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

[robert bristow-johnson]

these are soooo loquacious that i don't (and cannot) read all through them.  and i haven't been reading any in the other titled threads.



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

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

Date: Fri, November 25, 2016 10:48 pm

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

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

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>

> There's good consensus at EM about MDDAsc being the best deluxe

> ranking-method.
not much conversation nor cross-conversation here to really discern a "good consensus" about anything.
i think, over the years, that there is consensus that IRV=bad but Plurality=worse.
> I'd suggest that those 4 methods should be offered in
proposals for
> municipal and state voting-system reform.
it's dumb.  especially when you include Bucklin on the list of 4.  that's just dumb.
> Let an initiative committee, &/or

> the public (vial polls & focus-groups) choose among them, to choose the

> best proposal for an initiative or referendum, or a legislated

> voting-system reform.

 
you contact whomever you want in Burlington.  but you don't understand when a "voting-system reform" backfires and is repealed.  it sets back by a generation other "voting-system reform".  Burlington and Vermont are pretty liberal places and we have
the most successful third party in the United States.  we even had a gubernatorial election 2 years ago when the GOP got burned from Plurality.  (the Libertarian candidate had 3x the margin between the Dem Plurality winner and the GOP 2nd place.)  yet there is no talk of voting system
reform since IRV was repealed in 2010 a year after it messed up.
no one's gonna be looking at your voting system reform based on Approval voting.  it's because they will be skeptical to begin with.  they will ask basic questions and you are unable to answer an extremely basic
question:  How can this relieve voters of the burden of tactical voting when a voter cannot know, for sure, if their political interests are best expressed by Approving their second choice or not?

>>> So rankings can soften voting errors, for rivals and for some

>>> overcompromisers.

>>>

>>> ...but not for all overcompromisers. Some overcompromisers are so

>>> overcompromising that the only thing that can keep them from voting

>>> Compromise over Favorite is if they have an opportunity to rank them both

>>> at top, with the assurance that top-voting Favorite can't possibly hurt

>>> Compromise.
this is totally speculative.  you have no idea who the "overcompromisers" are, what their interests are, and what they would do with whatever ballot design.  and obviating the "overcompromizer's" motivation to over compromise by making a
ballot that encourages overcompromising (which is equally-approving their second choice to their fav) does nothing with the other set of voters that really want to support their favorite but still want to express support for their second-choice over the candidate they hate.
>>> ....in
other words, for them, the method must allow equal
>>> top-voting, and must meet FBC.
outside of any cycles (both with and without sincere voting), Condorcet is fine avoiding favorite betrayal.  and i am convinced that cycles in reality will be very rare.  and that is because Nader voters would chose Gore over Bush.
 and Bush voters would choose Gore over Nader.  (and it doesn't matter whether Gore voters would choose Nader over Bush or not because Gore was the centrist candidate.)  it just resolves the election the same way as it would if the CW run against any other candidate in a two-candidate
simple-majority race where everyone agrees how the votes should be counted.  no reward for betraying your favorite, all you do by bumping up your contingency candidate is help that candidate defeat your fav. doesn't help you defeat your hated candidate.
> Aside from that psychological
need for rankings, Approval is better.
it's not merely a psychological need.  ranking is what we do to discern and differentiate whom voters (with equally weighted one-person-one-vote) prefer.  in a situation in Burlington, often liberals will "approve" of both the Prog and
the Dem (over someone more conservative).  they'll take either the Prog or the Dem over the conservative, but they may prefer one over the other.  Approval gives no mechanism for that differentiation of "which liberal do you prefer?" with such a voter (unless that voter does not
approve their second choice, in which case they cannot express their preference of their contingency candidate or second choice over their hated candidate.)

> Approval, Score, Bucklin & MDDAsc are reliable and solid.
an opinion with no real support.  you cannot answer that basic challenge with either Approval or Score.  Bucklin is RCV and if it doesn't elect the Condorcet Winner, it has the same problem of legitimacy that IRV has
(which is why are we electing this Candidate B when more of us marked our ballots that we prefer Candidate A?).  you'll never get past your first 10 sentences introducing whatever MDDAsc to a legislature nor voting public to adopt.  (it's also the reason i don't think Schulze will get very
far, even if it's the best Condorcet.)
Michael and Daniel.  you guys are together form an echo-chamber.  you are more essentially cheerleaders for Approval than effective proponents.




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