Re: CHAT (POLITICS!!!): Putting the duh in Florida

It seems that there is some confusion. Assuming Adrian Morgan was talking
about Oz's preferential voting system, then it works like this:
Say there are four candidates: A, B, C, and D.
People would vote in order of who they wanted, and when counted, the 1's
would be counted first, ignoring the rest.
The candidate (say, B) who had the least would have their votes
redistributed, counting the 2's this time.
The candidate who now has the least (say, C) would have their votes
redistributed, counting the 2's, unless the two had been counted to put it
into C's pile, or 2 was for B, in which case 3 would be counted.
Repeat until one candidate has 50%+1 (not 51%) of the votes. This person is
declared the winner.

This way, for example, Nader wouldn't win unless he had a lot of 1's in the
first place.

Of course, if after all the votes have been distributed, you get two people
with 50%, then, well... problems arise. (I think this happened in
Queensland, but I don't know who the fixed it. Apropos of Queensland, I
heard a cat was enrolled to vote there...)

Tristan


> Date:    Fri, 1 Dec 2000 00:20:27 -0500
> From:    Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...>
> Subject: Re: CHAT (POLITICS!!!): Putting the duh in Florida
>
> On Fri, 1 Dec 2000, Adrian Morgan wrote:
>
> > Nik Taylor wrote, quoting Mangiat:
> >
> > This may sound a little harsh, but I find it unbelievable that a
> > reasonably literate nation should still use a FPTP voting system (i.e.
> > where everyone marks just one candidate). I think FPTP is suitable
> > for developing nations with very low literacy, but I don't see why it's
> > accepted elsewhere, because in the end it says nothing about which
> > candidate really carries most favour with the community. I'd like to see
> > Americans adopt a preferential voting system, or an equally
sophisticated
> > equivalent.
>
> If I understand you correctly, does this mean that you would advocate a
> system where everyone, say, marks candidates in order of preference?
>
> If you aren't, well, the below is probably irrelevant to you politically,
> but might be of mild interest mathematically.
>
> (I'm jumping into this topic on a mathematical note, not a political
> one.  I can't remember details, so I may have gotten some wrong.  If
> anyone's more familiar with this branch of math, do jump in!  Or if
> anyone's curious and no one jumps in, I can probably snag a local math
> prof and ask.  I think this might be somewhere in statistics or discrete
> systems or something.)
>
> Apparently someone (more likely several someones) out there has done a
> mathematical study of voting systems where you rank multiple candidates
> in order of preference, e.g. 1 for your favourite, 2 for your next
> favourite, etc.
>
> Then you might (using the simplest weighting system) add up the number of
> ranks that every candidate has gotten, so if Mr. Very Unpopular had just
> 5 votes ranking him 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th he'd get a total ranking
> of 15.  The person with the lowest ranking wins, presumably.
>
> However, mathematically speaking, you can end up with indeterminate
> results, i.e. lots of ties.  You can also end up with circular
> preferences (probably not *too* likely in politics, but...).  Someone
> might prefer Nader to Gore, Bush to Nader, and Gore to Bush.  (Okay,
> politically very unlikely, but this could be seen happening with, say,
> apple vs. blueberry vs. cherry pie.  Er, if such a thing as cherry pie
> exists.)  In which case a ranking system with 1, 2, 3 etc. still doesn't
> accurately reflect the voter's preferences, and (if I remember this
> correctly) and even if you did allow circular preferences you can still
> end up with annoying indeterminate results.
>
> According to the book where I read it <banging head trying to
> remember--probably one of Ivars Peterson's books on math for
> non-mathematicians>, a ranking system of one of the two kinds described
> above has been historically favored by political thinkers, but
> mathematically-minded people looked at it and began seeing problems with
it.
>
> <Shrug>  Just some half-remembrances of math.  I'm sure someone here has
> done much more extensive study of/reading about the mathematics of
> voting systems than I have, though!
>
AND
> Date:    Fri, 1 Dec 2000 01:25:43 -0500
> From:    Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
> Subject: Re: CHAT (POLITICS!!!): Putting the duh in Florida
>
> Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> > If I understand you correctly, does this mean that you would advocate a
> > system where everyone, say, marks candidates in order of preference?
>
> The biggest problem is dishonesty - Republicans would put Bush first and
> Gore last, and Democrats would put Gore first and Bush last, so neither
> Bush nor Gore would win, but, say, Nader, from all the 2nd and 3rd place
> votes!
>
> This is called the Borda (IIRC) system.
>
> It is, however, the system used in voting for college football teams.
>
> --
> Florida: Home of Electile Dysfunction
> Palm Beach County: Putting the "duh" in Florida
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>