[EM] 28 years of progress and a wakeup call

[Chris Benham]

Robert,

> I'm still thinking perhaps Condorcet-TTR might be best.

Are you seriously suggesting another round of voting?   Why?

Hare is much better than TTR.  And you already collected the all the 
ranking information you need to operate either in the first round.

> 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?

I am not a lawyer and know nothing about whatever is special or 
distinctive about US "legislative language".   But nonetheless I can't 
see why it would be an insurmountable challenge.

> What are the tactical/strategic voting implications of Condorcet-Approval?

It makes Burial strategy more likely to backfire than to succeed.   And 
it is less likely to fail Favorite Betrayal for voters who rank their 
Lesser Evil compromise equal-top with their sincere Favorite.

> 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.

Aren't they used to that?    TTR would introduce a lot of extra Pushover 
strategy opportunities, which of course (via your crazy primaries 
system) US voters are well used to.

I suggest that the default placement of the approval cutoff could be 
just below equal-top.  Then to the extent that the voters don't bother 
with it the method defaults to Condorcet//FPP(whole), or Condorcet//Top 
Ratings, which may not be a huge shock.

Also I think it is easier to vote sincerely with 
Condorcet//Approval(explicit) than with the explicit version. Because 
you can sincerely rank all the candidates without being concerned about 
being forced to approve candidates you don't like.

Then just make a judgement call (or be guided by someone's advice) on 
where to put your approval cutoff (which probably most of the time will 
be irrelevant).

Chris B.


On 24/05/2024 2:48 am, robert bristow-johnson 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."
>
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