[EM] Voting reform statement; a clearer and more inspiring, version

[Ralph Suter]

Several thoughts (not a thorough critique) after one straight-through 
reading:

1. Length: I agree that for the reasons Richard described, the length of 
his proposed declaration (less than 2300 words) is appropriate and that 
trying to shorten it very much would be a mistake. It's long compared to 
previously proposed versions, but it's still very short compared to, 
say, a small pamphlet or even a fairly short magazine article, and it's 
only two to three times the length of a typical US newspaper op-ed 
article. At the same time, I think it is long enough (or nearly so -- 
see #5 below) to convey clearly, to a broad non-expert audience, at 
least the minimum necessary information and explanation.

2. Readability: When opening the email Richard's post was in (I got it 
along 4 other posts in an issue of Election-Methods Digest), I didn't 
expect to want to take the time to read it carefully all the way 
through, but after I started reading, I found it well-written and 
compelling enough to want to do so -- almost like a "page turner" novel.

3. Language: I'm guessing most readers will find the language clear with 
just a few exceptions. One exception, for example, may be "pairwise". 
This is a word most non-expert readers will be unfamiliar with and many 
may find puzzling and jargon-like. To find other exceptions, a variety 
of non-expert readers should be asked to read the statement (or later 
drafts of it) and note any words, phrases, or explanations they find 
unclear.

4. When describing Condorcet methods: I suggest briefly describing 
Condorcet himself and his role in developing such methods. I would also 
explain that the main point of Condorcet methods is to use the 
preference information voters provide to determine how each candidate 
would fare against every other candidate in a series of one-to-one 
contests, just as in a round-robin athletic tournament in which each 
contestant competes one-to-one against every other contestant. In 
addition, I suggest mentioning that for this reason, an alternative name 
sometimes used to describe Condorcet methods is Instant Round Robin 
methods, which can be abbreviated as IRR methods to distinguish them 
from Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), a more widely known and promoted 
method that makes use of the same kinds of ballots IRR methods do. (By 
the way, "1-2-3 ballots" may not be much better than "preferential 
ballots"; there may better names than either, such as rank voting 
ballots, rank order ballots, or just ranking or ranked ballots. This may 
be worth asking non-expert readers about.)

5. Finally, I think the statement could be greatly improved and made 
more interesting, relevant, and compelling to a wider range of readers 
by explaining that alternative voting and representation methods can 
also be beneficially used for a large variety of purposes other than 
general political elections and that different methods are often more 
suitable for some kinds of purposes than for other purposes. Some 
example of other purposes are: US-style primary elections; party 
convention votes; decisions in legislative bodies and committees; 
decisions by informal groups; decisions in meetings of different kinds 
and sizes; uncritical or relatively minor decisions vs. major, 
critically important decisions; opinion polling; TV/radio audience 
voting; provisional ("straw") voting; and choosing organizational board 
members and conference attendees. Furthermore, because alternative 
voting and representation methods have the potential to greatly improve 
collective decisionmaking in a large variety of situations other than 
general political elections and because abstract analyses of different 
methods need to be supplemented with well-designed experimentation and 
social scientific research, there is a great need and justification for 
support for such experimentation and research, possibly in the form of a 
new well-funded non-partisan research institute.

Explaining these things would require lengthening the statement, though 
I think not by a lot. An objection may be that this would make the 
statement less focused and therefore less compelling and influential. My 
reply would be that while election laws are generally very difficult to 
change, it is often much easier (as I know from some personal 
experience) to change how decisions are made for purposes other than 
public elections. If such changes became increasingly frequent and 
widespread, people would increasingly become more familiar with 
alternative voting and representation methods and with the idea that 
alternative methods are often far superior to ones currently used, and 
it should also become increasingly easy to persuade people to support 
major changes in public election laws.

-RS

PS: I'm actually not an election-methods expert and haven't read 
messages on this list at all regularly for several years. At most, I'm a 
fairly well-informed amateur, and even that may be overstating it. My 
expertise is more in general political reform (especially US political 
reform), with election reform being one of a large variety of kinds of 
reforms I believe are badly and urgently needed. I also have some 
expertise in political reform strategy -- i.e., the development of 
practical strategies for bringing about changes that experts agree are 
needed.

On 8/23/2011 9:06 PM, Richard Fobes wrote:
> I very much agree with Jameson Quinn that the time has come to write,
> sign, and widely distribute a formal statement of the election-method
> principles that we agree upon. Yet instead of just providing a checklist
> of what we approve, I suggest we take advantage of this opportunity to ...
>
> * ... inspire(!) policymakers, politically active citizens, and
> frustrated voters to take action, and ...
>
> * ... give them a clearly explained declaration they can use as
> ammunition in their battles to implement election-method reforms.
>
> To serve these purposes, I'm boldly suggesting an entirely new wording.
> Keep in mind that one of my professions has been to work as a technical
> writer specializing in translating especially complex technology into
> clear English, and I also have experience writing marketing materials.
>
> This version incorporates the suggestions and refinements already
> discussed, so the revision work already done is not being wasted.
>
> Previously I too was thinking that the other version was too long.
> Ironically this version is even longer. I now realize that the other
> version went into too much detail about subtle issues, and that's what
> made it seem long. In contrast, this version uses the extra words to
> clearly explain fundamental voting concepts that most people do not
> already understand, and to serve the above-listed purposes.
>
> Also I think (or at least hope) that this version better identifies our
> real areas of agreement.
>
> My hope is that either this version, or a merging of this version with
> other versions, will produce a declaration that we can sign with much
> more enthusiasm.
>
> ----- The Declaration of Election-Method Experts -----
>
> We, the undersigned election-method experts from around the world,
> unanimously denounce the use of "plurality" voting in elections in which
> there are more than two candidates, and in this declaration we offer
> ready-to-adopt replacement election methods that we agree will reliably
> produce much fairer results.
>
> We agree that there are no perceived political or economic risks
> associated with adopting the election methods recommended here. In fact,
> we believe that improving the fairness of election results will produce
> many political and economic benefits. Some of the benefits we expect
> include reduced voter frustration, reduced government costs (that arise
> from excessive political influence from self-serving special interests),
> wiser use of tax dollars (based on electing problem-solving leaders who
> solve underlying problems that waste money), dramatically increased
> voter turnout because of having meaningful choices, increased compliance
> with laws including taxation laws, and likely increases in widespread
> economic prosperity (arising from increased fairness in the business world).
>
> We use the term "plurality" voting to refer to the commonly used
> counting method in which each voter marks only a single choice on the
> ballot, and the number of marks for each candidate are counted, and the
> candidate with the highest number is regarded as the winner. In some
> nations this method is called "First Past The Post" (and abbreviated
> FPTP). Although this election method produces fair results when there
> are only two candidates, the results are often dramatically unfair when
> this approach is used in elections with three or more candidates.
>
> In spite of its well-known weaknesses, plurality voting is predominantly
> used in most elections in most democratic nations around the world, with
> Australia and New Zealand being notable exceptions. It is also the
> preferred election method in nations that pretend to be democracies, yet
> lack the freedoms and economic benefits of democracy.
>
> Unanimously we agree that the kind of ballot used in plurality voting is
> not appropriate when there are more than two choices. Its deficiency is
> that it does not collect enough preference information from the voters
> in order to always correctly identify the most popular candidate when
> there are more than two candidates.
>
> Unanimously we agree that there are three kinds of ballots that collect
> enough preference information to always, or almost always, correctly
> identify the most popular candidate. The names and descriptions of these
> ballot types are, in alphabetical order:
>
> * Approval ballot, on which a voter marks each candidate who the voter
> approves as an acceptable choice, and leaves unmarked the candidates who
> are not acceptable
>
> * Ranked ballots (or 1-2-3 ballots), on which a voter indicates a first
> choice, and optionally indicates a second choice, and optionally
> indicates additional choices at lower preference levels
>
> * Score ballots, on which a voter assigns a number for each candidate,
> with the most familiar versions of such voting being to rate something
> with 1 to 5 stars or rate a choice with a number from 1 to 10, but any
> range of numbers can be used
>
> The type of ballot used in plurality voting does not have an
> academically recognized name, but the term "single-mark ballot" can be
> used to refer to this primitive ballot type.
>
> Why is the unfairness of plurality voting not better known? Single-mark
> ballots do not collect enough information to reveal the actual
> preferences of voters in elections that have three or more reasonably
> popular candidates. This lack of full preference information makes it
> nearly impossible for anyone to produce clear proof, or even evidence,
> of unfair election results.
>
> Adopting any of the three better ballot types would provide the
> information that is needed for fair results. In addition, for comparison
> purposes, the preferences on the three better ballot types can be
> interpreted to reveal who would have won the election if plurality
> counting had been used. Such comparisons will quickly reveal the
> dramatic unfairness of plurality voting in elections involving three or
> more candidates.
>
> These three better ballot types can be counted in different ways to
> produce different results. As election-method experts we have both
> developed and analyzed many counting methods, and we now agree that
> there are several counting methods that are worth adopting in
> governmental elections.
>
> Four of the counting methods that we agree would produce significantly
> better results compared to plurality voting are, in alphabetical order:
>
> * Approval voting, which uses approval ballots and identifies the
> candidate with the most approval marks as the winner.
>
> * Bucklin voting, which uses ranked ballots, and which initially counts
> only the most-preferred candidate on each ballot, and identifies a
> winner only if that candidate receives a majority of votes, and which
> successively adds consideration for lower-ranked candidates until a
> majority outcome is reached.
>
> * Condorcet methods, which use ranked ballots and pairwise counting to
> compare each candidate with each of the other candidates, with the
> winner being the candidate who is pairwise preferred over each and every
> other candidate. In some elections none of the candidates will win all
> of their pairwise comparisons, so there are variations that resolve
> these cases. These variations, in alphabetical order, are named the
> Condorcet-Kemeny method (or "VoteFair popularity ranking"), the
> Condorcet-Schulze (or "beatpath") method, and the Condorcet-Tideman (or
> "ranked pairs") method. (The word Condorcet is a French name that is
> pronounced "kon-dor-say".)
>
> * Range voting (also known as score voting), which uses score ballots,
> and adds together the scores assigned to each candidate, and identifies
> the winner as the candidate who receives the highest total score.
>
> There is another voting method that is supported by some, but not most,
> of the undersigned election-method experts. It is called "instant-runoff
> voting" (or "IRV" or "the alternative vote"), and it uses ranked
> ballots. The counting method begins by considering each voter's
> highest-ranked choice, and eliminating the candidate with the fewest
> votes, and then shifting the affected ballots to the next-most preferred
> candidate, and repeating this process until a candidate receives a
> majority of votes.
>
> Instant-runoff voting is used in some governmental elections throughout
> the world, and most of us agree that usually the results are an
> improvement over plurality voting. However, many of us either regard the
> degree of improvement as not being significant enough to justify
> adopting this method, or are concerned that its not-always-fair results
> will be associated with ranked ballots rather than with the
> instant-runoff counting method.
>
> Significantly some of the places that have adopted instant-runoff voting
> have later rejected the method and returned to plurality voting. These
> places include Aspen Colorado and Burlington Vermont in the United
> States. The rejections occurred because the method produced clearly
> unfair results, in which the winner would not have been the winner if
> any of the Condorcet methods had been used.
>
> In addition to the four supported methods listed above, we also support
> some combined methods. Specifically we support the use of the Condorcet
> method to identify a "Condorcet winner" (who is pairwise-preferred over
> all the other candidates) and then, if there is no Condorcet winner, we
> support using either instant-runoff voting (IRV) or approval voting to
> resolve the ambiguity and identify a single winner.
>
> In the list of signatures we indicate which voting method each signer
> most strongly prefers.
>
> Yet most of us also agree that we will support the adoption of any of
> the supported methods, namely, in alphabetical order:
>
> * Approval voting
>
> * Bucklin voting
>
> * Any of the Condorcet methods, which are, in alphabetical order:
>
>     * Condorcet-Approval
>     * Condorcet-IRV
>     * Condorcet-Kemeny
>     * Condorcet-Schulze
>     * Condorcet-Tideman
>
> * Range voting
>
> (The choice of counting method determines which kind of ballot is needed.)
>
> The Wikipedia articles about these methods provide detailed descriptions
> and characteristics of these methods. In fact, many of us signing this
> statement edit these Wikipedia articles to keep them accurate and
> unbiased. (The academic names for these methods differ from the
> simplified names given here, so the Wikipedia "Voting system" article is
> a good starting article.)
>
> If you have specific questions about election methods, many of us
> participate in the "Election-Methods" forum (at
> http://lists.electorama.com/listinfo.cgi/election-methods-electorama.com),
> and we would be happy to answer your questions about any of these
> methods. [Note: Can we set up a "redirect" to simplify this URL to
> something likewww.electorama.com/election-methods?]
>
> So far, all of the above recommendations apply to filling an executive
> (non-legislative) position such as a mayor or governor, where there is a
> single "seat" to be filled.
>
> Different considerations apply if an election fills a legislative seat,
> such as a seat in a legislature, parliament, or U.S. Congress. In
> Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the typical method
> for filling a legislative seat is to define a district or riding in
> which plurality voting is used to elect one person who is expected to
> represent the citizens in that district or riding.
>
> All of us signing this declaration agree that plurality voting is not
> acceptable as an election method for filling a single district-based or
> riding-based legislative seat.
>
> One way to improve legislative elections is to replace plurality voting
> with one of the above-supported election methods, and most of us support
> making this improvement.
>
> Most of us agree that a better choice would be to adopt an election
> method in which the choice of who wins one seat interacts with who wins
> another equivalent seat in ways that ensure that the overall composition
> of the legislature at least roughly matches the preferences of the
> voters, especially in terms of political-party preferences. However, we
> disagree about which election method best serves this purpose.
>
> Most European nations (but not the United Kingdom) use "proportional
> representation" to match legislative representatives with the
> political-party preferences of the voters. Specifically, when electing
> members of parliament (MPs) by this method, voters not only vote for a
> candidate, but they also indicate their favorite political party.
> Proportional representation then makes adjustments to ensure that the
> percentage of legislative seats filled by members of each party roughly
> matches the percentage of voters who support each party. In other words,
> if 15% of the voters mark the Green Party as their favorite, then
> approximately 15% of the parliamentary seats are filled by Green Party
> politicians.
>
> Proportional representation methods typically use either "open lists" or
> "closed lists" to determine which politicians are selected to fill the
> seats that are "won" by a party. The open-list approach allows voters to
> express preferences about which candidates they prefer for filling their
> party's seats. In the closed-list approach, the political party creates
> the ordered list from which their party's seats are filled, and voters
> do not participate in influencing the closed list.
>
> Almost all of us agree that where proportional representation is used,
> the open-list approach should be used. We oppose the closed-list
> approach because it transfers power to people who are not elected, and
> who cannot easily be removed from their position of power.
>
> In governments where a single legislative representative is elected from
> each district or riding, a political manipulation named "gerrymandering"
> is used to influence the positions of district or riding boundaries.
> Such boundary manipulations affect which political party is favored to
> win the elections in each district or riding, and in turn this affects
> the legislative balance of power between political parties. It also
> reduces voter turnout because the election results are so difficult to
> change through voting.
>
> Unanimously we agree that gerrymandering is unfair. Almost unanimously
> we agree that either better voting methods can be used to make the
> boundary positions much less influential in the balance of power between
> political parties, or that there are fair and impartial ways to choose
> the boundaries. However, we do not agree on which such methods are best,
> so we are not recommending a specific solution to the gerrymandering
> problem.
>
> Overall our highest priority is to stop the use of plurality voting in
> elections that involve three or more choices, and to replace plurality
> voting with one of the alternative election methods recommended here.
>
> We, as election-method experts, have spent the last decade developing
> online resources about election methods, developing software for
> numerous election methods, and participating in online discussions to
> identify which election methods are worth adopting as replacements for
> plurality voting. Now we are sharing our recommendations. We also offer
> to share our deep understanding of election methods with policymakers
> and politically active citizens of any nation, state, province,
> municipality, or political party.
>
> We realize that election-method reforms are unlikely to start with
> people in positions of great power because they have made many
> sacrifices to achieve their power, and they do not want their efforts to
> be undermined.
>
> Therefore we address this statement to you as someone who is aware of
> the benefits that election-method reforms will bring.
>
> If you are a policymaker, we strongly urge you to introduce legislation
> that would adopt one of the election methods we support. If you are
> active in a political party that uses plurality voting, we strongly urge
> you to encourage the use of a better voting method to choose your
> party's candidates, or to choose your party's internally elected
> delegates or representatives. If you are politically active, we strongly
> urge you to tell others about the unfairness of plurality voting, and to
> bring attention to the fairer election methods supported in this
> declaration. If you are a frustrated voter, we strongly urge you to
> learn about one or more of the election methods we support, and then
> tell others what you have learned. And if you are a member of an
> organization that elects officers using plurality voting, we strongly
> urge you to advocate using one of the recommended election methods when
> an election involves more than two candidates.
>
> We, the following election-method experts, agree with the statements
> made in this declaration.
>
> ----- End of draft -----
>
> Clarification: I did not use the academic name "preferential ballot" to
> refer to ranked ballots because the term "preferential ballot" deserves
> to win a prize as the most redundant two-word phrase. (The whole point
> of a ballot is to collect preferences!) The alternate name of "1-2-3
> ballot" comes from a Canadian who is promoting election-method reform.
>
> Clarification: I did not include the SODA method because it has not yet
> been fully peer reviewed, it is not explained in Wikipedia (which
> provides further peer reviewing), and it has not been successfully
> tested in actual voting situations. Remember that we hope to get this
> declaration signed by election-method experts who do not participate in
> the Election-Methods forum, and we are recommending these methods for
> use in governmental elections where the risk of "trying something new"
> is not acceptable.
>
> Perspective: As a reminder, recall that this Election Method forum
> started as a spin-off from a general-purpose Elections forum because
> these discussions use too much jargon and mathematics for mainstream
> participation. By including clear, plain-English explanations of
> fundamental election-method concepts in our declaration, we can
> re-connect with those people. Also we can connect with the many other
> people who advocate election-method reform, but who lack our
> election-method expertise. They can use our signed declaration as
> ammunition in their battles against plurality voting.
>
> Finally I'll close with a suggested format for signatures (where the
> third portion indicates affiliation):
>
> Richard Fobes; Portland, Oregon, USA; VoteFair.org; prefers
> Condorcet-Kemeny method