[EM] Dave: More levels of expressable preference

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

You'd said:

>Can happen that I desire electing Tom and hate Harry. Further, I am not 
>sure Tom can win so, in case he loses (and only if he loses), I want to do 
>what I can to make sure Dick gets in as my second choice.

You add:

Let me expand on this.  There is a race for mayor in a city near here, the
"aroma" is unavoidable and, therefore, if I got to vote, my primary goal
would be that Harry lose (and I do not trust the polls, for I suspect they
work for Harry):

      Assume Tom and Dick are equal in my eyes.  Therefore I would be
happy with Approval and any flavor of Condorcet that permitted =.  IRV is
not too bad

I reply:

As proposed and used, IRV is no good. Unless you know which of {Tom, Dick} 
is the more winnable one you need to beat Harry, then you have to risk his 
getting eliminated immediately before your traveling vote gets to him. Of 
course if {Tom, Dick} is a mutual majority, then IRV would work ok in that 
particular instance. But, in general, mutual majorities are a fortuitous 
special case.

You continue:

      Or one of my two favorites earns a black eye - not enough to become
a reject like Harry, but enough that I must do all I van to help ny
remaining favorite.  Now IRV (except for spoilers) and Condorcet are fine, 
Approval imposes an intolerable decision.

I reply:

No it doesn't. Is Dick acceptable or unacceptable? Vot for him if he's 
acceptable. Don't vote for him if he's unacceptable. Yes, if Dick is 
genuinely on the line between acceptability and unacceptability, then you 
have to flip a coin in Approval (or give Dick 1/2 maximum points in RV).

In any case, you know what to do.

If you know what you're doing, Approval is still ok, though not as deluxe as 
one might like.

The serious problem happens when people don't know what they're doing, when 
they're seriously mistaken about whether Dick is acceptable. Then they can't 
be trusted to be able to use Approval in their own best interest, and MDDA 
would be a much better thing to have. You'll get no disagreement from me on 
that.

You continued:

      Or my falling favorite joins Harry for being unacceptable.  Now any
method that tolerates bullet voting becomes acceptable, including
Plurality and Approval.

I reply:

I agree.  Most any method is acceptable then, except for Borda, which in its 
standard form, forces you to rank all the candidates.

Ranking all the candidates in IRV may be a waste of time, but of course it 
doesn't do any harm for the law to require completel rankings, other than 
more time in the voting booth.

You continue:

Thus Approval beats Plurality, but is not an acceptable destination.

Approval beats anything that doesn't meet FBC, for the purpose of our public 
political elections.

In an early posting I said:

"I liken Approval to a solid, reliable handtool. But the trouble with a 
handtool, compared to an automatic CW-finding machine like MDDA, is that you 
have to know how to use the handtool, because it's manual. You have to do it 
yourself.

" [for our existing electorate] The question of using MDDA vs using Approval 
(or RV) is like the question of driving your child to school vs giving the 
car-keys to your child and saying 'Drive yourself to school. We'll find out 
how you do'."

>You quoted me:

>But if Dick is unacceptable, then no, I won't give him an Approval vote, 
>even if he is better than Harry.

You reply:

You seem to consider existence of yellow to be an impossibility after 
labeling red "unacceptable" and green "acceptable".

I reply:

No, it depends on the candidate lineup. If there are any completely 
unacceptable candidates who might win, then it's what I call an 
acceptable/unacceptable situation. There are effectively only two preference 
levels. There is only one merit boundary that matters.

And yes, I believe that we have an a/ua situation in our public political 
elections. In fact the giveway progressives believe that too, though they 
disagree with me about who is acceptable. They think the Democrats are 
acceptable. Hence the serious problem with Approval (Unless the giveaway 
progressives will be able to stop voting for Democrats when, in Approval, 
Nader outpolls the Republican.

Another way to describe an a/ua situation is: The candidates can be divided 
into two sets such that the merit differences within the 2 sets are 
negligible compared to the merit-difference betweent the 2 sets.

In Approval, vote for the acceptables. Approval is the perfect method in an 
a/ua situation, if voters know what they're doing.

In Plurality, vote for whichever acceptable candidate is most likely, with 
your help, to be able to deny victory to the unacceptables.

I reply:

MANY of us can see more than two colors, and want ballots to comply since it 
is possible.

I reply:

What country do you live in? It's entirely possible that, there, it isn't an 
a/ua situation.

Anyway, even if it is, of course I agree that, because voters don't seem 
very quiified to vote in their own interest,  we'd be much better off with 
MDDA, MDDB, or MDD,ER-Bucklin(whole) than with Approval. As I said, you'll 
get no disagreement from me on that.

I'd said:

>I can't expect Plurality advocates to like the better voting systems.
>
>But if you're saying that they'd have an especially difficult time with 
>Approval, then I disagree. Approval is just Plurality done right. Plurality 
>without the completely unjustified rule that a voter may only give a point 
>to one candidate, only show support for one candidate.

You reply:

Seems like you are not responding to what I said - that many of those used 
to Plurality would see what you claim as acceptable and not see a need to 
move farther.

I reply:

You're saying that if we enacted Approval or RV, people would be satisfied 
with it and wouldn't want to get a better method. For one thing, if Approval 
did as it could, and went right to the voter-median position, and stayed 
there, what would there be for anyone to object to? But if the giveaway 
progressives keep on giving an Approval vote to the Democrat, after the vote 
totals have indicated that they no longer need to, then even they will know 
that something is wrong, and that they'd be better off with a good rank 
method. How right they'd be!

So if someone then began advocating MDDA, people would understand the need 
for it, if Approval obviously was not working (because people weren't 
qualified to use it).

I'd said:

>I observed someone, voting in a Condorcet poll, rank Dick over Tom, even 
>though that person preferred Tom to Dick. That peron did that because they 
>felt that Dick had a better chance of beating Harry.
>
>Did I tell that person that they had no need to do that in Condorclet? No, 
>because that would have been an untrue statement. Condorcet doesn't 
>guarantee that you won't gain by voting someone over your favorite. 
>Approval does make that guarantee, known as FBC.

BUT - Approval does not let me vote Tom preferred to Dick, and BOTH 
preferred to Harry.

I reply:

No, but at least it doesn't make anyone feel a need to vote Dick _over_ Tom. 
Thereby, Approval avoids the worst kind of strategy need.

You continue:

Tell me again how voters can improve their odds by voting against their 
desires - at least other than responding to or cooperating with strategy 
plots.

You want an example? Ok, here's the scenario. I'll show that Condorcet's 
Criterion is incompatible with FBC.

You can also regard this as a descrption of how Condorcet's method, in any 
form, can reward someone for voting someone over their favorite:

Consider two voters whose preference ordering is: B>A>C.

We're considering how those two people should vote when everyone else is 
voting in some particular fixed configuration. Say the configuration of 
other people's votes (sincere or otherwise) is such that if those two voters 
vote sincerely, we'll get a circular tie in which C wins. Obviously, given 
any rule for solving circular ties, I could write an example in which C 
would win.

Say that, in that cycle, B beats A. But B doesn't beat A by very much. B 
beats A by only 3 votes.

If A beat B, A would be the BeatsAll winnner, and would win, because we're 
assuming that the method meets Condorcet's Criterion.

Those two voters could obviously change the pairwise result between A and B 
if they voted differently. Let's say that no other pairwise race is close 
enough for those two voters to influence the outcome of. That's a reasonable 
assumption.

If those two voters changed their ballot to A=B>C, then B would only beat A 
by one vote instead of three votes. I could write an example in which C 
still wins, whether B beats A by 3 votes or 1 vote. Say it's so.

If those two voters changed their ballot to A>B>C, that would reverse that 
pairwise defeat, and A would be BeatsAll winner, and would win. As I said, 
that's because we're assuming that the method in use is one that meets 
Condorcet's Criterion.

By voting A over their favorite, those two voters have improved the outcome 
for themselves.

Therefore the method violates FBC. Since the method could be any Condorcet 
Criterion method, all Condorcet Criterion methods fail FBC.

Condorcet's Criterion is incompatible with FBC.

>But, though it isn't insincere [to vote equally in Approval two candidates 
>between whom you have a preference] , it is contrary to the voter's 
>interest if s/he unnecessarily votes for someone who isn't really any 
>better than the person s/he is trying to beat.

You replied:

If he rated Kerry as ugly as Bush he would have no problem, even with 
Plurality.

I reply:

Agreed of course.

You continued:

My topic here was that to SAY I liked Kerry better than Bush, under Approval 
I had to SAY I liked him as well as Nader.

I reply:

Now you've put your finger on the problem: The problem is if you think that 
you need to say that you like Kerry better than Bush. That's why I'd much 
rather have MDDA, MDDB, or MDD,ER-Bucklin(whole) instead of Approval. We're 
agreed on that. With those good rank methods you can vote Bad over Worse 
without voting Bad equal to Best. Believe me, for the sake of the country 
and the world,  I want you to have a good rank method.

>I'd said:
>
>
>>Of course hopefully they wouldn't keep doing that in Approval, when Nader 
>>outpolls the Republican, or when they find out what a Democrat is.
>>

You reply:

This is a distraction, for we often have lists of candidates where best, 
tolerable, and ugly compete.

I reply:

So what? If you know that Best has just outpolled Ugliest, then you should 
know that now you no longer have to vote for Ugly.

Or if you finally ask yourself why you want to vote for an Ugly, and decide 
that you don't want to, that would solve the problem too. You aren't going 
to vote for one of the two uglies again in 2008, are you?

You continued:

Further, we often do not have usable popularity ratings.

I reply:

That's for sure. We have continuous, consistant and insistant propaganda 
telling people that they have only two "viable" choices. And when people 
believe it, if appears self-fulfilling, since the vote totals indeed seem to 
confirm the propaganda.

That's a property of Plurality. Any FBC-failing method can have that problem 
too, under the same conditions.

You wrote:

>You're saying that not everyone perceives an acceptable/unacceptable 
>situation. Maybe. But many do, and they'd do anything to keep an 
>unacceptable from winning. Actually believing that Kerry was acceptable, 
>many even voted for him in 2004, though he'd promised to continue and 
>escalate the Iraq war.
>
>Though they no doubt perceived Nader, Kerry, and Bush as being in 3 
>different merit-categories, they mistakenly believed that Kerry is in the 
>category of candidates who deserve a vote.

Our opinions on that particular race should not get in the way of objective 
thinking.

I reply:

You watch someone make the same mistake over and over, and guess what? You 
pretty much know that he'll make the same mistake next time. There's nothing 
un-objective about that prediction. For the giveaway progressives, each race 
is the same, and it's the same giveaway every time.

You continue:

Again, often the voter sees more than two ranks of candidates, and when that 
happens the method needs to support saying so.


I reply:

I doubt that there's anyone who wouldn't perceive more than two preference 
levels, in any reasonable selection of candidates.

But those finer merit distinctions are unimportant if there is a set of 
candidates who are completely unacceptable and who could win. Then, whatever 
the method, a/ua strategy should be used. That strategy is simpler in 
Approval than in any other method. The trouble is that we don't all agree on 
what is acceptable. For that reason I'd much rather have a MDDA, MDDB, or 
MDD,ER-Bucklin(whole) instead of Approval.

So yes,  a good rank-balloting method is a nice luxury. But when voters are 
all confused about what is acceptable, or when voters are thoroughly 
led-by-the-nose regarding who is viable, who is a serious candidate,  and 
whose policies are closer to what the public wants; and if they're going to 
ignore it when Approval's vote totals indicate that giveaway-strategy is no 
longer needed--then yes, a good rank method is a necessity rather than a 
luxury.

We don't disagree on that.

>However, though N>K is their sincere preference, they could regret voting 
>N>K if it resulted in victory for B, who would have lost if they'd voted 
>K=N>B. My point was that MDDA isn't going to make people afraid to vote 
>their sincere preferences.

You reply:

Agreed that after counting the ballots we can often picture a different 
outcome with a different vote.

I reply:

How true it is! But that isn't the problem. The problem is that, when a 
voter perceives an a/ua situation, that voter will use whatever strategy it 
takes to minimize the probability that an unacceptable will win. Burying 
one's favorite by voting Kerry, and all the Democrats, over one's favorite 
is the correct a/ua strategy if you think the Democrats are acceptable. 
That's why I want a method that meets FBC.

If we don't agree on what is acceptable, then there's going to be a  lot of 
disagreement on how to vote, especially when the voting system doesn't meet 
FBC. It's much worse when the method doesn't meet FBC.


Assuming liking N>K and
     Voting N>K gave a worse result than N=K,
     Who makes a guarantee that a different collection of ballots could not 
have awarded the win to Bush for voting N=K?

I reply:

It would be very rare for your vote to have any effect on the outcome. 
Therefore, most likely your voting N=K isn't going to help Kerry, as 
compared to voting N>K. But the probability is beside the point. The fact is 
that, in methods that don't meet FBC, you have a better chance of helping 
Kerry beat Bush if you insincerely move Kerry up to 1st place, voting only 
Kerry in 1st place. In an a/ua situation, if you think Kerry is acceptable 
and Bush is unacceptable, then you will insincerely vote Kerry in 1st place, 
over Nader.

MDDA is much simpler than Condorcet, and is even simpler and more 
briefly-defined than IRV. And MDDA meets FBC, SFC, and SDSC. There's no need 
to accept any less in a rank method.

Mike Ossipoff

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