[EM] Approval vs rank methods

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Dave--

You wrote:


[replying to my Approval handtool analogy]

Tools vary in their abilities:
     Plurality is excellent if approving of a single candidate is all I 
desire.
     Approval fills a gap - I can approve, equally, of one or more 
candidates.
     Sometimes I want more than either of them is capable of, and desire a 
more capable tool.  Caring not where you divide tools between handtools and 
machines.

I reply:

...but you want something whose input is all of the voter's pairwise 
preferences. And presumably something that makes good use of those pairwise 
preferences, by some important standard. That requires a device, an 
automatic machine. That's what you're saying you want.

When you collect that information, you either have a good automatic 
majority-enforcement machine, or you have a shabby piece of shit like IRV.

I'd said:

Rank methods are majority-enforcing machines. A machine can be well-designed 
and high-quality, or it can be a cheap and defective machine like IRV.

You replied:

While we can agree on wanting better than IRV, since we know better is 
available, does IRV deserve your nasty words?

I reply:

I wouldn't say it otherwise.

You continued:

Easy enough to describe a possible ugly failure, but how often might such 
happen in real elections?

I reply:

Well, someone said that it would have happened in Debian's most recent 
election, if they'd been using IRV instead of Condorcet(wv).

Say there are 3 candidates, on a 1-dimensional political spectrum, with one 
between the other two. The middle candiate is a CW if the 1st choice 
popularity of all 3 candidates varies by no more than a factor of two. 
That's a sufficient but not necessary condition. All it takes is for Middle 
to be bigger than the difference between Favorite and Worst.

And then, when that's so, when Middle is CW, what is the probability that 
Middle will be eliminated first, if we have no information about their 
relative popularity? The probability is 1/3.

And even if the middle CW is favorite of more voters than any other 
candidate is, that CW is sure to lose if favoriteness-strength tapers at all 
gradually away from the median point. That's not a contrived scenario.

Then, the low-popularity candidates at the extremes will be eliminated 
first, ane their votes will transfer inward, till candidates other than the 
middle CW build up accumulated vote totals that eliminate the CW.

Several of us have posted such examples to this mailing list.

So, to answer your question, IRV's problem will happen a lot.

I'd said:

If the voters are as incompetent as they seem to show that they are, they're 
going to need a good majority-enforcing machine so that they won't have to 
incompetently make the all-or-nothing strategic decisions that the handtool 
Approval would require of them.

You reply:

While we can debate how much the voters might bother to learn, when they 
have no opportunity to use such knowledge, should we assume that none would 
learn if and when it started to make a real difference?

I reply:

Not with certainty, no. As I said, the voters haven't been tried with 
Approval, and no one can say for sure if they'd be unable to stop voting for 
corrupt lesser-evil sleaze if their favorite outpolled their greater-evil. 
But what I've been saying is that the voters' behavior so far doesn't 
justify a lot of confidence in their competence.

You continued:

Also, how can I learn to use Approval to rank candidates according the 
acceptable vs only-tolerable qualities they display.

I reply:

You can't rank candidates in 3 tiers (acceptable, only-tolerable, and 
intolerably unacceptable) with Approval. I didn't mean to give the 
impression that the voters are incompetent because they don't know how to 
rank candidates in 3 tiers with Approval.

It's the other way around: Because they're incompetent, it's probably better 
if they don't have to make the choices that Approval demands of them, the 
choice of which of their pairwise preferences to vote.

You'd said:

Approval does not let competent voters vote their decisions full strength.

I'd replied:

Corrrect: Approval doesn't _let_ people vote pairwise preferences full 
strength: It _forces_ them to.

You reply:

Do you use this refusal to see what is written when you debate with Markus?

I reply:

You need to be a little clearer about what you mean.

I said that Approval forces people vote full-strength, all-or-nothing 
preferences. It does. It doesn't allow them to. It forces them to. I stand 
by that statement.

You say I didn't notice what you wrote. No, it's that you didn't write what 
you meant. You said that
Approval doesn't let people vote their decisions full strength. On the 
contrary, every pairwise preference that someone votes in Approval is 
full-strength, in the strongest all-or-nothing sense. Full-strength in the 
exaggerated sense of top vs bottom.

What you meant was that Approval doesn't let people vote all of their 
pairwise preferences. I didn't reply to that (in that sentence), because you 
didn't say it. Later, however, I replied to that, because I assumed that it 
was what you meant. No, Approval doesn't let them vote all their pairwise 
preferences. Just the important ones. And, unlike IRV, Approval counts every 
pairwise preference that you choose to vote.

You continue:

It only wastes everyone's time.

I reply:

You mean like debating soimething that we don't disagree on? I, too, prefer 
(the best) rank methods for public elections. We don't disagree on that.

You speak of wasting time. We've gone over the same ground a few times.

As for Markus, can you name an instance in which I disregarded what he said, 
except when I finally got tired of replying to his parrot-like repetition of 
answered statements?

I'd said:

Approval, which I also call Set Voting, lets you vote one candidate-set over 
another. That lets you vote the pairwise preferences that really matter. 
Anything more would be a frivolous luxury--except that, as I said, our 
public election voters need that luxury.

You reply:

It would be a luxury if the cost exceeded the expectable benefits.

I reply:

No, then it would be a prohibitively costly luxury. But it can be a 
frivolous or unnecessary luxury without being a prohibitively costly luxury.

You continued:

Most of us seem agreed that rank falls on the affordable side of luxury.

I reply:

Don't be so sure. I'd say that a lot of us hope that a good rank method can 
be enacted. Some of us have talked about why that could be a problem: There 
are innumerable ways to count rank ballots. We'd have to show people that 
our proposed way is the best, or at least that it's good enough to go ahead 
with enactment, without (never-ending) studies being conducted, though there 
are infinitely many other ways to count rank ballots. We'd have to wade into 
the bog of showing why IRV is crap, and why our proposal is better than IRV.

In contradistinction, there's only one way to count Approval ballots or RV 
ratings: Add them up. RV wins the prize for familiarity and popularilty. RV 
is the best bet for a public proposal.

I, too, would hope that the best rank methods, MDDA, MDDB, 
MDD,ER-Bucklin(whole), and MAMPO, would be accepted and enacted. Maybe the 
enactment of a good rank method is too much to hope for. But of course if 
people are willing to bounce back with a backup proposal, then it wouldn't 
hurt to try a good rank method before trying RV or Approval.

You wrote:

The debates over rank method details sometimes get a bit deep, depending on 
plotters knowing unknowable details and having unbelievable control.

I reply:

Maybe sometimes, but not when I write about it. No, the problem that I write 
about is when the voter _doesn't_ know what s/he needs to know, and decides 
to play it safe by voting Lesser-Evil over Favorite.

You wrote:

Again, IRV counts most [pairwise preferences], and its backers claim it 
counts enough.

I reply:

Its backers are full of shit. How consoling is it for you if IRV counts many 
or most people's preferences but ignores a crucial pairwise preference of 
yours?

I'd said:

Exactly. And the incompetents that I've referred to don't do a good job of 
choosing which of those pairwise preferences to vote. That's why I want them 
to be able to vote all their pairwise prefences, and have them all counted, 
by a method with majority-enforcing criterion compliances.

You reply:

I was not talking of voter incompetence

I reply:

Of course not. I was talking of incompetence.

You continued:

, for Approval restricts their possible actions.

I reply:

As I clarified above, I'm not saying that the voters are incompetent because 
they don't know how to vote 3-tiered preferences in Approval.

It's the other way around: It's because they're incompetent that they need 
an automatic majority-enforcing machine that uses all of their pairwise 
preferences, rather than a hand-tool that requires them to choose which of 
their pairwise preferences to vote.

You continued:

Still, I would not claim Approval incompetence, assuming it behaves as 
promised.

I reply:

I never said that Approval was incompetent, or questioned your competence to 
use Approval.

You continued:

What is left is designer incompetence, for not letting voters express their 
affordable thoughts.

I reply:

You're saying that Weber and Ottewell are incompetent because they didn't 
design a method that will work well for idiots? Blame the idiots, not the 
Approval inventors.

Approval is a beautifully elegant method, and it's only because of questions 
about voter-competence that I don't call Approval an excellent choice for 
today's public elections.

You sound like someone complaining that Harley-Davidson was incompetent 
because it designed and sold to you a motorcycle that didn't have 
training-wheels.

I'd said:

Yes, sincere rating is more work. But no one forces you to do that work. You 
can just give maximum points to the candidates you'd vote for in Approval, 
and give minumum points to the others. That's your best strategy. And 
another reason to use that Approval strategy is that Approval is easier to 
vote.

You reply:

If this is your recommendation as to how voters should act with RV

Yes it is. (If that's what I said).

You continued:

Yes, if you complain, as you just had done, that voting in RV is a lot of 
work, then I recommend voting RV as if it were Approval, to make the job 
easier.

You continued:

..., why should it bother to exist?

I reply:

1. Because it's much more familiar and popular than Approval or any rank 
method
2. Because it likely will give somewhat better results than Approval in 
today's public elections.
3. Because some might want to use RV's ratings to vote sincerely.
4. Because, like Approval and the best rank methods, but unlike IRV,  RV 
meets FBC.
5. Because, unlike IRV, RV meets WDSC, in addition to FBC.

I'd said:

I disagree there: RV doesn't give any problem to counters. They merely have 
to add up each candidate's points, and declare as winner the one with the 
most points.

You replied:

Ok, so the counters do not try to guess

I reply:

Correct. They don't.

You continued:

..., leaving the whole communications headache on the voters' weak 
shoulders.

I reply:

Take the difficult choices off the voters' weak shoulders by using MDDA, 
MDDB,
MDD, ER-Bucklin(whole) or MAMPO instead of Approval or RV.

You'd said:

[with rank methods] Voters can indicate order of their preferences.

I reply:

A necessity for our incompetent voters. Otherwise a frivolous luxury. As I 
said, Set Voting  (That's Approval) lets you vote one candidate-set over 
another. Those are the important pairwise preferences,  and that should be 
enough.

You reply:

Proper topic is whether capable voters are allowed to express their 
important thoughts

I reply:

Answer: Yes. With Approval, capable voters are allowed to express their 
important preferences. Incompetent voteres are allowed to likewise, but, for 
them, that doesn't help much.

But no, with Approvla, capable voters (and, worse, not-so-capable ones) 
aren't allowed to vote all of their pairwise preferences.

You continued:

..., not whether some voters may be incapable of better thinking - for which 
more adequate education may be practical.

I reply:

I disagree again: The capabiliies of the vulgar masses is something that 
affects voting outcomes.

Education? Maybe honest &/or democratic media. Failing that, the best voting 
system we can enact would do a lot of good. Some are workig to improve 
media. Here we're talking about the benefit of a better voting system.


You'd said:

Counters can read these preferences in the same language as the voters used 
for writing.

I reply:

That's true with Approval and RV too. And I remind you that Approval and RV 
receive information that rank methods don't receive: Preference strength. In 
that regard, Approval and RV are more expressive than rank methods.

You reply:

You lose me here.  You have suggested above ZERO ability to express 
preference strength with Approval

I reply:

Would you please quote the sentence in which I said that, and tell the date 
of the EM posting that contained that statement?

You continue:

- only two sets with zero preference within a set, and uncontrollable 
maximum strength between sets.

I reply:

As I said, Approval measures the strength of your pairwise preferences, 
because you vote the ones that are most important.

You continued:

Agreed you say voters can express strength in RV and that counters have no 
responsibility for understanding there - leaving how voters determine what 
to say a puzzle.

I reply:

Let's avoid giving voters that puzzle by enacting MDDA, MDDB, 
MDD,ER-Bucklin(whole) or MAMPO instead of Approval or RV.

But, as a practical matter, RV is a lot more gettable, and, despite the fact 
that Approval and RV don't help incompetent votes as much as we'd like, RV 
may be what we can get.

I'd said:

You think that Approval doesn't allow you to express as much because it 
doesn't let you indicate the direction of all your pairwise preferences. But 
Approval lets you express their strength: You vote a preference if it's 
important enough to you. Rank methods let you express the direction of all 
your preferences, but that's all. They don't let you express the strength of 
your preferences.

No one denies that the best rank methods do the best job of enforcing 
majority rule. But who says that's all that matters?


Agreed there are so many possibilities, and some offer so little value for 
what they offer as to deserve "luxury" as a descriptor

I reply:

I disagree again. If a method doesn't offer anything of value, there's 
nothing luxurious about that.

You continued:

, and some are so weak as to voters being able to express their thoughts as 
to be useless, that we need more careful thought.

I reply:

Other than Plurality, all the methods are good at letting voters express 
preferences. For today's public election voters, the luxury of being allowed 
to vote all their preferences might be a necessity.

Mike Ossipoff

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