[EM] [RangeVoting] Re: Range Voting As an Issue

[Dave Ketchum]

Brought out for special thought:
>> rating is easier than ranking. You can express this  
>> computationally, by saying that ranking requires O(n²) pairwise  
>> comparisons of candidates (or perhaps for some autistic savants who  
>> heap-sort in their head, O[n log(n)]), while rating requires O(n)  
>> comparisons of candidates against an absolute scale. You can  
>> express it empirically; this has been confirmed by ballot spoilage  
>> rates, speed, and self-report in study after study.

This somehow does not fit as to rating vs ranking.  I look at A and B,  
doing comparisons as needed, and assign each a value to use:
.     For ranking the values can show which exist:  A<B, A=B, or A>B,  
and can be used as is unless they need to be converted to whatever  
format may be acceptable.
.     For rating the values need to be scaled.
Thus what needs doing is a trivial bit of extra effort for rating.   
The comparison effort was shared.

"Ballot spoilage rates" also puzzle.  Where can I find what magic lets  
non-Condorcet have less such than Condorcet, for I do not believe such  
magic exists, unless Condorcet is given undeserved problems.

On Aug 5, 2011, at 8:57 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote:
> If I understand Robert correctly, I think that his concern is to  
> find whichever system gets good results, while still leaving the  
> voters' job crystal-clear.  In particular, the first priority would  
> be to find a system which puts the minimum burden of strategic  
> thinking on the voter. Insofar as it's consistent with this first  
> priority, his other priorities are to simplify the ballot and to  
> elect a better winner.
>
> He says that he finds Condorcet to beat Range, Approval, IRV, and  
> Plurality on those priorities. I can't say I disagree. There is no  
> question that the average voter can get away with less strategizing  
> under Condorcet than under any of those systems. Range and Approval  
> both give significantly more power to a voter who can correctly  
> guess which two candidates are the frontrunners; and a conscientious  
> voter simply can't leave it up to the law of averages to balance out  
> that power between themself and those crazies on the other side. And  
> IRV and Plurality both require lesser-evil thinking and favorite  
> betrayal, which is worse.
>
> But I would contend that, just as clearly, both Majority Judgment  
> and SODA beat Condorcet by these criteria. These are two very- 
> different systems, so I'll tackle them separately.
>
> Why is Majority Judgment easier on the voter than Condorcet? First  
> and foremost, because rating is easier than ranking. You can express  
> this computationally, by saying that ranking requires O(n²) pairwise  
> comparisons of candidates (or perhaps for some autistic savants who  
> heap-sort in their head, O[n log(n)]), while rating requires O(n)  
> comparisons of candidates against an absolute scale. You can express  
> it empirically; this has been confirmed by ballot spoilage rates,  
> speed, and self-report in study after study. You can look at the  
> trend of websites - Yelp, IMDB, Amazon, and an interminable etc.,  
> all use ratings. HotOrNot explicitly experimented with FaceMash- 
> style comparisons and found that even a single two-way comparison  
> was harder for users than ratings.
>
> Second, MJ has, if anything, less of a strategic incentive than  
> Condorcet. Balinski and Laraki found that, in a simulation seeded by  
> real polled ballots from the 2007 French presidential election, the  
> MJ result was more likely to be stable under strategy than the  
> Condorcet result. Warren Smith has argued that, if you know who the  
> two frontrunners are, a Condorcet burial strategy is essentially  
> risk-free, while saving cognitive effort. In MJ, on the other hand,  
> chances are that your honest vote is already getting all possible  
> benefits from such a strategy.
>
> The last two paragraphs may seem counterintuitive to people who are  
> used to thinking of ratings ballots in Range terms. That's because,  
> in Range, some amount of strategic thinking is almost totally  
> inevitable. It would be ridiculous to mark a Range ballot by simply  
> rating each candidate on an absolute scale, without normalizing so  
> that you marked at least one max and one min vote. And voting power  
> continues to increase as you move towards an approval-style ballot.  
> With MJ, on the other hand, even a non-normalized vote with no max  
> or min ratings could well have full strategic voting power.
>
> As to ballot simplicity, it's partly a matter of taste. I'd say that  
> MJ has the edge over Condorcet, but you might disagree. Of course,  
> it would be possible to do Condorcet with a rated ballot, but since  
> I don't know anyone who seriously advocates that, I'm neglecting  
> that possibility.

Condorcet can use THE SAME values as rating - the ratings show what is  
needed to identify A<B, A=B, and A>B.
>
> For results, I think that MJ and Condorcet both do more than well  
> enough. Is it better to have the candidate who makes some majority  
> happiest, as in MJ, or the one who has majorities over all the  
> others, as in Condorcet? On principle, it's hard to say. In the end,  
> I definitely sympathize with Warren that BR is the best measure of  
> results (while disagreeing that results should be the end-all  
> criterion). I haven't seen BR results for MJ, but based on its  
> similarity to Range and MCA, I'd suspect MJ clearly beats Condorcet  
> by this measure.
>
> If you want to read more about MJ, the place to start are the papers  
> on Laraki's home page. These are pro-MJ papers, but honestly, I've  
> found that I got more understanding even of MJ's flaws from reading  
> these critically, than I did from reading the couple of shoddy anti- 
> MJ papers that you'll find in a Google scholar search.
>
> ....
>
> As to SODA, the case is also clear. Less need for strategic thinking  
> than Condorcet? Check. Simpler ballots? In spades. Good results? If  
> voting blocs tend to be well-defined so that voters agree with their  
> favorite candidates — not too excessive an assumption in an  
> ideological, partisan election — then the CW will win in SODA more  
> often than in Condorcet! That is to say, honesty will be the  
> strategic equilibrium in SODA, and lead to a CW win; but in  
> Condorcet, strategy could confound this. In practice, I think that  
> the only case where the CW will not win SODA is when they're an  
> relatively-unknown centrist. Such a person can become the CW  
> precisely because voters do not know their flaws; but in SODA, the  
> other candidates will evaluate that person much more carefully  
> before they transfer a winning pile of votes to an unknown.
>
> ....
>
> I've been actively interested in voting systems for going on two  
> decades now, and sometimes it's frustrating. We continue to argue  
> amongst ourselves between system A and system B, we continue to  
> invent new system Z, while the rest of the world basically ignores us.
>
> In that time, it seems as if I've favored everything under the sun.  
> If I remember correctly, I've gone from Borda, to IRV, to Condorcet,  
> to Range, to Approval, to Asset, to Bucklin, to Bucklin-which-I- 
> called-MCA, to MJ, back to Approval, to SODA. So I think I can  
> pretty fairly say that I'm not fixated on any one system. I also  
> think that I understand the arguments in favor of different systems.
>
> And I honestly have more hope on this issue right now than I have  
> for some time. SODA could be the winning combo. Yes, perhaps I'm  
> biased, because I helped invent it. But if you look at that list of  
> what I've supported, you won't see any other systems where I'd done  
> more than minor tweaks around the edges. And that's not for lack of  
> opportunity; I've invented many systems of my own. It's because I  
> always wanted to back a system which had other supporters, because  
> we're not going to accomplish anything each working alone.
>
> What's so great about SODA? I think it would entirely liberate  
> voters from having to think about strategy. I know that it is the  
> simplest possible task for the voter. And I expect that it would  
> give great results. These are R B-J's three criteria, as I  
> understand them, and I agree with them. I know that other people  
> here might put them in a different order; for instance, the Range  
> advocates would probably put results (that is, BR) first.
>
> SODA has problems, too. It's an obscure system invented yesterday.  
> And it doesn't even really lend itself to publishable results; it's  
> hard to prove anything about it or even do a monte-carlo simulation  
> without making questionable assumptions about how much or how little  
> voting blocs agree with their favored candidate. Finally, it cannot  
> work unless the candidates are human beings; it can't evaluate  
> options without attaching them to spokespeople. But those problems  
> are can be addressed, one way or another, with enough time and effort.
>
> I'd still enthusiastically vote for almost any reform to Plurality -  
> certainly any of the systems except Borda that I listed as having  
> supported. But I have hope that EM researchers and advocates can  
> start coming together as we never have before. I'm not saying that  
> everyone will agree with me. I wouldn't even want for debate to  
> stop. But I think that now is the time to start laying the first  
> foundations of a new unity, and if you ask me right now, SODA has  
> the strength to be the cornerstone.
>
> I hope this does not sound too arrogant. Certainly, I am humbled by  
> the many tasks before us. And no matter how rousingly optimistic my  
> rhetoric, experience reminds me that getting even two of us to agree  
> on anything is always harder than you think.
>
> But still; I remain:
>
> Hopefully y'rs,
> Jameson Quinn
>
> 2011/8/4 robert bristow-johnson <rbj at audioimagination.com>
>
> On Aug 4, 2011, at 3:20 AM, bob wrote:
>
> --- In RangeVoting at yahoogroups.com, "thenewthirdparty"  
> <thenewthirdparty at ...> wrote:
>
> Guys and Gals,
> I now see Range Voting as a very important component to getting  
> third parties elected.  But I don't see how the Range Voting group  
> will ever change the minds of the public in order for it to be a  
> reality.
>
> and they haven't changed my mind about it, even though i'm not  
> opposed to election policy reform nor of moving past FPP.  i fully  
> recognize why the simple vote-for-one ballot (either FPP or delayed- 
> top-two-runoff) disadvantages third-party and independent candidates.
>
> this was a point i brought up during in Burlington IRV debate:  one  
> of the vocal opponents to IRV was, 3 years previously, a minor  
> candidate for mayor in Burlington Vermont.  i would almost say a non- 
> serious candidate, but he got on the ballot (his name is Loyal  
> Ploof).  now he lost to the Prog candidate who was elected in 2006  
> and he was a sorta anti-establishment rabble rouser (if he could get  
> a rabble).
>
> now (i told them this), suppose i'm standing in the rabble and Loyal  
> says something that we all sorta know but the contending candidates  
> aren't gonna bring up and i hear it and i say "yeah, right!  Loyal's  
> right!"  maybe even he's a largely single-issue candidate, maybe  
> not.  but i want to send a message to city hall by voting for Loyal  
> but the election between the real contenders might be close and my  
> two-party contingency candidate may need my vote.  so Loyal doesn't  
> get it, because even if i agree with him and *want* to vote for him,  
> i dare not.
>
> it's the typical Spoiler problem, that discourages voting for third- 
> party or independent candidates.  if they can never sufficient vote  
> (because the race between credible candidates may be close) third  
> parties cannot get off the ground and become contenders.  but i was  
> surprized that this guy who would directly benefit from a ranked  
> ballot would be opposed to it.  (he didn't like the Prog mayor and  
> essentially jumped in the boat with the other Prog-haters that  
> believed, falsely, that IRV specifically favored the Progs in  
> Burlington.)
>
> that said, and to repeat that i also understand IRV to have *failed*  
> in Burlington in 2009, i am not at all impressed with Range or Score  
> voting for governmental elections (for certain Olympic sports, sure,  
> but not for governmental elections).  one of the complaints we have  
> against both FPP and IRV (as we found out in Burlington in 2009) is  
> placing obvious burdens of tactical voting on the electorate.  we  
> don't *like* having to forsake our favorite candidate in order to  
> accomplish some other political imperative.  FPP discourages the  
> Nader voters from voting for their favorite candidate in 2000 by  
> punishing them when it became clear that their vote cause Bush to be  
> elected.  and IRV discourages the GOP Prog-haters in Burlington from  
> voting for their favorite candidate in 2009 when they discover that  
> marking their favorite as #1 on the ballot actually caused the Prog  
> to win.
>
> now, it's not the ranked ballot that failed these voters, it was the  
> Hare-STV method of tabulating the vote. Condorcet would have taken  
> the same ballot data and elected the candidate that was preferred by  
> the electorate over any other specific candidate.  The GOP who lost  
> the most in the election would neither have gotten punished for  
> their sincere 1st-choice vote (if IRV had survived, in 2012 these  
> guys would be saying to themselves in the polls: "I gotta choose  
> between Liberal and More-Liberal, because if I vote for the guy I  
> really like, More-Liberal gets elected"), they would have been more  
> satisfied with the Condorcet winner than with the IRV winner, who  
> was their least favorite.  And the Progs would have been more  
> satisfied with the Condorcet winner than with the apparent FPP  
> winner (the GOP), but they would be unhappy with the result due to  
> rivalry the Progs and Dems have for the common liberal voter in this  
> town.
>
> Ranked-choice voting requires less strategizing by the voter than  
> Range because it requires less information.  with a ranked ballot,  
> all the voter needs to decide is who, in every contingency that  
> matters to the voter, who he or she would vote for.  they don't need  
> to decide how much *more* they like Mother Teresa over Ghandi.  If  
> they really want to bury a third candidate, Stalin, they have to  
> sacrifice their preference between the two virtuous and the election  
> might be decided between them.  Or maybe the election will turn out  
> to be a battle between Stalin and Satan and they might rather live  
> under Stalin than Satan, so they want to bump him up a little (leave  
> Satan with a score of 0).  but what if Satan wins because not enough  
> voters scored Stalin up enough?  or what if either Teresa or Ghandi  
> lose to Stalin because too many voters scored Stalin too high (for  
> fear of electing Satan)?
>
> what to do?  what to do?
>
> but a ranked ballot is easy:
>
>      Teresa > Ghandi > Stalin > Satan
>
> or, if you're more Hindu than Christian:
>
>      Ghandi > Teresa > Stalin > Satan
>
> no tactical thinking necessary for the ranked ballot when it decided  
> by Condorcet and a Condorcet winner exists.  and, if a CW exists,  
> the result is perfectly consistent, in every contingency, with the  
> simple-majority, two candidate, one-person-one-vote election that  
> everyone is familiar with.
>
>
>  Does someone have thoughts on how to get your Range Voting plan  
> voted into action?  I would like to hear how Range Voting moves  
> beyond more than just a good idea.
>
> how does it move beyond "good idea" when it hasn't advanced to that  
> square?  (sorry Warren, i *really* have a lot of respect for you and  
> your scholarship and your Burlington IRV page at your website, but  
> you're still not convincing regarding Range.  a little more  
> convincing regarding Approval, but i would still not support that  
> for political office, maybe the judiciary or some boards, but not  
> executive nor legislative.)
>
> listen, everybody agrees with how a simple 2-candidate election  
> should be decided: person with the most votes wins and every voters  
> vote is of equal value.  "simple majority" and "one-person-one-vote".
>
> wouldn't it make a lot more sense, since IRV is discredited, and FPP  
> is clearly flawed, to put your energy into educating people about  
> what goes wrong and *has* gone wrong in those elections and present  
> an alternative with ballot no more complicated than with IRV and  
> truer to the hypothetical 2-person race, whether the spoiler runs or  
> not?
>
>
> I think we need to start a PAC or even maybe a party that has the  
> sole objective of getting rid of plurality voting.
>
> doesn't one exist?  why not team up with FairVote?
>
>
>  We need to be able to communicate that competitive elections in  
> which there is no vote splitting is the most important thing we can  
> do to hold politicians accountable.
>
> sure, and how does Condorcet cause vote splitting?  you don't need  
> Range to address the problem of splitting the majority vote.
>
>
>  We also need to be willing to vote for candidates who support  
> getting rid of plurality regardless of what other positions that  
> candidate holds.
> oooh, i dunno if i can handle that.  weirder things have happened  
> than that of Michelle Bachmann supporting ranked-choice voting.  i  
> wouldn't vote for her even if she *loved* Condorcet.
>
>
> We need to communicate that once we get over this hump, we will no  
> longer have to worry about having to vote for the lesser of two  
> evils ever again.
>
> Another thing we can do is email and tweet news hosts like Rachael  
> Maddow and ask them to do a segment on different voting systems.  If  
> we organize to tweet pundits at the same time, maybe they'll get the  
> message.
>
> dunno who Rachel Maddow is.  guess i better google her.  how about  
> Chris Matthews?
>
>
>
> On 8/4/11 9:16 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote:
> Here I talk of moving up from FPP to Range or Condorcet.  I do not  
> get into other single-winner elections or into multi-winner  
> elections - while such deserve considering, they distract from my  
> primary goal, which is to promote moving upward without getting  
> buried in details.
>
> Voters should see advantages in moving up to a better method.
>
> To vote for one, as in FPP:
> .     In Range, assign your choice a maximum rating.
> .     In Condorcet, simply rank your choice.
>
> which is simpler?
>
>
> Voting for two is using more power than FPP offers.  Often there is  
> a major pair of candidates for which you prefer one, and one other  
> that you also want to vote for:  For your second choice you could  
> give the same rank or rating, or lower:
> .     In Range you assign first choice maximum rating.  Unrated  
> share minimum.  The farther you rate second below max, the stronger  
> your vote for max over second.  BUT, the nearer you rate second to  
> unrated, the weaker you rate second over unrated.
> .     In Condorcet, rank your first choice higher than your second.
>
> ditto.
>
>
> Voting for more is doable:
> .     In Range your difference in rating between any two is how much  
> you prefer the higher over the lower, and the sum of these  
> differences decides which wins their race.
> .     In Condorcet they count how many rank A>B vs how many rank B>A.
> which meaning complies more with equal weighting of each voter's  
> vote (what we normally mean by "one-person-one-vote")?
>
>
> Politicians may hesitate in moving up to more powerful methods.   
> Range or Condorcet can cost more, but getting a truer reading as to  
> voter choices can be worth the pain.
>
> i'm sorry, guys.  i'm really sorry, Warren, but between Condorcet  
> and Range, it just ain't close.
>
> -- 
>
> r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
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