[EM] Fw: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairerthan IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws

Sun Jan 17 09:34:48 PST 2010

Kathy,

you wrote<snip>
"...unlike with IRV where a majority may think that the
elected candidate is the worst choice, as happened in Burlington, VT
mayoral election."
<snip>
That is incorrect for Burlington, (the IRV winner was the "second"
Condorcet-winner if the actual Condorcet-winner is removed, and favored
above the other three candidates.) And it is a fundamental fact that the
IRV winner can never be a candidate that the majority think "is the worst
choice." IRV can never elect the Condorcet-loser. The ultimate winner must
be preferred above the other finalist in the last round of the tally.

It is PLURALITY voting, which you support, that often DOES elect the
Condorcet-loser, who a majority agree is the worst choice.

Terry Bouricius

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kathy Dopp" <kathy.dopp at gmail.com>
To: "Chris Benham" <cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au>; "EM"
<election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 8:38 AM
Subject: Re: [EM] Fw: Two simple alternative voting methods that are
fairerthan IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws

Hi Chris,

I respond to your claims below.

On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Chris Benham <cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au>
wrote:
>
>
>
>
> ----- Forwarded Message ----
> From: Chris Benham <cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au>
> To: EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
> Sent: Fri, 15 January, 2010 4:21:31 AM
> Subject: Two simple alternative voting methods that are fairer than
> IRV/STV and lack most IRV/STV flaws
>
> Kathy Dopp wrote (11 Jan 2010):
>
> <snip>
>
> "IRV/STV is fundamentally unfair because a large group of persons whose
> first choice loses, never has their 2nd choice counted, unlike some
> other voters. It's a highly inequitable method."
>
> <snip>
>
> Kathy Dopp wrote (13 Jan 2010):
>
> "For those who need a system for substituting for a top-two runoff
> election, I devised two fair methods to suggest to her that do not
> have all the flaws of IRV/STV. (They both may've been devised by
> others before me. My goal was to create a fair method without
> IRV/STV's flaws which solve the problem of one person/one vote which
> is necessary to get a voting method approved by US courts.
> ------------------------------------------
>
> I believe that these
> alternative systems (below) are also susceptible to the spoiler effect
> of a nonwinning candidate changing who wins the election, although I
> believe that there is a significant difference between the alternative
> methods below and plurality and IRV where a majority opposed candidate
> may win the election. In other words, I believe that the winner due to
> a spoiler in the alternative method below is more likely to be a
> majority
> favorite."
>
>
> If "majority opposed" means having a majority-strength pairwise loss,
> then there is no decisive method that assures that no such candidate
> can win.

You could be right on that statement Chris. I wasn't thinking about
all the possibilities when I wrote the above.

>
> I'm not sure what Kathy means by a "majority favorite". That phrase is
> usually taken to refer to a candidate that is strictly top-ranked by
> more
> than half the voters. The "Majority Favorite" criterion is met by IRV
> and
> Plurality among many others, but not by Borda or Range.

Sorry. I should use the phrase Condorcet winner for what I mean.

>
>
> "Both methods below solve the problem of every voter having a vote of
> value one and, unlike IRV, treat all voters alike by counting all
> their choices
>
> So, here are two possible methods that are fairer than IRV/STV and
> which are monotonic (unlike IRV/STV):
>
> 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"
>
> 51: A>B
> 40: B
> 09: C>A
>
>
> A: (51 x 2/3 = 34) + (9 x 1/3 = 3) = 37.
> B: (40 x 1 = 40) + (51 x 1/3 = 17) = 57
> C: (9 x 2/3) = 6.
>
> Kathy's proposed point score method here elects B in violation of
> Majority Favourite.

Yes. But also notice that B is also a majority favorite in that 91
voters out of 100 prefer B over C and 40/100 prefer B strongly enough
to bullet vote, so the vast majority of voters should be happy with
this result, unlike with IRV where a majority may think that the
elected candidate is the worst choice, as happened in Burlington, VT
mayoral election.

>
> Also of course if the A supporters had not ranked B then A would
> have won, a big violation of Later-no-Harm.

Later-no-harm is a very bad feature of IRV that prevents IRV from
finding majority-favorite compromise candidates and tends to elect
extreme right or extreme left candidates. In any negotiation, it is
necessary to reveal the 2nd choices of all parties early on, not hide
2nd choices entirely of some voters and never consider them at all
like IRV does to most voters in many elections.

>
>
> "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 effectively the same thing as the single-winner Cumulative Vote,
> and is likewise strategically equivalent to Plurality, but allowing
> voters
> to unwisely split up their votes mean that it also fails Majority
> Favorite.

Yes. *Any* system that guarantees the principle of
"one-person/one-vote" as some US judges insist on, has the feature
that it encourages bullet voting. Notice that with IRV and some other
systems like Condorcet there is a wide variety on the number of votes
that voters may cast and have counted during the election.  In
Condorcet, the voter may determine how many votes are cast and
counted. In IRV the voter determines how many votes are cast, but not
how many are counted since votes are not treated equally in IRV/STV.

>
> 51: A2, B1, C0
> 40: B3, A0, C0
> 09: C2, A1, B0
>
> A: (51 x 2 = 104) + (9 x 1 = 9) = 113
> B: (40 x 3 = 120) + (51 x 1 = 51) = 171
> C: (9 x 2) = 18.
>
>
> "The advantage of these two methods over IRV/STV include:
>
> 1. easy to count, precinct-summable (unlike IRV)
>
> 2. fair, treats all voters' votes equally by counting all choices of
> each voter (unlike IRV)"
>
> I think judgements of "fair" (and "equitable") or not of a voting method
> should be based on their possible results, and not on some (presumably
> just aesthetic) prejudice about its algorithm.

By "fair" I mean that all votes are treated equally for all voters.
I.e. all voters' 2nd choices would be counted equally.  Because
IRV/STV are not fair, they disenfranchise some voters and produce
undesirable election results that a majority of voters oppose and
involuntarily prevent some voters from participating in the final
decision-making in the final round, etc.

>
> "3. gives each voter a total of one vote total over the entire vote
> counting process satisfying the US courts (unlike IRV)"
>
> If IRV doesn't satisfy the US courts, then how come IRV is used in the
> US?

Because the judges have been cleverly and grossly misled on the facts,
as they were in the most recent MN court case by FairVote.  Also, the
attorney who spoke for the plaintiff was not very educated on all the
facts about IRV/STV, having also been misled by defendants, and should
have let the attorney who did all the research for the firm speak
instead.

>
> "4. is monotonic -- preserves the right to cast a vote that has a
> positive affect on a candidate's chances of winning (unlike IRV.)
>
> 5. Allows all voters to participate in all the rounds since these
> methods require only one (1) round (unlike IRV)".
>
> <snip>
>
> I am sure the majority of voters whose favourite was A in my examples
> would be very pleased that they were "allowed to participate in all the
> rounds".

The majority of voters whose favorite was A and whose 2nd choice was B
(you cleverly neglect to mention here) should have been very happy
that C did not win, as would have happened in IRV/STV (you also
neglect to mention.)

>
> Is being "monotonic" more important than satisfying Majority Favorite?

Your definition of "majority favorite" of course conveniently only
considers a voters' first choice votes and only considers the first
choice votes of voters whose candidates make it to the final counting
rounds.

All US jurisdictions who've adopted IRV/STV have had to drop their
requirement for majority winners when majority is defined, as it is in
common parlance, by a majority out of all voters who cast ballots in
the election.  In Australia that may be different because Australia
may be able to require that voters fully rank all candidates. US law
does not permit that.

>
> Why does Kathy elsewhere defend Top Two Runoff which isn't monotonic?

Another highly misleading statement. In Top-two runoff each election
is monotonic and voters thus retain the right to cast a vote that
increases, rather than decreases, the chance of their candidates'
winning, unlike IRV/STV which removes this right, among others.

Cheers,

Kathy

>
>
> Chris Benham
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________________________
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-- 

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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