Symmetrical IRV
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@rob said in Symmetrical IRV:
I'm not sure what equal rankings provide except making it a bit easier on voters. To me it is a minor issue.
No. You can't force the voters to rank all the candidates; they won't. The only reasonable way to treat the candidates they don't rank is as ranked below the others. The unranked candidates are therefore equal ranked. So what is in question is not whether to allow equal ranking, but whether to allow it everywhere. If your ballot can have sludge at the bottom, my ballot must be allowed to have cream at the top to counter your ballot. If your stance is honored in the tally but mine is breached, you are being given a special privilege on account of your stance toward the candidates, and my political right to equality as a voter is being violated.
Approval-ordered Llull (letter grades) [10], Score // Llull [9], Score, STAR, Approval, other rated Condorcet [8]; equal-ranked Condorcet [4]; strictly-ranked Condorcet [3]; everything else [0].
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@jack-waugh said in Symmetrical IRV:
No. You can't force the voters to rank all the candidates; they won't.
Actually that is exactly what Australia does in many elections, force you to rank all of them.
But I don't think I ever suggested that, I simply said disallowing equal rankings is not particularly harmful, and is unrelated to the other issues I am speaking of.
If your stance is honored in the tally but mine is breached, you are being given a special privilege on account of your stance toward the candidates, and my political right to equality as a voter is being violated.
What are you talking about? I've never heard of an election where some people get to do equal rankings or leave unranked candidates at the bottom, and some don't. So why are we discussing this?
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If your ballot can have sludge at the bottom, my ballot must be allowed to have cream at the top to counter your ballot.
Approval-ordered Llull (letter grades) [10], Score // Llull [9], Score, STAR, Approval, other rated Condorcet [8]; equal-ranked Condorcet [4]; strictly-ranked Condorcet [3]; everything else [0].
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@jack-waugh said in Symmetrical IRV:
If your ballot can have sludge at the bottom, my ballot must be allowed to have cream at the top to counter your ballot.
If you are simply talking about fairness, I'm not sure I see how that applies. It seems fair enough that you can counter that by simply having sludge at the bottom of your own ballot.
For one thing, having sludge at the bottom of a ballot (i.e. equally ranked candidates) is not giving the voter any advantage in IRV or Condorcet methods, other than saving them some time.
I can see some value in handling things symmetrically in that sense (which is the reason I proposed the above system for IRV) , but it isn't really about fairness per se, but about avoiding vote splitting and strategic incentives.
By the way, STAR voting claims to be all about that sort of symmetry (i.e. "equal vote"), but if they really wanted it symmetrical, they should say that if you don't give a candidate a rating, it will default to the middle rating.
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@rob said in Symmetrical IRV:
It seems fair enough that you can counter that by simply having sludge at the bottom of your own ballot.
Not unless you had cream at the top of your ballot.
To counter your sludge, I need to move your sludge candidates up to my cream.
All my ranks have to be your ranks, but reversed.
Approval-ordered Llull (letter grades) [10], Score // Llull [9], Score, STAR, Approval, other rated Condorcet [8]; equal-ranked Condorcet [4]; strictly-ranked Condorcet [3]; everything else [0].
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@jack-waugh This is an property you (and some others) have expressed a desire for, but I've never heard the case for why it is important other than it sounds good. It's more "equal" but not in a way that directly translates to "fair." Both sides are playing by the same rules
I can understand why this property you want can reduce vote splitting. But the whole "it's not fair if it doesn't do this" doesn't really register for me. Why does voting require that each voter must be able to do something that is exactly the inverse of what someone else can do?
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@rob said in Symmetrical IRV:
Both sides are playing by the same rules
This is true of Choose-one.
Systems that split votes do not provide equality. I don't know whether all systems that do not provide equality split votes, but out of suspicion, fear, and caution, I want to assume so until it is proven otherwise.
And as discussed elsewhere on this forum, systems that pass Frohnmayer do not necessarily provide equality (such systems can be constructed with rules involving finding matching pairs of votes and throwing them out). However, systems that fail it definitely do not provide equality.
Approval-ordered Llull (letter grades) [10], Score // Llull [9], Score, STAR, Approval, other rated Condorcet [8]; equal-ranked Condorcet [4]; strictly-ranked Condorcet [3]; everything else [0].
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@jack-waugh said in Symmetrical IRV:
This is true of Choose-one.
Systems that split votes do not provide equality. I don't know whether all systems that do not provide equality split votes, but out of suspicion, fear, and caution, I want to assume so until it is proven otherwise.Right, and that's why I think the whole "equal vote" thing is misleading.
If you are against vote splitting, more power to you. I'm on board.
But when you try to position one sort of equality (being able to cast a ballot that directly negates another person's ballot, i.e. the system is symmetrical in a negative-to-positive sense) as meaning that it will be equal in the "all people should have equal voting power" sense, It think it is misleading and obfuscates your goals.
Score voting is "equal" in your way, but it can disadvantage those who prioritize honesty, so it is unequal in that way.
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It'd be great if we could design a system where the best that voters could do (individually) is vote their wishes, without taking into account any estimate about the other voters' affinities, and there'd be no vote splitting. However, Gibbard disproved this.
Approval-ordered Llull (letter grades) [10], Score // Llull [9], Score, STAR, Approval, other rated Condorcet [8]; equal-ranked Condorcet [4]; strictly-ranked Condorcet [3]; everything else [0].
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@jack-waugh said in Symmetrical IRV:
However, Gibbard disproved this.
You keep saying this, while ignoring the fact that the degree of vulnerability matters.
Do you accept that it is a fact that if you go for a walk in the park, a tree branch can fall on you and kill you?
Do you still go for walks in parks?
It sucks when it happens, but it is generally considered a "freak occurrence":
https://nypost.com/2022/08/15/nyc-park-goer-struck-by-tree-dies-at-hospital-police-source/If you answered yes to both, you are well on your way to understanding that the best way to evaluate problems is not to simply consider the binary question of whether or not the problem exists, but that you should instead be considering the magnitude of the problem.
I believe that you can reduce the concerns that Gibbard/Arrow noted to be so small that they effectively don't exist. Any reasonable Condorcet method does this.
I'd really love to hear you actually address this, you've expressed your concern over Gibbard etc so many times, and just ignore when we point out that the degree of concern can be reduced such that it is insignificant. But it is still non-zero, which you continue to dwell on.
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@rob How can the degrees of vulnerability to Gibbard be characterized? At this point, I'm not even asking how it could be estimated of a given voting system. Just, on what sort of a scale could the result of such an estimation be placed.
Approval-ordered Llull (letter grades) [10], Score // Llull [9], Score, STAR, Approval, other rated Condorcet [8]; equal-ranked Condorcet [4]; strictly-ranked Condorcet [3]; everything else [0].
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@jack-waugh It's not "vulnerability to Gibbard." It's vulnerability to vote splitting, strategic voting, strategic nomination, irrelevant alternatives, etc. Which are all interrelated (sides of the same coin?).
Gibbard isn't a "thing" to be vulnerable to, but to the extent it is, it is a binary. There are no shades of gray, just a black and white concept. Mathematicians may approach things as binaries, since they lend themselves to proofs.
All the other things are not binaries. Worrying about binaries is a waste of time in this context. It is preventing you from seeing what is "good enough" as you continue to spin on the undeniable -- but essentially meaningless -- fact that it can never be 100% perfect.
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@rob said in Symmetrical IRV:
I believe that you can reduce the concerns that Gibbard/Arrow noted to be so small that they effectively don't exist.
On what grounds?
Why not see Score as 100% perfect?
Approval-ordered Llull (letter grades) [10], Score // Llull [9], Score, STAR, Approval, other rated Condorcet [8]; equal-ranked Condorcet [4]; strictly-ranked Condorcet [3]; everything else [0].
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@jack-waugh said in Symmetrical IRV:
Why not see Score as 100% perfect?
Is this some kind of a trick question?
If the goal is to reduce the incentive to strategically vote, Score doesn't even seem to try. It is awful in that regard. Any system that strongly rewards me for guessing how others will vote is not "perfect."
It is very subject to vote splitting, albeit somewhat differently from choose-one. But even a simple case like Nader-Gore-Bush should demonstrate that plainly. A person who scores them
Nader 5
Gore 3
Bush 0
would have most likely rated Gore as 5 if Nader hadn't been in the race. So Nader split the vote.The voter might have rated them both 5, but that is only because they have some knowledge that Gore and Bush will be front runners. Not all elections are so clear (think local elections). Also that may conflict with the voters' ideal of honesty, since it suggests that they like Gore and Nader equally, which isn't true.
Would it have split the vote in other ways, that advantaged Gore? I don't know, but I doubt it in that election.
I really don't get the appeal of Score.
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@rob said in Symmetrical IRV:
If the goal is to reduce the incentive to strategically vote
Why is this a worthwhile subgoal toward achieving the larger goal of eliminating vote splitting?
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@jack-waugh said in Symmetrical IRV:
Why is this a worthwhile subgoal toward achieving the larger goal of eliminating vote splitting?
Are you asking this sincerely? I'm increasingly getting the impression your questions are not sincere and are just designed to increase number of posts or something.
Do you really need me to explain why strongly rewarding voters for being the best at guessing who the front runners are, is less preferable than a system that allows them to vote sincerely without spending time and effort worrying about that? (*) Do you also need me to explain why it's bad to strongly punish voters who simply feel that voting sincerely is more ethical?
Finally, do you need me to explain what I just explained, again, as to how score voting can indeed cause vote splitting when some people vote sincerely?
I will if necessary, but I'd appreciate you directly saying "this is something I really don't understand and need you to explain to me." It's really frustrating to spend my time explaining concepts that you just ignore, only to post these short questions that indicate you haven't read anything, and that, as I said, don't even seem sincere.
* in the same sense as you can walk in the park without fear of being killed by a tree branch, despite the tiny but non-zero chance of that happening
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If one park is known to contain unsound trees but another park has been maintained by competent arborists, that makes for a strong reason to choose one park over the other to walk in, especially if when I walk, I have in my backpack the future of my country and the human species.
I'm suggesting that with Score, strategic voting is not an evil and does not lead to vote splitting. Everyone can be taught the best known strategy at any given time (depending on the state of mathematical knowledge at that time), and by applying the strategy, they get equal power to the other voters. This will prevent vote splitting, because vote splitting and unequal power are intimately related.
The voters could be told that exaggerating your support for your lesser evil is not unethical, on the grounds that a vote is an exercise of political power, not the answering of an opinion poll, and so it doesn't carry a responsibility for "honesty". However, ethics requires exercising your power in a way that would tend to promote the good of the residents of the polity concerned and does not contribute to the likelihood of collective unethical behavior.
I believe that you can reduce the concerns that Gibbard/Arrow noted to be so small that they effectively don't exist.
On what grounds? Let's lay Arrow aside for the moment and concentrate on just Gibbard.
Approval-ordered Llull (letter grades) [10], Score // Llull [9], Score, STAR, Approval, other rated Condorcet [8]; equal-ranked Condorcet [4]; strictly-ranked Condorcet [3]; everything else [0].
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@jack-waugh said in Symmetrical IRV:
If one park is known to contain unsound trees but another park has been maintained by competent arborists, that makes for a strong reason to choose one park over the other to walk in, especially if when I walk, I have in my backpack the future of my country and the human species.
This is again, insincere. One, the analogy is not about the human species, it's about a person's life. It's an analogy. Do you not understand how those work? Cherry picking parts of one side of the analogy and dropping them into the other side is not a sincere argument.
Two, you are obviously intentionally missing the point of the analogy. Do you know anyone who regularly chooses the parks they visit, or the sidewalks they walk on, based on their knowledge of competent arborists? I could make 100 other analogies, all based on the assumption that in the real world, there are many cases where the risks are considered small enough to not worry about them. Every single activity you engage in entails some level of risk. Instead of trying to get the point, you just pick apart the analogy, so that you can miss the point. Do you think this approach makes this forum better?
Three, electing a "less correct" candidate one time does not threaten the human species as you suggest.
Four, you haven't shown how Score is less likely to elect the less correct candidate than, for instance, a good Condorcet compliant method. All you've done is harp on the fact that Condorcet methods cannot 100% avoid strategy in a mathematical sense, while advocating for a method for which none of this can be proven because of the way it obscures things (mostly by incentivizing strategy so strongly, so it becomes more of a psychology exercise)
Five you haven't addressed anything else I've written about the negatives of rewarding strategy, such as the extra effort required on the part of voters, or the fact that it disadvantages certain classes of voters, such as people who avoid insincere voting because it feels unethical.
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I believe that you can reduce the concerns that Gibbard... noted to be so small that they effectively don't exist.
On what grounds?
Approval-ordered Llull (letter grades) [10], Score // Llull [9], Score, STAR, Approval, other rated Condorcet [8]; equal-ranked Condorcet [4]; strictly-ranked Condorcet [3]; everything else [0].
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@jack-waugh There is a ton of information in this PhD thesis about the likelihood and severity to which different voting rules are manipulable.
