[Election-Methods] Clone related problems in Range/Approval

[Dave Ketchum]

I choose to ignore Approval and Range Voting, to concentrate on Condorcet.

On Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:50:34 -0700 Steve Eppley wrote:
> Hi,
...
> Juho also made a point about whether a similar problem might exist given 
> ranked ballot voting methods.  Voters could have trouble ranking all 
> their party's candidates.  If so, parties could be deterred from 
> nominating more than one candidate (or a smaller number than they would 
> nominate otherwise) and would continue to rely on expensive and 
> haphazard primary elections to winnow their contenders. 

Parties have no business running a bunch of candidates, for they cannot 
afford doing well at related multiple campaigns.

They also have no need to restrict nominations to single candidates, for 
voters can vote for more than one.

So I am agin the expense of primaries here.

Voters DO NEED to understand ranking:
      Cycles do need to be understood and ignored.  They should be rare, 
for they require a near tie among 3 or more leaders.  Not much to do about 
preparation because likelihood is unpredictable in real life.

Ranking is not that hard.  For example:
      1. Rank as many as are easy to rank at even numbered ranks per 
better and worse, giving what you see as clones the same ranks.
      2. While there are more and at least one is worth ranking above junk,
rank next one at an even or odd rank adjacent to or among those done, per 
relative liking, spread what you have out as in #1, and repeat.
      Great precision is not important - mismatching A>B vs B>A only 
affects relationship among those two, but not what happens to other 
relationships.
>                                                          If the ranked 
> ballot voting method is Condorcetian, which would normally favor 
> centrist compromise candidates, I think the point also covers centrist 
> compromise parties and candidates, since if some voters fail to rank a  
> "needed" compromise candidate (needed to defeat a greater evil) because 
> too many candidates are on the ballot, we could continue to see two big 
> polarized parties each nominating only one candidate per office.  I've 
> written about this point too.  I first heard about it from Mike Alvarez 
> of Caltech years ago. 

Voters need to understand multiple ranking is needed, and not that hard.

>                        Another friend of mine found research that 
> suggests people have trouble meaningfully ranking more than about 7 
> items.  My proposed solution (which I've also written about several 
> times) is the family of voting methods in which each voter simply 
> selects one candidate on election day, and prior to election day each 
> candidate publishes a rank ordering of the candidates. (The simplest 
> good method in this family is the one that allows candidates to withdraw 
> after the votes are published, then counts each vote using plurality 
> rule for the non-withdrawn candidate ranked highest in the selected 
> candidate's published ordering.)

Even with many candidates, great precision is not important in Condorcet 
ranking - especially among clones, for which it matters little which one wins.

I choke on the suggested dropping out because it greatly complicates life 
for all concerned.
> 
> Regards,
> Steve
> ----------------------
>>On Apr 14, 2008, at 1:23 , Juho wrote:
...
>>>Juho
>>>
>>>
>>>P.S. Similar problems may hit also the ranked methods if voters are
>>>too lazy to rank at least all the (strongest) own party clones.
>>>Bullet voting for one's favourite clone only may thus be a problem.
>>>If this is common parties will have the incentive to limit the number
>>>of candidate also in ranked methods like Condorcet and IRV. One (ad
>>>hoc?) approach to fighting against these problems could be to
>>>interpret bullet votes as ranking also the other candidates of the
>>>same party ("R1" => "R1>R2=R3=R4") (or those candidates that this
>>>candidate has listed as his/her second favourites) unless the voter
>>>explicitly has indicated that the intention really is to bullet vote.
>>>This could be also hierarchical ("party1" =>
>>>"party1>party2=party3=party4>wing1=wing2=wing3>...") or a full
>>>preference order as given by party1. (Why not also changing
>>>"party1>party3" to "party1>party3>..." using party1's other
>>>preferences to complete the ballot.)

Teaching avoiding bullet voting is proper and seems doable.  I choke on 
guessing what the apparent bullet voter might have meant.
-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
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