[EM] Questions about Election-Methods Digest, Vol 124, Issue 28
steve bosworth
stevebosworth at hotmail.com
Fri Oct 31 02:48:10 PDT 2014
To the 'Owner'
From: Steve (Stephen Bosworth)
Please tell me exactly how I should submit contributions to the 'List'.
Several days ago, I discovered that part of my dialogue with Richard Fobes was on the List. In response, I sent all the elements of my draft article to you believing this would also help other contributors to participate more efficiently. However, I then received an email from you informing me that these were too long (i.e. longer than your 200KB limit). I then sent you an email on your special form suggesting that I only the 52KB draft article, not the illustrative 2 flow charts and 3 tables.
As I have not received a reply to that 'form email', I will now attach that draft article alone to my 1st reply to this email.
In my next email, I will respond to Richards Fobes's comments below.
I look forward to receiving your advice.
Steve
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> From: election-methods-request at lists.electorama.com
> Subject: Election-Methods Digest, Vol 124, Issue 28
> To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
> Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 12:02:36 -0700
>
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Associational Proportional Representation (APR)
> (Richard Fobes)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 13:23:38 -0700
> From: Richard Fobes <ElectionMethods at VoteFair.org>
> To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
> Subject: Re: [EM] Associational Proportional Representation (APR)
> Message-ID: <54514CCA.9060701 at VoteFair.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
>
> On 10/27/2014 9:12 AM, steve bosworth wrote:
> > Hi Richard,
> > ...
> > I have attached PDF versions of all the attachments you wished not to
> > open because of anti-virus reason.
> >
> > I look forward to our continued dialogue.
>
> Steve, the following comments are based on reading the PDF file that
> describes your method. (Thank you for sending a PDF version.)
>
> Yes, you are correct in saying that improved primary elections would
> yield more-representative candidates for the general election.
>
> The simplest way to improve primary elections is to use approval voting.
> This means just changing the instructions to allow more than one
> candidate's name to be marked. (I don't support the use of approval
> voting in general elections, but I would be happy to see it used in U.S.
> primary elections.)
>
> Your suggested ballot is way too complicated! Also, the marked ballots
> would not be machine-readable. I can see ways to overcome these
> barriers, and still collect the information you want. (The
> cross-district votes can be handled like write-in options within a
> fill-in-the-oval 1-2-3 ballot; you don't need a separate section for
> "bullet" voting [for just one choice].)
>
> Yet the counting method you recommend has serious shortcomings.
>
> Your counting method definitely has the focus-on-the-current-top-choice
> "blinder" approach that I've already described.
>
> The reason you didn't understand my reference to "rounding" is that I
> chose an analogy that was not different enough from the topic. So,
> please ignore my "rounding" analogy.
>
> You offer a definition of a "wasted vote" and then claim that your
> method is the best way to eliminate wasted votes. This tactic -- of
> defining a term and then claiming your method maximizes or minimizes the
> defined term -- is often used in election-method discussions, yet it's
> pointless because advocates of competing methods simply do not accept
> the definition you offer, and instead offer a competing definition.
>
> Finally, yet most importantly, I'll point out a serious issue that you
> seem to have overlooked.
>
> After your counting method is used, the number of voters who support
> each winning candidate becomes public knowledge ? because it determines
> the "weighting" of each legislator's vote. This knowledge, combined
> with the ability to vote for legislators in other districts, makes it
> financially profitable for "consultants" and thugs to bribe voters to
> vote for the legislators whose "backers" provide the most money.
>
> Perhaps you think this kind of bribery is easy to detect and deter.
> It's not.
>
> For several years, while I was writing my creative-problem-solving book,
> I lived in a low-income part of a university town and learned a lot
> about what goes on in a neighborhood that gets lots of police attention.
> The police (and fire) events are just the tip of the iceberg. The
> selling of votes would easily become commonplace in places where people
> are desperate, vulnerable, illiterate, poor, abused (without exceeding
> the legal limit), etc.
>
> If my reactions seem to be excessively critical, and not supportive,
> consider that the best voting methods are the ones with the fewest
> flaws. There is no such thing as a voting method with no flaws!
>
> Regarding this issue, if you are not familiar with the table in the
> Wikipedia article titled "voting systems," then please become familiar
> with it, because it portrays the most common "fairness criteria" [my
> term] that I and others here refer to.
>
> In your article you claim that your method is better than plurality
> voting. I agree with that claim. But that's not saying much. Every
> method promoted here can make that claim.
>
> You claim that your method is not vulnerable to gerrymandering. I do
> not disagree with that claim. Yet I'll point out that there are a
> variety of ways to eliminate gerrymandering. In other words, your
> suggested approach is not the only way.
>
> I understand why you like the method you propose. It has some nice
> counting characteristics. Yet a voting method has to be workable, and
> that involves issues such as machine-readability, incorruptibility,
> ballot simplicity, invulnerability to strategic voting, etc.
>
> That's all I have time for now. If you have further questions, or you
> don't understand what I've said here, just ask.
>
> Most importantly, thank you for taking the time to learn about the many
> subtle issues that affect voting methods.
>
> Richard Fobes
>
>
> On 10/27/2014 9:12 AM, steve bosworth wrote:
> >
> > Hi Richard,
> >
> >
> > Thank you for your additional comments and observations below.I will
> > insert my responses into your text using *bold print*.
> >
> > I have attached PDF versions of all the attachment you wished not to
> > open because of anti-virus reason.
> >
> > I look forward to our continued dialogue.
> >
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> >
> > Steve
> >
> >
> >> Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 22:01:14 -0700
> >> From: ElectionMethods at VoteFair.org
> >> To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
> >> Subject: Associational Proportional Representation (APR)
> >>
> >> I'm responding (via Bcc) to Steve Bosworth's earlier reply to my
> >> responses, which he repeated in a direct message that is copied below.
> >> I no longer have a copy of the forum message, so please pardon the
> >> creation of a new thread about a conversation in progress. For context,
> >> see below.
> >>
> >> Steve, I only had time to quickly look at your two flowcharts (which
> >> were in PDF format, in contrast to your ".doc" documents which I don't
> >> open for antivirus reasons), but ...
> > *S:Please see the new PDF attachments.*>
> >> I saw that your Associational Proportional Representation (APR) method
> >> involves eliminating a candidate based on having the fewest number of
> >> votes (after possible transfers of votes).
> > *S:The first candidate eliminated could not have received any transfer
> > votes because all elected candidate keep all the votes they have
> > received.These determine the weighted vote each rep will have in the
> > assembly.*
> >> I favor methods that look deeper than each voter's currently top
> >> remaining choice. I don't like methods that only look at one voter's
> >> currently "top choice" at a time. Why? They have the same weaknesses
> >> as plurality voting and instant-runoff voting (IRV), which look at
> which
> >> candidate gets the most, or fewest (respectively) "votes."
> >> *S:In the context of APR, I do not understand why looking at each
> > elector?s ?top choice? as the first step in the count would be weakness.*
> >
> >
> > ***APR allows each elector to guarantee that his vote will be added to
> > the voting power of the rep in the assembly either that he had directly
> > ranked or that his first choice but eliminated candidate had ranked (a
> > special use of Asset Voting) ? every vote can be positive, no vote need
> > be wasted.Do you see any scientific basis for anyone to say that an APR
> > assembly would not be as representative as possible of all citizens?*
> >
> >
> >> Methods that involve the transfer of each voter's vote are open to
> >> strategic manipulations. You asked for more specifics. As a partial
> >> answer, the election results are vulnerable to strategies that control
> >> which candidates are nominated.Usually this manipulation involves
> >> campaign contributions (with the real source of funds for "spoiler"
> >> candidates being hidden).
> >
> > *S:Perhaps you will see that APR provides no incentive to vote
> > strategically, e.g. APR?s special ?primary? election would greatly
> > reduce or eliminate the ?manipulation? you have in mind.In this primary,
> > each citizen could choose the ?electoral association? through which,
> > several months later, he will record his rankings of as many general
> > election candidates in the country as he may wish. Each would try to
> > become such a voting member of the association believes is most likely
> > to field the most attractive candidates.*
> >
> >
> > *This seems to remove any incentive to fund any ?spoiler candidates?.*
> >
> >
> >> All voting methods fail some fairness criteria, so yours does too.
> >> Which ones? I don't know. That requires time-consuming analysis.
> >> Although your method is not instant-runoff voting, it is similar enough
> >> that I suspect it would fail many of the same fairness criteria
> that IRV
> >> fails.
> >
> >
> > *S:Perhaps you will find that a careful reading of the attachments
> > alleys your suspicions in this regard.*
> >>
> >> Of course you can correctly claim that there are no fairness criteria
> >> for proportional methods,
> >
> >
> > *S:I see APR as satisfying the following ?fairness criteria? entirely:*
> >
> >
> > *1)**Each citizen has the same range of options both during the
> > ?primary? and the general election.*
> >
> >
> > *2)**One of these is to guarantee that his vote will be added to the
> > ?weighted vote? of the rep he most trusts, or which his first choice but
> > eliminated candidate most trusts.*
> >
> >
> > *3)**The voting power of each party in the assembly would be exactly
> > proportional to its support by electors because this power would result
> > from combining all the weighted votes of its members.*
> >
> >
> > yet I believe your method involves underlying
> >> algorithms that can be applied to a single-winner method, and that
> >> related single-winner method has to fail some fairness criteria.
> >
> >
> > *S: I would very much appreciate you explaining this because it seems to
> > me that its counting method is clear -- contains no ?underlying
> > algorithm? that would not be fair.*
> >>
> >> As for the method's proportional aspects, the use of sub-groups --
> >> called "associations" in this case -- introduces what can be thought of
> >> as similar to the mathematics of "rounding" numbers too early (instead
> >> of waiting until all the calculations are done, and then rounding).
> >
> >
> > *S: Again, perhaps you will find that the ?associations? only help to
> > expand the number of attractive candidates from the points of view of
> > citizens voting in APR ?primary?.Also, APR never needs or wants to
> > ?round? it numbers.*
> >>
> >> Expressed another way, both the Republican and Democratic parties
> in the
> >> U.S. are heavily controlled by the same relatively few people, and the
> >> result is that voters do not control either political party.
> >
> >
> > *S: The fact that APR citizens will elect all the reps in a given party
> > would seem to mean that they also have a good chance of largely
> > ?controlling? each political party.*
> >
> >
> > I believe
> >> that in Canada each party nominates a candidate using voting at a
> >> convention, but admission to the convention requires paying a fee, so
> >> that too prevents a majority of voters from controlling any political
> > party.
> >>
> >> Looking into the _distant_ future, voting methods will handle
> >> calculations deeply in ways that do not involve any extra layer of
> >> subgroups or rounding, and possibly without involving political
> parties.
> >> In the meantime we are stuck with subgroups such as the "electoral
> >> college" for U.S. Presidential elections, and parliaments/Congress/etc.
> >> that add an extra voting layer (compared to the future when voters
> >> eventually will directly vote on issues of concern). Why not begin now
> >> to get rid of the need for subgroups?
> >
> >
> > *S: Perhaps you will reconsider some of these hopes in the light of
> > Endnote 6 to the attached draft article.*
> >>
> >> I am not saying that your voting method is bad. It might be quite good
> >> for some voting situations!
> >>
> >> I'm just saying -- since you specifically asked me -- that my
> preference
> >> is to skip over slight improvements and jump ahead to advanced voting
> >> methods that look deeply into ballot preferences (beyond one current
> >> "top" choice at a time) and that avoid the need to segment voters into
> >> subgroups.
> >>
> >> For further context I'll say that years ago a group of people within a
> >> local food co-op came up with a very carefully designed way of electing
> >> a group of "representatives" for the purpose of having them make
> >> decisions instead of letting all the members vote on important
> >> decisions. In spite of how well-designed and "fair" (neutral) the
> >> process was, neither the people who wanted the co-op to sell a few meat
> >> items nor the people who wanted absolutely no meat in the store were
> >> willing to let such a group make a decision about that issue. The point
> >> of this example is that each layer of decision-making -- even if it
> gets
> >> adjusted at every election based on the ballots -- does not truly
> >> provide proportional representation. As for what a truly proportional
> >> solution to that "meat" conflict would have been, I'm not sure. Selling
> >> fewer meat items than what a majority of voters wanted would still fail
> >> to represent the members who didn't want any meat sold. (It was not
> >> clear who was in the majority, and probably a middle third of the
> >> members would have been OK with certain meat choices but not other meat
> >> choices.)
> >>
> >> Ultimately voters don't care about the process. That's why so few
> >> citizens "do the math" to discover why they are not represented by the
> >> people "they" elect. This same dilemma applies to all the voting
> >> methods discussed here. Here we are not only "doing the math," but we
> >> are developing "the math" relating to voting methods. Let's eliminate
> >> extra layers and stop using "start-at-the-top" blinders as we look at
> >> each ballot.
> >>
> >> Thank you for your interest in my opinion. I hope this helps, either to
> >> refine your ideas or to refine ways to "sell" whatever method you like
> >> best. (All of us here are learning how to "sell" our favorite
> method(s).)
> >>
> >> BTW, thank you for creating the flowcharts. They do help clarify your
> >> method. (Alas, graphics on websites seem to be the only way to make
> >> flowcharts easy to view, so they are not suitable here in this forum.)
> >>
> >> Richard Fobes
> >>
> >>
> >> On 10/22/2014 6:54 AM, steve bosworth wrote:
> >> > Hi Richard,
> >> >
> >> > Sorry for the late reply. I've been travelling.
> >> > Thank you for your several criticisms, comments and suggestions.
> >> >
> >> > I've *injected my responses within the text of your email bellow,
> using
> >> > bold print*.
> >> >
> >> > I hope you will see that some of the problems you mentioned are
> solved
> >> > within the full explanation of my proposed system (Associatonal
> >> > Proportional Representation (*APR*)) that I have fully described
> in the
> >> > attached article with its illustrative 2 flow charts and 3 tables.
> >> >
> >> > In the light of the more complete information provided, I very
> much hope
> >> > you will be able to find the time to respond to the additional
> > explanations.
> >> >
> >> > Thank you,
> >> > Steve
> >> >
> >> > > Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2014 09:10:10 -0700
> >> > > From: ElectionMethods at VoteFair.org
> >> > > To: stevebosworth at hotmail.com
> >> > > Subject: Re: (2) "Severity" of failing
> >> > >
> >> > > Steve Bosworth ~
> >> > >
> >> > > Thank you for your interest in my opinion.
> >> > >
> >> > > Getting to the point of your question, your election method
> combines
> >> > > single-winner voting concepts
> >> > *S: No, in effect, APR**is entirely a multi-winner system, e.g.
> to elect
> >> > the 435 members of the US House of Representatives or the UK House of
> >> > Commons. *
> >> > with proportional representation concepts,
> >> > *S: APR's giving different 'weighted votes' to each rep depending
> on how
> >> > many citizens had ranked them would provide complete individual
> >> > representative and party proportionality.*
> >> > > which means that the well-known fairness criteria do not apply.
> >> >
> >> > *S: I know of no such criteria which APR would not satisfy.*
> >> > > Your idea sounds intriguing. Yet it would encounter time-related
> >> > > issues,
> >> > *S: Please explain.*
> >> > especially strategy issues,
> >> > *S: Please explain.*
> >> > if it were converted into an actual
> >> > > election method -- that involves ballots.
> >> > *S: Perhaps you will see that these issues have been solved by the
> >> > detailed presentation of the 'actual method' and the paper
> 'ballots' to
> >> > be used by APR, and explained by the attachments.*
> >> > >
> >> > > The single-winner aspects basically match instant-runoff voting,
> > so the
> >> > > same fairness-criteria failures would apply.
> >> > *S: No, because it is not an IRV system.*
> >> > >
> >> > > As for the proportional part, your method would tend to elect a few
> >> > > celebrity representatives who are supported by "the media"
> >> > *S: Given APR's 'electoral associations' as selected by citizens
> months
> >> > before the general election through APR's special 'primary election',
> >> > the relative influence of 'celebrity' and the 'media' might be much
> >> > reduced. In any case, the article stipulates that any very
> popular rep
> >> > who receives more than 10% of all the votes in the country would be
> >> > required to publish exactly how he will pass on all of his 'extra
> votes'
> >> > to his trusted fellow reps.*
> >> > and the
> >> > > other representatives would tend to be "fringe" types who are
> > supported
> >> > > by fewer voters. Note that this is a tendency, and would be
> reduced to
> >> > > the extent that it's noticed, which means that most voters
> would not
> >> > > notice this tendency.
> >> > >
> >> > > Alas, my time is limited, so I can't offer more feedback at
> this time.
> >> > *S: Thank you again for your time.*
> >> > > I hope this is helpful.
> >> > >
> >> > > If you want more opinions, I suggest that you present the idea
> on the
> >> > > Election Methods forum.
> >> > *S: I keep trying to find out how to do this but have so far
> failed. Can
> >> > you please explain how one contributes to this forum?*
> >> > >
> >> > > Richard Fobes
>
>
>
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> End of Election-Methods Digest, Vol 124, Issue 28
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