[EM] Definite Approval/Disapproval

Sat Apr 30 20:57:53 PDT 2022

Hi Forest,

Thanks for the food for thought (really.... I took a long time
composing this email).  My hunch is that you're proposing something
awfully similar to "explicit approval" as devised by the folks in the
Wikimedia community, but more inline below:

On Sat, Apr 30, 2022 at 12:42 PM Forest Simmons
<forest.simmons21 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On paper Approval has the best standard criteria compliances of any
> method. On top of that it has all around simplicity going for it. Yet
> nobody likes it,

That's a peculiar definition of "nobody":
https://electionscience.org/commentary-analysis/approval-voting-americas-favorite-voting-reform/

> and the most common complaint from experts and lay
> citizens alike is that the definition of "approval" is so vague that
> it could drive an indecisive person to distraction: There is no clear
> guideline for partitioning the candidates into two distinct categories
> with a crisp boundary between them.

I agree with this complaint, and stated it as my objection for many
years, but I've gotten over it.  I'll restate a couple heuristics that
I posted in a reddit comment recently:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EndFPTP/comments/u1qguy/recordsetting_15_candidates_vie_for_fargo_city/i4eb3sw/

HEURISTIC A:
1. Find the candidate which seems likely to get elected, and that the
voter is afraid will win. That's the "fear anchor" candidate.
2.  For each candidate on the ballot, decide:
2a. if the candidate is better than the "fear anchor", then vote for them
2b. if the candidate is NOT better than the "fear anchor", then DO NOT
vote for them

HEURISTIC B:
If the "frontrunner" is a good candidate, then vote for them. If not,
then don't. Then decide on whether to vote for a candidate based on
how they compare to the frontrunner (if better, then "YES"; if not
better, then "NO").

> In close second is the related complaint about lack of expressive power
> ... in particular the inability to distinguish favorite, compromise,
> and anti-favorite with three separate levels of ballot support.

I think this is what the appeal of STAR voting is.  But it's also what
I liked about the form of explicit approval that Wikimedia Foundation
used to use for many of its elections:
https://electowiki.org/wiki/Explicit_approval_voting

My hunch is that the Wikimedia folks got it right with their
tabulation method.  They had three levels for each candidate (Support
/ Abstain / Oppose) and then used the formula below to tabulate:

Support / (Support + Oppose)

...and then relying on a per-candidate.  Default was "abstain", and
the quota was recalculated for each candidate.  The system was biased
against candidates that didn't elicit either strong support or strong
opposition (since those candidates would have a difficult time meeting
quota, since abstentions didn't count), but it seemed like a
reasonable level of work to place on voters (to research candidates)
and on candidates (to campaign, and increase their name recognition)

Weirdly, English Wikipedia doesn't have an article for "Explicit
approval voting", but it has "Combined approval voting":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_approval_voting

...which appears to select equivalent winners to Score voting with +0,
+1, and +2 (integers) as the only options..

Regardless, are you proposing a fourth tabulation method?

> "Definite Dis/Approval" (DD/A) addresses head on the basis for
> these complaints with judgment style ballot instructions... "mark as
> definitely approved (DA) only the candidates that you are absolutely
> sure that you want to support" ... "mark as definitely disapproved
> (DD) only the candidates that you very strongly feel to be unsuitable
> for the position."  Otherwise, mark the remaining candidates as
> either ... "somewhere in the middle (Mid) between strongly suitable
> and strongly unsuitable" or "No basis (NB) for an opinion." A blank
> (i.e.abstemtion/undecided) is counted with the NB's.
>
> What if I'm not sure? Then most definitely it would be dishonest to
> mark DA or DD. If you cannot decide between NB and Mid, then leave it
> blank ... the ultimate expression of "Undecided".
>
> Now suppose that for each candidate k, you have the total counts DA(k),
> DD(k), Mid(k), and NB(k), and no other information.
>
> 1. How would you use those totals to decide the single winner?
>
> 2. How would you construct a finish order if need be?
>
> 3. How would you resolve ties?

Why come up with a new name and a new set of complicated jargon if you
haven't answered these questions yet (especially since "Mid(k)" and
"NB(k)" seem to be equivalent, and "NB" in my mind means "nota bene")?
 Explicit Approval, Combined Approval, and STAR voting answer your
questions in three different ways, and all three of them have worthy
cases for them (and against them).  Perhaps a good starting point is
to come up with your own answers to each of those questions, and then
express your case using the language already used to describe one (or
more) of those election methods.

Sorry if the tone of my email seems negative.  It just seems to me
that much of the discussion on this mailing list is between people who
want to invent their own jargon and their own election methods.  I've
been guilty of it myself (e.g. when several of us devised MATT and MAF
in discussions on this mailing list back in 2018)[1][2][3].  Back in
2018 (after having spent many weekends the prior summer in California
knocking on doors outside my district), and then one weekend tabling
for the Center for Election Science, I came to realize that approval
voting could solve problems in the California primaries, and tried to
come up with a system that was simple enough, and didn't have the
appearance of a difficult algebra problem photocopied from a linear
algebra textbook.  Can you (or someone on this list) come up with a
system that's suitable for replacing the "blanket primary"[4] we have
here in California?

Rob
[1]: http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com//2018-November/thread.html
[2]: http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com//2018-December/thread.html
[3]: https://electowiki.org/wiki/Approval-based_primary_election_methods
[4]: https://electowiki.org/wiki/Blanket_primary