[EM] Rob reply: FBC vs CC. SFC. RV.,

[Paul Kislanko]

I wish you guys would stop bringing politics into this.

I like Nader, but frankly would never want him as President. Beatpath is as
good as any method that counts from the pairwise matrix instead of ballots,
but I would never want it to be used to count my ranked ballot.

I was really hoping this list was for discussions about methods, not
personal opinions.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: election-methods-electorama.com-bounces at electorama.com 
> [mailto:election-methods-electorama.com-bounces at electorama.com
> ] On Behalf Of MIKE OSSIPOFF
> Sent: Monday, October 03, 2005 8:31 PM
> To: election-methods at electorama.com
> Subject: [EM] Rob reply: FBC vs CC. SFC. RV.,
> 
> Rob--
> 
> I'd said:
> 
> >A voter will favorite-bury if, for that voter, the important 
> goal is to 
> >keep an unacceptable candidate from winning, and if 
> favorite-burial will 
> >increase the probability of accomplishing that.
> 
> I posit that very few voters will be in that predicament.  It is my
> experience that most voters prefer candidates with a chance to win.
> People that like to be part of quixotic movements are 
> exceedingly rare.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Thank you for proving my point. You believe your tv when it 
> tells you that 
> only the Democrat could beat the Republican, and that to 
> support someone 
> other than that media- anointed, corporate-bought Democrat is 
> "quixotic". 
> You feel isolated, believinig that only you and some tiny 
> subset of the 
> population want something better than Kerry.  After all, 
> doesn't the tv 
> represent and portray the true America? So of course you 
> obediently vote for 
> the Democrat, however dishonest he is, and however odious his 
> policies and 
> record.
> 
> There are people with progressive goals, who prefer Nader to 
> the Democrat. 
> As you point out, most of those people feel compelled to vote for the 
> Democrat.
> 
> I have merely suggested that they'll do the same when the 
> voting system is 
> BeatpathWinner.
> 
> If I haven't made myself clear, FBC is important so that 
> those giveaway 
> progressives won't feel compelled to keep concealing what they want.
> 
> When I referred to acceptable and unacceptable candidates, I 
> clarified that 
> the lesser-of-2-evils progressives have a very different 
> notion about what 
> is acceptable, as compared to what I consider acceptable. 
> When you talk to 
> such a progressive, they make it clear that the Republican is the 
> unacceptable, and that anyone better than the Republican is 
> acceptable. It 
> was such voters that I was talking about.
> 
> So, as I said, these people, if their only goal is to ensure that an 
> unacceptable (Republican) won't win, will do what it takes to 
> minimize the 
> probability of that happening.
> 
> And, aside from that,  the number who will favorite-bury for 
> that reason is 
> further increased when voters who don't understand the count 
> method don't 
> even know how unlikely it is that they could regret not 
> favorite-burying. I 
> covered that in my previous message. Then it won't just be 
> people who will 
> do whatever it takes to minimize the probability of a 
> Republican win. It 
> will also include people who'd only do that if they felt that the FBC 
> failure might be likely.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> 
> Moreover, the cases where sincere voting regret are rare.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> As I said:
> 
> 1. That's irrelevant. I'm talking about people whose only goal in the 
> election is to keep the Republican from winning, to minimize 
> the probability 
> that the Republican will win, whatever it takes.
> 
> 2. And someone who doesn't know how the count works might not 
> know how 
> likely it is that they could regret not favorite-burying.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> Combine that
> with the innate desire that I think people who vote contrarian ballots
> have to "make a statement", and I suspect we're talking about a
> diminishingly small number of people who will reverse order.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> What we have to go on is that the practice is near-universal 
> in Plurality 
> elections, and also common in IRV elections. Yes, the 
> evidence I've prsented 
> about Australian voting strategy is "anecdotal" because no 
> one has done a 
> scientific study--I've onlyheard from an increasing number of 
> Australians 
> who say that favorite-burial isn't uncommon in IRV.
> People fear that they'd "waste [their] vote" if they didn't 
> vote one of the 
> Big-Two party candidates in 1st place, with their favorite 
> ranked somewhere 
> below. What does it take to convince you? Ok, a scientific 
> study. Maybe 
> someday someone will conduct one. In the meantime, I've heard 
> from a number 
> of Australians.
> 
> You wrote:
> 
> I'm trying to see how this:
> "If a Condorcet candidate exists, and if a majority prefers this
> candidate to another candidate, then the other candidate 
> should not win
> if that majority votes sincerely and no other voter falsifies any
> preferences."
> 
> .../always/ leads to this:
> 
> 
> "SFC requires that the majority of voters who prefer the Condorcet
> candidate to another particular candidate vote sincerely (neither
> falsify nor truncate their preferences), and it also requires that no
> other voter falsifies preferences"
> 
> I reply:
> 
> First, please note that I don't recognize either of those 
> wordings as mine. 
> So, if one doesn't lead to the either, and neither was said 
> by me, then what 
> does that say about SFC? Nothing.
> 
> That first SFC definition that you quoted is definitely not 
> my wording. Your 
> 2nd statement of course is not a definition of SFC, and so 
> there would be no 
> reason to expect it to mean the same as the previous wording 
> that someone 
> intended as a definition of SFC.
> 
> I would probably say that SFC _stipulates_ sincere voting by 
> that majority, 
> rather than using the word "require". That's because, as I 
> use the term, a 
> criterion's requirement is something else. SFC's requirement 
> is that B not 
> win. That that majority vote sincerely is a stipulation that 
> is part of 
> SFC's premise.
> 
> In any case, you needn't expect an intended definition of SFC 
> to mean the 
> same as a wording of part of SFC's premise, which is only part of SFC.
> 
> Anyway, here's SFC:
> 
> If no one falsifies a preference, and if a majority prefer the CW to 
> candidate B, and vote sincerely, then B shouldn't win.
> 
> [end of SFC definition]
> 
> Please, in the future, when challenging SFC, refer to _my_ 
> wording of its 
> definition.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> MDDA would seem to encourage truncation in rare situations.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Perhaps, but MDDA also encourages truncation in common 
> situations. With 
> ordinary MDDA, you should rank only those candidates to whom 
> you want to 
> give an Approval vote.
> 
> And, aside from that, if it's an acceptable/unacceptable 
> situation, even 
> with Deluxe MDDA, which has a separate Approval cutoff and 
> power truncation, 
> you should power truncate all the unacceptables.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> I agree that SFC is a very important criterion, if perhaps misnamed.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> The name refers to the fact that the criterion is about 
> plausible conditions 
> under which, with complying methods, voters need no strategy 
> in order to 
> accomplish the specified goal.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> I'm sure there were long discussions about naming it during the long
> period where I wasn't very active on the list.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> Some people objected to the name, on the grounds that it's 
> been proven that 
> no nonprobabilistic method is entirely strategy-free. But 
> that objection 
> isn't valid, because the criterion is about conditions under 
> which voters 
> can accomplish a specific goal without strategy.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> This may be a seemingly minor quibble, but I raise this because I
> consider the two SFC quotes above to both be very important criteria,
> and I'm trying to figure out how both apply to MDDA.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> I don't claim that those two quotes apply to MDDA, but I do 
> claim that my 
> SFC definition applies to MDDA, in the sense that MDDA meets 
> that criterion.
> 
> I'd said:
> 
> >Realistically, I propose RV, with more rating-levels than Approval.
> 
> Range is a political stillborn.  This example kills it:
> 
> 100 voters, two candidates, scale of 0-10:
> 
> 90 voters: A=7, B=6
> 10 voters: A=0, B=10
> 
> A:630
> B:640
> 
> B wins, even though 90% of voters prefer A to B.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> But how is that a problem? The A voters didn't feel strongly 
> about A vs B, 
> and they therefore chose to not dominate the choice. They 
> chose to let the 
> choice be made by someone who felt more strongly than they did.
> 
> For a 2-candidate race, obviously neither RV, Approval, 
> BeatpathWinner, 
> MDDA, nor any other improved voting system is needed. But all 
> of those 
> methods work fine with two candidates.
> 
> You continued:
> 
> There is no possible way Range will ever get serious support
> 
> I reply:
> 
> RV is well known and well-accepted in the Olympics. Everyone 
> is familiar 
> with being asked to rate things up to 10. RV has a big 
> head-start on new 
> methods such as BeatpathWinner, Approval, or IRV.
> 
> You continue:
> 
> , given that
> weakness.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> No one is forced to vote sincerely if they want to maximize 
> their voting 
> power, their power to maximize their expectation.
> 
> Of course BeatpathWinner has advantages (Condorcet's Criterion, Smith 
> Criterion, WDSC, SDSC, but especially SFC & GSFC,). But that 
> isn't the same 
> as saying that RV has a serious problem. Anyway, 
> BeatpathWinner fails FBC.
> 
> You continue:
> If it manages to pass constitutional muster, it goes against
> what I suspect is the instinct of most voters out there, including
> myself.
> 
> I reply:
> 
> The instinct to not let a set of voters indicate the strength 
> of their 
> preference, choosing to vote a weak preference in order to let more 
> choice-power be had by people to whom the choice is more important? 
> Shouldn't they be free to do as they wish? They could strategize, to 
> maximize their applied strength, if they wished to.
> 
> Mike Ossipoff
> 
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