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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font style="font-size:11pt" face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> Election-Methods <election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com> on behalf of election-methods-request@lists.electorama.com <election-methods-request@lists.electorama.com><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Sunday, January 26, 2020 2:40 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> election-methods@lists.electorama.com <election-methods@lists.electorama.com><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Election-Methods Digest, Vol 187, Issue 27</font>
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<div class="BodyFragment"><font size="2"><span style="font-size:11pt">
<div class="PlainText">Today's Topics:<br>
<br>
1. Re: Is there a standard way of defining "runner-up" in the<br>
context of single winner elections? (Forest Simmons)<br>
2. Re: Is there a standard way of defining "runner-up" in the<br>
context of single winner elections? (Greg Dennis)<br>
<br>
<br>
----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
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Message: 1<br>
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<div class="PlainText">From Steve,</div>
<div class="PlainText">Below, Forest states that</div>
<div class="PlainText">*<font size="2"><span style="font-size:11pt">But what I'm looking for is in the limited context of a single winner<br>
election how o we decide who came closest to beating the actual winner? In<br>
other words, who turned out to be the greatest rival of the winner for the<br>
single seat of a single winner election?*</span></font></div>
<div class="PlainText"><font size="2"><span style="font-size:11pt"><br>
</span></font></div>
<div class="PlainText"><font size="2"><span style="font-size:11pt">As far as I can see, Balinski's Majority Judgment (MJ) provides the best and simplest answer to this question. Unlike any alternative method of which I'm aware, MJ firstly guarantees that the
winner will be the candidate who has received an absolute majority of all the votes that grade that candidate most fit for the office. The runner-up would be the next candidate who receives such a majority. I explained this in more detail as follows:<br>
</span></font></div>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 115%; text-align: left; margin-bottom: 0.1in; margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; line-height: 100%">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3">Balinski and Laraki cogently argue
<font size="2"><span style="font-size:11pt"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3"><i>(Majority Judgment
</i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3">(2010/2011 MIT)</font></font></span></font> that rather than asking citizens to rank, score, or mark candidates in some other way, they should
</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3"><i>evaluate</i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3"> (or
</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3"><i>grade)</i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3"> them. To do this, citizens more comfortably and conveniently grade
each candidate’s fitness for office as either Excellent (</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3"><i>ideal</i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3">), Very Good,
Good, Acceptable, Poor, or Reject (</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3"><i>entirely unsuitable</i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3">). These grades let
voters more discerningly express meaningful and informative choices than those offered by preferences, numeric scores, Xs or ticks. Grading makes it more likely that the highest quality candidates available will be elected: mayor, governor, or president.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 115%; text-align: left; margin-bottom: 0.1in; margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; line-height: 100%">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3">Each candidate who is not explicitly graded is counted as Reject by that voter. As a result, all candidates have the same number of evaluations but a different set of grades received
from the voters. The Majority Judgment (MJ) winner is the one who has received grades from an absolute majority of all the voters that are equal to, or higher than, the highest
</font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3"><i>median grade</i></font></font><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3"> given to any candidate. This median grade can be found as follows:</font></font></p>
<ol>
<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 115%; text-align: left; margin-bottom: 0.1in; margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3">Place all the grades, high to low, top to bottom, in side-by-side columns, with the name of each candidate at the top of each of these columns.</font></font></p>
</li><li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 115%; text-align: left; margin-bottom: 0.1in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; line-height: 100%">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3">The median grade for each candidate is the grade located half-way down each column, in the middle if there is an odd number of voters, or in the lower middle if the number is even.</font></font></p>
</li></ol>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 115%; text-align: left; margin-bottom: 0.1in; margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; line-height: 100%">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3">If more than one candidate has the same highest median grade, the MJ winner is discovered by removing (one-by-one) any grades equal in value to the current highest median grade from
each tied candidate’s total until only one of the previously tied candidates currently has the highest remaining median grade.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 115%; text-align: left; margin-bottom: 0.1in; margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; line-height: 100%">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font style="font-size: 12pt" size="3">What do you think?<br>
</font></font></p>
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<div class="PlainText">Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 13:26:48 -0800<br>
From: Forest Simmons <fsimmons@pcc.edu><br>
To: VoteFair <electionmethods@votefair.org>, EM<br>
<election-methods@lists.electorama.com><br>
Subject: Re: [EM] Is there a standard way of defining "runner-up" in<br>
the context of single winner elections?<br>
Message-ID:<br>
<CAP29one=RjB2HL-eyUctuyC2BBjvyrkjafQqucPPVwRi0GcR6g@mail.gmail.com><br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"<br>
<br>
Richard,<br>
<br>
Thanks for your enthusiastic reply. I think it is a very good idea in the<br>
general context of "how do we define second choice?"<br>
<br>
But what I'm looking for is in the limited context of a single winner<br>
election how o we decide who came closest to beating the actual winner? In<br>
other words, who turned out to be the greatest rival of the winner for the<br>
single seat of a single winner election?<br>
<br>
We're not saying that this greatest rival should be the next candidate to<br>
be seated in a multi-winner election.<br>
<br>
For example. in an approval election the candidate with the second greatest<br>
approval would be the chief rival of the approval winner by any reasonable<br>
standard, but would probably not be the winner of the next round in the<br>
multi-winner context because voters who approved this runner-up would have<br>
the weight of their ballots cut in half for the second round.<br>
<br>
So it's not exactly what I was looking for, but very good related<br>
information!<br>
<br>
<br>
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