[EM] WDS reply to Dave Ketchum elementary questions re range voting

[Dave Ketchum]

On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 00:46:04 -0400 Warren Smith wrote:

> Dave K:
> 
>>Range voting is very robustly the best among about 30 systems tried including
>>a couple condorcet systems  according to my giant
>>comparative Bayesian regret study in 2000.  OK, maybe you can attack that.
>>Maybe you can say I did not put in your favorite system or favorite
>>voting strategy.  (Some of the systems I am being attacked for, were not even 
>>invented at the time I did the study.)   Those attacks don't matter:
>>The bottom line is, you should now be convinced range is pretty damn good - even
>>if not the tippy top best among all possible systems ever proposed r
>>that ever will be proposed, it clearly is in the top few percent - as far 
>>as quality is concerned, and it
>>does not seem to exhibit any major exploitable weaknesses since
>>it scored top in EVERY one of 144 different parameter settings.
>>
>>
> Who says this, other than you as inventor bragging about how good you claim your child can run?
> 
> What is the definition of range voting?
> 
> In the paragraphs I dropped I read that you did Condorcet margins for 
> method comparison, while others agree that wv is a stronger contender. 
> You also excluded equal ranking - another component of "normal" Condorcet 
> that makes it more attractive to many.
> 
> 
>>Also range (with single digit scores)
>>can be adopted right now on every voting machine in the USA without
>>any modification necessary.  The worst you can say is on some machine types
>>it would be inconvenient.  (And this adoptibility is false for IRV & Condorcet.)
>>
>>
> This is even more of a stretch than many of the sales pitch paragraphs.  How can this be made to hap
> pen?


I did go back and look at the site more carefully.

It has heard of NY and lever machines - exactly what I vote on and think 
about.  Says they are able to handle elections with up to 300 candidates.

With range chewing up slots 10 times as fast as plurality, capacity 
shrinks to 30 candidates.

Enough for a special election, but not enough for a normal general 
election, so SOMETHING would have to be modified to do range here.

NOTE:  This, itself, is not that big a deal, but I am trying to make the 
point that the inventor bragging needs to be sobered up with some serious 
analysis looking for problems.

DWK

> 
> --WDS REPLY:  Sorry.  You can get your questions answered by going to the
> CRV web site  http://math.temple.edu/~wds/crv/RangeVoting.html.
> 
> That site deifnes exactly what range voting is, on the front page.
> 
> My recent argument that range voting is something all voting reform
> advocates MUST unify behind, EVEN if they prefer something else, is
> there (click "forced" on left) in  more detail than I presented it here
> on EM.  Fewer grammar errors too.
> My study comparing different voting systems via Bayesian regret
> was    http://math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/works.html  #56.
> Since I am not the "inventor" of range voting, my "bragging about
> my invention" claim is a false hypothesis by you.  (I did invent the *name*
> "range voting" though. :)  The CRV web page also explains how to do
> it on plurality machines without modification:  Click VotingMachines on the left.
> 
> You are correct my sim study did not include wv-condorcet as a contender.
> because equal rankings were not allowed by my sim study, and full rankings
> of all candidates were demanded, it followed that
> margins and wv both always give the same results.  You may object to that
> and regard it as a limitiation of the sim study.   You may be right about
> that.  My sim study was mainly based on voting systems described in books and papers.
> I still have not seen wv-condorcet with equality rankings described in a book,
> much less in books available in 1999.  I must apologize for my
> lack of foresight.   Nevertheless, my sim study does suffice for the purpose
> of seeing range voting is pretty damn good compared to all systems in that study
> of which there were about 30, and also for the purpose of QUANTIFYING how good it is.
> 
> The CRV web page also allows you to BE a range voter by clicking "try demo"
> on the left.  Try it and see what you think.
> wds

-- 
  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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