[EM] Hare (aka IRV) versus STAR

Wed Apr 10 15:02:19 PDT 2024

On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 13:55 Closed Limelike Curves <
closed.limelike.curves at gmail.com> wrote:

>
As an example, I'd much prefer a situation where Biden had a Democratic
> opponent listed separately on the ballot that I could rate higher.
>

Marianne Williamson is a genuine Progressive, & (I hope) in on the ballot
in all states.

…& should also be, with whatever voting-system.

Right now, I'm not happy with any of the candidates in the race
>

What are you unhappy about, regarding Jill Stein, Marianne Williamson
(candidate for the Democrat-nomination), or the Greens’ platform, or
Williamson’s platform?

on a simple left-right scale I'm close to Biden, but I'm not exactly
> enthusiastic about an 82-year old president.
>

But you’re enthusiastic about what Biden has been doing during recent
months?

Though I'm sure as hell not supporting any other candidate in the race...
>

You sure as hell aren’t supporting a Progressive !!!

) With STAR, every voter has at least two candidates they consider
> tolerable.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 12:36 PM Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 9, 2024 at 17:31 Chris Benham <cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>>
>> [quote]
>> Score is Approval with a  "I wish to weaken the effect of my vote for the
>> sake of being more sincere/expressive" box/button.
>> [/quote]
>>
>> If that’s how you want to vote in Score, then suit yourself.
>>
>> The right use of Score:
>>
>> Use only min & max ratings. i.e. Use Score as Approval.
>>
>> …with the difference that, when it’s uncertain whether or not a candidate
>> deserves approval, you can give hir partial approval, by an intermediate
>> point-rating.
>>
>> Nice, sometimes convenient, because, otherwise, the only way to give
>> someone partial approval would be probabilistically.
>>
>> But Score loses Approval’s absolute minimalness, & unique unarbitrariness.
>>
>> Much better to let the voters deal with such things for themselves with
>> the absolutely minimal handtool, than to use some arbitrary & (somewhat or
>> greatly) complicated definition, rule & count. …with the consequent expense
>> & count-fraud vulnerability.
>>
>> So it is strategically equivalent to Approval while being more
>>> complicated and less fair.
>>>
>> More complicated, yes.
>>
>> I strongly oppose a runoff for Approval, but some jurisdictions might
>> insist on one.
>>
>> …likewise Score.
>>
>> It’s true that it somewhat increases  Condorcet-efficiency &
>> Social-Utility (SU), but it brings great strategy-complication, including
>> the loss of FBC compliance.
>>
>> But STAR is better than Hare because:
>>
>> It retains some amount Score’s merit.
>>
>> It’s much, much simpler than Hare, resulting in much better count-fraud
>> security.
>>
>> It’s much less expensive to administer & implement than Hare.
>>
>> It’s much simpler to describe its workings when proposing it.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> And Approval has a quite good reputation here because it meets Favorite
>>> Betrayal  (aka FBC) and compared with FPP the winner
>>> will strongly tend to have higher social utility and  be much more
>>> likely  a sincere Condorcet winner.  Also, and not unrelatedly,
>>> it has a bias toward centrists that some people think is wonderful.
>>>
>>> But some people seem to think that adding a Top-Two Runoff (automated in
>>> the case of STAR) to Score (to make STAR) is just
>>> a harmless little gimmick that just makes the method "a bit more
>>> accurate", brings it into compliance with Condorcet Loser
>>> and so must make it more "Condorcet efficient".   ("Sky-high" according
>>> to CLC here).
>>>
>>> But actually it makes the method profoundly different and very bad. It
>>> seems to me that the inventors of STAR must have been
>>> motivated by three priorities:
>>>
>>> (1) the method isn't  Hare,
>>>
>>> (2) the method, in a purely technical and completely useless way,
>>> apparently meets Mono-raise (aka Monotonicity).
>>>
>>> (3) subject to being saleable to and understood by  not-so-deep
>>> thinkers, the method be as bad as possible.
>>>
>>> From the "equal-vote" website:    https://www.equal.vote/
>>>
>>> Ranked Choice Voting, where voters rank candidates in order of
>>> preference has been lauded as a solution, but in elections where the third
>>> candidate is actually competitive, vote-splitting remains a serious
>>> issue <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhO6jfHPFQU&t=169s> and RCV only
>>> offers a marginal improvement compared to a primary and  general election
>>> with Choose-One Plurality voting.
>>>
>>> Luckily, many voting methods are can effectively prevent vote-splitting.
>>> As it turns out, when voters can weigh in on each candidate individually,
>>> when all ballot data is counted, and when voters are able to show equal
>>> preference, vote-splitting can be eliminated. All voting methods which do
>>> this pass the Equal Vote Criterion
>>> <https://electowiki.org/wiki/Equal_Vote_Criterion>, including STAR
>>> Voting <https://www.starvoting.us/star>,...
>>>
>>>
>>> The "Equal Vote Criterion" is just  propaganda nonsense:
>>> https://electowiki.org/wiki/Equal_Vote_Criterion
>>>
>>> The Equal Vote Criterion or Equality Criterion
>>> <https://www.equal.vote/theequalvote> is a voting method criterion
>>> <https://electowiki.org/wiki/Voting_system_criterion> which requires
>>> that a voting method ensure that every voter may cast a vote which is as
>>> powerful as a vote cast by any other voter. Voting methods which pass the
>>> Equal Vote Criterion do not exhibit vote-splitting
>>> <https://electowiki.org/wiki/Vote-splitting> or the "Spoiler Effect,"
>>> ensuring that every vote can cast an equally weighted vote
>>> <https://electowiki.org/wiki/Equally_Weighted_Vote>.
>>>
>>> Choose-One Plurality Voting (First Past the Post) and Instant Runoff
>>> Voting (often referred to as Ranked Choice Voting) do not satisfy the Equal
>>> Vote Criterion.
>>>
>>>
>>> This is just dishonest blather. If anything meets this very vague and
>>> confused "criterion" IRV (aka Hare) certainly does.
>>>
>>> The classic scenario that motivated some people get negative about Hare
>>> (and also methods like Min-Max Margins):
>>>
>>> 49 Bush
>>> 24 Gore
>>> 27 Nader>Gore
>>>
>>> Gore>Bush 51-49,   Bush>Nader 49-27, Nader>Gore 27-24.
>>>
>>> Hare eliminates Gore and elects Bush, so the Nader voters whose Gore>
>>> Bush preference was strong had incentive to use the Compromise
>>> strategy and vote Gore>Nader ("betraying" their sincere favourite).  If
>>> the method was Approval they could have approved both Nader and
>>> Gore, preventing the election of Bush without having to vote their
>>> sincere favorite below equal-top.
>>>
>>> But in this type of scenario STAR does no better than Hare. The Nader
>>> voters would have incentive to give Nader zero points.
>>>
>>> "Traditionally" Hare's  vulnerability to Push-over strategy has said to
>>> be a result of it's failure of Mono-raise.  But STAR is much more vulnerable
>>> to Push-over.
>>>
>>> Say you are sure that your favourite will make the final two. In that
>>> case then you have incentive to give every candidate that you are sure your
>>> favourite can beat 4 or 5 stars.  If 5 stars then you are relying on you
>>> favourite winning the runoff without your help, but if 4 stars then you
>>> might
>>> fail to get one of the predicted sure-loser turkeys into the final.
>>>
>>> In a Hare Push-over strategy scenario, the strategists rely on their
>>> favourite winning the runoff against their own votes, i.e. with their votes
>>> supporting
>>> the turkey against their favourite. This makes it much more risky (more
>>> likely to backfire) and difficult to coordinate than is the case with STAR.
>>>
>>> The equal-vote site has a link to a quite ok video on the Favorite
>>> Betrayal Criterion.  I find that weird and misleading, because STAR badly
>>> fails FBC.
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtKAScORevQ
>>>
>>> From https://www.starvoting.org/
>>>
>>> Why STAR Voting?
>>>
>>> Voting reform is the keystone. A single cause with the potential to
>>> empower us to be more effective on every other issue we care about.
>>>
>>>    -
>>>
>>>    Honesty is the best strategy. Strategic voting is not incentivized.
>>>    <https://www.starvoting.org/strategic_voting>
>>>    -
>>>
>>>    Even if your favorite can’t win, your vote helps prevent your worst
>>>    case scenario. <https://www.starvoting.org/how_to_vote>
>>>    -
>>>
>>>    Highly accurate, no matter how many candidates/parties are in the
>>>    race. <https://www.starvoting.org/accuracy>
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm not sure exactly what "accurate" is supposed to mean, but I refute
>>> the suggestion that these claims are more true of STAR than they are of
>>> Hare.
>>>
>>> In the poll I will vote STAR below Hare and Approval and all the
>>> Condorcet methods.
>>>
>>> Chris
>>>
>>>
>>> ----
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>> info
>>
>
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