[Election-Methods] A Better Version of IRV?

[fsimmons at pcc.edu]

----- Original Message -----
From: Chris Benham 
Date: Saturday, July 12, 2008 11:01 pm
Subject: Re:A Better Version of IRV?
To: EM 
Cc: fsimmons at pcc.edu

> Forest,
> "The voter ranks all she wants to and the remaining candidates 
> are ranked (later, i.e. below) by the voter's 
> favorite or perhaps, as Steve Eppley has suggested, by the 
> voter's specified public ranking. 
> 
> Since IRV satisfies LNH, what's the harm in this?".
> The harm is that voter's votes are used to help candidates that 
> the voters may not wish to help.
> It offends the principle that the voter should be fully in 
> control of his/her vote.
> Giving some voters (candidates) the power to fully control their 
> own vote and also to complete
> the rankings of some of the truncators offends the principle 
> that as far as possible all voters
> should have equal power.

This is easy to fix: just make it optional.

> "In Australia, where (in single winner elections) most of the 
> voters copy candidate cards, this would save 
> them a lot of bother."
> In Australia the only significant "bother" stems from compulsory 
> full strict ranking (for the vote to be
> counted as valid).  

Suppose that compulsory ranking were removed.  In the multi-winner case, "above the line" voting would 
still be a great practical help.  Help me find the best single winner analog of "above the line" voting.

> 
> 
> >This particular horrible idea would create a strong incentive 
> >for the major power-brokers to sponsor the nomination of a 
> > lot of fake candidates just to collect votes for one or other
> >of the major parties.
> 
> "Am I mising something here?"
> Yes, but I'm not sure exactly what.

Why do you think parties would run fake candidates?

> 
> "I thought IRV was clone free."
> It is, but that  isn't relevant.

Fake candidates from the same party would tend to be clones.

> 
> 
> >How do you think it "might be a valuable improvement"?? What 
> >scenario do you have in mind?
> 
> "(Besides the aboved mentioned advantage):
> 
> In conjunction with the candidate withdrawal option, it might 
> enable the (other) losing candidates to save the 
> Condorcet candidate, or otherwise compensate for IRV's non-
> monotonicity."
> I've previously made my case against the "candidate withdrawal 
> option".
> http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-
> electorama.com/2008-March/021463.html
> 
> http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-
> electorama.com/2008-March/021471.html

I'll read these.

> 
> I don't see how IRV's failure to elect the Condorcet candidate 
> is necessarily linked to its "non-monotonicity".
> There are monotonic (meets mono-raise) methods that fail 
> Condorcet, and some Condorcet methods that
> fail mono-raise.

I didn't intend to give the impression that these two problems were related.  Only that they might both be 
improved by similar tweaks.

> 
> I'm not impressed with embracing some evil definites in exchange 
> for some vague "mights".

This thread is an appeal to brainstorm, not a finished proposal.

> >And what do you have in mind as "Australia's worst problems 
> >with their version of IRV"?
> 
> "It has degenerated into a defacto second rate version of Asset 
> Voting."
> To the extent that that is true it can (and should) be fixed by 
> simply allowing truncation.

Warren's page on the subject 

http://www.rangevoting.org/AusAboveTheLine07.html

gives the impression that allowing truncation would not fix the problem.  It is most clear in the multi-
winner case, but the same psychology applies in the single winner case.

> 
> >Why do you want to "stop" IRV? Do you agree with Kathy Dopp
> >that IRV is worse than FPP?
> 
> "I would stop IRV if we could get a better method in its place.
> 
> If we cannot stop IRV, why not search for acceptable tweaks that 
> would improve it?"
> The short answer is because IRV isn't really amenable to 
> "tweaks".  

How about if the only tweaks are to facilitate the gathering of voter preferences in a way that makes it 
easier for the voters to vote?

> In terms of  positive
> criterion compliances it isn't dominated by any other method, 
> and has both good and quite
> bad properties (averaging in my judgement to a "good" method).  
> "Tweaks" generally muck
> up its good properties  without enough compensation in terms of 
> fixing or patching up its
> bad properties.
> I think Smith (or Shwartz),IRV is quite a good  Condorcet 
> method. It completely fixes the
> failure of Condorcet while being more complicated  (to explain 
> and at least sometimes to
> count) than plain IRV, and a Mutual Dominant Third candidate 
> can't be successfully buried.
> But it fails Later-no-Harm and Later-no-Help, is vulnerable to 
> Burying strategy, fails 
> mono-add-top, and keeps  IRV's failure of  mono-raise and 
> (related) vulnerability to
> Pushover strategy.
> 
> 
> "It is better than FPP in some ways and worse in others, 
> especially in complexity."
> With separate paper ballots for each race, I don't accept that 
> IRV is all that "complex".
> I think that you have somewhat dodged my question.

It doesn't seem too complex to you, but how about to the voters in public elections? Most of the ordinary 
voters that I have talked to agree with Lewis Carroll.  They would rather not have to fill out rankings.

Forest