[EM] The tree is known by its fruits.

Tue Oct 10 11:20:12 PDT 2017

Going back to the original dispute between Condorcet and Borda, someone 
no less than Laplace decided to adjudicate. (Rated one of the half dozen 
most respected mathematicians in human history.) I've read the 
discussion by JFS Ross (himself an engineer) in Elections and Electors. 
He doesn't go into details but the jist seems to be, that in the 
mathematical proof of Laplace, Borda was to be prefered, because he 
takes into account the relative weight or importance of each order of 
preference, whereas Condorcet treats them as all of equal weight.

However, since then, weighted Condorcet pairing was introduced. I don't 
know how much difference it makes. Tho, I found, from an actual example, 
that it agreed with Borda, in an election contrived to make 5 voting 
systems disagree. This contradicted von Paulos: Beyond Numeracy, 
justifying theorem Arrow. Hence, I acknowledge the information value of 
weighted Condorcet pairing. But it was not the method I decided to 
specialise in (which is a criticism).
Since then, Borda also has been superseded by the Gregory method of 
weighting.

The simplest way round the Condorcet paradox with IRV is that it is less 
of a problem with STV in multi-member constituencies, which are more 
representative.
More-over, I have invented a method that does away with premature 
exclusion of candidates altogether. (Binomial STV.)

Richard Lung.

On 09/10/2017 07:21, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
>
>
>
> ---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
> Subject: Re: [EM] The tree is known by its fruits.
> From: "Kristofer Munsterhjelm" <km_elmet at t-online.de>
> Date: Sun, October 8, 2017 8:21 am
> To: "Richard Lung" <voting at ukscientists.com>
> "EM" <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > On 10/08/2017 01:26 PM, Richard Lung wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> The tree is known by its fruits.
> >>
> >> So, election methods cannot be perfect. Whoever said they could?
>
> ...
> >
> > This all seems to be a matter of politics, as it were. The imperfection
> > of voting methods mean that you have to choose which is best based on
> > what behavior and criteria you value.
> >
>
> one important criterion for an election system for public office is 
> transparency in the process (which, in my opinion, requires 
> precinct-summability but there *could* be a klunky way to have an 
> equivalent transparency with STV or IRV, which is not really precinct 
> summable).
>
> another important criterion for an election system for public office 
> is enough simplicity in the tabulation procedure and the manner the 
> winner is decided.  this is where i disagree with Rob Richie and 
> FairVote about IRV (which now they have appropriated the term 
> "Ranked-Choice Voting" (RCV) for IRV, which bothers me).  I assert 
> that Condorcet (which Condorcet is a secondary issue) is simpler than 
> IRV and is more simply extends the most fundamental principles that 
> voters expect to keep from the familiar FPTP elections, which is equal 
> voting weight for every voter ("one person one vote") and in the 
> expected result of a Condorcet Winner, resolving the election exactly 
> as would happen between the winner and *any* of the losers.
>
> IRV will decide an election the same as Condorcet if the CW gets to 
> the final round (is either in 1st or 2nd place in first-preference 
> votes).  IRV will successful avoid IIA (a spoiled election) if the 
> spoiler really had no chance winning (but gets enough votes in a close 
> election to change the winner among other candidates).  but when there 
> are three candidate, all roughly equal in support before the election, 
> where the outcome of the election could plausibly go any of three (or 
> more) ways, the IRV fails.  In Burlington 2009, one candidate was the 
> initial Plurality Winner, another was the Condorcet Winner, another 
> was the IRV winner.  but the Plurality Winner was the spoiler.  it was 
> the conservative minority in the city that experiences the failed 
> promise that "they could vote for the candidate the principally want 
> without worry of helping elect the candidate they hate the most."  
>  IRV was repealed but if it hadn't, these conservatives would have to 
> tell themselves that they must choose between "Liberal" and "More 
> Liberal", because if they vote #1 for the candidate they really like, 
> then More Liberal gets elected.  now we're back to FPTP with a 40% 
> minimum.
>
> my major harping or critique i have with FairVote is not recognizing 
> the damage to the cause of election reform when the method they push 
> so hard to get some jurisdiction to consider and adopt, that if the 
> method suffers a major failure soon after adoption (for Burlington it 
> was the second IRV election after adoption) and gets promptly 
> repealed, that it will set back election reform for at least a 
> generation (you gotta get some of the people who were screwed by the 
> IRV screwup to die or move away for a bunch of fresh voters to 
> consider reform).  so we really should push the better ranked-choice 
> voting method than IRV.
>
> i s'pose with some, i am preaching to the choir, but i am also 
> pragmatic and i think that *pragmatically* Condorcet is a better sell 
> than IRV.
>
> it turns out that Santa Fe is struggling to get RCV implemented (the 
> voters adopted it nearly a decade ago, but it hasn't been implemented) 
> and FairVote is advocating in this case, and Rob was very disappointed 
> in me when an op-ed i wrote for them to be a little wary about 
> terminology and what they mean by "RCV". the op-ed is here: 
> http://www.santafenewmexican.com/opinion/my_view/looking-in-the-differences-in-ranked-choice-voting/article_77d7e472-6876-529b-acc9-ca7fffdcc896.html 
> .
>
> i dunno, do you think that i helped the cause or hurt the cause of 
> election reform with that piece?
>
> --
>
> r b-j rbj at audioimagination.com
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>
>
>
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - seehttp://electorama.com/em  for list info

-- 
Richard Lung.
http://www.voting.ukscientists.com
Democracy Science series 3 free e-books in pdf:
https://plus.google.com/106191200795605365085
E-books in epub format:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/democracyscience

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20171010/abbbec85/attachment-0001.html>