Instant-Runoff Voting - Episode #4 voting shift

[Judge Sam]

The following is a partial transcript from the second Union meeting. To read the first transcript click here.


"So at the last meeting, we decided to use different voting systems to decide who to Exile. We decided that maybe the standard voting system wasn't good enough. Our goal is to find the perfect voting system - the ultimate system that combines everybody's individual feelings and from this collection of feelings selects exactly one person who the group feels is most likely a Spy."

"That's correct. That's why we tried out the +/- voting system. And how did that turn out?"

"Well, if you recall, the reason why we used the +/- voting system was that the normal system was too 'negative.' It focused too much on who people thought were Spies rather than who they thought were Citizens. If 50% of voters thought Carl was a Citizen, but had different opinions on who they thought was a Spy, they couldn't stop 40% of voters who thought Carl was a Spy. That is, unless they effectively 'lied' about who they really thought was the Spy. By 'lied' I mean they didn't necessarily vote for their total overall #1 Spy suspicion each time. This led to gaming the system."

"Yeah, I remember that."

"So the idea was to balance that out. Yes we have the voting who is a Spy part, but we also have the voting who is a Citizen part. The plan was that this would cancel things out and make a great voting system."

"Yep. So we found the perfect voting system first try then eh?"

"Far from it! The +/- voting system didn't cancel out the bad parts of the normal voting system, it just made it twice as worse!!! We already had the + part which is the normal part. In this part people already lie about their true Spy suspicions because either others suspect someone with a lot of votes, or they want to save other people who they think might be Citizens.

This system had all of this bad stuff plus another chunk of it with the minus system! People were not using their minus vote on who they really thought was the most Citizen like. They were using it just to get whoever they wanted out. They might give their minus vote to people who they thought were neutral or even Spy-ish if they were more sure their + vote was going to a Spy. Instead of just one layer of deceit this system brought in two layers."

"Oh. Yeah that wasn't the plan."

"It wasn't at all. So I'm trying to figure out what went wrong here."

"Well, you said people were not voting their true #1 suspect due to the effects of others. Maybe we can force people to vote their #1 suspect?"

"Uh... you can't just do that. You can't instruct voters how to cast their vote. Voters are going to cast their vote in a way which is most advantageous for them. A way in which they make their vote the most worthwhile. And that's a good thing, everyone should try and use their vote to the best of their ability. That's all the power most Citizens have in this game - their vote."

"But I guess the question is - why don't people just vote the way they feel?"

"Well that's where this new voting system comes into play! The reason why people don't vote their #1 suspect every time is that because that's a waste. It's a wasted vote. If you knew no one else was going to vote for Sandy, why would you vote for Sandy? It's completely pointless. Your vote won't change the outcome. Whereas if you know the vote is currently close, and could go either way, your vote *could* change the outcome. That means your vote would matter. If you throw it away at Sandy you might as well not have voted at all. And remember we said the only power most citizens have in this game is their vote."


"That's so true. So how would you come up with a system in which their wouldn't be any wasted votes?"

"Well, it's actually pretty simple..."

[Judge Sam]

[Judge Sam]

I. Introduction
II. Explanation
III. Revealing the Vote
IV. How to Change Your Vote
V. Ties
VI. Penalty Votes
VII. Spoiled Ballots


INTRODUCTION

In Instant-Runoff Voting, players create a list of all players in the game from 1-23 as their vote, instead of casting just 1 vote.

Your second voting shift is called Instant-Runoff Voting (IRV), a voting system used to elect some jurisdictions in the United States, the Australian House of Representatives, and the President of Ireland.

Look at the image above to see how the votes are tallied.


Instead of placing just one vote, voters rank everyone in order of preference from first to last. If no candidate is the first choice of a majority of voters, the person with the least number of votes is eliminated from contention. Any person who voted for these eliminated players then receive their votes back as if they never cast them at all. Their votes are then cast towards the second preference on their list. This process is repeated until one candidate obtains a majority of votes among candidates not eliminated.


In this way, it is kind of like a way to run multiple run-off elections at the same time, without having to drag people back to the polls to choose again between the top three or top two. Some people think IRV may be the best way to run elections, but as you may see, it has many hidden pecularities that you may use to your advantage in achieving the result you desire.


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EXPLANATION


For the purposes of Spies, this is how the IRV vote will work. In a new topic I will provide you with a ballot that you must copy/paste in your confessional to vote. On this ballot you will be simply asked to rank all of the other players on a scale of 1-23, with #1 being the person you want to vote for first and #2 being the person you want to vote for second, if your first choice is not picked because it does not have enough support. Repeat this process with #3, and #4, all the way to #23 with all players in the game. Follow the directions on this ballot completely.


Here is how the votes will be tallied and how one person will be selected to be Exiled.

First, all voters' first choices will be added in. Penalty votes will be added in at this point as well (see penalty vote section for more details). If one person has a majority of votes (>50%) then they are Exiled and the vote stops. If that is not the case, the player(s) with the lowest number of votes will be eliminated from contention. Anyone who voted for these people to go will have their votes redistributed to their second choice. Another vote count is tallied. If one person has a majority, the vote stops, if not, the process repeats itself. The player(s) with the lowest number of votes are safe; anyone voting for them gets their vote back and casts another vote towards their new highest choice.


The process repeats itself until one person has a majority of votes. For a real-world example, read this.

REVEALING THE VOTE

Player's entire lists will not be revealed. All that will be revealed is the votes they cast which were used.

If you are worried that your full start to finish suspicion list would be publicly revealed, think about it for a second. First, in this voting system, after the first round is done, all players with either zero or one votes will be instantly eliminated from contention. This means, on your list, all those people will be crossed off and will never be revealed. If you applied this to previous votes this would reduce it to maybe 3 people. Now hopefully there will be a few more than that since this voting system allows people to vote for those they don't think will get the most votes, but it will still be a small percentage.

Second, if you are further concerned, there is a way in which you could vote and only a few, if that many, of your choices would be revealed. Think about it. In interest of speed I will also skip over votes that don't change the outcome of a specific round and just move you to your next choice.


You are free to discuss all of your preferences, though you may not create a topic on the Burg asking everyone to post their complete 1-23 lists.


Votes will be revealed in two ways: first, by temporarily hiding some of the information to preserve suspense during the reveal at live Exile, and second, immediately afterwards I will post the details of each round of collected votes in full on the board. Recall that only votes that were used will be revealed.

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Understanding the above information is enough to cast your vote.
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HOW TO CHANGE YOUR VOTE

Do not delete your first list. Simply post a new list as a reply to that same thread. Only your most recent list will be counted. If you copy-paste your original list and make number changes, PLEASE DOUBLE-CHECK IT! You may make changes which invalidate your list.


TIES

Ties can happen in two ways:

1) When deciding who is in last place to eliminate from contention, it is very likely that there will be ties of people having 0 or 1 votes. Whenever there is a tie for last-place, all players in last place are simultaneously eliminated from contention.

2) If all remaining players are tied, (for an example, if 21 people were voting and it was 7-7-7) then a revote will be held only amongst these top players. The revote will use IRV with only these people listed. If that results in a further tie the Tiebreaker will choose who goes.


PENALTY VOTES

Penalty votes will be added into the mess in the first round. That will give the person a 'boost'. Should the inactive votes be eliminated from contention, they will simply disappear and will not be redistributed. Effectively, this is like adding in X number of 1) inactive 2) [nothing] votes into the pile.



SPOILED BALLOTS

In a perfect world, everyone's ballot would be adequately filled out. However, due to the medium complexity of this ballot that may not be the case. I tried to come up with ways to simplify the IRV ballot but none of them worked out so this will have to do.

Normally, a mistake on a ballot would render it thrown out and that person would receive self-votes. However, in this occasion, I am going to try and correct tiny, self-evident mistakes. Obviously if you throw a bunch of unintelligible gobbledy-gook at me I'm gonna throw it out. =P But for example, if you list everyone 1-23 but leave one name blank and forget to write down the number 13... I'm gonna write in 13 in the blank for you. If you make a mistake on your 18th choice and only your first choice is used, I may decide to ignore that mistake since it did not affect anything.

Deciphering spoiled ballots is completely up to my discretion and without explanation I have the right to reject or accept misfilled out ballots.

I will try and confirm your ballot with you beforehand and double-check to make sure it's filled out correctly. If you change your vote by posting a new list, please double-check that each # is only used once and every # and name is used! It could be very easy to switch around numbers on an already completed list and end up using 1 number twice or skip a name.


If you have questions, please ask!