At 11:36 AM 8/31/2005, Adam Tarr wrote:
The comment on asset voting seems separate from the thread it
started in, so I'll respond here.
Great idea.
In general, I don't like the negotiation aspect of asset voting. It
seems like an inherently chaotic system, where negotiations could
result in somewhat off-center results if the percentages work out
right (or wrong, depending on your point of view).
It is no more chaotic than any major decision which must be made in a
society. Indeed, since there is really a single issue involved (whom
do you trust to make decisions where you cannot make them yourself),
it should be much simpler. Multiwinner Asset is inherently PR, but
likely to be more intelligent and to produce minor party
representation, if the set of candidates affiliated with that party
(there can certainly be more than one) collectively get the quota in
votes and can agree who among them is to take the seat. Then they
would likely have excess votes which *could* be used in negotiation
with other candidates or parties.
What is nice about this is that it does not *depend* on the party
system. It is really Delegable Proxy in disguise.
There's actually a good empirical example of this in politics
already - the negotiations between parties trying to form coalition
governments in parliamentary democracies. Sometimes this results
in nice centrist governments. Sometimes this results in one side
shutting out the other side. Other times a small fringe party ends
up exerting undue influence by playing the "king-maker" role. (One
arguable example of this would be when orthodox parties have been
part of ruling coalitions in Israel.)
Yes. That result is inevitable with PR, I think, though I think the
Asset form might be less vulnerable as it would play out (I think
many people would run not hoping to win but merely to represent
like-minded people in the vote redistribution.)
In general, I'd be more comfortable with one of three options:
1) True proxy voting - my vote for a candidate gives them one vote
in the assembly. Depending on the system, this vote may be given in
turn to someone else, and/or I may be able to give it to different
candidates at different times depending on the issue. There may be
a minimum number of votes in order to vote in the assembly, or
possibly just to speak in the assembly.
The problem is that minimum. What happens to those who don't get it?
Delegable Proxy answers that question. I've mostly worked it out for
the Free Association context, where a lot less is at stake, since in
an FA, the power remains with the people directly. DP in an FA would
probably leave the right to vote at all levels with the members
(individual voters). However, any meeting would have the common-law
right to set its own rules, and an obvious rule for a high-level
meeting is that to address the meeting or enter a motion (i.e., to
take up everyone's time), one must have a certain level of trust,
i.e., must be holding a certain number of direct and indirect proxies.
This has actually been worked out in some detail (sometimes in
writing here or there, but more in my head).
DP would produce members of the assembly who are not peers, they
could and would have vastly different voting powers. If we don't mind
that (I don't in NGOs), the DP is better than Asset, in my view. But
if we want a traditional assembly where one member has one vote,
Asset gets as close to no-wasted-votes as is possible.
Basically, true proxy voting is as close as we can practically get
to actual direct democracy. Depending on what rules it uses, it is
closer or farther from that ideal. It has many advantages; its
disadvantage is that it can't be used without changing the entire
system (a non starter for congressional elections, for instance).
Preaching to the choir, Mr. Tarr. Except for the last part. If DP is
used for political NGOs, it does not have to deal with *any*
restrictive laws and it could completely bypass the existing system,
by directly organizing the voters in a structure that maximizes
trust. Again, I won't go into details, but it is a plan that I see
that begins exactly here and now and proceeds to a complete reform of
the system, without necessarily needing to change laws or voting
procedures at all. (Almost any voting method works well if a general
consensus is independently developed first, or even if a large block
of voters have developed such a consensus. And if it is not a large
block, then a small block can still exert major influence through
donations to campaigns, providing campaign workers, and votes to
boot. The Green Party in 2000 could have vastly increased its
influence if it had used something like DP -- organized independently
of the formal party structure -- to make strategic decisions that
would actually be followed by most members.)
Something that is often overlooked, or that is incorrectly believed
to be false, is that the collection of all voters has more resources
-- obviously -- than any special interest group. Special interest
groups *by definition* are a minority. Some special interest groups
have relatively high financial resources, but they still cannot match
the resources of all those who do not belong to them.... but they are
organized, and the others are not. The lack of independent voter
organization is, quite precisely, the problem.
And what stops this from happening? There are a number of factors,
but the largest one is that, quite simply, people don't believe it is
possible. So they won't lift a finger to help, even when they hear
about it. The way around this is for a *few* people to work together
to create the structures and apply them in many different kinds of
organizational contexts. Once there is such a core, such
organizations, because of the characteristics of FA/DP organizations,
*will* grow. There is, essentially, no reason for them not to, they
have phenomenally low organizational overhead, they are designed to
require an absolute minimum of general member participation, while
remaining completely open to full, active participation, and
avoiding, generally, the hazards that typically convert small
democratic peer associations, as they grow, into oligarchical
structures, even where members nominally retain voting rights (and
often even that is lost).
2) Something like asset voting, only some multi-winner voting
method (STV, for instance) is used in stead of a negotiating
process, and the candidates must publish their ballot in advance of
the election. This way, I know for sure how my vote is going to be used.
Candidates would be free to do so. If they do, the rules might well
require that their vote be so cast. But why should you *prohibit*
voters from generally trusting those they vote for? As I've often
pointed out, you would trust them to, say, make decisions about going
or not going to war, but not to pass on the vote if they don't get
elected themselves?
3) Just let me vote for real in a legitimate PR system, like STV or
PAV or the range variant of PAV I mentioned earlier.
I haven't seen one that is as simple and effective for the PR
purposes maximizing representation, with a totally simple ballot, as
FAAV. As I mentioned, it does bypass the party system without
injuring parties (except that they might lose the direct votes of
those who really are only voters for the party because they have no
other sane alternative under weaker PR systems); parties will still
have meaning if voters continue to give them meaning. But votes in
Asset are not for parties but for individuals. You vote for the
person you trust the most, or for a collection of such persons, this,
quite simply, is the best strategy, and it is fully sincere. If you
want a particular person to be elected, cast your vote for that
person, and you are done with it. The person either is elected or is
not. But if not, your vote is only wasted if the person you entrusted
with it is unwilling to recast your vote, in which case you *do* have
someone to blame! A person, not the system (except in the vague sense
that the entire electorate is a "system," and, perhaps, the entire
electorate was unwilling to produce other candidates suitable for
vote reassignment. In which case you belong to a *very* minor party,
so to speak).
I have one specific quibble below about something Abd said.
On 8/30/05, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
<<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote:
For full PR, Asset Voting is the king of the heap as far as I am
concerned. Not a vote is wasted.
Not true. Once there are N+1 candidates left in an N-winner
election, all of the assets held by the candidate with the least
assets (who is then eliminated) are "wasted". Furthermore, a
candidate is not required to distribute his surplus votes, so these
are also in some sense wasted.
That was hyperbole on my part. Some votes might be wasted, though,
where the candidate who received them refuses to redistribute them.
Basically, all election systems have methods of dealing with the
votes of those whose favorite(s) did not win. Plurality simply
ignores them. Asset allows a deliberative process for redistribution
of the votes.
There are specific rule possibilities that might discourage the
retention of surplus votes. Suppose that there is an N-winner
election, and N-M candidates are directly elected, or have, in the
first redistribution stage, been elected through vote distribution.
This leaves M seats to be filled. The sum of remaining votes being
held is M*Q, where Q is the quota. There is now a set of electors
holding these votes, who have the right to revote to elect the
remaining M seats. If a candidate is holding surplus votes after
having been elected, and has not by the deadline redistributed those
votes to one (or more) of the remaining candidates -- it is possible
that it would be required to be to only one, I have not studied that
question -- those votes would be eliminated and the quota
recalculated. This process would be iterated until all N members have
been elected.
So, yes, there would be wasted votes, but only those where they were
deliberately wasted by those holding them. If this was a significant
number of votes, I think the voters would not be very happy about it!
Why not, instead, use the votes to increase the possibility of
election of one's favorite among those remaining?
Now, IF the candidates have the exact same preferences as all of
their voters, and IF optimal strategy is used, then the number of
wasted votes is minimized (at most 49% in single winner, 33% in
two-winner, 24% in three-winner, et cetera). But it is not zero,
even with those VERY generous assumptions.
Candidates having the same preferences as the voters is an impossible
criterion, and is not even desirable. Candidates in office will be
exposed to better information and will, almost of necessity, put in
more time studying the issues than most of the voters.
If you look at those percentages, you will see that the number of
wasted votes is essentially the quota for 1 member. If there remain a
number of candidates who cannot agree upon who among them is to
serve, then I'd suggest one of several options, and probably the best
of them is that the seat would remain vacant. This is a rational
choice: better no seat than a seat held by any one of *them.* On the
other hand, it is also possible that the quota would be reduced by
any of various methods. It is no longer so important that the
election produce a definite winner, since it *will* produce a large
set of winners under almost all conceivable circumstances; assemblies
already often have vacant seats because of illness, resignations,
conviction of crime, etc....
In fairness it's not zero in any multi-winner method, of course, but
the claim is still false.
The specific claim is that vote wastage is minimized to the greatest
extent possible without going to proxy or DP, where no votes are
wasted, period; further, that votes which are wasted can be traced to
a specific individual who wasted them, and the voters might hold that
person responsible, if they thought it an injury.
Government by consent of the governed is the basic principle that we
should hold in mind.
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