http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods hourly 1 1901-01-01T00:00+00:00 http://gmane.org/img/gmane-25t.png http://gmane.org http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23468 <pre>The Droop quota is often presumed for proportional representation over the Hare quota that is more proportional, due to how the Hare quota can result in a minority being in power. (I guess the majority get in power only a majority of the time with a Hare Quota. ) And since the amount of proportionality with a droop quota gets watered down as the number of contested seats is reduced, this has led some activists/experts, like Douglas Amy, to insist that PR use at least 5 seats. This is often coupled with an insistence on rank choice voting due to the problems with party lists. So I'd like to simulate the effects of using 3-seat LR Hare for a 13 seat city council election, like in MInneapolis, MN. We'd consider 7 cases: 1. 13 FPTP elections. 2. 13 IRV elections, as are used now. 3. Four 3-seat LR Hare elections with 1 at-large seat with IRV. 4. A 6 and a 7 seat with Droop quota election. 5. A 6 and a 7 seat with Hare quota election. 6. A 13 seat with Droop quota election. 7. A 13 seat with Hare quota elec</pre> David L Wetzell 2013-05-17T15:28:17 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23467 <pre>I wanted to express the beatpath definition of the Schwartz set in a simpler and more compelling or appealing way, and the cycle definition (that I've posted here) seemed such a simplification. But the cycle definition doesn't define the Schwartz set. A candidate that doesn't have a defeat that isn't in a cycle isn't necessarily in the Scwhartz set (as defined by the unbeaten set definition and the beatpath definition]. Of the two definitions (unbeaten set and beatpath), the beatpath definition desn't have much compellingness. For compellingness, I much prefer the unbeaten set definition. Let me state both definitions here: Unbeaten set definition of the Schwartz set:: 1. An unbeaten sets is a set of alternatives none of which are beaten by anything outside the set. 2. An innermost unbeaten set is an unbeaten set that doesn't contain a smaller unbeaten set. 3.The Schwartz set is the set of alternatives that are in innermost unbeaten sets. [end of unbeaten set definition of Schwartz set] ------------</pre> Michael Ossipoff 2013-05-14T20:18:25 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23465 <pre>http://RangeVoting.org/Criteria.html ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info </pre> Warren D Smith 2013-05-12T02:01:56 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23464 <pre>If there are economies of scale in running as a competitive candidate for an important or larger-scale, single-winner election, regardless of which election rule gets used, then we can expect the number of competitive candidates, i.e. candidates with an a prior chance of winning with a score-voting rule of greater than .01, to be relatively low. This would consequently lower the relative value of most alternatives to first-past-the-post, presuming the existence of multiple non-serious candidates, and make the short-term likelihood of successful adoption the key criterion for which alternative to first-past-the-post should be advocated by electoral analysts/reformers of good will. When I say good-will, I mean as opposed to those who might be supported by those who unduly benefit from the status-quo to muddy the waters and thereby divide electoral analysts/advocates. If one did a Bayesian Regret analysis with seven candidates but drew the candidates from two different distribution, one with a good chance o</pre> David L Wetzell 2013-05-08T19:34:46 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23461 <pre>In the scenario below. From: Jonathan Denn &lt;info&lt; at &gt;aGREATER.US&gt; In a three way race for POTUS. Let's say we have the traditional D and R. A fringe third party candidate runs and is widely hated (H) by everyone except his/her supporters. But the final results are H 34% D 33% R 33% Now the hated candidate is leader of the free world. In Approval Voting, I think it unlikely in this hyper-partisan country that many voters will vote for D &amp; R, and not H. So the results might very well be the same. Is this a legit flaw for Approval? It seems quite plausible to me. dlw: But if Ds prefer Rs way over Hs and Rs prefer Ds way over Hs then both parties could easily adopt a strategy of flipping a coin at the voting booth and voting their approval for the other party's candidate over the Hs candidate if they get heads. This would then make the %s, H: 34% D: 49.5+e% R: 49.5+f% And so there'd be a 50-50 chance that either major-non-extremist party would get elected depending on whether e&gt;&lt;f. Now, I believe that the</pre> David L Wetzell 2013-05-07T19:21:48 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23456 <pre>Plurality voting without the Electoral College In a three way race for POTUS. Let's say we have the traditional D and R. A fringe third party candidate runs and is widely hated (H) by everyone except his/her supporters. But the final results are H 34% D 33% R 33% Now the hated candidate is leader of the free world. In Approval Voting, I think it unlikely in this hyper-partisan country that many voters will vote for D &amp; R, and not H. So the results might very well be the same. Is this a legit flaw for Approval? It seems quite plausible to me. Jon Denn ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info </pre> Jonathan Denn 2013-05-06T21:08:05 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23451 <pre>http://rangevoting.org/USA2012primary.html summarizes. QUESTIONS: 1. Can anybody find range or approval style polls involving Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, Jon HUntsman, or Buddy Roemer? 2. A possible project is a graphic like the one by RCP for the plurality polls vs time, but instead for approval style polls versus time. I think there is a good chance that the approval-style polls will exhibit SMALLER crazy fluctuations which will demonstrate approval would have acted less crazy than plurality voting in this election. There is a tremendous amount of approval-style poll data for this election, at least 100 polls worth. (Let me know if interested in undertaking that project -- warren.wds AT gmail.com) ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info </pre> Warren D Smith 2013-05-01T21:37:25 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23449 <pre>*Recommendations for Voting in Organizations, Clubs, Committees, Meetings, and Families* The choice of voting systems (often referred to as "methods") depends on how similar the alternatives are, how strongly their merit-differences are felt. That determines whether you insist on automatic majority rule enforcement, as opposed to just maximizing the liked-ness of the outcome. The choice is also influenced by how amicable the organization or voting situation is. That determines how compromising the voting system should be.. Before I start, of course small groups, such as families don’t always use voting in their decision-making. Often decisions in such small groups are made by consensus, after discussion. That can be a good system, but not always. Sometimes consensus decision making just means that the most assertive get their way, and the most co-operative get taken advantage of. That’s why often voting is better than “consensus”. But, whether the decision is by consensus or voting, discu</pre> Michael Ossipoff 2013-04-30T15:42:56 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23448 <pre>*Recommendations for Voting in Organizations, Clubs, Committees, Meetings, and Families* The choice of voting systems (often referred to as "methods") depends on how similar the alternatives are, how strongly their merit-differences are felt. That determines whether you insist on automatic majority rule enforcement, as opposed to just maximizing the liked-ness of the outcome. The choice is also influenced by how amicable the organization or voting situation is. That determines how compromising the voting system should be.. Before I start, of course small groups, such as families don’t always use voting in their decision-making. Often decisions in such small groups are made by consensus, after discussion. That can be a good system, but not always. Sometimes consensus decision making just means that the most assertive get their way, and the most co-operative get taken advantage of. That’s why often voting is better than “consensus”. But, whether the decision is by consensus or voting, discu</pre> Michael Ossipoff 2013-04-30T15:07:09 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23446 <pre>Here's a puzzle of party strategy. A continuous open primary (0) ranks all possible candidates by primary votes received. The assembly size is 12, so the predicted election bar (---) is below candidate (Fi). Candidates are divided by known party preference (H, J) and independents (i1). This division yields the default nomination scenario (1). Ah, Bh, Dh and Eh are expected to accept the nomination of the left party, while Bj and Ej accept that of the right. The remainder go to the open party (i1). The open party is apolitical and nominates anyone, but is constrained to list in primary order (0). (0) | (1) | (2) P | | all | H i1 J | H i1 J --- | --- --- --- | --- --- --- 30 Ah | Ah | Ah 29 Ai | Ai | Ai 14 Bh | Bh | Bh 14 Bi | Bi | Bi 14 Bj | Bj | Bj 13 Ci | Ci | Ci 10 </pre> Michael Allan 2013-04-30T07:54:14 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23445 <pre>I'd like to make some recommendations for voting in your organization. The choice of voting systems (often referred to as "methods") depends on how similar the alternatives are, how strongly their merit-differences are felt. That determines whether you insist on automatic majority rule enforcement, as opposed to just maximizing the likedness of the outcome. The choice is also influenced by how amicable the organization is. That determines how compromising the voting system should be.. So let me suggest voting systems for various conditions: 1. Maximizing overall satisfaction is the important thing, more important than automatic majority rule. ...&amp;/or maximum count-ease is desired: Use Approval or Score. Approval: Each voter can approve one or more alternatives–as many as s/he wants to approve. To avoid vulnerability to people strategically taking advantage of previous voting, the ballots shouldn’t be displayed until they’re all voted. A voter approves an alternative by writing its name, or by </pre> Michael Ossipoff 2013-04-28T14:30:28 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23444 <pre>I said that my previous posting was my final posting. But it refers to voting systems defined in previous posts. Therefore, I'd like to post this more complete and self-contained version of voting-system recommendations for organizations: --------------------------------------. I'd like to make some recommendations for voting in your organization. The choice of voting systems (often referred to as "methods") depends on how similar the alternatives are, how strongly their merit-differences are felt. That determines whether you insist on automatic majority rule enforcement, as opposed to just maximizing the likedness of the outcome. The choice is also influenced by how amicable the organization is. That determines how compromising the voting system should be. So let me suggest voting systems for various conditions: 1. Maximizing overall satisfaction is the important thing, more important than automatic majority rule. ...&amp;/or maximum count-ease is desired: Use Approval or Score. Approval: Each voter </pre> Michael Ossipoff 2013-04-28T14:16:48 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23442 <pre>I've now completed the voting-systems project that I was doing. I've done what I set out to do. My purpose at these forums has been to thoroughly discuss: Criteria, voting-systems and voting strategy for: 1. Official public elections, under: ...a) current conditions ...b) Green scenario conditions ......1. satisfying only mutual majorities ......2. with insistence on satisfing all majorities 2. Organizations, clubs,meetings, conventions, ...committees, and families, with: ......a) Full co-operativeness and sincerity ......b) not "a)", but approval's socal optimizations .........more important than majority rule &amp; strategy. ......c) not "a)" or "b)", but organization is amicable ......d) not "a)", "b)" or "c)". Inimical organization. (incidentally, all official public elections are inimical) -------------------------------------------------------- Voting-system recommendations for the above-listed applications: 1. Official public elections under: a) current conditions (i</pre> Michael Ossipoff 2013-04-27T19:30:16 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23434 <pre>Good Morning, I'm now a contributor for the Independent Voting Network website IVN. We were getting 100,000 visitors a month before the election. My column is called "a GREATER Platform." I'd like to do a piece shortly on "Would Banning Single Mark Ballots be a GREATER Solution?" Here's my first column if you want to see my perspective. http://ivn.us/the-greater-platform/2013/04/18/is-free-speech-about-science-a-greater-solution/ Here's what I have posted on my site about BSMB http://agreater.us/billpage.php?id=400 It has an 83% tripartisan rating which is quite good. My conclusion to the IVN piece is likely going to be to immediately advocate for "Approval" voting nationwide. And after voters get used to the change to then have an independent commission study which method is best for the ranking of candidates. I'd like to do a completely separate article on primary voting. So, would anyone like to send me a quote, or be interviewed, or want to dissuade me from my conclusion? I'm a sucker for a gre</pre> Jonathan Denn 2013-04-22T14:30:33 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23433 <pre>Here's a rough design for an open budget primary based on transitive delegation: http://zelea.com/w/Stuff:Votorola/p/budgeting It runs in parallel with an open executive primary of similar design. The officers currently nominated in the executive primary maintain accounts for particular programs and services in the budget primary. Each voting participant has a single vote to cast into an account. Together the participants shift these votes to ensure that the most important accounts are sufficiently funded. When the executive is eventually elected, it comes complete with a primary budget. Will this work as hoped? Or is there an obvious flaw? </pre> Michael Allan 2013-04-22T09:43:58 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23428 <pre>Hallo, the "Alternative for Germany", a political party with about 8500 eligible members, adopted the Schulze method for all internal elections. See: https://www.alternativefuer.de/pdf/Beschlossene_Bundessatzung.pdf Markus Schulze ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info </pre> Markus Schulze 2013-04-21T08:09:40 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23420 <pre>If you're going to pit two election rules against each other by using them both and then have voters decide between the cases when they differ then you're going to have sample selection problems. For it's potentially more work, there might be a learning curve for many voters with some rules, which would muddy the evidence, and I find it hard for politicians to agree to such an experiment or not tamper the evidence by additional targeted campaigning if it did go into a face-off. Or what if there's been significant amounts of voter error in a close election(in one of the two) or even possibly selective tampering as a potential source of differing outcomes? C It sounds like a nice experiment, but it'd have a terrible marketing problem, apart from perhaps the internal elections of modestly-sized third parties committed to experimenting with different elections. I am fascinated with the scope for increased experimentation in the USA if the GOP civil war weakens the center-right-ish party so that it'd be in th</pre> David L Wetzell 2013-04-20T17:20:29 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23418 <pre>Hallo, on 19 April 2013, the Associated Student Government at Northwestern University used the Schulze method to choose its President. With 3471 cast ballots, this was the largest Schulze election ever. See: https://asg.northwestern.edu/news/2013/04/announcing-2013-asg-executive-elections-results Markus Schulze ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info </pre> Markus Schulze 2013-04-20T07:47:18 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23415 <pre>Methods that choose between top 2 Approval, top 2 Plurality, Top 2 Bucklin, etc. have problems that we are all familiar with, in particular clones mess them up. But what if our method elects the pairwise preference between the method A winner and the method B winner? If the two winners are the same, then the common winner is elected. This idea seems to avoid the problems associated with top2 methods. What would you suggest for methods A and B? I would suggest MJ type grade ballots. Then some good possibilities for Method A or B would be MJ itself, XA (chiastic approval), Approval with various possibilities for approval cutoff level, etc. My personal favorite version is to elect the pairwise preferred of the XA winner and the candidate with the fewest F's. Forest ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info </pre> Forest Simmons 2013-04-19T19:56:33 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23412 <pre>Consider the following scenario in SODA: 1: A(&gt;C&gt;B&gt;D) 2: B,X 2: C(&gt;B&gt;A&gt;D) 1: D(&gt;A&gt;C&gt;B) 1: null Presume all ties are predictably broken for the alphabetically-first candidate (without this presumption, you'd need larger numbers, but you could still make a similar scenario). Under SODA with rational delegation assignment, C has a choice. If C does not approve B, they are giving A and D a choice between approving A and C so C wins, or only A so A wins; since both A and D will choose the latter, this is tantamount to electing A. If C does approve B, then B will win regardless of what A and D do. C prefers B, so B wins. But if the last null voter adds an undelegated approval for B, then if C approves nobody and D and A approve only A, the result shifts from A to B. Since C knows that A and D will prefer to give the win to C, now C can safely not approve B, and win. So an extra approval for B caused B to lose. Now, even with this flaw, SODA is still a very good system. I've built dozens of voting scenarios in</pre> Jameson Quinn 2013-04-19T18:09:50 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.politics.election-methods/23402 <pre>The following is a Later no harm and Later no Help variant of Schulze STV. Like regular STV it either elects or excludes one candidate at a time instead of comparing candidate sets. Like Schulze STV, it protects against Free Riding. It requires fewer calculations than Schulze STV but it is not Condorcet. All candidates are either elected, hopeful, or excluded. Initially all candidates are hopeful. The total number of votes is V(Total). The number of seats to be filled is N. Initially, R = N. 1. Calculate the V(H)’s and V(Hopeful) using one of the procedures below*. 2.If the vote total for the hopeful candidate with the largest vote total exceeds V(Hopeful)/(R+1) then go to step 3. Otherwise go to step 4. 3.Declare the hopeful candidate with the largest vote total elected. If R=1, declare all hopeful candidates excluded and end the count. Otherwise subtract 1 from R and go to step 1. 4.Declare the candidate with the smallest vote total excluded. If the number of hopeful candidates equals </pre> Ross Hyman 2013-04-14T19:02:09 Search the mailing list at Gmane query http://search.gmane.org/?group=$group=gmane.politics.election-methods