[EM] Best IRV Tweak

[VoteFair]

On 7/6/2021 11:59 AM, Susan Simmons wrote:
 > ...
 > While the pairwise win matrix has more than one remaining entry, wipe
 > out the row and column of the candidate whose row has the smallest
 > remaining entry.
 >
 > Under this simple method, would NYC still be bogged down in counting?

What you are describing sounds similar to Instant Pairwise Elimination 
(IPE), except reversing the order of looking for the highest opposition 
count versus the lowest support count.

https://electowiki.org/wiki/Instant_Pairwise_Elimination

The extra step of looking for Condorcet losers is needed because the 
Condorcet loser does not always have the lowest support count.

The winner is not always the Condorcet winner, so it's not a Condorcet 
method.

This approach of using pairwise counts is "precinct summable" so each 
precinct can convert the ballot rankings into pairwise counts, send that 
table of numbers to multiple locations, and summing those tables yields 
the (same) results in multiple counting locations.

What's bogging down the counting in NYC is several complications. Notice 
that most journalists are only reporting first-choice counts because 
that's what they know how to do.

Also consider that government counts in the U.S. often defer to a 
consortium of journalists who collaborate to ensure that different news 
sources are not reporting different election results. ("It's complicated.")

The method you suggest is very close to what I've been using as an 
approximation for the Condorcet-Kemeny method for cases that involve, 
say, 50 or more choices (which means candidates if it's an election).

Yes it's much better than IRV. And it's easy to explain:

Each ballot gives a candidate the number of upvotes equal to the number 
of remaining candidates who are ranked lower than that candidate.

(Unmarked candidates are virtually marked at the lowest preference level.)

I happen to be in the process of creating an animation for this 
pairwise-support method, where the candidate with the lowest support 
count is eliminated -- except when there is a "pairwise losing 
candidate" (aka Condorcet loser), in which case the latter is eliminated 
instead.

If you happen to have a good name for this method, please share it.

Thanks for pushing forward with election-method reforms that voters can 
understand!

Richard Fobes
The VoteFair guy


On 7/6/2021 11:59 AM, Susan Simmons wrote:
>
> While there remains more than one uneliminated candidate eliminate the
> remaining one that is weakest relative to the other remaining candidates.
>
> If "weakest" means least top support (relative to the other remaining
> candidates) then we have IRV.
>
> But if we interpret "weakest" to mean the candidate with the fewest
> votes in any head-to-head contest (among the remaining candidates) then
> we have a Condorcet Compliant method.
>
> In fact, the weakest candidate in this sense is a pairwise loser to its
> opponent in its worst head-to-head contest ... which could not happen to
> a Condorcet Candidate.
>
> Operationally, this method is much simpler than IRV:
>
> While the pairwise win matrix has more than one remaining entry, wipe
> out the row and column of the candidate whose row has the smallest
> remaining entry.
>
> Under this simple method, would NYC still be bogged down in counting?
>
>
> Sent from my MetroPCS 4G LTE Android Device
>
>
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