[EM] Range Voting (CR), one of the best methods

[Toplak Jurij]

Yesterday I came across a series of interesting papers on Range voting
written by Warren D.Smith. Those interested see the papers under the title
"56. Range Voting" on http://math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/works.html

  a.. TITLE: Range Voting
  b.. abstract;
  c.. ps file (28 pages); pdf;
  d.. Attempt to summarize paper in 1 picture (ps file)!
  e.. C program for monte carlo voting study;
  f.. data output by that program;
  g.. possible press release about this work;
  h.. questions and answers about range voting;
  i.. Why range voting is superior to IRV voting;
  j.. Why range voting is better than Borda voting;
  k.. Why range voting is better than Approval voting;
  l.. Possible language for a ballot proposition to adopt range voting &
outlaw gerrymandering;
  m.. Possible strategy to get the USA to adopt range voting;
  n.. opinion piece about voting;
  o.. Smith's replies to www criticisms of range voting (multipage);
  p.. AUTHOR: Warren D.Smith
  q.. DATE: 11/28/00
Best wishes for 2005,

Jurij Toplak



>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
>
> Ralph Suter wrote:
>
> Will someone on the list who has studied range voting and compared it to
> Condorcet, approval, and other methods please comment on Doug Greene's
> paper? He
> appears to be saying that range voting is superior to all other single
> winner
> methods. Are there good arguments against this conclusion? Does range
voting
> have serious flaws? If so, could someone briefly summarize them?
>
> Thanks,
> Ralph Suter
>
>
> It has no serious flaws.
>
> Range Voting is also called Cardinal Ratings (CR). It's strategically
> equivalent to Approval, and that makes CR one of the best methods.
>
> Personally I prefer Condorcet to Approval and CR, but, among practical
> proposals, Approval & CR are a close 2nd. I prefer Condorcet because I
like
> the luxury of sincerely voting as many pairwise preferences as I want to,
as
> many preference levels as I want to.
>
> Approval & CR will quickly home in on the voter median, and then stay
there.
> Maybe Approval or CR will arrive there after one or two elections.
Condorcet
> will go there immediately.
>
> Let me say what I mean by CR. It's probably the same thing that Range
Voting
> means:
>
> Cardinal Ratings (CR):
>
> Each voter may give to any candidate any number of points, within some
> pre-specified range. The winner is the candidate who receives the most
> points.
>
> [end of CR definition]
>
> Approval, of course is a CR version, the simplest one. The 0,1 CR version.
>
> Other CR versions include 0-10 CR, 0-100, -10 to 10, -100 to 100, and
> -1,0,1.
>
> I say that they're all equivalent to Approval because one's best strategy
to
> maximize expectation is to give maximum points to the candidates for whom
> one would vote if it were an Approval election, and give minimum points to
> the others.
>
> Approval is my favorite, because of that equivalency, and because of
> Approval's elegant simplicity.
>
> But Approval may be the most difficult CR version to propose, because most
> people haven't heard of it, and sometimes give a fallacious "1 person 1
> vote" objection to Approval. This isn't the place to answer that, so I'll
> just say that that objection is easily answered, in a number of ways. But
it
> would be better to avoid the objection.
>
> One way to avoid it would be to, from the start, offer Approval as a point
> system, one in which we can give to any candidate 0 points or 1 point. The
> simplest point system. Then people wouldn't misperceive Approval as
illegal
> Plurality voting.
>
> Another way to avoid that objecion, and Approval's unfamiliarity would be
to
> propose one of the other CR versions. They're much more familiar.
Everyone's
> been asked to rate things from 1 to 10, and so 0-10 isn't unfamiliar, for
> instance.
>
> And the CR versions allowing negative ratings, though they're essentially

> the same as the other versions, have the great advantage that many people
> would very much like to give negative points.
>
> For that reason, the negative points CR versions may be the most winnable
of
> all. Of those, -1,0,1 is the simplest and most easily implemented. Because
> of initiatives that let us vote yes or no on a list of initiatives, we can
> implement -1,0,1 easily with existing equipment & software.
>
> Of course the ballot needn't (but still could) offer all 3 point options
> (-1, 0 and 1). It could just offer -1 or 1; or Yes or No. Not voting
either
> would assign 0 points.
>
> CR, then, may be the most winnable of all the good voting systems, due to
> its familiarity and simplicilty. And the negative points versions might be
> the most winnable of those. And the easily-implemented -1,0,1 is probably
my
> favorite public proposal among those.
>
> With all the CR versions, as with Approval, no one ever has any incentive
to
> vote someone over their favorite. That can't strictly be said for any
other
> method. Of course IRV violates that criterion often. Condorcet much less
so.
> Condorcete's violations of that criterion (Favorite-Betrayal Criterion, or
> FBC)
> are rare, contrived, and unimportant.
>
> Approval & the other CR versions meet WDSC:
>
> Weak Defensive Strategy Criterion (WDSC):
>
> If a majority of all the voters prefer X to Y, then they should have a way
> of voting that ensures that Y won't win, without any member of that
majority
> voting a less-liked candidate over a more-liked one.
>
> [end of WDSC definition]
>
> That criterion is also met by the better Condorcet versions, the
> "winning-votes" Condorcet versions. They meet other, stronger, similar
> criteria too.
> Those critreria can be found at:
>
> http://www.electionmethods.org   at the technical evaluation page, and at:
>
> http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/vote/sing.html
>
> Mike Ossipoff
>
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