[EM] Robert: Condorcet, IRV, Approval, Score

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

An error in here. But first a simple comment.

At 02:20 PM 1/11/2013, Michael Ossipoff wrote:

>For rank-balloting, the ideal would be a voting machine that would
>print out a paper ballot, for the voter to examine, and then deposit
>in a ballot-box in the usual way.

Nowadays, that paper ballot would be designed to be machine-readable. 
I've argued that paper ballots should be serialized (in a way that 
makes the ballot not traceable to the voter), and *publically* viewed 
and imaged immediately upon opening the ballot box. These images 
would be *published.* In addition, the ballots would be scanned and 
analyzed by machine. The public scans, and the machine analysis, 
would alse be published. The advantages:

1. Cheap. Public hand counting, at state expense, is not needed, usually.
2. Verifiable. Anyone can sample and verify. Manipulation of the 
"public" scan would show up as a variance with the "opening images," 
and any doubt raised could be resolved by finding the actual paper 
ballot. Those ballots would be sequestered immediately after the 
public imaging and the official scans.

The *equipment* for this, maintained by the government, at each 
precinct, could be as simple as a fax machine. (Analysis could be 
done with computers at the central polling facility.)


>Robert said:
>
>and as far as election method, i am convinced that inherent simplicity
>is important .
>
>[endquote]
>
>Yes, and that's why Approval and Score are the only proposals
>deserving of consideration for official public elections.

If Approval is deserving of consideration -- and it certainly is -- 
Bucklin becomes a fix for an obvious Bucklin problem, the one that 
almost everyone thinks of as a defect in Approval. Bucklin (-ER) is 
still Approval, for the most part.


>Robert continued:
>
>   and i will concede that First-Pass-the-Pole is the
>simplest to vote and simplest to count and determine the winner.
>
>[endquote]
>
>...And Approval is 2nd best, and Score is next best.

That's true for low-resolution score. Approval is *almost* as simple 
to count as Approval, particularly if most people bullet-vote, which 
could be likely. In fact, Approval could sometimes be cheaper to 
count, because no ballots would be rejected for overvoting.


>Robert continued:
>
>  and i
>think that precinct summability is the simplest way to be transparent in
>that regard.
>
>[endquote]
>
>No. There is nothing non-transparent about IRV's count.

Arrgh. This is quibbling over expression. Counts from precincts 
depend on the previous counts. Precincts cannot merely count and 
forward data from the ballots -- unless they forward the complete 
rankings as they are (it could be done, but, then, it could be a 
*lot* of data.)

>IRV and Bucklin suffer from the disadvantage of being multistage
>methods in which there are a number of counts at each precinct, whose
>results must be relayed to central count headquarters--and a number of
>counts at headquarters that must be broadcast. In IRV and Bucklin that
>amounts to broadcast information about whether or not there is a
>majority yet. In IRV, there is the additiional information about who
>is eliminated at that stage.

Bucklin can be counted and forwarded at all ranks, without waiting 
for response. I've considered it a courtesy to voters to Count All 
the Votes, even if they don't matter. (Don't we report all the votes 
from Plurality, not just the votes for the winner?) There is no harm 
in reporting the full Bucklin sums. It can give information about who 
might be popular enough to win the next election.

IRV cannot be counted that way. The totals from each round of 
counting depend on who was eliminated in the previous rounds.

>It's a disadvantage because it slows down the count. But that isn't
>entirely bad, because it divides the count labor into smaller parts,
>giving counters a rest while they wait for the central count at each
>stage. But there is no loss of transparency.

"Transparency" may not be the best term here. There are errors made 
in transmitting and receiving the data, and sometimes those errors 
require a recount. When such an error is discovered, all subsequent 
rounds of counting are *invalid* and must be repeated.

IRV presents many opportunities for close ties with a major impact on 
the next round. These are then sensitive to small errors.

>[...]
>Precinct results and central count results should be broadcast and
>posted.  And securely recorded and stored. The ballots themselves
>should be securely stored.

Actually, if the ballots are immediately scanned, the ballots can 
immediately be sequestered. If a hand count is going to be done, they 
can be done with projected images of the ballots. Everyone can see 
the image at the same time, no crowding, and *no handling of the ballots.*

(The ballots could later be scanned again for a verification; if 
pubic ballot imaging is used, my guess, most of the time no 
additional scan would be needed. The public imaging would be done in 
full view of all observers with the ballot only being touched by an 
officer. The "official scan" could also be viewed. Pretty boring. 
Ballots being auto-fed into a fax machine is what it might be!)

>But the fact remains that, even now, IRV would be a tremendous
>improvement over Plurality and our usual Top-Two Runoff (TTR).

Sorry, Mike, you haven't been paying attention.

IRV is sold as a cheap way of doing TTR (with some additional depth). 
In fact, in nonpartisan public elections, the data is clear, IRV and 
TTR perform *very* differently. IRV, when additional rounds are 
required, almost always, in a nonpartisan election, chooses the 
first-round leader. That is, with TTR, reversed about a third of the time.

And I could show, I believe, solid reason to consider that this 
improves social utility with TTR. But we can do much better. We can 
improve TTR by using a better first-round method that avoids 
violating the Favorite Betrayal Criterion. Approval, Bucklin, Range. 
Extending the Bucklin ballot to cover a full symmetrical range, or 
just using Range, would allow determining a Condorcet winner; to 
avoid the rejection of a utility-maximizing candidate in favor of a 
Condorcet winner, I've suggested that a Condorcet winner must always 
be in a runoff, if not winning the primary (which might otherwise be 
Range, for example).


>IRV's compliance with Mutual Majority and Later-No-Harm are a powerful
>combination.

LNH sucks, in a word. It *prevents* the compromise that is necessary 
for voting systems to really work.