[EM] Hare (aka IRV) versus STAR

Thu Apr 11 00:12:29 PDT 2024

On Wed, Apr 10, 2024 at 23:29 Chris Benham <cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au> wrote:

>
> 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.
>

:-D

>
> 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.
>

But progressives can’t seem to let go of their awful lesser-evil.

>
>
> 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.
>

…if they can count on eachother’s solidarity. I used to point that out,
when I was defending Hare. But some supporters of the more distant
candidates you like might transfer the other way if they get eliminated.

A mutual-majority are safe, but there isn’t always mutuality…& that’s when
sincerity is regretted.

Probably one progressive’s voters will transfer to another progressive.
But, when there are unacceptables, then “probably” isn’t good enough. One
should *maximally* protect the acceptables.  …often that requires
favorite-burial.

I’ve seen the sincerity-regret in the only IRV poll that I observed. It
illustrated  that their use of IRV was a mistake. You lose the CW because
you ranked sincerely. Not good.

They should have used RP(wv). (In case there might be a natural
circular-tie, RP is better than MinMax.)

I like Hare for Pizza toppings & movies. Not for public political elections
or polls.

IRV isn’t Hare. It’s *FairVote* Hare. Their dishonest promotion makes it
effectively a different method.

> 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.
>

Yes, a lot of voters are making a big mistake. Lesser-evil giveaway-suckers.

Yes, some regard evil as acceptable if it’s “lesser”.

There was a novel called _I’ve been down so long, it looks like up to me_.

Sad.

The pessimism of lesser-evil voters is astounding.

>
>
> Michael
> 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 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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