[EM] POLL: New deadline: 2024-05-16 05:15:00 UTC

[robert bristow-johnson]

> On 05/15/2024 6:43 AM EDT Chris Benham <cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> 
> 
> Robert,
>  
> 
> > So my fav is straight-ahead Condorcet with Plurality as the contingency method.
> 
>  That method is a big open invitation for the supporters of the Plurality (aka FPP) winner to engage in easy Burial strategy. Say sincere is
>  
>  46 A
>  44 B
>  10 C>B
>  
>  B is the Condorcet winner. B>A 54-46 and B>C 44-10.
>  
>  What can the A supporters do about that? 
>  
>  46 A>C (sincere is A or A>B)
>  44 B
>  10 C>B
>  
>  They have given B a pairwise defeat so now there is a cycle. B>A 54-46, A>C 46-10, C>B 56-44.
>  
>  According to your preferred Condorcet//FPP method the strategists easily steal the election.

If it's not that close, how is it "easy"?  And what about the risk of backfiring?

I know that the Alaska 2022 (August) race is good example, Peltola wins with IRV and FPTP.  Begich is the CW.  If it were Condorcet/Plurality (or Bottom-Two Runoff, which also elects the Plurality winner, at least in the situation of only 3 significant candidates), I understand that if Peltola voters anticipating that Peltola might be the Plurality winner but Begich would win Condorcet, they might bury Begich and bullet vote Peltola.  But a lot of voters would have to do that, *and* it may be against their true desires, which is to make sure that Palin does not win.  They risk Palin winning if they bullet vote Peltola.

> In this example that is also true of Margins and the dinky Bottom-Two Runoff "IRV" method you like.
>  

I like "dinky" if that description means "concise".  Benham's method, when encoded in legislative language is not dinky enough.  BTR only requires one simple runoff in each IRV round.  Your method essentially requires doing the straight-ahead Condorcet tabulation for each round.  I just cannot imagine legislators choosing that over the dinky BTR.

Chris, would you recommend changing to Condorcet/TTR?  I'm pretty much agnostic about that.

But here's what I want (because my interest is *legislation* for elections for public office in government):

1. I want everyone, legislators and the public, to understand the method and how the legal language directly describes the method.  If the legislative language is convoluted, it will most certainly be rejected by both legislators and the public.

2. I want everyone to understand the *purpose* of the legislative change; Why are we changing from FPTP to RCV?  What is it that we're trying to gain or to fix by changing?  That reason needs to be concise, well-understood, and compelling.  Straight-ahead Condorcet simply spells out application of the Condorcet criterion to the tabulation of the vote.  It's simply:

"If more voters mark their ballots preferring Candidate A to Candidate B than the number of voters marking their ballots to the contrary, then Candidate B is not elected."

At least if we can, at all, avoid it.

I don't want to sell these policy makers on that simple principle and then try to convince them that some language that is far nastier than IRV is necessary to implement it.  They will reject it.  They might think that I am obfuscating some trick in the language.  Benham isn't as opaque as Schulze, but it's not as transparent as BTR or straight-ahead Condorcet (which, of course, needs a completion method).


>  A much better Condorcet method is Smith//Approval (implicit) which here gives the strategists a backfire by electing C. Winning Votes is also better and does the same thing. So does Smith//DAC.
>  
>  Condorcet//Approval (implicit) wasn't nominated in the poll but is the same thing as Smith//Approval (implicit) when there are no more than 3 candidates and is also much better.
>  
>  Among Condorcet methods, Benham and Woodall both continue to elect B in the second example because they meet Unburiable Mutual Dominant Third. Similar and also much better is Condorcet//Hare.
>  

I'll connect you to a couple Vermont legislators that are sympathetic to Condorcet.  Let's see how you explain this to them.


--

r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj at audioimagination.com

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

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