[EM] Ease of Voting

[Dave Ketchum]

Thanks.

I read agreement that Condorcet is easiest, followed by IRV.

I still place Plurality third, while conceding that Approval is close 
enough that I do not object to your choice.  Plurality only requires 
picking one candidate to rank first, while Approval always requires 
deciding whether to add one more to my approved list,

On Fri, 21 May 2004 05:46:46 +0000 MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:

> 
> I agree with most of what you said. Condorcet is the easy-voting method. 
> Little or no need for any kind of strategy. Just rank sincerely, as we 
> did in the recent EM poll.
> 
> It's true that IRV has strategy problems that will sometimes be serious.
> 
> Approval isn't so difficult. Its strategy is no more complicated than 
> that of Plurality, and Approval doesn't have the major dilemmas that 
> Plurality has.
> 
> I ususally suggest these Approval strategies:
> 
> I. If you rate the candidates in 2 sets such that the merit differences 
> with the 2 sets are negligible compared to the merit difference between 
> the 2 sets, then vote (only) for the better set.
> 
> II. Otherwise:
> 
> A. If it's a 0-info election (no information about other people's 
> preferences or which candidates are most likely to be the top 2 
> contenders),  then vote (only) for the above-mean candidates.
> 
> B. If it isn't 0-info:
> 
> 1. Best Frontrunner strategy:
> 
> This is how people usually vote in Plurality: Vote for whichever of the 
> 2 expected top 2 contenders you prefer to the other. But, since it's 
> Approval, vote also for everyone whom you like better than hir.
> 
> At the electionmethods.org website, at the Approval Strategy pages, I 
> describe refinement and elaboration of Best Frontrunner.
> 
> 2. Better Than Expectation:
> 
> Vote for every candidate whom you'd rather have in office than hold the 
> election. That is, every candidate who is better than your expected 
> value of the election, _given the assumption that the candidate 
> currently under consideration is one of the top-2 contenders_.  (It's 
> clearer to say it that way, but more precisely, one of the 2 candidates 
> between whom your ballot can make or break a tie).
> Remember that if that candidate is, for instance, a progressive, then 
> the electorate must be rather progressive, and that affects your 
> estimate of the value of the election under the assumption that s/he is 
> a top-2 contender. Is s/he better than the value of the election under 
> that assumption? Then vote for hir.
> 
> 3. Better/Worse:
> 
> Pb is the probability that if X is one of the top 2 contenders, the 
> other top 2 contender will be someone better than X. Pw is the 
> probability that the other top-2 contender will be someone worse than X.
> 
> Db is the expected amount by which the other top-2 contender will be 
> better than X if s/he is better than X.
> 
> Dw is the expect amount by which the other top-2 contender will be worse 
> than X if s/he is worse than X.
> 
> Vote for X iff:
> 
> PbDb < PwDw
> 
> That can be rewritten:
> 
> Pb/Pw < Dw/Db
> 
> Either of those is good; it's just a matter of whiich seems easeir to 
> estimate.
> Again, though, the estimates for Pb, Pw, Db & Dw should take into 
> account your assumption that X will be one of the top 2 contenders.
> 
> If X is a progressive, and is a top-2 contender, then of course other 
> progressives have an improved chance of being the other top-2 contender 
> and that affects your estimates for those 4 quantities.
> 
> Mike Ossipoff

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  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
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