[EM] Range Voting vs Condorcet (Greg Nisbet)

[Jobst Heitzig]

Hi Terry,

although FAWRB can be found in the lists archives, I use the opportunity 
to give the current definition of ...


My favourite version of
FAWRB (Favourite or Approval Winner Random Ballot)
--------------------------------------------------

1. Each voter rates each option as either "harmful", "not agreeable", 
"agreeable", "good compromise" or "favourite", the default being 
"agreeable". Only one option may be marked "favourite".

2. Those options which are rated "harmful" by more than, say, 90% of 
voters get excluded. (This security provision is only necessary when 
there is danger of really harmful options which are not already excluded 
by other mechanisms)

3. That options which is rated "agreeable" or better on the largest 
number of ballots is the "nominated" option.

4. A die is tossed. If it shows a six, 15 ballots are drawn at random, 
otherwise only 3 ballots.

5. If the "nominated" option is rated "good compromise" or better on all 
those ballots, it wins. Otherwise wins the option rated "favourite" on 
the first of the drawn ballots.

(Some unimportant details for tie breaking need to be added)


Although this seems pretty much randomness, my claim is that in 
practise, it will actually not be very random since opposing factions 
will cooperate in electing good compromise options with very high 
probability.

In my 55/45-example of
   55% of voters having A 100 > C 80 > B 0 and
   45% of voters having B 100 > C 80 > A 0,
the strategic equilibrium under FAWRB is when
   the first 55% vote A "favourite", C "good compromise", B "bad" and
   the other 45% vote B "favourite", C "good compromise", A "bad"
in which case C is the sure winner without any randomness involved. This 
is because no voter gains anything in rating C lower.


If you want to try FAWRB, you can use this demo which even adds a 
delegable proxy component to it: http://62.75.149.22/groucho_fawrb_dp.php

Yours, Jobst



Terry Bouricius schrieb:
> What does "FAWRB" stand for?
> 
> Terry Bouricius
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jobst Heitzig" <heitzig-j at web.de>
> To: "Greg Nisbet" <gregory.nisbet at gmail.com>; "Raph Frank" 
> <raphfrk at gmail.com>
> Cc: <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
> Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 10:38 AM
> Subject: Re: [EM] Range Voting vs Condorcet (Greg Nisbet)
> 
> 
> Dear Raph,
> 
> you replied to me:
>>> That leads me to the main problem with Range (as with any other 
>>> majoritarian
>>> method): It is simply not democratic. It cannot be because every
>>> majoritarian method gives 100% of the power to less than 100% of the 
>>> people
>>> (the "demos" in greek).
>> They do have an equal vote.  The move the median in their direction.
> 
> First, what does an "equal vote" help when the other group (the majority) 
> can elect whomever they want regardless of what you do? Nothing.
> 
> And, the median claim is plain wrong: When you're already on one side of a 
> median, moving further away from it does never change that median. Basic 
> statistics.
> 
>> However, you do get degenerate societies where there is a majority
>> that is a bloc.
>>
>> In Northern Ireland, for example, the Unionists have a majority.  This
>> led to discrimination of the Nationalist minority.
> 
> That's exactly my point. There are lots of such examples which all show 
> clearly that majoritarianism is not democratic.
> 
>> The problem with this majority is that it is solid and unchanging.
>>
>> Ideally, majority should just mean the group of more than 50% on a
>> particular issue.  Every person should sometimes be part of the
>> majority and sometimes part of the minority.
> 
> That doesn't help because then the majority on issue A will still overrule 
> the rest in every single decision on that issue. So a compromise option 
> for that issue will have no chance.
> 
>> If a certain group of
>> people are always part of the minority, then this leads to a poorly
>> functioning society.
> 
> A split society will only function poorly when a majoritarian method is 
> used. When they use a method like FAWRB instead, they will function well 
> because then they will care what the other faction wants, will try to 
> devise good compromise options, and will vote in a way which makes sure 
> the good compromises are elected instead of the random ballot result. This 
> is possible *precisely* because with a non-majoritarian method the 
> majority cannot simply ignore the minority but has to figure out how to 
> get them to approve a compromise that is sufficiently near to their 
> favourite. Non-majoritarian methods encourage discourse and cooperation.
> 
>> Germany has 'eternal' provisions.  Some amendment proposals can be
>> blocked by their Constitutional Court.  This I think is undemocratic.
>> The eternal provisions relate to fundamental rights, which is their
>> reasoning.
> 
> The reason why we have such should be obvious from history. It saves us 
> for example from such restrictions of civil rights our American fellows 
> experience since 9/11.
> 
>> Someone wrote:
>>> Then let me challenge you right away: I don't understand at all what 
>>> those
>>> numbers a range-ballot asks me for are supposed to mean. They are not
>>> explained but instead it is simply assumed naively that each voter 
>>> will be
>>> able to assign meaningful numbers to options.
> 
> That someone was me.
> 
> Yours, Jobst
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>