I've reworked the description. See what you think.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2013/6/18 Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:abd@lomaxdesign.com" target="_blank">abd@lomaxdesign.com</a>></span><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="im">At 04:25 PM 6/18/2013, Juho Laatu wrote:<br>
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I quickly read the article. Here are some observations.<br>
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- Term "Bucklin system" has not been defined. I can guess that it probably refers to Bucklin style stepwise addition of new approvals, but that may not be as obvious to all readers. If there is no definition of "Bucklin system", maybe one could say "As in Bucklin" instead of "As with any Bucklin system".<br>
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There is a link to Bucklin voting in the article.<div class="im"><br>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
- Sentence "if there are more than one with a majority, the "B" votes are removed and the highest sub-majority wins" is ambigious in the sense that it is not clear if "highest sub-majority" refers to all candidates or to candidates that had majority after adding the "B" votes.<br>
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It's poorly worded, all right. Minor point: "There are more than one" grates. (I find the use of the singular or plural with "more" to be ambiguous. I'd avoid it.)<br>
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An example is given when the principle has not been stated.<br>
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The method does not make sense as stated. The "back-up" is a tie-breaker, considering multiple majorities as if they were ties. They *are* ties in median vote. The tie-breaker only selects a member of the tied set.<br>
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Something went south. What was proposed was a Bucklin system. Bucklin does use, I've suggested, a range ballot, but the way that it does this is with a ranked structure. I ran into this when trying to design a set of votes to show a problem that I have not seen examined.<br>
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The description on the wiki page makes the system seem more complex than it is.<br>
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It's been designed to be five-rank, with explicit F. That's a fish bicycle. "No support" means merely "no support." No vote. Introducing the D vote is a later possible reform, it is an unapproved category. It makes the ballot considerably more complex, and the explanation is more complex.<br>
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*D: Oppose unless there are no other majorities at all.<br>
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Is that clear? I don't think so. Bucklin as Approval Voting doesn't have a "disapproved rank." All blanks are disapproved.<div class="im"><br>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
- It is not quite clear what happens and if it is possible that there is no majority after the "F" votes have been counted.<br>
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The F votes are never counted, first of all. Listing them is a mistake. (If the F votes continued the amalgamation, then someone would be voting *for* a candidate rated F. That was the intention for the D rating.<br>
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It is far better, however, to introduce a D rating in combination with a runoff system, where the D rating could improve runoff candidate selection.<br>
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When a voter rates a candidate as "D", they are opposing the election of that candidate.<br>
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The Bucklin system required amalgamating three ranks. It's looking like MAV requires five, but that could be reduced to four, but the whole idea here was to have a *simple* next step beyond basic Approval Voting, and, as well, a clear similar method for use in a runoff system.<br>
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(We basically need a step up from approval as a plurality method, and from approval as a primary method in a runoff system.)<div class="im"><br>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
- The grades could be letters or numbers, but they could also be e.g. columns without any letter or number. This part of text discusses what the ballots might look like. I'm not sure if ballot different ballot formats should be seen as an essential part of the method definition, or if the method should be defined abstractly without referring to what the actual ballots might look like. I tend to define the methods abstractly without assuming anything on the ballots, and then discuss possible ballot formats as a separate topic, but I'm not saying that's the only and best approach. The current text is thus ok. I just first read the grades of the definition as abstract grades, not as definitions on what would be written in the ballots.<br>
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*Something* should be on the ballot that expresses the *function* of a vote. Jameson took this concept from me. A voter should be able to see the ballot and have a reasonably clear idea, just from it, what the vote *means* ... and the meaning is the *effect* that the vote causes.<br>
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The original Bucklin ballot, however, simply instructed voters to mark "1st choice," "2nd choice," or '3rd choice." The googlebooks copy is unclear, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=QcIqAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA757&dq=The+Grand+Junction+plan+of+city+government+and+its+results&hl=en&ei=uOTdS7aFKMKclgfq9739Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=The%20Grand%20Junction%20plan%20of%20city%20government%20and%20its%20results&f=false" target="_blank">http://books.google.com/books?<u></u>id=QcIqAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA757&<u></u>dq=The+Grand+Junction+plan+of+<u></u>city+government+and+its+<u></u>results&hl=en&ei=<u></u>uOTdS7aFKMKclgfq9739Cg&sa=X&<u></u>oi=book_result&ct=result&<u></u>resnum=3&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAg#v=<u></u>onepage&q=The%20Grand%<u></u>20Junction%20plan%20of%20city%<u></u>20government%20and%20its%<u></u>20results&f=false</a><br>
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Page 95. It looks like they actually instructed people to vote for all but one. But that part is quite unclear. In the first set of instructions, at the top of the ballot, they did suggest not voting for one candidate. There may be another copy of this ballot somewhere. Bucklin was widely covered.<br>
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MAV *assumes that voters err if they approve two candidates by a majority.* That's why it backs up. But what, indeed, if it backs up and the multiple majority candidates are not the plurality winner in the previous round? What if there are *no* votes for those candidates in that round, or the vote is small.<div class="im">
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It said: "<br>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
- The linked definition of "evaluatve" says that ranked systems can not give same ratings to two candidates. I think that's confusing and wrong.<br>
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Juho<br>
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Well, that's a common assumption of "ranked systems." It's essentially a definition, which is why we have said that Bucklin is *not* a ranked system. But, really, it's a ranked system that allows equal ranking. (Original Bucklin allowed equal ranking in the third rank only. We have simple expanded the approval principle to all ranks. *That is a convenience to voters.*)<div class="HOEnZb">
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