[EM] Buying Votes

[Greg Nisbet]

On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 8:39 AM, Jobst Heitzig <heitzig-j at web.de> wrote:
> Dear Greg,
>
> you wrote:
>>
>> I'm not speaking about majoritarianism in this case, although you are
>> correct that it alleviates many of the problems. What I meant was
>> there is the potential for vote buying under any voting method where
>> voting is verifiable and non-unanimity can pass a policy.
>
> OK, I agree.
>
> You continued, answering me:
>>>>
>>>> In every reasonable voting method (remember democracy is distinct from
>>>> consensus), ...
>>>
>>> I can only remember what I believe to be true. This claim is not!
>>
>> democracy is distinct from consensus? Of course it is! I can win under
>> any reasonable voting method by pleasing less-than-everyone.
>
> I think I misunderstood you there. What I meant was: Sophisticted democratic
> decision methods can lead to almost complete consensus. FAWRB promises to do
> so by giving everybody an incentive to search for a good compromise and
> making sure it wins with very large probability. This is indeed very near to
> reaching consensus! Only majoritarian (and thus undemocratic) methods lead
> to results often far from consensus. For this reason, I tend to find
> majoritarian methods relatively unreasonable :-)

I wish I knew how FAWRB worked...
>
>> I attempted to explain in
>> You Can't Have it Both Ways that a voting system cannot and should not
>> be designed to protect rights... but I digress.
>
> A voting system should not be designed to protect rights? Of course it
> should! It should be designed to protect the right of everybody to have an
> equal amount of power in decisions!

Umm ok... But it should not be designed to protect rights less that
one. For instance, how could a voting system possibly protect free
speech or something like that? How could a voting system protect the
right to property? They don't; you would be foolish to say they
should. But you don't say that, so no one is a fool.
>
>> I have never seen any method lauded so much for disobeying a criterion. ;
>> )
>
> What's a "criterion"? Usually it is a sentence which can either be true or
> false about any decision method. Whether "passing" or "failing" a criterion
> is the good thing depends on values. My most important values are first
> equality and individual rights, then efficiency. Hence failing the majority
> criterion is mandatory for any reasonable decision method since majoritarian
> ones disrespect my most important values.

Most people say the majority criterion is a good one. I, for one,
doubt its importance. I was merely saying that a counter-criterion
inconsistent with the majority criterion hasn't really been offered.
>
>>> You're totally right. This is the best motivation for giving each voter
>>> the
>>> same voting power instead of giving some majority all of the power. Then
>>> the
>>> majority has something to "trade". In order to get my proposed option
>>> elected, I need their cooperation which I must "buy" by taking their
>>> preferences into account in my proposal.
>>
>> I don't follow. If I reward a majority, then that does nothing to
>> prevent future majorities from forming.
>
> I don't want to prevent any majority from forming. That would be ridiculous
> as people have every right to have the same opinion as others. The point is
> not whether there are majorities or not. The point is that majorities must
> not be given 100% of the decision power in any single decision.

umm... in any electoral method some subset will have absolute power...
>
>> Majoritarianism isn't some
>> complete shift of power to whoever can muster 51%...
>
> Er? That's *exactly* what majoritarianism is! What else than a shift of
> power would you call it when 51% of the people need not care what the other
> 49% want in some individual decision because they can safely establish what
> they want? Obviously they have the complete power in that decision when a
> majoritarian method is used.

Majoritarianism only supports itself so far as majority support will take it.

A majority for instance cannot vote to disenfranchise the other 49%.

Also, in ANY electoral method you can get useless votes.

For example, if I have 999 people supporting me under some
non-majoritarian method, 1 person voting against it won't make a hell
of a lot of difference. The 999 have complete power!

This is a gripe with democracy not with majoritarianism.
>
>> Every voter has the same capacity to influence the election.
>
> If you believe this is the case with your favourite majoritarian method,
> then please show me how the latter 45% in the following quite common
> situation have the "same capacity to influence the election": 55% wanting A,
> 45% wanting B. Just tell me what the 45% can do to avoid getting A for
> certain.

Nothing. See above 999 to 1 example.

Thinking outside the box, they could secede.
>
> I can tell you what they can do when FAWRB is used: They can just vote for B
> and thus give B a 45% winning chance, compared to a 55% winning chance for
> A. But even better: They can also propose a good compromise option C which
> everybody prefers much to the 55%/45% lottery. If they suggest such a C,
> everybody will have an incentive to mark C as "approved" under FAWRB, so
> that C will be elected with certainty.
>
>
Athenian democracy doesn't work. Sorry. Using a non-determinstic
method incurs massive flaws in real life.

Applying the same logic to majoritarian methods, every opinion has a
given probability of being a majority.

This is no more evil than a probability of being chosen by a random
number generator...


>
>> OMOV and
>> majority are not in conflict. No rules says that a majority method is
>> automatically non-OMOV.
>
> OMOV is a purely formal requirement which is so trivial that I cannot
> remember a single decision method having been discussed here that not
> fulfilled it when interpreted correctly. "OMOV Interpreted correctly" means
> "the only information about the voter used in the decision process must be
> his or her preferences as revealed by him or her on the ballot".

Yay we agree OMOV is trivial. Why do you keep bringing up violations
of OMOV then? Denying voters influence is an OMOV flaw. If you did not
mean it this way, again see 999 to 1 example.
>
> What OMOV does *not* guarantee is that everybody has an influence on the
> decision. Obviously, majoritarian methods are OMOV but make it impossible
> for as much as 49% of the voters to influence the decision.

Remember the definition of majority for the purposes of this
discussion. It is a group of int(.5*voters)+1 people who want X w/o
precondition. It is not as if the majority supports X1 and X2 and has
trouble deciding b/w the two, giving the minority an option to present
its opinion w/o overruling people.

If there are a group of int(.5*voters)+1 people who vote X > non-X and
X is one and only one candidate, how does the minority express its
opinion w/o violating OMOV.

I'm starting a new thread about whether determinism is fair, so
arguments NONDETERMINISM > DETERMINISM should probably go there.
>
>> I don't think that non-majoritarian methods are intrinsically better.
>
> If you don't think democracy is important...

They ARE better, just not intrinsically so. Specific violation of a
given property does not a perfect voting system make.

>
>> Right... voting is non-contractual. THAT IS THE POINT! If it were
>> contractual (read "verifiable"),
>
> No, I don't read "contractual" as "verifiable". FAWRB makes it essentially
> contractual in providing safe ways to cooperate anonymously without having
> to reveal my preferences to anybody.

Hmm... secret contracts huh? Do you know where I could read about
FAWRB. I really want to know how it works.

Is there ever an incentive not to secret contract? If so, is it significant?

>
>> Voters do not make contracts. Voters do not agree to
>> respect each others decisions.
>
> Are you reporting your own experience here? Or are you just stating that
>  most methods do not provide incentives to make contracts and respect others
> decisions? FAWRB does give such incentives: The 55% majority really gains
> much in helping to find a compromise which is attractive to the other 45%,
> too, because then they will get the compromise instead of the 55%/45%
> lottery in which one faction's favourite wins at random.

I see... is this FAWRB?

Candidates have three statuses on a ballot: Favorite, Approved, Disapproved

I pick two ballots at random.

If there is a candidate that is favorite on both ballots, pick it.

If there is a candidate that is favorite on the first and approved on
the second, pick it.

If there is a candidate that is approved on the first and favorite on
the second, pick it.

If there is a candidate that is approved on both the first and second, pick it.

Otherwise pick the favorite on the first.

==========================================

Ok now the actual criticism. I know that FAWRB is nondeterministic.
Here is why that is bad.

Factions (both unwilling to compromise):

A 55%
B 45%

you view A as gaining a "55% chance of victory".

This reasoning is flawed. Instead of viewing A as getting .55 victory
units, think of it as a random choice between two possible worlds:

A-world and B-world

A-world is 10% more likely to occur, however they share remarkable similarities.

In both worlds >=45% of the people had no say whatsoever.

Now, you're reasoning apppears to stem from a simple observation...
"If A achieves one more vote, its chance of victory increases, hence
everyone has a say!"

That reasoning, while correct, leads to a flawed conclusion.

The average number of wasted votes or the people who, for a particular
election, had no impact on the election is HIGHER.

The only difference is that adding one more vote causes the
probability to increase. It isn't that any of the results are more
fair (A-world and B-world are still equally as good and bad,
respectively), it's just that the illusion of choice exists.

You simply changed the definition of majority from deterministic to
probabilistic.

This isn't an improvement.





>
>> I will expand this slightly.
>>
>> Democracy and individual rights are inconsistent.
>
> At least democracy is not inconsistent with the individual right to have
> equal power in decisions (this is what FAWRB proves). Rather, democracy is
> just *about* that particular individual right!

Let me explain please. Any non-consensus method enables a particular
group to victimized at the whim of a larger faction. FAWRB allows
this, it is simply probabilistic so the victims feel like they have a
shot.
>
>> Being from California, I am from the west and thus am guilty of
>> equating majority rule and democracy.
>
> Nobody saves you from erring even in the presence of better evidence which I
> won't repeat again :-)

OK... my counterevidence is near the top of this email.
>
>> By democracy I meant
>> non-dictatorship non-perfect-consensus.
>
> To me it makes no essential difference whether the dictator is one person or
> a group of persons. So, in principle, majoritarianism qualifies as
> dictatorship, too.

By that logic, anything that makes a decision is a dictatorship.
>
>> Democracy will only last until people realize they can just vote
>> themselves the money. Mutual distrust keeps them from realizing this.
>
> It is Majoritarianism what will only last that long. In many countries
> around the globe, majority populations *have* realized that they can just
> vote themselves the money of the rest. That's a main reason why so many
> minorities want to separate themselves from the respective majority, which
> they often can only be prevented from by using violence.

Would FAWRB stop this? FAWRB means an idea doesn't even have to be
popular; it can just be lucky.

Greg Nisbet