[EM] Deciding which Candidates to Approve

[Russ Paielli]

Hi folks,

As you may recall, when Mike Ossipoff backed out of ElectionMethods.org 
a couple of months ago and declared that it was "canceled," he demanded 
that I remove all the material that he had a hand in. I had written most 
of the articles myself, but he had written the original drafts of three 
or four of them. I have since removed those articles.

Three of the articles Mike had written were on Approval "strategy." I 
removed those articles, but I have now written one short article to 
replace them. I would appreciate any feedback on them, particularly if 
you find any errors. They can be found at 
http://ElectionMethods.org/Approval-formula.htm .

As I wrote before, I had been lazy and depended on Mike to some extent 
for source material. What I discovered in researching Approval 
"strategy" myself is that Mike's articles made a very simple problem 
seem very complicated. The "strategy" boils down to a single, short 
inequality, but Mike got wrapped around the axle trying to explain it. 
Mike also failed to recognize that there is really only one "strategy," 
with several corollaries for special cases.

Mike is a real character. He still occasionally posts a message about 
Approval "strategy" in which he implies that he has discovered something 
new. Then he has the nerve to chide me for pointing out the *real* 
potential problem with Approval, which is that voters will depend 
largely on polling results, which could be inaccurate or deliberately 
manipulated. Mike completely fails to understand the problem because he 
is an uneducated amateur.

In one very condescending reply to one of my earlier messages, Mike wrote,

"But the "Smith set" that Approval converges to is what is called the 
sincere Smith set, the set of candidates who are all publicly preferred 
to every candidate outside that set--where X is publicly preferred to Y 
if more voters prefer X to Y than vice-versa."

What Mike failed to point out, and probably doesn't even know, is that 
his statement may be true in a limited sense, it has little bearing on 
reality. Approval may "converge on the sincere Smith set" if voters base 
their votes on previous elections only (ignoring pre-election polls), 
and if EVERYTHING IS STATIC. In other words, it is only true if all the 
candidates are the same and the issues and concerns of voters haven't 
changed one bit from previous elections. Is that reality? Of course not. 
But in Mike's little world, reality doesn't matter much. Clue for Mike: 
some voters actually check out candidates rather than blindly voting for 
party only.

The difference between Mike and me is that I realize I am an amateur in 
the field of voting systems, but he thinks he is a professional. I *am* 
a professional in another field (aerospace engineering), and I have 
published several peer-reviewed technical papers 
(http://RussP.org/publist.htm), so I at least have some inkling about 
what it means to be a professional. I realize that I am have not made 
any original contributions to the theory of election methods (unless you 
count "summability"). On the other hand, Mike is not a professional in 
any field, yet he is a legend in his own mind on election methods.

Has Mike ever published a peer-reviewed paper on election methods? Has 
he ever even published a conference paper? Has he written a book or even 
an article in a widely read publication? If so, I'll be amazed. I'll bet 
he got more exposure through ElectionMethods.org than he will ever get 
anywhere else, and that was only because I had the idea and technical 
expertise to put it together. Mike couldn't produce his own web site if 
his life depended on it. Poor Mike. What a pathetic figure he is.

Without his crap, I believe ElectionMethods.org will be a much better 
and more informative website for the general public.