[EM] Fwd: U/P voting: new name for simple 3-level method.

[Kevin Venzke]

Hi Jameson, 

________________________________ 
>>De : Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com> 
>>À : EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com> 
>>Envoyé le : Jeudi 8 septembre 2016 10h09 
>>Objet : [EM] Fwd: U/P voting: new name for simple 3-level method. 
>> 
>>MCA (the one with three slots) has the simpler description surely? If there's a majority preferred, elect the most preferred; else 
>>elect the most approved (least disapproved). 
> 
>Using parallel language to yours, here's U/P: 
> 
>If there's a majority acceptable (minority unacceptable), elect the one of those that's most preferred. Else elect the most preferred. 
> 
>That's 4 words more complicated. You could do it in fewer than 4 extra words if you really wanted. 

Ok. Is it better than MCA? 

>>So you are saying if nobody manages to get majority approval, you will only be using the top ratings and ignoring "acceptable" ratings? 
>That is unusual; my instinct is that if we can't find a majority we should try to find votes to get as close as possible. There's a 
>risk that you are collecting enough information to permit concluding e.g. that a simultaneous approval and Condorcet winner lost. 
> 
>Yes, this is possible. But consider the kind of scenario where it happens: 
> 
>20: A>B 
>20: A,B 
>19: B 
>2: C>B 
>39: C 
> 
>In this case A wins, even though B is approval and Condorcet winner. But I find this kind of thing very implausible in practice; and 
>if such a pathology occurred, it would not be a horrible outcome. It's implausible because the electorate above is bizarrely top-heavy 
>in its ratings; except for the C>B voters, who could make B win by voting C,B, in view of the fact that C is a clear loser against A 
>and B. 

This specific thing is probably unlikely, but my general concern is that you might collect a bunch of middle slot ratings without 
doing anything with them, and public might be able to speculate about whether it made sense. 

I am not sure why you called the above scenario bizarrely top-heavy. It's a top-heavy method. I'm not too clear on when one should 
be using the middle slot really. 

> 
>It's not a horrible outcome because a majority of the electorate is fine with A, and there are more voters enthusiastic about A than 
>about B. 
> 
> 
>> 
>>I don't see why you are making rules for unmarked candidates if your intended advantage is simplicity. I believe you explained why 
>you have this to somebody else, so I won't ask you to repeat, but I wonder about the effect of the sentence that starts "And second." 
>You're saying that if A has majority preferred+acceptable, but is not top two on preferred ratings, to count blanks as disapproved 
>in hopes that this might remove A's majority approval (or rather, non-disapproval)? 
> 
>No. I'm saying that if the top two preferred are both disqualified, then all blanks should count as "unacceptable", including for 
>those top two. 

Yes I got that, but those top two were already majority unacceptable, so it should make no difference, right? 

>> 
>>Aside from the weird Clone-Loser issue in having a top-two rule on a ratings ballot, 
> 
>The chances that one faction would go to all the trouble of a clone campaign simply to get the uncertain advantage of guaranteeing 
>that ? counts as unacceptable... seems very remote to me. 

I won't dispute that, but not all clones are perfect clones, and not all are deliberately nominated. Usually the point of "top two" 
is to identify the two strongest, and mutually exclusive blocs. It seems basic to me that you wouldn't want to use that particular 
mechanism if they might not be different blocs. 

>> 
>>it feels a little schizophrenic to me that you really want winners to have majority non-disapproval yet do not actually think it 
>>indicates a worthy candidate. 
> 
>I think that majority explicit non-disapproval does indicate a worthy candidate; and that majority implicit non-disapproval is 
>better than majority disapproval IF the candidate achieved sufficient scrutiny (which we can assume is true for the two frontrunners). 
>But I think that unless we have evidence that a candidate got scrutinized, majority of combined unacceptable or didn't-bother-rating 
>is as bad as a majority of unacceptable. 

Sure, I just wish it seemed more organic. 

> 
>> 
>>I tend to think we will be lucky if we can consistently get even one majority non-disapproved candidate in elections. 
> 
>I disagree. The people who hate both frontrunners in the current system are louder than those who are OK with either; and in the 
>current presidential election, they might well be more numerous; but in the average election, I think that "either one is acceptable" 
>is more common than we might realize. 

Hmm... Voters who are OK with either? I have a lot of questions about that. Firstly do these voters really exist. And do they vote? 
Would they be willing to put on the ballot that they are OK with either? 

>> 
>>In a U/P race with two major candidates, one of those is basically guaranteed to get the label penalty in the next race. 
> 
>Note that in the current system, "you lost last time" usually means you don't get to run again. Gore, Kerry, McCain, Romney... didn't 
>run again after being nominated. Clinton... waited a cycle. So this rule would mostly matter only for those who won in a NOTA 
>election (that is, one in which all candidates had majority unacceptable). I think that there should be some difference between "won 
>with majority acceptable" and "won despite majority unacceptable", and that a label penalty that the voters can choose to ignore is 
>not excessive. 

We have a while to wait to see whether Clinton fits the mold of the others. But anyway, it sounds like your main intention is to 
penalize candidates who actually won, not those who lost. That is more interesting than I was thinking. 

Kevin 

> 
> 
>________________________________ 
> De : Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com> 
>À : EM <election-methods at lists.electo rama.com>; electionsciencefoundation <electionscience at googlegroups. com> 
>Envoyé le : Mercredi 7 septembre 2016 12h59 
>Objet : Re: [EM] U/P voting: new name for simple 3-level method. 
> 
> 
> 
>The main advantage of U/P voting over other systems like MJ or MCA is simplicity of description. So I'm going to try to describe it as simply as possible. 
> 
> 
>To vote, you rate each person running as "preferred", "acceptable", or "unacceptable". You can rate any number at each level. 
> 
> 
>If more than half of voters rate a person "unacceptable", that person can't win, unless the same is true of all the people running. Of those remaining, the winner is the one rated "preferred" by the most voters. 
> 
> 
>If you leave all three ratings blank for a candidate, that usually means the same as rating them "acceptable". There are two exceptions. First, if you made a mark to rate some candidates "acceptable", then the ones you didn't make any mark for are counted as "unacceptable". And second, if the two most-preferred candidates both can't win, because more than half of voters marked them "unacceptable", then candidates with no mark count as "unacceptable". That way, you don't end up letting a weak candidate win by mistake. 
> 
> 
>2016-09-06 13:17 GMT-04:00 Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com>: 
> 
>I've recently posted a few messages discussing a simple 3-level graded Bucklin method: 
>> 
>>Ballot: For each candidate, you may rate them “preferred”, “acceptable”, or “unacceptable”. Any candidate, including an incumbent, who had gotten over 50% "unacceptable" in the prior election would have a note to that effect next to their name on the ballot. (In prior messages, I'd suggested not allowing them on the ballot. I now think that allowing them on, but with a note, would be better.) 
>> 
>> 
>>Counting: For the current eIection, if some but not all candidates have a majority (50%+1) of “unacceptable” votes, then they are disqualified. The winner is the non-disqualified candidate with the most approvals. 
>> 
>> 
>>My new name for the above system is U/P voting. It stands for "unacceptable/preferred", and can be pronounced "up voting" for quick discussion; or "you pee voting" if necessary to avoid confusion. 
>