Approval vs Condorcet
Robert—
Of course, in matters like Approval vs Condorcet, no one is wrong, because
different people have different valuations of the differing advantages &
disadvantages.
But the matter of one-person-one-vote (OPOV) is a sub-issue that is a more
objective exception.
To most everyone, OPOV is synonymous with the Plurality, Vote-For-1 (VF1),
voting-system.
…& yes I admit that, by that definition, Approval indeed violates OPOV.
…& I admit that Condorcet violates it too.
By that definition, OPOV most definitely should be violated.
But of course that isn’t how OPOV has been meant in electoral-law matters.
…consisting mostly of district issues.
…& it certainly isn’t how OPOV is interpreted by us who discuss
voting-systems here.
It’s about not favoring anyone. Greater support /popularity can favor a
candidate or party, but the voting-system itself should not.
Here are some reasons why Approval doesn’t violate OPOV, as the
legal-system & we at EM have been interpreting it:
-
Every voter has exactly one ☝️ one vote for rating a particular
candidate as approved or not-approved. -
No matter how many approvals you give, only one ☝️ of them can affect
the outcome. -
Any voter can cancel out anyone else’s ballot.
e.g. There are 10 candidates. I approve 9 of them. You can cancel-out my
ballot by just approving the one that I didn’t approve.
I approved 9 times as many as you did, & you canceled out my ballot.
——-
But, other than OPOV, of course it’s a matter of individual subjective
preference.
You said you don’t want voters to have to use strategy. By strategy, you
mean anything other than indicating preference-order & letting the
rank-count do it all for us & shelter & insulate us from the choice.
I claim that there’s nothing wrong with voters doing it for themselves, &
that there’s nothing difficult about it.
In fact I claim that voting in Approval needn’t, & usually or always
doesn’t, resemble what could be called a “strategy” task.
How hard is it to mark the candidates you like?
,,,or some particular set (whatever one you feel like) as better than the
rest?
…or the ones you hope will win.
… or the ones you’d appoint instead of holding the election.
When you approve the candidates you like, you maximize the probability of
electing someone you like.
When you approve candidates at least equal to or better than expectation,
you raise your expectation.
Some of the abovementioned choices approve the candidates at or above
expectation.
So there are many ways of voting in Approval, & many ways of choosing how
to vote.
No that doesn’t make it complicated or hard. It just means that you have
great freedom to approve however you feel like.
Use whichever standard you like.
No dilemma.
It isn’t a dilemma. It’s a broad free choice determined by whom you feel
like approving, &/or how you feel like choosing.
A wide variety for whatever you like.
You’re not trying to guess the objectively optimal vote. (…the one that
would maximize your utility if the same situation were repeated many
times). That’s unknowable. …unknowable to the other voters too. …so don’t
worry about it.
For me, because I regard some candidates as completely-unacceptable, it’s a
dichotomous, 2-valued, candidate-set. So approve all the acceptables & none
of the unacceptables.
This post is long already, & so I’ll post it as Part 1.
Part 2 will be along next.
...
To most everyone, OPOV is synonymous with the Plurality, Vote-For-1 (VF1), voting-system.
…& yes I admit that, by that definition, Approval indeed violates OPOV.
…& I admit that Condorcet violates it too.
Certainly FPTP and IRV and Condorcet count people differently, but what they're doing is counting people, some group of people against some other group of people and saying that, if every person's vote counts equally, then the candidate that has more persons voting for him/her wins the election.
Approval voting is counting marks. As if marks have equal rights.
There is a reason I began, in my paper, with this very old ruling from the North Dakota Supreme Court:
"The theory of cumulative voting... rests upon a false or fictitious premise. It assumes that the computation of the number of marks placed upon a ballot in favor of a candidate should determine whether he is elected, when in fact the marks are, and can only be, representative of persons possessing certain qualifications [citizens having franchise]. ...
The placing of marks upon the ballot is only a method of enumerating
persons, ... Our system of government is based upon the doctrine that the majority rules. This does not mean a majority of marks but a majority of persons possessing the necessary qualifications and the number of such persons is ascertained by means of an election ..."
This is really trimmed to show just the bare essential.
Now, measuring Approval on an Approval ballot is, in a degenerate case, essentially the same measure as measuring Approval on a Score ballot, where the degree of Approval is limited to two levels.
Now, what the Ordinal methods do are, instead of asking the electorate about how much they Approve a candidate, they ask "Do you prefer this candidate over this other candidate?" We voters are partisans, not judges. We cannot be nor should be expected to be measuring (and awarding) worth of a candidate. We're trying to get some candidate elected and not elect some other candidate. That selfish motivation is our motivation as partisan voters. And we have that right, along with the secret ballot. The thing that keeps this fight fair is that our votes count equally. (Or should count equally.) So...
On Sat, Mar 23, 2024 at 18:27 Michael Ossipoff email9648742@gmail.com wrote:
Approval maximizes the number of people pleasantly-surprised, &/or the number who get something they like.
If the stakes are high and you Approve both A and B (but you like A better) and then you find out that the top-two Approval candidates are A and B, but B wins, you might not be very happy that you Approved B. Especially if it was close.
So Approval, like FPTP, loses information about how voters would vote in different contingencies. But the ranked ballot preserves that information, but it doesn't ask, nor should we care, what degree of preference a voter has for one candidate over another. It should not matter. If I enthusiastically prefer Candidate A and you prefer Candidate B only tepidly, your vote for B should count just as much as my vote for A. We all get it right when there is only A and B in the race. But when there is C in the race, the Ordinal ballot doesn't force the voter to make tactical considerations like a Cardinal ballot inherently requires. (But bad tallying methods can make voters regret their vote.)
Then, to preserve the equality of our votes, that each person's vote has equal effect at getting their candidate (or their contingency candidate) elected is that at the end of the day, if more voters mark their ballots preferring Candidate A to Candidate B (this information can be lost in Approval), then if Candidate B is elected, that would mean that the fewer voters that marked their ballots preferring B had cast votes that had more effect, that counted more, than the votes coming from the larger number of voters marking their ballots preferring A.
Condorcet violates One-person-one-vote only if there isn't a Condorcet winner. Then Arrow and Gibbard prevail and, no matter what method is used, the election is spoiled. There is a candidate that can be removed which will result in changing who would be elected. Can't be avoided but we should do the best that we can do in that rare pathological circumstance.
My opinion is that when no Condorcet winner exists, the easiest sell to the public (and legislature that might enact such law) is either just the Plurality (of first-choice votes) winner or perhaps the runoff winner between the top two first-choice vote getters.
To disincentivize sophisticated strategic voting, probably Schulze or Ranked Pairs is best. I prefer margins over winning-votes.
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
.
.
.
"The theory of cumulative voting... rests upon a false or fictitious
premise. It assumes that the computation of the number of marks placed upon
a ballot in favor of a candidate should determine whether he is elected,
when in fact the marks are, and can only be, representative of persons
possessing certain qualifications [citizens having franchise]. ...
The placing of marks upon the ballot is only a method of enumerating
persons, ... Our system of government is based upon the doctrine that the
majority rules. This does not mean a majority of marks but a majority of
persons possessing the necessary qualifications and the number of such
persons is ascertained by means of an election ..."
I look forward to the North Dakota Supreme Court someday choosing to
enforce its ruling that only Condorcet voting methods are permissible...
(When was this case decided?)
On Sat, Mar 23, 2024 at 8:33 PM robert bristow-johnson <
rbj@audioimagination.com> wrote:
On 03/22/2024 12:58 AM EDT Michael Ossipoff email9648742@gmail.com
wrote:
Robert—
...
To most everyone, OPOV is synonymous with the Plurality, Vote-For-1
(VF1), voting-system.
…& yes I admit that, by that definition, Approval indeed violates OPOV.
…& I admit that Condorcet violates it too.
Certainly FPTP and IRV and Condorcet count people differently, but what
they're doing is counting people, some group of people against some other
group of people and saying that, if every person's vote counts equally,
then the candidate that has more persons voting for him/her wins the
election.
Approval voting is counting marks. As if marks have equal rights.
There is a reason I began, in my paper, with this very old ruling from the
North Dakota Supreme Court:
"The theory of cumulative voting... rests upon a false or fictitious
premise. It assumes that the computation of the number of marks placed upon
a ballot in favor of a candidate should determine whether he is elected,
when in fact the marks are, and can only be, representative of persons
possessing certain qualifications [citizens having franchise]. ...
The placing of marks upon the ballot is only a method of enumerating
persons, ... Our system of government is based upon the doctrine that the
majority rules. This does not mean a majority of marks but a majority of
persons possessing the necessary qualifications and the number of such
persons is ascertained by means of an election ..."
This is really trimmed to show just the bare essential.
Now, measuring Approval on an Approval ballot is, in a degenerate case,
essentially the same measure as measuring Approval on a Score ballot, where
the degree of Approval is limited to two levels.
Now, what the Ordinal methods do are, instead of asking the electorate
about how much they Approve a candidate, they ask "Do you prefer this
candidate over this other candidate?" We voters are partisans, not
judges. We cannot be nor should be expected to be measuring (and awarding)
worth of a candidate. We're trying to get some candidate elected and not
elect some other candidate. That selfish motivation is our motivation as
partisan voters. And we have that right, along with the secret ballot.
The thing that keeps this fight fair is that our votes count equally. (Or
should count equally.) So...
On Sat, Mar 23, 2024 at 18:27 Michael Ossipoff email9648742@gmail.com
wrote:
Approval maximizes the number of people pleasantly-surprised, &/or
the number who get something they like.
If the stakes are high and you Approve both A and B (but you like A
better) and then you find out that the top-two Approval candidates are A
and B, but B wins, you might not be very happy that you Approved B.
Especially if it was close.
So Approval, like FPTP, loses information about how voters would vote in
different contingencies. But the ranked ballot preserves that information,
but it doesn't ask, nor should we care, what degree of preference a voter
has for one candidate over another. It should not matter. If I
enthusiastically prefer Candidate A and you prefer Candidate B only
tepidly, your vote for B should count just as much as my vote for A. We
all get it right when there is only A and B in the race. But when there is
C in the race, the Ordinal ballot doesn't force the voter to make tactical
considerations like a Cardinal ballot inherently requires. (But bad
tallying methods can make voters regret their vote.)
Then, to preserve the equality of our votes, that each person's vote has
equal effect at getting their candidate (or their contingency candidate)
elected is that at the end of the day, if more voters mark their ballots
preferring Candidate A to Candidate B (this information can be lost in
Approval), then if Candidate B is elected, that would mean that the fewer
voters that marked their ballots preferring B had cast votes that had more
effect, that counted more, than the votes coming from the larger number of
voters marking their ballots preferring A.
Condorcet violates One-person-one-vote only if there isn't a Condorcet
winner. Then Arrow and Gibbard prevail and, no matter what method is used,
the election is spoiled. There is a candidate that can be removed which
will result in changing who would be elected. Can't be avoided but we
should do the best that we can do in that rare pathological circumstance.
My opinion is that when no Condorcet winner exists, the easiest sell to
the public (and legislature that might enact such law) is either just the
Plurality (of first-choice votes) winner or perhaps the runoff winner
between the top two first-choice vote getters.
To disincentivize sophisticated strategic voting, probably Schulze or
Ranked Pairs is best. I prefer margins over winning-votes.
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
.
.
.
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info
On 03/24/2024 12:27 PM EDT Closed Limelike Curves closed.limelike.curves@gmail.com wrote:
"The theory of cumulative voting... rests upon a false or fictitious premise. It assumes that the computation of the number of marks placed upon a ballot in favor of a candidate should determine whether he is elected, when in fact the marks are, and can only be, representative of persons possessing certain qualifications [citizens having franchise]. ...
The placing of marks upon the ballot is only a method of enumerating persons, ... Our system of government is based upon the doctrine that the majority rules. This does not mean a majority of marks but a majority of persons possessing the necessary qualifications and the number of such persons is ascertained by means of an election ..."
I look forward to the North Dakota Supreme Court someday choosing to enforce its ruling that only Condorcet voting methods are permissible...
Of course they weren't considering Condorcet. It was about Bucklin Voting (which was a thing in the early 20th century in some western states in the U.S.), but the funny thing is that Fargo's Approval Voting suffers the same flaw. They are counting marks, accumulated marks, that each voter might correspond to more than one mark. I can imagine that some Fargo attorney that doesn't like Approval Voting could start up a lawsuit. I just dunno if any knows about it.
I told my uncle, a conservative Republican (that I hope is anti-T****, but I hadn't been brave enough to ask him), about this ruling and told him he could find a lawyer to take up a legal case against it that will likely go all the way to the NDSC. At least get the current NDSC to reverse the old NDSC ruling. Because, as it is, Approval Voting in Fargo ND appears to violate this 1911 ruling.
(When was this case decided?)
- There is a reference in my paper. Spalding, J. (1911). State of North Dakota ex rel. W.S. Shaw v. Lisle Thompson (concurring opinion). North Dakota Reports, vol. 21, pp. 426-444. (April 20, 1911)
Hey Closed, thank you for holding the line on that AndyAnderson dude at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Burlington_mayoral_election . He's a FairVote shill.
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
.
.
.