kevin_standlee | Range Voting

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.

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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!

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.

But the WSFS elections aren't government offices. There isn't Millions or Billions of dollars spent on the "campaigns." The voters are members of the World Science Fiction Society (or members of that particular year's Worldcon.) And they are readers, viewers, writers, artists, editors, etc.

So presumably the effect of strategic voting is small. Well, Range Voting beats IRV by a huge amount, when voters aren't strategic (or if they are), so it would still be benifical to you.

Trying to change our system and opinuion becuase you say something else isn't better without actual proof that it is better. Voting simulations aren't going to do it.

On the contrary, they do "do it". They show that the social utility efficiency of Range Voting is substantially better than with IRV.

Neither are made up examples formed to prove a point.

But they do prove the point. For instance, the scenario where IRV picks the wrong winner is mathematically proven to happen around 19.7% of the time. That's a fact that you can't escape by just waving your hands and saying, "No, you can't fool me with your silly math."

It's just as easy to make up examples that will cause Range Voting to produce unwanted results.

Sure, you can create such examples, as I did myself in a spreadsheet which I linked people to in some of my other posts. The issue is how frequently these various scenarios actually come up, which we can objecively calculate. That's what social utility efficiency calculations are all about.

Rather than refuting this, all I've heard anyone here do is express sheer incredulity: "Your simulations don't prove anything."

Well, sure they don't, if you clearly don't understand how they work, how they are derived, etc. But in order for someone to explain that to you, you have to actually present your argument so that your mistakes can be exposed. By not making any argument, but hand-waving, you're not even enjoying the opportunity to learn from your mistakes and misunderstanding. That's truly sad.

Clay

"I think [IRV] is MORE complex than RV."

Good lord.

IRV: 1) pick your favorite.

2) Now, imagine that it's vanished from the ballot (which is exactly what will happen in the counting if we get this far). Pick your favorite from the remaining.

3) Repeat.

Range voting: Decide how much you like each candidate vis a vis all the other ones. Niggle over exact numbers of points. Worry about the balancing effect of other people's votes. (This doesn't come up in IRV, since second preferences have no effect unless your first preference has been eliminated, so there's no need for strategic voting.)

Range voting: Decide how much you like each candidate vis a vis all the other ones.

You have it completely backward. People rate items like faces or movies all the time, without relating them directly to other options. A movie is thought of as a "five" if it was about average, or a 10 if it was just absolutely superb and classic, or an 8 if it was really good, etc.

But now in order to "pick your favorite" you, BY DEFINITION, have to compare every single option with every single other one. Sure, IRV sounds simpler when you completely distort reality.

Worry about the balancing effect of other people's votes.

You have to do the same thing with IRV, so that's a poor argument. And with IRV, using strategy effectively equates to the same strategy as with plurality voting, causing much worse results. Range Voting, on the other hand, handles strategy gracefully. It produces greater social utility efficiency under completely strategic electorates than IRV often produces under completely honest electorates.

This doesn't come up in IRV, since second preferences have no effect unless your first preference has been eliminated, so there's no need for strategic voting.

False. This has to be the biggest single myth (I would probably say "lie", since we've corrected them on it, but they still say it) perpetuated by IRV advocates like FairVote.org. See this example:

#voters their vote
20 McCain > Gore > Dean
10 Gore > McCain > Dean
29 Dean > Gore > McCain

With IRV, Gore is eliminated, and McCain beats Dean, 30-29. But what if 10 people in the third group strategically "betray" their sincere favorite, Dean, andmove him to last place:

#voters their vote
20 McCain > Gore > Dean
20 Gore > McCain > Dean
19 Dean > Gore > McCain

Now Gore wins, which is better for those strategic betrayers.

With Range Voting, there is never an incentive not to give a maximum score to your favorite candidate however. The strategies in Range Voting are much less problematic.

And no, this isn't a contrived example - this type of scenario happens around 20% of the time.

Is the WSFS trying to PUT the WORLDCON out of BUSINESS???

*laughter* I got it.

FTW.

SBQ

Range Voting

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