[EM] Poll, preliminary ballots

[Chris Benham]

Robert,

>   What advantage does Benham have that BTR-IRV does not have?

Your question is  answered here:

https://electowiki.org/wiki/Bottom-Two-Runoff_IRV

I've never liked this BTR method.  It always struck me as an arbitrary 
dinky method that has no point other than trying to smuggle Condorcet 
past people who like the idea of eliminating weak candidates.  For 
example I never understood how it was supposed to be better that just 
repeatedly eliminate the pairwise loser between two of the remaining 
candidates selected at random. But I may have been a bit too harsh.

Benham interferes with Hare less than BTR and so keeps its Dominat 
Mutual Third Burial Resistance and Clone Independence.

On this page I found something I violently disagree with:

https://electowiki.org/wiki/Benham%27s_method

> When voters are allowed to equally rank candidates, Benham's method 
> can either be implemented by equally splitting each voter's vote 
> between each candidate they equally ranked highest, or giving each 
> equally-highest-ranked candidate one vote. See theEqual-ranking 
> methods in IRV 
> <https://electowiki.org/wiki/Equal-ranking_methods_in_IRV>page for 
> more information.

As I explained in a recent post I am not in favour of allowing 
above-bottom equal ranking in Hare and Benham and similar, but if they 
were allowed the "give each equally-highest ranked candidate one vote" 
solution is a complete disaster. It opens up outrageous easy
Pushover incentives for a start.

The other possibility they mention, giving each of the candidates ranked 
(among remaining candidates) equal-top each a fraction of a vote 
(summing to 1), is far far less bad but in my opinion not adequate. As I 
explained in my recent April  post:

I think that if we allow above-bottom equal-ranking in IRV or Benham, 
then if among remaining candidates some ballots rank more than one 
candidate equal-top then we make a provisional order of the candidates 
by counting those ballots as equal fractions summing to 1.
(A=B counts as half a vote to each of A and B, A=B=C counts as a third 
of a vote to each of A and B and C, and so on.  Now it would be fine for 
this to be the final order for deciding which candidate to next 
eliminate were it not for the fact that it makes Push-over strategising 
easier.)  Then we count the equal top (among remaining candidates) 
ballots again, this time they give a whole vote to whichever of the ones 
they equal rank to the one that was highest in the provisional order. 
(So an A=B ballot gives a whole vote to whichever of A and B was higher 
in the provisional order, and of course nothing to B.)

This is fully in the spirit of the Single Transferable Vote but I think 
you will agree that it is complex. I don't think allowing above-bottom 
equal-ranking in those methods is so important, nor do I think there 
would be any significant demand for that from voters, so I don't 
advocate allowing it for those methods.

Chris B

On 25/04/2024 1:07 am, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
> On 04/24/2024 11:10 AM EDT Chris Benham<cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au>  wrote:
>>   
>>
>>> The RCIPE advocate only asks for a rule change that seems modest and logical within the context of IRV: If the candidate was destined to lose *in IRV* anyway, then eliminate him sooner.
>>   Why? All the IRV non-winners were "destined to lose", and the easiest way to identify them is to complete the IRV count. That seems easier than looking for Condorcet Losers.
>>   
> Finding the Condorcet winner is easier than finding the Condorcet loser.
>
>>> In exchange, RCIPE achieves quite a lot.
>>   Really? As a modification of IRV how much does it "achieve" in comparison with what it loses? Rescuing the occasional Condorcet winner to make the method a lot more complicated and trash a lot of IRV's popular criterion compliances??
>>   
>>   I can't see how looking for Condorcet losers is any way easier than looking for Condorcet winners. So why don't we just do that (before each elimination, among the remaining candidates) instead?
>>   
>>   That method (Benham) is a Condorcet method and quite a bit simpler to operate than RCIPE. So the argument for RCIPE versus Benham is ...what??
>>
> <applause>  But Chris, BTR-IRV is even simpler than Benham.  What advantage does Benham have that BTR-IRV does not have?
>   
>>   Can anyone show us a single example in which RCIPE appears to give a better result (or in some way behave better than) Benham?
> I'm still trying to figure out why RCIPE or Benham or any of these "Condorcet-IRV hybrid methods" are preferable to just straight-ahead Condorcet with a simple completion method (say Plurality or Top-Two Runoff).
>
> I *do* see why MinMax or Ranked-Pairs or Schulze might be preferable over straight-ahead Condorcet.  I can also see why BTR-IRV might be useful, because it is the simplest modification to existing Hare IRV that makes it Condorcet-consistent.
>
> But there are a lotta goofy methods that are complicated flying around out there, and to be honest, I don't get it.  The priorities for me are:
>
> 1. Fairness (valuing our votes equally - majority rule for single-winner)
> 2. Simplicity and meaningfulness on the ballot
> 3. Simplicity and meaningfulness in the legislative language to implement
> 4. Disincentivize tactical voting (compromizing) for the individual voter
> 5. As much process transparency as we can possibly get
> 6. Disincentivize strategic voting (burial, etc.) for the campaigns.
>
> For me, those are the things we want to promote, at least for public elections for government office.
>
> Approval is good for 2, 3, and 5.  Not so good for 4.  Nor for 1.
>
> Score is also bad for 4.
>
> STAR is just weird.
>
> IRV is demonstrably flawed.  Not good for either 1, 4, and 5.
>
> Let's just always elect the Condorcet winner for the 99% of the time that such a CW exists.  And when the CW does not exist, let's make rules that the public and policy makers can understand the basis of those rules, and elect the candidate that can be best justified to the public.
>
> --
>
> r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _rbj at audioimagination.com
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>
> .
> .
> .
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - seehttps://electorama.com/em  for list info
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20240426/591394c7/attachment-0001.htm>