NY Review of books comes out with 'Majority Rule' (condorcet winner) article, sigh.
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Phil Uhrich
Jan 16, 2017, 7:38:33 PM1/16/17
to The Center for Election Science
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/01/19/rules-of-the-game-new-electoral-system/
I'm beginning to think Rule #1 of journalism is make sure you have no clue what you are talking about, and rule 2 is don't find several experts, just wing it.
" there election methods that always (i.e., for all rankings that voters might conceivably have) give us a clear-cut winner, respect everyone’s vote, and avoid vote-splitting (or equivalent conditions)? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Some sixty-five years ago, the economist Kenneth Arrow published his Impossibility Theorem, showing that no electoral method can satisfy all three requirements (although there are many rules that satisfy two out of three—for example, plurality rule respects everyone’s vote and produces a winner, but often leads to vote-splitting).1 The natural follow-up question is whether there is an election method that satisfies these requirements more often (i.e., for a wider class of voters’ rankings) than any other. Here, fortunately, there is a clear answer: the solution is the classic method of majority rule, strongly advocated by the Marquis de Condorcet, the great eighteenth-century political thinker.
Instead of limiting a voter to choosing a single candidate, Condorcet proposed that voters should have the option of ranking candidates on the ballot from best to worst. The winner is the candidate who, according to the rankings, would beat each opponent in a head-to-head contest.
Suppose, for example, that in a three-person race consisting of Trump, Clinton, and Bloomberg, the voters in a particular state (such as Florida) break down into three groups (see Figure 1 below). There are the Trump supporters, consisting of 45 percent of the voting population, who put Trump first, Clinton last, and Bloomberg in between. Then there are the Clinton supporters (40 percent), who have the opposite ranking. Finally there are the voters who detest Trump, can’t accept voting for Clinton (and so, effectively, aren’t distinguishing between the two), but find Bloomberg acceptable (15 percent). In this example, a majority of voters (40 percent, plus 15 percent) prefer Bloomberg to Trump, and a majority (45 percent, plus 15 percent) also prefer Bloomberg to Clinton. Thus Bloomberg is elected as the majority winner."
I'm beginning to think Rule #1 of journalism is make sure you have no clue what you are talking about, and rule 2 is don't find several experts, just wing it.
" there election methods that always (i.e., for all rankings that voters might conceivably have) give us a clear-cut winner, respect everyone’s vote, and avoid vote-splitting (or equivalent conditions)? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Some sixty-five years ago, the economist Kenneth Arrow published his Impossibility Theorem, showing that no electoral method can satisfy all three requirements (although there are many rules that satisfy two out of three—for example, plurality rule respects everyone’s vote and produces a winner, but often leads to vote-splitting).1 The natural follow-up question is whether there is an election method that satisfies these requirements more often (i.e., for a wider class of voters’ rankings) than any other. Here, fortunately, there is a clear answer: the solution is the classic method of majority rule, strongly advocated by the Marquis de Condorcet, the great eighteenth-century political thinker.
Instead of limiting a voter to choosing a single candidate, Condorcet proposed that voters should have the option of ranking candidates on the ballot from best to worst. The winner is the candidate who, according to the rankings, would beat each opponent in a head-to-head contest.
Suppose, for example, that in a three-person race consisting of Trump, Clinton, and Bloomberg, the voters in a particular state (such as Florida) break down into three groups (see Figure 1 below). There are the Trump supporters, consisting of 45 percent of the voting population, who put Trump first, Clinton last, and Bloomberg in between. Then there are the Clinton supporters (40 percent), who have the opposite ranking. Finally there are the voters who detest Trump, can’t accept voting for Clinton (and so, effectively, aren’t distinguishing between the two), but find Bloomberg acceptable (15 percent). In this example, a majority of voters (40 percent, plus 15 percent) prefer Bloomberg to Trump, and a majority (45 percent, plus 15 percent) also prefer Bloomberg to Clinton. Thus Bloomberg is elected as the majority winner."
Warren D Smith
Jan 16, 2017, 8:08:15 PM1/16/17
to electio...@googlegroups.com
On 1/16/17, Phil Uhrich <philu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/01/19/rules-of-the-game-new-electoral-system/
>
> I'm beginning to think Rule #1 of journalism is make sure you have no clue
> what you are talking about, and rule 2 is don't find several experts, just
> wing it.
--Actually, Maskin & Sen. the authors of this, both
> https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/01/19/rules-of-the-game-new-electoral-system/
>
> I'm beginning to think Rule #1 of journalism is make sure you have no clue
> what you are talking about, and rule 2 is don't find several experts, just
> wing it.
are Nobel laureates in economics.
Maskin thinks he is an expert on voting systems, but actually, he isn't.
My attempts to educate Maskin have so far all been failures and no matter
how many times I refute errors he says in public, it
never seems to have any impact on him.
Sen actually genuinely does have some expertise but he is age 83
and may have been manipulated or confused
by the much younger Maskin.
--
Warren D. Smith
http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking
"endorse" as 1st step)
William Waugh
Dec 14, 2017, 4:26:33 PM12/14/17
to The Center for Election Science
Maskin will be interviewed by Sophie Shevardnadze on her show Sophie & Co (Sophieco for searches), which airs on Mondays and Fridays on RT America (Russia Today). https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/
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