[EM] paradigms...

[Dave Ketchum]

On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 20:57:45 +0200 Jobst Heitzig wrote:

> Dear Dave!
> 
> I truly apologize for giving you a headache, which is surely the last I
> want to cause... The thing is, although it seems to me that I try to
> make the most obvious things clear, it seems to need explanations over
> and over again. So, excuse me for repeating some arguments in reply to
> you...


You made some things clear below that you may not have realized need 
emphasizing:

     Our visions of how a ranked ballot might be put together CONFLICT.

      My vision permits identical ballots for IRV and Condorcet - what 
differs is the method of counting.

Now on Sun, 12 Sep 2004 01:35:48 -0700 Rob Lanphier <robla at robla.net> 
offers an example that fits my vision.
      He sees it for Condorcet - I see it also for IRV.
      His implementation is 5 ranks plus unranked - but more ranks is doable.
      Voter DOES NOT have to rank every candidate.
      Can have multiple candidates with same rank.
           Condorcet CAN work with this.
           I have trouble trying to do this with IRV.

> 
> you wrote:
> 
>>We are electing ONE PERSON, 
>>
> 
> Of course we do. But we do it as a group of people, by aggregating
> individual preferences which are interpreted as containing valuable
> information about which candidate is both socially optimal and a just
> and stable choice. That does *not* require each voter to have so much
> information that s/he can tell a unique first choice.
> 
> 
>>      Given an IRV ballot I proceed as you describe above (except, if I am 
>>a serious voter, I will likely do less coin tossing).
>>
> 
> So, may I ask what you would do instead when pressed to give a strict
> ranking? Because this was the imagined situation in my example... when
> ties had been allowed, the ranking would of course have been A and B
> first, C and D second. But note that that would still distort my true
> preferences in erroneously indicating a preference of B over C and of A
> over D...
> 

When we are trying to count, everything ranked has to have a position 
relative to everything else ranked - to determine this voters n+1 choice 
when choice n turns out to be a reject.

If you demand strict ordering, and that means assigning pretend ranks to 
those properly unranked, I think of tearing up the stupid ballot - your 
demand is both impossible to truly honor, and useless to honor even if 
possible.

> 
>>      Given a Condorcet ballot I proceed in EXACTLY the same way, 
>>expecting IDENTICAL results, even though the debating may use different words.
>>
> 
> Sorry, I can't follow you here. What is a "Condorcet ballot"? I know
> ranked ballots with or without ties and with or without truncation. And
> I know pairwise ballots with the possibility to vote either A>B or B>A
> for each pair A,B, hopefully with the additional possibility of voting
> A=B (equivalence) or A?B (abstention). On the other hand, the term
> "Condorcet" refers to a method not a ballot, isn't it?
> 
> 
>>      Correction - liking X1 better than X2, I do not need a coin toss to 
>>prefer B over C!
>>
> 
> Are you sure? Well, I'm not: X1 may only be slightly better than X2, but
> Y2 may be FAR better than Y1 without me knowing that because I'm not an
> expert on issue Y. In that case I would surely prefer C to B, the only
> problem is that at the moment of voting I don't have that information.
> So I would be stupid to express a preference B>C when it can easily be
> that my true preference would be C>B as soon as I get enough information.
> 

Huh!  We HAVE to vote based on what we know today.  That can include our 
prediction of what we may know tomorrow, but not possibilities for which 
we have no clue.

> 
>>      Also, not caring as to C>D vs C<D, I should not vote a nonsense 
>>implied preference between them.
>>
> 
> Your absolutely right!!! That's what the whole example is about!! I
> don't want to be forced to express nonsense preferences which I don't
> have only to be able to express some other preferences I do have. BUT
> THE RESTRICTION TO USE RANKED BALLOTS FORCES ME TO DO EXACTLY THIS, and
> that's what the example shows.
> 

Seems our two worlds have different ranked ballots.

> 
>>But, in your demonstration voting, you indicated a preference about Y that 
>>you admit here was nonsense.
>>
> 
> See above.
> 
> 
>>>>However, let's assume that the ranking system in question allows you
>>>>to, rather than flipping a coin, simply rank A and B equally.  In
>>>>other words, declare them a tie.
>>>>
>>>
>>>That would be fine as long as I could really do so! But as long as I can
>>>only express rankings I cannot do as you suggest! In a ranking, I cannot
>>>tie A=C, B=C, A=D, and B=D and simultaneously express A>B and C>D.
>>>
>>>
>>Agreed that the target you offer is impossible, BUT, it has nothing to do 
>>with whether the sentence you are responding to is valid - and I see 
>>validity there.
>>
> 
> Yes, of course, the sentence is right: if I were allowed to tie all
> pairs of candidates which I'm actually undecided about, then fine. But
> again ranked ballots do *not* allow me to do this as I explained in the
> above sentence. I did not suggest to falsly express undecidedness as
> equivalence, I only responded to that suggestion and showed that it
> doesn't lead us nowhere...
> 

I never suggested to express undecidedness as equivalence, only to be able 
to say equality when I saw it as truth.


> All the best,
> Jobst

-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
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