[EM] 28 years of progress and a wakeup call

[Michael Ossipoff]

One-sentence definition of RP:

Elect the candidate who isn’t beaten among all of the strongest defeats
that don’t contradict (cycle with) eachother.
—-

That’s unambiguous, clear & explicit. There’s only 1 meaning that it could
have.

The following wording is longer, but it entirely spells out the procedure.

List the pairwise defeats one at a time, stronger ones first.

But, if the next-strongest one forms a cycle with already-listed defeats,
then skip that one.

When all defeats have been listed or skipped, elect the candidate who isn’t
defeated in any listed defeat.
—-

You might offer, with it, MinMax:

Elect the candidate whose greatest defeat is the least.
—-

RP is better. MM is simpler.

(Obviously both methods need the usual preliminary definitions.)



On Thu, May 23, 2024 at 10:19 robert bristow-johnson <
rbj at audioimagination.com> wrote:

>
>
> > On 05/23/2024 11:03 AM EDT Chris Benham <cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I think Condorcet//IRV would work fine, and surely could get some
> > support from IRV supporters.
> >
> > > What's the one-sentence principle (that's actually true) that
> describes IRV?
> > *Until one candidate remains, one-at-a-time eliminate the favorite
> > (among remaining candidates) of the fewest.*
> >
> > The palaver about a "majority" is just to shorten the counting process,
> > and also fits in with the marketing.
> >
> > Since you are obsessed with "clear and simple language"  am I right in
> > assuming that for you selling and explaining the concept of the "Smith
> > set" (or top cycle) is out?
>
> Can you imagine legislative language, first defining the Smith set and
> then the actual reference to the Smith set in the verbiage of the law?
>
> > What is your problem with  Condorcet//Approval?    If you don't like the
> > "implicit" version (where all candidates ranked above bottom are
> > considered approved), then what about the "explicit" version?
>
> I just want Condorcet in law, that spells out plainly who the Condorcet
> winner is and how that candidate is identified from the ballot data.  Now,
> being a two-method system, the law will also have to spell out what to do
> when there is no Condorcet winner.  Condorcet-Approval is pretty simple and
> implicitly defining any ranked candidate as having received an Approval
> vote is simple enough.  Perhaps it could be a better law than
> Condorcet-Plurality or Condorcet-TTR.
>
> What are the tactical/strategic voting implications of
> Condorcet-Approval?  How is it better to disincentivize strategic or
> tactical voting?  What are the pitfalls?
>
> I'm a bit concerned about the loss of voter expressivity in the case of a
> cycle, with Condorcet-Approval.
>
> I am a little concerned about two candidates, say George W Bush and Donald
> Trump, neither whom I approve, but I may very well rank W one rung higher
> than the corrupt, criminal, mendacious, narcissistic demagogue.  So I would
> have to rank W which would imply approval if the election goes into a cycle.
>
> > But several other ballot styles have been suggested for this type of
> > method.  Someone liked having a Yes/No box next to every candidate.  The
> > approval cutoff being a "virtual candidate" has been suggested, a 0-100
> > score ballot with scores above 50 counting as approval and so on.  I
> > suggested that the voters could mark the lowest ranked candidate they
> > approve, and so that candidate plus the ones they rank not below that
> > candidate are counted as approved.
>
> I think anything more than just asking voters to rank their preferences is
> asking too much.  It requires or burdens the voters to think tactically.
>
> I'm still thinking perhaps Condorcet-TTR might be best.  It's within
> epsilon of Condorcet-IRV (like that California bill from a few years ago)
> but it doesn't carry the semantic baggage of all of the IRV elements (like
> "active candidates" or "continuing candidates" or transferred votes, etc.).
>
> --
>
> r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj at audioimagination.com
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>
> .
> .
> .
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
> info
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20240523/309e407e/attachment.htm>