[EM] breakdown of Oakland mayor ballots

[robert bristow-johnson]

On Nov 13, 2010, at 12:55 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote:

> This reads as a valuable demonstration of the value of Condorcet.

it would be even more informative if, in the semi-final round between  
Perata, Quan, and Kaplan, we knew how the 2nd-choice votes of Perata  
and Quan voters broke down.  perhaps, like in Burlington 2009, Kaplan  
was the CW.  that information is on the ballots, but is obscured in  
these IRV results.

also, similarly to Burlington 2009, the plurality leader was leading  
in all rounds except defeated only in the final round.  and, almost  
verbatim, the IRV loser (and plurality winner) complains that his loss  
is due to "gaming the system".

> Here we have the pro- & anti- Perata halves of Oakland competing.   
> If they win, the anti-Perata half are also competing as to their  
> minor differences.

well, perhaps they are, but from these results we do not know how the  
anti-Perata portion preferred Kaplan vs. Quan (their "minor  
difference").

> This is only intelligent competition, NOT gaming.
>
> In IRV, order of processing the same ballots would differ.

Dave, i don't get what you mean here, at all.  all we know is that  
nearly 2000 more voters preferred Quan over Perata.  with IRV rules we  
would have gotten to this independent of the order of processing.  we  
don't know if and by how many voters may have preferred Kaplan over  
either.

>  First decide which half of the top rank of the antis wins the right  
> for total antis to compete with pro-Peratas.
>
> Since they had more top ranks, they are likely stronger as total  
> antis, but this is only odds, not certainty.
>
> Agreed Perata would have won in Plurality BECAUSE voters cannot  
> express their desires as completely there.

i've always considered it odd that the anti-IRV partisans like Kathy  
Dopp complain so much about the opaqueness of the San Francisco IRV  
that had a zillion candidates but only 3 levels of ranking (4 if you  
count all unranked candidates as tying for last place on one's  
ballot).  with the simple vote-for-one traditional ballot, that is  
precisely like IRV with ONE level of ranking, even MORE opaque to the  
contingency desires of voters.

i'm gonna turn off my Dopp and Abd filters for a while to see what  
they might have to say (i hope they don't abuse it) but i would be  
also interested in reading what anyone else has to say about this.   
how does *anyone* justify, with a straight face, that Perata is the  
more democratic choice than Quan?  again, perhaps Kaplan would be even  
*more* of a democratic choice (if she was the CW), but without the  
individual ballot data, we cannot tell.


--

r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."