[Election-Methods] IRV ballot is at least as fair as FPTP ballot

[Kathy Dopp]

On Dec 25, 2007 2:35 PM, Stéphane Rouillon
<stephane.rouillon at sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>  Miss Dopp,
>
>  I definitively cannot accept this analysis.
>  What you just wrote SEEMS OBVIOUSLY TRUE WITH IRV to me.
>
>  in a non-runoff FPTP single-person-position system, every voter has
> their first place choice tabulated and no one has any second-choice
> considered and all voters' ballots are treated equally.


So you are now claiming that No Voter has any second-choices
considered in IRV voting?

Well I must have totally misunderstood IRV then.  Pray tell me why are
voters supposed to provide their second choices if "no one has any
second-choice considered" then?

I am mystified.

My understanding was that with IRV voters whose first-choice loses in
the first round have their second choices considered.

If that were true (you claim now it is not) then obviously IRV does
not consider the ballots choices of all voters equally and countably
infinite situations result when candidates whom a majority of voters
do NOT support can win the election.

Kathy

>
> This is obviously not true with IRV.
>
> Kathy
>  In IRV, every voter has a current preference tabulated and all voters'
> ballots are treated equally.
>  The fact that it is a first, second or fifth preference is definitively
> unrelevant when having to consider
>  the voting method fair or not. The treatment is the same for every voter,
> and you cannot say in advance
>  which voter will be unfairly treated, or less than with FPTP.
>  And this previous statement is simply unbelievable!!!
>
> my opinion is that it does
> not treat all voters' ballots equally and should be considered illegal
> under any law that requires the ballots of all voters to be treated
> equally.
>
> (...)
>
> Kathy
>
>  Obviously to me, IRV ballots are at least as fair than FPTP ballots,
>  and definitively more precise.
>
>  Stéphane Rouillon, ing., M.Sc.A., Ph.D.
>
>  Kathy Dopp a écrit :
>  -
> Allen,
>
> Your statement is flatly false.
>
> in a non-runoff FPTP single-person-position system, every voter has
> their first place choice tabulated and no one has any second-choice
> considered and all voters' ballots are treated equally.
>
> This is obviously not true with IRV.
>
> Kathy
>
>
> Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 12:51:10 -0500
> From: Allen Smith <easmith at beatrice.rutgers.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] Fwd: FYI - FairVote MN Responds to
>  Lawsuit Against IRV
> To: election-methods at electorama.com
> Umm... in a non-runoff FPTP single-person-position system, anyone voting
> for a candidate who doesn't win has their votes not considered,
> essentially. While IRV has its definite problems, I'd not say this is one of
> them (indeed, given that it counts the choices (for the two top candidates)
> of voters who vote for a third/whatever candidate when FPTP doesn't, this is
> an argument for _FPTP_ being illegal under such a law...). However, it's
> perfectly possible that courts may disagree; as can be seen with such things
> as rulings that Congress is competent to determine medical necessary (as
> with marijuana), courts frequently make mistakes when dealing with matters
> outside of their rather limited area of expertise (said area being the law,
> as opposed to reality...).
>
>  -Allen
>
> On Dec 25, 2007 11:15 AM,
> <election-methods-request at lists.electorama.com> wrote:
>
>
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> Today's Topics:
>
>  1. Re: Fwd: FYI - FairVote MN Responds to Lawsuit Against IRV
>  (Kathy Dopp)
>  2. Re: Fwd: FYI - FairVote MN Responds to Lawsuit Against IRV
>  (Allen Smith)
>  3. Re: RE : Re: RE : Re: RE : Re: Simple two candidate election
>  (Abd ul-Rahman Lomax)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 10:11:47 -0700
> From: "Kathy Dopp" <kathy.dopp at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] Fwd: FYI - FairVote MN Responds to
>  Lawsuit Against IRV
> To: "Abd ul-Rahman Lomax" <abd at lomaxdesign.com>
> Cc: election-methods at electorama.com
> Message-ID:
>  <391f105b0712250911k70e31d26x24bb8f7ae0f6ccc9 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252
>
> -
> Thanks for your comments Abd ul-Rahman Lomax (what name should I call you?)
>
>  I do find that ballots (2nd choices) of some, but not all
> voters is considered with IRV, and hence my opinion is that it does
> not treat all voters' ballots equally and should be considered illegal
> under any law that requires the ballots of all voters to be treated
> equally.
>
>
> I find there to be many scenarios where IRV voting makes a candidate a
> winner who is not supported by the most number of voters and I do not
> support it and in fact I oppose IRV.
>
> There must be better methods.
>
> Kathy
>
> On Dec 24, 2007 11:25 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <abd at lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
>
>
>  At 12:12 AM 12/23/2007, Kathy Dopp wrote:
>
>
>  -
> What do you think of this lawsuit?
> Kathy
>
>  I've done a fair amount of study on Brown v.
> Smallwood, and it's worth reading. Google it;
> there is a copy of the decision on rangevoting.org.
>
>
>
>  FairVote Minnesota Responds to Lawsuit Against Instant Runoff Voting
>
> Minneapolis, MN (December 20, 2007)?FairVote Minnesota, a nonprofit,
> nonpartisan organization leading the effort to institute instant runoff
> voting in Minnesota, is issuing a response to news of a lawsuit brought
> against the City of Minneapolis and various elected officials by an Eden
> Prairie-based organization that is opposed to the pending use of instant
> runoff voting (a.k.a. single transferable vote or ranked choice voting) in
> the City of Minneapolis.
>
>  The lawsuit was inevitable. It might be premature, however.
>
>
>
>  The lawsuit alleges that instant runoff voting (IRV) is unconstitutional
> and violates the principle of ???one person, one vote.?? Additionally, the
> plaintiffs contend that voters won???t understand how to vote using instant
> runoff voting.
>
>  They probably also allege that it will cause
> dandruff. That's all fluff. There is a real legal
> question in Minnesota, and all the hand-waving by
> FairVote is not going to make it go away.
>
> FairVote wrote a legal opinion before, similar to
> what's in this release. It may have been what was
> used to convince Minneapolis authorities to go
> ahead in spite of legal opinions given to the contrary.
>
>
>
>  FairVote Minnesota presents the following facts as guidance in the
> discussion of this lawsuit.
>
>  Ah, I must say that I'm tempted to use the term
> "lies," when opinions, perhaps even weak
> opinions, are presented as fact. Some of what is
> said will be arguments, and some facts will be stated as well.
>
>
>
>  1. IRV has been upheld on the principle of "one person, one vote" in legal
> challenges following its adoption in Cambridge, Mass. (Moore v. Election
> Commissioners of Cambridge (1941) and in Ann Arbor, Mich. (Stephenson v.
> Ann Arbor Board of Canvassers (1975).
>
>  Yes. Different states. Further, the court in
> Brown v. Smallwood was aware that it was
> contradicting precedent in other states.
>
>
>
>  Sources:
> <http://www.rwinters.com/docs/moore.htm>http://www.rwinters.com/docs/moore.htm;
> http://www.fairvote.org/library/statutes/legal/irv.htm
>
>  Lesson One: don't rely on legal advice from people with a conflict of
> interest.
>
>
>
>  2. No legal challenges are threatening instant runoff voting anywhere it's
> in use?San Francisco, Calif.; Cambridge, Mass.; Burlington, Vermont; Takoma
> Park, Maryland and Cary and Hendersonville, North Carolina.
>
>  I'll be a little surprised if a challenge doesn't
> arise in San Francisco, though a lot depends on
> details. IRV is sold as a replacement for top-two
> runoffs, and top-two runoffs are only employed
> where it is considered desirable to have a
> majority result. In San Francisco, there are
> elections being won with, I think, less than 40%
> of the vote. As any parliamentarian would know,
> you can't create a majority by discarding ballots
> with legal votes on them, merely because they did
> not vote for the top two. This *might* be the
> basis of a challenge to IRV, though, more likely,
> the IRV implementation superceded the majority
> requirement, which may not have been absolute.
>
> When IRV has been proposed for the election of
> governor in Vermont, it has been quite clear that
> exhausted ballots still counted, and that the
> election would still go to the legislature if the
> winner did not get a majority, as required by the
> Vermont constitution: the legislature is to
> choose from among the top three candidates.
>
> Now, this makes a lie out of the ballot
> instruction that has been proposed in that
> Vermont legislation: that adding a lower ranked
> preference cannot hurt your first preference. It
> can. Odd, don't you think, that such a thing would escape notice?
>
>
>
>  3. Election exit polls in cities using IRV all show voters in overwhelming
> numbers not only understand IRV, but prefer it to the old way of voting.
> The share of voters indicating they understood IRV well or very well the
> first time using IRV: San Francisco ? 87%, Burlington ? 89%; Takoma Park ?
> 88%; 8%; Cary ? 95%; Hendersonville ? 86%.
> <http://www.fairvotemn.org//sites/fairvotemn.org/files/Exit%2520Survey%2520Summary_2007_FINAL.doc>http://www.fairvotemn.org/sites/fairvotemn.org/files/Exit%20Survey%20Summary_2007_FINAL.doc
>
>  The claim that voters would not understand IRV is
> of no legal significance. By the way, FairVote
> takes two polls, with mixed results, and presents
> them as if the results are "overwhelming." Is it
> important if 10% of voters say they don't
> understand the system? I'd think so. But it is not legally relevant.
>
> Takoma Park always amuses me. That's where
> FairVote staff live. Small town, mostly unopposed
> elections. Not a place where IRV was needed.
>
>
>
>  4. As discussed in an opinion piece in the September 30, 2007 Star Tribune
> by attorney and professor David Schultz, the 1915 legal case cited in the
> lawsuit, Brown v. Smallwood, was not about instant runoff voting.
>
>  Impressive. True. Misleading.
>
> David Schultz is on the Board of FairVote Minnesota.
>
> For an independent opinion, see
> http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/council/charter-commission/docs/06_January_3_2006_Legal_Analysis_to_Ch_Commission.pdf
>
>
>
>  It was
> about a voting method that effectively gave Duluth citizens two votes in
> some situations, a clear violation of both the Minnesota and United States
> constitutions.
>
>  That's a ... lie. Under no situation in Duluth
> did voters have two effective votes. The method
> was Bucklin. Simple summary: three-rank ballot.
> It's a form of instant runoff, but not using
> sequential elimination. In the first rank, you
> could vote only for one candidate. Same for the
> second rank. Third rank, you could vote for as
> many as you like. This was essentially instant
> runoff Approval. That is the votes were added, no
> candidates were eliminated. Now, the majority
> legal opinion at the time, and a dissenting
> justice on the Brown v. Smallwood court, clearly
> thought that Bucklin was constitutional.
>
> (At first glance, to some, it appears that
> Approval -- and Bucklin -- give voters more than
> one vote. But, just as with IRV, only one vote is
> actually effective; the difference between
> Approval and IRV is that alternative votes are
> simultaneously considered in Approval and
> sequentially in IRV. The sequential dropping of
> candidates, and thus of the votes for them, is
> what makes IRV such a poorly-behaved system,
> quite capable of electing a candidate even though
> a majority of voters preferred someone else. See
> Robert's Rules on preferential voting. In the
> end, only a vote for a winner is effective; all
> other votes could be erased from the ballots
> without changing the result. Cumulative voting is
> a system which actually allows more than one
> vote, but cumulative voting is itself not
> unconstitutional for some elections, particularly multiwinner elections.)
>
> FairVote analysts have taken a piece of the
> Smallwood decision and have treated it as if it
> were the entire opinion. In fact, however, if the
> entire record is read and, in particular, the
> response to a request for reconsideration, the
> court was objecting to any kind of alternative vote.
>
>
>
>  The concern of that decision was based on what the courts
> now call the "one person, one vote" standard. IRV does not violate this
> standard because it does not give anyone two votes. It simply allows voters
> to rank their preferred candidates.
>
>  Smallwood talks about marks on the ballot. With
> IRV, a voter may make more than one mark on the
> ballot. Sorry, the Smallwood reasoning *does*
> apply to IRV. Only one small part of that
> reasoning seems to be about the simultaneous
> consideration of votes for more than one
> candidate, the thing that IRV avoids by
> sequential elimination. However, there is no
> serious expert opinion that Approval violates one-person, one-vote.
>
>
>
>  5. Schultz further explained that since 1915 American democracy has
> matured. The political process now seeks to provide more choices for voters
> than it once did, as evidenced by numerous ballot access court decisions
> that have made it possible for third party candidates such as Jesse Ventura
> to run for office. The courts, mindful of voters??? demands for more
> options when voting, have properly responded to the demand of citizens in
> interpreting election laws to empower and not limit options on election day.
>
>  Eh? Is this supposed to be relevant? The problem
> in Minnesota is that the Supreme Court of the
> State decided that alternative votes were
> *unconstitutional*. That court specifically and
> explicitly avoided considering whether or not
> Bucklin was an improvement, they noted that those
> who wanted this improvement should act to amend the constitution.
>
>
>
>
>  6. The lawsuit???s plaintiffs advocate to keep low-turnout municipal
> primaries and to make them partisan to ensure all parties are represented
> on the ballot. However, IRV shares the goal of ensuring choice on the
> ballot. In fact, it makes sure that all candidates appear on the general
> election ballot, regardless of party. With IRV, no candidate can be
> eliminated in a low-turnout election whose chances might be different in a
> general election.
>
>  Again, this is not relevant.
>
> Brown v. Smallwood is the current law of
> Minnesota, it is a standing precedent. I would
> argue that it was a totally defective decision,
> not on the self-serving basis served up by
> FairVote, but because the arguments in it were
> clearly corrupt. Bucklin was working, all you
> have to do is look at the election of Smallwood
> that was overturned. IRV would also have chosen Smallwood.
>
> I wrote an analysis of the decision which is on
> the rangevoting.org web site. You can find it by
> googling "Brown v. Smallwood." FairVote has
> extensively misrepresented what is in that decision.
>
> As to what will happen to the challenge, this
> case is not likely to be resolved without a state
> supreme court decision. Good chance that the
> lower courts will toss out the Minneapolis law
> based on Brown v. Smallwood, but, regardless,
> expect it to end up at the top. There, I see three possibilities:
>
> 1. Brown v. Smallwood is upheld and applies to IRV. That would be
> unfortunate.
> 2. Brown v. Smallwood is upheld but applies only
> to Approval-type alternative vote. That would
> *also* be unfortunate, and would be the first
> time that such a decision is explicitly made.
> Approval supporters should, in particular,
> attempt to avoid this outcome by filing friend-of-the-court briefs.
> 3. Brown v. Smallwood is reversed. This is the ideal outcome, in my view.
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Kathy Dopp
>
> The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author
> Kathy Dopp's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a
> Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in
> exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at
>
> P.O. Box 680192
> Park City, UT 84068
> phone 435-658-4657
>
> http://utahcountvotes.org
> http://electionmathematics.org
> http://electionarchive.org
>
> History of Confidence Election Auditing Development & Overview of
> Election Auditing Fundamentals
> http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf
>
> Vote Yes on HR811 and S2295
> http://electionmathematics.org/VoteYesHR811.pdf
>
> Voters Have Reason to Worry
> http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf
>
> "Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body
> and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day," wrote
> Thomas Jefferson in 1816
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 12:51:10 -0500
> From: Allen Smith <easmith at beatrice.rutgers.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] Fwd: FYI - FairVote MN Responds to
>  Lawsuit Against IRV
> To: election-methods at electorama.com
> Message-ID: <mid+200712251751.lBPHpAe65724377 at dogberry.rutgers.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> In message <391f105b0712250911k70e31d26x24bb8f7ae0f6ccc9 at mail.gmail.com> (on
> 25 December 2007 10:11:47 -0700), kathy.dopp at gmail.com (Kathy Dopp) wrote:
>
>
>  I do find that ballots (2nd choices) of some, but not all
> voters is considered with IRV, and hence my opinion is that it does
> not treat all voters' ballots equally and should be considered illegal
> under any law that requires the ballots of all voters to be treated
> equally.
>
>  Umm... in a non-runoff FPTP single-person-position system, anyone voting
> for a candidate who doesn't win has their votes not considered,
> essentially. While IRV has its definite problems, I'd not say this is one of
> them (indeed, given that it counts the choices (for the two top candidates)
> of voters who vote for a third/whatever candidate when FPTP doesn't, this is
> an argument for _FPTP_ being illegal under such a law...). However, it's
> perfectly possible that courts may disagree; as can be seen with such things
> as rulings that Congress is competent to determine medical necessary (as
> with marijuana), courts frequently make mistakes when dealing with matters
> outside of their rather limited area of expertise (said area being the law,
> as opposed to reality...).
>
>  -Allen
>
> --
> Allen Smith http://cesario.rutgers.edu/easmith/
> There is only one sound argument for democracy, and that is the argument
> that it is a crime for any man to hold himself out as better than other men,
> and, above all, a most heinous offense for him to prove it. - H. L. Mencken
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 13:14:39 -0500
> From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <abd at lomaxdesign.com>
> Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] RE : Re: RE : Re: RE : Re: Simple two
>  candidate election
> To: Kevin Venzke <stepjak at yahoo.fr>, election-methods at electorama.com
> Message-ID:
>  <20071225181531.BE89C80F7D at swarthymail-mx2.g.dreamhost.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
> At 09:47 AM 12/25/2007, Kevin Venzke wrote:
>
>
>
>
>  [...] Range, voted with full strategic
> effect, reduces to Approval Voting, which may reduce to bullet
> voting. It *still* is not Plurality, because it only takes a few
> percent of voters adding multiple votes to eliminate the spoiler effect.
>
>  So you say that if Range is not quite as bad as Plurality, then that's "as
> well as hoped" for Range? I think most Range advocates have higher hopes.
>
>  No. But I can understand why Mr. Venzke would think that's my
> position. When a writer writes something that, without careful
> reading, can be interpreted to confirm some stereotype, it's very
> easy to overlook contradictory details. Further, an extension of the
> Wikipedia principle of Assume Good Faith, which is to assume that a
> writer is actually saying something of interest, would require not
> being satisfied with a shallow and meaningless interpretation.
>
> Read what I wrote. I described what happens under certain conditions,
> the *worst* case. And then I noted that a few voters voting other
> than Plurality style are enough to solve the number one problem with
> Plurality. That's not shabby, particularly for Approval, which
> accomplishes this at no cost, merely starting to do what should have
> been a no-brainer from the beginning. It's the elephant in the living
> room, we never noticed, thought he was part of the furniture.
>
> I did a study of strategic voting in Range 3, using some simple
> assumptions: three candidates, many voters, utilities for the voter
> of 1.0, 0.5, 0, and zero knowledge. Turns out that the sincere vote
> utility is equal to the "strategic vote" utility in that case, which
> is the same whether the voter votes (1,0,0), or (1,1,0). The claim
> that bullet voting is higher utility is not correct, it depends.
> *Accurate* sincere voting is on a par, at least, with "strategic
> voting," but there were different implications. The exaggerated vote
> resulted, as one might predict, in more wins for the favorite. But it
> also resulted in more wins for the least-favored. The sincere vote
> was less variable in result.
>
> There was another interesting result from that study: if we take the
> Range election, with equal expected outcome for both the sincere vote
> and the strategic vote, and make it an Approval election, i.e.,
> restrict the set of legal votes to the Approval style votes, the
> expected outcome *declines.* The existence of even one voter who
> votes intermediate causes the entire vote distribution to dither,
> increasing accuracy, at least that's my theory of why this occurred.
>
> (More study is needed to confirm this; Warren Smith did co-author a
> page on it at rangevoting.org, so I think the math is sound; but the
> implications of converting to pure Approval have not been confirmed.)
>
> However, first things first. While Range may be theoretically
> superior, Approval does improve results quite a bit in the
> simulations, and it is blatantly obvious why. Approval is free, just
> Count All the Votes. In the ranked form, Bucklin, it was used fairly
> widely in the U.S. at one time, though before the living memory of
> nearly everyone.
>
> Consider this an election, and electability is important. The
> candidates are Plurality, IRV, Approval, Range, Condorcet. How would
> we vote in this election, held right now, assuming some level of
> public education in the campaign? How should the election be held?
> What method should be used?
>
> The Range Voting people are *all*, to my knowledge, supporting
> Approval at this time. While CRV is doing a level of educational
> effort regarding Range, it's Approval which is seeing real advocacy.
> It has a solid history of academic study. It's significant enough
> that FairVote is putting some considerable effort into finding ways
> to attack it. Simple, cheap, easy to understand, strategy very
> simple, no surprises, solves the spoiler problem, but has no center
> squeeze effect. Center squeeze is not important in a two-party
> system, but what if election reform lives up to the sometimes-implied
> promise that it helps third parties gain a toehold?
>
>
>
>  Your claim that strategic Range voters are actually sincere is not
> different from choosing to believe that the Plurality winner is always the
> favorite candidate of the most voters.
>
>  I'm disappointed. Mr. Venzke, I've seen much better analysis from
> you. Look again.
>
> In Range, there is no strategic advantage, ever, to reverse expressed
> preference from real preference. The so-called "insincere" vote in
> Range is simply a non-linear squeeze of the internal utilities, or
> another way to put it, the internal absolute utilities are
> normalized, first -- nearly everyone will do that, since an election
> is a choice, and choices are almost automatically normalized -- then
> the scale is expanded depending on two factors: expectations of how
> the electorate as a whole is likely to vote, and the effort the voter
> is willing to put into determining how to vote. Approval-style voting
> is relatively easy, and a lot of voters are going to do just that.
>
> In Plurality, by contrast, strategic voting requires preference
> reversal, as with all ranked methods where equal ranking is not allowed.
>
> It's simpler to see with Approval. I claim that a sincere vote in
> Approval is a vote which divides candidates into two sets: Approved
> and Not Approved. There is no reason for a voter to insincerely vote
> (other than through misunderstanding the implications, and they are
> pretty simple); an insincere vote would be voting for a candidate
> when another candidate preferred over him or her does not get a vote.
>
> What most voters will do with Approval is to vote for their favorite,
> first. They will also vote, most of them, for their preferred
> frontrunner, since all other votes are likely to be moot. And then,
> if they understand the system, they will likewise vote for any other
> candidates they also prefer to the frontrunner they voted for. But
> those third votes will be rare, and, practically by definition, in a
> two-party system, most voters would vote for only one.
>
> Range is obviously more complex to vote, but the basic principles are
> the same. I'd expect nearly all voters, once Range is understood, to
> vote the extremes for at least one candidate each. It's been argued
> that votes should be normalized, to correct for weak votes, on the
> theory that these were due to voter ignorance. Indeed, that was a
> proposal of mine. I later came to think it was a bad idea. Voters
> voting weak opinions *when they really do not have a strong
> preference and choose to partially abstain* actually improves outcome.
>
> It's easy to see why. Under Plurality, voters who don't care which of
> the frontrunners wins current may choose not to vote, or just don't
> go to the trouble. There is lots of handwringing over this, but, in
> fact it improves outcome over introducing noise. In face-to-face
> meetings, people who don't care about the outcome of a vote, they
> could accept either result, often abstain. As they should.
>
>
>
>  Essentially Range comes with a
> suggestion on how to rate candidates, that isn't motivated by the method's
> incentives. And then no matter how people vote, you choose to interpret
> that they followed the suggestion.
>
>  What suggestion does Range "come with"? First of all, Center for
> Range Voting, mostly put together by a mathematician, is not an
> authority on ballot instructions.
>
> Range voting is exactly equivalent to allowing fractional votes in an
> Approval election. Current ballot instructions say *nothing* about
> how to choose who to vote for. They do not say, "Vote for your
> Favorite," they certainly do not say, "Vote for your favored
> frontrunner." Approval ballots will not say, "Vote for all candidates
> you approve." If the ballots are as I would argue, they should merely
> describe what votes are legal and how the outcome will be determined,
> which is very, very simple with Range. Again, it is Just Count All
> the Votes. Candidate with the most votes wins.
>
> I must say, though, that I don't understand Venzke's last comment, it
> refers to more than one unspecified abstraction: the "suggestion on
> how to rate candidates," the "method's incentives," and, further,
> some "choice to interpret." We add up the votes, we don't "interpret"
> them. (In my opinion, that's best; the 'official' CRV recommendation
> is still average vote, which introduces a whole can of wormy
> complications for no real benefit, and the simulations utterly
> neglect this as far as I know, it's just an opinion that got stuck in
> there.)
>
> Approval instruction: Vote for all candidates you choose to support;
> the winner will be the candidate with the most votes.
>
> Range instruction (Range 3, +/-): For each candidate, mark Yes or No
> or leave the boxes blank. The candidate with the highest result,
> after No votes are subtracted from Yes votes, will win. A blank vote
> will not affect the total. (This is Range 3, the three possible votes
> are -1, 0, +1; the default vote pulls the average toward the center.
> However, it is also possible that there would be an explicit zero,
> and that average result would be used. I don't care to debate this,
> at this time, there is plenty of time. If we can't get Approval,
> Range is really pie in the sky.)
>
> Other possible instructions can be written for higher Range
> implementations and different treatment of abstentions; my own
> opinion probably that candidate abstentions should be treated as
> minimum rating, not mid rating, but this all really needs further study.
>
> Range Voting, at least under that name, was invented by a
> mathematician, not a political scientist. The description of Range in
> terms of the *meaning* of the vote, aside from the real political
> meaning, is a red herring. Votes are actions, not sentiments.
> Sentiment is something that the voter uses and integrates with the
> voter's opinion of what is possible, sometimes, to decide how to act,
> but behind a single action may be quite different intentions.
>
> To cover one more matter again: the application of the Majority
> Criterion to Approval depends on a quite problematic definition of
> "sincere vote," and James Armytage-Green struggles mightily with the
> problem on his page on this criterion. What he really ends up with,
> though he doesn't say it explicitly, is a definition of sincere vote
> in Approval as being not not sincere. Yes, double negative.
>
> Is it insincere to say that the set of candidates A, B is preferred
> to the set of candidates, C, D, if the voter has a preference between
> A and B? Of course not. It is not full disclosure of preference, that
> is all. To make Approval fail the Majority Criterion -- there seems
> to be a strong intuition that it fails, and so a lot of effort into
> manipulating the definition so that it, indeed, fails, which makes
> mincemeat of the use of election criteria for objective judgement --
> one must posit an internal preference that is not expressed, and,
> then, of course, if a preference is not expressed, it cannot be
> considered by the method and so the majority preference may fail to
> win. However, *any preference not expressed* can cause MC failure,
> and Plurality, as an example, is generally considered to pass MC.
> With Plurality, then, the criterion requires a "sincere vote." Which
> with plurality requires preference reversal, i.e., the voter prefers
> a candidate that the voter did not rank first.
>
> However, with Approval, the voter may rank the favorite first, there
> is no motive not to do so. The question is about additional
> approvals. If the majority chooses not to express its preference
> *exclusively*, then, of course, it can fail to elect its favorite.
> How do we describe this vote? Is it sincere?
>
> In the ordinary meaning, of course it is, there is no reason to
> presume otherwise. However, "sincere vote" is used technically in the
> Criterion. What does it mean?
>
> The original Majority Criterion that I could find simply referred to
> the voter's "preference list." It did not address unexpressed
> preferences, it was written for ranked methods, and seems to have
> assumed that full ranking was allowed. If a majority strictly prefers
> one candidate over all others, that candidate must prevail. But
> unwritten was that the majority must express the preference. If a
> majority strictly prefers one candidate over all others, and
> expresses that preference, that candidate must prevail. Approval
> passes this criterion. Some have argued that defining the criterion
> this way makes it useless, but that's not true. Range does not pass
> the criterion, because "prefer" has no strength; a majority may have
> a weak preference which is overcome by a strong preference of a minority.
>
> However, real world: It is certainly true that, with Approval, it
> could occur that the preference of a majority fails to be elected, if
> the majority adds votes which essentially cancel out the expression
> of this preference. But what has long been overlooked is that the
> situation in which this would happen would be extraordinarily rare
> under present conditions. We should be so luck as to see multiple
> majorities, which is what it takes! How often would voters vote for
> both frontrunners?
>
> I'd say, let's work for Approval and see how it plays out. Then some
> experimentation with fractional votes. The cost of both of these is
> well under the cost of implementing ranked methods; Approval is
> essentially free. Did I mention that it as simple as:
>
> Just Count All the Votes.
>
>
>
>
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>
> End of Election-Methods Digest, Vol 42, Issue 48
> ************************************************
>
>
>
>
>
>



-- 

Kathy Dopp

The material expressed herein is the informed  product of the author
Kathy Dopp's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a
Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in
exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at

P.O. Box 680192
Park City, UT 84068
phone 435-658-4657

http://utahcountvotes.org
http://electionmathematics.org
http://electionarchive.org

History of Confidence Election Auditing Development & Overview of
Election Auditing Fundamentals
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf

Vote Yes on HR811 and S2295
http://electionmathematics.org/VoteYesHR811.pdf

Voters Have Reason to Worry
http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf

"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body
and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day," wrote
Thomas Jefferson in 1816