<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<p>Richard,<br>
<br>
<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; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">One reason for limiting ranking to just 3 "choice" levels is the issue
of "ballot real estate." Specifically, more choice levels take up more
ballot space. That's a big issue in U.S. elections where there are so
many election contests.</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
In Australia elections for the House of Representatives and for
the Senate are held at the same time.<br>
<br>
The voter is handed a white ballot paper for the House of Reps.
and a green one for the Senate, and instructed<br>
to fill them in with a provided pencil (or the voters own pen or
pencil) and then put them in different boxes.<br>
<br>
So why not in the US say have one ballot paper say for electing
the President and VP and another for electing less<br>
important offices?<br>
<br>
<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; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">As a reminder there is a simple way to correctly count such "overvotes."
Just pair up the ballot with equivalent similar ballots during that
counting round. Specifically, if two ballots rank candidates A and B as
equally preferred, one of those ballots goes to support candidate A and
the other ballot goes to support candidate B (during this counting round).</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Since Hare (aka IRV, aka RCV) meets both Clone-Independence and
Later-no-Harm, limiting the number of candidates<br>
the voter is allowed to rank (or just limiting the number of
preference levels) is especially eggregious.<br>
<br>
With limited preference levels (but allowing above-bottom equal
ranking) I vastly prefer Smith//Approval (ranking above bottom)<br>
or the even more simple Condorcet//Approval or
Condorcet//FPP(whole).<br>
<br>
If voters are free to to strictly rank from the top however many
candidates they wish, then IRV is acceptable to me (better than
STAR,<br>
Approval, Score, Majority Judgement, Margins) and the Australian
way of dealing with "overvotes" is simple and acceptable.<br>
<br>
But given that that IRV is being used on ballots with a limited
number of preference levels, then it is important that
above-bottom<br>
equal-ranking ("overvoting") be allowed and handled correctly.<br>
<br>
The way to do that is to initially order the (remaining)
candidates according to what is produced by treating a top (among
remaining candidates)<br>
preference for more than one candidate as equal fractions (summing
to one) of a vote to each.<br>
<br>
Then count the equal top preference ballots again, this time
giving a whole single vote to whichever of the equally highest
ranked is highest <br>
in the initial order. Then eliminate the candidate with fewest
(highest rank) votes.<br>
<br>
Without the latter step the method is quite a bit more vulnerable
to Push-over strategy. I think this is well in the spirit of the
Single Transferable<br>
Vote, which is like a a sort of "Declared Strategy Voting" where
the virtual voter has a single vote and is pursuing the
not-very-sophisticated but simple<br>
and honest strategy of trying to minimise the chance that the
voter's (current among remaining candidates) favourite will be
eliminated.<br>
<br>
<br>
Chris Benham<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<h1
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"><br>
</h1>
<b
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Richard,
the VoteFair guy</b><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;"><span> </span></span><a
href="mailto:election-methods%40lists.electorama.com?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BEM%5D%20Legacy%20IRV%20limitations&In-Reply-To=%3C69d857e6-a6a7-43c9-89ad-20879503fdf8%40votefair.org%3E"
title="[EM] Legacy IRV limitations"
style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal;">electionmethods
at votefair.org</a><br
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">
<i
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Sat
Dec 16 17:35:17 PST 2023</i>
<hr
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">
<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; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">On 12/16/2023 6:12 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
> On 2023-12-16 13:44, C.Benham wrote:
>> Why do at least several US Americans here think there is something
>> problematic and/or weird about allowing both quite
>> a large number of candidates on the ballot and voters to strictly rank
>> exactly as many of them as they wish?
>
> I guess it's partly that some US locations do this de facto anyway (e.g.
> some places using IRV only lets the voters rank three candidates). And I
> *think* that's due to legacy hardware? Optical scan machines that can
> only read bubbles, and mechanical ones that can only read a certain
> number of holes.
One reason for limiting ranking to just 3 "choice" levels is the issue
of "ballot real estate." Specifically, more choice levels take up more
ballot space. That's a big issue in U.S. elections where there are so
many election contests.
Otherwise, when there are more than 3 candidates, the number of choice
columns interacts with the issue of "overvotes."
It's the FairVote organization that promotes the myth that IRV cannot
handle "overvotes."
Apparently FairVote does this to allow using old data from Australian
elections to certify new or revised IRV software.
Australia previously, before machine counting of ballots became
available, counted their ranked-choice paper ballots manually, by
stacking ballots in piles. (That's what I've read.)
To speed up that manual counting, apparently Australia adopted the
shortcut of stacking ballots according to which candidate is highest
ranked after removing eliminated candidates.
That shortcut means that during each counting round only a single stack
of ballots needs to be looked at, and sorted, based on which candidate
has become the newly highest-ranked candidate (after the latest
elimination).
An important part of this shortcut is to reject/dismiss/ignore any
ballot when there is no longer just one highest-ranked candidate.
That's probably when the term "overvote" appeared.
In turn, this is why FairVote promotes the myth that when there are only
three "choice" columns each choice column can have only one mark.
If there are only three choice columns and a voter wants to indicate
that one particular candidate is worse than all other candidates, and
there are 5 or more candidates, all but the most-disliked candidate need
to be ranked at choice levels "first," "second," and "third."
Now that election officials in the United States and Australia count
paper ballots using machines that read ballots, it's time to at least
question this legacy limitation of not allowing "overvotes." And
hopefully we can soon abandon this legacy limitation.
For clarification, in Australia a voter writes a number inside a box
located next to each candidate's name. Software can recognize those
handwritten numbers as reliably as a person, yet much faster. When
there is uncertainty a photographic image of the ballot can be displayed
on multiple computer screens for verification from several humans.
This limitation of not ranking more than one candidate at the same
choice level is due to a lack of ballot data (including results) against
which new software can be verified.
It's time to end this ridiculous limitation.
Part of my frustration comes from the fact that Portland Oregon recently
adopted counting rules that are even worse than just ignoring ballots
with "overvotes."
With "advice" from the FairVote-controlled "Ranked Choice Voting
Resource Center" the Portland election officials chose to skip over
overvotes instead of dismissing the remainder of the ballot.
This means a voter who ranks candidates A and B as their "second choice"
and candidate C as their "third choice" will get their ballot counted as
support for candidate C even if candidates A and B have not been
eliminated. Yet ranking candidate C higher than A and B is exactly the
opposite(!) of what the voter clearly intended!
As a reminder there is a simple way to correctly count such "overvotes."
Just pair up the ballot with equivalent similar ballots during that
counting round. Specifically, if two ballots rank candidates A and B as
equally preferred, one of those ballots goes to support candidate A and
the other ballot goes to support candidate B (during this counting round).
Now that we have machines and software to handle the correct counting of
"overvotes," this extra "effort" does not impose any significant delay,
or any significant increase in electricity to power the computer for a
few extra milliseconds. It does require extra effort from the
programmer who writes the code, but that just involves extra effort from
one person for a few hours. (And if they don't know how to write that
code they can copy from open-source software that correctly does this
counting.)
To repeat, the only reason for the legacy of dismissing "overvotes" is
that we lack certified ballot data against which to certify upgraded
software.
Allowing overvotes will make it possible to meaningfully rank more than
6 candidates using only 5 or 6 choice columns.
(A complication is whether an unranked candidate is ranked at the bottom
printed choice level, or lower than all ranked candidates. And this
interacts with the complication of how to rank a candidate who is a
write-in candidate on someone else's ballot.)
Limiting ranked choice ballots to 6 choice columns is reasonable, even
when the election contest has 10 or more candidates. But doing so does
require correctly counting 2 or more candidates at the same "choice" level.
Richard Fobes
The VoteFair guy
On 12/16/2023 6:12 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
><i> On 2023-12-16 13:44, C.Benham wrote:
</i>>><i>
</i>>><i> Why do at least several US Americans here think there is something
</i>>><i> problematic and/or weird about allowing both quite
</i>>><i> a large number of candidates on the ballot and voters to strictly rank
</i>>><i> exactly as many of them as they wish?
</i>>><i>
</i>><i>
</i>><i> I guess it's partly that some US locations do this de facto anyway (e.g.
</i>><i> some places using IRV only lets the voters rank three candidates). And I
</i>><i> *think* that's due to legacy hardware? Optical scan machines that can
</i>><i> only read bubbles, and mechanical ones that can only read a certain
</i>><i> number of holes.
</i>><i>
</i>><i> I'm not sure, though.
</i>><i>
</i>>><i> I prefer Smith//Approval, but accept that that is more complex to
</i>>><i> explain and sell and probably the most approved candidate
</i>>><i> will nearly always be in the voted Smith set.
</i>><i>
</i>><i>
</i>><i>
</i>><i> -km</i></pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
</p>
</body>
</html>