[EM] IRV vs Plurality

[robert bristow-johnson]

On Jan 14, 2010, at 10:17 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
>
> Would that FairVote and Rob Richie had listened, they'd have  
> learned and they would have modified their strategy to focus on  
> deeper and more effective goals. The ultimate goal of FairVote, in  
> its foundation, was proportional representation, but they got stuck  
> on a political choice as to how to implement it, and then on a  
> strategy to faciliate the adoption of that method by using a method  
> which is crazy for single-winner, but which is better for  
> multiwinner. When one is determining representation, the goal is to  
> have one vote from each voter go to one candidate, or to be split  
> among candidates, and the goal is to maximize this so that as few  
> votes as possible are wasted and the maximum number are represented.
>
> So Later-No-Harm makes sense when finding representatives where  
> most votes will find their way. But STV, the general method, is  
> still defective, and there are better methods, including ones much  
> easier to canvass, so trying to get IRV in order to get the basic  
> STV voting system in place was putting the cart before the horse. A  
> political error that, I'm sure, looked good at the time.
>
> And what happens with political errors when someone bets their  
> career on it? Summary: it gets hard to change course, unless the  
> person involved is able to see beyond their own limitations. Not a  
> common skill among most political activists, who are trained to be  
> bulldogs who don't give up no matter what arguments are tossed at  
> them. Debate skills. People are taught how to debate to win, not to  
> produce the most sensible result after all has been considered.  
> It's too often a piece of an adversarial system, with gladiatorial  
> combats, and then the crowd gives thumbs-up or thumbs-down.  
> Entertaining, but not particularly efficient for producing  
> intelligent and sustainable decisions with a distracted crowd.  
> There are much better ways that will work with people-as-they-are.
>
> And it only takes a few people to realize this to start building  
> the structures. It is *not* necessary to convince the masses. That  
> will come later, after they have examples to look at, which is what  
> most people need.

all of the above resonate very closely to what i've been thinking for  
about 10 months.

> So my political recommendations are based on what is already known,  
> what has been already tried, with only minor variations beyond  
> that. Approval voting, one might note the critics state, can  
> default to Plurality if most voters vote for their favorite and  
> leave it at that. *That's fine.*

no it ain't.  (Plurality is not fine.)

:-)

(it's fine and good for us to have different positions.  i just  
think, and have for decades, that in a multi-candidate race, the  
problems with FPTP are too well known to revert back to that because  
IRV doesn't cut the mustard.)

> Most voters, indeed, will vote that way in most elections. So it's  
> *harmless* and can be tried, particularly since it is essentially  
> no cost to just Count All the Votes, and we should be doing that  
> anyway! Does anyone think that it's an irrelevant and worthless  
> fact to know how many ballots in Florida 2000 contained votes for  
> each of the candidates, regardless of whether or not some were  
> overvotes? Even if this information couldn't be used in that  
> election because the rules required disregarding overvoted ballots.  
> Instead, what's reported is this: overvotes are reported only as  
> spoiled ballots. The votes on them are not counted at all. So the  
> damage is concealed from us. If a rule has disproportionate impact,  
> it can't be seen.
>
> Count All the Votes. And then, I claim, we should use the votes  
> that are counted, and political theory generally says that Approval  
> Voting, which is simply a matter of Counting All the Votes, is  
> quite a good method, superior to plain Plurality, and simply  
> defaulting to Plurality if people just vote for their favorite.

i think the folks on the edges want a way to express a preference for  
their guy that will actually count against their fallback guy if the  
race were to become such that's between the two of them.  with  
Approval, they still have to strategize "do I vote for both or do I  
vote just for my favorite?"  actually (Terry knows about this), in  
Vermont, the State Senate races are sorta weird.  unlike the  
Representatives that have legislative districts drawn (and have a  
single winner for each district), the State Senate candidates run at  
large for the whole county.  being that Burlington is the largest  
city in the state, our county is also the largest, i think.  we have  
6 state Senators and the rules are we can vote for up to 6 on a  
single ballot, and the 6 highest vote getters are elected.  usually a  
party puts out 6 candidates and one might think that they could just  
plug the 6 of their party unless they like to cross over for some  
particular candidate they like.  but if there are 4 or 5 candidates  
that are "okay" with me, but one or two candidates that i  
particularly like (and i might consider an underdog), i will end up  
"bullet voting" for just that one or two candidates because i want  
them to win badly enough that i don't want to risk having another  
person of the same party displace them in the top 6.  but i think a  
ranked ballot would do well for that and maybe STV is as good as we  
can do in a multi-winner case.  i dunno.  because i can see that it's  
possible (but it doesn't always happen) for Condorcet to order  
candidates from the top (the Condorcet winner) to the bottom (the  
Condorcet loser), maybe picking the top 6 using Condorcet ordering  
would be best, but i dunno.  my political licks have just been about  
IRV vs. Condorcet vs. Plurality (or the old 40%+ rule) in the single- 
winner case.  i'll fight the multi-winner battle some other time, and  
i just don't know yet what side i'm on.  i might become STV.  sure,  
it's elegant to have the same theory for both the single-winner and  
multi-winner case (and IRV is STV for single-winner), but i think  
that IRV has enough problems that i just cannot support it over  
Condorcet, if given the choice.

> The extra votes do no harm, generally, and can help if there is a  
> minor candidate who might otherwise be a spoiler, if the supporters  
> of that candidate are willing to add an additional vote for a  
> frontrunner. By definition, this is normally a relatively small  
> number of people. But if we are concerned about the spoiler effect,  
> here is a simple fix that costs nothing. It's not a complete fix.  
> It gets more complete if we use a ranked ballot and phased-in  
> approval votes. I.e., Bucklin.
>
> FairVote has claimed that Approval has never been used in the U.S.  
> for a public election. It's deceptive, there were something like a  
> hundred towns that implemented Bucklin in 1910 or so to 1920 or so.  
> Bucklin phases into approval voting if a majority isn't found in a  
> round, adding additional approvals that the voters may have added  
> in lower ranks. If all ranks are counted, it becomes pure approval  
> voting. So that's one exception. The other is that approval voting  
> is used, in effect, when there are multiple ballot questions. If  
> any of them pass, the one that wins is the one with the most Yes  
> votes. This is quite equivalent to approval voting with a majority  
> requirement. Is that an election? Well, it's a choice between  
> multiple options based on votes on a single ballot. I'd call that  
> an election. To call it otherwise is to miss the close similarity.
>
>> Reread. Unlike you stating "You don't read" as if you have all-seeing
>> ability to know that I never read, I **never** said "You are an IRV
>> proponent". Please try to stop confusing your own imagination with
>> reality and notice what I actually wrote and what you actually have
>> ability to know, when responding to emails.
>
> What I've seen from Robert is arguments that are the arguments used  
> by IRV proponents.  But maybe I'm wrong. And he might support some  
> of those arguments but still be against IRV for other reasons.

Abd ul, my position has always been consistent in the last 10  
months.  i fully support the *goals* of IRV because i think they are  
the same *goals* that we have with Condorcet or any of the other  
ranked-ballot methods.  those goals were, for me, boiled down to 4  
salient principles that i outlined in my paper that i have plugged  
here at least a few times.  those principles are (i'm repeating 3,  
but hey, bits are cheap):

___________________________

1. If a majority (not just a mere plurality) of voters agree that  
candidate A is
better than candidate B, then candidate B should not be elected.
2. The relative merit of candidates A and B is not affected by the  
presence of a
third candidate C. If a majority (not just a mere plurality) of  
voters agree that
candidate A is better than B, whether candidate C enters the race or  
not,
indeed whether candidate C is better (in the minds of voters) than  
either
candidates A or B (or both or neither), it does not reverse the  
preference of
candidate A over candidate B. If that relative preference of  
candidate is not
affected among voters, then the relative outcome of the election  
should not
be affected (candidate B winning over candidate A). In the converse,  
this
means that by removing any loser from the race and from all ballots,  
that
this should not alter who the winner is.
3. Voters should not be called upon to do “strategic voting”. Voters  
should feel
free to simply vote their conscience and vote for the candidates they  
like
best, without worrying about whom that they think is most electable.  
Voters
should be able to vote for the candidate of their choosing (e.g.  
Perot in 1992
or Nader in 2000) without risk of contributing to the election of the  
candidate
they least prefer (perhaps Clinton in 1992 or Bush in 2000). They should
not have to sacrifice their vote for their ideal choice because they are
concerned about “wasting” their vote and helping elect the candidate  
they
dislike the most. As an ancillary principle, a candidate should not  
have to
worry about electing his/her least desirable opponent by choosing to run
against another opponent that may be more desirable.
4. Election policy that decreases convenience for voters will  
decrease voter
participation. Having to vote once for your preferred candidate, and  
then
being called on to return to the polls at a later date and vote again  
for your
preferred candidate (if he/she makes it to the run-off) is decidedly  
less
convenient and we must expect that significantly fewer voters will  
show up
for the run-off. Or, if your most-preferred candidate did not make it  
to the
run-off, the motivation to return to the polls to vote for a somewhat  
less
preferred candidate (or to vote against a much disliked candidate) is
reduced and fewer voters show up. Electing candidates with decreased
legitimate voter participation cannot be considered as democratic or as
indicative of the will of the people, as electing candidates with  
higher voter
participation.
___________________________

so Abd ul, Plurality can and has violated all 4 of those principles  
(in a multi-candidate context) and we've known that for a long time.   
for the average politically-savvy voter in a multi-party context  
(which i consider myself one of), those were the main reasons we  
supported IRV in the first place (over Plurality).  and i had hoped  
that it would be very rare indeed that IRV would be consistent with  
those goals (as it would if it agreed with Condorcet, as best as i  
can tell).  it succeeded in 2006 in Burlington and *failed* in 2009  
(regarding Principles 1, 2, & 3, it succeeds with Principle 4).   
that's 1 for 2.  not great odds.

but that is why it might sound like i'm with the IRV proponents,  
because those principles are important to me and *sorta* consistent  
with what IRVers like FairVote.org want.

anyway, it is because IRV so clearly *failed* to accomplish the very  
goals that we had for it when we adopted it is what has motivated me  
to learn a little bit about the whole election theory thing.


> But my concern is the deceptive arguments that have been advanced  
> by FairVote, including their arguments against other voting  
> systems, and it's very important to expose these.

me too.  but i still value those 4 principles and Plurality does  
worse (than IRV which, evidently, does worse than Condorcet).

> Many of them fooled many of us for a long time, including me. Tell  
> me, does Robert's Rules of Order "recommend IRV"? Remember, this is  
> being said in a context where a community is considering  
> implementing IRV as a deterministic election method. Would that be  
> supported by the parliamentarians who edit RRO, for use in a  
> voluntary organization? And the answer is no, and I missed it, even  
> though I was very involved with discovering the problems with IRV  
> and even though I was familiar with parliamentary procedure. It's  
> easy to miss, because it's easy, once one has the public IRV  
> counting procedure in one's head, to read the procedure described  
> there as being the same as the IRV procedure. It's not. There is a  
> critical difference.
>
> Take a look at the RRO copy that FairVote hosts, found at http:// 
> archive.fairvote.org/?page=1797, and see if you can spot it. Now,  
> when I found this, FairVote activists argued tenaciously that I was  
> blowing smoke, that my interpretation was ridiculous. But then I  
> noticed something else, in the same section, that I'd overlooked  
> because it isn't in the section describing the procedure. But it  
> makes the meaning of the procedure crystal clear. It's not what the  
> FairVote activists were proclaiming, and any parliamentarian would  
> confirm that. By the way, I'm not formally trained, but I have  
> served as a parliamentarian.
>
> Would a parliamentarian miss the difference? Possibly, but for a  
> different reason. They might not understand the public counting  
> rules, because they would assume, unless they noticed the  
> difference, that the terms being used had their normal meanings.  
> They don't. They have a special meaning, easily overlooked, as it  
> was overlooked by the supposedly neutral commission that wrote the  
> voter information pamphlet for San Francisco in 2002. If some  
> members of that commission knew what they were saying, they were  
> deliberately lying, and the effect, regardless, was that the voters  
> of San Francisco were deceived about how IRV works. And if you are  
> not an expert, and don't put a lot of time into the topic, most  
> people would be deceived.
>
> And I'm deliberately not revealing this straight out, this time,  
> because I want to encourage people to look for themselves. Think of  
> it as a game, if you don't know what I'm talking about.
>
> Since I found this and pointed it out, FairVote activists, some of  
> them, have become a little more careful about making the claim,  
> they phrase it so that the claim becomes sort-of true, but the  
> *implication* of it remains deceptive. From an insider report, I do  
> know that at one time FairVote held meetings to educate people how  
> to advocate IRV, with various arguments to make and emphasize. One  
> of these activists came after me on Wikipedia, but, unfortunately,  
> the guy was really smart and actually read my response. And said,  
> "I've been working on the wrong side," and he started trying to  
> help what I was doing. But most activists dedicate themselves and  
> inoculate themselves against any arguments from "the other side."  
> It's part of the ethic of loyalty to the cause, and that ethic is  
> part of what's wrong with our system, overall. Voting is a small  
> part of it.
>
> When your goal becomes winning instead of honesty and maximization  
> of consensus, based on accurate information and fair consideration  
> of the various points of view, you have become an actual enemy of  
> society, overall, and if you help instead of harming, it's almost  
> accidental.

i really agree with all that above, Abd ul.

> Focus on pure winning makes sense in the heat of a gladiatorial  
> contest, but, note, the gladiators served a very unhealthy system,  
> at the expense of themselves, they were pawns, sacrificed for  
> entertainment, fighting each other to the death, which, rather  
> obviously, wasn't good for gladiators. Sooner or later someone else  
> is faster or stronger or one slips.
>
>> > about this, Kathy, i don't believe your veracity at all.  since  
>> March of
>> > 2009 (when Burlington IRV failed to elect the Condorcet winner  
>> and all sorts
>
> Kathy may make mistakes, but I'd be astonished to find her lying.

she's pretty partisan (as am i), now i don't even remember what she  
said that i found so hard to believe.

>> In my own imagination, I **do** support the Condorcet method,  
>> although
>> I don't know how to solve the Condorcet cycles or how often, if ever,
>> they might occur.
>
> There are Condorcet-compliant methods, and the first-order  
> intuition of most of us who start studying voting systems is that a  
> Condorcet winner should always win the election. Turns out, no. Not  
> necessarily.

i haven't yet (despite Terry trying) been persuaded of that.  i  
*still* believe that electing the non-CW (assuming there is a CW) is  
fundamentally less democratic (reflective of the will of the  
electorate) than electing the CW.  if the CW exists and your  
candidate is not that person, the CW beat that candidate when the  
electorate is asked to choose between the two.  it's my Principle #1.

> But the exceptions are probably relatively rare, and, in order to  
> understand it, you need to have a deeper understanding of the  
> science of public choice than is possible with only consideration  
> of pure ranking.

but the problem with considering *more* than pure ranking (Range) is  
that it requires too much information from the voter.  and the  
problem with *less* (Approval or FPTP) is that it obtains too little  
information from the voter.

> ... Again, as I mentioned, the Condorcet Criterion looks good, it's  
> "intuitively satisfying." Unfortunately, it depends on pure rank  
> order, neglecting preference strength.

i think Jonathan says it well:

 >> Just for the record: for many of us that's an advantage.

Condorcet doesn't ask the voter for that information and, unlike say  
Borda, doesn't assume anything about it.  in fact, all Condorcet does  
is hypothetically break the multi-candidate election down into  
multiple 2-candidate elections.  that, for me, takes care of the  
whole strategic voting problem.  i don't have to regret afterwards  
(if only i had known the election would come down to one between  
Candidate Better_than_nothing and Candidate Satan_incarnate, because  
if i knew that, i wouldn't have voted for Candidate My_favorite).   
the whole point (for me, anyway) is so i can vote for my favorite  
(not knowing in advance what his chances are) and not risk electing  
Satan.

> Still, if all you have is a ranked ballot, and equal ranking is not  
> allowed,

i actually think it should be.  and it would be perfectly meaningful  
with Condorcet.  with IRV, i dunno exactly how to properly divide the  
votes that get promoted if they are equally ranked which might be one  
reason it is not allowed in the present law in Burlington.

> the Condorcet Criterion is probably the best that can be done.

that's pretty much all i've been saying.

> That's because a simple ranked ballot does conceal preference  
> strength information. Warren at one point discovered a paper where  
> an analyst noticed an anomaly with a deeply ranked Condorcet ballot  
> where the Condorcet winner was rather obviously the wrong choice.  
> But he made an assumption of equal preference strengths, averaged,  
> over the rankings, or a fair and reasonable distribution of the  
> candidates in issue space. I forget the exact argument.

i've had trouble with some of Warren's arguments.  for aesthetic  
reasons, i just don't like Range or Approval.  but i recognize he's  
been thinking about this deeply a lot longer than me.

but, as with my critique of Terry's argument, i am not well impressed  
with constructing very weird and pathological scenarios to use to  
fault Condorcet (or some other method).  weird things can happen with  
any method, but what are the pathologies that are likely or even just  
common to happen with some method?  *that* is what is salient and  
*that* is why i know that FPTP is bad in a context of credible 3rd  
and 4th candidates in an election.  IRV does a little better (it, at  
least, doesn't elect the Condorcet loser, which FPTP would have in  
Burlington in 2009, well, i guess the loser of the "big 3").

> But we can get at it in this way. Consider a Borda ballot. Borda is  
> a ranked method which assumes equal preference strength in each  
> preference expressed.

yup.  bad assumption.  if i vote  A>B>C , i might think that A and B  
are both okay (but i like A a little better and would want to support  
him over B if it comes down to that) and i might think that C is a turd.

> As normally used, equal ranking is not allowed, and all ranks must  
> be assigned (or the voter's ballot is discounted in some way). So a  
> Borda ballot with (N+1) candidates translates to Range N, with the  
> restriction that a range vote can be assigned to only one  
> candidate, and all possible Range votes are advisedly used for a  
> full strength vote.
>
> For those not familiar with Borda, here is more detail: the voter  
> ranks the candidates, say it is favorite to least favorite. There  
> are various ways of stating the canvassing method, but one way  
> would be that each candidate is assigned a value from the rank,  
> with the highest rank being the number of candidates minus one. The  
> lowest rank is then zero in value. The value is the number of the  
> candidate, starting from zero, proceeding up to the highest ranked  
> candidate. The winner is the candidate with the highest total value  
> summed from all the ballots.
>
> This is quite equal to Range N, with no overvoting allowed at any  
> rank and no empty ranks allowed. If you allow overvoting at any  
> rank and therefore empty ranks, it's Range. Borda assumes that if  
> you rank A>B and these are in sequence, a vote strength should be  
> assigned according to how many intermediate candidates are ranked  
> in between. This is obviously an approximation, even if the voters  
> are Borda's famous "honest men." He missed the point! If the  
> approximation is way off, as it can be when there are clones, or  
> large missing segments of the issue space not represented by a  
> candidate, the method can be wacky.
>
> Donald Saari somehow seems to have overlooked that Range, which he  
> criticizes heavily, is the same as Borda, which he actively promotes,

boy, i just don't get that at all.  both Borda and Range are icky,  
even if the ballots are a little different.

> and the only difference is this imposed restriction that is  
> obviously artificial and which doesn't correspond to reality.  
> Basically, like many voting systems activists and experts, Saari  
> doesn't trust the voters. That's where I differ. They may make  
> mistakes, but if they express a strong preference or a weak  
> preference, when they have the unconstrained choice, I assume that  
> an expressed strong preference *is* a strong preference, because  
> there really is no *significant reward* for lying about it. Saari  
> and others miss this completely, imagining that voters will  
> necessarily cast strong votes because they "want to win," but  
> neglecting the fact that voters have other goals than simply  
> maximizing their favorite's chances and doing everything to hurt  
> the opponent of the favorite.
>
> Sure, they will do that if they *actually have strong preference.*  
> But if their preference is, say, maximally weak, and they know  
> that, will they act in that way? Especially realizing that, by  
> hurting this clone, they might be shooting themselves in the foot,  
> if the clone is the only hope of defeating a much worse candidate!
>
> I've done the study, and my conclusion has been that the optimal  
> voting strategy in Range is a kind of sincere vote.

man, if we had Range in Burlington last March, i just don't know how  
i would have divided my point allocation between my top two  
candidates.  it's because, going into the election, i would really  
expect that either of those could win and i really want to defeat  
this other candidate who is quite formidable.  before the election  
last March, it was a *real* tossup.  i would have to strategize and  
strategize my vote if it was Range.  but with a ranked ballot, it was  
easy.  i had my favorite, my fallback, a couple of candidates i  
didn't worry about, and there was Satan that i didn't rank at all.   
but, what i don't want is for IRV to take that information from me  
and screw it up and use it to elect Satan.  if i was a GOP Prog-hater  
in Burlington, that is precisely what IRV did in 2009.

> And the voters will do best if they can choose that vote  
> themselves, if they can express preference strength themselves  
> without being forced into some specific model that constrains their  
> votes without necessity.
>
> A voting system should be simple to vote. Range voting does require  
> some more complex thought,

yup.

> but the simplest Range method is quite simple, and the strategy is  
> usually quite simple as well,

what is that?  Approval?  it is *not* simple.

> and it gets even simpler if it's a primary with a runoff in case  
> there is majority failure. The same question can be asked of each  
> candidate: would you prefer this candidate to be elected, or would  
> you prefer a runoff? If you'd prefer to elect the candidate, vote  
> for the candidate. If you'd prefer a runoff (which brings other  
> risks and costs), don't. That's quite simple, and it motivates the  
> voter to vote sincerely, and it is an effective strategy, that is,  
> it will monotonically accomplish what the voter desires, if possible.
>
> Bucklin makes that choice much easier because it allows the voter  
> to have the preference expression cake *and* the possibility of  
> avoiding majority failure. Same question is asked, but now it's  
> about lower rankings. I advocate allowing equal rankings with  
> Bucklin, because they are harmless at worst, and they give the  
> voter additional flexibility, and they avoid spoiled ballots. It  
> makes each Bucklin round of counting into an Approval election, not  
> just the later rounds. But a voter would only, presumably, add  
> multiple candidates to a rank if the voter really doesn't have a  
> major preference betweeen them. It's an honest vote, and  
> strategically optimal. This aspect of Bucklin appears to have been  
> neglected by students of voting systems, along with the  
> implications of majority requirements and runoffs.
>
> What does this have to do with Condorcet failure? Well, Borda and  
> Range fail Condorcet, by any interpretation. But it is quite  
> arguable that, especially with Range (Borda without the artificial  
> constraints), a situation where it fails is one where the Condorcet  
> winner is not optimal. Very simple to show, and the simplest  
> Condorcet winner is a majority preference winner, and, for terminal  
> simplicity we can just consider two candidates from a much larger  
> candidate set. Suppose that there are two candidates, A and X, and  
> a majority prefer A over X. If one of the set of A and X are  
> elected, must it be A?

if A is the CW, yes.  if no CW exists, i dunno.  it might be, with  
Tideman or Shulze, that X makes more sense.  i dunno.

> (This is the Majority Criterion, a stronger criterion than the  
> Condorcet criterion, any method satisfying the Majority criterion  
> must satisfy the Condorcet Criterion, but the reverse is not true.)
>
> Okay, remember that early paper I mentioned. They noticed that if  
> the A>X preference was really A>B>...>W>X instead of A>X>B>...W, it  
> was obvious that the voters really don't have -- other things being  
> equal -- much preference in the second case between A and X. Why  
> should this majority preference fail over a strong sincere  
> preference (we are assuming sincere votes!) expressed by a minority  
> of voters?

this needs more explaining.  i don't quite get what you mean.

> When we began studying voting systems using simulated utilities,  
> with Warren Smith being a major pioneer, and when Range voting was  
> proposed as a method -- which simply allows voters to express  
> utilities for each candidate, on a scale from 0 to 1 full vote  
> (though often expressed as numbers from  0 to N for what I call  
> Range N) -- it became much easier to express this as votes.
>
> 51: A 100, X,  99 ...
> 49: A   0, X, 100 ...
>
> In real voting, voters are likely to normalize, so if there were  
> only two candidates, A and X, the vote shown would be unlikely. But  
> not noticed by most voting systems students is that, if these are  
> sincere utilities in some way, on some appropriate scale, the A  
> voters aren't highly motivated to vote, they wouldn't even turn  
> out, so ... what we must assume is that there is some election  
> process underway that attracts them for other reasons.

that may be, but it shouldn't matter.

> We can also assume that there is a fair range of candidates, so  
> that the votes shown are reasonable, the A voters actually did  
> intend to indicate that they hardly cared at all between A and X,  
> whereas the X voters really did intend (and were sincere about it)  
> that they cared very much. Perhaps they'd start a revolution if A  
> is elected. (And that's not actually far-fetched in some  
> situations, you neglect the strong preferences of a minority at  
> your peril, don't do it unless you, yourself have strong  
> preferences. And realize that then you might have a war on your  
> hands. Are your preferences *really* that strong? Maybe you better  
> start talking with the other side!)
>
> Sometimes when I bring this up, it's assumed that the X voters are  
> fanatics, and it's somehow "bad" to reward "fanatics." Maybe, but  
> fanatics are people and have rights as well, and that's a really  
> stupid objection, because strong voting preferences are just as  
> likely to come from knowledge as from ignorant fanaticism.

but that isn't the issue.  my franchise with the government in a  
democracy is that *even* if i don't care so much and only like A over  
B just a little, whereas you *really* *really* like B over A a lot,  
my vote counts just as much as yours.  whether you're an activist or  
not.  whether you contribute to someone's campaign or not.  whether  
you're a business or civic leader and stand to personally gain or  
lose more than i do or not, my vote counts just as much as yours.   
with Range, i am asked to consider scaling back my stake if my  
support is tepid.  that quantitative question should not even be  
asked of me.  and i don't want to answer it and i don't want to be  
penalized politically for not answering it.

that is why Range requires too much information from the voters.

> People with knowledge tend to have strong opinions! In some ways.  
> Sometimes in other ways knowledge makes us more thoughtful, but  
> that doesn't really refer much to knowledge of candidate positions  
> and character.
>
> In the situation described, Range voting will come up with a result  
> that reflects optimized overall voter satisfaction: X wins, and  
> *every* voter is very satisfied, if we can trust the way they  
> voted. And if the A voters really didn't like that outcome, their  
> votes were singularly stupid! Yet practically this exact scenario  
> but more exaggerated, is asserted as an argument against Range  
> Voting. Suppose 100 voters with a maximally weak preference (1/100  
> vote per voter) with 99 voters vs. *one voter* who votes for the  
> other candidate, who then wins by 1/100 vote! Wow! The preference  
> of 99 voters is overpowered by the preference of one single voter.  
> Is that obviously bad or what? No, it's not bad. It's actually  
> ideal, though in the case mentioned, it really makes almost no  
> difference in overall voter satisfaction if either candidate is  
> chosen, it's been created as an example on the brink. Personally,  
> I'd be happy to live in a society where the trivial preferences of  
> many are set aside to allow satisfaction of the strong preferences  
> of a few.
>
> And, I fact, I live in a society that does this all the time on a  
> small scale. People will routinely slow down a little, sacrificing  
> a little time, but only a little, to let in someone waiting to make  
> a turn, a major benefit for that person, comparatively. Friends  
> will make a choice, making sure that a strong preference of any  
> member of the group isn't violated, even if that means a majority  
> of them give up their favorite choice. I've called this the Pizza  
> election, for those who might have read this stuff for a while.
>
> Why should we not have a voting system that does this on a large  
> scale. The point isn't that we should drop everything and implement  
> range voting, but that the Majority Criterion is defective,  
> requiring a result that in some situations is very clearly  
> suboptimal. Which would you rather satisfy, the trivial preference  
> of a majority by a small margin, or the strong preference of a  
> minority that is almost a majority. If you do the latter, the  
> overall satisfaction metric for the result almost doubles. It's not  
> close, but, of course, the example was designed for that.
>
> The point is that when some methods fail the Condorcet Criterion,  
> it's a disaster, a true loss of overall satisfaction, but when  
> Range fails the Criterion, it's a case where the Criterion is quite  
> likely defective.
>
> What to check it out? Hold a runoff election whenever a Range  
> winner differs from a Condorcet winner.

but their different ballots.  i know how to determine when IRV  
differs from Condorcet, but i don't know how to determine when Range  
differs from Condorcet because the ballots are so different.  it's  
not the same experiment.

> It will hardly ever happen, the simulations show. What this is  
> equivalent to is asking the majority if it's willing to give up its  
> small preference. Was it truly a small preference, or was this some  
> product of quirks of voting strategy and possibly incorrect  
> knowledge of the situation?
>
> And, from this, can you start to see the power of repeated voting?
>
> Look, this isn't new. Democratic organizations have long used  
> repeated voting to elect officers. They have absolutely no  
> incentive to use advanced systems (though I now know enough to  
> suggest some improvements for efficiency, that will do no harm),  
> because repeated voting with a majority required is actually  
> extremely powerful, particularly when one realizes that there are  
> no eliminations. IRV simulates a series of repeated elections with  
> a single candidate eliminated each round, the candidate with the  
> least number of votes. That method isn't used in standard  
> deliberative process, the "repeated voting" is really repeated  
> elections, and each election is entirely new. New nominations are  
> possible! Practically anything is possible with deliberative  
> process, it can't be simply predicted from static preferences.  
> Maybe that's why it hasn't been studied much. It's hard to study!
>
> But it's well known, and it works, far better than the primitive  
> systems used typically in public elections. It's possible to move  
> beyond those primitive systems in one giant step. Asset Voting. But  
> that's a story for another day.
>> >
>> > i've said multiple times that IRV transferred the burden of  
>> having to vote
>> > strategically from the majority (in Burlington, that would be  
>> the liberals
>> > that would have to split their votes between Prog and Dem) to  
>> the minority
>> > (in Burlington, that would be the GOP Prog-haters that  
>> discovered that their
>> > primary vote for their favorite candidate was instrumental in  
>> electing the
>> > candidate they least preferred).
>>
>> GREAT. Well we agree on many things, even if I think you are slightly
>> delusional for thinking you know so much more about me than I do re.
>> my "not reading" and my positions on election methods.
>
> Actually, the strategic voting required for the majority, in  
> Plurality, would be for the smaller of the two liberal parties to  
> decide to vote for the other, and this is best done by negotiation  
> before the election. In New York, with Fusion Voting, two parties  
> can nominate the same candidate,

and often the Conservative and GOP do that (but they didn't in that  
recent special election for Congress and very strange, but cool,  
stuff resulted).  and the votes for the same person accumulate.

> thus keeping ballot rights for the party, but not splitting the  
> vote. The smaller of the parties can negotiate policy concessions  
> from the larger. They can agree on power sharing arrangements, etc.  
> But it's not true that "the majority must vote strategically." If  
> it's a majority, they can vote sincerely and simply and will win.

i guess it depends on what we mean by the "majority".  in Burlington  
VT (not NY state), i group the Progs and most of the Dems together as  
"the majority" which is supported by information on their cross- 
voting in the last IRV election.  if the GOP candidate won somehow  
with Plurality or delayed runoff (with greatly reduced turnout), that  
would be a "thwarted majority".

> What's been confused here is that the two factions together are a  
> majority. But half that faction, roughly, doesn't need to change  
> it's vote. Suppose it did. Disaster if the other half does the same!
>
> No, to make sense, they need to find consensus on a single  
> candidate. Hold some combined primary, at their own expense, and  
> use it to determine party endorsement. Get it together, folks,  
> because if you don't, the other side may eat your lunch!
>


> "GOP prog-haters" is excessively polemic.

it's the simple truth for *many*, not all GOPers.

> Those who supported Wright strongly over Kiss, which is apparently  
> the large majority of the Wright voters, will indeed discover that  
> problem if they look.

it's been pointed out to them many times.  not just by me, but more  
by Prof Anthony Gierzynski who has fanned the anti-IRV flames.

> This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with their preferred  
> political party. But party affiliation *does* have an effect in  
> Burlington. Probably not a good one!

the Progs and the Dems have a lot more in common with each other than  
either do with the GOPs.  and the Progs and Dems together form a  
clear majority over the GOPs.  the only way that the GOP presently  
has any hope to elect their guy as mayor (unless Burlington gets more  
conservative or they field a more moderate candiate) is for the  
election method to revert to pre-IRV status and they divide the  
liberal vote.  the liberals don't want that to happen which is why we  
adopted IRV in 2005.

> Some people who start looking at these things assume that most  
> voters are affiliated with the party whose candidate they vote for.  
> Maybe. Sometimes. But in a town like Burlington, many people vote  
> based on personal perceptions of the candidates, probably even a  
> majority. I'm politically progressive, generally, though with a  
> fairly common libertarian streak, but I'd vote for a Republican for  
> a local election, and probably have.

no doubt true.  one of the anti-IRV leaders is a Wright-voting  
Democrat who is a businessman (but not a downtown businessman) and  
doesn't like the Progs or taxes.

> But usually because most local elections are nonpartisan, I don't  
> know their party and don't care, because local politics are not so  
> strongly affected by party affiliation, and a Republican who works  
> for his or her town may in the end do quite the same as a  
> Progressive, or, more accurately even, some Republicans might take  
> actions that are more progressive, actually, than some Progressives.
>
> It's an anomaly that Burlington even has partisan elections for  
> local office, I think. We can tell that party affiliation is  
> important to some voters because in nonpartisan elections in even  
> very liberal towns like San Francisco, vote transfers don't alter  
> preference order. That happened in Burlington this last year, and  
> it was a strong effect. It's due to party affiliations giving  
> voters a how-to-vote card, in effect! If you are a Progressive, you  
> know already a certain kind of vote to cast: Progressive>Democrat.  
> Likewise if you are a Republican, you have Democrat>Progressive. As  
> stereotypes.
>
> But if you are a Democrat, you are in the middle, and you can and  
> will split your second rank vote, if you cast one, between the  
> Progressive and the Republican, depending on where you sit. And the  
> whole thing is complicated by the presence of supporters of  
> independent or other-party candidates and unaffiliated voters.

very, very true.  that is the story of last March in Burlington.

> It's obvious to me what Burlington should do, and it's quite  
> simple, and they are already prepared to do it, if they so choose.  
> They are a three-party town, and so they need an advanced voting  
> system, and one is handy, has been widely tested and tried, and is  
> far easier to canvass, and allows the voters to vote with full  
> sincerity and flexibility.

but it requires too little information from voters...

> It defaults to Plurality,

... and that elects the wrong candidate.

> if voters don't add additionally ranked votes, and if they want  
> some vote margin or there is a runoff, it works even better and,  
> used in a runoff, it can even allow write-in votes without harm.

problem with delayed runoff is that of turnout.  both the reduced  
quantity and the bias toward the GOP.

> No spoiler effect.

that, i am not convinced of (because, i think voters would just turn  
your Approval into Plurality and bullet vote their favorite).

> Gee, what would that be? Hint, besides other obvious ones: I didn't  
> invent it, it was invented roughly a century ago (more I think, but  
> I don't remember the exact date). It's been tried in roughly 100  
> cities and towns in the U.S., but, remember something: advanced  
> voting systems aren't necessarily needed in a 2-party system, and  
> when there is a 2-party system, the 2 parties don't want  
> competition from minor parties and the larger of the two major  
> parties has a strong incentive to lock the minor parties out. So,  
> I'm pretty sure, that's what they did. That this method was  
> rescinded in all those places means practically nothing about its  
> usefulness in a three-party town. IRV breaks down horribly in that  
> situation, whereas simple Approval, just allow all the votes to be  
> counted, would be much better with no cost at all to speak of.


this got way too long, Abd ul.  we need to break these up into  
smaller discourses.  but it was fun.

--

r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."