment_ 
the Floyd algorilthm. But on subsequent days when I said that,  I made it 
clear that I don't call our strongest beatpaths algorithm the Floyd 
algorithm. My statements posted here on 18 December 2003 demonstrate that, 
from that time on, I haven't been calling it the Floyd algorithm.

By the way, you wrote (18 Dec 2003):

>I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from
>you or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

Could you please forward that mail where Steve proposes his strongest path
algorithm?

I reply:

It turns out that that message is no longer in my mailbox. That message was 
sent years ago, and my mailbox doesn't go back that far. I suggest that you 
write to Steve. He may still have a copy of the message. Or, if not, he may 
be able to tell you about the algorithm that he proposed.

******

I wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>Then, of course, it would have been sufficient for you to say that you 
>don't
>call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" anymore.

As I said, the word "anymore" is _not_ a necessary part of the grammatical 
construction for the present tense.

I said that I don't call it the Floyd algorithm. That means that now isn't 
part of an ongoing period during which I sometimes call it that. It doesn't 
mean that I've never called it that.

>There was no need for you
>to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

Do you really believe that I had no reason to get tired of repeatedly 
explaining the same things to you again and again, as you kept on repeating 
a false claim, as if you weren't reading the e-mail that you were "replying" 
to?

Markus continued:

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>Hello-o-o-o! That's what I've been repeating for you over and over again, 
>to
>no avail. I won't debate whether there was a need to insult you. But can 
>you
>look at your ridiculous statement that I quoted directly above, and say 
>that
>there wasn't a reason to call you an idiot?

When I say that "it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
call your implementation 'Floyd algorithm' anymore" then this doesn't mean
that I claim that you still call your implementation "Floyd algorithm".
It only means that this would have been sufficient and that there was no
need for you e.g. to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

I reply:

But the problem was that it _wasn't_ sufficient, because you were spamming 
this mailing list with repetion of a refuted claim, in direct violation of 
the rules of conduct posted at the list's homepage.

Markus continued:

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>You see, Markus, this is why I refer to you as an idiot. Did I deny that,
>in Feb 2001, I was calling Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm.? No. I
>agreed that I'd formerly called that algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but
>that I no longer do. But you kept repeating that I continue to claim that
>my implementation is the Floyd algorilthm, though I kept trying to tell
>you that I no longer make any such claim.
>
>And now you post a quote from 2001, apparently believing that it shows
>that you're right to say that, during this current discussion, I claim
>that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.
>
>Seriously, Markus, all namecalling aside,there really is something wrong
>with you.

Obviously, you are unable to see that when I ask you for an explanation why
you have used the term "Floyd algorithm" in the past in a given manner then
this doesn't include that I claim that you continue to use this term in this
manner.

I reply:

No. You didn't just ask for an explanation for why I previously used the 
term. You kept saying that I do use the term in that way. Check the 
archives.

And, as for why I previously used the term in that way, I answered that 
question on the 18th. If yoiu read what yoiu're replying to, you wouldn't 
have asked that question after that day.

Markus continued:

By the way: Your recent mail exemplifies my observation that you are
unable to admit that you have made a mistake

I reply:

Starting on the 18th, and then on every subsequent day, I clarified that I 
previously called it the Floyd algorithm, and that I (as of the 18th and 
after) took your word for it that it was not the Floyd algorilth, and said 
that I was going to ask Russ to delete that name from the website. Agan, 
Diana's rilght: What you say is completely unrelated to what you claim to be 
replying to.

Markus continued:

without bombarding with
insults that person who pointed you to this mistake.

I reply:

I never criticized you for pointing out that Steve's algorithm isn't the 
Floyd algorithm. More fiction on your part.

Markus continued:

In the same mail
you admit that you have mistakenly believed Eppley's algorithm to be
Floyd's algorithm

I reply:

You catch on fast :-)  At least now you've finally found out that I've been 
saying that all along.

Mike Ossipoff

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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 22:59:03 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 22:59:03 2003
Subject: [EM] Matt reply, 12/21/03
Message-ID: <Law10-F8hNfv57kVwyr00050a38@hotmail.com>

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Matt said:

It is the python code towards the bottom of http://www.electionmethods.org/
It says "Mike Ossipoff provided the algorithm, and Russ Paielli programmed 
it."
It also says:  "Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd 
Algorithm:" which prompted Markus to point out that it wasn't the O(N^3) 
Floyd Algorithm as coded but a less efficient O(N^5) algorithm.

I reply:

No, I'd have never objected to that. As soon as Markus said it wasn't the 
Floyd algorithm I said "Fine. I'll tell Russ to delete that name from the 
website.

What I disagreed with in Markus's posting was his statement that our 
algorithm doesn't work.

Matt continued, using the terminology of his subculture,:

Mike then went into a hissy fit.

I reply:

I stated that, contrary to what Markus posted,  our algothm works.

I immediately said that I took Markus's word for it that our algotithm isn't 
the Floyd algorithm.

No fit. Did I eventually become exasperated with Markus's repetition that I 
call Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm? Yes.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 22 00:05:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Mon Dec 22 00:05:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Yet more Markus
Message-ID: <Law10-F55nDrfDYgl3l0002a006@hotmail.com>


Markus said:

when I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
have changed your opinion recently.

I reply:

Not only that, but I had not changed my opinion about that at that time. On 
17 December I said in a posting here that I, at that time, called our 
algorithm the Floyd algorithm.

No one is disputing the claim that I used to call it that. No one is 
criticizing you for making that observation on 15 December. It's when you 
kept saying it after 18 December that it was obviously false and was 
becoming reallly tiresome.

Markus continued:

[...]

Therefore, I stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd
algorithm and that your algorithm doesn't find the strongest
paths in a single pass.

I reply:

I've already quoted verbatim what you said. You said that our algorithm 
doesn't work.
But I'm not still on that. However you seem to still on that.

Markus continued:

But when one considers the possible
short cuts in that order that has been proposed by Floyd then
a single pass is sufficient.

I reply:

So you keep claiming. But are you able to  prove it? If so, then do so. And, 
  if you're unable to prove it, then post the web URL of someone who is able 
to prove it.

I'm not saying that it isn't true, only that you should prove it if you're 
going to say it.

Markus quoted me:

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
>That algorithm wasn't written as an attempt to write the Floyd
>algorithm. It was written by people who had never heard of the
>Floyd algorithm. It was written to accomplish the pupose that
>it accomlishes. Only later, due to Markus's earlier post of
>something he called the Floyd algorithm (though it was about
>strongest paths rather than shortest paths), did I hear of the
>Floyd algorithm.

Markus replied:

Even though you write that you have never heard of the Floyd
algorithm

I reply:

Excuse me Markus, but in what posting did I say that I've never heard of the 
Floyd algorithm? Certainly not in the paragraph that you quoted above. What 
I said in that posting was that our strongest-beatpaths algorilthmwas 
written by people who had never heard of the Floyd algorithm.

Listen carefully, Markus: "had" is different from "have".

I said "...people who had never heard of the Floyd algorithmn". You took 
that to mean that I have (up to this day) never heard of the Floyd 
algorithm. Does it occur to you that that was a ridiculous conclusion, 
considering that I've repeatedly mentioned the Floyd algorithm, from 17 
December to the present? Now, when a conclusion is ridiculous, just maybe 
it's incorrect. We have the perfect tense, and, distinct from that, we have 
the past-perfect or pluperfect tense. "...who had never heard of the Floyd 
algorithm" is the latter tense. It  refers to time previoius to the time 
that the sentence refers to. It's about time that was past with respect to 
the past time that the sentence refers to. To clairfy the difference, if I 
say "I haven't heard of the Floyd algorithm", that refers to time previous 
to, and up to, the present The perfect tense and the pluperfect tense are 
two different tenses, with different meanings.

I'm not criticizing you for mistaking those verb-tenses. But when you reach 
a conclusion as ridicoulous as the one that you reached, that should give 
you a clue that maybe you've misunderstood, and that you need to re-check 
what you think was said.

Markus continued:

it is a matter of fact that you called your algorithm
"Floyd algorithm" e.g. in the source code of your Python program
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py).

I reply:

I've never denied that, Markus.

Markus continued:

Therefore, when I
stress that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm then
this is a feasible observation and not an "attack".

I reply:

I never criticized you for saying that our implementation isn't the Floyd 
algorithm.

I haven't specifically said that anything was an attack. I said that you 
like to go on the attrack, and that's a good description of what you do. I 
also said that you must have nothing else to do, and that you evidently are 
completely without a life, and I stand by that statement.

Markus continued:

If you hadn't
mistakenly written that your implementation is the Floyd algorithm,
then there wouldn't have been a reason for me to stress that your
implementation is not the Floyd algorithm.

I reo;y:

No one has objected to your pointing out that it isn't the Floyd algorithm. 
All I said about that was that I took your word for it and would tell Russ 
to delete that name from it.

Markus continued:

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
>I've been futily trying to explain to Markus that I'm not claiming
>that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Yes, I admit that
>that effort has been futile.

When I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
have changed your opinion recently.

I reply:

You already said that, Markus, earlier in your posting. The answer is the 
same here: My opinion that our implmentation was the Floyd algorithm indeed 
had not changed as of that time. Additionally, on 17 December I stated that 
I call it the Floyd algorithm. But on the 18th I made it clear that that was 
no longer so, as of the 18th.

Markus continued:

In one of your recent mails,
you admitted that you mistakenly believed Eppley's algorithm to
be Floyd's algorithm and you admitted that you mistakenly called
Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's algorithm". Therefore, my criticism
was feasible

I reply:

Sure, if you want to repeat what I'd already said, that I mistakenly 
believed that you'd intended to write Steve's algorithm when you posted your 
Floyd algorithm, that's fine. I wasn't aware that it was criticism, and I've 
never objected to your pointiing that out.

But do you really believe that I'd agree that it wasn't the Floyd algorithm 
and then criticize you for saying that it isn't th eFloyd algorilthm? Again, 
a ridiculous conclulsion that should give you a clue that you need to 
re-check what you thought I wrote.

Does it occur to you how much of our time you're wasting because you draw 
those ridiculous conclusions, and then write about them instead of checking 
whether I really said what you initially believe I said? You're unbelievably 
sloppy.

Markus continued:

and you admitted this.

I reply:

If you admilt that I did you feel the need to keep re-asserting what was 
already admitted?

Markus continued:

Therefore, there is absolutely
no justification for your insulting mails.

I reply:

Sure there was and is, with the astoundingly ridiculous things that you come 
up with, such as saying that I claim to have never heard of the Floyd 
algorithm, because I said that our implementation was written by peoiple who 
had never heard of the Floyd algorilthm.

Markus continued:

I don't claim that you continue to claim that Eppley's algorithm
is Floyd's algorithm. However, when I pointed (on 15 Dec 2003) to
the fact that you mistakenly called your implementation "Floyd
algorithm" this observation was true.

I reply:

...and no one objected to your saying that then. But I objected to that same 
statement after 18 December, when I'd made it clear that I was no longer 
callling it the Floyd algorithm.

Mike Ossipoff

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From bartman at netgate.net  Mon Dec 22 00:43:02 2003
From: bartman at netgate.net (Bart Ingles)
Date: Mon Dec 22 00:43:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm question
References: <20031221203901.5119.qmail@web13809.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <3FE6AE3B.53B43546@netgate.net>

Random dictator can elect B 9/37 of the time, and presumably meets
later-no-harm.  In fact the 2nd choices are unused for that method.

I can't see much value in LNH as a criterion, unless getting voters to
rank as many candidates as possible is seen as an end in itself.

Bart


Kevin Venzke wrote:
> 
> Does anyone have any idea if for the following ballots:
> 
> 11 C>A
> 7 A
> 9 B
> 10 D>B
> 
> an election method which meets Later-no-harm can elect B?
> If not, or probably not, what reasons can you see?
> 
> I know of two methods which meet later-no-harm (IRV and Woodall's
> Descending Solid Coalitions) and they both pick C.
> 
> Kevin Venzke
> stepjak at yahoo.fr


From davek at clarityconnect.com  Mon Dec 22 01:04:01 2003
From: davek at clarityconnect.com (Dave Ketchum)
Date: Mon Dec 22 01:04:01 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
References: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz> <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312211836070.595@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk> <6.0.0.22.0.20031221123415.01cf9060@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <3FE6B33A.300@clarityconnect.com>

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 14:36:47 -0800 Rob Brown wrote on part:

> I figured I'd pop out of lurk mode to mention that I, like Diana, have 
> questioned whether some of the participants of this discussion are 
> computer rather than human.....Craig's mangled vitriol in particular 
> reads like its been round-tripped through the babelfish translator.
> 

Worth noting the "NZ" in Craig's address and realizing he speaks a 
different language, though deceptively similar to ours.

I remember many months ago his getting upset over the VERY UGLY insult 
someone had used about him.  The insult had not been meant, for the words 
were not insulting in American English.

BTW, to Craig:  you need to remember that what works for you at home is 
not necessarily workable here.

-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.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.



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 22 01:29:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Mon Dec 22 01:29:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Typo in "Proof that Floyd finishes in 1 pass?"
Message-ID: <Law10-F87jGUcdCzs4m00050d21@hotmail.com>


In an earlier message today, I said:

"If it's true that the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted a few days ago
would find the strongest beatpath between each ordered pair of candidates if
the indices were re-arranged, then would someone post a proof of that? Or
the URL of a website that has a proof?"

***

I accidentally left out the phrase "with only one pass".

I'm asking if anyone can prove that the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I 
posted a few days ago would find the strongest beatpath between each ordered 
pair of candidates _in one pass_ if the order of the indices were 
re-arranged.

If there's proof that the re-arrangement can accomplish that then I'll ask 
the website owner to re-arrange the indices in that way.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 22 01:54:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Mon Dec 22 01:54:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Winning-votes vs margins as a measure of defeat-strength
Message-ID: <Law10-F74muxcChxbm300050fd1@hotmail.com>




For Condorcet's method, I recommend that the strength
of pairwise defeats be measured by "winning-votes"
(wv). Winning votes says:

If X beats Y, then the strength of that defeat is measured by the number of 
people who ranked X over Y.

[end of definition]

Some others advocate using margins of defeat instead.

Here's why winning-votes is better.

Below is something that I send out to answer that question. But let me 
briefly say that one problem of margins is that the subtraction that it 
involves erases information about majorities, which is why margins has 
majority rule failures that wv doesn't have. One result is that wv meets the 
majority defensivse strategy criteria, SFC, GSFC, WDSC, and SDSC; and 
margins fails all those criteria. They're criteria intended to measure for 
the standards of majority rule, and minimizing need for defensive strategy. 
The definitions of those 4 criteria tell how complying methods (wv 
Condorclet) avoid certain avoidable defensive strategy needs.

Thoes criteria are defined at:

http://www.electionmethods.org

and

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


But there's also a basic ethical reason wv acts more justly than margins 
does:

When every candidate has a pairwise defeat by another
candidate, Condorcet's method, in all its versions,
solves that problem by sequentially dropping the
weaker defeats--or by sequentially keeping the
stronger defeats.

When everyone has a pairwise defeat, and we have to
elect someone anyway, then that means that we have to
ignore or disregard or overrule someone's pairwise
defeat(s)--when we elect someone in spite of his
having a pairwise defeat, a public statement that the
voters prefer someone else to him. So Condorcet has to choose which defeat 
to drop.

But dropping or ignoring a defeat is not something to
be taken lightly. It means that we're disregarding,
overruling, a statement made by the voting public,
when they indicated that they preferred one candidate
to another. And when we overrule that public choice,
we're overruling those voters who won that public
decision.


Suppose that, in the pairwise comparison betwen D & B,
D beats B, 60 to 50, meaning that 60 people ranked D
over B, and 50 people ranked B over D.

If we drop that defeat, overrule that public statement
that D is better than B, then we're also overruling
the 60 voters who won that public vote about that
2-way contest between D and B.

We want to minimize the number of voters whom we
overrule. So we measure the importance of a defeat by
the number of people who voted for that defeat.

Now, sometimes someone will say: But if you keep that
defeat, doesn't that mean that you're overrule the 50
voters who voted against it, the 50 voters who ranked
B over D? No! Those 50 voters were overruled by the
public vote in which the voters collectively said that
they prefer D to B. The only way that the voting
system overrules a public decision is when it drops a
defeat, when it overrules a public decision for one
candidate over another. We're not doing that when we
keep a defeat that the public chose.

That's why winning-votes (wv) is more democratic than
margins, more ethically fair.

But there's another reason why we prefer wv to
margins:
Nash Equilibrium:

A Nash equilibrium is an game outcome in which no one
player can improve the result for himself by changing
his play, if no one else changes their play.

In voting system discussion on the election-methods
mailing list, a "player" is taken to mean a
same-voting set of voters.

With the kind of Condorcet that measures defeats by
margins, as with IRV and Plurality, there are often situations
(configurations of sincere voter preferences) in which
the only Nash equilibria are ones in which some voters
vote someone over their favorite in order to protect
majority rule or protect the win of a Condorcet
candidate (a candidate who, when compared separately
to each one of the others, is preferred to him/her by
more people than vice-versa).

With Approval or wv Condorcet, every situation has at
least one Nash equilibrium in which no one reverses a
sincere preference.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Mon Dec 22 05:11:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Mon Dec 22 05:11:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Actual quotes for Markus
Message-ID: <3FE6ECC4.FFFA3285@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

when I wrote that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm,
then this was an observation and not an "attack". If you hadn't
mistakenly written (e.g. in the source code of your Python
program http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py) that your
implementation is the Floyd algorithm, then I wouldn't have
stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm.
In one of your recent mails, you admitted that you mistakenly
believed Eppley's algorithm to be Floyd's algorithm and you
admitted that you mistakenly called Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's
algorithm". Therefore, my criticism was feasible and you
admitted this. Therefore, there is absolutely no justification
for your insulting mails.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> Excuse me, but did I ever object to your proposing a faster
> algorithm? It was abundantly clear from what I said that I
> was objecting to your ongoing claim that I claim that Steve's
> algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> Markus wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> > I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your
> > implementation is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this
> > discussion with the following statement (18 Dec 2003): ...
> >
> > > Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.
>
> Wrong. That posting is dated 17 December in the archives, not
> 18 December.

My mailbox says: "Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"

It seems that your mail server uses UK time and not
California time.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> Immediately after that senbence, I said:
>
> "I don't use that piece of code. It looks like it might be a
> tiny piece of a Pyhon strongest-beatpaths program, with at
> least one of its lines partly erased."
>
> So it would be obvious to anyone but you that, at that time,
> I wasn't saying that I don't call the strongest-beatpaths
> algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but was only saying that I
> don't call your poorly-copied program-fragment the Floyd
> algorith.
>
> A few paragraphs down in that same message, I said,
>
> "I do call a certain strongest-beatpaths algorithm the Floyd
> algorithm, only because someone on this list told us that
> that's what the algorithm is called."
>
> So, on the 17th, I was still calling our strongest-beatpaths
> algorithm the Floyd algorithm, and still believed that it was
> what you'd intended to write when you posted your Floyd
> algorilthm.
>
> But on the 18th, I said that it semed to me that you had meant
> to say that our algorithm was the Floyd algoithm, but maybe not.
>
> I then explained that it had seemed to me earlier that our
> algorithm was the same as what you'd meant to write when you
> posted your Floyd algorithm, and that that was why I believed
> that our algorithm was the Floyd algorithm.
>
> In that message, it's clear that I was no longer calling our
> algorithm the Floyd algorithm.
>
> But, if that wasn't clear enough, on the same day, the 18th,
> I also posted:
>
> "[Something to the effect of 'I'd thought that you'd meant our
> algorithm as the Floyd algorithm'] But if you say it isn't, fine.
> I'll tell Russ to delete that name from the website."
>
> That makes it even more clear that, as of the 18th, I was no
> longer calling our algorithm the Floyd algorilthm.

Why is it so important for you to stress that since 18 Dec 2003
you are not longer calling Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's algorithm"?
When I wrote on 15 Dec 2003 that Eppley's algorithm is mistakenly
called "Floyd's algorithm" in the source code of your Phython
program this was a correct observation.

******

I wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> When I say that "it would have been sufficient for you to say that
> you don't call your implementation 'Floyd algorithm' anymore" then
> this doesn't mean that I claim that you still call your implementation
> "Floyd algorithm". It only means that this would have been sufficient
> and that there was no need for you e.g. to spam this mailing list with
> tons of insulting mails.

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> But the problem was that it _wasn't_ sufficient, because you were spamming 
> this mailing list with repetion of a refuted claim, in direct violation of 
> the rules of conduct posted at the list's homepage.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

******

I wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> Obviously, you are unable to see that when I ask you for an explanation why
> you have used the term "Floyd algorithm" in the past in a given manner then
> this doesn't include that I claim that you continue to use this term in this
> manner.

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> No. You didn't just ask for an explanation for why I previously used the 
> term. You kept saying that I do use the term in that way. Check the archives.
> And, as for why I previously used the term in that way, I answered that
> question on the 18th. If yoiu read what yoiu're replying to, you wouldn't
> have asked that question after that day.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> I immediately said that I took Markus's word for it that our algotithm
> isn't the Floyd algorithm. No fit. Did I eventually become exasperated
> with Markus's repetition that I call Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm?
> Yes.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> I haven't specifically said that anything was an attack. I said that you
> like to go on the attrack, and that's a good description of what you do. I
> also said that you must have nothing else to do, and that you evidently are
> completely without a life, and I stand by that statement.

Concerning the time you spend to spam mailing lists with insulting and
completely superfluous mails, I conclude that you are completely without
a life.

Markus Schulze


From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Mon Dec 22 08:17:02 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Mon Dec 22 08:17:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm  definition
Message-ID: <3FE7C23C.1090700@bigpond.com>

Quoting  D.R. Woodall,

"Later-no-harm:  Adding a later preference to a ballot should not harm 
any candidate already listed".

In other words, if  a method meets Later-no-harm then  voters can never 
get an advantage by truncating.
It is met by IRV, but is incompatible with  Condorcet.
I got this from what I found to be the very interesting and illuminating 
paper "Monotonicity and Single-Seat Election
Rules" by Woodall, and uploaded by  Marcus Schulze:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/wood1996.pdf

Chris Benham



From rspeer at MIT.EDU  Mon Dec 22 11:36:02 2003
From: rspeer at MIT.EDU (Rob Speer)
Date: Mon Dec 22 11:36:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Typo in "Proof that Floyd finishes in 1 pass?"
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F87jGUcdCzs4m00050d21@hotmail.com>
References: <Law10-F87jGUcdCzs4m00050d21@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031222193423.GA23743@mit.edu>

On Mon, Dec 22, 2003 at 09:28:37AM +0000, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
> I'm asking if anyone can prove that the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I 
> posted a few days ago would find the strongest beatpath between each 
> ordered pair of candidates _in one pass_ if the order of the indices were 
> re-arranged.

You accept that the Floyd-Warshall algorithm is proven, right? I don't
have my copy of CLR around.

Floyd-Warshall shortest paths is a special case of the Floyd-Warshall
algorithm, where the path weight is calculated with + and the minimum
is taken. Floyd-Warshall can also be used for the transitive closure, or
for beatpaths, because the algorithm doesn't depend on the particular
operations that are used.

-- 
Rob Speer



From Dgamble997 at aol.com  Mon Dec 22 11:46:02 2003
From: Dgamble997 at aol.com (Dgamble997 at aol.com)
Date: Mon Dec 22 11:46:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Two Questions for Craig Carey
Message-ID: <17e.2498109b.2d18a3b9@aol.com>

Craig

In the past you have been extremely critical of IRV , currently you are being 
extremely critical of Condorcet. What single seat method do you support?

You also repeatedly criticise methods for giving "wrong winners". In the 
example given below who, in your opinion, is the correct winner?

There are 100 votes and one seat is to be filled.

The ballot papers are as follows:

A>B>C   40
B>A>C   8
B>C>A   17
C>B>A   35

A is the Plurality winner, B is the Condorcet winner and C is the IRV winner. 
Who is the correct winner?

David Gamble

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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 22 23:54:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Mon Dec 22 23:54:02 2003
Subject: [EM] SSD is not BeatpathWinner
Message-ID: <Law10-F1112zSdwlDgQ0005442d@hotmail.com>

Markus often says that BeatpathWinner is the same as Cloneproof SSD (CSSD) 
and SSD. Actually no. SSD is a different method that can have different 
outcomes when there are pairwise ties.

It's true thatr CSSD and BeatpathWinner are equivalent, always give the same 
outcome.

In public elections, where pairwise ties are vanishingly rare, SSD chooses 
the same as CSSD, which means that, under those conditions, SSD chooses the 
same as BeatpathWinner.

But, aside from how they choose, there's an important difference between SSD 
and BeatpathWinner: Proposability.

SSD's definition, with its innermost unbeaten sets, is naturally and 
obviously motivated and justified. Innermost unbeaten sets are compelling.

BeatpathWinner's count rule has an arbitrary quality. It wouldn't have the 
acceptability of SSD. Or the acceptability of Ranked-Pairs either.

Maybe when Markus names those methods as being the same as BeatpathWinner, 
he'd like to take credit for all of them (assuming for the moment that he 
really did invent BeatpathWinner). Yes he did describe CSSD after proposing 
BeatpathWinner, pointing out the equivalence. But I doubt that he proposed 
SSD.

SSD was a colaboration from discussion with Steve Eppley. Neither of us knew 
of Markus's CSSD description at that time. Later, in a discussion in which a 
clone-independent method was desired, and in which someone else was 
proposing BeatpathWinner, a method not as obviously justified as SSD, I 
changed SSD to make it clone-independent--Cloneproof SSD (CSSD). Later I 
found out that Markus had described CSSD.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Tired of slow downloads? Compare online deals from your local high-speed 
providers now.  https://broadband.msn.com



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 01:48:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 01:48:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Condorcet for public proposals
Message-ID: <LAW10-F78P6LKg1bJj800054daa@hotmail.com>

When I found out about BeatpathWinner's brief algorithm and computer 
program, I began recommending for committees, organizations, and polls. That 
was largely because the brief BeatpathWinner program was the only one that 
I'd written. I had diffriculty setting aside the time that it would take to 
write the much longer programs for SSD and Ranked-Pairs.  So I was offering 
a BeatpathWinner program because that was all I had. People asked me where 
they could find a Ranked-Pairs program, and I had to say that I didn't know 
where they could find a wv RP program.

But all the time when I was recommending BeatpathWinner for committees, 
partly with the idea that the members of the committee, like me, would find 
a brief program more convenient, I was also saying that SSD, RP, and PC are 
the Condorcet versions to propose for public elections.

That's because those Condorcet versions are the ones with natural and 
obvious motivation and justification. Obviously, of those 3, PC isn't as 
good as the other 2.

CSSD and SSD differ in their stopping rule. SSD stops when someone is 
unbeaten. CSSD stops when there are no defeats among the candidates of the 
Schwartz set. When I initially suggested CSSD, no knowing about Markus's 
prior proposal, I was saying to stop when there are no cycles among the 
candidates of the current Schwartz set. When I heard about Markus's CSSD 
proposal, which worded the stopping rule in terms of defeats in the Schwartz 
set, instead of cycles, I adopted that wording, since defeats are a more 
natural notion than cycles. In that way, with CSSD, it's never necessary to 
mention cycles. Of course with SSD it's never necessary to mention cycles 
either.

Stopping the count when someone becomes unbeaten sounds much briefer, more 
natural, expected than stopping the count when there are no defeats among 
the candidates of the current Schwartz set. After all, the whole reason why 
a circular tie solution is needed was because initially no one was unbeaten. 
What could be more natural than to stop when someone becomes unbeaten.

As I was saying before, an innermost unbeaten set is compelling--It's 
obvious that the winner should come from that set. And that therefore the 
candidates of that set are the ones who should have their defeats dropped.


Here's how I define SSD:


Schwartz set definition:

1. An unbeaten set is a set of candidates none of whom are beaten by anyone 
outside that set.

2. An innermost unbeaten set is an unbeaten set that doesn't contain a 
smaller unbeaten set.

3. The Schwartz set is the set of candidates who are in innermost unbeaten 
sets.

SSD:

1. If any candidate is unbeaten, they win and the count ends.

2. Otherwise, determine which candidates are in the Schwartz set, counting 
only undropped defeats.

3. Drop the weakest defeat among the members of that set. Go to 1.

[end of SSD definition]


Ranked-Pairs is also obviously motivated and justified, and that makes it 
too a good proposal for public elections. Its definition is probably  
briefer than that of SSD, because SSD requires the Schwartz set to be 
defined. But RP loses some of its brevity when its midcount-tie-solution is 
specified.

Ranked-Pairs:

To "keep" a defeat means to record it as being kept.

In order of strongest defeats first, consider each defeat in turn as 
follows: Keep it doesn't conflict with already-kept defeats, by being in a 
cycle with them-- i.e., by being in a cycle consisting only of it and some 
already-kept defeats.

When all the defeats have been considered in that way, a candidate wins if 
s/he has no kept defeats.

[end of RP definition]

Ranked-Pairs isn't a descriptive definition. If it applies to RP at all, it 
could also apply to some other Condorcet versions. Steve Eppley has 
suggested a better name:

Maximize Affirmed Majorities (MAM). That name well describes what MAM does.

RP can have midcount ties, situations where there are 2 or more equally 
strongest as-yet unconsidered defeats. The problem is, which one should be 
considered first? It's said that, for the purpose of clone-independence and 
monotonicity, maybe the best way to solve that is to randomly chose the 
order in which to consider them. That doesn't sound like something that the 
public would like, however.

I suggested an RP midcount tie solution on this mailing list some time ago. 
It's based on the idea that a defeat is nullified if it's in a cycle with 
defeats that are all at least as strong as it is:

1. Call the equally strongest as-yet unconsidered defeats the "tie defeats".

2. Defeats that were kept before  keeping any tie defeats are called "old 
defeats".

3. A tie defeat is "qualified" if it isn't in a cycle consisting only of it 
and some old defeats.

4. Keep every qualified tie defeat that is not in a cycle each of whose 
members is either an old defeeat or a qualified tie defeat.

[end of "deterministic1" midcount tie solution definition]

In the EM discussion at that time, it was called deterministic1. Steve had 
already considered it.

I thought that was the brief midcount tie solution, till Eric suggested 
something briefer:

[using the same definitions as before]

Keep every tie defeat that isn't in a cycle consisting only of it and some 
old defeats.

[end of briefer midcount tie solution]

That's so much briefer that I immediately agreed that that's the one to 
offer for public proposals.

It could probably be worded so that it wouldn't be necessary to separately 
define tie defeats and old defeats.

In public elections, equal defeats are so rare that it doesn't reallly 
matter what the rule is for solving them. Brevity is all-importnat, and the 
brief midcount tie solution is the one to include in public MAM proposals.

As I've often said, the merit difference between MAM and SSD in public 
elections is negligible. The choice between those two should be based 
entirely on which is more likely to be accepted. Maybe a "focus group" 
public meeting or a poll should be done to chose.

If I was proposing only BeatpathWinner/CSSD for committees only because it 
was the only one that I had a count program written for, maybe that isn't 
the best way to choose a voting system. Maybe RP should be considered as a 
method for committees. Maybe a program should be written that implements 
CSSD by its own very plausible definition, rather than by BeatpathWinner. 
For a committee, the choice between CSSD and CSSD would obviously depend on 
whether an obvious stopping rule is more imporant than clone independence. 
Will clone advantage or disadvantage really happen often enough to cause 
factions to strategically introduce clones? I doiubt it.

As I said, it's been suggested that the MAM midcount tie solutions that I 
described might not be clone-independent &/or monotonic. How much of a 
problem is that? How likely is a faction to strategically run (or avoid) 
clones, on the chance that there will be equal defeats, in circumstances 
that favor or disfavor clones? Probably not so likely. How likely is someone 
to downrank his favorite so as to make him win in the unlikely event that a 
certain two defeats will be equal, and the other circumstances will be right 
for that particular candidate to benefit from the nonmonotonicy and from 
that voter's downranking strategy. It doesn't sound real likely, does it.

I've had good response to an SSD definition. SSD doesn't require any mention 
of cycles. MAM requires at least mention of defeats that conflict or are 
incompatible, etc. Someone might ask how defeats conflit, and then you're 
defining cycles to that person. With SSD you never have to speak of cycles, 
or incompatible defeats.

But SSD and MAM are both excellent public Condorcet proposals.

Sometimes we underestimate how resistant people might be to anything whose 
definition is longer than a line or two. Sure, anyone who is willilng to 
read the definitions of SSD and MAM will like them. But what about all those 
people who will reject them without being willing to read the definition, 
because they consider a short paragraph to be too long? For them, maybe 
Condorcet is a better idea.

Sure SSD & MAM are better, but if people insist on something more 
briefly-defined, them  Plain Condorcet (PC) is the thing:

If anyone is undefeated they win. Otherwise drop the weakest defeat. Repeat 
till someone is undefeated. They win.

[end of PC definition]

PC is called Basic Condorcet at the electionmethods website.

Sure, PC violates Condorcet Loser. But it would happen only rarely. It would 
be a peculiarly popular Condorcet loser who has fewer people preferring 
anyone else to him than anyone else does.

If a Condorcet Loser wins it would be an embarrassment. But the likely 
"badness" of that winner is reduced by the fact that he has the fewest 
people preferring anyone else to him.

Condorcet Loser could also be used against PC in campaigns, and that 
objection would have to be answered. For one thing, Condorcet Loser can't be 
used to oppose replacing Plurality with PC, because Plurality violates it 
too, probably more often.

Keep thiis in persepctive. Let's not exaggerate how likely or how much of a 
problem PC's ability to fail Condorcet Loser is.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Make your home warm and cozy this winter with tips from MSN House & Home.  
http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From bjarke2003 at trebe.dk  Tue Dec 23 03:28:33 2003
From: bjarke2003 at trebe.dk (Bjarke Dahl Ebert)
Date: Tue Dec 23 03:28:33 2003
Subject: [EM] Election methods Wiki
Message-ID: <4668.194.239.238.130.1072178859.squirrel@webmail01.web10.dk>

Dear election methods fans,

I know about Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/), which have many pages about
election methods, but I know of no Wiki where election methods are being
_discussed_.
What I am missing, that a mailinglist cannot provide, is a medium where discussions
and consensus (or the lack thereof) about election methods can be _maintained_.

That is just what a Wiki can do. Therefore I propose that we set one up.
I would be happy to provide the web-space for it. See e.g.
http://trebe.dk/wiki/index.php/ElectionMethods/HomePage. It's almost empty now, but
I guess it could quickly be filled with something meaningful.

If such an initiative already exists, please inform me - I don't want to clone an
already existing Wiki.

Kind regards,
Bjarke




From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 23 05:58:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 23 05:58:02 2003
Subject: [EM] SSD is not BeatpathWinner
Message-ID: <3FE8498C.976D2813@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (23 Dec 2003):

> Maybe when Markus names those methods as being the same as BeatpathWinner,
> he'd like to take credit for all of them (assuming for the moment that he
> really did invent BeatpathWinner). Yes he did describe CSSD after proposing
> BeatpathWinner, pointing out the equivalence. But I doubt that he proposed
> SSD. SSD was a colaboration from discussion with Steve Eppley. Neither of us
> knew of Markus's CSSD description at that time. Later, in a discussion in
> which a clone-independent method was desired, and in which someone else was
> proposing BeatpathWinner, a method not as obviously justified as SSD, I
> changed SSD to make it clone-independent--Cloneproof SSD (CSSD). Later I
> found out that Markus had described CSSD.

In the voting recommendation to the DEBIAN project, you can find a very
interesting comment to this question. Norman Petry wrote (6 Feb 2001):

> Regardless of what names we use when referring to these methods during our
> committee discussions, I think it is appropriate that if one of these
> variants is recommended to Debian that it be named SCHULZE'S METHOD.  This
> is because:
>
> 1. Schulze, version 1: The 'Beat-Or-Tie-path' method was first proposed by
> Markus Schulze on Sat, 4 Oct 1997 (see EM Archives, "Re: Condorect sub-cycle
> rule").  Unfortunately, eGroups has not archived this message, but it can be
> found at Rob's site, in this text file (but mistakenly referred to there as
> "Tideman's Method"): http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em/archive/em.97q4
>
> 2. Schulze, version 2: The 'Schwartz Sequential Dropping' (SSD) method was
> first proposed by Markus Schulze on Mon, 10 Aug 1998.  His description can
> be found here:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/673
>
> 3. Schulze, version 3: The 'Cloneproof SSD' method was first proposed by
> Markus Schulze on Sat, 14 Nov 1998.  See:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/2291  As noted
> above, Markus' version of 'Cloneproof SSD' uses a slightly different (and
> imo better) tiebreaker than Mike's version, but the two methods are
> otherwise identical.
>
> 4. Beatpath Winner: This was not specifically proposed by Markus Schulze,
> but it is equivalent in terms of results to Cloneproof SSD.  It is the same
> as 'Beat-or-tie-path' winner, except that pairties in the matrix are zeroed
> out before paths are computed, so that tied values cannot be part of the
> paths used to determine the winner.
>
> Since Markus was the originator of the first three of these methods, and
> usually refers to all of them as "Schulze's Method", it seems appropriate to
> name them as he has done.

Another interesting question is: In so far as you considered neither
independence of clones nor reversal symmetry to be important, why
did you propose an election method that is more complicated than
Schwartz//MinMax(VotesAgainst)?

Markus Schulze


From andru at cs.cornell.edu  Tue Dec 23 08:57:08 2003
From: andru at cs.cornell.edu (Andrew Myers)
Date: Tue Dec 23 08:57:08 2003
Subject: [EM] Correctness of Floyd-Warshall for beatpaths
In-Reply-To: <20031222200333.2759.49760.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
References: <20031222200333.2759.49760.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <20031223165604.GA14116@balm.cs.cornell.edu>

Because there has been continuing concern about the algorithm, I looked
up more information in the standard textbook I referred to in an earlier
email (Cormen, Leiserson, and Rivest).

The Floyd-Warshall algorithm (so named because the algorithm was
proposed by Floyd but based on a theorem by Warshall) works on any
closed semiring. A semiring is defined by two operations (which I called
min and + in my earlier mail).  For computing beatpaths, the operations
are max and min respectively.  Showing that max and min define a
semiring, and that the required closure properties hold, is
straightforward. I refer those who are interested to the text above.

-- Andrew


From rspeer at MIT.EDU  Tue Dec 23 09:55:02 2003
From: rspeer at MIT.EDU (Rob Speer)
Date: Tue Dec 23 09:55:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Election methods Wiki
In-Reply-To: <4668.194.239.238.130.1072178859.squirrel@webmail01.web10.dk>
References: <4668.194.239.238.130.1072178859.squirrel@webmail01.web10.dk>
Message-ID: <20031223175309.GA26686@mit.edu>

On Tue, Dec 23, 2003 at 12:27:39PM +0100, Bjarke Dahl Ebert wrote:
> That is just what a Wiki can do. Therefore I propose that we set one up.
> I would be happy to provide the web-space for it. See e.g.
> http://trebe.dk/wiki/index.php/ElectionMethods/HomePage. It's almost empty now, but
> I guess it could quickly be filled with something meaningful.
> 
> If such an initiative already exists, please inform me - I don't want to clone an
> already existing Wiki.

I had been thinking that such a thing would be useful. Thank you for
setting it up.

The one thing I'm afraid of is that the fact that allows a Wiki to work
- namely, that you can trust your intended users not to want to
interfere with discussion - doesn't necessarily work regarding election
methods. People get _very_ political and defensive over election
methods, as we can see.

You should probably make a rule about /Talk pages, like Wikipedia. That
is, factual information about "Foo" goes on the Foo page, while
discussion, opinions, and arguments about Foo or the contents of the Foo
page go on Foo/Talk. Otherwise you're going to see, for example, this:

CSSD
* It always chooses a winner from the Smith Set.
* It is cloneproof.
* It does not meet the later-no-harm criterion.
* It does not meet the Participation criterion.
* It is a LOWER PREFERENCES METHOD supported only by FASCISTS who want
  to elect NADER and DISENFRANCHISE YOU!

-- 
Rob Speer



From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Tue Dec 23 14:49:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Tue Dec 23 14:49:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm, "Earlier-no-harm"
Message-ID: <20031223224748.8555.qmail@web13809.mail.yahoo.com>

Thanks to everyone who responded to my last message.

It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
this ballot."

(By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
but also deleting others.)

I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
"earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
ranked FIRST, (etc...)."

For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.

"Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A.

What do you think?

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


___________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais !
Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 15:45:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 15:45:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus: Take it to individual e-mail or drop it. Don't post about it.
Message-ID: <Law10-F43h7iusuHX3A00017f71@hotmail.com>

Markus--

If you have anything further to say about what I believed or claimed about 
what was the Floyd algorithm at some previous time, summarize it in 
_individual_ e-mail (one message only). No more list e-mail. The members of 
this list aren't interested in what I believed about the Floyd algorithm in 
2001, etc. Some of them have said so. I've been telling you that from the 
start.

There won't be a reply unless one is requested. But of course in that case 
you wouldn't get the last word, because I'm only willing to get one more 
message about that.

So, for the last time, I will comment on what you've said:

I don't want any more messages from you about this via the mailing list.

You wrote:

when I wrote that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm,
then this was an observation and not an "attack". If you hadn't
mistakenly written (e.g. in the source code of your Python
program http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py) that your
implementation is the Floyd algorithm, then I wouldn't have
stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm.

I reply:

Are you aware that you said exactly that same thing in a previous message, 
and that I replied to it? Probably not.

At no time did I object or criticize when you stated that Steve's algorithm 
isn't the Floyd algorithm. All I said was that I'd take your word for that. 
"If you say it isn't, then fine. I'll tell Russ to delete that name from the 
website." Posted 18 December.

Markus continued:

In one of your recent mails, you admitted that you mistakenly
believed Eppley's algorithm to be Floyd's algorithm and you
admitted that you mistakenly called Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's
algorithm".

I reply:

I've been asserting those things ever since I stated them in postings of 18 
Decemeber.

You continued:

Therefore, my criticism was feasible and you
admitted this.

I reply:

What criticism? I wasn't aware that your information that that wasn't the 
Floyd algorilthm was criticism. But whatever it was, I never said it wasn't 
feasible. I did object to other behaviors and mis-statements of yours.

Markus continued:

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
>Excuse me, but did I ever object to your proposing a faster
>algorithm? It was abundantly clear from what I said that I
>was objecting to your ongoing claim that I claim that Steve's
>algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

I reply:

Good. I'm glad you're finally finished with that.

******

You'd said:

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
>Markus wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> > I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your
> > implementation is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this
> > discussion with the following statement (18 Dec 2003): ...
> >
> > > Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.
>

I replied:

>Wrong. That posting is dated 17 December in the archives, not
>18 December.

My mailbox says: "Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"

I reply:

I don't care what your mailbox says. The message's date in the archives is 
17 December.
Shoiuld we refer to message dates by what your mailbox says instead of what 
the archive says?

You continued:

It seems that your mail server uses UK time and not
California time.

I reply:

I was referring to the date listed in the archives.

If you're in the +1 timezone, then maybe it was past midnight for you, but 
not for the UK. That would explain why your mailbox's dating of the message 
is incorrect with respect to the archive's dating of it. In any case, the 
archives recorded dates are a better standard than your mailbox is.

You continued:

Why is it so important for you to stress that since 18 Dec 2003
you are not longer calling Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's algorithm"?
When I wrote on 15 Dec 2003 that Eppley's algorithm is mistakenly
called "Floyd's algorithm" in the source code of your Phython
program this was a correct observation.

I reply:

I never disagreed with your 15 December statrement on that.

Why do I say that I wasn't calling it that since 18 December? Because you 
were continuing to assert that I call it that. But now you're backed down 
from that assertion and admitted that I don't call it that.

Markus said:

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

I reply:

Good. That's an improvement. Previously you'd posted something I said in 
2001 as proof that I call Eppley's algorithm the Floyd algorithm, even 
thoiugh I'd clearly retracted that statement on 18 December, and every day 
thereafter.

******
You repeated:

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

I reply:

Wonderful. Better late than never.

You repeated again:

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

I reply:

Yes, we all get the idea.

Now, as I said, if you have anything further to say about that, send it as 
individual e-mail. Summarize it in one message only. But further postings 
from you here about that are unwelcome, to me, and to the other list 
members.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Make your home warm and cozy this winter with tips from MSN House & Home.  
http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 16:41:04 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 16:41:04 2003
Subject: [EM] RE: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #397 - 6 msgs
Message-ID: <LAW10-F79Lxlge13sR200057987@hotmail.com>

Markus said:

In the voting recommendation to the DEBIAN project, you can find a very
interesting comment to this question. Norman Petry wrote (6 Feb 2001):

>Regardless of what names we use when referring to these methods during our
>committee discussions, I think it is appropriate that if one of these
>variants is recommended to Debian that it be named SCHULZE'S METHOD.  This
>is because:
>
>1. Schulze, version 1: The 'Beat-Or-Tie-path' method was first proposed by
>Markus Schulze on Sat, 4 Oct 1997 (see EM Archives, "Re: Condorect 
>sub-cycle
>rule").  Unfortunately, eGroups has not archived this message, but it can 
>be
>found at Rob's site, in this text file (but mistakenly referred to there as
>"Tideman's Method"): http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em/archive/em.97q4

Norm, in that message, points out that "Schulze's method" uses 
beat-or-tie-paths rather than beatpaths. There's been some vagueness about 
which of those you refer to as "Schulze's method".

>
>2. Schulze, version 2: The 'Schwartz Sequential Dropping' (SSD) method was
>first proposed by Markus Schulze on Mon, 10 Aug 1998.  His description can
>be found here:
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/673

In that proposal, it isn't clear what you mean by "potential wininers". You 
don't define the term there. I suppose that if something is defined slopily 
or vaguely enough, that leaves much latitude for saying what it is.

No one can prove what you meant in that proposal.

In any case, I didn't mean to imply that I consider it important who first 
proposed SSD, or whether your proposal in '98 was SSD, CSSD, or neither.

>Markus' version of 'Cloneproof SSD' uses a slightly different (and
>imo better) tiebreaker than Mike's version, but the two methods are
>otherwise identical.

You'd suggested comparing margins when 2 opposing beatpaths (or 
beat-&-tie-paths?) are equal because their weakest defeat is equal. I hadn't 
bothered to add that, because I'm mostly interested in public elections, and 
because even in committees, equal opposing beatpaths won't be common. Of 
course there's nothing wrong with adding that provision.

There were aspects of your tie solution that you later retracted when you 
discovered that they had undesirable properties.

Markus said:

Another interesting question is: In so far as you considered neither
independence of clones nor reversal symmetry to be important, why
did you propose an election method that is more complicated than
Schwartz//MinMax(VotesAgainst)?

I reply:

I don't know what you mean by MinMax. MinMax has been used with so many 
meanings that it's quite useless as a method name. Perhaps you're using 
MinMax to refer to PC.

I agree that I don't consider reversal symmetry important. As for clone 
independence, it's desirable, but far from essential. But what I was saying 
in my recent message was that the clone independence _of a tiebreaker_ isn't 
important, because no one is going to have a strategy dilemma about what to 
do in order to take advantage of a tie. Ties of all kinds are vanishingly 
rare in public elections (unless Copeland is used). Even in committees, ties 
aren't common, and clone-independence of a tie solution isn't really 
important.

So far as I'm aware, SSD is clone-independent in public elections (where 
there are no pairwise ties), but not in coimmitees with few voters (where 
there might be pairwise ties).

MAM (Maximize Affirmed Majorities), also called Ranked-Pairs, is 
clone-independent in public elections and in committees.

Though clonen-independence is desirable, that isn't the main advantage, for 
me, that SSD and MAM have over PC. The more important advantages, for me, 
are:

1. PC fails Condorcet Loser, Majority Loser, and Mutual Majorilty (in 
descending order of likely importance in campaigns). Those criterion 
failures are important only because they could be used against a PC 
proposal. When those criteria are defined so as to meaningfully apply to all 
methods, Plurality fails them too, which of course greatly reduces their 
importance in campaigns to replace Plurality with PC. Still, possible 
criticism of PC in campaigns, by academics and IRV advocates is probably 
PC's main disadvantage with respect to SSD and MAM.

2. SSD and MAM have been shown to meet GSFC and SDSC. PC hasn't been shown 
to meet those criteria. If anyone can show that PC passes or fails those 
critreria, they're invited to do so.

I consider SFC and GSFC to be the biggest, and most exclusive advantages of 
Condorcet wv. The fact that SSD and MAM have been shown to meet GSFC 
greately increases their value.

GSFC is the deluxe SFC that applies even when there's no CW.

PC has been shown to meet SFC.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Working moms: Find helpful tips here on managing kids, home, work ?  and 
yourself.   http://special.msn.com/msnbc/workingmom.armx



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 17:40:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 17:40:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Retraction about IRV, Brams, and Later-No-Harm
Message-ID: <Law10-F77C6HixqDCZx00018435@hotmail.com>

What Brams showed was that, contrary to the frequent claims of IRV 
promoters, IRV gives strategic incentive to truncate one's ranking.

It was some time ago when I read of that, and a few minutes ago I posted, 
probably mistakenly, that Brams showed that IRV fails Later-No-Harm.

Most likely, in Brams' example, someone truncated, causing  a higher-ranked 
truncated candidate to beat a lower-ranked truncated candidate.

But, if IRV meets Later-No-Harm, that means little. IRV protects your 
favorite from your lower choices by eliminating your favorite before IRV 
lets you help your lower choices. IRV saves your favorite by eliminating 
him. A sort of electoral euthanasia.

If IRV's Later-No-Harm "advantage" is the kind of benefit that we get from 
Later-No-Harm, then it's questionable how important that criterion is.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Check your PC for viruses with the FREE McAfee online computer scan.  
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 17:53:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 17:53:02 2003
Subject: [EM] IRV fails Later-No-Harm
Message-ID: <Law10-F242YiinhsI1z0003a096@hotmail.com>

Chris Benham wrote:

"Later-no-harm:  Adding a later preference to a ballot should not harm
any candidate already listed".

In other words, if  a method meets Later-no-harm then  voters can never
get an advantage by truncating.
It is met by IRV, but is incompatible with  Condorcet.
I got this from what I found to be the very interesting and illuminating
paper "Monotonicity and Single-Seat Election
Rules" by Woodall, and uploaded by  Marcus Schulze:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/wood1996.pdf

I reply:

Professor Steven Brams published an example in which IRV fails 
No-Later-Harm. I'd post the example, but I don't know where to look for it. 
You could find it just as well as I could.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Have fun customizing MSN Messenger ? learn how here!  
http://www.msnmessenger-download.com/tracking/reach_customize



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 23 23:01:04 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 23 23:01:04 2003
Subject: [EM] Actual quotes for Markus
Message-ID: <3FE9394F.FE456897@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> If you have anything further to say about what I believed or claimed about
> what was the Floyd algorithm at some previous time, summarize it in
> _individual_ e-mail (one message only). No more list e-mail. The members of
> this list aren't interested in what I believed about the Floyd algorithm in
> 2001, etc. Some of them have said so. I've been telling you that from the
> start.

Then why did you start this thread at all? I don't care what you believed
when about the Floyd algorithm. But it is clear that when you mistakenly
called a different algorithm "Floyd algorithm" and when implementations to
calculate the strongest paths were discussed at this mailing list, then
it was necessary to stress that your use of the term "Floyd algorithm" was
incorrect.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> Markus wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> > I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your
> > implementation is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this
> > discussion with the following statement (18 Dec 2003): ...
> >
> > > Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.
>
> Wrong. That posting is dated 17 December in the archives, not
> 18 December.

I wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> My mailbox says: "Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"
>
> It seems that your mail server uses UK time and not
> California time.

You wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> I don't care what your mailbox says. The message's date in the archives
> is 17 December. Shoiuld we refer to message dates by what your mailbox
> says instead of what the archive says?
>
> If you're in the +1 timezone, then maybe it was past midnight for you,
> but not for the UK. That would explain why your mailbox's dating of the
> message is incorrect with respect to the archive's dating of it.

The reason why my mailbox says "Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"
is that your mail server uses UK time. I have received your mail at
18 Dec 2003 08:59:50 Central European Time.

Of most subscribers I don't know in which time zone they live. Therefore,
the only information that I have is the time zone used by their mail
servers.

You wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> In any case, the archives recorded dates are a better standard than your
> mailbox is.

As I am subscribed to this mailing list, I usually don't use the archives
to read current mails. By the way: This mailing list has 4 archives.

At Electorama, your mail is dated: "Wed Dec 17 23:58:01 2003"
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-December/011394.html

At eGroups, your mail is dated: "Thu Dec 18, 2003  7:57 am"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/12845

At Mail Archive, your mail is dated: "Thu, 18 Dec 2003 01:00:57 -0800"
http://www.mail-archive.com/election-methods-electorama.com%40electorama.com/msg01461.html

At Gmane, your mail is dated: "Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/3133

******

You wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> Now, as I said, if you have anything further to say about that, send it as
> individual e-mail. Summarize it in one message only. But further postings
> from you here about that are unwelcome, to me, and to the other list
> members.

Further postings from you here about that are not welcome, either.

Markus Schulze


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 23 23:01:09 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 23 23:01:09 2003
Subject: [EM] Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #397 - 6 msgs
Message-ID: <3FE93962.7965FE1B@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> I doubt that he [= Markus Schulze] proposed SSD.

You wrote (24 Dec 2003):
> In any case, I didn't mean to imply that I
> consider it important who first proposed SSD.

Good. That's an improvement.

Markus Schulze


From bartman at netgate.net  Tue Dec 23 23:57:01 2003
From: bartman at netgate.net (Bart Ingles)
Date: Tue Dec 23 23:57:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm  definition
References: <3FE7C23C.1090700@bigpond.com>
Message-ID: <3FE94661.A9255D9B@netgate.net>

This paper must be part of a series, as Woodall never explains his
assertion that "Of these three properties, Majority is far and away the
most important."  He seems to have his own definitions for monotonicity;
I hadn't seen these anywhere else.

But the publication appears to be devoted to issues surrounding STV, so
maybe some things are simply assumed here.

Bart


Chris Benham wrote:
> 
> Quoting  D.R. Woodall,
> 
> "Later-no-harm:  Adding a later preference to a ballot should not harm
> any candidate already listed".
> 
> In other words, if  a method meets Later-no-harm then  voters can never
> get an advantage by truncating.
> It is met by IRV, but is incompatible with  Condorcet.
> I got this from what I found to be the very interesting and illuminating
> paper "Monotonicity and Single-Seat Election
> Rules" by Woodall, and uploaded by  Marcus Schulze:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/wood1996.pdf


From research at ijs.co.nz  Wed Dec 24 00:31:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Wed Dec 24 00:31:02 2003
Subject: Election Methods List and lying vs justice (Re: [EM] Optional
  Later-no-harm  AER
In-Reply-To: <3FE6A03F.9000407@bigpond.com>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031224174405.05b11c88@pop.qsi.net.nz>


My last message (on casual *guessing* of the weightings of the "A over B"
subtotal has not arrived. It entered into the moderating. I had a bit of
an apology/retract for M. Schulze.

This list seems to lack a desire for truthful ideas and it recovers within
days from contact with corrections by reverting back to its error. Typically
without bothering to compare its ideas with replacements.

---

So this preferential voting method would collect information on
the parties the candidates are grouped into.

The class of methods might be useful when party members that use it
are reconciled to sacrificing their own interests (provied that
such exist).

---

I assume that the word "Approval" means that some sort of fluidic
mixing of intentions. As worded, that is awful.

The basic plan below seems to be to start of with a rejected method
and not get it out of that state. A 


At 2003-12-22 18:11 +1030 Monday, Chris Benham wrote:
>
> An  idea for improving  Approval  Elimination Runoff   (an  Approval-
> STV hybrid) :
>
> 1: Voters rank the candidates and also place an Approval cutoff.
> Truncation allowed, and if equal preferences are allowed then the
> votes are split. Default placement of  the cutoff  can be either below
> first preference or below lowest  ranked not-in-last-place candidate.
>
> 2:  A candidate with a majority of first preferences is elected.

So the whole method must be rejected (or the definition of it altered)
because it can't get the obviously correct answer in all 0 winner
elections. There is no requirement that the number of winners equal
one. It is about STV and Approval which do have obvious extensions to
the cases of 2,3, and 4, and 0, winners.


> If no candidate has a majority, then eliminate the candidate with the
> fewest  approvals and  transfer preferences  IRV-style. Whenever  a

The CVD published everlastingly false information saying that the
RCV of San Francisco of 2003, was IRV. RCV has does not allow a full
list of preferences and my claim is weakened (possibly eliminated) by
assuming that that is part of the method instead a restriction imposed
on it.

>
> In his example, these were the sincere preferences:
>

A truthful person can't confirm that the next 5 non-blank lines
are sincere or not. Try it for yourself Mr Benham.

> 49: Bush>Gore>Nader
> 12: Gore>Bush>Nader
> 12: Gore>Nader>Bush
> 27: Nader>Gore>Bush
> 100 voters. Gore is the sincere CW.
...

So you have a definition of the "Insincere Cee-Double-U" ?. Presumably
there never was a definition. Probably the quickest agreeable solution
is to say that the words "sincere CW" have an identical meaning to
the words "Condorcet winner".

It seems to be impossible to get the Condorcet winner and
monotonicity.

Is the list ignorant of that despite the extreme simplicity of
showing it ?, or is it rejecting (with no argument at all) a principle
that government users will be strongly in favour of. Additionally
rejection if finding out the method designers don't know what they are
doing. The 4th in the whole document of Mr Benham says "improving".

Persons guiding government agencies use this trick:
  * The method has to be rejected if it is based over a respect of
     the Condorcet winner.
  * No designer who has a respect for the Condorcet winner has a good
     method.

An STV expert is not waiting around for arguments on rules to allow
partial disagreement with the Condorcet winner. Since the Condorcet
winner was wrong in the first place (it has no natural multiwinner
extension) then an unsound arbitrary modification of an obviously
wrong 'CW' won't undo the rejection of the ideas of Mr Benham and
others.

This whole mailing list, after being so frequented by Markus Schulze
and Bathycles Crap, is running like a government checkup of a Thunderbirds
No. 2 vehicle. The government officials want a clean aircraft.
Just before it gets to them it flies for 30 metres through a muddy
syrupy lake, and Ms Penelope Shulze had to say a plainly ambiguous
line that said "we will send Thunderbirds Two through the muddy syrup
of Cloudy Water (CW) lake. After breaking through the surface of the
goo lake and settling on the shore of the cleansiness checking remotely
controlled robots of electoral office officials of cities, it failed.
They had eyes and could spot surface attachments.

If it had not of been for Penelope Shulze (or the script writers)
the Thunderbirds Two vehicle might have flow above the syrup lake's
surface.

Ms Penelope should get her brain examined: after a decision to send
so many into much it would be suspected that she has wood for brains.
However it could have be a script writer.  What was that "we will
smoke them [Democrats] out" comment of GWBush.

----------------------------------------------------------------



At 2003-12-23 23:47 +0100 Tuesday, Kevin Venzke wrote:
>Thanks to everyone who responded to my last message.
>
>It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
>as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
>should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
>this ballot."
>
>(By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
>additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
>but also deleting others.)
>
>I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
>"earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
>ranked FIRST, (etc...)."
>
>For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
>then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.
>

Clearly Mr Venkze has not ruled out the 2 winner case. If he has one
unstated restriction then it may take weeks or years before he finally
managed to get them all into the mailing list and nicely requoted
in each message.

Suppose the votes are this (2 winner case)

Election 1:
  10000 (D)
  1 (A=B=C>D>E), D should win and does

Election 2:
  10000 (D)
  1 (A>B>C>D>E) , both D and E lose says Mr Venkze

I assume that there is no need to get "A=B=C" precisely defined since
unknown disputes over definitions might be bounded by factors 6 or 1/6.


>"Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
>then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A.
>
>What do you think?

It looks like Mr Venkze won't accept one or both of these:

 * an axiom set from which a method is derived (a strange option given
    the theme of Mr Venkze's whole message), or

 * the principle that the number of winners be correct (i.e. he sometimes
    expects the number of winners be disagreeing with what was decided on
    before the public filled in the voting papers, providing a public 
    suitably exists).

--

I have never suspected that there is a good reason to use
   "Later No Harm"
instead of
   "Truncation Resistance".

"Permuting preferences before" and "permuting preferences after" are a
better wording of what is desired. I assume that if both are imposed
then the method degenerates into FPTP or something similar.

So there may need to be a redesign of the papers (and presumably
adding "=" won't produce insensitivity to permuting before). I would
prefer no redesign (while preferring methods better than the
second best AV n candidate 1 winner method) and instead allow elections
where voters could change their mind.


----------------------------------------------------------------


At 2003-12-21 14:36 -0800 Sunday, Rob Brown wrote:
>I figured I'd pop out of lurk mode to mention that I, like Diana, have 
>questioned whether some of the participants of this discussion are computer 
>rather than human.....Craig's mangled vitriol in particular reads like its 
>been round-tripped through the babelfish translator.
>
>In any case this ridiculous flamefest has provided me some amusement, but 
>not done a lot toward my taking this list seriously.  Maybe everybody could 
>agree that if Craig and Mike would just kindly drop off the list for a 
>month, everyone will just pretend this never happened when they come back?
>

I am dissatisfied with why this list lives in the wake amazingly
obvious mistakes. Some stupid tricks seem to advance it all
 * no comment; missing replies; no reasoning; nothing at an appropriate
    time. Only ideas so wrong that to say "withheld a response" would
    seem wrong
 * authoritarianism.  With Mr Ossipoff is has very low trustability, and
    here is an example of Mr Shulze:

Here is more comments on authoritarianism. (What is wrong with
authoritarianism is complex and all about correctness.) I quote:

------------------------
At 2003-December-23 14:56 +0100 Tuesday, Markus Schulze wrote:
...
>Another interesting question is: In so far as you considered neither
>independence of clones nor reversal symmetry to be important, why
>did you propose an election method that is more complicated than
>Schwartz//MinMax(VotesAgainst)?
------------------------

It is just like this:
"Independence of Clones" was found after the man put his arm down a
rat hole in a Berlin council tip yard, Newbies at the EM list can try
out the German trash tips. 

Here is a quick wording of a best rule preventing corruption:

   One Man One Vote rule (in a multiwinner form)

   For each positively weighted paper, the outcome of it can be
   obtained by a sum of positively weighted fragments, with the
   fragments being produced only by deletion and no reordering.
   The desirableness has to be maintained with shorter papers and
   it is measured using the paper's list, to convert winners into
   a base 2 Real number.

It is about right and if a little flawed then improved.

False propaganda is being sent into the mailing list by Mr Shulze
and it really seems to be dogged by a lack of argument. For an
expert in logic, Mr Shulze's use of

   "you considered neither [this] nor [that] [so] why ... ?

is misleading.

The full set of rules can be simple:
* Right number of winners (it looks like Mr Venkze rejected it)
* P2 (it looks like the whole EM list except me is too stupid to be
   able to cough up a speculation on it. Instead they should form
   an opinion on how it is necessary).
* Truncation Resistance and monotonicity and multiwinner monotonicity.
   Certainly politicians would be using a check like this, especially
   now that awful Alternative Vote is both a threat and performs
   quite badly under this type of test.
* Multiwinner One Man One Vote [as described above]
* Simple Approval style summing. [Mr Shulze has spent years of
  talking about Approval, but I guess he refuses to say that the
  proportionality aim is only the idea of Approval placed strictly
  behind other rules. He can talk about Approval for years so long
  as exulting in a desire to write and promote the idea, but it
  could be totally nothing for years if Mr Schulze gets serious on
  the idea that the idea is very important. The other principles
  might get rolled together under the name of EQUAL SUFFRAGE.

After reading Mr Schulze's messages, the whole mailing list is
running as if ghosts in the Hague and keen of leaving no reasoning
behind for intent to violate the human rights of the candidates
and hence their supporters.

Has anybody checked Mr Schulze's paw for rat bites ?.

There are a tiny number of right rules. About exactly 0% of the
time any any given 5yr interval I look, Mr Schulze is never
making an attempt to reject the simple rules on fairness.

A core idea is this:

 * Men have rights to complain about wrong shifting of votes
   causing harm

 * Then the method designer has to maximally deprive voters of a
   right to complain.

In USA, votes can be suddenly created electronically. The
multiwinner One Man One Vote rule does the same.

A political list identified simple rules since it is impossible
to undo that except that members would think lies and censor
that out. What exactly is the problem with solving the
algebra problems ?. Subscribers gets tiny little drooling
inquries (highly unconvincing when by Mr Forest Simmons).

It seems that members are running well in generating desires to
acquire everlastingly true ideas. The list is looking stupid and
evil today since I demonstrated that principles are simple.

In truth the maths is simple too. I identify the main problem as
the complexity of writing Ada 95 programs. It would be truly
suspect if people eventually produced a belief that they can't
do algebra since it seems that the algebra of 1 winner elections
is dead easy. Members can do better than secretly fantasize that
they flunks checkups on maths ability: instead they can positively
criticise mathematics and then promptly get suspected as being
incompetent or ignorant of their own topic or something similar.
We can't sort of 30 private e-mails and get it solved in 2
days like could happen at the single-transferable-vote mailing
list. It seems that 10 more years at Rob Lanphier's uncontrolled
mailing list may be arrive upon subscribers.














Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>    Auckland, New Zealand
Ontario Ombudsman's Fairness checklist:
     http://www.ijs.co.nz/fairness-standards.htm
PDF: http://www.ombudsman.on.ca/pdf/fairness_stds.pdf





From research at ijs.co.nz  Wed Dec 24 12:17:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Wed Dec 24 12:17:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Dan W-J; IRV is 2nd best (=worst); CVD tells Maryland 'no
 research ever'
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031225025330.03952310@pop.qsi.net.nz>


[1b] The Centre of Voting and Democracy told the State of Maryland that
   it does not do research into the best options. Instead it interests
   itself in equal voting minus the fairness-for-other-individuals parts
   or something

[1a] The Alternative Vote (1 winner STV) is 2nd best.



______________________________________________________________________

This can be named the Alternative Vote Twin Towers example: a support
rise that is nearly 50% in size and that is entirely FPTP papers, is
occuring while the candidate ('A') being supported changes into a
loser:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/message/244

+-----------------------------------+
|Winner: ? ?A? ? ?|Winner: ? ?B? ? ?|  Alternative Vote winners
+-----------------------------------+
| Tot: ? 513000? ?| Tot: ?1024001? ?|
+-----------------------------------+
|? ?A? ? ? 1001? ?|? ?A? ? 512000? ?| Change = +510999
| * BA ? ? ?999? ?|? ?BA ? ? 1001? ?| Change = +2
|? ?CBA? ? 1000? ?| * CBA? ? 1000? ?|
|? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|
|? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|
|? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|
|? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|
|? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|
|? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|
|? ?JBA? 128000? ?|? ?JBA? 128000? ?|
|? ?KBA? 256000? ?|? ?KBA? 256000? ?|
+-----------------------------------+


______________________________________________________________________


I doubt I can get this edited up properly. I am not sure but I may have
left too much in or out. I will CC this off to the CVD lawyer.
Presumably he has a stake in the CVD ideal of knowing far less than
very many people, about the stably named Alternative Vote [I won't
name it STV]

______________________________________________________________________

Since about 24 July 2003 the Instant Runoff Message of the
Maryland Center of Voting and Democracy, has been it has been
hooked onto a 1 winner preferential voting methods that is
NOT the best.

On that date I concluded about 5 days research and showed that
another 1 winner method was far fairer, i.e. more monotonic.

Readers may read the old message of July here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/message/248
    From:   Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz> 
    Date:  Thu Jul 24, 2003  10:44 pm
    Subject:  IRV measured: it is over 2x unfairer (than 1/3 quota AV)

It did not announced with a bigger show since I was writing on
San Francisco in those months a better method may be something that
is not good enough.

A search at the "Charities & Fundraisers" part of the Maryland state
website shows what it told the government that its purpose was:

|  "Purpose: Contributions will be used to further public
|   understanding of electoral rule changes and to support
|   efforts to improve elections and representation through
|   propretional representation and instant runoff voting."

    http://www.sos.state.md.us/sos/charity/html/cod.html

I will comment on the CVD written purpose given to the Maryland
government and estimate if they said they free themselves to promote
better voting systems than IRV.

(1) US "public understanding" is not mathematical.

(2) "rules changes" permits changes that lock out better possibilities.
   It also allows changes for the worse.

(3) "improving" US elections could be a sloshy test that lets in
   better methods that are 6x worse.

(4) A purpose to act around the Instant Runoff permits them to reject
   all better preferential voting methods. Doubtless they will do that
   without complaining a lot.

(5) The words representation and proportional are matching up with
  only the first of these two. IRV would passes (5a)'s rules and if
  the CVD is ignore (5b) (is the case) then its text ignores the
  case implying that IRV ought be improved:

 (5a) Summing right. Two cases:
   * Outside of preferential voting: the same percentages (maybe with
     added biases but not multiplied-in biases)
   * Inside of preferential voting: Block Vote style naming of a
     candidate causes its subtotal to be incremented by the weight
     of the paper.

 (5b) Strict rules protecting voters from dumb or unfair behaviour
   of the preferential voting method while they are doing "what if"s.

--

That seems to be extremely clear: the Centre of Voting and Democracy
gave awful principles to the state of Maryland that just make it
plain that it has no official intention of ever offering to any
city, another awful but clearly better option than the
Alternative Vote. If they say that they will do research and nothing
happens for decades (should be enough time to get San Francisco to
flip over to the England's Alternative Vote) then maybe the tax
exempt status would need defending.

"Public understanding" may mean training up Green youths on 1-2-3-ism
or something.

--------------------------------------------

The pictures in triangles show that a 1/3 quota would be just the thing
lead to a pass under a monotonicity test (if 3 candidates):
    http://www.ijs.co.nz/quota-13.htm

The method I tessted in just inserts the 1/3 quota in a partially
incorrect way, and compliance with monotonicity is only better and the
rule is still failed.

---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~

This is now defined to be the
    Rob Richie 1,2,3 preferential voting method,
    (a variant of the Alternative Vote):

(1) Eliminate all but the best 3 (while ignoring preferences except the
    first).

(2) [a>(a+b+c)/3, =(a>(b+c)/2)]
   Of the 3 remaining candidates, if only 1 candidate has more votes
   than the average of the other 2, then that candidate wins (i.e. the
   other 2 are under the 1/3 quota).

(3) Otherwise the Alternative Vote is used.
---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~

There are the 3 steps, hence the "1-2-3" or "123".
Remembering why IRV is the worst preferential voting methad that a city
is probably going to be sucked into using. can be as simple as 1-2-3.
(In New Zealand the Green party co-leader wrote it was as easy as
counting from 1 to 10, somewhere on greens.org.nz).

--------------------------------------------

The CVD (a strictly unjust personnel selecting algorithm promoter) actually
has a lawyer (who is a "field officer"):

   http://www.fairvote.org/about_us/johnson.htm
    [Mozilla 1.5 says the HTTP dates the page at 18-Nov-2003, 04:37]

| General Counsel
|
| Dan Johnson-Weinberger
|
| Dan Johnson-Weinberger is the Center's General Counsel. He is licensed
| to practice law in California and Illinois.
|
| Dan is a 1997 graduate of the University of Illinois (B.A. in
| economics and political science) and a 2000 graduate of the University
| of Chicago Law School.
|
| Dan has been published in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Roll
| Call, The Hill, the Daily Herald, the Chicago Reader, the Daily
| Southtown and the Miami Herald. He has appeared on National Public
| Radio and is an occasional guest on the nationally syndicated radio
| program Beyond The Beltway.
|
| In the last year and a half, Dan has spoken to classes and groups in
| Florida, Wisconsin, California, Illinois, Indiana and New York. He
| encourages invitations to speak to college classes or political
| groups.
|
| Dan spends the majority of his time in Chicago where he focuses on the
| drive to revive cumulative voting for the Illinois House of
| Representatives. He also spends time in Springfield, Illinois, where
| he lobbies the Illinois General Assembly, and was the main driver
| behind passage of a law that allows county boards to give cumulative
| voting rights.
|
| Dan helped to found the Midwest Democracy Center in 1995 with a group
| of Illinois electoral reformers (www.midwestdemocracy.org ). He worked
| on several political campaigns and enjoys walking precincts.
|
| Dan can be reached at djw at fairvote.org or by phone at 312.933.4890.
| His website is www.djw.info and his blog is www.djwinfo.blogspot.com
                                       http://www.djwinfo.blogspot.com
| (opinions expressed on his sites are his own and not necessarily
| shared by the Center). Inquiries are encouraged.
|
---------------


Mr W-J liked the Cumulative Vote.
(I.e. if voters should fill in 7 votes but fill in 2, then the paper's
weight is multiplied by 7/2, etc., etc.)

Seven-winner STV (say), is similar except it uses the weights from 1 to 1/7
instead of from 7 to 1.

The alternative is the Block Vote ('k seats, tick k checksboxes') which
does not multiply by a rational number.

A way to improve STV is remove the transfer values that make STV follow
the idea of the Cumulative Vote.

It would be replaced with the style of the Block Vote: no dividing by
a denominator.

Dan W-J got his CVD webpage to fail to say he liked IRV. However it says
he promoted the Cumulative Vote in Illinois. A way to improve the
proportionality of STV is hack out the Cumulative Vote theme in it.

I say that progress here has no analogy with Dan's interests (for
Illinois: decisions on Cumulative Vote are probably best made decisions
for local decisions).

----

Some story using model trains can supply an analogy to the plan to
remove transfer values from STV. Suppose the election elects 4 winners.

(1) Old STV case:
  Counting a weighted ballot paper, is like getting a model train up to
   speed as it rises over 1 track with 4 different slopes.

(2) STV replacement case:
  The paper can start 4 trains that each have a track with only 1 slope.
  Now the power<=1 rule can be failed more quickly.
  However some computer algorithm controls when and where the track
  bends and become horizontal and power is cut.  By some means, the
  rule is not violated, and the tracks have only a slope corresponding
  to a transfer value of 0 or 1.

(The idea of the description could be improved.)


---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Topic: IRV vs the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [of 1976]

    http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_ccpr.htm

| INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS
| ...
| Article 25 General comment on its implementation
|
| Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, without any of
| the distinctions mentioned in article 2 and without unreasonable
| restrictions:
     ...
|   (b) To vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which
|      shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by
|      secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of
|      the electors;
|   (c) ...


That UN text really seems to be not designed to eliminate IRV.
It does not split up maximal power voting rights up into 2 parts
(proportionality and some 0<=power<=1 rule(s)). Alternative maybe it
could be said that I have not got the 2 unified (it seems hard to do).

However when the IRV of the CVD is extrapolated into the UN rules,
it fails badly.

(Recently I posted up an example showing the cascading from some
probably nobody at the bottom, and at each cascade the quantity of
votes shifting doubled. It was losing FPTP votes. [Refer to: the 2003
messages with 49.9% in the subject fields].



---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Here is the CVD list of donors: http://www.fairvote.org/about_us/index.html :

----------------------------------------------------
|    Supporters of the Center
|
|    The following foundations have provided grants to the Center for its
|    programs. Those foundations with asterisks have provided support for
|    activities in 2003 and beyond.
|
|    * Arca Foundation
|    * San Francisco Foundation  http://www.sff.org/
|    * Deer Creek Foundation
|    * Solidago Foundation
|    * Ford Foundation
|    * Stern Family Fund  http://www.sternfund.org/
|    * HKH Foundation
|    * Stewart Mott Charitable Trust  http://www.srmtrust.org/main.asp
|    * Joyce Foundation  http://www.joycefdn.org/
|    * Vanguard Foundation  http://www.vanguardsf.org/
|    * McKay Foundation  http://www.mckayfund.org/
|    * Working Assets  http://www.workingassets.com/
|    * Open Society Institute  http://www.soros.org/
|    * Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation  http://www.zsr.org/
|    * Rockefellers Brothers Fund  http://www.rbf.org/
|    * and individuals from across the country
----------------------------------------------------

Not very interesting so far.

Since there was no link to the Ford Foundation website, I checked their
Grants database. It seems that the Ford Foundation stopped funding the CVD
(it is not perfectly clear that it did actually stop, but it seems
extremely likely).

The CVD got US$80,000 in 2002 AD.

Reference: http://www.fordfound.org/  : Grants section:
Under: "Peace and Social Justice / Governance and Civil Society / 2002"

---

A fairer IRV election has got more glass (or plastic) eyes that read
some extra checkboxes. If the Alternative Vote is used then the city
ought have a less proportional method if it gets something fair.





From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Wed Dec 24 15:31:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Wed Dec 24 15:31:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Dan W-J; IRV is 2nd best (=worst); CVD tells Maryland 'no 
 research ever'
Message-ID: <3FEA212F.DE487F69@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

you wrote (25 Dec 2003):
> This can be named the Alternative Vote Twin Towers example: a support
> rise that is nearly 50% in size and that is entirely FPTP papers, is
> occuring while the candidate ('A') being supported changes into a
> loser:
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/message/244
>
> +-----------------------------------+
> |Winner: ? ?A? ? ?|Winner: ? ?B? ? ?|  Alternative Vote winners
> +-----------------------------------+
> | Tot: ? 513000? ?| Tot: ?1024001? ?|
> +-----------------------------------+
> |? ?A? ? ? 1001? ?|? ?A? ? 512000? ?| Change = +510999
> | * BA ? ? ?999? ?|? ?BA ? ? 1001? ?| Change = +2
> |? ?CBA? ? 1000? ?| * CBA? ? 1000? ?|
> |? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|
> |? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|
> |? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|
> |? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|
> |? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|
> |? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|
> |? ?JBA? 128000? ?|? ?JBA? 128000? ?|
> |? ?KBA? 256000? ?|? ?KBA? 256000? ?|
> +-----------------------------------+

This is neither an example showing Alternative Voting violates
monotonicity nor an example showing Alternative Voting violates
participation. This is an example showing Alternative Voting
violates consistency. However, it has been demonstrated by
HP Young that only positional methods (e.g. FPP, Borda,
Approval Voting) satisfy consistency.

Markus Schulze


From donald at mich.com  Thu Dec 25 17:47:01 2003
From: donald at mich.com (Donald Davison)
Date: Thu Dec 25 17:47:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Diana asked about Craig Carey:
Message-ID: <v01520d00bc10931c32c1@[64.79.80.17]>

Diana wrote: "Talking of Craig Carey, can someone please explain what his
most recent diatribe was on about?  And whether it's worth my while
worrying about?  (Since he's thrown Markus out of his private party -- at
least that's how it appears to outsiders -- I'd like to know whether he
actually has a point or is just excellent at posturing.)"  Diana.


Dear Diana, Donald here, there are a number of persons on this list who
speak in gobbledegook.  Craig Carey is one of them, so if you don't
understand him, you can be pretty sure no one else does, but there will
come a time when these types of people will write something that is
understandable and that will be the time when you can learn where that
person is coming from, if he has a point, and if he is worth worrying
about.

Craig Carey has given himself away in the past and most likely will do so
again in the future, merely by writing something that is understandable.  I
can give you an example.

Craig has designed an election method, which he calls: `The Two Seat -
Three Candidate Method' and which he claims to be a variant of STV, you can
decide that.  Anyway it works as follows:  Ranked ballots, Droop quota,
first candidate with quota or quota plus surplus is elected to one of the
seats, then this candidates' quota and surplus are both transferred to the
next preferences. (Note: This method won first prize in a contest for best
variant of STV, a contest conducted by Craig on Craig's list.)

Can you see the problem here?  The quota that elected one member is now
being used to help elect the second member, or in other words, one quota
plus one vote has the power to elect both seats.  The other two near quotas
do not elect anyone.  This super-duper method by Craig is worst than
Plurality-at-Large, which would need fifty percent plus one to elect both
candidates.  I called him on this flaw in his method, but it was water off
a duck's back, he kept on promoting his method.

Craig is not alone in this lack of understanding of election methods.  On
the IRV list, someone asked if IRV could be used to elect two members to a
city council.  Dan, who is an official of the Center for Voting and
Democracy replied and suggested that IRV be run two times. Once to elect
one member and a second time to elect the second member, bypassing the name
of the first winner during the routine of the second run of IRV.

Dan is clearly showing that he does not understand how these election
methods work.  What he suggested is very close to Plurality-a-Large, that
is, the same majority gets to elect both members.

Anyway, if you chose not to read Craig's posts, you won't miss much, but on
the other hand, if you have time to kill (good for people who like their
time to be dead), you could skim over his posts seeking the rare moment
when a star will appear in the east and you will see something
understandable (wear your sunglasses, the glare is quite bright), then and
only then will you be able to look into that window to Craig's mind.

Are you strong enough for this???


Regards, Donald




From eric at ericgorr.net  Thu Dec 25 17:55:02 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Thu Dec 25 17:55:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
Message-ID: <a06020411bc1143510164@[192.168.1.3]>

I've added a brief, but complete (or at least it should be), 
description of the Ranked Pairs method implemented on my condorcet 
site (http://www.ericgorr.net/condorcet). You can get to it either by 
visiting the the main page or directly via this link:

   http://www.ericgorr.net/condorcet/RankedPairs/

Feel free to make any comments you like.

I plan to add several, descriptive, examples soon.

btw, I just learned that on the newest palm machines, running java 
applications are now possible. This resolves my dilemma on where to 
implement this method next...either under Java or PalmOS...in the 
coming months, you should see something appear, written in Java, 
which would be tested on a Mac and a Palm device.


From eric at ericgorr.net  Thu Dec 25 17:58:01 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Thu Dec 25 17:58:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Oh...
Message-ID: <a06020414bc1145a88d8f@[192.168.1.3]>

The method computation on my site is currently down because I have 
changed web hosts. Should have it up and running again by monday (and 
possibly tomorrow) when I regain ssh access and can compile the C++ 
source on the server.



From research at ijs.co.nz  Fri Dec 26 01:56:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Fri Dec 26 01:56:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Dan W-J; IRV is 2nd best (=worst); CVD tells Maryland
  'no  research ever'
In-Reply-To: <3FEA212F.DE487F69@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031226175627.04dbeb28@pop.qsi.net.nz>


My last message had missing "not"s. It is fixable by using a word like
"Is" in every space that the reader might suspect a "not" to be missing.



At 2003-12-25 00:28 +0100 Thursday, Markus Schulze wrote:
>Dear Craig,
>
>you wrote (25 Dec 2003):
>> This can be named the Alternative Vote Twin Towers example: a support
>> rise that is nearly 50% in size and that is entirely FPTP papers, is
>> occuring while the candidate ('A') being supported changes into a
>> loser:
>>
>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/message/244
>>
>> +-----------------------------------+
>> |Winner: ? ?A? ? ?|Winner: ? ?B? ? ?|  Alternative Vote winners
>> +-----------------------------------+
>> | Tot: ? 513000? ?| Tot: ?1024001? ?|
>> +-----------------------------------+
>> |? ?A? ? ? 1001? ?|? ?A? ? 512000? ?| Change = +510999
>> | * BA ? ? ?999? ?|? ?BA ? ? 1001? ?| Change = +2
>> |? ?CBA? ? 1000? ?| * CBA? ? 1000? ?|
>> |? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|
>> |? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|
>> |? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|
>> |? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|
>> |? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|
>> |? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|
>> |? ?JBA? 128000? ?|? ?JBA? 128000? ?|
>> |? ?KBA? 256000? ?|? ?KBA? 256000? ?|
>> +-----------------------------------+
>
>This is neither an example showing Alternative Voting violates
>monotonicity nor an example showing Alternative Voting violates
>participation. This is an example showing Alternative Voting
>violates consistency. However, it has been demonstrated by
>HP Young that only positional methods (e.g. FPP, Borda,
>Approval Voting) satisfy consistency.
>


One of the authors (Ron H. in Israel) of a participation axiom paper wrote
to me. I don't need his advice: his paper is unimportant since on the
participation axiom. It seemed to me his 1988? paper was very unique in
defining that same space that even now as I write, Mr Forest Simmons is
slowly groping towards knowing.

Shulze has his usual technique of getting that maximal onto the part that
is most likely to break when subjected to weight: i.e. a few words:
"participation", "consistency". All for no good purpose. I guess that
Mr Schulze wants me to say that I don't know the definition of one of the
words.

I protest over this technique of Mr Shulze.

 * the ideas behind the words are too poorly defined. I.e. vagueness.

 * STV experts must reject the ideas. In the case of participation it
   fails the STV meta-rule requiring rules to be powerful. It is not
   powerful in 2 ways: firstly it is only 1 winner, and it is assumed to
   be not constraining preferences other than the first. They are not
   incompetent.

 * Mr Schulze get corrected and does not admit and worse does not
   alter his ideas.
   Even today he believes he should use personal desire alone when
   selecting a rule and never ever use algebra or mathematics in
   an attempt to see if a rule is good or unacceptable. It is a
   non-stop circus of Mr Schulze using only wrong tests. He has got
   wrong tests ensuring that he will not improperly let people see
   if he is incorrectly holding an improper purpose. If readers
   suspect that I don't know what "consistency" got defined to be
   (OK for Mr Schulze if it never was defined to an STV-grade
   quality) then my failing a wrong test is not expected to raise
   questions on why Mr Schulze did not write much more precisely.

--

Mr Schulze's "Participation" is rejected for meta-rule agains weakness:

  1. it was undefined for support rises on the 2nd+ candidate

  2. it seems undefined in multiwinner elections since that quite
    probably would involve my base 2 number definition of what a
    paper desired. Nevertheless I shan't suggest that such an idea
    can be made to run acceptably in a revised Participation axiom

    It is too weak if considering a single new preference and hence
    only a single candidate. That would get the rule eliminated before
    an audience the world's best preferential voting method designers.

--

One of the big questions is why Mr Shulze bungled his PDF document
when using the same technique: he failed to define the method and
achieved that by giving inusfficient precise meaning to the words
"stricly prefer".

As readers would readily imagine, at no moment has Mr Markus
corrected that mistake. A paper that says nothing is not one that
Mr Schulze would fix up. It is the same theory: getting the public
to admit that they don't remember what a word or two means. Unless
it was jut a blunder.

---

Responding further, Mr Schulze failed to define the idea of "consistency".

It should start with a capital C, I suppose.

At the moment I have no idea what Mr Schulze means by "positional".
Clearly Mr Schulze has not got a good argument.

Ms Shulze is becoming one of the worlds more boring commentators
on research into preferential voting. In the last few months it was
becoming very clear that not only is Mr Schulze unwilling to define
the Schulze method (depsite producing an academic paper on it passing
it under scavanged under utterly worthless rules or with unfollowable
arguments, or whatever), but also he writes "[other person suggested
that it] doesn't work [i.e. Floyd algorithm isn't symmetric]" and
with any trace of a line by line analysis, he wants to leak out the
belief that the Schulze method has got to be symmetric if the
Floyd algorithm is symmetric. 

He does not even have an argument. All the arguments in his published
seemed to be perfectly untroubled by the truth that he totally
bungled the definition of the Schulze method so that it was missing
from the paper.

After years here disputing with Mr Ossipoff over which was admissable:
(1) Mr Ossipoff's wording
(2) some hoax agreement purporting to comprehend Mike Ossipoff's
   thinking;
it is now plain that Mr Schulze was preferring "(2)". 

I complain since I assess Mr Schulze has the so called Schulze method
of the October 2003 PDF file get the alternative that is absolutely
not the alternative suggested by the fairly plain English wording.

Obviously Mr Schulze implemented the technique all throughout his
writing of trying to blot the light out and stand in the path to
(um, total error) as the single authority. I.e. clarifications and
annotations and clarifying statements of the purpose are missing.
Similarly with analyses over the wording chosen, records of
communications with others disputing the wording, etc., are missing.

Mr Shulze ha a secret agenda for using undefined terms. If he believes
that leads to wins in public mailing lists then we should be told.

Normally Mr Schulze has wrong rules that do not model societies.

Evil ideas but concealed by Mr Schulze getting his paragraph to put
its weight on a few words he didn't feel like defining (or producing
references for) and which then crash as expected under criticism.

Something was a source of unfairness and Mr Schulze would win the
argument on whether it was his carefully/carelessly designed sentences
or not.

----

Let me return to this text:

>
>This is neither an example showing Alternative Voting violates
>monotonicity nor an example showing Alternative Voting violates
>participation. This is an example showing Alternative Voting
>violates consistency. However, it has been demonstrated by
>HP Young that only positional methods (e.g. FPP, Borda,
>Approval Voting) satisfy consistency.
>


(1) That example can perhaps imply that the Alternative Vote fails
a monotonocity test (if theorem is added) and it does not itself show
a failure of monotonicity.

I don't see why anybody should have any interest in what "consistency"
is, and in what "positional" means. While it seems that the "H" and the
"P" of Mr Young's name ought not be placed so close together, it does
not seem that any of his ideas are interesting in the context of the
example.

I found the example using initially mainly REDLOG to find a 4 candidate
example and then trial re paper to allow the number of candidates to
be increased.

Mr Schulze is trying to say that he read books. I am making it clear
that nothing at all that is of value might be obtained from me if
surviving here in the Election Methods List forum that is one of the
world's dumbest. Mr Schulze can't actually write at the PaP or STV
since dumb-as-a-dinosaur ponderous [lumbering, graceless, heavy,huge
labourius. Etymology: ponderosus, Latin, meaning, of great weight]
wordings and unfairness-allowing meanings if any meaning at all.

We might be right on the verge of a big improvement: e.g. I quit and
then the members renwew their religious vows to be unfair
to their fellow nat and be stumped for why that is but take solace in
the intellectual unity of being fried chips, damn, being friends.


//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


At 2003-12-25 20:50 -0500 Thursday, Donald Davison wrote:
>

...
>Dear Diana, Donald here, there are a number of persons on this list who
>speak in gobbledegook.

If Donald Davison is ever more alert, then that might be a time when he
can get the ">" characters lined up and properly quote text.

...
>do not elect anyone.  This super-duper method by Craig is worst than
>Plurality-at-Large, which would need fifty percent plus one to elect both
>candidates.  I called him on this flaw in his method, but it was water off

The method behaves as if it has two votes. So it can get suspected of
holding the power of 2 FPTP papers. But there is a specific rule preventing
it from having more power than one FPTP paper (no matter how many winners).

You can correctly hint that you are correct and I am wrong. But that is
not the same as showing me wrong since I correctly say that you can't
ever convert your success in raising doubt into a concluded proof that
successfully persuades.

If you reject me wrongly then you ar violating one of your own ideas, which
says that ballot papers ought get more and more power (up to the proper
limit) as improved variants/replacements of STV keep appearing.


>
>Craig is not alone in this lack of understanding of election methods.  On

You can't say I did not understand why you have fully failed to show that
my 2 winner 3 candidate IFPP method is failing a power<=1 rule. Your
argument was relying on a common agreement over a wrong principle.
To reject my method, a failure under a correct rule would be neeeded.

---------

Mr Davison on a 2 winner election

>the IRV list, someone asked if IRV could be used to elect two members to a
>city council.  Dan, who is an official of the Center for Voting and
>Democracy replied and suggested that IRV be run two times. Once to elect
>one member and a second time to elect the second member, bypassing the name
>of the first winner during the routine of the second run of IRV.
>
>Dan is clearly showing that he does not understand how these election
>methods work.  What he suggested is very close to Plurality-a-Large, that
>is, the same majority gets to elect both members.


It does sound quite bad.
Supposing the voters only once, they could use the analog of the
'1/3 quota unfairness to the 4th' method the 2 winner 3 candidate IFPP
being at the end. Something batter might be found.

If voters get 2 real votes then maybe the 1st could reduce the candidates
to 3 candidates, and 2nd could eliminate exactlyu one candidate.

You were running a dead pop.mich.* SMTP server for a while.

----

Mr Lanphier is withholding a shoot up of Condorcet (I posted while not
subscribed into a policy block to have such messages be blocked).
It explains that Mr Shulze has a greave problem with the last preference
in the idea of the weightings that papers are multiplied by when
contributing to the "prefers X over Y" subtotal, particularly in the
comparison of the 2 cases:
 (1) (...X...Y) : Y is the last preference
 (2) (...X...) : now Y shifted over the edge. 

Mr Schulze seems to aspire to hide the Condorcet destroying issue behind
only 2 words and blundered and causes his PDF article to fail to define
a Condorcet method.

The STV idealized view is that the P2 rules reigns (e.g. no winnner
changes on adding -2(A)+(AB)+(AC) if 3 candidates, etc.) and Alt.V passes
P2 already. Mr Schulze and al lthe rest of them (Mr Condorcet, etc.)
seem to be much too deep into the territory of arbitrariness and
standing against P2 is further unbreakable guarantee that they would
be rejected

Even worse is the exploding quantity of facets in the Condorcet variant
solutions. This is a new aspect to Condorcet that has not been
written on. It is like the number of facts is rising powers faster.

No one knows what the rules are. In idealized STV there are constant
rules that are totally indifferent to shifting changes in public
opinion. There appears to be no argument at all from Mr Schulze and
whatnot, on whether there is some good enough from the explosion
of rules and how everyone has not got rights while not identifying
what the average votes were.

Basic obvious errors with no defence. It is just like some fish
looking up through bits of grass and through the water saying:

  "what's the matter?: don't you believe in pairwise comparing?"





Craig Carey
Perfect voting methods: single-transerable-vote












From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 26 02:08:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 26 02:08:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
Message-ID: <3FEC0823.810DCB2A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Eric,

you wrote:

> If two or more pairwise defeats have an equal strength and the
> margins are also equal, they are considered to be equivalent.
> Starting with the strongest defeat, consider each defeat in
> sequence with previously kept defeats, if any. If two or more
> defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered together
> with previously kept defeats, if any. If any defeat under
> consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected. If any defeat
> under consideration is not apart of a cycle, it is kept.

I suggest that sentence 4 should be replaced by:

> If q equivalent defeats under consideration are parts of a cycle
> with previously kept defeats, the q! possible ways to consider
> one of these defeats after the other are considered separately.

Markus Schulze


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 26 03:05:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 26 03:05:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Dan W-J; IRV is 2nd best (=worst); CVD tells Maryland 'no 
 research ever'
Message-ID: <3FEC156A.FB33E727@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

your 25 Dec 2003 example is not an example showing that Alternative
Voting violates monotonicity. Your example lets me think that your
claim that Condorcet and monotonicity were incompatible is possibly
caused by a misunderstanding of what "monotonicity" means.

******

You wrote (26 Dec 2003):
> At the moment I have no idea what Mr Schulze means by "positional".

A "positional" single-winner election method has the following
properties:

   a1 >= a2 >= a3 >= ....

   a1, a2, a3, ... are defined in advance and do not depend on how
   the voters vote.

   Every candidate gets a1 points for every first preference,
   a2 points for every second preference, a3 points for every third
   preference, ...

   The probability that a given candidate is elected depends only on
   his number of points.

******

Examples:

FPP is a positional method with a1 = 1 and a2 = a3 = ... = 0.

Suppose N is the number of candidates.
Borda is a positional method with a1 = N-1, a2 = N-2, a3 = N-3, ...

Burnitz-Varrentrapp is a positional method with a1 = 1, a2 = 1/2,
a3 = 1/3, ...

******

You wrote (26 Dec 2003):
> It explains that Mr Shulze has a greave problem with the last preference
> in the idea of the weightings that papers are multiplied by when
> contributing to the "prefers X over Y" subtotal, particularly in the
> comparison of the 2 cases:
>  (1) (...X...Y) : Y is the last preference
>  (2) (...X...) : now Y shifted over the edge.

Could you please post some examples to explain what you
are talking about?

******

You wrote (26 Dec 2003):
> Basic obvious errors with no defence. It is just like some fish
> looking up through bits of grass and through the water saying:
>
>   "what's the matter?: don't you believe in pairwise comparing?"

In my paper, I prove e.g. that my method satisfies Pareto, monotonicity,
resolvability, independence of clones, and Woodall's plurality criterion.
None of these criteria implicitly or explicitly presumes that the used
election method is a pairwise method. Therefore, you don't have to
"believe in pairwise comparing" to see that my method satisfies many
criteria that are considered in the scientific literature to be
important.

Markus Schulze


From eric at ericgorr.net  Fri Dec 26 06:03:02 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Fri Dec 26 06:03:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <3FEC0823.810DCB2A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FEC0823.810DCB2A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <a06020416bc11ebd07f60@[192.168.1.3]>

At 11:06 AM +0100 12/26/03, Markus Schulze wrote:
>Dear Eric,
>
>you wrote:
>
>  > If two or more pairwise defeats have an equal strength and the
>>  margins are also equal, they are considered to be equivalent.
>>  Starting with the strongest defeat, consider each defeat in
>>  sequence with previously kept defeats, if any. If two or more
>>  defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered together
>  > with previously kept defeats, if any. If any defeat under
>>  consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected. If any defeat
>>  under consideration is not apart of a cycle, it is kept.
>
>I suggest that sentence 4 should be replaced by:
>
>   If q equivalent defeats under consideration are parts of a cycle
>   with previously kept defeats, the q! possible ways to consider
>   one of these defeats after the other are considered separately.

An interesting suggestion, but I fail to see how this would make 
things clearer.

At no point does the algorithm need to perform a q! operation.


-- 
== Eric Gorr ========= http://www.ericgorr.net ========= ICQ:9293199 ===
"Therefore the considerations of the intelligent always include both
benefit and harm." - Sun Tzu
== Insults, like violence, are the last refuge of the incompetent... ===


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 26 07:13:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 26 07:13:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
Message-ID: <3FEC4F97.C828D5C4@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Eric,

you wrote:

> If two or more pairwise defeats have an equal strength and the
> margins are also equal, they are considered to be equivalent.
> Starting with the strongest defeat, consider each defeat in
> sequence with previously kept defeats, if any. If two or more
> defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered together
> with previously kept defeats, if any. If any defeat under
> consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected. If any defeat
> under consideration is not apart of a cycle, it is kept.

Suppose AB and CD have the same strength. Suppose (a) locking only
AB would not create a directed cycle with already locked pairwise
defeats, (b) locking only CD would not create a directed cycle with
already locked pairwise defeats, but (c) locking both AB and CD
simultaneously would create a directed cycle with already locked
pairwise defeats.

Then I fear that your formulation could mistakenly be interpreted
in such a manner as if both pairwise defeats were rejected.

Markus Schulze


From eric at ericgorr.net  Fri Dec 26 08:46:12 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Fri Dec 26 08:46:12 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <3FEC4F97.C828D5C4@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FEC4F97.C828D5C4@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <a06020418bc1215a84e0d@[192.168.1.3]>

At 4:11 PM +0100 12/26/03, Markus Schulze wrote:
>Dear Eric,
>
>you wrote:
>
>>  If two or more pairwise defeats have an equal strength and the
>>  margins are also equal, they are considered to be equivalent.
>>  Starting with the strongest defeat, consider each defeat in
>>  sequence with previously kept defeats, if any. If two or more
>>  defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered together
>>  with previously kept defeats, if any. If any defeat under
>>  consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected. If any defeat
>>  under consideration is not apart of a cycle, it is kept.
>
>Suppose AB and CD have the same strength. Suppose (a) locking only
>AB would not create a directed cycle with already locked pairwise
>defeats, (b) locking only CD would not create a directed cycle with
>already locked pairwise defeats, but (c) locking both AB and CD
>simultaneously would create a directed cycle with already locked
>pairwise defeats.
>
>Then I fear that your formulation could mistakenly be interpreted
>in such a manner as if both pairwise defeats were rejected.

They should both be rejected as one could not determine which defeat 
should be kept, unless one would choose randomly between them, but 
then this would not be a 'deterministic' method.



-- 
== Eric Gorr ========= http://www.ericgorr.net ========= ICQ:9293199 ===
"Therefore the considerations of the intelligent always include both
benefit and harm." - Sun Tzu
== Insults, like violence, are the last refuge of the incompetent... ===


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 26 12:03:55 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 26 12:03:55 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
Message-ID: <3FEC931D.B259CA07@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Eric,

suppose that there are 4 candidates and that all pairwise
defeats A > B, B > C, C > D, D > A, B > D, and C > A have the
same strength. Then all 4 candidates are potential winners.

However, suppose that some voters rank candidate A higher so
that the pairwise defeats A > B, B > C, C > D, D > A, and B > D
still have the same strength and C > A is weaker than the other
pairwise defeats. Then you would reject A > B, B > C, C > D,
D > A, and B > D and keep C > A so that ranking candidate A
higher hurts him.

Markus Schulze


From eric at ericgorr.net  Fri Dec 26 12:30:01 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Fri Dec 26 12:30:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <3FEC931D.B259CA07@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FEC931D.B259CA07@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <a0602041abc1249c28437@[192.168.1.3]>

At 8:59 PM +0100 12/26/03, Markus Schulze wrote:

>suppose that there are 4 candidates and that all pairwise
>defeats A > B, B > C, C > D, D > A, B > D, and C > A have the
>same strength. Then all 4 candidates are potential winners.
>
>However, suppose that some voters rank candidate A higher so
>that the pairwise defeats A > B, B > C, C > D, D > A, and B > D
>still have the same strength and C > A is weaker than the other
>pairwise defeats. Then you would reject A > B, B > C, C > D,
>D > A, and B > D and keep C > A so that ranking candidate A
>higher hurts him.

Include that everyone has voted sincerely, and I don't see the problem.

With such a clearly divided electorate, where any of the candidates 
could win, this 'problem' seems illusory at best.




From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 26 22:10:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Fri Dec 26 22:10:01 2003
Subject: [EM] RE: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #401 - 1 msg
Message-ID: <LAW10-F112wVHCOMR4a0005ebca@hotmail.com>

>Suppose AB and CD have the same strength. Suppose (a) locking only
>AB would not create a directed cycle with already locked pairwise
>defeats, (b) locking only CD would not create a directed cycle with
>already locked pairwise defeats, but (c) locking both AB and CD
>simultaneously would create a directed cycle with already locked
>pairwise defeats.
>
>Then I fear that your formulation could mistakenly be interpreted
>in such a manner as if both pairwise defeats were rejected.

They should both be rejected as one could not determine which defeat
should be kept, unless one would choose randomly between them, but
then this would not be a 'deterministic' method.

I reply:

Yes, rejecting both would be most in keeping with the spirit of Eric's 
tied-defeats solution, and would be most what people would expect.

Of course wording that covers that should be included. Maybe it could be 
said in a way that covers all those possibilities inl one wording, without 
separate mention of the special case where 2 or more tied-defeats 
indivicuallly don't cycle with old-kept-defeats, but do so if boith are 
kept.

I'm for whateve tied-defeats solution is briefest and simplest in public 
proposals.

If the wording foir Eric's briefer solution starts getting too long, by 
having to cover that situation described above, then with its brevity 
somewhat eroded, it could be worth considering this slightly more elaborate 
solution that I named in a recent e-mail, for which that situation is 
already covered:

Slightly more elaborate and slightly better tied-defeats solution wording:

1. The equally strongest as-yet unconsidered defeats are called the 
"tied-defeats".

2. The defeats that were kept before any tied-defeats were kept are called 
the "old defeats".

3. Any tied defeat that isn't in a cycle consisting only of it and some old 
defeats is "qualified".

4. Keep any qualified defeat that isn't in a cycle each of whose members is 
either qualified or old.

That's much longer than Eric's brief solution. Maybe when Eric's wording is 
modified to cover the situation that Markus described, Eric's wording will 
still be briefer and simpler than this one. Still, this one is worth 
considering if the brief one loses too much of its brevity.

I'd like to add that the suggestion of looking at all q! possible 
consideration-orderings of the tied defeats is completely unacceptable for a 
publc proposal.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Check your PC for viruses with the FREE McAfee online computer scan.  
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 26 23:23:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Fri Dec 26 23:23:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to James Green-Armytage--Condorcet strategy
Message-ID: <Law10-F111e5O25rrcv0005ea36@hotmail.com>

Janes--

That's a big subject.

You correctly point out that defensive strategy is a worse problem with 
margins than with winning-votes (wv).

Additionally, with wv, truncation can't steal the election from a 
well-supported CW, a CW who has a majority defeat against the truncators' 
candidate. That's the subject of the criterion SFC. GSFC generalizes SFC to 
situations where there's no CW. When defeats are measured by wv, then SSD 
and Ranked-Pairs meet the powerful GSFC. Plain Condorcet (PC) meets SFC.

In fact, SFC and GSFC describe plausible conditions under which, with 
complying methods (Condorcet wv), the majority who don't want X can be sure 
X won't win, _without having to do anything other than vote sincerel_. 
That's what I most like about Condorcet wv.

Your iniltial wording of the Condorcet count implies that defeats are 
measured by margins. That probably isn't intentional.

To put the problem in perspective, Condorcet wv has no defensive strategy 
need unless someone is going to try offensive order-reversal strategy. At 
its very worst, under less-than-likely worst-case conditions, Condorcet wv 
begins to share the strategy need that the other methods have all the time.

And, with Condorcet wv, in order for you to successfully steal the election, 
it's only possible if the people from whom you're stealing the election have 
tried to help you. Doesn't that make you feel proud of yourself? :-)

P.S. Don't expect them to rank your cxandidate again. Don't expect your 
winner to be able to show his face in public.

As you mentioned, it's like a game of chicken, when defensive truncation is 
threatened against would-be offensive order-reversers.

But please note that the supporters of the middle CW who is being protected 
will suffer less if no one chickens out, compared to how much the offensive 
order-reversers would suffer then. That's because, in your example, the C is 
farther away from the order-reversers than from the defenders.

Additionally, a defender has a more credible threat. A cat defending its 
territory has a more credible threat against an interloper than the other 
cat has. The defender, it's understood, is more willing to fight and risk 
getting hurt when defending what's rightfully his. This adds to the 
defenders' advantage in the game of chicken.

Sure, if no one chickens out, the result isn't desirable for the defenders 
either. Defensive truncation is a dominated strategy for them: But note that 
dominated deterrent strategies are common in legal systrems and in the 
animal kingdom. They wouldn't be used so much if they didn't work.

In public elections, effective offensive order-reversal would require public 
organizing. There' s just no way it could be done without its intended 
victims hearing about it and using defensive truncation.
So in public elections, offensive order-reversal is a losing proposition.

For all the above reasons, I don't consider offensive order-reversal a 
problem. Effectively, then, Condorcet wv is practically strategy-free. 
Remarkably strategy-free. No other method of comparable simplicity even 
comes close.

So, for that reason, I don't feel that it's necessary to include 
enhancements to further reduce that already near-nonexistent problem.

Of course, when Condorcet wv has been in use for a long time, and if by then 
people are discussing the order-reversal possibility, then, at that time, 
the anti-reversal enhancements could be proposed.

Even though I claim that they aren't needed in public Condorcet wv 
proposals, I'm going to discuss anti-reversal enhancements in a subsequent 
posting.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Check your PC for viruses with the FREE McAfee online computer scan.  
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 27 00:01:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 27 00:01:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Anti-reversal enhancements for Condorcet
Message-ID: <Law10-F74X9Oc8sc0Gq0005efd2@hotmail.com>

James--

You described an anti-reversal enhancement that involved a 2nd balloting. 
Sure, a 2nd balloting can further reduce wv's already tiny offensive 
strategy problem, assuming that it ever becomes a problem.

But it's not necessary to hold a 2nd balloting anytime there's a circular 
tie, though that's one solution.

If a CW's support isn't indifferent, s/he'll be ranked over the reversers' 
candidate by a majority, meaning that for the reversers' candidate to win, 
everyone else must have even bigger majority against them.

So the 2nd balloting should only be triggered if there's an 
all-majority-defeats circular tie.

Here's what I've propsed as a 2nd ballot solution:

If there's a circular tie all of whose members have another member ranked 
over them by a majorith, then a 2nd balloting is held.

Before the 2nd balloting, the pairwise defeats will have been published, and 
order-reversal, if it happened, can be noticed.

In the 2nd balloting, the reversal can be countered. It can be punished by 
defensive truncation. Or, as in your example, the C voters could rank B 
equal to C. Note that, with wv, they only need rank B equal to C. In margins 
they'd often have to rank B _over_ C. That's a lot more to ask.

But another possibilit for the 2nd balloting is an Approval balloting. That 
simpler method won't produce another cycle, and the defense against the 
reversers would consist of their victimes not voting for the reversers' 
candidate. In that case the defensive truncation elects the CW.

The 2nd balloting pretty much eliminates whatever amount of reversal problem 
exists.

Something similar can be used for committees. I'd suggest it for an EM poll, 
for instance.

To a poll, I'd add the rule that, after the result is announced, there's 
about a week or half-week period during which anyone can truncate their 
ranking if they choose to, or can uprank an alternative to 1st place.

(I prefer open polls in which voters post their ballots. That's the way to 
have proven security.
But, as these ballots come in, reversal opportunities could be obvious to 
those who haven't voted yet. The defdensive strategy option avoids that 
reversal problem).

Either of those 2 enhanhancements, or something similar, could be used for 
committees.

Tom Roiund and Steve Eppley separately independently proposed the 
candidate-withdrawal option:

After an election result, any candidate can declare that he withdraws, and 
call for another count of the same ballots with his name deleted from them.

That also thwarts offensive order-reversal.

I notice that candidate-withdrawal is part of your proposal.

For 1-balloting elections, the voter could have the option of drawing a line 
in his ranking, to indicate that, in the event of an all-majority-beaten 
circular tie involving candidates above and below that line, he wants to 
drop the candidates below the line. Then the same ballots, with the 
candiddates dropped, would be recounted. That would be a powerful deterrent 
to offensive order-reversal.

I don't claim to have covered all the possible anti-reversal enhancements. 
We've discussed a few other ones.

For instance, a tentative possible solution involves giving the voter the 
option to indicate that, if there's an all-majority-beaten circular tie, and 
if groups of voters sharing the same 1st  choices have certain patterns of 
unanimity and non-unanimity within those groups, in their subsequent 
choices, that voter wants do delete certain candidates. That may catch be 
able to catch some offensive order-reversals. Obviously that isn't a 
complete detailed proposal.

Methods more fancy and complicated than Condorcet are discussed. Though all 
methods have strategy, there's always the possibility that one of those 
fancier methods will get rid of defensive strategy need, as I've defined it 
here. Or at least let defensive truncation elect the CW, without the use of 
a 2nd ballotiong.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From eric at ericgorr.net  Sat Dec 27 05:56:02 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Sat Dec 27 05:56:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-F112wVHCOMR4a0005ebca@hotmail.com>
References: <LAW10-F112wVHCOMR4a0005ebca@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <a0602041ebc133db3b13e@[192.168.1.3]>

At 6:09 AM +0000 12/27/03, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
>Of course wording that covers that should be included. Maybe it 
>could be said in a way that covers all those possibilities in one 
>wording, without separate mention of the special case where 2 or 
>more tied-defeats indivicuallly don't cycle with old-kept-defeats, 
>but do so if boith are kept.

Personally, I think I did cover this in #5. The case of multiple 
tied-defeats is covered by:

   If two or more defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered
   together with previously kept defeats, if any.

(#4 covered what is considered to be equivalent)

Now, in light of your comments, I think my statement:

   If any defeat under consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected.

Could be improved by changing it to:

   If any defeat under consideration, which has not yet been kept, is apart
   of a cycle, it is rejected.

Similarly,

   If any defeat under consideration, which has not yet been kept, is not apart
   of a cycle, it is kept.

I will probably also turn the word 'cycle' into a link with a more 
detailed description.


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Sat Dec 27 12:10:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Sat Dec 27 12:10:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm  definition
In-Reply-To: <3FE94661.A9255D9B@netgate.net>
Message-ID: <20031227201000.9811.qmail@web13805.mail.yahoo.com>

Bart,

 --- Bart Ingles <bartman at netgate.net> a ?crit?: > 
> This paper must be part of a series, as Woodall never explains his
> assertion that "Of these three properties, Majority is far and away the
> most important."  He seems to have his own definitions for monotonicity;
> I hadn't seen these anywhere else.
> 

(He comments on Majority as above, says Plurality is "also important, but
it is much less likely to be violated: every reasonable electoral system
seems to satisfy it, whereas many systems proposed or actually used ...
fail majority."  Condorcet is "a very attractive property" but it "leads
to problems with monotonicity.")

I think Woodall may consider Participation to be part of Monotonicity.  In
any case, another paper of his makes these claims:

A method that always elects a candidate with a majority-strength defeat
over every other candidate, cannot meet "Mono-raise-random" or 
"Mono-sub-top."  They say that X can't be harmed (made to lose, in
most cases) if X is raised on some ballots with the lower preferences
on those ballots replaced with anything valid; or (respectively) if
"some ballots that do not have X top are replaced by ballots that have
X top (and are otherwise arbitrary)".

A method that always elects a candidate with a defeat (of any strength)
over every other cannot, additionally can't meet "Mono-raise-delete"
and "Mono-sub-plump."  The former means X is raised, and the ranking
is truncated after him.  The latter means ballots which don't place X
first are replaced with ballots which bullet vote for X.

Also, a method cannot do all three of:
1. always elect a CW (defeats of any strength);
2. meet Plurality; and
3. Meet "Mono-add-top," meaning that random ballots may be added
with X ranked first, without causing X to lose.

And, a method can't do all four of:
1. always elect a CW with all majority-strength pairwise defeats;
2. meet Plurality;
3. meet "Symmetric-Completion"; and
4. meet "Mono-remove-bottom," meaning X can't be harmed if ballots
are removed which placed X (and only X) last.

Make what you will of all that...  I'm pretty sure I've reproduced
it accurately.


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


_________________________________________________________________
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From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Sat Dec 27 12:45:01 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Sat Dec 27 12:45:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20031224174405.05b11c88@pop.qsi.net.nz>
Message-ID: <20031227204412.74150.qmail@web13810.mail.yahoo.com>

(This message has quotes from three people.)

James Green-Armytage said:
> Very much off the cuff: isn't this somewhat related to the favorite betrayal 
> criterion? 

I think it is, but a more general version of it.

Mike Ossipoff said:
> If IRV's Later-No-Harm "advantage" is the kind of benefit that we get from 
> Later-No-Harm, then it's questionable how important that criterion is.

I agree, but I am somewhat interested in what other methods can be defined
which meet Later-no-Harm.  For example, Woodall's DSC method does not use
traveling votes.  It does eliminate candidates, although I'm not able to
say at present whether it does so in a manner analogous to IRV.

Anthony Duff suggested that MinMax meets Later-no-harm.  I don't think
that's correct, though.


 --- Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz> a ?crit?: > 
> At 2003-12-23 23:47 +0100 Tuesday, Kevin Venzke wrote:
> >Thanks to everyone who responded to my last message.
> >
> >It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
> >as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
> >should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
> >this ballot."
> >
> >(By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
> >additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
> >but also deleting others.)
> >
> >I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
> >"earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
> >ranked FIRST, (etc...)."
> >
> >For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
> >then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.
> >
> 
> Clearly Mr Venkze has not ruled out the 2 winner case. If he has one
> unstated restriction then it may take weeks or years before he finally
> managed to get them all into the mailing list and nicely requoted
> in each message.

"Earlier-no-harm" could work with any number of winners, although my
specific example assumed a single winner.  A zero-winner method, for
instance, could not fail Earlier-no-harm.

> 
> Suppose the votes are this (2 winner case)
> 
> Election 1:
>   10000 (D)
>   1 (A=B=C>D>E), D should win and does
> 
> Election 2:
>   10000 (D)
>   1 (A>B>C>D>E) , both D and E lose says Mr Venkze

But you can see that this example is not what I'm talking about, if you
look at the definition I wrote:
"Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked FIRST, 
should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of this ballot."

So if the winners of election 1 are D and one of ABC, then in election 2, 
according to "Earlier-no-harm," the winners must not become D and E.

> 
> I assume that there is no need to get "A=B=C" precisely defined since
> unknown disputes over definitions might be bounded by factors 6 or 1/6.

It means that A, B, and C are ranked equal to each other at the top of
the ballot.

> >"Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
> >then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A.
> >
> >What do you think?
> 
> It looks like Mr Venkze won't accept one or both of these:
> 
>  * an axiom set from which a method is derived (a strange option given
>     the theme of Mr Venkze's whole message), or

I defined an axiom, not a method.

>  * the principle that the number of winners be correct (i.e. he sometimes
>     expects the number of winners be disagreeing with what was decided on
>     before the public filled in the voting papers, providing a public 
>     suitably exists).

I did that in my example, but not in my definition.

> I have never suspected that there is a good reason to use
>    "Later No Harm"
> instead of
>    "Truncation Resistance".

"Later-no-harm" is more specific.  Perhaps "Later-no-harm" together with
"Later-no-help" are equivalent to "Truncation Resistance."

> "Permuting preferences before" and "permuting preferences after" are a
> better wording of what is desired. 

This would be harder to satisfy than what I defined.  My definition supposes
that the ballot is changed only by turning some "="s into ">"s.

> I assume that if both are imposed
> then the method degenerates into FPTP or something similar.

No, with FPTP you cannot "permute preferences before" the winner without a
risk of changing the winner.  ...Perhaps Coombs satisfies this?

> So there may need to be a redesign of the papers (and presumably
> adding "=" won't produce insensitivity to permuting before). I would
> prefer no redesign (while preferring methods better than the
> second best AV n candidate 1 winner method) and instead allow elections
> where voters could change their mind.

The voter can't change his mind.  (Actually, I thought you didn't believe
in voters.)  Presenting two scenarios side-by-side doesn't mean the voter
is changing his mind.

The point of earlier-no-harm is so that the voter can't protest "I voted
A>B>C and got F, when voting A=B=C would have gotten C elected."

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


___________________________________________________________
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From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Sun Dec 28 05:48:02 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Sun Dec 28 05:48:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Later-no-harm  question
Message-ID: <3FEF8862.3060505@bigpond.com>

  On Mon. Dec.22, 2003 ,  Bart  Ingles wrote:

"I can't see much value in LNH as a criterion, unless getting voters to
rank as many candidates as possible is seen as an end in itself."

Meeting Later-no-harm is logically the same thing as being truncation-proof.

All methods that meet Later-no-harm must logically also meet Mono-add-top, but 
not vice versa.
"Mono-add-top" is a Woodall criterion which says that adding ballots that all give
first-preference to X must not harm X. It is met by IRV and Margins, but not by WV.

In trying to change from Plurality to a ranked-ballot method, Later-no-harm is an 
excellent selling-point to plurality-minded voters.

I think Later-no-harm should be considered together with Later-no-help. The two should
be in balance, ie the chances of a lower-preference helping or harming a higher-preference
should be the same. Otherwise "zero information strategy" (as something different from
sincere voting) can raise its ugly head. A method in which the chance of helping a higher
preference (by ranking a candidate) is greater than the chance of harming, can create
incentive to "random fill". A method such as Woodall's "Descending Acquiescing Coalitions"
(DAC) which fails Later-no-harm but meets Later-no-help might be Approvalish. His method
"Descending Solid Coalitions"(DSC) meets Later-no-harm but fails Later-no-help.
Another of his methods,"Descending Half-solid Coalitions"(DHSC), which actually fails both
criteria, might be preferable.

Chris Benham  


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From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Sun Dec 28 11:03:02 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Sun Dec 28 11:03:02 2003
Subject: [EM]  Re: Later-no-harm, "Earlier-no-harm"
Message-ID: <3FEFD213.1050504@bigpond.com>

On  Tue.Dec.23, 2003,  Kevin Venzke wrote:

"It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
this ballot."

(By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
but also deleting others.)"

Surely Later-no-harm is only applicable to ranked-ballot methods,and Approval
is not a ranked-ballot method. 
Other than trying to provide some ammunition for Approval versus IRV propaganda, 
is there any point to this new version?

On a posititive note, Kevin went on:
"I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
"earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
ranked FIRST, (etc...)."

For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.

"Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A."

I very much like the substance of this. On Mon.Dec.1,2003, I wrote:
"I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting AB and the other 
half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting A=B, and also that it is 
unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates A and B by all voting either 
AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared to a faction who support candidates 
C and D by all voting C=D."
The part after "and also.." I see as being equivalent to your "earlier-no-harm". I think 
I would sum up the idea behind your 2 "earlier-no-h..." criteria in a "Decisiveness Fairness
Standard" which says something like 
"a faction of voters who all vote a set of candidates over all other candidates should not be 
advantaged or disadvantaged by voting equal preferences (versus not)".
Have I been wrong to assume this is connected with Symetric Completion/fractional equal
preferences?
Quoting Woodall (in the context of equal preferences not being allowed except for truncation),

"Symetric Completion.
A trucated ballot should be treated in the same way as its symetric completion. (The symetric 
completion of a ballot is obtained by replacing it by all possible completions of it with 
equal weight chosen so that the total weight is 1. For example,if there are five candidates 
a,b,c,d,e, then the symetric completion of a ballot marked ab consists of six ballots, each 
with weight 1/6, marked abcde, abced, abdce, abdec,abecd, and abedc.)"

Can a method meet Earlier-no-harm/help without complying with SC?

Chris Benham













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From eric at ericgorr.net  Sun Dec 28 13:19:01 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Sun Dec 28 13:19:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <a0602041ebc133db3b13e@[192.168.1.3]>
References: <LAW10-F112wVHCOMR4a0005ebca@hotmail.com>
 <a0602041ebc133db3b13e@[192.168.1.3]>
Message-ID: <a06020401bc14f82464b3@[192.168.1.3]>

For anyone who is interested, the first example, of a few more I 
intend to finish covering Ranked Pairs (Deterministic #1-Winning 
Votes) , is now up at:

    http://www.ericgorr.net/condorcet/rankedpairs/example1/



From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Sun Dec 28 19:17:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Sun Dec 28 19:17:02 2003
Subject: [EM]  Re: Later-no-harm, "Earlier-no-harm"
In-Reply-To: <3FEFD213.1050504@bigpond.com>
Message-ID: <20031229031656.33863.qmail@web13805.mail.yahoo.com>

Chris,

 --- Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com> a ?crit :
> "Mono-add-top" is a Woodall criterion which says that adding ballots that all give
> first-preference to X must not harm X. It is met by IRV and Margins, but not by WV.

How did you find that Margins meets Mono-add-top?  I have a hard time 
believing that.


 --- Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com> a ?crit?: 
> On  Tue.Dec.23, 2003,  Kevin Venzke wrote:
> 
> "It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
> as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
> should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
> this ballot."
> 
> (By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
> additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
> but also deleting others.)"
> 
> Surely Later-no-harm is only applicable to ranked-ballot methods,and Approval
> is not a ranked-ballot method. 

According to Woodall, Approval fails Later-no-harm.

> Other than trying to provide some ammunition for Approval versus IRV propaganda, 
> is there any point to this new version?

On the contrary, I recognize it as a limitation that Approval passes
my definition.  I came up with it because it is simple, and because
it could be reversed to illustrate "earlier-no-harm."

> 
> On a posititive note, Kevin went on:
> "I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
> "earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
> ranked FIRST, (etc...)."
> 
> For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
> then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.
> 
> "Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
> then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A."
> 
> I very much like the substance of this. On Mon.Dec.1,2003, I wrote:
> "I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting AB and the other 
> half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting A=B, and also that it is 
> unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates A and B by all voting either 
> AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared to a faction who support candidates 
> C and D by all voting C=D."
> The part after "and also.." I see as being equivalent to your "earlier-no-harm". I think 
> I would sum up the idea behind your 2 "earlier-no-h..." criteria in a "Decisiveness Fairness
> Standard" which says something like 
> "a faction of voters who all vote a set of candidates over all other candidates should not be 
> advantaged or disadvantaged by voting equal preferences (versus not)".
> Have I been wrong to assume this is connected with Symetric Completion/fractional equal
> preferences?

If you're right, it's not because I thought it was.

Woodall groups SC, LNHarm, and LNHelp together, and that's the main reason
I have to suspect that there's a connection.

I think you're supposing that LNHarm with LNHelp together imply SC.  I
can't find anything to disprove that.  So I suppose ENHarm plus ENHelp
might imply a reversed kind of SC.

The point of "earlier-no-harm" is to remove the incentive to compromise by
upranking everyone to first.  That would remove the possibility of multiple
candidates being majority favorites unless the voters really felt that
way (or they didn't understand the method's features).

SC applied to candidates that the voter tied in first would not be
nearly as repugnant to me as SC applied to candidates that the voter
didn't rank at all.

> Can a method meet Earlier-no-harm/help without complying with SC?

I'm almost positive of that, since methods can meet LNHarm/help without
meeting SC.  I don't see a big difference between the two pairs.

I'll devise a method which meets Earlier-no-harm for the next time I post.
I doubt it will meet Majority, though.


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 28 21:54:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 28 21:54:02 2003
Subject: [EM] LNH, Mono-Add-Top, etc
Message-ID: <Law10-F24nTPFyCcTZ30004485a@hotmail.com>

Someone posted:

"Mono-add-top" is a Woodall criterion which says that adding ballots that 
all give
first-preference to X must not harm X. It is met by IRV and Margins, but not 
by WV.

I reply:

I'm not necessarily denying that, but can you demonstrate that those 
statements are correct?

Aside from that question, there are very many criteria, and all are failed 
by some methods.

It's been shown that all nonprobabilisitic methods can have incentive for 
strategy.

Predictably, different methods often have different strategy. Of those 
innumerable criteria, different methods meet different criteria.

Any criterion can be justified by someone saying "This criterion is 
important". In that way, there are a vast number of important critreria. A 
vast number of essential criteria, and no method meets them all.

When any one type of strategy incentive is looked at, it always looks 
undesirable, and a good-sounding argument can be made against whatever 
method has that strategy incentive. That's why you should keep in mind that 
no nonprobabilistic method is strategy-free. So it's a question of what kind 
of strategy incentive is worse.

No one can establish that one standad is more important than another. So, 
when  asserting the importance of one's favorite standard, one is always 
safe from being contradicted.

Majority rule is a widely accepted standard. The lesser-of-2-evils problem 
is notorious. With only very few exceptions, nearly all single-winner reform 
advocates want to get rid of that problem. The goal of getting rid of the 
lesser-of-2-evils (LO2E) problem therefore is a widely held standard, as is 
majorilty rule.

It's been shown here that wv and, in some ways, Approval too, beats Margins 
and IRV by those 2 very widely-recognized standards.

Say a majority of the voters prefer X to Y. Y is a "greater-evil" whom they 
don't want to win. What must they do in order to keep Y from winning? With 
wv and Approval they'll never have to reverse a preference in order to keep 
Y from winning. Wilth IRV and Margins they'll sometimes have to bury their 
favorite, vote someone over their favorite if they want to keep Y from 
winning.

So methods like IRV and Margins illustrate that a shoddy rank-method is 
worse than not using a rank-method.

I might ask you what good it does to guarantee that voting your favorite in 
first place can't hurt your favorite, when you strategically need to bury 
your favorite.

That criterion, the Weak Defensive Strategy Criterion, is a modest, minimal 
thing that we'd expect of a method that honors majority rule and doesn't 
have the worst form of the lesser-of-2-evils problem.

As I mentioned in an earier message, there are, with Margins and IRV, 
situations (configurations of voters' preferences) in which the only Nash 
equilibria are ones in which some voters vote someone over their favorite in 
order to protect majority rule or to protect the win of a CW. But, with wv 
and Approval, every situation has at least one Nash equilibrium in which no 
one reverses a preference.

That's obviously a sense in which it can be accurately said that wv and 
Approval are sincere methods and that Margins and IRV are not.

By the way, about LNH, I've probably already said this here, but the reason 
why IRV doesn't let you lower preferences hurt your favorite is that IRV 
eliminates your favorite before it lets you help your lower choices. IRV 
saves your favorite from harm from lower preferences by eliminating your 
favorite before letting you help your lower preferences. A sort of electoral 
euthanasia.

Someone said that because IRV doesn't let lower preferences hurt higher 
ones, that means that IRV has no incentive for truncation. That isn't quite 
so. Saying that lower preferences can't hurt higher ones isn't quite the 
same as saying that adding more candidates to your ranking can't worsen the 
outcome for you. As I said before, Professor Steven Brams published an 
example refuting the claim that IRV never rewards truncation.

All four majority defensive strategy criteria measure for the popular 
standards of majority rule and getting rid of the lesser-of-2-evils problem.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From anthony_duff at yahoo.com.au  Mon Dec 29 03:11:02 2003
From: anthony_duff at yahoo.com.au (=?iso-8859-1?q?Anthony=20Duff?=)
Date: Mon Dec 29 03:11:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
In-Reply-To: <20031227204412.74150.qmail@web13810.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20031229111026.8177.qmail@web40707.mail.yahoo.com>

 --- Kevin Venzke <stepjak at yahoo.fr> wrote: 

> 
> Anthony Duff suggested that MinMax meets Later-no-harm.  I don't
> think
> that's correct, though.

I made the suggestion on the basis of:
http://www.mail-archive.com/election-methods-electorama.com at lists.electorama.com/msg00018.html
(Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2003 17:53:42 -0800)

where Markus Schulze wrote"
"In another paper, Woodall proves that no election method can
simultaneously meet later-no-harm, later-no-help, monotonicity,
and mutual majority. Therefore, the fact that Minimax(pairwise
opposition) violates mutual majority in such a drastic manner
can be considered a consequence of the fact that it meets
later-no-harm, later-no-help, and monotonicity."



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New people, new possibilities. FREE for a limited time.


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Mon Dec 29 10:19:09 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Mon Dec 29 10:19:09 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
Message-ID: <3FF06F95.8036802A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Hallo,

suppose N is the number of candidates. Suppose d[i,j]
with i <> j is the number of voters who strictly prefer
candidate i to candidate j. Suppose d[i,j] : = 0 for i = j.
Suppose d[i] : = max { d[i,j] | j = 1,...,N }.

Then Minimax(pairwise opposition) chooses the candidate i
with minimal d[i].

Minimax(pairwise opposition) satisfies later-no-harm because
ranking an additional candidate can only increase but not
decrease d[k] for every not ranked candidate k. However,
my claim that Minimax(pairwise opposition) satisfies
later-no-help was incorrect.

Markus Schulze


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Mon Dec 29 14:08:04 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Mon Dec 29 14:08:04 2003
Subject: [EM] "DOC," A method meeting ENHarm and Majority
Message-ID: <20031229213545.87279.qmail@web13811.mail.yahoo.com>

Here is a method that meets earlier-no-harm and Majority (or at least,
Majority Favorite).  It's called "Descending Opposing Coalitions" or
"DOC" and it's basically the flipped version of DSC.  Like DSC, I
believe it also meets Participation, Clone Independence, and a lot of
Monotonicity.

Every possible set of candidates is given a score equal to the number
of voters who voted that those candidates are strictly the worst of
all the candidates.  They're arranged in descending order of score.
The set of potential winners initially includes all the candidates.
Each set in the list is taken in turn, and all candidates in the set
are deleted from the set of potential winners, unless that would leave
no potential winners, in which case the set is ignored.  Last candidate
left is the winner.

If your ballot was A=B>C>D, changing it to A>B>C>D can only cause set
"BCD" to rise in the list.  All you're doing is making it more likely
that B, C, or D will be eliminated.  So DOC meets ENHarm but not ENHelp.

This meets Majority Favorite because if a majority rank A as their sole
favorite, then the set of all other candidates must be higher on the
list than any set which contains A.  I believe a similar argument can
be made that DOC meets Majority generally.

To my dismay, it seems that earlier-no-harm does not imply Strong FBC.
Consider:

11 C>A
7 A
9 B
10 D>B

C wins this.  (I'm not claiming this is a GOOD method.)  Note that, in
accordance with ENHarm, the D voters can't get anything by voting "D=B."
To make B win, they have to insincerely rank B first.  This is not a
failure of ENHarm, but it is a failure of FBC.

Do methods which satisfy later-no-harm (or earlier-no-harm) necessarily
have order-reversal incentive?


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From donald at mich.com  Mon Dec 29 22:20:13 2003
From: donald at mich.com (Donald Davison)
Date: Mon Dec 29 22:20:13 2003
Subject: [EM] Craig's Folly and Dan's Folly are two peas in a pod:
Message-ID: <v01520d00bc164c9e0470@[64.79.80.35]>

Greetings list members,

I had written:
"Craig is not alone in this lack of understanding of election methods.
On the IRV list, someone asked if IRV could be used to elect two
members to a city council.  Dan, who is an official of the Center for
Voting and Democracy replied and suggested that IRV be run two times.
Once to elect one member and a second time to elect the second member,
bypassing the name of the first winner during the routine of the
second run of IRV."

And Craig replied: "It does sound quite bad."


Donald here:  Hello Craig, good to see that we agree on something.

For the sake of a discussion I am going to give Dan's two seat method the
name of `Dan's Folly'.

It was no accident that I placed Dan's Folly after the text of your method
you call `2 winner 3 candidate IFPP'.  It was put there on purpose for you
and others to realize that the two methods were exactly the same.

Yes Craig, if you are the `Gifted Mathematician' that some love struck
female thinks you are, then you should have seen this to be true.  Maybe
you are also love struck, and being as love is blind, you have the perfect
excuse for not seeing things - you're off the hook.

Anyway, putting your love life aside, I will continue.

The two methods have all parts exactly the same:
    * They both use ranked ballots.
    * They both are two seat election methods.
    * They both elect the first candidate that has more than a quota.
      While IRV does not have an official quota, in this case the
      IRV first winner does win by more than what would be a quota.
    * They both transfer all ballots of the first winner to the next
      preferences.
    * They both elect the next leading candidate after the transfer
      as the second elected member.

The two methods are exactly the same, and being as we agree that one is
`quite bad', it only follows that both are quite bad.  A bad method by any
other name will still be bad.  Craig's Folly and Dan's Folly are two peas
in a pod.

You don't need to be a `Gifted Mathematician' to understand the math of
this logic. "If two methods are equal, then whatever is one of the methods,
the other method is the same."

This is the failure of your Craig's Folly `under a correct rule'.


Donald,




From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Mon Dec 29 22:45:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Mon Dec 29 22:45:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
In-Reply-To: <3FF06F95.8036802A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <20031229204134.87773.qmail@web13803.mail.yahoo.com>

Anthony Duff wrote:
>I made the suggestion on the basis of:
>where Markus Schulze wrote"
>"In another paper, Woodall proves that no election method can
>simultaneously meet later-no-harm, later-no-help, monotonicity,
>and mutual majority. Therefore, the fact that Minimax(pairwise
>opposition) violates mutual majority in such a drastic manner
>can be considered a consequence of the fact that it meets
>later-no-harm, later-no-help, and monotonicity."

I see; I didn't think you might be talking about opposition instead
of defeats.  Sorry.

Seems clear to me now.  Inserting a strict preference among candidates
otherwise ranked last can only hurt the candidates who remain last.

 --- Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de> a ?crit?: 
> Hallo,
> 
> suppose N is the number of candidates. Suppose d[i,j]
> with i <> j is the number of voters who strictly prefer
> candidate i to candidate j. Suppose d[i,j] : = 0 for i = j.
> Suppose d[i] : = max { d[i,j] | j = 1,...,N }.
> 
> Then Minimax(pairwise opposition) chooses the candidate i
> with minimal d[i].

Perhaps I am a flaming idiot, but shouldn't it be
d[i] := max { d[j,i] | j = 1,...,N }
?  You want votes against i, not i's votes against others, don't
you?

> 
> Minimax(pairwise opposition) satisfies later-no-harm because
> ranking an additional candidate can only increase but not
> decrease d[k] for every not ranked candidate k. However,
> my claim that Minimax(pairwise opposition) satisfies
> later-no-help was incorrect.

I can see this now, too.  Worsening someone's score could happen
to make a preferred candidate into the winner.  That is surely why
random filling always makes more sense than truncation.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 30 00:06:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 30 00:06:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Defensive truncation in wv Condorcet
Message-ID: <LAW10-F4556FtZo1P4l00065041@hotmail.com>

Kevin Venzke wrote:

I can see this now, too.  Worsening someone's score could happen
to make a preferred candidate into the winner.  That is surely why
random filling always makes more sense than truncation.

I reply:

Not always. If there's a danger or likelihooid of offensive order-reversal, 
and you want to deter it, then leave out of your ranking the candidate(s) 
whose voters are considering offensive order-reversal. Announce before the 
election that you are doing so and that you ask others to do so.

Mike Ossipoff

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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 30 01:16:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 30 01:16:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
Message-ID: <3FF12E33.7ED6ABCF@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Kevin,

you wrote (29 Dec 2003):
> Shouldn't it be d[i] := max { d[j,i] | j = 1,...,N } ?

Yes. You are right.

Markus Schulze


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Tue Dec 30 13:20:01 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Tue Dec 30 13:20:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Defensive truncation in wv Condorcet
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-F4556FtZo1P4l00065041@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031230211825.15833.qmail@web13803.mail.yahoo.com>

Mike,

My remarks were about MinMax (Pairwise Opposition), which elects the
candidate who minimizes the maximum votes against him in any pairwise
contest (be it victory or defeat).

Admittedly I don't know much about offensive strategy for this method.
Burial seems potentially effective.  But truncation doesn't appear to
be a useful strategy of any kind in "MMPO."

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr

 --- MIKE OSSIPOFF <nkklrp at hotmail.com> a ?crit?: > 
> Kevin Venzke wrote:
> 
> I can see this now, too.  Worsening someone's score could happen
> to make a preferred candidate into the winner.  That is surely why
> random filling always makes more sense than truncation.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Not always. If there's a danger or likelihooid of offensive order-reversal, 
> and you want to deter it, then leave out of your ranking the candidate(s) 
> whose voters are considering offensive order-reversal. Announce before the 
> election that you are doing so and that you ask others to do so.
> 
> Mike Ossipoff


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From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Tue Dec 30 13:48:11 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Tue Dec 30 13:48:11 2003
Subject: [EM] MinMax definition, Tideman properties
In-Reply-To: <3FF12E33.7ED6ABCF@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <20031230214751.71965.qmail@web13806.mail.yahoo.com>

Markus,

In Woodall's "Properties of single-winner preferential election rules II,"
bottom of page 11, the last paragraph reads:

"MinAGS (Minimum Augmented Gross Score) is also well-known as the minimax
method, abbreviated MM in [Monotonicity of single-seat preferential election
rules].  It elects the candidate X with the largest minimum augmented
gross score minags(X), which is the same as the candidate with the largest
minimum net score minns(X)."

The "augmented gross score" of A over B should be the number of voters
ranking A>B plus half the number of votes not distinguishing the two.

Despite the name "minimax," this definition looks for the maximum minimum.
This has confused me for some time.  Does the definition look right to
you?

Also, do you have an opinion as to whether Woodall is aware of Tideman(WV)?
He defines TidAGS and TidGS which to me appear to be Margins and All-Votes
respectively (page 14).  TidGS is supposed to have equivalent properties to
"D min GS," which is charted (page 17) as failing Condorcet.

Thanks for any help.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 30 18:43:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 30 18:43:02 2003
Subject: [EM] MinMax definition, Tideman properties
Message-ID: <3FF2373F.DB4E431B@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Kevin,

Woodall uses the following terminology:

   v is the number of voters.

   g(x,y) is the number of voters who strictly prefer
   candidate x to candidate y.

   n (x,y) := g(x,y) - g(y,x).
   g1(x,y) := 0.5 * [v + n(x,y)].
   g2(x,y) := v - g(y,x).

   mings(x)   := min { g (x,y) : y e C \ {x} }.
   minags(x)  := min { g1(x,y) : y e C \ {x} }.
   mindags(x) := min { g2(x,y) : y e C \ {x} }.
   minns(x)   := min { n (x,y) : y e C \ {x} } = 0.5 * [v + minags(x)].

   MinAGS (Minimum Augmented Gross Score) is also well known as the
   minimax method. It elects the candidate x with the largest minimum
   augmented gross score minags(x), which is the same as the candidate
   with the largest minimum net score minns(x).
   MinDAGS (Minimum Doubly Augmented Gross Score) elects the candidate
   x with the largest minimum doubly augmented gross score mindags(x).

******

So when we compare Woodall's terminology with the terminology used
in this mailing list then "g1" is "margins" and "g2" is "Minus Pairwise
Opposition". "MinAGS" is "MinMax(Margins)" and "MinDAGS" is
"MinMax(Pairwise Opposition)".

You wrote (30 Dec 2003):
> Despite the name "minimax," this definition looks for the maximum
> minimum. This has confused me for some time.  Does the definition
> look right to you?

When "margins" is being used then it is the same whether you use
the minimum maximum or the maximum minimum.

The reason why Woodall uses the maximum minimum in the definition
of "MinDAGS" is that he defines "mindags(x)" in such a manner that
mindags(x) decreases with increasing pairwise opposition because
of his definition of "g2".

******

You wrote (30 Dec 2003):
> Also, do you have an opinion as to whether Woodall is aware of
> Tideman(WV)? He defines TidAGS and TidGS which to me appear to be
> Margins and All-Votes respectively (page 14).  TidGS is supposed
> to have equivalent properties to "D min GS," which is charted
> (page 17) as failing Condorcet.

There is no need to define Tideman(WV). Already the fact that the
g(x,y) are sorted according to their strengths and that each g(x,y)
is taken in turn until you have a complete ranking of all candidates,
guarantees that those g(i,j) with g(i,j) < g(j,i) will never be
taken into consideration. I don't see yet why TidGS and TidDAGS
fail Condorcet(net) in table 2.

Markus Schulze


From moore3t1 at cox.net  Tue Dec 30 19:05:14 2003
From: moore3t1 at cox.net (Richard Moore)
Date: Tue Dec 30 19:05:14 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #405 - 5 msgs
In-Reply-To: <20031230200142.1136.41484.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
References: <20031230200142.1136.41484.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <3FF23C65.4070404@cox.net>

Donald Davison wrote:
> The two methods [2-pass IRV or "Dan's Folly", and 2-winner 3-candidate IFPP or "Craig's Folly"]
 > have all parts exactly the same:
>     * They both use ranked ballots.
>     * They both are two seat election methods.
>     * They both elect the first candidate that has more than a quota.
>       While IRV does not have an official quota, in this case the
>       IRV first winner does win by more than what would be a quota.
>     * They both transfer all ballots of the first winner to the next
>       preferences.
>     * They both elect the next leading candidate after the transfer
>       as the second elected member.
> 
> The two methods are exactly the same, and being as we agree that one is
> `quite bad', it only follows that both are quite bad.  A bad method by any
> other name will still be bad.  Craig's Folly and Dan's Folly are two peas
> in a pod.

Can anybody spot the flaw in Donald's logic here? In fact all of 
Donald's statements are true, but he reached an unsupported conclusion.

This is a subtle non sequitur. In the fourth statement, Donald says 
"They both transfer all ballots of the first winner to the next 
preferences." This is true. However, the "first winner" is not always 
the same in both methods.

Consider the following case:

32: ACB
64: BAC
33: CBA

The first winner in IRV is C. C's first place votes transfer to B. The 
second winner is B.

The first winner in IFPP is B. B's first place votes transfer to A. 
The second winner is A.

> You don't need to be a `Gifted Mathematician' to understand the math of
> this logic.

I guess the irony of this statement is unintentional.

  -- Richard



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 30 23:22:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 30 23:22:02 2003
Subject: [EM] "MinMax" can mean almost anything
Message-ID: <Law10-F34NM0bYagF1H00003637@hotmail.com>

Kevin said:

My remarks were about MinMax (Pairwise Opposition), which elects the
candidate who minimizes the maximum votes against him in any pairwise
contest (be it victory or defeat).

I repy:

I thought you were referring to PC, because some people on this list call PC 
"MinMax".

You see, this is why I've tried to discourage "MinMax" as a name for PC: 
"MinMax" is used with too many different meanings for it to be of any use as 
the name of a count method.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Wed Dec 31 13:10:10 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Wed Dec 31 13:10:10 2003
Subject: [EM] "MinMax" can mean almost anything
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F34NM0bYagF1H00003637@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031231210926.25550.qmail@web13802.mail.yahoo.com>

Mike,

 --- MIKE OSSIPOFF <nkklrp at hotmail.com> a ?crit?: > 
> Kevin said:
> 
> My remarks were about MinMax (Pairwise Opposition), which elects the
> candidate who minimizes the maximum votes against him in any pairwise
> contest (be it victory or defeat).
> 
> I repy:
> 
> I thought you were referring to PC, because some people on this list call PC 
> "MinMax".
> 
> You see, this is why I've tried to discourage "MinMax" as a name for PC: 
> "MinMax" is used with too many different meanings for it to be of any use as 
> the name of a count method.

I have in the past used "MMPO" for "MinMax (Pairwise Opposition)."  If it
hasn't caught on, it's probably because I'm the only one who ever advocated it 
(with approval ballots).

I think "MinMax" is a good name for "PC" because it's descriptive.  Perhaps
it could be made more descriptive, though.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Wed Dec 31 13:39:01 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Wed Dec 31 13:39:01 2003
Subject: [EM] MinMax definition, Tideman properties
In-Reply-To: <3FF2373F.DB4E431B@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <20031231213747.29874.qmail@web13803.mail.yahoo.com>

Markus,

Thank you, that was helpful.

 --- Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de> a ?crit?: 
> Dear Kevin,
> 
> Woodall uses the following terminology:
>    g(x,y) is the number of voters who strictly prefer
>    candidate x to candidate y.
> 
>    mings(x)   := min { g (x,y) : y e C \ {x} }.

"mings" seems to be a rather useless figure.  If you clone a candidate
X to get X and Y, such that no voter distinguishes between X and Y,
mings(x) drops suddenly to 0.

> When "margins" is being used then it is the same whether you use
> the minimum maximum or the maximum minimum.
> 
> The reason why Woodall uses the maximum minimum in the definition
> of "MinDAGS" is that he defines "mindags(x)" in such a manner that
> mindags(x) decreases with increasing pairwise opposition because
> of his definition of "g2".

Ok.  I hadn't even attempted to figure out what MinDAGS was.

> There is no need to define Tideman(WV). Already the fact that the
> g(x,y) are sorted according to their strengths and that each g(x,y)
> is taken in turn until you have a complete ranking of all candidates,
> guarantees that those g(i,j) with g(i,j) < g(j,i) will never be
> taken into consideration. I don't see yet why TidGS and TidDAGS
> fail Condorcet(net) in table 2.

Ok.  So WV and All-Votes are equivalent with Tideman, but not Schulze.

I believe Woodall made a mistake.  It's clear that "D min GS" doesn't
meet Condorcet(net).  It is (page 18):

"DminGS is the set-intersection method in which each set X is given its
minimum gross score mings(X), defined by mings(X):=min{g(x,y) : x e X,
y e C \ X}."

Unlike TidGS, losing opposition votes can affect the winner.  So perhaps
Woodall didn't realize this is not the case with TidGS.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu  Mon Dec  1 16:15:30 2003
From: barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu (Steve Barney)
Date: Mon Dec  1 16:15:30 2003
Subject: [EM] "Consequences of Reversing Preferences"
Message-ID: <3FC91D60@webmail.uwosh.edu>

EM-List:

The following article grew out of a discussion of the "Reversal Symmetry 
Criterion," which I engaged in on this list 2 years ago 
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/8272>.


Cheers!,
Steve Barney
Oshkosh, WI

PS: Note the 2nd author (me!).

  _____

Record: 1

Title: 	Consequences of Reversing Preferences.	
Author(s): 	Saari, Donald G. 1 dsarri at math.uci.edu

Barney, Steven 2 barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu 
Source: 	Mathematical Intelligencer; Fall2003, Vol. 25 Issue 4,
p17, 15p	
Document Type: 	Article	
Subject(s): 	RIKER, William

MATHEMATICAL analysis

MATHEMATICS

POLITICAL science

ELECTIONS 
Abstract: 	Reports on mathematical problems faced while declaring
the outcomes of an election. Impact of reversing the election ranking of
candidates on the outcome of an election; Positional methods used by
mathematician William Riker to address problems related to political
science; Mathematical ways to find out the reversed profile of a
candidate.	
Author Affiliation: 	1Department of Mathematics, University of
California Irvine, Irvine CA 92697-3875 USA.

2Department of Mathematics, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI
54901-863, USA.
ISSN: 	03436993	
Accession Number: 	11050766
 	
Persistent Link to this Article:
http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=11050766&db=afh
 	
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href="http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=11050766&db=afh">Consequence
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From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Mon Dec  1 17:42:28 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Mon Dec  1 17:42:28 2003
Subject: [EM] Weak FBC  and  equal-ranking-allowed  IRV
Message-ID: <3FCC02C9.1080903@bigpond.com>

  Dave,
A while back you were having a discussion with  Kevin Venzke (and 
 Donald) about how, if allowed,
equal-ranking  in IRV should be handled. Your most recent contribution:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-October/011085.html
On Mon.Oct.20, 2003  I  posted something pointing out that  whole-votes 
 equal-ranking-allowed IRV
doesn't really comply with weak FBC, but I finished with the sentence:

"I agree that the whole votes version is better because it does greatly
ameliorate the "favourite betrayal" problem."

I have changed my mind, and now agree with you that the split-votes version
is better. I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting
AB and the other half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting
A=B, and also that it is unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates
A and B by all voting either AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared
to a faction who support candidates C and D by all voting C=D.
Off-list, someone told me:
"Incidentally, Woodall calls "Symmetric-Completion" the ability to treat equal
equal rankings (or at least truncation) as equivalent to an equal mixture of every
possible strict ordering.  He speaks of methods passing or failing this standard..."
I like it.
 Whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed IRV is far too Approval-like,and I suggest that
it be called "Preferential Approval". It is not even clear to me that there is a 
better strategy in it than just giving out first preferences to all the candidates
you would approve under Approval.
Inspired by Kevin Venzke's high-resolution ratings ballot "Gradual Information Approval"
idea, I posted plain ranked-ballot "Gradual Information Runoff":
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-September/011003.html
In it I mentioned "equal preferences ok" and "no split votes". I have changed my mind 
about that and now think that if equal preferences (besides truncation) is allowed then
the vote should be split, so that each voter contributes no more than one vote in total
to candidates not marked "not viable". I could live with equal prefernces (except for
truncation) simply not being allowed. Compared to IRV, GIR trades in a little bit of
later-no-harm for a little bit of Condorcet compliance. With 3 candidates, it is 
equivalent to IRV.
I found this in the archives:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/1998-October/002214.html
In it is erroneously claimed that the split-votes version of equal-ranking IRV 
(and also,in effect, the normal equal-ranking not allowed version) fails "GITC"
(Generalised Independence from Twins Criterion), and has a "rich party" problem.
Elsewhere this fellow says that a "twin" is the same thing as a "clone", and gives 
this definition:
"clones 

A set of alternatives, X[1], X[2], .. X[m] is a clone set provided that for


every alternative Z, where Z is not one of X[1], .. X[m], the following is
true: 

Every ballot that ranks Z higher than one of X[1] .. X[m] ranks Z higher than
all of them.  Every ballot that ranks Z lower than one of them, ranks Z lower
than all of them.  No ballot ranks Z equal to any of them. 

As well, there must be at least one alternative outside the set of clones,
and at least two alternatives in the set of clones."

So therefore GTIC must be the same as Clone Independence, or as he puts it, this:

"Name:  Independence of Clones Criterion: ICC 

  Definition:  

  If there are alternatives X1, X2 ... Xn that are a 
 clone set <http://condorcet.org/emr/defn.shtml#clones>, and if one of these clones is 
 eliminated <http://condorcet.org/emr/defn.shtml#eliminate> from every ballot, then, if the winner for the old ballots 
was in the clone set, the winner for the new ballots must also be in the clone
set.  If an alternative outside the clone set won for the old ballots, the
same alternative must win for the new ballots."

Part of his post goes:
"2.  Give each of the alternatives an equal fraction of the vote.
So, for example, once A=B=C reaches the top of the ballot (through
elimination), each of A, B, and C will get 1/3 of a vote.  Once one
of them is eliminated, the each get 1/2.  And finally when two are
eliminated, 1.

This doesn't appear to have the problem I mentioned above, but it does
fail GITC.
Candidates are A and B, which are not twins, X and Y, which are. 

42 A B X Y
30 B X Y A
27 X=Y=B A
32 X Y B A
31 Y X B A"

X wins, but if Y is not there B wins. And so he concludes:
"So, having a twin caused X to win.  This is called the rich party problem 
because it means that parties that can afford to run more candidates will 
have an unfair advantage."

The big flaw in this argument is that the clone set is BXY.

 He continues:
"3. Just don't allow equal rankings, except by leaving candidates unranked.
This is the most obvious solution.  It is possible that the electorate
wouldn't understand, and use, equal rankings anyway.  And it passes
GITC.

Unfortunately, it passes GITC for the same kind of technical reasons
that make plurality pass GITC.  That is, because voters are forced
to distinguish between candidates randomly, even if they have no
preference, they will break up what based on their true preferences,
are twins.  However, the rich party problem remains."

Here I think that he is improperly classifying Plurality as not a ranked-ballot
method.

Chris Benham 










 





From dglaude at gmx.net  Mon Dec  1 19:43:27 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Mon Dec  1 19:43:27 2003
Subject: [EM] NI: making sense of the maths
Message-ID: <3FCBBEBE.6020209@gmx.net>

Please notice that I don't have a clue on the various advanced voting 
methods. ;-)

But I found this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/3243636.stm

As the count is underway BBC Parliament considers the electoral system 
for the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 determined that elections to the 108 
seat assembly should be by the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system.

This form of proportional representation (PR) was deemed most suitable 
for reflecting the voting preferences of diverse constituencies choosing 
from a variety of parties.

David GLAUDE






From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Mon Dec  1 22:52:01 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Mon Dec  1 22:52:01 2003
Subject: [EM] [Fwd: Weak FBC  and  equal-ranking-allowed  IRV]
Message-ID: <3FCCDFDE.3010800@bigpond.com>



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Weak FBC and equal-ranking-allowed IRV
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 13:41:05 +1030
From: Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com>
To: davek at clarityconnect.com, 
election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com



Dave,
A while back you were having a discussion with  Kevin Venzke (and Donald) about how,
if allowed,equal-ranking  in IRV should be handled. Your most recent contribution:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-October/011085.html
On Mon.Oct.20, 2003  I  posted something pointing out that  whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed 
IRV doesn't really comply with weak FBC, but I finished with the sentence:

"I agree that the whole votes version is better because it does greatly
ameliorate the "favourite betrayal" problem."

I have changed my mind, and now agree with you that the split-votes version is better. 
I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting AB and the other 
half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting A=B, and also that it is 
unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates A and B by all voting either 
AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared to a faction who support candidates 
C and D by all voting C=D.
Off-list, someone told me:
"Incidentally, Woodall calls "Symmetric-Completion" the ability to treat equal
equal rankings (or at least truncation) as equivalent to an equal mixture of every
possible strict ordering.  He speaks of methods passing or failing this standard..."
I like it.
 Whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed IRV is far too Approval-like,and I suggest that
it be called "Preferential Approval". It is not even clear to me that there is a 
better strategy in it than just giving out first preferences to all the candidates
you would approve under Approval.
Inspired by Kevin Venzke's high-resolution ratings ballot "Gradual Information Approval"
idea, I posted plain ranked-ballot "Gradual Information Runoff":
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-September/011003.html
In it I mentioned "equal preferences ok" and "no split votes". I have changed my mind 
about that and now think that if equal preferences (besides truncation) is allowed then
the vote should be split, so that each voter contributes no more than one vote in total
to candidates not marked "not viable". I could live with equal prefernces (except for
truncation) simply not being allowed. Compared to IRV, GIR trades in a little bit of
later-no-harm for a little bit of Condorcet compliance. With 3 candidates, it is 
equivalent to IRV.
I found this in the archives:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/1998-October/002214.html
In it is erroneously claimed that the split-votes version of equal-ranking IRV 
(and also,in effect, the normal equal-ranking not allowed version) fails "GITC"
(Generalised Independence from Twins Criterion), and has a "rich party" problem.
Elsewhere this fellow says that a "twin" is the same thing as a "clone", and gives 
this definition:
"clones 

A set of alternatives, X[1], X[2], .. X[m] is a clone set provided that for


every alternative Z, where Z is not one of X[1], .. X[m], the following is
true: 

Every ballot that ranks Z higher than one of X[1] .. X[m] ranks Z higher than
all of them.  Every ballot that ranks Z lower than one of them, ranks Z lower
than all of them.  No ballot ranks Z equal to any of them. 

As well, there must be at least one alternative outside the set of clones,
and at least two alternatives in the set of clones."

So therefore GTIC must be the same as Clone Independence, or as he puts it, this:

"Name:  Independence of Clones Criterion: ICC 

  Definition:  

  If there are alternatives X1, X2 ... Xn that are a 
 clone set , and if one of these clones is 
 eliminated  from every ballot, then, if the winner for the old ballots 
was in the clone set, the winner for the new ballots must also be in the clone
set.  If an alternative outside the clone set won for the old ballots, the
same alternative must win for the new ballots."

Part of his post goes:
"2.  Give each of the alternatives an equal fraction of the vote.
So, for example, once A=B=C reaches the top of the ballot (through
elimination), each of A, B, and C will get 1/3 of a vote.  Once one
of them is eliminated, the each get 1/2.  And finally when two are
eliminated, 1.

This doesn't appear to have the problem I mentioned above, but it does
fail GITC.
Candidates are A and B, which are not twins, X and Y, which are. 

42 A B X Y
30 B X Y A
27 X=Y=B A
32 X Y B A
31 Y X B A"

X wins, but if Y is not there B wins. And so he concludes:
"So, having a twin caused X to win.  This is called the rich party problem 
because it means that parties that can afford to run more candidates will 
have an unfair advantage."

The big flaw in this argument is that the clone set is BXY.

 He continues:
"3. Just don't allow equal rankings, except by leaving candidates unranked.
This is the most obvious solution.  It is possible that the electorate
wouldn't understand, and use, equal rankings anyway.  And it passes
GITC.

Unfortunately, it passes GITC for the same kind of technical reasons
that make plurality pass GITC.  That is, because voters are forced
to distinguish between candidates randomly, even if they have no
preference, they will break up what based on their true preferences,
are twins.  However, the rich party problem remains."

Here I think that he is improperly classifying Plurality as not a ranked-ballot
method.

Chris Benham 










 




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From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Mon Dec  1 23:16:02 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Mon Dec  1 23:16:02 2003
Subject: [EM]  Re: Weak FBC  and  equal-ranking-allowed  IRV
Message-ID: <3FCCE509.2040901@bigpond.com>



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [EM] Weak FBC and equal-ranking-allowed IRV
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2003 05:37:20 +1030
From: Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com>
To: election-methods-electorama.com-request at electorama.com





-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Fwd: Weak FBC and equal-ranking-allowed IRV]
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2003 05:24:22 +1030
From: Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com>
To: election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com





-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Weak FBC and equal-ranking-allowed IRV
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 13:41:05 +1030
From: Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com>
To: davek at clarityconnect.com, 
election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com



Dave,
A while back you were having a discussion with  Kevin Venzke (and Donald) about how,
if allowed,equal-ranking  in IRV should be handled. Your most recent contribution:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-October/011085.html
On Mon.Oct.20, 2003  I  posted something pointing out that  whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed 
IRV doesn't really comply with weak FBC, but I finished with the sentence:

"I agree that the whole votes version is better because it does greatly
ameliorate the "favourite betrayal" problem."

I have changed my mind, and now agree with you that the split-votes version is better. 
I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting AB and the other 
half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting A=B, and also that it is 
unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates A and B by all voting either 
AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared to a faction who support candidates 
C and D by all voting C=D.
Off-list, someone told me:
"Incidentally, Woodall calls "Symmetric-Completion" the ability to treat equal
equal rankings (or at least truncation) as equivalent to an equal mixture of every
possible strict ordering.  He speaks of methods passing or failing this standard..."
I like it.
 Whole-votes equal-ranking-allowed IRV is far too Approval-like,and I suggest that
it be called "Preferential Approval". It is not even clear to me that there is a 
better strategy in it than just giving out first preferences to all the candidates
you would approve under Approval.
Inspired by Kevin Venzke's high-resolution ratings ballot "Gradual Information Approval"
idea, I posted plain ranked-ballot "Gradual Information Runoff":
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-September/011003.html
In it I mentioned "equal preferences ok" and "no split votes". I have changed my mind 
about that and now think that if equal preferences (besides truncation) is allowed then
the vote should be split, so that each voter contributes no more than one vote in total
to candidates not marked "not viable". I could live with equal prefernces (except for
truncation) simply not being allowed. Compared to IRV, GIR trades in a little bit of
later-no-harm for a little bit of Condorcet compliance. With 3 candidates, it is 
equivalent to IRV.
I found this in the archives:
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/1998-October/002214.html
In it is erroneously claimed that the split-votes version of equal-ranking IRV 
(and also,in effect, the normal equal-ranking not allowed version) fails "GITC"
(Generalised Independence from Twins Criterion), and has a "rich party" problem.
Elsewhere this fellow says that a "twin" is the same thing as a "clone", and gives 
this definition:
"clones 

A set of alternatives, X[1], X[2], .. X[m] is a clone set provided that for


every alternative Z, where Z is not one of X[1], .. X[m], the following is
true: 

Every ballot that ranks Z higher than one of X[1] .. X[m] ranks Z higher than
all of them.  Every ballot that ranks Z lower than one of them, ranks Z lower
than all of them.  No ballot ranks Z equal to any of them. 

As well, there must be at least one alternative outside the set of clones,
and at least two alternatives in the set of clones."

So therefore GTIC must be the same as Clone Independence, or as he puts it, this:

"Name:  Independence of Clones Criterion: ICC 

  Definition:  

  If there are alternatives X1, X2 ... Xn that are a 
 clone set , and if one of these clones is 
 eliminated  from every ballot, then, if the winner for the old ballots 
was in the clone set, the winner for the new ballots must also be in the clone
set.  If an alternative outside the clone set won for the old ballots, the
same alternative must win for the new ballots."

Part of his post goes:
"2.  Give each of the alternatives an equal fraction of the vote.
So, for example, once A=B=C reaches the top of the ballot (through
elimination), each of A, B, and C will get 1/3 of a vote.  Once one
of them is eliminated, the each get 1/2.  And finally when two are
eliminated, 1.

This doesn't appear to have the problem I mentioned above, but it does
fail GITC.
Candidates are A and B, which are not twins, X and Y, which are. 

42 A B X Y
30 B X Y A
27 X=Y=B A
32 X Y B A
31 Y X B A"

X wins, but if Y is not there B wins. And so he concludes:
"So, having a twin caused X to win.  This is called the rich party problem 
because it means that parties that can afford to run more candidates will 
have an unfair advantage."

The big flaw in this argument is that the clone set is BXY.

 He continues:
"3. Just don't allow equal rankings, except by leaving candidates unranked.
This is the most obvious solution.  It is possible that the electorate
wouldn't understand, and use, equal rankings anyway.  And it passes
GITC.

Unfortunately, it passes GITC for the same kind of technical reasons
that make plurality pass GITC.  That is, because voters are forced
to distinguish between candidates randomly, even if they have no
preference, they will break up what based on their true preferences,
are twins.  However, the rich party problem remains."

Here I think that he is improperly classifying Plurality as not a ranked-ballot
method.

Chris Benham 










 




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From jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk  Tue Dec  2 01:36:01 2003
From: jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk (James Gilmour)
Date: Tue Dec  2 01:36:01 2003
Subject: [EM] NI: making sense of the maths
In-Reply-To: <3FCBBEBE.6020209@gmx.net>
Message-ID: <000a01c3b8b7$9aab9d50$227d063e@u2amd>

You will find full details of STV-PR on the Electoral Reform Society's website at:
 http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/

The arithmetic is not complex, just tedious.
James



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec  2 06:13:05 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec  2 06:13:05 2003
Subject: [EM] "Consequences of Reversing Preferences"
Message-ID: <3FCC9D94.DE2C234@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Steve,

I have just read your paper:
http://hypatia.ss.uci.edu/imbs/tr/Final1.pdf

I am very disappointed that you mention neither
Tideman's ranked pairs method nor my beatpath
method in your paper. The ordinary reader will
get to the conclusion that all election methods
that satisfy reversal symmetry have some serious
drawbacks.

Markus Schulze


From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Tue Dec  2 15:28:02 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Tue Dec  2 15:28:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Another kind of approval equilibrium
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312021407160.6749-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

I have been considering various kinds of approval equilibria which have
the following common features:

(1) The candidates C1, C2, ... are considered to have respective
probabilities, P1, P2, ... of winning.

(2) Voter rankings or ratings are converted to approval ballots based on
these probabilities.

(3) The resulting approval ballots somehow confirm the prior probabilities
P1, P2, ... .

This kind of equilibrium is stable if it can be obtained by a process of
iteration of these three steps, where the "confirmation" in step three
improves despite round-off and other perturbations.

The hardest part is figuring out how to get winning probabilities out of a
set of approval ballots, since most of the time one candidate will have
greater approval than the others, and that would seem to make the
posterior winning probability for that candidate 100%, which turns out to
be problematic for various reasons that I won't bore you with in this
message.

For a while I was considering making winning probabilities proportional to
the tenth power of the candidates' approvals, so that a candidate with any
approval at all would have some positive chance of winning.

After rejecting that, I considered having winning probabilities
proportional to the number of approval votes above some quota, which could
even be tied to the highest approval: any candidate that gets within 10%
of the highest approval candidate gets a positive chance of winning, for
example.

These methods require a final drawing in which the respective candidates'
probabilities of winning are P1, P2, etc.

Until recently I didn't see anyway of avoiding this drawing, since just
picking the candidate with the highest probability would not be a true
equilibrium solution except in the case of P = 100 percent.

Why not just trust the polls?

Well polls don't really tell us winning probabilities; they just give us
approval counts from samples.

Is there any way to determine winning probabilities from mere approval
counts?

Only if there are no significant correlations among candidate preferences.

What if the polls accurately report the correlations as well, "30% of
those who approved A also approved B, etc?"

That would be better, especially if the polled voters are reporting their
approvals after hearing accurate approval results (including correlations)
from previous polls.

In other words, this is the kind of thing that improves with iteration.

So why not just collect the voters' CR ballots, and simulate the
iteration of polls until an equilibrium is reached (if there is one)?

That is roughly my current idea, but (as they say), "The devil is in the
details."

How does this avoid the drawing at the end?

Instead of "enforcing" the probabilities with a drawing, we just interpret
the non-zero probabilities as saying that in statistically similar
populations of voters, these other candidates have significant chances of
winning.


To Be Continued ...

Forest



From matt at tidalwave.net  Wed Dec  3 18:31:05 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Wed Dec  3 18:31:05 2003
Subject: [EM] Verifiable secure voting using dual half pixel receipts
Message-ID: <20031204022944.35CC5394C@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Thu Dec  4 15:32:10 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Thu Dec  4 15:32:10 2003
Subject: [EM] Another kind of approval equilibrium
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312021407160.6749-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312041335490.29534-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

This is a second installment on this topic.

In the first post on this topic, I finished with a claim that there is a
way to get around the final random drawing step (i.e. the "enforcing" of
the equilibrium probabilities) that was a feature of my previous
equilibrium methods.

The key idea that obviates the necessity of that drawing is the use of an
ensemble of statistically close ballot sets to find the probabilities.

Roughly speaking, suppose that E is a large (and randomly chosen)
collection of ballot sets which are close statistically to some ballot set
S of approval ballots, and suppose that candidate X is the approval winner
in 37 percent of the members of E. Then BEFORE tallying up the ballots of
collection S we could argue that X has about a 37 percent chance of being
the approval winner of ballot set S.

Furthermore, if the members of E are so close to S that it would be
difficult to distinguish them by any pre-election poll, then the 37
percent figure would be more reliable than any pre-election poll estimate.

There are many ways to generate a suitable ensemble E from a ballot set S,
but here is a simple method that is probably adequate:

Let N be the number of ballots in the ballot set S.

To get one member of E, randomly draw N ballots from S. Of course this
drawing must be "with replacement" in order to get anything different from
S itself.

To get additional members for E, repeat the procedure (using different
seeds for your random number generator).

At the risk of straining your patience, I wish to point out that if this
simple method of generating E is used, then it isn't really necessary to
generate E after all.  We can consider the ideal case of E consisting of
(one each of) all N^N possible results of such a drawing, and figure the
candidates' winning frequencies analytically from the statistics of the
ballot set S.

If S is a set of approval ballots, then the relevant statistics are the
sample means and covariances of the candidate approvals, a set of
M*(M+1)/2 numbers if there are M candidates.  Furthermore these statistics
are summable over the ballots.

One might object that once we know the approval means for S we know the
winner, so it doesn't make sense to consider the calculated frequencies as
probabilities.

In reply I enjoin you to remember that these statistics are unavailable to
the voters at the time of voting, but if they did have access to these
frequencies through some oracle, their best strategy would be to use them
exactly as they would bonafide probabilities.

Now leaving behind these technical and philosophical details, suppose that
we start with a set of N cardinal ratings (CR) ballots which rate M
candidates.

1. Initialize all winning probabilities P1, P2, ... as 1/M.

While no candidate has 100 percent probability of winning do

2. Use winning probabilities P1, P2, ...  and the "above the mean"
strategy to generate a set S of approval ballots.

3. Use this set S to update winning probabilities P1, P2, ... as per our
discussion above.

Repeat these two steps until the updated probabilities are within some
preset tolerance of the previous estimates.

4. Declare as winner the candidate with the most approval in the ballot
set S, as last updated in step 2 before exiting the loop.


That's my idea in a nutshell. Of course there are many possible
variations, including versions based on ranked ballots.

One variation that doesn't involve iteration would be to use Rob LeGrand's
ballot-by-ballot method one hundred times on the original set of ranked
ballots to get a reasonable estimate of the equilibrium probabilities, and
then use Joe Weinstein's "weighted median" method on ranked ballots for
the final outcome if the same candidate didn't win all one hundred times.


Forest



From robla at robla.net  Fri Dec  5 01:28:02 2003
From: robla at robla.net (Rob Lanphier)
Date: Fri Dec  5 01:28:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Appeal for better weblog polling (Electorama)
Message-ID: <3FCEFDA9.4080609@robla.net>

Hi all,

I'm all giddy because I've received the first external submission to the 
Electorama weblog (http://electorama.com/)

Here's an excerpt:
Crude Polling Hampers Sophisticated Political Discussions 
<http://electorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=54&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0>
wegerje writes: "/Internet based political discussion has become quite 
fashionable these days. The onset of the U.S. political season combined 
with the explosion of weblogs (Blogs) has created vibrant political 
websites. [..] A quick survey of the polls by anyone familiar with 
voting systems will soon reveal a glaring weakness among them, namely 
the acute need for multiple-choice and ranked polls./" Read more for an 
appeal to create better software for weblog polls.

http://electorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=54&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

I'm not sure if the author (Jeff Wegerson) is on this list, but his 
contact info is in the article, and I would presume he'll monitor a 
discussion up on Electorama should one develop.

Rob




From kjinnovation at earthlink.net  Fri Dec  5 02:45:02 2003
From: kjinnovation at earthlink.net (Ken Johnson)
Date: Fri Dec  5 02:45:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #374 - 1 msg
In-Reply-To: <20031204200230.27595.97766.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
References: <20031204200230.27595.97766.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <3FD06162.2090005@earthlink.net>


election-methods-electorama.com-request at electorama.com wrote:

>Message: 1
>From: matt at tidalwave.net
>Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 18:29:44 -0800 (PST)
>To: election-methods at electorama.com
>Subject: [EM] Verifiable secure voting using dual half pixel receipts
>Reply-To: matt at tidalwave.net
>
>Ken Johnson wrote:
>"As I understand it, a ballot receipt contains no information about the 
>voter's identity, which only becomes potentially knowable when the voter 
>presents the receipt for validation/verification. But how would the 
>process verify that only legally registered voters have voted, and that 
>no one voted twice? I don't quite understand the basis of the claim that 
>"...it can lift the requirement that voters must vote from their home 
>precinct ... inter-jurisdiction voting becomes workable ...".
>
>I respond:
>I assume that verifying only registered voters voted and no one voted twice would be done the same way this is currently done and the same ways your proposed method does.  For example, the voting machine would have to be reset by election volunteers after each vote before the next vote can occur.  Voters would have to sign in with an approved ID.  The voter registration data would be cross checked with other data bases. Etc.  Even your suggestion of machine readable stamps placed in  the registration logs immediately after the vote could be implemented to make it easier to verify that the number of votes and ballots match.
>
But are these processes workable without precinct-level voting? I had 
the impression that Chaum was implying this, but maybe his point was 
that the vote counting process (as opposed to voter verification) 
wouldn't be reliant on  precinct-level tallies.

>
>Ken Johnson wrote:
>"I question whether a method with this level of technical sophistication 
>and complexity would be practical or whether voters would trust the 
>"mathematical magic" behind the secure encryption scheme - especially in 
>emerging democracies where most voters may be barely literate, much less 
>computer literate or technologically literate. One particular weakness 
>is the reliance on a small number of "trustees" - holders of the private 
>encryption keys - to ensure voter secrecy. The trustees might have the 
>highest level of professionalism and integrity, but probably not much 
>technical sophistication or understanding of cryptography, so you might 
>find someday that a hacker has gotten hold of the private keys and 
>posted them on the Internet, along with all of the decrypted ballots."
>
>I respond:
>Keeping the secret keys secret is always essential to public/private key encryption.  Like the article says, government and businesses have been relying on this method for years now and so far it has been successful.  As I understand it the number of trustees (and therefore the number of private keys) can be increased or decreased to provide more or less secrecy protection.
>
Good points, but it could be argued that the method has not been very 
successful in societies where corruption is the norm and crooked public 
officials routinely pilfer vast sums of money from government and 
business accounts. The system's integrity ultimatly depends not on the 
encryption algorithm, but on the trustees' personal integrity and their 
susceptibility to being bribed, coerced, or duped into revealing their 
keys.

A more fundamental problem, I think, is one of voter perceptions and 
acceptance. Even if the process is provably secure, voters who don't 
understand the proof probably won't trust the system and won't vote. 
Look at it from the voter's perspective: You're given these two plastic 
sheets stuck together, which clearly show your vote. When you pull them 
apart the information seems to "magically" turn into garble, but you are 
told that (1) the information on your vote is still there on the 
receipt, which can be used to prove that your individual vote is 
correctly included in the final tally, and yet (2) no one can possibly 
find out from your receipt how you voted. Wouldn't the average voter be 
understandably mystified and baffled by this seeming contradiction? One 
thing you don't want an election process to do is mystify and baffle the 
voters.

>
>Ken Johnson wrote:
>"Following is an outline of a comparatively "low-tech" voting process 
>that I think probably accomplishes the same objectives as Chaum's 
>method, while overcoming its weaknesses. (Whether it actually does, I 
>pose as an open question.)"
>
>I respond:
>I disagree. I don't think your method accomplishes the same objectives.  For example, under the half pixel half receipt method it is likely that any attempt to swap a real voted ballot with a fraudulent replacement voted ballot would be detected.  Under your method anyone with access to the voted ballots, the ballot stamp, and the blank ballots could swap real voted ballots with his own fraudulent ballots without any chance of being detected (provided they could swap ballots when no one outside the vote rigging conspiracy who is willing to report the fraud was present as a witness).
>
>Ken then presented the properties and steps for his method of conducting secure elections which I won't repeat here.
>
>
>  
>
In retrospect, I think I agree that we do not accomplish the same 
objectives. The primary objective of Chaum's proposal appears to be to 
enable individual voters to ensure that their ballots are correctly 
included in the final tally, whereas my focus is more on verifying that 
the final tally is correct. For the latter objective, it is not 
sufficient to be able to prove that any particular valid ballot 
corresponds to a correctly-entered database record; you also have to 
determine (at least within reasonable statistical uncertainty) that 
every database record corresponds to a valid ballot, i.e., there is no 
ballot stuffing or "database stuffing".

I think Chaum's method would be no less susceptible to fraud than my 
proposal, at least in terms of guarding against ballot stuffing and 
excluding illegal votes. In either case, the system is dependent on the 
integrity and compentence of local election officials. However, ballot 
tampering or stuffing would not likely affect the outcome of the 
election unless there is widespread fraud across dozens or hundreds of 
precincts. It is unlikely that such widespread collusion could be 
coordinated or that it would go undetected.

I'm not opposed to using ballot receipts to enable voters to verify that 
their ballots were counted. (People who don't trust the receipts can 
just shred them.) But ballot receipts are not sufficient to validate the 
election tally, and I dont't think it should be the responsibility of 
the voters to validate the tally. My position is that election results 
ought to be independently and provably verified (at least within 
reasonable doubt), as a matter of routine election certification 
processes, by methods that do not require voters to retain and surrender 
their voting receipts.

Ken Johnson






From research at ijs.co.nz  Sat Dec  6 00:16:03 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Sat Dec  6 00:16:03 2003
Subject: [EM] Review of Reversing preference lists paper by Mr Barney, Mr D.
 G. Saari
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031206190419.053edf58@pop.qsi.net.nz>

>[EM] "Consequences of Reversing Preferences" 
>Markus Schulze markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de 
>Tue Dec 2 06:13:05 2003 
>
>Dear Steve,
>
>I have just read your paper:
>http://hypatia.ss.uci.edu/imbs/tr/Final1.pdf
>
>I am very disappointed that you mention neither
>Tideman's ranked pairs method nor my beatpath
>method in your paper. The ordinary reader will
>get to the conclusion that all election methods
>that satisfy reversal symmetry have some serious
>drawbacks.
>
>Markus Schulze

The paper is jointly authored by Mr D G Saari (who quit preferential
voting, it was said) and one Mr Steve Barney. I recall he was at this
list and I wrote adversely and no response occured. The PDF creating
program can be handy for those special where every reader would
assume that the statements are too valueless to be fit for a write-up.

Perhaps Mr Saari has not properly read the co-authored paper yet.
I suppose that much of the text with the triangle diagrams is
Mr Saari's.

Mr Riker, who suggested that methods should be monotonic, gets a
very minor mention:

| Among the widely used election methods are what William Riker [1982]
| calls positional methods. Riker, who was a pioneer in using
| mathematics to address problems from political science, coined the
| word ?positional?

Two other persons can be identified as participating in the
production of the PDF document, since page 1 says:

| Our thanks to Hannu Nurmi, Tom Ratliff, and two referees for their
| comments on an earlier version.


Now there is 4 names to bear in mind rather than two, and this paper
gets through the final checks.

Here is some text that is seemingly false for using only 2
significant digits when truthfulness would require nothing less than
an infinite number of significant digits.

| Theorem 7.
|
| For three candidates,the following probability statements hold for
| any probability distribution of voter profiles where, as the number
| of voters grows, the distribution is asymptotically independent with
| a common variance, and the mean has an equal number of voters of
| each type.
| 
| 1. A necessary and sufficient condition for a profile's of outcomes
| of all positional method outcomes to be reversed when the profile is
| reversed is for p's plurality and antiplurality outcomes to agree.
| The likelihood of such a behavior is 0.31.
|
| 2. A necessary and sufficient condition for a reversal effect to
| occur for the plurality outcome is that a profile's antiplurality
| outcome reverses the plurality outcome. This behavior occurs with
| probability 0.06.
|
| 3. A necessary and sufficient condition for a plurality (or
| antiplurality) top-reversal, or a two-winner reversal effect is for
| the profile to allow five different election rankings as the
| positional methods change (and the plurality outcome to be a strict
| ranking). This occurs with probability 0.19

When the text says that the likelihood of the behaviour is 0.31, we
know that the statement has got to be perfectly untrue since the
author is either covering up the use of a computer or else has
converted an infinite number of significant digits down to two.

Also the method that was tested on the computer (if any) is not
described in the section claiming to be a theorem. I would not say
that 'Theorem 7' is actually a theorem.

Actually there is no proof for that theorem. Surely Mr Saari and
reviewers Hannu Nurmi and Tom Ratliff saw that. Maybe the reviewers
can give advice but it might get disregarded.

Anyway, parts of the documents are apparently untrue.
When I look at the text I sense that it is fluid goo of falsehoods.
I do hope that Steve Barney will let us know who wrote it.

I am not aware of why probabilities were being computed. This is
not a review based on a proper reading of the document, not that
any is appropriate.


----

Mr Saari has thinking aberration that results in lengthy articles.

How is a preference beyond the 10,000-th going to affect the
winner ?. To brin the bottom preferences up to the top is no
hardly likely to be more important that some study of randomizing
preferences but not the top 1000.

Despite being 19 pages long its last lines contain a question and
speculation:

| But as s -> 1/2, a procedure becomes less susceptible to the
| Reversal components. Is there a connection? Probably, but it has not
| been established.

"Reversal components" is some idea that is best ignored.

The author(s) have the same worthless idea at the start of the paper:

| ... he [the chairperson] expected the voters to vote in the opposite
| way.As such,when tallying the ballots, he treated a first and last
| listed candidate, respectively, as the voter's last and first choice.1
|  Imagine the outcry if after retallying the ballots the chair reported
| that the election ranking remained unchanged; ...

There author wrote "Imagine the outcry" but at the start and at the end,
completely fails to say of the rule should be completely ignored. The
author is using the salesman trick of saying that others would agree.
The author seems to be unaware that good methods are not threatened
by fail results when tested with wrong rules.

The public is not so strung-out as to think that
  *  when some winners are known, and when
  *  preference lists that contain over 60 million named candidates
     are written back to front,
  *  and also when there is only 7 ballots (stored on an IDE hard disk of
     co-author Barney);
then there is an important relationship between who wins the first and
who wins the 2nd. I.e. the public would not believe that.

Maybe Steve Barney could post in the rule since the long paper failed
to focus on its central topic.

If the idea is worthless for over 99.9999983% of all elections, then
why would anybody spend time on producing diagrams in triangles ?.

Readers can briefly consider what reversing preferences in large
elections, and then be very confident that there is not any good
rule there in that topic, at all. The disappoints since it fails
to arrive at the wholly obvious conclusion, which is that there is
no political polytope testing rule based on reversing preferences.

It looked like Dr Saari was the last mathematician in USA that had
some special interest in preferential voting. If the paper is
published then it unquestionably will be seen that Dr Saari can't
identify the mistake of years earlier, where it was suggested
that reversing preferences was worth mentioning to some online
journalists. That could leave USA with 0 top experts.
The well known duality principle is presumably what Dr Saari would
have written on had the article been more politically useful.
I.e. that requirement that the same method results when winners
are swapped with losers, and the votes are negated.

I have read some of Mr Steve Barney's writings at the Election Methods
List, and in the past he didn't write back to me, and did run low
accuracy computer simulations using random numbers that tested minor
methods with totally worthless rules. That is precisely what a lot of
the PDF article was doing.

In the more political arena of STV variants, it can be assumed that
they don't mind if a perfectly unfair, unjust, or anti-political
method is failing the STV method.

The paper has diagrams in it too, and that is abnormal. In the
preferential voting, and the article is not really simple, the
dimension is high diagrams are replaced with algebra. The author of
of a competent article is more likely to spend time writing
new symbolic algebra software that can simplify polytope expressions.

The paper is not just exploring a wretched obviously wrong rule,
and then permitting only 3 candidates, but it seems to prohibit the
9 papers lacking a 3rd preference. Or at least, what else could this
mean?:

| Skepticism might be the kindest reaction to greet an announcement
| that the election ranking for a profile -- a listing which specifies
| the number of voters whose preferences are given by each (complete,
| transitive) ranking of the candidates is the same for the profile
| where each voter's preference ordering is reversed.

I suppose the word transitive applies to the symbols on the paper.
E.g., for this ballot paper "A B C",
it can be said that A is to the left of B, and B is to the left of C.

It is quite bad: 20 pages that fails to come to any conclusion about
a rule that is obviously worthless, and without good explanation
two more restrictions are piled onto that:
 * there is only 1 winner
 * and apparently all 3 preferences need to be written.

The authors of the papers are perhaps under the pairwise tradition
of tolerating corruptness in their method and vote-negating with
secret diversions of votes to the wrong candidates. The text of the
PDF file does not contain the words 'monotonic' and 'monotonicity'.

The paper uses Dr Saari's rotated-Aries symbol to indicate some
relation. That idea seems to have no place fair multiwinner
preferential voting theory.

The article does not contain the word "fair". I can't recall a
moment ever when an interest in being fair to others coexisted
with an interest in pairwise comparing.


Dr Saari should not have made the mistake about back-to-front
preferences in the first place. I could have used much text to
persuade Dr Saari but he is uncontactable as if beyond the reach
of telephone lines.

It was never the case that pairwise comparing is worth a tin of
fish to the designer of STV-like high quality preferential voting
methods that would be used in government elections.

Donald Saari should re-read the introduction since it is pathetic:

|  Imagine the outcry if after retallying the ballots the chair reported
| that the election ranking remained unchanged; ...

That looks like an argument that the CVD would use: "start to
proper influences from the clues that other mainlanders are now
plainly signalling to us". I guess that Steve Barney wrote
that. That is the same Steve that made one decision to not
reply to me. The expert in using wrong tests and coming in with
[printouts] lists of numbers.

Readers will expect a high probability of no outcry at all when
informed that a wretched wrong rule from a world of people who
make mistakes that members of the public can't themselves make,
fails some preferential voting method. A key detail is that the
rule fails the method that that public desires above all other
methods, a fairest method. Where are the error bounds?.

Looking at the wording more closely, it is in the Soc Choice
style, for the text "Imagine the outcry" is permitting no
outcry whatsoever.

The big issue here is that Donald Saari made a complete mistake
at the time of the last foray into back-to-front preference lists,
and if the silence is snapped with the publication of the paper
of Don and Steve, then it takes United States top expert, perhaps,
maybe 4 years or more to figure out errors that takes me seconds
to identify.

I see the reversal ideas dying when a very large number of
preferences, and possibly Mr Saari and Barney wave still time
until the final version of their paper is out, and then the new
issue of the number of candidates being restricted to only 3
has appeareed.

Many of us are not able to drop to the depths of irrationality
that seems to accompany a belief in transitivity of something
or other that is not a symbol on a list. For that idea,
Mr Donald G Saari uses the rotated Aries symbol.  Every paper
containing that symbol is set against the humana right of
equal suffrage, i.e. rules restricting the changes in winners
when papers are changed infinitesimally.
Reversing preferences has to be done infinitesimally or else on
that finding alone, the paper can discarded (easily without
being unfair too).

I got a comment from Mr Thomas Cool who said that Donald Saari
did not reply to him. Mr Saari's last response to this list
was troubling for it said he was just going to complete investigating
the topic of some super-linear (completely un-political) 3 candidate
methods. I am not sure about the 3 candidate part.
It could have been better if Donald Saari had of considered
methods good enough to actually use. So long as results are
plotted, thoroughness is fairly useless since the way of
presenting results becomes unusable as the problems get larger.

Dear Steve: which people needed that paper ?. Just the critics?,
or were you writing for a wider audience?.

Here ends the review of the two men who could mention the name
"Riker", and the idea of Mr Saari's trnsitivity, but who had no
space for the "fair" and "monotonic". A wrong rule can get
get into a disagreement with, at worst, all correct rules.

I can list the correct axioms in private.

I see that Mr Marcus Schulze got his comments very badly
designed. Mr Schulze wrote as if he failed to detect the worthlessness
of the paper of Mr Donald Saari and Mr Steve Barney.

I guess it is fixable for that was not a final release, but in
the Condorcet fanatic's world, things are basically not improving
all of the time.











Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>    Auckland, New Zealand
Freedom of Information America: http://listserv.syr.edu/archives/foi-l.html
Ontario Ombudsman's 1996 Fairness checklist:
    http://www.ijs.co.nz/fairness-standards.htm
Politicians-and-Polytopes, Single-Transferable-Vote, @yahoogroups.com




From matt at tidalwave.net  Sat Dec  6 12:43:01 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Sat Dec  6 12:43:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #374 - 1 msg
Message-ID: <20031206204209.8E30A726A@sitemail.everyone.net>

An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20031206/79aa4537/attachment-0003.asc>

From dglaude at gmx.net  Sat Dec  6 12:49:01 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Sat Dec  6 12:49:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Fwd: [E-voting] STV and e-voting incompatible
References: <3FD23952.6304CE14@polarbears.com>
Message-ID: <31022.1070743689@www48.gmx.net>

Hello,
I already suggested on Election-Method mailing-list that advanced voting
system might require computer usage... and that computer assisted voting might
not be "democratic" and secure.

Now someone in Ireland show a good example of why those method might be even
worst if vote are published... (anonymously).

Feel free to comment... I have put the original author in Cc: and you find
the list address on the forwarded message.

I am not sure about the 500 million way of voting...
But I worked a lot with permutation in a steganography project... and with
sufficient number of candidate and choice to make, it is possible that all
voter have a uniquely identifiable vote. ;-)

And since for fairness, the database of vote must be publish for independant
review... I see no option.

David GLAUDE

PS: I have nothing against STV... only against e-voting.

--- Weitergeleitete Nachricht / Forwarded Message ---
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2003 20:17:22 +0000
From: Ciaran Quinn <election at polarbears.com>
To: Irish Citizens for Trustworthy Evoting <e-voting at lists.stdlib.net>
Subject: [E-voting] STV and e-voting incompatible

I have just downloaded the election results for Dublin North and I have
just realised that there is a very simple way of selling one's vote
using e-voting.

There were 12 candidates in Dublin North. I estimate that there must be
almost 500 million possible vote combinations. If I wanted to buy votes
>from a group of voters, I would give them instructions of the sequence
in which they were to vote (eg I would give each voters a list of
numbers such as 3 5 10 2 1 6 9 4 8 11 7 12 showing them how to mark
their ballot paper. Each voter would get a slightly different
combination. When the election is over, all I would have to do is to
check which combinations occurred and pay the relevant voters).

This possibility means that the suggestion that voters would use their
VVAT paper ballot papers as receipts so that they would be paid is
absurd. 
They can already sell their votes using e-voting.

If selling votes is a concern, then e-voting and STV are incompatible.

Ciaran Quinn

_______________________________________________
E-voting mailing list
E-voting at lists.stdlib.net
http://lists.stdlib.net/mailman/listinfo/e-voting


-- 
+++ GMX - die erste Adresse f?r Mail, Message, More +++
Neu: Preissenkung f?r MMS und FreeMMS! http://www.gmx.net




From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Sat Dec  6 16:54:01 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Sat Dec  6 16:54:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Automated CR Strategy
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312041335490.29534-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312061549280.17430-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

The standard use of cardinal ratings (CR) ballots (awarding the win to the
candidate with the highest average rating) encourages strategic voting so
that voters in the know tend to vote exclusively at the extremes.

Is it possible to automate CR strategy well enough to eliminate the
advantage of the strategic voter over the naive voter?

Perhaps not in all cases, but in the case of large public elections, where
there is always an irreducible residue of statistical uncertainty, no
matter how carefully and honestly the polls are conducted, the answer to
this question is undoubtedly, yes!

What I have in mind is this: voters submit CR ballots in the form of
letter grades (A thru F or A thru Z, I don't care at this point), and then
these ballots are sampled statistically in a way that is an improvement on
any possible pre-election poll, but not so perfectly as to remove all
uncertainty.

This statistical information is used to get winning probabilities for the
various candidates.  If this is done correctly, these probabilities will
be more reliable than any that could be calculated from pre-election poll
results.

Each ballot is then transformed into an optimal ballot relative to these
estimated probabilities.

The candidate with the highest average rating on these transformed ballots
is the winner.

The only way a voter could get more reliable probability estimates would
be through some oracle or time machine.

If a voter takes it upon himself to vote at the extremes, these choices
will automatically be preserved by the transformation, since optimal
strategy preserves ratings at the extremes.

In summary, my idea is to take advantage of the pocket of uncertainty
inherent in public or private polls of large numbers of people to
virtually eliminate the advantage of sophisticated voters over naive
voters in the context of cardinal ratings with large numbers of voters.


Forest



From research at ijs.co.nz  Sun Dec  7 03:12:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Sun Dec  7 03:12:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Automated CR Strategy
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312061549280.17430-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.e
 du>
References: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312041335490.29534-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031207224638.050e9e60@pop.qsi.net.nz>


This is only of a draft quality and it only criticises Mr Forest Simmons.

My last message had missing "not"s. I think I have a solution for that
since by a simple argument I concluded that it was a hoax or mistake to
say that logic does not use negative numbers but instead 2 valued integers.
I noted something different: that (Exists Q)(X<Q<Y) does not run
correctly when X<Q means (not X) and Q, and all the 3 variables are
Boolean valued polytopes. I can't show "not" to be a problem while there
Boolean-ness is that, for that is arbitrary.

Has someone got Mr Donald Saari's address. I looked at his papers at
http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/ : it is on an n-body interaction using the
Newtonian gravity laws that emits a particle with at an infinite speed.
Apparently no one can produce any sort of example. The topic didn't
seem important. 

I am trying to send a message to Donald Davison and he has a dead e-mail
box.

========================================================================
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RESEARCH BY FOREST SIMMONS AT THE ELECTION METHODS LIST

Mr Forest Simmons is not providing all axioms and then inferring using
reasoning, a polytope expression that computes the winner. We could be
gets tiny bits of the fulls set of axioms needed before progress
can occur. But instead Mr Simmons is content to get the winners
wrong.

I wonder if Forest Simmons would tell us if he thought it was acceptable
to fire-bomb Dresden in World War II, given the plan over there to
produce a hopefully stable world government along inferior lines.

Have you given up Christianity ?. Given that there was so little on
who should win, I hope Alex does not object.

Counts of elections quite typically involve no use of statistics or
probably. A huge fraction of your messages suggest that you are letting
all readers know that probability is a fact. Certainly that appears to
always false.

Your latest thoughts on the why you can see probabilities but never
actually collect any of them, positions yourself to be about believable
as you would be if you wrote on your inferences on a few highway
structures of undetected midget colonies living on the surface of the
moon. You admitted that you had an interest in Christianity.

Don't you wish that after so very many messages to the Election Methods
List, that you actually knew something ?. You seem to be missing the
idea of a region of solutions with solutions separated by perfectly
flat n-dimensional faces. Such allows trivially allows the simultaneous
consideration of an infinity of solutions. The can be no choice when
the axioms are worded to provide a solution only implicitly.

However in addition to not having the probability numbers (as each
year passes) that that are the central substance of your writings, you
also lack principles and the all too common technique of using inference
and reasoning from known facts or definitions.

What your messages lack is *evidence* that you had even thought about
the topic of computing the correct winners given the counts of the
ballot papers. There is no chance that you would get the benefit of the
doubt.





At 2003-12-06 16:53 -0800 Saturday, Forest Simmons wrote:
>The standard use of cardinal ratings (CR) ballots (awarding the win to the
>candidate with the highest average rating) encourages strategic voting so
>that voters in the know tend to vote exclusively at the extremes.
>
>Is it possible to automate CR strategy well enough to eliminate the
>advantage of the strategic voter over the naive voter?
>
>Perhaps not in all cases, but in the case of large public elections, where
>there is always an irreducible residue of statistical uncertainty, no
>matter how carefully and honestly the polls are conducted, the answer to
>this question is undoubtedly, yes!
>
>What I have in mind is this: voters submit CR ballots in the form of
>letter grades (A thru F or A thru Z, I don't care at this point), and then
>these ballots are sampled statistically in a way that is an improvement on
>any possible pre-election poll, but not so perfectly as to remove all
>uncertainty.
>
>This statistical information is used to get winning probabilities for the
>various candidates.  If this is done correctly, these probabilities will
>be more reliable than any that could be calculated from pre-election poll
>results.
>
>Each ballot is then transformed into an optimal ballot relative to these
>estimated probabilities.
>
>The candidate with the highest average rating on these transformed ballots
>is the winner.
>
>The only way a voter could get more reliable probability estimates would
>be through some oracle or time machine.
>
>If a voter takes it upon himself to vote at the extremes, these choices
>will automatically be preserved by the transformation, since optimal
>strategy preserves ratings at the extremes.
>
>In summary, my idea is to take advantage of the pocket of uncertainty

You idea is to guide readers to the view that once they have an election
result, you will not consider the integers of and other information about
the result.



>inherent in public or private polls of large numbers of people to
>virtually eliminate the advantage of sophisticated voters over naive
>voters in the context of cardinal ratings with large numbers of voters.
>


You merely say that there is some problem. It is the same error that
economists could make.

There is no evidence that there is a problem. There is no indication of
a problem once you have said that there is a strategic problem.

If you wrote that monotonicity is sometimes removes som problems, then
the writing would be of a perfectly different character, for you would
be starting to comment inside of the topic of preferential voting.

If you aim is to make others beleive that you thought about voting, then
your style is lackign the full Magnum shooter gunning penetrating power
of pure rationality that C.S.Lewis indicated possible.

If some strategy problem existed then the way to remove it, would be much
 affected by the principles you have.

Instead of principles you tend to have calls for others to reply. That's
curious for possible quite a large number of people could help you. But
let them be efficient and direct you mind to the major central that you
have, which is that of ignoring all the ballot papers (perhaps pieces
of cardboard) that could be tipped out of a box and put on a table
immediately in front of you.

You still have got to get the evidence that the probability thinking is
even slightly true. Where would you start your search?. At the topic of
the heap of cardboard pieces, or at the bottom.

Students ought not ask for help. If you actually put trust in reasoning
then you might see as clearly as others how you can achieve while always
excluding both fact and principle.

A clampdown by you to silence could be the last thing that is hoped for:
it could have you talking about the Approval method.

The Approval method is a special case of a better method. You don't
talk about the better method that permits the method designer to
rule that the number of checkboxes is never equal to the number of
candidates. It is like you were at a hair solon and saw a glossy woman's
fashion magazine and fancied it was the Christian bible, and read that
the new fashion is the catchy word of Mr Brams: "Approval", and not man
alone could prevent the number of checkboxes equalling the number of
candidates.

You seem to write around the idea that there is some space and it
certainly gives no consideration to election results and hence winners
too and thus the idea of correctness and thus the idea that you won't
be ignored each time you write.

But you still have a space and write on probability numbers. Surely
the fuzziness of your universe can be modelled somehow using ellipsoids?.

We are missing out on ellipsoids, but you seem to call them numbers.
It seems that your fantasy of a space that is alternative to the one
permitting the right winners to be found, also is not something you
have seriously considered worthy of the EML list

So far you are not on track for developing ideas that are good enough
for USA's worst slum suburb in whichever city holds that.

While I write this, I imagine that you are holed out and the foremost
person in the EM List who will keep preaching at us and after what
seems to be an excessive number of calls for others to interact, you
might admit to what others have known all along: as a theorist you
full collection of relevant useful principles is missing.

I may be leaving in a few days or weeks and perhaps you would go back
that previous system that ran OK: you dropped out when I showed up.
Mr Schulze and the rest can suffer in silence.

Forest believes what ?. 





Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
Ada 95 programming language mailing lists: http://www.ijs.co.nz/ada_95.htm




From Dgamble997 at aol.com  Sun Dec  7 14:33:05 2003
From: Dgamble997 at aol.com (Dgamble997 at aol.com)
Date: Sun Dec  7 14:33:05 2003
Subject: [EM] Craig Carey's recent posts.
Message-ID: <d4.b6494e.2d050471@aol.com>

Craig,

Have you ever tried being nice to people?

David Gamble
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From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Mon Dec  8 13:50:31 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Mon Dec  8 13:50:31 2003
Subject: [EM] Automated CR Strategy
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20031207224638.050e9e60@pop.qsi.net.nz>
Message-ID: <20031208214723.69994.qmail@web13802.mail.yahoo.com>

Craig,

 --- Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz> a ?crit?: > 
> This is only of a draft quality and it only criticises Mr Forest Simmons.
> 

If you don't think an election method should have elements of randomness,
you could just say that.  It seems unnecessary to accuse Forest of being
deceptive.


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


____________________________________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!? -- Avec Yahoo! soyez au coeur de la r?colte de dons pour le T?l?thon.
http://fr.promotions.yahoo.com/caritatif/


From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Mon Dec  8 16:01:03 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Mon Dec  8 16:01:03 2003
Subject: [EM] Automated CR Strategy
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20031207224638.050e9e60@pop.qsi.net.nz>
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312081525230.7413-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

It seems to me that you are saying (as Kevin has deciphered) that you
don't like randomness in election methods.

But interesting large scale public elections always have uncertainty
associated with them both before and after the counting, no matter the
method.

Most election methods externalize the uncertainties, and their advocates
spend little effort (if any) considering how voters are supposed to cope
with the uncertainties.

Approval also externalizes the uncertainties, but Approval advocates
recognize (per force) that Approval voters must cope with them in order to
maximize their voting power.

I suspect this aspect of Approval voting is what makes you uncomfortable.

Also I notice that you are more comfortable with concrete details than
with abstract generalities.  You would rather see things up close than see
the distant view, if I am not mistaken.

You share this cognitive preference with many others, and that is fine.
But I like to try to establish an over view of the big picture before
diving into the details.

You remind me of a very intelligent student I once had in a multivariate
calculus class who had trouble communicating his solution processes
because of a type of autism that he had been diagnosed with as a child.

He was extremely impatient with general explanations, but give him a
couple of detailed examples, and he was off and running.

I'm not saying that you have autism, but your communications have an eerie
similarity to those of that student.

You may have something much more valuable to say than I do.  I wish you
much success in communicating it.

Forest



From barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu  Mon Dec  8 16:59:06 2003
From: barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu (Steve Barney)
Date: Mon Dec  8 16:59:06 2003
Subject: [EM] FWD: An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!
Message-ID: <3FD294EE@webmail.uwosh.edu>

Here's an interesting piece of histeria about voting machinery. What do you 
think of it?

Steve Barney

>===== Original Message From "Eric A. Smith" <snowdog at juno.ocn.ne.jp> =====
I'm writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightenedI'm 
writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightened.



My name is Eric Smith. I'm a journalist and IT instructor in Tokyo. And after 
three years of study I've come to a terrifying conclusion. As British security 
expert Scott Granneman put it: "the heart of American democracy is at risk."



The import of this threat cannot be overstated -- the issue is very real and 
very grave. The chilling, incontrovertible fact is that America's elections 
are being silently, deliberately and PERMANENTLY compromised. The problem lies 
in the rapid installation of unauditable, unverifiable DRE (Direct Recording 
Electronic) touchscreen voting machines in advance of the 2004 elections.



Just how vulnerable are these machines? Author Bev Harris's diagrammed 
analysis of the "hacking" of a Diebold "Accuvote" machine to reverse an 
election proves it's not just possible -- it's easy:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm#password



These e-voting machines are being quietly installed across the country in 
preparation for the 2004 election, as per the characteristically 
disingenuously-named "Help America Vote Act" President Bush mandated in the 
wake of the 2000 debacle.



Alarming summaries of independent research by Johns Hopkins and Rice 
University, MIT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and even Congress echo 
Harris's concerns:

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030724_evote_research_report.pdf

http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php

http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/crsreport.pdf



The full extent of the threat to our electoral process has been documented in 
Harris's explosive expose, "Black Box Voting", which  can be downloaded free 
of charge here:

http://www.talion.com/blackboxvoting.org.htm



In light of these stunning vulnerabilities, US Representative Rush Holt has 
sponsored "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003" which 
which calls for printed receipts for the 2004 and subsequent elections:

http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996



Unfortunately, Republican support hasn't been forthcoming, and the measure has 
stalled. Because of the stillborn status of Rep. Holt's initiative, the 
outlook for Americans is rapidly worsening to the point of emergency: 
primaries for the 2004 election will begin in two months.



And so, I'm writing to ask -- in fact to BEG -- for your help in seeking an 
immediate moratorium on the use of paperless, unverifiable e-vote machines in 
the 2004 election. The use of paper ballots may be the only interim solution 
to assure a verifiable election: DREs which produce verifiable paper receipts 
are available, but are not currently in widespread use.



An immediate legal injunction to halt the use of non-verifiable DREs in the 
2004 election is a stop-gap emergency measure, perhaps at this late date the 
only way to ensure the integrity of our Democratic process. Over the long 
term, lobbying for the implementation of Congressman Holt's Voter Integrity 
Act will provide a more permanent solution.



Today,  I'm asking you to aggressively and persistentky bring the legal and 
personnel resources of your organization into the effort to save our electoral 
process.  Before it's too late.



Steps you can take right now:



1.        Sign the online e-petitions at EFF and VerifiedVoting.org:

                http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

                http://www.verifiedvoting.org



2.        Bev Harris is in immediate need of attorneys for coordinating legal 
injunctions to stop insecure voting machine use before the 2004 primaries:

                Bevharriscontact at aol.com



3.        Solicit the help of your organization's members in lobbying Congress 
to support Rep. Holt's Voter Integrity Act:

                http://www.visi.com/juan/congress                           
http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996



            Just in from VerifiedVoting.org:

               DECEMBER 2nd - 8th IS HR2239 WEEK!!!

One more week until the Congressional session is over (probably).
One more week this year to make a huge difference.
One more week to call Representatives at 1-800-839-5276 and urge support.
Start today.


4.        Lobby your state's elections boards to require verifiable, secure 
voting machines:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html



5.        Contact your friends, family, associates and the media:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/

http://newslink.org

http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/



Act now - your country needs you. And the time is getting very, very short.



Tomorrow might be just one day too late.



sincerely,

Eric A. Smith

Tokyo, Japan

81-03-3959-5371





RESOURCES

Congress:

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/



State elections boards:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html



State Attorneys General (party affiliations listed):

http://www.naag.org/ag/full_ag_table.php



Rep. Rush Holt:

http://holt.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=holt&type=Contact%20Rush



E-mail campaign links:

http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

http://www.verifiedvoting.org



Alternative e-voting machines:

http://www.accupoll.com/

http://www.aitechnology.com/avantetech/home.html

http://www.vogueelection.com/



Media Contacts:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/

http://newslink.org

http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/



BACKGROUND

Compelling evidence for the gravity of the situation can be found in the 
following "smoking gun" internal emails from Diebold. As you've no doubt 
heard, the company began a desperate attempt at suppressing the distribution 
of these emails on the Internet, in a series of gag lawsuits succesfully 
countered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation last month.



One of these emails  -- from Lana Hires to Global Election Systems (now 
Diebold) -- baldly states how 16 THOUSAND e-votes for Gore were "disappeared" 
during the 2000 Presidential election. Hires frantically asks how she should 
explain this to an auditor:



<I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have 
been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave 
Al Gore a minus 16022 [votes] when it was uploaded. Will someone please 
explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of 
standing here "looking dumb"



Additional excerpts from the Diebold internal emails:



<For a demonstration I suggest you fake it. Progam them both so they look the 
same, and then just do the upload fro [sic] the AV. That is what we did in the 
last AT/AV demo.



<Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its 
contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new.



<Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I 
have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed.



<Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots. 
They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of polls 
on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry for 
Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the media, 
as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or print any 
Election Results before the Polls closed. However, if there is a way that we 
can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even better.



"Diebold - The face of modern ballot tampering"

http://www.bartcop.com/diebold.htm



"If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm



"How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election"

http://www.infernalpress.com/Columns/election.html



"Safeguarding the Vote"

http://www.yesmagazine.org./26courage/pibel.htm



"Electronic Voting Machines Blasted by Scientists, Hacked by Author"

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00198.htm



Last month, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley mandated that 
Californians be provided with a verifiable paper trail in future elections:

http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2003/03_106.pdf



From elloyd at lancaster.lib.pa.us  Thu Dec 11 12:05:41 2003
From: elloyd at lancaster.lib.pa.us (Eron Lloyd)
Date: Thu Dec 11 12:05:41 2003
Subject: [EM] FWD: An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!
In-Reply-To: <3FD294EE@webmail.uwosh.edu>
References: <3FD294EE@webmail.uwosh.edu>
Message-ID: <200312111504.28253.elloyd@lancaster.lib.pa.us>

I think a better phrase for it is valid concern. This issue to me is far more 
critical than just about anything else related to elections. If you haven't 
yet done some homework on this, it deserves it.

Eron

On Monday 08 December 2003 7:59 pm, Steve Barney wrote:
> Here's an interesting piece of histeria about voting machinery. What do you
> think of it?
>
> Steve Barney
>
> >===== Original Message From "Eric A. Smith" <snowdog at juno.ocn.ne.jp> =====
>
> I'm writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightenedI'm
> writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightened.
>
>
>
> My name is Eric Smith. I'm a journalist and IT instructor in Tokyo. And
> after three years of study I've come to a terrifying conclusion. As British
> security expert Scott Granneman put it: "the heart of American democracy is
> at risk."
>
>
>
> The import of this threat cannot be overstated -- the issue is very real
> and very grave. The chilling, incontrovertible fact is that America's
> elections are being silently, deliberately and PERMANENTLY compromised. The
> problem lies in the rapid installation of unauditable, unverifiable DRE
> (Direct Recording Electronic) touchscreen voting machines in advance of the
> 2004 elections.
>
>
>
> Just how vulnerable are these machines? Author Bev Harris's diagrammed
> analysis of the "hacking" of a Diebold "Accuvote" machine to reverse an
> election proves it's not just possible -- it's easy:
>
> http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm#password
>
>
>
> These e-voting machines are being quietly installed across the country in
> preparation for the 2004 election, as per the characteristically
> disingenuously-named "Help America Vote Act" President Bush mandated in the
> wake of the 2000 debacle.
>
>
>
> Alarming summaries of independent research by Johns Hopkins and Rice
> University, MIT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and even Congress echo
> Harris's concerns:
>
> http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030724_evote_research_report.pdf
>
> http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/
>
> http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php
>
> http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/crsreport.pdf
>
>
>
> The full extent of the threat to our electoral process has been documented
> in Harris's explosive expose, "Black Box Voting", which  can be downloaded
> free of charge here:
>
> http://www.talion.com/blackboxvoting.org.htm
>
>
>
> In light of these stunning vulnerabilities, US Representative Rush Holt has
> sponsored "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003"
> which which calls for printed receipts for the 2004 and subsequent
> elections:
>
> http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996
>
>
>
> Unfortunately, Republican support hasn't been forthcoming, and the measure
> has stalled. Because of the stillborn status of Rep. Holt's initiative, the
> outlook for Americans is rapidly worsening to the point of emergency:
> primaries for the 2004 election will begin in two months.
>
>
>
> And so, I'm writing to ask -- in fact to BEG -- for your help in seeking an
> immediate moratorium on the use of paperless, unverifiable e-vote machines
> in the 2004 election. The use of paper ballots may be the only interim
> solution to assure a verifiable election: DREs which produce verifiable
> paper receipts are available, but are not currently in widespread use.
>
>
>
> An immediate legal injunction to halt the use of non-verifiable DREs in the
> 2004 election is a stop-gap emergency measure, perhaps at this late date
> the only way to ensure the integrity of our Democratic process. Over the
> long term, lobbying for the implementation of Congressman Holt's Voter
> Integrity Act will provide a more permanent solution.
>
>
>
> Today,  I'm asking you to aggressively and persistentky bring the legal and
> personnel resources of your organization into the effort to save our
> electoral process.  Before it's too late.
>
>
>
> Steps you can take right now:
>
>
>
> 1.        Sign the online e-petitions at EFF and VerifiedVoting.org:
>
>                 http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821
>
>                 http://www.verifiedvoting.org
>
>
>
> 2.        Bev Harris is in immediate need of attorneys for coordinating
> legal injunctions to stop insecure voting machine use before the 2004
> primaries:
>
>                 Bevharriscontact at aol.com
>
>
>
> 3.        Solicit the help of your organization's members in lobbying
> Congress to support Rep. Holt's Voter Integrity Act:
>
>                 http://www.visi.com/juan/congress
> http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996
>
>
>
>             Just in from VerifiedVoting.org:
>
>                DECEMBER 2nd - 8th IS HR2239 WEEK!!!
>
> One more week until the Congressional session is over (probably).
> One more week this year to make a huge difference.
> One more week to call Representatives at 1-800-839-5276 and urge support.
> Start today.
>
>
> 4.        Lobby your state's elections boards to require verifiable, secure
> voting machines:
>
> http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html
>
>
>
> 5.        Contact your friends, family, associates and the media:
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/
>
> http://newslink.org
>
> http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/
>
>
>
> Act now - your country needs you. And the time is getting very, very short.
>
>
>
> Tomorrow might be just one day too late.
>
>
>
> sincerely,
>
> Eric A. Smith
>
> Tokyo, Japan
>
> 81-03-3959-5371
>
>
>
>
>
> RESOURCES
>
> Congress:
>
> http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
>
>
>
> State elections boards:
>
> http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html
>
>
>
> State Attorneys General (party affiliations listed):
>
> http://www.naag.org/ag/full_ag_table.php
>
>
>
> Rep. Rush Holt:
>
> http://holt.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=holt&type=Contact%20Rush
>
>
>
> E-mail campaign links:
>
> http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821
>
> http://www.verifiedvoting.org
>
>
>
> Alternative e-voting machines:
>
> http://www.accupoll.com/
>
> http://www.aitechnology.com/avantetech/home.html
>
> http://www.vogueelection.com/
>
>
>
> Media Contacts:
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/
>
> http://newslink.org
>
> http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/
>
> http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/
>
>
>
> BACKGROUND
>
> Compelling evidence for the gravity of the situation can be found in the
> following "smoking gun" internal emails from Diebold. As you've no doubt
> heard, the company began a desperate attempt at suppressing the
> distribution of these emails on the Internet, in a series of gag lawsuits
> succesfully countered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation last month.
>
>
>
> One of these emails  -- from Lana Hires to Global Election Systems (now
> Diebold) -- baldly states how 16 THOUSAND e-votes for Gore were
> "disappeared" during the 2000 Presidential election. Hires frantically asks
> how she should explain this to an auditor:
>
>
>
> <I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have
> been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216
> gave Al Gore a minus 16022 [votes] when it was uploaded. Will someone
> please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor
> instead of standing here "looking dumb"
>
>
>
> Additional excerpts from the Diebold internal emails:
>
>
>
> <For a demonstration I suggest you fake it. Progam them both so they look
> the same, and then just do the upload fro [sic] the AV. That is what we did
> in the last AT/AV demo.
>
>
>
> <Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its
> contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new.
>
>
>
> <Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I
> have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed.
>
>
>
> <Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots.
> They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of
> polls on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry
> for Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the
> media, as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or
> print any Election Results before the Polls closed. However, if there is a
> way that we can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even
> better.
>
>
>
> "Diebold - The face of modern ballot tampering"
>
> http://www.bartcop.com/diebold.htm
>
>
>
> "If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"
>
> http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm
>
>
>
> "How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election"
>
> http://www.infernalpress.com/Columns/election.html
>
>
>
> "Safeguarding the Vote"
>
> http://www.yesmagazine.org./26courage/pibel.htm
>
>
>
> "Electronic Voting Machines Blasted by Scientists, Hacked by Author"
>
> http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00198.htm
>
>
>
> Last month, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley mandated that
> Californians be provided with a verifiable paper trail in future elections:
>
> http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2003/03_106.pdf
>
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 14 07:30:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 14 07:30:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Voting Matters, Issue 17
Message-ID: <3FDC8197.625F6EB2@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Hallo,

I have uploaded issue 17 (October 2003) of "Voting Matters" (208 kB):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/issue17.pdf

This issue contains the following papers:

1. Douglas R. Woodall, "QPQ, a quota-preferential STV-like
   election rule," page 1-7,

2. Joe Otten, "Fuller Disclosure than Intended," page 8,

3. Markus Schulze, "A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent
   Single-Winner Election Method," page 9-19,

4. James Gilmour, "Calculation of Transfer Values -- Proposal
   for STV-PR Rules for Local Government Elections in Scotland,"
   page 20-24.

Markus Schulze


From davek at clarityconnect.com  Mon Dec 15 01:55:02 2003
From: davek at clarityconnect.com (Dave Ketchum)
Date: Mon Dec 15 01:55:02 2003
Subject: [EM] An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!]
Message-ID: <3FDD852F.8070600@clarityconnect.com>

"URGENT" is the right adjective!

Those of you in smaller countries need not laugh at US stupidity - what 
makes you think you can force your country to invest in building your own, 
when your country can copy whatever the US has blessed, no matter how 
stupid that may be!

A TRUE voting machine is NOT a complex device, as such things go:
      Inform the voter as to the ballot, and accept the vote.
      Maintain totals to report at end of election.
      Keep a diary of what happens.  This I see as doing on a write-once 
CD.  Copies can be made at end of election so that all who care to can 
verify what was in the machine as a program.
      Use ONLY open source, so that it is possible to verify whether this 
truly is a voting machine.
      Do not be concerned with voter identity, ONLY with quantity.  If a 
voter is allowed to vote twice the quantity will be wrong unless some 
other voter is prevented from voting - and the deprived voter properly 
complains.  Attend to validation of voter identity elsewhere.
      ALL of machine components are OPEN SOURCE, to permit validation.
      Secrecy of what a voter votes SHALL BE ABSOLUTE.
      I care not whether something gets printed, PROVIDED secrecy is 
maintained.

What might I do with a black box?
      Keep records internally, to know truth.
      If counts get big enough, bias them - perhaps 110% of truth for 
friends and 90% of truth for enemies.  I do not get caught unless more 
than 90% of the enemy voters turn up with receipts to demonstrate their 
count was low.

What might I do if I am into paying for good votes and/or punishing bad 
ones, and the pretense at secrecy involved human elements?  Pay those 
humans to tell me what I wish to know.

SUMMARY:  We NEED open source.
      Do not care about printed receipts, EXCEPT not acceptable if they 
destroy secrecy.
      Rep. Holt's effort is not sufficient. 
      Do not care how bad Diebold black boxes may be - NEED defense 
against evil that may be done more carefully.

Of all this the OPEN SOURCE is the critical item that deserves an 
injunction to ban anything else.  Any vendor offering open source has a 
strong incentive toward producing a TRUE voting machine, for they should 
not want to get caught producing anything else.
      Voting machines are a special case for we MUST demand voter secrecy, 
and thus MUST want vendors to WANT to do it right.
      Further, if we frown on vendors copying each other - if we buy only 
open source then all can see whether there is any copying.

BTW - when does secrecy matter?
      It is maintainable and matters when the true counts are near to a 
tie - this is when those into evil get active.
      It is impossible, and does not matter as to winning elections, when 
all, or almost all, vote one way.  It is certain, on nearly so, that Joe 
voted with the majority.  Those into evil care not if they have such a 
strong win, and are losing so catastrophically as not to care about 
details if they fail so badly.

-------- Original Message --------
From: Steve Barney <barnes99 at vaxa.cis.uwosh.edu>
To: election-methods-list <election-methods-electorama.com at electorama.com>
Subject: [EM] FWD: An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!
Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2003 18:59:03 -0600

Here's an interesting piece of histeria about voting machinery. What do you
think of it?

Steve Barney

 >===== Original Message From "Eric A. Smith" <snowdog at juno.ocn.ne.jp> =====
I'm writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightenedI'm
writing today to ask for your help because I'm very, very frightened.



My name is Eric Smith. I'm a journalist and IT instructor in Tokyo. And after
three years of study I've come to a terrifying conclusion. As British 
security
expert Scott Granneman put it: "the heart of American democracy is at risk."



The import of this threat cannot be overstated -- the issue is very real and
very grave. The chilling, incontrovertible fact is that America's elections
are being silently, deliberately and PERMANENTLY compromised. The problem 
lies
in the rapid installation of unauditable, unverifiable DRE (Direct Recording
Electronic) touchscreen voting machines in advance of the 2004 elections.



Just how vulnerable are these machines? Author Bev Harris's diagrammed
analysis of the "hacking" of a Diebold "Accuvote" machine to reverse an
election proves it's not just possible -- it's easy:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm#password



These e-voting machines are being quietly installed across the country in
preparation for the 2004 election, as per the characteristically
disingenuously-named "Help America Vote Act" President Bush mandated in the
wake of the 2000 debacle.



Alarming summaries of independent research by Johns Hopkins and Rice
University, MIT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and even Congress echo
Harris's concerns:

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030724_evote_research_report.pdf

http://www.vote.caltech.edu/Reports/

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php

http://www.epic.org/privacy/voting/crsreport.pdf



The full extent of the threat to our electoral process has been documented in
Harris's explosive expose, "Black Box Voting", which  can be downloaded free
of charge here:

http://www.talion.com/blackboxvoting.org.htm



In light of these stunning vulnerabilities, US Representative Rush Holt has
sponsored "The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003" 
which
which calls for printed receipts for the 2004 and subsequent elections:

http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996



Unfortunately, Republican support hasn't been forthcoming, and the measure 
has
stalled. Because of the stillborn status of Rep. Holt's initiative, the
outlook for Americans is rapidly worsening to the point of emergency:
primaries for the 2004 election will begin in two months.



And so, I'm writing to ask -- in fact to BEG -- for your help in seeking an
immediate moratorium on the use of paperless, unverifiable e-vote machines in
the 2004 election. The use of paper ballots may be the only interim solution
to assure a verifiable election: DREs which produce verifiable paper receipts
are available, but are not currently in widespread use.



An immediate legal injunction to halt the use of non-verifiable DREs in the
2004 election is a stop-gap emergency measure, perhaps at this late date the
only way to ensure the integrity of our Democratic process. Over the long
term, lobbying for the implementation of Congressman Holt's Voter Integrity
Act will provide a more permanent solution.



Today,  I'm asking you to aggressively and persistentky bring the legal and
personnel resources of your organization into the effort to save our 
electoral
process.  Before it's too late.



Steps you can take right now:



1.        Sign the online e-petitions at EFF and VerifiedVoting.org:

                 http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

                 http://www.verifiedvoting.org



2.        Bev Harris is in immediate need of attorneys for coordinating legal
injunctions to stop insecure voting machine use before the 2004 primaries:

                 Bevharriscontact at aol.com



3.        Solicit the help of your organization's members in lobbying 
Congress
to support Rep. Holt's Voter Integrity Act:

                 http://www.visi.com/juan/congress
http://holt.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=5996



             Just in from VerifiedVoting.org:

                DECEMBER 2nd - 8th IS HR2239 WEEK!!!

One more week until the Congressional session is over (probably).
One more week this year to make a huge difference.
One more week to call Representatives at 1-800-839-5276 and urge support.
Start today.


4.        Lobby your state's elections boards to require verifiable, secure
voting machines:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html



5.        Contact your friends, family, associates and the media:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/

http://newslink.org

http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/



Act now - your country needs you. And the time is getting very, very short.



Tomorrow might be just one day too late.



sincerely,

Eric A. Smith

Tokyo, Japan

81-03-3959-5371





RESOURCES

Congress:

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/



State elections boards:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/htdocs/dcforum/DCForumID29/47.html



State Attorneys General (party affiliations listed):

http://www.naag.org/ag/full_ag_table.php



Rep. Rush Holt:

http://holt.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=holt&type=Contact%20Rush



E-mail campaign links:

http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821

http://www.verifiedvoting.org



Alternative e-voting machines:

http://www.accupoll.com/

http://www.aitechnology.com/avantetech/home.html

http://www.vogueelection.com/



Media Contacts:

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/News/

http://newslink.org

http://www.cantufind.com/american_newspapers.htm

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Radio/Formats/Talk_Radio/Stations/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/Cable/

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Television/Networks/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Broadcasting/Information/



BACKGROUND

Compelling evidence for the gravity of the situation can be found in the
following "smoking gun" internal emails from Diebold. As you've no doubt
heard, the company began a desperate attempt at suppressing the distribution
of these emails on the Internet, in a series of gag lawsuits succesfully
countered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation last month.



One of these emails  -- from Lana Hires to Global Election Systems (now
Diebold) -- baldly states how 16 THOUSAND e-votes for Gore were "disappeared"
during the 2000 Presidential election. Hires frantically asks how she should
explain this to an auditor:



<I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have
been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 
gave
Al Gore a minus 16022 [votes] when it was uploaded. Will someone please
explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of
standing here "looking dumb"



Additional excerpts from the Diebold internal emails:



<For a demonstration I suggest you fake it. Progam them both so they look the
same, and then just do the upload fro [sic] the AV. That is what we did in 
the
last AT/AV demo.



<Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its
contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new.



<Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I
have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed.



<Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots.
They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of polls
on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry for
Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the media,
as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or print any
Election Results before the Polls closed. However, if there is a way that we
can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even better.



"Diebold - The face of modern ballot tampering"

http://www.bartcop.com/diebold.htm



"If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines"

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0131-01.htm



"How George W. Bush Won the 2004 Presidential Election"

http://www.infernalpress.com/Columns/election.html



"Safeguarding the Vote"

http://www.yesmagazine.org./26courage/pibel.htm



"Electronic Voting Machines Blasted by Scientists, Hacked by Author"

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00198.htm



Last month, California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley mandated that
Californians be provided with a verifiable paper trail in future elections:

http://www.ss.ca.gov/executive/press_releases/2003/03_106.pdf
-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.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.



From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Mon Dec 15 12:24:03 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Mon Dec 15 12:24:03 2003
Subject: [EM] An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!]
In-Reply-To: <3FDD852F.8070600@clarityconnect.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312151212050.10962-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Dave Ketchum wrote:

>       Further, if we frown on vendors copying each other - if we buy only
> open source then all can see whether there is any copying.
>

What computer scientist would be so stupid that he couldn't figure out how
to write a "For Loop" for adding up a bunch of numbers?

That's the first assignment in computer science 101.

Why would he need to copy somebody else's code?

There is absolutely no excuse for hiding the source code.

It's not like Colonel Sanders' secret recipe of herbs and spices, for
Pete's sake; it's just addition, our common inheritance from Count Dracula
on Sesame Street!

Forest



From dglaude at gmx.net  Mon Dec 15 13:55:42 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Mon Dec 15 13:55:42 2003
Subject: [EM] An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!]
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312151212050.10962-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
References: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312151212050.10962-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>
Message-ID: <3FDE292A.5040301@gmx.net>

Does anybody here believe a vendor will make any effort to write clean, 
standard, bug free, documented code if there is no reward for it, no 
penalty for ugly non-verifiable code and only insider will have a look 
at it?

Open Source, not Free Software (prefered) is the solution:
1) Only expert can read the code... 99.9% of the population must trust 
the other.
2) Durring the election, there is no way to know what software do run in 
the computer.

We have the code of Belgian e-voting system and we are unhappy with it:

http://www.afront.be/lib/vote.html
<<
Casual inspection off the code reveals obvious errors (3),(5) from which 
we deduce scant peer review of the code, if any, has taken place. Nor do 
we see evidence that somebody has tackled the problem of creating 
entropy for the encryption keys (2). Also troubling is the fact that 
keeping the voting anonymous isn't high on the priorities list: global 
and stack variables are not zeroed after their useful lifetime has 
expired (1).

1) You do NOT vote in secret.
2) Generating entropy is a detail left to the compiler, if at all.
3) Using variables outside their defined scope.
4) There's not enough space to write a 64-bit hash to the card, so only 
24 bits get written.
5) another OBVIOUS error that has escaped peer review:
 >>

As computer scientist... the one I like best is
void Generate_Mav_Session ()
{
    randomize();                // initializes random number generator

    for( int i=0; i < DESKEYLEN; i++)
       mavSessionKey [i] = random( 10) + '0'; // '0' to '9' is possible

    mavSessionKey [i] = 0;
}

A real compiler should not accept that...
After the loop, "i" should be undefined.
So saying "mavSessionKey [i] = 0;" should not compile and if it is 
compiled, then the behaviour is undefined and maybe unpredictable.

Will it be DESKEYLEN-1? DESKEYLEN? or DESKEYLEN+1? or it depend on stack 
usage durring interrupt (IRQ).

David GLAUDE

Forest Simmons wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Dave Ketchum wrote:
> 
>>      Further, if we frown on vendors copying each other - if we buy only
>>open source then all can see whether there is any copying.
> 
> What computer scientist would be so stupid that he couldn't figure out how
> to write a "For Loop" for adding up a bunch of numbers?
> 
> That's the first assignment in computer science 101.





From davek at clarityconnect.com  Mon Dec 15 21:21:01 2003
From: davek at clarityconnect.com (Dave Ketchum)
Date: Mon Dec 15 21:21:01 2003
Subject: [EM] An urgent plea for your assistance -- this is NOT spam!]
References: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312151212050.10962-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu> <3FDE292A.5040301@gmx.net>
Message-ID: <3FDE9658.7030301@clarityconnect.com>

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 22:35:38 +0100 David GLAUDE wrote:

> Does anybody here believe a vendor will make any effort to write clean, 
> standard, bug free, documented code if there is no reward for it, no 
> penalty for ugly non-verifiable code and only insider will have a look 
> at it?


Any PROPER contract has rewards for quality and penalties for failure.

"non-verifiable" reads as cause for rejection, though such a phrase may be 
hard to define.

"only insiders" is not acceptable - agreed the general public is neither 
able nor willing.  Some validation should get done by contract, but anyone 
willing should be permitted to inspect to their heart's content.

> 
> Open Source, not Free Software (prefered) is the solution:
> 1) Only expert can read the code... 99.9% of the population must trust 
> the other.


Not quite:
      Given a million population, that gives me 1,000 experts.  Only need 
a few of them working at it.
      The state, knowing of the experts, should test, rather than risking 
getting caught not taking this step.
      The vendors should not want to risk getting caught - and the 
contract should provide punishment:
           A little bit for the expectable unintentional errors.
           REAL punishment for deliberate false content.

As to debating validity of a particular set of tools, I am not prepared, 
nor is this amount of detail important this early.  Some words about 
quality can be useful.

Apparently "Open Source" identifies particular tools - I said "open 
source" to identify a way of proceeding without identifying particular tools.


> 2) Durring the election, there is no way to know what software do run in 
> the computer.


I do not have complete design, but my initial thoughts are:
      A write-ONCE CD is prepared containing program and ballot definition 
for this voting machine - leaving lots of empty space.
      Load machine ready to open polls, including something unique, 
perhaps partly contributed by poll watchers, such that content of this 
machine could not have been predicted ahead of time.
      Official invokes "Open Polls".  This locks machine 
against interference with its task.  It records current memory content on 
the CD, after which polls are open for voting.
      Votes get recorded on the CD at time polls close and perhaps during 
the election if volume requires this.  They are recorded in blocks which 
are constructed in memory with the votes in random order to preserve secrecy.
      Official invokes "Close Polls".  Machine records memory on the CD, 
after which it unlocks.
      Multiple copies of the CD should be made RIGHT NOW, such that those 
who wonder what was in the machine can look for themselves.

> 
> We have the code of Belgian e-voting system and we are unhappy with it:
> 
> http://www.afront.be/lib/vote.html
> <<
> Casual inspection off the code reveals obvious errors (3),(5) from which 
> we deduce scant peer review of the code, if any, has taken place. Nor do 
> we see evidence that somebody has tackled the problem of creating 
> entropy for the encryption keys (2). Also troubling is the fact that 
> keeping the voting anonymous isn't high on the priorities list: global 
> and stack variables are not zeroed after their useful lifetime has 
> expired (1).
> 
> 1) You do NOT vote in secret.
> 2) Generating entropy is a detail left to the compiler, if at all.
> 3) Using variables outside their defined scope.
> 4) There's not enough space to write a 64-bit hash to the card, so only 
> 24 bits get written.
> 5) another OBVIOUS error that has escaped peer review:
>  >>
> 
> As computer scientist... the one I like best is
> void Generate_Mav_Session ()
> {
>    randomize();                // initializes random number generator
> 
>    for( int i=0; i < DESKEYLEN; i++)
>       mavSessionKey [i] = random( 10) + '0'; // '0' to '9' is possible
> 
>    mavSessionKey [i] = 0;
> }

 From this distance I DO NOT KNOW what the language you are using might 
say about this.  If the compiler tolerates something the language forbids, 
THEN it is time to complain.
      Also time to complain about use of a language if THE LANGUAGE too 
permissive as to dangerous coding practices.

randomize catches my eye.  For MANY uses such a routine must produce a 
predictable result, to make tests repeatable.  For the randomizing of 
order of votes that I write of above, the location of the initial vote in 
the block must, itself, be random to preserve voter secrecy.

> 
> A real compiler should not accept that...
> After the loop, "i" should be undefined.
> So saying "mavSessionKey [i] = 0;" should not compile and if it is 
> compiled, then the behaviour is undefined and maybe unpredictable.
> 
> Will it be DESKEYLEN-1? DESKEYLEN? or DESKEYLEN+1? or it depend on stack 
> usage durring interrupt (IRQ).
> 
> David GLAUDE
> 
> Forest Simmons wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 15 Dec 2003, Dave Ketchum wrote:
>>
>>>      Further, if we frown on vendors copying each other - if we buy only
>>> open source then all can see whether there is any copying.
>>
>>
>> What computer scientist would be so stupid that he couldn't figure out how
>> to write a "For Loop" for adding up a bunch of numbers?
>>
>> That's the first assignment in computer science 101.
> 

Who, trying to solve the problem of constructing a voting machine, would 
not realize that, while the task is simple compared to many computer 
tasks, the above thought is not useful.  Among the considerations:
      There are many ways of voting, such a Plurality, Approval, IRV, 
Condorcet, etc.
      Write-ins must be attended to.
      Must check whether voter has completed all of the voting intended.
      Some voters need special services, such as being blind.
      Getting from a list of offices to be voted on, to a ballot that is 
convenient for the voter, without being especially demanding of the 
election official needing to solve the problem, is a NONtrivial task.
-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.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.



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 16 16:22:31 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 16 16:22:31 2003
Subject: [EM] Voting Matters, Issue 17
Message-ID: <3FDFA0F1.FBC51219@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Hallo,

I forward a conversation between Craig Carey and me about
issue 17 of Voting Matters.

**********************************************************

> To: single-transferable-vote at yahoogroups.com
> From: Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
> Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 23:09:23 +1300
> Subject: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
> http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-December/011387.html
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/12838
>
> --->
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
>
> >[EM] Voting Matters, Issue 17
> >Markus Schulze markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de
> >Sun Dec 14 07:30:01 2003
> >
> >...
> >I have uploaded issue 17 (October 2003) of "Voting Matters" (208 kB):
> >http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/issue17.pdf
> >
> >This issue contains the following papers:
> >
> >1. Douglas R. Woodall, "QPQ, a quota-preferential STV-like
> >   election rule," page 1-7,
> >
> >2. Joe Otten, "Fuller Disclosure than Intended," page 8,
> >
> >3. Markus Schulze, "A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent
> >   Single-Winner Election Method," page 9-19,
> >
> >4. James Gilmour, "Calculation of Transfer Values -- Proposal
> >   for STV-PR Rules for Local Government Elections in Scotland,"
> >   page 20-24.
> >
> >Markus Schulze
> _______________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
> Just in case members needed a review here is one
>
>
> (4) ---------------- [from below]
>
> I agree with the with the view of Mr Gilmour that more than 2
> significant digits is needed when computing STV.
>
>  * using only 2 decimal digits is arbitrary. I was assuming
>    that arbitrariness is a way a line of consideration that
>    can lead to rejection of a preferential voting method.
>
>   Possibly a superior idea to
>    * getting the correct leaders elected (i.e. "accuracy")
>   is:
>    * avoiding the arbitrariness that occurs when the winners
>      were wrong but there are other ways to get the winners
>      wrong. So the reasoning was inadequate.
>
>  Once replacing need-for-accuracy with a lack-of=-arbitrariness,
>   then to that can be added this idea:
>    * politicians might be right to reject a preferential voting
>      if it is arbitrary
>
> Minimal arbitrariness can allow the least popular candidate to
> be the winner.  Politicians can't use the word accuracy
> when talking about winners if not knowing who the correct
> winners are. They just won't do the maths of casting
> n-D shadows which is the best possible so not arbitrary.
>
>
>
> (1) ----------------
>
> (a) Mr Otten says that STV papers be kept secret. That article
> fails to be very clear on when. Governments could have their
> statistian produce hard to believe stroies on how it would be
> expensive to anonymize the ballot paper preferences. It could
> cost between 100 and 200 dollars.
>
> (b) Surely before the election the papers are already secret.
> Mr Wichmann missed these unclear parts of the paper:
> (b)(1) before vs after ?: when is secrecy needed ?
> The text of Mr Wichmann at the top suggests that secrecy
> maybe would occur long after the election is finished:
>
>      "The paper of Joe Otten arose from a
>       resolution put to the ERS AGM requesting
>       that the full election data of the
>       preferences specified should be available
>       for STV elections. (Such disclosure was
>       available for the three Irish constituencies
>       for which electronic voting was em-ployed in
>       the June 2002 elections.) The paper explains
>       a potential danger from full disclosure with
>       a proposed resolution."
>
>  * who is the wrong doer that would be thwarted by
>    secrecy over what is on STV ballot papers?.
>
> 
> (c)
> STV allows advantage to be gained by saying how to vote.
> The gain could be huge.
> But offender is the algorithm: it would divert votes from a
> possible winner to a 3rd candidate while simultaneously
> actually keeping the power under control. Elections are one
> process where the prime aim of people is to manipulate the
> results. So what is wrong with a candidate manipulating ?.
> Similarly the targetting of enemies is allowed. Suppose a
> Tory leader tripped and was zoomed in on by TV cameras after
> a Labour backbencher winked and whistled.
>
> Further suppose the Labour MP was not a corrupt person
> and thus not barred to national politics. It he is not
> guilty of corruptly tripping the man up, then it was
> excessively manipulative. But the aim in elections is for
> every voter to be maximally manipulative.
>
> A good reason from withholding information would be to
> stop wrongdoing by an individual. Maybe society gets harmed
> by the manipulation that STV could allow. But perhaps no
> court or judge has restarted an election because it was
> snowing on election day or etc.. A  solution could be to
> have a Green say
>  "You need and now want STV. Wrong results will follow
>   from the use of dumb preferential voting algorithms".
>
>
>
> (2) ----------------
>
> I have not looked at Mr Woodall's method.
>
> It could be tested numerically.
> E.g. this way:
> (1) for both 3 candidates and 4 candidates, it is better
>   in the 2 cases, or worse. Then maybe a 5 candidate
>   test could be put off.
> (2) 5 candidate testing is done and some more strict
>   rules may be needed.  That would involve days of
>   programming and more.
>
> I have already defined the fairness polytope and its
> dual for the 1 winner 4 candidate election. Porta
> can compute dual polytopes. That would be extended
> for 2w4c,1w5c,2w5c,3w5c,4w5c cases, Then hand
> steering of 2 points finds the longest line segment
> that violates a constraint. There may be too many
> papers for manual navigating when 5 candidates and
> 2 winners, for the truncating can only be done after
> the 2nd/last of papers naming both candidates.
> So an optimizer is needed and one that has a chance
> of finding an answer is one that locates the slope
> and position of the Boolean boundary. I assume that
> it still might not be written in 1 year's time. I
> don't know.
>
> The method of D R Woodall uses one by one eliminating
> which I assume is the source of the problems and so
> I don't suspect it would turn out to be a long
> lasting method.
>
> Both numerically and symbolically, a researcher has
> to develop general purpose solving tools that are
> likely to be useful outside of preferential voting.
> The non-linear optimizer is missing.
>
>
> (3) ----------------
>
> Mr Schulze's article.
>
> Before I get to that I quote this text of the editor, Mr Wichmann:
>
>      "It has been decided that the Editor should
>       ensure that the main points of such papers
>       are intelligible to non-mathematical readers
>       by placing an appropriate summary here."
>
> The whole article of Mr Schulze is unbelievable.
>
> A defective spot in Mr Schulze's article is this:
>
>      "4 Implementation
>       ...
>       It cannot be said frequently that the order
>       of the indices in the triple-loop of the
>       Floyd algorithm is not irrelevant."
>
> The principle of having the winner unaffected by the lettering
> might be failed.
>
> E.g. this could happen. (The only change is a reordering
> of ALL the for loops inside of the algorithm):
>
>   Harry (=#1) Winner
>   Horace (=#2) Loser
>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
>
>   Harry (=#2) Loser
>   Horace (=#1) Winner
>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
>
> Mr Schulze's "neutrality" principle prevents the problem (if
> any). The text  "neutral" is absent from the PDF article.
> An error at the top of the algorithm passes into the rest of
> the code and make analysis more complex.
>
> There ought be a program that tests and that writes out numbers.

**********************************************************

> To: single-transferable-vote at yahoogroups.com
> From: Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
> Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 15:40:28 +0100
> Subject: Re: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
> Dear Craig,
>
> you wrote (15 Dec 2003):
>
> > A defective spot in Mr Schulze's article is this:
> >
> >      "4 Implementation
> >       ...
> >       It cannot be said frequently that the order
> >       of the indices in the triple-loop of the
> >       Floyd algorithm is not irrelevant."
> >
> > The principle of having the winner unaffected by the lettering
> > might be failed.
> >
> > E.g. this could happen. (The only change is a reordering
> > of ALL the for loops inside of the algorithm):
> >
> >   Harry (=#1) Winner
> >   Horace (=#2) Loser
> >   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
> >
> >   Harry (=#2) Loser
> >   Horace (=#1) Winner
> >   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
>
> The Floyd algorithm is a shortest-path algorithm. When I said that
> "the order of the indices in the triple-loop of the Floyd algorithm
> is not irrelevant" then I meant that you have to consider the
> possible short cuts in the mentioned order. Otherwise the Floyd
> algorithm does not work (i.e. does not give the correct result).
>
> I wrote:
>
> > for i : = 1 to N do
> > for j : = 1 to N do
> > if ( i <> j ) then
> > for k : = 1 to N do
> > if ( i <> k ) then
> > if ( j <> k ) then
> >    {
> >     s : = min { p[j,i], p[i,k] } ;
> >     if ( p[j,k] < s ) then
> >     p[j,k] : = s ;
> >    }
>
> However, Mike Ossipoff always describes the Floyd algorithm as
> follows:
>
> > for i in range(N)
> > for j in range(N)
> > for k in range(N)
> >    low=min(B[A(i,j)],B[A(j,k)]
> >    if low>B[A(i,k)]
> >    B[A(i,k)]=low
>
> This does not work (i.e. this does not find the correct values
> for the shortest paths).
>
> Markus Schulze

**********************************************************

> To: single-transferable-vote at yahoogroups.com
> From: Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
> Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 15:35:22 +1300
> Subject: Re: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
> At 2003-12-15 15:40 +0100 Monday, Markus Schulze wrote:
> >Dear Craig,
> >
> >you wrote (15 Dec 2003):
> >
> >> A defective spot in Mr Schulze's article is this:
> >>
> >>      "4 Implementation
> >>       ...
> >>       It cannot be said frequently that the order
> >>       of the indices in the triple-loop of the
> >>       Floyd algorithm is not irrelevant."
> >>
>
> That is ambiguous and means: *all* 'for loops', or *some* of them
>
> >> The principle of having the winner unaffected by the lettering
> >> might be failed.
> >>
> >> E.g. this could happen. (The only change is a reordering
> >> of ALL the for loops inside of the algorithm):
> >>
> >>   Harry (=#1) Winner
> >>   Horace (=#2) Loser
> >>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
> >>
> >>   Harry (=#2) Loser
> >>   Horace (=#1) Winner
> >>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
> >
>
> I.e. secret internal relettering (or renaming or renumbering) inside
> of the algorithm affects who the winner is.
>
> You could answer these this question:
>
>   1. Does your method fail the test.
>
>     You could write a Monte-Carlo routine.
>
> It seems the McDougall Trust operation is prepared to leave no
> stone unturned in order to exclude me when decisions to reject
> (all or parts of) submitted articles are made. I don't know if I
> can get things into the journal.
>
>
> >The Floyd algorithm is a shortest-path algorithm. When I said that
> >"the order of the indices in the triple-loop of the Floyd algorithm
> >is not irrelevant" then I meant that you have to consider the
> >possible short cuts in the mentioned order. Otherwise the Floyd
> >algorithm does not work (i.e. does not give the correct result).
>
> I am expecting a rejection of the method, and not any clarification
> of previous wordings about the method.
>
> And as you know, there is other allegation that would make your method
> too unlike ST to ever promote here, which is that the specifiying or
> not specifying the very last preference affects the winners when in
> neither case there was a tie. Your algorithm creates the mistake in
> the first lines and then sends it into the cyclic washing machine of
> the for loops. It is plain when the algebra is done. I suppose the
> purpose is that you have no idea of what you are doing when designing
> and then have an idea that you should not discard the result.
>
> Since you prefer wording up ideas, how would you word uop the idea of
> not discarding an unsatisfactory method that obviously no one else
> would get serious over using. To fix the mistakes would lead to less
> complexity. So readers need not look at your arguments.
>
> It does not matter whether your method is monotonic: it should be
> rejected while people presume my allegations are correct.
>
>
> >I wrote:
> >
> >> for i : = 1 to N do
> >> for j : = 1 to N do
> >> if ( i <> j ) then
> >> for k : = 1 to N do
> >> if ( i <> k ) then
> >> if ( j <> k ) then
> >>    {
> >>     s : = min { p[j,i], p[i,k] } ;
> >>     if ( p[j,k] < s ) then
> >>     p[j,k] : = s ;
> >>    }
> >
>
> That is incomprehensible to me.
>
>
> >However, Mike Ossipoff always describes the Floyd algorithm as
> >follows: 
> >
> >> for i in range(N)
> >> for j in range(N)
> >> for k in range(N)
> >>    low=min(B[A(i,j)],B[A(j,k)]
> >>    if low>B[A(i,k)]
> >>    B[A(i,k)]=low
> >
> >This does not work (i.e. this does not find the correct values
> >for the shortest paths).
> >
>
> That is a dud argument or no argument.
>
> Your method is in the trash can for failing 2 tests. Can you get
> it out ? (rather than being creating natural language statements),
>
> I would not use the word correct but say "as intended". You seem
> to be in private communication with Mr Ossipoff.
>
> The main idea is that tests are ordered in a sequence and once a
> failure occurs, then there is no need to read about your untrusted
> arguments indicating that the method is failed under this particular
> check.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Regarding my comment on Mr Woodall's method, I missed a way to
> test the method and compare it with Meek STV. I could use REDLOG
> to derive a 2 winner 2 preference 4 candidate method and then simply
> see which of the 2 STV-like methods is most similar. REDLOG was
> making mistakes and I could have tried hard to debug the output
> of the German software. Due to the grand plan of eliminating the
> German university's QE solver, I am now unable to compare Meek STV
> with the D R Woodall method.
>
> Testing using a sequence of:
>    * 1 preference methods, then
>    * 2 preference methods, then
>    * 3 preference methods, ...;
> seems to be a bit plausible.
>
> Craig Carey

**********************************************************

> To: single-transferable-vote at yahoogroups.com
> From: Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
> Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 10:14:17 +0100
> Subject: Re: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
> Dear Craig,
>
> I wrote (15 Dec 2003):
> > The Floyd algorithm is a shortest-path algorithm. When I said that
> > "the order of the indices in the triple-loop of the Floyd algorithm
> > is not irrelevant" then I meant that you have to consider the
> > possible short cuts in the mentioned order. Otherwise the Floyd
> > algorithm does not work (i.e. does not give the correct result).
>
> You wrote (16 Dec 2003):
> > That is incomprehensible to me.
>
> You can find Floyd's shortest-path algorithm in many books on graph
> theory or combinatorial optimization. When you cannot find any good
> book on Floyd's shortest-path algorithm then I suggest that you
> should implement Dijkstra's shortest-path algorithm. Also Dijkstra's
> shortest-path algorithm has a runtime of O(N^3), where N is the
> number of candidates; the main reason why I use Floyd's algorithm
> and not Dijkstra's algorithm in my paper is that the source code
> of Dijkstra's algorithm is significantly longer. However, Dijkstra's
> algorithm is significantly less difficult to understand. ("Dijkstra"
> is also known as "Dykstra".)
>
> By the way: The proofs that my method is well defined and satisfies
> Pareto, monotonicity, resolvability, independence from clones,
> reversal symmetry, and Woodall's plurality criterion do not
> presume that I use Floyd's algorithm.
>
> You wrote (16 Dec 2003):
> > Since you prefer wording up ideas, how would you word uop the idea
> > of not discarding an unsatisfactory method that obviously no one
> > else would get serious over using.
>
> My method is already used by the "Software in the Public Interest"
> (SPI) project and the DEBIAN project.
>
> Markus Schulze

**********************************************************

> Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 08:25:39 +1300
> To: Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
> From: Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>
> Subject: Single-Transferable-Vote: I moderated your addres
>
> To: Theoretician Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
> Subject: Re: Voting Matters, Issue 17, of McDougall Trust
>
>
> I am moderating your e-mail address : markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de
>
> I shall delay sending reasoning and I may not even send reasoning.
> But I would e-mail reasoning if you request that information.
>
> Remember that we know that you believe during these days when you
> try to present yourself as never having heard the word. The aspect
> of withholding leads me to moderate your future messages.
>
> Recall that you wrote this:
>
> __________________________>__
> At 1998-04-24 17:07 +0200 Friday, Markus Schulze wrote:
> >Dear Mike, dear David,
> >
> ...
> >   To my opinion, it is not possible, that B is elected, because
> >   this would be a violation of the Neutrality Criterion (i.e.,
> >   every candidate is treated equally), the Anonymity Criterion
> >   (i.e., every voter is treated equally) or the Weak Monotonicity
> ...
> >
> >Markus
> __________________________<__
>
> The words "not possible" seem to rule out that you were tentative and
> unsure, on the so called "neutrality" rule.
>
> Is it your opinion that the method in the PDF file passes a neutrality
> rule ?. If so, then there is the other rule about the last preference
> being without an improper influence.
>
> ---
>
> You seemed to be in the wrong in 1988 as well, in that there is no
> need for a neutrality rule unless the set of principles is wrong.
>
> Re=lettering a, neutrality failing, preferential voting method would
> make it be multivalued in general.
>
> The right rules and excluding neutrality, don't lead to multivalued
> winner sets.
>
> So neutrality is implied by other right rules.
>
> Omitting one rule may fail to delete the rule.
>
>
> At 2003-12-16 10:14 +0100 Tuesday, Markus Schulze wrote:
> >Dear Craig,
> >
> >I wrote (15 Dec 2003):
> >> The Floyd algorithm is a shortest-path algorithm. When I said that
> >> "the order of the indices in the triple-loop of the Floyd algorithm
> >> is not irrelevant" then I meant that you have to consider the
> >> possible short cuts in the mentioned order. Otherwise the Floyd
> >> algorithm does not work (i.e. does not give the correct result).
> >
> >You wrote (16 Dec 2003):
> >> That is incomprehensible to me.
> >
> >You can find Floyd's shortest-path algorithm in many books on graph
> >theory or combinatorial optimization. When you cannot find any good
> >book on Floyd's shortest-path algorithm then I suggest that you
> ...
>
>
>
> You failed to reply to what I wrote.
>
> I maintain the worlds best mailing list on preferential voting.
>
> I am blocking you because your omitted information.
>
> A best defence for you could be to say that you would be writing
> two messages and the 2nd message would answer the questions (so
> you have to write software too: I guess you already did that but
> are keeping the results and the existence of the software, secret).
> Also the defence would say that the first message should have
> mentioned that another was coming.
>
> I I wouldn't alter it too much since it is currently able to
> persuade.
>
> Like the McDougall Trust said to me, we shall see how it goes, ie.
> where you go from here. It seems "not possible" that a follower of
> pairwise comparing would want to make a method be fair to
> the smallest minorities.
>
> Craig Carey
> Auckland


From jarmyta at antioch-college.edu  Wed Dec 17 21:24:02 2003
From: jarmyta at antioch-college.edu (James Green-Armytage)
Date: Wed Dec 17 21:24:02 2003
Subject: [EM] a strategic problem and possible remedy for Condorcet-efficient voting methods
Message-ID: <fc.005b8ffc00a0ae15005b8ffc00a0ae15.a0ae68@mcgregor.edu>

Dear election method fans,

	Below is a proposal for a voting procedure, preceded by a rationale for
that proposal, in sort of a paperish format. I hope that you find it
interesting. 
	Also, I would greatly appreciate it if people could tell me whether
similar procedures have been proposed before. 
	You see, I'm kind of thinking about trying to apply to graduate school
for economics in the next year or two. That's my big dream right now, and
they say that it's easier to get in if you have published something. So I
thought that I should try to publish something on voting methods, since
that's sort of related to economics, and I don't know as much about other
branches of economics. I have a few ideas that I want to try publishing,
but this is the first one that I want to pursue... unless it has already
been proposed! So if it has been, please let me know (and be gentle...),
but if not, please give me credit if you repeat the ideas elsewhere. Also,
if it is a viable subject I was wondering if you all could give me
feedback and help get it into some sort of publishable shape (It probably
needs to be much shorter!), and maybe some advice as to where to submit it
to.
	So, anyway, I will greatly appreciate your feedback either way.

my best,
James Green-Armytage

____________________

A Strategic Problem and Possible Remedy for Condorcet-Efficient Voting
Methods
by James Green-Armytage

	In designing a single-winner voting procedure for the purpose of majority
rule, I take it as axiomatic that it should always select a Condorcet
winner when one exists, since a Condorcet winner is preferred by a
majority over all other candidates.
	However, it seems that any ranked ballot vote processing rule that is
completely Condorcet efficient is also vulnerable to manipulation using a
strategy known as ?burying,? or ?offensive order reversal.?
	Let me try to illustrate this strategy using an example. There are 3
candidates: A, B, and C. There are 100 voters. The sincere preferences of
the voters are as follows:

46: A>B>C
44: B>A>C
5: C>A>B
5: C>B>A

	A is the sincere Condorcet winner, with no cycles present. However, B
voters can ?bury? A on their ballots by voting him last, which produces
this result:

46: A>B>C
44: B>C>A
5: C>A>B
5: C>B>A

	The pairwise comparisons are as follows:

A:B = 51:49
A:C = 46:54
B:C = 90:10

	Minimax drops A?s defeat over B (which has a magnitude of 51 votes and a
margin of 2 votes), leaving B the winner. This strategy has clearly paid
off for the B voters. Ranked pairs and beatpath do the same thing as
minimax in this example and all others in this paper, but for simplicity?s
sake let?s assume that the completion method being used is minimax.
	If the 46 A>B>C voters find out that the B voters are planning to use
this strategy, can they do anything to stop it? Yes and no. If the ballots
cast by the other 54 voters in the second situation above remain the same,
there is nothing that the 46 A>B>C voters can do to get A elected. The
only thing that they can do is to threaten to elect candidate C if the B
voters do not drop their order reversal strategy. 
	Their means of carrying out this threat varies depending on whether we
are using a version of minimax that is based on dropping defeats of least
margin (difference between winning and losing vote totals in pairwise
comparison) or least magnitude (winning vote totals in pairwise
comparison).
	If we are using a magnitude-based method, then in order for C to win, C
must beat or tie B, or the magnitude of B?s defeat over C must be less
than the magnitude of A?s defeat over B. The A>B>C voters can achieve this
if at least 40 of them truncate their ballots, voting A>B=C. For example:

40: A>B=C
6: A>B>C
44: B>C>A
5: C>A>B
5: C>B>A

A:B = 51:49
A:C = 46:54
B:C = 50:10

	If we are using a margins-based method, then in order for C to win, C
must beat or tie B, or the margin of B?s defeat over C must be less than
the margin of A?s defeat over B. In this case truncation on the part of
the A voters will not suffice, and they are forced to do some order
reversal of their own in order to carry through their threat and prevent
the B voters from stealing the election. At least 34 of the 46 A>B>C
voters need to do this for it to work, for example:

34: A>C>B
12: A>B=C
5: C>A>B
5: C>B>A

A:B = 51:49
A:C = 46:54
B:C = 44:44

	So, these are some of the ways that A can derail the B voters? burying
strategy and punish them with the election of C. However, the election of
C is a very undesirable result in itself, and it is not clear whether the
A voters? threat will scare the B voters into voting sincerely, resulting
in the election of A. Perhaps the B voters will carry through their
burying plan, without the A voters following through on their threat. This
would result in the election of B. Perhaps the B voters will carry through
their burying plan, and the A voters will carry through their threat. This
would result in the election of C. Perhaps the 5 C>A>B voters will end the
trouble and prevent the danger of B?s election by voting A>C>B, thus
cementing A?s victory. Or perhaps those 5 voters will prefer to wait and
hope that the fight between A and B throws the election to C. Using a
margins-based version of minimax could add in some more complications,
including a situation where A and B throw the race to C without any
insincere intentions, but instead out of a sense of mutual paranoia that
the other group of voters will carry out a burial strategy.
	To make a long story short, the voters have entered into a complicated
strategy game, the outcome of which is unclear. In some ways it is
analogous to the game of chicken. The A voters? swerving could be not
carrying through their threat and allowing the B voters to successfully
use the burial strategy. The B voters? swerving could be voting sincerely
and allowing A to win. The car crash would be the election of C. 
	It is disturbing that it is possible for elections based on Condorcet?s
method to break down into this sort of situation as a result of the burial
strategy, that is an intense strategy game amongst the voters, with a
strong possibility of a highly unpopular candidate being elected. 
	Also, it is disturbing that the burial strategy can be effective in the
first place. Imagine that this example was a Presidential election in a
country with millions of voters, and that the figures represented
percentages of the turnout rather than single voters. The contest between
A and B would obviously be the main focus of the election, as 90% of the
voters prefer them to C. The 2% point difference in the pairwise contest
between A and B would represent thousands or millions of voters. If the B
voters pulled off an order reversal strategy under these conditions, the
democratic process would have been completely undermined.
	Of course, the chances of this happening in a public election are not
necessarily very great. Any candidate whose campaign staff called up
voters by the thousands and instructed them to cast an insincere vote
might be held up to a certain amount of public shame. However, a similar
effect might take place without a grand conspiracy, but as a result of a
simple notion among the voters that there might be some benefit in ranking
their sincere second favorite in last place, if she is the main
competition for their favorite.
	Well-coordinated and successful burial strategies might become more
likely given a smaller electorate where it is easier to figure out how
other people are voting and easier to create a strategy covertly. For
example, this might be a problem if Condorcet?s method was being used by a
council or legislature to decide on different versions of a bill or
various courses of action. 
	In any case the burial strategy can often backfire by leading to the
election of someone you like even less that the second or third-favorite
candidate you are trying to bury. Thus, there are many situations where
the incentive to engage in such a strategy is outweighed by its risk, and
the number of voters who try it will be too small to be decisive.
	But again, whether it is likely or not, the fact that a large-scale
burying strategy can conceivably happen is very disturbing, since its
effects can be so negative. 

	Whether a method offers incentives for burying strategies seems to be
related to whether reversing the order of later preferences on a ballot
can cause an earlier preference to be elected. For example, if a group of
voters rank 5 candidates in the order A>B>C>D>E, and C is elected, are
there any situations where that same group of voters could vote A>B>D>E>C,
and cause B to be elected instead, with all the other votes in the
election remaining constant?
	If so, then there will be situations where voters will have incentives to
rank their sincere second favorite in last place, or their sincere third
favorite in fourth place, and so on. That is, in changing the order of the
candidates from the sincere order, voters will insincerely downrank
particular candidates.
	Given different methods, there are different kinds of strategies that
involve downranking later preferences to help earlier preferences. Some
Condorcet-efficient methods such minimax, ranked pairs, beatpath, find a
completion winner by overruling some majority preferences in favor of
others. Given methods like these, groups of voters can sometimes benefit
by creating an artificial majority against one of their later preferences
which overrules a sincere majority against one of their earlier
preferences, causing the earlier preference to win. This is the burying
strategy as discussed above.
	Some Condorcet-efficient methods find a completion winner by reverting to
a different method that is not Condorcet-efficient, such as single
transferable vote or Borda. Given methods like these, groups of voters can
sometimes benefit by downranking one of their later preferences who is a
sincere Condorcet winner, so that the tally finds no Condorcet winner, and
the other method that is reverted to finds one of their earlier
preferences as the winner. In addition to giving voters truncation and
burying incentives in order to prevent a Condorcet winner from emerging,
these methods will also reintroduce the strategic incentives inherent in
their given completion method.
	Unfortunately, I think that all Condorcet efficient methods give some
strategic incentives for further downranking later preferences in order to
help earlier preferences. That is, take any ranked ballot voting method
that satisfies universal domain, anonymity, Pareto, non-dictatorship. If
it is a method where a group of voters reversing the order of options
ranked after some candidate B can?t change the result to B under any
circumstances, this implies that those rankings can?t be looked at while B
is still in consideration. That is, B must be eliminated before they are
looked at. If this voting method eliminates candidates before all the
rankings are looked at, then it will not be able to avoid eliminating a
Condorcet winner.
	Thus, it seems that all Condorcet-efficient methods can be undermined by
voter strategy. However, I don?t think that the correct response in light
of this is to give up on the Condorcet principle and stick with other
methods that don?t offer these particular incentives. For one thing, the
Condorcet criterion is a highly desirable one, and secondly, these methods
have strategic problems of their own.
	My thought is that we might be able to use a procedure which selects a
Condorcet winner when one exists, and yet which gives people some
opportunity to undo the effects of a burying strategy if one occurs.
	I propose that since no fully deterministic vote-processing rule can
satisfy both Condorcet efficiency and resistance to the burying strategy,
we should consider systems that incorporate further human choice and
judgement after the initial balloting. I will propose such a procedure for
use within legislative bodies, and then I will propose a slightly modified
procedure for use in public elections where a single representative is
being elected.

Proposal for use within legislative bodies:
	A. Discussion. Ranked vote. Go to B.
	B. Discussion. Yes-no vote on the winner from the previous ranked vote,
whether a Condorcet winner or the winner based on a chosen completion
method, such as ranked pairs or beatpath. If the relative majority votes
yes, then that option is selected as the final outcome. If the relative
majority votes no, return to A.
	Note: At any discussion stage, a particular option can be withdrawn,
either by the sponsor of that option, or by being nominated for withdrawal
and confirmed by a relative majority. Also, with the approval of a
relative majority, non-members of the Schwartz set from a previous ranked
balloting can be removed from further consideration. The purpose of these
measures is to simplify the process by eliminating options that can be
agreed to be irrelevant.

	This procedure gives legislators a chance to discuss the winner given by
a completion method, and make an attempt to determine whether a burying
strategy has taken place. For example, they might look over the ranked
votes cast by other legislators and see if two very similar options are
placed suspiciously far apart on the ballot. They may fail to detect a
burial strategy if it exists, but they at least have an opportunity.
	In general, the fact that the final outcome must be approved by a
relative majority ensures majority rule and prevents any strange surprises
from getting locked into place before people see them coming. It is
possible that legislators will wrestle with a variety of strategies and
counter strategies, drawing the process into several repetitions. However,
they have been given the best tools available for building a majority
decision. If the process goes into a deadlock where the amount of
repetitions exceed the patience of the legislature and the issue is
dropped, this is arguably a natural deadlock which could not be given a
truly satisfactory resolution by another method.

Proposal for use in public elections:
	A. Ranked vote. If a Condorcet winner exists, then this candidate is
selected as the final outcome. If no Condorcet winner exists, go to B.
	B. Yes-no vote on completion method winner from previous ranked vote. If
the relative majority votes yes, then this candidate is selected as the
final outcome. If the relative majority votes no, go to C.
	C. Ranked vote on candidates already included in the process. Return to B.
	Note: Stages B and C should be combined in a single balloting. If the
relative majority votes yes on the option presented by the previous ranked
vote, then the subsequent ranked vote is of course irrelevant. However, in
order to save time and resources (and keep turnout high) it is better to
perform the subsequent ranked vote at the same time as the yes-no vote.
The gap between the ballotings is a matter of preference. I imagine gaps
of a week or so.
	Note: Any candidate is free to withdraw in between ballotings, but no
candidates can enter beyond the initial vote. Thus, the number of
candidates can only decrease given subsequent rounds, simplifying the
process.

	The discussion that is an important part of this process would hopefully
still take place, but since it is a public situation with a large number
of voters, the discussion would rely on some types of media, and hence the
quality of deliberation would rely on the structure of public media.
	The only difference between A and C in the public elections version is
that a Condorcet winner in stage A is automatically selected, but a
Condorcet winner in stage C must be confirmed by a relative majority.
	The fact that a Condorcet winner from the initial vote is automatically
selected is a trouble-saving device which I have put into the public
elections version but not the legislative body version. It isn?t much
extra trouble for a legislature to take an extra vote to confirm a
Condorcet winner, but in a public election the cost and trouble of an
extra balloting would be significant.
	If a Condorcet winner exists in the initial vote, it is a fairly
trustworthy option to pick. Note that a group of voters can?t change a
candidate B from a non Condorcet winner to a Condorcet winner by changing
the order of candidates that they have ranked after candidate B. For
example, if a group of voters lists B as their first choice and B is still
not a Condorcet winner, there is nothing further that they can do to make
B a Condorcet winner.
	Obviously no effective burying strategy has taking place if there is a
Condorcet winner, because this strategy depends on a fabricated majority
overruling a genuine majority through a cycle.
	The possibility of a large number of repetitions of this process would be
more of a problem for a public election than for a legislative decision,
because of the larger cost of subsequent votes, and the possibility of
term limits. Hence, a question remains about whether to limit the number
of repetitions, and if so, how to do so. 
	One could go on repeating the process indefinitely until a relative
majority approved the outcome, taking majority no votes as an endorsement
of the status quo. At the end of a term limit, one would have to ask the
representative in question to step down in favor of a substitute such as a
Vice President, who would hold the office until the conclusion of the
ranked vote. However, this would be awkward, the repeated ballotings might
be expensive, and the instability of a temporary office holder might be
undesirable.
	One could place a specific the number of repetitions ahead of time, for
example declaring that the results of the fifth ranked vote were final and
binding. However, all of the strategic concerns relevant to
Condorcet-efficient method would apply here once again.
	Perhaps the solution is to declare a candidate to be the final selection
once they have been the winner of a certain number of ranked votes,
whether a clear Condorcet winner or based on a completion method. For
example, if a candidate A wins three separate ranked votes, candidate A is
 elected.
	Hopefully, however, these kinds of rule will never come into play. Even
if no Condorcet winner is found in the initial vote, one can hope that the
majority will approve whatever completion method winner is given, and
hence only one additional balloting will be necessary. The primary purpose
of the subsequent votes is to serve as a safeguard against burial
strategies, and if the majority is not convinced that such a strategy has
affected the outcome, they should approve the completion method winner.
Even if they do not approve the first winner that comes forward, I imagine
that the cycle should collapse into a Condorcet winner within a couple
rounds, through the withdrawal of other candidates in the cycle, or
through the consolidation of voters who were split between two candidates
to support a single candidate.

	I would recommend the legislative bodies procedure to any legislature or
council that can acquire the resources to process ranked ballots according
to a Condorcet completion method. I would recommend the public elections
procedure to any government that can acquire the resources to process
ranked ballots and to hold successive ballotings.



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Wed Dec 17 23:58:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Wed Dec 17 23:58:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd Algorithm?
Message-ID: <Law10-F40w21NFp8KOR00044585@hotmail.com>


Either Markus or Craig Carey, I'm not quite sure which, said:

>However, Mike Ossipoff always describes the Floyd algorithm as
>follows:
>
> > for i in range(N)
> > for j in range(N)
> > for k in range(N)
> >    low=min(B[A(i,j)],B[A(j,k)]
> >    if low>B[A(i,k)]
> >    B[A(i,k)]=low

Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm. I don't use that piece of 
code. It looks like it might be a tiny fraction of a Python strongests 
beatpaths program, with at least one of its lines partly erased.

I don't guarantee that it's part of anythng that I wrote, but, if it is, 
then let me explain the odd appearance of the arrays: Python, at least the 
version that I was using, doesn't have multidimensional arrays. It only has 
1-dimensional arrays. So I wrote a function to convert a 2-dimensional array 
position to a 1-dimensional array position. I called that function "A(i,j)". 
That 1-dimensional array position serves as the index variable for the 
strongest beatpaths array, B[A(i,j)].

The algorithm that I'll post, however, isn't written in any particular 
programming language. That will be posted within an hour or a half hour.

I do call a certain strongest beatpaths algorithm the Floyd algorithm, only 
because someone on this list told us that that's what that algorithm is 
called.

I've certainly never called it a shortest paths algorithm. It's purpose is 
to find the _strongest_ beatpath from each candidate to each other 
candidate. The strongest beatpath from Smith to Jones could also be the 
longest one. I have no idea what you're talking about when you refer to the 
shortest paths algorithm. Perhaps you're talking about a different algorithm 
from the strongest beatpaths algorithm.

The algorithm that I use was suggested by Steve Eppley. Apparently someone 
before him had described it. I don't claim to know what its official name 
is.

It's part of the algorithm that I send people for counting BeatpathWinner. 
I'll post that BeatpathWinner algorithm here in a few minutes.

Mike

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 02:45:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 02:45:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd Algorithm?
Message-ID: <3FE184B2.F932A832@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):

> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

> Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
> Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
> entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
> beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.

But the then used algorithm is clearly not the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

>    changing = 1
>
>    while changing:
>
>        changing = 0
>
>        for i in range(nc):
>            for j in range(nc):
>                for k in range(nc):
>
>                    dmin = min ( Def[i,j], Def[j,k] )
>
>                    if Def[i,k] < dmin:
>                        Def[i,k] = dmin
>                        changing = 1

The Floyd algorithm has a runtime O(N^3), where N is the number of
candidates. But what you call the "Floyd Algorithm" has a runtime
O(N^5).

******

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> It's part of the algorithm that I send people for counting
> BeatpathWinner. I'll post that BeatpathWinner algorithm here
> in a few minutes.

A correct version of the Floyd algorithm can be found in my paper
"A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 18 03:23:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Thu Dec 18 03:23:01 2003
Subject: [EM] BeatpathWinner Algorithm
Message-ID: <Law10-F118GTFc0imLv0003ce33@hotmail.com>

Here is an algorithm to implement BeatpathWinner. It seems to me that 
someone called the strongest beatpaths algorithm the Floyd algorithm. But 
maybe not. When Markus said that the fragment of code that he quoted didn't 
work to find the shortest path, he may have been referring to the overall 
algorithm or program from which his fragment was taken. That may well be, 
because the strongest beatpaths algorithm used here isn't intended to find 
shortest paths. It's intended to find strongest beatpaths.

BeatpathWinner Algorithm:

The algorithm below isn't written here in any
particular programming language. But it would only
require a few small  changes to make it into any
programming language.

Here's the BeatpathWinner algorithm:

First we make the strongest beatpaths array.

Place the defeat-strengths into the strongest
beatpaths array, B(i,j):

If i  beats j, then B(i,j) = the number of people who
have ranked i over j.

If i doesn't beat j, then B(i,j) = 0.

repeat = 1
while repeat = 1:
  change = 0
  for i = 1 to N
     for j =  1 to N
        for k = 1 to N
           least = min(B(i,j), B(j,k))
           if least > B(i,k):
              B(i,k) = least
              change =1
           endif
       endfor
    endfor
endfor
if change= 0
    repeat = 0
endif
endwhile

When this has been done, you have the strongest
beatpaths array, B(i,j), where B(i,j) is the strength
of the strongest beatpath from i to j. (If there's no
beatpath from i to j, then B(i,j) = 0).

Then B(i,j) is used to find the winners of
BeatpathWinner:

for i = 1 to N
win(i) = 1
endfor

for i = 1 to N
  for j = 1 to N
     if B(j,i) > B(i,j)
        win(i) = 0
     endif
  endfor
endfor

print "The winners are:"
for i = 1 to N
if win(i) = 1
    print i
endif
endfor

[end of BeatpathWinner algorithm]
_____

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 18 03:52:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Thu Dec 18 03:52:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Re:  Floyd algorithm?
Message-ID: <Law10-F95N7miR9Odut00005606@hotmail.com>

Markus said:

Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):

>Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

I reply:

Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly what you 
mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.

You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment, 
some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd 
algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment 
anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment the 
Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied 
fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

You continued:

But the then used algorithm is clearly not the Floyd algorithm
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):

I reply:

I couldn't care less if it's the Floyd algorithm. If it isn't, then I'll 
tell Russ to delete that name from the website. When we put it at the 
website, I at that time believed that it was the Floyd algorithm because it 
was the corrected versioin of something that you had posted to EM, calling 
it the Floyd algorithm.

What you'd posted differed by only making one pass throiugh the 3-candiate 
permutations. But one pass isn't guaranteed to find all the strongest 
beatpaths.

Now it occurs to me that maybe your Floyd algorithm isn't intended to do 
that. After all, you do call it the shortest-path algorithm, not the 
strongest path algorithm. I assumed at the time that your algorithm was 
supposed to find the strongest beatpaths, and that yoiu'd accidentally left 
out the code to repeat the passes till the task is complete. So I corrected 
what you'd posted so that it would do that, and called it the Floyd 
algorithm.

I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from you 
or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

But now I don't know if an algorithm for finding the strongest beatpaths is 
the same as the Floyd algorithm. You say it isn't. Fine. I'll tell Russ to 
delete that name from the website.

Now, Markus, understand this: I did call the algorithm from which you got 
your fragment the Floyd algorithm, because I thought that algorithm was what 
you were trying to write when you posted a "Floyd algorithm". I did not call 
your posted line-truncated fragment the Floyd algorithm, and that was what I 
was saying in my previoius posting here tonight.

I don't know if our strongest beatpaths algorithm is the Floyd algorithm, 
and I don't care. It finds strongest beatpaths. I'll tell Rus to delete the 
name.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 05:10:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 05:10:02 2003
Subject: [EM] BeatpathWinner Algorithm
Message-ID: <3FE1A6A0.C8253720@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear participants,

the correct version of the Floyd algorithm can be found in
Section 4 and in Appendix 3 of my paper "A New Monotonic
and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

Markus Schulze


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 05:10:04 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 05:10:04 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?
Message-ID: <3FE1A6B4.42E5AC72@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
> (http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):
>
> > Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
> > Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
> > entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
> > beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly
> what you mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.
>
> You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
> some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
> algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
> anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
> the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
> fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you call your implementation
"Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I misquoted you?

*********

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> I couldn't care less if it's the Floyd algorithm. If it isn't, then I'll
> tell Russ to delete that name from the website. When we put it at the
> website, I at that time believed that it was the Floyd algorithm because it
> was the corrected versioin of something that you had posted to EM, calling
> it the Floyd algorithm.
>
> What you'd posted differed by only making one pass throiugh the 3-candiate
> permutations. But one pass isn't guaranteed to find all the strongest
> beatpaths.
>
> Now it occurs to me that maybe your Floyd algorithm isn't intended to
> do that. After all, you do call it the shortest-path algorithm, not the
> strongest path algorithm. I assumed at the time that your algorithm was
> supposed to find the strongest beatpaths, and that yoiu'd accidentally left
> out the code to repeat the passes till the task is complete. So I corrected
> what you'd posted so that it would do that, and called it the Floyd
> algorithm.

What you call "the corrected versioin" is actually a falsified version.
When you use the correct order of the indices in the triple-loop, then
one pass through the 3-candidate permutations _does_ guarantee to find
all the strongest paths. Floyd proved this in 1962. This is the reason
why it is called the "Floyd algorithm".

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm
> from you or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

It is sad that you didn't get your strongest path algorithm from me
or Floyd; if you did it, it had a runtime of O(N^3) and not of O(N^5).

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Thu Dec 18 05:46:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Thu Dec 18 05:46:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Floyd algorithm?
Message-ID: <Law10-F57inarBU393I000455c2@hotmail.com>

I'd said, spelling it out very carefully for Markus:

>You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
>some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
>algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
>anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
>the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
>fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

Markus replied:

In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you call your implementation
"Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I misquoted you?

I reply:

Idiot, why don't you read the quoted passage above, from my e-mail. Did I 
deny that I'd called my implementation the Floyd algorithm? The only thing 
that I denied having called "the Floyd algorithm" was your poorly-copied, 
line-truncated fragment of a Python program. You had posted that fragment 
and said that I called it the Floyd algorithm.

Markus continued:

What you call "the corrected versioin" is actually a falsified version.

I reply:

I already clarified that the corrected version now apparently wasn't the 
Floyd algorithm. I already said that, at the time,  I believed that it was 
the Floyd algorithm because I believed that it was what you were trying to 
write, when you posted a procedure that you called the Floyd algorithm.

But, whether the version that I wrote is or is not the Floyd algorithm, it 
certainly finds the strongest beatpaths. I believe that I already clarified 
for you that I couldn't care less if that version is the Floyd algorithm.

You claim that  the  1-pass procedure that you posted finds the strongest 
beatpaths. Let's check it out and find out if it does.  What was the year, 
month, and day of  your posting in which you posted what you called the  
Floyd algorithm?

The Floyd algorithm is for finding shortest paths. Are you saying that it 
also finds strongest paths?
So then, are you saying that the shortest path from one candidate to another 
is necessarily the strongest path too?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 07:35:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 07:35:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?
Message-ID: <3FE1C89C.1252854C@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
> (http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):
>
> > Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
> > Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
> > entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
> > beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly
> what you mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.
>
> You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
> some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
> algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
> anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
> the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
> fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you call your implementation
> "Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I misquoted you?

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> Idiot, why don't you read the quoted passage above, from my e-mail. Did I
> deny that I'd called my implementation the Floyd algorithm? The only thing
> that I denied having called "the Floyd algorithm" was your poorly-copied,
> line-truncated fragment of a Python program. You had posted that fragment
> and said that I called it the Floyd algorithm.

You are the idiot because you see no contradiction between the fact that
you call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" and the fact that you have
to admit that your Python program nowhere uses the Floyd algorithm.

******

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> You claim that  the  1-pass procedure that you posted finds the strongest
> beatpaths. Let's check it out and find out if it does.  What was the year,
> month, and day of  your posting in which you posted what you called the
> Floyd algorithm?

The Floyd algorithm has been proposed by Floyd (Robert W. Floyd, "Algorithm 97
(Shortest Path)," Communications of the ACM, vol. 5, p. 345, 1962).

Markus Schulze


From drernie at mac.com  Thu Dec 18 08:39:01 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Thu Dec 18 08:39:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?  - peace
In-Reply-To: <3FE1C89C.1252854C@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FE1C89C.1252854C@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <95FF01B8-3178-11D8-B986-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

Hi guys,

On Dec 18, 2003, at 7:32 AM, Markus Schulze wrote:
> You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
>> Idiot, why don't you read the quoted passage above, from my e-mail. 
>> Did I
>> deny that I'd called my implementation the Floyd algorithm? The only 
>> thing
>> that I denied having called "the Floyd algorithm" was your 
>> poorly-copied,
>> line-truncated fragment of a Python program. You had posted that 
>> fragment
>> and said that I called it the Floyd algorithm.
>
> You are the idiot because you see no contradiction between the fact 
> that
> you call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" and the fact that you 
> have
> to admit that your Python program nowhere uses the Floyd algorithm.

Can we chill? We're all Condorcet-lovers, after all.   Mike probably 
used the term Floyd inappropriately.   Markus probably cited a poor 
example.   Everybody makes mistakes.    No injury, no foul.

> You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
>> You claim that  the  1-pass procedure that you posted finds the 
>> strongest
>> beatpaths. Let's check it out and find out if it does.  What was the 
>> year,
>> month, and day of  your posting in which you posted what you called 
>> the
>> Floyd algorithm?
>
> The Floyd algorithm has been proposed by Floyd (Robert W. Floyd, 
> "Algorithm 97
> (Shortest Path)," Communications of the ACM, vol. 5, p. 345, 1962).

I suspect that we're really experiencing a clash of cultures.  Markus 
appears to be operating from a math/compsci perspective, where terms 
mean something different than they do in Mike.  As a physicist, I'm 
used to abusing mathematical terminology, so I can appreciate the 
dilemma. :-)

I suspect part of the problem is that the term 'shortest path'  in the 
Flloyd algorithm is used for finding what Mike calls a BeatPath.   The 
comparison of such paths to find the strongest beatpath is actually 
after the Flloyd algorithm.

There are some interesting differences between the two approaches, such 
as the use of absolute vs. relative weights, which may or may not be 
significant.  I'd be interested in hearing more about that.

-- Ernie P.

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From research at ijs.co.nz  Thu Dec 18 09:42:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Thu Dec 18 09:42:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Rejecting the Schulze preferential voting method: a time for
 reform
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031219055006.04fa26e0@pop.qsi.net.nz>



I see that Marcus/Markus Schulze posted in 2 lines. While we wait
for the rest of the clipped communication (not conversation) I
post up some ideas. As ever, guessing is second to a catechistic
approach (with mind-changing over the answers allowed).


------------------------------

Mr Schulze did not reply to the issues which was that his method was
in the trash can and he had:
 1. got it to be biased in that same way that occurs for a method that
    always picks the 1st candidate on the list of candidates no matter
    what the votes are. I assume Mr Schulze agrees but he as usual he
    comment in response to every issue painting him up and not knowing
    how to design a preferential voting method.
 2. The presence of absence of the last preference affects who wins.

Both those ideas can indicate that the whole article was a junk and
trash. Mr Schulze wrote as if he could possibly begin to sense the
problem. With the idea that Mr Shulze can't understand everything that
much better theorists can precisely informa him of, I was going to
write a computer program to prove that his computer algorithm is
trash.

That follows his leaking following being moderated for censoring out
all information about the purpose for being so in the wrong which
the STV mailing list was certainly not getting adequately informed
about.

Mr Schulze has got a bias and I believe htat he has a purpose of
providing untrue information. The topic of how Mr Schulze can not
reply to 100% of the e-mails implying he start doing research into
nothing but his own trashy Schulze methods does not seem that
interesting. Why are core ideas of Condorcet so suboptimal since
proportionality and fairness are crushed/mangled together ?.

After these 5 years the ulitmate best Mr Schulze has been able to
do in the area of defending the garbage ideal, is to keep up the
pretense of never being able to identify the topic. That seems to be
the uniting ideal of Condorcet: even if Dr Dolittle's animals could
all understand why the lie of Condorcet pairwise comparing being
good is something so suboptimal that the method can't be said to be
optimal, the Condorcet believer would be suggesting he is following
the public idea that pairwise comparing is important. External is
idealized STV where both fairness and proportionally are both
perfectly defined and achieved except as best possible in the
circumstances.

Also Mr Schulze seems to get a few lines out every month to public
lists and constantly nothing at all to private e-mail. Teh big
aim in public mailing lists seems to be to drop names. When he
has a problem with transparency of purpose he slips into a dumb
mailing list - this one, where persons who know nothing and do
no useful research, congregate wishing that some religious man
unable to decide nothing is something and visa versa, would lead
them out.

In the grand sweep of Mr Schulzes exposition, he designed the
algorithm in the paper so the input is never votes. The preprocessing
stage that proves that the method is stupid, got censored out. It
is the case that reasoning indicates that Schulze's method should
be rejected instead of tested. 


Let's consider the algorithm itself. Here I quote from the VM 17
PDF file:

---
:     Suppose that d[X,Y] is the number of voters who
:     strictly prefer candidate X to candidate Y. Then the
:     Smith set is the smallest non-empty set of candidates
:     with d[A,B] > d[B,A] for each candidate B outside this
:     set.
---

The English text of Schulze probably seems to imply this
interpretation:

* Let there be only 3 candidates. Let the ballot papers be these:

2 (CA)
5 (CAB)
1 (CBA)

What is Mr Schulze's d[A,B] ?.

We could look at the computer algorithm source code but it takes
the "d" matrix as an input. The vote counting algorithm can't actually
accept votes.

The d[A,B] value would be:

 (Interpretation 1) the number 7, or
 (Interpretation 2) the number 5, or
 (Interpretation 3) the number 6, or
 (Interpretation 4) the number 4, or

I suppose Interpretations 3 and 4 can be rejected.

So dim are the followers of Condorcet that ruling out interpretations
using a correct reading of the text, could create a dispute.

For 5 years Schulze has be glued onto the falsehood and it seems
that in that time, evolution and pure thinking has brought to him
(a) a desire to censor out the perfectly wrong idea that pairwise
   comparing is not to be rejected
(b) for the STV community, he trashes their perfectly inconsistent
   views by presenting himself as needing exactly 2 words to
   "strictly prefer", Also the idea of summing is added with the
   relentlessly useless wording "the number of voters". If there are
   no voters, or the counts are non-integral or P2 is failed and the
   probing at negative numbers does not occur, that it would be
   false to conclude that the method is monotonic.

Here is the title of the paper:

  "A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method"

The publishing agency is the McDougall Trust.

Mr Shulze's credibility as theoriticians is incompatible with the
private e-mail messages from me to him on 3 October 2003 and 23
October 2003. At that time I was hampered by the ambiguous trashy
wording he relied upon.

Quoting from the 23 October document that comments narrowly on the
algorithm, I quote the method of the PDF VM 17 article:


| Markus Schulze, A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent
| Single-Winner Election Method, VOTING MATTERS, issue 17,
| September 2003
|
| Input: d[i,j] with i <> j is the number of voters who strictly
|                         prefer candidate i to candidate j.
| Output:  "w[i] = true" means that candidate i is a potential
|                         winner.
|          "w[i] = false" means that candidate i is not a
|                         potential winner.
| -- STEP 1
| for i := 1 to N do
|    for j := 1 to N do
|       if (i <> j) then p[i,j] := d[i,j] - d[j,i]; end if;
|    end loop;
| end loop;
| -- STEP 2
| for i := 1 to N do
|    for j := 1 to N do
|       if (i <> j) then
|          for k := 1 to N do
|             if (i <> k) then
|                if (j <> k) then
|                   s := min { p[j,i], p[i,k] };
|                   if (p[j,k] < s) then p[j,k] := s; end if;
|                end if;
|             end if;
|          end loop;
|       end if;
|    end loop;
| end loop;
|
| -- STEP 3
| for i := 1 to N do
|    w[i] := true ;
|    for j := 1 to N do
|       if (i <> j) then
|          if (p[j,i] > p[i,j]) then
|             w[i] := false ;
|          end if;
|       end if;
|    end loop;
| end loop;
| --------------

It is obvious from that Mr Schulze did not write any test at all that
attempts to clarify the words "strictly prefer".

Why Mr Schulze could not come to some clear conclusion in 1986 on how
to present with the fullest possible clarity the incompetently
pitiable deliberate error that subsequently guarantees that the
algorithm would be unfair, is baffling.

Here is the example again:

2 (CA)
5 (CAB)
1 (CBA)

The d[A,B] value:
 (Interpretation 1) the number 7, or
 (Interpretation 2) the number 5.

There are 2 cases (if not more)

(Case or Interpretation 1) The 2 is added to the 5.

  The article said "strictly prefer" instead of "prefer",  and I cant
  think of a purpose for that except to rule out this case.

  This case is so far acceptable but the whole method will not be.

(Case or Interpretation 2)
  In this case, the paper (CA) does not count towards candidate A.


Mr Schulze would be in the wrong IF ever saying that it is *obvious* that
these two cases have candidate 'A' being preferred by the same amount
against/over candidate 'B', when there are 5 or more candidates and
not 4 or less:

  (a) (C D A)
  (b) (C D A B)






Even in 1998 Mr Schulze's neutrality view appears to be a mistake.
Instead the illogic of having multivalued winners can be used.
The big argument here is that today Mr Schulze seems to reject
the neutrality rule since he could believe it would trash the [awful]
Schulze algorithm. The ideal course is to criticize Mr Schulze for
believing in the importance of the rule and again in 2003 for not
using it.

------------- example:

Suppose that the candidates are listed and the method makes the
first one listed, be the winner. So the method is faulty since it
fully ignores the ballot paper counts.

* External names: A, B
* Internal names: 1, 2
* External ballot papers:
    1 (A)
    9 (B) 
* Winner = candidate #1 = A

Re-letter externally and keep the algorithm unchanged:

* External names: B, A
* Internal names: 1, 2
* External ballot papers:
    1 (A)
    9 (B) 
* Winner = candidate #1 = B

The algorithm is returning the right number of winners, but it is
returning a multi-valued set of winners.

The definition of "multivalued". An exmaple: Log(1) is multivalued and
its values include: 0, 2*pi*i, 4*pi*i, etc.

Can Mr Shulze say what axioms lead to multivalued winner sets ?.

Why does he need a rule to stop neutrality violations and I do not.
If he disagrees and says that the rule is important it it does not
matter if it is redundant, then why was he maintaining such secrecy
on the topic of whether or not his method appearing in issue 17 of
Voting Matters fails ?. This is an argument is ambiguous, and unlike
the possible ambiguity of the Mr Schulze's "strictly prefer", the
persons creating the ambiguity is constructing the argument for all
the cases.

The Shulze algorithm has basic simple errors appearing in the very
first lines of the algorithm (Step 1). 

In Mr Schulzes world, he has got the typical Condorcet aim of
under-wording the theory of what actually happens when this paper

   1*(....A....B...)  Unnamed = ....

is altered into this paper:

   1*(....A....)  Unnamed = ....B....

Obviously what a *competent* government preferential voting method
expert will expect, is that there is no rule saying (somehow) that
A's standing with respect to B, is remains constant when that change
is done. Such a requirement would harm some other good principle.
If the theory is nearly optimal then it would be largely proportionality.
>From the first few minutes of its existence, the core Condorcet belief
is one that probably is harming proportionality, so it is rejected,

Mr Schulze seems to write very much less than a competent theorist
would be likely to do.

Basically we can merge and separate strict rules using dual polytopes.
In my theory there is no proportionality is never merged. It might
be the only option later but I can't see a reasoning or method for
merging the two. 

The Single-Transferable-Vote mailing list is a place where statements
can be true and where Mr Schulze can say exactly why he won't be
abandoning that unfairness upholding belief of pairwise comparing.
Presumably it could cause misery were it used.

So far I know that the right prionciples are incredibly easy to
memorize and comprehend. WE have Americans here and they might have
a quicker feel for Marcus' R&D (no progress over 5 years except
for the academic stimulatation from Mike Ossipoff).

I claims that my method leads to fairly selected right and correct
winners and it lacks both vote-negating-power-diversions and the
improper providing of corrupt excessive power to any candidate.
Additionally proportionality is simply defined in the way expected:
a ballot paper assists a candidate if naming the candidate.
If a ballot paper assists n candidates then it gives n times its
weight or it gives oly 1 times its weight. Condorcet rolls the
sick grasshoppers into the tobacco and leaves it as a rolled
together fix solving the problem of public interests vs private
interests.


Subject: [EM] Voting Matters, Issue 17




| [EM] Voting Matters, Issue 17
| Markus Schulze markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de
| Tue Dec 16 16:22:31 2003
|
| H[e]llo,
|
| I forward a conversation between Craig Carey and me about
| issue 17 of Voting Matters.
|
...


By the looks of it, Schulze got snuffed. Further he is running
a policy of never writing to me. If he reagards being moderated
as posing a risk of making to comment to me, he censors himself.
Also he got moderated for censoring out the purpose for not
defending or harming his own preferential voting method.

So "x over y" is a substitute for right summing.
Let Mr Schulze clarify whether a pallot paper gives away n times
its weight (to candidates' subtotals) if it names n candidates,
or whether it gives away only 1x its weight (which could lack
a needed clarity permitting a solution to be obtained).

Mr Schulze should now show these 2 things:

  * he can precisely select the correct option of the two, and

  * to the extend he can retrieve virtue from the mangled
    crumpled principles of the algorithm, he should it absolutely
    plain that the Schulze algorithm got the same choice.

If Schulze is metionably good as a historian he would say if
Condorcet wrote on the topic, and give a page references.

Also he could explain which of the 2 choices STV followers 
prefer. In Mr Schulze's theory, he was omitting all mention
of the topic that the Schule method may be quite corrupt.
In idea STV a grab at overly powerful papers is permitted
since a power<=1 rule acts as needed. 

Mr Schulze might not know much about preferential voting if
unclear on whether the rule of thumb on transfer values that
can be observed in STV is similar or dissimilar to making a
wrong (if wrong) decision to have a 1x power instead of n times
power, or each paper in a multiwinner election.



Craig Carey
Auckland, New Zealand
politicians-and-polytopes
single-transferable-vote



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 11:24:09 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 11:24:09 2003
Subject: [EM] Rejecting the Schulze preferential voting method: a time for 
 reform
Message-ID: <3FE1FD49.F1E1C040@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

you wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> Let's consider the algorithm itself. Here I quote from the VM 17
> PDF file:
>
> ---
> :     Suppose that d[X,Y] is the number of voters who
> :     strictly prefer candidate X to candidate Y. Then the
> :     Smith set is the smallest non-empty set of candidates
> :     with d[A,B] > d[B,A] for each candidate B outside this
> :     set.
> ---
>
> The English text of Schulze probably seems to imply this
> interpretation:
>
> * Let there be only 3 candidates. Let the ballot papers be these:
>
> 2 (CA)
> 5 (CAB)
> 1 (CBA)
>
> What is Mr Schulze's d[A,B] ?.
>
> We could look at the computer algorithm source code but it takes
> the "d" matrix as an input. The vote counting algorithm can't actually
> accept votes.
>
> The d[A,B] value would be:
>
>  (Interpretation 1) the number 7, or
>  (Interpretation 2) the number 5, or
>  (Interpretation 3) the number 6, or
>  (Interpretation 4) the number 4, or
>
> I suppose Interpretations 3 and 4 can be rejected.
>
> ...

In the Introduction of the quoted paper, I write: "It is presumed
that each voter casts at least a partial ranking of all candidates."

Markus Schulze


From fsimmons at pcc.edu  Thu Dec 18 13:30:01 2003
From: fsimmons at pcc.edu (Forest Simmons)
Date: Thu Dec 18 13:30:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
Message-ID: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312181237360.27475-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.edu>

For me two paramount criteria are

(1) simplicity of optimal or near optimal strategy, and

(2) as much voting power as possible consistent with (1).

There are various possible definitions of "voting power," but it should
have something to do with the probability of one ballot or set of ballots
being pivotal to the outcome in an election chosen at random from some
family of elections.



Here's a method that comes close to satisfying these criteria:

The method takes ranked ballots with equal rankings allowed, as input.

The method first applies Rob LeGrand's "ballot-by-ballot" version of
"strategy A" to all possible permutations of the ballot. [Yes, this method
is computationally intractable.]

If the same candidate wins for all permutations, then that candidate is
declared winner.

Else, Joe Weinstein's weighted median method is applied to determine the
winner.  A candidate's weight is the number of permutations that it won
(according to Rob) plus one (so that each candidate has non-zero weight).

Although this method is computationally intractable,the method winner can
be calculated with 99.9 percent accuracy without inordinate computational
burden, by use of montecarlo methods, for example.

The residual doubt is small compared to other sources of doubt in other
voting methods, especially the doubt that the votes were sincere, or the
doubt that the the voters were using their best strategy for maximizing
their voting power.

Note that the method is completely deterministic, but that practical
estimation of the method's winner may require something like montecarlo.

Perhaps the voters could get use to such an idea if they could see the
advantages of satisfying criteria one and two above.

Forest



From dglaude at gmx.net  Thu Dec 18 13:36:02 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Thu Dec 18 13:36:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?  - peace
In-Reply-To: <95FF01B8-3178-11D8-B986-000393CDCA50@mac.com>
References: <3FE1C89C.1252854C@alumni.tu-berlin.de> <95FF01B8-3178-11D8-B986-000393CDCA50@mac.com>
Message-ID: <3FE21D97.1010200@gmx.net>

Ernest Prabhakar wrote:

> Can we chill? We're all Condorcet-lovers, after all.   Mike probably 
> used the term Floyd inappropriately.   Markus probably cited a poor 
> example.   Everybody makes mistakes.    No injury, no foul.

I love flame war... especially those where I don't understand a word.

> I suspect that we're really experiencing a clash of cultures.  Markus 
> appears to be operating from a math/compsci perspective, where terms 
> mean something different than they do in Mike.  As a physicist, I'm used 
> to abusing mathematical terminology, so I can appreciate the dilemma. :-)

Where is Mike comming from then?

> I suspect part of the problem is that the term 'shortest path'  in the 
> Flloyd algorithm is used for finding what Mike calls a BeatPath.   The 
> comparison of such paths to find the strongest beatpath is actually 
> after the Flloyd algorithm.

Because I was not aware of the Flloyd algorithm...

I would like to learn something here.

I know a few 'shortest path' algorithm like "Dijkstra" and 
"Bellman-Ford". Dijkstra is having an 0(n*Log(n)) complexity (in time) 
and for the other... I don't remember but it is a more distributed 
algorithm.

Now sometime Markus talk about "strongest path" wich might be something 
completely different.

So for me all this discussion was completely confusing, and I would love 
some explanation...

But I think I have to aggree with Markus... 0(N^3) is better than 0(N^5).

David GLAUDE






From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Thu Dec 18 14:44:06 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Thu Dec 18 14:44:06 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?  - peace
Message-ID: <3FE22D54.A4AA77B3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear David,

you wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> I know a few 'shortest path' algorithm like "Dijkstra" and
> "Bellman-Ford". Dijkstra is having an 0(n*Log(n)) complexity (in time)
> and for the other... I don't remember but it is a more distributed
> algorithm.

Bellman-Ford, Dijkstra, and Floyd have the property that they all look
for possible short cuts until a termination criterion is met. They differ
only in the order in which the possible short cuts are considered.

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> Now sometime Markus talk about "strongest path" wich might be something 
> completely different.

"Strongest paths" and "shortest paths" are mathematically equivalent in
so far as both follow the same concept of short cuts. In the shortest
path problem, a short cut is a situation with p_old[j,k] > p[j,i] + p[i,k]
so that you can set p_new[j,k] = p[j,i] + p[i,k]. In the strongest path
problem, a short cut is a situation with p_old[j,k] < min ( p[j,i], p[i,k] )
so that you can set p_new[j,k] = min ( p[j,i], p[i,k] ).

By the way: In the scientific literature, "strongest paths" are called
"maximum capacity paths".

Markus Schulze


From stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca  Thu Dec 18 19:09:18 2003
From: stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca (Stephane Rouillon)
Date: Thu Dec 18 19:09:18 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd algorithm?  - peace
References: <3FE22D54.A4AA77B3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <3FE26AE0.AB862976@sympatico.ca>

Markus Schulze a ?crit :

> Dear David,
>
> you wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> > I know a few 'shortest path' algorithm like "Dijkstra" and
> > "Bellman-Ford". Dijkstra is having an 0(n*Log(n)) complexity (in time)
> > and for the other... I don't remember but it is a more distributed
> > algorithm.

If I remember well one uses reaching to update labels the other pushing...
Am I right?

> Bellman-Ford, Dijkstra, and Floyd have the property that they all look
> for possible short cuts until a termination criterion is met. They differ
> only in the order in which the possible short cuts are considered.

I though that Floyd was an implementation of the maximum-flow problem,
which in my eye is not equivalent to a shortest path. The first is based on
capacities,
the other on costs...
But what do I know, I am just supposed to be a specialist in those matter,
I'm humble enough not to be sure.

> You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> > Now sometime Markus talk about "strongest path" wich might be something
> > completely different.
>
> "Strongest paths" and "shortest paths" are mathematically equivalent in
> so far as both follow the same concept of short cuts. In the shortest
> path problem, a short cut is a situation with p_old[j,k] > p[j,i] + p[i,k]
> so that you can set p_new[j,k] = p[j,i] + p[i,k]. In the strongest path
> problem, a short cut is a situation with p_old[j,k] < min ( p[j,i], p[i,k] )
> so that you can set p_new[j,k] = min ( p[j,i], p[i,k] ).
>
> By the way: In the scientific literature, "strongest paths" are called
> "maximum capacity paths".

That's what I call a maximum-flow path. I never imagined that election method
would
bring me right back to my thesis... Maybe it is a sign it is time to finish it.

> Markus Schulze
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Steph



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 19 01:38:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Fri Dec 19 01:38:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus's debate about what I allegedly said (Who but Markus cares?)
Message-ID: <Law10-F30NchHfij1c100020e3c@hotmail.com>

I'd said:

>You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
>some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
>algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
>anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
>the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
>fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

Markus's latest claims about that message:

You are the idiot because you see no contradiction between the fact that
you call your implementation "Floyd algorithm"

I reply:

Wrong. I don't call my implementation the Floyd algorithm. I made it as 
clear as possible for you that
I no longer call it that. I said that I'm going to ask Russ to delete that 
name from the website. Markus, does it occur to you that most of what you 
say isn't true?  Doesn't that bother you at all?

Yes, I had previously called my implementation the Floyd algorithm. I 
carefully explained to you how that came about, and I'm not going to repeat 
it again for  you. But I made it clear that I no longer call it the Floyd 
algorithm.

List members: In case you're new to this list, this is what Markus does. 
He'll latch on to some false claim about what someone said, and then he'll 
keep on re-asserting it, with more false statements in each new posting. If 
I keep replying to him, he'll go on like this for months. February will 
arrive and Markus will still be trying to argue that I claim that my 
implementation is the Floyd algorithm. Does that sound silly? Does it sound 
like a reallly stupidly trivial thing to be wasting people's time, and our 
archive space about? Sure, but apparently Markus really has nothing else to 
do. Evidently Markus is completely without a life.

List members are probably already getting tired of this stupid debate, which 
will go on for as long as I reply to Markus. He isn't really saying anything 
that deserves a reply, and so you'll be glad to hear that this will be my 
last reply to his sily debate in this thread. Typically Markus will then 
send a few more messages, but when he doesn't get a reply he'll quit. When I 
don't reply, that doesn't mean that Markus has said something irrefutable. 
It merely means that I'm no longer wasting my time on Markus.

Markus continued:

...and the fact that you have
to admit that your Python program nowhere uses the Floyd algorithm.

I reply:

Markus, you see, apparently doesn't read the messages that he replies to. 
I've been repeating (but to no avail) that now I don't  claim to know what 
the Floyd algorithm is, and nor do I care.

******

Markus continued:

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
>You claim that  the  1-pass procedure that you posted finds the strongest
>beatpaths. Let's check it out and find out if it does.  What was the year,
>month, and day of  your posting in which you posted what you called the
>Floyd algorithm?

The Floyd algorithm has been proposed by Floyd (Robert W. Floyd, "Algorithm 
97
(Shortest Path)," Communications of the ACM, vol. 5, p. 345, 1962).

I reply:

Excuse me, but did I ask who proposed the Floyd algorithm? I was referring 
to the one that you posted here some time ago. I was suggesting that we find 
it in the archives and find out if, without making more than one pass 
through the permutations, it finds the strongest beatpaths between each pair 
of candidates. So I repeat: What was the year, month and day that you posted 
that algorithm that you called the Floyd algorithm and claimed would find 
the strongest beatpaths with one pass through the permutations?

By the way, if, as you seem to be suggesting, the Floyd algorithm (the real 
one, I mean) finds the strongest paths between pairs of graph-nodes, even 
though the web articles say that it's intended to find the _shortest_ path, 
then, if that's so, ways of finding strongest paths were being discussed as 
early as 1962. If that's true, do you really believe that it never occurred 
to anyone to compare path strengths between two candidates, until you 
"invented" that idea in 1996?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Working moms: Find helpful tips here on managing kids, home, work ?  and 
yourself.   http://special.msn.com/msnbc/workingmom.armx



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 19 02:09:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Fri Dec 19 02:09:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
Message-ID: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>

Ernie,

You wrote:

Can we chill? We're all Condorcet-lovers, after all.   Mike probably
used the term Floyd inappropriately.

I reply:

But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything is 
the Floyd algorithm.
I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm that made as many 
permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd written it right, 
because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he really meant to write 
the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd algorithm. I said "Ok".
So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have no idea, but 
that's how he always is.

You continued:

I suspect that we're really experiencing a clash of cultures.

I reply:

Excuse me?

You continued:

Markus
appears to be operating from a math/compsci perspective

I reply:

Markus is operating in a "making-up-fictitious-quotes" perspective.

Math and comuter-science have nothing to do with it at all.

You continued:

, where terms
mean something different than they do in Mike.

I reply:

I agree that everything seems to mean something different to Markus. In 
particular, Markus evidently has a different perspective on the matter of 
whther he should check the accuracy of what he's about to post.

But if you're referring to mathematical terms, then tell me what 
mathematical term I have a different meaning for, resulting in the 
misunderstanding.

It isn't "Floyd algorithm", because I've already repeated many many times 
that I now don't claim to know what it means, and that the meaning of that 
term doesn't matter to me.

You continued:

As a physicist, I'm
used to abusing mathematical terminology, so I can appreciate the
dilemma. :-)

But what mathematical terminology is being abused now?

You continued:

I suspect part of the problem is that the term 'shortest path'  in the
Flloyd algorithm is used for finding what Mike calls a BeatPath.

I reply:

What I call a beatpath is a sequence of defeats from one candidate to 
another (informal definition).
So Floyd calls that a shortest path, and uses it to find a beatpath?

You continued:

The
comparison of such paths to find the strongest beatpath is actually
after the Flloyd algorithm.

I reply:

So something called "shortest paths" are used to find the strongest 
beatpath?

Ok.

I don't know if "shortest path" is a mathematical term, but I wasn't really 
taking a position on what it means. What I did say was that I agreed that 
the Floyd algorithm sounds different from our strongest beatpaths algorithm, 
because our algorithm seeks the strongest path betwen 2 candidates, not the 
shortest one.

But if you say that finding the shortest path between two candidates can 
somehow be part of some method for finding the strongest one, l of course 
wouldn't try to contradict you on that. It isn't something that I  would 
take a position on.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Tired of slow downloads? Compare online deals from your local high-speed 
providers now.  https://broadband.msn.com



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 19 06:10:05 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 19 06:10:05 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus's debate about what I allegedly said (Who but Markus 
 cares?)
Message-ID: <3FE2F247.F19CD794@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> You do. You call that the Floyd algorithm
> (http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py):
>
> > Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd Algorithm:
> > Def[i,j] will be the maximum beatpath magnitudes array. The i,j
> > entry is the greatest magnitude of any beatpath from i to j. A
> > beatpath's magnitude is the magnitude of its weakest defeat.

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> Wrong again. You aren't being entirely clear with us about exactly
> what you mean by"that". Perhaps you're confused about what you mean.
>
> You posted a little fragment of a Python program. And, in that fragment,
> some of the lines weren't even complete. You said I called that the Floyd
> algorithm. I replied that I have never called that line-truncated fragment
> anything. Did i call the Python program from which you got that fragment
> the Floyd algorithm? That's another matter. I didnt call your poorly-copied
> fragment anything, including the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> In so far as I gave a concrete quotation where you call your implementation
> "Floyd algorithm", how can you still claim that I misquoted you?

You wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> Idiot, why don't you read the quoted passage above, from my e-mail. Did I
> deny that I'd called my implementation the Floyd algorithm? The only thing
> that I denied having called "the Floyd algorithm" was your poorly-copied,
> line-truncated fragment of a Python program. You had posted that fragment
> and said that I called it the Floyd algorithm.

I wrote (18 Dec 2003):
> You are the idiot because you see no contradiction between the fact that
> you call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" and the fact that you have
> to admit that your Python program nowhere uses the Floyd algorithm.

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Wrong. I don't call my implementation the Floyd algorithm. I made it as 
> clear as possible for you that I no longer call it that. I said that I'm
> going to ask Russ to delete that name from the website. Markus, does it
> occur to you that most of what you say isn't true?  Doesn't that bother
> you at all?
>
> Yes, I had previously called my implementation the Floyd algorithm. I
> carefully explained to you how that came about, and I'm not going to repeat
> it again for  you. But I made it clear that I no longer call it the Floyd
> algorithm.
>
> List members: In case you're new to this list, this is what Markus does.
> He'll latch on to some false claim about what someone said, and then he'll
> keep on re-asserting it, with more false statements in each new posting.
> If I keep replying to him, he'll go on like this for months. February
> will arrive and Markus will still be trying to argue that I claim that my
> implementation is the Floyd algorithm. Does that sound silly? Does it sound
> like a reallly stupidly trivial thing to be wasting people's time, and our
> archive space about? Sure, but apparently Markus really has nothing else to
> do. Evidently Markus is completely without a life.
>
> List members are probably already getting tired of this stupid debate, which
> will go on for as long as I reply to Markus. He isn't really saying anything
> that deserves a reply, and so you'll be glad to hear that this will be my
> last reply to his sily debate in this thread. Typically Markus will then
> send a few more messages, but when he doesn't get a reply he'll quit. When I
> don't reply, that doesn't mean that Markus has said something irrefutable.
> It merely means that I'm no longer wasting my time on Markus.
>
> Markus, you see, apparently doesn't read the messages that he replies to.
> I've been repeating (but to no avail) that now I don't  claim to know what
> the Floyd algorithm is, and nor do I care.

The problem with you is that you are unable to admit that you have made
a mistake (here: claiming that you have implemented the Floyd algorithm)
without bombarding with insults that person who pointed to this mistake.
Why are you unable to say something like?: "Yes, you are right. I mistakenly
called my implementation 'Floyd algorithm'. I will no longer call it 'Floyd
algorithm'. Thank you for pointing me to this mistake." or something like?:
"Thank you for explaining how the strongest paths can be calculated in a
runtime O(N^3). My implementation still has a runtime O(N^5)."

******

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Excuse me, but did I ask who proposed the Floyd algorithm? I was referring
> to the one that you posted here some time ago. I was suggesting that we find
> it in the archives and find out if, without making more than one pass
> through the permutations, it finds the strongest beatpaths between each pair
> of candidates. So I repeat: What was the year, month and day that you posted
> that algorithm that you called the Floyd algorithm and claimed would find
> the strongest beatpaths with one pass through the permutations?

I suggested to use the Floyd algorithm e.g. in my 6 Feb 2001 mail:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/6493
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2001-February/005093.html

in my 23 Feb 2001 mail:
http://www.topica.com/lists/RankedPairs/read/message.html?mid=1601349191

in my 14 Nov 2002 mail:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2002/debian-vote-200211/msg00035.html

and in my paper "A New Monotonic and Clone-Independent Single-Winner
Election Method":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

******

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> By the way, if, as you seem to be suggesting, the Floyd algorithm (the real
> one, I mean) finds the strongest paths between pairs of graph-nodes, even
> though the web articles say that it's intended to find the _shortest_ path,
> then, if that's so, ways of finding strongest paths were being discussed as
> early as 1962. If that's true, do you really believe that it never occurred
> to anyone to compare path strengths between two candidates, until you
> "invented" that idea in 1996?

When you believe that the Schulze method (aka Schwartz Sequential Dropping,
aka Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential Dropping, aka Beatpath Winner, aka
Beatpath Method, aka Path Winner, aka Path Voting, ...) has already been
proposed by other people, then you are invited to post the corresponding
paper.

******

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
> Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything
> is the Floyd algorithm. I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm
> that made as many permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd
> written it right, because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he really
> meant to write the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd algorithm.
> I said "Ok". So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have no
> idea, but that's how he always is.

Then, of course, it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" anymore. There was no need for you
to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

Markus Schulze


From malditomartin at yahoo.es  Fri Dec 19 06:56:48 2003
From: malditomartin at yahoo.es (=?iso-8859-1?q?Martin?=)
Date: Fri Dec 19 06:56:48 2003
Subject: [EM] unsuscribe
Message-ID: <20031219141837.86302.qmail@web11108.mail.yahoo.com>

 
 

_______________________________________________________________
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From rspeer at MIT.EDU  Fri Dec 19 07:27:02 2003
From: rspeer at MIT.EDU (Rob Speer)
Date: Fri Dec 19 07:27:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
References: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031219152557.GA11477@mit.edu>

On Fri, Dec 19, 2003 at 10:08:45AM +0000, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
> But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
> Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything 
> is the Floyd algorithm.
> I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm that made as many 
> permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd written it right, 
> because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he really meant to write 
> the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd algorithm. I said "Ok".
> So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have no idea, but 
> that's how he always is.

If you said "Ok", it would have been a great place to end the thread.
But it got lost in the mass of insults and flames being thrown back and
forth.

Markus is just doing what he does: he makes sure that voting terminology
used on this list is consistent, when so much of the available
information about voting terminology is inconsistent. Perhaps he's being
too harsh here or is even wrong about what you're referring to. People
make mistakes.

Terminology is a very important thing for people to agree on. It was
because of a conflict in terminology that I ended up in that stupid
flamewar with Eric.

It seems that the fiercest arguments can break out when the positions of
the arguers are closest. People like Donald Davidson and Craig Carey say
things that are much more inflammatory than any of this, but nobody
usually bothers to flame them.

-- 
Rob Speer



From dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk  Fri Dec 19 07:41:03 2003
From: dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk (Diana Galletly)
Date: Fri Dec 19 07:41:03 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
In-Reply-To: <20031219152557.GA11477@mit.edu>
References: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com> <20031219152557.GA11477@mit.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312191537250.13540@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003, Rob Speer wrote:

> People like Donald Davidson and Craig Carey say

Talking of Craig Carey, can someone please explain what his most
recent diatribe was on about?  And whether it's worth my while
worrying about?  (Since he's thrown Markus out of his private
party -- at least that's how it appears to outsiders -- I'd
like to know whether he actually has a point or is just excellent
at posturing.)

Diana.


From andru at cs.cornell.edu  Fri Dec 19 08:03:04 2003
From: andru at cs.cornell.edu (Andrew Myers)
Date: Fri Dec 19 08:03:04 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm
In-Reply-To: <20031219152702.19030.66063.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
References: <20031219152702.19030.66063.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <20031219160250.GA6837@balm.cs.cornell.edu>

Hi all,

The "Floyd algorithm" is usually called the Floyd-Warshall all-pairs shortest
path algorithm. This algorithm computes the cost of the "best path" in a
weighted, directed graph. The notion of 'best' and 'cost' are defined by two
operations we can call 'min' and '+', respectively. As long as the actual
mathematical operations have the right algebraic properties, the algorithm will
work. The core of the algorithm updates the matrix as follows:

    m[i][j] = 'min'(m[i][j], m[i][k] '+' m[k][j])

For example, if we choose 'min' = min and '+' = +, then the cost of a path
is the sum of the weights of the edges and the algorithm finds the lowest-cost
path.

If we choose 'min' = max and '+' = min, then the cost of a path is
the lowest-weight edge and the algorithm finds the highest-weight path.
This is the particular choice of operators that results in selecting
the beatpath winner.

Many other choices for 'min' and '+' are possible, of course.

When implemented correctly it has O(V^3) running time where V is the number of
vertices (nodes) in the graph.

-- Andrew Myers


From matt at tidalwave.net  Fri Dec 19 09:00:01 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Fri Dec 19 09:00:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
Message-ID: <20031219165215.E0A00AC78@sitemail.everyone.net>

An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20031219/564d543b/attachment-0003.asc>

From drernie at mac.com  Fri Dec 19 09:30:02 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Fri Dec 19 09:30:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Ernie
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
References: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <EA5DD400-3248-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

I wrote:
> Can we chill?

Apparently the answer is "no".  :-)

Mike, Markus - as a newcomer to this arena, I have the greatest respect 
for both of you.   I think both of you are making valuable 
contributions to the field.   I think both of you are sincere and 
trying to do the best you can.    I am trying very hard to learn from 
both of you.  From what I've seen, both of you are willing to listen to 
constructive criticism, admit where you've made mistakes, and try to do 
the right thing.

At the same time, I feel like both of you are being just a little 
oversensitive on this issue.   I don't think either of you is 
deliberately overstating the facts.   And I can understand why you 
might be offended by the other person's tone.

However, I do feel that both of you are taking things a little too 
personally, and making too much of the other's slight lapses in 
terminology or etiquette.  Please, let it go.   We have far more 
important things to fight about.

-- Ernie P.



From drernie at mac.com  Fri Dec 19 10:09:02 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Fri Dec 19 10:09:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <20031219160250.GA6837@balm.cs.cornell.edu>
References: <20031219152702.19030.66063.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com> <20031219160250.GA6837@balm.cs.cornell.edu>
Message-ID: <4927B6FD-324E-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

Hi Andrew,

> The "Floyd algorithm" is usually called the Floyd-Warshall all-pairs 
> shortest
> path algorithm. This algorithm computes the cost of the "best path" in 
> a
> weighted, directed graph. The notion of 'best' and 'cost' are defined 
> by two
> operations we can call 'min' and '+', respectively....For example, if 
> we choose 'min' = min and '+' = +, then the cost of a path is the sum 
> of the weights of the edges and the algorithm finds the lowest-cost
> path. If we choose 'min' = max and '+' = min, then the cost of a path 
> is
> the lowest-weight edge and the algorithm finds the highest-weight path.

Thanks - this is awesome.  I think this highlights my biggest question 
about the Schulze method.  Essentially, Markus (and Mike) are 
recommending we treat the pairwise matrix of votes as defining a graph, 
where each candidate is a node and each vote count is a directed edge 
between two nodes.  This allows us to use standard mathematical 
techniques for traversing the graph, i.e., calculating the relative 
'strength' of two candidates.  Yes, Stef, time to finish that thesis, 
all this math really is the same.

Even if we agree to use a graph, and a particular graph-traversal 
algorithm, there's still a couple different ways to do the counting 
(i.e., to define the 'best' path we're searching for).

a) Use of 'shortest' path vs. 'strongest'

This is the issue you raise below:  do we add the paths along the way 
to get the 'length' of the path, or do we pick the 'weakest link' to 
measure the strength of path?

b) Use of relative wins vs. absolute votes

Do we count -all- the votes of A over B (A/B), or just net votes (A/B - 
B/A).

 From looking at their math, it appears that Markus ("Schulze method") 
is recommending:
a) shortest path
b) relative wins

while Mike ("beatpath") is recommending:
a) strongest path
b) absolute votes

These appear to be fundamental differences, independent of whether you 
use Floyd-Warshall or Dijkstra (or even when you can spell any of their 
names correctly, which I can't :-) for graph traversal.  That is, 
beatpath explicitly uses a slightly different set of assumptions than 
those used in the formal Schulze method.

Does anyone know if they're equivalent, or have any reason to argue 
(non-insultingly, please!) that one is better than the other?

-- Ernie P.


On Dec 19, 2003, at 8:02 AM, Andrew Myers wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> The "Floyd algorithm" is usually called the Floyd-Warshall all-pairs 
> shortest
> path algorithm. This algorithm computes the cost of the "best path" in 
> a
> weighted, directed graph. The notion of 'best' and 'cost' are defined 
> by two
> operations we can call 'min' and '+', respectively. As long as the 
> actual
> mathematical operations have the right algebraic properties, the 
> algorithm will
> work. The core of the algorithm updates the matrix as follows:
>
>     m[i][j] = 'min'(m[i][j], m[i][k] '+' m[k][j])
>
> For example, if we choose 'min' = min and '+' = +, then the cost of a 
> path
> is the sum of the weights of the edges and the algorithm finds the 
> lowest-cost
> path.
>
> If we choose 'min' = max and '+' = min, then the cost of a path is
> the lowest-weight edge and the algorithm finds the highest-weight path.
> This is the particular choice of operators that results in selecting
> the beatpath winner.
>
> Many other choices for 'min' and '+' are possible, of course.
>
> When implemented correctly it has O(V^3) running time where V is the 
> number of
> vertices (nodes) in the graph.
>
> -- Andrew Myers
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list 
> info



From andru at cs.cornell.edu  Fri Dec 19 11:09:12 2003
From: andru at cs.cornell.edu (Andrew Myers)
Date: Fri Dec 19 11:09:12 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <4927B6FD-324E-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>
References: <20031219152702.19030.66063.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com> <20031219160250.GA6837@balm.cs.cornell.edu> <4927B6FD-324E-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>
Message-ID: <20031219190713.GA7368@balm.cs.cornell.edu>

On Fri, Dec 19, 2003 at 10:08:02AM -0800, Ernest Prabhakar wrote:
> From looking at their math, it appears that Markus ("Schulze method") 
> is recommending:
> a) shortest path
> b) relative wins
> 
> while Mike ("beatpath") is recommending:
> a) strongest path
> b) absolute votes

As I understand it, they are both computing beatpath winners where
the goal is to find the strongest path using absolute votes.
The difference is that Markus is building on a more efficient algorithm,
the classic Floyd-Warshall algorithm. The key is to get the order
of the nested loops right so the algorithm converges in one pass.
This makes the algorithm simpler and asymptotically faster.
It is a dynamic programming algorithm; see any good algorithms
textbook (e.g., Cormen, Leiserson, and Rivest) for more details.

Unless there are a lot of candidates, it probably doesn't matter
much which algorithm is used.

-- Andrew Myers


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 19 11:33:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 19 11:33:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <3FE351F2.6BA9B886@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Ernest,

you wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Even if we agree to use a graph, and a particular graph-traversal
> algorithm, there's still a couple different ways to do the counting
> (i.e., to define the 'best' path we're searching for).

"Beatpath Method", "Beatpath Winner", "Path Voting", "Path Winner",
"Schwartz Sequential Dropping", "Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential
Dropping", and "Schulze Method" are only different names for the
same method.

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> From looking at their math, it appears that Markus ("Schulze method") 
> is recommending:
> a) shortest path
> b) relative wins
>
> while Mike ("beatpath") is recommending:
> a) strongest path
> b) absolute votes

We both are recommending strongest paths and absolute votes. There
is absolutely no difference between Mike's and my recommendation.

Markus Schulze


From drernie at mac.com  Fri Dec 19 12:06:39 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Fri Dec 19 12:06:39 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <3FE351F2.6BA9B886@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FE351F2.6BA9B886@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <86366664-325E-11D8-B31D-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

On Dec 19, 2003, at 11:30 AM, Markus Schulze wrote:
> We both are recommending strongest paths and absolute votes. There
> is absolutely no difference between Mike's and my recommendation.

Ah, thank you!  Sorry, I got confused between what you each recommended 
and what I was reading about the various algorithms.

I actually find the Floyd algorithm confusing, with all the indices.   
I think Dijkstra is not only clearer, but easier to implement using 
objects.  Here's some pseudo-Python code I've been working on, which I 
think implements the Schulze method via Dijkstra.

The main object is a 'Candidate (start, current, or beat) with the 
following fields:
- beats[] # list of candidates this one has beaten
- votes{} # dictionary of votes for this one against each other 
candidate
- strength # hold temporary path strengths; allows sorting to find 
'smallest'

def FindStrongestPaths(start):
"Find best paths to all candidates starting from candidate 'start'"
final = []
start.strength = HUGE_VAL # arbitrarily large, so anything is 'min' 
relative to it
unchecked = [start]
while (current = unchecked.smallest()): # removes and returns smallest 
elements
   final.append(current)
   for beat in current.beats: # loop over candidate current has beaten 
(i.e., neighbor nodes)
      strength = min(current.strength, current.votes[beat])
      if not final.contains(beat) and (not unchecked.contains(beat) or 
strength > beat.strength):
        beat.strength = strength
        if not unchecked.contains(beat): unchecked.append(beat)
     #endif
   #end for
#end while
#end def


Anyone care to check it for me (yes, I know its not legal python; done 
for clarity; I'm asking about the algorithm).

-- Ernie P.



From stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca  Fri Dec 19 12:36:01 2003
From: stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca (stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca)
Date: Fri Dec 19 12:36:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <20031219203542.UAMK13528.tomts24-srv.bellnexxia.net@smtp.bellnexxia.net>

Dear Ernest,

> Yes, Stef, time to finish that thesis, 
> all this math really is the same.

>From an algorithmic point of view, yes.
But from a behaviour and result point of view,
"min" and "+" produce very different things...

And yes Markus and Mike promote both "min" and
"winning votes". They just love to argue "for fun".

Stephane  



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 19 15:07:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 19 15:07:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <3FE38375.20BFE6D3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Ernest,

I don't know Python-ish pseudo-code. But in Pascal/C-ish pseudo-code
the Dijkstra algorithm (aka Dykstra algorithm) looks as follows when
the strength of a pairwise defeat is measured primarily by p1 (= the
absolute number of votes for the winner of this pairwise defeat) and
secondarily by p2 (= the margin of this pairwise defeat):

***

N is the number of candidates.

Input: d[i,j] with i <> j is the number of voters who strictly prefer
candidate i to candidate j.

Output: "w[i] = true" means that candidate i is a potential winner.
"w[i] = false" means that candidate i is not a potential winner.

***

for i : = 1 to N do
for j : = 1 to N do
if ( i <> j ) then
   {
    if ( d[i,j] > d[j,i] ) then
    d1[i,j] : = d[i,j] ;
    if ( d[i,j] <= d[j,i] ) then
    d1[i,j] : = -1 ;

    d2[i,j] : = d[i,j] - d[j,i] ;

    p1[i,j] : = d1[i,j] ;
    p2[i,j] : = d2[i,j] ;
   }

for i : = 1 to N do
   {
    for j : = 1 to N do
    unchecked[j] : = true ;

    unchecked[i] : = false ;

    for j : = 2 to N do
      {
       v : = - MAXINT ;
       w : = - MAXINT ;
       x : = 0 ;
       
       for k : = 1 to N do
       if ( unchecked[k] = true ) then
       if (( p1[i,k] > v ) or (( p1[i,k] = v ) and ( p2[i,k] > w ))) then
         {
          v : = p1[i,k] ;
          w : = p2[i,k] ;
          x : = k ;
         }

       unchecked[x] : = false ;

       for k : = 1 to N do
       if ( unchecked[k] = true ) then
          {
           s : = min { p1[i,x], d1[x,k] } ;
           if ( p1[i,x] < d1[x,k] ) then
           t : = p2[i,x] ;
           if ( p1[i,x] > d1[x,k] ) then
           t : = d2[x,k] ;
           if ( p1[i,x] = d1[x,k] ) then
           t : = min { p2[i,x], d2[x,k] } ;
           
          if (( p1[i,k] < s ) or
             (( p1[i,k] = s ) and ( p2[i,k] < t ))) then
             {
              p1[i,k] : = s ;
              p2[i,k] : = t ;
             }
          }
      }
   }

for i : = 1 to N do
   {
    w[i] : = true ;
    for j : = 1 to N do
    if ( i <> j ) then
    if (( p1[j,i] > p1[i,j] ) or
       (( p1[j,i] = p1[i,j] ) and ( p2[j,i] > p2[i,j] ))) then
    w[i] : = false ;
   }

Markus Schulze


From dglaude at gmx.net  Fri Dec 19 15:13:02 2003
From: dglaude at gmx.net (David GLAUDE)
Date: Fri Dec 19 15:13:02 2003
Subject: [EM] What is this software MIKE is working on...
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
References: <Law10-F66AcYNpGZl6u000093f6@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <3FE38316.8060103@gmx.net>

One of the side effect of the Markus and Mike chat is that I understand 
Mike is programing something... The more I think about it, the more I 
believe it might be this:
http://www.fairvote.org/ChoicePlus/
http://votingsolutions.com/

If it is... I will come with more on that...

But if the author of that piece of code are on this list... I can talk 
about it here too.

David GLAUDE

MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
> 
> Ernie,
> 
> You wrote:
> 
> Can we chill? We're all Condorcet-lovers, after all.   Mike probably
> used the term Floyd inappropriately.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
> Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that 
> anything is the Floyd algorithm.
> I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm that made as many 
> permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd written it 
> right, because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he really meant 
> to write the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd algorithm. 
> I said "Ok".
> So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have no idea, 
> but that's how he always is.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> I suspect that we're really experiencing a clash of cultures.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Excuse me?
> 
> You continued:
> 
> Markus
> appears to be operating from a math/compsci perspective
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Markus is operating in a "making-up-fictitious-quotes" perspective.
> 
> Math and comuter-science have nothing to do with it at all.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> , where terms
> mean something different than they do in Mike.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> I agree that everything seems to mean something different to Markus. In 
> particular, Markus evidently has a different perspective on the matter 
> of whther he should check the accuracy of what he's about to post.
> 
> But if you're referring to mathematical terms, then tell me what 
> mathematical term I have a different meaning for, resulting in the 
> misunderstanding.
> 
> It isn't "Floyd algorithm", because I've already repeated many many 
> times that I now don't claim to know what it means, and that the meaning 
> of that term doesn't matter to me.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> As a physicist, I'm
> used to abusing mathematical terminology, so I can appreciate the
> dilemma. :-)
> 
> But what mathematical terminology is being abused now?
> 
> You continued:
> 
> I suspect part of the problem is that the term 'shortest path'  in the
> Flloyd algorithm is used for finding what Mike calls a BeatPath.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> What I call a beatpath is a sequence of defeats from one candidate to 
> another (informal definition).
> So Floyd calls that a shortest path, and uses it to find a beatpath?
> 
> You continued:
> 
> The
> comparison of such paths to find the strongest beatpath is actually
> after the Flloyd algorithm.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> So something called "shortest paths" are used to find the strongest 
> beatpath?
> 
> Ok.
> 
> I don't know if "shortest path" is a mathematical term, but I wasn't 
> really taking a position on what it means. What I did say was that I 
> agreed that the Floyd algorithm sounds different from our strongest 
> beatpaths algorithm, because our algorithm seeks the strongest path 
> betwen 2 candidates, not the shortest one.
> 
> But if you say that finding the shortest path between two candidates can 
> somehow be part of some method for finding the strongest one, l of 
> course wouldn't try to contradict you on that. It isn't something that 
> I  would take a position on.
> 
> Mike Ossipoff
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Tired of slow downloads? Compare online deals from your local high-speed 
> providers now.  https://broadband.msn.com
> 
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
> 
> 

-- 






From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 19 22:15:07 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 19 22:15:07 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <3FE3B95F.7F97A915@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Ernest,

you wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Let me put it another way.   Could you please explain in words why you
> feel it is necessary or useful to use *both* absolute votes and margins
> in the calculation?   Are the margins used simply to break a tie
> between absolute votes?  I think that's what is implied by the line:
> >            if ( p1[i,x] = d1[x,k] ) then
> >            t : = min { p2[i,x], d2[x,k] } ;

I consider the margins of defeats only when both defeats have the same
absolute number of votes for the winner. The aim is to make the method
more decisive without sacrificing any of the desired properties.

******

You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
> Also, is there a particular mathematical or anti-strategic reason for
> randomizing the tie-breaking round, rather than just automatically
> picking the candidate who would have the best chance of winning such
> a random draw?

Plurality as a tie-breaking strategy violates independence of clones.

Markus Schulze


From research at ijs.co.nz  Fri Dec 19 23:56:01 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Fri Dec 19 23:56:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GHP.4.32.0312181237360.27475-100000@appserv.sya.pcc.e
 du>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031220185208.04216fe0@pop.qsi.net.nz>

At 2003-12-18 13:29 -0800 Thursday, Forest Simmons wrote:
>For me two paramount criteria are
>
>(1) simplicity of optimal or near optimal strategy, and
>
>(2) as much voting power as possible consistent with (1).
>


That is not based on evidence, Mr Simmons.
The so called Schulze method (that recently appeared in a prestigious
English publication, namely Voting Matters (PDF files are around),
had the appearance of failing these strict rules:

(1) The number of winners should be correct.
   indicates that the Schulze method found the wrong number of winners.
   As might be expected, Mr Schulze has not commented on that or produced
   a defence against the allegation. In fact, so very complex is the method
   in its polytope form (and a optimal method would be much simpler), that
   the assumption should be that the method is guilty until cleared.

(2) The method should not have some bias. This fails methods that ignrore
   the votes and pick the first (not best) candidate on a list the method
   receives.

   Shulze's believed the count of the papers could be ignored and the number
   of voters could be counted. That is stupid and some people don't seem to
   be able to stop or explain themselves without pointing invalid assumptions.

(3) When the papers are like STV' the winners ought be insensitive to the
  presence or absence of the very last preference in one or more papers.
  That Schulze method seemed to fail this test.

THE EM LIST REALLY NEEDS SOFTWARE TO CHECK FOR BASIC MISTAKES IN THEIR
METHODS.

Outside of here the methods are simpler and the passes are found using 
arguments instead of with testing.



>There are various possible definitions of "voting power," but it should
>have something to do with the probability of one ballot or set of ballots
>being pivotal to the outcome in an election chosen at random from some
>family of elections.
>

That is dumb since it is vaguely stated and it makes use of probalities
that do not exist. I have already considered and partly solved the problem.

The only solution I found is to start off by never defining "the power of
a ballot paper.

Approximately, the fairness of an equal suffrage rule is written down in its
 2 parts:

[1] multiwinner monotonicity requiring 0 <= power
[2] multiwinner one man one vote requiring power <= 1


Here I write on the power of a single ballot paper.

Both those rules are infinitesimal (since fair). It would be suspect to
have power consider big changes in the votes.

A rule can only consider the facts, i.e. the changes in the votes and the
changes in the winners.

So the power number is only defined on ties.

It would not take account of Mr Simmons' probability since it was a lie
to say that they existed. Mr Simmons' apparently can write to me privately
but never actually sends out to me even one of these probability numbers.

It takes quite a few lines to write down a QE formula testing whether
a method passes the power<=1 rule. I was writing on power when writing
on P4 over a year ago, at politicians and polytopes.

Suppose the ballot paper being tested is x*(ABC), with its weight, x,
being a positive Real. Then the method can be failed by the 'as defined'
power<=1 part of the equal suffrage rule when it (ABC)-desirableness of
the winners can't be sustained|reproduced when its weight is positively
shifted onto only these shorter papers.  Each line provides a different
test:

|----------------------------
|  . .? {A,BC}
|  . .? {B,AC}
|  . .? {C,AB}
|  . .? {AB,AC}
|  . .? {AB,BC}
|  . .? {AC,BC}
|  . .? {A,B,C}
|  . .? {A,B,AC}
|  . .? {A,B,BC}
|  . .? {A,C,AB}
|  . .? {A,C,BC}
|  . .? {B,C,AB}
|  . .? {B,C,AC}
|  . .? {A,AB,AC}
|  . .? {B,AB,BC}
|  . .? {C,AC,BC}
|----------------------------


Note only does the number of lines increase rapidly as candidates are
added, but the desirableness value takes 2**nw values where nw is the number
of winners.

Nowthat it is known that the algebra can get simpler when rules are combined
with dual polytopes. it could save time to merge all rules (except the
Approvalishy proportionality aim) into a single rule. That would get the
word power matching up better with the words "equal suffrage".

To get the power, e.g. q, (which is a real numbe), it can be inserted into an
appropriate place in the QE formula.

Mr Simmons is still implying that probability exists which appears to be
a lie. I did ask for the probability numbers. This mailing list has seen
this precise problem of untrue claims that numbers exist, when I asked
Mr Ossipoff for some probability numbers,





>
>
>Here's a method that comes close to satisfying these criteria:
>
>The method takes ranked ballots with equal rankings allowed, as input.
>
>The method first applies Rob LeGrand's "ballot-by-ballot" version of
>"strategy A" to all possible permutations of the ballot. [Yes, this method
>is computationally intractable.]
>
>If the same candidate wins for all permutations, then that candidate is
>declared winner.
>


Maybe that creates a new method instead of passing or failing an
existing method. So the previous topic of power has left.


>Else, Joe Weinstein's weighted median method is applied to determine the
>winner.  A candidate's weight is the number of permutations that it won
>(according to Rob) plus one (so that each candidate has non-zero weight).
>
>Although this method is computationally intractable,the method winner can
>be calculated with 99.9 percent accuracy without inordinate computational
>burden, by use of montecarlo methods, for example.
>

Oh, THE random number generating algorithms are in the future.

E.g. in a computer existing in the year 2973 (in 23 April).

Is that why you can't ever seem to get a probability number out after
being asked for that ?.


>The residual doubt is small compared to other sources of doubt in other
>voting methods, especially the doubt that the votes were sincere, or the
>doubt that the the voters were using their best strategy for maximizing
>their voting power.

"votes" are sincere and it is not voters. Voters can be absent is some
elections trialling a method, and so can probability numbers be absent.


>
>Note that the method is completely deterministic,





From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 01:55:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 01:55:02 2003
Subject: [EM] RE: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #388 - 7 msgs
Message-ID: <Law10-F17mPRmlgF2a50004beb7@hotmail.com>


Someone wrote:

One of the side effect of the Markus and Mike chat is that I understand
Mike is programing something

I reply:

No. I'm not programming anything. Yes, quite some time ago I posted a Python 
program to implement BeatpathWinner. And yes, I re-posted the BeatpathWinner 
algorithm a few days ago, this time not in any particular programming 
language.

But I'm not now programming anything.

What started this discussion was when Markus said that my BeatpathWinner 
algorithm wouldn't work, because it isn't the Floyd algorithm, whatever that 
is.

The algorithm that Markus posted as the Floyd algorithm differs from mine 
(actually Steve Eppley's) by only making one pass through the 3-candidate 
permutations.

As I say in my reply to Ernie, my algorithm works. It looks at every 
permutation of 3 candidates, i, j, and k. If the beatpath from i to j, and 
the beatpath from j to k, are both stronger than the beatpath from i to k, 
then the value of the minimum of B(i,j) and B(j,k), which is the strength of 
the beatpath made by concatenating the ij and jk beatpaths, becomes the new 
value of B(i,k)--the strongest beatpath from i to j found as-yet at that 
time.

It repeatedly makes passes through the permutations until doing so doesn't 
make any changes. Then its task is completed. Each pass finds one or more 
new, longer beatpaths that replace a previous one that wasn't as strong.

The beatpaths that it initially looks at are single-step beatpaths, pairwise 
defeats. But, via the process described above, the algorithm eventually 
finds the strongest beatpath from each candidate to each other candidate.

If Markus believes that it doesn't work, I'd be curioius how he justifies 
that claim.But sometimes he says it merely takes longer to execute than the 
Floyd algorithm, and not that it doesn't work.

It was irresponsible for Markus to say that that BeatpathWinner algorithm 
wouldn't work, unless he can justify his claim, tell why he thinks it 
wouldn't work.

False statements, statements that he can't justify,  have always been 
Markus's stock-in-trade. But this time he's doing the disservice of 
misinforming people about a practical matter. But Markus doesn't care, he 
just enjoys being on the attack.

Now, Markus says that it's possible to find all the strongest beatpaths by 
making just one pass. He says the Floyd algorithm did that. According to 
websites that I looked at, the Floyd algorithm doesn't find strongest 
beatpaths, it finds shortest paths. I guess what Markus is saying is that it 
can be modified to find strongest beatpaths. He says that, by changing the 
order of the indexes in the line that tests and changes B(i,j) values, it 
can complete its job in one pass. But, if that's true when its job is 
finding the shortest path between each pair of graph-nodes, that may or may 
not mean that it's true when its job is finding the strongest beatpath from 
each candidate to each other candidate.

I'm not debating whether that's so. I don't know, and I don't reallly care. 
It doesn't matter because, though Markus says that the one-pass procedure is 
faster, both procedures are fast enough for all practical purposes.

As I said, the only reason why I said anything was because of Markus's 
mistaken statement that the BeatpathWinner algorithm wouldn't work.

Mike Ossipoff



That person continued:

... The more I think about it, the more I
believe it might be this:
http://www.fairvote.org/ChoicePlus/
http://votingsolutions.com/

I have nothing to do with the fairvote website. The other one, I'd have to 
check to find out what it is. But I'm not programming anything there. 
There's an interactive BeatpathWinner counting website, and it uses an 
algorithm similar to the one that I've posted here. But the website owner 
didn't get the algorithm from me, and I'm not working on it.

That person continued:

If it is... I will come with more on that...

I reply:

It isn't. I'm not programming anything there, and I'm not programming the 
BeatpathWinner algorithm. I did that a long time ago.
Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Grab our best dial-up Internet access offer: 6 months @$9.95/month.  
http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 02:11:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 02:11:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
Message-ID: <3FE41EF4.C7AB435E@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> That is not based on evidence, Mr Simmons.
> The so called Schulze method (that recently appeared in a prestigious
> English publication, namely Voting Matters (PDF files are around),
> had the appearance of failing these strict rules:
>
> (1) The number of winners should be correct.
>    indicates that the Schulze method found the wrong number of winners.
>    As might be expected, Mr Schulze has not commented on that or produced
>    a defence against the allegation. In fact, so very complex is the method
>    in its polytope form (and a optimal method would be much simpler), that
>    the assumption should be that the method is guilty until cleared.

In Section 3 of my paper, I prove that my method is well defined:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> (2) The method should not have some bias. This fails methods that ignrore
>    the votes and pick the first (not best) candidate on a list the method
>    receives.
>
>    Shulze's believed the count of the papers could be ignored and the number
>    of voters could be counted. That is stupid and some people don't seem to
>    be able to stop or explain themselves without pointing invalid assumptions.

You will have to rephrase this, because I have absolutely no idea what
you are talking about.

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> (3) When the papers are like STV' the winners ought be insensitive to the
>   presence or absence of the very last preference in one or more papers.
>   That Schulze method seemed to fail this test.

Please give a concrete example.

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 03:16:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 03:16:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Matt
Message-ID: <LAW10-F31WoqFXfyY0Q0004339f@hotmail.com>

Message: 3
From: matt at tidalwave.net
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 08:52:15 -0800 (PST)
To: election-methods at electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Reply to Ernie
Reply-To: matt at tidalwave.net

Matt said:

In this case the style of debater and the merit of the argument positively
correlate.  In other words, the debater that is polite, clear and helpful is
correct and the debaters that are impolite, confusing and derogatory are
incorrect.

(farther below, Matt clarifies that he's saying that Markus was the correct 
one)

I reply:

Sorry, but you're mistaken.

The "debate" was about whether or not I claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner 
algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Since I repeatedly clarified that, now 
that I've been told different, I now am not claiming that Steve's algorithm 
is the Floyd algorithm, Markus was incorrect when he kept repeating that I 
claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

That's the only issue that was being debated. On that issue, I was correct, 
and Markus was incorrect, because, during that discussion, I was longer 
claiming that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I wasn't debating which algorithm is better. I'd be lying if I claimed to 
know if one pass through the 3-candidate permutations can reliably find the 
strongest beatpath beween each ordered pair of candidates, as Markus claims, 
but I'm not debating that or denying it.

Matt continued:

Thank you Markus for your (unsuccesfull) efforts to help Mike improve the
program that his site promotes.

I reply:

Yes, when Markus said that Steve's algorithm doesn't work, Markus was 
unsuccessful in convincing me that it doesn't work. But you're sure that it 
doesn't work, right? :-)   I'm referring to the
BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted here a few days ago.

Or maybe the improvement that yoiu're referring to is the greater speed of 
the one-pass algorithm, assuming that it relliably works.

Let's suppose that it indeed works, and is faster than Steve's algorithm. 
Does that mean that we should use it to replace Steve's algorithm at the 
website, or that I should start sending it out to people who ask for an 
implementation algorithm. No, not really. Steve's algorilthm _obviously_ 
works. It's obvious that eventually the repeated passes will find the 
strongest beatpath between each orderred pair of candidates.

Even if the one-pass algorithm works, I'm not going to send it out, along 
with a proof for why it works. I prefer to not send something that requies 
me to convince someone and explain to them why it works, when it doesn't at 
first appear that it would.  I'll continue sending out the algorithm that 
obviously works, Steve's algorithm. Sorry, Matt.

Matt continues:

I have seen stubborness before but the
magnititude of this stubborness (over such a trivial yet clearcut issue!)
matches or exceeds the worst I can recall seeing before.

I reply:

What issue? There was no issue about the relative merits of the 2 
algorithms. Markus says that there's a 1-pass algorithm that works, and that 
it's faster. Though I told how I initially didn't believe that that could be 
done, I was _not_ debating that during the discussion. My position has been: 
I don't claim to know if that can work, but it isn't important.

The issue, as I said, was about whether I claim that Steve's program is the 
Floyd algorithm. Yes I agree that that's a trivial issue. And yes, I 
stubbornly maintain that I don't claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd 
algorithm :-)   How's that for stubborn?

Or is that you think that I'm stubborn because I don't replace Steve's 
algorithm with the putative one-pass algorithm? I've told you that I prefer 
something whose validity is obvious, something that doesn't require a proof 
to be sent with it, doesn't require as much explaining and convincing. How's 
that for stubborn? If Steve's algorithm runs for a half minute, and the 
one-pass algorithm runs for half a second, is half a minute really a big 
problem?

So you're saying that it's stubborn to not adopt the method that you like 
best?

But, at the time that you stated that I was stubborn, I hadn't yet said that 
I wasn't going to adopt the one-pass algorithm.  All I'd said at that time 
was that I don't know if Markus's one-pass algorithm works. I was being 
honest. I don't know that if it works. I haven't checked Floyd's 1962 proof, 
and I don't even know if that proof really applies to the job of finding 
strongest beatpaths. That isn't stubborn, it's honest.

So you're saying that it's stubborn not to take Markus's word for whatever 
he says, in spite of Markus's long history of mis-statements?

So it's really entirely unclear what you think that I was being stubborn 
about.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
It?s our best dial-up Internet access offer: 6 months @$9.95/month. Get it 
now!  http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 03:18:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 03:18:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ernie: What started the discussion about BeatpathWinner algorithms
Message-ID: <Law10-F125sdov6dU2y0000c980@hotmail.com>

Ernie wrote:

>I wrote:
>Can we chill?

Apparently the answer is "no".  :-)

I reply:

Well, I said that I was going to quit replying to Markus, and that then he'd 
stop his one-sided debate about something that he claims that I said several 
postings back. I fully understand that that discussion has been a waste of 
time, and that no one but Markus cares about his fictional claim about what 
I allegedly said. I was saying that in my reply.

I agree, then, that the debate about what I said or didn't say several 
postings back isn't important. I'm not trying to make it more important than 
it was, but I just want to comment that you're talking about it as if was a 
genuinely 2-sided problem. But it certainly was not. Markus wanted to keep 
on repeating his claim that I claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner algorithm is 
the Floyd algorithm, even though I was repeating in each reply that I'm now 
making no such claim. Is that a stupid debate, or what? But it wasn't a 
2-sided problem. It was a nuisance created and perpetuated by Markus, due to 
some peculiar personality defect that he suffers from, which makes him feel 
the need to behave in that manner.

You know, I haven't usually been posting here, or taking part in the 
discussions. What got me to post was Markus's claim that Steve Eppley's 
BeatpathWinner algorithm wouldn't work. Markus, you notice, forgot to tell 
us what makes him think that it wouldn't work.

The algorithm looks at each 3-candidate permutation-- i,j, & k. Where  
B(i,j) is the strength of the strongest beatpath so far found from i to j, 
the program asks if the minimum of B(i,j) & B(j,k) is greater than  B(i,k). 
If so, then  the beatpath made by concatenating the ij and jk beatpaths is 
stronger than  the ik beatpath, and therefore replaces it as the new value 
of B(i,j).

With each pass through the permutations, this algorithm finds a new, longer 
beatpath that is stronger than the previous beatpath between the same 
endpoints. Eventually the B(i,j) values will be as strong as they can 
get--there won't be a stronger beatpath from i to k than the current        
B(i,k). When the most recent pass doesn't change any B(i,j) values, the 
algorithm  has completed its job and it stops.

There's no question about whether it works. It works.

Markus, when he said that it wouldn't work, forgot to tell us what makes him 
think it wouldn't work. But that's typical for Markus. Statements that he 
can't justify are Markus's stock-in-trade.

By saying on the mailing list that that algorithm wouldn't work, Markus was 
misinforming list-members about a practical matter. Of course that's 
irresponsible, but Markus doesn't care. It's as if Markus feels a need to 
defend the honor of the Floyd algorithm by challenging this other algorithm 
that finds strongest beatpaths.

Markus claims that the Floyd algorithm, which finds _shortest_ paths between 
graph-nodes, can be modified so that it finds strongest beatpaths. He seems 
to be implying that if the Floyd algorithm can do its job in one pass, when 
its job is finding the shortest path, then it can also do its job in one 
pass when its job is finding the strongest beatpaths between the ordered 
pairs of candidates.

I haven't challenged that belief. Maybe it's true, maybe not. I don't care. 
Markus says that that one-pass algorithm is faster than Steve's algorithm. 
Fine, if true. I have no argument with that. But Steve's algorithm isn't 
going to take problematically long counting any actual election, and so it's 
reallly every bit as good as the one-pass algorithm, even if the one-pass 
algorithm works for finding strongest beatpaths.

But the problem has been that Markus hasn't been content to recognize a 
solution different from his favorite as being ok. Markus is just being 
Markus again.  Is it really necessary to fight about these 2 algorithms?  Of 
course not. I've answered Markus's mistaken claim, and I'm not interested in 
fighting about it or debating it with Markus.

What if it's true that Markus's one-pass algorithm works for finding 
strongest beatpaths, and does so faster than Steve's algorithm? Does Markus 
believe that, therefore, Steve's algorithm shouldn't be used or proposed, or 
sent to people who ask for an implementation algorithm? Steve's algorithm 
obviously works. If Markus's one-pass algorithm works, it isn't as obvious. 
I suppose that, when someone asks me for an implementation algorithm, I 
could send them the one-pass algorithm, along with a proof that it works 
(assuming that it does).  But the validity of Steve's algorithm is more 
obvious, and it woirks perfectly well. If it takes longer, that won't make 
any difference, in actual elections, with today's fast computers. Will 
Steve's program take 25 seconds instead of 5? Is that really a problem if it 
does? I continue to send out Steve's algorithm when someone asks for one, 
because it's obvious that it works. I don't even know if the one-pass 
algorithm works for finding strongest beatpaths. And, if it does work, I'd 
rather not have to prove that less obvious fact to people who request an 
implementation algorilthm.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Check your PC for viruses with the FREE McAfee online computer scan.  
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 03:18:05 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 03:18:05 2003
Subject: [EM] Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #388 - 7 msgs
Message-ID: <3FE42979.21EAEF37@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> What started this discussion was when Markus said that my BeatpathWinner
> algorithm wouldn't work, because it isn't the Floyd algorithm, whatever
> that is.

Craig Carey claimed that my implementation of my method doesn't work
(presumably because it makes only one pass through the triple-loop).
I explained to Craig that it is true that when I had considered the
possible short cuts in that order that has been proposed by you then
my implementation would not have worked. But it has been proven by
Floyd that when the possible short cuts are considered in that very
special order that is used in my paper then it is guaranteed that one
pass through the triple-loop is sufficient to find all strongest paths.

******

You wrote (28 Feb 2001):
> This is the Floyd algorithm for making an array of greatest beatpath
> magnitudes between each pair of options:
>
> 1.Have a 2-dimensional array of defeat magnitudes between the pairs
> of options. Have 2 copies of that, one called defeats(i,j), and the
> other called beatpaths(i,j).
>
> 2.In both arrays, if i beats j, then the ij element is equal to the
> magnitude of i's defeat of j. If j beats i, then the ij element is
> zero. "ij" refers to the ij element of the beatpath(i,j) array.
>
> 3.For every 3-option permuation (i,j,k) that can be taken from the
> entire option set: If min(ij,jk) > ik then write min(ij,jk) to replace
> ij at the "ij" place in the beatpath(i,j) array.
>
> 4. Repeat #3 till that repetition doesn't change any of the entries
> in the beatpath(i,j) array.
>
> [end of greatest beatpath magnitude algorithm]

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
> I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from
> you [= Markus] or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

If you really got your strongest beatpaths algorithm from Steve Eppley
and not from Floyd or me then why did you call it "Floyd algorithm"?
I have explained the Floyd algorithm in a private mail (30 April 2000)
to David Catchpole, Blake Cretney, Steve Eppley, Rob Lanphier, Norman Petry,
and you. I don't remember that Steve Eppley called his implementation
"Floyd algorithm". Therefore, I guess that you have got your algorithm
from me, but that you have never understood this algorithm sufficiently
to implement it in such a manner that it has a runtime of O(N^3).

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 03:19:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 03:19:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Matt
Message-ID: <LAW10-F94wuwi7NPASU0002cb8c@hotmail.com>

Message: 3
From: matt at tidalwave.net
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 08:52:15 -0800 (PST)
To: election-methods at electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Reply to Ernie
Reply-To: matt at tidalwave.net

Matt said:

In this case the style of debater and the merit of the argument positively
correlate.  In other words, the debater that is polite, clear and helpful is
correct and the debaters that are impolite, confusing and derogatory are
incorrect.

(farther below, Matt clarifies that he's saying that Markus was the correct 
one)

I reply:

Sorry, but you're mistaken.

The "debate" was about whether or not I claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner 
algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Since I repeatedly clarified that, now 
that I've been told different, I now am not claiming that Steve's algorithm 
is the Floyd algorithm, Markus was incorrect when he kept repeating that I 
claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

That's the only issue that was being debated. On that issue, I was correct, 
and Markus was incorrect, because, during that discussion, I was longer 
claiming that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I wasn't debating which algorithm is better. I'd be lying if I claimed to 
know if one pass through the 3-candidate permutations can reliably find the 
strongest beatpath beween each ordered pair of candidates, as Markus claims, 
but I'm not debating that or denying it.

Matt continued:

Thank you Markus for your (unsuccesfull) efforts to help Mike improve the
program that his site promotes.

I reply:

Yes, when Markus said that Steve's algorithm doesn't work, Markus was 
unsuccessful in convincing me that it doesn't work. But you're sure that it 
doesn't work, right? :-)   I'm referring to the
BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted here a few days ago.

Or maybe the improvement that yoiu're referring to is the greater speed of 
the one-pass algorithm, assuming that it relliably works.

Let's suppose that it indeed works, and is faster than Steve's algorithm. 
Does that mean that we should use it to replace Steve's algorithm at the 
website, or that I should start sending it out to people who ask for an 
implementation algorithm. No, not really. Steve's algorilthm _obviously_ 
works. It's obvious that eventually the repeated passes will find the 
strongest beatpath between each orderred pair of candidates.

Even if the one-pass algorithm works, I'm not going to send it out, along 
with a proof for why it works. I prefer to not send something that requies 
me to convince someone and explain to them why it works, when it doesn't at 
first appear that it would.  I'll continue sending out the algorithm that 
obviously works, Steve's algorithm. Sorry, Matt.

Matt continues:

I have seen stubborness before but the
magnititude of this stubborness (over such a trivial yet clearcut issue!)
matches or exceeds the worst I can recall seeing before.

I reply:

What issue? There was no issue about the relative merits of the 2 
algorithms. Markus says that there's a 1-pass algorithm that works, and that 
it's faster. Though I told how I initially didn't believe that that could be 
done, I was _not_ debating that during the discussion. My position has been: 
I don't claim to know if that can work, but it isn't important.

The issue, as I said, was about whether I claim that Steve's program is the 
Floyd algorithm. Yes I agree that that's a trivial issue. And yes, I 
stubbornly maintain that I don't claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd 
algorithm :-)   How's that for stubborn?

Or is that you think that I'm stubborn because I don't replace Steve's 
algorithm with the putative one-pass algorithm? I've told you that I prefer 
something whose validity is obvious, something that doesn't require a proof 
to be sent with it, doesn't require as much explaining and convincing. How's 
that for stubborn? If Steve's algorithm runs for a half minute, and the 
one-pass algorithm runs for half a second, is half a minute really a big 
problem?

So you're saying that it's stubborn to not adopt the method that you like 
best?

But, at the time that you stated that I was stubborn, I hadn't yet said that 
I wasn't going to adopt the one-pass algorithm.  All I'd said at that time 
was that I don't know if Markus's one-pass algorithm works. I was being 
honest. I don't know that if it works. I haven't checked Floyd's 1962 proof, 
and I don't even know if that proof really applies to the job of finding 
strongest beatpaths. That isn't stubborn, it's honest.

So you're saying that it's stubborn not to take Markus's word for whatever 
he says, in spite of Markus's long history of mis-statements?

So it's really entirely unclear what you think that I was being stubborn 
about.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Grab our best dial-up Internet access offer: 6 months @$9.95/month.  
http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 05:07:12 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 05:07:12 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Rob Speer
Message-ID: <Law10-F95f8PYqK87Mi0000cb5d@hotmail.com>

Rob Speer wrote:

Markus is just doing what he does

I reply:

About that you'll get no argument from me  :-)

You continued:

: he makes sure that voting terminology
used on this list is consistent, when so much of the available
information about voting terminology is inconsistent.

I reply:

Not at all. That was not a debate about voting terminology. As soon as 
Markus said that Steve's BeatpathWinner algorithm isn't the Floyd algorithm, 
I said ok then I'm no longer claiming that it's the Floyd algorithm. I said 
that I'll ask the website owner to delete that name from it.

No, the debate was about whether I still claim that Steve's algorithm is the 
Floyd algorithm. It was a really silly debate, because I'd repeatedly said 
that I no longer claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I'm the first to admit that it was a silly issue that Markus insisted on 
pursuing.

You continued:

Terminology is a very important thing for people to agree on.

I reply:

But there was no disagreement on terminology. Only on the issue of whether I 
was still claiming that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 05:26:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 05:26:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus reply,  12/20/03
Message-ID: <LAW10-F79zm4XqO1LWN0004c684@hotmail.com>

Markus said:

The problem with you is that you are unable to admit that you have made
a mistake (here: claiming that you have implemented the Floyd algorithm)

I reply:

On the contrary, at the beginning of the discussion, when you said that 
Steve's algorithm isn't the Floyd algorithm,  I said ok, I no longer call it 
the Floyd algorithm, and I'm going to ask Russ to delete that name from it 
at the website. Check the archives. I said that at the beginning of the 
discussion. And you kept repeating that I claim that our implementation is 
the Floyd algorithm.

In your own most recent message, in fact, you copied one of the copies of my 
explanation of why I _previously_ believed that Steve's algorithm was the 
Floyd algorithm.

Here's a paragraph of mine that you copied in your most recent posting:

>, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything
>is the Floyd algorithm. I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm
>that made as many permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd
>written it right, because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he 
>really
>meant to write the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd 
>algorithm.
>I said "Ok".


Where were you when repeatedly expllined that to you? Out to lunch?


Markus continued:

without bombarding with insults that person who pointed to this mistake.

I reply:

I wasn't criticizing you for pointing out to me that Steve's algorithm isn't 
the Floyd algorithm, and that your writing of a 1-pass algorithm was 
intentional, and not an omission, and that that algorithm that you wrote is 
the Floyd algorithm.

No, I was only criticising you for continuing to repeat that I was 
continuing to claim that our implementation is the Floyd algorithm.

Markus continued:

Why are you unable to say something like?: "Yes, you are right. I mistakenly
called my implementation 'Floyd algorithm'. I will no longer call it 'Floyd
algorithm'.

I reply:

But I did say that. Take a look at the paragraph written by me that I 
copied, above, from your most recent posting. I've said that I no longer 
call it the Floyd algorithm. I've said that I was going to ask Russ to 
delete that name from the algorithm at the website. I carefully explained 
what had caused me to believe that it was the Floyd algorithm, saying that I 
no longer call it that.

Out to lunch?

It sounds as if what you're asking for is an apology for previously calling 
Steve's BeatpathWinner algorithm the Floyd algorithm. No apology, because 
you weren't wronged when I called Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm. 
Sorry, no apology. But notice that you do get an apology for the fact that 
there's no apology :-)

Markus continued:

[Markus said I could have said:] Thank you for pointing me to this mistake."

Ok, it's thanks that you want. While I'm at it, shall I thank you for 
posting your mistaken claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner algorithm doesn't 
work? If I'd thanked you for telling me that Steve's algotithm isnt the 
Floyd algorithm, would you then have been willing to stop repeating that I 
still claim that Steve's implementation is the Floyd algorithm?

Markus continued:

or something like?:

"Thank you for explaining how the strongest paths can be calculated in a
runtime O(N^3). My implementation still has a runtime O(N^5)."

I reply:

Well, you didhn't really show that. You claimed it. I'm not saying that it 
isn't true. As I said, the accuracy of your claim could be judged by finding 
Floyd's 1962 proof, and finding out if it even applies to the job of finding 
the strongest beatpath between each ordered pair of candidates. I'm not 
debating that or denying it. Maybe it's true that, as you say, all the 
strongest beatpaths can be found with one pass through the 3-candidate 
permutations.

You reallly need thanks, don't you? Ok, thank yoiu, Markus, for stating your 
claim. Now, can this debate end?


I'd said:

>But that isn't anything different from what I'd already been saying.
>Early in this discussion, I said that I'm not longer saying that anything
>is the Floyd algorithm. I'd assumed that Markus had miscopied an algorithm
>that made as many permutations passes as necessary. Markus says that he'd
>written it right, because it only needs one pass. Markus says that he 
>really
>meant to write the algorithm as he did, and that that is the Floyd 
>algorithm.
>I said "Ok". So why is Markus still having such a problem about it? I have 
>no
>idea, but that's how he always is.

Markus replied:

Then, of course, it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" anymore.

I reply:

Hello-o-o-o! That's what I've been repeating for you over and over again, to 
no avail.

Markus continued:

There was no need for you
to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

I reply:

I won't debate whether there was a need to insult you. But can you look at 
your ridiculous statement that I quoted directly above, and say that there 
wasn't a reason to call you an idiot?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Working moms: Find helpful tips here on managing kids, home, work ?  and 
yourself.   http://special.msn.com/msnbc/workingmom.armx



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 05:29:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 05:29:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to Matt
Message-ID: <3FE43484.69991406@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> The "debate" was about whether or not I claim that Steve's BeatpathWinner
> algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Since I repeatedly clarified that, now
> that I've been told different, I now am not claiming that Steve's algorithm
> is the Floyd algorithm, Markus was incorrect when he kept repeating that I
> claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

Could you please forward that mail where Steve proposes this strongest path
algorithm?

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 05:41:28 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 05:41:28 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd reply to Markus on 12/20/03
Message-ID: <Law10-F105hRDT6Z3Ls0004c627@hotmail.com>

I'd said:

>What started this discussion was when Markus said that my BeatpathWinner
>algorithm wouldn't work, because it isn't the Floyd algorithm, whatever
>that is.

Markus replied:

Craig Carey claimed that my implementation of my method doesn't work
(presumably because it makes only one pass through the triple-loop).
I explained to Craig that it is true that when I had considered the
possible short cuts in that order that has been proposed by you then
my implementation would not have worked.

I reply:

Actually, you posted a fragment of our Python program and said that my 
algorithm won't work.

But if you're now backing down from that claim, that's good.

Markus quoted me:

You wrote (28 Feb 2001):
>This is the Floyd algorithm for making an array of greatest beatpath
>magnitudes between each pair of options:

I reply:

You see, Markus, this is why I refer to you as an idiot. Did I deny that, in 
Feb 2001, I was calling Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm.? No. I agreed 
that I'd formerly called that algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but that I no 
longer do. But you kept repeating that I continue to claim that my 
implementation is the Floyd algorilthm, though I kept trying to tell you 
that I no longer make any such claim.

And now you post a quote from 2001, apparently believing that it shows that 
you're right to say that, during this current discussion, I claim that 
Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

Seriously, Markus, all namecalling aside,there really is something wrong 
with you.

Ernie:

Can you really blame me for eventually beginning to make unflattering 
comments about this twit?

Markus continued:

You wrote (17 Dec 2003):
>I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from
>you [= Markus] or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

If you really got your strongest beatpaths algorithm from Steve Eppley
and not from Floyd or me then why did you call it "Floyd algorithm"?

I reply:

How many times is it necessary to explain that to you. If I explain it to 
you now, one more time, are you just going to forget again?

Ok, Steve wrote the algorithm. Some time later, you posted something here 
that resembled Steve's algorithm, but which only made one pass through the 
3-candidate permutations. You called it the Floyd algorithm. I assumed that 
you must have accidentallly miscopied the algorithm, accidentally writing so 
that it only make one pass through the permutations. So, believing that 
"Floyd algorithm" is the name of the algorithm that you'd miscopied, and 
believing that it must make several passes, then it looked as if "Floyd 
algorithm" was the name of Steve's algorithm.

So I got the algorithm from Steve, and I got the name from you, because I 
believed that what you'd tried to copy was something that was the same as 
Steve's algorithm. Now, did it sink in this time, or are you going to ask 
the question again in a few days?

Markus continued:

I have explained the Floyd algorithm in a private mail (30 April 2000)
to David Catchpole, Blake Cretney, Steve Eppley, Rob Lanphier, Norman Petry,
and you. I don't remember that Steve Eppley called his implementation
"Floyd algorithm". Therefore, I guess that you have got your algorithm
from me

I reply:

That certainly follows if the fact that I got the name from you means that I 
got the algorithm from you. But it doesn't mean that. I got the name from 
you, and, believing that you'd miscopied something that was the same as 
Steve's algorithm led me to believe that "Floyd algorithm" was a name for 
Steve's algotithm, that they were the same.

Markus continued:

, but that you have never understood this algorithm sufficiently
to implement it in such a manner that it has a runtime of O(N^3).

I reply:

As I said, it seemed to me that you must have miscopied it, and that you'd 
tried to copy something that was the same as Steve's algorithm.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From matt at tidalwave.net  Sat Dec 20 11:16:02 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Sat Dec 20 11:16:02 2003
Subject: [EM] RE: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #388 - 7 msgs
Message-ID: <20031220185436.E162B3946@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From drernie at mac.com  Sat Dec 20 19:58:08 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Sat Dec 20 19:58:08 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <3FE3B95F.7F97A915@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FE3B95F.7F97A915@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <D4FD5738-331F-11D8-B08B-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

Hi Markus,

On Dec 19, 2003, at 6:52 PM, Markus Schulze wrote:
> I consider the margins of defeats only when both defeats have the same
> absolute number of votes for the winner. The aim is to make the method
> more decisive without sacrificing any of the desired properties.

Ah, okay, that was hard for me to deduce from the original algorithm, 
where it seemed like you were primarily calculating margins. My 
implementation of this for object-oriented Dijkstra (using real Python 
code this time) is at the end.    The relevant section is here, where 
'rstrength', or relative strength, is used for the margin:

     # reset neighbor if unset or if new values would be better
     if next not in queue or\
        strength > self.strengthVS(next) or\
        strength == self.strengthVS(next) and rstrength > 
self.rstrengthVS(next):
       self.strengths[next.id] = strength
       self.rstrengths[next.id] = rstrength
       if next not in queue: queue.append(next)
       next.path[self.id] = current # remember beatpath predecessor
     #endif

That is, use the current calculated values for the strength of the path 
to this node if any of the following three conditions is true:
a) there are no other calculated values for this node ("next not in 
queue")
b) the strength (total votes) is better than the prior value ("strength 
 > self.strengthVS(next)")
c) the strength is equal, but the margin (rstrength) is better 
("rstrength > self.rstrengthVS(next)")

Does that look right to those who know what's going on? (apologies to 
people who don't do Python, but as you can see the code is vastly more 
compact, and I think far easier to follow).

I'm working on a well-formatted implementation of all this, which I 
hope will displace the other Condorcet implementations out there (and 
satisfy all the critics :-).

> You wrote (19 Dec 2003):
>> Also, is there a particular mathematical or anti-strategic reason for
>> randomizing the tie-breaking round, rather than just automatically
>> picking the candidate who would have the best chance of winning such
>> a random draw?
>
> Plurality as a tie-breaking strategy violates independence of clones.

Interesting.  Are you asserting that there is no deterministic 
tie-breaking algorithm that resists clones?  Does this mean that we 
really do need to keep track of all the actual ballots, and not just 
the Condorcet matrix?

-- Ernie P.

def findStrengths(self):
  "Find strongest paths to all candidates using Dijkstra, starting from 
self"
  self.initStrengths(max(self.votes)) # 'max_votes' is equivalent to 
'unset'
  current = self
  final = []
  queue = []

  while current:
   # declare this node's values as final
   final.append(current)

   # relax each of the neighbors (if not final)
   for next in current.beats:
     if next in final: continue

     # calculate (relative) strength, if this node were part of path
     strength = min(self.strengthVS(current), current.votesVS(next))
     rstrength = min(self.rstrengthVS(current), current.marginVS(next))

     # reset neighbor if unset or if new values would be better
     if next not in queue or\
        strength > self.strengthVS(next) or\
        strength == self.strengthVS(next) and rstrength > 
self.rstrengthVS(next):

	      self.strengths[next.id] = strength
	      self.rstrengths[next.id] = rstrength
	      if next not in queue: queue.append(next)
	      next.path[self.id] = current # remember beatpath predecessor
     #endif
   #end for

   # Remove and return weakest node from queue
   current = self.smallest(queue)
  #end while
#end findStrengths



From research at ijs.co.nz  Sat Dec 20 21:46:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Sat Dec 20 21:46:02 2003
Subject: The German loser (Re: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
In-Reply-To: <3FE41EF4.C7AB435E@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031221054743.050c6628@pop.qsi.net.nz>



I wrote this for the mailing list.
Currently I am not sending it there.
I have not observed anything good at that mailing list result from
e-mail (except Richard and MrCatchpole seemed to have an ability to
get influenced. I may have missed bits.).


________________________________________________________________________

To: election-methods at electorama.com
Subject: Is this actually true enough Marcus ? (Re: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria




At 2003-12-20 11:05 +0100 Saturday, Markus Schulze wrote:
...
>Craig Carey wrote (20 Dec 2003):
...
>> (1) The number of winners should be correct.
>>    indicates that the Schulze method found the wrong number of winners.
...
>In Section 3 of my paper, I prove that my method is well defined:
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf
>

The words "well-defined" are not defined in the paper.
Why don't you use your neutrality word.

I reject the idea that the arguments in your paper are correct. There are
a lot of serious problems ion your article.

Each of the errors could terminate an interest in you VM17 article.
In particular your ideal of:
 * missing out simple important tests
 * purporting to consider overly advanced rules, i.e. monotonicity
 * avoiding the mathematics of flats which is always avoided by you
   but probably never avoided by a person designing a preferential
   voting method but aiming to not expose a govt. public to unfairness
   if the method would be used.
 * having unfollowable arguments
 * claiming a pass occurred when that appears to be something that
   seems to be suspicious
 * failing to define the algorithm of the article
 * dropping in some anti-public nearly-ignored doctrines from Condorcet
   thinkers writings

In short, a method that won't have a place in history.

I made a possibly false asumption on how to interpret your ambiguity that
you put into the article (presumably because you were trying to censor
out a mention of the ghastly meritless unfair unjustified pairwise comparing
basis of it) and converted it to a a logic form. It was far too complex to
analyze precisely yet ti plain at the end that the number of winners it
found would probably be wrong.


>You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>> (2) The method should not have some bias. This fails methods that ignrore
>>    the votes and pick the first (not best) candidate on a list the method
>>    receives.
>>
>>    Shulze's believed the count of the papers could be ignored and the number
      [i.e. Mr Shulze or Mr Shulze's PDF article]

>>    of voters could be counted. That is stupid and some people don't seem to
>>    be able to stop or explain themselves without pointing invalid assumptions.
>
>You will have to rephrase this, because I have absolutely no idea what
>you are talking about.
>

In the last message I replied to, Mr Forest Simmons had
votes generated by random numbers. In the Shulze article, "strictly prefer"
has the number of voters counted. So "Strictly prefer" is applying to
voters.

All the claims of goodness must have been a lie, because:
 (a) you proof of goodness is done but it used voters (suppose so)
 (b) Simmon's random numbers are used;
 (c) now your proofs can't conclude anything yet the numbers and the
      method is the same
 (d) If God was going to hit you with a lightening bolt if you had of
     used the word "Vote" instead of "Voter" then please do tell me
     about it. In the absence of similar, I'll assume you can't even
     think with a truthfulness that is up to the task of correctly
     distinguishing between a cat, rat, dog, photo of a man, and bit of
     paper.
 (e) I will say that I do not understand. First I must ask if the
    audience wanted the false claim that voters voted. However the
    arguments and proofs are not all true. I am not studying the
    text, since your purpose is to advance unfairness. 


-----------------------------------
At 2003-12-19 06:37 +1300 Friday, Craig Carey wrote:
...
:
: In the grand sweep of Mr Schulzes exposition, he designed the
: algorithm in the paper so the input is never votes. The preprocessing
: stage that proves that the method is stupid, got censored out. It
                             [using the Condorcet thing]

: is the case that reasoning indicates that Schulze's method should
: be rejected instead of tested.
:
:
: Let's consider the algorithm itself. Here I quote from the VM 17
: PDF file:
:
: ---
: :     Suppose that d[X,Y] is the number of voters who
: :     strictly prefer candidate X to candidate Y. Then the
: :     Smith set is the smallest non-empty set of candidates
: :     with d[A,B] > d[B,A] for each candidate B outside this
: :     set.
: ---
:
: The English text of Schulze probably seems to imply this
: interpretation:
:
: * Let there be only 3 candidates. Let the ballot papers be these:
:
: 2 (CA)
: 5 (CAB)
: 1 (CBA)
:
: What is Mr Schulze's d[A,B] ?.
:
: We could look at the computer algorithm source code but it takes
: the "d" matrix as an input. The vote counting algorithm can't actually
: accept votes.
:
: The d[A,B] value would be:
:
:  (Interpretation 1) the number 7, or
:  (Interpretation 2) the number 5, or
:  (Interpretation 3) the number 6, or
:  (Interpretation 4) the number 4, or
:



>You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>> (3) When the papers are like STV' the winners ought be insensitive to the
>>   presence or absence of the very last preference in one or more papers.
>>   That Schulze method seemed to fail this test.
>
>Please give a concrete example.
>

Not very bright response.
A gauntlet for me perhaps. Your paper is so bad that it should
be you alone who does research. It is strange how you have so
very little interest in the actual words that you wrote. I guess
you don't care what you write. If so then there should be a check
to see if you are depressed. Also it would be useful to know if
you get more depressed, e.g. when criticised.

Mike is criticising you now.

I have already written the answer: it is that you didn't actually
define the method. That fact proves that your "well-definedness"
proof is fake. You clearly gave the wrong meaning to the English
words. hat is obviously so, it was actually referring to some
crap from the pairwise comparing religion.


--

I would have produced a computer program and prove that Schulze was
a failure. However there is no algorithm to test.

There are so many different correct criteria for rejecting your
paper. Designing while blind will be one of them. That does not
produce hope but instead it lowers the hope of the algorithm being
improved.

--

The Schulze paper arrived D.O.A (Dead on Arrival) at London --
since it didn't define "strictly prefer" well enough and with only
a reference to ballot paper instead of voters. Some places could
have 1/3 votes for prisoners (or fugitives from computational
symbolic algebra)

The STV community may be slow to absorb Mr Schulzes paper, using
this line of argument:

 * Mr Schulze must have been engtangled in complexity

 * The thing has to be built up and then it fails fundamental tests.
   The designer asks readers to test the thing.

 * If it had of passed the tests then the complexity would have been
   reduced. The designer maybe even failed to learn how extremely
   complex the method was.

 * Like I said privately, if a good job can't eb done without
   light then a switch can be turned on. But Mr Shulze is out of
   this world, for clearly such an avoidance of algebra must
   prevent the production of good methods. But tehre seems to be
   absolutely no complaints about anything from the world of
   algebra. A real mathematician can be blocked by a single
   issue in algebra. It is like Mr Schulze can shuffle to the
   right but it is impossible to rotate 180 degrees and then
   move in the opposing direction. Four years of EM and counting
   and still not even vague complaints about algebra.


Mr Schulze is starting to say that he does not understand.

That would be criticised by me over time.

Mr Shulze is setting out a new direction: designing while unable
to see everything, and we already have had years of no
achievement. Certainly outside of the world of pairwise comparing,
change can be quick and rapid. 


Here is that definedness test that passed a most undefined method:

: 3) Well-Definedness
:
: On first view, it is not clear whether the Schulze
: method is well defined. It seems to be possible that
: candidates disqualify each other in such a manner that
: there is no candidate A with p[A,B] >= p[B,A] for every
: other candidate B. However, the following proof
: demonstrates that path defeats are transitive. That
: means: When candidate A disqualifies candidate B and
: when candidate B disqualifies candidate C, then also
: candidate A disqualifies candidate C.
...
: Case 2: Suppose
: (9b) p[A,B] < p[B,C].
...
: Therefore, the relation defined by p[A,B] > p[B,A] is transitive.


Condorcet seems to have a monastery feel to it. They seemed to
be packed with woman dying with breast cancer, but that is
of course no about the public interest.

It could be a check that the number of winners are right.
I assume that sometimes the method finds 0 winners or 2 winers.

Who would finish up an argument that the number of winners is
correct using the words "[It] is transitive".
Transitivity is some properly requiring that the method is
too unfair (or too lacking in proportionality) for use in
a government election.

---


What seemed most interesting is that after a few easy lines of 
transforming the Schulze algorithm into a polytope format,
is appeared that all Condorcet variants must be rejected for
being affected by the presence or absence of the last
preference. I was constrained by having to guess at what
Mr SChulze's definition of the algorithm was.

For at least a year, when Mr Schulze was not writing privately,
he also did not e-mail the polytope formulation of the
algorithm that I had requested.

Had he responded to the information requested, then rapidly
I could have shown that Condorcet idealism leads to an
unacceptable defect that won't be OK in civil or computer science
department, elections.


If Mr Schulze believes that it takes >17.95% of his entire
life before he can repell off that evil called Condorcet, then
do please tell us, for the rest who use logic, the process
could take minutes or something.

German males [yeah] in the Internet have a technique of saying
that they do not understand. This is the 'gnome in the rock'
mastery of shooting up opponents in online arguments.

It permits them to not lose steadily in an argument when the
expectation is that they must have precise model of what it
is that the public interest is (constrained by the topic).



Craig Carey

politicians-and-polytopes








From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 23:21:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 23:21:01 2003
Subject: [EM] BeatpathWinner Algorithm
Message-ID: <Law10-F27AqpfkNsjUH0002646d@hotmail.com>

Just one more thing about this:

Markus said, in a posting that was replying to my recent posting of the 
BeatpathWinner algorithm (I posted it a few days ago):

Dear participants,

the correct version of the Floyd algorithm can be found in
Section 4 and in Appendix 3 of my paper "A New Monotonic
and Clone-Independent Single-Winner Election Method":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/nmciswem.pdf

I reply:

Though the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted isn't the Floyd 
algorilthm, it's still correct, because it does what it's intended to do. It 
makes the strongest-beatpaths array, the B(i,j) array in which each B(i,j) 
is the strength of the strongest beatpath from candidate i to candidate j.

If there is no beatpath from i to j, then B(i,j) = 0.

That algorithm wasn't written as an attempt to write the Floyd algorithm. It 
was written by people who had never heard of the Floyd algorithm. It was 
written to accomplish the pupose that it accomlishes. Only later, due to 
Markus's earlier post of something he called the Floyd algorithm (though it 
was about strongest paths rather than shortest paths), did I hear of the 
Floyd algorithm.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 23:33:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 23:33:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
Message-ID: <3FE4ADBE.CADD67E2@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Ernest,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> Ah, okay, that was hard for me to deduce from the original algorithm, 
> where it seemed like you were primarily calculating margins.

In Section 4 of my paper, I use margins. In Appendix 3 of my paper,
I use absolute numbers of votes for the winner. The pseudo-code for
the Dijkstra algorithm that I posted to you yesterday corresponds
to the algorithm in Appendix 3.

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> My implementation of this for object-oriented Dijkstra (using real
> Python code this time) is at the end.    The relevant section is here,
> where 'rstrength', or relative strength, is used for the margin:

Sorry, but I don't know Python.

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> Are you asserting that there is no deterministic tie-breaking algorithm
> that resists clones?  Does this mean that we really do need to keep
> track of all the actual ballots, and not just the Condorcet matrix?

I chose the "random ballot" tie-breaking strategy in such a manner that
the proofs that the proposed method satisfies Pareto, monotonicity,
independence from clones, etc. are as simple as possible. I am not
linked to this tie-breaking strategy.

Another possible tie-breaking strategy is to calculate a complete
ranking of all candidates (and not only of the potential winners)
with Tideman's ranked pairs method and to choose that potential
winner that is ranked highest in this ranking. With this tie-breaking
strategy none of the desirable properties of my beatpath method gets
lost.

However, for every anonymous and neutral single-winner election method
there are situations where this method doesn't find a unique winner.
Random ballot is sometimes the only way to get a winner without
having to violate independence of clones. But I don't think that
it is such a big problem when independence of clones is violated in
these extreme cases.

Markus Schulze


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sat Dec 20 23:50:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sat Dec 20 23:50:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #388 - 7 msgs
Message-ID: <3FE511D6.CB9F2E6D@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Matt,

you wrote to Mike Ossipoff (20 Dec 2003):
> To restore some credibility for yourself Mike, how about arranging
> to correct the code to make it O(N^3)?  All this time Mike is
> wasting futiley trying to beat down Markus could be better spent
> by soliciting help from someone who codes python to modify the
> code.  Then again, your attacks on Markus are so completely false
> and nasty that I really doubt there is anything you can do to
> restore your credibility with me.

Mike Ossipoff wrote (18 Dec 2003):

> repeat = 1
> while repeat = 1:
>   change = 0
>   for i = 1 to N
>      for j =  1 to N
>         for k = 1 to N
>            least = min(B(i,j), B(j,k))
>            if least > B(i,k):
>               B(i,k) = least
>               change =1
>            endif
>        endfor
>     endfor
> endfor
> if change= 0
>     repeat = 0
> endif
> endwhile

A compromise would be to write:

> repeat = 1
> while repeat = 1:
>   change = 0
>   for i = 1 to N
>      for j =  1 to N
>         for k = 1 to N
>            least = min(B(j,i), B(i,k))
>            if least > B(j,k):
>               B(j,k) = least
>               change =1
>            endif
>        endfor
>     endfor
> endfor
> if change= 0
>     repeat = 0
> endif
> endwhile

Here the professional mathematicians are satisfied because
it is garanteed that the triple-loop is passed only twice.
And those who don't have sufficient mathematical skills
to trust the Floyd algorithm have the while-loop as an
additional guaranty that the algorithm gives the correct
results.

Markus Schulze


From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 20 23:53:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 20 23:53:01 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
Message-ID: <LAW10-F73SOJl6byoxx0004dbd9@hotmail.com>

Matt said:

I know about the Floyd algorithm

I reply.

Good for you, Matt.

Matt continued:

Markus provided us with references about that algorithm, as well as the code 
to implement it, in past discussions on this group with Mike over several 
years on this same issue.

I reply:

No, not really. I didn't discuss that algorithm with Markus for several 
years.

However I've already stated that he'd posted the algorithm some years ago, 
so it isn't quite clear why you feel a need to assert that.

Matt continued:

I followed the entire exchange here and Markus did not start the discussion 
with the false statement Mike claims.   On the contrary, I am certain that 
Markus explicitly acknowledged the python program would probably work as it 
is currently written.

I reply:

I quote from Markus's posting on 15 December, '03:

"However Mike Ossipoff always describes the Floyd algorithm as follows:

[followed by a fragment of a Python program, with some of the lines partly 
missing]

This does not work."

Matt, yoiu're wasting our time when you post demonstrably innacurate claims.

Matt continued:

To restore some credibility for yourself Mike...

I reply:

It isn't quite clear how Matt feels that I've lost "credibility". For 
instance, in this discussion, I have a much better statement-accuracy record 
than Matt does.

Matt continued:

..., how about arranging to correct the code to make it O(N^3)?

I reply:

Sorry, but no. I thought that I'd made it clear in my previous reply to you 
that I'm leaving the algorithm as-is, at the website, and in my replies to 
people who ask about implementation. As I said at that time, Steve's 
algorithm very obviously works. That's obvious at a glance. The 1-pass 
algorithm, even if it works, doesn't have anything like the obvious validity 
of Steve's algorilthm.
If I sent Markus's algorithm out in reply to people who ask about 
implementation, I'd have to convince them that it works, contrary to 
appearance.

And, as I likewise said before, the run-time of Steve's algorithm isn't 
going to be a problem anyway.

The websites that I've checked say that the Floyd algorithm finds shortest 
beatpaths. They didn't mention strongest beatpaths. Markus says that it can 
be modified for strongest beatpaths too (but that raises the question of 
whether, after modification, it's still the Floyd algorithm). Maybe when its 
job is to find shortest beatpaths it can complete the job in one pass. If 
so, maybe, when its job is modified to finding strongest beatpaths, it 
retains that capability.

Please note, Matt, that I don't take a position on that question, or make 
any challenge or issue about that. That hasn't been an issue here.

Matt continued:

All this time Mike is wasting futiley trying to beat down Markus...

I reply:

I've been futily trying to explain to Markus that I'm not claiming that 
Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Yes, I admit that that effort has 
been futile.

But you're being over-dramatic and silly when you say that I'm trying to 
beat him down. Maybe you meant to say "...beat Markus back."

Matt continued:

...could be better spent by soliciting help from someone who codes python to 
modify the code.

I reply:

No, I'm going to have to disappoint you on that. I'm not going to modify the 
strongest-beatpaths algorithm because you prefer a different one. But I 
certainly encourage you to use whichever one you prefer.

Then again, your attacks on Markus are so completely false...

I  reply:

Can you name one false thing I said about Markus? I merely pointed out the 
falsity of his continually-repeated statement that I claim that Steve's 
stongest beatpaths algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.That's really the only 
issue in the discussion.

Well, I also objected to his statement that our algorilthm doesn't work. My 
statement that he said that isn't a false statement either--I quoted his 
statement above in this message, and stated the date of his posting. Check 
it out if you don't believe it.

Matt continued:

...and nasty that I really doubt there is anything you can do to restore 
your credibility with me.

I reply:

I've lost Matt's credence :-)

As for "nasty", I always start out polite. You wouldn't notice this, but 
it's only after many repititions of Markus's misquotes that I stop being 
polilte.

You shouldn't think that I'm singling Markus out. For some people, at least, 
there's a natural tendency to put your gut feeling about someone over the 
actual facts of the discussion.

You, for example: You decided that you felt that I was being mean to Markus. 
Then, governed by your anger, and your natural protective instinct, you felt 
a need to refute what I was saying, a need to tell why Markus was the one 
who was right. Apparently that need was greater than your ability to read 
the postings and remember what I'd said, and what I hadn't said. So you 
began making refuting noises. These noises from you have been almost 
entirely vague, without specifying exactly which statement of mine was 
incorrect. The only exception to the vagueness was when you pinpointed an 
alleged mis-statement of mine: My statement that Markus had said that our 
algorithm doesn't work. (But check Markus's 15 Dec.  '03 posting).

Yoiur protectiveness toward Markus is laudable, and I'm not criticizing 
that. But you need to understand that you're one of those people who, when 
something angers you or arouses your protective instinct, is ruled entirely 
by emotion, so that you send to us a "refuting" posting that either refers 
to no actual statements (refutation pretty much requires that you say 
exactly what you're refuting), or else makes a quite false statement such as 
your claim that Markus didn't say that our algorithm didn't work.

So suggestion to you, Matt, is: If you want to refute something, find out 
specifically what statement you want to refute. Find a statement that is 
incorrect. Then tell us what it is that you want to refute. Then tell us why 
it isn't correct.

When you're vague, when you don''t tell us what you mean, people aren't 
going to know what you're trying to say. Good luck in future postings.

Mike Ossipoff


and that I don't intend to use something that doesn't have the obvious 
validity of Steve's algorithm. But I hadn't yet said that at the time that 
you posted your other message implying that there was

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 00:28:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 00:28:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Compromise for speed and obvious validity
Message-ID: <Law10-F72DSm5AGSvB80004e2b3@hotmail.com>

Sure, that compromise would be ok: The indices in the testing and 
re-assigning core of the loop
could be re-ordered so as to make more passes unnecessary, so that only 2 
passes would be made. If  the 2nd pass makes no changes, there's no 3rd 
pass. And the fact that the algorithm obviously repeats till no stonger 
beatpaths can be found between any ordered candidate pairs means that it 
still has the same obvious validity that it had before.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From Dgamble997 at aol.com  Sun Dec 21 00:29:01 2003
From: Dgamble997 at aol.com (Dgamble997 at aol.com)
Date: Sun Dec 21 00:29:01 2003
Subject: [EM] (no subject)
Message-ID: <3e.3943a22e.2d165516@aol.com>

Dear all

I find this "debate" about the Floyd Algorithm ( or more accurately who said 
what about who and when) extremely uninteresting and not very constructive.

Is it really that important to get the last word in?

David Gamble

PS This is the second time I've sent this E-mail have problems with the list 
cut off Mike and Markus in full flow?
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 00:57:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 00:57:02 2003
Subject: [EM] The request for Steve's count proposal
Message-ID: <LAW10-F75mNIql6cknJ0004daa0@hotmail.com>

Markus asked:

Could you please forward that mail where Steve proposes this strongest path
algorithm?

I reply:

It was in my mailbox years ago. I doubt that it's still there. If it is, and 
if I can quickly find it, I'll forward it.

I  don't know if Steve posted his strongest-beatpaths algorithm to EM.

But if you want a copy of it, you might want to ask him.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From drernie at mac.com  Sun Dec 21 01:08:02 2003
From: drernie at mac.com (Ernest Prabhakar)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:08:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Floyd-Warshall algorithm - variations
In-Reply-To: <3FE38375.20BFE6D3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FE38375.20BFE6D3@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <B98161F6-328E-11D8-B08B-000393CDCA50@mac.com>

On Dec 19, 2003, at 3:02 PM, Markus Schulze wrote:

> Dear Ernest,

Hi Markus,

Thanks for the prompt reply.
>
> I don't know Python-ish pseudo-code.

I'll try to find ways to make it more English-like, so the algorithm is 
clearer.

> But in Pascal/C-ish pseudo-code
> the Dijkstra algorithm (aka Dykstra algorithm) looks as follows when
> the strength of a pairwise defeat is measured primarily by p1 (= the
> absolute number of votes for the winner of this pairwise defeat) and
> secondarily by p2 (= the margin of this pairwise defeat):

<lots of code omitted>
Ouch.  That's why I no longer program in C (or procedural languages). 
:-)

Let me put it another way.   Could you please explain in words why you 
feel it is necessary or useful to use *both* absolute votes and margins 
in the calculation?   Are the margins used simply to break a tie 
between absolute votes?  I think that's what is implied by the line:
>            if ( p1[i,x] = d1[x,k] ) then
>            t : = min { p2[i,x], d2[x,k] } ;

Also, is there a particular mathematical or anti-strategic reason for 
randomizing the tie-breaking round, rather than just automatically 
picking the candidate who would have the best chance of winning such a 
random draw?

-- Ernie P.



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 21 01:12:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:12:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus reply,  12/20/03
Message-ID: <3FE46466.903B66BA@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> False statements, statements that he can't justify,  have always been
> Markus's stock-in-trade. But this time he's doing the disservice of
> misinforming people about a practical matter. But Markus doesn't care,
> he just enjoys being on the attack.

When someone proposes a faster algorithm for a given problem then
you shouldn't consider this to be an "attack".

******

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> I was only criticising you for continuing to repeat that I was
> continuing to claim that our implementation is the Floyd algorithm.
>
> (...)
>
> The debate was about whether I still claim that Steve's algorithm is
> the Floyd algorithm. It was a really silly debate, because I'd repeatedly
> said that I no longer claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.
>
> I'm the first to admit that it was a silly issue that Markus insisted on
> pursuing.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your implementation
is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this discussion with the
following statement (18 Dec 2003):

> Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

It is obvious that when I made my statement that you call your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you have changed
your opinion recently. Therefore, your insulting replies are inappropriate.
Instead of saying "Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm." it would
have been better if you had said: "I don't call that the Floyd algorithm
anymore."

In so far as you only said without any explanations "I don't call that the
Floyd algorithm." and not "I don't call that the Floyd algorithm anymore."
it was clear that I would point you to a document where you call that the
Floyd algorithm.

By the way, you wrote (18 Dec 2003):

> I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from
> you or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

Could you please forward that mail where Steve proposes his strongest path
algorithm?

******

I wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> Then, of course, it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
> call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" anymore. There was no need for you
> to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> Hello-o-o-o! That's what I've been repeating for you over and over again, to
> no avail. I won't debate whether there was a need to insult you. But can you
> look at your ridiculous statement that I quoted directly above, and say that
> there wasn't a reason to call you an idiot?

When I say that "it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
call your implementation 'Floyd algorithm' anymore" then this doesn't mean
that I claim that you still call your implementation "Floyd algorithm".
It only means that this would have been sufficient and that there was no
need for you e.g. to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

******

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
> You see, Markus, this is why I refer to you as an idiot. Did I deny that,
> in Feb 2001, I was calling Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm.? No. I
> agreed that I'd formerly called that algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but
> that I no longer do. But you kept repeating that I continue to claim that
> my implementation is the Floyd algorilthm, though I kept trying to tell
> you that I no longer make any such claim.
>
> And now you post a quote from 2001, apparently believing that it shows
> that you're right to say that, during this current discussion, I claim
> that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.
>
> Seriously, Markus, all namecalling aside,there really is something wrong
> with you.

Obviously, you are unable to see that when I ask you for an explanation why
you have used the term "Floyd algorithm" in the past in a given manner then
this doesn't include that I claim that you continue to use this term in this
manner.

By the way: Your recent mail exemplifies my observation that you are
unable to admit that you have made a mistake without bombarding with
insults that person who pointed you to this mistake. In the same mail
you admit that you have mistakenly believed Eppley's algorithm to be
Floyd's algorithm and you bombard me with insults.

Markus Schulze


From Dgamble997 at aol.com  Sun Dec 21 01:30:02 2003
From: Dgamble997 at aol.com (Dgamble997 at aol.com)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:30:02 2003
Subject: [EM] The Floyd Algorithm
Message-ID: <41.3828ffdf.2d15b56a@aol.com>

Dear all

I find this "debate" about the Floyd Algorithm ( or more accurately who said 
what about who and when) extremely uninteresting and not very constructive.

Is it really that important to get the last word in?

David Gamble

 
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From dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk  Sun Dec 21 01:45:01 2003
From: dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk (Diana Galletly)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:45:01 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-F73SOJl6byoxx0004dbd9@hotmail.com>
References: <LAW10-F73SOJl6byoxx0004dbd9@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312210922080.27069@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote (of Matt):

> Yoiur protectiveness toward Markus is laudable, and I'm not criticizing
> that. But you need to understand that you're one of those people who, when
> something angers you or arouses your protective instinct, is ruled entirely
> by emotion, so that you send to us a "refuting" posting that either refers
> to no actual statements (refutation pretty much requires that you say
> exactly what you're refuting), or else makes a quite false statement such as
> your claim that Markus didn't say that our algorithm didn't work.

I have been following this discussion with increasing amounts of
astonishment.  I can make neither head nor tail of what is going on.
My hypotheses thus far have been

(i) Only about half the mails are reaching Mike and Markus, such that
each believes that they have already said something that the other hasn't
seen.  So they become frustrated and believe that they are repeating
themselves over and over again (which in fact they are!) whilst the other
one has never seen the first instantiation of the message.  Perhaps they
have each other's messages filtered into /dev/null :-)

(ii) That whilst their written English appears to be pretty good, one or
the other of them has comprehension difficulties.

(iii) That one or the other of them is a computer rather than a person ;-)

Also I don't see the need for the insults.  Calling people "idiots", telling
them there must be something seriously wrong with them, and patronising
people by telling them that their reactions are driven by their emotions
rather than rationality is not helpful.

I was of the belief that both Mike and Markus are staunch Condorcetites.
Think how this petty squabble is just playing into the hands of someone
like Craig Carey, who also appears to use insults as his stock-in-trade
(as well as being pretty incomprehensible).

Diana.


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 21 01:47:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 21 01:47:02 2003
Subject: The German loser (Re: [EM] Two Paramount Criteria
Message-ID: <3FE56965.9559A9D7@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

could you please post some examples to explain what you
are talking about?

Markus Schulze


From matt at tidalwave.net  Sun Dec 21 02:42:02 2003
From: matt at tidalwave.net (matt at tidalwave.net)
Date: Sun Dec 21 02:42:02 2003
Subject: [EM] EM] What is this software MIKE is working on...
Message-ID: <20031220074456.9FAF2E4B9@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 21 03:31:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 21 03:31:02 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
Message-ID: <3FE583D9.BBED4322@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

when I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
have changed your opinion recently. Craig Carey claimed that my
implementation of the Floyd algorithm doesn't work (presumably
because it makes only one pass through the triple-loop and
presumably because Craig believed because of the while-loop
in your implementation that the Floyd algorithm doesn't find
the strongest paths in a single pass through the triple-loop).
Therefore, I stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd
algorithm and that your algorithm doesn't find the strongest
paths in a single pass. But when one considers the possible
short cuts in that order that has been proposed by Floyd then
a single pass is sufficient.

******

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> That algorithm wasn't written as an attempt to write the Floyd
> algorithm. It was written by people who had never heard of the
> Floyd algorithm. It was written to accomplish the pupose that
> it accomlishes. Only later, due to Markus's earlier post of
> something he called the Floyd algorithm (though it was about
> strongest paths rather than shortest paths), did I hear of the
> Floyd algorithm.

Even though you write that you have never heard of the Floyd
algorithm, it is a matter of fact that you called your algorithm
"Floyd algorithm" e.g. in the source code of your Python program
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py). Therefore, when I
stress that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm then
this is a feasible observation and not an "attack". If you hadn't
mistakenly written that your implementation is the Floyd algorithm,
then there wouldn't have been a reason for me to stress that your
implementation is not the Floyd algorithm.

******

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> I've been futily trying to explain to Markus that I'm not claiming
> that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Yes, I admit that
> that effort has been futile.

When I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
have changed your opinion recently. In one of your recent mails,
you admitted that you mistakenly believed Eppley's algorithm to
be Floyd's algorithm and you admitted that you mistakenly called
Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's algorithm". Therefore, my criticism
was feasible and you admitted this. Therefore, there is absolutely
no justification for your insulting mails.

******

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> Can you name one false thing I said about Markus? I merely pointed
> out the falsity of his continually-repeated statement that I claim
> that Steve's stongest beatpaths algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.
> That's really the only issue in the discussion.

I don't claim that you continue to claim that Eppley's algorithm
is Floyd's algorithm. However, when I pointed (on 15 Dec 2003) to
the fact that you mistakenly called your implementation "Floyd
algorithm" this observation was true.

Markus Schulze


From research at ijs.co.nz  Sun Dec 21 10:13:06 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Sun Dec 21 10:13:06 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
In-Reply-To: <3FE583D9.BBED4322@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz>


At 2003-12-21 12:28 +0100 Sunday, Markus Schulze wrote:
>
>Dear Mike,
>
>when I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
>"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
>have changed your opinion recently. Craig Carey claimed that my
>implementation of the Floyd algorithm doesn't work (presumably
>because it makes only one pass through the triple-loop and
>presumably because Craig believed because of the while-loop


I wrote here to correct the wrong claim that I wrote so uselessly
on part of algorithm, and I reject that I could have possibly have
as irrational as Mr Schulze suggested with his speculation on what
I would have believed.

Also I never wrote on the Floyd *part*. Instead I wrote on the whole
algorithm. (I used only the name "Stage 2" for what Mr Schulze is
now calling the "Floyd algorithm". That is what the documents show.

I worded my comments so that a fault in part 2 created a fault in
the whole algorithm. That is totally different from criticising the
Floyd algorithm. Mr Schulze might have rejected my arguments after
I soundly argued that hje must reject his new seeming write-up of
the so called awfully unprincipled Schulze method, subsequently
identified as not even being defined in the articles submitted and
published.

** I did not claim that the Floyd algorithm "doesn't work". I simply
have a stable set of axioms that can be used as test. Mr Schulze
has probably an clear idea on what they are. Tests must be axioms
or else there is a huge slump in credibility and we end up with
errors like Mr Ossipoff's belief that inserting a preference for a
total loser should not upset the winner of previously winning
candidate owning a subsequent preference in the same ballot paper.

>in your implementation that the Floyd algorithm doesn't find
>the strongest paths in a single pass through the triple-loop).
>Therefore, I stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd
>algorithm and that your algorithm doesn't find the strongest
>paths in a single pass. But when one considers the possible
>short cuts in that order that has been proposed by Floyd then
>a single pass is sufficient.
>


Mr Shulze's seeminlgy recent (fully undefined) "well-definedness"
test, apparently passes fully undefined methods. So the reasoning
is suspect as well as the definitions, and I could not follow the
reasoning. S

I wish to note that Mr Markus Schulze is altering the wording according
to an estimate on whether disproving documents show up.

It won't be OK in politics. But this is just list for untrue statements
that have no place in the design of quality preferential voting methods
(particularly when Diana speaks. As for myself, shall be withdrawing
from this deep dark hole without much delay).

-----------------------

Mr Schulze actually seems to have receivied my e-mail containing the
algebra. It was dated 23 October 2003.
Its title was "Comments on the new Shulze voting method of Voting Matters 2003"

It was factual and withheld and its comments were the material and of
compelling importance to my communications with Mr Shulze in the last
week here at this list. It was the missing material part to my arguments
and it won't do for Mr Shulze to leave a suspicion that I was aiming to
produce clarifying summaries of allegations that never exists.

The poor members here do not like algebra, so they aggregate and don't
know what fairness is.  They maybe really are not so stupid that they
can't create truly better method, but all are out for lunch if the
topic of defining what better means shows up. After following it for
long enough, it seems that knowing nothing is the aim or a top aim.

Here is my not-edited log file record showing that Mr Schulze received
the e-mail where I tried to convert the entiire Shulze thing of the
(Voting Matter 17 PDF file and Shulze's submitted PDF), into a polytope:

--------------------------------------------------------------------
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:33 +1300 $2 Connecting to "mail.zrz.tu-berlin.de"
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:33 +1300 $2 DNS server responded with 0 (OK) [2]
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:33 +1300 $2 Connecting to "gr.mx0.global.net.uk"
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:34 +1300 $2 Connected
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:35 +1300 $2 Connected
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:35 +1300 $2 <<< 220 mx0.global.net.uk ESMTP Exim 3.36 #8 Thu, 23 Oct 2003 11:30:33 +0100
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:35 +1300 $2 >>> EHLO Merak
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:36 +1300 $2 <<< 250 HELP
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:36 +1300 $2 >>> MAIL From:<research at ijs.co.nz> SIZE=2321
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:36 +1300 $2 <<< 250 <research at ijs.co.nz> is syntactically correct
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:36 +1300 $2 >>> RCPT To:<brian.wichmann at totalise.co.uk>
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:37 +1300 $2 <<< 250 <brian.wichmann at totalise.co.uk> verified
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:37 +1300 $2 >>> DATA
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:37 +1300 $2 <<< 354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 <<< 250 OK id=1ACcjj-000IgF-00
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 *** <research at ijs.co.nz> <brian.wichmann at totalise.co.uk> 1 2321 00:00:01 OK
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 >>> QUIT
|80.189.92.100  $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 <<< 221 mx0.global.net.uk closing connection
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:39 +1300 $2 Disconnected
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:40 +1300 $2 <<< 220 TU-Berlin.DE - ESMTP (exim-4.24) ready at Thu, 23 Oct 2003 12:30:38 +0200
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:40 +1300 $2 >>> EHLO Merak
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:40 +1300 $2 <<< 250 HELP
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:40 +1300 $2 >>> MAIL From:<research at ijs.co.nz> SIZE=2321
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:41 +1300 $2 <<< 250 OK
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:41 +1300 $2 >>> RCPT To:<markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:46 +1300 $2 <<< 250 Accepted
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:46 +1300 $2 >>> DATA
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:46 +1300 $2 <<< 354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 <<< 250 OK id=1ACcjs-0007Tq-Lo
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 *** <research at ijs.co.nz> <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de> 1 2321 00:00:01 OK
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 >>> QUIT
|130.149.4.15   $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 <<< 221 mail.zrz.tu-berlin.de closing connection
|SYSTEM         $1 23 Oct 2003 23:30:48 +1300 $2 Disconnected
--------------------------------------------------------------------

( In the above:
    String $1 = "[00000C80] Thu, " or "[00000C90] Thu, "
    String $2 = "Client session"

The document got to him in my opinion.

I invite Mr Schulze to turn his mind to the question of the signficance
the fairly compelling algebraic founded suggestions that his paper is 
ass good as derailed train.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Mr Schulze just wrote this:

----------------------------
At 2003-12-21 10:35 +0100 Sunday, Markus Schulze wrote:
>Dear Craig,
>
>could you please post some examples to explain what you
>are talking about?
>
>Markus Schulze
----------------------------

Once again, the same problem seems to be present: Mr Schulze got symbolic
algebra evidence of amazing awful defects prohibiting all use of the
Schulze method (by every intelligent person and cockroaches too) in the
23 October 2003 e-mail. 

Actually Mr Ossipoff got a copy of an emended version dated 25-October-2003.
I sent that off to Mr Mike Ossipoff at "nkklrp at hotmail.com" on 21 December
2003.

It just looks like a request for information about a preferential
voting method that was not defined. However it looks like the chief
defendant has lost access to more than only his private e-mails
from October 2003. Praise our good fortune that he can still write his
name.



-----------------------------------


The Condorcet Winner ideal, was sighted dead on 5 September 2001.
Certainly Marcus would have known thoroughly that Condorcet technology is
awfully out of date and now proven to be inferior to (censored). Here is the
message:


At 2001-Sept-05 18:21 +1200 Wednesday, Craig Carey wrote:
...
>At 2001.Sept.04 16:40 -0400 Tuesday, Dave Ketchum wrote:
...
>This original "Fluffy" example has such problems with its numbers that new
>numbers could be used and the original discarded. Here is an improved
>version:
>
>       AB  48     : 1 winner        (no. 1)
>       B    3
>       CB  49
>
>     Condorcet: B wins   :   A:B = 48:52, B:C = 51:49, C:A = 49:48
>     FPTP:      C wins
>
>Candidate B wins, and: (1) the outcome is too different to First Past the
>Post to some, and (2) allowing that would lead into problems.
>
>Condorcet can be rejected for picking the wrong number of winners even
>without this example.
>
>If Mr Layton writes, perhaps an 'improved' Fluffy the Dog example could
>be named.
>
>
>At 2000.11.13 12:05 +1100 Monday, LAYTON Craig wrote:
> >There is basically one cogent criticism of all Condorcet systems, of which
> >you're all aware; that it puts too much importance on middle preferences,
> >especially when not all candidates or parties are known to voters.  Example:
> >
> >In a two candidate race:
> >A 51
> >C 49
> >
> >C wins
>  A wins
> >
> >A and C are diametrically opposed, there has been a long and dirty smear
> >campaign, so that C voters hate A and A voters hate C.  My dog, fluffy (B),
> >joins the race at the last minute;
> >
> >ABC 49
> >CBA 49
> >BAC 01
> >BCA 01
>             A:B = 49:51,  B:C = 51:49,  C:A = 50:50
> >
> >Fluffy is the Condorcet winner!.
>...


How can a dead method be noncontroversial, attainable, optimally satisfactory, 
and attainable ?.

Those are some traits of a fairest preferential voting method (not an algorithm).


----------------------------------------

How arbitrary: some privately belief on conduct with not even a single radiating
Argon gas atom illuminating the statement with the right stuff:


At 2003-12-21 09:33 +0000 Sunday, Diana Galletly <dag*000 at eng.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote (of Matt):
...
>Also I don't see the need for the insults.  Calling people "idiots", telling
>them there must be something seriously wrong with them, and patronising
>people by telling them that their reactions are driven by their emotions
>rather than rationality is not helpful.
>
>I was of the belief that both Mike and Markus are staunch Condorcetites.

Moronic and covert over how they checked their principles and still ended
up adhering to wrong ideals, is something Diana can inquire into.



>Think how this petty squabble is just playing into the hands of someone
>like Craig Carey, who also appears to use insults as his stock-in-trade
>(as well as being pretty incomprehensible).
>
>Diana.


Diana, my thinking here could be imagine by you to be like a very large
English church. Probing bits might not reveal a huge amount.

In 1999 the Election Methods List ad both drop outs and politeness.

Rather than reject bits of Diana's advice, it might be fairer to find out
more of her beliefs in the aim of estimating a date when Diana is likely
to drop out or quit.

---

So to conclude: I sent arguments to Mr Shulze and his guesswork on my
belief is unable to be created and maintained given the 23-October-2003
e-mail he got appealing him to contain his wrong thoughts, since so in
error. That never happened, and surely it would have been better if it
had of.


Craig Carey
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/politicians-and-polytopes
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote
Origin of 1/3 quota in IFPP:  http://www.ijs.co.nz/quota-13.htm
Use of QE solver REDLOG: http://www.ijs.co.nz/polytopes.htm






From dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk  Sun Dec 21 10:52:01 2003
From: dag1000 at eng.cam.ac.uk (Diana Galletly)
Date: Sun Dec 21 10:52:01 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz>
References: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz>
Message-ID: <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312211836070.595@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>

On Mon, 22 Dec 2003, Craig Carey wrote:

> It won't be OK in politics. But this is just list for untrue statements
> that have no place in the design of quality preferential voting methods
> (particularly when Diana speaks. As for myself, shall be withdrawing
> from this deep dark hole without much delay).

Er, show me where I have said something that is untrue?

It happens to be the case that if I post something that I later come
to realise is mistaken, I am *very* ready to apologise.

It may be that I have misinterpreted your messages, although since
your sentences often seem to be at best incomplete this might not
be surprising.

My understanding is that you are a supporter of STV (maybe even of IRV)?
Is this correct?

> The poor members here do not like algebra, so they aggregate and don't
> know what fairness is.

What proof have you that any of us dislike algebra?

> They maybe really are not so stupid that they can't create truly better
> method, but all are out for lunch if the topic of defining what better
> means shows up.

It seems to me that there are some people who want to a believe in a
one-size-fits-all system, for single winner elections, multi-winner
elections, referenda etc.

Personally, my interest is in referenda and, in particular, in determining
a system which doesn't cause widely varying results if just a few votes
change hands.

Calling me stupid will not get you far.  I am far from stupid, and
asserting that I am just because I happen to disagree with you, or
because you don't like the content of my messages, will not get me
to consider anything you have to say more carefully than I would were
you to be polite.

> How arbitrary: some privately belief on conduct with not even a single
> radiating Argon gas atom illuminating the statement with the right stuff:

This is an example of why I find your English hard to comprehend.  I
cannot even tell whether you are insulting or praising me -- I can read
it in both ways.  However, given your previous comment, I guess I should
take it as an insult.

> Rather than reject bits of Diana's advice, it might be fairer to find out
> more of her beliefs in the aim of estimating a date when Diana is likely
> to drop out or quit.

At the rate academic politics moves, some time in 2005 or 2006 I should
imagine.  I'm here for a reason, not for an argument.

Diana.


From gervase at group.force9.co.uk  Sun Dec 21 11:21:01 2003
From: gervase at group.force9.co.uk (Gervase Lam)
Date: Sun Dec 21 11:21:01 2003
Subject: [EM] "Paper" that mentions Kemeny Median
Message-ID: <E1AY98G-0003YI-Df.2003-12-21-19-20-52@cmailg2.svr.pol.co.uk>

Can anybody give an explanation of the Kemeny Median explained in the 
following PDF document:

<www.iiasa.ac.at/~marek/ftppub/Pubs/csm02/bury.pdf>

Is it the same as Kemeny-Young?  It's just that I don't understand all of 
the mathematical notation.

Here is the parent web page for the document, which interestingly is about 
a Systems Analysis Workshop rather than anything to do with voting.

<http://www.iiasa.ac.at/~marek/wrksp/csm02/>

Thanks,
Gervase.


From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Sun Dec 21 11:40:01 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Sun Dec 21 11:40:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Optional Later-no-harm  AER
Message-ID: <3FE6A03F.9000407@bigpond.com>

  An  idea for improving  Approval  Elimination Runoff   (an 
 Approval-STV hybrid) :

1: Voters rank the candidates and also place an Approval cutoff. 
 Truncation allowed, and if equal preferences are allowed
then the votes are split. Default placement of  the cutoff  can be 
either below  first preference or below lowest  ranked
not-in-last-place candidate.
2:  A candidate with a majority of first preferences is elected.  If  no 
candidate has a majority, then eliminate the candidate
with the fewest  approvals and  transfer preferences  IRV-style. 
Whenever  a candidate is the highest ranked of  those
remaining candidates on a majority of  the ballots that distinguish 
between them; then that candidate is elected.
3: If, after one or more eliminations, there are ballots that no longer 
make any approval distinction between the remaining
candidates, then those ballots that approve none of the remaining 
candidates shall be counted as approving the highest-ranked
of  them  and those ballots that approve all of  them will be counted as 
approving all  but the lowest-ranked.

This last feature is my new idea. Ranking but not approving  a candidate 
 can never harm an approved candidate, so voters
can have as much  Later-no-harm as they want.
Without this feature, AER  and other methods that use an  approval 
cutoff  give too big an advantage to well-informed
strategic voters. My idea is that as and when a  voter's approval cutoff 
 in it's original position becomes redundant/useless
(because it no longer distinguishes between the remaining candidates), 
it is moved the minimum distance neccessary for
this to be not the case.
Some people who are not  Condorcet fans have been down on the idea of  a 
 "low utility" CW with very few first preferences
winning. They can be reassured that with this method such a candidate 
cannot win unless they are explicitly  "approved" by
a significant  proportion  of  the voters.
This method  can easily be adapted  to elect more than one winner by  PR.
It  doesn't meet the Condorcet Criterion, but that is incompatible with 
Later-no-harm.
A while ago (Sat.Apr.13,2002) Adam Tarr  posted something on 
"Approval-Completed Condorcet".
In his example, these were the sincere preferences:

49: Bush>Gore>Nader
12: Gore>Bush>Nader
12: Gore>Nader>Bush
27: Nader>Gore>Bush
100 voters. Gore is the sincere CW.

With approval cutoffs, this was his problematic scenario:

49: Bush>>Nader>Gore
6: Gore>Bush>>Nader
6: Gore>>Bush>Nader
6: Gore>>Nader>Bush
6: Gore>Nader>>Bush
27: Nader>Gore>>Bush

"Now, Bush wins the approval runoff 55-51-33.  This is where ACC's favorite 
betrayal scenario comes in.  Since Bush wins the approval vote, the only 
way the majority can guarantee a Gore win is to make Gore the initial 
Condorcet winner, which requires that the Nader camp vote Gore in first place:"

My point is that this is no problem for AER. Nader is easily eliminated and then Gore
(the sincere CW) wins.

Chris Benham



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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Sun Dec 21 12:39:13 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Sun Dec 21 12:39:13 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
Message-ID: <3FE60484.9BC73431@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

you wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> I wrote here to correct the wrong claim that I wrote so uselessly
> on part of algorithm, and I reject that I could have possibly have
> as irrational as Mr Schulze suggested with his speculation on what
> I would have believed. (...) I did not claim that the Floyd algorithm
> "doesn't work".

However, on 15 Dec 2003, you wrote:
> A defective spot in Mr Schulze's article is this:
>
>      "4 Implementation
>       ...
>       It cannot be said frequently that the order
>       of the indices in the triple-loop of the
>       Floyd algorithm is not irrelevant."
>
> The principle of having the winner unaffected by the lettering
> might be failed. 
>
> E.g. this could happen. (The only change is a reordering
> of ALL the for loops inside of the algorithm):
>
>   Harry (=#1) Winner
>   Horace (=#2) Loser
>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser
>
>   Harry (=#2) Loser
>   Horace (=#1) Winner
>   Horseradish (=#3) Loser

And in your 16 Dec 2003 mail, you claimed that "secret internal
relettering (or renaming or renumbering) inside of the algorithm
affects who the winner is." Thus, on the one side you call the
Floyd algorithm "defective" and claim that the result of the
Floyd algorithm depends on the lettering and on the other side
you write that you "did not claim that the Floyd algorithm
'doesn't work'".

Markus Schulze


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Sun Dec 21 12:40:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Sun Dec 21 12:40:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm question
Message-ID: <20031221203901.5119.qmail@web13809.mail.yahoo.com>

Does anyone have any idea if for the following ballots:

11 C>A
7 A
9 B
10 D>B

an election method which meets Later-no-harm can elect B?
If not, or probably not, what reasons can you see?

I know of two methods which meet later-no-harm (IRV and Woodall's
Descending Solid Coalitions) and they both pick C.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


___________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais !
Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com


From stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca  Sun Dec 21 13:40:08 2003
From: stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca (Stephane Rouillon)
Date: Sun Dec 21 13:40:08 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm question
References: <20031221203901.5119.qmail@web13809.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <3FE61232.E6A00BE2@sympatico.ca>

Finally, someone with a serious subject.

I have no idea of what is an exact definition of the Later-no-harm criteria.
So please tell me, so I can help you in your search.

You have owned it.

Steph

Kevin Venzke a ?crit :

> Does anyone have any idea if for the following ballots:
>
> 11 C>A
> 7 A
> 9 B
> 10 D>B
>
> an election method which meets Later-no-harm can elect B?
> If not, or probably not, what reasons can you see?
>
> I know of two methods which meet later-no-harm (IRV and Woodall's
> Descending Solid Coalitions) and they both pick C.
>
> Kevin Venzke
> stepjak at yahoo.fr
>
> ___________________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais !
> Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info



From rob at hypermatch.com  Sun Dec 21 14:37:03 2003
From: rob at hypermatch.com (Rob Brown)
Date: Sun Dec 21 14:37:03 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
In-Reply-To: <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312211836070.595@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>
References: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz>
 <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312211836070.595@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.0.20031221123415.01cf9060@mail.comcast.net>

I figured I'd pop out of lurk mode to mention that I, like Diana, have 
questioned whether some of the participants of this discussion are computer 
rather than human.....Craig's mangled vitriol in particular reads like its 
been round-tripped through the babelfish translator.

In any case this ridiculous flamefest has provided me some amusement, but 
not done a lot toward my taking this list seriously.  Maybe everybody could 
agree that if Craig and Mike would just kindly drop off the list for a 
month, everyone will just pretend this never happened when they come back?

-rob

At 10:51 AM 12/21/2003, Diana Galletly wrote:
>On Mon, 22 Dec 2003, Craig Carey wrote:
>
> > It won't be OK in politics. But this is just list for untrue statements
> > that have no place in the design of quality preferential voting methods
> > (particularly when Diana speaks. As for myself, shall be withdrawing
> > from this deep dark hole without much delay).
>
>Er, show me where I have said something that is untrue?
>
>It happens to be the case that if I post something that I later come
>to realise is mistaken, I am *very* ready to apologise.
>
>It may be that I have misinterpreted your messages, although since
>your sentences often seem to be at best incomplete this might not
>be surprising.
>
>My understanding is that you are a supporter of STV (maybe even of IRV)?
>Is this correct?
>
> > The poor members here do not like algebra, so they aggregate and don't
> > know what fairness is.
>
>What proof have you that any of us dislike algebra?
>
> > They maybe really are not so stupid that they can't create truly better
> > method, but all are out for lunch if the topic of defining what better
> > means shows up.
>
>It seems to me that there are some people who want to a believe in a
>one-size-fits-all system, for single winner elections, multi-winner
>elections, referenda etc.
>
>Personally, my interest is in referenda and, in particular, in determining
>a system which doesn't cause widely varying results if just a few votes
>change hands.
>
>Calling me stupid will not get you far.  I am far from stupid, and
>asserting that I am just because I happen to disagree with you, or
>because you don't like the content of my messages, will not get me
>to consider anything you have to say more carefully than I would were
>you to be polite.
>
> > How arbitrary: some privately belief on conduct with not even a single
> > radiating Argon gas atom illuminating the statement with the right stuff:
>
>This is an example of why I find your English hard to comprehend.  I
>cannot even tell whether you are insulting or praising me -- I can read
>it in both ways.  However, given your previous comment, I guess I should
>take it as an insult.
>
> > Rather than reject bits of Diana's advice, it might be fairer to find out
> > more of her beliefs in the aim of estimating a date when Diana is likely
> > to drop out or quit.
>
>At the rate academic politics moves, some time in 2005 or 2006 I should
>imagine.  I'm here for a reason, not for an argument.
>
>Diana.
>----
>Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 20:40:09 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 20:40:09 2003
Subject: [EM] Proof that Floyd's works in one pass?
Message-ID: <Law10-F95sCOt4p1Vfh00010ca8@hotmail.com>

Yesterday I asked Russ, the website owner, to re-arrange the indices in the 
core of the strongest-beatpaths algorithm, the part that tests and 
re-assigns the B(i,j). But today I wrote again and suggested that he not 
make that change until I send him a proof that it will achieve its intended 
result. But, when I wrote today, I said that we shouldn't call it the Floyd 
algorithm. I said that we should delete that name from it. Not only because 
of the order of the indices, but also because the websites say that the 
Floyd algorithm is for finding shortest paths, and I don't know if it's 
still the Floyd algorithm when it's modified to find strongest beatpaths.

If it's true that the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted a few days ago 
would find the strongest beatpath between each ordered pair of candidates if 
the indices were re-arranged, then would someone post a proof of that? Or 
the URL of a website that has a proof?

Also, if there's another algorilthm that would also have a running-time of a 
lower order than my Beatpath algorithm, would someone post it here, 
jargon-free and plain, as my BeatpathWinner algorithm was posted here a few 
days ago? Or post the URL of a website that has such a description of such 
an algorithm?

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Get dial-up Internet access now with our best offer: 6 months @$9.95/month!  
http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 22:36:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 22:36:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Actual quotes for Markus
Message-ID: <Law10-F97B7BLA2t0ly00050b01@hotmail.com>

Markus said:

you wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>False statements, statements that he can't justify,  have always been
>Markus's stock-in-trade. But this time he's doing the disservice of
>misinforming people about a practical matter. But Markus doesn't care,
>he just enjoys being on the attack.

When someone proposes a faster algorithm for a given problem then
you shouldn't consider this to be an "attack".

I reply:

Excuse me, but did I ever object to your proposing a faster algorithm? It 
was abundantly clear from what I said that I was objecting to your ongoing 
claim that I claim that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

Diana's right: It's as if you don't read what you're replying to. I'm not so 
sure that you pass the Turing test.

Markus continued:

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your implementation
is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this discussion with the
following statement (18 Dec 2003): ...

>Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.

Wrong. That posting is dated 17 December in the archives, not 18 December.

Immediately after that senbence, I said:

"I don't use that piece of code. It looks like it might be a tiny piece of a 
Pyhon strongest-beatpaths program, with at least one of its lines partly 
erased."

So it would be obvious to anyone but you that, at that time, I wasn't saying 
that I don't call the strongest-beatpaths algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but 
was only saying that I don't call your poorly-copied program-fragment the 
Floyd algorith.

A few paragraphs down in that same message, I said,

"I do call a certain strongest-beatpaths algorithm the Floyd algorithm, only 
because someone on this list told us that that's what the algorithm is 
called."

So, on the 17th, I was still calling our strongest-beatpaths algorithm the 
Floyd algorithm, and still believed that it was what you'd intended to write 
when you posted your Floyd algorilthm.

But on the 18th, I said that it semed to me that you had meant to say that 
our algorithm was the Floyd algoithm, but maybe not.

I then explained that it had seemed to me earlier that our algorithm was the 
same as what you'd
meant to write when you posted your Floyd algorithm, and that that was why I 
believed that our algorithm was the Floyd algorithm.

In that message, it's clear that I was no longer calling our algorithm the 
Floyd algorithm.

But, if that wasn't clear enough, on the same day, the 18th, I also posted:

"[Something to the effect of 'I'd thought that you'd meant our algorithm as 
the Floyd algorithm'] But if you say it isn't, fine. I'll tell Russ to 
delete that name from the website."

That makes it even more clear that, as of the 18th, I was no longer calling 
our algorithm the Floyd algorilthm.

Markus continued:

It is obvious that when I made my statement that you call your 
implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you have 
changed
your opinion recently.

I reply:

No reason at all...except for what I said  :-)

(on the 18th, and on numerous subsequent posts).

Masrkus continued:

Therefore, your insulting replies are inappropriate.
Instead of saying "Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm." it would
have been better if you had said: "I don't call that the Floyd algorithm
anymore."

I reply:

In English, "I don't call it that anymore" means "Though I called it that 
formerly, I no longer do."

So "anymore" merely emphasizes that what is not now true used to be true. It 
emphasizes the changing of a previously true fact. But in no way can 
"anymore" be said to be a necessary part of the grammatical construction for 
indicating the present tense.

You continued:

In so far as you only said without any explanations "I don't call that the
Floyd algorithm." and not "I don't call that the Floyd algorithm anymore."
it was clear that I would point you to a document where you call that the
Floyd algorithm.

I reply:

Correction: You pointed to a document in which I _called_ it the Floyd 
algorithm. You used the present tense. The document proves only that I 
called it the Floyd algorithm in 2001.

(though I said on the 17th December, 2003, that I still called it that as of 
that day)

That's why we have verb-tenses. So that people will know whether we're 
speaking of the present, the past, or the future. I spoke in the present 
tense. The present can refer to this moment, as when someone says, "I'm not 
smoking a cigarette". Or it can refer to something currently ongoing, as 
when someone says "I don't smoke". Then he's saying that not only is he not 
smoking at this moment, but he's also saying that this moment isn't part of 
an ongoing period during which smoking by him sometimes takes place. That's 
a well-established meaning of the present tense, and it was in that way that 
I meant the present tense. When he says "I don't smoke", in no way can you 
be justified in claiming that he's saying that he has never smoked.

If he says "I haven't smoked", then that's different.

I reply:

So when I said that I don't call it the Floyd algorithm, that doesn't mean 
that I've never called it the Floyd algorithm. It merely means that I 
currently don't call it that. When somone says "I don't call it that", does 
mean to you that  mean that he's saying that he has never called it that?

Now, on the 17th I was only saying that I don't call that program _fragment_ 
the Floyd algorilthm. But on subsequent days when I said that,  I made it 
clear that I don't call our strongest beatpaths algorithm the Floyd 
algorithm. My statements posted here on 18 December 2003 demonstrate that, 
from that time on, I haven't been calling it the Floyd algorithm.

By the way, you wrote (18 Dec 2003):

>I re-emphasize that I didn't get our strongest beatpaths algorithm from
>you or Floyd, or anyone but Steve Eppley, who suggested it.

Could you please forward that mail where Steve proposes his strongest path
algorithm?

I reply:

It turns out that that message is no longer in my mailbox. That message was 
sent years ago, and my mailbox doesn't go back that far. I suggest that you 
write to Steve. He may still have a copy of the message. Or, if not, he may 
be able to tell you about the algorithm that he proposed.

******

I wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>Then, of course, it would have been sufficient for you to say that you 
>don't
>call your implementation "Floyd algorithm" anymore.

As I said, the word "anymore" is _not_ a necessary part of the grammatical 
construction for the present tense.

I said that I don't call it the Floyd algorithm. That means that now isn't 
part of an ongoing period during which I sometimes call it that. It doesn't 
mean that I've never called it that.

>There was no need for you
>to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

Do you really believe that I had no reason to get tired of repeatedly 
explaining the same things to you again and again, as you kept on repeating 
a false claim, as if you weren't reading the e-mail that you were "replying" 
to?

Markus continued:

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>Hello-o-o-o! That's what I've been repeating for you over and over again, 
>to
>no avail. I won't debate whether there was a need to insult you. But can 
>you
>look at your ridiculous statement that I quoted directly above, and say 
>that
>there wasn't a reason to call you an idiot?

When I say that "it would have been sufficient for you to say that you don't
call your implementation 'Floyd algorithm' anymore" then this doesn't mean
that I claim that you still call your implementation "Floyd algorithm".
It only means that this would have been sufficient and that there was no
need for you e.g. to spam this mailing list with tons of insulting mails.

I reply:

But the problem was that it _wasn't_ sufficient, because you were spamming 
this mailing list with repetion of a refuted claim, in direct violation of 
the rules of conduct posted at the list's homepage.

Markus continued:

You wrote (20 Dec 2003):
>You see, Markus, this is why I refer to you as an idiot. Did I deny that,
>in Feb 2001, I was calling Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm.? No. I
>agreed that I'd formerly called that algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but
>that I no longer do. But you kept repeating that I continue to claim that
>my implementation is the Floyd algorilthm, though I kept trying to tell
>you that I no longer make any such claim.
>
>And now you post a quote from 2001, apparently believing that it shows
>that you're right to say that, during this current discussion, I claim
>that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.
>
>Seriously, Markus, all namecalling aside,there really is something wrong
>with you.

Obviously, you are unable to see that when I ask you for an explanation why
you have used the term "Floyd algorithm" in the past in a given manner then
this doesn't include that I claim that you continue to use this term in this
manner.

I reply:

No. You didn't just ask for an explanation for why I previously used the 
term. You kept saying that I do use the term in that way. Check the 
archives.

And, as for why I previously used the term in that way, I answered that 
question on the 18th. If yoiu read what yoiu're replying to, you wouldn't 
have asked that question after that day.

Markus continued:

By the way: Your recent mail exemplifies my observation that you are
unable to admit that you have made a mistake

I reply:

Starting on the 18th, and then on every subsequent day, I clarified that I 
previously called it the Floyd algorithm, and that I (as of the 18th and 
after) took your word for it that it was not the Floyd algorilth, and said 
that I was going to ask Russ to delete that name from the website. Agan, 
Diana's rilght: What you say is completely unrelated to what you claim to be 
replying to.

Markus continued:

without bombarding with
insults that person who pointed you to this mistake.

I reply:

I never criticized you for pointing out that Steve's algorithm isn't the 
Floyd algorithm. More fiction on your part.

Markus continued:

In the same mail
you admit that you have mistakenly believed Eppley's algorithm to be
Floyd's algorithm

I reply:

You catch on fast :-)  At least now you've finally found out that I've been 
saying that all along.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 21 22:59:03 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 21 22:59:03 2003
Subject: [EM] Matt reply, 12/21/03
Message-ID: <Law10-F8hNfv57kVwyr00050a38@hotmail.com>

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Matt said:

It is the python code towards the bottom of http://www.electionmethods.org/
It says "Mike Ossipoff provided the algorithm, and Russ Paielli programmed 
it."
It also says:  "Determine "beatpath" magnitudes array using the Floyd 
Algorithm:" which prompted Markus to point out that it wasn't the O(N^3) 
Floyd Algorithm as coded but a less efficient O(N^5) algorithm.

I reply:

No, I'd have never objected to that. As soon as Markus said it wasn't the 
Floyd algorithm I said "Fine. I'll tell Russ to delete that name from the 
website.

What I disagreed with in Markus's posting was his statement that our 
algorithm doesn't work.

Matt continued, using the terminology of his subculture,:

Mike then went into a hissy fit.

I reply:

I stated that, contrary to what Markus posted,  our algothm works.

I immediately said that I took Markus's word for it that our algotithm isn't 
the Floyd algorithm.

No fit. Did I eventually become exasperated with Markus's repetition that I 
call Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm? Yes.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Check your PC for viruses with the FREE McAfee online computer scan.  
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 22 00:05:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Mon Dec 22 00:05:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Yet more Markus
Message-ID: <Law10-F55nDrfDYgl3l0002a006@hotmail.com>


Markus said:

when I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
have changed your opinion recently.

I reply:

Not only that, but I had not changed my opinion about that at that time. On 
17 December I said in a posting here that I, at that time, called our 
algorithm the Floyd algorithm.

No one is disputing the claim that I used to call it that. No one is 
criticizing you for making that observation on 15 December. It's when you 
kept saying it after 18 December that it was obviously false and was 
becoming reallly tiresome.

Markus continued:

[...]

Therefore, I stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd
algorithm and that your algorithm doesn't find the strongest
paths in a single pass.

I reply:

I've already quoted verbatim what you said. You said that our algorithm 
doesn't work.
But I'm not still on that. However you seem to still on that.

Markus continued:

But when one considers the possible
short cuts in that order that has been proposed by Floyd then
a single pass is sufficient.

I reply:

So you keep claiming. But are you able to  prove it? If so, then do so. And, 
  if you're unable to prove it, then post the web URL of someone who is able 
to prove it.

I'm not saying that it isn't true, only that you should prove it if you're 
going to say it.

Markus quoted me:

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
>That algorithm wasn't written as an attempt to write the Floyd
>algorithm. It was written by people who had never heard of the
>Floyd algorithm. It was written to accomplish the pupose that
>it accomlishes. Only later, due to Markus's earlier post of
>something he called the Floyd algorithm (though it was about
>strongest paths rather than shortest paths), did I hear of the
>Floyd algorithm.

Markus replied:

Even though you write that you have never heard of the Floyd
algorithm

I reply:

Excuse me Markus, but in what posting did I say that I've never heard of the 
Floyd algorithm? Certainly not in the paragraph that you quoted above. What 
I said in that posting was that our strongest-beatpaths algorilthmwas 
written by people who had never heard of the Floyd algorithm.

Listen carefully, Markus: "had" is different from "have".

I said "...people who had never heard of the Floyd algorithmn". You took 
that to mean that I have (up to this day) never heard of the Floyd 
algorithm. Does it occur to you that that was a ridiculous conclusion, 
considering that I've repeatedly mentioned the Floyd algorithm, from 17 
December to the present? Now, when a conclusion is ridiculous, just maybe 
it's incorrect. We have the perfect tense, and, distinct from that, we have 
the past-perfect or pluperfect tense. "...who had never heard of the Floyd 
algorithm" is the latter tense. It  refers to time previoius to the time 
that the sentence refers to. It's about time that was past with respect to 
the past time that the sentence refers to. To clairfy the difference, if I 
say "I haven't heard of the Floyd algorithm", that refers to time previous 
to, and up to, the present The perfect tense and the pluperfect tense are 
two different tenses, with different meanings.

I'm not criticizing you for mistaking those verb-tenses. But when you reach 
a conclusion as ridicoulous as the one that you reached, that should give 
you a clue that maybe you've misunderstood, and that you need to re-check 
what you think was said.

Markus continued:

it is a matter of fact that you called your algorithm
"Floyd algorithm" e.g. in the source code of your Python program
(http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py).

I reply:

I've never denied that, Markus.

Markus continued:

Therefore, when I
stress that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm then
this is a feasible observation and not an "attack".

I reply:

I never criticized you for saying that our implementation isn't the Floyd 
algorithm.

I haven't specifically said that anything was an attack. I said that you 
like to go on the attrack, and that's a good description of what you do. I 
also said that you must have nothing else to do, and that you evidently are 
completely without a life, and I stand by that statement.

Markus continued:

If you hadn't
mistakenly written that your implementation is the Floyd algorithm,
then there wouldn't have been a reason for me to stress that your
implementation is not the Floyd algorithm.

I reo;y:

No one has objected to your pointing out that it isn't the Floyd algorithm. 
All I said about that was that I took your word for it and would tell Russ 
to delete that name from it.

Markus continued:

You wrote (21 Dec 2003):
>I've been futily trying to explain to Markus that I'm not claiming
>that Steve's algorithm is the Floyd algorithm. Yes, I admit that
>that effort has been futile.

When I wrote (on 15 Dec 2003) that you called your implementation
"Floyd algorithm" there was no reason for me to believe that you
have changed your opinion recently.

I reply:

You already said that, Markus, earlier in your posting. The answer is the 
same here: My opinion that our implmentation was the Floyd algorithm indeed 
had not changed as of that time. Additionally, on 17 December I stated that 
I call it the Floyd algorithm. But on the 18th I made it clear that that was 
no longer so, as of the 18th.

Markus continued:

In one of your recent mails,
you admitted that you mistakenly believed Eppley's algorithm to
be Floyd's algorithm and you admitted that you mistakenly called
Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's algorithm". Therefore, my criticism
was feasible

I reply:

Sure, if you want to repeat what I'd already said, that I mistakenly 
believed that you'd intended to write Steve's algorithm when you posted your 
Floyd algorithm, that's fine. I wasn't aware that it was criticism, and I've 
never objected to your pointiing that out.

But do you really believe that I'd agree that it wasn't the Floyd algorithm 
and then criticize you for saying that it isn't th eFloyd algorilthm? Again, 
a ridiculous conclulsion that should give you a clue that you need to 
re-check what you thought I wrote.

Does it occur to you how much of our time you're wasting because you draw 
those ridiculous conclusions, and then write about them instead of checking 
whether I really said what you initially believe I said? You're unbelievably 
sloppy.

Markus continued:

and you admitted this.

I reply:

If you admilt that I did you feel the need to keep re-asserting what was 
already admitted?

Markus continued:

Therefore, there is absolutely
no justification for your insulting mails.

I reply:

Sure there was and is, with the astoundingly ridiculous things that you come 
up with, such as saying that I claim to have never heard of the Floyd 
algorithm, because I said that our implementation was written by peoiple who 
had never heard of the Floyd algorilthm.

Markus continued:

I don't claim that you continue to claim that Eppley's algorithm
is Floyd's algorithm. However, when I pointed (on 15 Dec 2003) to
the fact that you mistakenly called your implementation "Floyd
algorithm" this observation was true.

I reply:

...and no one objected to your saying that then. But I objected to that same 
statement after 18 December, when I'd made it clear that I was no longer 
callling it the Floyd algorithm.

Mike Ossipoff

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From bartman at netgate.net  Mon Dec 22 00:43:02 2003
From: bartman at netgate.net (Bart Ingles)
Date: Mon Dec 22 00:43:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm question
References: <20031221203901.5119.qmail@web13809.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <3FE6AE3B.53B43546@netgate.net>

Random dictator can elect B 9/37 of the time, and presumably meets
later-no-harm.  In fact the 2nd choices are unused for that method.

I can't see much value in LNH as a criterion, unless getting voters to
rank as many candidates as possible is seen as an end in itself.

Bart


Kevin Venzke wrote:
> 
> Does anyone have any idea if for the following ballots:
> 
> 11 C>A
> 7 A
> 9 B
> 10 D>B
> 
> an election method which meets Later-no-harm can elect B?
> If not, or probably not, what reasons can you see?
> 
> I know of two methods which meet later-no-harm (IRV and Woodall's
> Descending Solid Coalitions) and they both pick C.
> 
> Kevin Venzke
> stepjak at yahoo.fr


From davek at clarityconnect.com  Mon Dec 22 01:04:01 2003
From: davek at clarityconnect.com (Dave Ketchum)
Date: Mon Dec 22 01:04:01 2003
Subject: [EM] 2nd Matt reply--12/20/03
References: <5.2.0.9.2.20031222021553.034a30b8@pop.qsi.net.nz> <Pine.HPX.4.58L.0312211836070.595@punch.eng.cam.ac.uk> <6.0.0.22.0.20031221123415.01cf9060@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <3FE6B33A.300@clarityconnect.com>

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 14:36:47 -0800 Rob Brown wrote on part:

> I figured I'd pop out of lurk mode to mention that I, like Diana, have 
> questioned whether some of the participants of this discussion are 
> computer rather than human.....Craig's mangled vitriol in particular 
> reads like its been round-tripped through the babelfish translator.
> 

Worth noting the "NZ" in Craig's address and realizing he speaks a 
different language, though deceptively similar to ours.

I remember many months ago his getting upset over the VERY UGLY insult 
someone had used about him.  The insult had not been meant, for the words 
were not insulting in American English.

BTW, to Craig:  you need to remember that what works for you at home is 
not necessarily workable here.

-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.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.



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 22 01:29:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Mon Dec 22 01:29:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Typo in "Proof that Floyd finishes in 1 pass?"
Message-ID: <Law10-F87jGUcdCzs4m00050d21@hotmail.com>


In an earlier message today, I said:

"If it's true that the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I posted a few days ago
would find the strongest beatpath between each ordered pair of candidates if
the indices were re-arranged, then would someone post a proof of that? Or
the URL of a website that has a proof?"

***

I accidentally left out the phrase "with only one pass".

I'm asking if anyone can prove that the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I 
posted a few days ago would find the strongest beatpath between each ordered 
pair of candidates _in one pass_ if the order of the indices were 
re-arranged.

If there's proof that the re-arrangement can accomplish that then I'll ask 
the website owner to re-arrange the indices in that way.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 22 01:54:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Mon Dec 22 01:54:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Winning-votes vs margins as a measure of defeat-strength
Message-ID: <Law10-F74muxcChxbm300050fd1@hotmail.com>




For Condorcet's method, I recommend that the strength
of pairwise defeats be measured by "winning-votes"
(wv). Winning votes says:

If X beats Y, then the strength of that defeat is measured by the number of 
people who ranked X over Y.

[end of definition]

Some others advocate using margins of defeat instead.

Here's why winning-votes is better.

Below is something that I send out to answer that question. But let me 
briefly say that one problem of margins is that the subtraction that it 
involves erases information about majorities, which is why margins has 
majority rule failures that wv doesn't have. One result is that wv meets the 
majority defensivse strategy criteria, SFC, GSFC, WDSC, and SDSC; and 
margins fails all those criteria. They're criteria intended to measure for 
the standards of majority rule, and minimizing need for defensive strategy. 
The definitions of those 4 criteria tell how complying methods (wv 
Condorclet) avoid certain avoidable defensive strategy needs.

Thoes criteria are defined at:

http://www.electionmethods.org

and

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


But there's also a basic ethical reason wv acts more justly than margins 
does:

When every candidate has a pairwise defeat by another
candidate, Condorcet's method, in all its versions,
solves that problem by sequentially dropping the
weaker defeats--or by sequentially keeping the
stronger defeats.

When everyone has a pairwise defeat, and we have to
elect someone anyway, then that means that we have to
ignore or disregard or overrule someone's pairwise
defeat(s)--when we elect someone in spite of his
having a pairwise defeat, a public statement that the
voters prefer someone else to him. So Condorcet has to choose which defeat 
to drop.

But dropping or ignoring a defeat is not something to
be taken lightly. It means that we're disregarding,
overruling, a statement made by the voting public,
when they indicated that they preferred one candidate
to another. And when we overrule that public choice,
we're overruling those voters who won that public
decision.


Suppose that, in the pairwise comparison betwen D & B,
D beats B, 60 to 50, meaning that 60 people ranked D
over B, and 50 people ranked B over D.

If we drop that defeat, overrule that public statement
that D is better than B, then we're also overruling
the 60 voters who won that public vote about that
2-way contest between D and B.

We want to minimize the number of voters whom we
overrule. So we measure the importance of a defeat by
the number of people who voted for that defeat.

Now, sometimes someone will say: But if you keep that
defeat, doesn't that mean that you're overrule the 50
voters who voted against it, the 50 voters who ranked
B over D? No! Those 50 voters were overruled by the
public vote in which the voters collectively said that
they prefer D to B. The only way that the voting
system overrules a public decision is when it drops a
defeat, when it overrules a public decision for one
candidate over another. We're not doing that when we
keep a defeat that the public chose.

That's why winning-votes (wv) is more democratic than
margins, more ethically fair.

But there's another reason why we prefer wv to
margins:
Nash Equilibrium:

A Nash equilibrium is an game outcome in which no one
player can improve the result for himself by changing
his play, if no one else changes their play.

In voting system discussion on the election-methods
mailing list, a "player" is taken to mean a
same-voting set of voters.

With the kind of Condorcet that measures defeats by
margins, as with IRV and Plurality, there are often situations
(configurations of sincere voter preferences) in which
the only Nash equilibria are ones in which some voters
vote someone over their favorite in order to protect
majority rule or protect the win of a Condorcet
candidate (a candidate who, when compared separately
to each one of the others, is preferred to him/her by
more people than vice-versa).

With Approval or wv Condorcet, every situation has at
least one Nash equilibrium in which no one reverses a
sincere preference.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Mon Dec 22 05:11:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Mon Dec 22 05:11:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Actual quotes for Markus
Message-ID: <3FE6ECC4.FFFA3285@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

when I wrote that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm,
then this was an observation and not an "attack". If you hadn't
mistakenly written (e.g. in the source code of your Python
program http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py) that your
implementation is the Floyd algorithm, then I wouldn't have
stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm.
In one of your recent mails, you admitted that you mistakenly
believed Eppley's algorithm to be Floyd's algorithm and you
admitted that you mistakenly called Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's
algorithm". Therefore, my criticism was feasible and you
admitted this. Therefore, there is absolutely no justification
for your insulting mails.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> Excuse me, but did I ever object to your proposing a faster
> algorithm? It was abundantly clear from what I said that I
> was objecting to your ongoing claim that I claim that Steve's
> algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> Markus wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> > I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your
> > implementation is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this
> > discussion with the following statement (18 Dec 2003): ...
> >
> > > Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.
>
> Wrong. That posting is dated 17 December in the archives, not
> 18 December.

My mailbox says: "Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"

It seems that your mail server uses UK time and not
California time.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> Immediately after that senbence, I said:
>
> "I don't use that piece of code. It looks like it might be a
> tiny piece of a Pyhon strongest-beatpaths program, with at
> least one of its lines partly erased."
>
> So it would be obvious to anyone but you that, at that time,
> I wasn't saying that I don't call the strongest-beatpaths
> algorithm the Floyd algorithm, but was only saying that I
> don't call your poorly-copied program-fragment the Floyd
> algorith.
>
> A few paragraphs down in that same message, I said,
>
> "I do call a certain strongest-beatpaths algorithm the Floyd
> algorithm, only because someone on this list told us that
> that's what the algorithm is called."
>
> So, on the 17th, I was still calling our strongest-beatpaths
> algorithm the Floyd algorithm, and still believed that it was
> what you'd intended to write when you posted your Floyd
> algorilthm.
>
> But on the 18th, I said that it semed to me that you had meant
> to say that our algorithm was the Floyd algoithm, but maybe not.
>
> I then explained that it had seemed to me earlier that our
> algorithm was the same as what you'd meant to write when you
> posted your Floyd algorithm, and that that was why I believed
> that our algorithm was the Floyd algorithm.
>
> In that message, it's clear that I was no longer calling our
> algorithm the Floyd algorithm.
>
> But, if that wasn't clear enough, on the same day, the 18th,
> I also posted:
>
> "[Something to the effect of 'I'd thought that you'd meant our
> algorithm as the Floyd algorithm'] But if you say it isn't, fine.
> I'll tell Russ to delete that name from the website."
>
> That makes it even more clear that, as of the 18th, I was no
> longer calling our algorithm the Floyd algorilthm.

Why is it so important for you to stress that since 18 Dec 2003
you are not longer calling Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's algorithm"?
When I wrote on 15 Dec 2003 that Eppley's algorithm is mistakenly
called "Floyd's algorithm" in the source code of your Phython
program this was a correct observation.

******

I wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> When I say that "it would have been sufficient for you to say that
> you don't call your implementation 'Floyd algorithm' anymore" then
> this doesn't mean that I claim that you still call your implementation
> "Floyd algorithm". It only means that this would have been sufficient
> and that there was no need for you e.g. to spam this mailing list with
> tons of insulting mails.

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> But the problem was that it _wasn't_ sufficient, because you were spamming 
> this mailing list with repetion of a refuted claim, in direct violation of 
> the rules of conduct posted at the list's homepage.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

******

I wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> Obviously, you are unable to see that when I ask you for an explanation why
> you have used the term "Floyd algorithm" in the past in a given manner then
> this doesn't include that I claim that you continue to use this term in this
> manner.

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> No. You didn't just ask for an explanation for why I previously used the 
> term. You kept saying that I do use the term in that way. Check the archives.
> And, as for why I previously used the term in that way, I answered that
> question on the 18th. If yoiu read what yoiu're replying to, you wouldn't
> have asked that question after that day.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> I immediately said that I took Markus's word for it that our algotithm
> isn't the Floyd algorithm. No fit. Did I eventually become exasperated
> with Markus's repetition that I call Steve's algorithm the Floyd algorithm?
> Yes.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> I haven't specifically said that anything was an attack. I said that you
> like to go on the attrack, and that's a good description of what you do. I
> also said that you must have nothing else to do, and that you evidently are
> completely without a life, and I stand by that statement.

Concerning the time you spend to spam mailing lists with insulting and
completely superfluous mails, I conclude that you are completely without
a life.

Markus Schulze


From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Mon Dec 22 08:17:02 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Mon Dec 22 08:17:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm  definition
Message-ID: <3FE7C23C.1090700@bigpond.com>

Quoting  D.R. Woodall,

"Later-no-harm:  Adding a later preference to a ballot should not harm 
any candidate already listed".

In other words, if  a method meets Later-no-harm then  voters can never 
get an advantage by truncating.
It is met by IRV, but is incompatible with  Condorcet.
I got this from what I found to be the very interesting and illuminating 
paper "Monotonicity and Single-Seat Election
Rules" by Woodall, and uploaded by  Marcus Schulze:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/wood1996.pdf

Chris Benham



From rspeer at MIT.EDU  Mon Dec 22 11:36:02 2003
From: rspeer at MIT.EDU (Rob Speer)
Date: Mon Dec 22 11:36:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Typo in "Proof that Floyd finishes in 1 pass?"
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F87jGUcdCzs4m00050d21@hotmail.com>
References: <Law10-F87jGUcdCzs4m00050d21@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031222193423.GA23743@mit.edu>

On Mon, Dec 22, 2003 at 09:28:37AM +0000, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
> I'm asking if anyone can prove that the BeatpathWinner algorithm that I 
> posted a few days ago would find the strongest beatpath between each 
> ordered pair of candidates _in one pass_ if the order of the indices were 
> re-arranged.

You accept that the Floyd-Warshall algorithm is proven, right? I don't
have my copy of CLR around.

Floyd-Warshall shortest paths is a special case of the Floyd-Warshall
algorithm, where the path weight is calculated with + and the minimum
is taken. Floyd-Warshall can also be used for the transitive closure, or
for beatpaths, because the algorithm doesn't depend on the particular
operations that are used.

-- 
Rob Speer



From Dgamble997 at aol.com  Mon Dec 22 11:46:02 2003
From: Dgamble997 at aol.com (Dgamble997 at aol.com)
Date: Mon Dec 22 11:46:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Two Questions for Craig Carey
Message-ID: <17e.2498109b.2d18a3b9@aol.com>

Craig

In the past you have been extremely critical of IRV , currently you are being 
extremely critical of Condorcet. What single seat method do you support?

You also repeatedly criticise methods for giving "wrong winners". In the 
example given below who, in your opinion, is the correct winner?

There are 100 votes and one seat is to be filled.

The ballot papers are as follows:

A>B>C   40
B>A>C   8
B>C>A   17
C>B>A   35

A is the Plurality winner, B is the Condorcet winner and C is the IRV winner. 
Who is the correct winner?

David Gamble

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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Mon Dec 22 23:54:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Mon Dec 22 23:54:02 2003
Subject: [EM] SSD is not BeatpathWinner
Message-ID: <Law10-F1112zSdwlDgQ0005442d@hotmail.com>

Markus often says that BeatpathWinner is the same as Cloneproof SSD (CSSD) 
and SSD. Actually no. SSD is a different method that can have different 
outcomes when there are pairwise ties.

It's true thatr CSSD and BeatpathWinner are equivalent, always give the same 
outcome.

In public elections, where pairwise ties are vanishingly rare, SSD chooses 
the same as CSSD, which means that, under those conditions, SSD chooses the 
same as BeatpathWinner.

But, aside from how they choose, there's an important difference between SSD 
and BeatpathWinner: Proposability.

SSD's definition, with its innermost unbeaten sets, is naturally and 
obviously motivated and justified. Innermost unbeaten sets are compelling.

BeatpathWinner's count rule has an arbitrary quality. It wouldn't have the 
acceptability of SSD. Or the acceptability of Ranked-Pairs either.

Maybe when Markus names those methods as being the same as BeatpathWinner, 
he'd like to take credit for all of them (assuming for the moment that he 
really did invent BeatpathWinner). Yes he did describe CSSD after proposing 
BeatpathWinner, pointing out the equivalence. But I doubt that he proposed 
SSD.

SSD was a colaboration from discussion with Steve Eppley. Neither of us knew 
of Markus's CSSD description at that time. Later, in a discussion in which a 
clone-independent method was desired, and in which someone else was 
proposing BeatpathWinner, a method not as obviously justified as SSD, I 
changed SSD to make it clone-independent--Cloneproof SSD (CSSD). Later I 
found out that Markus had described CSSD.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 01:48:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 01:48:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Condorcet for public proposals
Message-ID: <LAW10-F78P6LKg1bJj800054daa@hotmail.com>

When I found out about BeatpathWinner's brief algorithm and computer 
program, I began recommending for committees, organizations, and polls. That 
was largely because the brief BeatpathWinner program was the only one that 
I'd written. I had diffriculty setting aside the time that it would take to 
write the much longer programs for SSD and Ranked-Pairs.  So I was offering 
a BeatpathWinner program because that was all I had. People asked me where 
they could find a Ranked-Pairs program, and I had to say that I didn't know 
where they could find a wv RP program.

But all the time when I was recommending BeatpathWinner for committees, 
partly with the idea that the members of the committee, like me, would find 
a brief program more convenient, I was also saying that SSD, RP, and PC are 
the Condorcet versions to propose for public elections.

That's because those Condorcet versions are the ones with natural and 
obvious motivation and justification. Obviously, of those 3, PC isn't as 
good as the other 2.

CSSD and SSD differ in their stopping rule. SSD stops when someone is 
unbeaten. CSSD stops when there are no defeats among the candidates of the 
Schwartz set. When I initially suggested CSSD, no knowing about Markus's 
prior proposal, I was saying to stop when there are no cycles among the 
candidates of the current Schwartz set. When I heard about Markus's CSSD 
proposal, which worded the stopping rule in terms of defeats in the Schwartz 
set, instead of cycles, I adopted that wording, since defeats are a more 
natural notion than cycles. In that way, with CSSD, it's never necessary to 
mention cycles. Of course with SSD it's never necessary to mention cycles 
either.

Stopping the count when someone becomes unbeaten sounds much briefer, more 
natural, expected than stopping the count when there are no defeats among 
the candidates of the current Schwartz set. After all, the whole reason why 
a circular tie solution is needed was because initially no one was unbeaten. 
What could be more natural than to stop when someone becomes unbeaten.

As I was saying before, an innermost unbeaten set is compelling--It's 
obvious that the winner should come from that set. And that therefore the 
candidates of that set are the ones who should have their defeats dropped.


Here's how I define SSD:


Schwartz set definition:

1. An unbeaten set is a set of candidates none of whom are beaten by anyone 
outside that set.

2. An innermost unbeaten set is an unbeaten set that doesn't contain a 
smaller unbeaten set.

3. The Schwartz set is the set of candidates who are in innermost unbeaten 
sets.

SSD:

1. If any candidate is unbeaten, they win and the count ends.

2. Otherwise, determine which candidates are in the Schwartz set, counting 
only undropped defeats.

3. Drop the weakest defeat among the members of that set. Go to 1.

[end of SSD definition]


Ranked-Pairs is also obviously motivated and justified, and that makes it 
too a good proposal for public elections. Its definition is probably  
briefer than that of SSD, because SSD requires the Schwartz set to be 
defined. But RP loses some of its brevity when its midcount-tie-solution is 
specified.

Ranked-Pairs:

To "keep" a defeat means to record it as being kept.

In order of strongest defeats first, consider each defeat in turn as 
follows: Keep it doesn't conflict with already-kept defeats, by being in a 
cycle with them-- i.e., by being in a cycle consisting only of it and some 
already-kept defeats.

When all the defeats have been considered in that way, a candidate wins if 
s/he has no kept defeats.

[end of RP definition]

Ranked-Pairs isn't a descriptive definition. If it applies to RP at all, it 
could also apply to some other Condorcet versions. Steve Eppley has 
suggested a better name:

Maximize Affirmed Majorities (MAM). That name well describes what MAM does.

RP can have midcount ties, situations where there are 2 or more equally 
strongest as-yet unconsidered defeats. The problem is, which one should be 
considered first? It's said that, for the purpose of clone-independence and 
monotonicity, maybe the best way to solve that is to randomly chose the 
order in which to consider them. That doesn't sound like something that the 
public would like, however.

I suggested an RP midcount tie solution on this mailing list some time ago. 
It's based on the idea that a defeat is nullified if it's in a cycle with 
defeats that are all at least as strong as it is:

1. Call the equally strongest as-yet unconsidered defeats the "tie defeats".

2. Defeats that were kept before  keeping any tie defeats are called "old 
defeats".

3. A tie defeat is "qualified" if it isn't in a cycle consisting only of it 
and some old defeats.

4. Keep every qualified tie defeat that is not in a cycle each of whose 
members is either an old defeeat or a qualified tie defeat.

[end of "deterministic1" midcount tie solution definition]

In the EM discussion at that time, it was called deterministic1. Steve had 
already considered it.

I thought that was the brief midcount tie solution, till Eric suggested 
something briefer:

[using the same definitions as before]

Keep every tie defeat that isn't in a cycle consisting only of it and some 
old defeats.

[end of briefer midcount tie solution]

That's so much briefer that I immediately agreed that that's the one to 
offer for public proposals.

It could probably be worded so that it wouldn't be necessary to separately 
define tie defeats and old defeats.

In public elections, equal defeats are so rare that it doesn't reallly 
matter what the rule is for solving them. Brevity is all-importnat, and the 
brief midcount tie solution is the one to include in public MAM proposals.

As I've often said, the merit difference between MAM and SSD in public 
elections is negligible. The choice between those two should be based 
entirely on which is more likely to be accepted. Maybe a "focus group" 
public meeting or a poll should be done to chose.

If I was proposing only BeatpathWinner/CSSD for committees only because it 
was the only one that I had a count program written for, maybe that isn't 
the best way to choose a voting system. Maybe RP should be considered as a 
method for committees. Maybe a program should be written that implements 
CSSD by its own very plausible definition, rather than by BeatpathWinner. 
For a committee, the choice between CSSD and CSSD would obviously depend on 
whether an obvious stopping rule is more imporant than clone independence. 
Will clone advantage or disadvantage really happen often enough to cause 
factions to strategically introduce clones? I doiubt it.

As I said, it's been suggested that the MAM midcount tie solutions that I 
described might not be clone-independent &/or monotonic. How much of a 
problem is that? How likely is a faction to strategically run (or avoid) 
clones, on the chance that there will be equal defeats, in circumstances 
that favor or disfavor clones? Probably not so likely. How likely is someone 
to downrank his favorite so as to make him win in the unlikely event that a 
certain two defeats will be equal, and the other circumstances will be right 
for that particular candidate to benefit from the nonmonotonicy and from 
that voter's downranking strategy. It doesn't sound real likely, does it.

I've had good response to an SSD definition. SSD doesn't require any mention 
of cycles. MAM requires at least mention of defeats that conflict or are 
incompatible, etc. Someone might ask how defeats conflit, and then you're 
defining cycles to that person. With SSD you never have to speak of cycles, 
or incompatible defeats.

But SSD and MAM are both excellent public Condorcet proposals.

Sometimes we underestimate how resistant people might be to anything whose 
definition is longer than a line or two. Sure, anyone who is willilng to 
read the definitions of SSD and MAM will like them. But what about all those 
people who will reject them without being willing to read the definition, 
because they consider a short paragraph to be too long? For them, maybe 
Condorcet is a better idea.

Sure SSD & MAM are better, but if people insist on something more 
briefly-defined, them  Plain Condorcet (PC) is the thing:

If anyone is undefeated they win. Otherwise drop the weakest defeat. Repeat 
till someone is undefeated. They win.

[end of PC definition]

PC is called Basic Condorcet at the electionmethods website.

Sure, PC violates Condorcet Loser. But it would happen only rarely. It would 
be a peculiarly popular Condorcet loser who has fewer people preferring 
anyone else to him than anyone else does.

If a Condorcet Loser wins it would be an embarrassment. But the likely 
"badness" of that winner is reduced by the fact that he has the fewest 
people preferring anyone else to him.

Condorcet Loser could also be used against PC in campaigns, and that 
objection would have to be answered. For one thing, Condorcet Loser can't be 
used to oppose replacing Plurality with PC, because Plurality violates it 
too, probably more often.

Keep thiis in persepctive. Let's not exaggerate how likely or how much of a 
problem PC's ability to fail Condorcet Loser is.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Make your home warm and cozy this winter with tips from MSN House & Home.  
http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From bjarke2003 at trebe.dk  Tue Dec 23 03:28:33 2003
From: bjarke2003 at trebe.dk (Bjarke Dahl Ebert)
Date: Tue Dec 23 03:28:33 2003
Subject: [EM] Election methods Wiki
Message-ID: <4668.194.239.238.130.1072178859.squirrel@webmail01.web10.dk>

Dear election methods fans,

I know about Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/), which have many pages about
election methods, but I know of no Wiki where election methods are being
_discussed_.
What I am missing, that a mailinglist cannot provide, is a medium where discussions
and consensus (or the lack thereof) about election methods can be _maintained_.

That is just what a Wiki can do. Therefore I propose that we set one up.
I would be happy to provide the web-space for it. See e.g.
http://trebe.dk/wiki/index.php/ElectionMethods/HomePage. It's almost empty now, but
I guess it could quickly be filled with something meaningful.

If such an initiative already exists, please inform me - I don't want to clone an
already existing Wiki.

Kind regards,
Bjarke




From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 23 05:58:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 23 05:58:02 2003
Subject: [EM] SSD is not BeatpathWinner
Message-ID: <3FE8498C.976D2813@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (23 Dec 2003):

> Maybe when Markus names those methods as being the same as BeatpathWinner,
> he'd like to take credit for all of them (assuming for the moment that he
> really did invent BeatpathWinner). Yes he did describe CSSD after proposing
> BeatpathWinner, pointing out the equivalence. But I doubt that he proposed
> SSD. SSD was a colaboration from discussion with Steve Eppley. Neither of us
> knew of Markus's CSSD description at that time. Later, in a discussion in
> which a clone-independent method was desired, and in which someone else was
> proposing BeatpathWinner, a method not as obviously justified as SSD, I
> changed SSD to make it clone-independent--Cloneproof SSD (CSSD). Later I
> found out that Markus had described CSSD.

In the voting recommendation to the DEBIAN project, you can find a very
interesting comment to this question. Norman Petry wrote (6 Feb 2001):

> Regardless of what names we use when referring to these methods during our
> committee discussions, I think it is appropriate that if one of these
> variants is recommended to Debian that it be named SCHULZE'S METHOD.  This
> is because:
>
> 1. Schulze, version 1: The 'Beat-Or-Tie-path' method was first proposed by
> Markus Schulze on Sat, 4 Oct 1997 (see EM Archives, "Re: Condorect sub-cycle
> rule").  Unfortunately, eGroups has not archived this message, but it can be
> found at Rob's site, in this text file (but mistakenly referred to there as
> "Tideman's Method"): http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em/archive/em.97q4
>
> 2. Schulze, version 2: The 'Schwartz Sequential Dropping' (SSD) method was
> first proposed by Markus Schulze on Mon, 10 Aug 1998.  His description can
> be found here:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/673
>
> 3. Schulze, version 3: The 'Cloneproof SSD' method was first proposed by
> Markus Schulze on Sat, 14 Nov 1998.  See:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/2291  As noted
> above, Markus' version of 'Cloneproof SSD' uses a slightly different (and
> imo better) tiebreaker than Mike's version, but the two methods are
> otherwise identical.
>
> 4. Beatpath Winner: This was not specifically proposed by Markus Schulze,
> but it is equivalent in terms of results to Cloneproof SSD.  It is the same
> as 'Beat-or-tie-path' winner, except that pairties in the matrix are zeroed
> out before paths are computed, so that tied values cannot be part of the
> paths used to determine the winner.
>
> Since Markus was the originator of the first three of these methods, and
> usually refers to all of them as "Schulze's Method", it seems appropriate to
> name them as he has done.

Another interesting question is: In so far as you considered neither
independence of clones nor reversal symmetry to be important, why
did you propose an election method that is more complicated than
Schwartz//MinMax(VotesAgainst)?

Markus Schulze


From andru at cs.cornell.edu  Tue Dec 23 08:57:08 2003
From: andru at cs.cornell.edu (Andrew Myers)
Date: Tue Dec 23 08:57:08 2003
Subject: [EM] Correctness of Floyd-Warshall for beatpaths
In-Reply-To: <20031222200333.2759.49760.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
References: <20031222200333.2759.49760.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <20031223165604.GA14116@balm.cs.cornell.edu>

Because there has been continuing concern about the algorithm, I looked
up more information in the standard textbook I referred to in an earlier
email (Cormen, Leiserson, and Rivest).

The Floyd-Warshall algorithm (so named because the algorithm was
proposed by Floyd but based on a theorem by Warshall) works on any
closed semiring. A semiring is defined by two operations (which I called
min and + in my earlier mail).  For computing beatpaths, the operations
are max and min respectively.  Showing that max and min define a
semiring, and that the required closure properties hold, is
straightforward. I refer those who are interested to the text above.

-- Andrew


From rspeer at MIT.EDU  Tue Dec 23 09:55:02 2003
From: rspeer at MIT.EDU (Rob Speer)
Date: Tue Dec 23 09:55:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Election methods Wiki
In-Reply-To: <4668.194.239.238.130.1072178859.squirrel@webmail01.web10.dk>
References: <4668.194.239.238.130.1072178859.squirrel@webmail01.web10.dk>
Message-ID: <20031223175309.GA26686@mit.edu>

On Tue, Dec 23, 2003 at 12:27:39PM +0100, Bjarke Dahl Ebert wrote:
> That is just what a Wiki can do. Therefore I propose that we set one up.
> I would be happy to provide the web-space for it. See e.g.
> http://trebe.dk/wiki/index.php/ElectionMethods/HomePage. It's almost empty now, but
> I guess it could quickly be filled with something meaningful.
> 
> If such an initiative already exists, please inform me - I don't want to clone an
> already existing Wiki.

I had been thinking that such a thing would be useful. Thank you for
setting it up.

The one thing I'm afraid of is that the fact that allows a Wiki to work
- namely, that you can trust your intended users not to want to
interfere with discussion - doesn't necessarily work regarding election
methods. People get _very_ political and defensive over election
methods, as we can see.

You should probably make a rule about /Talk pages, like Wikipedia. That
is, factual information about "Foo" goes on the Foo page, while
discussion, opinions, and arguments about Foo or the contents of the Foo
page go on Foo/Talk. Otherwise you're going to see, for example, this:

CSSD
* It always chooses a winner from the Smith Set.
* It is cloneproof.
* It does not meet the later-no-harm criterion.
* It does not meet the Participation criterion.
* It is a LOWER PREFERENCES METHOD supported only by FASCISTS who want
  to elect NADER and DISENFRANCHISE YOU!

-- 
Rob Speer



From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Tue Dec 23 14:49:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Tue Dec 23 14:49:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm, "Earlier-no-harm"
Message-ID: <20031223224748.8555.qmail@web13809.mail.yahoo.com>

Thanks to everyone who responded to my last message.

It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
this ballot."

(By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
but also deleting others.)

I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
"earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
ranked FIRST, (etc...)."

For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.

"Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A.

What do you think?

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


___________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 15:45:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 15:45:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Markus: Take it to individual e-mail or drop it. Don't post about it.
Message-ID: <Law10-F43h7iusuHX3A00017f71@hotmail.com>

Markus--

If you have anything further to say about what I believed or claimed about 
what was the Floyd algorithm at some previous time, summarize it in 
_individual_ e-mail (one message only). No more list e-mail. The members of 
this list aren't interested in what I believed about the Floyd algorithm in 
2001, etc. Some of them have said so. I've been telling you that from the 
start.

There won't be a reply unless one is requested. But of course in that case 
you wouldn't get the last word, because I'm only willing to get one more 
message about that.

So, for the last time, I will comment on what you've said:

I don't want any more messages from you about this via the mailing list.

You wrote:

when I wrote that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm,
then this was an observation and not an "attack". If you hadn't
mistakenly written (e.g. in the source code of your Python
program http://electionmethods.org/CondorcetSSD.py) that your
implementation is the Floyd algorithm, then I wouldn't have
stressed that your implementation is not the Floyd algorithm.

I reply:

Are you aware that you said exactly that same thing in a previous message, 
and that I replied to it? Probably not.

At no time did I object or criticize when you stated that Steve's algorithm 
isn't the Floyd algorithm. All I said was that I'd take your word for that. 
"If you say it isn't, then fine. I'll tell Russ to delete that name from the 
website." Posted 18 December.

Markus continued:

In one of your recent mails, you admitted that you mistakenly
believed Eppley's algorithm to be Floyd's algorithm and you
admitted that you mistakenly called Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's
algorithm".

I reply:

I've been asserting those things ever since I stated them in postings of 18 
Decemeber.

You continued:

Therefore, my criticism was feasible and you
admitted this.

I reply:

What criticism? I wasn't aware that your information that that wasn't the 
Floyd algorilthm was criticism. But whatever it was, I never said it wasn't 
feasible. I did object to other behaviors and mis-statements of yours.

Markus continued:

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
>Excuse me, but did I ever object to your proposing a faster
>algorithm? It was abundantly clear from what I said that I
>was objecting to your ongoing claim that I claim that Steve's
>algorithm is the Floyd algorithm.

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

I reply:

Good. I'm glad you're finally finished with that.

******

You'd said:

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
>Markus wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> > I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your
> > implementation is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this
> > discussion with the following statement (18 Dec 2003): ...
> >
> > > Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.
>

I replied:

>Wrong. That posting is dated 17 December in the archives, not
>18 December.

My mailbox says: "Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"

I reply:

I don't care what your mailbox says. The message's date in the archives is 
17 December.
Shoiuld we refer to message dates by what your mailbox says instead of what 
the archive says?

You continued:

It seems that your mail server uses UK time and not
California time.

I reply:

I was referring to the date listed in the archives.

If you're in the +1 timezone, then maybe it was past midnight for you, but 
not for the UK. That would explain why your mailbox's dating of the message 
is incorrect with respect to the archive's dating of it. In any case, the 
archives recorded dates are a better standard than your mailbox is.

You continued:

Why is it so important for you to stress that since 18 Dec 2003
you are not longer calling Eppley's algorithm "Floyd's algorithm"?
When I wrote on 15 Dec 2003 that Eppley's algorithm is mistakenly
called "Floyd's algorithm" in the source code of your Phython
program this was a correct observation.

I reply:

I never disagreed with your 15 December statrement on that.

Why do I say that I wasn't calling it that since 18 December? Because you 
were continuing to assert that I call it that. But now you're backed down 
from that assertion and admitted that I don't call it that.

Markus said:

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

I reply:

Good. That's an improvement. Previously you'd posted something I said in 
2001 as proof that I call Eppley's algorithm the Floyd algorithm, even 
thoiugh I'd clearly retracted that statement on 18 December, and every day 
thereafter.

******
You repeated:

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

I reply:

Wonderful. Better late than never.

You repeated again:

I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that Eppley's
algorithm is Floyd's algorithm.

I reply:

Yes, we all get the idea.

Now, as I said, if you have anything further to say about that, send it as 
individual e-mail. Summarize it in one message only. But further postings 
from you here about that are unwelcome, to me, and to the other list 
members.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
Make your home warm and cozy this winter with tips from MSN House & Home.  
http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 16:41:04 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 16:41:04 2003
Subject: [EM] RE: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #397 - 6 msgs
Message-ID: <LAW10-F79Lxlge13sR200057987@hotmail.com>

Markus said:

In the voting recommendation to the DEBIAN project, you can find a very
interesting comment to this question. Norman Petry wrote (6 Feb 2001):

>Regardless of what names we use when referring to these methods during our
>committee discussions, I think it is appropriate that if one of these
>variants is recommended to Debian that it be named SCHULZE'S METHOD.  This
>is because:
>
>1. Schulze, version 1: The 'Beat-Or-Tie-path' method was first proposed by
>Markus Schulze on Sat, 4 Oct 1997 (see EM Archives, "Re: Condorect 
>sub-cycle
>rule").  Unfortunately, eGroups has not archived this message, but it can 
>be
>found at Rob's site, in this text file (but mistakenly referred to there as
>"Tideman's Method"): http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em/archive/em.97q4

Norm, in that message, points out that "Schulze's method" uses 
beat-or-tie-paths rather than beatpaths. There's been some vagueness about 
which of those you refer to as "Schulze's method".

>
>2. Schulze, version 2: The 'Schwartz Sequential Dropping' (SSD) method was
>first proposed by Markus Schulze on Mon, 10 Aug 1998.  His description can
>be found here:
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/673

In that proposal, it isn't clear what you mean by "potential wininers". You 
don't define the term there. I suppose that if something is defined slopily 
or vaguely enough, that leaves much latitude for saying what it is.

No one can prove what you meant in that proposal.

In any case, I didn't mean to imply that I consider it important who first 
proposed SSD, or whether your proposal in '98 was SSD, CSSD, or neither.

>Markus' version of 'Cloneproof SSD' uses a slightly different (and
>imo better) tiebreaker than Mike's version, but the two methods are
>otherwise identical.

You'd suggested comparing margins when 2 opposing beatpaths (or 
beat-&-tie-paths?) are equal because their weakest defeat is equal. I hadn't 
bothered to add that, because I'm mostly interested in public elections, and 
because even in committees, equal opposing beatpaths won't be common. Of 
course there's nothing wrong with adding that provision.

There were aspects of your tie solution that you later retracted when you 
discovered that they had undesirable properties.

Markus said:

Another interesting question is: In so far as you considered neither
independence of clones nor reversal symmetry to be important, why
did you propose an election method that is more complicated than
Schwartz//MinMax(VotesAgainst)?

I reply:

I don't know what you mean by MinMax. MinMax has been used with so many 
meanings that it's quite useless as a method name. Perhaps you're using 
MinMax to refer to PC.

I agree that I don't consider reversal symmetry important. As for clone 
independence, it's desirable, but far from essential. But what I was saying 
in my recent message was that the clone independence _of a tiebreaker_ isn't 
important, because no one is going to have a strategy dilemma about what to 
do in order to take advantage of a tie. Ties of all kinds are vanishingly 
rare in public elections (unless Copeland is used). Even in committees, ties 
aren't common, and clone-independence of a tie solution isn't really 
important.

So far as I'm aware, SSD is clone-independent in public elections (where 
there are no pairwise ties), but not in coimmitees with few voters (where 
there might be pairwise ties).

MAM (Maximize Affirmed Majorities), also called Ranked-Pairs, is 
clone-independent in public elections and in committees.

Though clonen-independence is desirable, that isn't the main advantage, for 
me, that SSD and MAM have over PC. The more important advantages, for me, 
are:

1. PC fails Condorcet Loser, Majority Loser, and Mutual Majorilty (in 
descending order of likely importance in campaigns). Those criterion 
failures are important only because they could be used against a PC 
proposal. When those criteria are defined so as to meaningfully apply to all 
methods, Plurality fails them too, which of course greatly reduces their 
importance in campaigns to replace Plurality with PC. Still, possible 
criticism of PC in campaigns, by academics and IRV advocates is probably 
PC's main disadvantage with respect to SSD and MAM.

2. SSD and MAM have been shown to meet GSFC and SDSC. PC hasn't been shown 
to meet those criteria. If anyone can show that PC passes or fails those 
critreria, they're invited to do so.

I consider SFC and GSFC to be the biggest, and most exclusive advantages of 
Condorcet wv. The fact that SSD and MAM have been shown to meet GSFC 
greately increases their value.

GSFC is the deluxe SFC that applies even when there's no CW.

PC has been shown to meet SFC.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 17:40:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 17:40:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Retraction about IRV, Brams, and Later-No-Harm
Message-ID: <Law10-F77C6HixqDCZx00018435@hotmail.com>

What Brams showed was that, contrary to the frequent claims of IRV 
promoters, IRV gives strategic incentive to truncate one's ranking.

It was some time ago when I read of that, and a few minutes ago I posted, 
probably mistakenly, that Brams showed that IRV fails Later-No-Harm.

Most likely, in Brams' example, someone truncated, causing  a higher-ranked 
truncated candidate to beat a lower-ranked truncated candidate.

But, if IRV meets Later-No-Harm, that means little. IRV protects your 
favorite from your lower choices by eliminating your favorite before IRV 
lets you help your lower choices. IRV saves your favorite by eliminating 
him. A sort of electoral euthanasia.

If IRV's Later-No-Harm "advantage" is the kind of benefit that we get from 
Later-No-Harm, then it's questionable how important that criterion is.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 23 17:53:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 23 17:53:02 2003
Subject: [EM] IRV fails Later-No-Harm
Message-ID: <Law10-F242YiinhsI1z0003a096@hotmail.com>

Chris Benham wrote:

"Later-no-harm:  Adding a later preference to a ballot should not harm
any candidate already listed".

In other words, if  a method meets Later-no-harm then  voters can never
get an advantage by truncating.
It is met by IRV, but is incompatible with  Condorcet.
I got this from what I found to be the very interesting and illuminating
paper "Monotonicity and Single-Seat Election
Rules" by Woodall, and uploaded by  Marcus Schulze:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/wood1996.pdf

I reply:

Professor Steven Brams published an example in which IRV fails 
No-Later-Harm. I'd post the example, but I don't know where to look for it. 
You could find it just as well as I could.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 23 23:01:04 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 23 23:01:04 2003
Subject: [EM] Actual quotes for Markus
Message-ID: <3FE9394F.FE456897@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> If you have anything further to say about what I believed or claimed about
> what was the Floyd algorithm at some previous time, summarize it in
> _individual_ e-mail (one message only). No more list e-mail. The members of
> this list aren't interested in what I believed about the Floyd algorithm in
> 2001, etc. Some of them have said so. I've been telling you that from the
> start.

Then why did you start this thread at all? I don't care what you believed
when about the Floyd algorithm. But it is clear that when you mistakenly
called a different algorithm "Floyd algorithm" and when implementations to
calculate the strongest paths were discussed at this mailing list, then
it was necessary to stress that your use of the term "Floyd algorithm" was
incorrect.

******

You wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> Markus wrote (21 Dec 2003):
> > I don't claim that you are continuing to claim that your
> > implementation is the Floyd algorithm. However, you started this
> > discussion with the following statement (18 Dec 2003): ...
> >
> > > Wrong. I don't call that the Floyd algorithm.
>
> Wrong. That posting is dated 17 December in the archives, not
> 18 December.

I wrote (22 Dec 2003):
> My mailbox says: "Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"
>
> It seems that your mail server uses UK time and not
> California time.

You wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> I don't care what your mailbox says. The message's date in the archives
> is 17 December. Shoiuld we refer to message dates by what your mailbox
> says instead of what the archive says?
>
> If you're in the +1 timezone, then maybe it was past midnight for you,
> but not for the UK. That would explain why your mailbox's dating of the
> message is incorrect with respect to the archive's dating of it.

The reason why my mailbox says "Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"
is that your mail server uses UK time. I have received your mail at
18 Dec 2003 08:59:50 Central European Time.

Of most subscribers I don't know in which time zone they live. Therefore,
the only information that I have is the time zone used by their mail
servers.

You wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> In any case, the archives recorded dates are a better standard than your
> mailbox is.

As I am subscribed to this mailing list, I usually don't use the archives
to read current mails. By the way: This mailing list has 4 archives.

At Electorama, your mail is dated: "Wed Dec 17 23:58:01 2003"
http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2003-December/011394.html

At eGroups, your mail is dated: "Thu Dec 18, 2003  7:57 am"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/12845

At Mail Archive, your mail is dated: "Thu, 18 Dec 2003 01:00:57 -0800"
http://www.mail-archive.com/election-methods-electorama.com%40electorama.com/msg01461.html

At Gmane, your mail is dated: "Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:57:59 +0000"
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/3133

******

You wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> Now, as I said, if you have anything further to say about that, send it as
> individual e-mail. Summarize it in one message only. But further postings
> from you here about that are unwelcome, to me, and to the other list
> members.

Further postings from you here about that are not welcome, either.

Markus Schulze


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 23 23:01:09 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 23 23:01:09 2003
Subject: [EM] Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #397 - 6 msgs
Message-ID: <3FE93962.7965FE1B@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Mike,

you wrote (23 Dec 2003):
> I doubt that he [= Markus Schulze] proposed SSD.

You wrote (24 Dec 2003):
> In any case, I didn't mean to imply that I
> consider it important who first proposed SSD.

Good. That's an improvement.

Markus Schulze


From bartman at netgate.net  Tue Dec 23 23:57:01 2003
From: bartman at netgate.net (Bart Ingles)
Date: Tue Dec 23 23:57:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm  definition
References: <3FE7C23C.1090700@bigpond.com>
Message-ID: <3FE94661.A9255D9B@netgate.net>

This paper must be part of a series, as Woodall never explains his
assertion that "Of these three properties, Majority is far and away the
most important."  He seems to have his own definitions for monotonicity;
I hadn't seen these anywhere else.

But the publication appears to be devoted to issues surrounding STV, so
maybe some things are simply assumed here.

Bart


Chris Benham wrote:
> 
> Quoting  D.R. Woodall,
> 
> "Later-no-harm:  Adding a later preference to a ballot should not harm
> any candidate already listed".
> 
> In other words, if  a method meets Later-no-harm then  voters can never
> get an advantage by truncating.
> It is met by IRV, but is incompatible with  Condorcet.
> I got this from what I found to be the very interesting and illuminating
> paper "Monotonicity and Single-Seat Election
> Rules" by Woodall, and uploaded by  Marcus Schulze:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/files/wood1996.pdf


From research at ijs.co.nz  Wed Dec 24 00:31:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Wed Dec 24 00:31:02 2003
Subject: Election Methods List and lying vs justice (Re: [EM] Optional
  Later-no-harm  AER
In-Reply-To: <3FE6A03F.9000407@bigpond.com>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031224174405.05b11c88@pop.qsi.net.nz>


My last message (on casual *guessing* of the weightings of the "A over B"
subtotal has not arrived. It entered into the moderating. I had a bit of
an apology/retract for M. Schulze.

This list seems to lack a desire for truthful ideas and it recovers within
days from contact with corrections by reverting back to its error. Typically
without bothering to compare its ideas with replacements.

---

So this preferential voting method would collect information on
the parties the candidates are grouped into.

The class of methods might be useful when party members that use it
are reconciled to sacrificing their own interests (provied that
such exist).

---

I assume that the word "Approval" means that some sort of fluidic
mixing of intentions. As worded, that is awful.

The basic plan below seems to be to start of with a rejected method
and not get it out of that state. A 


At 2003-12-22 18:11 +1030 Monday, Chris Benham wrote:
>
> An  idea for improving  Approval  Elimination Runoff   (an  Approval-
> STV hybrid) :
>
> 1: Voters rank the candidates and also place an Approval cutoff.
> Truncation allowed, and if equal preferences are allowed then the
> votes are split. Default placement of  the cutoff  can be either below
> first preference or below lowest  ranked not-in-last-place candidate.
>
> 2:  A candidate with a majority of first preferences is elected.

So the whole method must be rejected (or the definition of it altered)
because it can't get the obviously correct answer in all 0 winner
elections. There is no requirement that the number of winners equal
one. It is about STV and Approval which do have obvious extensions to
the cases of 2,3, and 4, and 0, winners.


> If no candidate has a majority, then eliminate the candidate with the
> fewest  approvals and  transfer preferences  IRV-style. Whenever  a

The CVD published everlastingly false information saying that the
RCV of San Francisco of 2003, was IRV. RCV has does not allow a full
list of preferences and my claim is weakened (possibly eliminated) by
assuming that that is part of the method instead a restriction imposed
on it.

>
> In his example, these were the sincere preferences:
>

A truthful person can't confirm that the next 5 non-blank lines
are sincere or not. Try it for yourself Mr Benham.

> 49: Bush>Gore>Nader
> 12: Gore>Bush>Nader
> 12: Gore>Nader>Bush
> 27: Nader>Gore>Bush
> 100 voters. Gore is the sincere CW.
...

So you have a definition of the "Insincere Cee-Double-U" ?. Presumably
there never was a definition. Probably the quickest agreeable solution
is to say that the words "sincere CW" have an identical meaning to
the words "Condorcet winner".

It seems to be impossible to get the Condorcet winner and
monotonicity.

Is the list ignorant of that despite the extreme simplicity of
showing it ?, or is it rejecting (with no argument at all) a principle
that government users will be strongly in favour of. Additionally
rejection if finding out the method designers don't know what they are
doing. The 4th in the whole document of Mr Benham says "improving".

Persons guiding government agencies use this trick:
  * The method has to be rejected if it is based over a respect of
     the Condorcet winner.
  * No designer who has a respect for the Condorcet winner has a good
     method.

An STV expert is not waiting around for arguments on rules to allow
partial disagreement with the Condorcet winner. Since the Condorcet
winner was wrong in the first place (it has no natural multiwinner
extension) then an unsound arbitrary modification of an obviously
wrong 'CW' won't undo the rejection of the ideas of Mr Benham and
others.

This whole mailing list, after being so frequented by Markus Schulze
and Bathycles Crap, is running like a government checkup of a Thunderbirds
No. 2 vehicle. The government officials want a clean aircraft.
Just before it gets to them it flies for 30 metres through a muddy
syrupy lake, and Ms Penelope Shulze had to say a plainly ambiguous
line that said "we will send Thunderbirds Two through the muddy syrup
of Cloudy Water (CW) lake. After breaking through the surface of the
goo lake and settling on the shore of the cleansiness checking remotely
controlled robots of electoral office officials of cities, it failed.
They had eyes and could spot surface attachments.

If it had not of been for Penelope Shulze (or the script writers)
the Thunderbirds Two vehicle might have flow above the syrup lake's
surface.

Ms Penelope should get her brain examined: after a decision to send
so many into much it would be suspected that she has wood for brains.
However it could have be a script writer.  What was that "we will
smoke them [Democrats] out" comment of GWBush.

----------------------------------------------------------------



At 2003-12-23 23:47 +0100 Tuesday, Kevin Venzke wrote:
>Thanks to everyone who responded to my last message.
>
>It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
>as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
>should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
>this ballot."
>
>(By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
>additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
>but also deleting others.)
>
>I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
>"earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
>ranked FIRST, (etc...)."
>
>For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
>then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.
>

Clearly Mr Venkze has not ruled out the 2 winner case. If he has one
unstated restriction then it may take weeks or years before he finally
managed to get them all into the mailing list and nicely requoted
in each message.

Suppose the votes are this (2 winner case)

Election 1:
  10000 (D)
  1 (A=B=C>D>E), D should win and does

Election 2:
  10000 (D)
  1 (A>B>C>D>E) , both D and E lose says Mr Venkze

I assume that there is no need to get "A=B=C" precisely defined since
unknown disputes over definitions might be bounded by factors 6 or 1/6.


>"Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
>then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A.
>
>What do you think?

It looks like Mr Venkze won't accept one or both of these:

 * an axiom set from which a method is derived (a strange option given
    the theme of Mr Venkze's whole message), or

 * the principle that the number of winners be correct (i.e. he sometimes
    expects the number of winners be disagreeing with what was decided on
    before the public filled in the voting papers, providing a public 
    suitably exists).

--

I have never suspected that there is a good reason to use
   "Later No Harm"
instead of
   "Truncation Resistance".

"Permuting preferences before" and "permuting preferences after" are a
better wording of what is desired. I assume that if both are imposed
then the method degenerates into FPTP or something similar.

So there may need to be a redesign of the papers (and presumably
adding "=" won't produce insensitivity to permuting before). I would
prefer no redesign (while preferring methods better than the
second best AV n candidate 1 winner method) and instead allow elections
where voters could change their mind.


----------------------------------------------------------------


At 2003-12-21 14:36 -0800 Sunday, Rob Brown wrote:
>I figured I'd pop out of lurk mode to mention that I, like Diana, have 
>questioned whether some of the participants of this discussion are computer 
>rather than human.....Craig's mangled vitriol in particular reads like its 
>been round-tripped through the babelfish translator.
>
>In any case this ridiculous flamefest has provided me some amusement, but 
>not done a lot toward my taking this list seriously.  Maybe everybody could 
>agree that if Craig and Mike would just kindly drop off the list for a 
>month, everyone will just pretend this never happened when they come back?
>

I am dissatisfied with why this list lives in the wake amazingly
obvious mistakes. Some stupid tricks seem to advance it all
 * no comment; missing replies; no reasoning; nothing at an appropriate
    time. Only ideas so wrong that to say "withheld a response" would
    seem wrong
 * authoritarianism.  With Mr Ossipoff is has very low trustability, and
    here is an example of Mr Shulze:

Here is more comments on authoritarianism. (What is wrong with
authoritarianism is complex and all about correctness.) I quote:

------------------------
At 2003-December-23 14:56 +0100 Tuesday, Markus Schulze wrote:
...
>Another interesting question is: In so far as you considered neither
>independence of clones nor reversal symmetry to be important, why
>did you propose an election method that is more complicated than
>Schwartz//MinMax(VotesAgainst)?
------------------------

It is just like this:
"Independence of Clones" was found after the man put his arm down a
rat hole in a Berlin council tip yard, Newbies at the EM list can try
out the German trash tips. 

Here is a quick wording of a best rule preventing corruption:

   One Man One Vote rule (in a multiwinner form)

   For each positively weighted paper, the outcome of it can be
   obtained by a sum of positively weighted fragments, with the
   fragments being produced only by deletion and no reordering.
   The desirableness has to be maintained with shorter papers and
   it is measured using the paper's list, to convert winners into
   a base 2 Real number.

It is about right and if a little flawed then improved.

False propaganda is being sent into the mailing list by Mr Shulze
and it really seems to be dogged by a lack of argument. For an
expert in logic, Mr Shulze's use of

   "you considered neither [this] nor [that] [so] why ... ?

is misleading.

The full set of rules can be simple:
* Right number of winners (it looks like Mr Venkze rejected it)
* P2 (it looks like the whole EM list except me is too stupid to be
   able to cough up a speculation on it. Instead they should form
   an opinion on how it is necessary).
* Truncation Resistance and monotonicity and multiwinner monotonicity.
   Certainly politicians would be using a check like this, especially
   now that awful Alternative Vote is both a threat and performs
   quite badly under this type of test.
* Multiwinner One Man One Vote [as described above]
* Simple Approval style summing. [Mr Shulze has spent years of
  talking about Approval, but I guess he refuses to say that the
  proportionality aim is only the idea of Approval placed strictly
  behind other rules. He can talk about Approval for years so long
  as exulting in a desire to write and promote the idea, but it
  could be totally nothing for years if Mr Schulze gets serious on
  the idea that the idea is very important. The other principles
  might get rolled together under the name of EQUAL SUFFRAGE.

After reading Mr Schulze's messages, the whole mailing list is
running as if ghosts in the Hague and keen of leaving no reasoning
behind for intent to violate the human rights of the candidates
and hence their supporters.

Has anybody checked Mr Schulze's paw for rat bites ?.

There are a tiny number of right rules. About exactly 0% of the
time any any given 5yr interval I look, Mr Schulze is never
making an attempt to reject the simple rules on fairness.

A core idea is this:

 * Men have rights to complain about wrong shifting of votes
   causing harm

 * Then the method designer has to maximally deprive voters of a
   right to complain.

In USA, votes can be suddenly created electronically. The
multiwinner One Man One Vote rule does the same.

A political list identified simple rules since it is impossible
to undo that except that members would think lies and censor
that out. What exactly is the problem with solving the
algebra problems ?. Subscribers gets tiny little drooling
inquries (highly unconvincing when by Mr Forest Simmons).

It seems that members are running well in generating desires to
acquire everlastingly true ideas. The list is looking stupid and
evil today since I demonstrated that principles are simple.

In truth the maths is simple too. I identify the main problem as
the complexity of writing Ada 95 programs. It would be truly
suspect if people eventually produced a belief that they can't
do algebra since it seems that the algebra of 1 winner elections
is dead easy. Members can do better than secretly fantasize that
they flunks checkups on maths ability: instead they can positively
criticise mathematics and then promptly get suspected as being
incompetent or ignorant of their own topic or something similar.
We can't sort of 30 private e-mails and get it solved in 2
days like could happen at the single-transferable-vote mailing
list. It seems that 10 more years at Rob Lanphier's uncontrolled
mailing list may be arrive upon subscribers.














Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz>    Auckland, New Zealand
Ontario Ombudsman's Fairness checklist:
     http://www.ijs.co.nz/fairness-standards.htm
PDF: http://www.ombudsman.on.ca/pdf/fairness_stds.pdf





From research at ijs.co.nz  Wed Dec 24 12:17:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Wed Dec 24 12:17:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Dan W-J; IRV is 2nd best (=worst); CVD tells Maryland 'no
 research ever'
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031225025330.03952310@pop.qsi.net.nz>


[1b] The Centre of Voting and Democracy told the State of Maryland that
   it does not do research into the best options. Instead it interests
   itself in equal voting minus the fairness-for-other-individuals parts
   or something

[1a] The Alternative Vote (1 winner STV) is 2nd best.



______________________________________________________________________

This can be named the Alternative Vote Twin Towers example: a support
rise that is nearly 50% in size and that is entirely FPTP papers, is
occuring while the candidate ('A') being supported changes into a
loser:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/message/244

+-----------------------------------+
|Winner: ? ?A? ? ?|Winner: ? ?B? ? ?|  Alternative Vote winners
+-----------------------------------+
| Tot: ? 513000? ?| Tot: ?1024001? ?|
+-----------------------------------+
|? ?A? ? ? 1001? ?|? ?A? ? 512000? ?| Change = +510999
| * BA ? ? ?999? ?|? ?BA ? ? 1001? ?| Change = +2
|? ?CBA? ? 1000? ?| * CBA? ? 1000? ?|
|? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|
|? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|
|? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|
|? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|
|? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|
|? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|
|? ?JBA? 128000? ?|? ?JBA? 128000? ?|
|? ?KBA? 256000? ?|? ?KBA? 256000? ?|
+-----------------------------------+


______________________________________________________________________


I doubt I can get this edited up properly. I am not sure but I may have
left too much in or out. I will CC this off to the CVD lawyer.
Presumably he has a stake in the CVD ideal of knowing far less than
very many people, about the stably named Alternative Vote [I won't
name it STV]

______________________________________________________________________

Since about 24 July 2003 the Instant Runoff Message of the
Maryland Center of Voting and Democracy, has been it has been
hooked onto a 1 winner preferential voting methods that is
NOT the best.

On that date I concluded about 5 days research and showed that
another 1 winner method was far fairer, i.e. more monotonic.

Readers may read the old message of July here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/message/248
    From:   Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz> 
    Date:  Thu Jul 24, 2003  10:44 pm
    Subject:  IRV measured: it is over 2x unfairer (than 1/3 quota AV)

It did not announced with a bigger show since I was writing on
San Francisco in those months a better method may be something that
is not good enough.

A search at the "Charities & Fundraisers" part of the Maryland state
website shows what it told the government that its purpose was:

|  "Purpose: Contributions will be used to further public
|   understanding of electoral rule changes and to support
|   efforts to improve elections and representation through
|   propretional representation and instant runoff voting."

    http://www.sos.state.md.us/sos/charity/html/cod.html

I will comment on the CVD written purpose given to the Maryland
government and estimate if they said they free themselves to promote
better voting systems than IRV.

(1) US "public understanding" is not mathematical.

(2) "rules changes" permits changes that lock out better possibilities.
   It also allows changes for the worse.

(3) "improving" US elections could be a sloshy test that lets in
   better methods that are 6x worse.

(4) A purpose to act around the Instant Runoff permits them to reject
   all better preferential voting methods. Doubtless they will do that
   without complaining a lot.

(5) The words representation and proportional are matching up with
  only the first of these two. IRV would passes (5a)'s rules and if
  the CVD is ignore (5b) (is the case) then its text ignores the
  case implying that IRV ought be improved:

 (5a) Summing right. Two cases:
   * Outside of preferential voting: the same percentages (maybe with
     added biases but not multiplied-in biases)
   * Inside of preferential voting: Block Vote style naming of a
     candidate causes its subtotal to be incremented by the weight
     of the paper.

 (5b) Strict rules protecting voters from dumb or unfair behaviour
   of the preferential voting method while they are doing "what if"s.

--

That seems to be extremely clear: the Centre of Voting and Democracy
gave awful principles to the state of Maryland that just make it
plain that it has no official intention of ever offering to any
city, another awful but clearly better option than the
Alternative Vote. If they say that they will do research and nothing
happens for decades (should be enough time to get San Francisco to
flip over to the England's Alternative Vote) then maybe the tax
exempt status would need defending.

"Public understanding" may mean training up Green youths on 1-2-3-ism
or something.

--------------------------------------------

The pictures in triangles show that a 1/3 quota would be just the thing
lead to a pass under a monotonicity test (if 3 candidates):
    http://www.ijs.co.nz/quota-13.htm

The method I tessted in just inserts the 1/3 quota in a partially
incorrect way, and compliance with monotonicity is only better and the
rule is still failed.

---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~

This is now defined to be the
    Rob Richie 1,2,3 preferential voting method,
    (a variant of the Alternative Vote):

(1) Eliminate all but the best 3 (while ignoring preferences except the
    first).

(2) [a>(a+b+c)/3, =(a>(b+c)/2)]
   Of the 3 remaining candidates, if only 1 candidate has more votes
   than the average of the other 2, then that candidate wins (i.e. the
   other 2 are under the 1/3 quota).

(3) Otherwise the Alternative Vote is used.
---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~-----~---~

There are the 3 steps, hence the "1-2-3" or "123".
Remembering why IRV is the worst preferential voting methad that a city
is probably going to be sucked into using. can be as simple as 1-2-3.
(In New Zealand the Green party co-leader wrote it was as easy as
counting from 1 to 10, somewhere on greens.org.nz).

--------------------------------------------

The CVD (a strictly unjust personnel selecting algorithm promoter) actually
has a lawyer (who is a "field officer"):

   http://www.fairvote.org/about_us/johnson.htm
    [Mozilla 1.5 says the HTTP dates the page at 18-Nov-2003, 04:37]

| General Counsel
|
| Dan Johnson-Weinberger
|
| Dan Johnson-Weinberger is the Center's General Counsel. He is licensed
| to practice law in California and Illinois.
|
| Dan is a 1997 graduate of the University of Illinois (B.A. in
| economics and political science) and a 2000 graduate of the University
| of Chicago Law School.
|
| Dan has been published in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Roll
| Call, The Hill, the Daily Herald, the Chicago Reader, the Daily
| Southtown and the Miami Herald. He has appeared on National Public
| Radio and is an occasional guest on the nationally syndicated radio
| program Beyond The Beltway.
|
| In the last year and a half, Dan has spoken to classes and groups in
| Florida, Wisconsin, California, Illinois, Indiana and New York. He
| encourages invitations to speak to college classes or political
| groups.
|
| Dan spends the majority of his time in Chicago where he focuses on the
| drive to revive cumulative voting for the Illinois House of
| Representatives. He also spends time in Springfield, Illinois, where
| he lobbies the Illinois General Assembly, and was the main driver
| behind passage of a law that allows county boards to give cumulative
| voting rights.
|
| Dan helped to found the Midwest Democracy Center in 1995 with a group
| of Illinois electoral reformers (www.midwestdemocracy.org ). He worked
| on several political campaigns and enjoys walking precincts.
|
| Dan can be reached at djw at fairvote.org or by phone at 312.933.4890.
| His website is www.djw.info and his blog is www.djwinfo.blogspot.com
                                       http://www.djwinfo.blogspot.com
| (opinions expressed on his sites are his own and not necessarily
| shared by the Center). Inquiries are encouraged.
|
---------------


Mr W-J liked the Cumulative Vote.
(I.e. if voters should fill in 7 votes but fill in 2, then the paper's
weight is multiplied by 7/2, etc., etc.)

Seven-winner STV (say), is similar except it uses the weights from 1 to 1/7
instead of from 7 to 1.

The alternative is the Block Vote ('k seats, tick k checksboxes') which
does not multiply by a rational number.

A way to improve STV is remove the transfer values that make STV follow
the idea of the Cumulative Vote.

It would be replaced with the style of the Block Vote: no dividing by
a denominator.

Dan W-J got his CVD webpage to fail to say he liked IRV. However it says
he promoted the Cumulative Vote in Illinois. A way to improve the
proportionality of STV is hack out the Cumulative Vote theme in it.

I say that progress here has no analogy with Dan's interests (for
Illinois: decisions on Cumulative Vote are probably best made decisions
for local decisions).

----

Some story using model trains can supply an analogy to the plan to
remove transfer values from STV. Suppose the election elects 4 winners.

(1) Old STV case:
  Counting a weighted ballot paper, is like getting a model train up to
   speed as it rises over 1 track with 4 different slopes.

(2) STV replacement case:
  The paper can start 4 trains that each have a track with only 1 slope.
  Now the power<=1 rule can be failed more quickly.
  However some computer algorithm controls when and where the track
  bends and become horizontal and power is cut.  By some means, the
  rule is not violated, and the tracks have only a slope corresponding
  to a transfer value of 0 or 1.

(The idea of the description could be improved.)


---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Topic: IRV vs the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [of 1976]

    http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_ccpr.htm

| INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS
| ...
| Article 25 General comment on its implementation
|
| Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, without any of
| the distinctions mentioned in article 2 and without unreasonable
| restrictions:
     ...
|   (b) To vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which
|      shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by
|      secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of
|      the electors;
|   (c) ...


That UN text really seems to be not designed to eliminate IRV.
It does not split up maximal power voting rights up into 2 parts
(proportionality and some 0<=power<=1 rule(s)). Alternative maybe it
could be said that I have not got the 2 unified (it seems hard to do).

However when the IRV of the CVD is extrapolated into the UN rules,
it fails badly.

(Recently I posted up an example showing the cascading from some
probably nobody at the bottom, and at each cascade the quantity of
votes shifting doubled. It was losing FPTP votes. [Refer to: the 2003
messages with 49.9% in the subject fields].



---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Here is the CVD list of donors: http://www.fairvote.org/about_us/index.html :

----------------------------------------------------
|    Supporters of the Center
|
|    The following foundations have provided grants to the Center for its
|    programs. Those foundations with asterisks have provided support for
|    activities in 2003 and beyond.
|
|    * Arca Foundation
|    * San Francisco Foundation  http://www.sff.org/
|    * Deer Creek Foundation
|    * Solidago Foundation
|    * Ford Foundation
|    * Stern Family Fund  http://www.sternfund.org/
|    * HKH Foundation
|    * Stewart Mott Charitable Trust  http://www.srmtrust.org/main.asp
|    * Joyce Foundation  http://www.joycefdn.org/
|    * Vanguard Foundation  http://www.vanguardsf.org/
|    * McKay Foundation  http://www.mckayfund.org/
|    * Working Assets  http://www.workingassets.com/
|    * Open Society Institute  http://www.soros.org/
|    * Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation  http://www.zsr.org/
|    * Rockefellers Brothers Fund  http://www.rbf.org/
|    * and individuals from across the country
----------------------------------------------------

Not very interesting so far.

Since there was no link to the Ford Foundation website, I checked their
Grants database. It seems that the Ford Foundation stopped funding the CVD
(it is not perfectly clear that it did actually stop, but it seems
extremely likely).

The CVD got US$80,000 in 2002 AD.

Reference: http://www.fordfound.org/  : Grants section:
Under: "Peace and Social Justice / Governance and Civil Society / 2002"

---

A fairer IRV election has got more glass (or plastic) eyes that read
some extra checkboxes. If the Alternative Vote is used then the city
ought have a less proportional method if it gets something fair.





From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Wed Dec 24 15:31:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Wed Dec 24 15:31:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Dan W-J; IRV is 2nd best (=worst); CVD tells Maryland 'no 
 research ever'
Message-ID: <3FEA212F.DE487F69@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

you wrote (25 Dec 2003):
> This can be named the Alternative Vote Twin Towers example: a support
> rise that is nearly 50% in size and that is entirely FPTP papers, is
> occuring while the candidate ('A') being supported changes into a
> loser:
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/message/244
>
> +-----------------------------------+
> |Winner: ? ?A? ? ?|Winner: ? ?B? ? ?|  Alternative Vote winners
> +-----------------------------------+
> | Tot: ? 513000? ?| Tot: ?1024001? ?|
> +-----------------------------------+
> |? ?A? ? ? 1001? ?|? ?A? ? 512000? ?| Change = +510999
> | * BA ? ? ?999? ?|? ?BA ? ? 1001? ?| Change = +2
> |? ?CBA? ? 1000? ?| * CBA? ? 1000? ?|
> |? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|
> |? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|
> |? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|
> |? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|
> |? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|
> |? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|
> |? ?JBA? 128000? ?|? ?JBA? 128000? ?|
> |? ?KBA? 256000? ?|? ?KBA? 256000? ?|
> +-----------------------------------+

This is neither an example showing Alternative Voting violates
monotonicity nor an example showing Alternative Voting violates
participation. This is an example showing Alternative Voting
violates consistency. However, it has been demonstrated by
HP Young that only positional methods (e.g. FPP, Borda,
Approval Voting) satisfy consistency.

Markus Schulze


From donald at mich.com  Thu Dec 25 17:47:01 2003
From: donald at mich.com (Donald Davison)
Date: Thu Dec 25 17:47:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Diana asked about Craig Carey:
Message-ID: <v01520d00bc10931c32c1@[64.79.80.17]>

Diana wrote: "Talking of Craig Carey, can someone please explain what his
most recent diatribe was on about?  And whether it's worth my while
worrying about?  (Since he's thrown Markus out of his private party -- at
least that's how it appears to outsiders -- I'd like to know whether he
actually has a point or is just excellent at posturing.)"  Diana.


Dear Diana, Donald here, there are a number of persons on this list who
speak in gobbledegook.  Craig Carey is one of them, so if you don't
understand him, you can be pretty sure no one else does, but there will
come a time when these types of people will write something that is
understandable and that will be the time when you can learn where that
person is coming from, if he has a point, and if he is worth worrying
about.

Craig Carey has given himself away in the past and most likely will do so
again in the future, merely by writing something that is understandable.  I
can give you an example.

Craig has designed an election method, which he calls: `The Two Seat -
Three Candidate Method' and which he claims to be a variant of STV, you can
decide that.  Anyway it works as follows:  Ranked ballots, Droop quota,
first candidate with quota or quota plus surplus is elected to one of the
seats, then this candidates' quota and surplus are both transferred to the
next preferences. (Note: This method won first prize in a contest for best
variant of STV, a contest conducted by Craig on Craig's list.)

Can you see the problem here?  The quota that elected one member is now
being used to help elect the second member, or in other words, one quota
plus one vote has the power to elect both seats.  The other two near quotas
do not elect anyone.  This super-duper method by Craig is worst than
Plurality-at-Large, which would need fifty percent plus one to elect both
candidates.  I called him on this flaw in his method, but it was water off
a duck's back, he kept on promoting his method.

Craig is not alone in this lack of understanding of election methods.  On
the IRV list, someone asked if IRV could be used to elect two members to a
city council.  Dan, who is an official of the Center for Voting and
Democracy replied and suggested that IRV be run two times. Once to elect
one member and a second time to elect the second member, bypassing the name
of the first winner during the routine of the second run of IRV.

Dan is clearly showing that he does not understand how these election
methods work.  What he suggested is very close to Plurality-a-Large, that
is, the same majority gets to elect both members.

Anyway, if you chose not to read Craig's posts, you won't miss much, but on
the other hand, if you have time to kill (good for people who like their
time to be dead), you could skim over his posts seeking the rare moment
when a star will appear in the east and you will see something
understandable (wear your sunglasses, the glare is quite bright), then and
only then will you be able to look into that window to Craig's mind.

Are you strong enough for this???


Regards, Donald




From eric at ericgorr.net  Thu Dec 25 17:55:02 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Thu Dec 25 17:55:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
Message-ID: <a06020411bc1143510164@[192.168.1.3]>

I've added a brief, but complete (or at least it should be), 
description of the Ranked Pairs method implemented on my condorcet 
site (http://www.ericgorr.net/condorcet). You can get to it either by 
visiting the the main page or directly via this link:

   http://www.ericgorr.net/condorcet/RankedPairs/

Feel free to make any comments you like.

I plan to add several, descriptive, examples soon.

btw, I just learned that on the newest palm machines, running java 
applications are now possible. This resolves my dilemma on where to 
implement this method next...either under Java or PalmOS...in the 
coming months, you should see something appear, written in Java, 
which would be tested on a Mac and a Palm device.


From eric at ericgorr.net  Thu Dec 25 17:58:01 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Thu Dec 25 17:58:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Oh...
Message-ID: <a06020414bc1145a88d8f@[192.168.1.3]>

The method computation on my site is currently down because I have 
changed web hosts. Should have it up and running again by monday (and 
possibly tomorrow) when I regain ssh access and can compile the C++ 
source on the server.



From research at ijs.co.nz  Fri Dec 26 01:56:02 2003
From: research at ijs.co.nz (Craig Carey)
Date: Fri Dec 26 01:56:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Dan W-J; IRV is 2nd best (=worst); CVD tells Maryland
  'no  research ever'
In-Reply-To: <3FEA212F.DE487F69@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20031226175627.04dbeb28@pop.qsi.net.nz>


My last message had missing "not"s. It is fixable by using a word like
"Is" in every space that the reader might suspect a "not" to be missing.



At 2003-12-25 00:28 +0100 Thursday, Markus Schulze wrote:
>Dear Craig,
>
>you wrote (25 Dec 2003):
>> This can be named the Alternative Vote Twin Towers example: a support
>> rise that is nearly 50% in size and that is entirely FPTP papers, is
>> occuring while the candidate ('A') being supported changes into a
>> loser:
>>
>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/single-transferable-vote/message/244
>>
>> +-----------------------------------+
>> |Winner: ? ?A? ? ?|Winner: ? ?B? ? ?|  Alternative Vote winners
>> +-----------------------------------+
>> | Tot: ? 513000? ?| Tot: ?1024001? ?|
>> +-----------------------------------+
>> |? ?A? ? ? 1001? ?|? ?A? ? 512000? ?| Change = +510999
>> | * BA ? ? ?999? ?|? ?BA ? ? 1001? ?| Change = +2
>> |? ?CBA? ? 1000? ?| * CBA? ? 1000? ?|
>> |? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|? ?DBA? ? 2000? ?|
>> |? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|? ?EBA? ? 4000? ?|
>> |? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|? ?FBA? ? 8000? ?|
>> |? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|? ?GBA? ?16000? ?|
>> |? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|? ?HBA? ?32000? ?|
>> |? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|? ?IBA? ?64000? ?|
>> |? ?JBA? 128000? ?|? ?JBA? 128000? ?|
>> |? ?KBA? 256000? ?|? ?KBA? 256000? ?|
>> +-----------------------------------+
>
>This is neither an example showing Alternative Voting violates
>monotonicity nor an example showing Alternative Voting violates
>participation. This is an example showing Alternative Voting
>violates consistency. However, it has been demonstrated by
>HP Young that only positional methods (e.g. FPP, Borda,
>Approval Voting) satisfy consistency.
>


One of the authors (Ron H. in Israel) of a participation axiom paper wrote
to me. I don't need his advice: his paper is unimportant since on the
participation axiom. It seemed to me his 1988? paper was very unique in
defining that same space that even now as I write, Mr Forest Simmons is
slowly groping towards knowing.

Shulze has his usual technique of getting that maximal onto the part that
is most likely to break when subjected to weight: i.e. a few words:
"participation", "consistency". All for no good purpose. I guess that
Mr Schulze wants me to say that I don't know the definition of one of the
words.

I protest over this technique of Mr Shulze.

 * the ideas behind the words are too poorly defined. I.e. vagueness.

 * STV experts must reject the ideas. In the case of participation it
   fails the STV meta-rule requiring rules to be powerful. It is not
   powerful in 2 ways: firstly it is only 1 winner, and it is assumed to
   be not constraining preferences other than the first. They are not
   incompetent.

 * Mr Schulze get corrected and does not admit and worse does not
   alter his ideas.
   Even today he believes he should use personal desire alone when
   selecting a rule and never ever use algebra or mathematics in
   an attempt to see if a rule is good or unacceptable. It is a
   non-stop circus of Mr Schulze using only wrong tests. He has got
   wrong tests ensuring that he will not improperly let people see
   if he is incorrectly holding an improper purpose. If readers
   suspect that I don't know what "consistency" got defined to be
   (OK for Mr Schulze if it never was defined to an STV-grade
   quality) then my failing a wrong test is not expected to raise
   questions on why Mr Schulze did not write much more precisely.

--

Mr Schulze's "Participation" is rejected for meta-rule agains weakness:

  1. it was undefined for support rises on the 2nd+ candidate

  2. it seems undefined in multiwinner elections since that quite
    probably would involve my base 2 number definition of what a
    paper desired. Nevertheless I shan't suggest that such an idea
    can be made to run acceptably in a revised Participation axiom

    It is too weak if considering a single new preference and hence
    only a single candidate. That would get the rule eliminated before
    an audience the world's best preferential voting method designers.

--

One of the big questions is why Mr Shulze bungled his PDF document
when using the same technique: he failed to define the method and
achieved that by giving inusfficient precise meaning to the words
"stricly prefer".

As readers would readily imagine, at no moment has Mr Markus
corrected that mistake. A paper that says nothing is not one that
Mr Schulze would fix up. It is the same theory: getting the public
to admit that they don't remember what a word or two means. Unless
it was jut a blunder.

---

Responding further, Mr Schulze failed to define the idea of "consistency".

It should start with a capital C, I suppose.

At the moment I have no idea what Mr Schulze means by "positional".
Clearly Mr Schulze has not got a good argument.

Ms Shulze is becoming one of the worlds more boring commentators
on research into preferential voting. In the last few months it was
becoming very clear that not only is Mr Schulze unwilling to define
the Schulze method (depsite producing an academic paper on it passing
it under scavanged under utterly worthless rules or with unfollowable
arguments, or whatever), but also he writes "[other person suggested
that it] doesn't work [i.e. Floyd algorithm isn't symmetric]" and
with any trace of a line by line analysis, he wants to leak out the
belief that the Schulze method has got to be symmetric if the
Floyd algorithm is symmetric. 

He does not even have an argument. All the arguments in his published
seemed to be perfectly untroubled by the truth that he totally
bungled the definition of the Schulze method so that it was missing
from the paper.

After years here disputing with Mr Ossipoff over which was admissable:
(1) Mr Ossipoff's wording
(2) some hoax agreement purporting to comprehend Mike Ossipoff's
   thinking;
it is now plain that Mr Schulze was preferring "(2)". 

I complain since I assess Mr Schulze has the so called Schulze method
of the October 2003 PDF file get the alternative that is absolutely
not the alternative suggested by the fairly plain English wording.

Obviously Mr Schulze implemented the technique all throughout his
writing of trying to blot the light out and stand in the path to
(um, total error) as the single authority. I.e. clarifications and
annotations and clarifying statements of the purpose are missing.
Similarly with analyses over the wording chosen, records of
communications with others disputing the wording, etc., are missing.

Mr Shulze ha a secret agenda for using undefined terms. If he believes
that leads to wins in public mailing lists then we should be told.

Normally Mr Schulze has wrong rules that do not model societies.

Evil ideas but concealed by Mr Schulze getting his paragraph to put
its weight on a few words he didn't feel like defining (or producing
references for) and which then crash as expected under criticism.

Something was a source of unfairness and Mr Schulze would win the
argument on whether it was his carefully/carelessly designed sentences
or not.

----

Let me return to this text:

>
>This is neither an example showing Alternative Voting violates
>monotonicity nor an example showing Alternative Voting violates
>participation. This is an example showing Alternative Voting
>violates consistency. However, it has been demonstrated by
>HP Young that only positional methods (e.g. FPP, Borda,
>Approval Voting) satisfy consistency.
>


(1) That example can perhaps imply that the Alternative Vote fails
a monotonocity test (if theorem is added) and it does not itself show
a failure of monotonicity.

I don't see why anybody should have any interest in what "consistency"
is, and in what "positional" means. While it seems that the "H" and the
"P" of Mr Young's name ought not be placed so close together, it does
not seem that any of his ideas are interesting in the context of the
example.

I found the example using initially mainly REDLOG to find a 4 candidate
example and then trial re paper to allow the number of candidates to
be increased.

Mr Schulze is trying to say that he read books. I am making it clear
that nothing at all that is of value might be obtained from me if
surviving here in the Election Methods List forum that is one of the
world's dumbest. Mr Schulze can't actually write at the PaP or STV
since dumb-as-a-dinosaur ponderous [lumbering, graceless, heavy,huge
labourius. Etymology: ponderosus, Latin, meaning, of great weight]
wordings and unfairness-allowing meanings if any meaning at all.

We might be right on the verge of a big improvement: e.g. I quit and
then the members renwew their religious vows to be unfair
to their fellow nat and be stumped for why that is but take solace in
the intellectual unity of being fried chips, damn, being friends.


//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


At 2003-12-25 20:50 -0500 Thursday, Donald Davison wrote:
>

...
>Dear Diana, Donald here, there are a number of persons on this list who
>speak in gobbledegook.

If Donald Davison is ever more alert, then that might be a time when he
can get the ">" characters lined up and properly quote text.

...
>do not elect anyone.  This super-duper method by Craig is worst than
>Plurality-at-Large, which would need fifty percent plus one to elect both
>candidates.  I called him on this flaw in his method, but it was water off

The method behaves as if it has two votes. So it can get suspected of
holding the power of 2 FPTP papers. But there is a specific rule preventing
it from having more power than one FPTP paper (no matter how many winners).

You can correctly hint that you are correct and I am wrong. But that is
not the same as showing me wrong since I correctly say that you can't
ever convert your success in raising doubt into a concluded proof that
successfully persuades.

If you reject me wrongly then you ar violating one of your own ideas, which
says that ballot papers ought get more and more power (up to the proper
limit) as improved variants/replacements of STV keep appearing.


>
>Craig is not alone in this lack of understanding of election methods.  On

You can't say I did not understand why you have fully failed to show that
my 2 winner 3 candidate IFPP method is failing a power<=1 rule. Your
argument was relying on a common agreement over a wrong principle.
To reject my method, a failure under a correct rule would be neeeded.

---------

Mr Davison on a 2 winner election

>the IRV list, someone asked if IRV could be used to elect two members to a
>city council.  Dan, who is an official of the Center for Voting and
>Democracy replied and suggested that IRV be run two times. Once to elect
>one member and a second time to elect the second member, bypassing the name
>of the first winner during the routine of the second run of IRV.
>
>Dan is clearly showing that he does not understand how these election
>methods work.  What he suggested is very close to Plurality-a-Large, that
>is, the same majority gets to elect both members.


It does sound quite bad.
Supposing the voters only once, they could use the analog of the
'1/3 quota unfairness to the 4th' method the 2 winner 3 candidate IFPP
being at the end. Something batter might be found.

If voters get 2 real votes then maybe the 1st could reduce the candidates
to 3 candidates, and 2nd could eliminate exactlyu one candidate.

You were running a dead pop.mich.* SMTP server for a while.

----

Mr Lanphier is withholding a shoot up of Condorcet (I posted while not
subscribed into a policy block to have such messages be blocked).
It explains that Mr Shulze has a greave problem with the last preference
in the idea of the weightings that papers are multiplied by when
contributing to the "prefers X over Y" subtotal, particularly in the
comparison of the 2 cases:
 (1) (...X...Y) : Y is the last preference
 (2) (...X...) : now Y shifted over the edge. 

Mr Schulze seems to aspire to hide the Condorcet destroying issue behind
only 2 words and blundered and causes his PDF article to fail to define
a Condorcet method.

The STV idealized view is that the P2 rules reigns (e.g. no winnner
changes on adding -2(A)+(AB)+(AC) if 3 candidates, etc.) and Alt.V passes
P2 already. Mr Schulze and al lthe rest of them (Mr Condorcet, etc.)
seem to be much too deep into the territory of arbitrariness and
standing against P2 is further unbreakable guarantee that they would
be rejected

Even worse is the exploding quantity of facets in the Condorcet variant
solutions. This is a new aspect to Condorcet that has not been
written on. It is like the number of facts is rising powers faster.

No one knows what the rules are. In idealized STV there are constant
rules that are totally indifferent to shifting changes in public
opinion. There appears to be no argument at all from Mr Schulze and
whatnot, on whether there is some good enough from the explosion
of rules and how everyone has not got rights while not identifying
what the average votes were.

Basic obvious errors with no defence. It is just like some fish
looking up through bits of grass and through the water saying:

  "what's the matter?: don't you believe in pairwise comparing?"





Craig Carey
Perfect voting methods: single-transerable-vote












From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 26 02:08:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 26 02:08:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
Message-ID: <3FEC0823.810DCB2A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Eric,

you wrote:

> If two or more pairwise defeats have an equal strength and the
> margins are also equal, they are considered to be equivalent.
> Starting with the strongest defeat, consider each defeat in
> sequence with previously kept defeats, if any. If two or more
> defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered together
> with previously kept defeats, if any. If any defeat under
> consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected. If any defeat
> under consideration is not apart of a cycle, it is kept.

I suggest that sentence 4 should be replaced by:

> If q equivalent defeats under consideration are parts of a cycle
> with previously kept defeats, the q! possible ways to consider
> one of these defeats after the other are considered separately.

Markus Schulze


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 26 03:05:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 26 03:05:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Dan W-J; IRV is 2nd best (=worst); CVD tells Maryland 'no 
 research ever'
Message-ID: <3FEC156A.FB33E727@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Craig,

your 25 Dec 2003 example is not an example showing that Alternative
Voting violates monotonicity. Your example lets me think that your
claim that Condorcet and monotonicity were incompatible is possibly
caused by a misunderstanding of what "monotonicity" means.

******

You wrote (26 Dec 2003):
> At the moment I have no idea what Mr Schulze means by "positional".

A "positional" single-winner election method has the following
properties:

   a1 >= a2 >= a3 >= ....

   a1, a2, a3, ... are defined in advance and do not depend on how
   the voters vote.

   Every candidate gets a1 points for every first preference,
   a2 points for every second preference, a3 points for every third
   preference, ...

   The probability that a given candidate is elected depends only on
   his number of points.

******

Examples:

FPP is a positional method with a1 = 1 and a2 = a3 = ... = 0.

Suppose N is the number of candidates.
Borda is a positional method with a1 = N-1, a2 = N-2, a3 = N-3, ...

Burnitz-Varrentrapp is a positional method with a1 = 1, a2 = 1/2,
a3 = 1/3, ...

******

You wrote (26 Dec 2003):
> It explains that Mr Shulze has a greave problem with the last preference
> in the idea of the weightings that papers are multiplied by when
> contributing to the "prefers X over Y" subtotal, particularly in the
> comparison of the 2 cases:
>  (1) (...X...Y) : Y is the last preference
>  (2) (...X...) : now Y shifted over the edge.

Could you please post some examples to explain what you
are talking about?

******

You wrote (26 Dec 2003):
> Basic obvious errors with no defence. It is just like some fish
> looking up through bits of grass and through the water saying:
>
>   "what's the matter?: don't you believe in pairwise comparing?"

In my paper, I prove e.g. that my method satisfies Pareto, monotonicity,
resolvability, independence of clones, and Woodall's plurality criterion.
None of these criteria implicitly or explicitly presumes that the used
election method is a pairwise method. Therefore, you don't have to
"believe in pairwise comparing" to see that my method satisfies many
criteria that are considered in the scientific literature to be
important.

Markus Schulze


From eric at ericgorr.net  Fri Dec 26 06:03:02 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Fri Dec 26 06:03:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <3FEC0823.810DCB2A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FEC0823.810DCB2A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <a06020416bc11ebd07f60@[192.168.1.3]>

At 11:06 AM +0100 12/26/03, Markus Schulze wrote:
>Dear Eric,
>
>you wrote:
>
>  > If two or more pairwise defeats have an equal strength and the
>>  margins are also equal, they are considered to be equivalent.
>>  Starting with the strongest defeat, consider each defeat in
>>  sequence with previously kept defeats, if any. If two or more
>>  defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered together
>  > with previously kept defeats, if any. If any defeat under
>>  consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected. If any defeat
>>  under consideration is not apart of a cycle, it is kept.
>
>I suggest that sentence 4 should be replaced by:
>
>   If q equivalent defeats under consideration are parts of a cycle
>   with previously kept defeats, the q! possible ways to consider
>   one of these defeats after the other are considered separately.

An interesting suggestion, but I fail to see how this would make 
things clearer.

At no point does the algorithm need to perform a q! operation.


-- 
== Eric Gorr ========= http://www.ericgorr.net ========= ICQ:9293199 ===
"Therefore the considerations of the intelligent always include both
benefit and harm." - Sun Tzu
== Insults, like violence, are the last refuge of the incompetent... ===


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 26 07:13:01 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 26 07:13:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
Message-ID: <3FEC4F97.C828D5C4@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Eric,

you wrote:

> If two or more pairwise defeats have an equal strength and the
> margins are also equal, they are considered to be equivalent.
> Starting with the strongest defeat, consider each defeat in
> sequence with previously kept defeats, if any. If two or more
> defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered together
> with previously kept defeats, if any. If any defeat under
> consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected. If any defeat
> under consideration is not apart of a cycle, it is kept.

Suppose AB and CD have the same strength. Suppose (a) locking only
AB would not create a directed cycle with already locked pairwise
defeats, (b) locking only CD would not create a directed cycle with
already locked pairwise defeats, but (c) locking both AB and CD
simultaneously would create a directed cycle with already locked
pairwise defeats.

Then I fear that your formulation could mistakenly be interpreted
in such a manner as if both pairwise defeats were rejected.

Markus Schulze


From eric at ericgorr.net  Fri Dec 26 08:46:12 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Fri Dec 26 08:46:12 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <3FEC4F97.C828D5C4@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FEC4F97.C828D5C4@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <a06020418bc1215a84e0d@[192.168.1.3]>

At 4:11 PM +0100 12/26/03, Markus Schulze wrote:
>Dear Eric,
>
>you wrote:
>
>>  If two or more pairwise defeats have an equal strength and the
>>  margins are also equal, they are considered to be equivalent.
>>  Starting with the strongest defeat, consider each defeat in
>>  sequence with previously kept defeats, if any. If two or more
>>  defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered together
>>  with previously kept defeats, if any. If any defeat under
>>  consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected. If any defeat
>>  under consideration is not apart of a cycle, it is kept.
>
>Suppose AB and CD have the same strength. Suppose (a) locking only
>AB would not create a directed cycle with already locked pairwise
>defeats, (b) locking only CD would not create a directed cycle with
>already locked pairwise defeats, but (c) locking both AB and CD
>simultaneously would create a directed cycle with already locked
>pairwise defeats.
>
>Then I fear that your formulation could mistakenly be interpreted
>in such a manner as if both pairwise defeats were rejected.

They should both be rejected as one could not determine which defeat 
should be kept, unless one would choose randomly between them, but 
then this would not be a 'deterministic' method.



-- 
== Eric Gorr ========= http://www.ericgorr.net ========= ICQ:9293199 ===
"Therefore the considerations of the intelligent always include both
benefit and harm." - Sun Tzu
== Insults, like violence, are the last refuge of the incompetent... ===


From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Fri Dec 26 12:03:55 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Fri Dec 26 12:03:55 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
Message-ID: <3FEC931D.B259CA07@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Eric,

suppose that there are 4 candidates and that all pairwise
defeats A > B, B > C, C > D, D > A, B > D, and C > A have the
same strength. Then all 4 candidates are potential winners.

However, suppose that some voters rank candidate A higher so
that the pairwise defeats A > B, B > C, C > D, D > A, and B > D
still have the same strength and C > A is weaker than the other
pairwise defeats. Then you would reject A > B, B > C, C > D,
D > A, and B > D and keep C > A so that ranking candidate A
higher hurts him.

Markus Schulze


From eric at ericgorr.net  Fri Dec 26 12:30:01 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Fri Dec 26 12:30:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <3FEC931D.B259CA07@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
References: <3FEC931D.B259CA07@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <a0602041abc1249c28437@[192.168.1.3]>

At 8:59 PM +0100 12/26/03, Markus Schulze wrote:

>suppose that there are 4 candidates and that all pairwise
>defeats A > B, B > C, C > D, D > A, B > D, and C > A have the
>same strength. Then all 4 candidates are potential winners.
>
>However, suppose that some voters rank candidate A higher so
>that the pairwise defeats A > B, B > C, C > D, D > A, and B > D
>still have the same strength and C > A is weaker than the other
>pairwise defeats. Then you would reject A > B, B > C, C > D,
>D > A, and B > D and keep C > A so that ranking candidate A
>higher hurts him.

Include that everyone has voted sincerely, and I don't see the problem.

With such a clearly divided electorate, where any of the candidates 
could win, this 'problem' seems illusory at best.




From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 26 22:10:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Fri Dec 26 22:10:01 2003
Subject: [EM] RE: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #401 - 1 msg
Message-ID: <LAW10-F112wVHCOMR4a0005ebca@hotmail.com>

>Suppose AB and CD have the same strength. Suppose (a) locking only
>AB would not create a directed cycle with already locked pairwise
>defeats, (b) locking only CD would not create a directed cycle with
>already locked pairwise defeats, but (c) locking both AB and CD
>simultaneously would create a directed cycle with already locked
>pairwise defeats.
>
>Then I fear that your formulation could mistakenly be interpreted
>in such a manner as if both pairwise defeats were rejected.

They should both be rejected as one could not determine which defeat
should be kept, unless one would choose randomly between them, but
then this would not be a 'deterministic' method.

I reply:

Yes, rejecting both would be most in keeping with the spirit of Eric's 
tied-defeats solution, and would be most what people would expect.

Of course wording that covers that should be included. Maybe it could be 
said in a way that covers all those possibilities inl one wording, without 
separate mention of the special case where 2 or more tied-defeats 
indivicuallly don't cycle with old-kept-defeats, but do so if boith are 
kept.

I'm for whateve tied-defeats solution is briefest and simplest in public 
proposals.

If the wording foir Eric's briefer solution starts getting too long, by 
having to cover that situation described above, then with its brevity 
somewhat eroded, it could be worth considering this slightly more elaborate 
solution that I named in a recent e-mail, for which that situation is 
already covered:

Slightly more elaborate and slightly better tied-defeats solution wording:

1. The equally strongest as-yet unconsidered defeats are called the 
"tied-defeats".

2. The defeats that were kept before any tied-defeats were kept are called 
the "old defeats".

3. Any tied defeat that isn't in a cycle consisting only of it and some old 
defeats is "qualified".

4. Keep any qualified defeat that isn't in a cycle each of whose members is 
either qualified or old.

That's much longer than Eric's brief solution. Maybe when Eric's wording is 
modified to cover the situation that Markus described, Eric's wording will 
still be briefer and simpler than this one. Still, this one is worth 
considering if the brief one loses too much of its brevity.

I'd like to add that the suggestion of looking at all q! possible 
consideration-orderings of the tied defeats is completely unacceptable for a 
publc proposal.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Fri Dec 26 23:23:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Fri Dec 26 23:23:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Reply to James Green-Armytage--Condorcet strategy
Message-ID: <Law10-F111e5O25rrcv0005ea36@hotmail.com>

Janes--

That's a big subject.

You correctly point out that defensive strategy is a worse problem with 
margins than with winning-votes (wv).

Additionally, with wv, truncation can't steal the election from a 
well-supported CW, a CW who has a majority defeat against the truncators' 
candidate. That's the subject of the criterion SFC. GSFC generalizes SFC to 
situations where there's no CW. When defeats are measured by wv, then SSD 
and Ranked-Pairs meet the powerful GSFC. Plain Condorcet (PC) meets SFC.

In fact, SFC and GSFC describe plausible conditions under which, with 
complying methods (Condorcet wv), the majority who don't want X can be sure 
X won't win, _without having to do anything other than vote sincerel_. 
That's what I most like about Condorcet wv.

Your iniltial wording of the Condorcet count implies that defeats are 
measured by margins. That probably isn't intentional.

To put the problem in perspective, Condorcet wv has no defensive strategy 
need unless someone is going to try offensive order-reversal strategy. At 
its very worst, under less-than-likely worst-case conditions, Condorcet wv 
begins to share the strategy need that the other methods have all the time.

And, with Condorcet wv, in order for you to successfully steal the election, 
it's only possible if the people from whom you're stealing the election have 
tried to help you. Doesn't that make you feel proud of yourself? :-)

P.S. Don't expect them to rank your cxandidate again. Don't expect your 
winner to be able to show his face in public.

As you mentioned, it's like a game of chicken, when defensive truncation is 
threatened against would-be offensive order-reversers.

But please note that the supporters of the middle CW who is being protected 
will suffer less if no one chickens out, compared to how much the offensive 
order-reversers would suffer then. That's because, in your example, the C is 
farther away from the order-reversers than from the defenders.

Additionally, a defender has a more credible threat. A cat defending its 
territory has a more credible threat against an interloper than the other 
cat has. The defender, it's understood, is more willing to fight and risk 
getting hurt when defending what's rightfully his. This adds to the 
defenders' advantage in the game of chicken.

Sure, if no one chickens out, the result isn't desirable for the defenders 
either. Defensive truncation is a dominated strategy for them: But note that 
dominated deterrent strategies are common in legal systrems and in the 
animal kingdom. They wouldn't be used so much if they didn't work.

In public elections, effective offensive order-reversal would require public 
organizing. There' s just no way it could be done without its intended 
victims hearing about it and using defensive truncation.
So in public elections, offensive order-reversal is a losing proposition.

For all the above reasons, I don't consider offensive order-reversal a 
problem. Effectively, then, Condorcet wv is practically strategy-free. 
Remarkably strategy-free. No other method of comparable simplicity even 
comes close.

So, for that reason, I don't feel that it's necessary to include 
enhancements to further reduce that already near-nonexistent problem.

Of course, when Condorcet wv has been in use for a long time, and if by then 
people are discussing the order-reversal possibility, then, at that time, 
the anti-reversal enhancements could be proposed.

Even though I claim that they aren't needed in public Condorcet wv 
proposals, I'm going to discuss anti-reversal enhancements in a subsequent 
posting.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sat Dec 27 00:01:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sat Dec 27 00:01:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Anti-reversal enhancements for Condorcet
Message-ID: <Law10-F74X9Oc8sc0Gq0005efd2@hotmail.com>

James--

You described an anti-reversal enhancement that involved a 2nd balloting. 
Sure, a 2nd balloting can further reduce wv's already tiny offensive 
strategy problem, assuming that it ever becomes a problem.

But it's not necessary to hold a 2nd balloting anytime there's a circular 
tie, though that's one solution.

If a CW's support isn't indifferent, s/he'll be ranked over the reversers' 
candidate by a majority, meaning that for the reversers' candidate to win, 
everyone else must have even bigger majority against them.

So the 2nd balloting should only be triggered if there's an 
all-majority-defeats circular tie.

Here's what I've propsed as a 2nd ballot solution:

If there's a circular tie all of whose members have another member ranked 
over them by a majorith, then a 2nd balloting is held.

Before the 2nd balloting, the pairwise defeats will have been published, and 
order-reversal, if it happened, can be noticed.

In the 2nd balloting, the reversal can be countered. It can be punished by 
defensive truncation. Or, as in your example, the C voters could rank B 
equal to C. Note that, with wv, they only need rank B equal to C. In margins 
they'd often have to rank B _over_ C. That's a lot more to ask.

But another possibilit for the 2nd balloting is an Approval balloting. That 
simpler method won't produce another cycle, and the defense against the 
reversers would consist of their victimes not voting for the reversers' 
candidate. In that case the defensive truncation elects the CW.

The 2nd balloting pretty much eliminates whatever amount of reversal problem 
exists.

Something similar can be used for committees. I'd suggest it for an EM poll, 
for instance.

To a poll, I'd add the rule that, after the result is announced, there's 
about a week or half-week period during which anyone can truncate their 
ranking if they choose to, or can uprank an alternative to 1st place.

(I prefer open polls in which voters post their ballots. That's the way to 
have proven security.
But, as these ballots come in, reversal opportunities could be obvious to 
those who haven't voted yet. The defdensive strategy option avoids that 
reversal problem).

Either of those 2 enhanhancements, or something similar, could be used for 
committees.

Tom Roiund and Steve Eppley separately independently proposed the 
candidate-withdrawal option:

After an election result, any candidate can declare that he withdraws, and 
call for another count of the same ballots with his name deleted from them.

That also thwarts offensive order-reversal.

I notice that candidate-withdrawal is part of your proposal.

For 1-balloting elections, the voter could have the option of drawing a line 
in his ranking, to indicate that, in the event of an all-majority-beaten 
circular tie involving candidates above and below that line, he wants to 
drop the candidates below the line. Then the same ballots, with the 
candiddates dropped, would be recounted. That would be a powerful deterrent 
to offensive order-reversal.

I don't claim to have covered all the possible anti-reversal enhancements. 
We've discussed a few other ones.

For instance, a tentative possible solution involves giving the voter the 
option to indicate that, if there's an all-majority-beaten circular tie, and 
if groups of voters sharing the same 1st  choices have certain patterns of 
unanimity and non-unanimity within those groups, in their subsequent 
choices, that voter wants do delete certain candidates. That may catch be 
able to catch some offensive order-reversals. Obviously that isn't a 
complete detailed proposal.

Methods more fancy and complicated than Condorcet are discussed. Though all 
methods have strategy, there's always the possibility that one of those 
fancier methods will get rid of defensive strategy need, as I've defined it 
here. Or at least let defensive truncation elect the CW, without the use of 
a 2nd ballotiong.

Mike Ossipoff

_________________________________________________________________
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http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx



From eric at ericgorr.net  Sat Dec 27 05:56:02 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Sat Dec 27 05:56:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-F112wVHCOMR4a0005ebca@hotmail.com>
References: <LAW10-F112wVHCOMR4a0005ebca@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <a0602041ebc133db3b13e@[192.168.1.3]>

At 6:09 AM +0000 12/27/03, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:
>Of course wording that covers that should be included. Maybe it 
>could be said in a way that covers all those possibilities in one 
>wording, without separate mention of the special case where 2 or 
>more tied-defeats indivicuallly don't cycle with old-kept-defeats, 
>but do so if boith are kept.

Personally, I think I did cover this in #5. The case of multiple 
tied-defeats is covered by:

   If two or more defeats are equivalent, those defeats are considered
   together with previously kept defeats, if any.

(#4 covered what is considered to be equivalent)

Now, in light of your comments, I think my statement:

   If any defeat under consideration is apart of a cycle, it is rejected.

Could be improved by changing it to:

   If any defeat under consideration, which has not yet been kept, is apart
   of a cycle, it is rejected.

Similarly,

   If any defeat under consideration, which has not yet been kept, is not apart
   of a cycle, it is kept.

I will probably also turn the word 'cycle' into a link with a more 
detailed description.


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Sat Dec 27 12:10:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Sat Dec 27 12:10:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Later-no-harm  definition
In-Reply-To: <3FE94661.A9255D9B@netgate.net>
Message-ID: <20031227201000.9811.qmail@web13805.mail.yahoo.com>

Bart,

 --- Bart Ingles <bartman at netgate.net> a ?crit?: > 
> This paper must be part of a series, as Woodall never explains his
> assertion that "Of these three properties, Majority is far and away the
> most important."  He seems to have his own definitions for monotonicity;
> I hadn't seen these anywhere else.
> 

(He comments on Majority as above, says Plurality is "also important, but
it is much less likely to be violated: every reasonable electoral system
seems to satisfy it, whereas many systems proposed or actually used ...
fail majority."  Condorcet is "a very attractive property" but it "leads
to problems with monotonicity.")

I think Woodall may consider Participation to be part of Monotonicity.  In
any case, another paper of his makes these claims:

A method that always elects a candidate with a majority-strength defeat
over every other candidate, cannot meet "Mono-raise-random" or 
"Mono-sub-top."  They say that X can't be harmed (made to lose, in
most cases) if X is raised on some ballots with the lower preferences
on those ballots replaced with anything valid; or (respectively) if
"some ballots that do not have X top are replaced by ballots that have
X top (and are otherwise arbitrary)".

A method that always elects a candidate with a defeat (of any strength)
over every other cannot, additionally can't meet "Mono-raise-delete"
and "Mono-sub-plump."  The former means X is raised, and the ranking
is truncated after him.  The latter means ballots which don't place X
first are replaced with ballots which bullet vote for X.

Also, a method cannot do all three of:
1. always elect a CW (defeats of any strength);
2. meet Plurality; and
3. Meet "Mono-add-top," meaning that random ballots may be added
with X ranked first, without causing X to lose.

And, a method can't do all four of:
1. always elect a CW with all majority-strength pairwise defeats;
2. meet Plurality;
3. meet "Symmetric-Completion"; and
4. meet "Mono-remove-bottom," meaning X can't be harmed if ballots
are removed which placed X (and only X) last.

Make what you will of all that...  I'm pretty sure I've reproduced
it accurately.


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


_________________________________________________________________
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From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Sat Dec 27 12:45:01 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Sat Dec 27 12:45:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20031224174405.05b11c88@pop.qsi.net.nz>
Message-ID: <20031227204412.74150.qmail@web13810.mail.yahoo.com>

(This message has quotes from three people.)

James Green-Armytage said:
> Very much off the cuff: isn't this somewhat related to the favorite betrayal 
> criterion? 

I think it is, but a more general version of it.

Mike Ossipoff said:
> If IRV's Later-No-Harm "advantage" is the kind of benefit that we get from 
> Later-No-Harm, then it's questionable how important that criterion is.

I agree, but I am somewhat interested in what other methods can be defined
which meet Later-no-Harm.  For example, Woodall's DSC method does not use
traveling votes.  It does eliminate candidates, although I'm not able to
say at present whether it does so in a manner analogous to IRV.

Anthony Duff suggested that MinMax meets Later-no-harm.  I don't think
that's correct, though.


 --- Craig Carey <research at ijs.co.nz> a ?crit?: > 
> At 2003-12-23 23:47 +0100 Tuesday, Kevin Venzke wrote:
> >Thanks to everyone who responded to my last message.
> >
> >It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
> >as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
> >should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
> >this ballot."
> >
> >(By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
> >additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
> >but also deleting others.)
> >
> >I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
> >"earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
> >ranked FIRST, (etc...)."
> >
> >For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
> >then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.
> >
> 
> Clearly Mr Venkze has not ruled out the 2 winner case. If he has one
> unstated restriction then it may take weeks or years before he finally
> managed to get them all into the mailing list and nicely requoted
> in each message.

"Earlier-no-harm" could work with any number of winners, although my
specific example assumed a single winner.  A zero-winner method, for
instance, could not fail Earlier-no-harm.

> 
> Suppose the votes are this (2 winner case)
> 
> Election 1:
>   10000 (D)
>   1 (A=B=C>D>E), D should win and does
> 
> Election 2:
>   10000 (D)
>   1 (A>B>C>D>E) , both D and E lose says Mr Venkze

But you can see that this example is not what I'm talking about, if you
look at the definition I wrote:
"Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked FIRST, 
should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of this ballot."

So if the winners of election 1 are D and one of ABC, then in election 2, 
according to "Earlier-no-harm," the winners must not become D and E.

> 
> I assume that there is no need to get "A=B=C" precisely defined since
> unknown disputes over definitions might be bounded by factors 6 or 1/6.

It means that A, B, and C are ranked equal to each other at the top of
the ballot.

> >"Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
> >then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A.
> >
> >What do you think?
> 
> It looks like Mr Venkze won't accept one or both of these:
> 
>  * an axiom set from which a method is derived (a strange option given
>     the theme of Mr Venkze's whole message), or

I defined an axiom, not a method.

>  * the principle that the number of winners be correct (i.e. he sometimes
>     expects the number of winners be disagreeing with what was decided on
>     before the public filled in the voting papers, providing a public 
>     suitably exists).

I did that in my example, but not in my definition.

> I have never suspected that there is a good reason to use
>    "Later No Harm"
> instead of
>    "Truncation Resistance".

"Later-no-harm" is more specific.  Perhaps "Later-no-harm" together with
"Later-no-help" are equivalent to "Truncation Resistance."

> "Permuting preferences before" and "permuting preferences after" are a
> better wording of what is desired. 

This would be harder to satisfy than what I defined.  My definition supposes
that the ballot is changed only by turning some "="s into ">"s.

> I assume that if both are imposed
> then the method degenerates into FPTP or something similar.

No, with FPTP you cannot "permute preferences before" the winner without a
risk of changing the winner.  ...Perhaps Coombs satisfies this?

> So there may need to be a redesign of the papers (and presumably
> adding "=" won't produce insensitivity to permuting before). I would
> prefer no redesign (while preferring methods better than the
> second best AV n candidate 1 winner method) and instead allow elections
> where voters could change their mind.

The voter can't change his mind.  (Actually, I thought you didn't believe
in voters.)  Presenting two scenarios side-by-side doesn't mean the voter
is changing his mind.

The point of earlier-no-harm is so that the voter can't protest "I voted
A>B>C and got F, when voting A=B=C would have gotten C elected."

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Sun Dec 28 05:48:02 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Sun Dec 28 05:48:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Later-no-harm  question
Message-ID: <3FEF8862.3060505@bigpond.com>

  On Mon. Dec.22, 2003 ,  Bart  Ingles wrote:

"I can't see much value in LNH as a criterion, unless getting voters to
rank as many candidates as possible is seen as an end in itself."

Meeting Later-no-harm is logically the same thing as being truncation-proof.

All methods that meet Later-no-harm must logically also meet Mono-add-top, but 
not vice versa.
"Mono-add-top" is a Woodall criterion which says that adding ballots that all give
first-preference to X must not harm X. It is met by IRV and Margins, but not by WV.

In trying to change from Plurality to a ranked-ballot method, Later-no-harm is an 
excellent selling-point to plurality-minded voters.

I think Later-no-harm should be considered together with Later-no-help. The two should
be in balance, ie the chances of a lower-preference helping or harming a higher-preference
should be the same. Otherwise "zero information strategy" (as something different from
sincere voting) can raise its ugly head. A method in which the chance of helping a higher
preference (by ranking a candidate) is greater than the chance of harming, can create
incentive to "random fill". A method such as Woodall's "Descending Acquiescing Coalitions"
(DAC) which fails Later-no-harm but meets Later-no-help might be Approvalish. His method
"Descending Solid Coalitions"(DSC) meets Later-no-harm but fails Later-no-help.
Another of his methods,"Descending Half-solid Coalitions"(DHSC), which actually fails both
criteria, might be preferable.

Chris Benham  


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From chrisbenham at bigpond.com  Sun Dec 28 11:03:02 2003
From: chrisbenham at bigpond.com (Chris Benham)
Date: Sun Dec 28 11:03:02 2003
Subject: [EM]  Re: Later-no-harm, "Earlier-no-harm"
Message-ID: <3FEFD213.1050504@bigpond.com>

On  Tue.Dec.23, 2003,  Kevin Venzke wrote:

"It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
this ballot."

(By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
but also deleting others.)"

Surely Later-no-harm is only applicable to ranked-ballot methods,and Approval
is not a ranked-ballot method. 
Other than trying to provide some ammunition for Approval versus IRV propaganda, 
is there any point to this new version?

On a posititive note, Kevin went on:
"I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
"earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
ranked FIRST, (etc...)."

For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.

"Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A."

I very much like the substance of this. On Mon.Dec.1,2003, I wrote:
"I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting AB and the other 
half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting A=B, and also that it is 
unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates A and B by all voting either 
AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared to a faction who support candidates 
C and D by all voting C=D."
The part after "and also.." I see as being equivalent to your "earlier-no-harm". I think 
I would sum up the idea behind your 2 "earlier-no-h..." criteria in a "Decisiveness Fairness
Standard" which says something like 
"a faction of voters who all vote a set of candidates over all other candidates should not be 
advantaged or disadvantaged by voting equal preferences (versus not)".
Have I been wrong to assume this is connected with Symetric Completion/fractional equal
preferences?
Quoting Woodall (in the context of equal preferences not being allowed except for truncation),

"Symetric Completion.
A trucated ballot should be treated in the same way as its symetric completion. (The symetric 
completion of a ballot is obtained by replacing it by all possible completions of it with 
equal weight chosen so that the total weight is 1. For example,if there are five candidates 
a,b,c,d,e, then the symetric completion of a ballot marked ab consists of six ballots, each 
with weight 1/6, marked abcde, abced, abdce, abdec,abecd, and abedc.)"

Can a method meet Earlier-no-harm/help without complying with SC?

Chris Benham













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From eric at ericgorr.net  Sun Dec 28 13:19:01 2003
From: eric at ericgorr.net (Eric Gorr)
Date: Sun Dec 28 13:19:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Ranked Pairs Description
In-Reply-To: <a0602041ebc133db3b13e@[192.168.1.3]>
References: <LAW10-F112wVHCOMR4a0005ebca@hotmail.com>
 <a0602041ebc133db3b13e@[192.168.1.3]>
Message-ID: <a06020401bc14f82464b3@[192.168.1.3]>

For anyone who is interested, the first example, of a few more I 
intend to finish covering Ranked Pairs (Deterministic #1-Winning 
Votes) , is now up at:

    http://www.ericgorr.net/condorcet/rankedpairs/example1/



From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Sun Dec 28 19:17:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Sun Dec 28 19:17:02 2003
Subject: [EM]  Re: Later-no-harm, "Earlier-no-harm"
In-Reply-To: <3FEFD213.1050504@bigpond.com>
Message-ID: <20031229031656.33863.qmail@web13805.mail.yahoo.com>

Chris,

 --- Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com> a ?crit :
> "Mono-add-top" is a Woodall criterion which says that adding ballots that all give
> first-preference to X must not harm X. It is met by IRV and Margins, but not by WV.

How did you find that Margins meets Mono-add-top?  I have a hard time 
believing that.


 --- Chris Benham <chrisbenham at bigpond.com> a ?crit?: 
> On  Tue.Dec.23, 2003,  Kevin Venzke wrote:
> 
> "It's possible to define (a possibly limited version of) later-no-harm
> as: "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise ranked last,
> should not hurt the result of the election from the perspective of
> this ballot."
> 
> (By this definition, however, Approval passes, since approving an
> additional candidate doesn't just involve adding strict preferences,
> but also deleting others.)"
> 
> Surely Later-no-harm is only applicable to ranked-ballot methods,and Approval
> is not a ranked-ballot method. 

According to Woodall, Approval fails Later-no-harm.

> Other than trying to provide some ammunition for Approval versus IRV propaganda, 
> is there any point to this new version?

On the contrary, I recognize it as a limitation that Approval passes
my definition.  I came up with it because it is simple, and because
it could be reversed to illustrate "earlier-no-harm."

> 
> On a posititive note, Kevin went on:
> "I don't believe I've ever heard anyone suggest the obvious counterpart,
> "earlier-no-harm:" "Adding strict preferences among candidates otherwise
> ranked FIRST, (etc...)."
> 
> For example, if voting "A=B=C>D>E" gets me one of those first choices,
> then voting "A>B>C>D>E" should not get D or E elected.
> 
> "Earlier-no-help" could also be defined.  If "A=B=C>D>E" elects D,
> then "A>B>C>D>E" should not elect A."
> 
> I very much like the substance of this. On Mon.Dec.1,2003, I wrote:
> "I think that it is absurd that half an even number of voters voting AB and the other 
> half BA should have a different effect from all of them voting A=B, and also that it is 
> unfair that a faction of voters who  support candidates A and B by all voting either 
> AB or BA, should be in any way disadvantaged compared to a faction who support candidates 
> C and D by all voting C=D."
> The part after "and also.." I see as being equivalent to your "earlier-no-harm". I think 
> I would sum up the idea behind your 2 "earlier-no-h..." criteria in a "Decisiveness Fairness
> Standard" which says something like 
> "a faction of voters who all vote a set of candidates over all other candidates should not be 
> advantaged or disadvantaged by voting equal preferences (versus not)".
> Have I been wrong to assume this is connected with Symetric Completion/fractional equal
> preferences?

If you're right, it's not because I thought it was.

Woodall groups SC, LNHarm, and LNHelp together, and that's the main reason
I have to suspect that there's a connection.

I think you're supposing that LNHarm with LNHelp together imply SC.  I
can't find anything to disprove that.  So I suppose ENHarm plus ENHelp
might imply a reversed kind of SC.

The point of "earlier-no-harm" is to remove the incentive to compromise by
upranking everyone to first.  That would remove the possibility of multiple
candidates being majority favorites unless the voters really felt that
way (or they didn't understand the method's features).

SC applied to candidates that the voter tied in first would not be
nearly as repugnant to me as SC applied to candidates that the voter
didn't rank at all.

> Can a method meet Earlier-no-harm/help without complying with SC?

I'm almost positive of that, since methods can meet LNHarm/help without
meeting SC.  I don't see a big difference between the two pairs.

I'll devise a method which meets Earlier-no-harm for the next time I post.
I doubt it will meet Majority, though.


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Sun Dec 28 21:54:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Sun Dec 28 21:54:02 2003
Subject: [EM] LNH, Mono-Add-Top, etc
Message-ID: <Law10-F24nTPFyCcTZ30004485a@hotmail.com>

Someone posted:

"Mono-add-top" is a Woodall criterion which says that adding ballots that 
all give
first-preference to X must not harm X. It is met by IRV and Margins, but not 
by WV.

I reply:

I'm not necessarily denying that, but can you demonstrate that those 
statements are correct?

Aside from that question, there are very many criteria, and all are failed 
by some methods.

It's been shown that all nonprobabilisitic methods can have incentive for 
strategy.

Predictably, different methods often have different strategy. Of those 
innumerable criteria, different methods meet different criteria.

Any criterion can be justified by someone saying "This criterion is 
important". In that way, there are a vast number of important critreria. A 
vast number of essential criteria, and no method meets them all.

When any one type of strategy incentive is looked at, it always looks 
undesirable, and a good-sounding argument can be made against whatever 
method has that strategy incentive. That's why you should keep in mind that 
no nonprobabilistic method is strategy-free. So it's a question of what kind 
of strategy incentive is worse.

No one can establish that one standad is more important than another. So, 
when  asserting the importance of one's favorite standard, one is always 
safe from being contradicted.

Majority rule is a widely accepted standard. The lesser-of-2-evils problem 
is notorious. With only very few exceptions, nearly all single-winner reform 
advocates want to get rid of that problem. The goal of getting rid of the 
lesser-of-2-evils (LO2E) problem therefore is a widely held standard, as is 
majorilty rule.

It's been shown here that wv and, in some ways, Approval too, beats Margins 
and IRV by those 2 very widely-recognized standards.

Say a majority of the voters prefer X to Y. Y is a "greater-evil" whom they 
don't want to win. What must they do in order to keep Y from winning? With 
wv and Approval they'll never have to reverse a preference in order to keep 
Y from winning. Wilth IRV and Margins they'll sometimes have to bury their 
favorite, vote someone over their favorite if they want to keep Y from 
winning.

So methods like IRV and Margins illustrate that a shoddy rank-method is 
worse than not using a rank-method.

I might ask you what good it does to guarantee that voting your favorite in 
first place can't hurt your favorite, when you strategically need to bury 
your favorite.

That criterion, the Weak Defensive Strategy Criterion, is a modest, minimal 
thing that we'd expect of a method that honors majority rule and doesn't 
have the worst form of the lesser-of-2-evils problem.

As I mentioned in an earier message, there are, with Margins and IRV, 
situations (configurations of voters' preferences) in which the only Nash 
equilibria are ones in which some voters vote someone over their favorite in 
order to protect majority rule or to protect the win of a CW. But, with wv 
and Approval, every situation has at least one Nash equilibrium in which no 
one reverses a preference.

That's obviously a sense in which it can be accurately said that wv and 
Approval are sincere methods and that Margins and IRV are not.

By the way, about LNH, I've probably already said this here, but the reason 
why IRV doesn't let you lower preferences hurt your favorite is that IRV 
eliminates your favorite before it lets you help your lower choices. IRV 
saves your favorite from harm from lower preferences by eliminating your 
favorite before letting you help your lower preferences. A sort of electoral 
euthanasia.

Someone said that because IRV doesn't let lower preferences hurt higher 
ones, that means that IRV has no incentive for truncation. That isn't quite 
so. Saying that lower preferences can't hurt higher ones isn't quite the 
same as saying that adding more candidates to your ranking can't worsen the 
outcome for you. As I said before, Professor Steven Brams published an 
example refuting the claim that IRV never rewards truncation.

All four majority defensive strategy criteria measure for the popular 
standards of majority rule and getting rid of the lesser-of-2-evils problem.

Mike Ossipoff

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From anthony_duff at yahoo.com.au  Mon Dec 29 03:11:02 2003
From: anthony_duff at yahoo.com.au (=?iso-8859-1?q?Anthony=20Duff?=)
Date: Mon Dec 29 03:11:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
In-Reply-To: <20031227204412.74150.qmail@web13810.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20031229111026.8177.qmail@web40707.mail.yahoo.com>

 --- Kevin Venzke <stepjak at yahoo.fr> wrote: 

> 
> Anthony Duff suggested that MinMax meets Later-no-harm.  I don't
> think
> that's correct, though.

I made the suggestion on the basis of:
http://www.mail-archive.com/election-methods-electorama.com at lists.electorama.com/msg00018.html
(Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2003 17:53:42 -0800)

where Markus Schulze wrote"
"In another paper, Woodall proves that no election method can
simultaneously meet later-no-harm, later-no-help, monotonicity,
and mutual majority. Therefore, the fact that Minimax(pairwise
opposition) violates mutual majority in such a drastic manner
can be considered a consequence of the fact that it meets
later-no-harm, later-no-help, and monotonicity."



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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Mon Dec 29 10:19:09 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Mon Dec 29 10:19:09 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
Message-ID: <3FF06F95.8036802A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Hallo,

suppose N is the number of candidates. Suppose d[i,j]
with i <> j is the number of voters who strictly prefer
candidate i to candidate j. Suppose d[i,j] : = 0 for i = j.
Suppose d[i] : = max { d[i,j] | j = 1,...,N }.

Then Minimax(pairwise opposition) chooses the candidate i
with minimal d[i].

Minimax(pairwise opposition) satisfies later-no-harm because
ranking an additional candidate can only increase but not
decrease d[k] for every not ranked candidate k. However,
my claim that Minimax(pairwise opposition) satisfies
later-no-help was incorrect.

Markus Schulze


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Mon Dec 29 14:08:04 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Mon Dec 29 14:08:04 2003
Subject: [EM] "DOC," A method meeting ENHarm and Majority
Message-ID: <20031229213545.87279.qmail@web13811.mail.yahoo.com>

Here is a method that meets earlier-no-harm and Majority (or at least,
Majority Favorite).  It's called "Descending Opposing Coalitions" or
"DOC" and it's basically the flipped version of DSC.  Like DSC, I
believe it also meets Participation, Clone Independence, and a lot of
Monotonicity.

Every possible set of candidates is given a score equal to the number
of voters who voted that those candidates are strictly the worst of
all the candidates.  They're arranged in descending order of score.
The set of potential winners initially includes all the candidates.
Each set in the list is taken in turn, and all candidates in the set
are deleted from the set of potential winners, unless that would leave
no potential winners, in which case the set is ignored.  Last candidate
left is the winner.

If your ballot was A=B>C>D, changing it to A>B>C>D can only cause set
"BCD" to rise in the list.  All you're doing is making it more likely
that B, C, or D will be eliminated.  So DOC meets ENHarm but not ENHelp.

This meets Majority Favorite because if a majority rank A as their sole
favorite, then the set of all other candidates must be higher on the
list than any set which contains A.  I believe a similar argument can
be made that DOC meets Majority generally.

To my dismay, it seems that earlier-no-harm does not imply Strong FBC.
Consider:

11 C>A
7 A
9 B
10 D>B

C wins this.  (I'm not claiming this is a GOOD method.)  Note that, in
accordance with ENHarm, the D voters can't get anything by voting "D=B."
To make B win, they have to insincerely rank B first.  This is not a
failure of ENHarm, but it is a failure of FBC.

Do methods which satisfy later-no-harm (or earlier-no-harm) necessarily
have order-reversal incentive?


Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From donald at mich.com  Mon Dec 29 22:20:13 2003
From: donald at mich.com (Donald Davison)
Date: Mon Dec 29 22:20:13 2003
Subject: [EM] Craig's Folly and Dan's Folly are two peas in a pod:
Message-ID: <v01520d00bc164c9e0470@[64.79.80.35]>

Greetings list members,

I had written:
"Craig is not alone in this lack of understanding of election methods.
On the IRV list, someone asked if IRV could be used to elect two
members to a city council.  Dan, who is an official of the Center for
Voting and Democracy replied and suggested that IRV be run two times.
Once to elect one member and a second time to elect the second member,
bypassing the name of the first winner during the routine of the
second run of IRV."

And Craig replied: "It does sound quite bad."


Donald here:  Hello Craig, good to see that we agree on something.

For the sake of a discussion I am going to give Dan's two seat method the
name of `Dan's Folly'.

It was no accident that I placed Dan's Folly after the text of your method
you call `2 winner 3 candidate IFPP'.  It was put there on purpose for you
and others to realize that the two methods were exactly the same.

Yes Craig, if you are the `Gifted Mathematician' that some love struck
female thinks you are, then you should have seen this to be true.  Maybe
you are also love struck, and being as love is blind, you have the perfect
excuse for not seeing things - you're off the hook.

Anyway, putting your love life aside, I will continue.

The two methods have all parts exactly the same:
    * They both use ranked ballots.
    * They both are two seat election methods.
    * They both elect the first candidate that has more than a quota.
      While IRV does not have an official quota, in this case the
      IRV first winner does win by more than what would be a quota.
    * They both transfer all ballots of the first winner to the next
      preferences.
    * They both elect the next leading candidate after the transfer
      as the second elected member.

The two methods are exactly the same, and being as we agree that one is
`quite bad', it only follows that both are quite bad.  A bad method by any
other name will still be bad.  Craig's Folly and Dan's Folly are two peas
in a pod.

You don't need to be a `Gifted Mathematician' to understand the math of
this logic. "If two methods are equal, then whatever is one of the methods,
the other method is the same."

This is the failure of your Craig's Folly `under a correct rule'.


Donald,




From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Mon Dec 29 22:45:02 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Mon Dec 29 22:45:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
In-Reply-To: <3FF06F95.8036802A@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <20031229204134.87773.qmail@web13803.mail.yahoo.com>

Anthony Duff wrote:
>I made the suggestion on the basis of:
>where Markus Schulze wrote"
>"In another paper, Woodall proves that no election method can
>simultaneously meet later-no-harm, later-no-help, monotonicity,
>and mutual majority. Therefore, the fact that Minimax(pairwise
>opposition) violates mutual majority in such a drastic manner
>can be considered a consequence of the fact that it meets
>later-no-harm, later-no-help, and monotonicity."

I see; I didn't think you might be talking about opposition instead
of defeats.  Sorry.

Seems clear to me now.  Inserting a strict preference among candidates
otherwise ranked last can only hurt the candidates who remain last.

 --- Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de> a ?crit?: 
> Hallo,
> 
> suppose N is the number of candidates. Suppose d[i,j]
> with i <> j is the number of voters who strictly prefer
> candidate i to candidate j. Suppose d[i,j] : = 0 for i = j.
> Suppose d[i] : = max { d[i,j] | j = 1,...,N }.
> 
> Then Minimax(pairwise opposition) chooses the candidate i
> with minimal d[i].

Perhaps I am a flaming idiot, but shouldn't it be
d[i] := max { d[j,i] | j = 1,...,N }
?  You want votes against i, not i's votes against others, don't
you?

> 
> Minimax(pairwise opposition) satisfies later-no-harm because
> ranking an additional candidate can only increase but not
> decrease d[k] for every not ranked candidate k. However,
> my claim that Minimax(pairwise opposition) satisfies
> later-no-help was incorrect.

I can see this now, too.  Worsening someone's score could happen
to make a preferred candidate into the winner.  That is surely why
random filling always makes more sense than truncation.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 30 00:06:01 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 30 00:06:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Defensive truncation in wv Condorcet
Message-ID: <LAW10-F4556FtZo1P4l00065041@hotmail.com>

Kevin Venzke wrote:

I can see this now, too.  Worsening someone's score could happen
to make a preferred candidate into the winner.  That is surely why
random filling always makes more sense than truncation.

I reply:

Not always. If there's a danger or likelihooid of offensive order-reversal, 
and you want to deter it, then leave out of your ranking the candidate(s) 
whose voters are considering offensive order-reversal. Announce before the 
election that you are doing so and that you ask others to do so.

Mike Ossipoff

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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 30 01:16:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 30 01:16:02 2003
Subject: [EM] Earlier-no-harm
Message-ID: <3FF12E33.7ED6ABCF@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Kevin,

you wrote (29 Dec 2003):
> Shouldn't it be d[i] := max { d[j,i] | j = 1,...,N } ?

Yes. You are right.

Markus Schulze


From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Tue Dec 30 13:20:01 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Tue Dec 30 13:20:01 2003
Subject: [EM] Defensive truncation in wv Condorcet
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-F4556FtZo1P4l00065041@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031230211825.15833.qmail@web13803.mail.yahoo.com>

Mike,

My remarks were about MinMax (Pairwise Opposition), which elects the
candidate who minimizes the maximum votes against him in any pairwise
contest (be it victory or defeat).

Admittedly I don't know much about offensive strategy for this method.
Burial seems potentially effective.  But truncation doesn't appear to
be a useful strategy of any kind in "MMPO."

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr

 --- MIKE OSSIPOFF <nkklrp at hotmail.com> a ?crit?: > 
> Kevin Venzke wrote:
> 
> I can see this now, too.  Worsening someone's score could happen
> to make a preferred candidate into the winner.  That is surely why
> random filling always makes more sense than truncation.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Not always. If there's a danger or likelihooid of offensive order-reversal, 
> and you want to deter it, then leave out of your ranking the candidate(s) 
> whose voters are considering offensive order-reversal. Announce before the 
> election that you are doing so and that you ask others to do so.
> 
> Mike Ossipoff


_________________________________________________________________
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From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Tue Dec 30 13:48:11 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Tue Dec 30 13:48:11 2003
Subject: [EM] MinMax definition, Tideman properties
In-Reply-To: <3FF12E33.7ED6ABCF@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <20031230214751.71965.qmail@web13806.mail.yahoo.com>

Markus,

In Woodall's "Properties of single-winner preferential election rules II,"
bottom of page 11, the last paragraph reads:

"MinAGS (Minimum Augmented Gross Score) is also well-known as the minimax
method, abbreviated MM in [Monotonicity of single-seat preferential election
rules].  It elects the candidate X with the largest minimum augmented
gross score minags(X), which is the same as the candidate with the largest
minimum net score minns(X)."

The "augmented gross score" of A over B should be the number of voters
ranking A>B plus half the number of votes not distinguishing the two.

Despite the name "minimax," this definition looks for the maximum minimum.
This has confused me for some time.  Does the definition look right to
you?

Also, do you have an opinion as to whether Woodall is aware of Tideman(WV)?
He defines TidAGS and TidGS which to me appear to be Margins and All-Votes
respectively (page 14).  TidGS is supposed to have equivalent properties to
"D min GS," which is charted (page 17) as failing Condorcet.

Thanks for any help.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de  Tue Dec 30 18:43:02 2003
From: markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de (Markus Schulze)
Date: Tue Dec 30 18:43:02 2003
Subject: [EM] MinMax definition, Tideman properties
Message-ID: <3FF2373F.DB4E431B@alumni.tu-berlin.de>

Dear Kevin,

Woodall uses the following terminology:

   v is the number of voters.

   g(x,y) is the number of voters who strictly prefer
   candidate x to candidate y.

   n (x,y) := g(x,y) - g(y,x).
   g1(x,y) := 0.5 * [v + n(x,y)].
   g2(x,y) := v - g(y,x).

   mings(x)   := min { g (x,y) : y e C \ {x} }.
   minags(x)  := min { g1(x,y) : y e C \ {x} }.
   mindags(x) := min { g2(x,y) : y e C \ {x} }.
   minns(x)   := min { n (x,y) : y e C \ {x} } = 0.5 * [v + minags(x)].

   MinAGS (Minimum Augmented Gross Score) is also well known as the
   minimax method. It elects the candidate x with the largest minimum
   augmented gross score minags(x), which is the same as the candidate
   with the largest minimum net score minns(x).
   MinDAGS (Minimum Doubly Augmented Gross Score) elects the candidate
   x with the largest minimum doubly augmented gross score mindags(x).

******

So when we compare Woodall's terminology with the terminology used
in this mailing list then "g1" is "margins" and "g2" is "Minus Pairwise
Opposition". "MinAGS" is "MinMax(Margins)" and "MinDAGS" is
"MinMax(Pairwise Opposition)".

You wrote (30 Dec 2003):
> Despite the name "minimax," this definition looks for the maximum
> minimum. This has confused me for some time.  Does the definition
> look right to you?

When "margins" is being used then it is the same whether you use
the minimum maximum or the maximum minimum.

The reason why Woodall uses the maximum minimum in the definition
of "MinDAGS" is that he defines "mindags(x)" in such a manner that
mindags(x) decreases with increasing pairwise opposition because
of his definition of "g2".

******

You wrote (30 Dec 2003):
> Also, do you have an opinion as to whether Woodall is aware of
> Tideman(WV)? He defines TidAGS and TidGS which to me appear to be
> Margins and All-Votes respectively (page 14).  TidGS is supposed
> to have equivalent properties to "D min GS," which is charted
> (page 17) as failing Condorcet.

There is no need to define Tideman(WV). Already the fact that the
g(x,y) are sorted according to their strengths and that each g(x,y)
is taken in turn until you have a complete ranking of all candidates,
guarantees that those g(i,j) with g(i,j) < g(j,i) will never be
taken into consideration. I don't see yet why TidGS and TidDAGS
fail Condorcet(net) in table 2.

Markus Schulze


From moore3t1 at cox.net  Tue Dec 30 19:05:14 2003
From: moore3t1 at cox.net (Richard Moore)
Date: Tue Dec 30 19:05:14 2003
Subject: [EM] Re: Election-methods digest, Vol 1 #405 - 5 msgs
In-Reply-To: <20031230200142.1136.41484.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
References: <20031230200142.1136.41484.Mailman@geronimo.dreamhost.com>
Message-ID: <3FF23C65.4070404@cox.net>

Donald Davison wrote:
> The two methods [2-pass IRV or "Dan's Folly", and 2-winner 3-candidate IFPP or "Craig's Folly"]
 > have all parts exactly the same:
>     * They both use ranked ballots.
>     * They both are two seat election methods.
>     * They both elect the first candidate that has more than a quota.
>       While IRV does not have an official quota, in this case the
>       IRV first winner does win by more than what would be a quota.
>     * They both transfer all ballots of the first winner to the next
>       preferences.
>     * They both elect the next leading candidate after the transfer
>       as the second elected member.
> 
> The two methods are exactly the same, and being as we agree that one is
> `quite bad', it only follows that both are quite bad.  A bad method by any
> other name will still be bad.  Craig's Folly and Dan's Folly are two peas
> in a pod.

Can anybody spot the flaw in Donald's logic here? In fact all of 
Donald's statements are true, but he reached an unsupported conclusion.

This is a subtle non sequitur. In the fourth statement, Donald says 
"They both transfer all ballots of the first winner to the next 
preferences." This is true. However, the "first winner" is not always 
the same in both methods.

Consider the following case:

32: ACB
64: BAC
33: CBA

The first winner in IRV is C. C's first place votes transfer to B. The 
second winner is B.

The first winner in IFPP is B. B's first place votes transfer to A. 
The second winner is A.

> You don't need to be a `Gifted Mathematician' to understand the math of
> this logic.

I guess the irony of this statement is unintentional.

  -- Richard



From nkklrp at hotmail.com  Tue Dec 30 23:22:02 2003
From: nkklrp at hotmail.com (MIKE OSSIPOFF)
Date: Tue Dec 30 23:22:02 2003
Subject: [EM] "MinMax" can mean almost anything
Message-ID: <Law10-F34NM0bYagF1H00003637@hotmail.com>

Kevin said:

My remarks were about MinMax (Pairwise Opposition), which elects the
candidate who minimizes the maximum votes against him in any pairwise
contest (be it victory or defeat).

I repy:

I thought you were referring to PC, because some people on this list call PC 
"MinMax".

You see, this is why I've tried to discourage "MinMax" as a name for PC: 
"MinMax" is used with too many different meanings for it to be of any use as 
the name of a count method.

Mike Ossipoff

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From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Wed Dec 31 13:10:10 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Wed Dec 31 13:10:10 2003
Subject: [EM] "MinMax" can mean almost anything
In-Reply-To: <Law10-F34NM0bYagF1H00003637@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20031231210926.25550.qmail@web13802.mail.yahoo.com>

Mike,

 --- MIKE OSSIPOFF <nkklrp at hotmail.com> a ?crit?: > 
> Kevin said:
> 
> My remarks were about MinMax (Pairwise Opposition), which elects the
> candidate who minimizes the maximum votes against him in any pairwise
> contest (be it victory or defeat).
> 
> I repy:
> 
> I thought you were referring to PC, because some people on this list call PC 
> "MinMax".
> 
> You see, this is why I've tried to discourage "MinMax" as a name for PC: 
> "MinMax" is used with too many different meanings for it to be of any use as 
> the name of a count method.

I have in the past used "MMPO" for "MinMax (Pairwise Opposition)."  If it
hasn't caught on, it's probably because I'm the only one who ever advocated it 
(with approval ballots).

I think "MinMax" is a good name for "PC" because it's descriptive.  Perhaps
it could be made more descriptive, though.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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From stepjak at yahoo.fr  Wed Dec 31 13:39:01 2003
From: stepjak at yahoo.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Kevin=20Venzke?=)
Date: Wed Dec 31 13:39:01 2003
Subject: [EM] MinMax definition, Tideman properties
In-Reply-To: <3FF2373F.DB4E431B@alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Message-ID: <20031231213747.29874.qmail@web13803.mail.yahoo.com>

Markus,

Thank you, that was helpful.

 --- Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de> a ?crit?: 
> Dear Kevin,
> 
> Woodall uses the following terminology:
>    g(x,y) is the number of voters who strictly prefer
>    candidate x to candidate y.
> 
>    mings(x)   := min { g (x,y) : y e C \ {x} }.

"mings" seems to be a rather useless figure.  If you clone a candidate
X to get X and Y, such that no voter distinguishes between X and Y,
mings(x) drops suddenly to 0.

> When "margins" is being used then it is the same whether you use
> the minimum maximum or the maximum minimum.
> 
> The reason why Woodall uses the maximum minimum in the definition
> of "MinDAGS" is that he defines "mindags(x)" in such a manner that
> mindags(x) decreases with increasing pairwise opposition because
> of his definition of "g2".

Ok.  I hadn't even attempted to figure out what MinDAGS was.

> There is no need to define Tideman(WV). Already the fact that the
> g(x,y) are sorted according to their strengths and that each g(x,y)
> is taken in turn until you have a complete ranking of all candidates,
> guarantees that those g(i,j) with g(i,j) < g(j,i) will never be
> taken into consideration. I don't see yet why TidGS and TidDAGS
> fail Condorcet(net) in table 2.

Ok.  So WV and All-Votes are equivalent with Tideman, but not Schulze.

I believe Woodall made a mistake.  It's clear that "D min GS" doesn't
meet Condorcet(net).  It is (page 18):

"DminGS is the set-intersection method in which each set X is given its
minimum gross score mings(X), defined by mings(X):=min{g(x,y) : x e X,
y e C \ X}."

Unlike TidGS, losing opposition votes can affect the winner.  So perhaps
Woodall didn't realize this is not the case with TidGS.

Kevin Venzke
stepjak at yahoo.fr


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