Posts made by GregW

@cfrank

Link fixed, I got a little sloppy with the paste.

Score Voting Methods - Score, STAR, and BTR-Score

@wolftune

BTR-Score is easier to explain than IRV. No need to talk about transferring votes.

Rated methods are generally simple, here is may take on a few:
Score Voting Methods – Score, STAR, and BTR-Score

@casimir said in BTR-score:

That's good. You may even remove the "Hiveism substack" in the text and just keep the foot note if this makes it more readable.

Since every voter can vote for only one candidate, votes are a limited resource that candidates compete over. This turns campaigning into a zero-sum game. Candidates with similar political values must compete against each other. They split the votes, which benefits their mutual opponent.

Thank you, your quote helped the article, a plurality votes as a limited resource does explain some of the current rancor.

People diss voting systems that have not yet been used in public elections, even though the two systems with the most current use, plurality and IRV, have been found wanting.

@casimir said in BTR-score:

I've argued here that it might be more useful to promote a spectrum of compatible methods (approval, score, STAR and BTR-score in this case).

I have quoted your Hiveism Substack on VotersTakeCharge.us.

"Since every voter can vote for only one candidate, votes are a limited resource that candidates compete over. This turns campaigning into a zero-sum game. Candidates with similar political values must compete against each other. They split the votes, which benefits their mutual opponent."

The is a great explanation of the weakness of plurality voting.

If the is a problem, or if you would like me to change how I credit this please let me know.

Thanks, GregW

@cfrank said in ABC voting and BTR-Score are the single best methods by VSE I've ever seen.:

it’s really great you’re working on these kinds of reinforcement learning methods in this field,

Actually I do not have the mathematical expertise. If my new nonprofit, Voters Takes Charge, (under construction at voterstakecharge.us password no longer needed) receives generous support we may be able to commission such work.

@gregw

The login is no longer required!

@k98kurz said in ABC voting and BTR-Score are the single best methods by VSE I've ever seen.:

Developing a genetic algorithm to evolve a strategy that breaks a system would be an interesting side project. When I get the spare time and energy, I'll see if I can cook one up and set up a computer to just chug away at it until I have some results.

A great idea! To determine the best voting systems, we need to find the weaknesses of each voting system. Better testing methods are key. A tool like you propose would be invaluable.

@lime

Perhaps testing voting systems is analogous to testing digital security, let people try to hack a new voting system. Computer simulations would be one method of hacking, creative humans, another.

Yes, real political elections are the best tests, but we have to get there from here.

@lime said in ABC voting and BTR-Score are the single best methods by VSE I've ever seen.:

I'd feel very uncomfortable with any method where the game-theoretically optimal strategy leads to bad results, even if experiments showed the method doing well. I'd be worried voters just haven't figured out the correct strategy yet, and as soon as someone explains it to them all hell will break loose.

Are you uncomfortable with BTR-Score? As a Condorcet method, it should be safer than most new systems. It would elect the “beats all” winner if there is one. Otherwise, it would elect someone from the Smith set.

As with any cardinal system, one side could decide to always bullet vote giving their favorite the highest rating and everybody else 0. The punishment would be harm to their second choices.

Would this be more, or less of a problem with BTR-Score?

Do you see another possible weakness? If so, how bad?

BTW VotersTakeCharge.us is under construction.
For a sneak peek, use the following login:
user: flywheel
Pass: squalid-fiction

VotersTakeCharge.us is under construction.
You can have a sneak peek with this login.

User: flywheel
Pass: squalid-fiction

Articles have been posted. We need feedback, constructive and destructive criticisms welcome! Feedback forms are posted for each article.

Highlights include the establishment of the Second Law of Economics and an article about Top Four blanket primaries as proposed in Colorado ballot initiative 310.

@toby-pereira said in ABC voting and BTR-Score are the single best methods by VSE I've ever seen.:

What we really need (and which is unattainable right now for most methods) is to see what would happen in real life elections with real voters.

To test any system in real elections we need to make the claim that the “new” system is better than the current system.

That is not a high bar, as the current system is plurality voting. IRV is also a competitor.

We may not have a firm handle on how good ABC or BTR-Score are, but we can say they are better than the choices above.

@ex-dente-leonem

Ex dente leonem gave these instructions for ABE voting:

Rate each candidate from A to F, A being best and F being worst.

Candidates receive 1 point for each A, B, or C rating and 0 points for each D, E, or F rating.

Equal ratings are allowed. Unrated candidates are automatically rated F.

An explanation for voters:

*The points seed a tournament. The first game matches the candidates with the two lowest point totals.

In each game, the A, B, C, D, E, F ratings determine which candidate is preferred by each voter. If you gave candidate Mike a D, and candidate Tim a B, your vote would go to Tim.

The winner would face the candidate with the next lowest number of points. This is repeated until the survivor meets the candidate with the highest number of points in the final game to determine the winner.

A spoiler effect is nearly impossible with ABC voting.*

ABC is one notch more complex than BTR-Score, which is quite simple as Condorcet methods go.

Is “nearly impossible” a fair statement?

What other benefits should we highlight for the public?

Were you using Jonathan Quinn’s VSE?

Thanks for the great thread.

@lime

I do not understand this part:

Use quadratic voting to pick the best remaining candidate. (Rebrand it as equal-weight voting, by framing it as taking each ballot and dividing by its "weight"—i.e. sum of squares.)

@lime said in score interval: score with additional protection against the chicken dilemma:

Here's a particularly simple and attractive method:

Eliminate all candidates scored below 50%.
Use quadratic voting to pick the best remaining candidate. (Rebrand it as equal-weight voting, by framing it as taking each ballot and dividing by its "weight"—i.e. sum of squares.)

Unfortunately I do not understand this. A simple as possible explanation might help.

@casimir said in score interval: score with additional protection against the chicken dilemma:

Or even simpler (but less clean):

Voters score candidates on a scale 0-5.
The two highest scoring candidates and everyone with equal or over 50% of possible score enter the runoff.
Normalize the scores for the remaining candidates.
The remaining candidate with the highest score is declared winner.

This second variant behaves like STAR in the case when there is at most two candidates with 50%+ scores. This means, it's a simple Chicken Dilemma improvement to STAR.

This is getting close to practical.

It might even comply with state constitutions that require a winning candidate to receive the “the highest”, “the greatest” or “the largest” number of votes, or “a plurality of votes”. (need good lawyers.)

Could call it STIR, Score Than Instant Runoff.

@lime said in On one-sided strategy:

This video—produced by a large, well-funded San Francisco advocacy group—was trying to "educate" everyone into using the exact opposite of the correct strategy for IRV!
This strategy is both highly ineffective and socially disastrous. It dramatically increases the risk of a center-squeeze. It would create even stronger polarization and more extremism than in our current system of FPP-with-primaries, where at least primary voters know to vote for electable candidates.

This is quite interesting. Where can we find the video?

BTW It appears Top Four blanket primaries with an IRV runoff will be on the November ballot in Colorado.

@jack-waugh said in BTR-score:

If it is a private decision, then why does the public have to pay for it (in the US)?

The justification for taxpayer funded closed primary elections is the theory that a even a closed primary offers more voter participation than nomination by caucus or party leadership.

Primaries, open, semi-open, and closed, provide free publicity to major political parties and establish a certain legitimacy to the major parties.

I am weird, I think we should offer each and every party the choice of an open, semi-open, closed or no primary elections. This would help third parties. This will also never happen.

One alternative is let parties nominate candidates as they see fit. If their are more than seven candidates, hold a blanket primary to narrow the field to three or four candidates, two candidates if plurality voting will be used.

The leading purveyors of RCV, the Top Four & Final Five folks, want to do this in a manor to screw political parties and help unaffiliated candidates. What they call "nonpartisan"; party nominations are not listed on the ballot but party affiliations of each candidate (from voter registration records) are listed on the ballots. This are "confused partisan" rather than "nonpartisan" elections.

They want to the nominees of political parties to be subject the same signature requirements as unaffiliated candidates. Unaffiliated candidates would have the advantages of not having to qualify for party status and not be responsible to party members.

All this signature gathering would drive up the cost of nomination signatures. Wealthy independents and major parties would get their signatures, more difficult for third party and independents who are not wealthy .

The dream of the Top Four and Final Five leaders is to elect a small squad of "moderate" (wealthy, donner class light) independents that would seize the balance of power in America.

@gregw

Now we should consider if this strategy will create a linguist hell regarding the “one person one vote” rule.

In Wesberry, Justice Hugo Black held "as nearly as practicable one man's vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another's."

Reynolds vs Sims confirmed that the Equal Protection Clause requires substantially equal legislative representation for all citizens in a State regardless of where they reside.

The manor in which votes are cast and the value of one man’s vote in comparison to another’s are two different issues, so we should be ok. But are we?

No doubt detractors will try to conflate the two issues. How can we navigate the minefield? Lawyers, Speech, and Money?

@cfrank

Another possibility:

Cast 5 votes for your favorite candidate.
Cast 0 votes the worst candidate.
Cast votes for the other candidates in comparison.
Ties are allowed. If you do not cast votes for a candidate, that candidate does not receive votes.

@chocopi said in BTR-score:

BTW, my sims include "STAR3", which is literally BTR via Score among just the top 3 candidates.

I found a fairly easy to explain voting method on your sims list, Smith-Plurality. Just need to describe a round robin, pairwise tournament. I ran a few sims, Smith-Plurality seems to hold it's own. It must be the simplest Condorcet tie breaker. I am surprised this is not popular, is there something wrong that I am missing?

Smith-Score would be ok but re-normalization would need to be explained. Not too bad, is there another word for re-normalization? It sound like something out of 1984.

Concerning Strategy Present, filtered and unfiltered; do these include organized and/or individual voter strategies?