<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/31/2016 7:48 AM, Michael Ossipoff
wrote:<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>Of course at EM we discuss two completely separate and
different method proposal choices:<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>1. Proposals to electorates who have only had Plurality.<br>
<br>
2. Later proposals to replace one better voting system with
another.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>If we're talking about #1, then there are only a few to
choose from:<br>
<br>
</div>
Approval, Score, and Bucklin.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Mike,<br>
<br>
A short time ago you were in favour of CD methods (and even
crafted the criterion) and said that your <br>
favourite method is ICT (aka 3-slot TTR, Top Ratings).<br>
<br>
So what happened to it? You even seemed ready to tolerate the
non-FBC CD methods Benham and IRV.<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>For #2, it really takes something with a lot of valuable
& otherwise-unobtainable properties, to justify replacing
Approval, Score or Bucklin with it.<br>
<br>
</div>
I suggest that only Plain MMPO qualifies.</blockquote>
<br>
Say you ask people who are used to and/or like any of Approval,
Score, Bucklin, or plurality (aka FPP) or Top-Two Runoff or IRV
or Benham:<br>
<br>
(a) Would you accept a method that in a 3-candidate election with
20 million voters can elect a candidate that is voted above
equal-bottom<br>
on only two ballots?<br>
<br>
x: A<br>
1: C=A<br>
1: C=B<br>
x: B<br>
<br>
x = any number greater than 1. MMPO elects C.<br>
<br>
(b) Do you think it is fair and sensible that a voter who is only
interested in getting their favourite elected can increase the
chance of that<br>
happening by fully ranking (below top) all the other candidates at
random? <br>
<br>
What response do you think you will get? <br>
<br>
I don't live in the US, but I would think that most people
wouldn't even believe that question (a) is serious, and that
anyone who tries to<br>
tell them that that example only "looks bad" would blow their
credibility.<br>
<br>
Chris Benham<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAOKDY5AgvgW4-_0miNSTPFyrMbv11OJNRNpA0L_qt2k=A+isNA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Jameson--<br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Oct 29, 2016 at 11:16 AM,
Jameson Quinn <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:jameson.quinn@gmail.com" target="_blank">jameson.quinn@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr"><br>
<div>....Here's my "ideal characteristics" for a
political single-winner election system, more or less
in descending order of importance:</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>FBC<br>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Yes, I consider FBC to be #!.<br>
<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<ol>
<li><br>
</li>
<li>Handles center squeeze (ie, some form of
weakened Condorcet guarantee that's compatible
with FBC) <br>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>But maybe the goal of electing the CWs unnecessarily
complicates votiing. Maybe someday, there won't be a
bottom set, for most voters, and, with honest elections
& honest, open media, it will be clear who's the CWs.
But now, Approval's best strategy doesn't require that.
Brams pointed out that Approval's results can be better
than the CWs.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>But, when it's desirable to elect the CWs, and it isn't
obvious who's the CWs, then the wv methods, and methods
with wv-like strategy (such as MMPO), are the methods that
make it easiest to protect the CWs.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Also, it should be noted that you can't be sure how
often there will be a CWs, under different and better
conditions.<br>
<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<ol>
<li><br>
</li>
<li>Relatively simple to explain<br>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Approval & Score are easy to explain. I've had
conversations in which only Approval & Score were
accepted as being plain & un-elaborate enough to be
acceptable..<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>You know that SARA & XA are complicated and not
easy to explain. I've tried explaining them.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>MMPO?:<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>"The winner is the candidate who has fewest people
voting someone else over hir."<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>{...some same other candidate) <br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<ol>
<li><br>
</li>
<li>Minimal strategic burden</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>We often hear it said that Approval has a large
strategic burden, but, for most people, with our current
candidate-lineup, there's nothing difficult about it:
Approve (only) the progressive candidates. That's optimal
for most people.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>And if the time comes when, for most people, there
isn't a bottom-set, then that will be a happy
circumstance, in which it doesn't matter terribly anyway,
which candidate wins.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>In such conditions, with honest elections and honest,
open media, it will likely be pretty obvious who's the
CWs, and, in the absence of tep-set/bottom-set, the best
strategy will be to just approve down to the CWs.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>And, if there were no bottom-set, and if it happened
that it _wasn't_ clear who the CWs was, and it was 0-info,
then it would just be a matter of approving down to the
expected winning merit-level. Maybe, under those
conditions, that would be the candidate-mean. Or maybe
(as now) the estimated mean merit of what voters want
(which can be estimated by the candidates' merit-midrange,
if the election is 1D. ....but it might not remain 1D
under different and better conditions).<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>..but I repeat that, with only your former top-set
remaining as winnable candidates, it won't make as much
difference which one wins anyway.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>People often consider Approval voting more difficult
than it is.<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<ol>
<li>Summable (ideally O(N), no worse than O(N²) in
practice, though I might accept some special
pleading for the use of prior polling to reduce to
O(N²).)<br>
</li>
<li>Handles CD, or at least, CD offensive strategies
don't in practice mess up the center squeeze
properties.<br>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>MMPO meets Weak CD.<br>
<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<ol>
<li><br>
</li>
<li>Some arguable track record<br>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Of course at EM we discuss two completely separate and
different method proposal choices:<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>1. Proposals to electorates who have only had
Plurality.<br>
<br>
2. Later proposals to replace one better voting system
with another.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>If we're talking about #1, then there are only a few to
choose from:<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Approval, Score, and Bucklin.<br>
<br>
<div><br>
</div>
I suggest that all 3 of those should be offered to
initiative-proposal committees, and that the public should
be polled, or consulted in "focus-groups", regarding which
of those 3 methods they'd accept<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>For #2, it really takes something with a lot of
valuable & otherwise-unobtainable properties, to
justify replacing Approval, Score or Bucklin with it.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>I suggest that only Plain MMPO qualifies.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<ol>
<li><br>
</li>
</ol>
<div> Approval does well on 1,3,4, and 6, is OK on 2,
and bad on 4 and 5.</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
<br>
</div>
<div>No. Contrary to what we so often hear, Approval doesn't
have a high strategic burden, as I discussed above. <br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Other than MMPO's CD, improvements over Approval by
more complicated methods are illusory.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>And your standard #5 was summability and
count-complexity. Approval is precinct-summable, and its
count is the easiest and least computation-intensive,
among voting-systems.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Michael Ossipoff<br>
<br>
</div>
<br>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<br>
<p class="" avgcert""="" color="#000000" align="left"><br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p><br>
</p>
</body>
</html>