[EM] Comprehensive, simplest, and most informative Indicative Voting

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

I don't write much on election methods of late, because I came to see 
voting methods as a problem of interest, all right, but not actually the 
core problem, and I saw little interest in the voting systems community 
in the fundamental, underlying structural issues that then lead to 
endless regress on voting systems I will here, lay that out.

First of all, parliamentary procedure evolved to consider one question, 
and only one question, at a time, a question that can be answered Yes or 
No, and for an option to win, rules varied, but the best rules (my 
opinion) required a true majority of an assembly. Moving away from an 
absolute majority was a move down a slippery slope that might be 
justified in this or that condition, and the development of fascism is 
always "reasonable." After all, trains run on time, etc. Under Robert's 
Rules, truly important issues require a two-thirds majority, or 
sometimes an absolute majority of all eligible voters.

What was called the "nuclear option" in the Senate was always possible, 
but avoided because it was important to decide, first, *by 
supermajority* that the body was ready to vote on the main issue. 
Increasingly, over time, that was chipped way, going to 60% from 
two-thirds for cloture. The stated reason is always efficiency, as with 
every fascist move. Can't have a vocal minority gumming up the works, 
can we? Then the nuclear option was based on the rule that an absolute 
majority can do anything with an organization. The right of the minority 
against an absolute majority is to leave, and, of course, if fascism is 
prevalent, that is prohibited.

(I have been using "fascism" lately quite as Mussolini used it, where 
the will of the collective, as represented by the "leader(s)" is to be 
enforced, and individual freedom (he called it "individualism")  is to 
be suppressed, for collective welfare. This has always been a strain in 
human organization, in dialectic with freedom. The future is in 
synthesis, where it is understood that diversity is crucial to human 
survivability and collective wisdom, so restrictions on freedom of 
thought and expression are to be minimized to what is immediately and 
emergently necessary. So can the FDA ban books and burn them if they 
contain "quackery"? The fascist answer is, "Of course, and it must!" Yet 
there are other possibilities, such as creating and requiring informed 
consent, warning and notice, as has been done with cigarettes and 
cigarette advertising. But in a fascist environment, which modern social 
media readily become (even though it paradoxically seems to be maximally 
free), synthetic compromises are drowned in the noise. Each side of a 
debate is demonized by the other.)

So, for elections, as a way to broaden choice, it was allowed to have 
more than one option that could receive votes, and the rule was vote for 
one. But there was another rule, often forgotten, that to win an 
election, the winning candidate was required to receive a majority of 
the votes, not merely a plurality. If not, then the election was to be 
repeated. The whole thing, including nominations. Further, every marked 
ballot (if it was marked with any mark) was considered to be a vote, 
counted in the basis for majority. Restricted runoffs were instituted to 
attempt to find that majority, but they have well-known flaws, most 
notably center squeeze. This could all be fixed, but it does not 
actually address a core issue, the submission of questions to an 
electorate that is largely ignorant, on the one hand, or easily 
manipulated by media and mob mentality. (Classic arguments against 
democracy.)

The old majority-required-to-prevail rule still applies in assemblies 
that meet face-to-face, because it can be quickly done. It could also be 
quickly done in modern times with internet voting. But there is a killer 
solution that also addresses the more fundamental problem of an ignorant 
electorate, and "ignorant" here is not a moral failure. Presenting 
complex issues to an electorate that does not have time to truly 
investigate and consider them is a formula for failure, though it can 
work well enough that we have not immediately recognized and addressed 
the problem. The killer solution is to create a truly representative 
assembly, chosen as fully trusted (or as fully as possible) to make all 
those decisions, including officer elections. Asset Voting, in a word or 
two.

As democracy matures, it will come to value consensus as distinct from 
the win-lose thinking of majority rule. But majority rule is necessary 
because the alternative is minority rule, not consensus. That is, the 
majority has the right of decision, but will, to foster the strength of 
the organization, protect the minority. I have seen organizations where 
the majority goes out of its way to ensure that the minority is fully 
heard, and minority reports are issued if the minority desires it. Such 
organizations have been phenomenally successful.

And it can all fall apart of they drop the protections of the minority 
in the name of efficiency. Fascism.

What may be appropriate for the Brexit issue would be polling, 
especially given that there was a vote. The ideal polling method is 
obviously Score. Problems with Score are caused by its use for *decisions*.

The actual decision would be made by the best representative body, which 
can deliberate and debate and amend and all that. If that body is not 
truly representative *that's the problem," and it is going to be a worse 
problem if Britain exits the EU, because Parliament will be less 
restrained. So, from this thinking, the public can be polled, as an 
advisory poll, used to inform Parliament, which, representing the 
people, will decide, not being bound by the advice, but informed by it. 
Sanely, Parliament will respect the opinions of the people, but those 
change and can be quite labile. If it decides to cancel Brexit or modify 
it, it will address the concerns, it will seek to unify British society.

Or it will seek personal, individual political advantage and gain, and 
if enough members do that, Britain sails off to Hell in a handbasket.

Now, if Score is to be used, what form?

There are those who want to see min/max scoring either required or used. 
This is all designed to create definitive decisions more efficiently. 
Reality is that voters have views of different strength, and the most 
informed voters might rationally have stronger opinions. Perhaps. Not 
always!

Human choice is not as finely graded as to be clearly expressable on a 
scale of 0-100 or 0-99. I would suggest using 0-9, anything more 
complicates the ballot without benefit, other than attempting to force 
choice, and forced choice when the voter has no strong preference 
creates noise in the system. I used to suggest having a + checkbox that 
would allow a voter to express a distinction within a score, but this is 
really a fish bicycle in a *poll*. I can think of many refinements, such 
as two parts to the question. First part: how important is this to you? 
Second part, within the choices, mark favorite, rejected, or in between.

Asking voters to rank candidates where there is no significant 
preference between them is, again, asking them to create noise. In the 
criticism of Score by that Borda advocate, he posited the scenario where 
a majority of voters preferred A, giving A a 10 (say), but also gave B a 
9, but enough voters gave B a 10 and B a 0, to cause B to win, and this 
was somehow considered offensive. The idea is that the B voters were 
"insincere" and merely wanted B to win, so they downvoted A. However, 
this shows how fascist concepts ("first choice of a majority must win") 
can easily slip in. The choice of B, given the votes, will satisfy every 
voter, it is a true consensus choice (and this is especially visible if 
there was another candidate, C, truly disliked by a majority.)

But all those considerations fall away if the poll does not decide, but 
merely informs the actual decision-makers, who would make that decision 
by standard deliberative process: a two-thirds vote to decide when the 
Yes/No question is ready for a vote, and then a vote on the question, 
and if a majority does not vote Yes, the question fails and no decision 
is (yet) made.

This respects the rights of the minority. A mature assembly, seeking 
genuine public unity, may go even further than that, being willing to be 
patient with the "idiots on the other side."

(Another way to state this under standard rules is "first choice of a 
two-thirds majority wins." They can amend the question to be that choice 
(that takes mere majority), they can then vote Previous Question, and 
then only a majority is required. So the loss of the supermajority 
requirement for cloture in the U.S. Senate is a major blow to 
deliberative democracy, not a mere detail. The political environment has 
become shamelessly fascist.)

(It is an error to equate fascism with left/right or racism or other 
specific traits of specific fascist regimes. In three different versions 
of Mussolini's paper on fascism, he equated fascism in the twentieth 
century with the rise of the*righ**t*, in another version, he omitted 
the statement, and in another official translation he equated it with 
the rise of the *left*. The common factor in all three versions was "the 
century of the collective." Hence the symbol of fascism, the strength 
created by binding sticks -- individuals -- into a unity, the binding 
being the power of leaders and collective will.)

On 4/1/2019 7:34 AM, Kevin Venzke wrote:
> That's including first and last choice, I assume. It's not going to be 
> as informative if everybody automatically uses 100 and 0.
>
> Kevin

I agree. There is no reason to require or even suggest all to use the 
full scale. Using less than full scale then can allow absolute 
preference strength to be expressed. Indeed, the votes can then be 
analyzed in different ways. If the poll is used for "information" as 
distinct from decision, it can be analyzed six ways till Sunday. 
Individual voting patterns matter! So one can sum the votes (basic, 
standard score), average the votes (excluding abstentions), etc. I also 
used to suggest renormalization, that all ballots would be normalized to 
use the full range.

One could even include a "none of the above" option, I want something 
else. Artificially restricting options to a small list is, again, 
fascist, but there is a limit to how far one can practically go to 
accommodate diversity.

The ballot should be designed for ease of understanding and use. I would 
suggest that every option on the ballot have a faction supporting it, 
which would, within itself, a voluntary association of members of 
Parliament, establish information and arguments to be placed in a voter 
information pamphlet.

It would be possible to create this poll as a shining example of how a 
democracy can create process which unifies the public and the 
government, rather than divides and separates, without oppressing 
minority opinion.

*No more original content below.*

>
>
> Le lundi 1 avril 2019 à 00:58:09 UTC−5, William WAUGH 
> <dgfdwbvm23 at snkmail.com> a écrit :
>
>
> She should score them according to the value she places on each outcome.
>
> On Mon, Apr 1, 2019 at 12:09 AM robert bristow-johnson 
> rbj-at-audioimagination.com <http://rbj-at-audioimagination.com> 
> |electorama| <qdtc3yujo374wut at sneakemail.com 
> <mailto:qdtc3yujo374wut at sneakemail.com>> wrote:
>
>     i presume there is their favorite choice that they score 100 and
>     there is their hated choice that they score 0.
>
>     so how much should the Brit voter score their second choice?  and
>     their third choice?
>
>
>
>     ---------------------------- Original Message
>     ----------------------------
>     Subject: [EM] Comprehensive, simplest, and most informative
>     Indicative Voting
>     From: "William WAUGH" <dgfdwbvm23 at snkmail.com
>     <mailto:dgfdwbvm23 at snkmail.com>>
>     Date: Sun, March 31, 2019 6:57 pm
>     To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
>     <mailto:election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
>     --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>     > The UK should use Score Voting with a range of 0 through 100 by
>     ones to
>     > decide what Brexit alternative has the broadest support.
>
>
> ----
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