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

[Michael Ossipoff]

On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 6:28 PM, Juho Laatu <juho.laatu at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 18 Dec 2016, at 20:31, Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>
>> At CIVS (Condorcet Internet Voting-Service) I've never noticed a
> top-cycle for 1st place. But for lower-place, later-finishers, there are
> often cycles, when there are lots of candidates, probably because of short
> rankings, or people guessing about their lower choices.
>
>
> Ok, no sincere top cycles, nor strategic ones. Only the possibility that
> someone might have sometimes voted strategically (without achieving
> anything). What are we worried about?
>

We have no reason to worry about offensive strategy in CIVS polls.

And so MAM is the best choice for CIVS polls. MAM is one of the rank-counts
that CIVS supports.

But sometimes I poll a forum about the subject that the forum debates, and
about which the members have strong favorites. That's where
P(MAM,  Smith,MMPO) comes in.



>
>
>
> When offensive strategy is used against the CWs, s/he'll be in the voted
> Smith-set. That's a good reason to elect from the voted Smith-set, so that
> the CWs can maybe be rescued.
>
>
> In theory that might save the CWs in some very rare cases.
>

I can't say why it's important to guarantee that the winner is in the voted
Smith-set, other than that it confers compliance with various criteria,
including Mutual-Majority.

But, because one member of the voted Smith set will be the CWs, if
truncation or burial is being attempted against it (neuter gender because
I'm talking about poll-alternatives) then that means that disqualifying
non-members of the voted Smith-set narrows the field in a way favorable to
the CWs.

But the important reason why Smith,MMPO needs the Smith set is to avoid
MMPO's Hitler-with-2-votes problem, without losing its full
truncation-proofness.


> Note that electing outside the Smith set may sometimes also help us, e.g.
> by making strategic plans void by not electing the (possibly strongly
> top-looped) favourite of the strategists.
>

Maybe, but, by pairwise-count standards, electing from the Smith set keeps
the winner among the pairwise publicly-favored candidates.

Of course, in an election, when Approval elects the candidate approved,
considered satisfactory by the most people, is probably more important than
electing the CWs or from the sincere Smith-set.

...as long as people accept not electing the CWs, and we don't have an
angry majority. But Approval's emphasis on satisfactory-ness should help
that acceptance.


>
> If you accept the claim that the best winner (when there is no CWs) can
> sometimes be found outside the Smith set, then use of Smith set means that
> sometimes one does not elect the best winner with sincere votes.
>

Sure, in elections, where the candidate satisfactory to the most people
isn't in the sincere Smith-set.

But, in polls, I'm just trying to find the CWs if there is one.


> That is also not very common, but it would be nice to always elect the
> best candidate. One should aim at that, unless there is a strong need to
> modify the system (= make it worse from sincere votes point of view) in
> order to defend the system against strategic voting (that is expected to
> lead to even worse consequences than not electing the best candidate with
> sincere votes).
>

Sure, there's a trade-off between electing the best candidate under
sincere-voting, vs thwarting &/or deterring offensive strategy.

MAM, by itself would surely, it seems to me, be the best way to find the
CWs, for sincere voters. Smith,MMPO surely departs from MAM's ideal
best-ness in that regard.  The use of P(MAM,   Smith,MMPO) means a
conscious choice for adding good chicken-dilemma protection, at the cost of
ideal best-ness, when it's desired to find the CWs.





>
>
>>
> Well, the feeling to want to do burial might be natural. Likewise
> truncation, which might not even be strategically-intended. Llikewise
> chicken-dilemma defection. People at EM would be the most familiar with
> those strategies, but anyone could feel the incentive for them.
>
> Most especially if you're polling, on some topic, a group of people who
> have strongly-preferred  favorites among the alternatives
>
>
> Now we are talking about irrational strategies and uneducated voters. The
> best defence against that might be trustworthy neutral experts that tell
> people that their interests are best served by voting sincerely, or at
> least not by using any clearly irrational strategies.
>

Well, the person starting the poll, when using a rank-count that thwarts &
sometimes penalizes offensive strategy, should advise voters that offensive
strategy probably won't work, and could backfire.


I'm sure there will always be some irrational behaviour, but that might be
> just general noise, and would not influence the election. If some large
> grouping will use some irrational strategy, and as a result will make the
> outcome of the election worse from their point of view, maybe they will
> learn and will vote rationally (sincerely or strategically) in the next
> election.
>

If the CWs is  in your strong bottom-set, then burial, even when it risks
electing a worse member of your strong bottom-set, isn't irrational, if
there's _any_ chance of successfully changing the winner to someone in your
strong top-set.

If we were using Condorcet, and if the expected CWs were a Repugnocrat, I'd
routinely use burial strategy, every time, in hopes of electing a
progressive. That's good strategy.

I'd also top-rank all the progressives.

[Replying farther down] :


>
> One more observation on how I would approach the problem of finding a
> Condorcet method that is sufficiently strategy proof. I would pick first
> the Condorcet method that produces best possible results with sincere
> votes. Then I'd let EM members watch one episode of some soap opera, and
> then vote on who was the best actor. That would be the first poll. Then
> they would watch another episode, and vote again in the second poll. Then
> they would watch one more episode, and cast their final vote. People would
> be allowed to discuss about their preferences, so that similar minded
> people would find each others, and they could plan strategies for the final
> election (and why not also for the polls). People would also be encouraged
> to publish strategic advice to others. People could also attach information
> on how they voted strategically in their ballot (note, not after the
> election but only in the ballot when voting). This whole process would be
> repeated few times.
>

But people would then be using counterstrategy agains the declared
offensive strategy, and that would make it unrealistic, because in real
elections, the voters might not be as adept at counterstrategy.

Why not just, instead, work out hypothetical results out on paper, instead
of using actual voting?

But, ever since EM started, I've always felt that poll are super useful &
valuable, as the only way to find out what it's like to use the various
voting-systems. You probably know that I started lots of polls at EM.
They've fallen out of fashion, and I consider that regrettable, because you
can't fully evaluate  & compare voting-systems without actually trying
them. Voting in polls, and counting polls.

So yes, I'm in favor of polls at EM. Regrettably no one else is.

Many-party presidential polls. Polls on voting-systems.

And, if there isn't agreement on what method or count-rule should be used,
then use "Voter's Choice", in which a voter can designate a rank-count such
that his Approval ballot will automatically approve down to the winner by
his designated voting-system. When we used Voter's Choice, there was a
"manual" option, by which the voter could opt for his Approval ballot to be
used, instead of that automatic approval-cutoff placement.


>  I have great trust on the skills of people on this mailing list, but so
> far I have not seen any good strategic guidance for voters or parties in
> real life Condorcet elections.
>

Well, I mentioned, above, that I'd routinely use burial strategy when the
expected CWs is in my strong bottom-set, in an official Condorcet election.



> Maybe there are reasons for that. Maybe people don't have any good advices
> to give :-). Maybe already basic Condorcet methods are strategy proof
> enough for typical large scale competitive elections and polls.
>

As others have pointed out, that might be so. No one knows. Maybe no
problem. Maybe the perpetual burial fiasco.   ...if I'm typical  :^)

But, to clarify, I doubt that the expected CWs will be in my strong
bottom-set. I have more confidence in the public's judgment.

For example, in most Internet presidential polls, the CWv is a Green or
other progressive like Bernie or Nader.  Jill Stein is the CWv in my
23-candidate, 17-party 2016 Presidential poll.
.
Michael Ossipoff


>
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