Range Voting

[kevin_standlee]

The folks advocating Range Voting contacted WSFS (actually, the WSFS webmaster, sfrose) lobbying WSFS to change its voting system from the Instant Runoff Voting system we currently use for site selection and the Hugo Awards. Sharon told them how our rules work and suggested that if they want to change them, they come to WSFS business meetings and propose and debate the changes there, like all other rule changes. The advocate's response, in my opinion, amounted to, "Our proposal is so obviously Right that we shouldn't have to do all that hard, expensive work. You should change your rules because we tell you to do so."

I often tell people who come to me with rules-change proposals, "If you think it's worthwhile, come and submit it yourself. I'll help you with all of the technicalities to the best of my ability, but you have to make your own case, lobby people yourself, and get the votes by convincing people." Most of the time, this discourages them -- democracy is hard work! But sometimes we get people who are willing to work and debate, and sometimes we even get workable changes and improvements.

WSFS rules are intentionally designed to be resistant to change; however, they can be changed if people work hard enough at it. But it's not enough to just lobby a Board of Directors or subvert the Chairman; you have to convince the members.

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

And I'd never even seen "range voting" before. Looks like it kinda makes sense. Not that I'm about to start showing up at WSFS business meetings to push it; I'm happy enough with our system. But it's nice to learn about new schemes.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

The idea is sound, but the suggested implementation is a disaster waiting to happen.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

And were these advocates SF fans who also happen to think that range voting is a Really Nifty Idea, or are they just trying to force their idea on us, whether it's a Really Nifty Idea or not?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I don't recognize their names, so I tend to expect the latter. On the other hand, their attitude struck me as somewhat fannish, in the negative sense. I could easily be reading too much into what they wrote, however.

[sfrose.livejournal.com]

I got the opinion that they weren't fans, but just advocates of Range Voting and may have done some web searching and found out that we use "IRV."

I'm a geek

[(Anonymous)]

Well, to answer your question, I have enjoyed Clarke's Rama series, the City and the Stars, Asimov's old sci-fi mag "Analog", Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials, and many many others. So yeah, I'm a sci-fi fan. But again, I'm not asking you to use Range Voting for ME, I'm asking you to do it for yourselves. So the question is, are YOU a sci-fi fan? If so, then you want the most liked author to win. Range Voting produces vastly higher social utility efficiency than other voting methods, absolutely CRUSHING IRV; so it objectively tends to pick winners who are liked more. I'm not making this up. See http://RangeVoting.org/vsr.html and http://RangeVoting.org/BayRegDum.html

Regards,
Clay

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

WSFS rules are intentionally designed to be resistant to change...

As are any sensible body's rules. Making standing rules *easy* to change would be like trying to play the World Series of Poker using the entropic rulebook of Fizzbin.

It might be fun to watch, but getting anywhere would be a nightmare.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know, but I'm responding to complaints that it's "too hard" to change the WSFS rules. What I think at least some of the complainers usually mean is, "You should change things to be the way I want them to be, without me having to work very hard, and then you should never change them again."

Supermajority vote?

[(Anonymous)]

Sure, make the switch process difficult, like how Congress has to have a 2/3 super-majority to overrule a veto. There's no reason why, once properly educated, 100% of your group shouldn't want to switch from IRV to Range Voting. It is considerably, objectively, better than IRV. Consider these voter satisfaction ratios (expressions of social utility efficiency):

Utility measurements: Group A: 5 candidates, 20 voters, random utilities; Each entry averages the results from 4,000,000 simulated elections. Group B: 5 candidates, 50 voters, utilities based on 2 issues, each entry averages the results from 2,222,222 simulated elections.
Voting system VSR A VSR B
Magically elect optimum winner 100.00% 100.00%
Range (honest voters) 96.71% 94.66%
Borda (honest voters) 91.31% 89.97%
Approval (honest voters) 86.30% 83.53%
Condorcet-LR (honest voters) 85.19% 85.43%
Range & Approval (strategic exaggerating voters) 78.99% 77.01%
IRV (honest voters) 78.49% 76.32%
Plurality (honest voters) 67.63% 62.29%
Borda (strategic exaggerating voters) 53.26% 51.78%
Condorcet-LR (strategic exaggerating voters) 42.56% 41.31%
IRV (strategic exaggerating voters) 39.07% 39.21%
Plurality (strategic voters) 39.07% 39.21%
Elect random winner 0.00% 0.00%

[johnnyeponymous.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I think rules need to be firm, but changable in the face of time and circumstance. There are a lot of instances where an old line can put the kibosh on something despite a significant movement behind things. I'm not specifically talking about WSFS stuff, I've never made a full business meeting, but I've seen in in various fannish and non-fannish groups.

Personally, I like range voting. I've even used it in various situations very impressively, including at the museum. I like the weight method, but I have issues with the difficulty it can present to voters who are using it for the first few times. It also takes longer to vote, but I really think it makes things much clearer.
Chris

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that you said "I'm not specifically talking about WSFS stuff," because I think the WSFS system strikes a good balance. A majority can get things changed, but only if they can muster that majority two years in a row. There is, in my opinion, nothing so critical affected by WSFS that can't wait for a second reading at a different location.

And movements need to be, as you say, "significant," not "Me and a couple of my friends want to talk really loud and you should do what we say because we said so." One of the rights of a super-majority is the right to not have their time wasted.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

I'm very suspicious of their implementation, and because of that their advocacy. I work with a bunch of surveying wonks (academic researchers, natch) and use of "liker scales" is a big subject of discussion.

This RV web page erroneously compares range voting to Olympic scoring. If we discount the irrelevant (but amusing) fact that in Olympic scoring the highest and lowest scores are tossed (to prevent a single judge from skewing the average), we're still talking the difference between trained Olympic judges and the average voter.

A 10-point liker-scale is subject to a lot of pitfalls.

Olympic sports have complicated evaluation systems that judges use to select their scores. Elections don't. Most folks can't discriminate to a 10-point scale, much less the fractional-point system that Olympic judges use. They'll usually fall to using 9/5/0. Now that's not a big deal if everybody does that. But not everybody does.

With a large population, it's practically impossible to ensure that all participants use the liker scale in the same way. Voters have to not only be instructed in how range voting works, but also how they should select numbers. If some of the voters trend towards low numbers (i.e. they vote mostly 1, 2, 3 for their preferred candidates) and some trend towards high numbers (they vote mostly 9,8,7 for their preferred candidates) this will skew the results and the impact of their votes. Droping to a 4-point scale (0-3) loses a bit of granularity, but it's easier to get people using the numbers the same way.

The educational effort needed to make the range voting scheme advocated at rangevoting.org produce meaningful results would be enormous.

IRV has its pitfalls, but I think the range voting advocates are digging deep into the FUD to scare people about the possibility of vote manipulation.

[kproche.livejournal.com]

Lord. We have enough trouble getting folks do our relativley simple preferential ballots!

And I poked around on their site for about 5 minutes before my eyes started to bleed and my brains began to leak out of my ears.

Clearly, RV is their claw hammer and all elections are basic HDG nails. Urgh.

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

I have enough trouble figuring out five nominees (in the catagories I am nominating) for the Hugos. How would this make the nominating and voting process, easier? I just don't think this is workable.

[nitroace.livejournal.com]

I get it, but I'm with kproche, my eyes are bleeding and my brain is numb. Looking at their other options (and I'll admit I only glanced over the whole thing), they seem to really hate preferential (they call it "ranked voting").

[sfrose.livejournal.com]

I agree. That's why I started my respoinse to them with:

"Thank you for your opinion."

[(Anonymous)]

>Lord. We have enough trouble getting folks do our relativley simple preferential ballots!

Range Voting is arguably simpler than preferential ballot systems. You can, for instance, use a simplified range of -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, which can be roughly abstracted as hate, dislike, neutral, like, love.

Why did your brains start to leak out of your ears? Because our site looks like a college math text book? Well, sorry. The science of election methods is super complex, even if USING the election method is simple. It's like with your iPod. Just because it uses incredibly complex technology under the hood, doesn't mean my mom can't easily use hers when she goes jogging.

Let's not imply that a voting method is complex because the science it takes to prove it's the best is complex.

Clay

Range Voting

[lindadee.livejournal.com]

Considering how many DON'T understand our current system, I'd hate to have to try to explain why we'd be switching to a different one that's possibly even harder (for some) to understand.

What's their interest in what we do? Just intellectual argument (hah!) or are they trying to sell something? What difference does it make to them how we do OUR voting? Conidering how corrupt the Olympics voting has been in the past, I'll stick to our system, than you.

Linda

Re: Range Voting

[(Anonymous)]

We care, because we care about science, and basing decisions of evidence and not dogma. We figured that would fit right in line with the goals of a bunch of sci-fi buffs.

How you can possibly think that Range Voting is "harder to understand" than IRV is completely beyond me. THOUSANDS of web sites use ratings systems, like 1-5 stars, and present the average. But how many systems use IRV? Range Voting is more than just leaps and bounds better, it's simpler.

And what does corruption in the Olympics have to do with Range Voting? Guilt by association? Considering that Range Voting produces greater social utility efficiency even when EVERY SINGLE VOTER is 100% DISHONESTLY STRATEGIC than IRV produces if EVERY SINGL EVOTER is 100% HONEST, we'd make the obvious case that Range Voting PREVENTS the bad effects of corruption.

And I'd encourage you to research this a little better, before you discount a process which would give you vastly better results.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I'd go along with a switch in our counting system from IRV to Condorcet.

But uncontrolled range voting in a large, open, secret ballot election is nutty. A controlled point system would be better, but still a bad idea. Range voting should be limited to small judge systems where it belongs.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

But uncontrolled range voting in a large, open, secret ballot election is nutty.

Amen to that.

[sfrose.livejournal.com]

I found the most amusing part in the emails was their response to me when they said:

We can sit here and argue all day about which system is just a teeny bit simpler and easier than the other, but that's completely missing the point.  If you had an ear infection, would you rather take a tiny easy-to-swallow placebo, or a slightly larger REAL ANTIBIOTIC?  Hopefully you're sane, and you chose option B.  In that case, you should be supporting
range voting!

[thebrokenladder.livejournal.com]

Amusing, perhaps, but an extremely important point. People spend MILLIONS, or perhaps even BILLIONS of dollars trying to get the elections to be as satisfactory to them as possible, from donating to campaigns, to buying the gas they need or hiring the baby sitters they need to make it to the polls. Why on EARTH would they think that there was more value in having a ballot be just a tad simpler (which I don't actually believe IRV is, I think it's MORE complex than RV), than in getting a pleasing result from the election?! This is lunacy.

[nwl.livejournal.com]

I often tell people who come to me with rules-change proposals, "If you think it's worthwhile, come and submit it yourself. I'll help you with all of the technicalities to the best of my ability, but you have to make your own case, lobby people yourself, and get the votes by convincing people." Most of the time, this discourages them -- democracy is hard work! But sometimes we get people who are willing to work and debate, and sometimes we even get workable changes and improvements.

Good for you. Stick to your position and make them provide their own case. I've never believed in "talking" for someone else. If it is a good idea, then the person advocating it should be the one to push it. If the person with the idea wants someone else to front it, I suspect there is something else going on.

I see this as an extension of the new fans vs. old fans debate.

[thebrokenladder.livejournal.com]

Say you have a disease that your doctor says could be cured if only you could convince your insurance company to cover the medication you need, which they've denied. He gives you some literature which shows overwhelming evidence that he's right about this.

Instead of rushing out the door and calling up your insurance company to start the appeal process, you tell the doctor, "Look buddy...if you think this is such a great idea for me, you spend an hour on the phone each day, and call my congressman until this is resolved. It ain't my job. Later, I gotta go watch my favorite televangelist."

Missing the point

[brokenladder.videntity.org (from livejournal.com)]

You're missing the point. We weren't trying to say "Oh just trust us, you HAFTA do this!" My point was that we aren't the ones who stand to benefit from this - YOU are, so YOU should do it in order to help yourselves. We just think it would be cool, because we love Range Voting so much.

I spend hours every week working on getting the message out to Libertarians, Greens, and voting reformers in general. For instance, I just wrote this: http://reformthelp.org/issues/voting/range.php

I really wish I had time to go to Japan or where ever the next event is, but I don't. I was just hoping you'd get a sense of my passion for this issue, and investigate it, and realize it's to your own advantage to use it.

The Libertarian Reform Caucus, for example, has already come on board, and now uses Range Voting internally, for planks and rating essays and such. AND the advocate it for use in political elections.

So anyway, please understand why I take the perspective I do. I have limited resources.

Re: Missing the point

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but just doing a drive-by that says, "Trust us, we think this is wonderful, you'll love it, change your system to something that's even more complex and opaque to the voters than the current system" isn't going to convince many people. You don't really think that the voters of San Francisco (to give one example) spontaneously decided that IRV was great, do you? Advocates for the system worked hard to get it on the city's ballot and to convince the voters that they should change it.

I don't see WSFS changing their rules without a significant number of their own regular attendees being convinced of the need for such a change. And that's not going to happen from an outside source. Either convince some of the regular Business Meeting attendees or join Worldcon and come push the changes in person. WSFS isn't run by remote elected representatives or some far-off cabal; it's more like a Town Meeting.

And I'm Chairman of the next such Town Meeting. I'll help you frame your proposal and point you to the people you really have to convince to have any hope of getting a fair hearing. But either you or someone you convince is going to have to do the actual legislative work.

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

Why should he bother? Are you going to pay him more than his day job?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

As debgeisler said, the burden of proof is on the zealots.

I've been the target of that sentiment myself, and I haven't always won my arguments. Remember that there are probably large swaths of the WSFS Constitution that would not bear up well under the examination they would receive as new proposals.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

The discussion on this has gone far and wide, and I see that it's been read by a bunch of people who are not on LJ, some who can't read it (work restrictions) and have made do with messages forwarded to them, some who can read but can't post for various reasons.* From among this last group I got some good comments, which I'll partially quote here:

...A voting system can be as brilliant as you want, but if people don't understand how the result is reached then they won't believe it is fair. As far as most people are concerned, the definition of a "fair" voting system is "one in which my favorite candidate wins". If their candidate doesn't win, and they can't understand the voting system, then they will claim that the voting system is unfair. (As you noted, this happens when the first round leader doesn't win in the Hugos.) [...]

...The issue with selecting the "best" voting system is not selecting the one which results in the best reflection of people's desires, but one that achieves the best balance between that aim and people having confidence in the voting system. If a voting system is sufficiently hard to understand then people will not have confidence in it and will keep assuming that the result is flawed.

This all makes sense to me. Indeed, it partially explains why any system other than "first past the post" is a hard sell -- if the people using the system don't have sufficient confidence in it, the system is a failure. To have sufficient confidence, they have to be able to understand it. It doesn't matter if you're mathematically perfect; if you can't explain it in terms that Joe Six-Pack understands, you're doomed.

____________
*I preemptively rule that a discussion on why people can or cannot read or post messages here is out of order. Take my word for it. I'll delete comments on the subject of ability-to-read-or-post. If you want to discuss it with me, write to me directly or go start your own topic in your own LJ.

[thebrokenladder.livejournal.com]

...The issue with selecting the "best" voting system is not selecting the one which results in the best reflection of people's desires, but one that achieves the best balance between that aim and people having confidence in the voting system. If a voting system is sufficiently hard to understand then people will not have confidence in it and will keep assuming that the result is flawed.

You want a voting method that people can understand, right? So here I describe two methods.

A) You give each candidate a score on a 0-10 scale, and the candidate with the highest average wins.

B) You rate each candidate in order of preference. We check to see whether any candidate got a majority of first-place votes. If not, then we find the candidate who got the least first place votes, and remove him from all the ballots, and check again for a majority winner. If we get down to only one candidate, he is elected, even if he doesn't have a majority (this can happen if you let people leave some candidates off their ballots).

Hmmm...call me crazy, but IRV sounds a heck of a lot more complicated. Maybe that's why you don't see it used to rate products/books/faces/etc. online, but you DO see range voting used all over the place.

But say that's still not simple enough. Say you're a person who thinks both IRV and Range Voting are too complicated. Behold, Approval Voting, a simplified form of Range Voting that is exactly like plurality, except that you can vote for as many candidates as you want. Even that simplified method bests plurality, IRV, Condorcet, and Borda, coming second only to Range. And it's just a tiny bit more involved than plurality. So why not just switch to Approval voting, and get 90% of the quality improvement of Range Voting, and way more simplicity than IRV or Range voting?

[thebrokenladder.livejournal.com]

Okay folks, I've enjoyed going a few rounds with you. I've had time to address 70% of the customary newbie misconceptions that I always hear when introducing new groups to Range Voting, like the myth that one can't vote "strategically" with IRV (there's no incentive not to vote honestly). Now I'm just beating a dead horse.

BUT...voting method researchers could benefit immensely if you would publish your ballots using numbers instead of names (to totally preserve anonymity). There are advocates of Condorcet and Approval voting as well, and I'm sure they'd also enjoy access to this information. It would be cool to contribute to science by making it available, if it wouldn't be any real investment of resources on your part (which I would hope it wouldn't be).

If you have any interest in that, please email me at thebrokenladder@gmail.com.

Best wishes to everyone, and again thank you for the lively debate.

Clay

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

voting method researchers could benefit immensely if you would publish your ballots using numbers instead of names (to totally preserve anonymity

Oh, I can just imagine the furor at a WSFS Business Meeting if anyone tried to do that. I got yelled at in 1995 when I tried to ask site selection voters which region (there are four) they were from, and WSFS passed a resolution saying it was inappropriate. Yes, I know you say it would "preserve anonymity" but remember, people don't act rationally.

Worldcons publish detailed Hugo voting counts. Sometimes, they even put those counts online, like Noreascon Four did. I don't know if that gives you enough detail to be useful or not.