[EM] Approval Voting and Long-term effects of voting systems

[robert bristow-johnson]

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Subject: Re: [EM] Approval Voting and Long-term effects of voting systems

From: "Michael Ossipoff" <email9648742 at gmail.com>

Date: Wed, December 7, 2016 10:18 pm

To: "Daniel LaLiberte" <daniel.laliberte at gmail.com>

Cc: "EM" <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>

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> Daniel wrote:

>

>>

>> The popular assumption is that it's essential to try to elect the best

>>> individual candidate that you can get. Contrary to popular belief, that's

>>> only an assumption, an unsupported one.

>>>

>>

>> I think it is reasonable to expect that everyone should try to elect the

>> best candidate, but it is not reasonable to expect that everyone can be

>> satisfied, and I don't think anyone has that assumption.

>>

>

> Sure, not everyone can be satisfied by the election-result.
we call those folks "losers" or the voters who voted for the losing candidate.  this is, of course, unavoidable.
but, under normal conditions (and i would say a cycle is not normal), we *can* satisfy every
voter that their sincere vote served their own political interests (at least how they evaluate their own political interests) as best as could be expected.  Rank Choice Voting, decided with a Condorcet-compliant method (and no cycle) can do that, but neither Approval nor Score voting
can.
This is because, if the voters favorite candidate loses to their second favorite, voters will wonder if they should've approved their second choice.  Or if both their fav and contingency candidates lost, but they didn't vote for (approve) their contingent candidate (out of fear of
screwing their fav) will they regret not approving their second choice?
yet with Condocet, if your candidate loses, it is because you *know* that some other candidate was preferred over your candidate by more people with the same power of vote you have (that is "one person one
vote").  you may not *like* that your candidate lost, but you won't be thinking the election was stolen or a screwup of the tabulation method (like IRV in Burlington 2009) elected another candidate that was *less* preferred than yours or that a spoiler robbed your candidate of victory.
 you will be dissatisfied being a loser, but you can accept that your side lost fair-and-square.  with Approval, you just never know.  and that is because, similarly to Plurality with the single-mark ballot, not enough information is solicited from voters.
 
> But
I wouldn't say that everyone should try to elect the best individual
> candidate that they can get. What if trying to elect the best candidate

> that you can get, choosing among your strong top-set, increases the

> probability of electing from your strong bottom-set. Is that good?
gee, isn't that normally called the tactic of "compromise"?  it's the burden of tactical voting and, according to Duverger (and common sense), it's why we have a dominant 2-party system in the U.S.  it
turns out that "the best candidate that you can get" will be one of the two major party candidates.
 
as disagreeable as i am, Mike (Kristopher is much more agreeable than i am), being unable to answer the fundamental challenge i put to you is not synonymous with me being unreasonable.  like the DNC after Nov 8, you need to turn inward a little to focus blame.
so by not
saying "that everyone should try to elect the best individual candidate that they can get", you're essentially saying that voters should expect to vote tactically.  and, unreasonable me is saying that voters should not be expected to vote tactically to best express and serve their
political interests.  they should be able to walk into the voting booth and express their political interests without fear that the voting system will misunderstand their political interests and act, on their behalf, contrary to their political interests.
BTW, i don't read farther than
the first 20 or 25% of your posts.  you might want to learn the meaning of "concise".  (and "concise" doesn't mean alphabet-soup nor does it mean relying on jargon. jargon-jockeying is not particularly persuasive.)
 

--
r b-j                  rbj at audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
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