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<pre><br>Abd:<br><br>I might post this when it's only partially finished, and then continue it Monday.<br><br>You wrote:<br><br>At 04:55 PM 3/1/2012, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:<br> <br>>If you rank your favorite, F, in 1st place, s/he gets a majority, <br>>even though s/he doesn't win, because someone else has a higher<br>>majority.<br> <br>That's apparently quite unusual. Even if multple votes in first rank <br>are allowed -- they certainly should be -- most voters will not use them.<br><br>[endquote]<br><br>You don't have sufficient information to make that prediction.<br><br>Yes, the IRVists point out that, when Bucklin was used in the early<br>20th century, few if any voters would even rank a 2nd choice. My answer<br>to that is that plumping is a valid good strategy if no one but your favorite<br>is acceptable to you, or if you're sure that s/he will win if you don't rank<br>anyone else.<br><br>Those were only municipal elections, of course. You can't use them to predict<br>voting in national or state elections. In important elections, people would soon<br>learn what voting strategy is in their best interest.<br><br>It seems to me that, in ABucklin, most people's best strategy would often or usually<br>be to just vote certain candidates in 1st place, and not rank anyone else.<br><br>You continued:<br><br>Sequential approval voting, i.e., a series of polls where voters <br>start out with "insisting on their favorite," and then gradually <br>lower their approval cutoff until a majority is found, is simply a <br>more efficient version of what is standard deliberative process, <br>i.e., vote-for-one majority-required, repeated until a majority is found<br><br>[endquote]<br><br>I have nothing against that, but it would be expensive for large public elections.<br>ABucklin, would be a perfectly good substitute. AOCBucklin would be better.<br>.<br> <br>You continued:<br><br>In any case, to me, if the number of ballots were not to be limited, <br>I'd want to see Range polling, with explicit approval cutoff, plus a <br>ratification vote that explicitly approves the result.<br><br>[endquote]<br><br>More expensive still. A good proposal would propose only one balloting.<br><br><br>You continued:<br><br> In some <br>organizations, a mere majority margin, thin, really isn't desirable, <br>it should be better than that. Popes were elected by repeated <br>approval polling, two-thirds majority required. But I'd prefer to <br>leave it to the majority to decide what margin is needed. Otherwise <br>it is the *rules* which are in charge. I.e., the past is ruling the <br>present, which I'm learning is not a great idea, for many reasons. <br>Informing and suggesting, yes, but ruling, no.<br><br>[endquote]<br><br>???<br><br>Ok, I and those who agree with me have a 51% majority. So you ask us how large a<br>majority should be required, and we reply (guess what) "51%".<br><br>I'm not sure how or why you'd implement the flexible majority-magnitude requirement<br>that you suggest.<br><br>>A number of people rank F, and, if you help F get a majority, then <br>>they won't give a vote to their next choice.<br>><br>>That's regrettable, because their next choice could win with those <br>>votes, while F can't win. And when their next choice doesn't win,<br>>someone worse than s/he (as judged by you) wins.<br>><br>>You got a worse result because you didn't favorite-bury.<br><br>You reply:<br> <br>Mike, I'm not sure I'm following you here, but the situation, <br>multiple majorities in the first round, would be indicative of a <br>highly unusual context.<br><br>[endquote]<br><br>Maybe. FBC-failure won't be common in Beatpath either. But it's possible. It's likewise<br>possible in Stepwise-to-Majority. In any method where there could be a situation where<br>your best outcome can only be gotten by favorite-burial, you can't assure people that they<br>have no need for favorite-burial. I believe that voters have shown us, in elections and in<br>straw-polls, that it's absolutely necessary to assure voters that it's entirely impossible<br>for there be to be a situation where they can get their best outcome only by favorite-burial.<br><br>You said:<br> <br>Let's see if I understand.<br><br>[endquote]<br><br>I meant what I said, nothing more or less.<br><br>But the first thing you should understand is that I've already said that my<br>FBC failiure scenario doesn't work for ABucklin. ABucklin apparently passes FBC.<br>I now am convinced that it does, and that there's good reason to believe that a<br>failure example cannot be found for ABucklin.<br><br>The failure we're talking about, therefore, is only that of Stepwise-to-Majority.<br> <br>You continued:<br><br>If you vote for your Favorite in first <br>place, someone else has a higher majority, call him or her A. In the <br>first round? There is a third candidate who has a lesser majority, B, <br>whom you prefer to A.<br><br>[endquote]<br><br>B might not have hir majority yet. S/he might get it when the other voters I<br>spoke of give votes to their next choice, in the next round.<br><br>You continued:<br><br>If you vote for B in first rank, they might tie <br>the other majority candidate. <br><br>[endquote]<br><br>Or, then again, they might not. In general, "might" isn't good enough for timid<br>overcompromisers.<br><br>You continued:<br><br>I tend to think of my own votesg as <br>being representative of a class of voters, i.e., what I do, others <br>may do<br><br>[endquote]<br><br>Of course.<br><br>You continued:<br><br>, so this might flip the result to B, an improvement from my perspective.<br> <br>[endquote]<br><br>"Might" won' do.<br><br>You continued:<br><br>But if I really fear this, I can vote for B in first place in <br>addition to F. That's not burying, that is normal Approval/Range <br>strategy. It's equal ranking, not preference reversal.<br><br>[endquote]<br><br>...and there's no assurance that it will keep A from winning. Maybe A<br>_needs_ those votes that those other voters will give to hir if you<br>don't give F a majority.<br><br>You continued:<br><br>The optimal number of ranks in a Bucklin ballot would be such that <br>nearly all voters bullet vote in the first rank.<br><br>Nonsense. If there are unacceptable candidates who could win, your best<br>strategy is to rank all the acceptables in 1st place, and to not rank anyone<br>else.<br><br>Further, even if it isn't a u/a election, in my posting about voting-options in Approval elections, I said that the<br>seeming (often) suboptimality of the ABucklin option in an Approval election<br>suggests that voting only at 1st rank is often the best ABucklin strategy,<br>even if it isn't an unacceptables/acceptables election. You might not agree with<br>that conclusion. I admit that it's only a subjective impression.<br><br>You continlued:<br><br>When there are more than two viable candidates, I'd expect majority <br>failure to occur in the first rank, routinely. The scenario presented <br>won't occur, at all<br><br>[endquote]<br><br>Wrong. Of course it could. If you want to actually _demostrate_ that it<br>won't often happen, then I invite you to do so.<br><br>But of course it could happen.<br><br>You continued:<br><br>, so a voter worrying about it is worrying about <br>something quite unlikely.<br><br>[endquote]<br><br>As I've said, I've watched someone favorite-bury in a Condorcet-counted<br>rank-balloting election. If you can't firmly assure voters that they can't<br>possibly benefit from favorite-burial, then timid overcompromisers are going<br>to favorite-bury.<br><br>(The below-quoted question has been answered: ABucklin can't fail FBC)<br><br>>Does anyone know if there's actually a proof that ER-Bucklin meets FBC?<br> <br>You answered:<br><br>It's an Approval method, so this depends on how you define "Favorite <br>Betrayal." If equal ranking is betrayal, yes. But that's weird.<br><br>[endquote]<br><br>Favorite-betrayal is favorite-burial. Voting someone over your favorite.<br><br>And no, not all Approval-related methods pass FBC. For instance,<br>Stepwise-to-Majority and Stepwise-When-Needed fail FBC.<br><br>Those are stepwise Approval methods.<br> <br>>Can it be shown that the verbal FBC-Failure scenario described above <br>>couldn't really happen?<br>><br>>Might ABucklin fail FBC?<br><br>You continue:<br> <br>I don't see how what you described is Favorite Betrayal<br><br>Voting someone over your favorite is what I mean by favorite betrayal<br>or favorite-burial.<br><br>(I don't capitalize it, except as part of the name of the Favorite<br>Betrayal Criterion)<br><br>You continued:<br><br>, but I <br>probably don't realize details of the method you are considering.<br><br>[endquote]<br><br>1. I'm no longer considering Stepwise-to-Majority<br>2. I posted all of its details.<br><br>I'd be glad to answer any questions about what I meant when I defined it,<br>but remember that I don't propose it, due to its FBC failure.<br><br><br>You continued:<br><br>I <br>haven't been reading the list, but "Stepwise Bucklin"<br><br>[endquote]<br><br>All Bucklin is stepwise. Bucklin is a stepwise Approval. Not the only one, but the<br>only kind I know of that passes FBC. I propose the method described in the electowiki<br>as "ER-Bucklin". I call it ABucklin.<br><br>Must quit for now and resume on Monday.<br><br>Mike Ossipoff<br><br><br></pre> </div></body>
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