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Forest Simmons | 1 Aug 2002 03:55
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Re: IRV letter in the San Jose Mercury

On Wed, 31 Jul 2002, Joe Weinstein wrote in part:

> Each method has its pros and cons.  These are
> being discussed daily in an international internet forum called
> 'election-methods-list'.

That's a good way to put it.

One might also mention affiliation with the Election Methods Advisory
Council either at this point or later in the letter, perhaps after the
(excellent) introduction to Approval.

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Forest Simmons | 1 Aug 2002 04:41
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Re: Seized by an idea - my changed views

I just finished reading Joe's Citizen Democracy Idea.

The argument leading up to it is sound historically, logically, and
statistically, and so it seems rather compelling to me, while the
tentative objections raised against it seem fairly easy to get around.

Another context in which a random sample is better than the whole thing: a
blood sample.  How would you like it if the doctor said, "No, a sample
isn't good enough; we need all of your blood for the lab test." ?

This example might have some application in the effort to educate the
public about the Citizen Democracy Idea.

Alex alluded to H.G. Wells.

My favorite is R.A.Lafferty's short story "Polity and Custom of the
Camiroi" which is a sequel to "Primary Education of the Camiroi" which
includes a curriculum outline for that planet's public schools.

The course called "World Government" hardly resembles the Earth courses by
the same name.  Camiroi children enrolled in that course are required to
govern a world, though not one of the first aspect worlds, for a period
of a few months.

If we ever get Citizen Democracy, our civics courses will suddenly become
extremely relevant; more like the Camiroi courses; watered down versions
will no longer suffice.  Which student will say, "I'm never going to need
this."?

Bye, bye apathy.
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Richard Moore | 1 Aug 2002 07:51
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Re: One Man One Vote in equation form; Power and rejecting Approval

Craig Carey wrote:

 >> >From:· Richard Moore <rmoore4 <at> c...>
 >> >Date:· Tue Jul 30, 2002· 2:20 pm
 >> >Subject: ·Re: What are we all about?, etc.
 >> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/9924
 >>
 >> >It's simple to do this for IRV: If there are N candidates, and M
 >> >candidates are eliminated before there is a pairwise winner against
 >> >the remaining candidates, then it is possible that that winner
 >> >is a pairwise loser in M contests. This looks very bad for IRV
if M =
 >> >N - 2 and N is large. IRV needs to test the winner against M
 >> >additional candidates.
 >> >
 >>
 >> The argument is based on an error which is that pairwise losing is
 >> somehow
 >> able to provide information on the right winner.

Now that's a fascinating point of view. I wonder how Craig would
answer the following question:

Question: How do you find the "right winner" of a two-candidate
election? Feel free to conduct the election with either lone-mark 
ballots, approval ballots, or ranked ballots.

Hint: Careful, Craig, it might be a trap!

 >> Pairwise comparing loses
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Dave Ketchum | 1 Aug 2002 18:57

Re: Seized by an idea - my changed views

I choose to throw my 2-cents in here because James offers some useful 
thinking.

Agreed that government should own no rights - it should have only such 
rights as we choose to permit.  Sticky part is how to sort out what 
choices we choose to make.

Joe would have us choose to, individually, be responsible for 
understanding all the details of governing, so that we could intelligently 
take part in making each and every decision (oops - on rereading I see a 
random subset doing each decision, but nothing about their being willing 
and able to do it well).  NO SALE - that would become a full time task for 
each voter who got randomly picked (likely UNWANTED by most), with no time 
left to do something productive or to take part in having a family.

Joe recognizes that the size of a decision making body should be limited 
(he says 400, and I AGREE).  Then he chooses to randomly select a jury to 
make the decisions with his "Citizen Democracy" which he claims is "true 
democracy".

Juries are not a useful model.  They have trouble enough in complex cases 
deciding if it is truly murder and if the defendant truly did it - and 
there is MORE than enough trouble doing appropriate jury selection.

Let's try building on what our founding fathers designed for the US:
      Article I, Section 3:  "two Senators from each State, chosen by the 
legislature thereof".  Can argue about every state having two, but this 
makes the Senate responsive to state demands rather than to campaign budgets.
      Article II, Section 1:  "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as 
the Legislature may direct, a number of Electors".  That was a couple
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Craig Carey | 1 Aug 2002 21:02
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Reply to Weinstein on Approval in Long Beach


Since APPROVAL was being advocated for Public Elections, I give
a portrayal of an Approval Ballot paper.

Multiwinner Approval Ballot Paper exhibit 1.
---------------------------------------------------------
You may fill in none or some or all of the checkboxes.

   [ ] Candidate 01
   [ ] Candidate 02
   [ ] Candidate 03
   [ ] Candidate 04
   [ ] Candidate 05
   [ ] Candidate 06
   [ ] Candidate 07
   [ ] Candidate 08
   [ ] Candidate 09
   [ ] Candidate 10

   [ ] Candidate 11
   [ ] Candidate 12
   [ ] Candidate 13
   [ ] Candidate 14
   [ ] Candidate 15
   [ ] Candidate 16
   [ ] Candidate 17
   [ ] Candidate 18
   [ ] Candidate 19
   [ ] Candidate 20
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Joe Weinstein | 2 Aug 2002 00:10
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Decision juries - notes and responses

Thanks to Dave Ketchum for his comment!

Near the end of his comment, Dave notes that: ‘even the Greeks realized that 
there is no way to get the right decisions made with every citizen 
responsible for every detail.’   This and other statements suggest that one 
key point in my proposal is easy to overlook.

I have proposed that government decisions of law and policy be by randomly 
chosen citizen decision juries.  For instance, decisions now made by a state 
legislative house - e.g. assembly - should be made by citizen juries.

I am NOT proposing a SINGLE jury to replace the entire legislative assembly 
for an extended period (for instance, a year).   Quite the CONTRARY.

I AM proposing that EACH SINGLE DECISION or SMALL GROUP of related decisions 
BE GIVEN OVER TO A DISTINCT JURY - much as we assemble a citizen trial jury 
today to work on JUST ONE CASE.

A typical citizen decision jury would in effect replace a SINGLE committee 
of the assembly, in its work of a FEW DAYS OR WEEKS, on a SINGLE issue, 
involving just a single bill or group of related bills.

[What presently is handled by a legislative body will annually call for 
quite a few juries.  Besides juries working on specific issues, others will 
be needed to agendize and prioritize the issues to be taken up.  Moreover to 
keep to the American constitutional spirit of ‘checks and balances’ and 
‘separation of powers’, so as to avoid abuses of power, we will need not 
only ‘original’ or ‘first-stage’ decision juries but also ‘appellate’ or  
‘second-stage’ juries, to review decisions and then to confirm or veto 
them.]
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Craig Carey | 2 Aug 2002 00:17
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Re: One Man One Vote in equation form; Power and rejecting Approval


http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/toolbox/stats/fracfact.shtml#2205152

At 02\07\31 22:51 -0700 Wednesday, Richard Moore wrote:
 >Craig Carey wrote:
 > >> >From:· Richard Moore <rmoore4 <at> c...>
 > >> >Date:· Tue Jul 30, 2002· 2:20 pm
 > >> >Subject: ·Re: What are we all about?, etc.
 > >> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/9924
...
...
 >Craig needs another hint: Pairwise cycles are not "paradoxes"!
 >

So what?: that word paradoxes is just a word. The actual regions where
there is no solution from the Condorcet method are well defined.

To suggest that Richard provides to me hints can be deferred until any
time that Richard can actually reply to what I write that is true.

I assume Richard Moore is going public with a belief that he does not
want to know. All those maths articles of the past make a strange
introduction to that. At a few times at this mailing list, Mr Moore
called for mobbed decision making. At worst a sensitivity to what the
members here wanted which does not seem to be principles notwithstanding
that a good method can be mathematically derived from principles.

Here there is a way to address cycles:

 >And here's one big hint, in case he's not catching on yet: There are
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Joe Weinstein | 2 Aug 2002 04:08
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Re: Reply to Weinstein on Approval in Long Beach


Craig et al.,

I am not telepathic, and I can't read too many long posts (other than my 
own!).  I still don't get what worries Craig about Approval (as versus other 
methods) nor what is the point of the display of the 64-candidate ballot - 
for use with Approval or any other election method.  No election method, 
intended for universal application to 'all elections large and small', can 
save a situation where 64 or more candidates are unleashed on a mass 
electorate who on average know few (and have prior reason to know few) of 
the candidates, or anyhow much about them.

Sorry, I don't groove on Hadamard matrices.  I also don't know what anyone 
means by 'Hadamard theory', let alone what questions this theory focuses on 
and investigates.  (Any relationship to Hadamard's approach to the Prime 
Number Theorem??)  As a mathematician I'm overspecialized, or anyhow 
specialized in a different direction (or two).

Craig writes: 'Testing is not realistic if it is not done on paper or a 
computer since too few points are involved. Surely at least 1,000 points are 
needed. It could be tricky to blindly test the so called IRV method (with 3 
candidates) and find a grave defect using <=1,000 sample points.
Why should the results from the test be "local" (of a region in USA) while 
there was no theoretical testing?'

I agree that it sounds silly to claim a need to test locally what should 
already be understood - or if not, then be tested - universally.  However, 
please bear two things in mind.

First, Craig and I are talking partly about testing different things:
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Richard Moore | 2 Aug 2002 07:32
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Re: One Man One Vote in equation form; Power and rejecting Approval

Well, as Wolfgang Pauli said, "This is not right... This is not even
wrong!" He could easily have been talking about one of Craig's comments.

I will ignore the straw-man arguments and the many statements and 
positions that Craig falsely attributed to me. If I answer them, he 
will likely respond with more lies. Instead I will talk about what 
Craig failed to do.

Craig, you didn't respond to my simple question about a two-candidate 
election. I guess you're smart enough to realize that a correct answer 
would have exposed your falsehood about pairwise comparisons, and that 
an incorrect answer would have just made you look foolish. If you took 
my hint then I guess that's progress.

Craig Carey wrote:
  >  >Craig needs another hint: Pairwise cycles are not "paradoxes"!
  >  >
  >
  > So what?: that word paradoxes is just a word.

It might be argued that "power" is just a word, too, yet you made a
big effort to define it. You used the word "paradoxes" to defend your
statement about pairwise comparisons. If the word has no weight then
neither does your defense. You are not merely being evasive, you are
being inconsistent.

  > Here there is a way to address cycles:
  >
  >  >And here's one big hint, in case he's not catching on yet: There are
  >  >at least three ways to address these cycles -- (1) break the cycles,
(Continue reading)

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Craig Carey | 2 Aug 2002 15:35
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Re: One Man One Vote in equation form; Power and rejecting Approval


At 2002\08\01 22:32 -0700 Thursday, Richard Moore wrote:
...
 >
 >This gives Craig another chance to respond, but I expect he will opt
 >out again and launch into more irrelevancies. If so he will certainly
 >have the last word.
 >

Members can browse to my long reply which is now at this webpage:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/politicians-and-polytopes/message/184

It repeats the inductive argument over the deletion of the digits
of the numbers representing the satisfaction of a paper with the
outcome. The desire of a paper is needed for the idea of FPTP
papers reproducing or outdoing the outcome that can be had by
adding to the collection, the paper whose power is being tested.

Various of the questions of Mr Moore are responded to.

G. A. Craig Carey
New Zealand

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