[EM] Manipulability stats for (some) poll methods

Sun Apr 28 13:41:11 PDT 2024

I was referencing the latest batch of favorability polls, which
(mind-bogglingly, in my view) have Trump at about 42% favorable. Definitely
agree that voting intention isn't the most instructive here.

On Sun, Apr 28, 2024 at 10:40 PM Closed Limelike Curves <
closed.limelike.curves at gmail.com> wrote:

> @Michael Garman <michael.garman at rankthevote.us> — I believe you two may
> be talking about different things (voting intention and honest
> preferences). In polls asking people who they plan to vote for, most people
> say they plan to vote for one of the major-party candidates. On the other
> hand, polls asking about favorability and thermometer scores have different
> results depending on the year and candidates.
>
> I believe in 2016, Gary Johnson was the Condorcet and/or score winner
> according to thermometer polls. Similarly, in 2020, I think Elizabeth
> Warren had the highest average rating if you asked Democrats to give a
> score on a scale, but lots of her supporters switched to either Sanders or
> Biden after both pulled ahead of her. (So basically a center squeeze).
>
> On Sun, Apr 28, 2024 at 12:38 PM Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 28, 2024 at 12:18 Michael Garman <
>> michael.garman at rankthevote.us> wrote:
>>
>>> The Big Lie is used to refer to the justification for the Holocaust.
>>>
>>
>> Incorrect. No one has a monopoly on big lies.
>>
>>
>> “Rob Richie was mean to me at a conference in 2019.”
>>>
>>
>> I’ve never been to a conference with Rob Richie. :-)
>>
>>
>>
>>> You lie about candidates’ favorability.
>>>
>>
>> I reported the results of a currently ongoing poll at CIVS (google:
>> Condorcet Internet Voting Service) poll titled “2024 presidential election.”
>>
>> …& no, I didn’t lie about the results.
>>
>> Michael G. says he has polls showing Trump with 45% approval. 1/3 is the
>> estimate that I’ve often heard. Without wading into a thorough search, I’ll
>> just say that maybe Michael G’s poll is more accurate than the estimates
>> that I’ve heard.
>>
>> Michael G. says that his polls ask people to compare Trump & Biden to the
>> “3rd-party” candidates. Fine. I’ve just never been asked such a
>> poll-question, or encountered one in the mass media, or distributed by
>> email, or asked on the web, to people who haven’t intentionally visited a
>> polling website. Nor have I ever encountered a poll anywhere in which that
>> question was asked without the Republican finishing last…losing to everyone
>> else.
>>
>> But, hey, maybe Michael G. has discovered a better & more accurate poll
>> that is widely publicly distributed & asked, but I’ve just never
>> encountered it.
>>
>> Anything’s possible, right?
>>
>>
>> to make your points about approval. You’re a liar. You’re no better than
>>> what you claim without evidence Rob Richie did at that mystical conference.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Apr 28, 2024 at 9:15 PM Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> FairVote’s intentional consistent lying about IRV’s properties was
>>>> familiar & widely known & discussed in the single-winner reform community,
>>>> long before Trump ran for president.
>>>>
>>>> In a recent discussion about FairVote’s big lie, Michael G. went
>>>> through the most hilarious contortions to try to explain & justify the lie.
>>>>
>>>> It isn’t necessary to repeat that discussion. It’s in the archives, &
>>>> most of us were here at the time.
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Apr 28, 2024 at 12:07 Michael Garman <
>>>> michael.garman at rankthevote.us> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Unsubstantiated allegations of “fraud” and “lies”? Sounds like
>>>>> someone’s been hitting the “Trump-blogs” again :D
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Apr 28, 2024 at 9:02 PM Michael Ossipoff <
>>>>> email9648742 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Of course I’m just guessing, but my guess is that “decapitation” is
>>>>>> Closed’s new name for favorite-burial.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Closed sometimes in invents new names without define them.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> IRV indeed shares Plurality’s need for favorite-burial
>>>>>> defensive-strategy. I don’t like that, & wouldn’t propose IRV. There are a
>>>>>> number of places where IRV is (the only electoral reform) up for enactment
>>>>>> this year, In spite of that very  unlikeable strategy-need, I wanted to
>>>>>> help campaign for its enactment, in the hope that the voters who’ve enacted
>>>>>> it didn’t do so because they intend to bury their favorite, & so so won’t
>>>>>> do so.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But, because IRV is being fraudulently sold to them, with intentional
>>>>>> lies, we can’t count on how people will vote when they find out about what
>>>>>> they’ve enacted…when they find out about the lie.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Therefore, regrettably, we shouldn’t support “RCV”.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sun, Apr 28, 2024 at 11:15 Chris Benham <cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Limelike,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Can you please define and explain the "decapitation" strategy?   I
>>>>>>> haven't heard of it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And can you elaborate a bit on this? :
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> IRV is a good example of this. It's *usually* not susceptible to
>>>>>>> strategy (in the IAC model), but I think of it as one of the most
>>>>>>> strategy-afflicted methods on this list. It's vulnerable to some
>>>>>>> particularly-egregious strategies (decapitation), ones that are complex or
>>>>>>> difficult to explain (pushover), and many strategies [that?] don't have a
>>>>>>> simple defensive counterstrategy available (like truncation).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Chris B.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 29/04/2024 2:31 am, Closed Limelike Curves wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi Kris, thanks for the results! They're definitely interesting.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That said, I'm not sure how useful a metric raw
>>>>>>> probabilities provide; I don't think they provide a very strong measure of
>>>>>>> how *severely* each system is affected by strategy. Missing are:
>>>>>>> 1. How much do voters have to distort their ballots? Is it just
>>>>>>> truncation, compression (as with tied-at-the-top), or full decapitation?
>>>>>>> 2. How hard is it to think of the strategy? Counterintuitive
>>>>>>> strategies (e.g. randomized strategies or pushover) require large,
>>>>>>> organized parties to educate their supporters about how to pull it
>>>>>>> off. This could be good or bad depending on if you like institutionalized
>>>>>>> parties. Good: sometimes people can't pull it off. Bad: this creates an
>>>>>>> incentive for strong parties and partisanship. See the Alaska
>>>>>>> 2022 Senate race, where Democrats pulled off a favorite-betrayal in support
>>>>>>> of Murkowski to avoid a center-squeeze.
>>>>>>> 3. Is a counterstrategy available?
>>>>>>> 4. How feasible is the strategy (does it involve many or few voters)?
>>>>>>> 5. How bad would the effects of the strategy be? Borda is bad not
>>>>>>> just because it's often susceptible to strategy, but because it gives
>>>>>>> turkeys a solid chance of winning.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> IRV is a good example of this. It's *usually* not susceptible to
>>>>>>> strategy (in the IAC model), but I think of it as one of the most
>>>>>>> strategy-afflicted methods on this list. It's vulnerable to some
>>>>>>> particularly-egregious strategies (decapitation), ones that are complex or
>>>>>>> difficult to explain (pushover), and many strategies don't have a simple
>>>>>>> defensive counterstrategy available (like truncation).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> A low-probability but occasionally high-impact strategy might be the
>>>>>>> worst of both worlds; voters get lulled into a false sense of security by a
>>>>>>> few elections where strategy doesn't matter, then suddenly find a candidate
>>>>>>> they dislike elected because they failed to execute the appropriate
>>>>>>> defensive strategy.
>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
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>>
>
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