Talk:Bucklin voting

message: FairVote is not a "reliable source" for Wikipedia, being an advocacy organization (at least for facts; it is a reliable source for arguments being used by IRV advocates) and the page cited, which was the source for material in the article which I have also removed, was argumentative. The reason given for voters not to add second rank votes is simply an opinion, it appears, one designed to promote Instant Runoff Voting. As a note for further research, I found this reference:  which then cites other relevant cases. It appears that Brown v. Smallwood, in particular, was cited by other courts in outlawing the Hare system. I.e., STV. I have written elsewhere that Brown v. Smallwood would appear to apply to IRV as well as to Bucklin, and that the argument that Brown v. Smallwood was only about the additional votes involved in the Approval-like Bucklin method is spurious, apparently based on a shallow reading of the case, which appears to have disallowed all kinds of alternative votes. This is a current controversy in Minnesota, as it appears the IRV elections set up there are headed for judicial review.
This is what I removed:
Like other variants of approval voting, in Bucklin voting indicating support for a lesser choice will count against a higher choice -- for example, if both your first choice and second choice advanced to the second round, your ballots would cancel each other out. For this reason, in high stakes elections in which voters have strong favorites, most voters opted to "bullet vote" and protect the interests of their favorite choice be withholding any alternate choices. In Alabama, for example, in the 16 primary election races that used Bucklin Voting between 1916 and 1930, on average only 13% of voters opted to indicate a second choice. Even in hotly contested multi-candidate gubernatorial primaries, over two thirds of voters selected only a single choice. Between 1916 and the system's repeal in 1931, in no case did the addition of the second choice votes give the winner a majority.FairVote: An Early 20th Century American Use of an Alternative Voting Method
Note that the primary purpose in major elections of a system like Bucklin (or IRV) is to eliminate the "spoiler effect," and to do this, in a two-party system, it is only necessary for a relatively small percentage of voters to use additional preference expressions. In the election invalidated by Brown v. Smallwood, however, many voters did use the additional preferences, and they turned the election. The bugaboo of second choices hurting your first preference is only relevant if your first and second preferences are both frontrunners, in which case an ordinary voter would quite easily and properly vote for one only. So low usage of second preference votes is not an argument against Bucklin at all. It would be expected in a two-party system, where third party supporters are at most a few percent of the electorate. In any case, my point is not to establish *my* argument here, but to note that FairVote was presenting *their* argument, not known facts, presented in a balanced way. --Abd 02:33, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: removing FairVote reference.

message: The use of the geographical example is one which has value because it shows an underlying rationale for voting; indeed, it assumes that voters will follow distance as a basis for their votes. However, that example really is designed for Range voting; if voters vote to minimize their distance, and if they vote sincerely, the overall distance traveled to the capital by all voters will be minimized.
However, in real public elections, multiple majorities will be quite unusual. Normally, in most public elections, there are no more than two front-runners, and for a multiple majority to occur, as with the geographical voting example, there must be a large number of voters who vote for *both* front-runners, which is, shall we say, extremely unlikely; this would be the equivalent of having voted for Bush and Gore in U.S. Presidential 2000. The article notes that there is an advantage to "bullet voting," under some circumstances, but then the example shows all voters voting all ranks. Which is implausible for political elections; we can expect that if voters are free to vote as few ranks as they like, that many will vote for one only, and that is perfectly rational, and perfectly legitimate. No voter should be forced to vote for anyone, and requiring full ranking requires that all voters essentially vote (conditionally) for all candidates except one, the one they bottom-rank. Bucklin is not designed for that. Like Approval voting, its pure-rating cousin, bullet voting would be the *norm*, and it is the supporters of candidates not likely to win who would add additional votes for candidates more likely to be real contenders.
I do not think that the Memphis voters would add second rank votes. However, the voters in other cities might. The Nashville voters would likewise know that adding second rank votes might hurt them, if they second rank Memphis, since the front-runners (for first preference) are Memphis and Nashville. However, the other two cities would be likely to add second preferences; Knoxville and Chattanooga might add each other. And then they might add Nashville as a third preference. The result would be, again, that the counting would go to the third round, with Nashville winning. Unless the Knoxville and Chattenooga voters refused to add Nashville third, in which case there would be majority failure. If the rules allow a plurality win at that point (as IRV generally would), Memphis would win, an undesirable result for Knoxville and Chattanooga, which is why I think they would cast those extra votes. Basic rule for Approval (and it applies to Bucklin): vote for one of the two front-runners, at least somewhere in your preferences.
--Abd 04:03, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The source of the example was before I started editing, and was designed for a simple example to use in multiple election methods. There was a discussion about it (somewhere), about its usefulness, I don't remember, but it was moved for all method to a common article now called Effects of different voting systems under similar circumstances. Anyway I have no great affection for the example. I probably did originally add it to Bucklin, and yes with any specific method, sincere ranking may not be the best strategy, so the example must be more considered as a demonstration rather that a serious analysis on how people might vote - WHICH would anyway be original research perhaps, so it can't really be much more than it is! Tom Ruen 06:19, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

text: See, this all depends on how "don't-care" votes are counted. If "don't-care" equals "ranked dead last", then there is a strong incentive to bullet vote. Conversely if "don't-care" means "ranked as high as possible", then there's a strong disincentive to bullet vote, but don't-care votes may distort the results of the election in an undesirable way (or even find some other use in tactical voting). If "don't-care" means that every unranked candidate is given 1/n votes per don't-care rank, then bullet voting merely defers your vote to people who actually fill out their ballots, neither helping nor harming the unranked candidates. The pathological incentives of setting don't-care votes to dead-last was what caused Bucklin to fail so miserably historically. MarcT 107.129.249.144 (talk) 02:21, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems with the example 

message: There is a sentence in the article that states "A majority is defined as half the number of voters, similar to absolute majority." I believe this to be factually incorrect for two reasons:
# A majority, whether simple or absolute, requires more than half, not just half.
# An absolute majority is defined as being based on the total number of possible voters, whether present or not. This is not a requirement of the Bucklin system as far as I can tell, nor is this really common to the theory of voting systems in general.
As such, I am correcting what I believe to be errors. Please discuss here if you disagree with the changes.  Derelk (talk) 22:44, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That definition of majority was incorrect, not so much because of "absolute majority," but because majority means "more than half." An exact half is not a majority. "Absolute majority" is used differently in different places, so the comment could be confusing, though it is correct if we understand the basis, the "membership," so to speak, as being all those who cast ballots in the election. It can be variously defined for Bucklin, sometimes it might mean all ballots containing a vote for an eligible candidate, including eligible write-ins. The change Derelk made was an improvement. --Abd (talk) 15:56, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Absolute majority? 

message: *Yes, some forms of Bucklin as proposed allow equal ranking in all ranks, specifically Condorcet's proposal in 1793, and original Bucklin (Grand Junction method) allowed it in third rank, as did most Bucklin implementations. --Abd (talk) 18:10, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, but I would note that of course Condorcet lived before Bucklin, and thus never referred to "Bucklin". So: This proposal of Condorcet's is not covered in any other article, and Abd and I are arguing that this article is the natural place for similar systems. Many actual Bucklin implementations did allow some degree of equal ranking; that is the most relevant point. Homunq (talk) 12:58, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Responses to question 1

message: *Yes and No Bucklin ER (=Bucklin) satisfies the majority criterion, but this is controversial; generally the arguments have raged over the question: if the majority chooses to equal rank in first rank when it has a choice (i.e., to exclusively rank), can a method fail the MC if the majority "really" prefers a candidate? In real Bucklin, though, multiple majorities were rare even when three ranks were completely collapsed, that a multiple majority, which is what this would require, would happen in first rank requires conditions that are essentially impossible except with artificially constructed "elections." (Where a majority chooses to add additional preferences, not only in lower ranks, but in first rank. I.e., the majority is quite ignorant and has no clue at all, otherwise, if their preference is significant, they would rank their second choice lower. Voters may be prohibited from adding multiple preferences in first rank. This would make MC compliance completely uncontroversial, but at the cost of tossing ballots that break the rule!) The substance is that Buckin ER satisfies MC, for sure. Technical failure depends on the exact definition, and some experts have tended to decide, first, if a method passes or fails (their "intuition") and then attempt to craft the definition to suit the conclusion, see the work of James Green-Armytage on Approval and the Majority Criterion. Bucklin ER satisfies IIA, but, again, someone can assert differently based on assumptions about voting strategy instead of actual ballots. (2 or 3-rank Bucklin without equal ranking allowed arguably fails IIA under the "additive" definition). As to ICC I'm not "voting" yet. Tideman says nothing about Bucklin ER, only that ordinary Bucklin, under his assumptions (which aren't the general case for Bucklin methods) fails IIA. "Clones" has a technical meaning that isn't the same as our ordinary word "clone." Which makes this truly confusing for the non-expert. --Abd (talk) 18:27, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd just like to note that the Tideman reference now cited in the article, to say that Bucklin fails ICC, clearly refers to Bucklin without equal rankings allowed. Thus, depending on the answer to the prior question, its use may need to be qualified somehow. Homunq (talk) 12:53, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Responses to Question 2

message: *Who wants to know? Seriously. Wrong question. The answer depends on conditions and the way in which we base our conclusions, and an answer here might be, for example, "Yes," implying that we cannot use the conclusion (which is the real question), but that could then change if, say, a single reasonably reliable source pops up, or consensus finds that some text is obvious from the sources and simple math, and does not violate WP:OR. Who decides what text is allowable? Not even ArbComm! The decisions are made by ad hoc editorial consensus. Sometimes what one person might think is original research is, in practice, allowed, and other times what might be more considered WP:SYNTH violations are disallowed. There is no rigid rule applicable under all conditions, not yet, at least. It is often pointed out that editorial consensus doesn't trump policy, but that's a misunderstanding. Policy is subject to editorial consensus and is generally interpreted by editorial consensus. The real issue is whether or not a small group of editors can toss out policy because of their local consensus, and the fact is that they can, but can't maintain it if a larger group becomes involved, if the matter escalates, and there isn't some clear and accepted reason to set aside the general rule, i.e., policy. And however we answer this question now, it does not bind us in the future. The most basic policy is Rule Number One. But be careful. Rule Number One does not allow or excuse disruptive disregard for consensus. --Abd (talk) 18:40, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The question isn't who's asking, but who's answering. Unlike the two other questions above, there isn't even a ghost of a "right" answer to this one; it's just a matter of what answer we can agree on here. If we can all agree something's reasonable, well, then, it is. On the other hand, if somebody insists on a more conswervative view of WP:OR and WP:RS, then that's the answer. My preference is for being reasonable, but I'm just one person here. Homunq (talk) 12:14, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Responses to Question 3

message: Actually, this was the original Bucklin ballot, the first time it was used. The rules provided for "majority" to mean more than half of the ballots, so if a voter left a race blank, the ballot still counted. This can be seen in the canvass report shown: majority is shown for all of the races as 924 votes. For the Commissioner of Highways, there were 5 candidates. The winner led in all three ranks, no majority was obtained until the third rank votes were included, and then the winner had 1175 votes and the runner-up had 976 votes. So this is an example of a multiple majority. The worries about Bucklin not satisfying the Condorcet criterion are based on either a plurality win or a multiple majority. But it's not true that no examples are known; I removed that text from the article. --Abd (talk) 16:11, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bucklin election with multiple majority 

message: This criterion can be stated in various ways, apparently. Our article on IIA has this:
If A is preferred to B out of the choice set {A,B}, then introducing a third alternative X, thus expanding the choice set to {A,B,X}, must not make B preferable to A.
Generally, with voting systems (as distinct from the social ordering process of concern to Arrow), we are concerned if a result changes as the result of an irrelevant alternative. There is a general problem with the application of voting systems criteria that are based on "preferences," as distinct from actual votes. No method can extract preferences from the mind of the voter unless the voter chooses to express the preference. So there are two general approaches: use only actual ballot changes to see how they affect the result, or use internal preferences, with, then, some presumption about how voters vote. But this latter choice can become quite complex and even subjective.
Then there is this definition, about "voting rules," also from our article on IIA:
If A is selected over B out of the choice set {A,B} by a voting rule for given voter preferences of A, B, and an unavailable third alternative X, then B must not be selected over A by the voting rule if only preferences for X change.
The criterion is sometimes stated as : If all the votes for a candidate who does not win under an election rule are removed, the result of the election will not change. But what it means when "votes are removed" can be unclear. I find it simplest to consider that, literally, the name is there, but the candidate is, say, illegible, or the space is now blank. Nothing else is changed. In Plurality, all that changes is the vote for that candidate, thus Plurality satisfies IIA under this approach. But we have:
Independence_of_irrelevant_alternatives#Plurality_voting_system with Plurality failing, because it is assumed that the voters "rank" candidates. Which they don't do with Plurality. Whether or not the result changes depends on whether or not the voters vote "sincerely" or vote "strategically." This cannot be judged from the actual plurality ballots.
This is the issue with Bucklin. Suppose a voter ranks A>X>C, and X is irrelevant, i.e., X does not win. If we remove X, does the result change? Some may assume that the voter will vote A>C, which could change the outcome, but A>.>C was a legitimate (and even strategically optimal) vote. (Bucklin is closer to Range voting than to ranked voting systems, it is ranked approval voting).
If we look at it from the other direction, suppose X is introduced to an election, a voter has voted A>C, but prefers X to C. If the system prohibits voting for more than one candidate in a rank, we can see that the voter might vote differently for C than without X, if X is included. (Voting systems theorists have generally neglected write-in votes, i.e., that all candidates are within the range of possible choices, which consideration requires us to realize that (almost) all voting is strategic, unless the voter happens to truly and absolutely prefer a frontrunner.) With equal ranking allowed, however, we can keep the votes the same and simply add X, and the result does not change.
But the introduction of a new candidate may cause a voter to change their votes with any voting system. The introduction does not change the internal preferences, but may change the expression. No voting system uses internal preferences, they only use expressed preferences. So, if we look carefully enough, we can see that all voting systems fail IIA, strictly. Which would make it useless. Rather, to apply IIA, we must have a clear definition that is not manipulable, and it appears that such definitions are not necessarily at hand. We must also have an algorithm for determining how to apply the criterion to a particular method. Equal ranking in general upsets the criterion applecart. When these criteria were formulated, the assumptions were all strict ranking, with no consideration at all of preference strength or that a voter who had difficulty ranking two candidates might simply rank them equally.
I would argue that introducing a candidate requires consideration of how voters would change their votes, which would vary with the strategies being used by the voter. Many voters, if an obviously irrelevant candidate is introduced, wouldn't change their votes at all, and I'm pointing out that write-in voting implies that this is always true if a voter actually does prefer a possible eligible (or even not eligible) candidate not on the ballot. Some methods allow the addition of an "irrelevant candidate" without harm, others don't. Range allows it, Approval allows it, and Bucklin allows it, in original Bucklin, if the addition is in third rank. If the method is Bucklin-ER, it would be allowed in any rank, and Bucklin clearly becomes "instant runoff approval voting," i.e., a simulation of a series of approval elections with lowered approval cutoff at each round, specifiable by the voter. Condorcet's version, as I recall, was that each voter submitted lists of candidates for first preference, second preference, and so on. This was clearly Bucklin with equal ranking allowed in all ranks. Since Condorcet is quite notable, eh?, and since there is ample reliable source that Condorcet first proposed Bucklin, we have to, at least, note that the equal-ranking version of Bucklin satisfies IIA. A new candidate can, as with Range and Approval, be added or taken away from the ballot without affecting the other votes. --Abd (talk) 18:06, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Independence of irrelevant alternatives]] criterion 

message: Is this true?  Even when equal or skipped rankings are allowed in a Bucklin procedure, it seems to me that the Bucklin procedure and the Majority Judgement procedure have different tie breakers.  The former awards the win to the candidate with the most votes, counting from the best ranking down to and including the median ranking.  Depending on the exact numbers, the latter may instead award the win to the candidate with the most votes, counting from the best ranking down to but excluding the median ranking.  Thanks —Quantling (talk | contribs) 15:19, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: You are correct in your explanation of the tiebreakers (although you leave out the case where no candidate has an above-bottom majority, in which even plain-vanilla ordinal Bucklin uses the tiebreaker you gave for MJ). It's a matter of semantics whether those are close enough to categorize MJ as a Bucklin system. Given the extreme variety of Progressive-era "Bucklin" rulesets – for instance, some of them even included Borda-like fractional votes – I think it's reasonable to do so. Homunq (talk) 13:23, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is it true that "Although Majority Judgment does not use the Bucklin procedure, it can be considered as a Bucklin system with a rated ballot, that is, one which allows equal or skipped rankings." 

message: Bucklin voting should not be in the cardinal voting category. It is a preferential voting system and thus, strictly ordinal. Especially, since Majority Judgment can be considered as a cardinal enhancement of Bucklin voting, we should not mix up the categories. Thx, --Arno Nymus (talk) 12:53, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Bucklin voting isn't, in fact, a single voting system at all. There were many versions of Bucklin that were used historically (in around 2 dozen US cities). Some were strictly ordinal; others, such as the one in Grand Junction, had at least some cardinal aspects (ie, exactly 3 grades plus unapproved; equal-ranking allowed in at least one grade; skipping any grade permitted, meaningful, and in fact quite common). Some even had Borda-like aspects. It would be a serious research project to find if any of them were strictly cardinal, but I believe that even given just what we know, we can say that "Bucklin voting" is a diverse category which straddles the ordinal/cardinal distinction. Homunq (talk) 13:20, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have adequate sources to advance the "variants" section with some example of the variants? I think, that would be very interesting to have the "standard" procedure described in the "process" section and some concrete (and historically used) variants in the variant section - best with info, where it was used. I would not object, if you reinsert the category, but I would appreciate if you advance the variant section as described. --Arno Nymus (talk) 23:22, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea. I'll see what I can dig up... Homunq (talk) 00:30, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bucklin voting is not a cardinal voting system 

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