[EM] Voting-System Choice for Polls (Just one more thing I want to say)

C.Benham cbenham at adam.com.au
Mon Dec 19 00:14:40 PST 2016


For polls I suggest either  Smith//Approval (explicit)  or Margins 
Sorted Approval (explicit).

And with that ballot information the winners  using other methods could 
be announced.

Michael Ossipoff wrote:

> Because I wanted people to vote, and because IRV is so popular and 
> relatively well-known, I designated IRV as the count-rule.
>
> (I told people to rank only the candidates they approve of.)

That is a bit odd, since IRV meets Later-no-Harm and so there's never 
any strategic point in truncating.

> Of course, it's been pointed out that methods that elect the 
> pair-winner, among the winners by 2 different methods, tend to fail FBC.

And Mono-raise. It usually causes vulnerability (or greater 
vulnerability) to Push-over strategy.

Chris Benham


On 12/19/2016 6:49 AM, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 12:46 PM, Toby Pereira <tdp201b at yahoo.co.uk 
> <mailto:tdp201b at yahoo.co.uk>> wrote:
>
>     It depends on what you mean by polls. If it's just an opinion poll
>     to see what the likely result will be in an election (so something
>     that isn't in any way binding itself), it's about more than
>     finding a method that will produce a winner.
>
>
> Yes. This isn't a political poll at all. It's an online poll on a 
> non-political question, to find out what the CWs is, and which 
> alternatives have majority approval.
>
>     You want to be able to see the support of all the candidates, and
>     by having a method that's just set up for a winner (your
>     suggestion of the pairwise winner from two different counting
>     methods), you're not going to achieve what you want to achieve.
>     For this sort of poll, you can use a variety of different methods
>     and publish all the results
>
>
> Yes, when the result won't be implemented, then there's no reason why 
> it's necessary to name the count-method in advance, because the 
> results by various methods could be given. If there's participation in 
> that poll, I'll report results by MAM, Approval, &  probably 
> Pairwise-Winner (MAM,  Smith,MMPO).
>
>  Most likely there won't be strategy, and the CWs will win as CWv.
>
> But sometimes, when there are only a few voters, other methods can be 
> needed for tiebreaking.
>
> I recently did a poll on voting-systems, and MAM returned a tie 
> between Approval & Score.
>
> The alternatives were:
>
> Approval
> Score
> Bucklin
> MDDA
> MDDAsc
> IRV
> Benham
>
> But I noticed that Approval did better than Score in its pairwise 
> comparisons.
>
> 1. Approval pairbeat more alternatives than Score did.
>
> 2. The sum of Approval's pairwise votes against the other alternatives 
> was greater than that of Score.
>
> #1 means that Approval beats Score by Copeland.
>
> #2 means that Approval beats Score by a version of Borda.
>
> But #1 & #2 seem to compellingly indicate that Approval beats Score.
>
> Of course there are good reasons to not announce Copeland or Borda as 
> the count-rule. But, when there's a tie, they point to a winner in a 
> meaningful way.
>
> Somewhere else, at PoliticalForums, I'm conducting a presidential poll 
> between Hillary, Jill, Donald, & Gary.
>
> I don't know the winner so far, because someone additional has just 
> voted, and i haven't yet updated the count.
>
> Though PoliticalForums' Opinion-Polls forum supports Approval, with 
> balloting, count, & count-display fully automated (voting is by 
> click-bubble), I instead invited rankings.
>
> Because I wanted people to vote, and because IRV is so popular and 
> relatively well-known, I designated IRV as the count-rule.
>
> But I'll announce the winner by Approval,  Benham & by
> Pairwise-Winner (MAM, Smith,MMPO) too.
>
> (I told people to rank only the candidates they approve of.)
>
> I conducted a voting-systems poll there too, and Approval is the 
> winner there as well.
>
> I'm conducting two voting-system polls: One at PoliticalForums,and one 
> at CIVS (Condorcet Internet Voting Service).
>
> I emphasize that those two polls, at PoliticalForums & at CIVS, are to 
> find out how _the general public_ feels about voting-systems. 
> Obviously the people here at EM, who are not representative of the 
> general public on that subject, shouldn't vote in those 
> general-public-opinion polls.
>
> But of course feel free to check out the results.
>
> As I said, Approval is the consistent winner, at both polls. Score is 
> 2nd-best at CIVS. It seems to me that, at PoliticalForums, Score is 
> tied with Plurality. No one but me approved MDDA.
>
>     .
>
>     But if you're just talking about elections that aren't for public
>     office, then things are different. Some of these elections can be
>     done online.
>
>
> Yes, I've got several online polls going, on presidential candidates, 
> voting-systems, & nonpolitical reform questions.
>
> In the CIVS presidential poll, with 72 votes in, Jill Stein is the CWv 
> (with Bernie removed from the count).
>
> I invite people at EM to vote in the PoliticalForums presidential 
> poll, if they want to. Go to PoliticalForums (You can find a link to 
> it via google), and then go to its Opinion Polls forum. Among the 
> polls there is my presidential poll.
>
> As I said, of course the voting-system polls are only for the general 
> public, not for people who are familiar with voting-systems.
>
>     And for those that are likely to have an involved electorate that
>     are likely to be knowledgeable about the system, I would suggest
>     score voting but with live totals published and changeable votes.
>     So people can enter their scores, but if the current result
>     suggested they will need to adopt a more strategic approach, they
>     can change their vote accordingly. The only other thing I would
>     add is that the end time should probably be in some way
>     non-deterministic. Otherwise the live updates are likely to be
>     less effective. People might withhold their vote until the last
>     minute, or have a completely false vote that they change at the
>     last minute. So you might have 24 hours guaranteed (or however
>     long is deemed appropriate), and then it might randomly end with a
>     half life of an hour or something (which could be longer if the
>     initial guaranteed time is longer).
>
>
> Yes, that would be a good reliable way to find the CWs. It could be 
> feasible in a meeting-room, but, for most online polls, it isn't 
> feasible. For one thing, it's difficult enough to get people to vote 
> once.
>
> Rankings is usually a good way to find out the CWs, and MAM always 
> works fine at CIVS. But, at a forum where the people are very familiar 
> with the matter being voted on, and highly committed to some 
> alternative(s), I feel that it might be better to add Smith,MMPO's 
> defection-proofness, via
>
> Pairwise-Winner (MAM,  Smith,MMPO)
>
> or
>
> Pairwise-Winner (MAM,  Smith//MMPO)
>
> Any opinions on which would be better?
>
>
> Mike
>
>
>
>
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     *From:* Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com
>     <mailto:email9648742 at gmail.com>>
>     *To:* EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com
>     <mailto:election-methods at lists.electorama.com>>
>     *Sent:* Sunday, 18 December 2016, 6:05
>     *Subject:* [EM] Voting-System Choice for Polls (Just one more
>     thing I want to say)
>
>     Before quitting EM & retiring from voting-systems, there's one
>     more thing I'd like to say:
>
>     What's the best voting-system for polls?
>
>     Though FBC is important for official political elections, I don't
>     think it serves a purpose in polls, where the purpose is to get
>     sincere rankings, and hope that people vote sincere rankings. In
>     polls, the compulsion to favorite-bury is much less likely.
>
>     As I've said, I haven't noticed any sign (top-cycles for 1st
>     place) of strategy in polls.
>
>     I suggest that, for sincere electorates, MAM is the ideal best.
>     That means it's best for polls at the Condorcet Internet Voting
>     Service, where there's been no sign of strategy.
>
>     But what if you're doing a poll among people who are highly
>     involved in the subject that you're polling about, and have strong
>     committment to some alternatives? Like, for example, suppose
>     you're pollng at EM about voting-systems?
>
>     Maybe some members of the electorate will resort to strategy.
>     Especially if the electorate are a voting-system mailing-lislt.
>
>     So you can't really be sure that there'll be no chicken-dilemma
>     defection.
>
>     So maybe, instead of MAM, Smith//MMPO should be used.
>
>     It is automatically resistant to chicken-dilemma defection.
>
>     But, for burial, it isn't as good as MAM. With MAM, a candidate
>     that you, & sufficiently-many others, don't rank can't beat the
>     CWs by burial.
>
>     ...but it can in MMPO, though there's a lot of uncertainty & risk
>     in trying burial in MMPO.
>
>     Maybe Smith//MMPO's reliable automatic chicken-dilemma protection
>     is more important, because defection is easier & less drastic a
>     strategy than burial.
>
>     But maybe MAM's better burial protection is more important,
>     because burial temptation & opportunity is a lot more common than
>     a chicken-dilemma situation.
>
>     My suggestion: Use both.
>
>     Do the count by Smith//MMPO, & by MAM. Of the winners by those 2
>     methods, the final winner is the one that pairwise-beats the other.
>
>     That's a solid good solution, because:
>
>     In the chicken-dilemma example, and also in a burial example, the
>     intended victim of the offensive strategy pairbeats the perps'
>     candidate.
>
>     So, declaring, as winner, the one of those 2 winners that
>     pairbeats the other is definitely the best solution, if MAM &
>     Smith//MMPO are the best choices, each of which offers better
>     protection in different ways.
>
>     Of course, it's been pointed out that methods that elect the
>     pair-winner, among the winners by 2 different methods, tend to
>     fail FBC.
>
>     But FBC isn't needed in polls, where you want sincere ranking, not
>     equal-top-ranking.
>
>     Michael Ossipoff
>
>     ----
>     Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em
>     <http://electorama.com/em>for list info
>
>
>
>
>
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>
>
> No virus found in this message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com <http://www.avg.com>
> Version: 2016.0.7924 / Virus Database: 4739/13610 - Release Date: 12/18/16
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20161219/17f556be/attachment-0001.htm>


More information about the Election-Methods mailing list