[EM] Election-Methods Digest, Vol 234, Issue 13

Thu Jan 11 15:29:40 PST 2024

All Condorcet methods have strong strategy resistance in practice for
public elections because public elections will almost always have a
Condorcet Winner, and it will be difficult to predict when they won't. By
far the most reliable strategy in practice for a public election with any
Condorcet method is honesty.

On Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 10:45 AM <
election-methods-request at lists.electorama.com> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: Why no Condorcet proposals? (Michael Ossipoff)
>    2. Re: Why no Condorcet proposals? (Andrew Myers)
>    3. Autodeterrence introduction & definitions (Michael Ossipoff)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2024 09:03:29 -0800
> From: Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
> To: "Bob Richard [lists]" <lists001 at robertjrichard.com>
> Cc: election-methods at electorama.com
> Subject: Re: [EM] Why no Condorcet proposals?
> Message-ID:
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> CAOKDY5Ama0gazacviJ+-8-3gsPfrr8yy3ijgB9ugeAbQPS9kXg at mail.gmail.com>
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>
> Nanson has precedent, but it doesn?t have the simplicity of some of the
> other Condorcet-compliant methods.
>
> ?& how does Nanson do by freedom from need for defensive-strategy (against
> offensive-strategy)?
>
> Achieving the best strategy-free-ness is the goal of Condorcet.
>
> On Wed, Jan 10, 2024 at 12:08 Bob Richard [lists] <
> lists001 at robertjrichard.com> wrote:
>
> > A Condorcet-compliant method, Nanson, was used in the small city of
> > Marquette, Michigan in the 1920s. It would be very instructive to learn
> why
> > it was repealed. I have never seen anything more than a passing mention
> of
> > this episode, so this research would probably involve traveling to
> > Marquette and rummaging around in newspaper archives, county election
> > records and the public library. On the other hand, this part of Michigan
> is
> > a beautiful place to visit. Any takers?
> >
> > --Bob Richard
> >
> > ------ Original Message ------
> > From "Michael Ossipoff" <email9648742 at gmail.com>
> > To "EM list" <election-methods at electorama.com>
> > Date 1/10/2024 11:34:57 AM
> > Subject [EM] Why no Condorcet proposals?
> >
> > That question was recently asked.
> >
> > Condorcet has many versions, & there?s no agreement on that matter.
> >
> > So Condorcet doesn?t have any enactment-projects, or even an
> organization.
> >
> > Condorcet was computationally infeasible for more than a few candidates,
> > in the days when Hare began being adopted a century ago. Hence its
> > particularly great unfamiliarity.
> >
> > Those things are regrettable, because only Condorcet can fully reassure
> > our thoroughly-conditioned lesser-evil voters that they needn?t too-vote
> an
> > evil.
> >
> > How about proposing Condorcet in your community, & demonstrating it in
> > various nonpolitical votes.
> >
> > Sometimes a city, county or state governing-body will outright enact a
> > voting-system reform. That?s happened for RCV.
> >
> > ?or maybe would order & schedule a referendum, as has likewise happened
> > for RCV.
> >
> > But, as a last-resort, one could advertise on bulletin-boards, online, in
> > the classifieds, etc., to convene a Condorcet enactment committee, for
> the
> > pursuit of an initiative.
> >
> > Suggest, to them, a few of the simpler & long-discussed versions, such
> as:
> >
> > MinMax(wv)
> > CW, Implicit-Approval (CW, IA).
> >
> > Neither needs mention of the Smith-set or cycles.
> >
> > Both thwart offensive-truncation, & deter burial if people use the
> > defensive-strategy of refusing to rank anyone they don?t like & don?t
> wish
> > to beat the CW via burial.
> >
> > That committee could then conduct focus-groups, in person or online, to
> > find out which Condorcet version would have the best chance of
> > initiative-enactment.
> >
> > Obviously Approval would be the best voting-system by which for that
> > focus-group to vote among the proposals. Participants should be asked to
> > approve (only) the proposal(s) that they?d support in an initiative.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----
> > Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
> > info
> >
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>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2024 12:12:40 -0500
> From: Andrew Myers <acm22 at cornell.edu>
> To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
> Subject: Re: [EM] Why no Condorcet proposals?
> Message-ID: <f2adc5e2-f756-4757-aeeb-e752e34c6983 at cornell.edu>
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>
>
> On 1/10/24 5:07 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
> > On 2024-01-10 21:07, Bob Richard [lists] wrote:
> >> A Condorcet-compliant method, Nanson, was used in the small city of
> >> Marquette, Michigan in the 1920s. It would be very instructive to
> >> learn why it was repealed. I have never seen anything more than a
> >> passing mention of this episode, so this research would probably
> >> involve traveling to Marquette and rummaging around in newspaper
> >> archives, county election records and the public library. On the
> >> other hand, this part of Michigan is a beautiful place to visit. Any
> >> takers?
> >
> > In addition, regarding Condorcet methods in actual use, Schulze has
> > been used by a bunch of organizations, and in referenda in a Spanish
> > city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method#Usage
> >
> > My impression is that Schulze got its relatively popularity by first
> > being adopted by technology-conscious organizations like Debian and
> > Wikimedia, and then filtering down from there.
> >
> >
> > Nanson has also been used by the University of Adelaide and the
> > University of Melbourne. University elections aren't the same thing as
> > public ones and the circumstances do differ, but perhaps figuring out
> > why they were repealed there would give at least some idea?
> >
> > (Then again, perhaps not; see my confused surprise at the reasoning
> > the UBC Alma Mater Society gave for abandoning Ranked Pairs.)
> >
> > -km
>
> The CIVS voting system is routinely used (and has been for years) by a
> variety of organizations to decide leadership questions: especially
> open-source organizations and universities. Randomly grabbing a few
> recent ones:
>
> The Linux Foundation
> OpenStack
> Bytecode Alliance
> Kubeflow
> Lubuntu
>
> SUNY Fredonia
> College of William and Mary
>
> Of course, it gets used for many other less consequential decisions,
> with more than 35,000 polls run so far.
>
> The default rule CIVS uses is Minimax but it also supports Schulze and
> other methods.
>
> -- Andrew
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2024 13:45:16 -0500
> From: Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
> To: EM list <election-methods at electorama.com>
> Subject: [EM] Autodeterrence introduction & definitions
> Message-ID:
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>
> I recently posted some autodeterrence suggestions, but I didn?t *introduce*
> autodeterrence in that post, & I didn?t define my terms. So I?d like to do
> that now:
>
> ?
>
> The only meaningful objection to Condorcet is that it?s subject to
> offensive strategy, by ?buria? (offensive order-reversal) & by offensive
> truncation.
>
> ?
>
> The wv Condorcet methods, such as MinMax(wv) & Schulze, thwart & deter
> offensive-strategy as I?ve described. But, as I?ve mentioned, because I
> regard the elections as dichotomous, I?d use wv Condorcet as Approval, with
> all-or-nothing voting, voting Unacceptables at bottom & Acceptables at
> top?& maybe some or many lesser-evil voters would likewise vote Lesser-Evil
> at top.
>
> ?
>
> So maybe even wv Condorcet would retain some lesser-evil problem.
>
> ?
>
> That?s why autodeterrence is desirable. It probabilistically deters
> offensive strategy by making it more likely to backfire than to succeed.
>
> ?
>
> Of course the merit of an autodeterrent method is measured by this ratio of
> probabilities:
>
> ?
>
> p(backfire)/p(succeed).
>
> ?
>
> Forest Simmons & I have proposed a number of autodeterrent methods.
>
> ?
>
> Let me state some definitions that I neglected to state before. Some are
> already well-known, but I should state them all for completelness:
>
> ,,,
>
> CW means Condorcet-winner, a candidate who pairwise-beats each of the
> others. Voted CW is the CW according to the ballots. Sincere CW is the CW
> under sincere-voting.
>
> ?
>
> BF means Buriers? Favorite.
>
> ?
>
> Bus means the candidate under whom the buriers bury CW,  & who consequently
> pairbeats CW.
>
> ?
>
> CW, BF & Bus are the ?principles? of the top-cycle.
>
> ?
>
> There of course can be more than one Bus, because the CW could be buried
> under several candidates who all pairbeat hir.
>
> ?
>
> wv means winning-votes.  ?the number of voters who vote for the defeater
> over the defeated in a pairwise-defeat.
>
> ?
>
> lv means losing-votes, the number of voters who vote for the defeated over
> the defeated in a pairwise-defeat.
>
> ?
>
> Pairwise-support for X means the number of voters voting X over Y in a
> pairwise defeat of one over the other.
>
> ?
>
> A candidaes? Top means the Topcount, the number of voters top-ranking hir.
>
> ?
>
> A candidates?s IA stands for Implicit-Approval, which means the number of
> voters ranking hir.
>
> ?
>
> A candidate?s Mid stands for Midcount, which means IA minus Topcount.  Mid
> is relevant because, though IA is relevant, Top is unaffected by
> offensive-strategy, & therefore spoils the usefulness of IA as a clue.
>
> ?
>
> However Top is still a clue, because it suggests who is likely CW.
>
> ?
>
> The Clues are the quantities that are used as indicators of who is the Bus.
> They consist of Top, Mid, Borda, lv & wv..& maybe others.
>
> ?
>
> The ?Uses? are ways of using some of the clues to judge who is probably the
> Bus.
>
> ?
>
> So autodeterrent methods consist of, & can be denoted as:
>
> ?
>
> Use(clue(s)).
>
> ?
>
> I listed a number of autodeterrent proposals?some mine, some Forest?s.
>
> ?
>
> GWAGL was Forest?s idea, & so was the 1st autodetrent proposal. So was Mid,
> & the use of some of the other clues.
>
> ?
>
> I should add that Borda of any kind, including Borda(<=) isn?t so useful
> as-is, because it includes a part of the score based on Topcount.  ?&, as I
> mentioned, Topcount is unaffected by offensive-strategy & therefore dilutes
> the relevance of a clue.
>
> ?
>
> ?&, contrary to what I suggested before, Borda, by itself, wouldn?t do.
> Borda(=<)would result in lesser-evil voters top-ranking an evil.
>
> ?
>
> So, as a clue, not as a stand-alone method, better would be Borda minus its
> Topcount part.  ?or, better yet, just use Mid instead of Borda.  ?for when
> only the top-cycle is looked-at, where (as is most likely) the one or more
> cycles only consist of 3 candidates.
>
> ?
>
> There?s no need to repeat my previous listing of autodeterrent proposals,
> because, other than what I?ve said in this post, I?m not making any change
> in those already-listed proposals.
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