[EM] help w. planning/working on a monte-carlo simulation?

Fri May 17 12:13:54 PDT 2013

Thank you Abd,

I agree consensus is feasible when there are few people and they are
committed to working together.

I'm focusing on US elections and more so "more local" elections that tend
to be chronically non-competitive.

I agree we all use short-cuts in voting and that that shd be considered in
thiinking about what sort of election rules we should use.

For simulations, I could generate utilities like Warren Smith did, or I
could sample from historical data.
Either way, my goal wd be to refute the notion that a Droop quota is needed
for 3-seat elections, when the purpose of the droop quota is served by
another means, like the use of an at-large seat.
dlw

dlw

On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 2:09 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <abd at lomaxdesign.com>wrote:

> At 10:28 AM 5/17/2013, David L Wetzell wrote:
>
>> The Droop quota is often presumed for proportional representation
>> over the Hare quota that is more proportional, due to how the Hare quota
>> can result in a minority being in power.  (I guess the majority get in
>> power only a
>> majority of the time with a Hare Quota.  )
>>
>
> It's unlikely to result in a "minority being in power." A minority may get
> a disproportional number of seats, based on what is done when no more
> candidates get the quota. That is only one possible solution; it's based on
> the assumption that *all seats must be filled.* Indeed, since all seats
> meeting the Hare quota is pretty unlikely, setting the quota to aim for N+1
> seats and then *not awarding that last seat unless the quota is met*, is a
> kind of solution.
>
> Asset demolishes the problem. One would indeed set the number of seats one
> high and tolerate it being met, because if it is met, *every voter is
> represented, no exceptions.*
>
> There is another solution as well. We actually held an Asset election, for
> the Election Science Foundation Steering Committee, and it seemed possible
> that only two candidates would get the Hare quota. The election was defined
> unilaterally by one of the candidates as electing the top three after
> transfers. The transfers made it Asset. I'd never have set the "top three"
> criterion. I was first in votes; this candidate was second, and Warren
> Smith was third, and there were two others with votes. I had enough votes
> to be elected by the Hare quota, with some votes left over. Nobody else had
> the Droop quota without transfers. I had enough votes to push Warren over
> the Hare quota, as I recall, certainly it was over the Droop. So since we
> had no clear rules, and the declaration of the candidate as to the method,
> was unilateral, and Warren and I now represented a supermajority of voters,
> I felt free to handle this the way I generally desire: push for maximized
> consensus. So I essentially declared Warren elected and, if we had been
> unable to agree on the third seat, we still had two members of the
> committee and could have made any necessary decision on behalf of the full
> electorate by mutual consensus. As it happened, the candidate in second
> place decided to finish the process by awarding his votes to another
> candidate. That left one candidate who was holding two votes. I asked him
> if he approved the election. He did.
>
> So we elected three seats with *unanimity*. All candidates had the Hare
> quota. As policitical scientists about this, they will tell you it's
> impossible. Sure, it was not really difficult because we only had 17
> voters. But how does one elect a 3-person committee with 17 voters, and
> *quickly* manage that it's unanimous?
>
> If the 2nd candidate had held out, we could have then done whatever
> necessary to move on. Personally, I'd have invited him to participate
> fully, but without a deciding vote, unless an agreement had been made
> transferring those votes to him. That wasn't impossible. I wasn't actually
> *opposed*, I merely wanted to see what would happen if I held back. With a
> more formal method, the same thing could easily have happened.
>
> Basically, the elector left with the two votes had an obvious way to cast
> them. If they were not cast, all those who voted for that elector would not
> be represented. That's a high social pressure to find the best compromise.
>
> What disturbs some people is that *this process cannot be predicted,* at
> least not with high confidence. I'd not have predicted the 2nd candidate
> would do what he did. It was a surprise. It upset one of the voters, in
> fact, who thought that somehow this person had been deceptive. "Why did he
> run if he wasn't willing to serve?" But he *was* willing to serve, he
> simply made a compromise, for his own reasons. However, electors in Asset
> elections need not have any intention to actually serve, and they could
> even announce that in advance. They serve in the process of the election,
> that is the promise that they make, not to actually move to some location
> and spend their life dealing with endless minutia, the real service of real
> polticians.
>
> So: an option isto just leave that last seat vacant if there is no
> compromise found. And a way to handle that in the Assembly is to treat this
> vacant seat as part of the basis for a majority. Or just neglect it.
> However, Asset creates a body of *pubic voters* -- we did all the
> negotiations on a public mailing list; we *could* have negotiated privately
> and then announced our decisions as to vote transfers, but we didn't -- and
> it's possible, because these are real people with established identities
> (I'd require that for electors to be eligible), internet voting becomes
> possible with high security. It's secret ballot internet voting that's a
> problem.
>
> They electors have the elected seats to participate in deliberation, and
> to vote for them *by default,* but if the electors vote directly, the votes
> that went to them from the elector would devalue the vote of the seat
> fractionally. My sense is that this would be rare as making any difference,
> and it might be routinely neglected in reversible procedural decisions
> (i.e., later it would be revealed when the internet voting was considered).
> It is also possible that the internet voting would be real-time. I.e., an
> elector would be watching the proceedings over the net, see a vote, and
> vote immediately. Later is too late. This is the same restriction as is on
> seats. Be there or be square. Or the elector is actually present, in the
> gallery. Internet voting by phone would be simple, and they, as electors,
> would have a secure account on a legislative wireless network. Remember,
> all votes of seats and electors *must be public* for this system to work.
> Some legislative process requires secret committees. Sorry, electors,
> that's not where you can watch and vote. You don't have adequate proven
> public trust, only seats have that.)
>
> A step toward that would be to simply allow electors with unassigned votes
> to vote them. Voting is a small part of what an Assembly actually does.
> Most of the business is in process, in entering motions and debating them
> on the floor or in committee. That would only be open to elected seats.
> That, however, is all public process, and can be followed by electors *if
> they wish*. Electors who are widely trusted may wish to do this. An elector
> holding a couple of votes, or even just one (perhaps their own?) may find
> it more trouble than it is worth....
>
> Natural consequences: compromise and gain access, or don't. But, with
> these systems, no votes need be wasted. Period. Unless they are cast for a
> poor candidate. (And it's possible for candidates to name a proxy or
> successor if they can't function. They should be trusted to do that. It
> would be voluntary, except in Asset systems that, for voter security,
> disallow becoming a public voter with less than a threshold of votes.
> That's to make voter coercion more difficult. Not necessary in many
> implementations, only under "difficult conditions." Under those conditions,
> the votes would be amalgamated by proxy and assigned to an elector as
> indicated, by the system, secretly. I don't like this at all, but necessity
> is necessity.)
>
>
>  And since the amount of proportionality with a droop quota
>>  gets watered down as the number of contested seats is reduced, this has
>> led
>> some activists/experts, like Douglas Amy,  to insist that PR use at least
>> 5 seats.
>> This is often coupled with an insistence on rank choice voting due to the
>> problems with party lists.
>>
>
> Party lists are very attractive. The reason is the same reason that led
> Lewis Carroll to invent Asset Voting. Most voters only know their favorite.
> They really don't know enough to rank others. So they bullet vote, when
> they can. (Much of what FairVote imagines is reaction to LNH failure, in
> the old Bucklin elections, is really just this phenomenon, and the same
> thing happens with IRV when voters are not forced to fully rank -- which
> many then do by just checking down the list, which is why they need to do
> Robson Rotation.... you don't get good information out of voters by
> coercing them. Bad Idea.)
>
> Voters know parties even better than candidates, and they know their
> favorite. The knowledge persists beyond a single election, and they can
> probably rank parties as well.
>
> The reason Demoex was able to gain a seat in their City Council was
> because of party list. It made it simple and cheap. They have not been as
> successful as they might have been because they created a no-party party,
> which then proceeded to behave like a party with *high discipline*, i.e., a
> winner who was pledged to only vote *as instructed by the party process*.
> And when another small party started up, that might have been similar in
> some positions to them, they treated it like the enemy because they lost
> votes. Demoex, then, in spite of the brilliant ideas in some of what they
> did, proceeded to demonstrate the hazards of being a political party. Even
> if it is theoretically open, in practice, it can easily become "Us First."
> They didn't cooperate. Had they set up Demoex to *advise* candidates --
> including their own -- but not to control them, and had they elected the
> person most trusted to represent the voters *by voting their own
> conscience* -- they would have fit precisely into democratic traditions. As
> it is, they were bucking them, creating a distaste for them on the City
> Council. It's obvious from what they have reported. And they think they
> were *right*. They were simply naive, that's all. They could still recover
> if they realize what they did.
>
> The simulations are a great idea, but a common failure of simulations is
> to not understand how people vote. Most people will bullet vote, when they
> have low information. Complicating this is that some people will bullet
> vote when they have high information.
>
> I do suggest discussing the simulations on the Center for Election Science
> mailing list.
>
> https://groups.google.com/**forum/#!forum/electionscience<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/electionscience>
>
>
>>
>> So I'd like to simulate the effects of using 3-seat LR Hare for a 13 seat
>> city council election, like in MInneapolis, MN.
>>
>> We'd consider 7 cases:
>> 1. 13 FPTP elections.
>> 2. 13 IRV elections, as are used now.
>> 3. Four 3-seat LR Hare elections with 1 at-large seat with IRV.
>> 4. A 6 and a 7 seat with Droop quota election.
>> 5. A 6 and a 7 seat with Hare quota election.
>> 6. A 13 seat with Droop quota election.
>> 7. A 13 seat with Hare quota election.
>>
>> I'd like to measure relative proportionality and the probability of a
>> majority getting a ruling majority, the portion of close/competitive
>> elections, and maybe some other stuff that cd be of interest.
>>
>> Anybody interested?
>>
>> My intuition is that smaller-order PRs retain the constituent-legislator
>> relationship and would be preferred by many who like having their
>> council-person.  I also think that the Hare quota is more important for
>> increasing the likelihood of having a competitive election and giving
>> minority groups a higher chance of being swing voters.  If this is paired
>> with the use of an at-large seat or some other way of establishing a
>> hierarchy who can get things done, it might be a winning combination.
>> dlw
>>
>>
>> On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 2:02 PM, <<mailto:election-methods-**
>> request at lists.electorama.com<election-methods-request at lists.electorama.com>
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>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>    1. My cycle definition of the Schwartz set was incorrect
>>       (Michael Ossipoff)
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------**------------------------------**
>> ----------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Tue, 14 May 2013 16:18:25 -0400
>> From: Michael Ossipoff <<mailto:email9648742 at gmail.**com<email9648742 at gmail.com>
>> >email9648742 at gmail.com>
>> To: <mailto:election-methods@**electorama.com<election-methods at electorama.com>
>> >election-**methods at electorama.com <election-methods at electorama.com>
>>
>> Subject: [EM] My cycle definition of the Schwartz set was incorrect
>> Message-ID:
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>>
>> I wanted to express the beatpath definition of the Schwartz set in a
>> simpler and more compelling or appealing way, and the cycle definition
>> (that I've posted here) seemed such a simplification.
>>
>> But the cycle definition doesn't define the Schwartz set. A candidate
>> that doesn't have a defeat that isn't in a cycle isn't necessarily in
>> the Scwhartz set (as defined by the unbeaten set definition and the
>> beatpath definition].
>>
>> Of the two definitions (unbeaten set and beatpath), the beatpath
>> definition desn't have much compellingness. For compellingness, I much
>> prefer the unbeaten set definition.
>>
>> Let me state both definitions here:
>>
>> Unbeaten set definition of the Schwartz set::
>>
>> 1. An unbeaten sets is a set of alternatives none of which are beaten
>> by anything outside the set.
>>
>> 2. An innermost unbeaten set is an unbeaten set that doesn't contain a
>> smaller unbeaten set.
>>
>> 3.The Schwartz set is the set of alternatives that are in innermost
>> unbeaten sets.
>>
>> [end of unbeaten set definition of Schwartz set]
>>
>> ------------------------------**---------
>>
>> Beatpath definition of Schwartz set:
>>
>> There is a beatpath from X to Y if X beats Y, or if X beats A and
>> there is a beatpath from A to Y.
>>
>> If there is a beatpath from Y to X, but not from X to Y, then X is not
>> in the Schwartz set.
>>
>> Otherwise X is in the Schwartz set.
>>
>> [end of beatpath definition of the Schwartz set]
>>
>> Michael Ossipoff
>>
>>
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