[EM] Better Choices for Democracy

[Closed Limelike Curves]

Going by the returns from last night, it looks like there was probably a
Center Squeeze in NYC, although it might not be visible on the ballots
since presumably lots of people probably only ranked either Cuomo or
Mamdani out of laziness.

On Tue, Jun 24, 2025 at 8:24 PM robert bristow-johnson via Election-Methods
<election-methods at lists.electorama.com> wrote:

>
>
> > On 06/24/2025 9:34 PM EDT Chris Benham via Election-Methods <
> election-methods at lists.electorama.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Robert,
> >
> > > Why is it *ever* a good thing to elect the IRV winner when such
> differs from the Condorcet winner?
> >
> > In the case where all the voters give their sincere full rankings, it is
> > possible that the Hare winner will have much higher Social Utility while
> > the CW has zero or next-to-zero real support:
> >
> > 49  A|>>C>B>D
> > 48  B|>>C>A>D
> > 03  D>>C>A|>>B
> >
> > (The | indicates approval cutoff and >> means extra strong preference,
> > but neither Hare or the Condorcet criterion has any use for that
> > information).
>
> Okay, Chris, I'm gonna do one issue at a time, and I'll start top-down.
> And I will actually refuse to go down rabbit holes.
>
> So here, it appears that you're changing the semantics of the game, and I
> won't go there.
>
> The whole point of choosing the ranked ballot over the scored ballot is
> that there is no ">>".  Just ">" and "=".  Ranked ballot voting does not
> provide for ">>".  Nor does it provide for "|" either, although I'll grant
> that a natural place to put "|" is at the unranked level.  But it's not the
> point of the ranked ballot.
>
> The only information we get from the ranked ballot and the only
> information we *want* from the ranked ballot is A>B>C.  All this means is
> that if the choice was between A and B, the vote is for A.  If between A
> and C, the vote is for A.  But if the choice was between B and C, the vote
> would be for B.  In any case, the vote counts as exactly one vote.  Degree
> of preference does not matter.   And it should not, because people will
> just be incentivized to exaggerate their degree of preference to make their
> vote count more.  Borda conceded as much when he answered a point from
> Condorcet: "My system is only intended for honest men."  The system,
> whatever it is, should be resistant to attempts by dishonest voters to game
> it.  It can't be done, perfectly.  But we shouldn't set up a utilitarian
> ranking or rating system that will incentivize either strategic or tactical
> voting (and I differentiate a little between the two, but they're both bad).
>
> So, I am not going down the utilitarian rabbit hole in this.  I'm just for
> the strict equality of our votes to the degree possible.  It must not
> matter how enthusiastic or passionate our support is for the candidate we
> vote for.  Our votes should be counted equally anyway.
>
> Okay, I'll dabble in one more thing, and then I'm leaving this alone.
>
> >> We *know* when we don't elect the CW that IIA and favorite betrayal are
> violated and people are harmed for voting sincerely.
> >
> > No Condorcet method meets Favorite Betrayal or IIA.
>
> I know that.  It wasn't my point.  I meant *only* what I said.  Just take
> the sentence for precisely what was written.
>
> >  It is true that good Condorcet methods are somewhat less vulnerable to
> Compromise than Hare,
>
> Yes, the incentive to compromise comes from spoiled elections.  There were
> 4 spoiled RCV election in the United States that we know of because no CW
> was elected.  Two of which *could* have been unspoiled (Burlington 2009 and
> Alaska 2022).  The other two are good examples of Impossibility a.la.
> Arrow.  I have always been clear that changing from Hare to Condorcet only
> fixes the first two.  And **any** Condorcet will fix it, not just the "good
> Condorcet" methods.
>
> But as RCV is adopted more and more, this failure will occur more often
> than once per decade, it will happen every year (if RCV is widespread and
> IRV is the method).  Then there will be trouble.  We should make course
> corrections now and not wait for that day.
>
> > but on the other hand all Condorcet methods (some more than others) are
> vulnerable to Burial and Hare isn't.
>
> That's right.  But the vulnerability to burial requires the Condorcet
> election to either be in a cycle or to push it into a cycle.  If we're not
> in a cycle, nor even close to a cycle, burial will do nothing to help the
> side doing it.  Burial cannot make a non-CW into a CW.  All burial can do
> is toss it into a cycle and hope that your non-CW is elected with how the
> Condorcet-consistent method elects in a cycle.
>
> >> MiniMax Opposition (that isn't really Condorcet consistent) also has
> LNH.
> >
> > MinMax (Pairwise Opposition) is nether a Condorcet method or any version
> of the single transferable vote and doesn't meet Later-no-Help. So why
> mention it?
>
> Because you said something about "the only rule that doesn't allow lower
> rankings to either harm or help higher-ranked candidates".  Hare isn't the
> only rule that does LNH.  I don't like MinMax (Pairwise Opposition) because
> it's not Condorcet.  I'm just saying that your "simple principle" is not
> yet well-defined.
>
> But the Condorcet criterion *is* well-defined.  Not complete, but
> well-defined.  And it's simple.  Very simple.  And hard to argue with.  At
> least you haven't brought up the contrived bullshit about "core support"
> that we read from the likes of Deb Otis and other IRV apologists.
>
> bestest,
>
> robert
>
> --
>
> r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj at audioimagination.com
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>
> .
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> .
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