How will Instant Runoff Voting in Maine effect voting reform?

[lpetrich]

I've successfully implemented Dodgson's method. Its aggregation size is O(N!) and its run time is O(N!), it must be noted.

I've discovered a way to do  Maximal lotteries by linear programming. For Condorcet matrix C, one finds a difference matrix
D = C - transpose(C)
D(i,j) means (candidate i beating candidate j) - (candidate j beating candidate j)

One must find probability distribution p(all the candidates) satisfying
p.D >= 0

The probability distribution p must satisfy p >= 0 and sum(p) = 1

I've discovered that this can be reduced to a linear-programming problem:
Maximize w for p.D >= w

A related one is
Minimize v for p.D <= v

Now I'll have to find a good algorithm for doing linear programming, preferably one written in Python.

 

[lpetrich]

Update.

I have succeeded in implementing maximal lotteries. It took a lot of effort and trial and error, but I succeeded. It required writing my own linear-programming code, but after a lot of trial and error, I succeeded in writing a version that works reasonably well, a version that I can port to some other programming language if I so desire.

 

[lpetrich]

New Lessons from Problems with Approval Voting in Practice - FairVote

Workability in the real world: In approval voting elections, you can’t indicate support for more than one candidate without support for a lesser choice potentially causing the defeat of your first choice. This transparent dilemma for voters trying to cast a smart vote has immediate consequences. Because most voters as a result of this problem will refrain from approving of more than one candidate, the system in practice ends up looking far more like a plurality voting election system than a majority system.

Approval voting has never faced voters on the ballot -- although it was repealed in 2009 by a vote of 81% of Dartmouth alumni after it was tried for electing trustees to the alumni board and contributed to a perception that tactical voters were getting an advantage over other voters. But we have evidence that suggests the problem of workability is very real, which is the focus of the rest of this analysis

Author Rob Richie then discussed the Independent Party of Oregon's approval-vote poll last summer. That party pledged to support whichever candidate got more than 50% of the vote, but none did. The most votes a candidate got was Bernie Sanders getting 1/3 of the vote. Donald Trump got a few less, and Hillary Clinton 1/4 of the vote. Gary Johnson got 1/6 of the vote and John Kasich 1/8 of the vote.

Of Donald Trump's voters, 76% voted only for him, of Bernie Sanders's, 40%, and of Hillary Clinton's, 53%. Overall, each voter cast an average of 1.38 votes.

But in recent competitive mayoral elections with IRV, 9/10 of the voters choose a second preference and 3/4 a third preference. So it helps in a competitive situation when the choices are not equal.

But approval voting does have value in some situations, like deciding on what movie to watch.

Notably, the Independent Party also used approval voting for other ballot choices that showed where the system can be useful. The party asked voters to indicate their support for a range of potential measures relating to government transparency, again presenting an approval ballot. This time, with the same ballot design, voters cast nearly four votes per voter, with at least 66% support for all five proposals. In other words, once taken out of the candidate frame and any concern about a second choice hurting a first choice in a way that really mattered to them, voters used the exact same approval voting system in a way that allowed identification of the option that had the closest to consensus support (more than 87% supporting more lobbyist disclosure.) For less highly charged uses like this, approval voting can indeed have value -- but to assume it will carry over to candidate elections is an unproven and unlikely leap.