[EM] Question to the Condorcetists

[Closed Limelike Curves]

>
> But Steve is right: For any one of us, the minuscule chance of a
> preference of ours being negatively responded-to doesn’t even come close to
> outweighing the strategy-freeness for which RP(wv) is being used.
>
Agree that if RP improves strategy-resistance in practice, a tiny risk of
participation failures is worth it. But courts might not agree. More
importantly, it means you can't challenge IRV in court on the basis that
participation/monotonicity failure violates a fundamental human right (if
your own proposed alternative also violates that right).

That occurred to me too. Well I’d say that the important thing is that
> after the illegal Participation-failure result is discarded, then even if
> IA gives the same winner, this time it didn’t happen as a
> Participation-violation.
>
It's still a participation violation--the whole combined electoral system
violates participation, even if the specific steps don't. In the same way,
there's no individual step of IRV that violates participation (each round
is just a plurality vote). It's the process as a whole that does.

On Fri, Mar 1, 2024 at 7:49 PM Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Yes, just a matter of, for each voter, decrementing the population-total
> of every pairwise-preference s/he voted.  …& applying RP(wv) to that
> modified population preference-totals set. But, other than looking at that
> voter’s ballot, no new votecounting is needed.
>
> The entire Participation-check only takes half as long as the original
> exhaustive pairwise-count used by Condorcet.
>
>
>
>> Couldn't this new procedure still violate participation?
>>
>
> Not if it’s Implicit-Approval (ranked = approved).
>
>
> What if adding ballots[i] with A>B would cause B>A, but B also happens to
>> win under implicit approval voting?
>>
>
> That occurred to me too. Well I’d say that the important thing is that
> after the illegal Participation-failure result is discarded, then even if
> IA gives the same winner, this time it didn’t happen as a
> Participation-violation.
>
> The discarding makes the election innocent.
>
> But Steve is right: For any one of us, the minuscule chance of a
> preference of ours being negatively responded-to doesn’t even come close to
> outweighing the strategy-freeness for which RP(wv) is being used.
>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 29, 2024 at 4:02 PM Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, I too feel that though Consistency-failure is an embarrassment,
>>> it’s Participation-failure—where a particular voter should have stayed
>>> home—that is the rights-violation.
>>>
>>> Yes, maybe there’s some big subset of the voters, say 37%, such that, if
>>> they’d stayed home the result of applying the method to the other 63%
>>> (which would then have been the actual election-result) would have been the
>>> same as the result of applying it to them separately…but, because they
>>> voted, a different result happened.
>>>
>>> That doesn’t sound as bad as Participation-failure.
>>>
>>> 1. That 37%’s hypothetical collective-choice by the method isn’t as
>>> definite & stark as a person’s expressed-preference.
>>>
>>> 2. A *different outcome* from the hypothetical result of applying the
>>> method to the 37% isn’t as concretely clearly wrong as outright
>>> negative-response to someone’s expressed preference.
>>>
>>> …& that’s a good thing, because checking for Consistency-failure is what
>>> DOES sound computationally infeasible due to the many ways of dividing a
>>> large electorate into 2 par.
>>>
>>> Checking for Participation-failure would just be a matter of, for each
>>> voter, doing the count without hir ballot & determining whether that
>>> changes the winner to someone s/he ranked above the actual winner.
>>>
>>> With 300,000,000 voters that isn’t infeasible with today’s computers is
>>> it?
>>>
>>> I should have asked:
>>>
>>> In Germany, is Consistency-failure unconstitutional? That might be a
>>> problem for Condorcet. If only Participation-failure is unconstitutional,
>>> then wouldn’t Kobe computationally-feasible to check for that?
>>>
>>> When a Participation-failure is found, then elect the winner by
>>> Implicit-Approval.
>>>
>>> In wv, not ranking candidates you don’t like is good defensive-strategy
>>> anyway. If it’s known that many people vote that way, wv’s already good
>>> burial-deterrence is further enhanced.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Feb 29, 2024 at 10:06 Closed Limelike Curves <
>>> closed.limelike.curves at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> That seems to exclude participation failures except in the case
>>>> of near-ties; I think adding a batch of ballots, all of which rank A>B,
>>>> shouldn't cause B to defeat A.
>>>>
>>>> I don't think we need perfect consistency, just participation.
>>>> Consistency failures are paradoxical, but consistency is a very
>>>> strong criterion and isn't needed for the weaker case of participation
>>>> (which limits consistency to the ). It's also strong enough that it
>>>> could lock you into Kemeny-Young (the unique order-consistent Condorcet
>>>> method).
>>>>
>>>> Checking for participation naively definitely isn't feasible, so we'd
>>>> need a more elegant approach.
>>>>
>>>> Alternatively, we could try finding a Condorcet system that violates
>>>> participation "as little as possible," in the sense that any participation
>>>> failures are forced by Condorcet-compliance. A judge might be willing
>>>> to sign off on that, since it's a tradeoff between two similarly-important
>>>> values (equal protection and majority rule).
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 10:30 PM Michael Ossipoff <
>>>> email9648742 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Maybe it might be good enough to just require that there must not be a
>>>>> Participation-violation with respect to any one of the voters, had s/he
>>>>> voted last?
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 22:17 Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Well I don’t know if the Consistency-check would be
>>>>>> Computationally-feasible, because of course there are a lot of ways to
>>>>>> divide a large electorate into 2 parts.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That might be one more good reason to use Approval instead, for those
>>>>>> single-winner elections.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 22:07 Michael Ossipoff <
>>>>>> email9648742 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I call RP(wv) with that modification “Nonsense-Free RP(wv)”, &
>>>>>>> propose it for Germany’s single-winner elections, including the single
>>>>>>> member district elections in their Additional-Member proportional
>>>>>>> topping-up Parliamentary elections.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 21:47 Michael Ossipoff <
>>>>>>> email9648742 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 21:07 Closed Limelike Curves <
>>>>>>>> closed.limelike.curves at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> . Some alternative criterion that gets us "99% of the way to
>>>>>>>>>> Condorcet," so it behaves like Condorcet except in the rare cases where it
>>>>>>>>>> conflicts with participation (or maybe just mono-add-top/remove-bottom).
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> There might be better ways, but there’s always the lexicographical
>>>>>>>> way. The criterion could require that Participation (& other
>>>>>>>> non-opposite-response criteria) & Consistency be met.  …& that the voted
>>>>>>>> CW, when there is one must be elected when that doesn’t conflict with the
>>>>>>>> above requirements.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> A complying method could just repeat that wording, along with a
>>>>>>>> specification about what to do if there’s no voted CW, & what to do if the
>>>>>>>> ballot-configuration is such that additional of a new ballot could violate
>>>>>>>> Participation, or if some division of the electorate into 2 parts could
>>>>>>>> show a Consistency violation.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Maybe apply Implicit-Approval to the ballots then. (Ranked =
>>>>>>>> approved)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 8:57 PM Closed Limelike Curves <
>>>>>>>>> closed.limelike.curves at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> It’s surprising that participation-violation is unconstitutional
>>>>>>>>>>> in Germany, because, here, even Hare’s greater nonmonotonicity is okay.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I'm actually not sure it is--the Supreme Court has never ruled on
>>>>>>>>>> , and courts also haven't ruled on the constitutionality of non-monotone
>>>>>>>>>> voting rules. STV has been upheld as constitutional in the past, but the
>>>>>>>>>> challenges were never brought over monotonicity failures. It's entirely
>>>>>>>>>> possible a new challenge could overturn it; there's a strong argument that
>>>>>>>>>> monotonicity failures violate due process and the equal protection clause.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> The ideal case to bring to the Supreme Court would have been for
>>>>>>>>>> Begich's campaign to sue after the 2022 Alaska election. A moderate
>>>>>>>>>> Republican plaintiff is appealing to the mostly-Republican Supreme
>>>>>>>>>> Court, without being too controversial. Being the Condorcet winner makes
>>>>>>>>>> his case look even stronger.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On the other hand, if someone says the word "monotonicity" in
>>>>>>>>>> front of a judge, their eyes will glaze over and they'll immediately stop
>>>>>>>>>> caring about all this weird, complicated nerd math. The way to explain
>>>>>>>>>> participation failures is to run a ton of ads explaining to Alaska
>>>>>>>>>> Republicans that Begich lost because *he got* *too many votes. *
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> One suggestion: why not rename monotonicity to "helpfulness?"
>>>>>>>>>> (Voting should help your candidate, not hurt them). We can call
>>>>>>>>>> monotonicity failures "spitefulness" (because the system is going out of
>>>>>>>>>> its way to do the opposite of what you ask it to).
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 11:32 AM Michael Ossipoff <
>>>>>>>>>> email9648742 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> It’s surprising that participation-violation is unconstitutional
>>>>>>>>>>> in Germany, because, here, even Hare’s greater nonmonotonicity is okay.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> It’s disingenuous to say that Hare is nonmonotonic & Condorcet
>>>>>>>>>>> isn’t. Nonmonotonicity is just defined to give Condorcet, with it’s
>>>>>>>>>>> participation-failure, a pass.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> I’ve heard that Participation & the Condorcet Criterion are
>>>>>>>>>>> mutually incompatible. I feel that participation-failure is an acceptable
>>>>>>>>>>> price for the Condorcet Criterion. Always electing the voted CW brings
>>>>>>>>>>> strategy improvement, & the unpredictable & rare participation-failure is
>>>>>>>>>>> probably irrelevant to strategy.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> But that incompatibility, along with the ones Arrow pointed-out,
>>>>>>>>>>> shows that single-winner elections aren’t perfect.  …making a good argument
>>>>>>>>>>> for PR…*monotonic* PR, which excludes STV & Largest-Remainder.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Maybe, as a PR country (like 2/3 of the world’s countries),
>>>>>>>>>>> Germany feels no need to compromise participation.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> We’re told that list-PR “hasn’t been tried”. No, just in 2/3 of
>>>>>>>>>>> the world’s countries for about a century.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> But, with that counterfactual “hasn’t been tried” excuse, we’re
>>>>>>>>>>> stuck in the 18th century, & always will be, while most of the world has
>>>>>>>>>>> moved on to democracy.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 10:36 Closed Limelike Curves <
>>>>>>>>>>> closed.limelike.curves at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Can Condorcet be weakened to comply with participation?
>>>>>>>>>>>> Condorcet methods have plenty of advantages, but systems failing
>>>>>>>>>>>> participation are vulnerable to court challenges or being struck down as
>>>>>>>>>>>> unconstitutional, as seen in Germany.
>>>>>>>>>>>> ----
>>>>>>>>>>>> Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em
>>>>>>>>>>>> for list info
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
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