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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 11/11/2016 2:09 AM, Jameson Quinn
wrote:<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>If the number of uncounted ballots is enough to sway the
election using a threshold, it has every chance of being
enough to sway the election without thresholds.</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Not necessarily. Very close contests are unavoidable, but
thresholds add further possible problems.<br>
<br>
Suppose it is wrongly assumed that the total number of valid
ballots is known and the votes are counted and X is declared the
apparent winner. Suppose that X <br>
is by far the most approved (i.e. most Prefers + Accepts)
candidate (and say for good measure the CW) but X only very
narrowly makes the 25% threshold of Prefers.<br>
<br>
Now say that a few extra ballots are discovered, all of which give
Accepts to X and Prefers to only nobodies and maybe some Rejects
to Y, with the result that X no longer makes the <br>
25% threshold and Y wins. How do you think that will go down?<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>My thinking was that in most real-world situations, you'd
only have to check one prefer and one reject to get maximum
effectiveness, and it would be obvious which to reject.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
But I see your point. So I'm changing the method to: "Default is
reject for voters who do not explicitly reject any candidates,
or accept for those who do." </blockquote>
<br>
That is a step in the right direction, but now you have the
potential weirdness of blanks meaning different things on
different ballots. Suppose on one ballot a single candidate<br>
is definitely Preferred and all but one other candidate are
definitely left blank. But for the last candidate it is disputed
whether it was left blank or was given a Reject.<br>
<br>
If blanks all mean the same thing, then the dispute only affects
that one candidate. But with your proposal it also affects all the
candidates left definitely blank.<br>
<br>
Chris Benham<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAO82iZzkhRSZ+iH6Gu_7ZEi-T38D-VHJCyigh3kVVEwrw-BOCA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr"><br>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">2016-11-10 9:04 GMT-05:00 C.Benham <span
dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:cbenham@adam.com.au" target="_blank">cbenham@adam.com.au</a>></span>:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="gmail-m_-4276529064168255280moz-cite-prefix">
<blockquote type="cite">1. Voters can Prefer, Accept,
or Reject each candidate. Default is Accept.</blockquote>
<br>
This seems to assume that all the voters are
interested in all the candidates and like checking
boxes, whereas<br>
I should think that a lot of voters would be only
interested in their favourite and content to keep
voting the<br>
way they did under plurality (and would presumably
continue to do so under Approval).<br>
<br>
They should be allowed to continue giving the most
effective vote possible by simply giving a "Prefer"
rating to their<br>
favourite. In-effect penalising such voters for
forgetting to also give "Rejects" to all their
non-favourites is unfair<br>
and dumb.<br>
<br>
It will give voters who aren't fans of the new method
extra reason to resent it. Suppose that a strong
candidate<br>
from an established party very narrowly loses just
because some of his/her supporters forgot to give out
"Rejects".<br>
Don't you think that might fuel a movement to dump the
method?<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>My thinking was that in most real-world situations,
you'd only have to check one prefer and one reject to get
maximum effectiveness, and it would be obvious which to
reject.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>But I see your point. So I'm changing the method to:
"Default is reject for voters who do not explicitly reject
any candidates, or accept for those who do." <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 bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="gmail-m_-4276529064168255280moz-cite-prefix">
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">2.Candidates with a majority
of Reject, or with under 25% Prefer, are eliminated,
unless that would eliminate all candidates.</blockquote>
<br>
I don't like arbitrary thresholds. Obviously this
causes failure of Irrelevant Ballots Independence. But
also there is the problem<br>
that the final exact number of valid ballots can be
disputed and/or take quite a while to establish. <br>
<br>
Postal votes can take a while to come in, or may be
mislaid and later found. The validity of certain
ballots can be disputed and<br>
the subject of legal proceedings. Some people might
have initially been denied the right to vote, but then
succeed in having that<br>
over-turned and are then allowed to vote.<br>
<br>
It is much better if the algorithm just (more-or-less
directly) compares the candidates with each other
rather than measure them against<br>
arbitrary percentage-of-the-votes thresholds.<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>If the number of uncounted ballots is enough to sway
the election using a threshold, it has every chance of
being enough to sway the election without thresholds. Only
under the assumption that all uncounted ballots are
irrelevant does your objection apply particularly to
threshold methods.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>...</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I'm giving up on the method I'd proposed earlier. It's
now called "CPAR", for Complicated PAR. But I do have a
new patch to PAR to make it pass FBC:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Voters can Prefer, Accept, or Reject each candidate.
Default is "Accept"; except that for voters who do not
explicitly reject any candidates, default is "Reject".
Voters can also mark a global option that says: "I
believe that voters like me should be the first to
compromise." <br>
</li>
<li
style="margin-bottom:0.1em;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14px">Candidates
with a majority of Reject, or with under 25% Prefer,
are eliminated, unless that would eliminate all
candidates. If a candidate would have been
eliminatable considering all the "prefer" votes they
got on "compromise" ballots as "rejects", then they
are considered "eager to compromise"</li>
<li
style="margin-bottom:0.1em;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14px">The
winner is the non-eliminated candidate with the
highest score. Candidates score 1 point for each voter
who prefers them, and 1 point for each voter who
accepts them and prefers only candidates who were
eliminated or eager to compromise.</li>
</ol>
<div><font face="sans-serif" color="#252525"><span
style="font-size:14px">The above method meets FBC,
except in vanishingly rare cases where multiple
candidates are simultaneously at a threshold
(analogous to perfect ties).</span></font></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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