[EM] Did someone not hear what I said about Approval vs Condorcet?

[Rob Lanphier]

Hi Michael,

I pretty much agree with your positions vis a vis Condorcet and approval.
I came around from mildly negative regarding approval in the 1990s and
2000s, to neutral in the early 2010s to very positive about it in the late
2010s and now.  You're right that the auditability of approval elections is
a killer feature, and that auditing any strictly Condorcet-winner-criterion
compliant system will be incredibly difficult.

I think, though, that engaging in good faith on this mailing list is going
to involve taking the time to make your responses shorter and to the
point.  I frequently find it difficult-to-impossible to read your poorly
formatted, long, and disjointed responses.  I feel a little bad for calling
you out specifically on this, because you aren't the only one I could level
that criticism toward, but I'm hoping everyone who is reading this isn't
too smug about THEIR emails being crisp and to-the-point.  Writing a good
postcard is often a lot more work than writing a long letter, and we all
could probably do better.  Can we all work on making our missives to this
mailing list a little clearer?

Rob


On Sat, May 25, 2024 at 10:29 PM Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Someone keeps repeating that the voters shouldn’t have to vote
> strategically. He wants the method to do it all for us, after we merely
> state our sincere-rankings.
>
> …
>
> That’s of course a common attitude:
>
> …
>
> …wanting a high-tech, computation-intensive,  computer-dependent system
> to do it all for us, taking all the actual choosing responsibility off of
> us.  …sheltering & isolating us from the choice.
>
> …
>
> I’ve already agreed that a completely legalistic system like a good
> Condorcet method is probably the best thing for the inimical electorate in
> our public-political elections.
>
> …
>
> ...all else being equal (as KM said).
>
> …
>
> I pointed out that all is NOT equal. As desirable as it would be for our
> inimical public-political elections, the automatic machine that does it all
> for us, to isolate & shelter us from the choosing, comes at too high a
> price in our public-political elections.
>
> …
>
> Condorcet for public political elections has a number of problems, with
> count-security as the main & most serious problem. I spoke of that before,
> but it just didn’t seem to get across.  Hello?
>
> …
>
> Is it that we don’t believe that count-fraud is a genuine problem…or is it
> just, so strongly do we want to believe what we believe, that we’ve
> convinced ourselves that we didn’t hear?
>
> …
>
> Claims that Condorcet is transparent consisted of handwaving that
> disregarded the fact that Condorcet requires many, many times more
> computation than does Approval.   …& requires many, many times more count
> totals be tallied, stored, & transmitted to central-counting.
>
> …
>
> …a humungously, prohibitively, bigger & more computation-intensive count.
>
> …
>
> I’ll ask this for the 3rd time:
>
> …
>
> How would like you to handount-audit a Condorcet count for a
> many-candidate national presidential election?
>
> …
>
> As for the belief (if such a belief is what this is about) that
> count-fraud isn’t a problem, I’ll repeat this;
>
> …
>
> Look up the issues of Harper’s Magazine that came out after each of G.W.
> Bushes two elections (2000 & 2004).  Mountains of evidence for widespread
> count-fraud. Check out the two Harpers articles.
>
> …
>
> One; thing they mentioned was that a supplier of voting-machines promised
> to “deliver” the election to Dubya. One of the two Harper’s articles will
> give you details about that.
>
> …
>
> It would be much better to trust the voters to use Approval well, than to
> trust all of the count-personnel to not perpetrate  count-fraud in the
> elaborate computation-intensive Condorcet count.
>
> …
>
> There might be a desire to have it all done for us by a computer, but that
> comes at too high a price.
>
> …
>
> …& that’s not counting Approval’s other advantages, including incomparably
> less expensive & easier explanation, definition, proposal, enactment,  &
> administration…in addition to the much better count-security that I spoke
> of above.
>
> …
>
> How bad, in your perception, is it for voters to have to make the choice
> for themselves instead of just telling their preferences & having it done
> for us?  The Appoval-opponent I spoke of keeps saying that he wouldn’t
> know whether to approve a maybe but maybe-not needed 2nd-choice. A
> dilemma: Risk someone worse than him winning, or risk helping him beat your
> favorite? That critic complains that that’s unacceptable.
>
> …
>
> Yes, with any method other than the wv Condorcet methods, you don’t know
> what your objectively optimal vote is.  Neither do any of the other
> voters, so don’t worry about it !!
>
> …
>
> That critic seems to believe that it’s necessary to know your
> objectively-optimal vote.
>
> …
>
> That’s a misbelief.
>
> …
>
> As I’ve said, probability & therefore expectation & its maximization
> depend of what information you have  & are using.
>
> …
>
> No, you can’t know your objectively-optimal vote.
>
> …
>
> But you can vote to maximize your expectation, based on the information
> that you have & are using.
>
> …
>
> I’ve discussed that at length in previous posts, & it probably isn’t
> necessary to again post about ways of choosing how to vote in Approval.
>
> …
>
> But, just summarize:  It’s easy.  Whichever of the various ways you
> prefer to use, for choosing whom to approve, it’s easy.   …& no, it
> doesn’t require knowing your objectively-optimal vote.
>
> …
>
> Some of us have been so spoiled by what wv Condorcet can achieve, in doing
> it all for us, with us only needing to express our sincere
> preference-ordering, that we’ve come to believe that that’s necessary.  …having
> it all done for us, to shelter & isolate us from the choice.
>
> …
>
> I’ve many times pointed out that Approval’s Myerson-Weber equilibrium is
> the voter-median.
>
> …
>
> i.e. Approval soon homes in on where the Condorcet-Winner is.
>
> …
>
> Have we forgotten that?
>
> …
>
> It seems to me that, in every one of EM’s polls, including the recent one,
> Approval chose the CW.
>
> …
>
> Have we forgotten that?
>
> …
>
> The simple, reliable handtool works just fine.
>
> …
>
> I should add that I like wv Condorcet (RP(wv) & MinMax(wv) ) for polls,
> because of course they look at more information.
>
> …
>
> …& I’d like them for public-political elections too, were it not for the
> abovestated  problems of the rank-methods.
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
> info
>
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