Teams
Daniel,
I want to apologize for my rush to judgement ... just because the continuing candidate survivor is not the same as the River winner doesn't mean she's not better!
It was wrong of me to criticize ... especially while we're still in the brainstorming stage!
And I like your ideas for the name!
Even if your idea turns out to be a reformulation of MinMax margins, that would be a great contribution ... a description that captures the imagination might be just the thing to knock it's career off of high-center!
In any case, I appreciate it when people don't punture my bubble too quickly ... like when Chris Benham praised the many merits of a (supposedly) clone-free Copeland that I came up with ... It survived a few glorious days before Markus asked me for a proof that it was not susceptible to "crowding"... thanks Marcus for letting me bask in the feeling of success & glory for a few hours before shooting me down!🤣
Sent from my MetroPCS 4G LTE Android Device
-------- Original message --------
From: Susan Simmons suzerainsimmons@outlook.com
Date: 7/10/21 12:23 AM (GMT-08:00)
To: Daniel Carrera dcarrera@gmail.com
Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Teams
The separate groups, teams, river basins exist to keep the snake from eating its tail ... that's why we consider only contests between the head of one group and the members of another (different) group. If the head is defeated by a member of its own group, then we essentially lock in a cycle.
This doesn't need to be mentioned in the definition, but definitely included in the faq's, etc.
The most natural place it comes up is in the recursive proof that every head (including the final one) has a beat path to each member of its group.
BTW the fact that the final head has a beat path to every member of its group (i.e. to all of the other candidates) shows that the winner is in the Smith set.
Sent from my MetroPCS 4G LTE Android Device
-------- Original message --------
From: Daniel Carrera dcarrera@gmail.com
Date: 7/9/21 11:30 PM (GMT-08:00)
To: Susan Simmons suzerainsimmons@outlook.com
Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Teams
Susan,
On Fri, Jul 9, 2021 at 8:56 PM Susan Simmons <suzerainsimmons@outlook.commailto:suzerainsimmons@outlook.com> wrote:
Daniel,
Let's take adavantage of Robert Bristow-Johnson's valuable experience when we approach the tricky business of writing and submitting legal language for a ballot initiative.
I think I found a slightly simpler formulation of River. It's based on your "Teams" algorithm but I think strictly speaking we can do without an explicit mention of teams or groups:
- First, designate every candidate as a Continuing candidate.
- On each round, the Continuing candidate with the greatest pairwise defeat against any other candidate becomes a Defeated candidate.
- The rounds continue until only one Continuing candidate remains, who is then Elected.
You can see that I'm following RB-J's guidance of using explicit labels for well-defined objects. Can you confirm that what I wrote above will produce the same winner as River? If so, then here is my attempt to write the above method into legalese similar to the examples provided by RB-J:
All elections of mayor, city councilors and school commissioners shall be by ballot, using a system of ranked choice voting without a separate runoff election. The chief administrative officer shall implement a ranked choice voting protocol according to these guidelines:
(1) The ballot shall give voters the option of ranking candidates in order of preference.
(2) If a candidate receives a majority (over 50 percent) of first preferences, that candidate is elected.
(3) If no candidate receives a majority of first preferences, the presiding officer shall re-tabulate the ballots in rounds according to the following rules:
(3a) A candidate “A” is said to lose against candidate “B” if more ballots rank candidate “B” above “A” than rank “A” above “B”. The difference between the number of ballots that rank “B” above “A” and the number that rank “A” above “B” is said to be the loss margin of “A”.
(3b) Before the first round, every candidate is designated as a Continuing candidate.
(3c) In each round, the Continuing candidate with the greatest loss margin against any other candidate (Continuing or not) is designated as a Defeated candidate. The rounds shall continue until only one Continuing candidate remains, who is then Elected.
(4) The city council may adopt additional regulations consistent with this subsection to implement these standards.
While this is a hair longer than I would prefer (217 words) I am reluctant to remove the redundancy.
The definition of the method, as I envision it, will be a technical elaboration of your core description, while in turn the voter pamphlet explanation to the average voter will be a user friendly elaboration of the same, complete with faq's, etc.
It would be great if somebody with the time, energy, and vision could start a website....
I am not the best person to lead this. Among other things, I am not a US citizen and it might be a bit weird if a foreigner is trying to mess around with the way an American city elects its leaders. But I could play a supporting role.
????.com
...
We need a really good name with a good acronymn ... ????
rankedvoting.orghttp://rankedvoting.org
MMV = Maximum Majority Voting
MME = Maximum Majority Election
RHV = Ranked Head-to-Head voting
AVC voting = All Voters Count voting
ABC voting = All Ballots Count voting
EVC voting = Every Vote Counts
CEV = Count Every vote
... DDV = Demolition Derby Voting ?
Cheers,
Daniel
Perhaps a traversal of the river basin tree, respecting at each node the order of the addition of the branches ... at each node, last added branch, first traversed ... or something like that.
It is possible to elevate or topologically "lift" the river tree to the form of a binary decision tree by that method ... and there are some possible uses for such a tree ...
Suppose sophisticated voters with complete information about each others' preferences were in possession of a binary tree whose leaves were the candidates.
At each node starting at the root, the voters choose which branch to follow. The leaf at the end of the path is the winning candidate.
This method gives zero incentive for insincere branch choices, given the tree. (unlike the related method that starts at the leaves and works towards the root).
How to get the tree without distortions of gamers?
Pollsters randomly polling one pairwise choice per "pollee?"
Sent from my MetroPCS 4G LTE Android Device
-------- Original message --------
From: Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet@t-online.de
Date: 7/10/21 2:26 AM (GMT-08:00)
To: Susan Simmons suzerainsimmons@outlook.com, Daniel Carrera dcarrera@gmail.com
Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Teams
On 7/10/21 9:23 AM, Susan Simmons wrote:
The separate groups, teams, river basins exist to keep the snake from
eating its tail ... that's why we consider only contests between the
head of one group and the members of another (different) group. If the
head is defeated by a member of its own group, then we essentially lock
in a cycle.
This doesn't need to be mentioned in the definition, but definitely
included in the faq's, etc.
The most natural place it comes up is in the recursive proof that every
head (including the final one) has a beat path to each member of its group.
BTW the fact that the final head has a beat path to every member of its
group (i.e. to all of the other candidates) shows that the winner is in
the Smith set.
Is there a way of extending River to producing a full social order in a
way that passes LIIA? If so, it'd seem to be strictly better than Ranked
Pairs because River also passes IPDA.
Well, perhaps River fails MAM's immunity to complaints criterion, but
that's rather specific.
-km
Well that's not going to work for the linear ordering.
But the binary tree structure does work, which accords with real life river basins where you never get more than one tributary flowing into a lake or larger river at the same place.
Sent from my MetroPCS 4G LTE Anedroid Device
-------- Original message --------
From: Susan Simmons suzerainsimmons@outlook.com
Date: 7/10/21 9:15 AM (GMT-08:00)
To: Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet@t-online.de, Daniel Carrera dcarrera@gmail.com
Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Teams
Perhaps a traversal of the river basin tree, respecting at each node the order of the addition of the branches ... at each node, last added branch, first traversed ... or something like that.
It is possible to elevate or topologically "lift" the river tree to the form of a binary decision tree by that method ... and there are some possible uses for such a tree ...
Suppose sophisticated voters with complete information about each others' preferences were in possession of a binary tree whose leaves were the candidates.
At each node starting at the root, the voters choose which branch to follow. The leaf at the end of the path is the winning candidate.
This method gives zero incentive for insincere branch choices, given the tree. (unlike the related method that starts at the leaves and works towards the root).
How to get the tree without distortions of gamers?
Pollsters randomly polling one pairwise choice per "pollee?"
Sent from my MetroPCS 4G LTE Android Device
-------- Original message --------
From: Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet@t-online.de
Date: 7/10/21 2:26 AM (GMT-08:00)
To: Susan Simmons suzerainsimmons@outlook.com, Daniel Carrera dcarrera@gmail.com
Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Teams
On 7/10/21 9:23 AM, Susan Simmons wrote:
The separate groups, teams, river basins exist to keep the snake from
eating its tail ... that's why we consider only contests between the
head of one group and the members of another (different) group. If the
head is defeated by a member of its own group, then we essentially lock
in a cycle.
This doesn't need to be mentioned in the definition, but definitely
included in the faq's, etc.
The most natural place it comes up is in the recursive proof that every
head (including the final one) has a beat path to each member of its group.
BTW the fact that the final head has a beat path to every member of its
group (i.e. to all of the other candidates) shows that the winner is in
the Smith set.
Is there a way of extending River to producing a full social order in a
way that passes LIIA? If so, it'd seem to be strictly better than Ranked
Pairs because River also passes IPDA.
Well, perhaps River fails MAM's immunity to complaints criterion, but
that's rather specific.
-km
On Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 9:59 AM Susan Simmons suzerainsimmons@outlook.com
wrote:
Daniel,
I want to apologize for my rush to judgement ... just because the
continuing candidate survivor is not the same as the River winner doesn't
mean she's not better!
It was wrong of me to criticize ... especially while we're still in the
brainstorming stage!
Oh, not at all! I'm new at this and I like that I'm learning so much from
you. So... it seems like I invented a Condorcet method that is not River
and therefore has unknown properties. Anyway, let me try again with River.
I came up with another way to express River without the concept of teams.
I'm trying to present the concept of a pairwise defeat as a transitive
property. Items (1), (2), and (4) are template so let me just give you (3)
which has the actual algorithm. I also saw a couple of ways to cut a few
words:
(3) If no candidate receives a majority of first preferences, the presiding
officer shall re-tabulate the ballots in rounds according to the following
rules:
(3a) The difference between the number of ballots that rank candidate “A”
above candidate “B” and the number that rank “B” above “A” is said to be
the loss margin of “B”.
(3b) At the start, the candidate with the greatest loss margin against any
other candidate “X” is said to be Defeated by “X”. All other candidates are
said to be Continuing.
(3c) The Continuing candidate “A” with the greatest loss margin against any
candidate “B” who is not already Defeated by “A” is now said to be Defeated
by “B” and by any candidate that Defeated “B”. Every candidate Defeated by
“A” is also said to be Defeated by every candidate that Defeated “A”.
(3d) The rounds shall continue until only one Continuing candidate remains,
who is then Elected.
I found it easier to write down River using the "transitive" language than
with the "teams" language.
And I like your ideas for the name!
Thanks!
Though I have to withdraw MMV since that's already the name of a method.
Even if your idea turns out to be a reformulation of MinMax margins, that
would be a great contribution ... a description that captures the
imagination might be just the thing to knock it's career off of
high-center!
:-)
In any case, I appreciate it when people don't punture my bubble too
quickly ... like when Chris Benham praised the many merits of a
(supposedly) clone-free Copeland that I came up with ... It survived a few
glorious days before Markus asked me for a proof that it was not
susceptible to "crowding"... thanks Marcus for letting me bask in the
feeling of success & glory for a few hours before shooting me down!🤣
Yeah, I had one day of bliss where I thought I had come up with an
incredibly clever way to write down River :-)
Cheers,
Daniel
We have to be careful about adding connotation to the word "defeat" in the context of pairwise contests since it already has standard usage relating pairwise victors to losers.
It is more common to use forms of "disqualify" and "disqualified" to denote the change of status from eligible (continuing) to ineligible.
"Defeated by" in its standard meaning is not a transitive relation, but we do have the liberty to include transitivity into our definition of "disqualifies."
Sent from my MetroPCS 4G LTE Android Device
-------- Original message --------
From: Daniel Carrera dcarrera@gmail.com
Date: 7/10/21 12:11 PM (GMT-08:00)
To: Susan Simmons suzerainsimmons@outlook.com
Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Teams
On Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 9:59 AM Susan Simmons <suzerainsimmons@outlook.commailto:suzerainsimmons@outlook.com> wrote:
Daniel,
I want to apologize for my rush to judgement ... just because the continuing candidate survivor is not the same as the River winner doesn't mean she's not better!
It was wrong of me to criticize ... especially while we're still in the brainstorming stage!
Oh, not at all! I'm new at this and I like that I'm learning so much from you. So... it seems like I invented a Condorcet method that is not River and therefore has unknown properties. Anyway, let me try again with River. I came up with another way to express River without the concept of teams. I'm trying to present the concept of a pairwise defeat as a transitive property. Items (1), (2), and (4) are template so let me just give you (3) which has the actual algorithm. I also saw a couple of ways to cut a few words:
(3) If no candidate receives a majority of first preferences, the presiding officer shall re-tabulate the ballots in rounds according to the following rules:
(3a) The difference between the number of ballots that rank candidate “A” above candidate “B” and the number that rank “B” above “A” is said to be the loss margin of “B”.
(3b) At the start, the candidate with the greatest loss margin against any other candidate “X” is said to be Defeated by “X”. All other candidates are said to be Continuing.
(3c) The Continuing candidate “A” with the greatest loss margin against any candidate “B” who is not already Defeated by “A” is now said to be Defeated by “B” and by any candidate that Defeated “B”. Every candidate Defeated by “A” is also said to be Defeated by every candidate that Defeated “A”.
(3d) The rounds shall continue until only one Continuing candidate remains, who is then Elected.
I found it easier to write down River using the "transitive" language than with the "teams" language.
And I like your ideas for the name!
Thanks!
Though I have to withdraw MMV since that's already the name of a method.
Even if your idea turns out to be a reformulation of MinMax margins, that would be a great contribution ... a description that captures the imagination might be just the thing to knock it's career off of high-center!
:-)
In any case, I appreciate it when people don't punture my bubble too quickly ... like when Chris Benham praised the many merits of a (supposedly) clone-free Copeland that I came up with ... It survived a few glorious days before Markus asked me for a proof that it was not susceptible to "crowding"... thanks Marcus for letting me bask in the feeling of success & glory for a few hours before shooting me down!🤣
Yeah, I had one day of bliss where I thought I had come up with an incredibly clever way to write down River :-)
Cheers,
Daniel
On Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 6:33 PM Susan Simmons suzerainsimmons@outlook.com
wrote:
We have to be careful about adding connotation to the word "defeat" in
the context of pairwise contests since it already has standard usage
relating pairwise victors to losers.
It is more common to use forms of "disqualify" and "disqualified" to
denote the change of status from eligible (continuing) to ineligible.
"Defeated by" in its standard meaning is not a transitive relation, but we
do have the liberty to include transitivity into our definition of
"disqualifies."
Oh, I did not know that. Alright, aside from that, and assuming we find the
right terms, do you think that my attempt to rephrase River using a
transitive relation instead of teams is correct? If so, then it is the
shortest legalese that I've found so far.
Can I use the word "Eliminate"? I worry that "Disqualify" may sound like
the candidate did something wrong.
(3) If no candidate receives a majority of first preferences, the presiding
officer shall re-tabulate the ballots in rounds according to the following
rules:
(3a) The difference between the number of ballots that rank candidate “A”
above candidate “B” and the number that rank “B” above “A” is said to be
the loss margin of “B”.
(3b) Before the first round, the candidate with the greatest loss margin
against any other candidate “X” is said to be Eliminated by “X”. All other
candidates are said to be Continuing.
(3c) In each round, the Continuing candidate “A” with the greatest loss
margin against any candidate “B” not already Eliminated by “A” is said to
be Eliminated by “B”. Candidate "A" and every candidate Eliminated by "A"
is said to be Eliminated by "B" and every candidate that Eliminates "B".
(3d) The rounds shall continue until only one Continuing candidate remains,
who is then Elected.
Cheers,
Daniel
Eliminate already has a connotation of no possible further active influence on the course of the process. But a disqualified candidate may play a role in disqualifying other candidates from continuing status.
Neutralized is another acceptable word for disqualified.
So far I think your "group" description is conceptually simplest. Of course there are many possible synonyms for words like group, head, merge, etc.
Keep trying ... I'm not saying improved terminolgy is the only possible avenue of improvement!
Sent from my MetroPCS 4G LTE Android Device
-------- Original message --------
From: Daniel Carrera dcarrera@gmail.com
Date: 7/10/21 5:10 PM (GMT-08:00)
To: Susan Simmons suzerainsimmons@outlook.com
Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Teams
On Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 6:33 PM Susan Simmons <suzerainsimmons@outlook.commailto:suzerainsimmons@outlook.com> wrote:
We have to be careful about adding connotation to the word "defeat" in the context of pairwise contests since it already has standard usage relating pairwise victors to losers.
It is more common to use forms of "disqualify" and "disqualified" to denote the change of status from eligible (continuing) to ineligible.
"Defeated by" in its standard meaning is not a transitive relation, but we do have the liberty to include transitivity into our definition of "disqualifies."
Oh, I did not know that. Alright, aside from that, and assuming we find the right terms, do you think that my attempt to rephrase River using a transitive relation instead of teams is correct? If so, then it is the shortest legalese that I've found so far.
Can I use the word "Eliminate"? I worry that "Disqualify" may sound like the candidate did something wrong.
(3) If no candidate receives a majority of first preferences, the presiding officer shall re-tabulate the ballots in rounds according to the following rules:
(3a) The difference between the number of ballots that rank candidate “A” above candidate “B” and the number that rank “B” above “A” is said to be the loss margin of “B”.
(3b) Before the first round, the candidate with the greatest loss margin against any other candidate “X” is said to be Eliminated by “X”. All other candidates are said to be Continuing.
(3c) In each round, the Continuing candidate “A” with the greatest loss margin against any candidate “B” not already Eliminated by “A” is said to be Eliminated by “B”. Candidate "A" and every candidate Eliminated by "A" is said to be Eliminated by "B" and every candidate that Eliminates "B".
(3d) The rounds shall continue until only one Continuing candidate remains, who is then Elected.
Cheers,
Daniel
On Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 8:19 PM Susan Simmons suzerainsimmons@outlook.com
wrote:
So far I think your "group" description is conceptually simplest. Of
course there are many possible synonyms for words like group, head, merge,
etc.
Keep trying ... I'm not saying improved terminolgy is the only possible
avenue of improvement!
At first I avoided the "group" description because I struggled to convert
it into legalese. But I think I came up with something workable:
(3) If no candidate receives a majority of first preferences, the presiding
officer shall re-tabulate the ballots according to the following rules:
(3a) The “loss margin” of candidate “A” against candidate “B” is the
difference between the number of ballots that rank “B” above “A” and the
number that rank “A” above “B”.
(3b) Each candidate begins as a Continuing candidate and the sole member of
a group. Groups are merged in rounds. In each round, the Continuing
candidate “A” with the greatest loss margin against any candidate “B”
outside “A”’s group is moved to “B”’s group along with every member of
“A”’s group. Candidate “A” is no longer Continuing. The rounds continue
until only one group remains; its sole Continuing candidate is elected.
Cheers,
Daniel