[EM] Open letter to STAR voting promoters

[Closed Limelike Curves]

Hi Richard! You might want to shorten this :) I skimmed it, but I might
have missed a few things. I have some questions.

First: why are you so fiercely opposed to using rated ballots? I really
doubt ballot design is the most important part of a reform proposal. From
what I can tell, there's a lot of research showing spoiled ballots are much
more common when ranking, even if you allow equal-ratings. Ranked ballots
still allow for skipped ranks and voters who misinterpret ranks as ratings.
There's a huge spike in the number of spoiled ballots when you have 4 or 5
candidates, because people mistake the rankings for a 1-4 or 1-5 scale.
(And lots of cities use cumulative voting for city councils, making things
more confusing!)

Second: if your complaint is that voters might exaggerate their ratings, I
don't see why this would be applicable to STAR, but not other systems
that allow equal-rankings. It's a dominant strategy in score, but STAR
isn't score, and the runoff prevents this.

Third: I have no idea how vote-splitting would be a thing in STAR. Spoiler
effects, sure, because STAR fails IIA. But I think of vote-splitting as
meaning clone-negativity (whereas STAR is intentionally a bit
clone-positive, to encourage parties to run at least 2 candidates).

Finally: Equal Vote Coalition promotes proportional representation
algorithms like STAR-PR as well as single-winner reforms.

On Mon, Jun 3, 2024 at 5:41 PM Richard, the VoteFair guy <
electionmethods at votefair.org> wrote:

> Below the dotted line is the beginning of my open letter to STAR voting
> promoters.
>
> Here's some background info for the benefit of election-method forum
> readers:
>
> In November, throughout Oregon, Oregon voters will vote to approve or
> defeat a referendum that adopts ranked choice voting for electing Oregon
> governors and Oregon members of Congress (and the Oregon secretary of
> state).  This referendum was passed by the Oregon state legislature!
> This is huge!  All other states that have adopted ranked choice voting
> have needed to gather signatures to get their initiatives on their
> state's ballots.
>
> Here's the full text of the referendum:
>
>
> https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2023R1/Downloads/MeasureDocument/HB2004/Enrolled
>
> The vote-counting details begin on page 2 in Section 4.  Importantly the
> words do not mention anything about "overvotes."  Also importantly it's
> well-worded so the counting details can be refined in the future.  Also
> it gives explicit permission to later adopt the single-transferable vote
> (STV) for electing city-council members (which Portland recently
> adopted) or for electing Oregon state legislators.
>
> Note:  The following "open letter" is long because election-method
> reform is not a simple topic, and numerous misunderstandings are involved.
>
> ........................
>
> Here's my open letter to STAR voting promoters:
>
> The recent defeat of STAR voting in Eugene triggered a conversation on
> the r/EndFPTP subreddit in which the comments from you, the promoters of
> STAR voting, reveal some misunderstandings.
>
> These misunderstandings easily could lead to expensive or embarrassing
> mistakes regarding support for, or opposition against, the upcoming
> statewide Oregon November referendum that will adopt ranked choice
> voting for some Oregon elections.
>
>
> I'll start with areas where you, the STAR voting promoters, have
> correctly identified relevant information.
>
> * Yes, the FairVote organization has a long history of promoting
> misrepresentations.
>
> * Yes, (as far as I know) the FairVote organization was a big source of
> money that paid for "vote-no" postal flyers mailed to Eugene voters.
>
> * Yes, those flyers helped defeat the STAR voting initiative.
>
> * Yes, it's likely that FairVote helped pay for "opposition" arguments
> in the Eugene Voter's Pamphlet, which was mailed to every Eugene voter.
>
> * Yes, those statements of opposition in the voter's pamphlet helped
> defeat the STAR voting initiative.
>
>
> (E-M forum aside: Here's the link to the Eugene Voter's Pamphlet:
> https://www.eugene-or.gov/DocumentCenter/View/74017/0524-Voters-Pamphlet )
>
>
> However, I get the impression you, the promoters of STAR voting, are
> overlooking the most important issues that account for why STAR voting
> was defeated.
>
> Here are the issues I suggest you re-consider more carefully.
>
> * You seem to believe the FairVote organization is your enemy, without
> understanding they are basically just supplying money to the huge(!)
> number of Oregon voters who understand that ranked choice ballots are
> much better than STAR ballots.
>
> * Opposition statements in the voter's pamphlet pointed out the
> unfairness of score voting during the first step of STAR counting, when
> a majority-supported candidate can fail to reach the runoff round.  Yet
> your rebuttals about majority support focused on the top-two runoff
> step, which is not what they were criticizing.
>
> * You seem to dismiss the important difference between your
> single-winner method and a good multi-winner method such as the
> single-transferable vote (STV).  STV really does increase representation
> for minorities, women, etc.  In fact STV with three seats per district
> (as chosen for Portland) guarantees representation for at least 66
> percent of that district's voters.  Yes, a single-winner method such as
> STAR or instant-runoff voting (IRV) increases this representation
> guarantee from zero to 50 percent.  But that does not reach the higher
> level that minorities want, and deserve.
>
> * Pointing out you have a few minority advocates who support STAR voting
> is a weak defense against the attacks from the many(!) minority voter
> advocates in Portland who have been learning about the
> single-transferable vote (STV).  Remember STV will be used in Portland
> in November to elect our city councilors.
>
> * Your suggestion that ranked choice voting is vulnerable to vote
> splitting, but STAR voting is not vulnerable to vote splitting, is a
> lie.  This lie undermines your credibility for all your other claims.
> If you try to define "vote splitting" as something that STAR voting
> avoids and instant-runoff voting can fail, then you are guilty of the
> same kind of misrepresentation that comes from the FairVote organization.
>
> * The voter's-pamphlet statements in support of STAR voting wasted lots
> of words talking about issues that are not as important as the above
> issues.  In my opinion these minor issues include the size of summarized
> ballot data, how simple it is for calculating, the monotonicity
> criterion, whether it works well among friends, etc.
>
>
> Clarification:  Yes, STAR voting is well-designed for use among friends
> where religious, dietary, etc. concerns can be expressed strongly, and
> where selfish people can be excluded, and where voting is conducted as a
> single round of ballot marking and counting.  However the
> strength-of-expression advantage becomes a disadvantage in governmental
> elections.  That's because voters get extra influence by exaggerating
> their ratings, such as not marking any candidates at levels 2 and 3.
>
>
> Now let's talk about possible future collaborations, and barriers to
> collaboration.
>
> I too dislike the FairVote organization.  I've been fighting against
> them for three decades.
>
> Yet if the FairVote organization offers to pay the fee (about $2,000 I
> believe) to publish in the Oregon Voter's Pamphlet a statement from me,
> Richard Fobes, the VoteFair guy, in support of the November referendum,
> I will gladly accept their assistance.
>
> Or if the FairVote organization asks for permission to use my name as
> being in support of the upcoming November referendum, I will agree -- if
> the promotion does not imply blind support for the FairVote organization
> and does not imply the Burlington and Alaska elections yielded the
> correct winner.
>
> I'm open to this collaboration because they, the FairVote organization,
> and I, the VoteFair guy, agree that RANKED CHOICE BALLOTS are needed for
> election-method reform.
>
> Reaching areas of agreement, and working in collaboration, is how
> election-method reform is going to happen.
>
> This brings us to the core point in this letter.
>
>
> "Voters must be allowed to mark two or more candidates at the same
> preference level."
>
> These are the words I spoke to the Oregon legislative "rules" committee
> several years ago, back when the FairVote organization was attempting to
> push their flawed idea of how they think ranked choice ballots should be
> counted.
>
> Because of your testimony against that flawed FairVote bill, and because
> of my opposition, the Oregon lawyer who writes these bills later worked
> with Oregon election-method experts to create the dramatically improved
> wording that is now in the November referendum.
>
> The referendum wording does not contain any mention of "overvotes."
> This is huge!  Of course "overvote" is FairVote's terminology for
> marking two or more candidates in the same choice column.
>
> This means you, the fans of STAR voting, can take credit for
> dramatically improving election methods here in Oregon!
>
> If you want, you can think of this refinement as a concession by the
> fans of the FairVote organization.
>
> Or you can spin it as a FairVote "lie" that is finally being exposed.
>
> The result is that, possibly in 2028 when we have the first statewide
> Oregon election using ranked choice ballots, we can be using software
> that correctly counts so-called "overvotes."
>
> As a reminder, when a voter marks two candidates at the same preference
> level, and when the counting reaches that pattern, that ballot can be
> paired with another ballot that has the same equivalent pattern, and one
> of those two ballots is counted as support for one of those two
> candidates, and the other ballot is counted as support for the other
> candidate.  (Software can simulate this counting using decimal numbers
> and rounding down to integers, but certified election software must not
> use the decimal-number shortcut.)
>
> The remaining barrier to this correct counting of mythical "overvotes"
> is the lack of "certified" ballot data against which upgraded election
> software can be tested.  Writing software is easy, but getting it
> certified requires certified data.
>
> The Oregon lawyer who wrote most of the referendum wording calls this
> "overvote" issue a "counting detail."
>
> Why is this "counting detail" so important?
>
> This software refinement eliminates a valid criticism that you, STAR
> voting promoters, have against FairVote's version of instant-runoff voting.
>
> Your criticism shows up in your recent pro-STAR scholarly article where
> the authors (Quinn, Wolk, and Ogren) misrepresent ranked choice ballots
> to be "user unfriendly."  It's a misrepresentation because it does not
> apply to ranked choice voting when mythical "overvotes" are correctly
> counted.  (There's another related user-friendly issue I'll get to
> shortly.)
>
>
> (E-M forum aside:  Here's a link to that scholarly article:
> https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-022-09389-3 )
>
>
> Yes, your "user unfriendly" criticism does apply when voters are told to
> avoid "overvotes."  Especially when a voter wants to rank a strongly
> disliked candidate as the voter's last choice, and there are not as many
> choice columns as candidates.
>
> However, after mythical "overvotes" are counted correctly, election data
> will reveal a big decrease in "spoiled" ballots.  That will undermine
> part of your characterization of ranked choice ballots as being "user
> unfriendly."
>
> Furthermore, ranked choice ballots with no "overvote" limitation will
> allow a voter to RATE the candidates.
>
> Just like on a score ballot!
>
> This means the voters who think STAR ballots are easier to mark will be
> able to mark their ranked choice ballot as if it were a STAR ballot!
> They just need to look into a mirror -- to reverse the left-to-right
> orientation difference -- and ignore the column labels -- words instead
> of stars and numbers.
>
> STAR voting fans correctly point out that some people prefer to think in
> terms of ratings rather than rankings.  (Other voters regard ratings as
> more difficult to assign.)
>
> When so-called overvotes are allowed on ranked choice ballots, a voter
> can use either a rating or ranking approach, whichever they prefer!
>
> To repeat, this correct counting of so-called overvotes is allowed by
> the wording in November's referendum because it avoids saying anything
> about how to handle those mythical "overvotes."
>
>
> There is yet another area were I, the VoteFair guy, and you, the
> promoters of STAR voting, agree.  And where we disagree with the
> FairVote organization.
>
> The candidate with the fewest transferred votes is not always the least
> popular.  This is why the infamous Burlington mayoral election, and the
> recent special Alaska election, elected the wrong winner.
>
> You correctly recognize that this unfairness is easy to see in Yee
> diagrams.
>
> You use this unfairness as evidence that ranked choice ballots are "user
> unfriendly."  Specifically a close election can require some voters to
> mark their ballot tactically (instead of sincerely) to get the fairest
> ("correct") election result.
>
> Misleadingly you fail to mention that this "user unfriendliness" will
> disappear when better election software becomes available.
>
> The FairVote organization foolishly attempts to defend the failures in
> Burlington and Alaska.  This is part of why lots of people like STAR
> voting, and why they regard the FairVote organization as their enemy.
>
> Fortunately the referendum wording is written clearly, in a way that
> makes it possible to correct this vote-counting flaw in the future.
>
> I believe that adding just two sentences might be sufficient to correct
> this flaw in a few years when more voters understand this subtle issue.
>
> Specifically, the referendum's counting method can be changed to
> implement Benham's method.  Just add words such as: "If a round of
> counting has a pairwise winning candidate, that candidate is elected; a
> pairwise winning candidate is a candidate who would win every one-on-one
> contest against every remaining candidate."
>
> Or, the wording can be changed to implement the Ranked Choice Including
> Pairwise Elimination (RCIPE) method.  In this case the added words would
> say something like:  "Pairwise losing candidates are eliminated when
> they occur; a pairwise losing candidate is a candidate who would lose
> every one-on-one contest against every remaining candidate."
>
> The result would be an election method that overcomes the criticisms
> against the version of instant-runoff voting that the FairVote
> organization foolishly tries to defend.
>
> Hopefully you recognize that the referendum can, with the addition of
> two sentences, yield all the most significant election-method advantages
> of STAR voting.
>
> Of course some of your STAR-voting fans will not welcome this
> interpretation.
>
> Yet you can claim credit for helping Oregon adopt a
> reasonably-well-designed method that significantly differs from what the
> FairVote organization originally tried to push through the Oregon
> legislature.
>
>
> Now I'll discuss a concern.
>
> I'm concerned that you, the STAR voting promoters, might try to sabotage
> the November referendum.  That might be based on your belief that the
> FairVote organization is your enemy, and that this referendum is an
> opportunity to "fight back" after losing the Eugene initiative.
>
> Any such sabotage would be a sabotage against all Oregon voters, the
> majority of whom want a better election system.  Remember it would hurt
> Eugene voters too!
>
> And remember the last election for Oregon's governor in which we had to
> vote tactically to avoid vote splitting because of independent candidate
> Betsy Johnson getting money from a Nike co-founder.  The referendum will
> solve that vote-splitting problem.
>
> In case it's important, I did not express opposition against the STAR
> voting initiative.  I remained neutral because I used to know lots of
> people who live in Eugene and I want them to get a better election
> system.  (I agree that STAR voting is better than plurality.)  In fact,
> long ago, I used to tell friends in Eugene we need to be using
> "order-of-preference ballots."  That was back in the mid 1990's, long
> before STAR voting was invented in Eugene, long before the name "ranked
> choice voting" was introduced, and back when I attended so many dances
> in Eugene that some people in Eugene thought I lived there.  Getting
> back to the present, I was genuinely curious to see how Eugene voters
> would respond to your initiative.
>
> The Eugene defeat of STAR voting reveals that a huge number of Eugene
> voters correctly recognize that ranked choice ballots, with a
> well-chosen counting method, are better than STAR ballots.
>
>
> In a bigger context, any attempts to defeat the November referendum
> could lead to planet-wide suicide!
>
> Back in the 1970's, while living in Corvallis, I did all the coursework
> for a master's degree in Atmospheric Science at Oregon State University.
>   Plus I did a summer fellowship at the National Center for Atmospheric
> Research (NCAR) where I found and fixed a bug in one of their climate
> models.  So I have known since the 1970s that our planet is in a very
> bad feedback loop where each loss of snow and ice coverage at the north
> and south poles reduces the sunlight reflected back into space, which
> increases solar absorption, which increases the rate at which the snow
> and ice melt.  That understanding is part of what motivates me to pursue
> election-method reform with a sense of urgency.
>
> Adopting a better election system is the tipping point that will switch
> governments into climate-relevant action instead of further delays.
>
> Plus it will dramatically increase economic prosperity for Oregon after
> we adopt a well-designed election system for electing our Oregon state
> representatives.  (That's the next step after adopting this referendum.)
>   (And consider that better economic prosperity will reduce
> domino-effect symptoms such as homelessness and crime.)
>
>
> In the meantime our Oregon state legislature is giving us this huge
> opportunity to implement election-method reform that will help
> civilization reach much higher levels of democracy.
>
> At the national level, higher levels of democracy will "uncrazify" our
> crazy U.S. elections so we can fill Congress with problem-solving
> leaders.  They will replace any members of Congress who persist in being
> puppets of their biggest campaign contributors.
>
> You and the fans of STAR voting have helped make this happen.  You
> pushed back against the FairVote organization's flawed version of
> "their" vote-counting method so that Oregon election-method experts
> could write a well-designed referendum.
>
>
> I'm aware that Mark Frohnmayer, who provides lots of the funding to
> promote STAR voting, originally was a fan of instant-runoff voting.
> That's because decades ago a friend in Eugene sent me a clipping of the
> article in the Eugene Register Guard newspaper about him promoting that
> method.  Since then, you, Mark Frohnmayer, and I have seen and heard
> each other during verbal testimony to the Oregon state legislature.  If
> you should want to meet via video to ask any questions, I'm open to that
> form of communication.
>
> While looking up the correct spelling for Frohnmayer I was reminded that
> Mark's father, Dave, lost an election to become Oregon governor because
> of vote splitting (partly because of spiteful funding to Al Mobley as a
> spoiler candidate).  That's sad because Dave Frohnmayer would have been
> a great governor.
>
> In November we have an opportunity to adopt an election system that, if
> it had been used back then, would have elected Mark's father, Dave, in
> spite of the presence of an intentional spoiler candidate.
>
>
> All of you who promote STAR voting have lots to be proud of.
>
> * You have helped educate huge numbers of voters about the need for
> better ballots.
>
> * You have taught huge numbers of voters about vote splitting.
>
> * Wisely you have pushed to allow a voter to mark more than one
> candidate at the same preference level.
>
> * You have exposed the FairVote organization's lie that the candidate
> with the fewest transferred votes is always least popular.
>
>
> Let's build on the election-method reform foundation we have been
> building together throughout many years.
>
> I look forward to working with you, rather than against you, as we take
> advantage of the huge election reform the Oregon legislature has wisely
> given to us.
>
> We don't have time for any more misunderstandings.  Glaciers are melting
> faster than elections are being improved.
>
> Richard Fobes
> The VoteFair guy
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
> info
>
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