Posts made by multi_system_fan

Good ideas!
There should be relatively long times between steps since many contributers don't look everyday on this forum.

I propose a dodgson-hare synthesis method that I really like.
It' described in a good article : http://jamesgreenarmytage.com/dodgson.pdf with this abstract:
In 1876, Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) proposed a committee election procedure that chooses the Condorcet winner when one exists, and otherwise eliminates candidates outside the Smith set, then allows for re-votes until a Condorcet winner emerges. The present paper discusses Dodgson’s work in the context of strategic election behavior and suggests a “Dodgson-Hare” method: a variation on Dodgson’s procedure for use in public elections, which allows for candidate withdrawal and employs Hare’s plurality-loser-elimination method to resolve the most persistent cycles. Given plausible (but not unassailable) assumptions about how candidates decide to withdraw in the case of a cycle, Dodgson-Hare outperforms Hare, Condorcet-Hare, and 12 other voting rules in a series of spatial-model simulations which count how often each rule is vulnerable to coalitional manipulation. In the special case of a one-dimensional spatial model, all coalitional voting strategies that are possible under Condorcet-Hare can be undone in Dodgson-Hare, by the withdrawal of candidates who have incentive to withdraw.

Since we are not electing individuals but a method and a method cannot withdraw itself based on informed understanding - which is essential for the high strategy-resistance of this method - an modification seems necessary. For instance: everyone get's to nominate 1 method and can withdraw this method when there's a cycle. Perhaps a few times new additions can be allowed.

@masiarek I really like a new method that takes some time to understand. It's called a dodgson-hare synthesis
see http://jamesgreenarmytage.com/dodgson.pdf
Abstract: In 1876, Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) proposed a committee election procedure that chooses the Condorcet winner when one exists, and otherwise eliminates candidates outside the Smith set, then allows for re-votes until a Condorcet winner emerges. The present paper discusses Dodgson’s work in the context of strategic election behavior and suggests a “Dodgson-Hare” method: a variation on Dodgson’s procedure for use in public elections, which allows for candidate withdrawal and employs Hare’s plurality-loser-elimination method to resolve the most persistent cycles. Given plausible (but not unassailable) assumptions about how candidates decide to withdraw in the case of a cycle, Dodgson-Hare outperforms Hare, Condorcet-Hare, and 12 other voting rules in a series of spatial-model simulations which count how often each rule is vulnerable to coalitional manipulation. In the special case of a one-dimensional spatial model, all coalitional voting strategies that are possible under Condorcet-Hare can be undone in Dodgson-Hare, by the withdrawal of candidates who have incentive to withdraw.

@toby-pereira https://jamesgreenarmytage.com/dodgson.pdf seems like an interesting improvement

@rob yeah, it used to be much more interesting and I would favor any ideas to make it better! My understanding of stuff is not good enough to take an other role then posting every now and then...

@toby-pereira seems a method is missing that selects randomly ballots and only compares the scores of a random pair (counting only the highest scoring as a winner of that pair).
Also including a concept like : repeat until chance of statistical unrepresentativeness becomes f.i less then 0,001%

@toby-pereira definetly agree there are some good point about random elements in a voting method. Not only because - as you say - it simplifies and achieves PR but also the psychological effect on elected candidates ("luck was part of my succes") may lead to more empathy, humbleness in their policies, and dealing with colleagues and their next campaign.

@rob I understand this problem, altough I doubt simplicity of voting methods or rationality in general will prevent this.
I'm interested in electionguard software combined with a paper-printed ballot of each vote and the possibility of online checking wheather one's (still anonymous!!) vote is actually tallied. But in this case I do see a similar problem. It's designed to enhance trust but many people would probably distrust everything. For instance because of some connection to Bill Gates.

@rob you could be right for certain contexts like a state in the US. But I live in The Netherlands and often in these forums many assumptions are made without being aware of them.
for instance:

• complexity stemming from incompatible vote counting machines...in NL no vote counting machines are used so this is not relevant
• political and legal worries: In NL it is not possible for citizens to propose a law, let alone the wording of it. This happens by nonpolitical civil servants in talks with goverment. Many very complex texts become law with minor discussions. Some details may not even have to become law but can be decided by ministers or other functions.
• the current voting rules in NL have some complex details that almost no-one knows and have never been in mainstream discussions.

@rob you say "The main thing I think it gets wrong is that it doesn't really account for the diminishing returns on increasing complexity. I doubt that the added complexity of minimax TD over minimax is worth it, when considering issues such as "likelihood of being adopted."
I have to disagree completely. I'm convinced :

• "rare complexity" does not interest or worry voters.
• "rare complexity" does not interest politicians if experts explain to them its rare, fair and not worthy of a political fight for different voting rules.
  So my conclusion: minimax-TD has to become my newest favorite

can someone explain https://arxiv.org/pdf/2208.06907 in lay terms?

@rob no, I read about it somewhere but can't find it....

There's a category of first-step-eliminations before other main popular methods that I would like as a seperate category or vote in another thread.

As an example I would like to eliminate 35% of the candidates with the lowest (average) scores.

@andy-dienes seems like this method comes from US and comparable context. Then it seems like interesting for 3-7 seats. The Netherlands has 150 seats for 20 parties. This method allone does not make much sense since it would be (almost) identical to other proportional systems. So some in between step or other solutions seems neccesary in this context.

@rob yeah, this is definetely an easier visual then those number-overload!
I think the easier graphics will allow more complexity in details because voters will feel they already undetsnd "enough" of it to feel good about it.
Most people don't try understanding every detail, just a good-enough-intuition.

@rob if most voting-system innovators and activists would slowly gravitate to a single winner with good support using voting rounds then I agree with you, that would be much better.
However, I've been in this space for about 5 years and I see no signs of this at all In fact I see increasing fragmentation, polarisation, vote-splitting, many new variants that receive very little feedback and many leaving members in dissapointed way. In fact this was the reason I thought : why not push this fuzy complexity to the voters as a solition
I got one response from you, and you don't agree at all. Which is ok, but our differences illustrate my point.

@rob "voting for what to do when voting-methods disagree" seems a better description.
You may be right that it seems complicated but I expect after a few election-cycles voters would relax about it and probably gravitate towards 1 or 2 favorite methods. Also I expect political parties, commentators, mathmaticians, pychologists and social desicion-scientists would become better at it gradually. Wheter you and I like it or not, voting activists and theorists disagree a lot to the point of becoming irrelavant to change. You seem to miss the opportunity to at least agree when methods agree which is very often.

@jack-waugh yeah just simple choose one, most wins. I know in theory also ties could occur, you could argue for more expression or more complex, but I think this is fair and simple enough.

@sass I think tiebraking rules are complex and based on intuitions, values, assumptions, (mis)understandings, personal hisorical experiences (good and bad) and this fuzziness. This makes them them very vulnerable to say bad press or campaigning of other voteting-method activists. Therefore I would prefer to adjust your method: remove all tiebraking rules and let voters vote about it on the same ballot as the main vote:
Most elections have a unique winner but sometimes ties can occur what shoud happen according to you?
1 new election
2 random selection
3 highest average ranking
4 some other tiebreak variant a
5 some other tiebreak variant b

after a few adjustments I would change this to:

RWLCP: Random Winner from a List of Complementing Philosophies

A hybrid design for a single winner winner systems that combines some aspects of different voting-philosophies without predictable results for strategizing. So (succesfull) strategizing would not happen much. Also importantly the randomization would be perceived by normal citizens (as non voting-experts) to be a fairly honest choice between different kind of winners which all have a fair case to say they are legitimate and have a mandate. It could also lead to a bit more humbleness in the winner instead of arrogance because the winner would know he had an element of just luck on their side.

steps:

• start with a ballot that's suited to gather all needed info
• use independ and different methods to suggest a single winner:
  1. MARS voting (Mixed Absolute Relative Score)
  2. Reciprocal Score voting
  3. SODA voting (Simple Optionally Delegated Approval)
  4. Rangevoting
  5. STAR voting
• ends by picking the ultimate winner from the combined set of suggested winners (lets make that symbolical and festive: a little schoolchild chooses blind)
• the ultimate winner is announced

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