Range Voting
Jan. 4th, 2007 12:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevin_standleeThe folks advocating Range Voting contacted WSFS (actually, the WSFS webmaster, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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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Re: Supermajority vote?
Date: 2007-01-24 04:24 am (UTC)Nor has making the voting method "fun" have anything to do with the matter. Making it comprehensible and gaining the trust of the voters does. If we have nothing better than your arguments to offer, we will never gain the trust of these particular set of voters with range voting.
You seem to be mistaking science fiction fans for the kinds of soulless automatons who would apply scientific principles to every area of their lives. Convention running is not a science, but a combination of science and art. We must often balance what is theoretically most preferable with what is practically feasible to do, with what people want, and what they find easiest to do and to understand. That was the first lesson taught me when I went to work for a political campaign, and it applies just as well here. The theoretical, and if present the quite marginal, greater utility of range voting does not overcome these other factors, and it most emphatically does not overcome practical concerns about its utility.
This is especially true if, as you are saying, range voting is not perfect. And my point that you are calling "straw man" is not that you literally said it was perfect, it's that you are talking as if you think it is perfect.
Re: Supermajority vote?
Date: 2007-01-24 05:42 am (UTC)Say I offered you a 1 in 50 chance of getting 200 dollars, or a 1/500 chance of getting 4000$...which would you take? With the former, your expected value is 4$. With the latter it's 8$. Either way, that's barely enough to buy you a jumbo soda for lunch. Both options are crappy. But one is LESS crappy.
Nor has making the voting method "fun" have anything to do with the matter. Making it comprehensible and gaining the trust of the voters does.
Whether voters trust it or not has nothing to do with whether it is actually the best voting method. You might try to explain to someone with Down's syndrome that his expected value with one game at the casino was much higher than with another. He might not understand your proof of that, but you'd still be right. He'd still be better off playing the game with the higher expected value, whether he had confidence in that or not.
If we have nothing better than your arguments to offer, we will never gain the trust of these particular set of voters with range voting.
My arguments are substantial. RV is monotonic; IRV is not. RV passes the independence of irrelevant alternatives; IRV does not. RV passes the favorite-betrayal-lesser-evil criterion (an honest vote for Nader is NEVER a vote for Bush); NO ordinal system passes this. I'm at a loss for what you mean when you say, "If that's all you have to offer".
You seem to be mistaking science fiction fans for the kinds of soulless automatons who would apply scientific principles to every area of their lives.
Why do you have to be soul-less in order to be rational in every aspect of your life? I pour my soul into my music, yet I always adhere to rationalism. Why must we ever substitute superstition for science in any endeavor?
Convention running is not a science, but a combination of science and art.
If your goal is to please the attendees, then all the art really is science. It's the application of your data about what pleases humans, in order to accomplish the goal of creating the greatest utility for them and/or for yourselves.
We must often balance what is theoretically most preferable with what is practically feasible to do, with what people want, and what they find easiest to do and to understand.
I absolutely agree. A great reason to switch to RV would be the greater simplicity. Voters can even abstain from casting votes for unknown options, diminishing the harm done by ignorance, and making the voting process shorter and simpler on a per-voter basis.
That was the first lesson taught me when I went to work for a political campaign, and it applies just as well here. The theoretical, and if present the quite marginal, greater utility of range voting does not overcome these other factors, and it most emphatically does not overcome practical concerns about its utility.
You say "theoretical" as if our calculations are loose guesses. On the contrary, they were derived using quite rigorous modeling. Before discounting them, I'd look over the code, and tell us what methodological errors you find. Hand waving is not a scientific argument. And the utility differences are NOT marginal; they are huge. The benefit you get by going from IRV to Range Voting is almost as much as you'd get by going from RANDOM SELECTION to IRV in the first place. If I suggested you pick the winners by drawing names out of a hat, you'd think I was crazy, right? Well, just a bit crazier than one would be to use IRV instead of switching to Range Voting. It's also nice that RV is simpler than IRV to use and tabulate. It's a win-win-win..
This is especially true if, as you are saying, range voting is not perfect.
Your case is refuted by RV's being much better. It needn't be perfect.
And my point that you are calling "straw man" is not that you literally said it was perfect, it's that you are talking as if you think it is perfect.
No, I'm talking about it as though it is the best known voting system (that is practical to implement). It is.
Regards,
Clay
Clay
Re: Supermajority vote?
Date: 2007-01-24 05:53 am (UTC)Whether the voters have confidence in the election system has a huge amount to do whether something is best. Let us presume that for a moment you were suddenly the King of WSFS and you imposed your voting system upon us. I expect that voter turnout -- already less than I would like to see -- would drop precipitously, and the SF community would almost certainly lose faith in the legitimacy of the results.
WSFS currently has a moderately-complicated election system, but it's been around long enough with few enough changes, and enough people in the field whose opinions matter agree with using it, that the results are widely perceived as legitimate. (Yes, anyone who thinks a system is Evil if it doesn't return his/her first preference isn't going to be convinced. I'm mainly interested in reasonable objections, not sour grapes.)
They can do that already. Indeed, we encourage people not to vote lower preferences if they have no preference. (This isn't the Australian parliament. On principle I object to any system that requires you to vote, because IMO the right to vote includes the right to abstain).
On the Site Selection ballot (not the Hugos), there is even an explicit "No Preference" selection, and any choices numbered after No Preference are ignored.
Re: Supermajority vote?
Date: 2007-01-24 06:32 am (UTC)And I say that you do not get it. I'm not arguing that people will necessarily understand why Range Voting is better. Clearly, even a lot of smart people here are taking their sweet time to come to understand it (it took me WEEKS of non-stop argument to get there, so I can relate). The case I'm arguing is that it's better. So your responses are mostly invalid.
Whether the voters have confidence in the election system has a huge amount to do whether something is best.
Nope. The point of a choice is to derive the maximum utility. When you buy a car, for instance, you consider which choice gives you the greatest net happiness, considering cost, performance, fuel economy, etc. You want the maximum utility possible. An election is just a group choice, so the best election method (so long as it is not so complex that the negative utility of using it over-rides the utility benefit of its results) is the one that gives people the greatest utility. Even if people don't have confidence that a system will work, it can still work. For instance, even if I have no confidence in the competence of aircraft engineers and technicians (thus I get scared to death when I fly), I always arrive safely and quickly. I get greater utility from flying than from driving, even if I don't feel confident that I'll make it there alive. The issue isn't whether I believe I will, but whether I will. Utility isn't a measure of how happy you think you'll be, but how happy you really end up.
They can do that already. Indeed, we encourage people not to vote lower preferences if they have no preference.
Wrong. That's impossible with IRV. If they leave preferences completely off their ballots, that is mathematically identical to ranking those options DEAD LAST. It is NOT the same as simply not affecting them one way or the other. With Range Voting, abstention truly is abstention - it doesn't affect that candidate's average at all. This option, while not really very strategic from an individual's point of view, reduces the harm done to society by voter ignorance, when voters decide to be honest and use it. And a lot of them DO.
On the Site Selection ballot (not the Hugos), there is even an explicit "No Preference" selection, and any choices numbered after No Preference are ignored.
Nope. There's no way you could possibly "ignore" them with IRV.
This page explains the harm caused by leaving candidates off an IRV ballot:
http://rangevoting.org/IRV3.html
Re: Supermajority vote?
Date: 2007-01-24 06:51 am (UTC)Unless you don't think that voter confidence in the system has any relevance, which is a patently absurd on its face.
Re: Supermajority vote?
Date: 2007-01-24 10:41 am (UTC)Unless you don't think that voter confidence in the system has any relevance, which is a patently absurd on its face.
Every time I fly, I feel a lack of confidence in the planes. Call it paranoia, because I know better, but I just feel scared someone will have done something wrong, and I'm going to die. Yet the planes still deliver me safely each time.
I could find an infinite number of examples like this, which completely disprove your assertion that confidence in the quality of something affects the quality of that thing.
Re: Supermajority vote?
Date: 2007-01-24 05:26 pm (UTC)You seem to be assuming a totally objective measurement of quality applicable to something that has a subjective element. What I'm saying is that it doesn't matter to me if your contrived "quality" system says something it utter perfection if my perceived quality of that thing is zero. It's like telling a kid to eat his vegetables because they are good for him. We know they're good for him. He may even agree that they are good for him. But he hates the taste, and therefore won't eat them, even though by "objective" standards, he should be doing so.
Re: Supermajority vote?
Date: 2007-02-10 10:50 pm (UTC)No, I'm saying that whether I'm terrified of dying in a plane crash does not affect the probability that I will.
You seem to be assuming a totally objective measurement of quality applicable to something that has a subjective element. What I'm saying is that it doesn't matter to me if your contrived "quality" system says something it utter perfection if my perceived quality of that thing is zero.
Social utility efficiency is about how good a voting method is at satisfying your subjective tastes. For instance, if that kid were at the school lunch room, and the teachers announced that they would list some options for the next day's lunch, and let the kids vote which one to have, that kid would want them to use Range Voting - not IRV or plurality. That would make him (and all the other students) more likely to be more satisfied with whatever lunch was chosen.
As another analogy, say I'm holding you captive in your home, and I have a 12-sided die and a 6-sided die (just imagine you're playing D&D). I tell you that in order to leave, you must pick one die, guess a number on it, and roll it - and if you guess the number correctly, you can go. Otherwise I hold you hostage another day, and we play again tomorrow.
Now, any idiot can tell you, you should pick the d6. Maybe when you leave, you'll go bowling, or maybe you'll go eat a steak at a nice restaurant, or maybe you'll go for a walk on the beach. Who am I to judge the value of what you do with your freedom? But no matter what you want to do, you'll be more likely to be more happy by picking the d6.
Range Voting is the d6 - IRV is the d12. Any questions?
Re: Supermajority vote?
Date: 2007-01-24 06:54 am (UTC)Re: Supermajority vote?
Date: 2007-01-24 10:45 am (UTC)Exactly! So if you don't know anything about the candidates, ideally your ballot shouldn't affect those candidates at all, for better or for worse. With Range Voting, that's exactly what happens if someone chooses "no opinion". But with IRV, it's not the same as saying "no opinion", it's the same as if you HATED that candidate and ranked him last.
So in summary, with Range Voting, "no opinion" really means no opinion, and diminishes the harm caused by ignorance.
With IRV "no opinion" means "like that candidate least", which has a negative impact on utility efficiency.
Re: Supermajority vote?
Date: 2007-01-24 07:00 am (UTC)I'm skeptical of your analogy here, by the way. You're assuming people to be far more rational than I think they are.
(Personally, I'd rather take the train if I could, but I rarely have enough time to do so. My wife detests flying so much that she'll only do it unless there is no other practical possibility. She even researched taking a ship to this year's Worldcon in Japan, but gave it up as too expensive. But I digress.)
Re: Supermajority vote?
Date: 2007-01-24 10:57 am (UTC)Oh yeah, because that's sooooo likely to happen. EVERYONE would fail to show up. I think not. And if even a small number show up, they are going to form a pretty good statistical aproximation of the electorate, which is why it's a bit silly for people to worry too much about voter turn out. The more important issue is that voter turn-out is ideologically proportional to the electorate as a whole.
This would be roughly equivalent to everyone being so scared of flying that they all stay home and hide under the bed.
I will hand it to you, that's a very funny analogy, but doesn't correlate well to reality. Say even half the normal amount of voters showed up (which would be a big impact), but they used a much better voting system - the electorate as a whole would be very likely to be more pleased. Heck, even if 1/100th of the electorate showed up, that would happen, statistically speaking. Polls can get a 95% confidence interval with just a few thousand respondents. It's been so long since stats I don't remember the exact equation as a function of margin of error but, I know it doesn't take that many voters to get very high levels of accuracy.
And we actually have found evidence that Range Voting will increase voter turnout. This is because, by looking at historical election patterns, we've found patterns such as, people tend to show up in much greater numbers when there is a very large difference in how much they like the options. If they hate them both, or love them both, they don't turn out in large numbers. But man, if the candidates are more polarized, the numbers go up by a lot. Because Range Voting gives more candidates a realistic chance of winning (makes it contentious between lots of candidates, rather than between just a couple) we have reason to believe it would have a large effect on voter turnout, based on that psychology. That's a little off topic for your uses, but interesting nontheless.
I'm skeptical of your analogy here, by the way. You're assuming people to be far more rational than I think they are.
Oh no, believe me, I don't think people are very rational at all! My point isn't that they'll understand that Range Voting is better, but that it is better.
Personally, I'd rather take the train if I could, but I rarely have enough time to do so.
Yeah, I see your Amtrack logo. I live in Seattle and I want to take it down to Portland some time for the heck of it.
My wife detests flying so much that she'll only do it unless there is no other practical possibility.
Hah! She's like me. Irrational paranoia of flying. It's my one irrational vice.
She even researched taking a ship to this year's Worldcon in Japan, but gave it up as too expensive. But I digress.
She should ship herself as cargo in a big wooden box. That's the economical way to go.
CLAY
Re: Supermajority vote?
Date: 2007-01-24 06:11 am (UTC)Re: Supermajority vote?
Date: 2007-01-24 11:41 am (UTC)So, talking about my "deeply rooted misapprehensions" is just hand-waving, instead of offering counter-evidence.
But of course you probably have a life, so I don't expect you to spend hours going back and forth about this. All I would encourage you to do is face the very probably fact that those wikipedia entries are correct, and you were just confused before. No reason to feel bad about that. Mistakes happen.