Manipulability stats for (some) poll methods
On 05/15/2024 2:30 PM EDT Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet@t-online.de wrote:
On 2024-05-15 17:04, Filip Ejlak wrote:
śr., 15 maj 2024, 10:47 użytkownik Michael Ossipoff
<email9648742@gmail.com mailto:email9648742@gmail.com> napisał:
Yes, then, as you suggest, “manipulability” doesn’t tell us anything
of interest. I agree.
Then how much do those manipulability numbers mean, in regards to
the strategic merit of the methods. Nothing?
I can't agree at all. IMO the primary goal of a good voting method is to
make voters not regret voting honestly.
Yes. But it also has to be perceived by Joe Sixpack as fair and "right".
The method needs to be principled and these principles few in number and concise in expression.
While it's useful to be able to
use a defensive strategy after analysing expected poll outcomes,
frontrunners etc., the best voting method would be the one that does not
create the need to take these things into the account at all.
Chances of being able to vote honestly, with no strategic burden to
bear. That's what the manipulability numbers are about.
Thank you for saying that much more succinctly than I did.
That says something. (I have credited Kristofer before for succinct analytical judgements and statements.)
Although I would say that winner quality given honesty also matters :-)
At least to avoid the kind of outcomes that lead people to repeal the
method.
I dunno how to measure, in a non-partisan manner, "winner quality".
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
.
.
.
I dunno how to measure, in a non-partisan manner, "winner quality".
You’ll find out when CW,Plurality gets repealed after a feeding-frenzy 🦈
of burial.
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
.
.
.
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info
I can't agree at all. IMO the primary goal of a good voting method is to
make voters not regret voting honestly. While it's useful to be able to
use a defensive strategy after analysing expected poll outcomes,
frontrunners etc., the best voting method would be the one that does not
create the need to take these things into the account at all.
Chances of being able to vote honestly, with no strategic burden to
bear. That's what the manipulability numbers are about.
I fully agree with all of this, right up until the last two sentences.
That's the problem—that's not what manipulability numbers are about! It's
p-values all over again!
From what I can tell, your complaint with strategic voting is it's a pain
in the ass. You have to conduct polls, read the news, check 538, etc.
before voting. Better to have a system where you can skip this whole
rigamarole and just follow a 0-info strategy. If that's what you're
concerned about, what matters is whether the *expected utility *gained
by voting (instead of 0-info) is higher than the informational and
computational cost of voting strategically.
Manipulability doesn't measure that. It just asks whether there is some
strategy (no matter how difficult or implausible) that gives a
different result than honest voting. "But in the elections where there
isn't a strategy like that, couldn't you skip that whole rigamarole?" Nope,
because you need to go through all that to know if you're in one of the
races where strategy matters!
Picking a method based on low manipulability is like picking Russian
roulette over regular roulette "because 84% is better odds than 50%". We're
comparing completely different outcomes! For all I know, that last 10% of
elections is situations where my vote, personally, will decide whether
Hitler's reanimated corpse wins the election.
On Wed, May 15, 2024 at 11:31 AM Kristofer Munsterhjelm <
km_elmet@t-online.de> wrote:
On 2024-05-15 17:04, Filip Ejlak wrote:
śr., 15 maj 2024, 10:47 użytkownik Michael Ossipoff
<email9648742@gmail.com mailto:email9648742@gmail.com> napisał:
Yes, then, as you suggest, “manipulability” doesn’t tell us anything
of interest. I agree.
Then how much do those manipulability numbers mean, in regards to
the strategic merit of the methods. Nothing?
I can't agree at all. IMO the primary goal of a good voting method is to
make voters not regret voting honestly. While it's useful to be able to
use a defensive strategy after analysing expected poll outcomes,
frontrunners etc., the best voting method would be the one that does not
create the need to take these things into the account at all.
Chances of being able to vote honestly, with no strategic burden to
bear. That's what the manipulability numbers are about.
Thank you for saying that much more succinctly than I did.
Although I would say that winner quality given honesty also matters :-)
At least to avoid the kind of outcomes that lead people to repeal the
method.
-km
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info
Now I want to make a separate objection: I don't think "you have to Google
some polls" is the main problem of strategic voting at all. It takes me
just a few seconds to find the 538 website, and we're all constantly
inundated with political news anyways. Chances are you already know if your
state is mostly liberal or mostly conservative. And to top it all off, your
vote won't be the tie-breaking ballot, so the actual benefits of all this
research are tiny (assuming what you care about is who wins the election).
The major costs of strategy are mostly because of insincere voting, which
can easily create false consensus effects. If your system encourages lesser
evil voting, you can get stuck in a loop where everyone gives a unanimous
favorite a low rank to keep the lesser evil from winning, which makes the
best candidate look hopeless and prevents them from fundraising or getting
into debates.
On Wed, May 15, 2024 at 7:56 PM Closed Limelike Curves <
closed.limelike.curves@gmail.com> wrote:
I can't agree at all. IMO the primary goal of a good voting method is to
make voters not regret voting honestly. While it's useful to be able to
use a defensive strategy after analysing expected poll outcomes,
frontrunners etc., the best voting method would be the one that does not
create the need to take these things into the account at all.
Chances of being able to vote honestly, with no strategic burden to
bear. That's what the manipulability numbers are about.
I fully agree with all of this, right up until the last two sentences.
That's the problem—that's not what manipulability numbers are about!
It's p-values all over again!
From what I can tell, your complaint with strategic voting is it's a pain
in the ass. You have to conduct polls, read the news, check 538, etc.
before voting. Better to have a system where you can skip this whole
rigamarole and just follow a 0-info strategy. If that's what you're
concerned about, what matters is whether the *expected utility *gained
by voting (instead of 0-info) is higher than the informational and
computational cost of voting strategically.
Manipulability doesn't measure that. It just asks whether there is some
strategy (no matter how difficult or implausible) that gives a
different result than honest voting. "But in the elections where there
isn't a strategy like that, couldn't you skip that whole rigamarole?" Nope,
because you need to go through all that to know if you're in one of the
races where strategy matters!
Picking a method based on low manipulability is like picking Russian
roulette over regular roulette "because 84% is better odds than 50%". We're
comparing completely different outcomes! For all I know, that last 10% of
elections is situations where my vote, personally, will decide whether
Hitler's reanimated corpse wins the election.
On Wed, May 15, 2024 at 11:31 AM Kristofer Munsterhjelm <
km_elmet@t-online.de> wrote:
On 2024-05-15 17:04, Filip Ejlak wrote:
śr., 15 maj 2024, 10:47 użytkownik Michael Ossipoff
<email9648742@gmail.com mailto:email9648742@gmail.com> napisał:
Yes, then, as you suggest, “manipulability” doesn’t tell us
anything
of interest. I agree.
Then how much do those manipulability numbers mean, in regards to
the strategic merit of the methods. Nothing?
I can't agree at all. IMO the primary goal of a good voting method is
to
make voters not regret voting honestly. While it's useful to be able to
use a defensive strategy after analysing expected poll outcomes,
frontrunners etc., the best voting method would be the one that does
not
create the need to take these things into the account at all.
Chances of being able to vote honestly, with no strategic burden to
bear. That's what the manipulability numbers are about.
Thank you for saying that much more succinctly than I did.
Although I would say that winner quality given honesty also matters :-)
At least to avoid the kind of outcomes that lead people to repeal the
method.
-km
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info
On 2024-05-16 02:33, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
On 05/15/2024 2:30 PM EDT Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet@t-online.de wrote:
On 2024-05-15 17:04, Filip Ejlak wrote:
śr., 15 maj 2024, 10:47 użytkownik Michael Ossipoff
<email9648742@gmail.com mailto:email9648742@gmail.com> napisał:
Yes, then, as you suggest, “manipulability” doesn’t tell us anything
of interest. I agree.
Then how much do those manipulability numbers mean, in regards to
the strategic merit of the methods. Nothing?
I can't agree at all. IMO the primary goal of a good voting method is to
make voters not regret voting honestly.
Yes. But it also has to be perceived by Joe Sixpack as fair and "right".
The method needs to be principled and these principles few in number and concise in expression.
If it weren't for this part, my fpA-max fpC method would've been quite
good. Its strategy resistance is around that of Condorcet,TTR, but it's
monotone. But alas, its scoring function is pretty hard to understand
because it was found by a computer search.
It might be easier to deal with complexity if/when better methods gain a
reputation for being good. Some countries use very complex methods, but
it works because the people generally trusts them. E.g. Meek in New
Zealand, or the greedy top-up seat algorithm used here in Norway for
national proportionality (or Pukelsheim's in Switzerland for that
matter, which, IMHO, is better than the greedy method).
While it's useful to be able to
use a defensive strategy after analysing expected poll outcomes,
frontrunners etc., the best voting method would be the one that does not
create the need to take these things into the account at all.
Chances of being able to vote honestly, with no strategic burden to
bear. That's what the manipulability numbers are about.
Thank you for saying that much more succinctly than I did.
That says something. (I have credited Kristofer before for succinct analytical judgements and statements.)
Although I would say that winner quality given honesty also matters :-)
At least to avoid the kind of outcomes that lead people to repeal the
method.
I dunno how to measure, in a non-partisan manner, "winner quality".
In a real election, we can't. But the spatial model I use for the
manipulability test gives each voter a quality measure of each
candidate. So we can just use those utilities directly.
See
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Social_utility_efficiency&oldid=1222909293
for more information.
James Green-Armytage has also done some investigations into the
trade-off between strategy resistance and utilitarian efficiency.
https://www.jamesgreenarmytage.com/strategy-utility.pdf Figure 1, e.g.
Though for the models derived from real sources, we should keep in mind
that if the voting method gets better at protecting candidates, the
candidate landscape may change.
-km
It might be easier to deal with complexity if/when better methods gain a
reputation for being good. Some countries use very complex methods, but
it works because the people generally trusts them. E.g. Meek in New
Zealand, or the greedy top-up seat algorithm used here in Norway for
national proportionality (or Pukelsheim's in Switzerland for that
matter, which, IMHO, is better than the greedy method).
I don't think anyone cares about the fine details like Meek vs. Gregory.
Very few people in countries using party-list PR could explain how
apportionment works. What matters is whether voters get the gist of it. You
don't need to know how surplus votes are reallocated if an eliminated
candidate has their ballots transferred to an already-elected candidate.
All you need to know is "IRV is when you kick out the candidate with the
least votes, then repeat the election. STV is that but proportional."
On Thu, May 16, 2024 at 4:27 AM Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet@t-online.de
wrote:
On 2024-05-16 02:33, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
On 05/15/2024 2:30 PM EDT Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet@t-online.de
wrote:
On 2024-05-15 17:04, Filip Ejlak wrote:
śr., 15 maj 2024, 10:47 użytkownik Michael Ossipoff
<email9648742@gmail.com mailto:email9648742@gmail.com> napisał:
Yes, then, as you suggest, “manipulability” doesn’t tell us
anything
of interest. I agree.
Then how much do those manipulability numbers mean, in regards to
the strategic merit of the methods. Nothing?
I can't agree at all. IMO the primary goal of a good voting method is
to
make voters not regret voting honestly.
Yes. But it also has to be perceived by Joe Sixpack as fair and "right".
The method needs to be principled and these principles few in number and
concise in expression.
If it weren't for this part, my fpA-max fpC method would've been quite
good. Its strategy resistance is around that of Condorcet,TTR, but it's
monotone. But alas, its scoring function is pretty hard to understand
because it was found by a computer search.
It might be easier to deal with complexity if/when better methods gain a
reputation for being good. Some countries use very complex methods, but
it works because the people generally trusts them. E.g. Meek in New
Zealand, or the greedy top-up seat algorithm used here in Norway for
national proportionality (or Pukelsheim's in Switzerland for that
matter, which, IMHO, is better than the greedy method).
While it's useful to be able to
use a defensive strategy after analysing expected poll outcomes,
frontrunners etc., the best voting method would be the one that does
not
create the need to take these things into the account at all.
Chances of being able to vote honestly, with no strategic burden to
bear. That's what the manipulability numbers are about.
Thank you for saying that much more succinctly than I did.
That says something. (I have credited Kristofer before for succinct
analytical judgements and statements.)
Although I would say that winner quality given honesty also matters :-)
At least to avoid the kind of outcomes that lead people to repeal the
method.
I dunno how to measure, in a non-partisan manner, "winner quality".
In a real election, we can't. But the spatial model I use for the
manipulability test gives each voter a quality measure of each
candidate. So we can just use those utilities directly.
See
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Social_utility_efficiency&oldid=1222909293
for more information.
James Green-Armytage has also done some investigations into the
trade-off between strategy resistance and utilitarian efficiency.
https://www.jamesgreenarmytage.com/strategy-utility.pdf Figure 1, e.g.
Though for the models derived from real sources, we should keep in mind
that if the voting method gets better at protecting candidates, the
candidate landscape may change.
-km
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info
On 05/15/2024 10:54 PM EDT Michael Ossipoff email9648742@gmail.com wrote:
I dunno how to measure, in a non-partisan manner, "winner quality".
You’ll find out when CW,Plurality gets repealed after a feeding-frenzy 🦈 of burial.
How often would that be?
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
.
.
.
On Sat, May 18, 2024 at 01:06 robert bristow-johnson <
rbj@audioimagination.com>
You’ll find out when CW,Plurality gets repealed after a feeding-frenzy 🦈
of burial.
How often would that be?
When people find out how easy & successful it is, might it not happen in at
least half of the elections?
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
.
.
.
Bold of you to assume it’ll ever see the light of day in the real world.
On Sat, May 18, 2024 at 7:42 PM Michael Ossipoff email9648742@gmail.com
wrote:
On Sat, May 18, 2024 at 01:06 robert bristow-johnson <
rbj@audioimagination.com>
You’ll find out when CW,Plurality gets repealed after a feeding-frenzy
🦈 of burial.
How often would that be?
When people find out how easy & successful it is, might it not happen in
at least half of the elections?
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
.
.
.
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info
Michael(s), could you knock it off? I'd like to go back to talking about my
nerd numbers.
On Sat, May 18, 2024 at 11:05 AM Michael Garman <
michael.garman@rankthevote.us> wrote:
Bold of you to assume it’ll ever see the light of day in the real world.
On Sat, May 18, 2024 at 7:42 PM Michael Ossipoff email9648742@gmail.com
wrote:
On Sat, May 18, 2024 at 01:06 robert bristow-johnson <
rbj@audioimagination.com>
You’ll find out when CW,Plurality gets repealed after a feeding-frenzy
🦈 of burial.
How often would that be?
When people find out how easy & successful it is, might it not happen in
at least half of the elections?
--
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