[EM] Hare (aka IRV) versus STAR

Chris Benham cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au
Wed Apr 10 23:29:27 PDT 2024


> Different topic: In a different post, you said that Approval tend to 
> favor centrists. FairVote says that, but it isn’t true.
>
> In this country, Centrist are candidates between the Democrat & the 
> Republican.

That must be a very tight squeeze.

> But Approval favors the voter-median.

That is what I meant.

>
> The Democrats & Republicans are a very, very  long way from the 
> voter-median, which is Progressive.


I hope you are right.

> Because if they do agree with you then they will all just vote the 
> same set of acceptable candidates above all the others
>
> If all progressives had that kind of information, which candidate to 
> combine on, then VF1 would work fine.

I didn't say "candidate" singular, I said "set of candidates" that they 
can vote together above all others, in whatever order they like.

And a lot of voters are interested in doing other things with their vote 
other than just maximising the chance that an "acceptable"
candidate will win.

Chris

On 11/04/2024 3:25 pm, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
>
> You’re right—The runoff messes up STAR’s strategy with unacceptable 
> candidates too.
>
> But IRV shares the problem. I most non-wv Condorcet have it too, if 
> there might be successful burial (& there might easily be undeterred 
> burial with most non wv Condorcet.)
>
> So it isn’t a problem of only STAR.
>
> …& the ranked-methods have their completely prohibitive count-fraud 
> vulnerability problem, due to their complex count.
>
> So I ranked STAR over the ranked methods.
>
> Different topic: In a different post, you said that Approval tend to 
> favor centrists. FairVote says that, but it isn’t true.
>
> In this country, Centrist are candidates between the Democrat & the 
> Republican. But Approval favors the voter-median.
>
> The Democrats & Republicans are a very, very  long way from the 
> voter-median, which is Progressive.
>
> As I keep saying, Approval’s Myerson-Weber equilibrium is at the 
> voter-median. Approval will soon home-in on the CW.
>
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 19:59 Chris Benham <cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>
>>     IRV? Try to rank the acceptables in order of winnability. …trying
>>     & hoping to match the ranking-order of the other preferrers of
>>     some of your acceptables.
>>
>     It sounds like you are talking about a situation where there are
>     no known clear front-runners
>
>
>
> If we knew who the frontrunners are, VF1 (Vote-For-1, Plurality) would 
> work fine.
>
>
>     and the supporters of the candidates you deem acceptable don't
>     fully agree with you about which candidates are acceptable and
>     which are not.
>
>     Because if they do agree with you then they will all just vote the
>     same set of acceptable candidates above all the others
>
>
> If all progressives had that kind of information, which candidate to 
> combine on, then VF1 would work fine.
>
> But yes, IRV & VF1 are alike in that way, sharing the same problem 
> (admittedly worse in VF1.).
>
> But who wants that problem? …especially when paying the price of a 
> complex count & its consequences.
>
>
>     and benefit from the method's compliance with
>     Clone-Winner.  And if there are known front-runners and you insist
>     on voting super-safe then  I suppose you can top-rank the same
>     Compromise candidate you
>     would in FPP.
>
>
> Exactly ! Favorite-burial defensive-strategy, in both methods.
>
>
>
>     Not a big burden to lose sleep over and nothing like the STAR
>     nightmare.  Overall the strategic risk of voting sincerely in Hare
>     is much lower.
>
> Star’s runoff brings big strategy-problems, as do many other methods, 
> including IRV & margins Condorcet, etc.
>
> But at least it doesn’t share ranked-methods’ prohibitive count-fraud 
> insecurity & vulnerability.
>
> You know…the lesser of two evils. Well, I don’t choose evils, & I 
> don’t propose STAR. But I ranked it over the ranked-methods, in our 
> poll, in which I’ve just now voted.
>
> I wouldn’t propose a ranked method unless a jurisdiction insisted on 
> one. I’d then offer RP(wv), or maybe MinMax(wv), if they wanted 
> something even simpler than RP.
>
>
>
>     Michael
>
>     On 11/04/2024 10:56 am, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
>>
>>
>>     On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 18:04 Chris Benham
>>     <cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>>
>>         Michael wrote:
>>
>>>         But STAR is better than Hare because:
>>>
>>>         It retains some amount Score’s merit.
>>
>>         No it doesn't.   Score meets Favorite Betrayal and
>>         Participation.  STAR trashes those just for Condorcet Loser.
>>
>>
>>     I said “some”, not “all”.
>>
>>     e.g. If there are unacceptable candidates, then just give max to
>>     the acceptables, & zero to the unacceptables.
>>
>>     IRV? Try to rank the acceptables in order of winnability. …trying
>>     & hoping to match the ranking-order of the other preferrers of
>>     some of your acceptables.
>>
>>     Questionable guesswork. An intractable strategic morass.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>         I could even make up a new criterion just to encapsulate the
>>         horror of STAR.
>>
>>         The Favourite Ultra-Betrayal Criterion:
>>
>>         *Voters should never have any strategic incentive to vote
>>         their sincere favourite as low as possible*.
>>
>>
>>     Yes,, & isn’t that true with *any* runoff? It occurred to me too,
>>     I don’t like it. I much prefer Score to STAR.  … completely
>>     reject runoff with Approval.  …unless a jurisdiction insists on it.
>>
>>     I much prefer Approval to Score,  for minimalness & unarbitrariness.
>>
>>
>>         Hare should be much easier to sell to anyone with any
>>         intelligence or common sense because STAR is obviously
>>         so silly and arbitrary.
>>
>>
>>     See above.
>>
>>
>>
>>         Where as Hare just seeks to replace the Single
>>         Non-Transferable Vote with the Single Transferable Vote,
>>         keeping compliance
>>         with Plurality, Dominant Candidate, Clone-Loser,
>>         Later-no-Harm and Later-no-Help but losing Participation and
>>         Mono-Raise to gain
>>         Dominant Coalition (and therefore Majority for Solid
>>         Coalitions) and Dominant Mutual Third and Clone-Winner.
>>
>>         It has what Woodall referred to as a "maximal set of
>>         properties".  It's ok not to like it if you are a
>>         fundamentalist about some criterion
>>         compliance it doesn't have (like Condorcet or FBC) but not to
>>         suggest that complete garbage like STAR is in some way
>>         preferable.
>>
>>
>>
>>         Chris Benham
>>
>>
>>         On 11/04/2024 5:04 am, Michael Ossipoff 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
>>>>             theEqual 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 orEquality Criterion
>>>>             <https://www.equal.vote/theequalvote>is avoting 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 exhibitvote-splitting
>>>>             <https://electowiki.org/wiki/Vote-splitting>or the
>>>>             "Spoiler Effect," ensuring that every vote can cast
>>>>             anequally 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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