Hacker News: ClayShentrup

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau"

ClayShentrup — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 20:30:57 +0000

i know. and my point was, that's irrational. other voters determine the election result YOU have to live with.

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau"

ClayShentrup — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 21:42:29 +0000

that person is STRATEGIC VOTERS, who are about 90% of the electorate. even if you want to vote honestly, you're still subject to the whims of other voters.

indeed, practically the only thing that matters in a voting method is the aggregate affect of what it achieves in light of other voters. YOUR vote will almost never make a difference. you could upgrade voting methods in exchange for giving up your right to vote, and you'd still be drastically better off.

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau"

ClayShentrup — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 21:41:02 +0000

it doesn't really matter how you define "honest". what matters is how people actually vote. the only really crucial distinction for "honest" versus "strategic" is that "honest" can't consider viability. in the simulations, we just use "approve everyone you like more than average". optimal strategy is to approve everyone you like more than the expected utility of the winner. https://rangevoting.net/RVstrat6

here's lots of detail. you can run the code for yourself. https://www.rangevoting.org/BayRegDum.html

here's a slightly different model from the late harvard stats phd, jameson quinn. https://electionscience.github.io/vse-sim/

don't "trust" anything. look at the data. you could also read the book "gaming the vote" by william poundstone.

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau"

ClayShentrup — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 02:50:33 +0000

score voting gets better results than the alternatives with ANY AMOUNT OF STRATEGIC VOTING.

https://www.rangevoting.org/BayRegsFig

https://electionscience.org/research-hub/tactical-voting-bas...

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau"

ClayShentrup — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 02:49:50 +0000

> That gains it a point but there are much better methods.

utterly false.

https://electionscience.github.io/vse-sim/vse-graph.html

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau"

ClayShentrup — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 02:49:16 +0000

> I vote my actual ranking

no you don't. take a warren supporter who votes biden to stop trump. that person ranks:

biden 1st, warren 2nd, trump 3rd

they don't want warren to be a spoiler.

http://rangevoting.net/TarrIrv

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau"

ClayShentrup — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 02:46:35 +0000

score voting is extremely good.

https://www.rangevoting.org/BayRegsFig

compressing it to approval voting doesn't hurt very much and makes the ballot extremely simple.

> I don't see how.

i just showed you how. better average voter satisfaction, better resistance to strategy, etc.

https://www.rangevoting.org/BayRegsFig

not to mention radically simpler:

https://web.archive.org/web/20190219005733/

https://sites.google.com/a/electology.org/www/approval-votin...

IRV is a strategic mess that maintains a two party system.

wonk.blog/duopoly

https://clayshentrup.medium.com/later-no-harm-72c44e145510

https://clayshentrup.medium.com/star-voting-is-simpler-than-...

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau"

ClayShentrup — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 23:20:22 +0000

thanks for actually knowing what you're talking about.

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau"

ClayShentrup — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 23:20:08 +0000

no it does not.

http://rangevoting.net/CoreSuppPocket https://wonk.blog/duopoly

approval voting actually DOES and it is better in every other way too.

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Online age-verification tools for child safety are surveilling adults"

ClayShentrup — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 23:32:23 +0000

preach, brudda.

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Online age-verification tools for child safety are surveilling adults"

ClayShentrup — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 23:32:08 +0000

what's so bad about IRV?

https://www.rangevoting.org/CoreSuppPocket https://www.rangevoting.org/BayRegsFig

https://web.archive.org/web/20190219005733/https://sites.goo...

https://clayshentrup.medium.com/later-no-harm-72c44e145510 https://clayshentrup.medium.com/star-voting-is-simpler-than-...

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Online age-verification tools for child safety are surveilling adults"

ClayShentrup — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 23:31:34 +0000

nailed it.

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Online age-verification tools for child safety are surveilling adults"

ClayShentrup — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 23:31:23 +0000

a common fallacy of basic logic.

with FPTP, strategic voting means NOT voting for your favorite. so at the very least, you'd "vote for the person you'd normally support under FPTP, _plus_ everyone you like better".

but in real life, a lot of people will use intermediate scores.

https://www.rangevoting.org/RVstrat6

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid"

ClayShentrup — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 04:52:25 +0000

there's no such thing as "acceptable" or not, there are just utilities and _relative_ satisfaction. you want to get the most satisfaction possible from the options you have.

https://www.rangevoting.org/RVstrat6

approval voting is insanely good at this.

https://www.rangevoting.org/BayRegsFig

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state"

ClayShentrup — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:26:40 +0000

massively false based on actual data. https://clayshentrup.medium.com/star-voting-is-simpler-than-...

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state"

ClayShentrup — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:25:43 +0000

this is dead simple. thousands of voters have had no problem. https://approval.vote/

if you really want to get into the game theory, here it is. https://www.rangevoting.org/RVstrat6

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state"

ClayShentrup — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:25:08 +0000

it's the worst of the commonly discussed alternatives.

https://www.rangevoting.org/BayRegsFig

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state"

ClayShentrup — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:24:26 +0000

LOL, people get it just fine. fargo adopted it by a 64% supermajority and st louis adopted it by a 68% supermajority.

https://approval.vote/

> You can explain to me until you're blue in the face why approval is strictly better even in this situation, but I am emotionally attached to my vote counting for Bernie more than any other candidate, so reason isn't going to work on my lizard brain.

but your actual strategy is to rank hillary in 1st because bernie can't win. or, in the case of my aunt, she preferred warren but voted biden to beat trump. she would have ranked them biden>warren>trump in a ranked election for that very reason. this is called "compromise strategy".

bro, approving both of them is better than being strategically forced to say that you prefer clinton to bernie or biden to warren.

New comment by ClayShentrup in "Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state"

ClayShentrup — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:21:53 +0000

it's ironic that approval voting is better, but people therefore often wrongly think it's less optimal, when it's actually _more_ optimal.

https://web.archive.org/web/20190219005733/https://sites.goo...

you used to live across the street from me on harper street in berkeley by the way.

New comment by ClayShentrup in "The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling"

ClayShentrup — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 02:49:09 +0000

the voting method is HUGELY important.

https://www.rangevoting.org/RelImport

https://www.rangevoting.org/BayRegsFig