Taijitu

Government of Taijitu => The Ecclesia => Proposals and Discussion => Topic started by: Gulliver on December 09, 2014, 09:28:51 PM

Title: Electoral Methods
Post by: Gulliver on December 09, 2014, 09:28:51 PM
Some of you may have noticed that I recently posted an election calendar (http://forum.taijitu.org/officer-elections/election-calendar/msg147935/#new) and that keeping with current convention, I allotted time for a runoff. However, going forward this would not be my preferred way of running elections, and I'm curious how other people feel, so I'm opening a consultation poll and discussion. If some kind of consensus emerges, I would like to introduce legislation codifying how we run elections.

To briefly summarize the poll options:

Plurality: Vote for one candidate, whoever gets the most votes wins. Because there's no requirement that the winner get a majority, it's entirely possible for someone to win with a majority voting against them, and if the opposition splits the vote that winner might even be the least preferred candidate of a majority of voters, so I really don't like this option.

Runoff: What we're doing now: vote for one candidate, if no one gets a majority have a runoff between the top two. This ensures that the winner has to obtain some kind of majority and won't ever be the least preferred of a majority of voters, but because it goes round by round a candidate who might be the ideal majority consensus candidate (that is, the candidate who is preferred by a majority of voters to every alternative) can get eliminated in the first round before they can get votes in the second. Also, it requires two separate votes.

Approval: Vote for any number of candidates (i.e. the ones you "approve" of) and whoever has the most votes wins. Like plurality, it only takes one vote but avoids the issue of vote splitting because you can approve your favorite candidate as well as compromise candidate in case your first pick can't win. However, it is possible for a candidate who is the first choice of a majority of voters to lose is another candidate is deemed at least acceptable by a larger majority of voters, unless the first group of voters tactically only vote for their first choice. We used this method briefly for delegate elections before.

Instant runoff: Rank the candidates in order of preference. If someone has a majority of first choices, they win, else eliminate the candidate with the least votes and transfer their ballots to the next person on them. Check if someone has a majority and repeat. Essentially like runoff, only with eliminating one person at a time and with only one vote. Like a runoff it ensures that the winner has to get some kind of majority. However, like runoff, while it's less likely because only one person is eliminated each round, the ideal majority consensus candidate may still be eliminated before they have a chance to accrue secondary preferences.

Condorcet: Rank candidates in order of preference. Simulate a one-on-one match up between each pair of candidates, with candidates receiving a vote for every ballot on which they're ranked higher than their opponent. The candidate who wins all of these matches (i.e. the candidate who would be beat every other candidate one on one) is the winner. This is the only method that will guarantee the winner is the candidate who a majority of voters prefer to every other option (assuming one exists), and is my personal preference. We have also used this method in the past.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Myroria on December 09, 2014, 11:07:05 PM
I think in general the method that will ensure the most-preferred candidate is elected is best. For this reason I have voted for Condorcet and instant runoff.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Bustos on December 09, 2014, 11:37:40 PM
Oh didn't realize we could multi-vote.

Vote readjusted.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Kardex on December 10, 2014, 05:23:46 AM
I vote for either plurality or runoff. If the candidate of majority consensus loses, well that's politics and better luck next time.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Delfos on December 10, 2014, 05:48:53 AM
I hate Condorcet, DOWN WITH CONDORCET

I like that the options already come chewed with opinion :D You're an Instigator Gulliver.

CONDORCET SUCKS - CONDORCET SUCKS - CONDORCET SUCKS
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Myroria on December 10, 2014, 06:32:49 AM
What's wrong with Condorcet?
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Delfos on December 10, 2014, 07:32:12 AM
you're forced to make a stance on policies/people that you don't want to "vote" on. If 5 different ideas (and really should be ideas) would dispute for being Delegate, you should be voting for one of them, not ranking each one as best to worse. In case the most voted no1 has less votes than the one for no2, in a run-off no2 would win. Also it is more transparent that we do direct votes, that votes can be easily accounted by the people who vote, 13 votes are 13 people who voted.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Eluvatar on December 10, 2014, 08:30:21 AM
If 5 different ideas (and really should be ideas) would dispute for being Delegate, you should be voting for one of them, not ranking each one as best to worse.
Why?
In case the most voted no1 has less votes than the one for no2, in a run-off no2 would win.
What if most people would prefer no3 to either no1 or no2?
Also it is more transparent that we do direct votes, that votes can be easily accounted by the people who vote, 13 votes are 13 people who voted.
I don't understand this comment. What does it mean for a vote to be "direct"? In a Condorcet vote, you can count how many people voted just as well...
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Delfos on December 10, 2014, 08:39:02 AM
But each person votes is multiplied by the options, it's not 1 vote to one option.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Funkadelia on December 10, 2014, 08:41:19 AM
That made literally no sense.

We're not using Borda Count method.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Delfos on December 10, 2014, 09:49:03 AM
That made literally no sense.

We're not using Borda Count method.

you literally are non-sense

Condorcet != 1 vote to 1 option

Do you want me to make a drawing? I'm not in favor, I dislike this method, why do I need to justify even further? Are there hierarchic positions to fill? No, it's 1 single position, so vote to 1 single option, condorcet forces you vote on all options when you shouldn't need to have an opinion on more than the option you want to it to win.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method#Comparison_with_instant_runoff_and_first-past-the-post_.28plurality.29

On the lesser evil hypothesis, the condorcet system picks the lesser evil, while in instant run-off or other systems, people consciously vote on the lesser evil. Concorcet is a less conscientious vote imo than condorcet  which sounds like lottery/bingo.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Kardex on December 10, 2014, 05:13:22 PM
One person should get one vote none of this ranking the candidates business. Just count the votes and whoever has the most wins, have a runoff of you want. That's how elections work.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Funkadelia on December 10, 2014, 06:33:46 PM
Both of you fail to understand the dangers of vote splitting.

Say there are three candidates, to keep it simple. Candidate A and B are both very popular. Candidate C is also quite popular, but nowhere near that of A and B. However, there are still people who like C. In a one person, one vote scenario, people are forced to pick one of the more popular candidates, because they feel like or know that candidate C will not win. When you can rank your candidates, it gives C more of a chance.

Additionally, with Condorcet, it allows for instant-runoffs, so that if you have say five candidates, when people pick preferentially and the fifth candidate has no chance, the votes for that candidate go to other candidates that were ranked high, so that people are more likely to get candidates they prefer.

On the contrary, one person one vote (First Past the Post) systems are always where you choose the lesser of two evils, because very often peripheral candidates have little to no chance at success.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Gulliver on December 10, 2014, 06:47:34 PM
you're forced to make a stance on policies/people that you don't want to "vote" on.
Most implementation of Condorcet, including the one we used before, permit you to leave candidates unranked, in which case they're just considered ranked lower than everyone else by default (that is they're so bad you would never vote for them given another option you would be willing to vote for).

In case the most voted no1 has less votes than the one for no2, in a run-off no2 would win.
Even if No. 2 is preferred by a majority to No. 1 and all other candidates, they can only beat them in a runoff if they make it to the runoff. When you go round by round it's possible that the candidate the majority can all agree on gets eliminated too early to get people's second preference votes because they weren't the first choice of a large block.

Also it is more transparent that we do direct votes, that votes can be easily accounted by the people who vote, 13 votes are 13 people who voted.
13 people means 13 ballots under Condorcet. It's still clear enough.

One person should get one vote none of this ranking the candidates business. Just count the votes and whoever has the most wins, have a runoff of you want. That's how elections work.
Actually, that's not how elections work in most countries outside of the former British Empire, and indeed even parts of that have abandoned it. And that's because, as Funk points out, the fact that the winner doesn't need a majority means that either you have a two party system where smaller parties are marginalized, or you split the vote, which can end up with pretty terrible results.

Suppose, for example, in an election where for simplicity's sake the only major issue is the tax rate, Alice wants to increase taxes 5%, Bob wants to decrease taxes by 2.5% and Chuck wants to decrease taxes by 5%. If 40% of people vote for Alice, 35% vote for Bob and 25% vote for Chuck, under first-past-the-post Alice, who wants to increase taxes, will win, even though 60% of voters backed a candidate who wanted to decrease taxes! If you're someone that thinks taxes should go up and this example isn't hitting political home for you, replace this scenario with one where Alice wants to lower them and Bob and Chuck want to increase them, the result is the same.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Myroria on December 10, 2014, 09:43:03 PM
Let me give you an example from my home state of Maine. In 2010, (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_gubernatorial_election,_2010) we held an election to choose our governor. The four candidates were Republican Paul LePage, independents Elliot Cutler and Shawn Moody, and Democrat Libby Mitchell.

Now, Cutler and Mitchell had most of the same voter base but because they were both running they split their votes between themselves and despite 62% of the electorate opposing LePage, he won with 38% of the vote, as neither Cutler, nor Moody, nor Mitchell h enough votes to beat him. Therefore, despite the fact that the majority of the electorate was opposed to LePage's views, he became our governor. This is the danger of a plurality system - the will of the people can be thwarted by a simple voting method.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Allama on December 10, 2014, 10:00:44 PM
Thank you for the excellent example, Myroria. The theoretical ones were also quite good, but hopefully seeing that this is a real-world problem with plurality votes will drive the point home.

All the opposition to Condorcet seems to be versions of "But this is how we've always done it" or "Plurality is easy and I don't want to learn something new." No offense intended to those in that camp, I just can't see any logic to it.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Delfos on December 10, 2014, 11:59:55 PM
Let me give you an example from my home state of Maine. In 2010, (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_gubernatorial_election,_2010) we held an election to choose our governor. The four candidates were Republican Paul LePage, independents Elliot Cutler and Shawn Moody, and Democrat Libby Mitchell.

Now, Cutler and Mitchell had most of the same voter base but because they were both running they split their votes between themselves and despite 62% of the electorate opposing LePage, he won with 38% of the vote, as neither Cutler, nor Moody, nor Mitchell h enough votes to beat him. Therefore, despite the fact that the majority of the electorate was opposed to LePage's views, he became our governor. This is the danger of a plurality system - the will of the people can be thwarted by a simple voting method.

too bad, that's how democracy works, there were more people wanting LePage than either one of the other characters, if they didn't want to split the vote they'd run together or make a coalition at the end, which is what happens in most democracies, there's not more than one list or candidate from each party.

What you're saying, a group that has majority will always win, even if there are more people voting for a single candidate, so if in 5 you run with 2 or 3 you will have voter base advantage? haha that sounds great for hegemonic groups, you can skew the election every time, 1 candidate to appeal afro'muricans, another to appeal to hispanic, another to appeal to conservative white and you'll guarantee a win.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Gulliver on December 11, 2014, 12:31:23 AM
too bad, that's how democracy works, there were more people wanting LePage than either one of the other characters, if they didn't want to split the vote they'd run together or make a coalition at the end, which is what happens in most democracies, there's not more than one list or candidate from each party.
This is exactly why systems that use plurality voting almost always devolve into two-party systems, because that's the only way to avoid splitting the vote. The only thing this accomplishes is limiting voter choices, so I don't see why we would ever want to actively encourage it with our choice of voting system when there are numerous alternatives which avoid the problem.

What you're saying, a group that has majority will always win, even if there are more people voting for a single candidate, so if in 5 you run with 2 or 3 you will have voter base advantage? haha that sounds great for hegemonic groups, you can skew the election every time, 1 candidate to appeal afro'muricans, another to appeal to hispanic, another to appeal to conservative white and you'll guarantee a win.
I have no idea what you're saying about multiple candidates (certainly, there's no advantage for a single faction to run multiple candidates, since each vote can only be assigned to one of their candidates at a time), but yes, if a majority of voters prefer every other candidate to Bob, Bob should never win, even if Bob has the most first preferences. Otherwise you end up with a winner who is opposed by a majority of voters (like LePage), which is entirely contrary to the point of democratic elections.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Delfos on December 11, 2014, 12:58:43 AM
This is exactly why systems that use plurality voting almost always devolve into two-party systems, because that's the only way to avoid splitting the vote. The only thing this accomplishes is limiting voter choices, so I don't see why we would ever want to actively encourage it with our choice of voting system when there are numerous alternatives which avoid the problem.
Arguably. Many european countries have plurality that don't end up with "alternance" of power (ie. two main parties winning all the time against each other), you're just used to see it that way and at some cases that does happen ad eternum, but that happens in any system, the centrist, less controversial, less extreme, less anti-things, more consensus candidate will always win even against a majority.

All the opposition to Condorcet seems to be versions of "But this is how we've always done it" or "Plurality is easy and I don't want to learn something new." No offense intended to those in that camp, I just can't see any logic to it.
All systems have their flaws, saying one is better than the other because it's new isn't very valid, we've used condorcet in Taijitu many times in the past.

certainly, there's no advantage for a single faction to run multiple candidates, since each vote can only be assigned to one of their candidates at a time, but yes, if a majority of voters prefer every other candidate to Bob, Bob should never win, even if Bob has the most first preferences. Otherwise you end up with a winner who is opposed by a majority of voters (like LePage), which is entirely contrary to the point of democratic elections.
Plurality or any other system of democratic vote is never contrary to the point of democratic elections. There are perceivably/subjectively more democratic ways than others, and a Participatory vote, in our case in Ecclesia, is in my opinion much more democratic than anything you've described so far.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Gulliver on December 11, 2014, 01:14:35 AM
Arguably. Many european countries have plurality that don't end up with "alternance" of power (ie. two main parties winning all the time against each other), you're just used to see it that way and at some cases that does happen ad eternum, but that happens in any system, the centrist, less controversial, less extreme, less anti-things, more consensus candidate will always win even against a majority.
It's true many European democracies have big front-runner parties, but there's a difference between there being two big parties alongside smaller parties and there being only two parties. Also, your assertion that the majority consensus candidate will always win, no matter the system, is demonstrably false. Governor LePage from Myroria's example is certainly not a moderate and certainly not a compromise acceptable to the majority of Maine voters, and yet he won.

All systems have their flaws, saying one is better than the other because it's new isn't very valid, we've used condorcet in Taijitu many times in the past.
Allama never said it's better because it's newer, she just said it isn't worse because of it. Also, while all systems are flawed some are more flawed than others.

Plurality or any other system of democratic vote is never contrary to the point of democratic elections. There are perceivably/subjectively more democratic ways than others, and a Participatory vote, in our case in Ecclesia, is in my opinion much more democratic than anything you've described so far.
The point of democratic elections is to elective politicians who represent the voting body. A candidate who a majority of voters would prefer any other candidate to is certainly not representative. And I don't know what you mean by "participatory" voting. It sounds like you're confusing the electorate with the method of election. If we weren't to use plurality, the electorate would still be the entire Ecclesia of all citizens, so this seems like a moot point.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Funkadelia on December 11, 2014, 02:50:48 AM
too bad, that's how democracy works, there were more people wanting LePage than either one of the other characters, if they didn't want to split the vote they'd run together or make a coalition at the end, which is what happens in most democracies, there's not more than one list or candidate from each party.

I refuse to debate with someone who uses "That's how democracy works" as their explanation for why we should or should not have a particular voting system.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Delfos on December 11, 2014, 03:10:41 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_general_election,_2014#Results

We've already discussed enough. For those who weren't in IRC, this is the results in Brazil. My point is that if a candidate doesn't have a majority to win against the 2nd most voted, they'd do a run-off, and the context of A vs B is different than A vs B vs C vs +++... In Brazil, the 3rd most voted after being defeated on the 1st run gave support to the 2nd most voted, together they make more than 50% and most of their electorate base support for their platform was running against A alone. A (Dilma) would be the most evil. What happens in a run-off is that the context is different, it changes from A being evil for who is the lesser evil. In a minority perspective, voting for A vs B or not voting at all after your C or other option is eliminated is much different than a general election with all the option. Voters "think twice" when you have not found a majority leader on the first vote.

Condorcet wouldn't allow you to equate A vs B in a later match without the other options, it'd always be C against all, either by voting on C alone or ranking others lower than C, whichever way they felt at the time. Dilma has won the 2nd vote majority after getting bellow 50% on the first vote.

And finito, bc Condorcet already won but you keep discussing this for some reason. Condorcet wins by plurality hahaha, the irony.

I refuse to debate with someone who uses "That's how democracy works" as their explanation for why we should or should not have a particular voting system.
If you wouldn't pick things out of context I'd appreciate. :) Are you saying LePage's victory was not democratic? If you want to discuss this alone, I'll totally humor the crowd.
Title: Re: Electoral Methods
Post by: Eluvatar on December 11, 2014, 04:13:34 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_general_election,_2014#Results

We've already discussed enough. For those who weren't in IRC, this is the results in Brazil. My point is that if a candidate doesn't have a majority to win against the 2nd most voted, they'd do a run-off, and the context of A vs B is different than A vs B vs C vs +++... In Brazil, the 3rd most voted after being defeated on the 1st run gave support to the 2nd most voted, together they make more than 50% and most of their electorate base support for their platform was running against A alone. A (Dilma) would be the most evil. What happens in a run-off is that the context is different, it changes from A being evil for who is the lesser evil. In a minority perspective, voting for A vs B or not voting at all after your C or other option is eliminated is much different than a general election with all the option. Voters "think twice" when you have not found a majority leader on the first vote.
In a preferential vote, the voter is asked to "think twice" in the first place.
Condorcet wouldn't allow you to equate A vs B in a later match without the other options, it'd always be C against all, either by voting on C alone or ranking others lower than C, whichever way they felt at the time. Dilma has won the 2nd vote majority after getting bellow 50% on the first vote.
It's possible to 'bullet vote' in Condorcet. One can refuse to express a preference between candidates.
And finito, bc Condorcet already won but you keep discussing this for some reason. Condorcet wins by plurality hahaha, the irony.
The real irony is that, as you can select multiple options, the poll is an approval vote :P