New method (I think?): Hare-squared
-
@rob I was wrong when I said the system would always produce the same answer as RCV IRV Hare does. My error came in my failing to take into account the fact that the inner application of the Hare method is not necessarily sorting the ballots into the same order as we would have with only the outer one, because in the process of determining the sort, we eliminate candidates from consideration and ballots transfer to the next candidate down on the ballot. Specifically for the Burlington, Vermont [0] ballots, I have not run them and I don't know.
I don't know what you consider "making voters equal in power." I have actually pretty clearly defined what is a baseline, idealized system that comes as close as anything could at doing just that, so we have something to compare single winner elections against. I've never heard you discuss that, which makes me feel like I'm talking market economics with someone who has never bothered learning what perfect competition is. (which is a similarly hypothetical baseline)
I will put that in its own topic.
This is a thought experiment and it has a purpose, but I think you are thinking I am proposing it as a practical method, which as I said in my second sentence, I'm not.
This is not the first system you have described for a thought experiment and about which you said you were not seriously proposing it for use in politics. You said that for the scheme that would take into account both the top and bottom candidate when deciding whom to eliminate from further consideration. But I think that reform could have potential, when combined with a couple of others. I will add under that topic.
This is a thought experiment and it has a purpose, . . . I think it is an important one for providing insight into IRV, including @sass and @rb-j 's arguments against IRV (which I think are WAY too strong, and are blocking progress) . . .
I look forward to hearing their response. If they ask you how this thought experiment is to shed light on the characteristics of RCV IRV Hare, I look forward to seeing how you respond to that question from them, if they do pose it.
Given IRV's real world importance in this field, I can't understand why anyone would not see the value in exploring it . . .
Yes, by all means, anything that might shed light.
[0] Burlington, Vermont, not to be confused with Burlington, North Carolina (which, so far as I know, has never used RCV IRV Hare).
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].
-
@rob said in New method (I think?): Hare-squared:
I don't know what you consider "making voters equal in power."
As far as I understand, this is expressed with the maxim "One person, one vote". And that cannot be satisfied outside of Majority Rule: If a simple majority of voters agree that Candidate A is a better choice for office than Candidate B, then Candidate B is not elected.
But I think it is an important one for providing insight into IRV, including @sass and @rb-j 's arguments against IRV (which I think are WAY too strong, and are blocking progress)
When a reform fails to do precisely what it purports to do, the thing to do is reform the reform. Reforming reform does not block progress, it diverts the direction of the progress from a direction that is not entirely progressive to another that is.
Remember RCV proponents promote RCV saying that RCV:
- "guarantees the majority-supported candidate is elected."
- "eliminates the spoiler effect."
- removes the burden of tactical voting from voters, freeing them to "Vote their hopes not their fears" or "Vote for who they really like rather than the lesser of evils".
For a literal "Executive Summary", read this letter I sent last spring to the governor of Vermont. (I was not successful, BTW.)
as well as FairVote's arguments against Condorcet (which is very flawed, but I have found challenging to explain why in a way they can't wriggle away from).
I would be interested in hearing what they say to you to "wriggle away". I've had multiple email conversations with Rob Richie about this and all he does and can do is deny that the facts are a problem (with nothing to support the reasoning for his denial) and dismisses the necessity to adjust course. It's simple denial and relying on their established position an momentum. He cannot wriggle away from the facts. He can only ignore and deny or poo-poo the facts.
-
@rb-j said in New method (I think?): Hare-squared:
When a reform utterly fails to perform at the very core of what the reform it purports to be
IRV, even in Burlington
- allowed there to be a race with 3 competitive candidates (any one of whom easily could have won with small changes in public opinion). In FPTP this is almost unheard of
- Provided a ballot format which allowed voters to express richer preference than a single name
- Selected a better winner than choosing the candidate with the most first-place votes would have
Now, can we please stop bringing up Burlington.
-
@andy-dienes said in New method (I think?): Hare-squared:
IRV, even in Burlington
allowed there to be a race with 3 competitive candidates (any one of whom easily could have won with small changes in public opinion). In FPTP this is almost unheard of
That's bullshit. You can have a race with 3 or more competitive candidates with FPTP. It happens all of the time. This issue is preventing the election of a candidate without majority support of the electorate. FPTP often fails to do that. And IRV failed to do that "even in Burlington".
Provided a ballot format which allowed voters to express richer preference than a single name
Fine, no one is disputing the value of the ranked ballot (well, opponents of RCV do, like these guys). But what good is using a ranked ballot if you ignore the content of the ranked ballot and elect a candidate that does not have majority support.?
Selected a better winner than choosing the candidate with the most first-place votes would have
Big fucking deal! FPTP can make a similar claim: *Selects a better candidate than choosing the candidate selected by sortition or selected by military support."
IRV can and does ignore the express preferences that voters put on their ranked ballots and can and does elect the non-majoritarian candidate as a result. This means that the fewer voters that saw their candidate elected had cast votes that had more juice, more power, than the larger number of voters that had cast votes for the majority candidate.
Now, can we please stop bringing up Burlington.
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
And you cannot get past the problem of lack of process transparency because Hare IRV is not precinct summable. And also, because Hare is not precinct summable, you cannot get past the problem of election night results for statewide or large city betraying the label Instant Runoff Voting.
And do you want the Write-In option to be meaningful? What if, for a statewide race (like what happened with Lisa Murkowsky in 2010 FPTP), that Combined Write-In actually wins an RCV election? How are you gonna deal with that?
With Hare it's a terrible fucking mess. With Condorcet, all you need to do is split each precinct into two sub-precincts, separate the Murkowsky write-ins from the others, tabulate both sets of ballots separately with the tabulator machines (clearing the counters in between) and then ADD the results for each pairing, except for the Write-In category). You can do this decentralized on the same evening of the election.
-
You can have a race with 3 or more competitive candidates with FPTP. It happens all of the time
No, it doesn't. It happens sometimes, but given how many more FPTP elections than IRV that's not saying much.
But what good is using a ranked ballot if you ignore the content of the ranked ballot and elect a candidate that does not have majority support.?
Placebo effect is real and important. Even just feeling like you get to express your true opinion is important, even if the rest of the rankings were entirely thrown away. I would also prefer the ability to rank candidates on the ballot with choose-one too, even if it just elects the one with the most first-place votes.
Big fucking deal! FPTP can make a similar claim: *Selects a better candidate than choosing the candidate selected by sortition or selected by military support."
yeah, and if I lived in a country where the winner was chosen by military bureaucracy I would prefer FPTP a hell of a lot more.
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
Fatigue ain't just a mountain in Canada. And I'm incredibly fatigued of the same tired talking points about one specific, and ultimately pretty inconsequential, election.
-
@andy-dienes said in New method (I think?): Hare-squared:
You can have a race with 3 or more competitive candidates with FPTP. It happens all of the time
No, it doesn't. It happens sometimes, but given how many more FPTP elections than IRV that's not saying much.
Sure it does. Nothing about FPTP that stops anyone from having an election with more than 2 candidates. The problem is electing the correct candidate. FPTP sometimes fails to do that. And so does Hare IRV.
But what good is using a ranked ballot if you ignore the content of the ranked ballot and elect a candidate that does not have majority support.?
Placebo effect is real and important.
So you're promoting dispensing placebos instead of medicine that actually has physiological effect?
Even just feeling like you get to express your true opinion is important, even if the rest of the rankings were entirely thrown away.
And when the election results are reported and you discover that you were robbed from having your candidate (or your second-choice candidate) elected because the method ignored the second-choice votes of 1/6th of the electorate, despite the promise that it does not, I don't think you'll be "just feeling like you get to express your true [vote]".
I would also prefer the ability to rank candidates on the ballot with choose-one too, even if it just elects the one with the most first-place votes.
This is so stupid and irresponsible. And disingenuous.
Big fucking deal! FPTP can make a similar claim: *Selects a better candidate than choosing the candidate selected by sortition or selected by military support."
yeah, and if I lived in a country where the winner was chosen by military bureaucracy I would prefer FPTP a hell of a lot more.
But FPTP ain't good enough, is it, Andy?
-
@rb-j said in New method (I think?): Hare-squared:
This is so stupid and irresponsible. And disingenuous.
But FPTP ain't good enough, is it, Andy?I feel like you are getting pretty abrasive and personal, so I am going to step away from this discussion.
-
@rb-j said in New method (I think?): Hare-squared:
As far as I understand, this is expressed with the maxim "One person, one vote".
Yeah that is a very vague saying. I get the concept, but many people interpret it very literally, such as saying that ranking or approving doesn't qualify simply because they are doing more than checking a single box.
I've used the example of people voting for a number (say an office temperature or the amount of monthly dues) and choosing the median, which is as close to everyone having "equal voting power" as anything I can imagine.
I tend to think Condorcet systems most closely approach that in elections with human candidates and a single winner.
And that cannot be satisfied outside of Majority Rule: If a simple majority of voters agree that Candidate A is a better choice for office than Candidate B, then Candidate B is not elected.
I've never been big on the use of the word "majority" when there are more than two candidates. Especially if combined with the word "support", which seems so artificially binary. If I vote for someone over another person, that is no indication that I "like" them in any everyday sense of the word, only that I prefer them over someone else.
I agree that Condorcet is best (it seems to meet my idea of "game theoretically stable," which is important to me but not necessarily a priority for others), but I just don't like using the concept of "majority." And again, I refer back to the "voting for a number" thing.... my vote might pull the vote from 69.2 degrees to 69.3 degrees, when I preferred 72 degrees. That can be perfectly fair and equitable, but the word "majority" doesn't in any way apply.
-
@rb-j Please dial back the aggression, it is unhelpful and against the spirit of this forum. I agree with many of your goals, but attacking people isn't the best approach. We are trying to make this a welcoming forum, such as to newcomers.
Thanks.
-
@jack-waugh said in New method (I think?): Hare-squared:
I look forward to hearing their response. If they ask you how this thought experiment is to shed light on the characteristics of RCV IRV Hare, I look forward to seeing how you respond to that question from them, if they do pose it.
Cool. I haven't necessarily fully formulated it.
I will say, very briefly, this:
The general effect Hare-IRV has on an election, when compared to choose-one (*), can be described as the "Hare effect." As Hare-squared (and Hare-cubed, etc) show, this effect can be applied more than once. Doing so helps clarify what the effect actually is.
Each time it is applied, it moves the method along a spectrum toward some imagined "ideal" method that is immune to strategy, gives each voter equal pull, etc. (Hare-IRV might move it 80% toward that goal. Hare-squared might be more like 95%, Hare-cubed 99.5%, etc. These are just estimates, and I'm not sure it will ever be directly measurable)
If it can be shown that applying Hare multiple times will make it that much less likely to have Burlington-style "misses", or can otherwise remove instability, reduce strategic incentives, etc, it can be strongly argued that "the Hare effect" is a good thing, even if normal Hare-IRV simply doesn't apply the effect as much as we'd like. The problem is that the choose-one logic that Hare uses in determining who to eliminate is crude and encourages strategic voting. It pollutes the method, so to speak. Each time the Hare effect is applied, that pollution is diluted.
So to the IRV bashers, my message is: IRV is good (compared to choose-one), it just isn't as good as it could be. To the IRV but not Condorcet people, my message is, stop being p*ssies and just own what you are doing rather than shying away from taking it that one extra step (i.e. Condorcet).
And of course, other methods (bottom two runoff being a good example), might be a far more efficient way of doing this. It may not be as good as Hare-to-the-20th-power, but it is very likely good enough that any "choose-one pollution" is so diluted as to be insignificant.
That is a good part of the argument. I started to build out the method (starting with regular IRV, but then reusing the same code to allow applying the effect as many times as I want), and will continue as I have time. I'll wait until I have a better presentation to, for instance, take this to EndFPTP where there is a larger audience.
* if it helps, imagine a method that ranks the candidates, but simply elects the candidate that gets the most first choice votes. Since all methods we are comparing use identical ballots, it is an apples to apples comparison.
-
@rob said in New method (I think?): Hare-squared:
Each time it is applied, it moves the method along a spectrum toward some imagined "ideal" method that is immune to strategy
I know I have linked it before, but I really think you would enjoy reading about Stable Voting. It kind of does exactly this and is a recursive method asking "if this candidate were not in the election who would have won?" and the result is a method which makes a very strong case for being the "best" (on theoretical grounds) deterministic Condorcet method.
Also, I just find the paper exceptionally well-written; it manages to go into a lot of detail while maintaining a conversational style. This paper by the same authors is also excellent and is on my favorites list.
-
Yes. You are exactly correct, @rob.
Besides RCV, I am involved in a sorta complex multi-directional "discussion" in Vermont about the nation's most successful third party, about the effect of party crossover in primaries, and of the value of the "open primary" (not to be confused with what California, Washington, or Alaska are doing, where there is no party primary).
Someone is systemically taking undeserved advantage of someone else. And there is a lotta disingenuity tossed around. It's:
-
the Center Squeeze of Hare RCV and who, in Vermont, benefits and who loses.
-
"clone" party crashing another party's primary.
-
single-member vs. two-member vs. mixed different-sized districts in a legislative body (how well constituents are served by each) and the political effect of switching one to another - who benefits and who loses (and remember, elections are a zero-sum game),
And I'm drawing maps for ward redistricting in Burlington and we're getting in crunch time. Big decisions being made soon about what map the voters will get to see on the ballot next town-meeting day. And some, not-entirely-transparent reasons for preventing voters from seeing more than one plan.
So I'm kinda grumpy. I'm sorry.
-
-
@andy-dienes Thanks, I will read it when I get time. (I have been spending way too much time on this forum recently!)
I'm all into "game theoretical stability", and finding ways to visualize what a "perfect" method would be, even if it is impractical (and unnecessary) to have such methods in the real world. But I find them valuable as an exercise, and hopefully in terms of minimizing some of the ugly back and forth that can happen when discussing things like IRV.
-
@rb-j said in New method (I think?): Hare-squared:
So I'm kinda grumpy. I'm sorry.
We all get grumpy sometimes.
-
@rob said in New method (I think?): Hare-squared:
@rb-j said in New method (I think?): Hare-squared:
As far as I understand, this is expressed with the maxim "One person, one vote".
Yeah that is a very vague saying. I get the concept, but many people interpret it very literally, such as saying that ranking or approving doesn't qualify simply because they are doing more than checking a single box.
I understand that, and it's essentially where we RCV advocates disagree with detractors who insist on FPTP.
What they don't want to understand is the notion of the Single-Transferable Vote. It's one vote, but it gets shifted around in such a manner that best benefits the political interest of the enfranchised person who is voting. They get only one vote.
The difference between the Hare advocates and the Condorcet folks are that the former says that some of us cannot transfer our vote from our higher-ranked candidate, that was just eliminated, to the contingency candidate of our choosing as expressed on our ballots. The Condorcet advocates say we can. When you promote your product saying *"You can vote for the candidate you really want and need not choose between the lesser of evils. If your favorite candidate cannot win election, then your vote counts for your second choice." Howard Dean (whom I was fortunate enough to introduce to a big crowd in NH in 2004) made that claim ignorant of the fact that it's demonstrated false in the experience of his very own home town.
When you make that claim (which is Property 4 in this), you should mean it.
In order to allow voters to vote their hopes instead of their fears, the election should not punish (or disincentivize) voters from voting their hopes. It does that by actually preventing the spoiler effect (an oft advertized feature of RCV). And it does that by making sure that the majority candidate is elected and not blocked from election because of the spoiler.
I've used the example of people voting for a number (say an office temperature or the amount of monthly dues) and choosing the median, which is as close to everyone having "equal voting power" as anything I can imagine.
The median helps block the effect of exaggeration of one's preference in order to unfairly increase the effect of one's expression of their preference.
But so does One-person-one-vote. Unlike Score Voting or Borda RCV, it doesn't matter if I prefer A enthusiastically and you prefer B only tepidly, your vote for B should count just as much as my vote for A.
The median thing is a mathematical tool to prevent outliers from changing the measure of how the middle of the spectrum affects a composite measured property (like median income vs. mean) or in social choice.
I tend to think Condorcet systems most closely approach that in elections with human candidates and a single winner.
And that cannot be satisfied outside of Majority Rule: If a simple majority of voters agree that Candidate A is a better choice for office than Candidate B, then Candidate B is not elected.
I've never been big on the use of the word "majority" when there are more than two candidates. Especially if combined with the word "support", which seems so artificially binary.
Between two candidates there is an unambiguous notion of majority support if we agree that every voter's expression of support (that's what a vote is) is counted equally.
The fact that there always exists a simple majority between two candidates (unless they tie) is misconstrued by naive (or disingenuous) RCV advocates to claim that RCV is "guaranteed to elect the majority-supported candidate" because it boils the election down to two candidates in the final round, in which there is always a simple majority.
Of course that Hare final-round pair of candidates is not the only way to pair two candidates and examine which one is supported more than the other. Everyone, other than the Condorcet loser, is a "majority candidate".
If I vote for someone over another person, that is no indication that I "like" them in any everyday sense of the word, only that I prefer them over someone else.
That's correct. And that preference of yours counts just as much as my preference for the "someone else". Doesn't matter how much more I prefer my candidate vs. how much you prefer yours. Our votes should count equally.
I agree that Condorcet is best (it seems to meet my idea of "game theoretically stable," which is important to me but not necessarily a priority for others), but I just don't like using the concept of "majority."
Simple majority and Absolute majority have dictionary definitions that are reasonably concise.
And again, I refer back to the "voting for a number" thing.... my vote might pull the vote from 69.2 degrees to 69.3 degrees, when I preferred 72 degrees.
And a good and fair social choice system should not incentize you from expressing your preference in any manner other than sincere. Express your sincere preference and rely on the method to respect your preference, as a person holding equal rights and equal franchise, equally as much as any other person's preference.
That can be perfectly fair and equitable, but the word "majority" doesn't in any way apply.
That's right. And if we were voting for an alternative that is an ordered quantity, Score Voting using median score rather than plurality score, seems very fair and equitable to me. Maybe use this for a public vote on the city's budget cap or tax-base percentile. But not people or maps or discrete alternative plans that are not an ordered quantity. Then the only fair thing is valuing each voter's vote equally.
-
@rb-j said in New method (I think?): Hare-squared:
The fact that there always exists a simple majority between two candidates (unless they tie)
not if voters truncate their rankings
And a good and fair social choice system should not incentize you from expressing your preference in any manner other than sincere
Agreed, and IRV is one of the very best methods at incentivizing sincere rankings. It has other flaws yes, but strategic manipulability is not really one of them.
-
@andy-dienes said in New method (I think?): Hare-squared:
Agreed, and IRV is one of the very best methods at incentivizing sincere rankings
I mostly agree with this, but think there is some very subtle incentive to exaggerate your preferences if there are two clear front runners.
I do find it so weird, though, that IRV-but-not-Condorcet people (FairVote etc) claim that it is a good thing that "IRV rewards those w/ strong 1st choice support” (FairVote's words in response to Jack's tweet about BTR), but they don't seem to get that IF this is true, then it MUST incentivize the exaggeration I described above.
Really doesn't make sense. My goal is to find a way of demonstrating this that is so obvious to regular people that they stop making that dumb argument. I really think they have an opportunity to shift their position slightly without just declaring they were wrong about everything and go home, which obviously they aren't going to do.
-
@andy-dienes said in New method (I think?): Hare-squared:
@rb-j said in New method (I think?): Hare-squared:
The fact that there always exists a simple majority between two candidates (unless they tie)
not if voters truncate their rankings
Which is why I advocate that ballot access law be strong enough so that there aren't more than 5 or 6 candidates who are on the ballot. But if there are, say, a dozen candidates one the ballot, there should be at least 5 or 6 ranking levels. And if there are more ranking levels, then precincts should algorithmically choose the 5 or 6 leading candidates in that precinct, and publish pairwise defeats for the pairings of the top 5 or 6. Precinct summability does not mean that the paper tape printout of summable tallies is 10 feet long. It has to be practical, feasible. 20 or 30 summable tallies is about that practical limit.
And a good and fair social choice system should not incentize you from expressing your preference in any manner other than sincere
Agreed, and IRV is one of the very best methods at incentivizing sincere rankings.
But it's not the best, is it? And it's not about the ranked ballots but are about the rules of the game, which can be fairly and safely examined. And courageously examined.
It has other flaws yes, but strategic manipulability is not really one of them.
The point is 1510 voters (out of 8976) found out that, merely by voting for their favorite candidate, they actually caused the election of their least-favorite candidate. Just like Nader voters that got W elected, that incentivizes these voters to vote for the major party candidate that is best situated to beat the candidate that they loathe.
-
@rb-j said in New method (I think?): Hare-squared:
that incentivizes these voters to vote for the major party candidate that is best situated to beat the candidate that they loathe.
I had hoped that it would be obvious at this point that I am familiar with the phenomenon of Center Squeeze.
I am aware that it happens, but it is hard to predict and is a risky strategy for those who attempt it.
For many, many references to academic literature where this question is studied (and concludes that IRV is difficult to manipulate) please see my comment here
-
@andy-dienes this is not just about Center-Squeeze. This is more general than that.
It's about "Vote your hopes, not your fears."
Center-Squeeze was just a way for RCV to violate that promise.
But FPTP also does. I just want you to admit that this promise we RCV advocates make, saying why RCV is better than FPTP, was actually violated by Hare RCV in no uncertain terms (because we have possession of the ranked-ballot data and know who the contingency choices were). At least with FPTP we have to speculate that the election was spoiled. Ain't no speculation with RCV and public records.
