<div dir="ltr"><div>Hi Chris,</div><div><br></div><div>I posted about our discussion in the STAR Voting Slack (see here for signing up: <<a href="https://www.starvoting.org/get_involved">https://www.starvoting.org/get_involved</a>>), and I quickly received a reply from the author of this piece from June 2023:</div><div><a href="https://voting-in-the-abstract.medium.com/the-effectiveness-of-dishonest-strategies-in-different-voting-methods-8fb9ff50a490">https://voting-in-the-abstract.medium.com/the-effectiveness-of-dishonest-strategies-in-different-voting-methods-8fb9ff50a490</a></div><div><br></div><div>I could say more about the topic, but I think I'm going to just encourage you to read what Marcus Ogren wrote (since it is incredibly apropos to our conversation here). I'm being a bit reckless by posting the link before doing more than a quick skim, but from what I know about Marcus, my hunch is that there isn't a lot of "proof by assertion" in the writeup.<br></div><div><br></div><div>Rob<br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Oct 1, 2023 at 6:27 PM C.Benham <<a href="mailto:cbenham@adam.com.au">cbenham@adam.com.au</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>
<p>Rob,<br>
</p><blockquote type="cite">Is "pushover" strategy common in
Australian elections, and commonly named by that name? </blockquote>
<br>
No and no. I've only ever come across the term here, and from
that Blake Cretney page.<br>
<br>
Seats/districts where that would even be a theoretical possibility
would rare. I did read a report in a newspaper<br>
some time in the 1980s that the conservative Liberal Party toyed
with the idea of doing that in one seat, but rejected<br>
the idea on the grounds that it would undermine the perceived
integrity of the election process and so the legitimacy<br>
of the winner. Bear in mind that we have "compulsory voting" which
is popular, because it is widely accepted that <br>
voting is a civic duty.<br>
<br>
In that district the highly predictable FPP order was Right >
Centre-Right > Centre-Left, or if you want the parties' names<br>
Liberal > Australian Democrats > Labor. <br>
<br>
It was also highly predictable that nearly all of the Labor voters
would give their second preference to the Democrat and<br>
that a big majority of the Democrat voters would give their second
preference vote to the Liberal. (Bear in mind that truncation<br>
isn't allowed).<br>
<br>
In that circumstance the Liberals could have organised for some of
their supporters to vote Labor to "rescue" that candidate<br>
from being eliminated, so that instead the Democrat will be
eliminated and then the Liberal will win in the pairwise contest<br>
with Labor. BTW, the Democrat was the sitting member (and it may
have been that party's only seat in the state parliament,<br>
Labor and Liberal are the two major parties). Of course the
Democrat was the Condorcet winner, but no-one even had that<br>
concept.<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>This claim you make is interesting:<br>
</div>
<div> "[STAR] somehow doesn't 'violate monotonicity' and yet
[...] is more vulnerable to Pushover than RCV (aka IRV) which
does.". </div>
<div><br>
</div>
Is that true? </blockquote>
<br>
Yes.<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"> It seems to me that RCV's series of
runoffs lead to many opportunities for weak candidates to
snowball via transfers from eliminated candidates. The snowball
effect in RCV usually snowballs to the center of public opinion,
but can sometimes roll toward the outskirts as candidates get
eliminated and their ballots get transferred to a stronger and
stronger candidate on the outskirts. </blockquote>
<br>
Now you are just talking about things connected with RCV's clone
independence and slight "extremist bias". Nothing to do with
Pushover.<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"> With STAR (and Score), I believe the
candidate needs to have strong support from all voters to get a
high enough score to advance (since all ballots are considered
in the runoff round), but perhaps similar polarization can occur
under STAR over time. </blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>This is also completely irrelevant to Pushover strategy (which
doesn't necessarily have anything to do with polarization).<br>
<br>
</p><blockquote type="cite"> It's truly an interesting question which
method is more susceptible to pushover.<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
As a matter of simple logic STAR is much more susceptible. The
aim of the Pushover strategist is create a two-candidate final
consisting of his favourite plus a "turkey".<br>
(I've come across the term "turkey-raising" from a US source about
voting methods. Maybe it means the same thing as pushover.)<br>
<br>
One of the dangers for the strategist is that his favourite won't
make it into the final, perhaps being displaced out of it by the
turkey. This danger is obviously much lower<br>
for the STAR strategist because (unlike the RCV strategist) he can
fully vote to help his favourite into the final as well as the
turkey. The RCV strategist has to fully rely<br>
on other voters to get his favourite into the final.<br>
<p></p>
<p>The second danger for the Pushover strategist is that in the
final the "turkey" might win. In that final the RCV strategist has
to actually vote for the turkey and hope that<br>
his vote is overwhelmed by others. The STAR strategist doesn't
have that problem. He can choose between "pushover-lite" where he
gives the turkey the second-highest<br>
possible score so that his vote still helps his favourite beat the
turkey in the final, and "full" pushover to maximise his help for
the turkey into the final in which case in the <br>
final his vote merely has no effect.<br>
<br>
Chris Benham<br>
<br>
<br>
</p>
<div>On 1/10/2023 7:14 pm, Rob Lanphier
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>Hi Chris,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I'm going to reply to your original email (and quote it
on the bottom). I'm going to replace "SCORE" with "[STAR]"
in your email, because you agreed in an earlier mail that's
what you meant</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I have a lot clearer idea of what the "pushover" strategy
is now, thanks (at least partially) to your email (thank
you!). My hunch is that the pushover strategy may not be as
well-studied, but it may be that there's different
terminology used in academic circles (perhaps "pied
piper"...see below). I'm assuming from your email address
that you're Australian. Is "pushover" strategy common in
Australian elections, and commonly named by that name? My
hunch is that pushover is a bigger problem in IRV/RCV/STV
than it is in more consensus-oriented election methods (like
approval, any Condorcet system, STAR). I ask this because
we don't talk about "pushover" here in the United States,
but it wouldn't surprise me if Australians talk about it a
lot. We don't have very many places using STV/IRV/RCV, and
the politics of those places (e.g. San Francisco, Cambridge
Mass) are treated like outliers in mainstream political
conversation. San Francisco has weird politics (which I
assert from my office in San Francisco)<br>
<div>
<div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>There are more places that use "top-two open
primary" (like California and Washington state).
"Pushover" hasn't (yet) made it into the mainstream
political lexicon in either place (that I know of),
but I do know that in 2022, the Democratic Party here
made a point of trying pushover against the
Republicans in regular first-past-the-post primaries :</div>
<div><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/12/democrats-interfere-republican-primaries/" target="_blank">https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/12/democrats-interfere-republican-primaries/</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>It was a risky strategy, but (I'm sad to say) it
probably worked in 2022. It failed for Hillary
Clinton in 2016 though (see this 2016 article about
Clinton's "pied-piper strategy"):</div>
<div><a href="https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/" target="_blank">https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>This claim you make is interesting:<br>
</div>
<div> "[STAR] somehow doesn't 'violate monotonicity' and yet
[...] is more vulnerable to Pushover than RCV (aka IRV)
which does.". </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Is that true? It seems to me that RCV's series of
runoffs lead to many opportunities for weak candidates to
snowball via transfers from eliminated candidates. The
snowball effect in RCV usually snowballs to the center of
public opinion, but can sometimes roll toward the outskirts
as candidates get eliminated and their ballots get
transferred to a stronger and stronger candidate on the
outskirts. With STAR (and Score), I believe the candidate
needs to have strong support from all voters to get a high
enough score to advance (since all ballots are considered in
the runoff round), but perhaps similar polarization can
occur under STAR over time. It's truly an interesting
question which method is more susceptible to pushover.<br>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0">
<tbody>
<tr align="right">
<td><br>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</div>
<div>As for the monotonicity of STAR, I'll need to leave it as
an exercise for the reader. I'm not sure anyone has proven
that STAR is monotonic, though I suspect that an example of
non-monotonic STAR would be a really weird edge-case.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Rob</div>
<div>p.s. I've replaced "SCORE" with "[STAR]", but won't
correct your spelling of "maximising" nor "favourite", even
though my spell checker really wants me to.
English-speaking people are one people, separated by common
language. :-)<br>
</div>
</div>
<div dir="ltr"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Sep 30, 2023 at
1:07 AM C.Benham <<a href="mailto:cbenham@adam.com.au" target="_blank">cbenham@adam.com.au</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>
<p>Rob,<br>
<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre style="white-space:pre-wrap;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">A question for Chris (anyone who cares to answer), what's the best
explanation of pushover at a public URL that seems reasonably academically
rigorous (e.g. something that seems like it would pass muster as a citation
on English Wikipedia)?</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Blake Cretney (who used to be active here) had a web-page
("<a href="http://condorcet.org" target="_blank">condorcet.org</a>" I think it was
called)<br>
that is unfortunately now extinct. I regret not copying
and storing the definitions/explanations that<br>
were there.<br>
<br>
That is where "Push-over" strategy was defined. As I
recall it said something simple like <br>
"the strategy of promoting a weak alternative for it to be
beaten by a preferred stronger one".<br>
<br>
But really I think we are in the realm of common-sense and
the bleeding obvious rather than being<br>
in awe of and deferring to academic authority. Whatever
it is exactly called, in the US political system it must
be commonplace.<br>
<br>
Because (at least in some states) you have open public
party primaries. Suppose you are a supporter of party A,
and either you are happy with all the candidates running
in A's primary election (or you are confidant that your
favourite can win that primary without your help, or
something in between) and so you decide to instead vote in
main rival party B's primary to vote not for your sincere
lesser evil but for the candidate you think would have the
smallest chance of beating the A candidate in the general
election.<br>
<p>You would be using a Push-over strategy. <br>
<br>
Likewise suppose the method is plurality Top-Two
Runoff. If you are confident that your favorite can
make it into the top two without your help then in the
first round you might vote for a candidate (of course
preferably among the other front-runners for the second
spot) that you think most likely to lose in the runoff
against your favourite. Then in the final you can vote
sincerely.<br>
<br>
If the method is approval TTR, things are much easier
for the pushover strategists because they don't have to
rely on on other voters to get their favourite into the
final two, and also they don't have to limit themselves
to promoting just one weak candidate. <br>
<br>
If you only care about electing your favourite, the
obvious strategy is to approve your favourite and all
the candidates that you are confident can neither
displace your favourite out of the top two or pairwise
beat your favourite in the final.<br>
<br>
[STAR] is similar. There one can choose between
maximising the chance that a weak candidate will get in
to the final two, or weakening your vote for the weak
candidate to just below maximum (4 instead of 5) so as
to help your favourite win the top-two pairwise
comparison.<br>
<br>
In comparison with the methods I've so far mentioned in
RCV (fka IRV) the would-be pushover strategists face the
greatest problems and risks. They have to rely entirely
on other voters to both get their sincere favourite into
the final top two and also to overcome the strategists'
own votes, for the strategists' sincere favourite to win
the final two comparison.<br>
<br>
That electowiki entry you linked to:<br>
<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<h3 style="color:rgb(0,0,0);margin:0.3em 0px 0px;padding-top:0.5em;padding-bottom:0px;overflow:hidden;font-size:1.2em;line-height:1.6;font-weight:bold;font-family:sans-serif;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><span id="m_5030542704813240171m_2370526007444103250Pushover">Pushover</span><span style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:small;font-weight:normal;margin-left:1em;vertical-align:baseline;line-height:1em;unicode-bidi:isolate;margin-right:0px"><span style="margin-right:0.25em;color:rgb(84,89,93)">[</span><a href="https://electowiki.org/w/index.php?title=Tactical_voting&veaction=edit§ion=4" title="Edit section: Pushover" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(51,102,204);background:none;white-space:nowrap" target="_blank">edit</a><span style="color:rgb(84,89,93)"><span> </span>|<span> </span></span><a href="https://electowiki.org/w/index.php?title=Tactical_voting&action=edit§ion=4" title="Edit section: Pushover" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(51,102,204);background:none;white-space:nowrap" target="_blank">edit source</a><span style="margin-left:0.25em;color:rgb(84,89,93)">]</span></span></h3>
<p style="margin:0.5em 0px;color:rgb(32,33,34);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><b>Push-over</b><span> </span>is
a type of tactical voting that is only useful in
methods that violate<span> </span><a href="https://electowiki.org/wiki/Monotonicity" title="Monotonicity" style="text-decoration:none;color:rgb(51,102,204);background:none" target="_blank">monotonicity</a>.
It may involve a voter ranking or rating an
alternative lower in the hope of getting it elected,
or ranking or rating an alternative higher in the hope
of defeating it. Also known as a<span> </span><b>paradoxical</b><span> </span>strategy.
Note that it is usually very difficult to successfully
pull off, and often backfires (i.e. elects the pushed
over candidate).</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
The first sentence looks like something I recall from that
extinct page. It is correct in the universe of pure
ranking methods. But according to apparent consensus here
(and a wikipedia page you linked to) [STAR] somehow
doesn't "violate monotonicity" and yet (as I've discussed)
is more vulnerable to Pushover than RCV (aka IRV) which
does.<br>
<br>
Regarding the last bit, I've no idea how the author would
know that it "often backfires", or have any idea how
"often" it is attempted.<br>
<br>
Chris Benham<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<h1><br>
</h1>
<b>Rob Lanphier</b><span><span> </span></span><a href="mailto:election-methods%40lists.electorama.com?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BEM%5D%20St.%20Louis%20and%20Pushover%20%28Re%3A%20Reply%20to%20Rob%20regarding%20RCV%29&In-Reply-To=%3CCAK9hOYnPv5QaWnZhEhgAK6P08XyHdA1ew1p2fRn%2B0jD58DsUkA%40mail.gmail.com%3E" title="[EM] St. Louis and Pushover (Re: Reply to Rob
regarding RCV)" target="_blank">roblan at
gmail.com</a><br>
<i>Tue Sep 26 21:39:35 PDT 2023</i>
<hr>
<pre style="white-space:pre-wrap;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">Hi Chris
Regarding former St. Louis resident Lewis Reed's preference of voting
system, I'm not sure. I suspect he was selling his preference to the
highest bidder, and since he was still the President of the St. Louis Board
of Aldermen, he presumably had influence in STL politics (until the bribery
case in court made him politically radioactive). Whatever remaining
influence Reed may still have is waning with every day he spends in an
Arkansas prison, where I believe he lives today. Something tells me that
electoral reform is the least of Reed's worries in 2023.
Regarding approval's potential vulnerability to pushover when used in a
top-two primary, I'm personally not very concerned about the theoretical
possibility. Perhaps in the far future, we'll have really sophisticated
voters who understand how to strategically influence the primary in a way
that causes top-two approval to fail in a way that causes problems. My
sense is that St. Louis (which uses top-two approval) has bigger problems
than sophisticated attempts at "pushover"
I believe that St. Louis voters just wanted a good mayor in 2021, and
approved many competitors to Lewis Reed (including Tishaura Jones and Cara
Spencer). From my analysis, it looks like the wealthier voters in the
southern portion of St. Louis (i.e. the type that pay handsomely for
produce at farmers' markets in mall parking lots on the weekends to assuage
their guilt for the collapse of the independent farming in the United
States) voted for Cara Spencer. The voters in the northern part of the
city (in the floodplain at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi
Rivers, which USUALLY doesn't flood very much) voted for Tishaura Jones.
Given the demographics of St. Louis (43% Black, 42.9% non-Hispanic White,
5.1% Hispanic, 4.1% Asian, 1.0% Hispanic White), it seems like a Tishaura
Jones was a great choice to succeed their longtime White mayor. Northern
St. Louis is largely Black and Hispanic, and it's in really rough shape,
despite having some fantastic old brick houses and lots of fantastic real
estate that is available for very little money (see <
<a href="https://youtu.be/SPyjYQALnrE" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/SPyjYQALnrE</a>>). Jones is the first Black mayor of St.
Louis since 2001, and third Black mayor that the city has ever had (and the
first Black woman in the role).
Based on my cursory research, I'm not sure the "pushover" phenomenon is
well known outside of the jargon-speaking electoral reform community (and
perhaps not even here). Note that the electowiki section about pushover
has no citations, and the "push over" section of a similar article on
English Wikipedia even has the infamous "citation needed" tag:
- <a href="https://electowiki.org/wiki/Tactical_voting#Pushover" target="_blank">https://electowiki.org/wiki/Tactical_voting#Pushover</a>
-
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_manipulation_of_runoff_voting#Push_over" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_manipulation_of_runoff_voting#Push_over</a>
Note: the "Push over" section appears to have had the "citation needed"
banner on it since 2009, which means that said banner is almost old enough
to get its driver's licence in many places. I have a hard time taking the
criterion too seriously given that it doesn't seem to warrant its own
article on English Wikipedia. It seems all of the important ones have
articles:
-
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_systems#Compliance_of_selected_single-winner_methods" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_systems#Compliance_of_selected_single-winner_methods</a>
A question for Chris (anyone who cares to answer), what's the best
explanation of pushover at a public URL that seems reasonably academically
rigorous (e.g. something that seems like it would pass muster as a citation
on English Wikipedia)?
Rob
p.s. having driven through St. Louis many times (and even stayed there a
couple of nights), it's not hard to guess where the powers-that-be drew the
red lines:
<a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/366759e8b76c46efbf6ff9e8fff3ac0b" target="_blank">https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/366759e8b76c46efbf6ff9e8fff3ac0b</a></pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div>
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</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote></div>