<div dir="ltr">Rob,<div><br></div><div>> RCV is already poorly understood. When I moved to San Francisco in 2011, I expected to grudgingly like voting in RCV elections, and I expected to enjoy ranking my choices What I found instead was that very few people here understand how votes are counted, and many folks in my lefty political tribe here take great pride in their ignorance of math and the inner workings of their electoral system, trusting that the powers-that-be will count things correctly.</div><div><br></div><div>This claim isn't substantiated by any of the extensive polling on the subject. <a href="https://www.alaskansforbetterelections.com/polling-shows-alaskan-voters-understand-ranked-choice-voting/">85%</a> of Alaska voters reported that it was "simple" after its first use, as did at least <a href="http://readme.readmedia.com/RANK-THE-VOTE-NYC-RELEASES-EDISON-RESEARCH-EXIT-POLL-ON-THE-ELECTION/17989282?utm_source=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=media_pr_emails">93%</a> of NYC voters in every racial group. A 2013 survey found that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1002/naticivirevi.106.1.0025?seq=2">89%</a> of voters in California cities using IRV find it "easy."</div><div><br></div><div>> As "exhibit A", I will point to the recent clown show in Alameda County</div><div><br></div><div>Oh, come on. You can't possibly be suggesting that human administrative error is equivalent to an inherent failure of an electoral system. Even administrators of FPTP elections, as was recently the case in DeKalb County, GA, <a href="https://www.ajc.com/politics/miscount-in-dekalb-caused-by-voting-computer-programming-errors/Z5WPVW5UKVBRTMN4TUZGZW2LLM/">make mistakes.</a></div><div><br></div><div>> RCV elected the extreme candidates, rather than the compromise</div><div>You're seizing on outliers. <a href="https://democracysos.substack.com/p/alaska-election-results-show-why">All but three</a> of the nearly 400 IRV elections that have been conducted in the US since 2004 have elected the Condorcet winner.</div><div><br></div><div>MJG</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Sep 21, 2023 at 5:26 PM Rob Lanphier <<a href="mailto:roblan@gmail.com">roblan@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<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 dir="ltr"><div>Hi everyone,</div><div><br></div><div>Oh Michael...where do I begin? Your apparent move to the dark side makes me sad. I realize that this intro may sound condescending, but I truly don't mean it that way. I deeply respect your opinion. YOU were the one who taught me about "center squeeze" in 1995 or so, and made me rethink AV/PV/IRV/RCV (or whatever the name of the week is). I just think you're incorrect about FairVote.<br></div><div><br></div><div>More inline below.....<br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Sep 20, 2023 at 10:32 PM Michael Ossipoff <<a href="mailto:email9648742@gmail.com" target="_blank">email9648742@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<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="auto">Yes, that fancier Sequential Pairwise ordering method would make it harder for a strategist to guess anything about the comparison-order…when, instead of the candidate’s top-count, it uses the sum of the top-counts of those above him on each ballot.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">An extra layer of unpredictability for a would-be strategist.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The vulnerability of the simplest-defined procedure would have to be weighed against what polls & focus-groups say about people’s requirement for definition-simplicity & brevity.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>RCV is already poorly understood. When I moved to San Francisco in 2011, I expected to grudgingly like voting in RCV elections, and I expected to enjoy ranking my choices What I found instead was that very few people here understand how votes are counted, and many folks in my lefty political tribe here take great pride in their ignorance of math and the inner workings of their electoral system, trusting that the powers-that-be will count things correctly.</div><div><br></div><div>As "exhibit A", I will point to the recent clown show in Alameda County (i.e. just a few miles east of me, on the other side of a puddle known as the "San Francisco Bay"):</div><div><a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Alameda-County-admits-tallying-error-in-17682520.php" target="_blank">https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Alameda-County-admits-tallying-error-in-17682520.php</a></div><div> </div><div>It would seem that they had been counting RCV elections wrong for DECADES, and only noticed the problem in 2022. Simplicity and precinct summability matters.</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="auto">Undeniably the more multi-layered & unpredictable ordering procedure is more strategy-proof & better.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Strategy-evaluation for Condorcet-complying pairwise-count methods has proven to be complicated & more difficult than one would expect.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>This I will agree with. That is why I've hopped on the approval voting bandwagon for single-winner reform. I've been (more-or-less) aligned with FairVote when it comes to multi-winner reform, since the many of the problems with STV dissipate as the number of seats being selected for rises. For example, using STV to proportionally select members of a 5-seat board helps ensure diverse representation. I'm not aware of anyplace in the SF Bay Area that is doing that, though. What they do is divide the land inside the city/county/whatever into districts, and then performs single-winner elections in each district. It's horrific.</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="auto">But it now seems for sure that there are such methods that are sufficiently offensive-strategy-proof or well-protected from offensive-strategy. It’s only a question of how many & which ones.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The Condorcet-IRV-Runoff hybrids hold promise, with merit to always be balanced with what is heard in polls & focus groups about definition-brevity.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">So I’m sure that I’ll propose & recommend good Condorcet versions (even if I don’t yet know which ones & how many) over IRV. </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">…but I’ll nonetheless include IRV among the methods that I offer, because it’s better than a lot of people believe. …though its merit & workability strongly depend on the electorate & the candidate-lineup.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I.e. Because it isn’t Condorcet-complying, it’s necessary that the electorate aren’t timid lesser-evil giveaway voters.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Back in 2018, I was heavily involved in lefty politics. The mayor (Ed Lee) dropped dead while grocery shopping at a Safeway that I had been to many times. He wasn't 500 years old; and he seemed in good health. It was truly a surprise to everyone, Suddenly, we had nearly a dozen local politicians with almost no name recognition competing to be the next mayor:</div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_San_Francisco_mayoral_special_election" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_San_Francisco_mayoral_special_election</a></div><div><br></div><div>The good news: the Condorcet winner (London Breed) won the election. The bad news: it was a close election, almost exclusively centered on identity politics (though YIMBY vs NIMBY also played a factor). There were three well-funded candidates (Breed: who was "the establishment" candidate, born and raised in the Fillmore, which USED TO BE an affordable neighborhood in SF, and she would become our first Black woman serving as mayor), Mark Leno (who would have become our first openly gay mayor), and Jane Kim (who promised to be our first Korean-American mayor).</div><div><br></div><div>Having only lived here since 2011, I still considered myself new(-ish) to the political scene. I asked a friend (who I met in a lefty political org here in SF) who I should vote for. He said "None of them. They're all corrupt. Breed's funded by Conway." I didn't know who George Conway was at the time, but that didn't matter. I was looking for a mainstream(-ish) candidate to put SOMEWHERE in my ranking, so that I could evaluate the niche candidates relative to my mainstream anchor. I pressed him: "if someone was holding a gun to your head, and you had to choose between Breed, Kim, or Leno, who would you choose?". He refused to answer, despite how hard I pressed on the issue.</div><div><br></div><div>The polls leading up to the election were spotty and difficult to decipher. Most of the news coverage was about the Breed/Leno/Kim food fight. Breed had served as mayor for a day or two after Ed Lee died, but there was a political food fight over her running for mayor after getting to be the incumbent, so she was removed as mayor. I think that helped her, since (at least for me) it made her a bit more sympathetic candidate, and given that the rules said she should be mayor (as previous President of the Board of Supervisors). Many SF voters get high and mighty about "rule of law", and yet, the law was changed just as soon as a Black woman took office.</div><div><br></div><div>My point: I'm guessing that my activist friend was one of the dreaded "bullet voters" that FairVote misinforms people about. I find FairVote a flawed organization, and I specifically think that founder/leader Rob Richie to be a deeply unethical (perhaps even Machiavellian) political player. Approval voting finds consensus candidates in a way that I think the electorate can understand. "Mark all of the candidates you approve of, and the candidate with the highest approval rating wins" I suspect that approval voting is better at rooting out corruption than RCV, and I have some more anecdotal evidence to back me up.</div><div><br></div><div>St. Louis switched their mayoral elections to approval top-two. The primary election selects the two candidates with the highest approval rating, and the general election decides between the last two. All eyes in the electoral reform community were on St. Louis, and St. Louis also elected their first Black woman to be their mayor:</div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_St._Louis_mayoral_election" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_St._Louis_mayoral_election</a> <br></div><div><br></div><div>If you've never been to St. Louis, I'll break it down for you. The north part of town is the flood plain at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. It's where the poor people live, and many of them are Black. South of Interstate 44 (which replaced "Route 66") is where one finds the rich people, where many houses were built for slaveowners (back in the day). The St. Louis area has long been the fulcrum of race relations in this country. For example, many folks know about the predominantly Black suburb Ferguson in the flight path of STL, also known as "Lombard". Famous Nazi sympathizer and aviator Charles Lindbergh flew the "Spirit of St. Louis" when he made his first solo transcontinental flight in 1927.</div><div><br></div><div>As an outsider who has mainly been through St. Louis (many times), and who has only stayed overnight in St. Louis a few nights, I only have a superficial understanding of the place. But I watched the Wikipedia articles about the election with an eagle eye. It would seem that Lewis Cass (<<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_E._Reed" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_E._Reed</a>>) was the sore loser, and it appeared he was starting to lead an anti-approval campaign in St. Louis. However, Reed (and a couple of his cronies on the Board of Aldermen) were caught on video accepting bribes from undercover FBI agents. They're in prison now. <br></div><div><br></div><div>I don't know much about Tishaura Jones, but all outside evidence suggests she's a good-government type who is cleaning up the politics of St. Louis. I'm hopeful she gets re-elected in 2025, and that FairVote doesn't try to get approval voting replaced with RCV with the help of useful idiots that will take money in exchange for supporting the "correct" policies. <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="auto">But an electorate that has just enacted IRV in a referendum didn’t do so because they want to rank Lesser-Evil over their favorite. They enacted it because they want to rank sincerely, to express & fully help their favorite.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Let’s support Oregon’s IRV (RCV) referendum next year!</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Though IRV doesn’t meet the Condorcet Criterion, it meets Mutual-Majority:</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">IRV always elects the candidate of the largest faction of the Mutual-Majority. …The favorite candidate of the Mutual-Majority.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">IRV didn’t “fail” in Burlington & Alaska. It did what it’s supposed to do.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>RCV elected the extreme candidates, rather than the compromise. Sometimes, it elects the "good guy/gal" candidate (like Mary Peltola), but sometimes, it elects an incompetent candidate (like Bob Kiss), and it seems quite likely to me that Alaska will elect an extreme right-wing Republican candidate when Peltola runs for reelection in 2024. Approval (and probably STAR) will elect candidates toward the center of public opinion, but RCV gets random when elections get close:</div><div><a href="https://electowiki.org/wiki/Yee_diagram" target="_blank">https://electowiki.org/wiki/Yee_diagram</a><br></div><div><br></div><div>Under approval and STAR, those of us who think of ourselves as "left-wing" are not as likely to get lucky every so often and get a minority candidate like Mary Peltola (who sadly wasn't quite able to appeal to the median voter in Alaska, it seems), but we're also not playing Russian roulette and potentially getting a right-wing reactionary that could be funded by foreign adversaries. I've heard (from someone, I can't remember who) that one can see Russia from Alaska. :-)<br></div><div> </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="auto"></div><div dir="auto">We don’t yet have a big Condorcet organization, or referenda, initiatives or strong lobbying for it, but let’s support the already ongoing enactment efforts for IRV, now named RCV.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Let's not. FairVote isn't that big (only $4.5MM/year in annual revenue, based on my cursory investigation). The Center for Election Science pulls in over $1MM/year, and is looking for new executive director (or "CEO" as they say: <a href="https://electionscience.org/about/careers-and-board/" target="_blank">https://electionscience.org/about/careers-and-board/</a> ), and I'm optimistic that they may just hire someone who is more sympathetic to Condorcet consistency than the prior executive director. The Equal Vote Coaltion is a small scrappy startup, but seems to be using their money better than the prior two orgs (and seems far more amenable and adaptable to Internet feedback than either of the larger orgs). Having helped a small-ish non-profit ($10MM/year in 2010 when I joined) become a larger organization ($60MM/year to $70MM/year or so these days, I think), I've learned not to get too enamored of (or intimidated by) "big non-profits".</div><div><br></div><div>If Rob Richie can prove that he's not unethical, and come to the table with the rest of the electoral reform community, and debate openly and honestly, then maybe I'd consider teaming up with them. Perhaps the FairVote Board can fire Richie, since he promised effective steps toward proportional representation, and hasn't achieved that after three decades. He's only burned bridges and salted the earth for effective reform efforts through backroom dealing (e.g. what FairVote did in Seattle in 2022).<br></div><div><br></div><div>As of right now, there's someone with the username "RRichie" that doesn't disclose their clear conflict-of-interest on English Wikipedia, but often makes very pro-RCV arguments (and pro-FairVote marketing) under that name:</div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RRichie" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RRichie</a><br></div><div><br></div><div>Rob <br></div><div><br></div><div> </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="auto"></div><div dir="auto"><br><div class="gmail_quote" dir="auto"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Sep 20, 2023 at 18:24 Forest Simmons <<a href="mailto:forest.simmons21@gmail.com" target="_blank">forest.simmons21@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<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="auto"><div dir="auto">So called BTR-IRV, "Bottom Two Runoff IRV" goes along those lines. </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">You probably remember "Benham" that runs IRV elimination until there remains a candidate undefeated by any of the other remaining candidates.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div>This reminds me of basing the Sequential Pairwise Elimination agenda order on Top preferences ... by using those preferences to "de-clone" the Borda agenda order:<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The agenda order is given by SB(X), the Sum over all ballots B of the first place votes of the candidates ranked above X on B. </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The larger SB(X), the later X is (on average) in the rankings, and the rearlier X is in the elimination agenda.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Sep 20, 2023, 4:56 AM Michael Ossipoff <<a href="mailto:email9648742@gmail.com" target="_blank">email9648742@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"></blockquote></div><div class="gmail_quote"><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">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New"">If,
using voted rankings, Sequential-Pairwise’s comparison-order is determined by
giving, to the candidates with higher top-count score, a later position in the
comparison-order, so that voters don’t know what the comparison-order will be…<span style="font-family:"Courier New""></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New"">…<span style="font-family:"Courier New""></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New"">…&
if voters’ knowledge of eachother’s preferences is no better than it is now in
political-elections…<span style="font-family:"Courier New""></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New"">…<span style="font-family:"Courier New""></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New"">…Does
that Sequential-Pairwise election have an offensive strategy with
gain-expectation comparable to what it would have in MinMax, RP & CSSD?<span style="font-family:"Courier New""></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New""><span style="font-family:"Courier New""> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New"">…And,
if so, is there a defensive strategy to thwart or deter that offensive
strategy?<span style="font-family:"Courier New""></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New""><span style="font-family:"Courier New""> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New"">…That
seems of interest because Sequential-Pairwise is so much less
computationally-demanding than the other pairwise-count methods.<span style="font-family:"Courier New""></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New"">If,
using voted rankings, Sequential-Pairwise’s comparison-order is determined by
giving, to the candidates with higher top-count score, a later position in the
comparison-order, so that voters don’t know what the comparison-order will be…<span style="font-family:"Courier New""></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New"">…<span style="font-family:"Courier New""></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New"">…&
if voters’ knowledge of eachother’s preferences is no better than it is now in
political-elections…<span style="font-family:"Courier New""></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New"">…<span style="font-family:"Courier New""></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New"">…Does
that Sequential-Pairwise election have an offensive strategy with
gain-expectation comparable to what it would have in MinMax, RP & CSSD?<span style="font-family:"Courier New""></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New""><span style="font-family:"Courier New""> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New"">…And,
if so, is there a defensive strategy to thwart or deter that offensive
strategy?<span style="font-family:"Courier New""></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New""><span style="font-family:"Courier New""> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Courier New"">…That
seems of interest because Sequential-Pairwise is so much less
computationally-demanding than the other pairwise-count methods.<span style="font-family:"Courier New""></span></span></p>
</div></blockquote></div><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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