C
C.Benham
Sat, Dec 16, 2023 12:44 PM
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?
This "High 5" proposal continues in the Jameson Quinn tradition of
coming up with something that is arbitrary and complicated and meets
very few voting methods criteria.
What is supposed be its positive point in comparison with say the very
simple Condorcet//Approval (ranking above bottom)?
- Voters rank from the top those candidates they approve. (Equal-ranking
allowed, but not a huge deal if not.)
The voted Condorcet winner is elected if there is one. Otherwise elect
the most approved candidate.*
I prefer Smith//Condorcet, but accept that that is more complex to
explain and sell and probably the most approved candidate
will nearly always be in the voted Smith set.
Chris Benham
Ted Sterndodecatheon at gmail.com
mailto:election-methods%40lists.electorama.com?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BEM%5D%20High5%20voting%20%28%7E%20Smith//Approval%20on%20a%20reduced%20set%29&In-Reply-To=%3CCAHGFzOQdR%2BaLH8uEdwkqBkQ_%3DvNAPkn6vhP4ydV1uT6Gk0MF0w%40mail.gmail.com%3E
/Fri Dec 15 12:28:30 PST 2023/
I've been mulling over ways to get a Smith/Approval method into a somewhat
practical form, and have taken some cues from Jameson Quinn's Vote-321.
Vote-321 is a pretty method, with a lot of strategy resistance, and if it
were among the options for a new voting system (with no Condorcet method
available), I would choose it immediately.
However, I have a few issues with it: vulnerability to cloning; lack of
expression; and what I consider a too-small provisional subset. The latter
is more of a psychological / media problem, and what I mean by "too-small"
is that if only the top three first-place candidates make it past the first
pass, public attention could be excessively focused on the front-runners at
the cost of addressing issues raised by less popular candidates. But the
too-small subset is also what enables Vote-321's vulnerability to cloning.
By including at least one or two more candidates in the first pass of
candidate reduction, cloning risk is reduced.
Following is what I call the *High 5 *method for three or more candidates:
Ballot Expression:
I prefer a 6 slot ranked ballot, equal-ranking and gaps allowed, with the
rank/tiers named as follows:
Tier Name
Approval Status
Description
A
Approved
Most Preferred / Best / Favorite
B
Approved
Good
C
Approved
OK / Acceptable
D
Disapproved
Not Preferred, but would be in their coalition (i.e. Compromise)
E
Disapproved
Mostly Unacceptable but Lesser Evil
Reject
Dispapproved
Completely unacceptable
Summarized, there are 3 approved ranks (Most Preferred, Good, OK), 2
disapproved ranks (compromise, lesser of two evils), and Reject. Blank
ballots are counted as rejection.
Tabulation:
- Total most-preferred votes per candidate (i.e. "A" votes).
- Approval / Disapproval totals per candidate
- Pairwise preference array
- Optional:
- Tied-Approval pairwise
- Tied-Disapproval (above reject) pairwise
- Approved vs Disapproved/Reject pairwise
First-pass subset:
- *Top 5 candidates by most-preferred votes*
Procedure:
- Of the top 5 most-preferred candidates are found, drop the
least-approved candidate.
- Among the remaining candidates, use the pairwise preference array to
find the Smith Set
- If more than one candidate is in the Smith Set, pick the most approved
member of the set as the winner.
If you start with 3 candidates, this method reduces to top-two approval.
Starting with 4 candidates, this method reduces to sorting the candidates
by Approval and doing a top-three tournament: the winner is the pairwise
winner of A1 versus (the pairwise winner of A2 versus A3).
For 5 or more candidates, the method has a very high probability of finding
the CW (if one exists) among the top five favorites, while falling back to
approval in the event of a cycle among the four most-approved of those top
five.
In a "jungle-primary" type of situation (though no primary is necessary),
media attention would be given to at least the top 5 candidates instead of
just the top two, ensuring attention to a range of viewpoints. And in the
event of a large number of candidates, it would not be necessary to
tabulate pairwise preferences for more than 7 or 8 top-first-ranked
candidates as determined by pre-election polling, reducing tabulation
complexity while retaining summability.
Using most-preferred votes for the first pass has a slight anti-cloning
effect, as a preference ballot would lead to a tendency toward vote
splitting if one faction has too many candidates. The anti-cloning pressure
is greater than in Vote-321 because of the larger range of expression.
Finally, the Smith//Approval method, when combined with the explicit
approval cutoff ballot, allows enough strategy to reduce burial incentive.
I'm calling this "High 5" voting because it's descriptive of both the
ranking method and the top-five most preferred first-level truncation, and
it's easier to remember than Smith//Approval.
Thoughts?
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?
This "High 5" proposal continues in the Jameson Quinn tradition of
coming up with something that is arbitrary and complicated and meets
very few voting methods criteria.
What is supposed be its positive point in comparison with say the very
simple Condorcet//Approval (ranking above bottom)?
* Voters rank from the top those candidates they approve. (Equal-ranking
allowed, but not a huge deal if not.)
The voted Condorcet winner is elected if there is one. Otherwise elect
the most approved candidate.*
I prefer Smith//Condorcet, but accept that that is more complex to
explain and sell and probably the most approved candidate
will nearly always be in the voted Smith set.
Chris Benham
> *Ted Stern*dodecatheon at gmail.com
> <mailto:election-methods%40lists.electorama.com?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BEM%5D%20High5%20voting%20%28%7E%20Smith//Approval%20on%20a%20reduced%20set%29&In-Reply-To=%3CCAHGFzOQdR%2BaLH8uEdwkqBkQ_%3DvNAPkn6vhP4ydV1uT6Gk0MF0w%40mail.gmail.com%3E>
> /Fri Dec 15 12:28:30 PST 2023/
>
> *
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> I've been mulling over ways to get a Smith/Approval method into a somewhat
> practical form, and have taken some cues from Jameson Quinn's Vote-321.
>
> Vote-321 is a pretty method, with a lot of strategy resistance, and if it
> were among the options for a new voting system (with no Condorcet method
> available), I would choose it immediately.
>
> However, I have a few issues with it: vulnerability to cloning; lack of
> expression; and what I consider a too-small provisional subset. The latter
> is more of a psychological / media problem, and what I mean by "too-small"
> is that if only the top three first-place candidates make it past the first
> pass, public attention could be excessively focused on the front-runners at
> the cost of addressing issues raised by less popular candidates. But the
> too-small subset is also what enables Vote-321's vulnerability to cloning.
> By including at least one or two more candidates in the first pass of
> candidate reduction, cloning risk is reduced.
>
> Following is what I call the *High 5 *method for three or more candidates:
>
> *Ballot Expression:*
> I prefer a 6 slot ranked ballot, equal-ranking and gaps allowed, with the
> rank/tiers named as follows:
>
>
> Tier Name
>
> Approval Status
>
> Description
>
> A
>
> Approved
>
> Most Preferred / Best / Favorite
>
> B
>
> Approved
>
> Good
>
> C
>
> Approved
>
> OK / Acceptable
>
> D
>
> Disapproved
>
> Not Preferred, but would be in their coalition (i.e. Compromise)
>
> E
>
> Disapproved
>
> Mostly Unacceptable but Lesser Evil
>
> Reject
>
> Dispapproved
>
> Completely unacceptable
>
> Summarized, there are 3 approved ranks (Most Preferred, Good, OK), 2
> disapproved ranks (compromise, lesser of two evils), and Reject. Blank
> ballots are counted as rejection.
>
> *Tabulation:*
>
> - Total most-preferred votes per candidate (i.e. "A" votes).
> - Approval / Disapproval totals per candidate
> - Pairwise preference array
> - Optional:
> - Tied-Approval pairwise
> - Tied-Disapproval (above reject) pairwise
> - Approved vs Disapproved/Reject pairwise
>
> *First-pass subset:*
>
> - *Top 5 candidates by most-preferred votes*
>
> *Procedure:*
>
> - Of the top 5 most-preferred candidates are found, drop the
> least-approved candidate.
> - Among the remaining candidates, use the pairwise preference array to
> find the Smith Set
> - If more than one candidate is in the Smith Set, pick the most approved
> member of the set as the winner.
>
> If you start with 3 candidates, this method reduces to top-two approval.
>
> Starting with 4 candidates, this method reduces to sorting the candidates
> by Approval and doing a top-three tournament: the winner is the pairwise
> winner of A1 versus (the pairwise winner of A2 versus A3).
>
> For 5 or more candidates, the method has a very high probability of finding
> the CW (if one exists) among the top five favorites, while falling back to
> approval in the event of a cycle among the four most-approved of those top
> five.
>
> In a "jungle-primary" type of situation (though no primary is necessary),
> media attention would be given to at least the top 5 candidates instead of
> just the top two, ensuring attention to a range of viewpoints. And in the
> event of a large number of candidates, it would not be necessary to
> tabulate pairwise preferences for more than 7 or 8 top-first-ranked
> candidates as determined by pre-election polling, reducing tabulation
> complexity while retaining summability.
>
> Using most-preferred votes for the first pass has a slight anti-cloning
> effect, as a preference ballot would lead to a tendency toward vote
> splitting if one faction has too many candidates. The anti-cloning pressure
> is greater than in Vote-321 because of the larger range of expression.
>
> Finally, the Smith//Approval method, when combined with the explicit
> approval cutoff ballot, allows enough strategy to reduce burial incentive.
>
> I'm calling this "High 5" voting because it's descriptive of both the
> ranking method and the top-five most preferred first-level truncation, and
> it's easier to remember than Smith//Approval.
>
> Thoughts?
KM
Kristofer Munsterhjelm
Sat, Dec 16, 2023 2:12 PM
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.
I'm not sure, though.
I prefer Smith//Condorcet, but accept that that is more complex to
explain and sell and probably the most approved candidate
will nearly always be in the voted Smith set.
Do you mean Smith//Approval?
-km
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.
I'm not sure, though.
> I prefer Smith//Condorcet, but accept that that is more complex to
> explain and sell and probably the most approved candidate
> will nearly always be in the voted Smith set.
Do you mean Smith//Approval?
-km
RT
Richard, the VoteFair guy
Sun, Dec 17, 2023 1:35 AM
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:
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.
I'm not sure, though.
I prefer Smith//Condorcet, but accept that that is more complex to
explain and sell and probably the most approved candidate
will nearly always be in the voted Smith set.
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:
> 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.
>
> I'm not sure, though.
>
>> I prefer Smith//Condorcet, but accept that that is more complex to
>> explain and sell and probably the most approved candidate
>> will nearly always be in the voted Smith set.
>
> Do you mean Smith//Approval?
>
> -km
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
MG
Michael Garman
Sun, Dec 17, 2023 5:04 AM
The Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center is an independent entity fully
unaffiliated with FairVote. Hope this helps!
On Sat, Dec 16, 2023 at 8:35 PM Richard, the VoteFair guy <
electionmethods@votefair.org> wrote:
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:
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.
I'm not sure, though.
I prefer Smith//Condorcet, but accept that that is more complex to
explain and sell and probably the most approved candidate
will nearly always be in the voted Smith set.
The Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center is an independent entity fully
unaffiliated with FairVote. Hope this helps!
On Sat, Dec 16, 2023 at 8:35 PM Richard, the VoteFair guy <
electionmethods@votefair.org> wrote:
> 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:
> > 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.
> >
> > I'm not sure, though.
> >
> >> I prefer Smith//Condorcet, but accept that that is more complex to
> >> explain and sell and probably the most approved candidate
> >> will nearly always be in the voted Smith set.
> >
> > Do you mean Smith//Approval?
> >
> > -km
> > ----
> > Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
> info
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
> info
>
MO
Michael Ossipoff
Sun, Dec 17, 2023 12:09 PM
First, I suggest a better name for IRV/RCV:
Better name, definition, & equal-ranking rule:
Name:
Successive Topcount Elimination (STE).
Definition:
Repeatedly eliminate the candidate who tops fewest ballots, till someone
tops most of them.
Equal Ranking Rule:
Who say that the topcount can’t be by Approval instead of Vote-For-1 (VF1)?
You have 2 favorites, so you have to give them each only half support?
That’s an unnecessary & inappropriate carryover from VF1.
On Sat, Dec 16, 2023 at 17:35 Richard, the VoteFair guy <
electionmethods@votefair.org> wrote:
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:
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.
I'm not sure, though.
I prefer Smith//Condorcet, but accept that that is more complex to
explain and sell and probably the most approved candidate
will nearly always be in the voted Smith set.
First, I suggest a better name for IRV/RCV:
Better name, definition, & equal-ranking rule:
Name:
Successive Topcount Elimination (STE).
Definition:
Repeatedly eliminate the candidate who tops fewest ballots, till someone
tops most of them.
Equal Ranking Rule:
Who say that the topcount can’t be by Approval instead of Vote-For-1 (VF1)?
You have 2 favorites, so you have to give them each only half support?
That’s an unnecessary & inappropriate carryover from VF1.
On Sat, Dec 16, 2023 at 17:35 Richard, the VoteFair guy <
electionmethods@votefair.org> wrote:
> 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:
> > 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.
> >
> > I'm not sure, though.
> >
> >> I prefer Smith//Condorcet, but accept that that is more complex to
> >> explain and sell and probably the most approved candidate
> >> will nearly always be in the voted Smith set.
> >
> > Do you mean Smith//Approval?
> >
> > -km
> > ----
> > Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
> info
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
> info
>
MO
Michael Ossipoff
Sun, Dec 17, 2023 12:32 PM
But it should be emphasized that though arguably people should have an
Approval topcount, using equal ranking isn’t as important in STE as
approving more than 1 in Approval.
It might be felt advantageous & preferable to rank in preference-order
instead of using the equal-ranking—unless you’re really indifferent among 2
or more candidates.
…having a shot at electing the one you like better.
STE’s basis of Favoriteness, Mutuality, reciprocity & solidarity.
…electing the candidate favorite to the most people in the mutual-majority.
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 04:09 Michael Ossipoff email9648742@gmail.com
wrote:
First, I suggest a better name for IRV/RCV:
Better name, definition, & equal-ranking rule:
Name:
Successive Topcount Elimination (STE).
Definition:
Repeatedly eliminate the candidate who tops fewest ballots, till someone
tops most of them.
Equal Ranking Rule:
Who say that the topcount can’t be by Approval instead of Vote-For-1 (VF1)?
You have 2 favorites, so you have to give them each only half support?
That’s an unnecessary & inappropriate carryover from VF1.
On Sat, Dec 16, 2023 at 17:35 Richard, the VoteFair guy <
electionmethods@votefair.org> wrote:
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
some places using IRV only lets the voters rank three candidates). And
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:
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
some places using IRV only lets the voters rank three candidates). And
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.
I'm not sure, though.
I prefer Smith//Condorcet, but accept that that is more complex to
explain and sell and probably the most approved candidate
will nearly always be in the voted Smith set.
But it should be emphasized that though arguably people should have an
Approval topcount, using equal ranking isn’t as important in STE as
approving more than 1 in Approval.
It might be felt advantageous & preferable to rank in preference-order
instead of using the equal-ranking—unless you’re really indifferent among 2
or more candidates.
…having a shot at electing the one you like better.
STE’s basis of Favoriteness, Mutuality, reciprocity & solidarity.
…electing the candidate favorite to the most people in the mutual-majority.
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 04:09 Michael Ossipoff <email9648742@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> First, I suggest a better name for IRV/RCV:
>
> Better name, definition, & equal-ranking rule:
>
> Name:
>
> Successive Topcount Elimination (STE).
>
> Definition:
>
> Repeatedly eliminate the candidate who tops fewest ballots, till someone
> tops most of them.
>
> Equal Ranking Rule:
>
> Who say that the topcount can’t be by Approval instead of Vote-For-1 (VF1)?
>
> You have 2 favorites, so you have to give them each only half support?
> That’s an unnecessary & inappropriate carryover from VF1.
>
> On Sat, Dec 16, 2023 at 17:35 Richard, the VoteFair guy <
> electionmethods@votefair.org> wrote:
>
>> 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:
>> > 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.
>> >
>> > I'm not sure, though.
>> >
>> >> I prefer Smith//Condorcet, but accept that that is more complex to
>> >> explain and sell and probably the most approved candidate
>> >> will nearly always be in the voted Smith set.
>> >
>> > Do you mean Smith//Approval?
>> >
>> > -km
>> > ----
>> > Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
>> info
>> ----
>> Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
>> info
>>
>
RT
Richard, the VoteFair guy
Sun, Dec 17, 2023 5:35 PM
On 12/16/2023 9:04 PM, Michael Garman wrote:
The Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center is an independent entity fully
unaffiliated with FairVote. Hope this helps!
Thank you, Michael, for clarifying that the Ranked Choice Voting
Resource Center RCVRC is not officially(!) affiliated with FairVote.
Then why does RCVRC have the same misunderstanding that the leader of
the FairVote organization has been pushing for decades?
Especially, I'd like to understand why RCVRC pushed onto the Portland
Oregon election officials the idea that skipping(!) "overvotes" was a
recommended option. That's worse than ignoring the remaining rankings!
That skipping option works in Australia where a voter hand-writes a
number next to each candidate's name. (They don't have to worry about
"ballot real estate" because there is just one box for each candidate.)
But it doesn't make sense here in the U.S. where we mark ovals in
"choice" columns. And where ballot real estate is very important.
(In fact, the upcoming statewide referendum for Oregon adopts RCV for
just a limited number of contests because election officials were
concerned that adopting it would cause Oregon ballots to require more
than one sheet of paper.)
I see that your website -- RankTheVoteNYC.org -- shows that in your NYC
elections "The scanner will reject any ballot where you mark more than
one candidate for the same rank – in other words, if you fill in more
than one oval in the same column."
Does RCVRC not know that it's easy to correctly count those marks?
(Just pair up equivalent ballots and allocate those "paired" ballots in
equal numbers to those same-ranked candidates.)
Richard Fobes
The VoteFair guy
On 12/16/2023 9:04 PM, Michael Garman wrote:
> The Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center is an independent entity fully
> unaffiliated with FairVote. Hope this helps!
Thank you, Michael, for clarifying that the Ranked Choice Voting
Resource Center RCVRC is not officially(!) affiliated with FairVote.
Then why does RCVRC have the same misunderstanding that the leader of
the FairVote organization has been pushing for decades?
Especially, I'd like to understand why RCVRC pushed onto the Portland
Oregon election officials the idea that skipping(!) "overvotes" was a
recommended option. That's worse than ignoring the remaining rankings!
That skipping option works in Australia where a voter hand-writes a
number next to each candidate's name. (They don't have to worry about
"ballot real estate" because there is just one box for each candidate.)
But it doesn't make sense here in the U.S. where we mark ovals in
"choice" columns. And where ballot real estate is very important.
(In fact, the upcoming statewide referendum for Oregon adopts RCV for
just a limited number of contests because election officials were
concerned that adopting it would cause Oregon ballots to require more
than one sheet of paper.)
I see that your website -- RankTheVoteNYC.org -- shows that in your NYC
elections "The scanner will reject any ballot where you mark more than
one candidate for the same rank – in other words, if you fill in more
than one oval in the same column."
Does RCVRC not know that it's easy to correctly count those marks?
(Just pair up equivalent ballots and allocate those "paired" ballots in
equal numbers to those same-ranked candidates.)
Richard Fobes
The VoteFair guy
MG
Michael Garman
Sun, Dec 17, 2023 5:50 PM
I wouldn’t know as I’m not affiliated with the RCVRC.
It’s extremely shortsighted of you to keep letting the perfect be the enemy
of the good. Attacking FairVote as part of a conspiracy instead of offering
constructive criticism to the most powerful election reformers out there is
going to ensure that we remain stuck with FPTP. You have no evidence for
your claims of any kind of collusion — because it doesn’t exist.
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 12:35 PM Richard, the VoteFair guy <
electionmethods@votefair.org> wrote:
On 12/16/2023 9:04 PM, Michael Garman wrote:
The Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center is an independent entity fully
unaffiliated with FairVote. Hope this helps!
Thank you, Michael, for clarifying that the Ranked Choice Voting
Resource Center RCVRC is not officially(!) affiliated with FairVote.
Then why does RCVRC have the same misunderstanding that the leader of
the FairVote organization has been pushing for decades?
Especially, I'd like to understand why RCVRC pushed onto the Portland
Oregon election officials the idea that skipping(!) "overvotes" was a
recommended option. That's worse than ignoring the remaining rankings!
That skipping option works in Australia where a voter hand-writes a
number next to each candidate's name. (They don't have to worry about
"ballot real estate" because there is just one box for each candidate.)
But it doesn't make sense here in the U.S. where we mark ovals in
"choice" columns. And where ballot real estate is very important.
(In fact, the upcoming statewide referendum for Oregon adopts RCV for
just a limited number of contests because election officials were
concerned that adopting it would cause Oregon ballots to require more
than one sheet of paper.)
I see that your website -- RankTheVoteNYC.org -- shows that in your NYC
elections "The scanner will reject any ballot where you mark more than
one candidate for the same rank – in other words, if you fill in more
than one oval in the same column."
Does RCVRC not know that it's easy to correctly count those marks?
(Just pair up equivalent ballots and allocate those "paired" ballots in
equal numbers to those same-ranked candidates.)
Richard Fobes
The VoteFair guy
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info
I wouldn’t know as I’m not affiliated with the RCVRC.
It’s extremely shortsighted of you to keep letting the perfect be the enemy
of the good. Attacking FairVote as part of a conspiracy instead of offering
constructive criticism to the most powerful election reformers out there is
going to ensure that we remain stuck with FPTP. You have no evidence for
your claims of any kind of collusion — because it doesn’t exist.
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 12:35 PM Richard, the VoteFair guy <
electionmethods@votefair.org> wrote:
> On 12/16/2023 9:04 PM, Michael Garman wrote:
> > The Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center is an independent entity fully
> > unaffiliated with FairVote. Hope this helps!
>
> Thank you, Michael, for clarifying that the Ranked Choice Voting
> Resource Center RCVRC is not officially(!) affiliated with FairVote.
>
> Then why does RCVRC have the same misunderstanding that the leader of
> the FairVote organization has been pushing for decades?
>
> Especially, I'd like to understand why RCVRC pushed onto the Portland
> Oregon election officials the idea that skipping(!) "overvotes" was a
> recommended option. That's worse than ignoring the remaining rankings!
>
> That skipping option works in Australia where a voter hand-writes a
> number next to each candidate's name. (They don't have to worry about
> "ballot real estate" because there is just one box for each candidate.)
> But it doesn't make sense here in the U.S. where we mark ovals in
> "choice" columns. And where ballot real estate is very important.
>
> (In fact, the upcoming statewide referendum for Oregon adopts RCV for
> just a limited number of contests because election officials were
> concerned that adopting it would cause Oregon ballots to require more
> than one sheet of paper.)
>
> I see that your website -- RankTheVoteNYC.org -- shows that in your NYC
> elections "The scanner will reject any ballot where you mark more than
> one candidate for the same rank – in other words, if you fill in more
> than one oval in the same column."
>
> Does RCVRC not know that it's easy to correctly count those marks?
> (Just pair up equivalent ballots and allocate those "paired" ballots in
> equal numbers to those same-ranked candidates.)
>
> Richard Fobes
> The VoteFair guy
>
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
> info
>
RT
Richard, the VoteFair guy
Sun, Dec 17, 2023 8:20 PM
My response to Michael's second paragraph below is admittedly a "rant"
that's intended to reveal insights about what's going on under the
surface of election-method reform in the U.S., especially in Oregon. In
other words, what I've written in response to Michael's second paragraph
is not directed at Michael.
On 12/17/2023 9:50 AM, Michael Garman wrote:
I wouldn’t know as I’m not affiliated with the RCVRC.
To Michael: Thank you for this clarification, and for taking time to
educate me about the lack of official collaboration between RCVRC and
FairVote. Also, I'm very pleased you are helping NYC to adopt ranked
choice ballots!
It’s extremely shortsighted of you to keep letting the perfect be the
enemy of the good. Attacking FairVote as part of a conspiracy instead of
offering constructive criticism to the most powerful election reformers
out there is going to ensure that we remain stuck with FPTP. You have no
evidence for your claims of any kind of collusion — because it doesn’t
exist.
For those who don't know, here in Oregon a group of election-method
reformers in the city of Eugene are strongly pushing STAR voting, with
lots of financial assistance.
One of their two valid criticisms of IRV is that current versions of IRV
software do not allow giving the same preference level to two or more
candidates. They push STAR voting by saying STAR ballots do allow this
kind of marking. And they point to "spoiled ballots" in real IRV
elections as evidence of the importance of this issue (even though an
overvote is just one way in which a ranked choice ballot can be
categorized as "spoiled").
If the FairVote organization were more honest about the importance of
being able to rank multiple candidates at the same preference level, the
fans of STAR voting would not have been able to push IRV fans into
becoming STAR fans.
History: Interestingly the primary financial backer behind STAR voting
started out as an IRV fan. I know this because about 20 years ago a
friend in Eugene sent me a newspaper clipping from the Eugene newspaper
in which that person, the son of a university president there, was
promoting "instant runoff voting." The friend in Eugene had heard me
promoting to her and other friends in Eugene what are now called "ranked
choice ballots." Back then I lived in Corvallis, but traveled to
dances, and to dates, in Eugene so often that some people in Eugene
thought I lived there. FWIW, I also promoted "order-of-preference
ballots" to friends and dancers in Corvallis, where IRV was adopted
later after I moved away.
My opposition is against the misinformation about so-called "overvotes."
I'm not opposed to IRV. In fact I've helped to push IRV through the
Oregon legislature.
For about two decades I've been offering constructive criticism to IRV
fans and the leader of FairVote, but my suggestions are regarded as not
important enough for them to seriously consider.
I've also taught lots of people in Oregon about the unfair results of
IRV in Burlington VT and the recent special election in Alaska.
Yet instead of trying to block IRV I'm promoting the idea of adopting
IRV and then, later, improving the counting software.
That weakness of IRV can be solved easily by eliminating "pairwise
losing candidates" when they occur. I'm well aware that this refinement
will take longer to remedy compared to correctly counting overvotes.
In the meantime the Oregon fans of STAR voting criticize IRV as being
vulnerable to the "center squeeze effect." Yet this effect will
disappear from IRV when pairwise losing candidates are eliminated when
they occur.
So I find myself attacking misrepresentations -- basically "white lies"
-- from both the FairVote organization and the fans of STAR voting (who
loosely are affiliated with The Equal Vote Coalition), both of whom are
well-funded. To be balanced here, The Election Science Foundation also
promotes misrepresentations.
To repeat, I'm not attacking the organizations. I'm attacking their
misrepresentations.
I realize that sometimes those organizations are trying to keep things
simple when they talk to voters. Yet some of those simplifications
become oversimplifications and misrepresentations.
It's important to understand that the fans of STAR voting wouldn't be
getting so many signatures on their current statewide petition to adopt
STAR voting for all of Oregon if RCVRC and FairVote had not been so
adamant that "overvotes" cannot be counted.
And STAR fans wouldn't have been able to get enough signatures on their
petition to adopt STAR voting for Eugene elections if they hadn't
co-opted IRV fans (including promoting STAR as a "better kind of ranked
choice voting"). That Eugene-specific petition-based referendum has
already qualified to be on Eugene's spring 2024 ballot.
To clarify, I'm not opposed to Eugene adopting STAR voting; rather I'm
opposed to STAR fans trying to block the statewide ranked choice ballot
initiative on the November 2024 ballot. They are doing this by pushing
a separate statewide STAR petition.
That's a misrepresentation because they criticize ranked choice voting
as if overvotes cannot be counted, even though the already-scheduled
November 2024 referendum avoids any mention of "overvotes" so that the
wording is compatible with future software.
FairVote's myth about overvotes not being countable has contributed to
this attack against IRV.
Yes, I'm frustrated. And I'm angry. I've been promoting ranked choice
ballots for three decades, although previously under the names
"order-of-preference ballots" and "1-2-3 ballots."
Finally Portland Oregon has adopted IRV for the mayoral election and STV
for city council elections. (In spite of opposition from a fan of STAR
voting who was on the charter amendment committee.)
And the Oregon state legislature has passed a ranked-choice-voting
referendum that will appear statewide on the November ballot -- with no
mention of the word "overvote" in the counting details, because of my
influence. (Fans of STAR voting also testified against this bill.)
The misinformation coming from FairVote, RCVRC, STAR fans, and the
Election Science Foundation is undermining support for Portland's
reforms and the statewide adoption of ranked choice ballots for electing
our governor and our members of Congress.
I'm not intending to suggest there is any conspiracy between the
organizations. Yet I do suspect that some of the donations going to
these organizations would decline if they were to increase cooperation
and avoid misrepresentation.
I continue to believe that the Oregon legislature being the first state
legislature to vote in favor of allowing voters to adopt ranked choice
ballots for key Oregon elections is a hugely beneficial tipping point
for civilization! (Other states that have adopted ranked choice voting
have had to do it by gathering signatures on petitions.)
My anger is directed at the people who undermine this progress toward
adopting IRV as a stepping stone to better software.
That better software will correctly count mythical "overvotes."
And eventually it will avoid easy-to-avoid IIA (independence of
irrelevant alternatives) failures -- which get criticized as either
Condorcet failures or "center squeeze effect" failures.
My request to all election-method reform organizations and individuals
is to please stop the misrepresentations, at least to Oregon voters, so
the November 2024 ranked choice voting referendum passes with support
from a majority of Oregon voters.
To everyone still reading this far, thank you for reading my rant.
Richard Fobes
The VoteFair guy
On 12/17/2023 9:50 AM, Michael Garman wrote:
I wouldn’t know as I’m not affiliated with the RCVRC.
It’s extremely shortsighted of you to keep letting the perfect be the
enemy of the good. Attacking FairVote as part of a conspiracy instead of
offering constructive criticism to the most powerful election reformers
out there is going to ensure that we remain stuck with FPTP. You have no
evidence for your claims of any kind of collusion — because it doesn’t
exist.
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 12:35 PM Richard, the VoteFair guy
<electionmethods@votefair.org mailto:electionmethods@votefair.org> wrote:
On 12/16/2023 9:04 PM, Michael Garman wrote:
The Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center is an independent entity
unaffiliated with FairVote. Hope this helps!
Thank you, Michael, for clarifying that the Ranked Choice Voting
Resource Center RCVRC is not officially(!) affiliated with FairVote.
Then why does RCVRC have the same misunderstanding that the leader of
the FairVote organization has been pushing for decades?
Especially, I'd like to understand why RCVRC pushed onto the Portland
Oregon election officials the idea that skipping(!) "overvotes" was a
recommended option. That's worse than ignoring the remaining rankings!
That skipping option works in Australia where a voter hand-writes a
number next to each candidate's name. (They don't have to worry about
"ballot real estate" because there is just one box for each candidate.)
But it doesn't make sense here in the U.S. where we mark ovals in
"choice" columns. And where ballot real estate is very important.
(In fact, the upcoming statewide referendum for Oregon adopts RCV for
just a limited number of contests because election officials were
concerned that adopting it would cause Oregon ballots to require more
than one sheet of paper.)
I see that your website -- RankTheVoteNYC.org -- shows that in your NYC
elections "The scanner will reject any ballot where you mark more than
one candidate for the same rank – in other words, if you fill in more
than one oval in the same column."
Does RCVRC not know that it's easy to correctly count those marks?
(Just pair up equivalent ballots and allocate those "paired" ballots in
equal numbers to those same-ranked candidates.)
Richard Fobes
The VoteFair guy
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em
<https://electorama.com/em> for list info
My response to Michael's second paragraph below is admittedly a "rant"
that's intended to reveal insights about what's going on under the
surface of election-method reform in the U.S., especially in Oregon. In
other words, what I've written in response to Michael's second paragraph
is not directed at Michael.
On 12/17/2023 9:50 AM, Michael Garman wrote:
> I wouldn’t know as I’m not affiliated with the RCVRC.
To Michael: Thank you for this clarification, and for taking time to
educate me about the lack of official collaboration between RCVRC and
FairVote. Also, I'm very pleased you are helping NYC to adopt ranked
choice ballots!
> It’s extremely shortsighted of you to keep letting the perfect be the
> enemy of the good. Attacking FairVote as part of a conspiracy instead of
> offering constructive criticism to the most powerful election reformers
> out there is going to ensure that we remain stuck with FPTP. You have no
> evidence for your claims of any kind of collusion — because it doesn’t
> exist.
For those who don't know, here in Oregon a group of election-method
reformers in the city of Eugene are strongly pushing STAR voting, with
lots of financial assistance.
One of their two valid criticisms of IRV is that current versions of IRV
software do not allow giving the same preference level to two or more
candidates. They push STAR voting by saying STAR ballots do allow this
kind of marking. And they point to "spoiled ballots" in real IRV
elections as evidence of the importance of this issue (even though an
overvote is just one way in which a ranked choice ballot can be
categorized as "spoiled").
If the FairVote organization were more honest about the importance of
being able to rank multiple candidates at the same preference level, the
fans of STAR voting would not have been able to push IRV fans into
becoming STAR fans.
History: Interestingly the primary financial backer behind STAR voting
started out as an IRV fan. I know this because about 20 years ago a
friend in Eugene sent me a newspaper clipping from the Eugene newspaper
in which that person, the son of a university president there, was
promoting "instant runoff voting." The friend in Eugene had heard me
promoting to her and other friends in Eugene what are now called "ranked
choice ballots." Back then I lived in Corvallis, but traveled to
dances, and to dates, in Eugene so often that some people in Eugene
thought I lived there. FWIW, I also promoted "order-of-preference
ballots" to friends and dancers in Corvallis, where IRV was adopted
later after I moved away.
My opposition is against the misinformation about so-called "overvotes."
I'm not opposed to IRV. In fact I've helped to push IRV through the
Oregon legislature.
For about two decades I've been offering constructive criticism to IRV
fans and the leader of FairVote, but my suggestions are regarded as not
important enough for them to seriously consider.
I've also taught lots of people in Oregon about the unfair results of
IRV in Burlington VT and the recent special election in Alaska.
Yet instead of trying to block IRV I'm promoting the idea of adopting
IRV and then, later, improving the counting software.
That weakness of IRV can be solved easily by eliminating "pairwise
losing candidates" when they occur. I'm well aware that this refinement
will take longer to remedy compared to correctly counting overvotes.
In the meantime the Oregon fans of STAR voting criticize IRV as being
vulnerable to the "center squeeze effect." Yet this effect will
disappear from IRV when pairwise losing candidates are eliminated when
they occur.
So I find myself attacking misrepresentations -- basically "white lies"
-- from both the FairVote organization and the fans of STAR voting (who
loosely are affiliated with The Equal Vote Coalition), both of whom are
well-funded. To be balanced here, The Election Science Foundation also
promotes misrepresentations.
To repeat, I'm not attacking the organizations. I'm attacking their
misrepresentations.
I realize that sometimes those organizations are trying to keep things
simple when they talk to voters. Yet some of those simplifications
become oversimplifications and misrepresentations.
It's important to understand that the fans of STAR voting wouldn't be
getting so many signatures on their current statewide petition to adopt
STAR voting for all of Oregon if RCVRC and FairVote had not been so
adamant that "overvotes" cannot be counted.
And STAR fans wouldn't have been able to get enough signatures on their
petition to adopt STAR voting for Eugene elections if they hadn't
co-opted IRV fans (including promoting STAR as a "better kind of ranked
choice voting"). That Eugene-specific petition-based referendum has
already qualified to be on Eugene's spring 2024 ballot.
To clarify, I'm not opposed to Eugene adopting STAR voting; rather I'm
opposed to STAR fans trying to block the statewide ranked choice ballot
initiative on the November 2024 ballot. They are doing this by pushing
a separate statewide STAR petition.
That's a misrepresentation because they criticize ranked choice voting
as if overvotes cannot be counted, even though the already-scheduled
November 2024 referendum avoids any mention of "overvotes" so that the
wording is compatible with future software.
FairVote's myth about overvotes not being countable has contributed to
this attack against IRV.
Yes, I'm frustrated. And I'm angry. I've been promoting ranked choice
ballots for three decades, although previously under the names
"order-of-preference ballots" and "1-2-3 ballots."
Finally Portland Oregon has adopted IRV for the mayoral election and STV
for city council elections. (In spite of opposition from a fan of STAR
voting who was on the charter amendment committee.)
And the Oregon state legislature has passed a ranked-choice-voting
referendum that will appear statewide on the November ballot -- with no
mention of the word "overvote" in the counting details, because of my
influence. (Fans of STAR voting also testified against this bill.)
The misinformation coming from FairVote, RCVRC, STAR fans, and the
Election Science Foundation is undermining support for Portland's
reforms and the statewide adoption of ranked choice ballots for electing
our governor and our members of Congress.
I'm not intending to suggest there is any conspiracy between the
organizations. Yet I do suspect that some of the donations going to
these organizations would decline if they were to increase cooperation
and avoid misrepresentation.
I continue to believe that the Oregon legislature being the first state
legislature to vote in favor of allowing voters to adopt ranked choice
ballots for key Oregon elections is a hugely beneficial tipping point
for civilization! (Other states that have adopted ranked choice voting
have had to do it by gathering signatures on petitions.)
My anger is directed at the people who undermine this progress toward
adopting IRV as a stepping stone to better software.
That better software will correctly count mythical "overvotes."
And eventually it will avoid easy-to-avoid IIA (independence of
irrelevant alternatives) failures -- which get criticized as either
Condorcet failures or "center squeeze effect" failures.
My request to all election-method reform organizations and individuals
is to please stop the misrepresentations, at least to Oregon voters, so
the November 2024 ranked choice voting referendum passes with support
from a majority of Oregon voters.
To everyone still reading this far, thank you for reading my rant.
Richard Fobes
The VoteFair guy
On 12/17/2023 9:50 AM, Michael Garman wrote:
> I wouldn’t know as I’m not affiliated with the RCVRC.
>
> It’s extremely shortsighted of you to keep letting the perfect be the
> enemy of the good. Attacking FairVote as part of a conspiracy instead of
> offering constructive criticism to the most powerful election reformers
> out there is going to ensure that we remain stuck with FPTP. You have no
> evidence for your claims of any kind of collusion — because it doesn’t
> exist.
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 12:35 PM Richard, the VoteFair guy
> <electionmethods@votefair.org <mailto:electionmethods@votefair.org>> wrote:
>
> On 12/16/2023 9:04 PM, Michael Garman wrote:
> > The Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center is an independent entity
> fully
> > unaffiliated with FairVote. Hope this helps!
>
> Thank you, Michael, for clarifying that the Ranked Choice Voting
> Resource Center RCVRC is not officially(!) affiliated with FairVote.
>
> Then why does RCVRC have the same misunderstanding that the leader of
> the FairVote organization has been pushing for decades?
>
> Especially, I'd like to understand why RCVRC pushed onto the Portland
> Oregon election officials the idea that skipping(!) "overvotes" was a
> recommended option. That's worse than ignoring the remaining rankings!
>
> That skipping option works in Australia where a voter hand-writes a
> number next to each candidate's name. (They don't have to worry about
> "ballot real estate" because there is just one box for each candidate.)
> But it doesn't make sense here in the U.S. where we mark ovals in
> "choice" columns. And where ballot real estate is very important.
>
> (In fact, the upcoming statewide referendum for Oregon adopts RCV for
> just a limited number of contests because election officials were
> concerned that adopting it would cause Oregon ballots to require more
> than one sheet of paper.)
>
> I see that your website -- RankTheVoteNYC.org -- shows that in your NYC
> elections "The scanner will reject any ballot where you mark more than
> one candidate for the same rank – in other words, if you fill in more
> than one oval in the same column."
>
> Does RCVRC not know that it's easy to correctly count those marks?
> (Just pair up equivalent ballots and allocate those "paired" ballots in
> equal numbers to those same-ranked candidates.)
>
> Richard Fobes
> The VoteFair guy
>
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em
> <https://electorama.com/em> for list info
>
MG
Michael Garman
Sun, Dec 17, 2023 8:22 PM
Appreciate the clarification and your support for the cause! Apologies for
the rant of my own. I always enjoy reading this list and learning from you
all :)
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 3:20 PM Richard, the VoteFair guy <
electionmethods@votefair.org> wrote:
My response to Michael's second paragraph below is admittedly a "rant"
that's intended to reveal insights about what's going on under the
surface of election-method reform in the U.S., especially in Oregon. In
other words, what I've written in response to Michael's second paragraph
is not directed at Michael.
On 12/17/2023 9:50 AM, Michael Garman wrote:
I wouldn’t know as I’m not affiliated with the RCVRC.
To Michael: Thank you for this clarification, and for taking time to
educate me about the lack of official collaboration between RCVRC and
FairVote. Also, I'm very pleased you are helping NYC to adopt ranked
choice ballots!
It’s extremely shortsighted of you to keep letting the perfect be the
enemy of the good. Attacking FairVote as part of a conspiracy instead of
offering constructive criticism to the most powerful election reformers
out there is going to ensure that we remain stuck with FPTP. You have no
evidence for your claims of any kind of collusion — because it doesn’t
exist.
For those who don't know, here in Oregon a group of election-method
reformers in the city of Eugene are strongly pushing STAR voting, with
lots of financial assistance.
One of their two valid criticisms of IRV is that current versions of IRV
software do not allow giving the same preference level to two or more
candidates. They push STAR voting by saying STAR ballots do allow this
kind of marking. And they point to "spoiled ballots" in real IRV
elections as evidence of the importance of this issue (even though an
overvote is just one way in which a ranked choice ballot can be
categorized as "spoiled").
If the FairVote organization were more honest about the importance of
being able to rank multiple candidates at the same preference level, the
fans of STAR voting would not have been able to push IRV fans into
becoming STAR fans.
History: Interestingly the primary financial backer behind STAR voting
started out as an IRV fan. I know this because about 20 years ago a
friend in Eugene sent me a newspaper clipping from the Eugene newspaper
in which that person, the son of a university president there, was
promoting "instant runoff voting." The friend in Eugene had heard me
promoting to her and other friends in Eugene what are now called "ranked
choice ballots." Back then I lived in Corvallis, but traveled to
dances, and to dates, in Eugene so often that some people in Eugene
thought I lived there. FWIW, I also promoted "order-of-preference
ballots" to friends and dancers in Corvallis, where IRV was adopted
later after I moved away.
My opposition is against the misinformation about so-called "overvotes."
I'm not opposed to IRV. In fact I've helped to push IRV through the
Oregon legislature.
For about two decades I've been offering constructive criticism to IRV
fans and the leader of FairVote, but my suggestions are regarded as not
important enough for them to seriously consider.
I've also taught lots of people in Oregon about the unfair results of
IRV in Burlington VT and the recent special election in Alaska.
Yet instead of trying to block IRV I'm promoting the idea of adopting
IRV and then, later, improving the counting software.
That weakness of IRV can be solved easily by eliminating "pairwise
losing candidates" when they occur. I'm well aware that this refinement
will take longer to remedy compared to correctly counting overvotes.
In the meantime the Oregon fans of STAR voting criticize IRV as being
vulnerable to the "center squeeze effect." Yet this effect will
disappear from IRV when pairwise losing candidates are eliminated when
they occur.
So I find myself attacking misrepresentations -- basically "white lies"
-- from both the FairVote organization and the fans of STAR voting (who
loosely are affiliated with The Equal Vote Coalition), both of whom are
well-funded. To be balanced here, The Election Science Foundation also
promotes misrepresentations.
To repeat, I'm not attacking the organizations. I'm attacking their
misrepresentations.
I realize that sometimes those organizations are trying to keep things
simple when they talk to voters. Yet some of those simplifications
become oversimplifications and misrepresentations.
It's important to understand that the fans of STAR voting wouldn't be
getting so many signatures on their current statewide petition to adopt
STAR voting for all of Oregon if RCVRC and FairVote had not been so
adamant that "overvotes" cannot be counted.
And STAR fans wouldn't have been able to get enough signatures on their
petition to adopt STAR voting for Eugene elections if they hadn't
co-opted IRV fans (including promoting STAR as a "better kind of ranked
choice voting"). That Eugene-specific petition-based referendum has
already qualified to be on Eugene's spring 2024 ballot.
To clarify, I'm not opposed to Eugene adopting STAR voting; rather I'm
opposed to STAR fans trying to block the statewide ranked choice ballot
initiative on the November 2024 ballot. They are doing this by pushing
a separate statewide STAR petition.
That's a misrepresentation because they criticize ranked choice voting
as if overvotes cannot be counted, even though the already-scheduled
November 2024 referendum avoids any mention of "overvotes" so that the
wording is compatible with future software.
FairVote's myth about overvotes not being countable has contributed to
this attack against IRV.
Yes, I'm frustrated. And I'm angry. I've been promoting ranked choice
ballots for three decades, although previously under the names
"order-of-preference ballots" and "1-2-3 ballots."
Finally Portland Oregon has adopted IRV for the mayoral election and STV
for city council elections. (In spite of opposition from a fan of STAR
voting who was on the charter amendment committee.)
And the Oregon state legislature has passed a ranked-choice-voting
referendum that will appear statewide on the November ballot -- with no
mention of the word "overvote" in the counting details, because of my
influence. (Fans of STAR voting also testified against this bill.)
The misinformation coming from FairVote, RCVRC, STAR fans, and the
Election Science Foundation is undermining support for Portland's
reforms and the statewide adoption of ranked choice ballots for electing
our governor and our members of Congress.
I'm not intending to suggest there is any conspiracy between the
organizations. Yet I do suspect that some of the donations going to
these organizations would decline if they were to increase cooperation
and avoid misrepresentation.
I continue to believe that the Oregon legislature being the first state
legislature to vote in favor of allowing voters to adopt ranked choice
ballots for key Oregon elections is a hugely beneficial tipping point
for civilization! (Other states that have adopted ranked choice voting
have had to do it by gathering signatures on petitions.)
My anger is directed at the people who undermine this progress toward
adopting IRV as a stepping stone to better software.
That better software will correctly count mythical "overvotes."
And eventually it will avoid easy-to-avoid IIA (independence of
irrelevant alternatives) failures -- which get criticized as either
Condorcet failures or "center squeeze effect" failures.
My request to all election-method reform organizations and individuals
is to please stop the misrepresentations, at least to Oregon voters, so
the November 2024 ranked choice voting referendum passes with support
from a majority of Oregon voters.
To everyone still reading this far, thank you for reading my rant.
Richard Fobes
The VoteFair guy
On 12/17/2023 9:50 AM, Michael Garman wrote:
I wouldn’t know as I’m not affiliated with the RCVRC.
It’s extremely shortsighted of you to keep letting the perfect be the
enemy of the good. Attacking FairVote as part of a conspiracy instead of
offering constructive criticism to the most powerful election reformers
out there is going to ensure that we remain stuck with FPTP. You have no
evidence for your claims of any kind of collusion — because it doesn’t
exist.
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 12:35 PM Richard, the VoteFair guy
<electionmethods@votefair.org mailto:electionmethods@votefair.org>
On 12/16/2023 9:04 PM, Michael Garman wrote:
The Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center is an independent entity
unaffiliated with FairVote. Hope this helps!
Thank you, Michael, for clarifying that the Ranked Choice Voting
Resource Center RCVRC is not officially(!) affiliated with FairVote.
Then why does RCVRC have the same misunderstanding that the leader of
the FairVote organization has been pushing for decades?
Especially, I'd like to understand why RCVRC pushed onto the Portland
Oregon election officials the idea that skipping(!) "overvotes" was a
recommended option. That's worse than ignoring the remaining
That skipping option works in Australia where a voter hand-writes a
number next to each candidate's name. (They don't have to worry
"ballot real estate" because there is just one box for each
But it doesn't make sense here in the U.S. where we mark ovals in
"choice" columns. And where ballot real estate is very important.
(In fact, the upcoming statewide referendum for Oregon adopts RCV for
just a limited number of contests because election officials were
concerned that adopting it would cause Oregon ballots to require more
than one sheet of paper.)
I see that your website -- RankTheVoteNYC.org -- shows that in your
elections "The scanner will reject any ballot where you mark more
one candidate for the same rank – in other words, if you fill in
than one oval in the same column."
Does RCVRC not know that it's easy to correctly count those marks?
(Just pair up equivalent ballots and allocate those "paired" ballots
equal numbers to those same-ranked candidates.)
Richard Fobes
The VoteFair guy
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em
<https://electorama.com/em> for list info
Appreciate the clarification and your support for the cause! Apologies for
the rant of my own. I always enjoy reading this list and learning from you
all :)
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 3:20 PM Richard, the VoteFair guy <
electionmethods@votefair.org> wrote:
> My response to Michael's second paragraph below is admittedly a "rant"
> that's intended to reveal insights about what's going on under the
> surface of election-method reform in the U.S., especially in Oregon. In
> other words, what I've written in response to Michael's second paragraph
> is not directed at Michael.
>
> On 12/17/2023 9:50 AM, Michael Garman wrote:
> > I wouldn’t know as I’m not affiliated with the RCVRC.
>
> To Michael: Thank you for this clarification, and for taking time to
> educate me about the lack of official collaboration between RCVRC and
> FairVote. Also, I'm very pleased you are helping NYC to adopt ranked
> choice ballots!
>
> > It’s extremely shortsighted of you to keep letting the perfect be the
> > enemy of the good. Attacking FairVote as part of a conspiracy instead of
> > offering constructive criticism to the most powerful election reformers
> > out there is going to ensure that we remain stuck with FPTP. You have no
> > evidence for your claims of any kind of collusion — because it doesn’t
> > exist.
>
> For those who don't know, here in Oregon a group of election-method
> reformers in the city of Eugene are strongly pushing STAR voting, with
> lots of financial assistance.
>
> One of their two valid criticisms of IRV is that current versions of IRV
> software do not allow giving the same preference level to two or more
> candidates. They push STAR voting by saying STAR ballots do allow this
> kind of marking. And they point to "spoiled ballots" in real IRV
> elections as evidence of the importance of this issue (even though an
> overvote is just one way in which a ranked choice ballot can be
> categorized as "spoiled").
>
> If the FairVote organization were more honest about the importance of
> being able to rank multiple candidates at the same preference level, the
> fans of STAR voting would not have been able to push IRV fans into
> becoming STAR fans.
>
> History: Interestingly the primary financial backer behind STAR voting
> started out as an IRV fan. I know this because about 20 years ago a
> friend in Eugene sent me a newspaper clipping from the Eugene newspaper
> in which that person, the son of a university president there, was
> promoting "instant runoff voting." The friend in Eugene had heard me
> promoting to her and other friends in Eugene what are now called "ranked
> choice ballots." Back then I lived in Corvallis, but traveled to
> dances, and to dates, in Eugene so often that some people in Eugene
> thought I lived there. FWIW, I also promoted "order-of-preference
> ballots" to friends and dancers in Corvallis, where IRV was adopted
> later after I moved away.
>
> My opposition is against the misinformation about so-called "overvotes."
>
> I'm not opposed to IRV. In fact I've helped to push IRV through the
> Oregon legislature.
>
> For about two decades I've been offering constructive criticism to IRV
> fans and the leader of FairVote, but my suggestions are regarded as not
> important enough for them to seriously consider.
>
> I've also taught lots of people in Oregon about the unfair results of
> IRV in Burlington VT and the recent special election in Alaska.
>
> Yet instead of trying to block IRV I'm promoting the idea of adopting
> IRV and then, later, improving the counting software.
>
> That weakness of IRV can be solved easily by eliminating "pairwise
> losing candidates" when they occur. I'm well aware that this refinement
> will take longer to remedy compared to correctly counting overvotes.
>
> In the meantime the Oregon fans of STAR voting criticize IRV as being
> vulnerable to the "center squeeze effect." Yet this effect will
> disappear from IRV when pairwise losing candidates are eliminated when
> they occur.
>
> So I find myself attacking misrepresentations -- basically "white lies"
> -- from both the FairVote organization and the fans of STAR voting (who
> loosely are affiliated with The Equal Vote Coalition), both of whom are
> well-funded. To be balanced here, The Election Science Foundation also
> promotes misrepresentations.
>
> To repeat, I'm not attacking the organizations. I'm attacking their
> misrepresentations.
>
> I realize that sometimes those organizations are trying to keep things
> simple when they talk to voters. Yet some of those simplifications
> become oversimplifications and misrepresentations.
>
> It's important to understand that the fans of STAR voting wouldn't be
> getting so many signatures on their current statewide petition to adopt
> STAR voting for all of Oregon if RCVRC and FairVote had not been so
> adamant that "overvotes" cannot be counted.
>
> And STAR fans wouldn't have been able to get enough signatures on their
> petition to adopt STAR voting for Eugene elections if they hadn't
> co-opted IRV fans (including promoting STAR as a "better kind of ranked
> choice voting"). That Eugene-specific petition-based referendum has
> already qualified to be on Eugene's spring 2024 ballot.
>
> To clarify, I'm not opposed to Eugene adopting STAR voting; rather I'm
> opposed to STAR fans trying to block the statewide ranked choice ballot
> initiative on the November 2024 ballot. They are doing this by pushing
> a separate statewide STAR petition.
>
> That's a misrepresentation because they criticize ranked choice voting
> as if overvotes cannot be counted, even though the already-scheduled
> November 2024 referendum avoids any mention of "overvotes" so that the
> wording is compatible with future software.
>
> FairVote's myth about overvotes not being countable has contributed to
> this attack against IRV.
>
> Yes, I'm frustrated. And I'm angry. I've been promoting ranked choice
> ballots for three decades, although previously under the names
> "order-of-preference ballots" and "1-2-3 ballots."
>
> Finally Portland Oregon has adopted IRV for the mayoral election and STV
> for city council elections. (In spite of opposition from a fan of STAR
> voting who was on the charter amendment committee.)
>
> And the Oregon state legislature has passed a ranked-choice-voting
> referendum that will appear statewide on the November ballot -- with no
> mention of the word "overvote" in the counting details, because of my
> influence. (Fans of STAR voting also testified against this bill.)
>
> The misinformation coming from FairVote, RCVRC, STAR fans, and the
> Election Science Foundation is undermining support for Portland's
> reforms and the statewide adoption of ranked choice ballots for electing
> our governor and our members of Congress.
>
> I'm not intending to suggest there is any conspiracy between the
> organizations. Yet I do suspect that some of the donations going to
> these organizations would decline if they were to increase cooperation
> and avoid misrepresentation.
>
> I continue to believe that the Oregon legislature being the first state
> legislature to vote in favor of allowing voters to adopt ranked choice
> ballots for key Oregon elections is a hugely beneficial tipping point
> for civilization! (Other states that have adopted ranked choice voting
> have had to do it by gathering signatures on petitions.)
>
> My anger is directed at the people who undermine this progress toward
> adopting IRV as a stepping stone to better software.
>
> That better software will correctly count mythical "overvotes."
>
> And eventually it will avoid easy-to-avoid IIA (independence of
> irrelevant alternatives) failures -- which get criticized as either
> Condorcet failures or "center squeeze effect" failures.
>
> My request to all election-method reform organizations and individuals
> is to please stop the misrepresentations, at least to Oregon voters, so
> the November 2024 ranked choice voting referendum passes with support
> from a majority of Oregon voters.
>
> To everyone still reading this far, thank you for reading my rant.
>
> Richard Fobes
> The VoteFair guy
>
>
> On 12/17/2023 9:50 AM, Michael Garman wrote:
> > I wouldn’t know as I’m not affiliated with the RCVRC.
> >
> > It’s extremely shortsighted of you to keep letting the perfect be the
> > enemy of the good. Attacking FairVote as part of a conspiracy instead of
> > offering constructive criticism to the most powerful election reformers
> > out there is going to ensure that we remain stuck with FPTP. You have no
> > evidence for your claims of any kind of collusion — because it doesn’t
> > exist.
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 12:35 PM Richard, the VoteFair guy
> > <electionmethods@votefair.org <mailto:electionmethods@votefair.org>>
> wrote:
> >
> > On 12/16/2023 9:04 PM, Michael Garman wrote:
> > > The Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center is an independent entity
> > fully
> > > unaffiliated with FairVote. Hope this helps!
> >
> > Thank you, Michael, for clarifying that the Ranked Choice Voting
> > Resource Center RCVRC is not officially(!) affiliated with FairVote.
> >
> > Then why does RCVRC have the same misunderstanding that the leader of
> > the FairVote organization has been pushing for decades?
> >
> > Especially, I'd like to understand why RCVRC pushed onto the Portland
> > Oregon election officials the idea that skipping(!) "overvotes" was a
> > recommended option. That's worse than ignoring the remaining
> rankings!
> >
> > That skipping option works in Australia where a voter hand-writes a
> > number next to each candidate's name. (They don't have to worry
> about
> > "ballot real estate" because there is just one box for each
> candidate.)
> > But it doesn't make sense here in the U.S. where we mark ovals in
> > "choice" columns. And where ballot real estate is very important.
> >
> > (In fact, the upcoming statewide referendum for Oregon adopts RCV for
> > just a limited number of contests because election officials were
> > concerned that adopting it would cause Oregon ballots to require more
> > than one sheet of paper.)
> >
> > I see that your website -- RankTheVoteNYC.org -- shows that in your
> NYC
> > elections "The scanner will reject any ballot where you mark more
> than
> > one candidate for the same rank – in other words, if you fill in
> more
> > than one oval in the same column."
> >
> > Does RCVRC not know that it's easy to correctly count those marks?
> > (Just pair up equivalent ballots and allocate those "paired" ballots
> in
> > equal numbers to those same-ranked candidates.)
> >
> > Richard Fobes
> > The VoteFair guy
> >
> > ----
> > Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em
> > <https://electorama.com/em> for list info
> >
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
> info
>
