[EM] Ranked Preferences, example calculations

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 11:34 PM 10/27/2006, Chris Benham wrote:
>Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
>
>>That is, healthy group decision process follows certain general 
>>principles. The Majority Criterion neglects an important part of this.
>>
>That is because it is about *elections*, which of course isn't 
>necessarily the beginning and end of  "healthy group decision process".

For some reason, Chris continues to insist upon the specious 
distinction between elections and general decision-making process. 
The term "election" covers any kind of choice being made; however 
usage focuses on the selection of one candidate out of a number, for 
single-winner, or of multiple candidates out of a larger number, for 
mutiple-winner. And we also assume, generally, for the purposes of 
this list, that elections are of candidates, and the candidates are 
people who will hold an office.

But for a group to select candidates or to select a pizza involves, 
properly, the same considerations. Pizza is almost certain to be less 
important a choice, but the importance of the choice only should mean 
that greater care would be taken. Not that a different process is involved.

It's quite easy to imagine a group of people simply voting on the 
pizza, with the style with the greatest number of votes being the one 
purchased (the example has been assuming that for some reason, only 
one kind can be purchased). Yet if such a poll is actually held, and 
a pizza is chosen that is offensive to a member of the group, that 
member is quite likely to pipe up with "I can't eat that!" And most 
groups will alter their decision. Only if they have a *strong 
preference* for what they chose by plurality will they refuse to 
consider something else.

So, yes, there is a difference between *informal* group process, 
which the pizza example represented, and the formal process of an 
election. But non-political group choices can also use formal 
process. What are the optimum methods for groups to make choices?

Single individuals sometimes use Range techniques to make choices. 
You set up a decision matrix, assign values to the various possible 
outcomes, and look for the greatest value. Range simply averages this 
technique over the values assigned by multiple people.

The only substantial argument I see against Range is that the method 
is allegedly vulnerable to strategic voting. *But what we have now is 
what Range would look like if everyone votes strategically.*

So Range would not make things worth, unless... unless honest people 
vote intermediate values, and dishonest people vote the extremes, and 
there are enough of these dishonest people that election results are 
warped as a result.

However, I have argued that this can only happen when the honest 
people do not have a strong preference. When they have, and express, 
a strong preference, and they are in the majority, the dishonest 
people can try what they may, they can only nudge the results among 
candidates strongly preferred by the majority.

Essentially, some writers treat the vulnerability of Range to 
strategic voting as if it were a proven thing. They simply assume it. 
It has *not* been proven, far from it. And it seems to me that this 
is a false charge against Range.

Electing candidates to public office should not be different in 
principle than, say, choosing a route for a road, out of a number of 
possibilities. Strong feelings can be involved, based on the effect 
this road will have on people who live or work near it. Property 
values can shift.

And an optimum method for choosing pizzas for a group should not be 
different in principle from what is optimum for choosing candidates 
for public office. The only difference I can see is that the pizza 
choice is unlikely to be made using a complex ballot. But if the 
choice were being made for a million people, indeed such a ballot 
would properly be used.

Chris has asserted multiple times that elections are different from 
choosing pizzas. He has *never* stated how the differences that 
exists would affect what election method is optimal. He might as well 
say that they are different because pizza begins with P and candidate 
begins with C.

>>That is, if the majority does not want to please the minority, it 
>>does not care if they are devastated by the outcome of the 
>>election, if their attitude is "they should get over it," then they 
>>can easily get what they want. Just vote it as a strong preference.
>>
>The problem with Range is that if  "the majority" are not self-aware 
>and coordinated, they cannot
>"easily get what they want".

On the contrary, the condition being described was that the majority 
had a strong preference. Under Range, all they need to do is vote 
that preference as a strong one. What coordination does this take?

This has been stated so many times by Warren, but obviously it bears 
repeating. The best vote in Range is a sincere one. Sure, partisans 
may distort their votes, turning them into black and white. But by so 
doing they are essentially eliminating their own true preference 
strengths from the election. They are harming themselves, not the 
society, except to the extent that the society is harmed when 
individuals are not satisfied. They are risking their own 
dissatisfaction, if it turns out that, by voting black and white, 
they effectively abstained from voting in the top two pair-off.

So what these Range opponents are proposing is that a substantial 
group of voters are going to conspire to weaken their own election 
expression. Certainly it might happen, people act against their own 
interests all the time. But it's not a stable configuration.

The examples that I've seen suggesting that Range somehow encourages 
strategic voting have been highly artificial ones. It's difficult to 
model Range in the way that other methods have been modelled, by 
proposing a few groups who all vote the same way. This *never* 
happens in real elections....

However, just as with my own project, FA/DP (which would almost 
certainly use Range Voting where that is appropriate, it simulates 
the process by which power would be exerted by FA/DP organizations), 
the proof will be in the pudding, I highly encourage the adoption of 
Range techniques by various organizations, so that Range experience 
can accumulate, so that we can see, by looking at actual elections, 
how the electorate behaves. We should really try to actively gather 
that data, real ballot information from Range elections.

>>But they should remember what happened to the one who said "Let 
>>them eat cake."
>>
>>She lost her head. As did many others.
>
>Marie Antoinette and others who were beheaded in the aftermath of 
>the French Revolution were a tiny minority.

Oh. Never mind. Not a problem. The Terror? Forget about it. Only a 
few were actually killed.

Chris, your way of thinking is positively dangerous. Methinks you 
have a conclusion set in stone and you are seeking, desperately, to 
find justifications for it an arguments against anything that might 
threaten it.

>>Systems which do not maximize and spread satisfaction lead to 
>>revolutions or civil war.
>Are you talking about election systems or class systems?

Both. Systems.


>>And thus, respecting the majority principle, I've suggested that 
>>the election of a Range winner over a Preference winner should be 
>>ratified by the electorate, either by a pure ratification vote or by a runoff.
>So what exact method do you propose be used to determine "the 
>preference winner"?

The simplest would be a Majority winner. It might be the Plurality 
winner. Or the Condorcet winner. However, a Condorcet winner who has 
only a small percentage of the first-preference vote is probably not 
worth electing, if there is a clear Range winner; likewise a 
Plurality winner. I'm not sure exactly what winner would best be 
chosen, it would be worth considering. The Range ballots would be 
analyzed by converting them to ranked ballots, which is trivial 
(equal ranking allowed).

I'm inclined that it be a Majority winner. Remember, the objection 
was that somehow choosing the Range winner would be a violation of 
majority rule. Well, this would guarantee that majority rule would 
not be violated. The majority could choose the winner, but in a 
context that made it clear that they were deciding not to allow the 
Range winner to prevail. (Or they could decline to accept the Range 
winner, though that is actually unlikely. After all, they gave that 
winner a reasonable vote, indicating that the candidate was acceptable.)

This second vote where it might seem that the majority will was being 
frustrated, perhaps by an allegedly strategic-voting minority, would 
be a safety mechanism against such a possibility. It would all be 
clear, after the Range ballots had been cast and recorded and were 
available for analysis, what had happened. A conspiracy to 
bullet-vote would be exposed, for serious insincere voting would 
stand out like a sore thumb.

Uh, you preferred Nader, but you gave Gore a zero and Bush a 50? You 
and a million like you? If Nader was, because of this, the Range 
winner (I think it quite unlikely), then, if we presume that the Gore 
voters outnumber the Nader voters, in that pairwise election, and 
they truly feel betrayed, they are going to shoot down Nader in the 
ratification or runoff.

Such strategic voting would be more likely to shift an election from 
Gore to Bush. Smart move, guys.

Uh, isn't this what actually happened in 2000? The Green Party took a 
major hit because this. (Of course, in a plurality system, they had 
no way of expressing support for their favorite and simultaneously 
participating in the top-two pairwise election.) In 0-99 Range, with 
Gore vs Nader vs Bush, they would probably be advised to vote Nader 
99, Gore 98, Bush 0. If they were going to vote strategically. 
Otherwise they just vote sincerely and let the chips fall where they 
may. But that strategic vote would still express a preference for 
Nader, would still provide campaign funding for the Green Party 
(presumably such Range ballots would be analyzed to determine the 
preference winner for public campaign financing purposes.)

(I oppose public campaign financing, it is the wrong approach, but it 
*does* exist and is going to be a problem in election reform.)

Note that who the alternate winner is not relevant to the actual 
process if the question "Shall the Range winner be elected?" It is 
conceivable that this question could actually be on the original 
ballot. This would satisfy, technically, the requirement of majority 
rule. If it failed, some other method, presumably chosen in advance, 
would be used.

The Range data would then become a universal public poll, quite 
useful for other purposes....

I prefer a question after the initial election. And I was trying to 
avoid making it routine, given that so many people seem to think that 
the expense of a second election (and maybe a third) is significant.

The fact is that it would be simple to drastically reduce the expense 
of elections: use Asset Voting to create, effectively, an Electoral 
College and use Range Voting in that College. This could convert the 
election into a deliberative process, and the ratification vote would 
always be taken. It would take minutes.

Majority Rule. What a concept!

(Warren, I think you made a tactical error by deciding to push Range 
rather than Asset. Asset really has the serious revolutionary 
possibilities.... but it stays closer to existing practice than 
Delegable Proxy).