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Today's Topics:

1. Re: Why no Condorcet proposals? (Michael Ossipoff)
2. Re: Why no Condorcet proposals? (Andrew Myers)
3. Autodeterrence introduction & definitions (Michael Ossipoff)

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2024 09:03:29 -0800
From: Michael Ossipoff email9648742@gmail.com
To: "Bob Richard [lists]" lists001@robertjrichard.com
Cc: election-methods@electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] Why no Condorcet proposals?
Message-ID:
<
CAOKDY5Ama0gazacviJ+-8-3gsPfrr8yy3ijgB9ugeAbQPS9kXg@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Nanson has precedent, but it doesn?t have the simplicity of some of the
other Condorcet-compliant methods.

?& how does Nanson do by freedom from need for defensive-strategy (against
offensive-strategy)?

Achieving the best strategy-free-ness is the goal of Condorcet.

On Wed, Jan 10, 2024 at 12:08 Bob Richard [lists] <
lists001@robertjrichard.com> wrote:

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All Condorcet methods have strong strategy resistance in practice for
public elections because public elections will almost always have a
Condorcet Winner, and it will be difficult to predict when they won't. By
far the most reliable strategy in practice for a public election with any
Condorcet method is honesty.

On Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 10:45 AM <
election-methods-request@lists.electorama.com> wrote:

I think "in practice" here should say "in theory." "In practice" is an
empirical claim, but due to the dearth of Condorcet elections at the
governmental level, there's virtually no data or experience at this point
to support an empirical claim, especially for the kind of public,
competitive, political elections that we're most interested in. Further,
a looming question is not so much whether voters in a Condorcet election
can know whether a reliable strategy exists, but whether they will attempt
a strategy (like burying) regardless of its reliability -- simply
because it might work. If too many voters do, that could in theory lead
to the election of the sincere Condorcet loser. I'm sympathetic to
theoretical arguments about why this result is unlikely, but as of now I
don't think anyone has much evidence for what will happen in practice.

On Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 6:30 PM Sass sass@equal.vote wrote:

practice.

I think we do. We have the full ballot data on 448 RCV elections in the US
from this century. Only one did not have a Condorcet Winner. Even if you
reduce the set to elections with three competitive candidates (defined as
elections where the candidate with the third most first choices has at
least half as many as the candidate with the most), it's still only 1 in
88, which could easily become 1 in 880 over time. If elections with no
Condorcet Winner are that unlikely, then by far the strongest incentive for
voters is to vote honestly as a rule. And we know from RCV that voters are
inclined to vote honestly under new systems until the system backfires on
them.

On Fri, Jan 12, 2024 at 10:24 AM Greg Dennis <
greg.dennis@voterchoicema.org> wrote:

I think "in practice" here should say "in theory." "In practice" is an
empirical claim, but due to the dearth of Condorcet elections at the
governmental level, there's virtually no data or experience at this point
to support an empirical claim, especially for the kind of public,
competitive, political elections that we're most interested in. Further,
a looming question is not so much whether voters in a Condorcet election
can know whether a reliable strategy exists, but whether they will attempt
a strategy (like burying) regardless of its reliability -- simply
because it might work. If too many voters do, that could in theory lead
to the election of the sincere Condorcet loser. I'm sympathetic to
theoretical arguments about why this result is unlikely, but as of now I
don't think anyone has much evidence for what will happen in practice.

On Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 6:30 PM Sass sass@equal.vote wrote:

in practice.

I think we do. We have the full ballot data on 448 RCV elections in the
US from this century. Only one did not have a Condorcet Winner. Even if
you reduce the set to elections with three competitive candidates
(defined as elections where the candidate with the third most first
choices has at least half as many as the candidate with the most), it's
still only 1 in 88, which could easily become 1 in 880 over time. If
elections with no Condorcet Winner are that unlikely, then by far the
strongest incentive for voters is to vote honestly as a rule. And we
know from RCV that voters are inclined to vote honestly under new
systems until the system backfires on them.

On 2024-01-12 19:45, Sass wrote:

I think the problem is one of predicting how voters may alter their
behavior when the circumstances change. Consider these possible
descriptions:

• Voters always vote in a way that there's a majority candidate. If so,
  FPTP is sufficient.

• Voters always vote in a way that there's a number of no-hope fringe
  candidates as well as a mutual majority set containing clones of what
  would otherwise be a majority candidate. If so, IRV is sufficient.

• Voters always vote in a way that there's a Condorcet winner, possibly
  with spurious cycles from noise. If so, any Condorcet method will
  suffice, and Condorcet cycles can be handled like ordinary ties, by a
  coin toss or whatnot.

• Voters' honest distributions will always have a Condorcet winner but
  they may strategize, or be told to strategize by the candidates. If so,
  strategy resistance is more important.

• Voters will vote for multiple viable candidates if the method doesn't
  have too strong incentives to exit, and politics may evolve to be
  multidimensional, in which case honest cycles would appear. Then just
  how the Condorcet method deals with cycles would be important, as would
  robust clone independence (i.e. clone independence that generalizes to
  JGA's incentives to exit and entry).

• Voters have an absolute utility scale and would use it if they can,
  making distinctions beyond ranking. If so, we may need rated methods.
  (Or if a relative scale, something that normalizes rated ballots and treats

etc.

It's difficult to say ahead of time which of these are right. An
argument to the extent that "we have n elections and none of these have
shown behavior beyond the kth of these descriptions" has a flaw in that
they are all under the context of the current method.

But we at least know that the first two descriptions are false. It is
possible to say "ah, those two instances of center squeeze are just
flukes" and keep going for IRV, but that seems rather iffy.

I suppose my position has been a combination of trying to get things
right the first time (hence advanced/cloneproof Condorcet methods) and
going by my own intuition (which finds the ambiguity of honest votes in
a non-normalized rated system a real problem that burdens even honest
voters with tactical decisions).

But I can't prove that "minmax and be there" would fail.

-km

I think you're overcomplicating it. The question to ask is about
incentives. In public elections, voters (and candidates) will follow the
incentives. For public elections under a Condorcet method, by far the
strongest incentive is to vote honestly.

On Fri, Jan 12, 2024 at 2:06 PM Kristofer Munsterhjelm <
km_elmet@t-online.de> wrote:

Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
info

Some people want every advantage they can take, & couldn’t care less about
honesty.

People have a way of finding out how to abuse a system, especially one in
which everything is at stake.

Honesty in politics, right?  Where is that to be found? Republicans?
Democrats? The media?

But it will suddenly appear in the elections?

We don’t have the worst conceivable voting system because of honesty. Was
Clinton being honest when he said that he fired Lani Guinier because
proportional-representation is antidemocratic?

Or maybe the North Dakota legislators were being honest when they said
that they banned rank-balloting & Approval to protect the people’s rights.

Systems are routinely gamed for advantage. Plurality is being consistently
gamed with the constant media-propaganda telling you that the Democrat &
Republican are your 2 choices.

…&, disregarding the fact that opponents will use whatever they can find—
a main criticism of Condorcet is it’s vulnerability to offensive strategy.
That argument would be effectively used against a vulnerable Condorcet
proposal or implementation.

I commend your trustingness about election-matters.

There are already, & there have been for about 35 years, Condorcet
versions that thwart & penalize offensive strategy. There are now beginning
to be versions that automatically probabilistically deter it.

Some of those methods are more briefly stated than Copeland’ s 2-stage
Condorcet-completion rule.

e.g. MinMax(wv) is a familiar, established proposal with the
abovementioned strategy properties. It’s definition?:

Elect the candidate whose greatest vote against hir in a defeat is the
least.

CW,Implicit-Approval’s completion rule is:

Elect the candidate ranked on the most ballots.

Vermont’s Condorcet completion rule is:

Elect the candidate topping the most rankings.

Usually top-cycles will have 3 candidates.  …all of whom beat everyone
outside their Smith-set. So normally the Smith set will all beat the same
number of candidates.

So Copeland is widely-criticized for its indecisiveness.

To publicly-propose Copeland is to ask for criticism & lead with your chin.

…& even if there might somehow not be indecisiveness, the winner of the
completion rule would be a random outcome with little relation to merit, &
with no strategy-deterrence or thwarting.

Merit? Beating more candidates sounds meritorious? So do the other
completion rules I described.  …& they’re decisive & most have good
strategy-properties.

Voting systems usually aren’t as they initially seem. I realize that EVC
isn’t going to propose a Condorcet method soon, but I hope that, when & if
you do, it will be based on a long period of thorough examination &
discussion.

I’m not trying to make trouble. I’m trying to help. So I’ve made these
suggestions, & I hope that EVC won’t be hasty about sticking with what
initially seemed like the best Condorcet proposal.

Might there be a reason for its criticism & unpopularity. Might the
single-winner reform community be right?

On Fri, Jan 12, 2024 at 15:16 Sass sass@equal.vote wrote:

Some people want every advantage they can take, & couldn’t care less about
honesty.

People have a way of finding out how to abuse a system, especially one in
which everything is at stake.

Honesty in politics, right?  Where is that to be found? Republicans?
Democrats? The media?

But it will suddenly appear in the elections?

We don’t have the worst conceivable voting system because of honesty. Was
Clinton being honest when he said that he fired Lani Guinier because
proportional-representation is antidemocratic?

Or maybe the North Dakota legislators were being honest when they said
that they banned rank-balloting & Approval to protect the people’s rights.

Systems are routinely gamed for advantage. Plurality is being consistently
gamed with the constant media-propaganda telling you that the Democrat &
Republican are your 2 choices.

…&, disregarding the fact that opponents will use whatever they can find—
a main criticism of Condorcet is it’s vulnerability to offensive strategy.
That argument would be effectively used against a vulnerable Condorcet
proposal or implementation.

I commend your trustingness about election-matters.

There are already, & there have been for about 35 years, Condorcet
versions that thwart & penalize offensive strategy. There are now beginning
to be versions that automatically probabilistically deter it.

Some of those methods are more briefly stated than Copeland’ s 2-stage
Condorcet-completion rule.

e.g. MinMax(wv) is a familiar, established proposal with the
abovementioned strategy properties. It’s definition?:

Elect the candidate whose greatest vote against hir in a defeat is the
least.

CW,Implicit-Approval’s completion rule is:

Elect the candidate ranked on the most ballots.

Vermont’s Condorcet completion rule is:

Elect the candidate topping the most rankings.

Usually top-cycles will have 3 candidates.  …all of whom beat everyone
outside their Smith-set. So normally the Smith set will all beat the same
number of candidates.

So Copeland is widely-criticized for its indecisiveness.

To publicly-propose Copeland is to ask for criticism & lead with your chin.

…& even if there might somehow not be indecisiveness, the winner of the
completion rule would be a random outcome with little relation to merit, &
with no strategy-deterrence or thwarting.

Merit? Beating more candidates sounds meritorious? So do the other
completion rules I described.  …& they’re decisive & most have good
strategy-properties.

Voting systems usually aren’t as they initially seem. I realize that EVC
isn’t going to propose a Condorcet method soon, but I hope that, when & if
you do, it will be based on a long period of thorough examination &
discussion.

I’m not trying to make trouble. I’m trying to help. So I’ve made these
suggestions, & I hope that EVC won’t be hasty about sticking with what
initially seemed like the best Condorcet proposal.

Might there be a reason for its criticism & unpopularity. Might the
single-winner reform community be right?

On Fri, Jan 12, 2024 at 15:16 Sass sass@equal.vote wrote: