[EM] Needless voting disappointments. Election-Methods Digest, Vol 236, Issue 43

[Richard Lung]

Hello Steve,

I got your two e-mails. I also have to clear-up with the list manager 
what he is going to do with the program links I sent to the list.


I think I answered this question a couple of times before. But times 
have changed a bit. So, only some of the following is repetition. 
Basically I favor simple ordinal voting. Not categorical voting, 
combined or not, with the same.

Firstly, classification does have a legitimate place, in elections, but 
in the principle of equality, by one person one vote.

However, I do not believe it is legitimate to classify or categorise the 
vote. This breaks a prime rule of scientific method, which is not to 
presume what one is supposed to be trying to prove.

The most rampant example of this presumption is the requirement to vote 
for a "party", when ones freedom may revolt from such a divisive 
electoral scheme as partisan voting.

Technically, graded candidatures ("excellent" etc) are also a 
presumption. They are defining how a voter is supposed to feel. That is 
none of our business. All that is required (from the vote), to maximise 
popularity, is to find out order of preference, for which number order 
does the job.

Moreover, as Arthur North Whitehead said, a science will not get far 
without mathematics (even I know that much if not much more). And 
classification is an inferior scale of measurement to ordering. If the 
classification is also a grading, it does not need the imposition of 
views about the candidates, which the voters themselves did not and 
would not make, and in no way help them to elect the most popular 
candidates. At any rate, the work is done by the ordered preferences as 
to how the count is summed.


I regard proof of the Whitehead assertion to be found in my own adult 
life time of study. And I am old now. Simply with a preference or a 
ranked choice vote, on the part of the voter, which looks like any other 
RCV but involves different instructions to work properly, it is possible 
to both elect and exclude candidates. I call this invention Binomial 
STV; it is not a conventional election system, which has contradictory 
rules for electing and excluding candidates.


Regards,

Richard Lung.




On 20/03/2024 03:25, steve bosworth wrote:
>
> Message: 3: Needless voting disappointments
> Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2024 09:29:54 +0000
> From: Richard Lung <voting at ukscientists.com>
> To: steve bosworth <stevebosworth at hotmail.com>,
>
> "election-methods at lists.electorama.com 
> <mailto:election-methods at lists.electorama.com>"
>
> Subject: Re: [EM] New Thread: Needless voting disappointments
> Message-ID: <d32d5c79-9620-48bc-849e-1bc157045357 at ukscientists.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>
>
> Hello Richard,
>
> Thank you for your response and l propose to answer your points in line.
>
> R: Hello Steve,
> "about 50% of the voters are disappointed when using plurality voting,
> and over 10% are disappointed when using STV or CPO-STV."
>
> This is about right but it would be false of the original Hare system,
> making one constituency of the nation.”
>
>
> 1-S: Yes, but for clarity, let's start with STV where the nation is 
> one constituency. For this context, however, I see using EPR as better 
> in respecting and revealing the "pluralist" reality of our society 
> that you correctly mention. This is because ordinal "preferences" are 
> not as expressive of each voter's scale of values as are the 
> evaluative, yet, still ordinal adjectives people use all the time, 
> such as Excellent, Very Good, Good, Acceptable, etc. For example, a 
> voter does not necessarily view their 1^st preference candidate as 
> Excellently suited for office. Such adjectives enable each voter to 
> express themselves more meaningfully. Consequently, the EPR 
> post-election report will also inform the public much more completely. 
> How every voter values every candidate is published. This snapshot of 
> all these judgments would also enable analysts better to infer both 
> the numbers and intensities with which the different campaigns in 
> their society are being supported. What do you think? Please also see 
> 5-S: below.
>
>
> R: “And it did not mean the voters would have to make 500 or so 
> preferences.”
>
>
> 2-S: The same is true of EPR. However, please not that I see the link 
> I mentioned describing how an EPR is counted is simpler for ordinary 
> voters to understand than STV’s count: 
> https://www.jpolrisk.com/legislatures-elected-by-evaluative-proportional-representation-epr-an-algorithm-v3/ 
> <https://www.jpolrisk.com/legislatures-elected-by-evaluative-proportional-representation-epr-an-algorithm-v3/>. 
> At the same time, like ordinary STV, EPR’s ballots can also be counted 
> so that each elected member has only one in of the legislative body. 
> Alternatively, each of their respective counts have the potential to 
> allow each elected member to have a weighted vote in the assembly 
> which would be exactly equal to the total number of citizens’ ballots 
> that had been counted in their support. If so, this would seem to 
> provide more faithful representation on average for each voter. What 
> do you think?
>
>
> R:”There would be enough variety in the modest number of preferences 
> made by each voter, to ensure
> extreme proportionality of the sort envisioned by this writer”.
>
>
> 3-S: Yes, but this variety would be expressed even more exactly by 
> using EPR.
>
>
> R: “The only qualification, and an important one, is that society has 
> a pluralist
> rather than a monolithic media.
>
> (Some reformers tagged Condorcet pairing onto STV. I remember that Dr
> Hill used a Condorcet pairing supplement to decide a final run-off
> between runners up.)”
>
> 4-S: No comment.
>
> R: “With regard to grading candidates, in my opinion, this is a step
> backward from ordinal voting.’’
>
>
> 5-S: I’m perplexed by you thinking grade are “backward.” In the 
> context of my above view that grades are more expressive than 
> preference (please see above, 1-S), it seems that the same is true of 
> both of ordinal and cardinal numbers when it comes to an adult trying 
> briefly to express their judgments about the suitability for office of 
> any candidate. If anyone judging such suitability were to give me 
> either their “preference” or a number, this would immediately beg the 
> questions, Why? What does that preference or number mean? What do you 
> think?
>
>
> R: “From the point of view of scales of measurement, the 
> classificatory scale is more primitive and less
> accurate than the ordinal scale. Cardinal numbers are more powerful 
> than ordinal numbers. But that is why
> the vote also has a count, and is not a reason for abolishing the 
> ordinal vote, determining the preferential sequence of the count,
>
>
> 6-S: As I see it, using ordinal adjectives does not “abolish the 
> ordinal vote” but instead enhances it. At the same time, the absolute 
> necessity of using cardinal number is to count each citizen as one, 
> and the vote of each to continue to count as one, to the fullest 
> extent possible. This cardinal equality of citizens seems best 
> provided by the above suggestion that each member of a legislature 
> should have his or her exact weighted vote: best if provided by EPR, 
> second best if provided by using a modified form of STV. Either would 
> guarantee that each voter will most likely see one of the elected 
> candidates as represent their hopes and concerns. The same is not true 
> of the “Cumulative-vote family of election systems)” you mention. What 
> do you think?
>
>
> 7-S: We started our dialogue by talking about a single national 
> constituency. However, please note that a constituency city election 
> of a seven-member council (as was the case in the city in which I 
> live), just over 10% of all the ballots cast could no have help to 
> elect any candidate if ordinary STV were used. Therefore, needless 
> disappointment would occur. In contrast, if EPR were used instead, 
> again 100% of all voters’ ballots would support the whole council in 
> the most informative way.
>
>
> I look forward our dialogue, of course, all are invited.
>
> Stephen
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Richard Lung.
>
>
> On 19/03/2024 04:49, steve bosworth wrote:
> >
> > *
> > *
> >
> > *Needless disappointments result from electing legislative bodies
> > using plurality, STV, or CPO-STV*
> >
> >
> > Structurally, different portions of all the voters fail to help elect
> > their favored candidate for a legislative body. For example, when
> > electing a seven-member city council; about 50% of the voters are
> > disappointed when using plurality voting, and over 10% are
> > disappointed when using STV or CPO-STV. However, all these
> > disappointments are needless because a new and better way of voting
> > guarantees that _every voter_ is most likely to see one of the elected
> > members as representing their hopes and concerns. This system is
> > called evaluative-proportional representation (EPR):
> >
> > 
> <https://www.jpolrisk.com/legislatures-elected-by-evaluative-proportional-representation-epr-an-algorithm-v3/ 
> <https://www.jpolrisk.com/legislatures-elected-by-evaluative-proportional-representation-epr-an-algorithm-v3/>>algorithm-v3/
>
> >
> > Each EPR ballot invites the voter to grade the suitability for office
> > of at least one of the candidates as either Excellent, Very Good,
> > Good, or Acceptable. Voters can grade as many of the candidates as
> > they want, and give the same grade to more than one candidate.
> >
> > All these grades are counted to assure each voter that their one vote
> > is add to the total of the elected candidate who received their
> > highest available grade.
> >
> > What do you think of the arguments detailed in the above link?
> >
>
>
>
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