[EM] Fwd: IRV vs Plurality
robert bristow-johnson
rbj at audioimagination.com
Sat Jan 16 16:43:16 PST 2010
i am posting this to the EM mailist, because either Kathy intended it
to go to the list and it hasn't, i think she hit "Reply" instead of
"Reply All". she says:
> Everyone on this list understand that except for you.
>
> Any help anyone?
... supporting that assumption. but this never appeared in my EM
Methods box and, examining the headers, i don't think it made it to
anyone else's EM Methods box, either.
even if she intended the email to go to me only, i do not accept it
as such. the claims made by any of us should be in the clear light
for everyone to see.
but i'm not bothering to respond to any of it. at least not for the
moment.
and i continue to stand by every factual and mathematical statement i
made before.
--
r b-j rbj at audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
Begin forwarded message:
> From: Kathy Dopp <kathy.dopp at gmail.com>
> Date: January 16, 2010 7:00:19 PM EST
> To: robert bristow-johnson <rbj at audioimagination.com>
> Subject: Re: [EM] IRV vs Plurality
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>
> Robert,
>
> I see now why you, projecting, accused me of not reading. I, however,
> am not like you at all.
>
> On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 6:39 PM, robert bristow-johnson
> <rbj at audioimagination.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I give up. Both Abd ul and I have tried to explain this to Robert
>>
>> better leave Abd ul out of your claim, Kathy. let him speak for
>> himself.
>>
>>> with Abd ul even listing all the possible unique ballot orderings
>>> when
>>> there are 3 candidates, and Robert still doesn't get it.
>>
>> Kathy, you failed about the numerical stuff because it is *you*
>> that do not
>> understand.
>
> Abd ul's list here for you again since you want him to "speak for
> himself". Please try to count the number of rows in his list and
> notice what he says as well:
>
> Nine? Three candidates, to be able to report all the votes for usage
> in central processing, there are 15 piles, even if we strike, at the
> outset, all write-ins, provisionally, or other minor candidates
> with no hope:
>
> A
> B
> C
> AB
> AC
> BA
> BC
> CA
> CB
> ABC
> ACB
> BAC
> BCA
> CAB
> CBA
> spoiled
>
> and, in fact, for the one or two rank ballots above, most
> jurisdictions would need to report write-ins or minor candidates at
> least in first rank, before elimination. So we'd add: exhausted,
> which might be sorted as to first rank on the exhausted ballot.
>
> Total 17, actually, with only three candidates. And if there are more
> than three, how do we know which ones to count? We have to sort them
> all. Note that three candidates is the simplest IRV election
> requiring rounds, unless there is a two-candidate election with a lot
> of write-in votes.
>
> Here is your partial, and incomplete list that matches your obviously
> incorrect formula:
>
>>> 1332 M>K>W
>>> 767 M>W>K
>>> 455 M
>>> 2043 K>M>W
>>> 371 K>W>M
>>> 568 K
>>> 1513 W>M>K
>>> 495 W>K>M
>>> 1289 W
>
> Is this still confusing you?
>
> YOUR FORMULA for IRV is illogical and incorrect.
>
> Since you think that both Abd ul and myself are wrong, why not try
> listing and counting all the options yourself and notice that they
> never are consistent with your formula.
>
> Then do the same for your other illogical incorrect formula for the
> Condorcet method.
>
>
>>
>> you said, for 3 candidates, there would be 9 Condorcet tallies
>> (thinking
>> that i mixed it up) and i corrected you with the number 6. there
>> are 6
>> head-to-head tallies to count and send up the pike to the central
>> election
>> authority if the election were known to be decided by Condorcet
>> rules. not
>> 9.
>
> If you READ my emails, you would have noticed that very much *Not*
> like yourself, I already admitted my error and gave a corrected
> formula in TWO different forms:
>
> 1. n(n-1)
> or
> 2. n^2 -n
>
> Both of these are correct.
>
> Both of these are NOT the same as your incorrect formula which grossly
> overestimates the number of tallies needed to count Condorcet ballots.
>
> Both your formulas are illogical and incorrect.
>
> Everyone on this list understand that except for you.
>
> Any help anyone?
>
> Most people also understand that arrogance directly causes ignorance
> and the main reason why you cannot see the obvious after having it
> explained and shown to you in at least three or four ways now is that
> your arrogance is preventing you from learning anything.
>
> Unlike yourself, others on this list besides yourself will notice that
> I immediately corrected myself in the one point where you were correct
> because no matter how repeatedly often you are wrong, I always
> discipline myself to be able to be open to learning from you. You
> have been wrong at least ten times or more now, in your fantasies
> about me, and in your numerous false claims both about IRV and about
> the Condorcet method, yet I am still capable of learning from you on
> that very rare occasion when you are correct about something. I am
> very very different than you are in this, among many ways.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Kathy
>
>> and, for 3 candidates, there are only 9 consequentially different
>> manners to
>> mark relative preferences. assuming (and that is the case in
>> Burlington)
>> that some dumb voter ranks A as 2nd, B as 3rd and D as 4th and
>> leaves the
>> ballot unmarked otherwise, that is treated no differently than if
>> the voter
>> marked it A 1st, B 2nd, and C 3rd. and *that* is *no* different
>> (as a
>> ballot counting consequence) than if the voter marked it A 1st, B
>> 2nd, and
>> left the ballot otherwise unmarked. by being unmarked, C still
>> comes in
>> last in any manner of counting.
>>
>>
>>> Can anyone else that Robert may be more willing to comprehend,
>>> please
>>> try to explain how to list and count or how to caculate the
>>> number of
>>> unique ballot combinations with rank choice voting to him?
>>
>> they won't be able to do it, Kathy. and it's not because i
>> "doesn't get
>> it". i does.
>>
>> i don't want to make "appeal to authority" arguments, particularly
>> if such
>> would appear to be a self-referential appeal to authority.
>>
>> but i've had a few university courses in mathematics. not so many in
>> discrete mathematics, but several in probability, random numbers,
>> and random
>> processes. in such courses, we learn how to formally count. we
>> learn how
>> to count how many ways to put N balls into n bins. that's where
>> you get
>> those nifty little factorial expressions. and, Kathy, you have a
>> handle on
>> it, sorta. your "15" was a meaningful count, but considering how
>> any of the
>> tabulation procedures would, you didn't realize that some piles
>> can be
>> combined, and then how to use that knowledge to adjust the count.
>>
>> you're implying that, for N candidates, that the number of
>> consequentially
>> differentiable ways to mark the ballot is
>>
>> N-1
>> SUM{ N!/n! }
>> n=0
>>
>> but, i'm saying one of the terms in that summation (the n=1 term)
>> is for
>> permutations that have no consequential counting difference to other
>> permutations being counted (by the n=0 term). so i subtract out
>> the n=1
>> term, and it's the correct thing to do.
>>
>>
>> N-1
>> SUM{ N!/n! } - N!/1!
>> n=0
>>
>> hell, since 1! is the same as 0!, we could say that that we'll
>> keep the A>B
>> label and fold all the A>B>C ballots into the A>B pile. then it's
>> the
>> equivalent
>>
>>
>> N-1
>> SUM{ N!/n! } - N!/0!
>> n=0
>>
>> or simply,
>>
>> N-1
>> SUM{ N!/n! }
>> n=1
>>
>>
>> With N candidates, that is how many consequently different manners
>> one can
>> mark a ranked ballot. there can be tallies for each, those
>> tallies are
>> precinct summable, and those are the only numbers that need
>> percolate upward
>> to the central counting facility. it doesn't matter what the
>> counting
>> method is, IRV, Condorcet, Borda, Plurality of 1st choices (or
>> other rank
>> threshold). all of the information is in those piles, and if N=3
>> the number
>> of piles is 9.
>>
>> take a course in probability, Kathy. learn how many different
>> hands in
>> poker can be a pair or three-of-a-kind or a full house. learn to
>> count,
>> formally.
>>
>>
>>> Also, someone else besides myself needs to tell Robert how many
>>> tallies there are with the Condorcet method as well because he
>>> insists
>>> on using a nonsensical formula for that too.
>>>
>>> Thanks. Robert obviously thinks he is too smart to learn anything
>>> from me,
>>
>> no Kathy, it is precisely the other way around. you *think*
>> yourself as
>> some sort of "expert" (and Abd ul seems to accept that
>> uncritically). and
>> maybe you are about some things regarding security. but you actually
>> *don't* understand the mathematics of "permutations and
>> combinations". when
>> talking about "precinct summability", and the complexity (i.e.
>> number of
>> piles) of an information processing method (and that is what we *are*
>> talking about, it's about processing information) it is *you* who
>> do not
>> know who you are up against.
>>
>> i realize that there are some mathematicians on this list and i
>> know that
>> Warren Smith is one of them. you might have noticed in the past
>> that i
>> haven't locked horns with Smith about specific mathematics, only
>> about
>> political or electoral philosophy (that sets the rules that the
>> math deals
>> with later) and i've been arguing with everyone on this list about
>> making
>> the case for some system and defending it with *specific* examples
>> with vote
>> counts that they had dreamed up.
>>
>> the professor i had in Real Analysis 3 decades ago had this to say
>> about
>> some of our "proofs" that he marked wrong. it would be one of
>> these "given
>> an epsilon>0, find a delta so that..." sorta proof (like for
>> continuity or
>> differentiability). he said "*You* don't get to choose the
>> epsilon. The
>> Devil hands you an epsilon>0 and you still have to find a delta
>> that can
>> still beat the Devil." that's the philosophy that you guys need
>> to take
>> here regarding supporting election systems. it's okay to create
>> counter
>> examples to disprove someone else's sweeping claim, but creating
>> nicely
>> chosen scenarios to show how well some system works doesn't carry
>> water for
>> me.
>>
>> BTW, my background is that of a signal processing algorithmist for
>> audio and
>> music. for a quarter century, i've been ABD for a PhD in electrical
>> engineering. i've taught at Northwestern University, the U of
>> Southern
>> Maine, and once at UVM (the "VM" stands for VerMont) as an
>> adjunct. i have
>> never met Prof Tony Gierzynski, a committed IRV opponent who has
>> done some
>> nice vote counting that confirms the numbers i have (to within 4
>> ballots,
>> but it doesn't change any outcome).
>>
>> we study this discipline called "information theory" (Claude
>> Shannon) that
>> also contributes some formal methods in determining "how many bits" a
>> particular message inherently requires. whether it's the
>> President getting
>> on the phone to the Strategic Air Command to tell them to "bomb
>> the hell
>> outa them" or it's voters getting on their ballots that "we like
>> Candidate
>> A, then B, then C", it's a very similar information theory kind of
>> problem.
>> similar to how to reliably transmit information from ballots to
>> election
>> officials.
>>
>>> so someone else will have to try to educate him.
>>
>> unlike you, Kathy, i'm a lifelong student. and, at 54, i've also
>> seen a few
>> things and dealt with systems of significant complexity (and
>> gotten paid for
>> it). one of my favorite contributions i like to make to the
>> scholarly pile
>> is to cut through unnecessary complexity and boil something down
>> to the
>> kernel of the issue. for audio signal processing geeks, an
>> example that's
>> public-domain is http://www.musicdsp.org/files/EQ-Coefficients.pdf
>> which has
>> later become http://www.musicdsp.org/files/Audio-EQ-Cookbook.txt
>> and has
>> about 6900 references on the web and 1000 in Google Scholar (none
>> that i
>> know of are negative references). i dunno how many hits i get in
>> Google
>> Scholar, far less than a "real" academic. i just checked and it's
>> 9 more
>> hits than you get Kathy.
>>
>> it's *you* that do not get it, Kathy. neither quantitative nor
>> qualitatively.
>>
>> and you're not very forthright, either. you said earlier that you
>> weren't
>> attached to any partisan party (and given your definition, you
>> meant like
>> Dems and GOPs and Progs). i've just been to http://
>> kathydopp.com . it says
>> you're a Greenie. you implied earlier that you had no party
>> affiliation
>> (and here i was only accusing you of being a rabid anti-IRV
>> partisan) and
>> that was not true. your credibility just took a nasty hit. now
>> we're gonna
>> have to verify *every* claim you make that isn't ostensibly taken for
>> granted.
>>
>>> Cheers,
>>
>> why, thank you.
>>
>> and may your evening be as the same.
>>
>> L8r,
>>
>> --
>>
>> r b-j rbj at audioimagination.com
>>
>> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Kathy Dopp
>
> Town of Colonie, NY 12304
> phone 518-952-4030
> cell 518-505-0220
>
> http://utahcountvotes.org
> http://electionmathematics.org
> http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/
>
> Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting
> http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/
> InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf
>
> Voters Have Reason to Worry
> http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf
>
> Checking election outcome accuracy --- Post-election audit sampling
> http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf
>
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