<html><head></head><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:13px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23875"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23887">The best single-winner method probably depends on the particular election and also the limitations of how it can be run. If, for example, an election for some position could be run over the internet, then what I would regard to be the best method would not be the same as for an election for public office where people turn up to vote in person on a particular day. For such an internet election, I like the following:</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23875"><span><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23875"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_24053">Score voting, but where the current total/average is available to see and continuously updated, and where people are able to change their vote as many times as they like. Obviously you could end up with a lot of people withholding their vote until right near the end or completely changing it to prevent people from optimising their tactical vote, so I would suggest a couple of things to limit the effect of this. The deadline to set your initial vote could be earlier than the deadline to change your vote, and the end time for changes could be non-deterministic.</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23875"><span><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23875"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_24214">For example, voters might have nine days to cast their initial vote. Then there would be one guaranteed extra day where votes can be freely changed (they can also be changed within the initial nine days). After that the election would end randomly with a half life of two hours. </span>So if you were organising such an election there would be three variables to set.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23875"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23875">This avoids the problem of score voting that people wouldn't know how to rate their second favourite candidate etc. because they can see how the candidates are doing. And it would have the advantages of score voting that the results are clear and easy to understand (as it's just a total or average) and that it isn't subject to weird unexpected paradoxes that most voting methods we talk about have (e.g. Condorcet methods can have cycles and fail participation). Strength of preference would matter but with voters more aware of what to do so that later-no-harm failures wouldn't be at so much risk of happening. In the following example involving honest score ballots (scores out of 10):</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23875"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23875">49 voters: A=10, B=0, C=1</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23875">49 voters: A=0, B=10, C=1</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23875">2 voters: A=9, B=8, C=10</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23875"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23875" dir="ltr">C would be the Condorcet winner but is really a non-entity. Under normal score voting (where voters cannot change votes), C would have no chance of winning. Under this method, it's very unlikely that there would be anywhere near enough tactical voting to get C anywhere near close enough to winning, so it keeps the advantages of score voting and enhances it in terms of giving the voters knowledge of how to vote tactically, but without throwing the baby out with the bathwater and going full pairwise.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23875" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23875" dir="ltr">Toby</div><div class="qtdSeparateBR" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23837"><br><br></div><div class="yahoo_quoted" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23843" style="display: block;"> <div style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23842"> <div style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, Sans-Serif; font-size: 16px;" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23841"> <div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23840"> <font size="2" face="Arial" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23839"> <hr size="1" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23838"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> steve bosworth <stevebosworth@hotmail.com><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> EM list <election-methods@electorama.com> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Monday, 20 May 2019, 20:46<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [EM] Best Single-Winner Method<br> </font> </div> <div class="y_msg_container" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23844"><br><div id="yiv0883059675">
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt;">Re: Best Single- Winner Method</span></div>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#323130;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in;" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23851">Sennet Williams,<span style="">
</span>Forest Simmons, Robert Bristow-Johnson, Abd dul Raman Lomax, and </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#323130;" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23849">Chris Benham have recently addressed each others’ claims about IRV, 3-slot
Methods, IBIFA, and Asset.<span style=""> </span>This discussion prompts me to request some help later after I have clarified several issues.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#323130;">Firstly, please correct me if I am mistaken but currently I am assuming that
<span style=""> </span>we all would ideally want the Best Single-Winner Method:</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;"></span></div>
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<li id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23854"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#323130;" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23853">To be simple enough so voters
<span style=""> </span>can both use it and understand how it is counted;</span></li><li><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#323130;">To minimize the wasting of citizens’ votes (see below),<span style="">
</span>and</span></li><li id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23870"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#323130;">To guarantee that the winner among 3 or more candidates is the candidate most supported by at least 50% plus one (an absolute majority) of all the
citizens voting, and</span></li><li id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23857"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#323130;" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1559134455557_23861">To offer as few incentives and possibilities for voting tactical.</span><span style="font-family:serif;color:#323130;border:none windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0in;">
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