Appreciation for KM.
On 03/24/2024 3:03 PM EDT Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet@t-online.de wrote:
On 2024-03-19 22:06, Closed Limelike Curves wrote:
I think Kris is mostly correct when he says this:
Over time, this incentive to entry could reduce STAR to Range.
but I see this as intentional. Score and approval are great systems on
their own.
In the mail I responded to, Rob said:
I don't feel comfortable with the strategy burden imposed on
voters by plain "score voting" (a.k.a. "range voting"). Most of
us agree that the best strategy for "score/range" is a "min/max"
strategy....basically, turn the election into an approval
election. It doesn't seem fair to have a system that requires
voters who want to maximize the utility of their ballot to know
enough about the system to know the "min/max" strategy.
So if you agree that STAR will reduce to Range, that's fine, because my
point then stands: if Rob's not comfortable with the strategic burden of
Range, and STAR reduces to Range, then that's a problem for STAR.
They elect Condorcet winners in the presence of strategy, but
score does /better/ than Condorcet if voters are honest. They satisfy
sincere favorite, IIA, and rarely incentivize order reversal. It's hard
to design something better that won't hurt the average voter's brain.
IIA is a means to an end, and that end is that the outcome shouldn't
change if candidates who don't win enter or leave. For Range, although
it passes IIA, we still don't get that end unless the voters' ratings
are calibrated to a scale or scales that don't depend on the candidates
who are present.
How would you suggest that such a calibration be done?
If it can't be done, then Range's IIA compliance, while nice in a
box-ticking way, doesn't really do what it implies it does.
On 03/24/2024 3:07 PM EDT Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet@t-online.de wrote:
...
What do you think about the following reasoning? Call it the "fool me
twice" problem.
Suppose that a jurisdiction is considering switching from FPTP to Borda.
The main organization is heavily marketing Borda as the one ranked
voting system, equating the ranked ballot format to Borda, the method.
Meanwhile, an organization promoting MDDA (majority defeat
disqualification approval) is slowly growing. Someone (call him John)
favors MDDA and thinks that due to Borda's clone problem, it will
quickly be repealed. Then, he reasons, the jurisdiction will think that
ranking equals Borda, so that when some other ranked method is proposed
(MDDA, say), they will remember the failure of Borda that led to its
repeal and say "no; fool me twice, shame on me".
This reflects my attitude perfectly. Course corrections are less costly early in the voyage. Before Hare RCV gets entrenched deeper, it's best to recognize these unnecessary flaws in IRV demonstrated by the Burlington and Alaska RCV elections that may both get repealed within a couple of years of an anomalous election with a lotta people that wonder if it was an "honest" election. And then head the problem (the consequences IRV failing to elect the CW) off before it occurs again.
Now unfortunately for Burlington Vermont it's "Fool me once, just wait 12 years and we'll forget." And it's unlikely (because the GOP is now so weak in Burlington) to happen again, so these deniers will feel validated in time. But over the U.S. (or the world), we know that this Center Squeeze failure will happen again with the consequence of a spoiled election and sincere voters getting burned. The problem is if this failure isn't repeated at the same jurisdiction where some of the same people ask themselves "weren't we here before?", then it's unlikely that enough voters will notice the flaw (and its consequences) that very rarely happens. I think FairVote is banking on that.
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
.
.
.
On 2024-03-24 22:41, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
On 03/24/2024 3:03 PM EDT Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet@t-online.de wrote:
How would you suggest that such a calibration be done?
If it can't be done, then Range's IIA compliance, while nice in a
box-ticking way, doesn't really do what it implies it does.
Thank you :-) Sometimes I feel like I'm just flinging my posts into the
void because there's so little response. Granted, a lot of my recent
posts have been quite heavy on the theory. But still. Thanks.
On 03/24/2024 3:07 PM EDT Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet@t-online.de wrote:
...
What do you think about the following reasoning? Call it the "fool me
twice" problem.
Suppose that a jurisdiction is considering switching from FPTP to Borda.
The main organization is heavily marketing Borda as the one ranked
voting system, equating the ranked ballot format to Borda, the method.
Meanwhile, an organization promoting MDDA (majority defeat
disqualification approval) is slowly growing. Someone (call him John)
favors MDDA and thinks that due to Borda's clone problem, it will
quickly be repealed. Then, he reasons, the jurisdiction will think that
ranking equals Borda, so that when some other ranked method is proposed
(MDDA, say), they will remember the failure of Borda that led to its
repeal and say "no; fool me twice, shame on me".
This reflects my attitude perfectly. Course corrections are less
costly early in the voyage. Before Hare RCV gets entrenched deeper,
it's best to recognize these unnecessary flaws in IRV demonstrated by
the Burlington and Alaska RCV elections that may both get repealed
within a couple of years of an anomalous election with a lotta people
that wonder if it was an "honest" election. And then head the problem
(the consequences IRV failing to elect the CW) off before it occurs again.
Now unfortunately for Burlington Vermont it's "Fool me once, just
wait 12 years and we'll forget." And it's unlikely (because the GOP
is now so weak in Burlington) to happen again, so these deniers will
feel validated in time. But over the U.S. (or the world), we know
that this Center Squeeze failure will happen again with the
consequence of a spoiled election and sincere voters getting burned.
The problem is if this failure isn't repeated at the same
jurisdiction where some of the same people ask themselves "weren't we
here before?", then it's unlikely that enough voters will notice the
flaw (and its consequences) that very rarely happens. I think
FairVote is banking on that.
That, I think, is the other major reason to not go for a particular reform.
There's a chance that a method could be strong enough to appear to be a
significant improvement, yet fail under additional pressure. If it
doesn't lead to a repeal, the voters could still draw the conclusion
that strategy is still necessary; or it could reward preexisting
strategies like FPTP compromising enough that they linger on, or third
parties could just grow weaker in the meantime, as you mentioned.
In any case, the method could then slow down further reform because it
would take time before its flaws become apparent.
At least for this kind of failure, it'll become a lot more obvious if,
say, one state implements IRV and another implements Condorcet, and then
"coincidentally" the latter has multiple parties while the first
doesn't. So it's not quite as damaging an outcome as the "fool me twice"
situation.
That is, unless the not-good-enough methods pull harder than the good
methods push. E.g. Australia's use of IRV pull harder towards two party
rule than its use of STV pushes away from it.
-km