[EM] it's been pretty quiet around here...

[robert bristow-johnson]

On Aug 14, 2010, at 5:37 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
>
> Since FV thinks IRV is so nice, it's to their benefit to link  
> preferential voting, the concept, to IRV, the method, so that others  
> thing "oh, either IRV or Plurality". Since IRV appears better than  
> Plurality (at least until the summability issues are encountered),  
> this makes it relatively easy to slip in IRV, and the theory then  
> goes, to go from IRV to STV, which is much better.
>
> It doesn't appear that we can change FV's minds from IRV to  
> something better (like Condorcet). When you dig really far down, the  
> issue boils down to "weak centrist! Condorcet winner! weak centrist!  
> Condorcet winner!" and there you go -- and then they sprinkle LNHarm  
> and *perhaps* burial resistance on top.

my experience with Rob Ritchie is that IRV is the only method with an  
ice cube's chance in hell of being adopted in a governmental  
election.  the claim is that IRV can be directly related to the  
traditional delayed runoff and that it is no different, except for no  
delay (which has the measurable difference in that many more voters  
participate in the instant runoffs than in the delayed runoff).  but,  
for that to be true, it should have no more than 2 rounds with the top  
two of the first round going into the second and final round.  of  
course, that doesn't fix the problems demonstrated in the 2009  
Burlington mayoral election (because the "true majority" winner would  
not have made it to the runoff in either case).

> Cardinal ratings technically pass both because it can pass IIA since  
> it doesn't care about universal domain. However, I think that CR  
> (Range, Score, etc) will be hard to get passed, since it doesn't  
> even pass Majority. Even if Warren is right and social utility  
> comparisons are better than majority rule, most people associate  
> democratic fairness with that if some candidate is preferred by a  
> majority, he should win. There are also the tactical issues: CR  
> reduces to Approval (as Youtube raters found out)

and Approval can reduce to Plurality bringing along the same strategy  
problems of Plurality.

> and pretty soon voters who want their vote to count must haul around  
> concepts like "maybe frontrunner, plus" (LeGrand's Approval strategy  
> A), something which really should be inside the method rather than  
> outside.
>
> Thus we can't follow FV; and while we could advocate cardinal  
> ratings, I don't think that would be very successful (and in any  
> event, should be DSV instead). That leaves Condorcet, and so I think  
> there should be an organization or group or at least some sort of  
> coherent support for Condorcet.

well, there used to be a condorcet.org or condercet.com (neither have  
an active web page, although the .com has a dumb page put up by the  
registrar, just like my audioimagination.com does).

> (Alas, I'm not a very good organizer and I'm about 5000 km away.)
>
> What should such a group do? First, it should state that the concept  
> of ranked voting is different from what method may be used as its  
> back-end. Second, it should have a clear and easily understandable  
> name for Condorcet, or for the Condorcet method it settles upon. The  
> former could be done more simply: "round robin voting", "maximum  
> majority voting", "championship" or "tournament" voting (but beware  
> of equating it with an elimination tournament), etc.

Warren has used the term "beats-all winner" for the Condorcet winner.


> The latter would be more difficult, as Schulze, for instance, is  
> hard to explain.
>
> For reasoning, it might point out that if you put all the voters on  
> a line, and cancel out the leftmost with the rightmost until one  
> voter remains, the candidate closest to that voter wins -- if that's  
> not too advanced.
> It might also show that if there's a CW, no recall by any of the  
> other candidates can work against him, because a majority prefers  
> him to each of the other candidates. That particular argument might  
> be useful for those who dread a repeal, because if the method elects  
> the CW, supporters of a single loser can't dress the complaint that  
> the wrong candidate won up as a repeal of the method, simply because  
> they don't have the voters required to make the repeal pass simply  
> by that property alone. That is not what happened in Burlington, but  
> it's similar - Condorcet minimizes this chance, and beatpath-based  
> methods try to do so in the case of cycles as well.
>
> It should also ask the actual people, voters, what they think is  
> important with respect to an election method, if such can be done.  
> If simplicity matters, Ranked Pairs' relative simplicity may be more  
> important than Schulze's track record, for instance. Asking in that  
> manner could also help letting it know which arguments work - e.g.  
> if the canceling-out phrasing of the singlepeakedness theorem gives  
> a sense of fairness.

as much as i like the Schulze method, since it is so much more  
difficult to explain and for a lay person to comprehend, there will  
always be some suspicion around it in the minds of people who want to  
"Keep Voting Simple" (the signs from the IRV opponents in  
Burlington).  they won't like any Condorcet, because most  
fundamentally do not like the ranked ballot, but since Ranked Pairs  
(which is simpler to understand) and Schulze pick the same winner if  
there is a CW (the most common case, i believe) and if the Smith Set  
is no larger than 3 (which, i believe will take up the other 1% of  
cases), then i cannot imagine how it could be more efficacious to  
promote Schulze Beatpath over Tideman Ranked Pairs.  but, also for  
simplicity, maybe the best method to sell is simple Condorcet and  
then, if no CW exists, pick the plurality (of first choices) winner.   
i'm not saying it's best, just that it's simple to understand and that  
the likelihood that no CW exists will be small (or is, at least,  
believed to be small).

the other method, BTR-IRV (which i had never thought of before before  
Jameson mentioned it and Kristofer first explained to me last May), is  
a Condorcet-compliant IRV method.  i wonder how well or poorly it  
would work if no CW exists.  i am intrigued by this method since it  
could still be sold to the IRV crowd (as an IRV method) and not suffer  
the manifold consequences that occur when IRV elects someone else than  
the CW.  does "BTR" stand for "bottom two runoff"?  and who first  
suggested this method?  is it published anywhere?  Jameson first  
mentioned it here, AFAIK.  the advantage of this method is that is  
really is no more complicated to explain than IRV, and it *does*  
resolve directly to a winner whether a CW exists or not.  i am curious  
in how, say with a Smith Set of 3, this method would differ from RP or  
Schulze.

--

r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."