[EM] IRV vs Plurality

[Kathy Dopp]

For the record, I like approval voting and think it would be among the
best, if not the best, first step as an alternative voting method to
plurality.  However, I also think Condorcet is OK as long as voters
are not required to rank all choices, to alleviate the point Abd ul
mentions below somewhat.  Really, the only methods I would object to
are the fundamentally unfair ones like IRV/STV that treat voters'
votes differentially and thus produce very undesirable election
results and remove the rights of some voters to fully participate.
Approval, if courts OK it, is by far the simplest to count, audit,
explain to voters, etc. and is probably the best first step.  Using
IRV/STV as a first step may turn off people to alternative electoral
methods for a very long time after they realize how deeply they've
been misled on how it works, its effects, etc.

I am now going to, for the most part, soon drop out of participation
in this list again for the Spring semester at college.

Kathy

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 12:53 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
<abd at lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
> At 01:44 AM 1/15/2010, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
>>
>> 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.
>
> There is a common error here, which is to assume that Range "requires" too
> much information from the voter. First of all, Approval is Range, simply the
> most basic Range method. So what you have is a contradiction: "Range"
> requires both too much and too little information. Surely it depends on the
> specific Range implementation.
>
> But there is a more fundamental error: that of "requirement." Voters may
> vote in Approval, and Range, as they would vote in Plurality, if they want,
> and for most voters, this is a simple and powerful strategy. If they favor a
> frontrunner, and if there are only two frontrunners (the normal situation!),
> whatever else they would do would be moot for election purposes. But they
> could cast votes to show support, which has other salutary effects. That, in
> fact, is why Warren Smith calls Range an incubator for minor parties. It
> allows them to show their natural support, neither more nor less.
>
> The only issue about "voting strategy" arises in a real three-way race,
> which is not common. Most voters, however, would be reasonably served by a
> very simple strategy. Vote first for your favorite candidate, no strategy
> necessary or even useful. Then consider the frontrunners, however many there
> are, it's the set of candidates that you think have a prayer of winning, and
> vote for your favorite of them. (in Approval, that's it, in Range, it means
> vote max or maybe just short of max). Is your favorite one of the
> frontrunners?.
>
> Vote minimum rating (i.e., in Approval, don't vote at all for) the worst
> candidate, with no strategic considerations at all. Vote similarly for the
> worst frontrunner: minimum rating or just a tad higher if the system allows
> it.
>
> And then where do you vote for the rest of the candidates, the ones in the
> middle? Well, pay attention first to any remaining frontrunners. (In most
> elections, there aren't any left, but we are now talking about a situation
> where there are three or more, and we should remember that this is rare.) My
> own conclusion from study of the game theory involved is that possible
> expected improvement from seriously optimizing Range votes is small at best
> over simply voting sincere ratings, and as long as preference order isn't
> reversed, it's all likely to average out. At worst, from clear exaggeration
> in order to gain some strategic advantage, it's possible to cast a vote that
> will leave behind serious regret once you know the outcome.
>
> When you have ranked the frontrunners where it seems right, then fill in any
> remaining candidates you want to rate. If it gets crowded, equal rank a
> candidate being added with the one already ranked.
>
> Rating equals ranking with the option of equal ranking.
>
> Equal preference strength expression (i.e., if one spreads the candidates
> through the rating space evenly) is Borda count. If you don't like that, if
> it seems to be off, then fix it. Spread some ratings apart, which
> necessarily compresses some. Don't hesitate to equal rank if you have any
> difficulty deciding which of two candidates are better. The fact that you
> have difficulty is a clear indication that you don't have a strong
> preference!
>
> I would not spend a lot of time actually doing the ranking/rating. The hard
> part is learning enough about the candidates to have a foundation for
> opinions. So if I don't have enough information to do that, I don't have
> strong preferences! and so voting is easy, if I simply express that. I can
> spread my vote over the full range if I think that my intuition might be
> valuable (it can be! -- but it may also be vulnerable to media
> manipulation). My choice. Range allows me to express a weak vote, one that
> would indeed indicate all or part of my preference order, but which really
> leaves the actual decision to everyone else. If I do this in the "approved"
> range, it can avoid a runoff. I won't detail how to do this.
>
> I'm saying that if it seems hard to vote in Range, one doesn't understand
> how the method works. It only gets hard if one tries to figure out a
> power-maximization strategy. But if one simply votes a reasonable
> approximation of one's actual value for each candidate, on a scale of 0
> (least valuable or more harmful) to 1 (one full vote, preferred), this helps
> the method choose the overall satisfaction optimizer. You can vote
> strategically if you want, and if you guess correctly, you can amplify your
> vote's effect, but only by a fractional vote increase, how much is it worth?
> If you really want to do that, I'd suggest, you have a strong preference and
> you ought to vote that anyway!
>
> This is the paradox that I encountered. So-called strategic votes in Range
> are sincere! This was the contradiction I encountered: supposely a voter
> has, say, "sincere ratings" of 100, 50, 0 for three candidates. But the
> voter wants to make sure that the midrange candidate beats the lowest one.
> So the voter pushes the vote to 100. Or the reverse, the voter really wants
> to avoid the midrange candidate beating the favorite.
>
> Which is more important? Let me give you a hint: if the voter has difficulty
> deciding, the midrange vote is actually optimal! On the other hand, say that
> the voter really likes the favorite, and is more worried about the favorite
> losing to the middle one. I should say that "worried" has to do with the
> perception of election probabilities. That's why I suggested rating the
> frontrunners first, rate all candidates who are perceived as constituting a
> set that will contain the winner. Usually this is pretty obvious! If not,
> the voter has very little information and the voter might just as well vote
> sincerely since there is no way to apply any strategy other than making sure
> that preference order is maintained.
>
> There is no situation where voting out of preference order is strategically
> optimal, and that is something that takes Range methods and raises them
> above other methods.
>
>>> ... 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.
>
> Sure. But "us" does not include people who understand the importance of
> preference strength. Remember, I'm talking about the Criterion here, not a
> voting system. The Condorcet Criterion *requires* outcomes, under some
> conditions not at all difficult to imagine, and we have doubtless
> experienced them, that violate common sense and what the majority would want
> once it realizes the situation. I'd call that a true failure, a voting
> system that produces a result that the majority actually dislike, once they
> know. (If they knew before, they wouldn't have voted the way they voted,
> they would not have voted for their "personal preference" but for what they
> now know is best overall for the society. They would give up some small
> benefit for the overall benefit. We do this all the time!
>
> It's not a zero-sum game, and if I do this in one choice, ordinarily, it
> comes back to me in another and the average result is benefit. For everyone.
>
>> Condorcet doesn't ask the voter for that information and, unlike say
>> Borda, doesn't assume anything about it.
>
> That's not exactly correct. Generally, the Condorcet Criterion assumes that
> every preference is equal to every other preference. I'm not familiar,
> however, with the details of resolving cycles, and some might involve
> assuming that a A>B>C preference is stronger than an A>C preference. Or it
> looks at winning margins, which involve a kind of estimate of preference
> strength, applied overall.
>
> But for the raw determination of the Condorcet winner, an A>B>C>D>E>F>G>H
> vote is exactly the same in the A>H pair, as B>C>D>E>F>G>A>H. And that is
> the cause of the problem with Condorcet. Let me put it this way. The voter
> is seriously dissatisfied if H is elected in the first case, and happy if A
> is elected. In the second, the voter is almost as unhappy if A is elected as
> the voter is with H in the first example. And, in fact, if the method
> doesn't allow equal ranking, there might be *no* preference of A over H.
>
>>  in fact, all Condorcet does
>> is hypothetically break the multi-candidate election down into
>> multiple 2-candidate elections.
>
> Yes. But so does Approval, in fact. So does Range, with more expressive
> ability. But I'll take your point: Condorcet is sometimes called Instant
> Round Robin. And you do, with Condorcet methods, get to vote, generally, in
> every pairwise election by providing a preference order. You do the same
> with Range of sufficient resolution, with the exception that you only get,
> in Range one full vote to express over all pairs, so you can concentrate the
> vote in one pair, or spread it out among many, or divide the candidates up
> into sets and express setwise preference (with, in the extreme, two sets,
> Approved and Not-Approved, with maximum voting power applied for the
> election of every candidate in the Approved Set and against the election of
> every one in the Not-Approved Set.)
>
> Condorcet appears to give you a full vote in every pairwise election, and I
> suspect that some of the quirks arise from that.
>
> The only voting system that satisfies a reasonable restatement of the
> Arrovian conditions is Range Voting (which includes Approval). That's been
> shown by Dhillon and Mertens, in a paper using notation that even Warren
> Smith calls "notation from hell." However, I find their conclusion
> intuitively correct. I'd be much happier if it was independently confirmed
> as a mathematical proof. They say that the voting system is a unique
> solution to the conditions. (They call the method Rational Utilitarianism,
> but it's Range Voting with a rational strategy suggested.)
>
>>  that, for me, takes care of the
>> whole strategic voting problem.
>
> I think you really ought to look again. But I'm not sure you are being clear
> when you write about the "whole strategic voting problem." What problem?
> Condorcet methods are vulnerable to strategic voting, and the only way to
> vote "strategically" in a Condorcet method is to vote insincere preference
> order.
>
> Take a look at the participation criterion:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participation_criterion. "The participation
> criterion says that the addition of a ballot, where candidate A is strictly
> preferred to candidate B, to an existing tally of votes should not change
> the winner from candidate A to candidate B."
>
> The article claims that all Condorcet methods fail, and also that Bucklin
> fails. I've elsewhere written that voting systems criteria can be
> unreliable; the Bucklin failure has to occur where a vote causes the
> counting to advance to the next round instead of terminating with a
> majority, and your vote for another candidate (not the one that causes the
> Criterion failure, who would have won if not for your vote) is in the
> earlier round, so it satisfies the condition of the criterion (you have
> expressed a preference) but the majority failure caused opens up votes from
> other voters in lower rounds which overwhelm your vote. Approval passes, of
> course, as does Range.
>
>>  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.
>
> Let me put it this way: if you want to have your silly Condorcet method
> (actually it's generally good, just not good enough compared to what else is
> possible), I'm fine with it as long as I can equal-rank to my heart's
> content, and as long as I'm allowed to truncate (which is equivalent to
> equal-ranking last, but without all the damn work).
>
> What happens with eliminations with IRV with equal ranking are that
> candidates are, as it were, struck from the ballots. So if a candidate
> remains at a rank, that candidate is still active until eliminated. I can't
> see any argument against this. No, that's not why it's not allowed in
> Burlington. It's not allowed anywhere, and this has been brought up. The
> only reason I've seen is spurious. Supposedly it violates one-person,
> one-vote, by having two votes active at once. But they are alternative
> votes, in fact, and it would be possible to only count one at a time, it's
> just a more complicated way of arriving at the same result. Mathematically
> equivalent, no difference. The one-person, one-vote issue is bogus. At least
> if it's single-winner. If it's multiple-winner, there are other problems
> that would have to be addressed, I haven't studied it.
>
>
>>> the Condorcet Criterion is probably the best that can be done.
>>
>> that's pretty much all i've been saying.
>
> And it is absolutely incorrect. It sounds good, because we think that each
> one of these round robin elections is sound, and, done that way, they might
> be. Except that it isn't actually a series of individual contests, with the
> focused attention, it's a single ballot, a single snapshot, and we know that
> most of the rankings, quite likely, are more or less random (unless you
> allow equal ranking bottom, which would be normal here), plus each election
> would have its own turnout of voters more informed about that pair, etc.
>
> I agree that if there is a Condorcet winner, there should be a quite clear
> and good reason to pass this candidate over, and I'm uncomfortable doing it
> without a runoff. Note that Condorcet elections can be won with far short of
> a majority.
>
> The best that can be done I will call voter satisfaction optimization. There
> are various ways to approach it, so I won't define this today, but it's
> equivalent to the thinking behind Rational Utilitarianism, which is Range
> Voting, in essence, and it can be proven that this is the only approach that
> satisfies Arrovian-like criteria. (Arrow's Criteria actually can't be
> applied to Range because they are strictly designed for rankings only.)
>
>>> 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.
>
> Indeed. Approval voting works, by the way, I've seen it in action. Far more
> efficient in direct democratic usage than plurality, and forget about using
> IRV with a show of hands. Why would you bother, anyway? But you can do
> Approval, not a problem at all, and what happens? People just Count All the
> Votes, and that's it. It might not even be noticed that people voted for
> more than one, except when you have five alternatives, and the sum of votes
> is much higher than the number of voters, it's obvious. And it's no big
> deal. What's not to like?
>
>> 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").
>
> Sure, I understand the mistrust of weird constructed scenarios. But it's
> easy to construct a perfectly ordinary scenario that is crystal clear, and
> that shows that the Condorcet Criterion is seriously defective as a rational
> method of making decision, *under ordinary conditions.* Under some
> conditions it might be fine. But what happens is that methods which don't
> suffer from this problem are then faulted as violating the Condorct
> Criterion, as if that were more important than making the best decisions.
> What the Eff is the Best Decision?
>
> I can guarantee you that there is no general principle that it is the first
> preference of a majority, taken without deliberation in a context where the
> positions of the voters become known in the voting process. If the majority,
> knowing the overall position, goes ahead and goes for its preference, that's
> proper, it is the right of the majority, and it is for the majority to
> decide if it's shooting itself in the foot or not.
>
>>> 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.
>
> Well, possibly inaccurate. Warren came up with a thought-method which
> involved choosing virtual candidates from every position in issue space. In
> such an election, Borda's assumption is accurate. However, I do recommend a
> voter with zero strategic knowledge use Borda voting as a starting position.
> It's actually a good start, on the average. Then modify the votes where the
> preference strengths expressed seem off (modification to sincere Range), or
> where inadequate voting power is assigned to the significant races
> (modification to strategic Range).
>
>>  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.
>
> Yup. And that's exactly what you can express accurately on a Range ballot. I
> like positive/negative range, for the very psychological reasons that others
> dislike it. With positive votes, I'm expressing a desire to support and
> elect, and with negative the opposite. And I can shade it.
>
>>> 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.
>
> Saari is very well-known and considered an expert. But Range isn't icky,
> because it is actually the only relatively objective method for determining
> the value of an election result turned into a voting system. I.e., we use
> scoring all the time to evaluate alternatives, to give each a value, to
> decide on investment options, to determine the quality of contestants, etc.
> If we were just talking about polling whereby voters would rate an election
> result on a scale of 0-10, where 0 would have been the worst possible
> result, and 1 the best, wouldn't this be a measure of election quality? So,
> hey, why not simply allow voters to do this in advance and then determine
> the winner by the results?
>
> Note that if we could somehow cause the votes to be absolute utilities, we
> truly would have an absolutely ideal method for optimizing the result. There
> are approaches that attempt to do that, look at the Clarke tax. But short of
> that, we do have another approach that is similar: assume that the
> satisfaction of every voter is equal to that of every other voter. It's
> inaccurate, but it will tend to average out.
>
> And then let the voters decide how to express their
> satisfaction/dissatisfaction, on a scale set up, could be 0-10, 0-100, (-1,
> 0, +1), or as simple as Yes or No or Yes as an explict vote and No assumed
> otherwise. You get more information from some voters with higher resolution.
>
> It's argued that voters will exaggerate, but when they exaggerate, all they
> are doing is removing some information from their votes. They still will
> vote for their favorite (there being absolutely no reason not to), with a
> maximum vote, and they will still vote against the least favorite, with a
> minimum vote, and they will, at the minimum, setting the proposal for
> average range aside, place all candidates into at least two categories,
> which we can call Approved and Not-Approved. But they also get, with higher
> resolution Range, the ability to rate in intermediate categories, thus
> weakening some votes, while leaving full-strength votes where they want to
> exercise them.
>
> So what happens when voters withhold some of the "sincere preference"
> information? Not much. It tends to average out, for one thing. For another,
> sure, if the information disclosed is restricted, the method becomes less
> efficient at choosing the true utility maximizer. But it doesn't go far from
> that, and the ones who suffer are the ones who didn't disclose accurate
> information when they could have. If they didn't have accurate information
> to disclose (your worry, apparently, Robert), not a problem. The system
> uses, and uses well, what they disclose. We know from simulations that
> strategic voting doesn't deeply damage Range results. With other methods, in
> fact, you must vote strategically to maximize results, under some
> conditions, you must vote with a preference order that is reversed.
>
> The most obvious example is Plurality, of course, where to get good
> *results* you may have to betray your favorite, ranking a frontrunner over
> your favorite. The same is true for IRV, in fact, as the Republicans in
> Burlington found out to their possible regret.
>
>>> 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.
>
> Arggh. I suspect you don't understand Range. It is not cumulative voting.
> You do not "divide up your point allocation." You may vote the full Range
> for any or all candidates. Can I guess that your top two were Kiss and
> Montrose? Which did you prefer? *How much* did you prefer them?
>
> There is another issue you might not think of, with what I suspect is a
> history of partisan thinking. Which candidate do you think would best be
> able to unify the town? To answer that question, which surely is a question
> just as important as individual preference, you have to have some idea of
> how others in the town feel. And not just those voting, all who participate
> in and are affected by town life.
>
> I don't have much doubt. Montrose, and that's no big surprise, because
> Montrose is in the middle, basically.
>
> Bucklin would make your decision pretty easy, because it's ranked approval.
> Vote for your favorite first rank. If you have a significant preference,
> vote for your next favorite second rank, assuming this is a good outcome for
> you. Or if you really have a strong preference for one of the top two over
> the other, why not only vote for one? If it's Bucklin/Runoff, you could make
> your choice later, or just accept the majority winner if it was one of the
> two.
>
>>  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.
>
> Okay, with Approval, your strategy is clear. And you can vote Range as
> Approval, you know. But I think you'd prefer Bucklin or something like
> Range/Bucklin. The latter would take your Range ballot, which would ideally
> (for you!) be sincere relative ratings, and vote it for you in a set of
> Approval elections with the approval cutoff sliding down a click at a time,
> until a majority is found. You get your cake and can eat it to. You can vote
> for your favorite first, and your lower ranked vote is deferred until it's
> necessary to include all candidates at your lower approval rating. Don't
> care about a majority result? This voting would continue down into the
> negative part of the scale (or the lower half), even all the way down to the
> next click above the bottom. But I really don't like electing someone based
> on bottom-of-the barrel preferences. Which is what Condorcet methods do, by
> the way, unless voters understand not to rank candidates that they'd rather
> not help elect.
>
>>  i would have to strategize and
>> strategize my vote if it was Range.
>
> it's just one bloody vote, Robert. And when you are worried about ratings
> generally, it's more like worrying about a fraction of a vote. Basic Range
> strategy is absolutely simple, but Bucklin makes it simpler.
>
>>  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.
>
> Well, not Satan, I'm sure. But, yeah, the worst candidate, possibly, from
> their point of view. They'd have no trouble deciding the vote for Kiss.
> They'd have no trouble deciding their vote for Wright, either. So they only
> would have one candidate to think about. Bucklin, trivial. Second rank the
> Democrat. Or third rank could be better, hold out as long as possible for
> tossing in the vote for Montrose. Give their own candidate a decent shot at
> winning, then let the method place their vote for Montrose.
>
> There is a common error about Approval Voting, which is to think that it's
> about "approving" candidates in the sense that you even like the person.
> Voting is about making choices, and responsible voting is about making
> necessary compromises. In Burlington, to elect the Democrat, for them, is a
> necessary compromise, otherwise they get worse. Elsewhere, Green voters
> would similarly add a lower rank vote for a Democrat, a Republican wouldn't.
> Voting is *not* simply about personal preference, it is a method of
> negotiating compromises, at least a good voting method is that. And
> Plurality actually works when voters do this work in deciding how to vote,
> and if they understand the situation. By "works" I certainly don't mean
> "works perfectly." In a three-party situation, Plurality easily breaks down,
> unless the parties and the voters really get it together and form
> compromises outside of the actual voting. IRV can make it worse. In that
> situation, IRV is worse than Plurality, because it holds out a false promise
> of being able to vote sincerely without damage.
>
> Some IRV activists, being "progressive," think that IRV must be the greatest
> thing since sliced bread, since Kiss won as a Progressive. But that's a
> product of the fact that the Progressive Party is the strongest in
> Burlington, followed by the Democrats, followed by the Republicans. It's
> quite unusual.
>
> I'm not thrilled at the idea of partisan elections at the town or city
> level. It's divisive and often irrelevant.
>
>>> 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.
>
> A voting system can't be simpler. It's simpler than Plurality, in fact.
>
> More later.
>
>
>



-- 

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