[EM] High5 voting (~ Smith//Approval on a reduced set)

[C.Benham]

Why do at least several US Americans here think there is something  
problematic and/or weird about allowing both quite
a large number of candidates on the ballot and voters to strictly rank  
exactly as many of them as they wish?

This "High 5" proposal continues in the Jameson Quinn tradition of 
coming up with something that is arbitrary and complicated and meets
very few voting methods criteria.

What is supposed be its positive point in comparison with say the very 
simple Condorcet//Approval (ranking above bottom)?

* Voters rank from the top those candidates they approve. (Equal-ranking 
allowed, but not a huge deal if not.)

The voted Condorcet winner is elected if there is one.  Otherwise elect 
the most approved candidate.*

I  prefer Smith//Condorcet, but accept that that is more complex to 
explain and sell and probably the most approved candidate
will nearly always be in the voted Smith set.

Chris Benham


> *Ted Stern*dodecatheon at gmail.com 
> <mailto:election-methods%40lists.electorama.com?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BEM%5D%20High5%20voting%20%28%7E%20Smith//Approval%20on%20a%20reduced%20set%29&In-Reply-To=%3CCAHGFzOQdR%2BaLH8uEdwkqBkQ_%3DvNAPkn6vhP4ydV1uT6Gk0MF0w%40mail.gmail.com%3E>
> /Fri Dec 15 12:28:30 PST 2023/
>
>  *
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> I've been mulling over ways to get a Smith/Approval method into a somewhat
> practical form, and have taken some cues from Jameson Quinn's Vote-321.
>
> Vote-321 is a pretty method, with a lot of strategy resistance, and if it
> were among the options for a new voting system (with no Condorcet method
> available), I would choose it immediately.
>
> However, I have a few issues with it: vulnerability to cloning; lack of
> expression; and what I consider a too-small provisional subset. The latter
> is more of a psychological / media problem, and what I mean by "too-small"
> is that if only the top three first-place candidates make it past the first
> pass, public attention could be excessively focused on the front-runners at
> the cost of addressing issues raised by less popular candidates. But the
> too-small subset is also what enables Vote-321's vulnerability to cloning.
> By including at least one or two more candidates in the first pass of
> candidate reduction, cloning risk is reduced.
>
> Following is what I call the *High 5 *method for three or more candidates:
>
> *Ballot Expression:*
> I prefer a 6 slot ranked ballot, equal-ranking and gaps allowed, with the
> rank/tiers named as follows:
>
>
> Tier Name
>
> Approval Status
>
> Description
>
> A
>
> Approved
>
> Most Preferred / Best / Favorite
>
> B
>
> Approved
>
> Good
>
> C
>
> Approved
>
> OK / Acceptable
>
> D
>
> Disapproved
>
> Not Preferred, but would be in their coalition (i.e. Compromise)
>
> E
>
> Disapproved
>
> Mostly Unacceptable but Lesser Evil
>
> Reject
>
> Dispapproved
>
> Completely unacceptable
>
> Summarized, there are 3 approved ranks (Most Preferred, Good, OK), 2
> disapproved ranks (compromise, lesser of two evils), and Reject. Blank
> ballots are counted as rejection.
>
> *Tabulation:*
>
>     - Total most-preferred votes per candidate (i.e. "A" votes).
>     - Approval / Disapproval totals per candidate
>     - Pairwise preference array
>     - Optional:
>        - Tied-Approval pairwise
>        - Tied-Disapproval (above reject) pairwise
>        - Approved vs Disapproved/Reject pairwise
>
> *First-pass subset:*
>
>     - *Top 5 candidates by most-preferred votes*
>
> *Procedure:*
>
>     - Of the top 5 most-preferred candidates are found, drop the
>     least-approved candidate.
>     - Among the remaining candidates, use the pairwise preference array to
>     find the Smith Set
>     - If more than one candidate is in the Smith Set, pick the most approved
>     member of the set as the winner.
>
> If you start with 3 candidates, this method reduces to top-two approval.
>
> Starting with 4 candidates, this method reduces to sorting the candidates
> by Approval and doing a top-three tournament: the winner is the pairwise
> winner of A1 versus (the pairwise winner of A2 versus A3).
>
> For 5 or more candidates, the method has a very high probability of finding
> the CW (if one exists) among the top five favorites, while falling back to
> approval in the event of a cycle among the four most-approved of those top
> five.
>
> In a "jungle-primary" type of situation (though no primary is necessary),
> media attention would be given to at least the top 5 candidates instead of
> just the top two, ensuring attention to a range of viewpoints. And in the
> event of a large number of candidates, it would not be necessary to
> tabulate pairwise preferences for more than 7 or 8 top-first-ranked
> candidates as determined by pre-election polling, reducing tabulation
> complexity while retaining summability.
>
> Using most-preferred votes for the first pass has a slight anti-cloning
> effect, as a preference ballot would lead to a tendency toward vote
> splitting if one faction has too many candidates. The anti-cloning pressure
> is greater than in Vote-321 because of the larger range of expression.
>
> Finally, the Smith//Approval method, when combined with the explicit
> approval cutoff ballot, allows enough strategy to reduce burial incentive.
>
> I'm calling this "High 5" voting because it's descriptive of both the
> ranking method and the top-five most preferred first-level truncation, and
> it's easier to remember than Smith//Approval.
>
> Thoughts?
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