[EM] [CES #3567] Re: Declaration of Election-Method Experts and Enthusiasts: final stretch

[Peter Zbornik]

Dear Jameson,

I still think the 12 page declaration (incl table of contents) needs an
executive summary. The table of contents does not in my honest oppinion give
good enough information.

An executive summary is standard when writing policy recommendations like
this, and you cannot write a scientific paper without an abstract.

On the other hand I understand, that writing summaries and abstracts is
sometimes a pain (it is at least to me), and that it is easier to point out
things that could be improved and more difficult to do something about it,
like writing the summary myself.

I dont write this just to nag. If you want your recommendations to be read
by decision makers, you had better catch the interest within the one or two
minutes this person will maximally spend do decide if the declaration is
worth reading.

It would be a petty, if this iniciative faild to get impact because the lack
of a summary.

Basically, a summary would give the declaration a wider audience and
increase the potential political impact of the declaration.

Best regards
Peter Zborník

On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 8:20 PM, Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com>wrote:

> The declaration<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oyJLxI9dciXBbowM5mougnbGHzkL3Ue1QkD8nnMwWLg/edit?hl=en_US>is now at 3216 words, of which 158 are section headers and summaries. The
> 175-word title and table of contents (separate count) can be read by itself
> as an executive summary.
>
> Here is the latest version. I think that we are getting very close to a
> final version and the text should be frozen within a week. General comments
> (such as "it's still too long") are welcome, but please also read over to
> see if there are any specific statements you personally would consider
> dealbreakers; anything specific that would keep you from signing the
> statement.
>
> Once we have a final version, I will be approaching various well-known
> academics in the field to ask for signatures. I'd appreciate any help with
> that, especially from anyone who knows such people personally.
>
> ------
>
> Declaration of Election-Method Experts and Enthusiasts
> Contents
> Introduction - It is time to change our voting system.
> Unfairness of plurality voting - Plurality voting is a bad method that is
> used far too often.
> Better ballots - With better information from the voters, we can elect
> better winners.
> Fairer counting methods - Together we endorse four voting methods that
> would give more-democratic results: approval voting, Condorcet voting,
> majority judgment, and range voting.
>
> Additional considerations
>
> Proportional representation - Legislatures should represent all the
> voters, not just a bare majority.
>
> Using the fairer methods in organizations - Private organizations are a
> great place to start voting reform.
>
> Multiple rounds of voting - Good voting methods can reduce the need for
> primaries and runoffs, or give even-better results when combined with such
> extra rounds.
>
> Separate reforms - Reforming the voting system helps with other democratic
> reforms.
> Benefits for all - Voting reform is truly a win/win solution that will
> help all political groups.
> Taking action - Here is what you can do to help reform voting methods.
>
> Introduction
> It is time to change our voting system.
>
> We, the undersigned election-method experts and enthusiasts from around the
> world, unanimously denounce the use of plurality voting in elections in
> which there are more than two candidates. In this declaration we offer
> several ready-to-adopt replacement election methods that we agree will
> reliably produce much fairer results.
>
> We agree that there are no significant 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
> substantial political and economic benefits.
>
> We are confident that any of the systems we propose will bring at least the
> following direct benefits:
>
>    - Dramatically increased voter turnout because voters will have
>    meaningful choices
>    - Reduced voter frustration
>    - Improved voice for significant minorities (although they still cannot
>    out-vote the majority)
>    - Improved understanding of what the majority of voters really want
>
>
>
> Furthermore, we believe that the indirect benefits of better government
> could be enourmous, just as democracies tend to be more prosperous than
> monarchies.
>
>
> Unfairness of plurality voting
> Plurality voting is a bad method that is used far too often.
>
> 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, the
> number of marks for each candidate are counted, and the candidate with the
> most marks is regarded as the winner. In some nations this method is called
> "First Past The Post" (and abbreviated FPTP or FPP).
>
> Although plurality voting produces fair results when there are only two
> candidates, the results are often dramatically unfair when this method is
> used in elections with three or more candidates.
>
> "Vote splitting" is a key weakness of plurality voting, so it is worth
> understanding. Vote splitting refers to similar candidates each receiving
> fewer votes compared to a single opposition candidate, in situations where
> either similar candidate alone would win over the opposition candidate. It
> accounts for why, in most democracies, each political party offers a single
> candidate for each election. If a political party offers two candidates,
> both of those candidates are likely to lose to a party that offers only one
> candidate. This happens because that party's voters split their votes
> between the two candidates, while the winning party concentrates all of
> their voters' votes on a single candidate. In other words, plurality-based
> elections often result in the wrong candidate winning.
>
> If voters try to compensate by only voting for either of the two clearly
> popular choices, the typical result is an entrenched two-party system. This
> narrows the scope of debate and reduces voter choice. With fewer choices it
> becomes easier for incumbents to become complacent and even corrupt.
>
> In spite of its well-known weaknesses, plurality voting is far too widely
> used, especially in the English-speaking world. Although it is often hard to
> measure the harm done by plurality voting, we believe that it is
> significant.
>
>
> Better ballots
>
> With better information from the voters, we can elect better winners.
> Unanimously we agree that the kind of ballot used in plurality voting —
> which in this declaration is called a "single-mark” ballot — is not
> appropriate in governmental elections. 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.
>
> 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 ballot (or “1-2-3 ballot”), on which a voter indicates a first
>    choice, and optionally indicates a second choice, and optionally indicates
>    additional choices at lower preference levels
>
>
>
>    - Score ballot, on which a voter assigns a number or grade for each
>    candidate. The most familiar versions of such voting are to rate something
>    with 1 to 5 stars, or rate a choice with a number from 1 to 10, or to rate
>    each choice at a named grade (such as "excellent", "good", "fair", "poor",
>    or "reject"), but any range of numbers or grades can be used.
>
>
>
> Why don’t more people understand the unfairness of plurality voting?
> 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
> difficult 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, comparing the fair results
> against who would have won if plurality voting had been used will quickly
> reveal the dramatic unfairness of plurality voting.
>
> Fairer counting methods
> Together we endorse four voting methods that would give more-democratic
> results.
>
> These three better ballot types can be counted in different ways to produce
> different results. We, the undersigned election-method experts and
> enthusiasts, have both developed and analyzed many counting methods, and we
> now agree there are several counting methods that are worth adopting in
> governmental elections.
>
> Here, in alphabetical order, are four counting methods that we agree would
> produce significantly better results compared to plurality voting, along
> with the principal advantage claimed by the advocates of each method:
>
>    - Approval voting, which uses approval ballots and identifies the
>    candidate with the most approval marks as the winner.
>
>
> Advantage: It is the simplest election method to collect preferences
> (either on ballots or with a show of hands) and the simplest method (besides
> plurality) to count and explain. Its simplicity makes it a good first step
> toward any of the other methods.
>
>    - Any of the Condorcet methods, which use ranked ballots, and which use
>    "pairwise counting" to count how many voters prefer each candidate compared
>    to each other candidate, and which identify as the "Condorcet winner" the
>    candidate who is pairwise preferred over each and every other candidate. In
>    a few elections there is no Condorcet winner, and different Condorcet
>    methods use different rules to resolve such cases, although even then the
>    results are often the same. Some good Condorcet methods are:
>    Condorcet-Approval, Condorcet-IRV, Condorcet-Kemeny, and Condorcet-Schulze.
>    (The word Condorcet is a French name that is pronounced "kon-dor-say".)
>
>
> Advantage: Condorcet methods provide what many people see as the fairest
> results in the common cases where there is a Condorcet winner.
>
>    - Majority judgment, which uses score ballots to collect the fullest
>    preference information, and elects the candidate who gets the best score
>    from half or more of the voters. More specifically, the best median score
>    wins. This system is a form of Bucklin voting, which is a general class of
>    methods that has been used for city elections in both 18th-century
>    Switzerland and the 20th-century United States.
>
>
> Advantage: Majority Judgment counts ballots in a way that reduces the
> incentives for strategic voting, so it is arguably the best system for
> finding out how the voters feel about each candidate on an absolute scale,
> not just as better or worse than other candidates.
>
>    - Range voting (also known as score voting), which also 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.
>
>
> Advantage: Range voting comes closest to the mathematically-defined "best"
> overall results for voter satisfaction if voters vote sincerely. It gives
> the same reasonable results as Approval voting if every voter votes
> strategically.
>
> There is another counting 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. The
> main advantage of instant-runoff counting is that it is easy for many people
> to understand, especially because the counting process is similar to the
> familiar process of runoff elections.
>
> Advocates of instant-runoff counting point out that IRV has an advantageous
> voting characteristic that is missing from any of our supported counting
> methods. This characteristic (which is called “Later No Harm”) is that it
> does not give any advantage to voters who use a voting strategy of not
> ranking all the candidates. Although some of us agree that “Later No Harm”
> is a desirable characteristic, none of us think that it is necessary, and
> the evidence shows that voters would get good results from the systems
> endorsed here which lack it.
>
> 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. Yet significantly some of the places that have adopted
> instant-runoff voting have later rejected the method and returned to
> plurality voting. In the United States, these places include Aspen, Colorado
> and Burlington, Vermont. The rejections occurred because the official IRV
> winner was not the same as the Condorcet winner, so a majority felt the
> method had given the wrong result.
>
>
> Most of us agree that the two advantages of IRV do not outweigh its major
> disadvantage, which is that it fails to correctly identify the most popular
> candidate in many elections.
>
> Looking into the future, there may be additional, newly developed methods
> that we support in the future, but they require further analysis. One such
> election method that shows promise is Simple Optionally-Delegated Approval
> (SODA) voting, which combines approval voting with vote delegation to make
> the voter’s task as simple as possible.
>
> Why do we not support a single "best" election method? Different
> election-method experts place different degrees of importance on the
> relative advantages and disadvantages of each method. In the list of
> signatures some of us indicate which voting method we most-strongly prefer.
> It bears repeating, though, that despite our disagreements, we would not
> hesitate to support any of these methods over plurality voting.
>
> The following Wikipedia articles provide detailed descriptions and
> characteristics of our supported methods:
>
>    - Approval voting
>    - Condorcet method
>    - Majority Judgment
>    - Range voting
>
>
>
> Some of us signing this statement edit these Wikipedia articles to keep
> them accurate and unbiased. Also, many of us participate in the
> "Election-Methods" forum at www.electorama.com/em, and we would be happy
> to answer your questions about any of these methods.
> Additional considerations
> Proportional representation
> Legislatures should represent all the voters, not just a bare majority.
>
> So far, all of the above recommendations apply to identifying a single
> winner, so they are known as "single-winner" election methods. These
> single-winner methods are ideally suited for electing mayors and governors.
> When used in non-governmental organizations, these single-winner methods are
> ideally suited for electing a president, treasurer, and secretary.
>
> Different considerations apply if an election fills a legislative seat,
> such as a seat in a legislature, congress, or parliament. 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. All of us would support using any of the
> single-winner methods endorsed above, as an improvement over using plurality
> voting to fill a district-based or riding-based legislative seat.
>
> Most of us agree that an even better choice would be to adopt an election
> method that gives at least somewhat proportional representation to most
> voters.
>
>
> The best-known approach, which is used in many countries in Europe and
> elsewhere, is party-based proportional representation. Such methods ask
> voters to indicate their favorite political party, and then make 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 marked the Silver Party as their favorite,
> then approximately 15% of the parliamentary seats would be filled by Silver
> Party politicians.
>
> Proportional representation provides a number of advantages that we agree
> are important, including:
>
>    - The legislature better reflects the makeup of the population.
>    - It essentially eliminates the effects of "gerrymandering," which is a
>    political manipulation of district or riding boundaries for the purpose of
>    favoring a specific political party or incumbent.
>    - Without proportional representation, gerrymandering and other factors
>    can lead to more than 90% of officeholders being re-elected, and as many as
>    98% in some cases. These foregone conclusions reduce turnout.
>    - Effective proportional representation ensures representation for
>    almost all voters, rather than just slightly more than half, in that their
>    votes end up helping some representative win.
>
>
>
> Almost all of us agree that where proportional representation (PR) is used,
> the "open-list" versions or the “candidate-centric” versions, not the
> "closed-list" versions, should be used. We oppose the closed-list versions
> because they disregard candidate-specific voter preferences, and transfer
> power to people who are not elected, and who cannot easily be removed from
> their position of power.
>
> There are many good versions of proportional representation, but we are not
> yet expressing support for any specific version because the best choice
> depends on the situation and goals.
>
> Using the fairer methods in organizations
> Private organizations are a great place to start voting reform.
>
> These better voting methods are not just useful for public elections. They
> also can be used to elect a private organization's officers, to elect
> corporate board members, to make voting-based group decisions, and to elect
> delegates to political-party conventions. In addition to increasing the
> fairness of such elections and decisions, these uses will increase the
> number of people who realize that plurality voting is very unfair, and help
> them learn how to achieve much fairer results.
>
> Keep in mind that all four of our recommended election methods already have
> been used to elect officers in non-governmental organizations, and the
> fairer results have been widely appreciated (except by some incumbents who
> were not reelected).
> Multiple rounds of voting
> Good voting methods can reduce the need for primaries and runoffs, or give
> even-better results when combined with such extra rounds.
> Separate reforms
>
> Reforming the voting system helps with other democratic reforms.
>
> Nothing in this statement should be interpreted to imply that we believe
> that election-method reform is the only area of existing political systems
> that currently needs reform. In fact, most of us also support other reforms
> such as broader campaign-finance-reporting rules, increased use of other
> decision-making aids such as deliberative polling, and clearer ethics rules
> for officeholders. We believe that the election-method reforms we advocate
> here would be synergistic with such other reforms, both in terms of easing
> their adoption and multiplying their beneficial effects.
>
> Benefits for all
> Voting reform is truly a win/win solution that will help all political
> groups.
>
> We, as election-method experts and enthusiasts, have spent the last decade
> developing online resources about election methods, developing software for
> the election methods we support, and now we have reached agreement as to
> which election methods are worth adopting as replacements for plurality
> voting. Through this declaration 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.
>
> Those of us signing this declaration proudly stand at widely separate
> points on the political spectrum. When we vote, we know that many of us will
> be strongly supporting opposite sides. And even in discussing voting
> systems, we have our disagreements. Yet we respect each other’s common
> interests in wanting to move beyond plurality voting in search of a
> healthier democracy. In signing this statement, and in supporting a variety
> of different methods, we are looking beyond narrow, partisan interests. We
> seek to support the common good. In fact we are unanimous in sincerely
> believing there are no good reasons to oppose election-method reform.
>
> Politics is often viewed as a “zero-sum game” in which one side can gain
> only if another side loses. In contrast, we view election-method reform as
> taking the next step up the ladder of democracy; just as democracy has
> proven to be much better than dictatorships, higher levels of democracy will
> help us reach even higher standards of living for almost everyone. We do not
> pretend to offer a utopia, where conflicts of interest disappear and
> everyone is a winner. We simply believe that even a political group that
> loses an election can benefit from healthier dialogue and elected officials
> who better represent the voters.
>
> Thus, we believe that better election methods will help all political
> groups: both left and right, both business and labor, both incumbents and
> upstart campaigners, both centrists and extremists. Even special interests
> who currently donate large campaign contributions will benefit from a more
> robust and sustainable economy. And most politicians will appreciate it if
> we cut the puppet strings that connect them to their biggest campaign
> contributors. We believe that every political group can benefit in very
> concrete and specific ways, and we are available to discuss how and why for
> each case.
>
> Taking action
>
> Here is what you can do to help reform voting methods.
>
> We address this statement to all citizens, and especially to those who are
> aware of any of the many benefits that election-method reforms will bring.
> To people in specific situations we offer the following words of
> encouragement:
>
>    - If you are a policymaker, you can reduce the negative attacks and the
>    need to constantly fundraise. 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,
>    you can increase your party’s chances of winning in the main election by
>    nominating more-electable candidates in a way that encourages participation
>    and debate, not unproductive conflict. We strongly urge you to encourage the
>    use of a better voting method to choose your party's candidates and your
>    party's internally elected delegates.
>    - If you feel that “your” political party wants your vote and your
>    money, but doesn’t care about your political priorities, there is a way for
>    your favorite issues to get the attention they deserve. We strongly urge you
>    to tell those who share your political views how the fairer election methods
>    supported in this declaration can help you come together as a force to be
>    reckoned with, while still cooperating with other groups to fight against
>    ideas you consider dangerous.
>    - If you don’t identify with any of the main political parties, there
>    is a way you can start to have real choices at the ballot box. We strongly
>    urge you to learn about one or more of the election methods we support, and
>    then tell others what you have learned.
>    - If you are a member of an organization that elects officers using
>    plurality voting, this is a chance to help your organization run more
>    smoothly. We strongly urge you to advocate using one of the recommended
>    election methods when an election involves more than two candidates.
>
>
>
> 2011/9/7 Warren Smith <warren.wds at gmail.com>
>
>> this "declaration" is suffering from exactly what everybody
>> most-complains about re the rangevoting.org website.
>>
>> I.e. it tried to cover everything and got large.  In fact, enormous.
>>
>> That for a website is a flaw that is not necessarily an
>> insurmountable obstacle
>> since one can put short "summary" pages (or try...)  and use of lots
>> of hyperlinks, so it isn't just a flat document, it's
>> easier to get to information.
>>
>> But for a "consensus statement" it is a major problem since (a) nobody
>> is going to sign it and (b) nobody is going to read it.
>>
>> Well, "nobody" is an exaggeration. But not by much.
>>
>> This statement (4328 words) is now over 3 times the length of the
>> USA's "Declaration of Independence" (1315 words) and also longer than
>> the entire USA constitution (as un-amended) at 4318 words.
>>
>> Have you seen my attempt to study what election experts and/or Joe
>> Public actually agree on?  The total amount of true consensus out
>> there, is extremely small.   So you could have an extremely short
>> statement, if you wished to summarize what is the current consensus.
>> If you have the more ambitious goal of creating consensus by actually
>> changing minds... well, I doubt you can do it with one single
>> document.
>>
>> It's very hard to get people to sign statements, and the difficulty
>> increases with the length.
>>
>
>
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>
>
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