[EM] SODA unfairly hobbles nonparanoid voters.

Mon Sep 5 13:05:13 PDT 2011

I'm not sure that three of those are unmatched by other systems. Point 1 - I don't think it is the simplest system. I certainly don't think it's any simpler than straight approval, and they've also got to decide whether to delegate or not and they've also got to understand that their vote can be delegated only if they vote for one candidate. You say they don't need to defensively strategize, but I'm not sure how well the benefits of SODA would get across to the general public. So it's not clear whether voters will see the strategy as simpler. Even if the task of voting is relatively simple, understanding the system and why it works like it does is not simple, and I think you have to include that in the simplicity of a system. Overall I'd say it's an above averagely complex system. And I don't know about in America (although I can't imagine it would be much different from the UK), but in the UK I simply canot see people ever accepting this idea of
 delegating votes. It's a major paradigm shift and I think it renders it a non-starter as a serious system to elect parliaments, if I'm being honest (along with any other asset system).

Also, if it is better for a voter to bullet vote and allow delegation (from their point of view), then voters who like a candidate but don't like their delegation list are presumably at a disadvantage to begin with, which they may perceive as unfair.

Point 2 - You've said yourself that IRV satisifes this, but then I notice you've qualifed this earlier by saying any good system. Clever.

Point 3 - The chicken problem - yeah maybe. I'd have to get back to you.

Point 4 - I imagine this is the one where it isn't unmatched by other good systems.

So if we're allowing point 2 on this technicality, I still think it's only 2 out of 4, because I think it fails simplicity, and fails it badly.

Toby

From: Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com>
To: ⸘Ŭalabio‽ <Walabio at macosx.com>
Cc: EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
Sent: Monday, 5 September 2011, 19:31
Subject: Re: [EM] SODA unfairly hobbles nonparanoid voters.

SODA was initially designed as a single-winner system. I believe that as such, it has four independent advantages, three of which are unmatched by any other good system. 

1. It is the easiest possible system for voters. No spoiled ballots, bullet voting works, and no need to defensively strategize.
2. It is "later-no-harm" enough to satisfy political incumbents who don't want to be defeated by centrist nonentities. (This is also true of IRV, but IRV has other problems)
3. It resolves the chicken problem better than any other system I know of.
4. I believe it would give good results overall - like Approval, Condorcet, MJ, or Range.

So if you are thinking of SODA as just being Asset shoehorned into a single-winner case, then you don't understand the motivation, and either you don't understand the system or I don't.

JQ

2011/9/5 ⸘Ŭalabio‽ <Walabio at macosx.com>

       2011-09-05T09:28:14Z, “Jameson Quinn” <Jameson.Quinn at Gmail.Com>:
>
>       0thly, I recommend that you read this article:
>
>       http://web.archive.org/web/20080113211450/http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting.html
>
>
>>       Basically, ⸘Ŭalabio‽'s objection is that SODA does not allow non-bullet votes to be delegable. The reason that SODA is designed that way is not "paranoia", as ⸘Ŭalabio‽ claims, but rather simplicity.
>
>       Simplicity is in the eye of the beholder.  What is simple for me is choosing people whom I trust to represent my interests in the Asset-Negotiations and leave them to their work.  If some of them screw me during Asset-Negotiations, I shall never vote for the bad 1s again.  As far as simplicity goes, SODA seems more complex to me than Asset-Voting.
>
>
>>       To see why multiple delegable votes would be confusing, consider the following scenario. Let us say that I vote for A and B. After the votes are counted, it turns out that all the other voters voted for X or Y, in a 50/50 proportion. My delegated vote could be decisive. But A approves X, and B approves Y. So both of these approvals are added to my delegated vote, which ends up being useless in deciding between X and Y.
>
>       Either A or B would eventually by won over to the other side by policy-concessions.
>
>
>>       Also, making multiply-delegated votes possible would entirely ruin SODA's summability. This would make a number of useful anti-fraud measures impossible, including precinct-level counting, sampled count audits, and voter-auditable cryptographic ballot receipts like those of heliosvoting.org.
>
>       Just make the allowable votes a fixed number.  This is required in 1 form or another in proportional systems.  Indeed, most of the problems with SODA is that it is based on a system designed for creating a proportional legislature, but is modified for both creating proportional legislatures and for single-winner.  These are 2 different domains and should use different systems.  The simplest methods for these domains are:
>
>Single-Winner:
>       Approval-Voting
>
>Proportional Legislature:
>       Asset-Voting
>
>       SODA should just forget about single-winner.  Because it is based on a proportional-voting system, it is ilsuited for single winner.
>
>       If voters want to make their votes in an Asset-Election nontransferable, that is fine by me, but we should tell them that they run a real risk of disenfranchising themselves.
>
>
>>       ⸘Ŭalabio‽, I understand and sympathize with your desire for multiple delegation, but I do not see how a SODA-like system could meet that desire without too high a cost in complexity and insecurity. If you think that you can resolve these issues, please propose a specific solution and explore its implications. As you know, voting system design often involves trade-offs, and so "doing P has disadvantage Q" is not a good objection against a system unless it's accompanied by "alternative S avoids Q without causing any other disadvantages as serious".
>
>       My solution is to scrap SODA SODA as being fundamentally flawed and use Approval for single-winner and Asset with 9 votes for proportional with an option to makes the votes nontransferable with the understanding that one _“*PROBABLY*”_ will disenfranchise oneself if one makes the votes nontransferable.
>
>       FairVote started wanting STV for a new house of proportional representation or turning the House of Representatives into an house of proportional representation using STV.  FairVote settled for using STV for single-winner which is IRV.  We all know how lousy IRV turned out.  SODA repeats the mistakes of IRV:
>
>       One tries to use Asset for single winner, but it does not work well, so one modifies it into SODA which instead of working well for single-winner and proportional, works well for neither proportional nor single-winner.
>
>       The fact is that Asset works better than SODA for proportional representation and Approval works better than SODA for single-winner.  SODA just is not a good tool for the job:
>
>       Let is suppose that we tell steelworkers to build a skyscraper using only the tool Allen-Wrench.  The steelworkers are the voters, SODA is the Allen-Wrench, and the pile of rubble which is supposed to be a skyscraper is the legislature.  SODA is good for neither proportional representation nor single-winner.
>
>>       Jameson
>
>       “⸘Ŭalabio‽”

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