[EM] Election-Methods Digest, Vol 207, Issue 19
steve bosworth
stevebosworth at hotmail.com
Sun Oct 10 23:34:45 PDT 2021
________________________________
Today's Topics:
1. Re: replacing top-two primaries (Kevin Venzke)
2. Re: Election-Methods Digest, Vol 207, Issue 18 (steve bosworth)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2021 20:11:19 +0000 (UTC)
From: Kevin Venzke <stepjak at yahoo.fr>
To: "election-methods at lists.electorama.com"
<election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
Subject: Re: [EM] replacing top-two primaries
Message-ID: <196898119.1791492.1633896679731 at mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Hi Steve,
> From: Steve Bosworth
> TO: Kevin Venzke
S: Kevin Venzke wants to argue for non-eliminative two-round (NETR) methods. I will respond inline below.
S: > Could not the objections to top two primaries be optimally satisfied by removing such primaries
> altogether, and instead elect the winner in the general election by using Majority Judgment (MJ)? (see below).
K: I think it's better to have a primary as part of the method, than to leave it out and have?
parties determine privately which candidates they want to nominate. (They will probably do it to
some extent in any case, but perhaps they will do less of it if the method handles it well.)
S: What difference does it make if a candidate is nominated privately when the public campaign to follow forces each candidate to declare their scale of values and agenda?
K: There are certainly single-round methods that I think are good, which in theory they can handle
any number of candidates.
S: Yes, but do you know of any better than MJ? If so, please describe it.
K: But I feel very suspicious that a lot of voters fixate on their favorite candidates only, and
will vote as though they are confident that these candidates will win. Or, that they are just
indifferent to the result if they don't win.
S: Yes, some voters using any voting method will be like that, but it seems to me that MJ makes these attitudes least likely to occur. MJ assures each voter that they have agency by giving grades to to the candidates which help to determine the different median-grade of each. They can make the candidates they see as unworthy of office less likely to win by giving them a Poor or a Reject. At the same time, they can more informatively and meaningfully express their different judgments about the suitability of other candidates by awarding them either an Acceptable, Good, Very Good, or Excellent. At the same time, that the winner is the one with the highest median-grade largely removes the possibility of strategic voting. This either completely or largely removes the "chicken dilemma."
Consequently, each voter has almost every reason to grade honestly and thereby do all they can to help one of their Excellent to Acceptable candidates receive an absolute majority of all the ballots cast -- to be seen as the candidate judged most suitable for office by and absolute majority of all their fellow citizens. Also note that a careful analysis of the public report of each MJ election would probably provide the most accurate snapshot of the different numbers and intensities with which the range of different agendas are being pursued by their fellow citizens. Such knowledge should help citizens face up to these current realities and thus be better able democratically to act to promote the common good as they see it.
K: (This will cause at least the appearance of a chicken dilemma within a party. But CD discussions
tend to assume that the voters understand that they are participants in such a dilemma. I'm not
at all sure that voters will actually see their situation in such a way.)
S: What do you think of my above counter argument about this issue?
K: If this is the case, how do we account for this in a design? Basic approaches:
S: What do you think of my above counter argument that MJ does offer such a design?
K: 1. Parties privately determine ahead of the election who should be nominated, so that voters
have fewer choices in the single-round election.
S: No, MJ does not require any candidate to be chosen by a party.
K: 2. The method has two rounds, and in the final round voters have perhaps only two options left.
S: No, MJ offers as many options as there are candidates.
K: 3. The method has two rounds, but the second round doesn't remove any options. Instead, try to
get voters to focus on defeating a specific candidate, that they may not like, who is "likely
to win."
S: MJ already provides the best means by which the one vote of each citizen can do all that is possible to defeat any number of the candidates you want to Reject or simply judge to be Poor.
K: This third one is untested, of course.
S: All the above benefits of MJ follow from its structure and rules. Can you imagine a possible result of any "test" that could show that MJ does not offer these benefits?
Kevin
I look forward to our dialogue.
Steve
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2021 02:06:12 +0000
From: steve bosworth <stevebosworth at hotmail.com>
To: "election-methods at lists.electorama.com"
<election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
Subject: Re: [EM] Election-Methods Digest, Vol 207, Issue 18
Message-ID:
<AM9P195MB09192103430E07D05FD07B54B6B59 at AM9P195MB0919.EURP195.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
From: Steve Bosworth
TO: Kevin Venzke
You want to replace Top Two Primaries.
Could not the objections to top two primaries, and all the difficulties and problems mentioned in your post below, be optimally solved by removing such primaries altogether? Instead, elect the winner in the general election by using Majority Judgment (MJ). Regardless of the number of candidates, and provided that at least one candidate has received a grade of at least Acceptable from at least 50% plus 1 of all the ballots cast, MJ guarantees that the winner has received the highest median grade from at least 50% plus 1 of all the ballots cast. If no candidate has received 50% plus 1 grade of at least Acceptable, the winner will still be supported by a plurality.
As you know, MJ invites each voter to judge the suitability for office of one or more of the candidates as either Excellent (ideal), Very Good, Good, Acceptable, Poor, or Reject (entirely unsuitable). Voters may give the same grade to any number of candidates. Each candidate who is not explicitly graded is counted as a ?Reject? by that voter. As a result, all candidates have the same number of evaluations but a different set of grades awarded from all voters. The MJ winner is the one who receives an absolute majority of all the grades equal to, or higher than, the highest median grade given to any candidate. This median grade can be found as follows:
1. Place all the grades given to each candidate, high to low, left to right in a row, with the name of each candidate on the left of each row.
2. The median grade for each candidate is in the middle of each row. Specifically, the middle grade for an odd number of voters, or the grade on the right in the middle for an even number of voters.
3.
The winner is the candidate with the highest median grade. If more than one candidate has the same highest median grade, remove the current median grade from each tied candidate and start again at step 1 with those tied candidates.
4. What do you think?
5. Steve Bosworth (stevebosworth at hotmail.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
________________________________
From: Election-Methods <election-methods-bounces at lists.electorama.com> on behalf of election-methods-request at lists.electorama.com <election-methods-request at lists.electorama.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2021 1:02 PM
To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
Subject: Election-Methods Digest, Vol 207, Issue 18
Send Election-Methods mailing list submissions to
election-methods at lists.electorama.com
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://lists.electorama.com/listinfo.cgi/election-methods-electorama.com
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
election-methods-request at lists.electorama.com
You can reach the person managing the list at
election-methods-owner at lists.electorama.com
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Election-Methods digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Re: California (Re: Two round methods) (Kevin Venzke)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2021 19:07:06 +0000 (UTC)
From: Kevin Venzke <stepjak at yahoo.fr>
To: Rob Lanphier <roblan at gmail.com>
Cc: EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
Subject: Re: [EM] California (Re: Two round methods)
Message-ID: <1736107612.1784776.1633892826970 at mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Hi Rob,
Thanks for all this background.
I mostly like the jungle primary, or top-two runoff, but it's true that the finalists might
get chosen arbitrarily, and we're only assured that a Condorcet Loser won't win.
Rob Lanphier <roblan at gmail.com> wrote earlier:
>?
> > Hmm? In the American system you can't win with a majority on the first "round" because only
> > half the political spectrum participates in a contest. Republican and Democratic are done
> > separately.
>?
> This is true in many parts of our fine nation, but guess what?
> Welcome to California!? That's not the way that we do it here.
I knew this, but understood you as being surprised that a two-round system could ever sensibly
end after one round.
> > If it were possible to win a majority of the electorate during the primaries, you would
> > practically have to elect that person. Otherwise you have the potential that small changes
> > in turnout could reverse the result. That would be really bad.
>?
> What if TWO people won a majority approval in the primary election?
> Let's keep using the CA-10 example from above, and take all of the
> candidates that received more than 10,000 votes in the primary:
>?
> * Jeff Denham (incumbent, Republican) 45,719 votes (37.6%)
> * Josh Harder (Democratic) 20,742 votes (17.0%)
> * Ted D. Howze (Republican)? 17,723 votes (14.6%)
> * Michael Eggman (Democratic) 12,446 votes (10.2%)
> * Virginia Madue?o (Democratic) 11,178 votes (9.2%)
> * Others (11.4%)
> * Total: 121,757 votes (100.0%)
>?
> At least a couple folks I spoke to liked Virginia Madue?o, but rallied
> around Josh Harder after the primary election.? As I recall, on
> election night, Denham and Howze were in the lead, and Harder was a
> close third.? It was only the mail-in ballots that swung toward
> Harder.? But note: this election was a "vote-for-only-one" (FPTP)
> election.? I know that many people that I spoke with in CA-10 were
> eager to get ANYONE other than a Republican.
> My hunch is that Denham, Harder, Cox, Eggman and Madue?o could have
> gotten over 50% approval.? Maybe even Howze.
But the voters had their favorites. Would they really approve the entire list, if they
knew there would be a second round that doesn't eliminate the alternatives? I don't think
so. So for my method proposal I think it is fine to end the method if there is majority
approval. (For a top-two, some remarks are below.)
My thoughts on the design constraints here, for a second round with two candidates only.
1. I would want to retain the non-partisan nature of the first round. I don't see a way of
preserving this while having any concept of party included in the method definition.
2. If we advance exactly two candidates to a second round, we want to use a method that is
good at estimating the two most likely "best" candidates. Your concerns show that
vote-for-one is inadequate. And I dare say your hypothetical here actually shows why
approval is inadequate.
If a major party (say 40%+ of the voters) has the stance "let's elect any candidate from
our party, to ensure the winner is not from the other party", they may be able to achieve
this even without majority approval. Two candidates with 45% approval could both advance.
Maybe the best (eliminative) option is the one mentioned in 2018, to pair the approval
winner with the candidate posing the greatest "approval opposition" to him, meaning that
the same 45% of the voters can't pick both finalists.
In some strange scenarios this could create a bad second round: Suppose that 80% of the
voters approve A and B, and the other 20% approve C. Then C is in the second round. That
would be wasteful.
The right question to ask is a bit elusive. The right question is not "which candidate is
most likely to beat A pairwise?" because that will not actually give a different answer
as far as we can tell from the first round approval ballots. It's going to be the second
most approved candidate.
But should top-two selection always imply a concept of proportional representation; i.e.
that the two finalists "represent" as many voters as possible? I am not sure why,
theoretically. It would help maximize the policy difference between the two finalists,
which might be good for participation rate and the appearance that the vote was worth
holding. But maximizing the policy differences between two finalists is certainly NOT
generally music to my ears: It makes it sound like center squeeze is actually a goal.
The approach of my non-eliminative suggestion, to say it again, is to pick just one best,
and then go to the voters again and check if there's any way to show it was the wrong
pick.
Kevin
------------------------------
Subject: Digest Footer
_______________________________________________
Election-Methods mailing list
Election-Methods at lists.electorama.com
http://lists.electorama.com/listinfo.cgi/election-methods-electorama.com
------------------------------
End of Election-Methods Digest, Vol 207, Issue 18
*************************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20211011/4a2c638f/attachment.html>
------------------------------
Subject: Digest Footer
_______________________________________________
Election-Methods mailing list
Election-Methods at lists.electorama.com
http://lists.electorama.com/listinfo.cgi/election-methods-electorama.com
------------------------------
End of Election-Methods Digest, Vol 207, Issue 19
*************************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20211011/6bbbf02c/attachment-0001.html>
More information about the Election-Methods
mailing list