On Feb 8, 2010, at 12:35 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
Various factors that affect real elections have been neglected in
the simulations which have been done to compare performance of
various voting systems. The analysis which has been done, so far,
is quite valuable and represents the best data we have on voting
system performance, but the neglect of real voting patterns and
factors has, I suspect, produced warped comparisons of systems.
The technique of simulating underlying absolute preferences has too
quickly moved into an assumption that preferences can be normalized
and that all members of the simulated population will actually
vote. In fact, real voter behavior can be predicted to vary with
preference strength.
As an example, if I'm correct, analysis of Bucklin made the
assumption that all voters would rank all candidates, which is
actually preposterous
Sounds correct.
Further, with Top Two Runoff, a assumption has been made that all
of the original voters will then vote in a runoff, so the
simulation, of course, simulates a Contingent Vote that
accomplishes the same thing with a single ballot, unless, of
course, voters truncate, and truncation hasn't been simulated, to
my knowledge.
If that is true, then it should be relatively simple to make a
simulation to take the fact into account. Assign every voter-
candidate pair a certain utility, then for each voter, equal-rank
candidates that are close enough as far as utility goes. Remove a
random number of candidates from each rank, leaving at least one.
Does not seem to me to be that easy. Easy enough to throw rocks, but
not so easy to know where to aim for better results.
In terms of a runoff, if both candidates are close enough, the voter
votes randomly for one of them, which evens out. If they're both
also close to status quo (which would have to be assigned some
utility, as well), then the voter wouldn't bother to vote at all,
his ballot effectively empty.
It is a common assumption that low turnout in an election is a Bad
Thing. However, I've seen little analysis that does anything more
than make partisan assumptions; allegedly, low turnout favors
Republican candidates. If so, then the source of the problem would
be large numbers of voters who might otherwise favor a Democrat,
but who have, in fact, low absolute preference strength, and
Baysian regret analysis of the whole population would likely reveal
that the Republican would be the social utility winner.
Low turnout is a problem if its reason is that voters are saying
"makes no difference, they're equally bad". It's not as much a
problem if its reason is that voters are saying "makes no
difference, they're equally good", except to the extent that makes
voters as used to low turnout that they don't bother voting - good
candidates or not.
Low turnout is an expectable reasonable response to candidates being
about equal. Why should it matter for that whether they are good or
bad?
Voters seeing bad candidates getting elected SHOULD be looking into
how to make the next election better.
If you look at that from a Majority perspective: if a majority
doesn't care which way the election goes, then the minority who
actually bothers to vote may have disproportionate power - from a
Majority "a democracy is rule by the people - /all/ the people"
point of view. From this POV, low turnout is bad because it makes
the democratic process less democratic: the decision hinges on fewer
people, and these fewer are not a random sample of the population.
If the voters could and did see that it mattered little which
candidate won, there would be little value in their bothering to
vote. If it was difficult to know this it sounds like time to prepare
for a better election next time.
From a social utility point of view, you want a minority with strong
views to be able to overturn a majority with weaker opinions (as
long as it's worth it, for some definition of that measure); but
that is not the Majority perspective usually considered when talking
about "democracy".
Seems debatable. How do you judge whether a particular minority
should have that power?
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