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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">At 12:55 AM 6/23/2008, Chris Benham wrote:<BR>>Kathy,<BR>><BR>>Imagine that Approval is used to elect the US President and<BR>>as in the current campaign the Republicans are fielding one<BR>>candidate, McCain. Does that mean that the big fight for the<BR>>Democrat nomination between Clinton and Obama we've just<BR>>seen would in the Approval scenario be completely unnecessary?<BR></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">Abd:<BR>"No. That fight is over the Democratic Party nomination and <BR>endorsement. It means that the whole apparatus of the Democratic <BR>Party is devoted to one candidate, which is, of course, strongly in <BR>the interest of the Democratic Party."</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif"><BR>Chris:</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif"> You know that that is somewhat beside the point. But I get the impression</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">that most of the money goes directly to the campaigns of the individual</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">candidates and that the media attention is mainly focused on the individual</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">candidates, rather than say "the policies of the Democratic Party" irrespective</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">of who is their endorsed candidate.<BR><BR>>Why not simply endorse both candidates? After all, one cannot<BR>>possibly spoil the election for the other because Approval has<BR>>no spoiler problem. Voters simply approve candidates or not<BR>>completely regardless of what other candidates are on the ballot,<BR>>right?</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">Abd:<BR>"Sure. If we imagine that somehow the parties have decided not to <BR>nominate candidates, snowballs in hell nevermind, running both Obama <BR>and Clinton against a single McCain would probaby result in very <BR>common double-voting. Now, if Obama and Clinton heavily campaign <BR>against each other, slinging mud, etc, trying to convince the voters <BR>that the other one is practically the devil, nobody would benefit <BR>from this except McCain. Which is quite why we don't do things this <BR>way. Parties in Australia don't run multiple candidates for the same <BR>single-winner office, do they?"</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">Chris:</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif"> No, but very closely allied candidates sometimes run against each other,<BR>such as a candidate each from both Coalition partners (the Liberals and</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">the Nationals).</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">Abd: <BR>"The problem, were it Approval, wouldn't be so much the voting method. <BR>(Which, by the way, loses most of the problems it has if a majority <BR>is required or there is a runoff). It would be the rest of the <BR>system, the process by which voters become informed, or deluded, <BR>depending on your point of view.<BR><BR>>I think that in practical effect Approval does have a "spoiler" or<BR>>split-vote problem that would be sufficient for the Democrats to<BR>>still want to endorse one candidate only.<BR><BR>There are *lots* of reasons why the Democrats would want to do that. <BR>Or any party. This is a red herring argument. The "split vote <BR>problem" in Approval is a very different animal than the split vote <BR>problem in Plurality, or, for that matter, in IRV."</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">Chris:</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif"> I don't see how the split-vote problem in Approval is a "very different</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">animal than the split vote problem in Plurality". To me it is just much</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">less severe. The "split-vote problem in IRV" is much less and normally</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">unnoticable.</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif"> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">I think in the US scenario with voluntary voting, if both Clinton and</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">Obama ran McCain would have less chance of winning with IRV</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">than with Approval or Range or Bucklin or any other reasonable</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">method that springs to mind. This is because both Clinton and</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">Obama have their enthusiastic supporters some of whom wouldn't</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">bother voting if their favourite wasn't running, but if their favourite<BR>was running they would show up and (at the urging of their favourite)</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">rank both Clinton and Obama above McCain.</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif"><BR>IRV, meeting both Majority for Solid Coalitions and Later-no-Harm<BR>has no "defection incentive" like other methods.</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif"><A href="http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2006-November/018844.html" target=_blank rel=nofollow><FONT color=#0000ff>http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2006-November/018844.html</FONT></A></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif"><BR><BR>>What I actually wrote in my initial post on the 5 "fairness<BR>>principles in your paper (regarding IIA):<BR>><BR>>In practical effect *no* method meets this.Approval and Range can <BR>>be said to meet<BR>>Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) only if the votes are <BR>>interpreted as the voters giving<BR>>ratings on some fixed scale that is independent of the actual candidates.</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">Abd:<BR>"No, that's not correct. Perhaps it would be useful if you actually <BR>state the version of IIA you are using. Usually, it refers to adding <BR>or subtracting a candidate without changing the "preference order" of <BR>the other candidates, but if you are going to use it with Range and <BR>Approval, you have to modify it; the basic modification is that the <BR>Range Votes or Approval Votes don't change, and all that happens is <BR>that a new candidate is added to the ballot or taken off the ballot."<BR></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">Chris:</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif"> If the voters rate the candidates on some fixed scale that is independent</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">of the candidates, then by definition the Range or Approval votes would<BR>be unchanged by adding (or removing) a candidate. What's "not correct"</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">about it? </DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">Abd:<BR>"If voters are allowed to actually change their votes, *no method <BR>meets IIA.* Simple proof: there is a candidate whose name is a <BR>trigger for a long-hidden internal program that causes human beings <BR>to fall into a trance when they contemplate whether or not to vote <BR>for a candidate, and they leave the booth with false memories of what <BR>happened (really happens with trance, sometimes, i.e, false memory). <BR>The voters see this new name on the ballot, and regardless of how <BR>they would have voted, they become incapable of voting, so all <BR>candidates tie with no votes. And thus the winner could change.<BR><BR>>On this perverse interpretation Approval and Range do not reduce <BR>>to FPP in the 2 candidate election,<BR>>in violation of Dopp's "fairness principle 4":<BR>><BR>>"Any candidate who is the favorite [first]
choice of a majority of <BR>>voters should win."<BR>><BR>>(approval or non-approval counts as "rating" on a 2-point scale).<BR><BR>Chris, you should look at Dhillon and Mertens, "Relative <BR>Utilitarianism," where they purport to prove that Range Voting is a <BR>unique solution to a version of Arrow's voting axioms that <BR>accommodate Range Voting. Relative Utilitarianism refers to "votes" <BR>which are "normalized von Neuman-Morgenstern utilities in the range <BR>of 0-1. I.e., Range Voting. Warren Smith is actually not in outer <BR>space on this (their work preceded his).<BR><BR>Because of the normalization, in the two candidate case, Majority is <BR>satisfied. Because vN-M utilities are modified by probabilities, it <BR>gets complicated in the three-candidate case, where RU is considered <BR>the unique solution. If I remember correctly. I'm hoping to help get <BR>a popularization of Dhillon and Mertens prepared, it's needed. Smith
<BR>calls their use of symbols "Notation from Hell." And he's familiar <BR>with the conventions!"</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">Chris:</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif"> It might I suppose be of some interest as an intellectual curiosity, but<BR>Warren Smith is a mathematician who says he doesn't understand it,</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">and my understanding of Mathese is nil.</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">Range Voting isn't normalised. Normalised Range Voting doesn't<BR>meet Kathy Dopp's first "fairness condition" (IIA).</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif">Chris Benham<BR></DIV></DIV></div><br>
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