27/08/15 16:13, election-methods-request@lists.electorama.com: >> This may sound like an insanely strange question, but I was wondering >> whether there were specific election algorithms and ballot designs that >> would allow a voter to express preferences between specific candidates, >> without having to specify their preference between the expressions of >> preferences themselves. >> >> Don't worry if this sounds inconsistent, I'll explain by example: >> 1. The voter prefers A over B (A>B) >> 2. The voter prefers C over D (C>D) >> 3. The voter prefers E over F and G (E>F=G) >> 4. The voter prefers their own preference of A>B over their preference >> C>D, but could care less whether E>F=G is preferred over the others >> >> Notationally, it would be a bit like this: ((A>B)>(C>D))=(E>F=G) >> >> Ow! I can imagine any voting system choking over this (and imagine this >> happening with loops allowed!), but it is an incredibly common thing in >> real life: people prefer burgers over pizza and prefer coke over sprite >> (YMMV!), but when you ask them wether this mean that they prefer burgers >> over coke or pizza over sprite, they'll shrug and say these are not >> comparable: (burgers>pizza)=(coke>sprite). >> >> In real-life elections, candidates are rarely comparable to each other >> (ie. one-issue candidates or mutually-complementary ideologies), and >> forcing voters to rank (or score, in a cardinal system) incomparable >> candidates or ideologies seems to me like a lot of information is lost. >> >> Did this make any sense at all? >> >> I myself had been thinking this would be akin to a candidate-grouping >> scheme (whereby candidates should be allowed to be part of multiple >> groups, or none) where you'd have a matrix comparing every >> group-candidate-ranking combination to every other >> group-candidate-ranking combination. Or something in that style; or not. >> >> >> Thanks and hoping to hear any and all comments! >> > > Dear Sebastiaan, > > Many years ago I designed with Forest a presomptuously called "Universal Preferential Ballot" that contained an approval cut-off between acceptable and unwanted candidates. Your example could not have been well represented. To obtain all the latitude you want to represent such details, I suggest you move to grade ballots: > ((A>B)>(C>D))=(E>F=G) > could become > A: 100 > B: 49 > C: 12 > D: 9 > E: 51 > F: 0 > G: 0 > > Of course, other interpretations are possible. > Dr. Stéphane Rouillon > Yes, I was also thinking that graded ballots would be somewhat better, because you could give scores to the individual preferences, and the two equal groups ((A>B)>(C>D)) and (E>F=G) would have equal sums of preferences: A: 100 B: 80 C: 20 D: 10 E: 100 F: 55 G: 55 Note the sum of (A>B) is greater than the sum of (C>D), and the sum of ((A>B))>(C>D)) is equal to the sum of (E>F=G) (ie. 210). Yet, the voter is still implying that B is better than F or G, which might not be true. One could mathematically design their grades to be so, that all preferences and preference-orderings are accounted for, but you'd need to have a calculator and work backwards from the scores given to the groupings. Not really voter-friendly if you'd ask me...

On 8/29/15 11:17 AM, Sebastiaan Snoeckx wrote: > > > > Yes, I was also thinking that graded ballots would be somewhat better, > because you could give scores to the individual preferences, so Sebastiaan, what score do you give your 2nd choice? (this is the candidate that you want to beat your third choice and that you want to lose to your first choice.) it's the same question i would ask the Approval-vote advocates. -- r b-j rbj@audioimagination.com "Imagination is more important than knowledge."