[Election-Methods] [EM] RV comments

[Juho]

On Jul 22, 2007, at 6:58 , Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

> At 08:17 AM 7/21/2007, Juho wrote:
>> I also think that Range is a good method in non-contentions polls and
>> elections. But in the statement above a competitive election was of
>> course the assumption.
>
> Why?
>
> *Assumptions should be stated.* Election methods are used in all  
> kinds of situations. If there is an ideal election method for use  
> where it would be expected that people will vote sincerely,  
> shouldn't we know it?

Yes, it is good to state the assumptions. I however do assume  
election scenarios to be competitive unless other assumptions are  
explicitly stated. Especially with Range it makes a big difference to  
me if one plans to use it in a non-competitive or competitive set-up.

> And *then* we could look at what happens when some people don't  
> vote sincerely? It's clear that there is harm done, under some  
> circumstances, but how much harm and who is harmed the most? Is it  
> the sincere voters? Or is it those who did not provide accurate  
> information to the voting method, so it can't possibly optimize  
> their satisfaction?

Unfortunately with Range my understanding is that in a situation  
where we have several "parties"/"groupings", some of which vote  
strategically and some not, Range is too rewarding to the strategic  
groupings.

> I don't find the answers to these questions obvious. Apparently  
> some do.

I think the main rules for Range are quite straight forward. There  
are some special cases that raise interesting second thoughts, but as  
a main rule I'd say that if some "bigger than marginal" group of  
voters is strategic, then Range tends to become "Approval with option  
to cast weakened votes".

>> And there are some minor things in the description, e.g. Range is
>> typically defined as having only a fixed number of possible ratings,
>> not any value between 0 and 1.
>
> A completely general definition of Range would be that votes are  
> allowed anywhere in a Range of real numbers, and the votes are  
> summed or averaged (it makes a difference, depending on how blanks  
> are handled, and there are proposals one way and proposals another).
>
>> But isn't t so that the description above is a quite valid
>> description as a main rule for competitive elections (where we want
>> all voters to cast votes of similar strength).
>
> No. Who is "we"? I don't want all voters to cast votes of equal  
> strength in all pairwise elections, because it patently damages the  
> function of any election method to do so. What Approval style  
> voting amounts to is only allowing the voter to vote in certain  
> pairwise elections, with full strength, while totally abstaining  
> from others. Range simply allows the voter an expanded range of  
> intermediate possibilities.

In my terms you are interested also in elections that non- 
competitive. That's good. Let's just make it clear when we talk about  
competitive and when about non-competitive or less competitive cases  
=> Assumptions to be stated. (Term "we want" is just passive "one  
wants".)

> Approval is a constricted Range method.
>
> Lost in all this is the fact that the general consensus among Range  
> advocates is that Approval is an excellent first step. It's cheap,  
> it's simple, it's easy to understand. And it *is* Range, just the  
> maximally constricted version.

First step to what? I that would be e.g. the U.S. election reform,  
then the second step might be difficult since it may require that the  
competitive elections first evolve into more non-competitive (to make  
Range really useful). I'm not very optimistic, I think the U.S.  
elections are currently quite competitive.

> Then, we suggest, there will start to be pressure for refinements.  
> Those refinements can go in two directions: ranking or rating.  
> Approval, because of the restriction to Yes/No on each candidate,  
> can also be considered a ranked method with only two ranks. And,  
> so, another rank could be added, and the vote analyzed pairwise as  
> a truncated Condorcet method, or analyzed in Range style, perhaps  
> as sum of votes.
>
> Taking the first step of Approval does not prejudice us with regard  
> to the next step, which could go in the ranked method direction or  
> the higher-resolution Range direction. I *am* a Range advocate,  
> which means that I have, so far, concluded that Range is generally  
> a better method than ranked methods, but it should be noted that I  
> don't consider Range the be-all and end-all of election methods,  
> not simple, single-step Range.
>
> And, in fact, I would have the Range ballots analyzed pairwise as  
> well, and when the Range winner would be beaten in a straight-on  
> contest by another candidate, I'd hold a runoff. A real runoff, not  
> a fake one.
>
> Once again, this takes us outside what many election methods  
> aficionados are accustomed to, for there is no way to clearly  
> predict what will happen with such a runoff. But if we *do* have  
> such a runoff, we have done something quite significant, which is  
> to make our Range method compliant with the Majority Criterion (and  
> almost certainly would select the Condorcet winner, if there is one  
> and that preference remains through the runoff). To be more than a  
> joke, the Range method would have to have sufficient resolution  
> that voters could indicate a preference between the top two rated  
> candidates on a single ballot, with minimal damage to voting  
> strength between both of these candidates and all other candidates.  
> With low-res Range, I'd actually propose a Favorite marker, counted  
> the same as the other-wise max rating for Range results, but used  
> in the Preference analysis.

I have mentioned this before. One could go in the direction of making  
Range Condorcet compliant (use it as a Condorcet completion method).  
Or alternatively one can be happy with the fact that in non- 
competitive elections/polls Range can pick better candidates (sum of  
utilities point of view) than Condorcet would pick.

>>  If someone has as
>> exact and compact formulations (to fix this one or to propose a new
>> one) on where and how Range works please put them forward.
>
> Wikipedia currently has:
>
>> Range voting is a <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
>> Voting_system>voting system for one-seat elections under which  
>> voters score each candidate, the scores are added up, and the  
>> candidate with the highest score wins.
>
> Now, looking again at what had been written:
>
>> I think Warren Schudy put it well in a  July 2007 draft paper:
>>
>> "Range voting is a generalisation of approval voting where you can  
>> give each candidate any score
>> between 0 and 1. Optimal strategies never vote anything other than  
>> 0 or 1, so range voting
>> complicates ballots and confuses voters for little or no gain."
>
> This is from a draft paper, and we don't have that paper, so we  
> don't know the context. I objected to a number of things about this  
> statement.
>
> (1) "Range voting is a generalization of Approval Voting." Maybe  
> it's not important, but this implies that Range was developed as  
> some kind of extension of Approval Voting. I don't think that is  
> true. Range Voting actually comes, I think, from utility analysis.  
> If one is trying to maximize utility over a series of "instances,"  
> i.e., voters, for a set of choices, one collects, for each choice,  
> the utilities from each instance and adds them.
>
> Approval Voting could be considered a simplification of this, but,  
> again, that's not where it came from.
>
> It is more accurate and complete to say, if you are going to say  
> anything about Approval in defining Range, to note that Approval is  
> a special case of Range where the only two allowed votes are 0 and  
> 1. And that is what Wikipedia does.

I accept all the definition styles. I don't mind which viewpoint  
people use as long as it works. (Occam's razor should be applied to  
some extent.) Historical facts should of course be stated correctly.  
I'm not sure if there is only one path to Range in history.

> Secondly, the statement that "optimal strategies never vote  
> anything other than 0 or 1," doesn't appear to be correct, which  
> certainly would be a problem in a Range definition!
>
> Thirdly, that there is "little or no gain" from allowing  
> intermediate votes does not follow from the comment about optimal  
> strategies, unless we were considering only the gain of the  
> individual voter, rather than gain to society overall.
>
> Thus the entire statement is controversial, and controversy like  
> that doesn't belong in an "exact and compact formulation."

I would say, only in details in wording. The basic idea definitely  
makes sense. Better formulations may exist.

Juho

> Ballot complexity is a red herring. Approval is Range 1 and it is  
> minimally complex, the simplest possible ballot, in fact.
>
> Range 2 only adds one option; this has been used in MSNBC polls (-, 
> 0,+), and it is quite interesting to compare it to Plurality polls;  
> it clearly provides much better information about how voters feel  
> about the candidates.
>
> In any case, there is minimal additional complexity here, and  
> whether or not it provides a gain is *quite* controversial. I think  
> it's pretty clear that it would, and simulations confirm this. Got  
> any better method of predicting gain or loss?
>
>


	
	
		
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