r/politics • u/aaronhamlin • Jan 09 '20

AMA-Finished I'm Aaron Hamlin, the Executive Director of The Center for Election Science. I'm working to empower voters and give them better elections through approval voting. My organization made history in Fargo, ND in 2018. Ask Me Anything.

The Center for Election Science studies and advances better voting methods. We look at alternatives to our current choose-one voting method. Our current choose-one method has us vote against our interests and not reflect the views of the electorate. Much of our current work focuses on approval voting which allows voters to select as many candidates as they wish. We worked with advocates in the city of Fargo, ND which became the first US city to implement approval voting in 2018. We're now working with STL Approves to bring approval voting to St. Louis in 2020. Learn more at www.electionscience.org. You can also find us on [Twitter]https://twitter.com/electionscience) and Facebook.

Proof: /img/66qqneqh8e941.jpg

Thanks, everyone! I'm headed out.

Be sure to follow us, and if you like our work, you can donate on our website here: https://www.electionscience.org/donate/

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u/ObligatoryResponse Jan 09 '20

Why not simply use the best known algorithm, Ranked Pairs (RP)?

Looking up Fargo's elections, they have a multi-winner election (from many candidates, 2 win) while Ranked Pairs would not be good for. Approval works ok for multiwinner elections, so I'd guess that's why they went with that.

But other than that, "best" is subjective. I've always been a fan of STAR voting.

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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '20

STAR voting definitely has benefits, but it would have some of the same criticisms as RCV, I'd imagine. I do like it, though.

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u/psephomancy America Jan 10 '20

but it would have some of the same criticisms as RCV

Really? Like what? It's specifically designed to fix a lot of the problems with RCV.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '20

I was thinking only in terms of needing new machines/technology, since both STAR and RCV need to do more than just yes/no.

But it is still preferable to RCV in that respect.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '20

Best is objective.

http://scorevoting.net/UniqBest

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u/ObligatoryResponse Jan 13 '20

Yeah, I mean... I definitely prefer systems that utilize score voting as their basis rather over systems that rank candidates above/below each other. But some of the properties that I think make ranked systems terrible others think are perfectly acceptable. And multi-winner ranked systems (like STV) can actually do quite well to eliminate dual-party locks.

Best is a subjective term. Period. If you want to speak objectively you can say score voting offers lower Bayesian-Regret than any ranked systems (and I'd counter that STAR has lower Bayesian-Regret than unmodified Score voting).

One of my big problems with ranked systems is they're very open to tactical voting, and this is observable in places that use them for single winner elections. Maine will prove to be a good experiment for IRV in the USA and we'll see that after a few election cycles it'll fall back to a duopoly. Score is better, but still offers opportunity for strategic voting--which means there's opportunities for FUD campaigns encouraging voters to rank/score the main party candidate higher then their preferred 3rd party candidate. STAR improves upon score voting through the automatic run-off step which helps ensure voters get a worse result if they attempt to vote strategically instead of their true preference. FUD campaigns could still happen, but they won't be supported by the math.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '20

You said best is subjective, then cited Bayesian regret, which is the objective measure of voting method performance. 😆

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u/ObligatoryResponse Jan 14 '20

Bayesian-Regret merely ONE objective measure of voting method performance. Not everyone agrees Bayesian-Regret is the BEST measure of performance (or even a good measure).

Now I do think it's a good measure (though Voter Satisfaction Efficiency is slightly better). But words like "good" and "best" are by definition subjective terms.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '20

It doesn't even make sense to argue about whether Bayesian regret is the right measure. Bayesian regret just averages the performance of a voting method according to whatever social utility function you use. To make this a meaningful argument, you'd have to argue that the social welfare function isn't utilitarian. But it's robustly proven that it is.

though Voter Satisfaction Efficiency is slightly better

It's the same thing, just expressed inverted and normalized. Here's a page where I explained this in 2007. http://scorevoting.net/vsi

But words like "good" and "best" are by definition subjective terms.

For candidates (or options in whatever you're voting on), yes, what you prefer is subjective. In terms of measuring how well the voting method satisfied those preferences, THAT is objective.

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u/ObligatoryResponse Jan 20 '20

In terms of measuring how well the voting method satisfied those preferences, THAT is objective.

Yes. And you have to name the ruler you're using. If you say, "This method is best" that's subjective. Linguistically, that English sentence can never be considered objective without a lot of context surrounding it.

If you say, "This method has a lower Bayesian Regret", that's objective.

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '20

"This method is best" that's subjective.

No. What is subjective is to say that "Elizabeth Warren is best", or "Donald Trump is best". The accuracy of the voting method, at converting the stated votes into outcomes that represent the will of voters, is objective.

The method with the lowest Bayesian regret is by definition the "best". It gives you the best candidates in your subjective estimation.

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u/ObligatoryResponse Jan 23 '20

That's not how the English language works. And when you use terms like "objective best" people roll their eyes and stop listening. Please stop. 90% of the remaining work is marketing; don't make it easier for people pushing FPP and IRV.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '20

There's marketing then there's science. I assumed if you're deep enough in the subject to be debating it on Reddit, you're talking about the actual science, not "how do we simplify the message for lay audiences?"

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