[EM] Fwd: Poll question and voting period

Thu Apr 18 23:05:35 PDT 2024

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Apr 18, 2024 at 23:03
Subject: Re: Poll question and voting period
To: Chris Benham <cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au>

I should emphasize that you needn’t rule on whether a method is on one side
or the other, of a proposable/unproposable demarcation-line. A feeling
about a *degree* of unproposability—an impression or feeling about that—
might or might not influence your feeling about its suitability for
public-proposal.

On Thu, Apr 18, 2024 at 22:58 Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, Apr 18, 2024 at 22:35 Chris Benham <cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>
>>
>> How are we supposed to know what is "proposable" and what isn't?
>>
> If you’ve talked to a few people, you’ll Jayant idea how much
> complicatedness is considered acceptable to people.
>
> You can tell if a method is complicated. Approval isn’t complicated.
> Margins-Sorted Approval & other double-sort methods are more complicated
> than people want to hear about. It’s important to talk to people. You’ll
> see what I mean.
>
> You don’t need a distinction-line for unproposability. …& no one’s
> evaluating the qualification of each of us to judge any aspect of merit,
> including proposability.
>
> This isn’t complicated or PhD-requiring: Just rank according to your
> perception, your feeling, about how suitable for a public-proposal a method
> is. That can be based on merit-in-use, or proposability, or any combination
> of those. …& if you don’t think proposability matters, then that, too, is
> your call when you rank for suitability for proposal
>
> My point is, no one’ expecting anyone to be an infallible expert with the
> right judgment.
>
> So don’t worry about it.
>
> If you personally feel that proposability doesn’t matter, or that you
> can’t judge it, then that, too, is your call.
>
> …but you really can’t make that judgment for the rest of us.
>
>
> No one will question your judgment.
>
> (well, I might argue with you during the electioneering & voting period,
> to influence other voters, but no one questions your judgment &
> qualification to rank as you perceive.)
>
>> Or assuming we have some idea about that, how do we know exactly where
>> the border between proposable and unproposable (which presumably varies a
>> bit over time and from place to place) is?
>>
>> I suggest that we limit ourselves (for the time being) to methods that we
>> think at least might be proposable, being the more optimistic in this
>> regard the greater the method's merit.
>>
>> Our aim should be to produce an order of merit and leave the question of
>> exactly how proposable this-or-that method is to would-be proposers. So if
>> for example they don't think that the method at the top of our order is
>> proposable, then they can just look down it until they find one that they
>> think  is.
>>
>> From this perspective it would be useful to include advice on what are
>> the best balloting rules and which methods work best with various ballot
>> rules and restrictions.
>>
>> For example I find that limiting (in either direction) the number of
>> candidates the voter can to rank from the top to be unacceptable.  It is
>> particularly galling if the method meets Later-no-Harm and Clone
>> Independence (like Hare, aka single-winner STV, aka the Alternative Vote).
>>
>> Also some methods are happier than others depending on whether or not
>> above-bottom equal ranking is allowed.  Allowing equal-ranking in Hare
>> either makes the method a lot more complicated or more vulnerable to
>> Push-over strategy.
>>
>> But most Condorcet methods are happy to allow equal-ranking and can use
>> even limited-slot ratings ballots (such as ABCD grading ballots).
>>
>> Some indication of merit gaps, particularly in comparison with methods
>> currently in use and methods that already have some significant profile
>> and/or traction, would also be ideal.
>>
>> Chris B.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *Michael Ossipoff* email9648742 at gmail.com
>> <election-methods%40lists.electorama.com?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BEM%5D%20Poll%20question%20and%20voting%20period&In-Reply-To=%3CCAOKDY5B2mGiZF2EMqOguX-9RvNpALNx4jmesVAfvUPVcv-dHkQ%40mail.gmail.com%3E>
>> *Thu Apr 18 18:01:47 PDT 2024*
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Yes,  that’s how I initially proposed it; but later, 2 people objected to
>> the unproposable complexity of many of the nominees.
>>
>> By that time, I’d noticed the logical fault in my initial wording that
>> explicitly excluded proposability from consideration. So, when those 2
>> people objected about unproposability, that told me that it was permissible
>> &. constructive for me to ask for the removal of the clause saying to
>> disregard proposability.
>>
>> Of course that clause made no sense. It was a logical-typo.
>>
>> …because, if a method is unproposable, then its merit-in-use is quite
>> irrelevant,  since it can’t get in use.
>>
>> So the change that I asked for at that time, encouraged by those 2 people’s
>> objections about unproposability, wasn’t to change the spirit or intent of
>> the proposal..but only to correct a logically nonsensical error in the
>> initial wording.
>>
>> So, my request is to simplify the wording by removing that illogical
>> exclusion of proposability as a consideration, & simply ask that methods be
>> ranked according to their suitability for public proposal.  … which
>> automatically includes both proposability *and* merit-in-use.
>>
>> …because obviously the merit-in-use of an unproposable method is irrelevant.
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 18, 2024 at 14:49 Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km_elmet at t-online.de <http://lists.electorama.com/listinfo.cgi/election-methods-electorama.com>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >* Alright, now that I've got a little bit more time, here's the post that
>> *>* I was intending to write.
>> *>>* In the original EM post, Michael Ossipoff suggested there be a week-long
>> *>* nomination period and then a month-long voting period. Since nobody
>> *>* proposed otherwise, that's what we went with.
>> *>>* Since the voting period started at 2024-04-11 05:15:00 UTC that means
>> *>* that the voting deadline is
>> *>>* 2024-05-11 05:15:00 UTC, inclusive.
>> *>>* As for the question, MO said this:
>> *>>* > This poll is intended to be about merit-in-use. ...disregarding
>> *>* > winnability & proposability.  ...but taking into account
>> *>* > strategy-problems,, expense of implementation, expense & difficulty of
>> *>* > administration, complexity & consequent insecurity of count, &
>> *>* > consequent count-fraud vulnerability.   So, it's about merit-in-use, in
>> *>* > all its aspects.
>> *>>* So, as I understand it, the question would be:
>> *>>* "What methods do you consider to have the greatest merit in use for
>> *>* public elections?
>> *>>* For the ranked ballot, rank the methods in order of merit.
>> *>>* Every aspect relevant to the methods' suitability for public use is
>> *>* relevant: including vulnerability to strategy, expense of implementation
>> *>* and administration, count complexity, and vulnerability to fraud.
>> *>>* However, the answer should not take into account whether the method is
>> *>* currently being proposed by an advocacy group, nor how much momentum a
>> *>* particular group or reform movement, if it exists, enjoys at the moment."
>> *>>* MO: Does that sound about right?
>> *>>* (I didn't add a description of how to do Approval because lots of
>> *>* different approaches and heuristics exist.)
>> *>>* -km*
>>
>>
>>
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