<div dir="ltr">If there are economies of scale in running as a competitive candidate for an important or larger-scale, single-winner election, regardless of which election rule gets used, then we can expect the number of competitive candidates, i.e. candidates with an a prior chance of winning with a score-voting rule of greater than .01, to be relatively low. This would consequently lower the relative value of most alternatives to first-past-the-post, presuming the existence of multiple non-serious candidates, and make the short-term likelihood of successful adoption the key criterion for which alternative to first-past-the-post should be advocated by electoral analysts/reformers of good will. When I say good-will, I mean as opposed to those who might be supported by those who unduly benefit from the status-quo to muddy the waters and thereby divide electoral analysts/advocates. <div>
<br></div><div><br></div><div>If one did a Bayesian Regret analysis with seven candidates but drew the candidates from two different distribution, one with a good chance of winning and the other with a very small chance of winning in a fair contest then that might be a more realistic way to assess the relative value of different election rules. One might model the number of competitive candidates as being one plus the output of a Poisson random variable with a mean of one or one.five. It would likely be a lot more meaningful than if the a prior odds of winning of all seven candidates are the same, because in that case the odds of competitive three-way at the top election would be rather high. </div>
<div><br></div><div>I think it's clear analytically that in a three-way competitive election, IRV is not as reliable in choosing the condorcet candidate or lowering Bayesian Regret. But I think there are good reasons to presume that in real life, in larger-scale single-winner elections that three-way competitive races will be relatively rare by the end of the election season, which is what counts for the evaluation of election rules: the preferences of voters on election day.<br>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr">dlw</div></div>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 2:02 PM, <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:election-methods-request@lists.electorama.com" target="_blank">election-methods-request@lists.electorama.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
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Today's Topics:<br>
<br>
1. Approval Voting (David L Wetzell)<br>
2. WHICH VOTING SYSTEM(S) DO REAL VOTERS WANT - FINALLY, CLEAR<br>
EVIDENCE EMERGES! (Warren D Smith)<br>
<br>
<br>
----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>
Message: 1<br>
Date: Tue, 7 May 2013 14:21:48 -0500<br>
From: David L Wetzell <<a href="mailto:wetzelld@gmail.com">wetzelld@gmail.com</a>><br>
To: EM <<a href="mailto:election-methods@lists.electorama.com">election-methods@lists.electorama.com</a>><br>
Subject: [EM] Approval Voting<br>
Message-ID:<br>
<CAMyHmndPGozxU3JLdo=<a href="mailto:N-5qjzv9e%2BjpQQmUEdzt3-bUi-Wd7Vw@mail.gmail.com">N-5qjzv9e+jpQQmUEdzt3-bUi-Wd7Vw@mail.gmail.com</a>><br>
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<br>
In the scenario below.<br>
<br>
From: Jonathan Denn <info@aGREATER.US><br>
<br>
In a three way race for POTUS. Let's say we have the traditional D and R. A<br>
fringe third party candidate runs and is widely hated (H) by everyone<br>
except his/her supporters. But the final results are<br>
<br>
H 34%<br>
D 33%<br>
R 33%<br>
<br>
Now the hated candidate is leader of the free world.<br>
<br>
In Approval Voting, I think it unlikely in this hyper-partisan country that<br>
many voters will vote for D & R, and not H. So the results might very well<br>
be the same.<br>
<br>
Is this a legit flaw for Approval? It seems quite plausible to me.<br>
<br>
dlw: But if Ds prefer Rs way over Hs and Rs prefer Ds way over Hs then<br>
both parties could easily adopt a strategy of flipping a coin at the voting<br>
booth and voting their approval for the other party's candidate over the Hs<br>
candidate if they get heads. This would then make the %s,<br>
H: 34%<br>
D: 49.5+e%<br>
R: 49.5+f%<br>
<br>
And so there'd be a 50-50 chance that either major-non-extremist party<br>
would get elected depending on whether e><f.<br>
<br>
Now, I believe that the economies of scale in running a big campaign tends<br>
to make a 3-way competitive election relatively unlikely, which in turn<br>
tends to make most alternatives to FPTP of close to the same value-added.<br>
This is why I believe the focus shd be on changing the mix of<br>
single-winner and multi-winner/(quasi-)PR elections in such a way that will<br>
tend to increase the % of competitive seats. That'll make it so there'd be<br>
less acrimony, since neither of the (likely two) major parties would be<br>
able to dominate the other and so it'd be rat'l for them to cooperate to<br>
maintain their duopolistic positions.<br>
dlw<br>
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Message: 2<br>
Date: Tue, 7 May 2013 23:41:30 -0400<br>
From: Warren D Smith <<a href="mailto:warren.wds@gmail.com">warren.wds@gmail.com</a>><br>
To: election-methods <<a href="mailto:election-methods@electorama.com">election-methods@electorama.com</a>><br>
Subject: [EM] WHICH VOTING SYSTEM(S) DO REAL VOTERS WANT - FINALLY,<br>
CLEAR EVIDENCE EMERGES!<br>
Message-ID:<br>
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<br>
Academics just conducted another study in 3 French towns (exit poll)<br>
of several score voting schemes & approval voting in 2012 presidential<br>
election. All produced the same winner as the official winner,<br>
Hollande.<br>
<br>
I'm using the following paper by them (in French):<br>
<a href="http://RangeVoting.org/France1220.pdf" target="_blank">http://RangeVoting.org/France1220.pdf</a><br>
<br>
Anyhow, they appended a QUESTIONNAIRE to the approximately 2340 voters who<br>
participated in this voting study, getting 80-95% response rates to<br>
these additional questions.<br>
<br>
QUESTION 1 asked which type of voting they prefer. Apparently this<br>
question was conducted using 4-choice plurality voting (sigh). 1958<br>
answered.<br>
The 4 choices were:<br>
I. Les deux regles ("the two rules??" does this mean the present<br>
2-round system?<br>
Or does it mean "I want both approval and score voting"?) 27.53%<br>
<br>
II.Vote par approbation ("approval voting") 29.47%<br>
<br>
III.Vote par note ("score voting") 32.84% WINNER!!<br>
<br>
IV.Aucune des deux ("neither of them") 10.11%<br>
<br>
Can any French-speaker explain what the hell that was all about?<br>
This question wording seems extremely poor.<br>
Elsewhere in same paper the official system was described as<br>
"Vote uninominal a deux tours (officiel)."<br>
Fortunately, we can dodge all that since question 2 works excellently.<br>
<br>
QUESTION 2a asked for which kinds of elections approval voting system<br>
should be used (or not). 4 subquestions:<br>
<br>
Elections presidentielles: 61%.<br>
Elections legislatives: 57%.<br>
Elections municipales: 61%.<br>
Associations: 52%.<br>
<br>
QUESTION 2b asked for which kinds of elections score voting system<br>
should be used (or not). same 4 subquestions:<br>
<br>
Elections presidentielles: 62%.<br>
Elections legislatives: 55%.<br>
Elections municipales: 66%.<br>
Associations: 51%.<br>
<br>
Superb. Majority wants them for everything, and 61% is<br>
equivalent to the largest ever USA presidential "landslides."<br>
This to me is the first really convincing evidence the populace WANT<br>
approval and range voting.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile there also is convincing poll evidence from UK, Australia,<br>
and BC Canada<br>
that voters do NOT want IRV (instant runoff, full rank ordering) if<br>
choice is between IRV & plain plurality voting.<br>
AUSTRALIA October 2010 nationwide professional telephone poll (NewsPoll<br>
<a href="http://www.rangevoting.org/AustraliaNewsPollVoteStudy.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.rangevoting.org/AustraliaNewsPollVoteStudy.pdf</a> ) 1202<br>
random Australian adults: found that they prefer plain-plurality<br>
voting versus the preferential (instant runoff) system they presently<br>
use to elect their House. If forced to choose one, they'd choose to<br>
abandon IRV ? the poll's result was 57% to 37% (with 5% don't<br>
know/refuse).<br>
UK: 5 May 2011 binding referendum asking voters to decide whether the<br>
UK should switch from plurality to IRV voting, resulting in a massive<br>
landslide victory (68% to 32% of the 19.3 million votes) for "stay<br>
with plurality."<br>
British Columbia Canada 12 May 2009: "switch to IRV" (from plain<br>
plurality) got only 39.09% of the 1.65 million votes in referendum.<br>
<br>
And I just posted landslide poll evidence voters do NOT want "majority<br>
judgment" with 7-point verbal scale, if choosing between it and<br>
present 2-round plurality plus 2nd round runoff system:<br>
FRANCE April 2011:<br>
http:/<a href="http://rangevoting.org/Sondageopinionway.pdf" target="_blank">rangevoting.org/Sondageopinionway.pdf</a><br>
At the end of this poll of 1000, the pollees were asked WHICH voting method<br>
they preferred:<br>
1. Traditional (plurality plus 2nd round runoff): 63%<br>
2. MJ (median-based with verbal 7-point scale): 36%<br>
3. Other/don't know: 1%<br>
<br>
Now returning to the academic study in the 3 towns, they trialed<br>
DIFFERENT score voting systems in the 3 towns:<br>
<br>
TOWN...........TYPE OF SCORE VOTING TRIALED<br>
Louvigny...............{-1, 0, +1}<br>
St.Etienne.............{0, 1, 2}<br>
Strasbourg............{0, 1, 2, ..., 19, 20}<br>
<br>
And the result of question 2b was that there was CLEARLY MORE SUPPORT for<br>
{-1,0,+1} and {0,1,2} than for {0,1,2,...,19,20} but in contrast<br>
question 2a got about the same support rates in all 3 towns.<br>
<br>
CONCLUSION:<br>
Voters want:<br>
<br>
Avg-based score voting (unspecified numerical scale) > Approval voting<br>
> 2-round plurality > MJ with 7-point verbal scale<br>
<br>
and<br>
<br>
plain plurality voting > IRV<br>
<br>
and<br>
<br>
Avg-based score voting with 3-point numerical scale (don't care if<br>
{-1,0,+1} or {0,1,2}) > Avg-based score voting with 21-point numerical<br>
scale.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
--<br>
Warren D. Smith<br>
<a href="http://RangeVoting.org" target="_blank">http://RangeVoting.org</a> <-- add your endorsement (by clicking<br>
"endorse" as 1st step)<br>
<br>
<br>
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End of Election-Methods Digest, Vol 107, Issue 6<br>
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</blockquote></div><br></div></div></div>