User:RalphInOttawa: Difference between revisions

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I was a computer programmer. I've been retired for almost 15 years. Beside working for a living, I ran for political office twice, losing on October 25 both times. As a result of losing the first time, 30 years ago, I became very interested in having a better voting system for electing representation. The systems out there all seemed to have problems. I came across the Condorcet methods demonstrator on a Robla webpage back in 1999(?). After many years of trying to find or make a perfect voting system, I gave up. Last winter (January 2023), there was some irritating election result, or someone's smart comments ... and I got to thinking that I needed to write my old ideas of fairness into a step by step process to fix IRV before I was too old to remember. I came up with my MIRV process (Multiple Instant Runoff Voting) on paper. It was hard to explain and boring to talk about. I was fortunate to have a Chrome Book and noticed I could use Google Sheets for free. I decided to give it try. No database. Just columns and rows. Now, it's October, and I think I've made something different, something new. Too complicated? Perhaps. I would argue, it's a spreadsheet. People trust spreadsheets. It's all there. Simple arithmetic and lots and lots of simple logic. As of December, 2023, I have given it a new name, Standard Vote (SV).

January 1st, 2024, added a user contribution page, includes link to spreadsheet demonstrator: User:RalphInOttawa/Standard Vote

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 I was a computer programmer. I've been retired for almost 15 years. Beside working for a living, I ran for political office twice, losing on October 25 both times. As a result of losing the first time, 30 years ago, I became very interested in having a better voting system for electing representation. The systems out there all seemed to have problems. I came across the Condorcet methods demonstrator on a Robla webpage back in 1999(?). After many years of trying to find or make a perfect voting system, I gave up. Last winter (January 2023), there was some irritating election result, or someone's smart comments ... and I got to thinking that I needed to write my old ideas of fairness into a step by step process to fix IRV before I was too old to remember. I came up with my MIRV process (Multiple Instant Runoff Voting) on paper. It was hard to explain and boring to talk about. I was fortunate to have a Chrome Book and noticed I could use Google Sheets for free. I decided to give it try. No database. Just columns and rows. Now, it's October, and I think I've made something different, something new. Too complicated? Perhaps. I would argue, it's a spreadsheet. People trust spreadsheets. It's all there. Simple arithmetic and lots and lots of simple logic. As of December, 2023, I have given it a new name, Standard Vote (SV).
+January 1st, 2024, added a user contribution page, includes link to spreadsheet demonstrator: [[User:RalphInOttawa/Standard Vote]]
-Link to SV demo R:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1D1Aeoy3Y17gcnCyVx6AlGEIYneDidRpqn5a-lClC66I/edit#gid=664199959
-Feel free to put in your votes and have a look at your results. As a shared link, we will all see what's going on. And we might compete for the input. Therefore, to do your testing, you may want to make your entire set of votes on your own 2 column spreadsheet, copy and paste into the Voting sheet, and zip over to the Report sheet to print a pdf of the results before anyone else can wreck your input. You should also replace the Tiebreaks sheet values too, which means you will want to copy and paste from a 10 column spreadsheet, specifically taylored to the test you are doing.
-I must triple check the criteria, but should this method ever get a page on this website, here's what I would "vote" for:
-'''Standard Vote''' (abbreviated as '''SV''') is an election vote-counting method that chooses a single candidate by using ranked ballots and the sequential elimination of lowest counting candidates in two or three runoffs. Thereby addressing the unfairness of a single runoff voting system.
-This method modifies [[Instant-Runoff Voting|instant runoff voting]] (IRV) by adding a second and possibly a third runoff with [[later-no-harm]] safeguards for runoff winners. It further modifies simple IRV by allowing the voter to mark more than one candidate at the same ranking level. These additions claim to improve on simple IRV by: more fairly counting a voter's honest opinion, making this system more monotonic ([[Monotonicity]]), reducing the failure rate for the [[Independence of irrelevant alternatives|Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives]] (IIA), eliminating [[Center-squeeze]], and making the practice of [[Favorite Betrayal]] unnecessary.
-== Description ==
-Voters rank the candidates using as many ranking levels as there are candidates, or to a limit as specified by the electing authority. Four levels is manually countable and a reasonable compromise as few voters will remember, nor be happy with, whomever their fifth and additional down ballot choices were.
-This method begins with a first runoff. Candidates are eliminated one at a time in each runoff, with the vote counts of the final two candidates compared (effectively pairwise) to identify a winner and a runner-up. The method continues with a second runoff, in which the first runoff's runner-up is immediately withdrawn. The voter's preferences trapped behind/under the runner-up are now countable like those of other voters whose first preference has lost. This identifies a second runoff winner. If the first winner repeats as the second winner, they are elected and the election is over.
-If no one is elected, a pairwise comparison is made of the first and second winners. The first winner will be elected if the second winner can do no better than a tie. Failing that, a third runoff occurs in which the first runoff's winner is immediately withdrawn. The votes previously trapped behind/under the first winner in both runoffs are now countable like those of other voters whose first preference has lost. This identifies a third winner. If the second winner repeats as the third winner, they are elected and the election is over.
-If no one has been elected, a pairwise comparison is made of the second and third winners. The second winner will be elected if the third winner can do no better than a tie. Failing all of the above, the third winner is compared pairwise with the first winner. The third winner will be elected if they beat the first winner. Finally, with no one elected, the result is a paradoxical tie between the three runoff winners. One of them will be elected by "random draw".
-== Tie breakers ==
-[[Random Voter Hierarchy]] (RVH) is used for each "random draw". Ideally these values are determined at the "instant" the counting begins, giving candidates and voters nothing to apply a strategy to. If two or more candidates have the same rank on any number of ballots, this tie is re-ranked by "random draw" en masse. All votes will fall the same way throughout all elimination rounds in all runoffs (all occurrences of A=B will either all count as A>B or all count as B>A). All ties encountered during elimination rounds will be decided by a different "random draw". This will cause ties between candidates to be decided in the same candidate's favor throughout all elimination rounds. In pairwise ties between runoff winners, the earlier winner's count takes precedence over a subsequent winner's count. In the scenario of the paradoxical tie, the candidate to be elected will be decided by yet another different "random draw".
-== Examples ==
-The paradoxical tie. Each candidate has an equal claim to be elected. In this example, one of the three candidates will be elected by "random draw".
-A>B
-B>C
-C>A
-The next example shows how Standard Vote does not suffer from center-squeeze. Candidate C is elected.
-A>C
-B>C
-C
-The following example demonstrates that favorite betrayal is not necessary. C wins. 2 A>C turning into 2 C>A is not needed.
-A>C
-B>C
-C>B
-The 4th example illustrates the system doing a little better than IRV at failing to be monotonic
-A
-B>A
-C>B
-IRV elects B, but when 2 supporters of A change their votes to C (favorite betrayal), A wins. In this improved version of IRV, the original result still elects B, and the new result is a three way tie that will be decided by random draw. Still not monotonic but not the guaranteed win by A. However, the same result is achieved without betrayal, and not failing monotonicity, if those 2 voters had simply added C as a preference, casting A>C.