[EM] Election-Methods Digest, Vol 234, Issue 11

Sass sass at equal.vote
Thu Jan 11 17:03:48 PST 2024


The tiebreaker does have hypothetical cloning problems, but it's only in
the case of ties, which are rare. The whole point of framing it as a
tiebreaker is that we only have to specify it in the law, not in the
marketing.

On Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 4:57 PM Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Okay, but I’m just saying that having to specify a tiebreaker loses some
> brevity & simplicity.
>
> …&, should my candidate win instead of yours because one issue-space
> persuasion had more candidates running than another one did?
>
> My candidate beats more candidates than yours does, merely because their
> faction was more split.
>
> On Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 16:36 Sass <sass at equal.vote> wrote:
>
>> It already covers some scenarios that do not have a Condorcet Winner.
>> Other scenarios should be framed as ties; that allows us to be wonky (or
>> random) with our tiebreaking mechanic without scrutiny from the public. For
>> Ranked Robin, the tiebreaker is to elect the tied candidate with the best
>> average rank. Put another way, call the tied candidates finalists and the
>> finalist with the greatest sum of margins over other finalists is elected.
>> In the case of two finalists, this just elects the finalist preferred over
>> the other, which would be the most palatable to the public.
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 4:11 PM Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, that has a bestness-sound that would appeal to people. But so do
>>> some of the other simple Condorcet versions.
>>>
>>> …& its need for a tiebreaker counts against its simplicity.
>>>
>>> CW,Fav & CW,IA intuitively choose someone superlative too.
>>>
>>> Admittedly MinMax(wv) needs specification of how to measure
>>> defeat-strength. …thereby lengthening the definition.
>>>
>>> CW,IA beat it in the STAR-poll that I conducted.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 15:26 Sass <sass at equal.vote> wrote:
>>>
>>>> What I like about Ranked Robin is that it's still "elect the candidate
>>>> with the most _____", which I think will be an easier cognitive
>>>> transition for voters, and you get a results screen where each candidate
>>>> gets a (usually) different number of things and the one with the most wins.
>>>> Transparent results is a big block for Condorcet methods.
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 8:52 AM Michael Ossipoff <
>>>> email9648742 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Fantastic !! That’s good news. Theirs is a good proposal, because
>>>>> Topcount is the natural, most obvious, most un-arbitrary fallback, electing
>>>>> the favorite.
>>>>>
>>>>> It sounds similar to something that I’ve suggested, but haven’t
>>>>> mentioned here:
>>>>>
>>>>> If no voted CW, elect the most favorite candidate who pairbeats the
>>>>> most favorite candidate.
>>>>>
>>>>> Justification: On a normal-distribution, the max & median coincide.
>>>>> Yes, median-crowding can spoil that, but, other than Bernie, we don’t have
>>>>> a median-crowding problem, because it’s necessary to keep up the pretense
>>>>> that the middle is between Democrat & Republican.
>>>>>
>>>>> Therefore it’s likely to elect the person who pairbeats the CW. In a
>>>>> strategic top-cycle, that person is a “Bus” (candidate under whom the
>>>>> buriers bury the CW). Electing Bus 🚌 means that the burial backfires.
>>>>>
>>>>> It’s an effort toward autodeterence, probabilistic deterrence of
>>>>> offensive strategy.
>>>>>
>>>>> Forest Simmons & I have proposed a number of methods trying for
>>>>> autodeterence, & they all use clues about who’s the Bus. This particular
>>>>> one uses the fact that offensive strategy can’t change topcount, & there’s
>>>>> some tendency for median & max probability-density to coincide.
>>>>>
>>>>> For the past 35 years since wv Condorcet was introduced, wv has been
>>>>> the best effort for realizing or approaching the strategy-freeness that
>>>>> Condorcet is ideally capable of.
>>>>>
>>>>> But autodeterence promises to deliver even better on the promise of
>>>>> Condorcet.
>>>>>
>>>>> (On another subject, I’ve been trying to rejoin Slack, but I didn’t
>>>>> realize that it’s necessary to change the password from the old one. Will
>>>>> keep trying.)
>>>>>
>>>>> Ranked-Robin (Copeland) might do a good job of electing the sincere CW
>>>>> in a strategic cycle when there are lots of candidates. But, otherwise,
>>>>> it’s just affected by the vagaries of how split the various parts of the
>>>>> electorate are.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Jan 10, 2024 at 16:49 Sass <sass at equal.vote> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Vermont is considering a Condorcet bill. If there's no Condorcet
>>>>>> Winner, then it elects the candidates with the most first choices.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The Equal Vote Coalition recommends Ranked Robin, which elects the
>>>>>> candidate preferred over the most others:
>>>>>> https://rankedrobin.org
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, Jan 10, 2024 at 1:05 PM <
>>>>>> election-methods-request at lists.electorama.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Today's Topics:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>    1. Why no Condorcet proposals? (Michael Ossipoff)
>>>>>>>    2. Re: Why no Condorcet proposals? (Bob Richard [lists])
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Message: 1
>>>>>>> Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2024 11:34:57 -0800
>>>>>>> From: Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> To: EM list <election-methods at electorama.com>
>>>>>>> Subject: [EM] Why no Condorcet proposals?
>>>>>>> Message-ID:
>>>>>>>         <CAOKDY5BFiodf0Kgq6DyY84Npa==
>>>>>>> 1B4KrR1LrDjw2m+Tn6Df0fQ at mail.gmail.com>
>>>>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 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.
>>>>>>> -------------- next part --------------
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>>>>>>> http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20240110/880e78a2/attachment-0001.htm
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Message: 2
>>>>>>> Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2024 20:07:35 +0000
>>>>>>> From: "Bob Richard [lists]" <lists001 at robertjrichard.com>
>>>>>>> To: election-methods at electorama.com
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [EM] Why no Condorcet proposals?
>>>>>>> Message-ID: <em781b1feb-15d0-4909-b320-c210a91db894 at 3fe7043c.com>
>>>>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 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.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> -------------- next part --------------
>>>>>>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
>>>>>>> URL: <
>>>>>>> http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20240110/41b5a0b6/attachment-0001.htm
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Subject: Digest Footer
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Election-Methods mailing list
>>>>>>> Election-Methods at lists.electorama.com
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> http://lists.electorama.com/listinfo.cgi/election-methods-electorama.com
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> End of Election-Methods Digest, Vol 234, Issue 11
>>>>>>> *************************************************
>>>>>>>
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>>>>>
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