Is there a Good Clone Independent Election Method Based on VFA Style Ballots?
VFA abbreviates "Vote For and
Against"
More than a decade ago I thought of using VFA syle ballot information to
declone Borda, Copeland, and Kememy-Young ..but none of them was suitable
for public proposal.
For example, VFA information allows us to construct a clone independent
"Swap Cost Mettic" that can replace the clone dependents Kendall-tau
metric, thereby resulting in a clone free version of Kemeny-Young ...
which, in turn transforms it into an election method with acceptable
properties ... but only ncorporatimg the VFA information to create the
clone independent metric without being able to dispense with the voter
rankings ... a gasoline/ electric hybrid that cannot exist as a standalone
power source, so to speak.
However, last night it occurred to me that we can use the soap cost metric
on the space of possible candidate finish orders to make a comceptually
simple (vsry simple in comparison with Kememy-Young) standalone election
method:
Choose the finish order most distant from its opposite.
This makes simse when you realize that the cost of a single trasposition of
a pair of candidates in the finish order is a measure of the combined
mental anguish that would result from reversing their first and last place
prferemces.
To be precise, the seap cost of reversing a single preference of X>Y to.Y>X
in the finish order is the number of nallots that voted for X times the
number that voted against Y.
If you were toouble the number of voters that voted for X or the number
that voted against Y,, you would double the total number of voters
disappoimted by the seap of the positions (in the finish order) of the
respective candidates A and B ... so the "cost" in seap cost is measured in
voter disappoiment.
In our context the greater the voter disappointment cost of reversing a
proposed finish order FO o its opposite FO', the better FO is in contrast
to FO' ... which is why we chopse the finish order that would result in the
most disappointment if it were replaced by its opposite..
An app that uses this method for making group decisions based solely on
first and last choices might catch on at the grass roots level. If so, it
would work even better in large groups where statistical laws would enhance
performance.
What do you think?
Is there a VFA organization somewhere in need of revitalization?
-fws
Forest,
Binomial STV allows voters to vote for and against candidates but it
depends on the number of seats, rather than voters actively deciding
they are for or against a candidate. Given five seats, the first five
orders of choice count more or less for those prefered candidates.
Preferences from 6 onwards count more and more against the candidates.
The vote looks like any other ranked choice but there are two
symmetrical rational counts by Meek method surplus transfer.: an
election count and a reversed preference exclusion count. This dispenses
with conventional STV "last past the post" exclusion when the election
surpluses run out. And dispenses with Meek quota reduction with abstentions.
All abstentions are counted, to establish the relative importance of
election or exclusion to the voters. So this rationalised Meek gets rid
of two weak features and adds one feature, that gives a conservation of
preference information by including counting the abstentions.
Binomial STV also has higher orders of count that might provide
systematic search efficiency for the seeker of representative
information, not only representatives.
Regards,
Richard Lung.
On 01/02/2024 22:18, Forest Simmons wrote:
VFA abbreviates "Vote For and
Against"
More than a decade ago I thought of using VFA syle ballot information
to declone Borda, Copeland, and Kememy-Young ..but none of them was
suitable for public proposal.
For example, VFA information allows us to construct a clone
independent "Swap Cost Mettic" that can replace the clone dependents
Kendall-tau metric, thereby resulting in a clone free version of
Kemeny-Young ... which, in turn transforms it into an election method
with acceptable properties ... but only ncorporatimg the VFA
information to create the clone independent metric without being able
to dispense with the voter rankings ... a gasoline/ electric hybrid
that cannot exist as a standalone power source, so to speak.
However, last night it occurred to me that we can use the soap cost
metric on the space of possible candidate finish orders to make a
comceptually simple (vsry simple in comparison with Kememy-Young)
standalone election method:
Choose the finish order most distant from its opposite.
This makes simse when you realize that the cost of a single
trasposition of a pair of candidates in the finish order is a measure
of the combined mental anguish that would result from reversing their
first and last place prferemces.
To be precise, the seap cost of reversing a single preference of X>Y
to.Y>X in the finish order is the number of nallots that voted for X
times the number that voted against Y.
If you were toouble the number of voters that voted for X or the
number that voted against Y,, you would double the total number of
voters disappoimted by the seap of the positions (in the finish order)
of the respective candidates A and B ... so the "cost" in seap cost is
measured in voter disappoiment.
In our context the greater the voter disappointment cost of reversing
a proposed finish order FO o its opposite FO', the better FO is in
contrast to FO' ... which is why we chopse the finish order that would
result in the most disappointment if it were replaced by its opposite..
An app that uses this method for making group decisions based solely
on first and last choices might catch on at the grass roots level. If
so, it would work even better in large groups where statistical laws
would enhance performance.
What do you think?
Is there a VFA organization somewhere in need of revitalization?
-fws
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
Two questions came to mind...
-
The cost function isn't symmetric. How do you translate it into a distance between two orderings, then? For example, if A is 70% for/30% against and B is 60%/40%, then the cost of going from A>B to B>A is 28% and vice versa is 18%.
-
Once you narrow it down to the two most-distant orderings, how do you pick the final one? Yes, it's probably "obvious" to a human, but you can't write a law or program that way. Once we have a rule to formalize that, though, why wouldn't we just directly use it to create a "better than" relationship for all the orderings instead of relying on a two-step process?
On 2/1/24 17:18, Forest Simmons wrote:
VFA abbreviates "Vote For and
Against"
More than a decade ago I thought of using VFA syle ballot information to
declone Borda, Copeland, and Kememy-Young ..but none of them was suitable
for public proposal.
For example, VFA information allows us to construct a clone independent
"Swap Cost Mettic" that can replace the clone dependents Kendall-tau
metric, thereby resulting in a clone free version of Kemeny-Young ...
which, in turn transforms it into an election method with acceptable
properties ... but only ncorporatimg the VFA information to create the
clone independent metric without being able to dispense with the voter
rankings ... a gasoline/ electric hybrid that cannot exist as a standalone
power source, so to speak.
However, last night it occurred to me that we can use the soap cost metric
on the space of possible candidate finish orders to make a comceptually
simple (vsry simple in comparison with Kememy-Young) standalone election
method:
Choose the finish order most distant from its opposite.
This makes simse when you realize that the cost of a single trasposition of
a pair of candidates in the finish order is a measure of the combined
mental anguish that would result from reversing their first and last place
prferemces.
To be precise, the seap cost of reversing a single preference of X>Y to.Y>X
in the finish order is the number of nallots that voted for X times the
number that voted against Y.
If you were toouble the number of voters that voted for X or the number
that voted against Y,, you would double the total number of voters
disappoimted by the seap of the positions (in the finish order) of the
respective candidates A and B ... so the "cost" in seap cost is measured in
voter disappoiment.
In our context the greater the voter disappointment cost of reversing a
proposed finish order FO o its opposite FO', the better FO is in contrast
to FO' ... which is why we chopse the finish order that would result in the
most disappointment if it were replaced by its opposite..
An app that uses this method for making group decisions based solely on
first and last choices might catch on at the grass roots level. If so, it
would work even better in large groups where statistical laws would enhance
performance.
What do you think?
Is there a VFA organization somewhere in need of revitalization?
-fws
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
Like the taxi cab metric it is asymmetrical ... the democrqtic cost of
convering finish order FO into its opposite FO' Will in general be greater
in onf the two directions ... just li like the cost of traveling from A to
B may be greater in time or dollqrs than that of the return trip.
There is a classic monograph on this tópic by a Soviet Mathematician
entités "What Is Distance?"
The Kendall-tau metric is insensitive to direction ... so is of no use to
us ... besides its defective clone dependence.
Using the top and bottom counts to de-clone Kendall-tau gave us the bonus
of directional sesitivity.
The simplest example is
60 A>B
40 B>A
The two possible finish orders are the two faction orders A>B and B>A.
The swap cost of converting A>B to B>A is the a×b' ... the For count of A
times the Against count of B ... i.e. 60×60.
The democratic cost of reversing B>A is b×a' the For count of B times
theAgainst countvof A ...b40×40.
Since 60^2 > 40^2 the democratically preferred order is A>B ... the one
that is the most costlybor democratic difficult to reverse.
Over the last dozen years I have given various uses for this swap cost
metric ... and always the proof of its clone independence. Then I had
better vision ... much easier to type these messages.
I'll just give you the algebraic identity that is the essence of proof:
(Sum a_k)(Sum b'_j) is equal to
DoubleSum [(a_k) (b'_j)]
This is in the context where candidates A and B are replaced by respective
clone sets {A_k} and {B_j} and
a=Sum a_k and b'=Sum b'_j
Search theM archive under Swap Cost for more applications.
There is no guarantee that this VFA application will prove useful ... I'm
just giving you the opportunity to get in on the experiment if you want to.
I'm 76 years old ...my memory and eyesight are fading ... I hope the EM
Archives can survive the degeneration of civilization that seems almost
inexorable in some ways.
-fws
On Fri, Feb 2, 2024, 1:34 PM Joshua Boehme joshua.p.boehme@gmail.com
wrote:
Two questions came to mind...
-
The cost function isn't symmetric. How do you translate it into a
distance between two orderings, then? For example, if A is 70% for/30%
against and B is 60%/40%, then the cost of going from A>B to B>A is 28% and
vice versa is 18%. -
Once you narrow it down to the two most-distant orderings, how do you
pick the final one? Yes, it's probably "obvious" to a human, but you can't
write a law or program that way. Once we have a rule to formalize that,
though, why wouldn't we just directly use it to create a "better than"
relationship for all the orderings instead of relying on a two-step process?
On 2/1/24 17:18, Forest Simmons wrote:
VFA abbreviates "Vote For and
Against"
More than a decade ago I thought of using VFA syle ballot information to
declone Borda, Copeland, and Kememy-Young ..but none of them was suitable
for public proposal.
For example, VFA information allows us to construct a clone independent
"Swap Cost Mettic" that can replace the clone dependents Kendall-tau
metric, thereby resulting in a clone free version of Kemeny-Young ...
which, in turn transforms it into an election method with acceptable
properties ... but only ncorporatimg the VFA information to create the
clone independent metric without being able to dispense with the voter
rankings ... a gasoline/ electric hybrid that cannot exist as a
standalone
power source, so to speak.
However, last night it occurred to me that we can use the soap cost
metric
on the space of possible candidate finish orders to make a comceptually
simple (vsry simple in comparison with Kememy-Young) standalone election
method:
Choose the finish order most distant from its opposite.
This makes simse when you realize that the cost of a single trasposition
of
a pair of candidates in the finish order is a measure of the combined
mental anguish that would result from reversing their first and last
place
prferemces.
To be precise, the seap cost of reversing a single preference of X>Y
to.Y>X
in the finish order is the number of nallots that voted for X times the
number that voted against Y.
If you were toouble the number of voters that voted for X or the number
that voted against Y,, you would double the total number of voters
disappoimted by the seap of the positions (in the finish order) of the
respective candidates A and B ... so the "cost" in seap cost is measured
in
voter disappoiment.
In our context the greater the voter disappointment cost of reversing a
proposed finish order FO o its opposite FO', the better FO is in contrast
to FO' ... which is why we chopse the finish order that would result in
the
most disappointment if it were replaced by its opposite..
An app that uses this method for making group decisions based solely on
first and last choices might catch on at the grass roots level. If so, it
would work even better in large groups where statistical laws would
enhance
performance.
What do you think?
Is there a VFA organization somewhere in need of revitalization?
-fws
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info