[EM] Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairer than IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws

[Kathy Dopp]

On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 8:55 PM,
<election-methods-request at lists.electorama.com> wrote:
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> Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:30:26 -0500
> From: Brian Olson <bql at bolson.org>
> To: Election Methods Mailing List <election-methods at electorama.com>
> Subject: Re: [EM] Two simple alternative voting methods that are
>        fairer than     IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws
> On Jan 13, 2010, at 8:06 PM, Kathy Dopp wrote:
>> 1. A rank choice ballot method:
>>
>> Any number of candidates may be running for office and any number
>> allowed to be ranked on the ballot.
>>
>> Voter ranks one candidate vote =1
>>
>> Voter ranks two candidates, denominator is 1+2 = 3
>> votes are worth 2/3 and 1/3 for first and second ranked candidates
>>
>> Voter ranks three candidates, denominator is 1+2+3=6
>> votes are worth 3/6 and 2/6 and 1/6 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice respectively
>>
>> Voter ranks four candidates, denominator is 1+2+3+4=10
>> votes are worth 4/10, 3/10, 2/10, and 1/10 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd and
>> 4th choice respectively
>>
>> ETC. Just follow the same pattern
>
> This sounds like a variation on Borda count, but with an incentive to vote on fewer candidates.

Yes perhaps, but normalized to give a value of one in total to all
ballots since Borda was rejected by the MN Supreme court as violating
one-person/one-vote.

> With smaller and smaller votes as I give more information, I should vote for one _maybe_ two choices. Why would I want to give my favorite a 4/10 vote when I could give them a 2/3 vote or a 1.0 vote? This is the wrong incentive. Giving more information on the ballot should be encouraged.

Yes. Probably. It depends on how attached to your first choice you are.

>
>> 2. A point system where a total number of points per voter per contest
>> may be allocated by the voter to any of the candidates running for
>> office:
>>
>> Two candidates running for office, give all voters 2+1=3 votes to
>> cast.  They may cast all three votes for one candidate or split the
>> votes any way between the two.
>>
>> Three candidates running for office, give all voters 3+2+1=6 votes to
>> cast. They may cast all six votes for one candidate or split the votes
>> any way they like between the three.
>>
>> Four candidates running for office, give all voters 4+3+2+1=10 votes
>> to cast. They may cast all ten votes for one candidate or split the
>> votes any way they like between the four.
>>
>> Five candidates running for office, give all voters 5+4+3+2+1=15 votes
>> to cast. They may cast all 15 votes for one candidate or split the
>> votes any way they like.
>

> This is equivalent to any other normalized ratings ballot. People vote ratings, but they all have the same voting power, either by straight sum of ratings or by geometric distance or something.

Yes. It just standardizes the number of points and makes it seem fair
(an equal number of points) to voters who would not understand the
"normalization" process if all voters were allowed to cast a different
number of votes initially.  It also simplifies the calculation and
makes it much easier for the public to check.

> In any system where the voter has to allocate the points themselves, there will be nasty strategic thinking going on to try and allocate the points best.
> If I vote simply and honestly, allocating points in alignment with how I feel about candidates, points not in differential between the top two candidates are wasted.

That's a good argument for the first method I suggested since all the
voter has to do is rank as many candidates as they feel like ranking,
but knowing that the 2nd and 3rd, etc. choices will add points that
count against the voter's 1st choice, and may therefore cause the 2nd
or 3rd choice to win instead being more popular with other voters.

>
> Kathy, in my investigations of election methods, I started with straight rating summation as optimal, but normalized ratings as more fair, but then ran into the wasted-vote problem and settled on "Instant Runoff Normalized Ratings" ( http://bolson.org/voting/methods.html#IRNR ).

I agree that that method is much fairer than IRV/STV but it is too
complex to count and is not precinct-summable which raises other
election administration problems and also auditability problems, so it
is not a method I'd choose even though it is far better than the
typical IRV/STV.

> Over the course of rounds of counting it reallocates your vote based on your original ballot to always be optimally applied to the choices available. Never mind the "Instant Runoff" part of the name, by using ratings ballots and considering the whole ballot at once, it's much better than the simplistic IRV. It's much less non-monotonic than IRV, and gets better answers in my simulations.
>
> You can compare the relative non-monotonic areas in these election space plots:
> http://bolson.org/voting/sim_one_seat/www/
>
> http://bolson.org/voting/sim_one_seat/www/4a_IRV.png
> http://bolson.org/voting/sim_one_seat/www/4a_IRNR.png
> http://bolson.org/voting/sim_one_seat/www/4a_Condorcet.png

I agree it's far better but still has some serious obstacles as far as
administration of elections and auditability of the election outcomes.

Cheers,

Kathy

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