On 03/15/2013 06:55 PM, Richard Fobes wrote:
On 3/15/2013 2:22 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
On 03/14/2013 11:26 PM, Richard Fobes wrote:
...
One way is to eliminate the need for coalitions. This is the purpose of
VoteFair negotiation ranking, which allows the elected representatives
to rank various proposals on various (hopefully-at-least-somewhat)
related issues. Based on these rankings the software calculates which
proposals would produce a proposed law that is "best" supported by the
elected representatives -- including support by small (but not tiny)
opposition parties. (Details about VoteFair negotiation ranking are at
www.NegotiationTool.com.)
On 3/11/2013 1:33 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
I suppose that making every government a minority government would also
work here. The cost would be greater instability, though. How would the
negotiation ranking handle the instability (or general delay and
gridlock) that might appear?
I do not understand what you mean by making a government a minority
government. What is a minority government?
In parliamentary systems, a minority government is a government that is
not supported by a majority of the parliament. Except in systems that
require constructive votes of no confidence, the minority government can
always be brought down by a vote of no confidence. Therefore, the
minority government has to go from issue to issue, finding majorities on
each issue separately so that the government is not replaced.
A minority government is thus ultimately a device of the legislature. It
does the legislature's work, and if it doesn't, it is replaced. It
doesn't have internal party loyalty because it can't demand standards of
its own. This is opposed to, say, a coalition deciding to negotiate
among themselves in the executive, where all the coalition parties are
instructed to support the executive.
VoteFair negotiation ranking gives the majority the most control. Yet it
also gives influence to minorities -- if:
* They are joined together with a common interest -- which amounts to an
"opposition coalition" that is internally identified by the algorithm
based on votes, without being based on any additional information (such
as party membership).
* Or, they have some overlap with some representatives in the majority.
* Or, when they support something that does not conflict with what the
majority wants.
Expressed another way, the method is a calculation algorithm that
implements "log rolling" (combining separate proposals into a single
package to be voted on) and "vote trading" (where representatives agree
to vote for something they don't care for in exchange for another vote
that supports what they do care about).
The algorithm produces a suggested list of compatible proposals that
would be likely to get majority support if they are packaged into a
single yes-or-no vote among all the representatives (which in this case
are the MPs).
If the package does not pass with majority support, then the (elected)
representatives can change their rankings and their identification of
which proposals are incompatible with one another. This is a diplomatic
way of saying that they either were not paying full attention when they
were voting on the proposals, or they were not honest in their voting.
Or the negotiation was not successful in the first place, perhaps.
The other approach is to replace traditional PR with an election method
that gives no advantage to strategic voting. This is what the full
VoteFair ranking system is designed to do. Specifically, each district
would use VoteFair representation ranking to elect one "majority" MP
(member of Parliament) and one "opposition" MP, and the remaining
parliamentary seats are filled using VoteFair party ranking (to identify
party popularity) and VoteFair partial-proportional ranking (to choose
which district-losing candidate wins each party-based seat). The result
does not allow even a group of well-coordinated voters to meaningfully
and predictably alter the results.
How would that method solve the left/right scenario I mentioned? Would
it give the right-of-center parties (or people) position if they had a
majority, and otherwise let the left-of-center voter's vote go to a
left-of-center candidate?
Your scenario (as I recall) involved using a voting method in which
there are strategies that enable the voters to produce a different
outcome -- without any risk that a dramatically worse outcome can occur.
The whole problem is that there's a strrategy but the strategy isn't
risk free. The problem itself is a strategy that could make the gun fire
back at the user, and so the voters face a quite unpleasant dilemma if
they're instrumental.
The problem is this. You have a bunch of voters who are left of center,
and there's going to be a parliamentary election. Given past history,
after the election, if the center-left coalition has a majority, it will
form the government. Otherwise the center-right coalition will have a
majority and form the government. This is an example, so I can state
that voters vote mainly on a left-to-right axis.
(Since I'm only giving a single example, I'm permitted to make any
assumption - kind of like how I could assume voters voted on a
left-to-right scale in an election that makes IRV exhibits center
squeeze. Since I only need to find a single example, it's okay to make
this assumption to show that sometimes, IRV exhibits center squeeze.)
Anyway. The opinion polls say the result is too close to call. The
left-of-center voters now have a problem. They could vote for a
left-of-center party. They want to do so, because this will make it more
likely that the center-left coalition will win. However, they also know
that if the center-right coalition wins, their left-of-center votes will
have no impact upon the government because the center-right majority
will just disregard the input of the left-wing parties. So if they knew
the center-right coalition would win if they voted honestly, they should
instead vote for the most centrist of the parties in that coalition.
That would pull the coalition, as a whole, towards the center, which is
something they prefer.
In other words, the left-of-center voters are facing a problem given by
this payoff matrix:
[Can leftist coalition win under honesty?]/[Leftists' actions]:
Yes/Honest voting: A
Yes/Compromising: B
No/Honest voting: C
No/Compromising: D
with A > B = D > C
Compromising makes a center-right coalition with a large center win. Not
compromising either makes the center-left coalition win if it has
sufficient support. Otherwise the center-right coalition with a large
right-wing component win.
The problem for the voters is that they can't both specify "I want a
left-of-center coalition" *and* "if I can't have that, I want a
right-of-center coalition that's as centrist as possible". The voters
don't in advance know where to direct their power, and a miscalculation
could cause the worse outcome to occur.
I was thinking that a better option would be to have some kind of DSV
that can make that choice on the voters' behalf. However, this DSV can't
act until parliamentary negotiations start, because it doesn't "out of
nothing" know the relative strengths of the different groups. And thus,
it would seem that the election method would have to formalize some
concept of coalitions and parties beforehand, which is undesirable.
Either that or use liquid democracy, Asset or some other
negotiation-based protocol.
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