Re: [EM] Steve's reply: IRV et al v. EPR
On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 12:35 PM, steve bosworth stevebosworth@hotmail.com
wrote:
From: abjennings@gmail.com abjennings@gmail.com on behalf of Andy
Jennings elections@jenningsstory.com
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2018 5:26 PM
To: steve bosworth
Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] IRV et al v. EPR
Steve,
Andy,
Thank you for responding so quickly. I will respond immediately in line
after each of your questions and points.
A: I like the idea of a PR system based on majority judgment, but have
some concerns with this method. Are you proposing that the different
elected legislators have different voting weights in the legislature?
S: Yes.
I looked at the article again and I do see it mentioned that the members
will have votes of different weights on the council. I'm not sure how I
missed it the first time. You may want to consider re-emphasizing it at
the end.
A: If so, I've heard that idea before, and I think it's clever but
probably unworkable in practice. I doubt that it would integrate well with
the parliamentary authorities (e.g. Robert's Rules of Order) that
legislatures actually use to get things done.
S: Given that, unlike all the other methods, EPR thoroughly guarantees
the principle of one-person-one-vote, I would be very surprised if anyone
could sustain the claim that it violates Robert’s Rules of Order. Please
explain the specific concerns you have in this regard. Also, even if
this principle were incompatible with these rules, I would say: so much the
worse for these rules. This would require these rules to be suitably
modified. What do you think?
Have you been in a meeting run by Robert's Rules?
There are lots of votes, and each one usually takes less than 10 seconds.
("All in favor say aye. Those opposed say no.") If the majority is
obvious, the chair will say "The ayes have it," or "The noes have it," and
we're done. It relies on everyone's voice being about the same volume and
everyone having an equal vote. I think a voice vote is not really
legitimate in a weighted legislature unless it's unanimous.
If the majority is not obvious to the chair, or is challenged by anyone in
the body, they do a rising vote. ("All those in favor please rise."
Count. "Be seated. Those opposed please rise." Count.) It takes a
minute or less.
How should a weighted legislature do a quick vote?
A) Do a voice vote, and if it's not unanimous then do a rising vote with
everyone holding up a sign with their vote weight, and have someone add up
all the weights instead of just counting the number standing?
B) Do every vote by computer?
Honestly, lots of votes are unanimous, so if a group gets good at it, it
might not add that much time. But with any vote that's close, it's going
to take five minutes instead of one. In any case, that's just the one
thing that's on the top of my head. I've never studied Robert's Rules,
only attended meetings. I'm imagining there are other things in the book
that need to be changed to work with a weighted legislature. Maybe I am
wrong.
I'm all in favor of finding an expert on Robert's Rules, or someone
becoming an expert, to figure out such changes. (Also other changes, like
using other voting systems for making council decisions.) We could also
talk about writing a whole new parliamentary procedure to implement new
things, but then you'd want someone who was even more of an expert in
parliamentary authorities and parliamentary meetings to make sure you're
meeting the needs of a working parliament.
A: If not, then I think it's a mistake to eliminate all the voters who
gave the winning grade to the elected candidate. In your example, I
dislike eliminating 17 voters in round 1, for example.
S: Perhaps you have misunderstood the count at this point. These 17
voters have not been eliminated. Each of their evaluations of EXCELLENT
have been add to elected candidate A, and given her an affirmed evaluation
of 17. At the same time, what has been eliminated from the rest of the
count at this point is all the other evaluations that these 17 voters have
given to any of the other candidates. This is because the one vote of
each of these 17 citizens has now been fully counted. To allow their other
evaluations to help elect other winners would be to give each of them more
than one vote in the council.
A: I think only one quota of voters should be eliminated. You could
eliminate 10 of the 17 by random selection and leave the other 7. Or you
could down-weight them all by a factor of 7/17 and deal with fractional
ballots remaining.
S: Correct my understanding if it is mistaken but I think you are you
are only suggesting the elimination of 10 from being counted for other
candidates but keeping them for A’s election? In any case, the idea of
randomly or fractionally eliminating or transferring votes violates EPR’s
determination to make each citizen’s vote to add entirely to the voting
power only of the winner she sees as most fit for the office.
A: If it were me, I would fully eliminate any voters who gave a grade
strictly above the critical grade….
S: Again, when you say, ‘eliminate any voters’, you mean keeping only 10
to elect A and using the remaining 7 to help other candidates to be elected.
Also, what you mean by ‘the critical grade’ is the quota of 10 in this
context.
1.
…. and down-weight the ones who gave exactly the critical grade by
some fraction so that the total amount of voting power "used up" was equal
to one quota. Then, yes, deal with fractional voters.
S: Again, arbitrary quotas and fractions must not be used if you want no
vote to be wasted, quantitatively or qualitatively.
What do you think?
I look forward to your clarifications.
Steve
~ Andrew
From: abjennings@gmail.com abjennings@gmail.com on behalf of Andy
Jennings elections@jenningsstory.com
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2018 5:26 PM
To: steve bosworth
Cc: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] IRV et al v. EPR
Steve,
I like the idea of a PR system based on majority judgment, but have some
concerns with this method. Are you proposing that the different elected
legislators have different voting weights in the legislature? If so, I've
heard that idea before, and I think it's clever but probably unworkable in
practice. I doubt that it would integrate well with the parliamentary
authorities (e.g. Robert's Rules of Order) that legislatures actually use
to get things done.
If not, then I think it's a mistake to eliminate all the voters who gave
the winning grade to the elected candidate. In your example, I dislike
eliminating 17 voters in round 1, for example. I think only one quota of
voters should be eliminated. You could eliminate 10 of the 17 by random
selection and leave the other 7. Or you could down-weight them all by a
factor of 7/17 and deal with fractional ballots remaining.
If it were me, I would fully eliminate any voters who gave a grade
strictly above the critical grade and down-weight the ones who gave exactly
the critical grade by some fraction so that the total amount of voting
power "used up" was equal to one quota. Then, yes, deal with fractional
voters.
~ Andrew
On Sun, Jul 15, 2018 at 2:55 PM, steve bosworth <stevebosworth@hotmail.com
wrote:
The recent responses to Sennet’s attempt favorably to report some recent
successes of RCV (i.e. IRV) prompt me to hope that readers will be willing
to test the counter claims of a newly developed voting and counting method
for electing multi-winners. This method is fully described in the
following published article:
http://www.jpolrisk.com/legislatures-elected-by-evaluative-
proportional-representation-epr-a-new-algorithm/
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Legislatures Elected by Evaluative Proportional ...
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www.jpolrisk.com
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This article explains how a new voting method called Evaluative
Proportional Representation (EPR) fully satisfies the demand that in the
best representative democracy, no citizen’s vote would be involuntarily
wasted, quantitatively or qualitatively. 2 EPR is intended for voters who
are electing members of a legislative body, for example a ...
This method is called Evaluative Proportional Representation (EPR). EPR
builds upon the arguments for Majority Judgment (MJ)offered by Balinski and
Laraki (2010, MIT). For example, when electing all the members of a city
council, each EPR citizen is asked to evaluate (not rank) as many of the
candidates in the city as she might wish, i.e. to grade each with regard to
their fitness for the office: either EXCELLENT, VERY GOOD, GOOD,
ACCEPTABLE, POOR, or REJECT. The article explains the relatively simple
step by step method by which all these evaluations are counted by hand (or
by the algorithm provided). As a result, each citizen’s one vote
continues fully to count in the deliberations and decisions of the council.
It does this through the weighted vote earned by one of the elected
members, i.e. the one winner whom she has helped to elect and judges to be
the one most qualified for the office.
Unlike any known variety of plurality, ranking (Condorcet or IRV (RCV,
STV, etc.), range, or approving voting methods, only EPR allows each
citizen to guarantee that her one vote will continue to count in the
council (or legislature). Also, I'd like to offer Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
some hope: perhaps the extra appeal of this unique feature of EPR would
prompt enough citizens in a state like California to adopt EPR by one of
its referenda.
Again, only EPR allows no vote to be wasted as defined by the second
paragraph of the article.
What do you think?
I look forward to your feedback.
Today's Topics:
1. Re: IRV / RCv advances (Abd ul-Rahman Lomax)
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2018 14:08:24 -0400
From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax abd@lomaxdesign.com
To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
Subject: Re: [EM] IRV / RCv advances
Message-ID: 69bc286e-c970-9f6c-e60a-21e7f900f81c@lomaxdesign.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
On 7/14/2018 10:08 AM, Richard Lung wrote:
[...] Agree completely about score voting. I can't help but feel
approval voting is essentially a rebranding of cumulative voting. In
about 1867, John Stuart Mill knew it was only a trifling improvement
on plurality counting but at least opened peoples minds to alternatives.
I'd question that simply counting all the votes would be a "trifling
improvement." It would have flipped the US presidential election in
2000, almost certainly, and is a no-cost improvement, simple to
implement and easy to understand. In a two-round system, it can provide
substantial flexibility, perhaps even allowing runoffs to have a third
candidate. Counting all the votes would be, again, an improvement over
IRV, allowing voters to equal-rank. But the IRV method, by discarding
votes, is intrinsically flawed, and Bucklin actually worked when used.
The arguments that it didn't work were based on the fact that it wasn't
magic pixie dust. The only system that fixes about everything is Asset,
which hardly gets any consideration at all. My suggestion has been for
EM reformers to suggest Asset for NGOS, since it's really simple, as
well, and creates a deliberative structure, which is far more flexible
-- and functionally democratic -- than pure amalgamation. To be
fail-safe, it could be used in a nomination process, to be actually
ratified for a final result.
Approval -- and most methods -- are plurality methods unless a true
majority of the votes is required for a result. In Australia, in some
places they accomplish that by making it illegal to not completely rank.
In other words, to make a result more "democratic," coerce the voters.
Ah, the things people do to preserve the way things are!
Re 3.
Weighted Condorcet pairing arguably offers a back-door that partly
gets round the Laplace criticism of Condorcet pairing, that it does
not establish the relative importance of higher and lower preferences,
in the over-all election count.
I see Condorcet pairing primarily as a research tool for
cross-referencing the results of an at-large election with the results
from sub-elections of one-to-one contests or less minimal partitions.
Ideally, we would have an election system that does not have to watch
its back for a Condorcet paradox.
A condorcet paradox is an indication of an incomplete process. Depending
on preference strength, which some Condorcet methods attempt to
estimate, it might be meaningless. But to truly analyse election returns
requires preference strength information. Borda, again, estimates it
with an assumption of full ranking, such that with many candidates, the
"rank distance" would approximate a measure of preference strength.
But the only ballot that actually allows the voters to directly express
preference strength is a score ballot. And then some advocates of other
systems point out Condoret failure, as if that matters when preference
strength is obviously low. It doesn't. And then it is pointed out that
voters may vote "strategically," as if that is dishonest or bad. In a
Score system, there is never any incentive to reverse preference. Voters
decide what preferences matter to them, and will vote accordingly, and a
good overall system will detect situations where is ambiguity, perhaps
due to inaccurate perception of probable results, and will then set up a
runoff.
Instead of working together to create a system that will actually
improve and foster full democracy, we don't, it seems, trust the people
and want them to conform to our own ideas. In other words, same old same
old. The problem with democracy is the damn people!
But democracy is still government by consent, and whenever that fails,
oppression is inevitable. It's only a question of how bad it gets. The
logic that captured me, so many decades ago, is that we need
representation by consent and choice, not by "winners" and "losers." And
that appears to be doable. But who cares enough to try it?
Some. Not yet enough, but it's possible any day. It might only take one
person to make a proposal and carry it through, in one place.
Even an admittedly crude election like IRV (Alternative Vote),
according to this group, has only come-up with the Burlington case.
That may have been politically unfortunate. But, if about 150?
elections have not suffered the paradox, that incidence is not
statistically significant.
It is possible to show that about one-third of IRV results were not
optimal. This is done by comparing IRV results with top-two runoff
results. If a full-information ballot were used with IRV (it could be
done! Easily!) we would then know. However, actually collecting the data
to determine, definitively, if a voting system is actually working is
not a part of any reform proposal I have seen. The collecting of
information is confused with and considered less important than creating
a result, and I can easily see the counter-argument: what if this causes
the result of an election to be called into question? Won't this damage
our trust in government? I think I have actually seen that argument.
If our trust in government is based in ignorance, it's worse than a bit
of trouble. A simple, coarse-score ballot, with explicit approval
cutoff, would be cheap and easy, and how the actual result is determined
could be explicity declared on the ballot. Providing the additonal
information would be optional. One could vote the ballot, if one
chooses, as vote-for-one. It would all generate useful information, and
could guide future election method decisions.
The real comparison is how many "Bush beats Gore minus Nader" contests
are there?
In a two-party system. Duverger's law and party attempts to corner the
electorate create many of them. Look at any close election and at the
participation of minor parties in it. There may be hundreds of these a
year. As well, the existing system tends to suppress minor party
participation. New York has Fusion voting, a step in a direction of
improved democracy. It was proposed for Massachusetts and lost. Who
opposed it?
The "Democratic" party, of course! It lost. So why did people vote
against it? Well, perhaps they trusted their party. After all, isn't our
party the Good Guys? If it's bad for them, surely we don't want it! It
all makes sense until and unless one starts to look more closely, which
most people don't do. And realizing that, Dodgson proposed Asset, which
actually creates, very simply, representative government, with the good
stuff associated with that, while allowing low-level decisions, by
ordinary people who don't want their lives to be about politics, to be
useful and effective.
And how many simple plurality elections make voters act as their own
returning officers in an implicit ranked choice election, where the
voter excludes his first preference for Nader, and counts it for
second preference Gore?
My sense is that many would vote for a third party candidate if they did
not know it would be a wasted vote. It could be trivial to fix that
problem. But we obviously care about something else more. about what?
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On 7/20/2018 8:18 PM, Andy Jennings wrote:
On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 12:35 PM, steve bosworth
<stevebosworth@hotmail.com mailto:stevebosworth@hotmail.com> wrote:
*From:*abjennings@gmail.com <mailto:abjennings@gmail.com>
<abjennings@gmail.com <mailto:abjennings@gmail.com>> on behalf of
Andy Jennings <elections@jenningsstory.com
<mailto:elections@jenningsstory.com>>
*Sent:* Monday, July 16, 2018 5:26 PM
*To:* steve bosworth
*Cc:* election-methods@lists.electorama.com
<mailto:election-methods@lists.electorama.com>
*Subject:* Re: [EM] IRV et al v. EPR
Steve,
Andy,
Thank you for responding so quickly.I will respond immediately in
line after each of your questions and points.
A:I like the idea of a PR system based on majority judgment, but
have some concerns with this method. Are you proposing that the
different elected legislators have different voting weights in the
legislature?
S:Yes.
I looked at the article again and I do see it mentioned that the
members will have votes of different weights on the council. I'm not
sure how I missed it the first time. You may want to consider
re-emphasizing it at the end
If taken simply and literally, it's a Really Bad Idea. The concept of a
peer assembly, where all members are equal in voting power and other
rights (such as the right to enter motions, object, etc.) is
fundamental, except in narrow situations. For example, in share
corporations, all shares have equal voting rights, except as otherwise
specified, i.e., some kinds of shares may not have voting rights.
("Preferred shares" may not, oddly enough, but those shares enjoy the
right of preferential distribution on dissolution. The controlling
shares lose in a bankruptcy, less so the preferred shares. It's fair.)
It's basically unnecessary, there is a better way to equalize primary
election votes and decision-making voting power. However, as I have
mentioned, an Assembly has the right to make its own rules and may
create rules allowing, say, tie-breaking votes, or other conditions
where what I've called the"dregs," unassigned votes, may be exercised by
electors or someone chosen by them. "Observer electgors" may be allowed,
and in an enumerated vote, observers may have a fractional vote. This
would only be formally counted on a formal call for enumeration by any
full seat.
Attempts to bind the Assembly by creating rules that the Assembly may
not disregard are actually forms of dictatorship. An Assembly must be
free. Trusting rules in the place of people is, again, a Bad Idea,
primitive thinking. Yes, rule of law was an advance over the arbitrary
exercise of state power, but rule of law is also what I call
the"dictatorship of the past." Consensus organizations run afoul of it
when it is considered to take a consensus to overrule a consensus. It
creates, in actual practice, minority rule, where the status quo favors
a minority. Constitutional systems have this problem, where the
constitution overspecifies procedure.
I've gone around and around on this, and always came to the principle
that the majority always has a right of decision. Sometimes this must be
exercised very carefully, because the goal in democracy should be and
ultimately must be consensus, not mere majority, or the community is
weakened and divided.
.
A: If so, I've heard that idea before, and I think it's clever but
probably unworkable in practice. I doubt that it would integrate
well with the parliamentary authorities (e.g. Robert's Rules of
Order) that legislatures actually use to get things done.
It could be done, particularly as a tweak. However, the exact
implementation is better left to the Assembly, which has the right to
rule on membership issues. Routinely, a chair may effectively pass a
question or issue a ruling by stating "If there is no objection, X." Any
member may object. If there is no objection, nevertheless, any member
may, at least in the same session, move reconsideration, being
considered part of the majority (unanimity, actually) that approved the
measure.
In a reasonably aggregated Asset Assembly, it would be rare, my opinion,
that much more than a single seat's quota of votes will be dregs. The
election rules may make it easier to compromise for the dregs. If dregs,
electors holding unassigned votes, can function in a limited way, and if
they have the right to withdraw assigned votes, they can safely assign
their remaining votes to some compromise.
The basic Asset idea creates an electoral college whose members are
public, identified voters. It is the electoral college that fully
represents the complete electorate, all that voted, so the Assembly is,
then, properly, a trusted servant of the College. It is in the College
that, literally, no vote is wasted. And if a voter wants to go to the
trouble of participating, the voter may register as an elector and
participate, subject to the rules as may be necessary to maintain order.
S:Given that, unlike all the other methods, EPR thoroughly
guarantees the principle of one-person-one-vote, I would be very
surprised if anyone could sustain the claim that it violates
Robert’s Rules of Order.Please explain the specific concerns you
have in this regard.Also, even if this principle were incompatible
with these rules, I would say: so much the worse for these
rules.This would require these rules to be suitably modified.What
do you think?
Have you been in a meeting run by Robert's Rules?
I have served, both as a chair, and as a parliamentarian, though I was
never formally trained. In my view, the duty of the chair is to empower
the members. While I would rule a member out of order, I would also
advise the member how to do what they wanted to do, within the rules.
That had nothing to do with whether or not I agreed with the member on
this or that issue. It was about empowering the community, in using
deliberative process to maximize consensus, which creates stronger
organizations.
There are lots of votes, and each one usually takes less than 10
seconds. ("All in favor say aye. Those opposed say no.") If the
majority is obvious, the chair will say "The ayes have it," or "The
noes have it," and we're done. It relies on everyone's voice being
about the same volume and everyone having an equal vote. I think a
voice vote is not really legitimate in a weighted legislature unless
it's unanimous
So "without objection" would still work. If the exceptions to equal
voting are rare and limited, it could still work, and weighting would
only be done with a roll call vote. Under most rules, I think, that
takes a majority vote, or some rules allow some specified percentage of
the assembly to require a roll call. In a roll call vote, it would be
easy for the clerk to weight votes, even all of them (i.e., if electors
are allowed to vote directly, say by internet voting, then "normally
assigned votes" to seats would be deweighted by that fractional vote,
representing the removed elector.
I strongly advise anyone supporting Asset to keep implementation simple,
leaving tweaks that complete the principle of "no wasted votes" to the
maximum possible, for Assembly rules, later. Right now, we don't have,
in any assembly, anything approaching full representation. Moving to,
say, 95% full would be a revolution.
If the majority is not obvious to the chair, or is challenged by
anyone in the body, they do a rising vote. ("All those in favor please
rise." Count. "Be seated. Those opposed please rise." Count.) It
takes a minute or less.
Right. Roll call takes slightly longer.
How should a weighted legislature do a quick vote?
A) Do a voice vote, and if it's not unanimous then do a rising vote
with everyone holding up a sign with their vote weight, and have
someone add up all the weights instead of just counting the number
standing?
B) Do every vote by computer?
No, not every vote, only votes where a roll call is requested, per the
rules. But, yes, using computers. Smart phone app, with terminals
available. Not every kind of issue. Questions of privilege, if a vote is
required, would be decided by the number of persons present and voting.
Honestly, lots of votes are unanimous, so if a group gets good at it,
it might not add that much time. But with any vote that's close, it's
going to take five minutes instead of one. In any case, that's just
the one thing that's on the top of my head. I've never studied
Robert's Rules, only attended meetings. I'm imagining there are other
things in the book that need to be changed to work with a weighted
legislature. Maybe I am wrong.
Whenever the assembly is so divided that it's close, rush to decision is
a Bad Idea. With an Electoral College, full weighted voting becomes
possible. That's all. If it is merely an Assembly rule, all kinds of
things can be tried with little harm, because the majority can change
the Rules at any time. Asset would create the data and the body of
registered public voters ("electors") to make direct-representative
democracy possible.
Existing election systems and strong-party democracy have created
conditions where we don't trust our representatives. So we want to bind
them with rules, not realizing that they then become experts at evading
restrictive rules. Lack of trust in "politicians" is a core problem, and
it is not solved by "throw the bums out," which simply creates more
politicians appealing to knee-jerk responses. Asset throws the issue of
representation back on the public, totally, and makes the primary issue
one of "whom do you most trust." Period. No other strategy needed, and,
yes, you can vote for your next-door neighbor, or that movie star, or a
professor, or anyone you choose -- including yourself, if you want to
spend the time on governmental issues.
(An election code should be free on request, a number that can be
entered on a ballot to designate an elector. Listing the code in a
directory should require a small fee to cover costs. $5? Whatever the
cost is for a single phone-directory type listing in a cheap, newsprint
booklet. An on-line directory of all registered electors should be free,
and accessible from any smartphone. Computer voting stations would have
access to that directory so that voters can verify their entry is the
right person. Canvassed votes would have a listing available showing all
votes by precinct. Some secret ballot election systems allow
identification of the voter for legal purposes. It's done with paper
ballots by having the voter sequence number on the back of the ballot;
when votes are counted, physically, the back is not visible, but if a
need arises to audit the election, the voter can be identified. Details.)
I'm all in favor of finding an expert on Robert's Rules, or someone
becoming an expert, to figure out such changes. (Also other changes,
like using other voting systems for making council decisions.) We
could also talk about writing a whole new parliamentary procedure to
implement new things, but then you'd want someone who was even more of
an expert in parliamentary authorities and parliamentary meetings to
make sure you're meeting the needs of a working parliament.
No, we should concentrate on voting methods, our purpose, and leave
Assembly procedure to the Assembly. Have you ever seen a full public
vote on the Rules of a deliberative assembly?
Deliberative assemblies use simple majority rule at present. Weighted
voting is a tweak on that which moves toward "majority" as referring to
majority of the voting public rather than majority of Assembly members.
But I prefer, greatly, to create a "trusted assembly" and empowering
them, fully. In legal matters, I may designate a proxy and I have never
burdened that proxy with many specified "rules." Choose someone you
trust, then trust them. Otherwise, life becomes very complicated and
simply doesn't work. Choose well and then trust your choice unless you
have strong reasons, or simply no longer trust the person, then choose
someone else. If I can't find anyone to trust, I'm probably the problem.