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<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">Hi Kristofer and everyone,</font></span></p>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">
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<b><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">From:</font></span></b><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">
Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km_elmet@t-online.de><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Saturday, August 6, 2016 3:16 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> steve bosworth; election-methods@lists.electorama.com<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: (5) MJ better than IRV & MAM </font></span></p>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri"> </font></span></p>
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<p style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">On 07/20/2016 11:31 PM, steve bosworth wrote:<br>
> Hi Kristofer,</font></span></p>
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<p style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br>
S: > Do we agree that MAM has no disadvantage with respect to IRV except that<br>
> MAM’s method of counting would be much more difficult for ordinary<br>
> voters to understand? <br>
<br>
MAM is more susceptible to voter strategy than IRV is, so if strategy is<br>
rampant, IRV may be a better choice.</font></span></p>
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<p style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">[….]</font></span></p>
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<p style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">K: So, to refine the claim: when compared
to MAM, IRV has no advantage that<br>
I consider important (beyond what you have mention</font></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">ed).
I don't think MAM<br>
itself is all that difficult to explain, but I concede that I'm not a<br>
typical person as far as voting methods go.<br>
</font><span style="color: black;"><br>
<font face="Calibri">S: > Also, do you agree that MJ (like MAM) has the advantage over IRV in<br>
> electing a single-winner only after counting all<br>
> the votes of each voter (i.e. the ‘grades’ that every voter has given<br>
> to all of the candidates)? In addition, I see MJ’s method of<br>
> counting these grades as being easier for ordinary citizens to<br>
> understand than MAM’s method.<br>
<br>
K: Yes, MJ takes more information into account than IRV does, and its<br>
decision is less chaotic, i.e. it makes better use of the information it<br>
does take into account.<br>
<br>
S: > Consequently, do you also prefer MJ to MAM? <br>
<br>
K: In a scenario-2 situation, yes. In a scenario-3 situation, no.</font></span></span></p>
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<p style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">S:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I think I may understand you here but to be sure, where did you previously describe ‘scenarios 2 & 3?<br>
<br>
S: > I also see<br>
> MJ as more likely to prompt voters not to ‘rank’ the candidates but<br>
> instead to ‘grade’ all of them honestly, i.e. to encourage more voters<br>
> to grade or REJECT each candidate in the light of each of their own<br>
> visions of what an EXCELLENT, VERY GOOD, GOOD, ACCEPTABLE, or POOR<br>
> candidate looks like.<br>
<br>
K:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What you're saying here is in essence that you think scenario 2 is more<br>
likely to reflect the real world than scenario 3: that voters, if given<br>
the opportunity to grade to a common standard, will do so. I suppose I<br>
lean in that direction, but others (e.g. Kevin Venzke) disagree.<br>
<br>
If someone were to ask me "MJ or Condorcet?", I'd say "either is fine"<br>
(assuming clone independent Condorcet etc).</font></span></p>
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<p style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">S:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Do you see MAM as ‘independent Condorcet’?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Is the Condorcet method you have in mind better than MAM?</font></span></p>
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<p style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">K:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the light of full<br>
information, one might very well be better than the other, but as it is,<br>
I don't know which direction it'd go.</font></span></p>
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<p style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">S:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By ‘full information’, are you thinking of the seemingly impractical possibility of a strategic voter knowing in advance how all the other voters are planning to vote?<br>
<br>
K:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>B&L's data supports what you're saying. If they hadn't gathered that<br>
data, I would have preferred Condorcet more strongly of the two.<br>
<br>
S: > Electing the candidate with the highest ‘majority-grade’ also seems<br>
> to give the least incentive to citizens to vote strategically.<br>
<br>
> In this connection, below your say with regard to MJ that ‘it seems more<br>
> that voters value expressing their true preference, and as long as the<br>
> benefit to strategy is less than what they gain by expressing their<br>
> preference, honesty wins.’ <br>
<br>
S: Yes. There's a class of rating/grading methods that go like this:<br>
<br>
- Each voter gives information about each candidate (e.g. ratings,<br>
grades). The information is so that if a candidate joins, that doesn't<br>
need to change the information about any other candidate.<br>
- The method works by calculating a score f(X) for each candidate X,<br>
where the function only uses the information on that candidate alone.<br>
- If a voter increases his grade or rating of some candidate X, f(X)<br>
will never decrease.<br>
- The candidate with the greatest f() score wins.<br>
<br>
In MJ, f returns the majority grade (possibly with some tiebreakers). In<br>
Range, f returns the sum of ratings.</font></span></p>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">S:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Isn’t the ‘sum of ratings’ more manipulatable than majory-grades?<br>
<br>
K:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These methods all have the property that if a voter can cleanly separate<br>
the candidates into two categories "I like these" and "I don't like<br>
these", then he'll never be worse off by rating the former at maximum<br>
and the latter at minimum.</font></span></p>
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<p style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">S: But he would not also be able to help elect
the EXCELLENT candidate any more than the ACCEPTABLE candidate. <br>
<br>
K: Of those methods, I think MJ is the most resistant to strategy (for the<br>
reasons stated in the MJ paper, or because the statistical breakdown<br>
point of the median is 0.5 which is the greatest possible). One result<br>
of this is that it's possible for voters who don't cleanly divide the<br>
candidates into two groups to vote without worrying too much about<br>
whether they are throwing their vote away.<br>
<br>
S: > Of course, you say this only after listing a number objections that can<br>
> be raised against MJ. Nevertheless, do you currently believe with me<br>
> that these objections are less weighty than those that can also be<br>
> raised against the practical use of any other single-winner method?<br>
<br>
K: I don't see mono-add-top or participation failures as being very<br>
important. All-equal ballots irrelevance (IIB) is somewhat more<br>
counterintuitive,</font></span></p>
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<p style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">S: Please explain: ‘All-equal ballots irrelevance
(IIB)’ </font></span></p>
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<p style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">K: …. but in the greater view of things, I
think I can agree<br>
with what you're saying.<br>
<br>
K: However, again, I'd like to mention that this holds in a scenario-2<br>
situation. If the voters start to use the grades as rankings (i.e. a<br>
voter rating his first preference VERY GOOD, his second GOOD, his third<br>
best ACCEPTABLE, and so on, even if he thinks every candidate is<br>
mediocre), then much of the benefit of MJ is lost. </font></span></p>
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<p style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">S:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I would rather say MJ would still retain the advantage of allowing each voter clearly to express her evaluations of each candidate, as well denying success to half of any such ranking manipulations.</font></span></p>
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<p style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">K:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If that happens, Condorcet methods are better.</font></span></p>
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<p style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal; vertical-align: middle;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><font face="Calibri">S:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Given the above advantages of MJ which you acknowledge (e.g. its count being somewhat simpler for ordinary citizens to understand), and the fact that it, not Condorcet, escapes Arrow’s paradoxes. I would like to understand why you say ‘Condorcet methods
are better’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are not the rankings attached to Condorcet doubly subject to manipulation when compared to those that might be imported by some citizens using MJ to rank rather than grade?<br>
<br>
[….]</font></span></p>
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