Re: [EM] Can anyone help with straight-ahead Condorcet language?
From what you translated from French, it looks like Condorcet was describing Ranked Pairs. I wonder if Nicolaus Tideman would see it that way.
Okay, Steve, all this explanation of the RP concept is good, but the question is if it is needed in the legal language or if your proposition is good enough by itself:
Construct the order of finish by processing the majorities one at a time, from largest majority to smallest majority, placing each majority's more-preferred candidate ahead of their less-preferred candidate in the order of finish (unless their less-preferred candidate has already been placed ahead of their more-preferred candidate).
Is that a well-defined procedure that instructs exactly how the "processing the majorities" are done? What is a "larger majority" or "smaller majority"? Do you mean margins?
This is similar to the RP alg that I have been working on (but sorta set aside for now). Each candidate has a list of "defeators" who are other candidates who have defeated the subject candidate or has defeated someone else who has defeated the subject candidate. In order of largest margin (or whatever "defeat strength") to smallest, when considering adding a runoff pair to the list of "locked" runoff pairs, one looks at the defeated candidate in that pair under consideration. If the defeated candidate is already in the list of defeators of more preferred candidate, then that runoff pair is not locked and is ignored. If the defeated candidate is not on the defeator list, then the pair is locked and the preferred candidate and all of the preferred candidate's defeators are merged onto the defeated candidate's defeator list.
But putting this all into C code is one thing, putting it all into legislation is another.
I just don't think that the short instruction in that one paragraph is enough to fully define RP in legislation.
For "straight-ahead Condorcet", I hadn't thought that Condorcet created a method. I just thought it was applying this Condorcet criterion universally (that means for every possible pairing of candidates):
"If more ballots are marked ranking Candidate A over Candidate B than the number of ballots marked to the contrary, then Candidate B is not elected."
How do we turn that maxim into concise procedural language?
On 09/13/2021 1:10 PM Steve Eppley seppley@alumni.caltech.edu wrote:
On 9/12/2021 11:49 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
-snip-
I am actually fiddling around with creating plausible language for RP. But right now I am trying to show to legislators how simple in concept Condorcet is. So I am less concerned with the fallback language in case there is no CW.
-snip-
Here's simple language to explain the concept:
Count all the head-to-head majorities using the information in the voters' orders of preference.
Construct the order of finish by processing the majorities one at a time, from largest majority to smallest majority, placing each majority's more-preferred candidate ahead of their less-preferred candidate in the order of finish.
I also recommend providing two simple examples: The first example with a Condorcet Winner and three candidates (perhaps named Left, Center and Right). The second example with no Condorcet Winner and three candidates (perhaps named Rock, Scissors and Paper).
If one believes it's essential to include the rock-paper-scissors exception in the "simple concept" language, here's more complete language:
[...]
Construct the order of finish by processing the majorities one at a time, from largest majority to smallest majority, placing each majority's more-preferred candidate ahead of their less-preferred candidate in the order of finish (unless their less-preferred candidate has already been placed ahead of their more-preferred candidate).
Condorcet himself did NOT define his voting method as "First check whether a candidate defeats all others head-to-head, etc." Here's what he actually wrote in his 1785 essay, after his meandering analysis of some 3-candidate cyclic examples:
Il résulte de toutes les réflexions que nous venon de faire,
cette règle génerale, que toutes les fois qu'on est forcé d'élire,
il faut prendre successivement toutes les propositions qui ont
la pluralité, en commençant par celles qui ont la plus grande,
& prononcer d'après le résultat que forment ces premières
propositions, aussi-tôt qu'elles en forment un, sans avoir égard
aux propositions moins probables qui les suivent.
In case your French is rusty, here's a literal translation to English:
The result of all the reflections that we have just done,
is this general rule, for all the times when one is forced to elect:
one must take successively all the propositions that have
the plurality, commencing with those that have the largest,
and pronounce the result that forms from these first
propositions, as soon as they form it, without regard
for the less probable propositions that follow them.
Here's how I interpret the terms in Condorcet's definition:
By "for all the times when one is forced to elect" Condorcet meant this is his voting rule for any single-winner election.
By "propositions" Condorcet meant propositions of the form "x shall finish ahead of y." Votes that rank x over y constitute support for "x shall finish ahead of y" and opposition to "y shall finish ahead of x."
By "propositions that have the plurality" he meant the propositions supported by a relative majority. (Which could be less than half the votes if some voters express indifference. His essay assumed no indifference.)
To "take successively" a collection means to take one thing at a time, in some order. This has two possible interpretations: (1) Each thing may be one item (one proposition) in the collection, or (2) each thing could be a subset of the collection if there's a way to order the possible subsets so that the subsets can be taken one at a time. The simpler and more natural interpretation is one proposition at a time, and that's how I interpret it. It follows that "commencing with those that have the largest" means "from largest majority to smallest majority."
By "less probable propositions that follow" Condorcet meant propositions with smaller pluralities. (Either less support, or less support-minus-opposition.) Because their pluralities are smaller, they follow later in the order of succession (which I usually call the order of precedence). Condorcet's majority rule heuristic was: The larger the number of people who think x is better than y, the more likely it is that x is better than y.
By "pronounce the result that forms from these first propositions" I think it's clear Condorcet meant to include results implied by transitivity. For example, if the two largest majorities support "Scissors shall finish ahead of Paper" and "Rock shall finish ahead of Scissors," he would place Scissors ahead of Paper and Rock ahead of Scissors in the order of finish. An order of finish is transitive, and by transitivity he has also placed Rock ahead of Paper, "without regard for the less probable" "Paper shall finish ahead of Rock" proposition that follows.
With those interpretations, it's straight-forward to translate the English literal translation of Condorcet's method to the simple concept language I suggested above, repeated here for convenience:
Construct the order of finish by processing the majorities one at a time, from largest majority to smallest majority, placing each majority's more-preferred candidate ahead of their less-preferred candidate in the order of finish (unless their less-preferred candidate has already been placed ahead of their more-preferred candidate).
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
.
.
.
Robert,
I wasn't attempting to provide complete language for legislation. I was merely responding to your request for simple language to explain the concept. You had written: "But right now I am trying to show to legislators how simple in concept Condorcet is." And it appeared to me that your email focused on Ranked Pairs.
I don't know whether you were asking for language to describe Tideman's Ranked Pairs (which uses margins... subtracting the sizes of opposing minorities from the sizes of the majorities) or Maximize Affirmed Majorities (MAM, which does not subtract the opposing minorities). My recollection is that some people in the EM list use the name Ranked Pairs to mean both (which I think is a bad idea). Another recollection is that most people in EM acknowledged long ago that majority size is better than margins. So I guessed you wanted simple language to explain the concept of MAM.
I don't use the word "majority" as a shorthand for margin of victory. It has the common meaning. The fact that there's no need to mention subtraction of the size of the opposing minority when explaining the concept of MAM is one more reason to prefer MAM over Tideman's Ranked Pairs.
I don't think there's an ambiguity about "from largest majority to smallest majority." It's the order of precedence in which the head-to-head majorities are processed. If there is an ambiguity, an example should make its meaning clear.
You ask about the terms "larger majority" and "smaller majority" but those terms do not appear in the language I suggested. Assuming you're referring to the "largest majority to smallest majority" order of precedence, then No, those terms have nothing to do with margins.
Regarding Condorcet's intent... the word plurality (pluralité in French) has (and had) two meanings: it can mean the larger of two numbers (size of the majority), and it can mean the larger number minus the smaller number (margin of victory). So I think the paragraph I cited from his 1785 essay doesn't by itself imply whether he had majorities or margins in mind. Earlier in his essay, his analysis of the probability that a jury's decision is correct indicates he had margins in mind in the jury context. I don't recall whether his analysis or examples of voting scenarios made it clear whether he had margins in mind in the voting context too, and I don't have time to reread his essay. When Keith Michael Baker translated the cited paragraph to English in his 1982 book "Condorcet: From Natural Philosophy To Social Mathematics" he translated it as majority but didn't explain why not margins. If I had to bet, I would bet Condorcet had margins in mind.
Whether Condorcet meant majority size or margin shouldn't matter to us, since there appears to be no reason to believe he considered the question as we have. I have no reason to believe he considered the consequences of indifference or strategic voting, which is what led many people in the EM maillist to the conclusion that sizes of majorities is better than margins. In particular, criteria such as Truncation Resistance and Minimal Defense, which MAM satisfies but margins methods do not.
You ask whether my long description would be needed in the legislation. I think something like it should be in an appendix or preface or exhibit. Examples too.
You also ask about what I assume is part of your wording: "If more ballots are marked ranking Candidate A over Candidate B than the number of ballots marked to the contrary, then Candidate B is not elected." You ask: "How do we turn that maxim into concise procedural language?" I think it's a bad maxim, due to majority cycles. That maxim can defeat all candidates. Why is it of interest?
Other language I strongly recommend avoiding: "pairwise defeats," "defeat strength," "beat pairwise," "defeators," etc. The only defeat that should be mentioned is the concept that everyone already knows: not finishing in first place, or not getting elected. It's confusing and potentially misleading to overload the word "defeat" by defining a new kind of defeat, and totally unnecessary. It's confusing because a candidate said to be defeated "pairwise" can finish in first place. It won't confuse people like you and me who are immersed in this stuff, but I'm pretty sure it will confuse people we want to teach.
I see no need to define new terms. Familiar terms, using their familiar definitions, will suffice and are preferable.
I don't see the point in drafting legislation before persuading legislators or activists to support the concept. My hunch is that most legislators will be repulsed by a good voting method because it would end the two party system that elected them and would induce competition they don't want, so the way forward is with citizens' initiatives and by persuading private organizations to use it. (They can use it for electing board members and it can also replace the Robert's Rules procedure for voting on motions.) Detailed legislative language would be needed for citizens' initiatives, but I think that can wait until enough activists have been persuaded to pursue it using citizens' initiatives.
In the software I've written for MAM, the code related to tiebreaking seems the most complex part of the algorithm. (It uses the Random Voter Hierarchy algorithm -- the generalization of Random Dictator for voting methods that allow indifference -- to construct a strict ordering of the alternatives. It carefully employs that ordering to distinguish between same-size majorities, so that one majority at a time is processed. It also employs that ordering at the end in the case where, due to one or more pairwise ties, the majorities don't suffice to construct a strict order of finish.) It's complex in order to strictly satisfy criteria such as independence of clones. In the context of large public elections, where it's unlikely that any pair will be a tie or that two majorities will be the same size, tiebreaking is unimportant and maybe it would be better in the legislation to use coin flips or some other familiar tiebreaker. The voting method can be completely
deterministic if people don't mind using some kind of seniority order for tiebreaking, such as the chronological order in which the candidates qualified for the ballot.
--Steve
On 9/14/2021 9:16 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
From what you translated from French, it looks like Condorcet was describing Ranked Pairs. I wonder if Nicolaus Tideman would see it that way.
Okay, Steve, all this explanation of the RP concept is good, but the question is if it is needed in the legal language or if your proposition is good enough by itself:
Construct the order of finish by processing the majorities one at a time, from largest majority to smallest majority, placing each majority's more-preferred candidate ahead of their less-preferred candidate in the order of finish (unless their less-preferred candidate has already been placed ahead of their more-preferred candidate).
Is that a well-defined procedure that instructs exactly how the "processing the majorities" are done? What is a "larger majority" or "smaller majority"? Do you mean margins?
This is similar to the RP alg that I have been working on (but sorta set aside for now). Each candidate has a list of "defeators" who are other candidates who have defeated the subject candidate or has defeated someone else who has defeated the subject candidate. In order of largest margin (or whatever "defeat strength") to smallest, when considering adding a runoff pair to the list of "locked" runoff pairs, one looks at the defeated candidate in that pair under consideration. If the defeated candidate is already in the list of defeators of more preferred candidate, then that runoff pair is not locked and is ignored. If the defeated candidate is not on the defeator list, then the pair is locked and the preferred candidate and all of the preferred candidate's defeators are merged onto the defeated candidate's defeator list.
But putting this all into C code is one thing, putting it all into legislation is another.
I just don't think that the short instruction in that one paragraph is enough to fully define RP in legislation.
For "straight-ahead Condorcet", I hadn't thought that Condorcet created a method. I just thought it was applying this Condorcet criterion universally (that means for every possible pairing of candidates):
"If more ballots are marked ranking Candidate A over Candidate B than the number of ballots marked to the contrary, then Candidate B is not elected."
How do we turn that maxim into concise procedural language?
On 09/13/2021 1:10 PM Steve Eppley seppley@alumni.caltech.edu wrote:
On 9/12/2021 11:49 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
-snip-
I am actually fiddling around with creating plausible language for RP. But right now I am trying to show to legislators how simple in concept Condorcet is. So I am less concerned with the fallback language in case there is no CW.
-snip-
Here's simple language to explain the concept:
Count all the head-to-head majorities using the information in the voters' orders of preference.
Construct the order of finish by processing the majorities one at a time, from largest majority to smallest majority, placing each majority's more-preferred candidate ahead of their less-preferred candidate in the order of finish.
I also recommend providing two simple examples: The first example with a Condorcet Winner and three candidates (perhaps named Left, Center and Right). The second example with no Condorcet Winner and three candidates (perhaps named Rock, Scissors and Paper).
If one believes it's essential to include the rock-paper-scissors exception in the "simple concept" language, here's more complete language:
[...]
Construct the order of finish by processing the majorities one at a time, from largest majority to smallest majority, placing each majority's more-preferred candidate ahead of their less-preferred candidate in the order of finish (unless their less-preferred candidate has already been placed ahead of their more-preferred candidate).
Condorcet himself did NOT define his voting method as "First check whether a candidate defeats all others head-to-head, etc." Here's what he actually wrote in his 1785 essay, after his meandering analysis of some 3-candidate cyclic examples:
Il résulte de toutes les réflexions que nous venon de faire,
cette règle génerale, que toutes les fois qu'on est forcé d'élire,
il faut prendre successivement toutes les propositions qui ont
la pluralité, en commençant par celles qui ont la plus grande,
& prononcer d'après le résultat que forment ces premières
propositions, aussi-tôt qu'elles en forment un, sans avoir égard
aux propositions moins probables qui les suivent.
In case your French is rusty, here's a literal translation to English:
The result of all the reflections that we have just done,
is this general rule, for all the times when one is forced to elect:
one must take successively all the propositions that have
the plurality, commencing with those that have the largest,
and pronounce the result that forms from these first
propositions, as soon as they form it, without regard
for the less probable propositions that follow them.
Here's how I interpret the terms in Condorcet's definition:
By "for all the times when one is forced to elect" Condorcet meant this is his voting rule for any single-winner election.
By "propositions" Condorcet meant propositions of the form "x shall finish ahead of y." Votes that rank x over y constitute support for "x shall finish ahead of y" and opposition to "y shall finish ahead of x."
By "propositions that have the plurality" he meant the propositions supported by a relative majority. (Which could be less than half the votes if some voters express indifference. His essay assumed no indifference.)
To "take successively" a collection means to take one thing at a time, in some order. This has two possible interpretations: (1) Each thing may be one item (one proposition) in the collection, or (2) each thing could be a subset of the collection if there's a way to order the possible subsets so that the subsets can be taken one at a time. The simpler and more natural interpretation is one proposition at a time, and that's how I interpret it. It follows that "commencing with those that have the largest" means "from largest majority to smallest majority."
By "less probable propositions that follow" Condorcet meant propositions with smaller pluralities. (Either less support, or less support-minus-opposition.) Because their pluralities are smaller, they follow later in the order of succession (which I usually call the order of precedence). Condorcet's majority rule heuristic was: The larger the number of people who think x is better than y, the more likely it is that x is better than y.
By "pronounce the result that forms from these first propositions" I think it's clear Condorcet meant to include results implied by transitivity. For example, if the two largest majorities support "Scissors shall finish ahead of Paper" and "Rock shall finish ahead of Scissors," he would place Scissors ahead of Paper and Rock ahead of Scissors in the order of finish. An order of finish is transitive, and by transitivity he has also placed Rock ahead of Paper, "without regard for the less probable" "Paper shall finish ahead of Rock" proposition that follows.
With those interpretations, it's straight-forward to translate the English literal translation of Condorcet's method to the simple concept language I suggested above, repeated here for convenience:
Construct the order of finish by processing the majorities one at a time, from largest majority to smallest majority, placing each majority's more-preferred candidate ahead of their less-preferred candidate in the order of finish (unless their less-preferred candidate has already been placed ahead of their more-preferred candidate).
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
There is much to respond to, but I will start with just this:
I don't see the point in drafting legislation before persuading legislators or activists to support the concept.
Legislators want to be aware of exactly what it is that someone trying to persuade them to enact into law. Otherwise, they will not want to commit. They don't want to support something that is not sufficiently well defined so that they don't have to retract their support later. Lobbying organizations often write components of legislation that they are lobbying for.
Drafting a template for legislation is what the proponents of returning to Hare RCV have done and I had modified that template for IRV to get Bottom-Two Runoff and now I am seeking a similar template that implements generic Condorcet with an ultra-simple "completion" method as a place holder. I just wonder if better language can be gotten than that I had proposed here.
My hunch is that most legislators will be repulsed by a good voting method because it would end the two party system that elected them and would induce competition they don't want,
In Vermont, we have the most successful third party in the United States, if you measure success of a political party in terms of the numbers of legislators and other elected officials that hold office. It's called the Vermont Progressive Party and they are pushing RCV big time. And they are disinterested in hearing how RCV failed to live up to its promise in 2009.
I am working on liberal Democrats that also don't wanna see votes for Democrats running for office split with Progressives. And Republicans can possibly be persuaded because in 2014, they got screwed by FPTP in the election for governor. And in Burlington, Republicans are now the third party (the two major parties are the Dems and the Progs) and they can benefit from RCV so they can run a candidate for mayor (or city council) without splitting the vote with Democrats.
Now, my interest is educating these legislators that are sympathetic to RCV that Hare is not a "good voting method". And I want to educate legislators that were "repulsed" by what RCV did in Burlington that Condorcet RCV is really the way RCV is meant to be. It's "RCV done right" and Hare is RCV done not as well (as demonstrated in Burlington in 2009).
And, BTW, it is not my intent to synthesize language for Tideman RP or any other Condorcet method other that just the basic generic method: "Elect the candidate who doesn't lose to any other candidate when compared directly with the other candidate." I want to show legislators that language as well as the BTR language and compare that to the Hare RCV language that has already been placed before them.
L8r,
r b-j
On 09/20/2021 6:31 PM Steve Eppley seppley@alumni.caltech.edu wrote:
Robert,
I wasn't attempting to provide complete language for legislation. I was merely responding to your request for simple language to explain the concept. You had written: "But right now I am trying to show to legislators how simple in concept Condorcet is." And it appeared to me that your email focused on Ranked Pairs.
I don't know whether you were asking for language to describe Tideman's Ranked Pairs (which uses margins... subtracting the sizes of opposing minorities from the sizes of the majorities) or Maximize Affirmed Majorities (MAM, which does not subtract the opposing minorities). My recollection is that some people in the EM list use the name Ranked Pairs to mean both (which I think is a bad idea). Another recollection is that most people in EM acknowledged long ago that majority size is better than margins. So I guessed you wanted simple language to explain the concept of MAM.
I don't use the word "majority" as a shorthand for margin of victory. It has the common meaning. The fact that there's no need to mention subtraction of the size of the opposing minority when explaining the concept of MAM is one more reason to prefer MAM over Tideman's Ranked Pairs.
I don't think there's an ambiguity about "from largest majority to smallest majority." It's the order of precedence in which the head-to-head majorities are processed. If there is an ambiguity, an example should make its meaning clear.
You ask about the terms "larger majority" and "smaller majority" but those terms do not appear in the language I suggested. Assuming you're referring to the "largest majority to smallest majority" order of precedence, then No, those terms have nothing to do with margins.
Regarding Condorcet's intent... the word plurality (pluralité in French) has (and had) two meanings: it can mean the larger of two numbers (size of the majority), and it can mean the larger number minus the smaller number (margin of victory). So I think the paragraph I cited from his 1785 essay doesn't by itself imply whether he had majorities or margins in mind. Earlier in his essay, his analysis of the probability that a jury's decision is correct indicates he had margins in mind in the jury context. I don't recall whether his analysis or examples of voting scenarios made it clear whether he had margins in mind in the voting context too, and I don't have time to reread his essay. When Keith Michael Baker translated the cited paragraph to English in his 1982 book "Condorcet: From Natural Philosophy To Social Mathematics" he translated it as majority but didn't explain why not margins. If I had to bet, I would bet Condorcet had margins in mind.
Whether Condorcet meant majority size or margin shouldn't matter to us, since there appears to be no reason to believe he considered the question as we have. I have no reason to believe he considered the consequences of indifference or strategic voting, which is what led many people in the EM maillist to the conclusion that sizes of majorities is better than margins. In particular, criteria such as Truncation Resistance and Minimal Defense, which MAM satisfies but margins methods do not.
You ask whether my long description would be needed in the legislation. I think something like it should be in an appendix or preface or exhibit. Examples too.
You also ask about what I assume is part of your wording: "If more ballots are marked ranking Candidate A over Candidate B than the number of ballots marked to the contrary, then Candidate B is not elected." You ask: "How do we turn that maxim into concise procedural language?" I think it's a bad maxim, due to majority cycles. That maxim can defeat all candidates. Why is it of interest?
Other language I strongly recommend avoiding: "pairwise defeats," "defeat strength," "beat pairwise," "defeators," etc. The only defeat that should be mentioned is the concept that everyone already knows: not finishing in first place, or not getting elected. It's confusing and potentially misleading to overload the word "defeat" by defining a new kind of defeat, and totally unnecessary. It's confusing because a candidate said to be defeated "pairwise" can finish in first place. It won't confuse people like you and me who are immersed in this stuff, but I'm pretty sure it will confuse people we want to teach.
I see no need to define new terms. Familiar terms, using their familiar definitions, will suffice and are preferable.
I don't see the point in drafting legislation before persuading legislators or activists to support the concept. My hunch is that most legislators will be repulsed by a good voting method because it would end the two party system that elected them and would induce competition they don't want, so the way forward is with citizens' initiatives and by persuading private organizations to use it. (They can use it for electing board members and it can also replace the Robert's Rules procedure for voting on motions.) Detailed legislative language would be needed for citizens' initiatives, but I think that can wait until enough activists have been persuaded to pursue it using citizens' initiatives.
In the software I've written for MAM, the code related to tiebreaking seems the most complex part of the algorithm. (It uses the Random Voter Hierarchy algorithm -- the generalization of Random Dictator for voting methods that allow indifference -- to construct a strict ordering of the alternatives. It carefully employs that ordering to distinguish between same-size majorities, so that one majority at a time is processed. It also employs that ordering at the end in the case where, due to one or more pairwise ties, the majorities don't suffice to construct a strict order of finish.) It's complex in order to strictly satisfy criteria such as independence of clones. In the context of large public elections, where it's unlikely that any pair will be a tie or that two majorities will be the same size, tiebreaking is unimportant and maybe it would be better in the legislation to use coin flips or some other familiar tiebreaker. The voting method can be completely
deterministic if people don't mind using some kind of seniority order for tiebreaking, such as the chronological order in which the candidates qualified for the ballot.
--Steve
On 9/14/2021 9:16 PM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
From what you translated from French, it looks like Condorcet was describing Ranked Pairs. I wonder if Nicolaus Tideman would see it that way.
Okay, Steve, all this explanation of the RP concept is good, but the question is if it is needed in the legal language or if your proposition is good enough by itself:
Construct the order of finish by processing the majorities one at a time, from largest majority to smallest majority, placing each majority's more-preferred candidate ahead of their less-preferred candidate in the order of finish (unless their less-preferred candidate has already been placed ahead of their more-preferred candidate).
Is that a well-defined procedure that instructs exactly how the "processing the majorities" are done? What is a "larger majority" or "smaller majority"? Do you mean margins?
This is similar to the RP alg that I have been working on (but sorta set aside for now). Each candidate has a list of "defeators" who are other candidates who have defeated the subject candidate or has defeated someone else who has defeated the subject candidate. In order of largest margin (or whatever "defeat strength") to smallest, when considering adding a runoff pair to the list of "locked" runoff pairs, one looks at the defeated candidate in that pair under consideration. If the defeated candidate is already in the list of defeators of more preferred candidate, then that runoff pair is not locked and is ignored. If the defeated candidate is not on the defeator list, then the pair is locked and the preferred candidate and all of the preferred candidate's defeators are merged onto the defeated candidate's defeator list.
But putting this all into C code is one thing, putting it all into legislation is another.
I just don't think that the short instruction in that one paragraph is enough to fully define RP in legislation.
For "straight-ahead Condorcet", I hadn't thought that Condorcet created a method. I just thought it was applying this Condorcet criterion universally (that means for every possible pairing of candidates):
"If more ballots are marked ranking Candidate A over Candidate B than the number of ballots marked to the contrary, then Candidate B is not elected."
How do we turn that maxim into concise procedural language?
On 09/13/2021 1:10 PM Steve Eppley seppley@alumni.caltech.edu wrote:
On 9/12/2021 11:49 AM, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
-snip-
I am actually fiddling around with creating plausible language for RP. But right now I am trying to show to legislators how simple in concept Condorcet is. So I am less concerned with the fallback language in case there is no CW.
-snip-
Here's simple language to explain the concept:
Count all the head-to-head majorities using the information in the voters' orders of preference.
Construct the order of finish by processing the majorities one at a time, from largest majority to smallest majority, placing each majority's more-preferred candidate ahead of their less-preferred candidate in the order of finish.
I also recommend providing two simple examples: The first example with a Condorcet Winner and three candidates (perhaps named Left, Center and Right). The second example with no Condorcet Winner and three candidates (perhaps named Rock, Scissors and Paper).
If one believes it's essential to include the rock-paper-scissors exception in the "simple concept" language, here's more complete language:
[...]
Construct the order of finish by processing the majorities one at a time, from largest majority to smallest majority, placing each majority's more-preferred candidate ahead of their less-preferred candidate in the order of finish (unless their less-preferred candidate has already been placed ahead of their more-preferred candidate).
Condorcet himself did NOT define his voting method as "First check whether a candidate defeats all others head-to-head, etc." Here's what he actually wrote in his 1785 essay, after his meandering analysis of some 3-candidate cyclic examples:
Il résulte de toutes les réflexions que nous venon de faire,
cette règle génerale, que toutes les fois qu'on est forcé d'élire,
il faut prendre successivement toutes les propositions qui ont
la pluralité, en commençant par celles qui ont la plus grande,
& prononcer d'après le résultat que forment ces premières
propositions, aussi-tôt qu'elles en forment un, sans avoir égard
aux propositions moins probables qui les suivent.
In case your French is rusty, here's a literal translation to English:
The result of all the reflections that we have just done,
is this general rule, for all the times when one is forced to elect:
one must take successively all the propositions that have
the plurality, commencing with those that have the largest,
and pronounce the result that forms from these first
propositions, as soon as they form it, without regard
for the less probable propositions that follow them.
Here's how I interpret the terms in Condorcet's definition:
By "for all the times when one is forced to elect" Condorcet meant this is his voting rule for any single-winner election.
By "propositions" Condorcet meant propositions of the form "x shall finish ahead of y." Votes that rank x over y constitute support for "x shall finish ahead of y" and opposition to "y shall finish ahead of x."
By "propositions that have the plurality" he meant the propositions supported by a relative majority. (Which could be less than half the votes if some voters express indifference. His essay assumed no indifference.)
To "take successively" a collection means to take one thing at a time, in some order. This has two possible interpretations: (1) Each thing may be one item (one proposition) in the collection, or (2) each thing could be a subset of the collection if there's a way to order the possible subsets so that the subsets can be taken one at a time. The simpler and more natural interpretation is one proposition at a time, and that's how I interpret it. It follows that "commencing with those that have the largest" means "from largest majority to smallest majority."
By "less probable propositions that follow" Condorcet meant propositions with smaller pluralities. (Either less support, or less support-minus-opposition.) Because their pluralities are smaller, they follow later in the order of succession (which I usually call the order of precedence). Condorcet's majority rule heuristic was: The larger the number of people who think x is better than y, the more likely it is that x is better than y.
By "pronounce the result that forms from these first propositions" I think it's clear Condorcet meant to include results implied by transitivity. For example, if the two largest majorities support "Scissors shall finish ahead of Paper" and "Rock shall finish ahead of Scissors," he would place Scissors ahead of Paper and Rock ahead of Scissors in the order of finish. An order of finish is transitive, and by transitivity he has also placed Rock ahead of Paper, "without regard for the less probable" "Paper shall finish ahead of Rock" proposition that follows.
With those interpretations, it's straight-forward to translate the English literal translation of Condorcet's method to the simple concept language I suggested above, repeated here for convenience:
Construct the order of finish by processing the majorities one at a time, from largest majority to smallest majority, placing each majority's more-preferred candidate ahead of their less-preferred candidate in the order of finish (unless their less-preferred candidate has already been placed ahead of their more-preferred candidate).
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
.
.
.
Hi Robert,
On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 10:12 PM robert bristow-johnson <
rbj@audioimagination.com> wrote:
And, BTW, it is not my intent to synthesize language for Tideman RP or
any other Condorcet method other that just the basic generic method: "Elect
the candidate who doesn't lose to any other candidate when compared
directly with the other candidate." I want to show legislators that
language as well as the BTR language and compare that to the Hare RCV
language that has already been placed before them.
Alright. Here is my attempt to write the simplest possible Condorcet
language in legalese. This here is 126 words, which is a fair bit shorter
than the 169 words of the IRV template:
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) A candidate “A” is said to win against another candidate “B” if more
voters rank “A” above “B” than rank “B” above “A”. If there is a candidate
that wins against every other candidate, that candidate is elected.
(3) If there is no such candidate, then the candidate with the most
first-choice votes wins.
(4) The city council may adopt additional regulations consistent with this
subsection to implement these standards.
I think anyone would agree that this is much simpler than the IRV language.
Part (1) is lifted straight from the IRV language. Part (2) is the
Condorcet rule in the simplest language I could think of and I think it's
drastically simpler than IRV. You said you didn't want to synthesize any
particular Condorcet method, but I felt I had to include a way to deal with
cycles, so that's part (3). The rule I wrote is FPTP which isn't great but
it's easy to understand and familiar.
Basically, the method is "elect the Condorcet winner if there is one,
otherwise do FPTP". That's the dumbest Condorcet method, but it is a
Condorcet method. Let me know what you think. I can try to come up with
another option for (3) if you want. Just try to give me an idea of where
you want to strike the balance between simplicity vs having a good rule for
resolving cycles.
Cheers,
Dr. Daniel Carrera
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Iowa State University
Should (1) have something like “Unranked candidates are treated as being below all the ranked ones” appended?
--pH
On Sep 20, 2021, at 11:32 PM, Daniel Carrera dcarrera@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Robert,
On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 10:12 PM robert bristow-johnson <rbj@audioimagination.commailto:rbj@audioimagination.com> wrote:
And, BTW, it is not my intent to synthesize language for Tideman RP or any other Condorcet method other that just the basic generic method: "Elect the candidate who doesn't lose to any other candidate when compared directly with the other candidate." I want to show legislators that language as well as the BTR language and compare that to the Hare RCV language that has already been placed before them.
Alright. Here is my attempt to write the simplest possible Condorcet language in legalese. This here is 126 words, which is a fair bit shorter than the 169 words of the IRV template:
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) A candidate “A” is said to win against another candidate “B” if more voters rank “A” above “B” than rank “B” above “A”. If there is a candidate that wins against every other candidate, that candidate is elected.
(3) If there is no such candidate, then the candidate with the most first-choice votes wins.
(4) The city council may adopt additional regulations consistent with this subsection to implement these standards.
I think anyone would agree that this is much simpler than the IRV language. Part (1) is lifted straight from the IRV language. Part (2) is the Condorcet rule in the simplest language I could think of and I think it's drastically simpler than IRV. You said you didn't want to synthesize any particular Condorcet method, but I felt I had to include a way to deal with cycles, so that's part (3). The rule I wrote is FPTP which isn't great but it's easy to understand and familiar.
Basically, the method is "elect the Condorcet winner if there is one, otherwise do FPTP". That's the dumbest Condorcet method, but it is a Condorcet method. Let me know what you think. I can try to come up with another option for (3) if you want. Just try to give me an idea of where you want to strike the balance between simplicity vs having a good rule for resolving cycles.
Cheers,
Dr. Daniel Carrera
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Iowa State University
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
Perhaps. How does the IRV language deal with that? Also, I just realized I
shouldn't have used the word "win" in (3). The correct text should be
(3) If there is no such candidate, then the candidate with the most
first-choice votes is elected.
On Tue, Sep 21, 2021 at 1:21 AM Hahn, Paul manynote@wustl.edu wrote:
Should (1) have something like “Unranked candidates are treated as being
below all the ranked ones” appended?
--pH
On Sep 20, 2021, at 11:32 PM, Daniel Carrera dcarrera@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Robert,
On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 10:12 PM robert bristow-johnson <
rbj@audioimagination.com> wrote:
And, BTW, it is not my intent to synthesize language for Tideman RP or
any other Condorcet method other that just the basic generic method: "Elect
the candidate who doesn't lose to any other candidate when compared
directly with the other candidate." I want to show legislators that
language as well as the BTR language and compare that to the Hare RCV
language that has already been placed before them.
Alright. Here is my attempt to write the simplest possible Condorcet
language in legalese. This here is 126 words, which is a fair bit shorter
than the 169 words of the IRV template:
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) A candidate “A” is said to win against another candidate “B” if more
voters rank “A” above “B” than rank “B” above “A”. If there is a candidate
that wins against every other candidate, that candidate is elected.
(3) If there is no such candidate, then the candidate with the most
first-choice votes wins.
(4) The city council may adopt additional regulations consistent with
this subsection to implement these standards.
I think anyone would agree that this is much simpler than the IRV
language. Part (1) is lifted straight from the IRV language. Part (2) is
the Condorcet rule in the simplest language I could think of and I think
it's drastically simpler than IRV. You said you didn't want to synthesize
any particular Condorcet method, but I felt I had to include a way to deal
with cycles, so that's part (3). The rule I wrote is FPTP which isn't great
but it's easy to understand and familiar.
Basically, the method is "elect the Condorcet winner if there is one,
otherwise do FPTP". That's the dumbest Condorcet method, but it is a
Condorcet method. Let me know what you think. I can try to come up with
another option for (3) if you want. Just try to give me an idea of where
you want to strike the balance between simplicity vs having a good rule for
resolving cycles.
Cheers,
Dr. Daniel Carrera
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Iowa State University
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info
--
Dr. Daniel Carrera
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Iowa State University
Since IRV starts with first-place choices and works its way down, any candidates not ranked on a particular ballot get treated as bottom-ranked by default, so I don’t think it was a problem that they didn’t mention it. But for Condorcet spelling out what happens in that situation may be warranted.
--pH
From: Daniel Carrera dcarrera@gmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2021 7:35 AM
To: Hahn, Paul manynote@wustl.edu
Cc: EM Election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Can anyone help with straight-ahead Condorcet language?
Perhaps. How does the IRV language deal with that? Also, I just realized I shouldn't have used the word "win" in (3). The correct text should be
(3) If there is no such candidate, then the candidate with the most first-choice votes is elected.
On Tue, Sep 21, 2021 at 1:21 AM Hahn, Paul <manynote@wustl.edumailto:manynote@wustl.edu> wrote:
Should (1) have something like “Unranked candidates are treated as being below all the ranked ones” appended?
--pH
On Sep 20, 2021, at 11:32 PM, Daniel Carrera <dcarrera@gmail.commailto:dcarrera@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Robert,
On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 10:12 PM robert bristow-johnson <rbj@audioimagination.commailto:rbj@audioimagination.com> wrote:
And, BTW, it is not my intent to synthesize language for Tideman RP or any other Condorcet method other that just the basic generic method: "Elect the candidate who doesn't lose to any other candidate when compared directly with the other candidate." I want to show legislators that language as well as the BTR language and compare that to the Hare RCV language that has already been placed before them.
Alright. Here is my attempt to write the simplest possible Condorcet language in legalese. This here is 126 words, which is a fair bit shorter than the 169 words of the IRV template:
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) A candidate “A” is said to win against another candidate “B” if more voters rank “A” above “B” than rank “B” above “A”. If there is a candidate that wins against every other candidate, that candidate is elected.
(3) If there is no such candidate, then the candidate with the most first-choice votes wins.
(4) The city council may adopt additional regulations consistent with this subsection to implement these standards.
I think anyone would agree that this is much simpler than the IRV language. Part (1) is lifted straight from the IRV language. Part (2) is the Condorcet rule in the simplest language I could think of and I think it's drastically simpler than IRV. You said you didn't want to synthesize any particular Condorcet method, but I felt I had to include a way to deal with cycles, so that's part (3). The rule I wrote is FPTP which isn't great but it's easy to understand and familiar.
Basically, the method is "elect the Condorcet winner if there is one, otherwise do FPTP". That's the dumbest Condorcet method, but it is a Condorcet method. Let me know what you think. I can try to come up with another option for (3) if you want. Just try to give me an idea of where you want to strike the balance between simplicity vs having a good rule for resolving cycles.
Cheers,
Dr. Daniel Carrera
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Iowa State University
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
--
Dr. Daniel Carrera
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Iowa State University
To expand on this slightly: the language “if more voters rank A above B than rank B above A” might arguably not count a ballot that ranks A but not (explicitly) B toward A’s total against B unless it is spelled out that unranked candidates count as bottom-ranked.
--pH
From: Hahn, Paul manynote@wustl.edu
Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2021 8:57 AM
To: Daniel Carrera dcarrera@gmail.com
Cc: EM Election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: RE: [EM] Can anyone help with straight-ahead Condorcet language?
Since IRV starts with first-place choices and works its way down, any candidates not ranked on a particular ballot get treated as bottom-ranked by default, so I don’t think it was a problem that they didn’t mention it. But for Condorcet spelling out what happens in that situation may be warranted.
--pH
From: Daniel Carrera <dcarrera@gmail.commailto:dcarrera@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2021 7:35 AM
To: Hahn, Paul <manynote@wustl.edumailto:manynote@wustl.edu>
Cc: EM <Election-methods@lists.electorama.commailto:Election-methods@lists.electorama.com>
Subject: Re: [EM] Can anyone help with straight-ahead Condorcet language?
Perhaps. How does the IRV language deal with that? Also, I just realized I shouldn't have used the word "win" in (3). The correct text should be
(3) If there is no such candidate, then the candidate with the most first-choice votes is elected.
On Tue, Sep 21, 2021 at 1:21 AM Hahn, Paul <manynote@wustl.edumailto:manynote@wustl.edu> wrote:
Should (1) have something like “Unranked candidates are treated as being below all the ranked ones” appended?
--pH
On Sep 20, 2021, at 11:32 PM, Daniel Carrera <dcarrera@gmail.commailto:dcarrera@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Robert,
On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 10:12 PM robert bristow-johnson <rbj@audioimagination.commailto:rbj@audioimagination.com> wrote:
And, BTW, it is not my intent to synthesize language for Tideman RP or any other Condorcet method other that just the basic generic method: "Elect the candidate who doesn't lose to any other candidate when compared directly with the other candidate." I want to show legislators that language as well as the BTR language and compare that to the Hare RCV language that has already been placed before them.
Alright. Here is my attempt to write the simplest possible Condorcet language in legalese. This here is 126 words, which is a fair bit shorter than the 169 words of the IRV template:
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) A candidate “A” is said to win against another candidate “B” if more voters rank “A” above “B” than rank “B” above “A”. If there is a candidate that wins against every other candidate, that candidate is elected.
(3) If there is no such candidate, then the candidate with the most first-choice votes wins.
(4) The city council may adopt additional regulations consistent with this subsection to implement these standards.
I think anyone would agree that this is much simpler than the IRV language. Part (1) is lifted straight from the IRV language. Part (2) is the Condorcet rule in the simplest language I could think of and I think it's drastically simpler than IRV. You said you didn't want to synthesize any particular Condorcet method, but I felt I had to include a way to deal with cycles, so that's part (3). The rule I wrote is FPTP which isn't great but it's easy to understand and familiar.
Basically, the method is "elect the Condorcet winner if there is one, otherwise do FPTP". That's the dumbest Condorcet method, but it is a Condorcet method. Let me know what you think. I can try to come up with another option for (3) if you want. Just try to give me an idea of where you want to strike the balance between simplicity vs having a good rule for resolving cycles.
Cheers,
Dr. Daniel Carrera
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Iowa State University
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
--
Dr. Daniel Carrera
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Iowa State University
On 09/21/2021 10:42 AM Hahn, Paul manynote@wustl.edu wrote:
To expand on this slightly: the language “if more voters rank A above B than rank B above A” might arguably not count a ballot that ranks A but not (explicitly) B toward A’s total against B unless it is spelled out that unranked candidates count as bottom-ranked.
Listen, guys, I did all that and posted it a few days back.
So Daniel, I, too, started with the IRV language that was passed by voters in the city but not ratified by the Vermont legislature. BTW, they took out the mayor's race and the school board races leaving only the city council races. They did that for shallow political reasons. I removed the specific offices and made some other terms more generic.
And I also used plurality for the "Condorcet completion method" and, while it's shitty, it was there as a placeholder. The legal language must have something there for that contingency.
So, below, is the language for the IRV that I dressed up slightly to deal with the meaning of the marked ranked ballots (lower ordinals is higher rank) and then I got the modification for BTR, and then my stab at the straight-ahead Condorcet method (with plurality as the completion method). I also have language either allowing or not allowing equal rankings.
And, for political reasons, I am leaving in the language that if there is a majority of first-choice votes, that candidate is elected before going into any retabulation method.
So I have already been at this place. And I am looking for the best possible language for step (3) in the Condorcet case. (And the best language for step (4) in the BTR case. I think my BTR is about as good as it can be, but am happy for any suggestions.)
So thanks, Daniel, but I was already at the place where you are, but with a little more verbose language. I want this concise, but not too concise.
Another quote from Einstein is "A system should be as simple as possible, but no simpler."
Here is Hare RCV (a.k.a. IRV):
All elections of [office] shall be by ballot, using a system of ranked-choice voting without a separate runoff election. The presiding election 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. Lower ordinal preference shall be considered higher rank and the candidate marked as first preference is considered ranked highest. Equal ranking of candidates shall not be allowed. Any candidate not marked with a preference shall be considered as ranked lower than every candidate marked with a 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, an instant runoff retabulation shall be performed by the presiding election officer. The instant runoff retabulation shall be conducted in sequential rounds. A "continuing candidate" is defined as a candidate that has not been defeated in any previous round. Initially, no candidate is defeated and all candidates begin as continuing candidates.
(4) In each round, every ballot shall count as a single vote for whichever continuing candidate the voter has ranked highest. The candidate with fewest votes is defeated in the current round.
(5) The aforementioned instant runoff retabulation, eliminating one candidate each round, shall be repeated until only two candidates remain. The remaining candidate then receiving the greatest number of votes is elected.
(6) The [governing jurisdiction] may adopt additional regulations consistent with this subsection to implement these standards.
Here is Bottom-Two Runoff:
All elections of [office] shall be by ballot, using a system of ranked-choice voting without a separate runoff election. The presiding election 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. Lower ordinal preference shall be considered higher rank and the candidate marked as first preference is considered ranked highest. Equal ranking of candidates shall not be allowed. Any candidate not marked with a preference shall be considered as ranked lower than every candidate marked with a 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, an instant runoff retabulation shall be performed by the presiding election officer. The instant runoff retabulation shall be conducted in sequential rounds. A "continuing candidate" is defined as a candidate that has not been defeated in any previous round. Initially, no candidate is defeated and all candidates begin as continuing candidates.
(4) In each round, every ballot shall count as a single vote for whichever continuing candidate the voter has ranked highest. The two candidates with the fewest votes in a round, herein denoted as "A" and "B", shall contend in a runoff in which the candidate, A or B, with lesser voter support shall be defeated in the current round. If the number of ballots ranking A higher than B exceeds the number of ballots ranking B higher than A, then B has lesser voter support, B is defeated, and A continues to the following round. Likewise, if the number of ballots ranking B higher than A exceeds the number of ballots ranking A higher than B, then A has lesser voter support, A is defeated, and B continues to the following round. In the case that the aforementioned measures of voter support of A and B are tied, then the candidate with fewest votes is defeated in the current round.
(5) The aforementioned instant runoff retabulation, eliminating one candidate each round, shall be repeated until only two candidates remain. The remaining candidate then receiving the greatest number of votes is elected.
(6) The [governing jurisdiction] may adopt additional regulations consistent with this subsection to implement these standards.
If step (4) above can be made better, I would be interested in seeing it.
Here is straight-ahead Condorcet (version 1, most like Daniel's):
All elections of [office] shall be by ballot, using a system of ranked-choice voting without a separate runoff election. The presiding election 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. Lower ordinal preference shall be considered higher rank and the candidate marked as first preference is considered ranked highest. Equal ranking of candidates shall be allowed. Any candidate not marked with a preference shall be considered as ranked lower than every candidate marked with a 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, a Condorcet-consistent retabulation shall be performed by the presiding election officer. The candidate, who is the Condorcet winner, is elected if the rankings on all of the ballots indicate that this one candidate defeats, with a simple majority of voter preferences, every other candidate when compared in turn with each other individual candidate. A selected candidate defeats another candidate by a simple majority when the number of ballots marked ranking the selected candidate higher than the other candidate exceeds the number of ballots marked to the contrary.
(4) If no Condorcet winner exists in step (3), then the candidate with the plurality of first preferences is elected.
(5) The [governing jurisdiction] may adopt additional regulations consistent with this subsection to implement these standards.
Here is another straight-ahead Condorcet (version 2):
All elections of [office] shall be by ballot, using a system of ranked-choice voting without a separate runoff election. The presiding election 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. Lower ordinal preference shall be considered higher rank and the candidate marked as first preference is considered ranked highest. Equal ranking of candidates shall be allowed. Any candidate not marked with a preference shall be considered as ranked lower than every candidate marked with a 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, a Condorcet-consistent retabulation shall be performed by the presiding election officer. The retabulation shall examine each possible pairing of candidates. If N is the number of candidates, including combined Write-In, then the number of possible pairings of candidates is N(N-1)/2. For each possible pairing of candidates, if fewer ballots are marked preferring a selected candidate over the other candidate than the number of ballots marked to the contrary, then the selected candidate is marked as defeated. After all candidate pairs are examined, the candidate who remains unmarked as defeated is the Condorcet winner and is elected.
(4) If no Condorcet winner exists in step (3), then the candidate with the plurality of first preferences is elected.
(5) The [governing jurisdiction] may adopt additional regulations consistent with this subsection to implement these standards.
In the last two, I want to keep all of the steps the way they are, but if step (3) can be made better, that is what I am groping for.
Concise is good, but it must be complete and clear in normal usage of the American English language.
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
.
.
.
On Tue, Sep 21, 2021 at 10:38 AM robert bristow-johnson <
rbj@audioimagination.com> wrote:
Here is Bottom-Two Runoff:
All elections of [office] shall be by ballot, using a system of
ranked-choice voting without a separate runoff election. The presiding
election 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. Lower ordinal preference shall be considered higher
rank and the candidate marked as first preference is considered ranked
highest. Equal ranking of candidates shall not be allowed. Any candidate
not marked with a preference shall be considered as ranked lower than every
candidate marked with a 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, an instant
runoff retabulation shall be performed by the presiding election officer.
The instant runoff retabulation shall be conducted in sequential rounds. A
"continuing candidate" is defined as a candidate that has not been defeated
in any previous round. Initially, no candidate is defeated and all
candidates begin as continuing candidates.
(4) In each round, every ballot shall count as a single vote for
whichever continuing candidate the voter has ranked highest. The two
candidates with the fewest votes in a round, herein denoted as "A" and "B",
shall contend in a runoff in which the candidate, A or B, with lesser voter
support shall be defeated in the current round. If the number of ballots
ranking A higher than B exceeds the number of ballots ranking B higher than
A, then B has lesser voter support, B is defeated, and A continues to the
following round. Likewise, if the number of ballots ranking B higher than A
exceeds the number of ballots ranking A higher than B, then A has lesser
voter support, A is defeated, and B continues to the following round. In
the case that the aforementioned measures of voter support of A and B are
tied, then the candidate with fewest votes is defeated in the current round.
(5) The aforementioned instant runoff retabulation, eliminating one
candidate each round, shall be repeated until only two candidates remain.
The remaining candidate then receiving the greatest number of votes is
elected.
(6) The [governing jurisdiction] may adopt additional regulations
consistent with this subsection to implement these standards.
If step (4) above can be made better, I would be interested in seeing it.
You can reuse the ordinal system to simplify (4):
(4) In each round, every ballot shall count as a single vote for whichever
continuing candidate the voter has ranked highest. The two candidates with
the fewest votes in a round, herein denoted as "runoff candidates", shall
contend in a runoff. In each runoff, every ballot shall count as a single
vote for whichever runoff candidate the voter has ranked highest. The
candidate with the fewest votes is defeated in the current round.
Here is straight-ahead Condorcet (version 1, most like Daniel's):
All elections of [office] shall be by ballot, using a system of
ranked-choice voting without a separate runoff election. The presiding
election 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. Lower ordinal preference shall be considered higher
rank and the candidate marked as first preference is considered ranked
highest. Equal ranking of candidates shall be allowed. Any candidate not
marked with a preference shall be considered as ranked lower than every
candidate marked with a 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, a
Condorcet-consistent retabulation shall be performed by the presiding
election officer. The candidate, who is the Condorcet winner, is elected if
the rankings on all of the ballots indicate that this one candidate
defeats, with a simple majority of voter preferences, every other candidate
when compared in turn with each other individual candidate. A selected
candidate defeats another candidate by a simple majority when the number of
ballots marked ranking the selected candidate higher than the other
candidate exceeds the number of ballots marked to the contrary.
(4) If no Condorcet winner exists in step (3), then the candidate with
the plurality of first preferences is elected.
(5) The [governing jurisdiction] may adopt additional regulations
consistent with this subsection to implement these standards.
Here is another straight-ahead Condorcet (version 2):
All elections of [office] shall be by ballot, using a system of
ranked-choice voting without a separate runoff election. The presiding
election 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. Lower ordinal preference shall be considered higher
rank and the candidate marked as first preference is considered ranked
highest. Equal ranking of candidates shall be allowed. Any candidate not
marked with a preference shall be considered as ranked lower than every
candidate marked with a 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, a
Condorcet-consistent retabulation shall be performed by the presiding
election officer. The retabulation shall examine each possible pairing of
candidates. If N is the number of candidates, including combined Write-In,
then the number of possible pairings of candidates is N(N-1)/2. For each
possible pairing of candidates, if fewer ballots are marked preferring a
selected candidate over the other candidate than the number of ballots
marked to the contrary, then the selected candidate is marked as defeated.
After all candidate pairs are examined, the candidate who remains unmarked
as defeated is the Condorcet winner and is elected.
(4) If no Condorcet winner exists in step (3), then the candidate with
the plurality of first preferences is elected.
(5) The [governing jurisdiction] may adopt additional regulations
consistent with this subsection to implement these standards.
In the last two, I want to keep all of the steps the way they are, but if
step (3) can be made better, that is what I am groping for.
Concise is good, but it must be complete and clear in normal usage of
the American English language.
Here is a more concise rewrite of your first version:
(3) If no candidate receives a majority of first preferences, the presiding
officer shall perform a series of two-candidate runoffs where every
candidate has a runoff with every other candidate. Each runoff between two
candidates is won by the candidate that is ranked higher by a majority of
ballots. A candidate that wins all of their runoffs is the Condorcet winner
and is elected.
Cheers,
Dr. Daniel Carrera
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Iowa State University