Re: Hybrid Theory
On Mon, Dec 09, 2002 at 11:18:41AM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:
> Yes, but you don't answered the question of why it should be handled
> such.
It's because the resulting voting system behaves better with my proposal:
A vote against an option will not cause that option to win. With your
proposal, a vote against an option will sometimes cause that option
to win.
> You have a set of rules which you want to follow in order for the
> election method to be good.
In this context (quorum) a significant criteria is:
A vote against an option will not cause that option to win.
> You have right now, no proof that this is even possible, nor that the
> thing you propose fullfils these principles without a doubt. English is
> not the most natural of languages for this kind of things.
I can rather easily prove that your proposal does not meet the
above criteria. In fact, I've already given you an example of this.
Aaron gave you an example of why your "two vote margin" proposal also
does not satisfy this criteria.
Additionally, the only reason you've given for your proposal is
"tradition". Tradition would also give us face to face meetings, paper
ballots (or perhaps stone ballots), one option binary votes, etc.
> Would it not be possible to translate these rules into either
> mathematical notations or better yet logical predicates, and then use a
> theorem proover like coq for example to prove that such a method does
> exist. Since coq is a constructive theorem prover, by proving that it
> is possible to find such a method, you will get the method by the same
> way, and can automatically generate an ocaml program which fullfills
> this method.
>
> If you were to do that, there would be no doubt that the method does
> what you want, what do you think ?
I'm not going to do that.
If you want to do that, I'm willing to help you formulate the predicates.
> That said, you would still need to be sure of your goals, which seem
> confuse. Maybe we should held a vote on what criterion our voting system
> should have ?
Are you honestly proposing that a system where voting against an
option can *cause* that option to win is a good option?
I'm not really interested in voting on insincere proposals.
> > > You are trying to use the quorum for something it is not for.
> >
> > I disagree.
>
> Well, at least you are using quorum in a counter-intuitive way.
I would not object to a change in terminology if someone can suggest a
better term for what I'm proposing.
> > Except my proposal for quorum satisfys the monotonicity criterion
> > (http://www.electionmethods.org/evaluation.html#MC) while the mechanism
> > you're proposing would have cases where an option wins *because* of
> > votes against it.
>
> Well, you cannot say that. If the quorum is met, then the option wins.
> It is because you voted, sure, but if you had not voted, then the
> election is not valid, and you cannot say that you you did loose.
Actually, I did say that.
If I vote that the election defaults, and because I voted the election
doesn't default, and if I had not voted the election would have defaulted,
why is that a good thing?
> So what ? If a ballot is submited and the quorum is not meet, then
> nobody is interested. Anyway, if the result of a vote is so low as to
> barely meet the (low) quorum we now have, then it is difficult to set
> the representativeness of said vote.
Lack of interest at time A does not equate to lack of interest at time B.
Quorum requires a small amount of general participation, why do you
think this is a bad thing?
> > Imagine that quorum is relevant at some point in time: imagine that we
> > have a set of elections which default because they don't meet quorum.
>
> Given the current low quorum, then i would much prefer that a vote which
> does not met quorum is further discussed or even abandoned altogether.
Which is exactly what the system I've proposed does.
But I also care about votes which "almost don't meet quorum" and votes
which "almost meet quorum".
The questions I'd like you to answer are:
[1] What logical criteria are satisfied by a voting system which satisfies
your proposal that we do not get from my proposal?
[2] Why is this criteria more important than "voting against an option
never causes that option to win"?
--
Raul
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