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

Fri Jan 12 13:38:50 PST 2024

There are Condorcet versions that would thwart or penalize
offensive-strategy. That isn’t an unknown unpredictable iffy psychological
matter.

On Fri, Jan 12, 2024 at 10:25 Greg Dennis <greg.dennis at voterchoicema.org>
wrote:

> I think "in practice" here should say "in theory." "In practice" is an
> empirical claim, but due to the dearth of Condorcet elections at the
> governmental level, there's virtually no data or experience at this point
> to support an empirical claim, especially for the kind of public,
> competitive, political elections that we're most interested in. Further,
> a looming question is not so much whether voters in a Condorcet election
> can know whether a reliable strategy exists, but whether they will attempt
> a strategy (like burying) *regardless* of its reliability -- simply
> because it *might* work. If too many voters do, that could in theory lead
> to the election of the sincere Condorcet loser. I'm sympathetic to
> theoretical arguments about why this result is unlikely, but as of now I
> don't think anyone has much evidence for what will happen in practice.
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 6:30 PM Sass <sass at equal.vote> wrote:
>
>> 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:
>>>         <
>>> CAOKDY5Ama0gazacviJ+-8-3gsPfrr8yy3ijgB9ugeAbQPS9kXg at mail.gmail.com>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>>
>>> 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.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > ----
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>>> > 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>
>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>>>
>>>
>>> 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:
>>>         <
>>> CAOKDY5DooHE15BFdrdKWPWZ5Osfj5-_JcG6hEPjz3B2nKJuBaQ at mail.gmail.com>
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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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>>> End of Election-Methods Digest, Vol 234, Issue 13
>>> *************************************************
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>
>
> --
> *Greg Dennis, Ph.D. :: Policy Director*
> Voter Choice Massachusetts
>
> e :: greg.dennis at voterchoicema.org
> p :: 617.835.9161
> w :: voterchoicema.org <https://www.voterchoicema.org/>
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