[EM] Anyone got a good analysis on limitations of approval andrange voting? (long)

[Jobst Heitzig]

Dear Matthew,

you wrote:
> Suite of complicated systems that strive to reach "Condorcet" ideals.
>
>    1. No regular bloke would ever trust 'em because you can't explain
>       how they work in one or two sentences.

Well, here's a very simple "Condorcet" system which can easily be
explained in two sentences:

1. Let voters vote on candidate pairs, successively replacing the loser
with a different candidate, in a random order of candidates.
2. As soon as all candidates have been included, the winner of the last
pair is declared the overall winner.

This system is arguably the earliest example of a "Condorcet" system. It
was devised by Ramon Llull in the 13th century and was successfully used
for elections in monastaries. It is easily understood by the common man
since it resembles a procedure frequently used in child play.

Yours, Jobst


Matthew Welland schrieb:
> Thanks all for the discussion and pointers. I still can't concretely
> conclude anything yet but here are some rambling and random thoughts
> based on what was said and my prior experiences.
> 
> Plurality
> 
>    1. Leads to two lowest common denominator parties which are not
>       accountable to the voters. This conclusion supported by real world
>       observation.
>    2. Feels right to the non-critical mind, "one man, one vote"
>    3. Very fast at the polls
> 
> Approval
> 
>    1. Encourages participation of minor parties and thus should keep the
>       big guys paying attention to a wider base.
>    2. Almost zero marginal implementation cost. Hanging chads count just
>       fine :)
>    3. Understandable by anyone but feels wrong at first "not fair, you
>       get more than one vote".
>    4. Apparently has a terrible flaw but no one seems to be able to
>       articulate it in layman terms. No real world experience available
>       to illustrate the problem. Here is where I need to learn more.
>       Data provided to date is unconvincing to me.
>    5. Does not meet the desire of some to be able to differentiate
>       between "I like", "I like a lot" etc. (note: this seems like
>       perfectionism to me. Large numbers of voters and opinions all over
>       the bell curve should make individual expression at the greater
>       level of granularity irrelevant.)
>    6. Very fast at the polls. Pick yer favorites and head home for beer
>       and telly.
> 
> Range
> 
>    1. Can break the vicious cycle of plurality
>    2. Not voting for someone at all can have a strong influence on
>       election outcome. This is very non-intuitive and would take some
>       getting used to.
>    3. Allows for nuanced voting.
>    4. Pain in the ass at the polls (relatively speaking). You can't
>       safely disregard the candidates you don't care about so you *have*
>       to assign everyone a ranking, possibly addressable by defaulting
>       to zero for all candidates? This is considered a feature and I
>       agree it has merit. But in reality it is a deal breaker for joe
>       six pack and co. (and for lazy sobs like me).
> 
> IRV
> 
>    1. Demonstrably broken. 'nuff said.
> 
> Suite of complicated systems that strive to reach "Condorcet" ideals.
> 
>    1. No regular bloke would ever trust 'em because you can't explain
>       how they work in one or two sentences.
>    2. Technically superior to other systems.
>    3. Not clear what problem with approval they would solve. Unless you
>       are a perfectionist and insist that individuals express nuances of
>       opinion... 
> 
> Some time ago I put together a site (primitive and unfinished[i]) to
> promote approval voting and in the process I spent a lot of time trying
> different systems on the web and repeatedly testing my own site. I
> noticed some interesting things from all that playing around.
> 
>    1. It was very uncomfortable to go back to plurality after trying
>       other systems. It "feels" unfair and broken.
>    2. It was very tedious voting in any of the ranking systems.
>    3. Approval felt boring but good. 
> 
> I have checked in on this list now and then and I admit I don't have the
> time or skills to follow all the arguments but it strikes me that
> approval voting is good enough to break the deadlock, at least in US
> politics and that it doesn't have any major flaws. The very
> understandable desire to be able to articulate in a finer grained way in
> your vote is perfectionism. With millions of voters, for every person on
> the fence about a particular candidate there will be some to either side
> who will essentially make or break the vote. If you are on the fence,
> approve or disapprove, it won't matter.
> 
> So, to re-frame my question. What is the fatal flaw with approval? I'm
> not interested in subtle flaws that result in imperfect results. I'm
> interested in flaws that result in big problems such as those we see
> with plurality and IRV.
> 
> 
> [i] www.approvalvote.org
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info