[EM] Tideman sort tie-breaker proposal

[Lucas Dailey]

I’m working with some talented software developers to build an open source,
multi-winner  implementation of Ranked Pair/Tideman tailored toward
budgeting to enable legislators to collectively and fairly rank their
budget priorities to arrive at a democratic budget. As a former municipal
legislator (Madison, WI) I discovered first-hand how dramatically typical
budgeting processes can distort budgets and cause worthy initiatives to go
unfunded.



While building our open source software we quickly discovered the sort tie
problem. I prefer Tideman/RP for public elections because it’s relatively
conceptually simple compared to its criterion-meeting peers (I’m still a
fan, Markus Schulze!). I can explain it to voters and politicians. However
none of the Tideman tie-breaking procedures I’ve heard of meet that same
criterion of explainability and grounding in democracy.



I have a procedure that I believe meets those criteria, which I paraphrase
as the “Lost worst: locked-in first” procedure. I like it, and I’d love to
get feedback on it. I also imagine others have thought of it before so any
research that’s been done would be helpful. Also the procedure wouldn’t
work in every scenario so I proposed a secondary procedure that is less
inspiring but still better than many alternatives (and also unlikely to
work in every scenario).



We’re working to have the software ready in the next couple months, so any
feedback now would be greatly appreciated. And of course if anyone wants to
contribute to the project we’re happy to work with other developers,
designers, and mathematicians.



Here’s a quick deck explaining the procedure:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1K6VWjMwscspFKRzc2h6YWfWEkqdnQgcLVyVXdTsEbkE/edit#slide=id.p



Thanks in advance for your feedback!



Cheers,

Lucas

-- 
Lucas Dailey
blog: medium.com/@lucasdailey
work: Product Manager | PropellerHealth.com <http://propellerhealth.com/>
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