Re: Range Voting - the simpler better alternative to Condorcetvoting
You make some interesting points.
> I'm curious here:
> a.) Can you give any example of any election we've had so far that
> has resulted in an outcome not expected by the voters (that is based
> on the cast votes, not based on predictions)
I'm not sure if this fits your criterion, but according to Warren
Smith's analysis
http://rangevoting.org/Debian2003.html
there were questionable results in a number of DPL elections. The
analysis of 2003 is particularly relevant. For instance:
... this also means the Robinson-supporters could have prevented
Michlmayr from being a Condorcet Winner, by agreeing among
themselves to rate Garbee>Michlmayr a few percent more often. In
that case Garbee would have been the Condorcet Winner. It thus is
conceivable that Garbee really "should" have won, but was
prevented from doing so as a result of misfired strategic voting
by the Robinson (or Zadka) supporters aiming to prevent one or the
other from being a Condorcet Winner.
> b.) Can you provide a rewritten devotee that makes use of range
> voting? Free software communities generally work on a "Codes speaks
> louder than words"-policy, so working code is the best first step
> towards adaption; such a contribution would also be useful even if
> Debian sticks to Condorcet.
The method is quite trivial. But that is a good idea; I'll try to
figure out dvt well enough to add the option.
> Right now I'm getting the feeling you're just pushing a personal
> agenda. It might well be that there is substance behind your words,
> and that range voting really is better than Condorcet, but Condorcet
> has the advantage of already being in use for several years within
> the project, and thus familiar to almost everyone in the project.
> I cannot vouch for others, but I had no troubles whatsoever to
> figure out how our current voting system worked the first time I
> voted, so I find it hard to believe that Condorcet is too
> complicated for DD's.
In the above analysis of the 2003 DPL election, Smith notes:
200 votes were rejected as invalid versus 510 accepted as valid,
even after 5 years of experience and the best software developers in
the world voting and programming
He takes this as evidence that the voting system in use is not so
easy for DDs as you speculate. (Disclaimer: my own ballots have had
no trouble, and this criticism would not have occurred to me.)
But as to your more global point: actually I agree, Condorcet is doing
okay for Debian. But I would like to see Range Voting adopted in
other more critical places, and Debian seems particularly ripe for
adopting this improvement, minor though it might be compared to
Debian's current rather good voting sytem.
--
Barak A. Pearlmutter
Hamilton Institute & Dept Comp Sci, NUI Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland
http://www.bcl.hamilton.ie/~barak/
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