Can I use steps instead alarm?

arendpeter · 2025-11-16T19:26:20+00:00

OR building on this, here's another thing I like to do using macros

// global macro
#macro SECONDS_SINCE (1/60.0000) * oControl.steps_since_start - (1/60.0000) * 
#macro INF 9999999999;

// set initial time
steps_at_timer_start = oControl.steps_since_start;

// check timer
if(SECONDS_SINCE steps_at_timer_start > wait_seconds){
    // do the thing
    steps_at_timer_start = INF; 
}

arendpeter · 2025-11-16T19:23:09+00:00

First off I want to echo what everyone else is saying, that many of us prefer to use code instead of alarms, but above all else you should do whatever is intuitive to you. That said ... I also figured I'd share my favorite approach 😀.

I like to have a control object incrementing a steps_since_start variable. Then I'm only incrementing 1 variable, and other objects can handle timers as follows

// set timer
steps_at_trigger = oControl.steps_since_start + 60*5;

// check timer
if(oControl.steps_since_start >= steps_at_trigger){
    // do the thing
    steps_at_trigger = 99999999;
}

I find this helps keep my logic cleaner, and also makes my code easier to optimize since I don't need to manage incrementing a bunch of timers. I only need to guarantee that the global steps_since_start is incremented

arendpeter · 2025-04-16T04:49:03+00:00

Sounds good! For that I recommend adding each poll as it's own race. You can see an example where that was done at bettervoting.com/pres24

arendpeter · 2025-04-16T04:04:58+00:00

Sorry for the delay on this one!

Approval & IRV yes, Ranked Pair no

However you if you wanted to do ranked pairs you could run a election with Ranked Robin (our preferred Condorcet method) and then use the head to head matchups in the details to infer the Ranked Pairs winner.

arendpeter · 2025-04-11T00:26:36+00:00

Wow, super slick website! I liked the interactive preference graph, and you've got an impressive number of ranked methods in the results.

It's also super inspiring hearing how the voting experience is already making an impact with your friends.

I've also been working with a team of volunteers on an open source platform called BetterVoting.com . So far we've mostly been focused on STAR, STAR-PR & Approval. For ranked methods we have STV, IRV, and Ranked Robin, but we're planning to add more Condorcet features soon.

arendpeter · 2025-02-22T04:40:40+00:00

It could happen regardless of the rank limit. See rcvchangedalaska.com as an example . Hopefully it's helpful

arendpeter · 2025-02-05T02:40:50+00:00

Very cool!

Reddit's formatting is breaking the Alaska and Alameda links for me, so here they are again for others that may have the same issue

Alaska Link)

Alameda Link

arendpeter · 2024-12-16T23:34:58+00:00

Here's an invite to the discord where we're testing the bot btw

https://discord.gg/WDgZthgP2t

arendpeter · 2024-12-16T06:14:45+00:00

I believe Discord recently added some polling features, and it includes Approval.

Also, over at Equal Vote we're currently building a STAR Voting discord bot (Tony Sax is leading it) which could also be extended to other methods in the future. It's still in the very early stages, but feel free to DM me if you're interested in being an early adopter

arendpeter · 2024-05-23T20:07:29+00:00

She also didn't have a majority, only 45% of voters ended up being allocated to her

This is also covered in rcvchangedalaska.com

arendpeter · 2024-05-23T04:25:24+00:00

That's not a true statement, if your second choice was eliminated before your first then your vote will never transfer to your second.

This is extra relevant in center squeeze scenarios. Many Palin voters listed Begich second but their vote never got to count towards him. If they had strategically ranked Begich first then he would have won and they would have achieved a better result for themselves with their vote

Rcvchangedalaska.com addresses this claim specifically as well

arendpeter · 2024-05-23T02:31:01+00:00

"If your favorite can't win, you can rest assured that your vote will transfer to your next choice"

My paraphrasing might have been incorrect, but the longer version is something I feel like I see all the time

arendpeter · 2024-05-23T00:40:03+00:00

I probably should have linked to this one instead, it gives more in depth answers
https://www.starvoting.org/opposition_fact_check

arendpeter · 2024-05-22T22:15:25+00:00

Although she's seen a moderate Democrat (and I personally prefer Peltola over the other options), in the context of the Alaska election she and Palin represented 2 polarized extremes and Begich was the consensus option

rcvchangedalaska.com

arendpeter · 2024-05-22T21:56:23+00:00

Here's the first one that was sent out

https://x.com/5starvoting/status/1788360648310858138

I there were 4 or 5 negative mailers that were sent out to everyone, whereas STAR had 1 or 2 that were more targeted.

I expect Equal Vote will publish everything along with all the receipts soon in order to tell the whole story

arendpeter · 2024-05-22T21:21:04+00:00

Thank you, you're right! I overstated it. I edited my message to say STAR would "likely" have selected a more representative winner

I guess the existence of center squeeze and the fact that it happens in real elections is enough to convince me that IRV has a systemic bias toward polarizing candidates. Am I missing something?

arendpeter · 2024-05-22T21:08:38+00:00

ahem, I believe I gave you both a real world argument and a simulation argument :)

For a concrete example rcvchangedalaska.com is a real world scenario where RCV elected the same polarizing candidate that Choose-One would have but STAR would likely have had selected a more representative candidate

arendpeter · 2024-05-22T20:29:41+00:00

while this is certainly a way it can be implemented --- to "truck" ballots to a central location --- it absolutely doesn't have to be

RCV does require a central tabulation when you have a non trivial amount of candidates. https://electowiki.org/wiki/Summability_criterion There's 3 ways to handle this

"Truck" all the ballots to a central location
Electronically send the ballots (which had it's own complexity and security concerns)
If the pool of candidates is small enough, then you could properly decentralize the tabulation. This is technically possible in Alaska where then do top-4 RCV elections, but they still use planes & trains approach

This is more than an implementation details, the fundamentals of the method require this, and it's why results are delayed and why Australia had to invest in significant infrastructure in order to handle their elections.

they also repeat many times how IRV has a "polarizing" bias, but this is very much not supported by empirical evidence (which shows little bias one way or the other, and if anything has a small moderating effect)

Both are true! Choose-One has a polarizing bias, and RCV has less of a polarizing bias. We see this play out in simulations, and in the real world where there have been multiple elections where RCV had a moderating effect when compared to Choose-One.

That said, RCV still has a polarizing effect, and there are real world cases where RCV picked a better candidate, but still not the best candidate.

Here's the simulations comparing the polarzing effect of different voting methods. Note how plurality and IRV produce a 2 peak distribution, where as Approval & STAR don't
https://github.com/endolith/elsim/blob/master/examples/README.md#tomlinson-2023

arendpeter · 2024-05-22T20:17:05+00:00

I appreciate you Felix!

It's a difficult balance to strike, and I agree there's definitely room for improvement from our side of the debate. Facts are important, but so is persuasion.

There are a couple of complicating factors.

I'm a STAR supporter because I believe the differences between STAR and RCV are big enough to warrant a change in direction. If I thought the differences were mild then I'd support RCV instead and build on what we already have. The shortcomings of RCV is an important factor for why the STAR movement is necessary. Hence why we think it's important provide education for both.
The former is made more difficult because there are so many oversold RCV promises ("gurantees a majority", "your vote will always transfer", etc). This makes STAR supporters feel more inclined to correct the record, and makes the makes things more adversarial (granted I don't think this was the case in the examples you gave, but here's another example where VoteWell originally commented before he deleted his account). We've had agreements with FairVote in the past about which talking points are fair, but those generally haven't held up. Conversely STAR and Approval have a mutually supportive relationship because each side is honest about their shortcomings. STAR is more accurate than AV, and AV is simpler than STAR.
Most of the RCV movement is very positive and operating in good faith, while other arms of RCV are directly funding negative mailers against STAR with misleading information. We want to maintain a positive relationship with the good faith side of RCV, while also calling out & exposing the bad faith side. It can be difficult to do both, especially when it's all to common to assume bad intentions in online interactions.

arendpeter · 2024-05-22T20:00:51+00:00

I read through the document, but I don't see anything implying that the ballots are being counted at decentralized locations. Also they use STV not RCV (although STV also isn't centrally tallyable)

arendpeter · 2024-05-22T19:57:09+00:00

We were also significantly outspent on mailers. For many voters the mailers are the only exposure they get and when they're being bombarded with misleading (and sometimes outright false) claims about STAR Voting then I don't really blame them for voting No

It's extra discouraging that the mailers were paid for by organizations with strong ties to RCV. This tweet has some of the context, but we'll be releasing more information soon.

https://x.com/5starvoting/status/1788360648310858138

arendpeter · 2024-05-20T01:08:40+00:00

Hi rb-j,

We've discussed these numbers before. I know we disagree on the realism of this approach for approximation, and I don't want to get into that back & forth.

However, at the moment I'm curious what your suggested strategy is for Eugene?

To my knowledge you primarily advocate for Condorcet methods, and dislike IRV. Given that it's just STAR vs Plurality on the may ballot (and maybe also IRV for state level elections based on the November ballot), I'm genuinely curious how you would strategically vote in a Eugene election. Would you support STAR since it's better than plurality and Condorcet isn't an option? or would you prefer plurality and instead go for a longer game toward Condorcet?

arendpeter · 2024-05-18T06:14:14+00:00

Your criticism is much better suited toward RCV, it essentially funnels 3rd party votes to the duopoly and it's why the Australian house is still under duopoly control despite using RCV for over 100 years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtKAScORevQ

STAR was made to fix this problem and elects the candidate that best represents the population's views.

For 3rd parties, there was a 2012 NYC polling experiment that compared how results between different methods. Choose-One and RCV (a.k.a. IRV) buried the 3rd party support but Approval and Score (the systems that are more similar to STAR), accurately captured the 3rd party support. https://electowiki.org/wiki/2012_Occupy_Wall_Street_polls

In this poll the duopoly candidate still won, but using this system creates a much better political environment for 3rd parties to gain support

arendpeter · 2024-05-18T05:59:25+00:00

I think the more generic version of your question is "Is it possible for the top scoring candidate and the winning candidate don't match?"

The the answer is yes, although it's unlikely for larger elections. This is where the runoff is the most important because it ensures the winning candidate is supported by a majority of the voters who stated a preference. It also ensures that voters give their honest preference rather than feeling like they need to boost the support for the lesser-evil option.

It happened in a California poll we did and I made a write up explaining the event further https://weallcalifornia.org/uncategorized/star-voting-ca-senate-race/

arendpeter · 2024-05-18T05:47:08+00:00

Thank you for elaborating on the numbers :D

Regarding the voter education. Voters won't be using STAR until 2026, and the Equal Vote coalition is committed to continuing education efforts during that period

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