[EM] (4) Vote-wasting questions: Steve 4th dialogue with Kristofer

steve bosworth stevebosworth at hotmail.com
Fri Jan 29 11:23:03 PST 2016


 


Re: [EM] (4) Vote-wasting questions:
Steve 4th dialogue with Kristofer




> From: km_elmet at t-online.de

> Subject: Re: [EM] (3) Vote-wasting questions: Steve 3rd dialogue with
Kristofer

> To: stevebosworth at hotmail.com; election-methods at lists.electorama.com

> Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2016 23:11:23 +0100




From Steve to Kristofer and everyone:


 

> On 01/22/2016 11:28 PM, steve bosworth wrote:

> > 

> > Re: [EM] (3) Vote-wasting questions: Steve 3rd dialogue with
Kristofer

> > 

> >> From: km_elmet at t-online.de

> >> Subject: Re: [EM] (2) Vote-wasting questions: Steve 2nd dialogue
with Kristofer

> >> To: stevebosworth at hotmail.com;
election-methods at lists.electorama.com

> >> Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2016 01:16:23 +010

 

K: > >> For something like

> >> 

> >> 10: A>B

> >> 11: C>B

> >> 12: D

> >> 

> >> and two seats, electing A and C wastes votes (12 of them to be
exact),

> >> but electing B and D doesn't.

> > 

> > S: No. In this case, APR would elect C with a “weighted vote” of 11
and

> > D with a weighted vote of 12. The 10 votes given to A would be wasted

> > only by ordinary IRV using “weighted votes”. In contrast, APR would
not waste these

> > 10 because it gives each citizen who fails to rank any candidate that
is

> > elected the option of requiring her 1^st choice but eliminated
candidate

> > to transfer her one vote to the elected candidate whom that
eliminated

> > candidate trusts most (e.g. see the Sample Secret Ballot at the end
of

> > the article). However, perhaps I have never sent you a copy of my

> > article that systematically explains APR: “Equal Voting Sustained”. 

> > Separately I will send it to you now and to anyone else who might

> > request it. Perhaps together with the above additional explanation,
my

> > APR proposal will be clearer?

> 

K: > Thanks for doing so. So your definition is, if I've understood it
right:

> 

> A voter's vote is not wasted if either

> 1. one of the candidates he ranked above last is a winner, or

> 2. none are, and the voter lets his first preference choice give his

> vote to someone who is a winner.


> (end definition)


S: 
Yes.


K: > Suppose for simplicity that
every voter lets his first preference choice

> delegate his vote in that manner (otherwise, it's impossible to not

> waste votes), and that every voter's first preference has a winner that

> he can tolerate (again, otherwise it's impossible).


S: Yes.


K: > In the past posts, I first
asked about examples since it seemed to

> me that the condition of not wasting votes was weak enough so many

> methods could pass it. Then you showed what you meant in a more detailed

> way, to which I replied that the resulting property was both impossible

> to satisfy completely, and in some cases undesirable even if relaxed.

> 

> Now you've further specified the criterion, and I hope the definition

> above is accurate. That further specification does solve the issue of

> impossibility and undesirability, but it simply moves the problem back

> into the old situation where "not wasting votes" is
underspecified (i.e.

> the property is weak).

> 

> Consider the Plurality alternative where you mass-eliminate the n-k

> candidates with fewest Plurality votes. That is, if there are 20

> candidates and 10 seats: the method eliminates the 10 candidates with

> the fewest first preference votes in one blow at the first round, then

> elects the 10 remaining as winners.

> 

> You correctly said that such a method can waste votes (as I understood

> it in the original definition) because there may be voters who voted

> only for the 10 that got eliminated. However, given the fix above, that

> "each citizen who fails to rank any candidate that is elected [is
given]

> the option of requiring her 1^st choice but eliminated candidate to

> transfer her one vote to the elected candidate who that eliminated

> candidate trusts most", it's pretty easy to patch the Plurality
method

> too. You end up with something like:

> 

> 1. Eliminate the 10 candidates with fewest first preferences.

> 2. Assign each voter who ranked any of the 10 remaining winners to the

> winner he ranked first.

> 3. Ask each voter who failed to rank any of the 10 remaining winners the

> option of requiring the first ranked on his ballot to transfer his votes

> to one of the 10 remaining candidates.

> 4. Once done, no votes are wasted.


S:
Yes.

> 

K: > Even a most unsatisfying "upside-down" method could be made
to waste

> no votes:

> 

> 1. Eliminate the 10 candidates with the *most* first preferences.

> 2. Assign each voter who ranked any of the 10 remaining winners to the

> winner he ranked first.

> 3. Ask each voter who failed to rank any of the 10 remaining winners the

> option of requiring the first ranked on his ballot to transfer his votes

> to one of the 10 remaining candidates.

> 4. Once done, no votes are wasted.


 


S:  Yes, but we agree that this method’s starting
by eliminating the 10 with the most 1st preferences would be
especially crazy, i.e. “upside-down”.

> 

K: > Thus, clearly this fixed criterion cannot distinguish good methods from

> bad ones by itself. It is weak (or ambiguous) in the sense that it admits
both good and bad methods. It's not a bad thing for a property to

> be weak in itself - for instance, the monotonicity criterion is quite

> whether a method is good or not.


 


S:  Correct.




[….]


K:
> In short, not wasting votes becomes either impossible or not always

> desirable (if using the previous definition); or very weak (if using the

> current definition). To show just how general it is, consider that it

> technically lets single-winner elections be free of vote-wasting:

> 

> 1. Elect a single winner by your method of choice.

> 2. Ask the voters who failed to rank this winner to let their first

> preference choice say "I choose the winner" and thus transfer
the

> voter's vote to the winner.

> 3. No votes are wasted.


S:  Correct.  Still, APR seems to be the best method to
which such “default” asset voting should be added for the reasons presented
below.  However, before I do that, I want
to claim that in comparison to all other electoral system not using the above
asset voting, APR (also without this asset addition) still does all it could do
to allow each citizen to guarantee that her one vote will be added to the
weighted vote of the one elected candidate of all the pre-established number of
the assembly’s members whom she most trusts to speak, work, and vote faithfully
on her behalf.  Do you agree?  Also in this case, this simplified APR might
waste some votes.


In our previous dialogue you said you would only deal with
“quantitative” wasting of votes and all your examples illustrate perhaps how
any electoral system could be design not to waste any vote mathematically if
“default” asset voting were to be added to it. 
Thank you for making this point clear.


At the same time, I would still appreciate your assessment
of my claim that APR (now including the above “default asset voting” feature
will not be “qualitatively” wasting any votes either, i.e. APR enables each
citizen to guarantee that her one vote will be given to the one member’s
“weighted vote” of all the members of the assembly whom she is likely to see as
the most likely to represent her faithfully.


In fact, APR’s inclusion of the “default” asset feature seems
to use this feature more efficiently than any other system could as far as I
can see.  This is because APR allows each
citizen to choose the one candidate from all the many candidates in country
whom she most trust (and whom may be eliminated) to transfer her one vote, if
necessary, to the elected candidate he believes is most likely to represent him
and her faithfully in the assembly, e.g. to the elected candidate highest on
his own pre-published list during the general election campaign.


In addition to these 2 aides to increasing the average
quality of representation using full APR, a 3rd aid starts with APR’s
primary election.  It enables each citizen
to help to select one geographically or non-geographically defined voluntary organization
to become the official electoral “association” through which she will vote
during the later general election.  While
making this selection during the primary, she is both helping to give extra
political influence to the organization which she sees as embodying many of her
own scale of values, and encourages more attractive fellow citizens to run to
represent her and her “association” in the assembly.  This makes it more likely that she will have
a longer list of very attractive candidates from her point of view to rank
during the general election.  In turn, this
makes it more likely that the “weighted vote” of the member in the assembly to
which her one vote will be added will be the one member in the assembly seen by
her to be the most attractive elected candidate, i.e. the one most likely to
represent her faithfully.


Do you agree?  What do
you think?


Steve 


 		 	   		  
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