[EM] SODA unfairly hobbles nonparanoid voters.

Mon Sep 5 14:04:07 PDT 2011

I think voter/strategic simplicity, and system-description simplicity, are
two different aspects. I certainly don't claim that SODA is any great shakes
in system-description simplicity, though there are worse. But it's no more
complex than the electoral college, and a giant leap more simple than how
Obama beat Clinton. That is to say, there are a lot of people who are OK
with not fully understanding a system. System-description simplicity is
definitely good, but not in my opinion a non-negotiable necessity.

As to voter/strategic simplicity... sure, it's not perfect, but I still
think it beats any other system I know of.

Jameson Quinn

2011/9/5 Toby Pereira <tdp201b at yahoo.co.uk>

> 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.
>

Actually, I even suspect that MJ may satisfy point 2, but for this point,
not having clear evidence that a system is satisfactory is almost as bad as
it definitely not being satisfactory.

>
> 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.
>

Didn't say there weren't points where it failed :).

Jameson

>
> 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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