[EM] Re: majority rule criteria--alternative nomenclature

[James Green-Armytage]

>I just don't think it is reasonable to call any method
>but plurality itself a "plurality method" or to dismiss
>approval voting as only marginally better than plurality.

	Well, I think it's better than plurality, but it's probably worse than a
version of IRV that allows voters to rank candidates equally. If ranked
ballots and iterative votes are totally out of the question, then I'll be
quite happy to use approval.
>
>I'm not a voting methods expert -- certainly much less
>so than you and many other participants on this list. 

	Well, you can learn most of what I know by reading my web site
fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/voting.htm

>I'm
>not even clear about the meaning of some of the terms you
>use, including "mutual majority criterion" and "minimal
>dominant set efficiency," which is why I can't address
>some of your arguments.

	Mutual majority criterion: "If there is a majority of voters for which it
is true that they all rank a set of candidates above all others, then one
of these candidates must win." This definition from Blake Cretney's page,
http://condorcet.org/emr/criteria.shtml
	The minimal dominant set is the smallest set of candidates such that
every candidate within the set has a pairwise victory over every candidate
outside the set. It's also known as the Smith set and the GeTChA set. If
there is a Condorcet winner, then this candidate is the sole member of the
minimal dominant set.
>
>Nevertheless, from everything I have read and figured out
>on my own, approval is far better then plurality for all
>voting situations (i.e., situations ranging from informal
>groups needing to make quick decisions to presidential
>elections), and 

	I'm not arguing against it being better than plurality.

>in  some situations (especially small
>informal groups needing to make quick decisions), approval
>is far and away the best method -- indeed, the only very
>good method that I'm aware of.

	If these are not high-stakes decisions, then yes, I can see how approval
could be applicable. Ideally, you would like to find an option that is
approved-of by all members of the group. But once the decision becomes
important and/or contentious enough that majority rule becomes necessary,
then I think that approval is no longer ideal. Better would be some kind
of Condorcet-efficient procedure, either using a ranked ballot or
iterative votes.
>
>Now if you and Steven Brams were to debate approval voting
>and you were to persuade all or most people attending the
>debate that he has been a fool for advocating it all these
>years, then I might change my mind. But I really doubt that
>you could do that. My guess is that if you tried in such
>a debate to argue that approval is only marginally better
>than plurality, Brams would prove that it is you, not he,
>who deserves to be called a fool.

	Okay, this is kind of lame, defending your opinion by hiding behind
someone whose arguments you don't fully understand. If I told you that
Einstein thought that approval voting was worthless, but I don't really
know why he thought that, would it make my argument any better?
>
>Ultimately, whether or not approval or other methods are
>"majority" methods is a question of debatable definitions.

	Right, that's what I'm doing here: discussing those definitions. I think
that it's important to note the ways that methods like approval, CR, and
Borda do not guarantee majority rule. If you don't think that it's
important, then feel free to stop discussing it with me.
>
>If approval voting would result in a Condorcet winner
>95% of the time (just a guess, of course), that would be
>sufficient for many people who are less perfectionistic
>than you to regard it as a majority method.

	Is plurality a majority rule method? Some people might say that it is,
but I think that they're wrong, because it fails the mutual majority
criterion. I think that it's important to differentiate between
majoritarian and non-majoritarian methods.
>
>Moreover, any process for making collective decisions,
>including plurality voting and even some random selection
>processes, could be considered a majority process if
>it were chosen by a majority of voters and they agreed
>beforehand to accept the outcome of the process.

	That's a stretch.
>

>In fact, I believe there are many situations where voter
>approved random selection processes, especially ones
>modified to insure proportional representation by qualified
>people of major ethnic and other interest groups, would be
>preferable to elections, no matter what voting method
>were used. But that's a subject for another discussion.
>
	Yikes. Ethnic groups and interest groups? I really disagree there. Gives
everyone an incentive to form their own interest group, which is not
something I want at all. More importantly, it artificially perpetuates
feelings of "otherness" that are a primary cause of mistrust, prejudice,
etc. I know that they have this in some countries, and I can see its
value, but in the long run, I don't think that it's ideal. If you want a
system that doesn't impose a tyranny of the majority, I suggest a fluid
system of proportional representation based on single transferable vote,
plus supermajority requirements for a lot of the major decisions.

Sincerely,
James Green-Armytage