[EM] Approval & disapproval voting

Sun Aug 27 01:52:03 PDT 2023

I think I prefer approval/disapproval to plain approval, since it 
elicits more information from voters and they will be delighted to get 
their antipathies off their chest.
    CJC

On 26/08/2023 19:46, Ralph Suter wrote:
> Disapproval voting may seem functionally equivalent to approval 
> voting. However, disapproval voting would make it more difficult to 
> "bullet vote" because that would require disapproving every candidate 
> except one's favorite. It would also be more awkward for candidates to 
> urge their supporters to disapprove every candidate but themselves.
>
> One promising way to narrow down large fields of candidates may be to 
> combine approval with disapproval. Voters could approve any candidates 
> they found at least somewhat acceptable and disapprove candidates they 
> found unacceptable. Many voters would leave candidates they were 
> uncertain about unmarked. Furthermore, if voters were given short 
> descriptions of all candidates and their political views, most voters 
> would likely not have much trouble deciding which candidates were 
> acceptable, which ones were unacceptable, and which ones they were 
> uncertain about. If I were me, I would disapprove not only candidates 
> I found clearly unacceptable but also candidates who described 
> themselves so vaguely as to make it impossible to make a reasonable 
> guess as to how they would perform if elected.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> -Ralph Suter
>> Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2023 22:51:40 +0200
>> From: Colin Champion <colin.champion at routemaster.app>
>> To: EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
>> Subject: Re: [EM] Condorcet meeting
>> Message-ID: <d337b1f5-45e6-e7fa-7f78-0c28cddce0e7 at routemaster.app>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>>
>> I?m not persuaded of approval voting. My guess is that voters will
>> bullet-vote for the candidate they like best among those they know
>> about; candidates will encourage bullet voting on their own behalf;
>> pundits will have nothing better to say, and voters will have no motive
>> to award more than the minimum number of approvals.
>> ?? A danger of quadratic and entropic measures is that they don't
>> impose the constraint that the number of survivors has to be small
>> enough to make ranked voting effective on the second round.
>> ?? CJC
>>
>> On 25/08/2023 15:05, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
>>> On 2023-08-25 01:50, Forest Simmons wrote:
>>>> I agree with Kristofer that Approval is plenty good for the narrowing
>>>> down phase.
>>>>
>>>> Your favorite pundits and candidates will definitely make known their
>>>> recommendations.? Trust your own judgment and gut, as you collate and
>>>> cull out their llists of recommendations.
>>>>
>>>> If there are going to be only six finalists, that doesn't mean you
>>>> can only approve six or that you have to approve more than one.
>>>>
>>>> My rule is to approve my favorite as well as everybody else that I
>>>> like almost as much.
>>>>
>>>> Here's an idea for deciding on n, the number of finalists after the
>>>> approval ballots have been tallied:
>>>>
>>>> For this purpose, temporarily count the ballots fractionally, and let
>>>> f(X) be the fraction of the total that X gets in this tally ... so
>>>> that the f(X) values sum to unity.
>>>>
>>>> The value of n should be the reciprocal of the sum of the squares of
>>>> the f(X) vslues... the standard formula for the minimum number of
>>>> seats that would be acceptable for proportional representation of a
>>>> diverse population.
>>> Another option is to use the exponential of the Shannon entropy:
>>> https://electowiki.org/wiki/Effective_number_of_parties#Entropy_measure
>>>
>>> -km
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>> Message: 2
>> Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2023 15:59:00 -0700
>> From: Forest Simmons <forest.simmons21 at gmail.com>
>> To: Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km_elmet at t-online.de>
>> Cc: EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
>> Subject: Re: [EM] Situations where IIA failure may be natural
>> Message-ID:
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>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>> This line of thought reminds me of the kind of ballot used in Jobst's
>> MaxParC:
>>
>> Next to each candidate's name you specify the total approval that 
>> candidate
>> would have to have from the other voters before you would get on board.
>>
>> Why should other vogers' support affect your support?
>>
>> That's also implicit in the Nash Lottery where the candidate 
>> probabilites
>> are adjusted to maximize the product of the (score) ballot expectations.
>>
>> It turns out that this maximization rule requires that (1) each voter's
>> total contribution to the lottery probability be 1/n, where n is the 
>> number
>> of voters, and (2l that contribution be allocated to the respective
>> candidates' winning probabilities in joint proportion to the ballot 
>> ratings
>> and the (equilibrium) probabilities of the respective candidates.
>>
>> Nash's "efficient" allocation of resources general rule requires the
>> allocations to be proportional to the respective (expected) payoff 
>> shares
>> ... which is why we named this election method the "Nash Lottery".
>>
>> Roughly speaking, the more popular something is, the more of your 
>> capital
>> (eg your vote) you should devote to it ... according to Nash's 
>> general rule
>> of efficient allocation.
>>
>> This rule is different from, but related to, the rational strategy of
>> maximizing the likelihood of your vote being pivotal.
>>
>> MaxParC's allocation is closer to optimal rational strategy than is 
>> Nash's
>> allocation. I can elaborate on this comment if there is serious 
>> interest.
>>
>> fws
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 25, 2023, 5:20 AM Kristofer Munsterhjelm 
>> <km_elmet at t-online.de>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> IIA failure is generally considered to be a bad thing. But perhaps
>>> sometimes "all things equal" is not so!
>>>
>>> Consider the restaurant joke: Sidney is offered a choice of apple pie
>>> and blueberry, and says "I'll have apple". Then the waitress says "Oh,
>>> we also have cherry". "Well, in that case, I'll take blueberry". This
>>> seems completely unreasonable.
>>>
>>> But here's a variant. Suppose I'm a fan of desserts that are difficult
>>> to make, like (just picking something here) baked Alaska and meringue
>>> pie. But I know that they're easy to get wrong and so I'll settle with
>>> apple pie as a good dessert that's easy to make.
>>>
>>> I'm visiting a restaurant with generally good reviews and I ask what
>>> desserts they have. They say "there's meringue pie and apple pie". I'm
>>> not willing to risk, despite their good reviews, that they can pull off
>>> the meringue properly, so I say "okay, I'll have apple pie". Then the
>>> waiter says "Oh, hang on, we also have baked Alaska".
>>>
>>> Now I may reason: given the good reviews, and that they have multiple
>>> difficult desserts, more people may have tried the difficult ones; 
>>> so if
>>> they weren't any good, it wouldn't have been reviewed so well. So I say
>>> "well, in that case, I'll take the meringue".
>>>
>>> In a political context, the closest thing would be something like: I've
>>> moved to a new town, and there are local elections with some left and
>>> right parties. The parties' candidates seem sensible at first glance,
>>> but they could just be tailoring their message to the audience. Now if
>>> I'm a left-wing voter (say), and there are multiple left-wing parties,
>>> this may indicate that there's a demand for left-of-center policies, 
>>> and
>>> thus that the left-wing candidates are more likely to mean what they're
>>> saying, thus making it less risky to support one of them.
>>>
>>> It's kind of tenuous, but still I thought it's an interesting 
>>> example :-)
>>>
>>> If it's at least somewhat realistic, it could bring more subtle 
>>> dynamics
>>> into elections, no matter whether they pass IIA or not. For 
>>> instance, if
>>> voters are likely to consider a particular political position more
>>> sincere if there are multiple parties based on it, then that's an
>>> obvious (theoretical) clone failure. On the other hand, maybe not so
>>> much: the inference works precisely because it's hard to set up proxy
>>> parties that seem legitimate. If that becomes easy, then there's little
>>> value in the observation, and the voters would stop judging the number
>>> of parties as an indication of the strength of the position.
>>>
>>> -km
>>> ----
>>> Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
>>> info
>>>
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>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 3
>> Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2023 19:23:22 -0400
>> From: Michael Garman <michael.garman at rankthevote.us>
>> To: Colin Champion <colin.champion at routemaster.app>
>> Cc: EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
>> Subject: Re: [EM] Condorcet meeting
>> Message-ID:
>> <CANAGaDdQK9C-JtNY0HjW_C-kqXKz6KeAM_2HY_stHGH0jJG_Lw at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>> Colin,
>>
>> Your concern about approval voting is corroborated, at least 
>> anecdotally,
>> by evidence from Fargo, ND -- the only US jurisdiction to use 
>> approval in
>> general elections. In 2022, 60%
>> <https://citizendata.com/tracking-voter-support-for-electoral-reforms/> 
>> of
>> voters reported voting for just one candidate in the field of seven. At
>> least two candidates (at least according to quotes in an article
>> <https://democracysos.substack.com/p/what-fargo-reveals-about-approval>from 
>>
>> Rob Ritchie) encouraged their supporters to bullet vote for them.
>>
>> MJG
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 25, 2023 at 4:52?PM Colin Champion <
>> colin.champion at routemaster.app> wrote:
>>
>>> I?m not persuaded of approval voting. My guess is that voters will
>>> bullet-vote for the candidate they like best among those they know 
>>> about;
>>> candidates will encourage bullet voting on their own behalf; pundits 
>>> will
>>> have nothing better to say, and voters will have no motive to award 
>>> more
>>> than the minimum number of approvals.
>>> A danger of quadratic and entropic measures is that they don't impose
>>> the constraint that the number of survivors has to be small enough 
>>> to make
>>> ranked voting effective on the second round.
>>> CJC
>>>
>>> On 25/08/2023 15:05, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
>>>
>>> On 2023-08-25 01:50, Forest Simmons wrote:
>>>
>>> I agree with Kristofer that Approval is plenty good for the 
>>> narrowing down
>>> phase.
>>>
>>> Your favorite pundits and candidates will definitely make known their
>>> recommendations. Trust your own judgment and gut, as you collate and 
>>> cull
>>> out their llists of recommendations.
>>>
>>> If there are going to be only six finalists, that doesn't mean you can
>>> only approve six or that you have to approve more than one.
>>>
>>> My rule is to approve my favorite as well as everybody else that I like
>>> almost as much.
>>>
>>> Here's an idea for deciding on n, the number of finalists after the
>>> approval ballots have been tallied:
>>>
>>> For this purpose, temporarily count the ballots fractionally, and 
>>> let f(X)
>>> be the fraction of the total that X gets in this tally ... so that 
>>> the f(X)
>>> values sum to unity.
>>>
>>> The value of n should be the reciprocal of the sum of the squares of 
>>> the
>>> f(X) vslues... the standard formula for the minimum number of seats 
>>> that
>>> would be acceptable for proportional representation of a diverse
>>> population.
>>>
>>>
>>> Another option is to use the exponential of the Shannon entropy:
>>> https://electowiki.org/wiki/Effective_number_of_parties#Entropy_measure
>>>
>>> -km
>>>
>>>
>>> ----
>>> Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
>>> info
>>>
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