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even when tallying is perfect, i think #ApprovalVoting is usually superior to #RankedChoice for single-winner elections.

but i usually think the critique that #rcv is "complicated to implement" is a bit of a strawman (although "complicated to understand" is an important critique).

sometimes, however, the strawman rises from the haystack.

via @ben

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Alameda-County-admits-tallying-error-in-17682520.php

#election #voting #civictech

Alameda County admits tallying error in ranked-choice voting, flips one result and raises big questions

Based on the new calculations, Oakland school board candidate Nick Resnick, who was...
Jill Tucker (San Francisco Chronicle)
#voting #civictech #approvalvoting #rankedchoice #rcv #election @Ben Adida
Ben Adida
Ben Adida  
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I disagree that it's a strawman. RCV *is* complicated to implement. Lots of edge cases that aren't always resolved the same way across jurisdictions. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do RCV, but it does mean we shouldn't ignore the difficulty.
Steve Randy Waldman
Steve Randy Waldman  
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I agree with all of that! It just always struck me as complication perfectly tractable to overcome.

As this story reminds us, in the context of heavily politicized, deeply imperfect electoral systems, it might be right that a lot of what should be perfectly tractable is not.

But my view is that even conceding clear definition of edge cases and perfect implementation, approval voting is better, because it privileges broad acceptability over anybody's favorite.
Ben Adida
Ben Adida  
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I prefer approval voting, too. But RCV's got momentum at the moment, and I think it will win.
Steve Randy Waldman
Steve Randy Waldman  
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we'll see! well-implemented RCV would be (somewhat) better than FTPT, at least. but the future contains a lot of moments, i'm hopeful we can do better.
yarrriv
yarrriv  
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the particular issue here looks like a variant of incorrectly filled ballots, which I think would show up with every system (ahem, hanging chads)
Brecht Savelkoul
Brecht Savelkoul  
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I only voted in one ranked-choice style election in my life (London mayoral 2012), and to this day I have no idea who I actually voted for. Definitely not Boris Johnson though, which is the most important thing I guess.
tatere
tatere  
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That the issue was with people who didn't have a 1st place vote, only 2nd &c, shows the kind of complexity implementation can't solve - in voters' minds. I've only heard of one approval voting election, tho, & didn't see anything about how it was received, I'm curious.
Steve Randy Waldman
Steve Randy Waldman  
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@tatere with the caveat that they are basically an approval-voting advocacy shop, see electionscience.org, e.g. https://electionscience.org/commentary-analysis/fargos-second-approval-voting-election-runs-smoothly/

Fargo’s Second Approval Voting Election Runs Smoothly

The election itself—as approval voting usually is—was mostly uneventful. Approval voting lets voters choose as many candidates as they want. The candidate
Aaron Hamlin (The Center for Election Science)
@tatere
Hubert Chathi
Hubert Chathi  
I've never participated in an approval voting election, but I suspect that one problem that I would have with it is that it isn't clear what threshold to use for "approval". Should I approve only people who I think are excellent candidates? Or anyone who seems somewhat reasonable? Or "maybe not the greatest, but at least they wont cause the collapse of society"?
Steve Randy Waldman
Steve Randy Waldman  
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@hubert i think the way to think about it isn’t some threshold, but generosity. you have a candidate you prefer, others you really dislike, others you don’t dislike do much. you can, if you like, “bullet vote” — approve only of your most preferred candidate. if everyone does this the exercise degenerates to FTPT. but everyone doesn’t! 1/
@Hubert Chathi
Steve Randy Waldman
Steve Randy Waldman  
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@hubert people who choose more are extending an olive leaf. they are saying, it doesn’t have to be my way or the highway, here are one or more others i can live with. 2/
@Hubert Chathi
Steve Randy Waldman
Steve Randy Waldman  
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@hubert these “olive leaf” voters become the swing coalition, the group that decides whether and how results vary from what an FTPT election might have yielded. 3/
@Hubert Chathi
Steve Randy Waldman
Steve Randy Waldman  
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@hubert some of these “olive leaf” differences will be mere self-expression. if you would have voted strategically in FPTP for a major party candidate despite preferring a less likely contender, you get to express that. within the context of one election, it changes nothing, but it does change perceptions of who might be credible next time around. 4/
@Hubert Chathi
Steve Randy Waldman
Steve Randy Waldman  
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@hubert and when next time comes, when there are in fact multiple credible candidates rather than the FPTP binary equilibrium, these olive leaves are crucial. the credible candidates who win the checkmark of democratic generosity from voters who might prefer someone else, but can live with them, become victors. 5/
@Hubert Chathi
Steve Randy Waldman
Steve Randy Waldman  
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@hubert from the candidate side, to win you have to elicit this generosity from people whom you know would prefer, if they were to rank, someone else. that changes how politics is done. trying to destroy someone’s idol is unlikely to call forth this kind of good will. /fin
@Hubert Chathi
Hubert Chathi
Hubert Chathi  
Thanks for the response. I think that I'd need to experience a real approval voting election to see how I feel about it and figure out what my voting strategy would be. I suspect that I would prefer some sort of range voting (with a small number of points), which can be seen as approval voting with more granularity. In any event, I'd prefer almost anything over FPTP.
Steve Randy Waldman
Steve Randy Waldman  
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@hubert Indeed. One way to understand approval voting is just as the simplest version of range voting. There's a simplicity benefit to approval voting, there's more information with a larger range, one case for approval voting suggests that in practice, the extra information in the larger range doesn't often change outcomes, so the simplicity benefit of the binary choice outweighs. 1/
@Hubert Chathi
Steve Randy Waldman
Steve Randy Waldman  
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@hubert That's an empirical claim. More theoretically, I'd suggest your initial concern, that people have different thresholds, a tough critic's 3 star film may be a gentler critic's 4 star film, binds more heavily with range voting, making the "more information" hard to interpret. I really like the interpretability of "my favorite, and those i'd be generously willing to accept" in approval voting. 2/
@Hubert Chathi
Steve Randy Waldman
Steve Randy Waldman  
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@hubert Very much agreed on FPTP!

p.s. my whole thread last night used "olive leaf" where "olive branch" was the cliché i was actually looking for. sorry!
@Hubert Chathi
Detroit Dan
Detroit Dan  
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@hubert It's fig leaf olive branch, FPTP (c:
@Hubert Chathi

Steve Randy Waldman reshared this.

ellesystem
ellesystem  
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@hubert
A solid strategy for approval voting is to think:

1. I should approve of the person that I would've voted for if this were FPTP.
2. I should also approve of everyone else that I, in all honesty, like better than the guy I approved of in part 1.

So say there were 5 candidates:

1. Warren
2. Biden
3. Trump
4. Demon Gorgrath the Bloody (R- Hell)
5. Jill Stein

I would vote for Biden if this were FPTP, and honestly like Warren better than him, so I approve those two.
@Hubert Chathi
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