[EM] Kristofer, re: ICT and Approval, part 2

[Michael Ossipoff]

>* In MCA, MTA, etc., the middle rating is only for candidates barely *>*qualifying for an approval in Approval, and candidates almost
*>* qualiifying for an approval in Approval. In ABucklin, I suggest that
the *>* whole range of rank positions below top and above bottom should be
reserved *>* for those same candidates whom you'd middle rate in MTA or
MCA. *

*You replied:*
So those are still Approval-like, in that you're supposed to portion out
ranks according to polling information?

Yes, like all methods, unless the election is u/a, 0-info, or both.

You mention polling information. Of course our polls have no reliability.
Poll-reports have been caught lying in order to
influence opinion &/or voting. Disregard polls, unless they're conducted by
an organization that you trust.

Previous election results would mean something, with a method not sharing
Plurlity's tendency to get stuck in an unliked
Myerson-Weber equilibrium.

But yes, I feel that MCA and MTA are very Approval-like, with strategy only
differing marginally from that of Approval. In my opinion,
only candidates who, for you, barely or almost qualify for being approved
in Approval should get middle rating.

You continued:

I think that's quite different from what people consider ranked ballots to
imply.

[endquote]

Most definitely. Most advocates of rank methods expect too much from rank
methods.

You continued:

I know that G-S and Arrow means we can't have a method that induces the
voters to only rank in the "X above Y implies you prefer X to Y, nothing
more" manner.

[endquote]

I agree, even though ICT makes a good showing in that regard.

You continued:

Yet to have the intended (non-strategic) sense of operation to be different
from that... strikes me as odd.

[endquote]

It isn't different from that. What you described is consistent with the
meaning of sincere voting. I feel that MCA and MTA, and ABucklin
too, have very Approval-like strategy. I don't say that that is a bad
thing. They add a little expressivity too. ABuckliln lets you express
relative
preferences among those ranked below top and above bottom.

And yes, I said that _I_ would probably usually vote ICT as if it were
ABucklin or MCA. But I don't know that that is really ICT's best
non u/a strategy. You know, very little is known about the strategy of rank
methods. In ICT, it may very well be that the voter's best
strategy is closer to sincerely ranking all of the candidates. Who knows.
Since it isn't known, I'd probably usually be cautious, and
vote more like ABucklin and MCA or MTA.

If no one really despicable were in the election, I might rank sincerely.
If it were sufficiently far from being u/a. If all the candidates were
so good that it didn't much matter that the winner come from one set
instead of another. That's an unlikely situation, though. And, without
that situation, I wouldn't count on it being ok to rank sincerely.

>* You wrote: *>>* We know from Burlington that compromise isn't absolute.
In the 2009 *>>* election, voters voted in a way suggesting a close race.
(Then IRV *>>* punished them for it.) If the election had been Condorcet,
the right *>>* candidate would have won. Wouldn't that encourage those who
didn't *>>* compromise to keep not compromising, and suggest to the
compromisers *>>* that compromise wasn't needed? Couldn't that, after
enough elections, *>>* show the voters that they don't need widespread
strategy?*
**
*[endquote]*
**
*Good experiencd such as you speak of would tend to encourage people to
vote sincerely in Condorcet. But, as I was sayng, "How will they find that
out*
*if they haven't yet started voting sincerely, and seen that it works ok?"*
**
>* [endquote] *>* Sure, I don't deny that. I just doubt that it people will
stop burying *>* favorites under one of "the two choices", and so people
will never have *>* that experience in elections for national office. *

**
* * Wouldn't you have to start there? (municipally)

Sure, in some scenarios. But not if the national public were sufficiently
insistant about immediately getting Approval for all elections to national
office.

Yes, muncipal-first is the modest approach, one that doesn't need big
national demand. It starts out local, and the news gradually spreads, and
people
recognize that the method has precedent for other offices then.

But one nice thing about Approval is that it doesn't need precedent to
prove it. It is transparently obviously an improvement on Plurality.
Approval can
bypass the need for municipal-first., if enough people want to repeal
Plurality's ridiculous forced falsification rule.

You continued:

Not even FairVote tried to go right for the Presidential prize. They've
tried to get IRV passed in several local areas, and have succeeded in some.
(They're now seeing backsliding several places, but at least they got it
tried.) Similarly, the PR leagues that got STV passed in New York started
locally. They didn't try to change the composition of the Senate or the
House of Reps directly.

[endquote]

All true. But of course many important changes _didn't_ start municipally.
If they did, Congress would never do anything original, on its own.
Voting rights reforms are often done _nationally_ Repeal of forced
falsification is a voting rights issue. It could easily bypass
municiipal-first,
as have many other important issues.

You continued:

For something as wide-reaching as altering a voting system, I think the
leap from no change directly to presidential or national reform would be
tall indeed: impossible or nearly so to cross.

[endquote]

So shall we just try to get rid of undue money influence at the municipal
level? Or policies intended to bar opponents' voters from
voting? Or other voting-fairness issues? Or, for that matter, all sorts of
important laws. Maybe just have environmental protections
enacted in some local jurisdictions? No, it is well-accepted that important
reforms, changes, laws must be dealt with nationally, immediately.

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with trying municipally. I'm
saying that it certainly isn't the only way; for an important
voting rights issue. Or any important and necessary improvement.

You continued:

By contrast, a gradual approach lets the system prove itself.

[endquote]

But that's just it: Approval doesn't need to be proven. It, as I have been
saying, is transparently obviously an improvement on Plurality, and only an
improvement. Forced falsification isn't serving any good purpose. No one
could justify keeping it.

Condorcet would, indeed, need a _lot_ of muniicipal proving--provided that
it could be enacted even there, which is doubtful. A few commentators,
media pundits, newspapers, tv ads, & academic
authorities opposing it, warning against it, would be enough to stall/stop
it indefinitely.

You continued:

IRV failed to prove itself in Burlington. Condorcet might have. A gradual
approach isn't perfect, either: the push to PR was countered and
proportional representation eventually quashed. Perhaps that happened
because PR worked too well.

[endquote]

Yes, that's what I heard. Abd said that that's what happened to Bucklin
too: It worked too well, The powers-that-be didn't like whom it was
electing.

You continued:

Yet I don't think PR would have had any chance if the organizations had
tried to go for the big, national changes first.

[endquote]

Of course it wouldn't. I agree. A rank method is a complicated contraption
that no one will trust unless it's been well-proved in
practice. So it would have to first be long-used municipally.

>* You continued: *>>* But if the voters are like RBJ, for instance, they
may prefer a ranked *>>* ballot to an Approval or Range-type ballot; or
they may think that (if *>>* the concept was explained to them) the CW
should always win because he *>>* has a majority backing him against anyone
else. *>* [endquote] * >* *
**
*[endquote]*
**
*They'd be overruled. Opponents & media, would keep emphasizing that we
can't know what rank methods will do. You can bet that*
*the opponents, including the big-money that owns and runs the
Republocrats, would find/hire academic authorities to give dire*
*warnings about the new proposals, such as rank methods.*
**
*Sure, of course they'd try that against Approval too. It is much less
likely to succeed. You can't obfuscate something as simple*
*and transparent as Approval. Yeah, maybe we'll hear authorities trying to
defend forced falsification, suppression of support for liked*
*candidates, and election of less-liked ones.  Maybe they'll give it their
best, but they can't count*
*on success. Approval won't be the sitting-duck that Condorcet would be..*

You continued:

You keep saying that the authorities will claim "this will need a lot more
study", block change, and also claim the new proposal is unpredictable.

[endquote]

Yes, because those strategies have already been observed. We'll see a lot
more of them when there's a serious winnable proposal.


You continued:

Yet IRV did enjoy initial success.

[endquote]

Municipally only. Yes, one thing that makes municipal change easier is that
there might be less boughtness at that
level. That's a reason why municipal enactment should never be left out..

As I said, I suggest that heavy financing had a lot to do with IRV's few
municipal successes.

You wrote:

IRV, with its attendant nonmonotonicity and sudden shifts, is a lot less
predictable than Condorcet, but there weren't really any opposition pieces
focusing on its chaotic behaivor before Warren (and Gierzynski) wrote about
the various paradoxes shown in the Burlington election.

[endquote]

Sure, the kind of opposition I spoke of doesn't always operate in every
municipality all the time. But if a real threat to national un-democracy is
perceived, opponents will come from far and wide. And that's another reason
why municipal efforts shouldn't be left out, as i said above.

You wrote:

According to Robert, the IRV repeal campaign in Burlington instead focused
on the "obvious nature" of the Plurality system, i.e. "vote for your
favorite and that's it". Arguments of the sort that other methods are
unnatural would happen no matter what method you picked - just look at the
web poll comments on Approval, which range from "Approval is a liberal
ploy, will they count votes for a single candidate more than once too, hur
hur" to "this violates one man one vote".

[endquote]

Those objections are all easily disposed of in open discussion. I did so
when i particpated in those forums that you speak of.

In contrast, when opponents warn that no one knows what Condorcet will do,
there won't be a good counter-argument. Condorcet,
like all or nearly all rank methods, is a complicated contraption. You
won't convince people that the dire warnings are wrong.


You wrote:

Given that those kind of arguments will appear for any method, the best we
can do is to make the outcome seem right and not have the method act too
strangely.

[endquote]

The possibility and incentive for offensive burial is a novel problem that
comes with Condorcet.

No one will find anything wrong or strange about Approval. It isn't even so
novel--It's just Plurality with its ridiculous forced
falsification repealed.

You wrote:

Again, Robert suggested (as have I, earlier) that if the CW won, because a
majority would prefer the CW to everyone else, no repeal campaign could
unite against a single candidate.

[endquote]

No disagreement there.   .--if Condorcet ever gets tried. It won't be
repealed by an angry majority.


*We *>* can't get anything more complicated than Approval. *

Why not?

[endquote]

You've heard my answer to that. Rank methods are complicated opaque
contraptions. Like a black box. It will be easy for opponents, media
pundits, and hired academic authorities to scare people, by reminding them
that they (the public) don't really know what the method will do.
If Condorcet is tried municipallly, that might help it. But I don't know if
that will get it to national enactment. And even to be enacted at
municipal level won't be as easy as you think, unless you think that you
can get Richie to fund it.


You wrote:

Why couldn't Condorcet (or some other method) take IRV's path, but avoid
IRV's 2.5 party problem and thus continue further?

[endquote]

Because Richie won't be financially pushing it through.

Admittedly, If IRV could pass municipally, maybe Condorcet could (if we
ignore that the heavy funding won't be there). But how far did IRV
get? If Condorcet succeeds in some towns, and becomes a threat to the
phoney, media-fabricated "two party system", then lots of
opposition, the kind I've been speaking of, will come down on it. It won't
have a chance.

* *
You wrote:

We don't know if a significant number of voters will favorite-bury after
less competitive elections show that they don't have to.

[endquote]

True,  one can't be sure of that. But you don't appreciate how determined
many people are to help the Democrat against the
Republican _as much as possible_.  That requires voting the Democrat alone
in 1st place, in Condorcet.


You wrote:

If you could get Approval passed, like that, at the national level, that
would be a different matter. I would compare evidence: your one voter
against the various organizational Condorcet elections.

[endquote]

I remind you that one voter is the only evidence that anyone has supplied
here, regarding voting-system-inexperienced people voting in Condorcet
presidential polls. The organizational elections to which you refer differ
in two ways:

1. They aren't political elections.
2. They aren't ordinary voters. They're programmers, scientists,
mathematicians, etc.

 But that wouldn't work (I don't know whether anybody actually
favorite-betrayed in those elections, just that they seem to give good
results), and it wouldn't address the issue (as you've said, since you
consider organizational elections to inherently have less favorite
betrayal). Instead, let me just say this: I've given a reason for thinking
that voters may wean themselves off favorite betrayal (just like they got
used to it),

[endquote]

Maybe so. Maybe a significant number wouild still insist on helping the
Democrat agains tthe Repuclican as strongly and reliably as possible.

No one knows for sure. But, for voters to get the experience that you speak
of, Condorcet would have to get enacted.  --with opposition that's
much more ldifficult to answer.

You wrote:

and that I think the way you'd go about doing the reform (from the bottom
up) would mean this effect would indeed take palce.

[endquote]

I'm all for making the effort municipally too. Condorcet will just be a
much harder sell than Approval.

You wrote:

 Can you wave a wand and have Approval instated on a national level without
doing it locally first?

[endquote]

Not by waving a hand. But by the public demanding the repeal of Plurality's
silly restriction that causes its ridiculous
problem.



>>* Perhaps one can show that in an u/a setting, Condorcet passes FBC; and *
>>* you could reason that when voters are no longer thinking in u/a terms, *
>>* they have already moved beyond Plurality-style reasoning. *>>*[endquote]
*>* That hadn't occurred to me. But if it's understood by all to be
u/a *>*elections, then there would be very little reason to have
anything other
*>* than Approval. *

Stepping stones. u/a FBC helps the electorate get out of their
overcompromising mode. Then, once they're out of it, they can move past u/a
- because the candidates can start campaigning in ways that don't rely on
"us vs them".

[endquote]

Yes. I have no disagreement with the idea of starting with Approval. Then,
voters' experiencd with better voting, and the information
that Approval would reveal about what the public really want, and what the
choices are (as opposed to "the 2 choices", and the more
open media that would result from an Approval-elected govt--All of these
things would improve the chances of enacting a
fancier method.

When that time comes, we'll be arguing ICT or Approval vs Condorcet.





>* The matter of Condorcet and FBC in a u/a electoin hadn't occurred to me,
*>* and I don't know--Would Condorcet pass FBC then? Maybe; I don't know, *>
* because I haven't considered that matter before. If it would, then,
as *>*you said, maybe, under u/a conditions maybe voters in Condorcet
would
*>* get over their overcompromise habit. It's a new idea to me. * It might
pass.

[endquote]

But the u/a strategy of Condorcet is probably to rank all the acceptables
in 1st place, and not rank any unacceptables.

Still, it might help Condorcet's chances.



I think it'd be easier to prove for a Smith method: show something like
that you can't get a "honest" cycle with u/a (except among acceptables",
and then show that you don't have an incentive to start a cycle
strategically. I'm not sure how you'd do the details, though.

[endquote]

Yes, Condorcet and FBC in a u/a election is something to check out. But I
think the strategy would be Approval-like. If so Approval benefits
would come, including those that could help Condorcet acceptance.
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