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

Mon May 27 01:55:48 PDT 2024

>> This forum, like most, in its rules of conduct, asks that we not keep
repeating an already-answered claim without answering the objections to it.

In that case, kindly stop repeating your unsubstantiated conspiracy
theories about fraud from 2000/2004!

On Mon, May 27, 2024 at 10:53 AM Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> No, but some humans are. Count-fraud has been demonstrated to have
> occurred, in 2000 & 2004.
>
> On Mon, May 27, 2024 at 01:39 Chris Benham <cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>
>> Are your computers really necessarily so untrustworthy?
>>
>> I think counting Hare would be somewhat easier. Probably very weak
>> candidates could be eliminated in batches (while ensuring the correct
>> one-at-a-time elimination result). One possible kludgey solution could be
>> to apply the Condorcet method to the Hare last X candidates.  X could be
>> say 7.
>>
>> Something I've been meaning to point out: the Approval Sorted Margins
>> method I promoted in the poll but the other voters here either ignored or
>> claimed they couldn't understand  (and then failed to give it even majority
>> approval) has the big practical advantage over
>> other Condorcet methods that it normally doesn't use (and therefore
>> doesn't have to know) the full pairwise matrix.  The more candidates there
>> are I should say the greater would this advantage be.
>>
>> This is because (as you all recall) it only needs to check if adjacent
>> pairs of candidates in the Approval-score order are in "pairwise harmony"
>> with that order.  Probably most of the time most of them will be.
>>
>> Chris B.
>>
>> On 27/05/2024 4:28 pm, Michael Ossipoff wrote:
>>
>> …or of course you could, for the voting, just ask each voter to write on
>> hir (big) ballot, which member of each of the 18090/2 candidate-pairs s/he
>> prefers to the other. S/he might be in the voting/booth for a while…
>>
>> On Sun, May 26, 2024 at 23:51 Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Suppose that there are 300 million voters. Round 18090 off to 20000x
>>>
>>> 3E8 X 2E4 = 6E12
>>>
>>> 6 trillion.
>>>
>>> That’s roughly the number of miles in a light-year.
>>>
>>> Whatever the number of voters, nationally, is, suppose that every one of
>>> them participated in the handcount.
>>>
>>> With the work divided among them all, each has “only” an amount of work
>>> equal to that of determining which member of each one of 18090/2 pairs of
>>> candidates is ranked over the other on a ballot.
>>>
>>> 135 candidates in each ranking. On the average, s/he’d only have to look
>>> at half of the ranking’s candidates to find each of the 2 members of each
>>> pair.
>>>
>>> …but s/he’d have to do it for both. So the order-determination for each
>>> candidate-pair, on the average will require looking at 135 candidates.
>>>
>>> Suppose that s/he can skim over 10 of them in a second, when doing those
>>> searches.
>>>
>>> Then it would take (135)(18090/2)/10 seconds. That’s about 1.4 days. But
>>> say she only does it for 8 hours per day (with no breaks). Now it’s more
>>> like 4.2 days.
>>>
>>> But supervision is the whole point. If s/he’s working alone, she can say
>>> that the pairwise vote-totals are whatever s/he wants them to be.
>>>
>>> So in reality, it would be counting *teams* each wit representatives of
>>> several parties. Say (optimistically) there are 10 parties.
>>>
>>> Now it will take 42 days. But the parties don’t really have equal
>>> numbers of members. It’s going to take longer.
>>>
>>> …&, realistically, they aren’t going to scan 10 ranked candidates every
>>> second for 8 hours with no breaks.
>>>
>>> It would obviously take months. Might it not, in fact, be measured in
>>> years…with every one of the nation’s voters participating in that handcount?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, May 26, 2024 at 22:11 Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> …& of course multiply that 18090 by the number of ballots, to get an
>>>> idea of what’s involved in the 18090 order-determinations to be done on
>>>> each ballot, & recorded, &  then summed, to obtain each of the 18090
>>>> pairwise vote-totals.
>>>>
>>>> …each of which then must be carried or transmitted to where the central
>>>> count is done.
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, May 26, 2024 at 22:03 Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, May 26, 2024 at 12:56 Chris Benham <cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In 2003  there was California  gubernatorial election with 135
>>>>>> candidates.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> That’s 18090 pairwise vote-totals to determine at each precinct from
>>>>> the rankings, by examining each ranking to determine which member of each
>>>>> possible candidate-pair is ranked over the other on that ballot.
>>>>>
>>>>> …& 18080 pairwise vote-totals for the precincts to sum, store, &
>>>>> transmit or carry to the central count location.
>>>>>
>>>>> …& verify in an audit.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_California_gubernatorial_recall_election#Results
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Chris B.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 26/05/2024 9:29 pm, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
>>>>>> > On 2024-05-26 07:28, Michael Ossipoff 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 would prefer that you do not attribute opinions that the
>>>>>> proponents
>>>>>> > have not expressed. Nowhere have I said that Condorcet "[isolates]
>>>>>> us
>>>>>> > from the choice" we make.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > What you call "sheltering" and "isolating", I see as the method
>>>>>> taking
>>>>>> > proper responsibility - proper responsibility to turn the voters'
>>>>>> > unambiguous honest opinions into an outcome without dumping the
>>>>>> > algorithmic calculation upon te voter themselves. See my "kick the
>>>>>> can
>>>>>> > down the road" post for more info.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > Now, I could make a caricature of Approval itself. Perhaps
>>>>>> something
>>>>>> > about a calculator that just says "IDK, do the base conversion
>>>>>> > yourself, I only accept input numbers in factoradic". But
>>>>>> caricatures
>>>>>> > only make people angry. Let's not stoop to them, shall we?
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >> I’ll ask this for the 3^rd time:
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> …
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> How would like you to handount-audit a Condorcet count for a
>>>>>> >> many-candidate national presidential election?
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > I think your question assumes something that won't hold. If you
>>>>>> have a
>>>>>> > 25-candidate presidential election, you've already lost, because
>>>>>> > nobody is going to rank 25 candidates, irrespective of whether the
>>>>>> > method is Condorcet, IRV, or Borda.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > I'm not familiar with minor parties in the US. Has there ever been
>>>>>> a
>>>>>> > 25-candidate presidential election?
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > I don't think I can comment beyond that: I don't know enough about
>>>>>> > poll workers. I'll leave that to someone with experience. (Although
>>>>>> > roughly calculating: suppose 6 candidates like in Burlington.
>>>>>> That's
>>>>>> > 30 pairs. Five times the work if counting a particular preference
>>>>>> is
>>>>>> > as before. So you'd either need 5x the workers, or five times the
>>>>>> > time, or some combination of the two.)
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > On an aside, though, I would say that I generally wouldn't want to
>>>>>> get
>>>>>> > computers anywhere near election counting. However, if you
>>>>>> absolutely
>>>>>> > have to have them, there are ways of making sure they don't cheat:
>>>>>> > formal verification. You could also create special-purpose tools
>>>>>> that
>>>>>> > say, only turn ranks into matrices and nothing else: there's no
>>>>>> reason
>>>>>> > (apart from programmer convenience) why an election tool should be
>>>>>> a
>>>>>> > general purpose computer that you could hide all sorts of
>>>>>> shenanigans in.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >> 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.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> 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.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > Not necessarily. See the following paper:
>>>>>> > https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.04216v2
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > According to the authors, under their model, if every voter follows
>>>>>> a
>>>>>> > particular thresholding rule, then iterative approval generally
>>>>>> > arrives at the Condorcet winner (but not always). However, if
>>>>>> voters
>>>>>> > are left to choose any thresholding rule they want (as you
>>>>>> propose),
>>>>>> > then anything is possible. The arrangement might even elect a
>>>>>> > Condorcet loser, and the outcome may be slow to converge or who
>>>>>> wins
>>>>>> > may depend on how many polls you hold.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > I'm reminded of a quote about distributed algorithms that I read
>>>>>> > somewhere: "It's really easy to design distributed algorithms that
>>>>>> > suffer from deadlock, network floods or widely unpredictable and
>>>>>> > bizarre oscillations". That's in the context of computer science -
>>>>>> > deadlocks might not be applicable to election methods. But it does
>>>>>> > justify a starting position of skepticisim when considering schemes
>>>>>> > that offload more of the work to the voters by turning a one-shot
>>>>>> > method into a dynamical system.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >> It seems to me that, in every one of EM’s polls, including the
>>>>>> recent
>>>>>> >> one, Approval chose the CW.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> Have we forgotten that?
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > I haven't, nor have I forgotten that Approval wasn't actually the
>>>>>> poll
>>>>>> > winner.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > But let's take this reasoning at face value. I don't have the other
>>>>>> > polls' ballot data available at the moment, so let's consider the
>>>>>> > latest one and pick... say, Borda.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > As one can see by going to
>>>>>> > https://munsterhjelm.no/km/rbvote/calc.html, pasting in the data,
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> > clicking Borda, Ranked Pairs is also the Borda winner.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > But I don't think I'm going to start advocating for Borda.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > To not be accused of tu quoque, let me clarify the point. As
>>>>>> > Burlington shows, an election method needs to handle the hard
>>>>>> cases,
>>>>>> > not just the easy ones, or there may be a considerable uproar when
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> > method is faced with a hard case and then stumbles. (In addition,
>>>>>> > people trying to make sure a stumble doesn't happen may start to do
>>>>>> > mass compromising, further entrenching two-party rule.)
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > So it's quite possible that our polls are easy cases. But like
>>>>>> > FairVote claiming that IRV gets the Condorcet winner more than 90%
>>>>>> of
>>>>>> > the time, that doesn't by itself tell us much, because the failures
>>>>>> > have such a strong impact.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > I illustrate the example above by picking a method we know to be
>>>>>> bad
>>>>>> > (Borda being so extremely easy to fool with cloning and burial),
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> > showing that the poll result comes out right. If a bad method can
>>>>>> get
>>>>>> > a good result, then "getting a good result" is less useful than it
>>>>>> > might appear at first glance.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > -km
>>>>>> > ----
>>>>>> > Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for
>>>>>> list
>>>>>> > info
>>>>>>
>>>>> ----
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> info
>
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