My proposal for this forum

[SaraWolk]

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[Jack Waugh]

This post is deleted!

[A Former User]

@rob

I like the idea of frequent polls. ...on single-winner methods (ovearall proposal merit,including enactability & implentation--not just abstract performance merit), & traditional PR systems & allocation-rules.

Yes, polls with optional choice of methods, or maybe separate simultaneous versions of the poll via various methods.

I nominate, for the polls:

Approval
Ranked-Pairs(wv)
Hare

[Lime]

@michaelossipoff I'd be happy to see some kind of poll organized comparing voting methods, and ideally published somewhere so it can be cited. We can probably pull participants from this forum, Electowiki, and the electoral-methods email list, and ideally a snowball sample of any academics we can find with experience studying voting methods.

[Jack Waugh]

Maybe we should start a new topic about polling on favored voting systems. The present topic was started by Rob Brown, who was banned by the governing council of this forum.

If we are going to meaningfully poll ourselves, with or without a larger community, I think a key thing is to discuss and agree on a fixed set of alternatives for people to opine on. Currently there are probably as many categorizations of voting systems as there are participants here, and many of the signatures address the systems by category. Without fixing on a set of "candidates", there is no way to run an "election" based on every participant giving opinions based on their categorizations. For example, if one person says she likes Score Voting, and another says he likes Approval, there is overlap between those opinions, since Approval is two-valued Score. We need to agree on a set of "candidates" before being polled. Maybe more than one poll would be useful, based on different ways of organizing the candidate systems. For example, one poll could just ask for levels of support for specific voting systems, and another could address categories of them.

[A Former User]

@lime

Lime—
Frequent polling is essential, because it demonstrates the voting-systems, & makes them concrete instead theoretical.
Polling on voting-systems, but also presidential-polls.
As was already pointed-out, though automated balloting & count would be an eventual goal, there’s no need to wait for it. Polls could be conducted right here, right now, at a polling-thread. People post their approvals, STAR-ratings & rankings.
There could be a nomination-period of a few days, for candidates in the voting-system poll & in the party presidential-poll.
…& also suggestions for methods to use. Some rank-methods could count the same rankings in their various ways, but, for some, the strategy is different, & people would have to specify which rank-count(s) their ranking(s) is/are for.
Though of course anyone could suggest, & count, any new-invention method they choose, it’s necessary that they do the counting for it.
I suggest that traditional well-known methods with some popularity, among at least some groups, are important for inclusion. They’re primary, because they’re the ones that could be enacted.
For methods for these polls, I suggest the following:

Approval
STAR
Ranked-Pairs(wv) (RP(wv) ).
Hare

I’d rank differently in RP & Hare, because RP is much more strategy-free.
Of course anyone could suggest other methods, but their value depends on their enactability.
My above-written suggestions for some methods to use in the poll (which should use various methods) are also my nominations for the “candidates”, the alternatives in the voting-system poll.
For the presidential poll, there could easily be 20 candidates. Unless someone has RP automated, I don’t know when there’d be a result, when 380 votes would have to be counted for each voter.
…
With lots of candidates, of course the Approval, STAR & Hare results would be reported long before the RP results…unless someone has RP automated.
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Hare, STAR & Approval all have about the same count-time, which of course isn’t seriously time-consuming.
…
I’d suggest, instead of candidates, the presidential poll, at least the 1st one, should be a poll among parties.

I nominate the following 4 parties:
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Green
…
Democrat
…
Libertarian
…
Republican

Of course anyone could nominate additional ones.
…
There’s no reason to wait, for doing this poll.
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I invite nominations right now, for 1)Voting-systems to be used; 2) Voting systems as candidates in the voting-system poll; & 3) Political parties as candidates in the presidential poll.
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Why delay? Start now, & post your nominations.
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Let’s allow, say, 2 days?, for nominations.
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,..after which approvals, STAR-ratings, RP rankings, & Hare rankings could be posted by voters, for the two polls. …& of course votes for any other proposed method that the voter chooses to participate in.

[Jack Waugh]

@michaelossipoff, I nominate Liquid Democracy. For single-winner elections (if they can't be avoided), I nominate Score{50, 49, 40, 0, -40, -49, -50}.

For single-winner elections (if they can't be avoided), I nominate a system where the voters rate the candidates as above {50, 49, 40, 0, -40, -49, -50}, but if there is a Condorcet loser (someone beaten pairwise by each other candidate), that candidate is eliminated from further consideration in the election. This is repeated until there are no more Condorcet losers. If only one candidate remains, elect her. If there are multiple, the ballots are linearly expanded to use the whole range, and the candidate having the highest total score wins.

[A Former User]

@lime

Yes, polling provides experience with the voting-systems. It makes them concrete instead of theoretical. So, frequent polling is essential.

Polling about voting-systems, but also presidential polls.

…using a variety of methods. Especially the already familiar or popular ones.

…&, why not, whatever new-invention methods anyone wants to add. Of course the proponent of that method does the counting.

The obvious popular methods to use include are
Approval, Condorcet, STAR & Hare.

For Condorcet, I suggest the winning-votes measure of defeat-strength, due to its powerful deterrent against offensive strategy.

Ranked-Pairs (RP) & Schulze are widely acknowledged as the criteria-compliance prizewinners.

RP is much more briefly defined. Also, it’s been said that the RP winner usually pairbeats the Schulze winner.

Hare should be included, even if only for its popularity. But it could work if people use it right, though I prefer Condorcet because, if you want to reliably & thoroughly avoid strategy problems, it’s necessary to elect the CW, even when s/he’s little-liked.

In any case, Hare is fine when there isn’t perceived lesser-evil giveaway need for anyone.

So those are my nominations:

Approval
RP(wv)
STAR
Hare

I nominate those 1) as methods to use in the polls; & 2) as alternatives to vote among in the voting system polls.

Condorcet requires an exhaustive pairwise-count, for which a handcount starts becoming prohibitive when the number of candidates rises to 5.

So, if we have lots of candidates, I’ll report the Approval-winner long before I report the RP winner. Hare’s handcount-time is about the same as that of Approval.

I like the suggestion to do polls via a thread here. Sure, later make balloting & count automated, but we needn’t wait for that. Just ask people to state, in the polling-thread, their approvals, their STAR ratings, & their rankings for RP, & for Hare.

(Because I believe that our candidate-lineups are dichotomous, I’d vote different rankings for RP & Hare.)

My nominations for a presidential poll.

There could be 20 candidates, so let’s limit the 1st presidential poll to parties.

I nominate:

Green
Democrat
Libertarian
Republican

There’s no reason to delay the start of this poll.

So, I invite people to post nominations right now, for a voting system poll & a party presidential poll.

If you nominate a lot of alternatives, of course the RP result will be delayed unless someone has it automated.

[A Former User]

@jack-waugh

Jack—
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What’s the definition of Liquid-Voting? The 2nd variation of Score is complicated & needs more detail.
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Is the pairwise-beat-relation between A & B based on which is in a higher merit-region on more ballots?
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But the expansion of the ballots needs more detailed description.
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It seems to me that there should be 2 separate categories, with separate balloting, when voting among the voting-systems:
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1. Expected performance in use, freedom from strategy need.
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2. Overall desirability as a public-proposal. …including #1 above, but also easy explanation, plausible justification, brief definition, easy implementation & administration, security against error & count-fraud. i.e. Which one would you rather propose to the public?

[Jack Waugh]

@michaelossipoff, Liquid Democracy (not Liquid-Voting) is described on W'pedia.

Is the pairwise-beat-relation between A & B based on which is in a higher merit-region on more ballots?

Exactly.

But the expansion of the ballots needs more detailed description.

I forgot to mention that if a ballot does not mention a candidate, it must be treated as awarding that candidate the minimum score, which is -50.

After the rounds of elimination from consideration of Condorcet losers, treat each ballot so:

Eliminate from the ballot, the scorings for candidates who have been eliminated from further consideration in the election. Look at the minimum and maximum score awarded by the ballot. If these are equal, throw out the ballot. Calculate such values for variables m and b such that if the formula y = mx + b is applied to the minimum and maximum scores as x, the y value will be respectively -50 and 50. Having thereby fixed the values of m and b, apply the formula to the remaining scorings on the ballot.

[A Former User]

@jack-waugh

What’s the definition of Liquid-Democracy?

That 2nd single-winner variation is more complicated, & needs more detail. Is the pairwise-beat-relation between 2 candidates based on which merit regions they’re in?

So the Condorcet loser is determined from those beat-relations? So, if more people rate A in a higher merit-region than B, than vice-versa, then A beats B.

But mor detail is needed about the expansion of the ballots.

For voting on voting systems, there should probably be 2 categories with separate balloting:

1. Expected merit in use, reduction of strategy-need.l

2. Overall merit as a public proposal. Including #1 above, but also easy explanation, enactability, security of the count. In other words, which method would you rather propose to the public?

[Jack Waugh]

@michaelossipoff said in My proposal for this forum:

@jack-waugh

What’s the definition of Liquid-Democracy?

As cited above and stated in Wikipedia.

That 2nd single-winner variation is more complicated, & needs more detail. Is the pairwise-beat-relation between 2 candidates based on which merit regions they’re in?

Yes.

So the Condorcet loser is determined from those beat-relations? So, if more people rate A in a higher merit-region than B, than vice-versa, then A beats B.

Yes.

But mor[e] detail is needed about the expansion of the ballots.

It's linear. Didn't I explain it well enough above? I gave an algorithm in English.

For voting on voting systems, there should probably be 2 categories with separate balloting:

1. Expected merit in use, reduction of strategy-need.l

2. Overall merit as a public proposal. Including #1 above, but also easy explanation, enactability, security of the count. In other words, which method would you rather propose to the public?

I nominate the three systems I mentioned for both those categories.

[Jack Waugh]

@michaelossipoff said in My proposal for this forum:

There could be a nomination-period of a few days

Is it closed yet? I wish to change all the nominations I made.

[A Former User]

@jack-waugh

Nominations are still open, because I haven’t gotten more participation. But, even if there are (at first at least) only 2 people other than me who express interest, if the interest among even us few is definite, then let’s proceed with the nominations for another 48 hours, starting now, & then voting after that… regardless of how small the election is. Say, a 1-week voting-period, starting 48 hours after this message posts.

So yes, state your nominations for 1) Voting systems as candidates; 2) Voting systems suggested for the voting & counting; 3) Presidential candidates.

My nominations

1 & #2: Approval. RP(wv). Hare.

#3: Marianne Williamson. Jill Stein.

[Jack Waugh]

@michaelossipoff Great. But I think readers are likely not to notice the activity in this thread, which started as a set of proposals about forum governance by a participant now banned. To try to get more attention, let's move the discussion of voting on voting systems to https://www.votingtheory.org/forum/topic/466/polling-ourselves . I posted my updated nominations there, for one of the categories. Thanks for reviving the topic of voting on voting systems.