[EM] Has this idea been considered?

[Juho Laatu]

There are many reasons why it is difficult to find a statement that numerous people on this list would be willing to sign. As you know there are probably as many different opinions on different methods as there are people on this list. There have been some related (inconclusive) discussions also earlier on this list.

I'll write few comments below to outline some possible problems.

> 1. Commonly agreed to be better than approval.

First I'd like to understand what is the target environment for the method. In the absence of any explanation I assume that we are looking for a general purpose method that could be used for many typical single-winner elections and other decision making in potentially competitive environments.

Numerous people on this list may think that Condorcet methods are better. People may find also numerous other methods better than approval, but it may be more difficult to find many people with firm and similar opinions on them.

> 2. Commonly agreed to be simple for an average voter to feel that they understand what's going on.


Different societies may have very different expectations here, depending on what they are used to. Maybe Condorcet voting (ranking) is considered simple enough. Maybe the voters need to understand only how to vote, not how to count the results.

Some more reasons why people may have problems with signing the statement.
- there is no statement yet
- they don't understand or agree that these two targets would be the key targets (why just better than approval, what do the voters need to understand, what is simple)
- they may think that there should be more targets or less targets
- it might be easier to find an agreement on even smaller statements, one at a time
- this proposal would not meet the needs of their own default target environment (maybe some specific society) (maybe their current method is already better)
- they are afraid of making public statements that they might regret later
- they don't want to take part in web campaigns in general (e.g. because their primary focus is in their academic or other career)
- they are simply too uncertain and therefore stay silent
- there might be one sentence in the statement that they don't like (or one method)
- this initiative was not their own initiative
- they have a personal agenda and this initiative does not directly support it (maybe some favourite method, or some particular campaign, maybe this initiative competes with their agenda)
- technical arguments

I hope you will find some agreements. But I'm not very hopeful if the target is to find an agreement of numerous persons on numerous questions. Maybe if the statement would be very simple. One approach would be to make a complete personal statement and then try to get some support to it (maybe with comments).

Juho



On 8.7.2011, at 19.47, Jameson Quinn wrote:

> I'm sorry, but aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhh.
> 
> I think that people on this list are smart, but this is pathetic. I don't mean to be hard on Dave in particular. But why is it impossible to get any two of us to agree on anything? I want to make a list of systems which are
> 
> 1. Commonly agreed to be better than approval.
> 2. Commonly agreed to be simple for an average voter to feel that they understand what's going on.
> 
> I am not asking each person who responds to choose the best or simplest system according to them. I'm asking everyone to vote in the poll and approve (rate higher than 0) all systems which meet those two very low bars. Hopefully, the result will be a consensus. It will almost certainly not be the two best, simplest systems by any individual's personal reckoning.
> 
> As to the specific comments:
> 
> 2011/7/8 Dave Ketchum <davek at clarityconnect.com>
> What I see:
> .     Condorcet - without mixing in Approval.
> 
> You need some cycle-breaker. Implicit approval is the only order-N tiebreaker I know; fundamentally simpler than any order-N² tiebreaker like minimax. You don't have to call it approval if you don't like the name.
>  
> .     SODA - for trying, but seems too complex.
> 
> I disagree, but I'm biased. I feel that "approve any number of candidates or let your favorite candidate do it for you; most approvals wins" is easy to understand. But I can understand if people disagree, so I'm not criticizing this logic.
>  
> .     Reject Approval - too weak to compete.
> 
> Worse than plurality????????
> 
> JQ
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

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