[EM] Kristofer: Approval vs Condorcet, 4/28/12

[Michael Ossipoff]

Kristofer:
On 04/27/2012 07:32 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote:>* ...but wouldn't it be
better not to have the disadvantags?*
You replied:
Sure. It would be better to make Arrow and G&S go away, but it's not going
to happen.
[endquote]
Neither Arrow, Gibbard, not Sattterthwaite has ever said that a voting
system has to be a completely novel and complicated
contraption, or that every voting system must give incentive for
favorite-burial.
Therefore, even _without_ making Arrow, Gibbard and Satterthwaite go away,
it's _still_ possible to avoid Condorcet's
serious faults and disadvantages. :-)
You continued:
If you want to have Condorcet, you have to give up some desiderata. If you
want FBC, you have to give up quite a bit, even for "weak" FBC which is
fairly strong by itself.
[endquote]
It's a accepted that we have to give up some criteria, properties, and
attributes to gain others.
Election methods could continue debating the
relative merits of various rank-counts, for the next 250 years, and,
meanwhile, if that's the best we're doing, we'll still be voting by
Plurality
in our public elections.
There's nothing wrong with discussing our ideals, and debating whose ideal
is best. But we must not confuse that worthy passtime
with actually engaging with the public and the court system, to actually do
something about Plurality's blatantly and glaringly ridiculous,
and unnecessary, falsification requirement.
Give up something? I've said much about the societal benefits that would be
gained merely by minimally getting rid of that one Plurality fault. Unless
you claim that that wouldn't bring them, then I invite you to tell why you
think that they wouldn't be enough.
That's why I say that Condorcetists haven't looked at Approval and the
results that it would have. Condorcetists are too busy with the
distinctions between rank-counts, to actually look at what can be
accomplished without rank balloting.
>* As you suggested, if Condorcet were proposed municipally, maybe (as*>*was the case with IRV in some municipalities) big outside money won't
*>* come in to emphasize rank-balloting methods complete
novelty,*>*unknown-ness, unfamiliarity and unpredictability.
*They didn't emphasize any of the weird properties of IRV. Warren et al.
did that. What they *have* emphasized is the unnatural nature of any method
that isn't Plurality, and that is a hurdle to Approval, too.
[endquote]
Indeed a hurdle to all voting system reforms. That's why the _minimal_
change of just getting rid of Plurality's "Pretend that you want to give 0
points to all but one candidate" falsification requirement is the more
viable reform proposal. Not a completely new method, with a more elaborate
new kind of
balloting and an elaborate contraption-count. Just an elimination of one
ridiculous and unsupportable rule of Plurality.
You're underestimating the societal improvement that that one little
minimal change would bring, when everyone can fully support whom and what
they
really like best.
You continued:
Yes, you may counter by saying you can explain to people that Approval is
"setwise voting" and thus is one man one vote
[endquote]
I prefer to just point out that Approval is the 0,1 point system, in which
each voter has the same equal power to give to any candidate
either 0 points or 1 point.
 (or that in Approval, any vote can be countered by an opposite inverted
vote), but that still means you have to show people how to look beyond
their immediate intuition.
[endquote]
...a problem with every proposal for a new voting system. But how much
greater a problem for a complicated and completely novel
method that's unrelated to and not derived from what we now use!
Tradition counts against reform. That's a given. That's how it's always
been. People will say, "Plurality goes all the way back to the
first days of the Consititution." But do did slavery. It was eventually
rejected. Slavery shows that the Constitution can be wrong. ...and
that there is precedent for correcting an error or fault in the
Consititution.
The electoral college mess is of course specified by the Constitution. I
don't know if Plurality itself is Constitution-specified, but it was
traditional and assumed to be the way to go.
I'd said:
>* But maybe the reason why that wasn't always done to IRV proposals*>* was
because the big opponents knew that IRV wasn't going to really*>* improve
on Pluralilty anyway, given current electorates.*I doubt it. Of course it
could be the case that high-profile people who supported IRV, like Howard
Dean, were complicit.
[endquote]
I haven't claimed that. Maybe Dean just knew that it would win points for
him among progressives. I'm just saying that maybe no great need was
perceived to quash IRV, because it obviously wan't good enough to bother
quashing.
You continued:
Arrow and G&S implies every "boxer" has to hold something behind his back.
[endquote]
Arrow and G&S most certainly do not imply that every voting system proposal
has to have the enactment-disadvantages or favorite-burial incentive of
Condorcet.
I'd asked:
>* Why would we want to have the disadvantages of Condorcet, if they can be*
>* avoided?*
 Because we want the *advantages* of Condorcet. Advantages like rank
expressivity when at least some significant fraction of the voters are
honest.
[endquote]
For one thing, Condorcet discourages honesty, because, even if you top-rank
Compromise, top-ranking Favorite too can cause Compromise to lose to Worse.
....when ranking Compromise _alone_ in 1st place would have defeated Worse.
To do your best to defeat Worse, you have to vote Favorite below
Compromise. You have to say with your vote that Condorcet is better than
Favorite. Consider that before you criticize Approval for not letting you
vote Favorite over a needed compromise.
Approval's accomplishments and advantages, the ones that I've described,
are solid and undeniable. No "if"s or "maybe"s.
Approval is like a reliable, simple, solid and dependable handtool--whereas
rank methods are automatic "labor-saving" machines that
are prone to go haywire and do worse than the handtool. And whose behavior,
in any case, can't be predicted or trusted by the public.
Condorcet's deterrence of offensive burial is greatly reduced when there
are more than 3 candidates.
In terms of societal benefits, C
Kristofer:
On 04/27/2012 07:32 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote:>* ...but wouldn't it be
better not to have the disadvantags?*
You replied:
Sure. It would be better to make Arrow and G&S go away, but it's not going
to happen.
[endquote]
Neither Arrow, Gibbard, not Sattterthwaite has ever said that a voting
system has to be a completely novel and complicated
contraption, or that every voting system must give incentive for
favorite-burial.
Therefore, even _without_ making Arrow, Gibbard and Satterthwaite go away,
it's _still_ possible to avoid Condorcet's
serious faults and disadvantages. :-)
You continued:
If you want to have Condorcet, you have to give up some desiderata. If you
want FBC, you have to give up quite a bit, even for "weak" FBC which is
fairly strong by itself.
[endquote]
It's a accepted that we have to give up some criteria, properties, and
attributes to gain others.
Election methods could continue debating the
relative merits of various rank-counts, for the next 250 years, and,
meanwhile, if that's the best we're doing, we'll still be voting by
Plurality
in our public elections.
There's nothing wrong with discussing our ideals, and debating whose ideal
is best. But we must not confuse that worthy passtime
with actually engaging with the public and the court system, to actually do
something about Plurality's blatantly and glaringly ridiculous,
and unnecessary, falsification requirement.
Give up something? I've said much about the societal benefits that would be
gained merely by minimally getting rid of that one Plurality fault. Unless
you claim that that wouldn't bring them, then I invite you to tell why you
think that they wouldn't be enough.
That's why I say that Condorcetists haven't looked at Approval and the
results that it would have. Condorcetists are too busy with the
distinctions between rank-counts, to actually look at what can be
accomplished without rank balloting.
>* As you suggested, if Condorcet were proposed municipally, maybe (as*>*was the case with IRV in some municipalities) big outside money won't
*>* come in to emphasize rank-balloting methods complete
novelty,*>*unknown-ness, unfamiliarity and unpredictability.
*They didn't emphasize any of the weird properties of IRV. Warren et al.
did that. What they *have* emphasized is the unnatural nature of any method
that isn't Plurality, and that is a hurdle to Approval, too.
[endquote]
Indeed a hurdle to all voting system reforms. That's why the _minimal_
change of just getting rid of Plurality's "Pretend that you want to give 0
points to all but one candidate" falsification requirement is the more
viable reform proposal. Not a completely new method, with a more elaborate
new kind of
balloting and an elaborate contraption-count. Just an elimination of one
ridiculous and unsupportable rule of Plurality.
You're underestimating the societal improvement that that one little
minimal change would bring, when everyone can fully support whom and what
they
really like best.
You continued:
Yes, you may counter by saying you can explain to people that Approval is
"setwise voting" and thus is one man one vote
[endquote]
I prefer to just point out that Approval is the 0,1 point system, in which
each voter has the same equal power to give to any candidate
either 0 points or 1 point.
 (or that in Approval, any vote can be countered by an opposite inverted
vote), but that still means you have to show people how to look beyond
their immediate intuition.
[endquote]
...a problem with every proposal for a new voting system. But how much
greater a problem for a complicated and completely novel
method that's unrelated to and not derived from what we now use!
Tradition counts against reform. That's a given. That's how it's always
been. People will say, "Plurality goes all the way back to the
first days of the Consititution." But do did slavery. It was eventually
rejected. Slavery shows that the Constitution can be wrong. ...and
that there is precedent for correcting an error or fault in the
Consititution.
The electoral college mess is of course specified by the Constitution. I
don't know if Plurality itself is Constitution-specified, but it was
traditional and assumed to be the way to go.
I'd said:
>* But maybe the reason why that wasn't always done to IRV proposals*>* was
because the big opponents knew that IRV wasn't going to really*>* improve
on Pluralilty anyway, given current electorates.*I doubt it. Of course it
could be the case that high-profile people who supported IRV, like Howard
Dean, were complicit.
[endquote]
I haven't claimed that. Maybe Dean just knew that it would win points for
him among progressives. I'm just saying that maybe no great need was
perceived to quash IRV, because it obviously wan't good enough to bother
quashing.
You continued:
Arrow and G&S implies every "boxer" has to hold something behind his back.
[endquote]
Arrow and G&S most certainly do not imply that every voting system proposal
has to have the enactment-disadvantages or favorite-burial incentive of
Condorcet.
I'd asked:
>* Why would we want to have the disadvantages of Condorcet, if they can be*
>* avoided?*
 Because we want the *advantages* of Condorcet. Advantages like rank
expressivity when at least some significant fraction of the voters are
honest.
[endquote]
For one thing, Condorcet discourages honesty, because, even if you top-rank
Compromise, top-ranking Favorite too can cause Compromise to lose to Worse.
....when ranking Compromise _alone_ in 1st place would have defeated Worse.
To do your best to defeat Worse, you have to vote Favorite below
Compromise. You have to say with your vote that Condorcet is better than
Favorite. Consider that before you criticize Approval for not letting you
vote Favorite over a needed compromise.
Approval's accomplishments and advantages, the ones that I've described,
are solid and undeniable. No "if"s or "maybe"s.
Approval is like a reliable, simple, solid and dependable handtool--whereas
rank methods are automatic "labor-saving" machines that
are prone to go haywire and do worse than the handtool. And whose behavior,
in any case, can't be predicted or trusted by the public.
Condorcet's deterrence of offensive burial is greatly reduced when there
are more than 3 candidates.
In terms of societal benefits, Condorcet doesn't have advantages over
Approval. Look at the societal benefits of Approval.
Arguments for Condorcet depend on an unsupported assumption that
Condorcet's rankings are needed to bring such benefits.
You continued by claiming that Approval strategy requires dice. Which one
of the Approval strategies that I described in my article suggested
or required the use of dice?
I once listed 5 ways that the co-operation/defection problem can be dealt
with, solved, in Approval. I said that, no doubt, they could be similarly
dealt with in Condorcet. ...and would be similiarly needed in Condorcet
which, has no defection-resistance.
One of those defection-solutions requires randomization, but I emphasize
that it would be just as needed in Condorcet as in Approval.
 ,You say that voters in Approval would need to know their preferences to
the level of olympic judges
Do you know which candidates you like, or which ones you dislike? Or which
ones you feel deserve your support, or don't? If so, then you won't
have trouble with Approval.
And you should know it if some candidates are unacceptable to you.
You continued:
.
.. or keep updated with iterations of polling
[endquote]
I've emphasized that you needn't bother with that. Just approve whom you
like, or who deserves your support.
But yes, you could, if you wish, approve candidates who are better than the
merit that you
expect of the election result...if you don't otherwise have any feel for
whom you want to vote for.
I emphasize that there is no need to proceed in that way, unless you don't
otherwise know whom you
want to approve, based on whom you like, trust, or regard as deserving.
You're making it more complicated than it is.
You continued:
; and [Condorcet] advantages like defensibility of the victor when there's
a CW
[endquote]
How about the defensibility of a candidate who has been approved by the
most voters?
You object that an approval can be given for "strategic" reasons. You imply
that, emotionally,
you might not approve. But every candidate to whom you give an approval to
will be more emotionally
approved by you than the candidates to whom you didn't give an approval.
The operational and procedural meaning of "approve" is good enough to
justify the democratic
choice of a winner.
And no one is forcing you to strategically approve someone you don't like.
In fact, I strongly advice against doing so.
I've said to approve the candidates whom you like, trust, &/or consider
deserving of support.
If you're asking about strategy based on expected results, if that's how
you want to vote, then, in Approval that expectation-based strategy is to
approve candidates whom you like better than* what you expect from the
election. In other words,vote optimistically.
(*or at least as well)
 You continued:
Approval's "the candidate most people approve of" begs the question because
Approval "approvals" are so often strategic.
[endquote]
That's the comment that I answered above.
 I said that electing the candidate to whom the most voters have given an
approval is, itself, a valuable optimization.
...and also a strong justification of that candidate's election.
 But see above for the rest of my answer to that objection.
 You continued:
If enough people are honest, Condorcet's defensibility is real, too. It
means no angry majority can be unified behind a repeal simply by the cause
"you didn't like the winner"
[endquote]
When we've elected the candidate who has been given an approval by the most
voters, what possible justificatiion could you have for
complaint? (whether or not you were one of those who gave hir an approval).
 .>* Not only would approval have an incomparably better chance
for*>*relatively quick national adoption, but Approval (nothing other
than
*>* an elimination of Plurality's nonsensical
falsification-requirement)*>*rightfully qualifies as a voting-rights
issue, a rights remedy that
*>* could and should be required by the courts.*Alright, if you can push
directly for a national change, do so. I'm not going to stop you :-)
[endquote]
Why would you think that I'd expect you to try to stop me? In any case, I'm
not suggesting that I alone make that effort.
 You continued:
However, I think (and this may be wrong, of course, but it's the impression
I get) that national change is pretty locked tight, at least for something
as unfamiliar as voting reform. Voting affects everybody, and it's brittle
- use a nonfunctioning method and democracy is compromised. It's not like
the tax code or an environmental tweak where small changes to the
regulation leads to small changes in the outcome.
[endquote]
Exactly. That's why you can forget about people trusting a complicated
contraption such as Condorcet, or any rank method. As I've been saying,
Approval is nothing other than the elimination of a ridiculous and
unjustifiable falsification requirement in Plurality.
Yes, a small detail (such as Plurality's compulsory falsification rule) can
make a huge difference in the outcome. But, if we limit discussion to one
simple and minimal change, the elimination of that rule, it won't be a
complicated discussion. And it should be obvious to all that compulsory
falsification isn't a good thing. And that elminating the requirement for
it can't be other than an improvement.
As I said in a previous post, there is plenty of precedent for voting
rights improvements and protections being legislated or
court-ordered at the national level.
But no, don't expect Condorcet at the national level.
 You continued:
CT is Condorcet (Smith, even), and you said CT handles the defection
problem. So Condorcet in itself doesn't preclude defection-resistance.
[endquote]
Correct. CT brings both.
You continued:
 So if you can find a Condorcet method that passes defection resistance as
well as the criteria that the advanced Condorcet methods do (clone
independence, ISDA), that would be something.
[endquote]
Probably not possible. ICT and CT achieve defection-resistance by, when
choosing among the winning set, ignoring your support
for compromies, or anyone below first rank.
 You continue:
But we might have to pick our criteria compliances even then. Schulze
argues that his method, by finding strongest beatpaths, makes it possible
to rebut any arguments of the form "X won yet Y beats X" by a strong claim
of the sort "but X beats Z beats W beats Y and each of those victories are
stronger than Y's victory over X".
[endquote]
Beatpath's best justification is in the form of the SSD definition. But, as
you know, doesn't have the properties that I claim that any worthwhile rank
method
should have.
 You continued:
It might very well be true that beatpath methods can't solve the defection
problem; if so, one would have to choose between strategic resistance
within the method ( defection problem resistance) and resistance outside of
the method (from arguments that the winner did not deserve to win).
[endquote]
"
First, I emphasize that it will be a long time before we have to argue
about Beatpath vs ICT. Right now neither is a possibility for enactment.
But, when that time comes, I'll say, "ICT is much better at encouraging
sincere ranking. ICT's rankings therefore mean more than those of Beatpath.
ICT brings freedom from various strategy problems and dilemmas, without
having a serious problem that Beatpath doesn't have."
 You continued:
Advantages like the ease that significant fraction can vote without having
to use dice
[endquote]
I answered the "dice" objection, above.
My mailer is scrambling paragraphs. I answered this paragraph above. But I
can't find this paragraph or my answer to it, and so I'd better answer it
all over again:
 know their preferences to the level of olympic judges, or keep updated
with iterations of polling
[endquote]
I don't know if this already-written answer is somewhere among the
paragraphs above, so I'll repeat it, in case it got deleted:
Do you know which candidates you like? Or which ones you trust or consider
deserving of your support? If so, then you won't have
a problem in Approval.
If you want to vote according to expected results, and if you have a feel
for expecting a certain merit-level for the outcome,and if
there are no unacceptable candidates who could win, then you can indeed
vote according to results-expectation,as follows:
Approve the candidates who are better than what you expect from the
election. Of course, if there is one who is right _at_ the merit
level that you expect from the election, and if you like hir, then approve
hir too.
 You continued:

; and advantages like defensibility of the victor when there's a CW

...or the defensibility of the winner to whom the most voters gave an
approval.


Approval's "the candidate most people approve of" begs the question because
Approval "approvals" are so often strategic.

[endquote]

I've been referring to the candidate to whom the most voters have given an
approval. That's justification for
winning.

In any case, the candidates you strategically approve will always be more
emotionally approved by you than the ones you
don't give approval to.

My first and best voting suggestion is: Approve the candidates whom you
like, trust, &/or consider deserving of your support.

Must send this before it gets deleted agan.




If enough people are honest, Condorcet's defensibility is real, too. It
means no angry majority can be unified behind a repeal simply by the cause
"you didn't like the winner".>* Not only would approval have an
incomparably better chance for*>* relatively quick national adoption, but
Approval (nothing other than*>* an elimination of Plurality's nonsensical
falsification-requirement)*>* rightfully qualifies as a voting-rights
issue, a rights remedy that*>* could and should be required by the
courts.*Alright,
if you can push directly for a national change, do so. I'm not going to
stop you :-) However, I think (and this may be wrong, of course, but it's
the impression I get) that national change is pretty locked tight, at least
for something as unfamiliar as voting reform. Voting affects everybody, and
it's brittle - use a nonfunctioning method and democracy is compromised.
It's not like the tax code or an environmental tweak where small changes to
the regulation leads to small changes in the outcome.>* And, if anyone is
going to propose something more complicated than*>* Approval, it should be
something that better gets rid of the*>* co-operation/defection problem
(C/D). ICT greately mitigates that*>* problem, is defection-resistant. That
can't be said for Condorcet.*>* Compare Condorcet and ICT in the usual
Approval bad-example, the*>* 27,24,49 example.*CT is Condorcet (Smith,
even), and you said CT handles the defection problem. So Condorcet in
itself doesn't preclude defection-resistance. So if you can find a
Condorcet method that passes defection resistance as well as the criteria
that the advanced Condorcet methods do (clone independence, ISDA), that
would be something. But we might have to pick our criteria compliances even
then. Schulze argues that his method, by finding strongest beatpaths, makes
it possible to rebut any arguments of the form "X won yet Y beats X" by a
strong claim of the sort "but X beats Z beats W beats Y and each of those
victories are stronger than Y's victory over X". It might very well be true
that beatpath methods can't solve the defection problem; if so, one would
have to choose between strategic resistance within the method ( defection
problem resistance) and resistance outside of the method (from arguments
that the winner did not deserve to win).
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