Fwd: U/P voting: new name for simple 3-level method.
2016-09-08 0:52 GMT-04:00 Kevin Venzke stepjak@yahoo.fr:
Hi Jameson,
MCA (the one with three slots) has the simpler description surely? If
there's a majority preferred, elect the most preferred; else elect the most
approved (least disapproved).
Using parallel language to yours, here's U/P:
If there's a majority acceptable (minority unacceptable), elect the one of
those that's most preferred. Else elect the most preferred.
That's 4 words more complicated. You could do it in fewer than 4 extra
words if you really wanted.
There is another method where you elect the approval winner unless there
are multiple candidates with a majority, in which case preferred ratings
break the "tie."
Your earlier message says "The winner is the non-disqualified candidate
with the most approvals" but I assume this should say "most preferred."
So you are saying if nobody manages to get majority approval, you will
only be using the top ratings and ignoring "acceptable" ratings? That is
unusual; my instinct is that if we can't find a majority we should try to
find votes to get as close as possible. There's a risk that you are
collecting enough information to permit concluding e.g. that a simultaneous
approval and Condorcet winner lost.
Yes, this is possible. But consider the kind of scenario where it happens:
20: A>B
20: A,B
19: B
2: C>B
39: C
In this case A wins, even though B is approval and Condorcet winner. But I
find this kind of thing very implausible in practice; and if such a
pathology occurred, it would not be a horrible outcome. It's implausible
because the electorate above is bizarrely top-heavy in its ratings; except
for the C>B voters, who could make B win by voting C,B, in view of the fact
that C is a clear loser against A and B.
It's not a horrible outcome because a majority of the electorate is fine
with A, and there are more voters enthusiastic about A than about B.
I don't see why you are making rules for unmarked candidates if your
intended advantage is simplicity. I believe you explained why you have this
to somebody else, so I won't ask you to repeat, but I wonder about the
effect of the sentence that starts "And second." You're saying that if A
has majority preferred+acceptable, but is not top two on preferred ratings,
to count blanks as disapproved in hopes that this might remove A's majority
approval (or rather, non-disapproval)?
No. I'm saying that if the top two preferred are both disqualified, then
all blanks should count as "unacceptable", including for those top two.
Consider a scenario like the following:
48: A>...>B; C?
48: B>...>A; C?
1: A>...>C; B?
3: C>...>A,B
Both A and B are majority disqualified. So all the ? count as unacceptable,
C is disqualified, and A wins. If ? were acceptable, then C would win.
Contrast with:
48: A>...>B; C?
48: B>...>A; C?
1: A>...>C; B?
3: C>...>A; B?
Now, B is not majority disqualified, because the C voters explicitly
dislike A more. The ? count as acceptable, and B wins.
Aside from the weird Clone-Loser issue in having a top-two rule on a
ratings ballot,
The chances that one faction would go to all the trouble of a clone
campaign simply to get the uncertain advantage of guaranteeing that ?
counts as unacceptable... seems very remote to me.
it feels a little schizophrenic to me that you really want winners to have
majority non-disapproval yet do not actually think it indicates a worthy
candidate.
I think that majority explicit non-disapproval does indicate a worthy
candidate; and that majority implicit non-disapproval is better than
majority disapproval IF the candidate achieved sufficient scrutiny (which
we can assume is true for the two frontrunners). But I think that unless we
have evidence that a candidate got scrutinized, majority of combined
unacceptable or didn't-bother-rating is as bad as a majority of
unacceptable.
I tend to think we will be lucky if we can consistently get even one
majority non-disapproved candidate in elections.
I disagree. The people who hate both frontrunners in the current system are
louder than those who are OK with either; and in the current presidential
election, they might well be more numerous; but in the average election, I
think that "either one is acceptable" is more common than we might realize.
In a U/P race with two major candidates, one of those is basically
guaranteed to get the label penalty in the next race.
Note that in the current system, "you lost last time" usually means you
don't get to run again. Gore, Kerry, McCain, Romney... didn't run again
after being nominated. Clinton... waited a cycle. So this rule would mostly
matter only for those who won in a NOTA election (that is, one in which all
candidates had majority unacceptable). I think that there should be some
difference between "won with majority acceptable" and "won despite majority
unacceptable", and that a label penalty that the voters can choose to
ignore is not excessive.
Kevin
De : Jameson Quinn jameson.quinn@gmail.com
À : EM election-methods@lists.electorama.com;
electionsciencefoundation electionscience@googlegroups.com
Envoyé le : Mercredi 7 septembre 2016 12h59
Objet : Re: [EM] U/P voting: new name for simple 3-level method.
The main advantage of U/P voting over other systems like MJ or MCA is
simplicity of description. So I'm going to try to describe it as simply as
possible.
To vote, you rate each person running as "preferred", "acceptable", or
"unacceptable". You can rate any number at each level.
If more than half of voters rate a person "unacceptable", that person
can't win, unless the same is true of all the people running. Of those
remaining, the winner is the one rated "preferred" by the most voters.
If you leave all three ratings blank for a candidate, that usually means
the same as rating them "acceptable". There are two exceptions. First, if
you made a mark to rate some candidates "acceptable", then the ones you
didn't make any mark for are counted as "unacceptable". And second, if the
two most-preferred candidates both can't win, because more than half of
voters marked them "unacceptable", then candidates with no mark count as
"unacceptable". That way, you don't end up letting a weak candidate win by
mistake.
2016-09-06 13:17 GMT-04:00 Jameson Quinn jameson.quinn@gmail.com:
I've recently posted a few messages discussing a simple 3-level graded
Bucklin method:
Ballot: For each candidate, you may rate them “preferred”, “acceptable”,
or “unacceptable”. Any candidate, including an incumbent, who had gotten
over 50% "unacceptable" in the prior election would have a note to that
effect next to their name on the ballot. (In prior messages, I'd suggested
not allowing them on the ballot. I now think that allowing them on, but
with a note, would be better.)
Counting: For the current eIection, if some but not all candidates have a
majority (50%+1) of “unacceptable” votes, then they are disqualified. The
winner is the non-disqualified candidate with the most approvals.
My new name for the above system is U/P voting. It stands for
"unacceptable/preferred", and can be pronounced "up voting" for quick
discussion; or "you pee voting" if necessary to avoid confusion.
Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
On 9/9/2016 12:39 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote:
The main advantage of U/P voting over other systems like MJ or MCA is
simplicity of description. So I'm going to try to describe it as
simply as possible.
To vote, you rate each person running as "preferred", "acceptable", or
"unacceptable". You can rate any number at each level.
If more than half of voters rate a person "unacceptable", that person
can't win, unless the same is true of all the people running. Of those
remaining, the winner is the one rated "preferred" by the most voters.
C: By this definition, the U/P method uses a simple 3-slot ballot just
like MTA and MCA.
C: Again, I'd be interested in seeing a plausible example of when
U/P doesn't elect the Approval winner.
Easy.
20: A>>B>C
35: B>A>>C
45: C>>A=B
Threshold in approval is >>. In U/P, voters are as expressive as
possible.
C: On 3-slot ratings ballots, how are the 20 A supporters able to vote
one unapproved candidate above the other?
On the 3-slot ballots, they vote A>B. On the 2-slot ballots, they vote
A. These are perfectly consistent.
C: But above you are suggesting that U/P somehow uses a both a 2-slot
ballot and a 3-slot ballot. Which is it?
Actually it seems to me that the stripped-down 3-slot version (if
default rating is "Unacceptable") is actually the same method
as MTA. "Unacceptable" is just the inverse of "Approved". Any candidate
who doesn't get a majority "Unacceptable" score must
get a majority Approval score.
I prefer MTA's more positive wording. In U/P it seems as though the
middle rating slot doesn't do anything.
Any candidate, including an incumbent, who had gotten over 50%
"unacceptable" in the prior election would have a note to that effect
next to their name on the ballot. (In prior messages, I'd suggested
not allowing them on the ballot. I now think that allowing them on,
but with a note, would be better.)
C: Yes, that is far less draconian, a big improvement, and not a big
deal. I suppose there's nothing wrong with a bit of history.
Chris Benham
C: Again, I'd be interested in seeing a plausible example of when U/P
doesn't elect the Approval winner.
Easy.
20: A>>B>C
35: B>A>>C
45: C>>A=B
Threshold in approval is >>. In U/P, voters are as expressive as possible.
C: On 3-slot ratings ballots, how are the 20 A supporters able to vote one
unapproved candidate above the other?
On the 3-slot ballots, they vote A>B. On the 2-slot ballots, they vote A.
These are perfectly consistent.
C: But above you are suggesting that U/P somehow uses a both a 2-slot
ballot and a 3-slot ballot. Which is it?
3 slots. Where and how do I suggest otherwise?
Actually it seems to me that the stripped-down 3-slot version (if default
rating is "Unacceptable") is actually the same method
as MTA. "Unacceptable" is just the inverse of "Approved". Any candidate
who doesn't get a majority "Unacceptable" score must
get a majority Approval score.
Not the same. In MTA, if no candidate is majority preferred and several are
majority approved/acceptable, the most approved wins; in U/P, the most
preferred wins. This is the only difference, aside from secondary issues
like ballot design. I believe U/P is better in this case as it makes a
chicken strategy harder to pull off successfully; a clean cliff rather than
a slippery slope.
C: But above you are suggesting that U/P somehow uses a both a 2-slot
ballot and a 3-slot ballot. Which is it?
J:3 slots. Where and how do I suggest otherwise?
C: I pasted in where you wrote (in a message you said I was free to send
to EM) this:
J: "On the 3-slot ballots, they vote A>B. On the 2-slot ballots, they
vote A. These are perfectly consistent."
C: That was in response to me asking you how, in an example you gave,
how some voters were able to vote one
"unacceptable" candidate above another (they voted A>>B>C).
J: In MTA, if no candidate is majority preferred and several are
majority approved/acceptable, the most approved wins.
C: No, that is MCA.
MTA says that if the most top-rated candidate is top-rated by a majority
then s/he wins, otherwise if more than one candidate
is approved (voted above bottom) on a majority of ballots then the one
of them that is most top-rated wins, otherwise the most
approved candidate wins.
And I now notice that is that last clause that makes it different from
U/P. When no candidate is majority approved it can give
a different result.
I would say usually the Approval winner pairwise-beats the Top-Ratings
winner, and of course is more "broadly supported".
MTA (with default rating bottom) I think is my favourite of the methods
that fail Irrelevant Ballots.
Chris Benham
On 9/9/2016 4:58 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote:
C: Again, I'd be interested in seeing a plausible example of
when U/P doesn't elect the Approval winner.
Easy.
20: A>>B>C
35: B>A>>C
45: C>>A=B
Threshold in approval is >>. In U/P, voters are as expressive
as possible.
C: On 3-slot ratings ballots, how are the 20 A supporters able to
vote one unapproved candidate above the other?
On the 3-slot ballots, they vote A>B. On the 2-slot ballots, they
vote A. These are perfectly consistent.
C: But above you are suggesting that U/P somehow uses a both a
2-slot ballot and a 3-slot ballot. Which is it?
3 slots. Where and how do I suggest otherwise?
Actually it seems to me that the stripped-down 3-slot version (if
default rating is "Unacceptable") is actually the same method
as MTA. "Unacceptable" is just the inverse of "Approved". Any
candidate who doesn't get a majority "Unacceptable" score must
get a majority Approval score.
Not the same. In MTA, if no candidate is majority preferred and
several are majority approved/acceptable, the most approved wins; in
U/P, the most preferred wins. This is the only difference, aside from
secondary issues like ballot design. I believe U/P is better in this
case as it makes a chicken strategy harder to pull off successfully; a
clean cliff rather than a slippery slope.
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2016-09-08 17:13 GMT-04:00 C.Benham cbenham@adam.com.au:
C: But above you are suggesting that U/P somehow uses a both a 2-slot
ballot and a 3-slot ballot. Which is it?
J:3 slots. Where and how do I suggest otherwise?
J: "On the 3-slot ballots, they vote A>B. On the 2-slot ballots, they vote
A. These are perfectly consistent."
C: That was in response to me asking you how, in an example you gave, how
some voters were able to vote one
"unacceptable" candidate above another (they voted A>>B>C).
"On the 2-slot ballots" means "in the election as conducted under simple
approval".
And I now notice that is that last clause that makes it different from
U/P. When no candidate is majority approved it can give
a different result.
I would say usually the Approval winner pairwise-beats the Top-Ratings
winner, and of course is more "broadly supported".
The point is to minimize the chance of this situation happening in the
first place; or, equivalently, to make it as strategically unstable as
possible. Taking the strategic pressure off of approvals (and thus putting
it onto top-ratings) is the way to do that. The more successful this rule
is in this purpose, the less often the rule will be invoked. (Rules with
this property are not uncommon in mechanism design.)
Hi Jameson,
De : Jameson Quinn jameson.quinn@gmail.com
À : EM election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Envoyé le : Jeudi 8 septembre 2016 10h09
Objet : [EM] Fwd: U/P voting: new name for simple 3-level method.
MCA (the one with three slots) has the simpler description surely? If there's a majority preferred, elect the most preferred; else
elect the most approved (least disapproved).
Using parallel language to yours, here's U/P:
If there's a majority acceptable (minority unacceptable), elect the one of those that's most preferred. Else elect the most preferred.
That's 4 words more complicated. You could do it in fewer than 4 extra words if you really wanted.
Ok. Is it better than MCA?
So you are saying if nobody manages to get majority approval, you will only be using the top ratings and ignoring "acceptable" ratings?
That is unusual; my instinct is that if we can't find a majority we should try to find votes to get as close as possible. There's a
risk that you are collecting enough information to permit concluding e.g. that a simultaneous approval and Condorcet winner lost.
Yes, this is possible. But consider the kind of scenario where it happens:
20: A>B
20: A,B
19: B
2: C>B
39: C
In this case A wins, even though B is approval and Condorcet winner. But I find this kind of thing very implausible in practice; and
if such a pathology occurred, it would not be a horrible outcome. It's implausible because the electorate above is bizarrely top-heavy
in its ratings; except for the C>B voters, who could make B win by voting C,B, in view of the fact that C is a clear loser against A
and B.
This specific thing is probably unlikely, but my general concern is that you might collect a bunch of middle slot ratings without
doing anything with them, and public might be able to speculate about whether it made sense.
I am not sure why you called the above scenario bizarrely top-heavy. It's a top-heavy method. I'm not too clear on when one should
be using the middle slot really.
It's not a horrible outcome because a majority of the electorate is fine with A, and there are more voters enthusiastic about A than
about B.
I don't see why you are making rules for unmarked candidates if your intended advantage is simplicity. I believe you explained why
you have this to somebody else, so I won't ask you to repeat, but I wonder about the effect of the sentence that starts "And second."
You're saying that if A has majority preferred+acceptable, but is not top two on preferred ratings, to count blanks as disapproved
in hopes that this might remove A's majority approval (or rather, non-disapproval)?
No. I'm saying that if the top two preferred are both disqualified, then all blanks should count as "unacceptable", including for
those top two.
Yes I got that, but those top two were already majority unacceptable, so it should make no difference, right?
Aside from the weird Clone-Loser issue in having a top-two rule on a ratings ballot,
The chances that one faction would go to all the trouble of a clone campaign simply to get the uncertain advantage of guaranteeing
that ? counts as unacceptable... seems very remote to me.
I won't dispute that, but not all clones are perfect clones, and not all are deliberately nominated. Usually the point of "top two"
is to identify the two strongest, and mutually exclusive blocs. It seems basic to me that you wouldn't want to use that particular
mechanism if they might not be different blocs.
it feels a little schizophrenic to me that you really want winners to have majority non-disapproval yet do not actually think it
indicates a worthy candidate.
I think that majority explicit non-disapproval does indicate a worthy candidate; and that majority implicit non-disapproval is
better than majority disapproval IF the candidate achieved sufficient scrutiny (which we can assume is true for the two frontrunners).
But I think that unless we have evidence that a candidate got scrutinized, majority of combined unacceptable or didn't-bother-rating
is as bad as a majority of unacceptable.
Sure, I just wish it seemed more organic.
I tend to think we will be lucky if we can consistently get even one majority non-disapproved candidate in elections.
I disagree. The people who hate both frontrunners in the current system are louder than those who are OK with either; and in the
current presidential election, they might well be more numerous; but in the average election, I think that "either one is acceptable"
is more common than we might realize.
Hmm... Voters who are OK with either? I have a lot of questions about that. Firstly do these voters really exist. And do they vote?
Would they be willing to put on the ballot that they are OK with either?
In a U/P race with two major candidates, one of those is basically guaranteed to get the label penalty in the next race.
Note that in the current system, "you lost last time" usually means you don't get to run again. Gore, Kerry, McCain, Romney... didn't
run again after being nominated. Clinton... waited a cycle. So this rule would mostly matter only for those who won in a NOTA
election (that is, one in which all candidates had majority unacceptable). I think that there should be some difference between "won
with majority acceptable" and "won despite majority unacceptable", and that a label penalty that the voters can choose to ignore is
not excessive.
We have a while to wait to see whether Clinton fits the mold of the others. But anyway, it sounds like your main intention is to
penalize candidates who actually won, not those who lost. That is more interesting than I was thinking.
Kevin
De : Jameson Quinn jameson.quinn@gmail.com
À : EM <election-methods@lists.electo rama.com>; electionsciencefoundation <electionscience@googlegroups. com>
Envoyé le : Mercredi 7 septembre 2016 12h59
Objet : Re: [EM] U/P voting: new name for simple 3-level method.
The main advantage of U/P voting over other systems like MJ or MCA is simplicity of description. So I'm going to try to describe it as simply as possible.
To vote, you rate each person running as "preferred", "acceptable", or "unacceptable". You can rate any number at each level.
If more than half of voters rate a person "unacceptable", that person can't win, unless the same is true of all the people running. Of those remaining, the winner is the one rated "preferred" by the most voters.
If you leave all three ratings blank for a candidate, that usually means the same as rating them "acceptable". There are two exceptions. First, if you made a mark to rate some candidates "acceptable", then the ones you didn't make any mark for are counted as "unacceptable". And second, if the two most-preferred candidates both can't win, because more than half of voters marked them "unacceptable", then candidates with no mark count as "unacceptable". That way, you don't end up letting a weak candidate win by mistake.
2016-09-06 13:17 GMT-04:00 Jameson Quinn jameson.quinn@gmail.com:
I've recently posted a few messages discussing a simple 3-level graded Bucklin method:
Ballot: For each candidate, you may rate them “preferred”, “acceptable”, or “unacceptable”. Any candidate, including an incumbent, who had gotten over 50% "unacceptable" in the prior election would have a note to that effect next to their name on the ballot. (In prior messages, I'd suggested not allowing them on the ballot. I now think that allowing them on, but with a note, would be better.)
Counting: For the current eIection, if some but not all candidates have a majority (50%+1) of “unacceptable” votes, then they are disqualified. The winner is the non-disqualified candidate with the most approvals.
My new name for the above system is U/P voting. It stands for "unacceptable/preferred", and can be pronounced "up voting" for quick discussion; or "you pee voting" if necessary to avoid confusion.
2016-09-08 21:44 GMT-04:00 Kevin Venzke stepjak@yahoo.fr:
Hi Jameson,
De : Jameson Quinn jameson.quinn@gmail.com
À : EM election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Envoyé le : Jeudi 8 septembre 2016 10h09
Objet : [EM] Fwd: U/P voting: new name for simple 3-level method.
MCA (the one with three slots) has the simpler description surely? If
there's a majority preferred, elect the most preferred; else
elect the most approved (least disapproved).
Using parallel language to yours, here's U/P:
If there's a majority acceptable (minority unacceptable), elect the one
of those that's most preferred. Else elect the most preferred.
That's 4 words more complicated. You could do it in fewer than 4 extra
words if you really wanted.
Ok. Is it better than MCA?
Yes. MCA is significantly more subject to chicken truncation strategy.
In discussion with C. Benham, I have realized that U/P is actually more
similar to MTA than I'd realized. In the terms above, MTA (Majority Top
Approval) is:
If there's a majority acceptable (minority unacceptable), elect the one of
those that's most preferred. Else elect the most acceptable.
So, U/P and MTA differ only when all candidates are majority unacceptable
AND the most preferred differs from the most acceptable. I think that this
situation is on the whole unlikely, and that when it occurs, it will
probably be due to strategy. Furthermore, it may enter into consideration
as a contrafactual, in which case it is by definition strategically
motivated.
I think MTA is more likely to get it "right" if the ballots are
unstrategic; but that U/P is more likely to get it "right" if the ballots
are strategic. Since, as I said, I think the latter is more likely, I think
U/P is better. Their simplicity is identical.
But I don't want to be "right" if it leads to me just arguing in my own
corner. I'd far rather choose a system that can get consensus from as many
theorists and activists as possible. That's why I continue to put approval
forward as the first reform option. I'm only working on discussing a
three-slot option in order to have a back-up suggestion for people who
object to approval because of the issues of non-expressive compromise
and/or chicken strategy (including concerns over spoilers; I think that in
approval, "spoiler" almost always refers to a chicken-type scenario.)
So I'd be happy to give up on U/P and embrace MTA if that would help build
a clearly broader consensus.
(One side advantage of U/P is that googling "MTA" is never going to send
you to a voting page.)
So you are saying if nobody manages to get majority approval, you will
only be using the top ratings and ignoring "acceptable" ratings?
That is unusual; my instinct is that if we can't find a majority we
should try to find votes to get as close as possible. There's a
risk that you are collecting enough information to permit concluding e.g.
that a simultaneous approval and Condorcet winner lost.
Yes, this is possible. But consider the kind of scenario where it happens:
20: A>B
20: A,B
19: B
2: C>B
39: C
In this case A wins, even though B is approval and Condorcet winner. But
I find this kind of thing very implausible in practice; and
if such a pathology occurred, it would not be a horrible outcome. It's
implausible because the electorate above is bizarrely top-heavy
in its ratings; except for the C>B voters, who could make B win by voting
C,B, in view of the fact that C is a clear loser against A
and B.
This specific thing is probably unlikely, but my general concern is that
you might collect a bunch of middle slot ratings without
doing anything with them, and public might be able to speculate about
whether it made sense.
I am not sure why you called the above scenario bizarrely top-heavy. It's
a top-heavy method. I'm not too clear on when one should
be using the middle slot really.
It's a top-heavy method in that it focuses on top ratings. That does not
mean, I think, that it would lead to top-heavy ballots in which voters
tended to rate several candidates as preferred.
It's not a horrible outcome because a majority of the electorate is fine
with A, and there are more voters enthusiastic about A than
about B.
I don't see why you are making rules for unmarked candidates if your
intended advantage is simplicity. I believe you explained why
you have this to somebody else, so I won't ask you to repeat, but I
wonder about the effect of the sentence that starts "And second."
You're saying that if A has majority preferred+acceptable, but is not top
two on preferred ratings, to count blanks as disapproved
in hopes that this might remove A's majority approval (or rather,
non-disapproval)?
No. I'm saying that if the top two preferred are both disqualified, then
all blanks should count as "unacceptable", including for
those top two.
Yes I got that, but those top two were already majority unacceptable, so
it should make no difference, right?
Right. You are correct that the rule you're suggesting would lead to the
same winner, but it could lead to different official counts for the
non-winners.
Aside from the weird Clone-Loser issue in having a top-two rule on a
ratings ballot,
The chances that one faction would go to all the trouble of a clone
campaign simply to get the uncertain advantage of guaranteeing
that ? counts as unacceptable... seems very remote to me.
I won't dispute that, but not all clones are perfect clones, and not all
are deliberately nominated. Usually the point of "top two"
is to identify the two strongest, and mutually exclusive blocs. It seems
basic to me that you wouldn't want to use that particular
mechanism if they might not be different blocs.
Usually that's the point of "top two", but not in this case. In this case,
it's just a simple heuristic for "is there some non-dark-horse candidate
without majority unacceptable?" You could get the same effect in other ways:
- A quorum rule: non-votes for X count as "acceptable" iff over 50% of
voters have rated X explicitly. - A partial rule: non-votes count as 0.55 of an "unacceptable" vote and
0.45 of an "acceptable" vote. That way, a dark horse would need "prefer" to
beat "unacceptable" by about 9% to win.
I'd consider either of the above to be fine, but my guess is that the "top
two" rule I've already enunciated is the most politically feasible. I think
rules like the two suggestions just above seem more arbitrary and strange.
it feels a little schizophrenic to me that you really want winners to
have majority non-disapproval yet do not actually think it
indicates a worthy candidate.
I think that majority explicit non-disapproval does indicate a worthy
candidate; and that majority implicit non-disapproval is
better than majority disapproval IF the candidate achieved sufficient
scrutiny (which we can assume is true for the two frontrunners).
But I think that unless we have evidence that a candidate got
scrutinized, majority of combined unacceptable or didn't-bother-rating
is as bad as a majority of unacceptable.
Sure, I just wish it seemed more organic.
If you have a better idea, please share. I wouldn't be surprised if we came
up with something better.
I tend to think we will be lucky if we can consistently get even one
majority non-disapproved candidate in elections.
I disagree. The people who hate both frontrunners in the current system
are louder than those who are OK with either; and in the
current presidential election, they might well be more numerous; but in
the average election, I think that "either one is acceptable"
is more common than we might realize.
Hmm... Voters who are OK with either? I have a lot of questions about
that. Firstly do these voters really exist. And do they vote?
Would they be willing to put on the ballot that they are OK with either?
Remember, this starts to matter in 3-way elections. The closest cases like
that in US presidential history are '92 and '96, with Perot. I think that
there were probably a non-trivial minority of "anybody but Perot" voters;
that is, people who would have voted something like Bush>Clinton>Perot or
Clinton>Bush>Perot in U/P. If those people outnumber the
Perot>...>Clinton,Bush people, then it's likely (guaranteed?) that one of
Clinton or Bush would get a majority acceptable.
In a U/P race with two major candidates, one of those is basically
guaranteed to get the label penalty in the next race.
Note that in the current system, "you lost last time" usually means you
don't get to run again. Gore, Kerry, McCain, Romney... didn't
run again after being nominated. Clinton... waited a cycle. So this rule
would mostly matter only for those who won in a NOTA
election (that is, one in which all candidates had majority
unacceptable). I think that there should be some difference between "won
with majority acceptable" and "won despite majority unacceptable", and
that a label penalty that the voters can choose to ignore is
not excessive.
We have a while to wait to see whether Clinton fits the mold of the
others. But anyway, it sounds like your main intention is to
penalize candidates who actually won, not those who lost. That is more
interesting than I was thinking.
Right. This is to satisfy the NOTA and term-limit supporters. Generally, I
oppose hardline proposals along those lines, but I think a compromise like
this could work.
Kevin
electionsciencefoundation <electionscience@googlegroups. com>
Envoyé le : Mercredi 7 septembre 2016 12h59
Objet : Re: [EM] U/P voting: new name for simple 3-level method.
The main advantage of U/P voting over other systems like MJ or MCA is
simplicity of description. So I'm going to try to describe it as simply as
possible.
To vote, you rate each person running as "preferred", "acceptable", or
"unacceptable". You can rate any number at each level.
If more than half of voters rate a person "unacceptable", that person
can't win, unless the same is true of all the people running. Of those
remaining, the winner is the one rated "preferred" by the most voters.
If you leave all three ratings blank for a candidate, that usually means
the same as rating them "acceptable". There are two exceptions. First, if
you made a mark to rate some candidates "acceptable", then the ones you
didn't make any mark for are counted as "unacceptable". And second, if the
two most-preferred candidates both can't win, because more than half of
voters marked them "unacceptable", then candidates with no mark count as
"unacceptable". That way, you don't end up letting a weak candidate win by
mistake.
2016-09-06 13:17 GMT-04:00 Jameson Quinn jameson.quinn@gmail.com:
I've recently posted a few messages discussing a simple 3-level graded
Bucklin method:
Ballot: For each candidate, you may rate them “preferred”, “acceptable”,
or “unacceptable”. Any candidate, including an incumbent, who had gotten
over 50% "unacceptable" in the prior election would have a note to that
effect next to their name on the ballot. (In prior messages, I'd suggested
not allowing them on the ballot. I now think that allowing them on, but
with a note, would be better.)
Counting: For the current eIection, if some but not all candidates have
a majority (50%+1) of “unacceptable” votes, then they are disqualified. The
winner is the non-disqualified candidate with the most approvals.
My new name for the above system is U/P voting. It stands for
"unacceptable/preferred", and can be pronounced "up voting" for quick
discussion; or "you pee voting" if necessary to avoid confusion.
Jameson and any interested others,
I remain strongly of the opinion that in any election method the default
rating/ranking should simply be
bottom-most, and I'm opposed to the gimmick that tries to stigmatise
some of the losers at the time of
the following election in the event that they contest it.
But those issues aside, I now rate U/P as not really any worse than MTA
and MCA.
Of those three, only U/P meets the Chicken Dilemma criterion.
http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/Chicken_Dilemma_Criterion
And the recently discussed U/P bad example where it fails to elect a
candidate that is both most approved
and the Condorcet winner is shared by MTA.
30: A>B
25: B>A
05: C>B
40: C
Of the three methods, I agree that U/P is the most strategy-resistant
but also the one that is the least likely to elect a
voted Condorcet winner and the one that with sincere voting will likely
produce the lowest SU winner. With MCA the
reverse is true, and MTA is intermediate between the two in terms of
these behaviours.
In some ways I imagine that U/P would be the hardest to promote to the
wide public, because compared to the others
it looks like the middle-rating doesn't do anything and I doubt that you
want to bring up negative devious strategies
like "chicken" defection.
IBIFA also (along with MTA and MCA and MJ and MAM) fails CD, but, unlike
U/P, MTA, MCA, MJ, meets Irrelevant Ballots
Independence, absolutely dominates those methods in terms of Condorcet
consistency and is happy using ballots with many
more (than 3) ratings slots.
I don't share Jameson's hostility to IRV. Provided the voters are free
to strictly rank from the top however many or few
candidates as they wish (I don't favour allowing above-bottom
equal-ranking in IRV) and the eliminations are (at least in
effect) one-at-a-time, then I rate IRV as a good method, much better
than Top-Two Runoff and in my book the best of the
methods that strictly meets Later-no-Help.
And if we want something that meets Condorcet and CD, then "Benham" (the
name was coined by James Green-Armytage
in an article he wrote about IRV-Condorcet hybrid methods) is a very
good method. It is like IRV, but elects the CW and if there
isn't one checks for one among the remaining candidates before each
elimination and elects the first one to appear.
Of the promoted and other ok Condorcet methods, I think it is the only
one that has in common with IRV that a Condorcet
winner that can make the IRV top-two can't fall victim to a successful
Burial strategy.
Chris Benham
Hi Jameson,
De : Jameson Quinn jameson.quinn@gmail.com
À : Kevin Venzke stepjak@yahoo.fr
Cc : EM election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Envoyé le : Vendredi 9 septembre 2016 8h38
Objet : Re: [EM] Fwd: U/P voting: new name for simple 3-level method.
Using parallel language to yours, here's U/P:
If there's a majority acceptable (minority unacceptable), elect the one of those that's most preferred. Else elect the most
preferred.
That's 4 words more complicated. You could do it in fewer than 4 extra words if you really wanted.
Ok. Is it better than MCA?
Yes. MCA is significantly more subject to chicken truncation strategy.
Hmm. In MCA, from the perspective of a (potentially) majority faction split between two candidates, MCA is identical to Approval,
so I understand that much.
In discussion with C. Benham, I have realized that U/P is actually more similar to MTA than I'd realized. In the terms above, MTA
(Majority Top Approval) is:
If there's a majority acceptable (minority unacceptable), elect the one of those that's most preferred. Else elect the most acceptable.
Yes I mentioned this method but didn't call it MTA. I've called it MAFP outside of a ratings context. I think my wording shows how
we might hope it would be used:
"There is another method where you elect the approval winner unless there are multiple candidates with a majority, in which case
preferred ratings break the "tie.""
So, you use the middle slot when you calculate it's more likely you need to "vote against" that candidate in the tie, than "vote
for" him. That is a murky statement (because you do not know who is in the tie), but simple enough that I don't dislike MTA that
much. Functionally though I'm not sure how different it is from Approval.
So, U/P and MTA differ only when all candidates are majority unacceptable AND the most preferred differs from the most acceptable. I
think that this situation is on the whole unlikely, and that when it occurs, it will probably be due to strategy. Furthermore, it may
enter into consideration as a contrafactual, in which case it is by definition strategically motivated.
I think MTA is more likely to get it "right" if the ballots are unstrategic; but that U/P is more likely to get it "right" if the
ballots are strategic. Since, as I said, I think the latter is more likely, I think U/P is better. Their simplicity is identical.
Hmmmm. I would think and hope that voters would use strategy under MTA, so of course any resulting ballot set would be "due to
strategy." I don't think I would characterize U/P differently, though I think the strategy is harder to articulate.
It sounds like you're saying if this situation on the ballots arose, it would probably be "due to strategy" (regardless of which
method's strategies created it), and that U/P would resolve it better if it is due to strategy (i.e. U/P's strategy).
What do you make of these ballots:
43: A
24: B>C
23: C>B
10: D
Under MTA the B and C voters are being completely reasonable: They hope for majority approval but can still hope for a win if they
don't get it.
Strategy is less likely to produce these ballots under U/P because the B and C voters are taking a gamble. To get a similar outcome
they have to vote B=C. Anyone who doesn't is functionally defecting!
But I don't want to be "right" if it leads to me just arguing in my own corner. I'd far rather choose a system that can get consensus
from as many theorists and activists as possible. That's why I continue to put approval forward as the first reform option. I'm only
working on discussing a three-slot option in order to have a back-up suggestion for people who object to approval because of the issues
of non-expressive compromise and/or chicken strategy (including concerns over spoilers; I think that in approval, "spoiler" almost
always refers to a chicken-type scenario.)
So I'd be happy to give up on U/P and embrace MTA if that would help build a clearly broader consensus.
(One side advantage of U/P is that googling "MTA" is never going to send you to a voting page.)
I see. Yes, I have doubts about advocating Approval because it doesn't seem like a strict improvement, even if on balance it should
be a large "net" improvement.
So you are saying if nobody manages to get majority approval, you will only be using the top ratings and ignoring "acceptable"
ratings?
That is unusual; my instinct is that if we can't find a majority we should try to find votes to get as close as possible. There's
a
risk that you are collecting enough information to permit concluding e.g. that a simultaneous approval and Condorcet winner lost.
Yes, this is possible. But consider the kind of scenario where it happens:
20: A>B
20: A,B
19: B
2: C>B
39: C
In this case A wins, even though B is approval and Condorcet winner. But I find this kind of thing very implausible in practice;
and
if such a pathology occurred, it would not be a horrible outcome. It's implausible because the electorate above is bizarrely top-heavy
in its ratings; except for the C>B voters, who could make B win by voting C,B, in view of the fact that C is a clear loser against A
and B.
This specific thing is probably unlikely, but my general concern is that you might collect a bunch of middle slot ratings without
doing anything with them, and public might be able to speculate about whether it made sense.
I am not sure why you called the above scenario bizarrely top-heavy. It's a top-heavy method. I'm not too clear on when one should
be using the middle slot really.
It's a top-heavy method in that it focuses on top ratings. That does not mean, I think, that it would lead to top-heavy ballots in which
voters tended to rate several candidates as preferred.
Well there are only 20% "anyone but C" voters here. They seem to be voting pretty reasonably to me.
Usually that's the point of "top two", but not in this case. In this case, it's just a simple heuristic for "is there some
non-dark-horse candidate without majority unacceptable?" You could get the same effect in other ways:
- A quorum rule: non-votes for X count as "acceptable" iff over 50% of voters have rated X explicitly.
- A partial rule: non-votes count as 0.55 of an "unacceptable" vote and 0.45 of an "acceptable" vote. That way, a dark horse would
need "prefer" to beat "unacceptable" by about 9% to win.
I'd consider either of the above to be fine, but my guess is that the "top two" rule I've already enunciated is the most politically
feasible. I think rules like the two suggestions just above seem more arbitrary and strange.
it feels a little schizophrenic to me that you really want winners to have majority non-disapproval yet do not actually think it
indicates a worthy candidate.
I think that majority explicit non-disapproval does indicate a worthy candidate; and that majority implicit non-disapproval is
better than majority disapproval IF the candidate achieved sufficient scrutiny (which we can assume is true for the two frontrunners).
But I think that unless we have evidence that a candidate got scrutinized, majority of combined unacceptable or didn't-bother-rating
is as bad as a majority of unacceptable.
Sure, I just wish it seemed more organic.
If you have a better idea, please share. I wouldn't be surprised if we came up with something better.
I will keep it in mind, but I think you would make a model of some kind, that would say what makes us think that a given candidate got
scrutinized or not, and then "degree of scrutiny" would be part of a single formula.
I tend to think we will be lucky if we can consistently get even one majority non-disapproved candidate in elections.
I disagree. The people who hate both frontrunners in the current system are louder than those who are OK with either; and in the
current presidential election, they might well be more numerous; but in the average election, I think that "either one is acceptable"
is more common than we might realize.
Hmm... Voters who are OK with either? I have a lot of questions about that. Firstly do these voters really exist. And do they vote?
Would they be willing to put on the ballot that they are OK with either?
Remember, this starts to matter in 3-way elections. The closest cases like that in US presidential history are '92 and '96, with
Perot. I think that there were probably a non-trivial minority of "anybody but Perot" voters; that is, people who would have voted
something like Bush>Clinton>Perot or Clinton>Bush>Perot in U/P. If those people outnumber the Perot>...>Clinton,Bush people, then
it's likely (guaranteed?) that one of Clinton or Bush would get a majority acceptable.
Are we still talking about "the average election" at this point? You seem to say that a voter could be OK with both frontrunners
as long as there is, actually, a third contender. (If you say Perot does not need to be so strong as that, then I don't think
I would agree that there would be a lot of people who would actually vote that the two frontrunners are OK as long as they are
not this weaker candidate.)
Kevin
On 9/11/2016 5:02 AM, Kevin Venzke wrote:
43: A
24: B>C
23: C>B
10: D
Under MTA the B and C voters are being completely reasonable: They hope for majority approval but can still hope for a win if they
don't get it.
Strategy is less likely to produce these ballots under U/P because the B and C voters are taking a gamble. To get a similar outcome
they have to vote B=C. Anyone who doesn't is functionally defecting!
C: A very good example! Assuming MTA and MCA use Top Ratings scores
to break Approval ties, they both elect the Condorcet winner B.
U/P's under-use of the middle ratings slot means that it relies more on
its "majority disqualification" mechanism which seems to make it more
vulnerable to irrelevant ballots, as in the example.
Under U/P, without the irrelevant D ballots, A and D are disqualified
and B is the glorious winner. With them, B and C and D are disqualified
and (without needing
any others to be disqualified) A wins.
This causes me to reject U/P as clearly worse than MTA and MCA. Of the
three I (again) rate MTA as the least bad.
Chris Benham