[EM] “¡One can introduce advanced voting systems to ponies, but one cannot make the ponies implement the advanced voting systems!”
¡Hello! ¿How fare you? “¡One can introduce advanced voting systems to ponies, but one cannot make the ponies implement the advanced voting systems!” That is play off of the saying: “¡One can take an horse to water, but one cannot make the horse drink!” Some people take a vote to determine which is the best mare: Pegasi: * FlutterShy * Rainbow Dash EarthMares: * Pinkamena Diane Pie * AppleJack Unicorns: * Rarity * Twilight Sparkle They already tried plurality, but it did not work. Now the try truncated Borda-Count with #1 getting 2 points and #2 getting 1 point. I had to tell them that it was truncated Borda-Count. I explained regular Borda-Count, Score-Voting, Approval Voting, Oklahoman Electoral Primary-System, Quaker-Poll, Cumulative Voting, IRV, Plurality, et cetera. Now that I think about it, although I mentioned Condorcet, I have not yet explained it. Maybe, I should explain Condorcet. Well anyway, after all of this, they stick with truncated Borda-Count. The conversation starts in the discussion of this comic: * http://friendshipisdragons.thecomicseries.com/comics/212 Scroll down through the comments until you find my name “Walabio” and then scroll up until you find the beginning of the thread. The voting continues until Monday, so you can see how things progress in the discussion for later comics. Normally, I would not bother posting here every time I try to teach about advanced voting systems to people on the InterNet, but the above pun about drinking horses just makes it to funny not to share. ¡Peace! -- “⸘Ŭalabio‽” wala...@macosx.com Skype: Walabio An IntactWiki: http://circleaks.org/ “You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.” —— Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Gerrymandering
Fair Redistricting or Ending Gerrymandering is always a great grievance among electoral reformers. But the solution is much more elusive. Do you folks ever venture into that area? Jon Denn Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Gerrymandering
On 12/3/12 8:00 AM, Jonathan Denn wrote: Fair Redistricting or Ending Gerrymandering is always a great grievance among electoral reformers. But the solution is much more elusive. Do you folks ever venture into that area? can't say that i've done anything about it, but i have studied a little bit about the math that defines Apportionment where the 435 Representatives in the House are apportioned among the 50 U.S. states. the current method is this Huntington-Hill method and i am still somewhat dubious of it. about redistricting, how the lines get drawn, i wish that there would be an algorithm that would do it without the input from the state legislatures, because we *know* they do that with political self-interest in mind. here is a consequence: in the November 2012 election, not only did the Democrats win the presidency, keep control of the Senate and gain seats both in the Senate and in the House, it turns out that even though the House retained GOP control that *more* voters in the U.S. that voted in the House races voted for Democrat candidates than voted for GOP candidates. i say this everytime a GOP apologist claims that they have a mandate (to obstruct Obama) in the House. how is it that more voters voted Democrat yet there are more GOP representatives elected? i presume because of gerrymandering. it must be the case that in most of the races where the GOP candidate wins, that they won with a smaller margin than in the races where the Dem candidate won. -- r b-j r...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Gerrymandering
On 12/3/2012 5:00 AM, Jonathan Denn wrote: Fair Redistricting or Ending Gerrymandering is always a great grievance among electoral reformers. But the solution is much more elusive. Do you folks ever venture into that area? Yes. VoteFair ranking includes VoteFair representation ranking and VoteFair partial-proportional ranking which, together, eliminate the need to care about where district boundaries are drawn (as long as they contain the same number of eligible voters). Here is a web page that gives an overview and contains links to the details: http://www.votefair.org/calculation_details.html To clarify, some other election-method experts (here and elsewhere) advocate trying to make the district-boundary-drawing process as fair as possible, such as by using mathematics or an impartial jury. In contrast, I advocate using a method that produces roughly equivalent results regardless of where the boundaries are drawn. The European PR (proportional representation) systems also use this gerrymandering-resistant approach. However, PR uses single-mark ballots. The result is that PR looks good based on measuring the party balance in parliament, yet PR elects the wrong candidates from the major parties. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Gerrymandering
On 12/03/2012 02:00 PM, Jonathan Denn wrote: Fair Redistricting or Ending Gerrymandering is always a great grievance among electoral reformers. But the solution is much more elusive. Do you folks ever venture into that area? I'd prefer dissolving that particular problem to solving it. Use a multiwinner method like STV and the incentive to do gerrymandering pretty much disappears. The subsequent proliferation of parties makes it much harder to get a majority to support the gerrymander in the first place, too. Or give the task to a nonpartisan group or organization, such as the independent commissions in Canada or Australia. It is *possible* to add restrictions, such as compactness minima, that make it harder to do gerrymandering, but that also limits the ability to make districts follow communities of interest. These restrictions make the process more blind, but not just blind to malicious tweaking. Again, I think it is better to remove the incentive, because that's what ultimately causes the gerrymandering. (Norway uses party list PR and each highest-level administrative region is a district for the purposes of party list PR. These regions have different populations and so elect different numbers of MPs. Even if the incentive was there, gerrymandering would be practically impossible -- it would be like trying to gerrymander state boundaries to bias the Senate.) Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] An artist's view on voting methods
On 12/03/2012 05:35 AM, Michael Allan wrote: Jonathan Denn said: Someone is editing Kurt Vonnegut letters for publication. This was online today... I'm struck with editor meaning voter and stories as candidates ...I invite you to read the fifteen tales ... I believe whole civilizations have been voted into existence by this method, more or less. The candidate stories for the collection are myths of a cherished past (as in The Iliad), or utopias of a hopeful future (New Testament) or both (Mahabharata). The narrow method is one of cultural selection; but the larger process, which Vonnegut seems also to ask of his students, might more pointedly be called cultural *e*lection. Could such an election happen in modern times, do you think? One should be careful with election by story, though. The worst kind of modern-day dictatorial regimes have often been backed by stories or myths to lend the regime legitimacy. For instance, left-wing authoritarian rulers have claimed power to have been given to them by the workers or the people, and that the centralization of power through authoritarian measures is needed in order to protect the system from vast external enemies that would otherwise destroy it, and so that the rulers can direct the nation towards a glorious future. Similar mythology exists on the right: see, for instance, Gentile's description of the structure of Italian Fascism: http://www.oslo2000.uio.no/program/papers/s12/s12-gentile.pdf . Among other things, he notes that totalitarianism provides a single narrative, then seeks to politicize all of life so as to pull it into that narrative. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Possibly more stable consensus government
On 11/29/2012 09:02 PM, Raph Frank wrote: On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 9:16 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm However, if you need supermajority support for decisions, then you have to have something to put in place when the supermajority support isn't there. One option is to select 2 PMs. That is what they do in Northern Ireland. The cabinet is decided by the d'Hondt method (so proportional) and there is 1 PM (actually first minister) from each community. So, the vote would work something like - vote for PM (including cabinet) combination -- if a candidate gets 60%, he is appointed PM, finish - Round 2 -- Anyone with more than 1/3 of the vote gets nominated as joint PM -- Keep voting until 2 get 1/3 or more -- If that fails, then if 1 gets 1/3, he can take office, as half a PM (maybe have previous PM as other one) -- Each PM appoints half of the office --- The PM who got the most votes has to option to go first or second --- Each picks a department alternatively -- Department of finance might be different You could have more departments than cabinet positions. Each PM gets to appoint half the seats to anyone he likes, and then can assign any departments he picked any way he likes. The more departments, the more even the balance of power between the 2 PMs. You could also split them based on the relative support of the 2 PMs, but that would mean constant adjustment as support goes up an down. Each PM would require 1/3 support to stay in office (voting for both would count as 1/2 a vote each) It might also be required that both submit their cabinet member choices and if either can't get 1/3 support, they are considered to have lost confidence. I see. That's a third option, then: you distill, to use such a term, the lines of disagreement or representation blocs into the executive, so that the executive has to find consensus rather than having to wait on the legislature to do so. That might work in combination with the idea of Simmons. You could have a vote where you ask the members of the assembly for their favorite as well as their consensus choice. If the consensus candidate gets more than the threshold (say 60%), he gets the task of appointing the other ministers, otherwise some PR method is used to elect a small number (perhaps only two) joint PMs. That sounds better than having a PM chosen by random ballot when the consensus choice fails; but the PR method would have to be probabilistic to be strategy-proof, I think. So a supermajority requirement upon forming the government and a minority for a vote of no confidence would be a recipe for instability (and probably rule by the bureaucracy). I was thinking 50% to form after an election and 60% to vote no confidence. Yes. I'm just saying that 60% to form and =50% for no confidence would definitely not work. Another option is that if no government is formed by 60%, the old one stays in power and a new election is automatically triggered within 30 days. After that election, if nobody has 60%, then 50% is sufficient, but maybe if that happens the term is reduced by 50%. No matter how the government is picked, 60% would be required to replace it with a different one. That would provide an incentive for the slight majority to hold out for an election, so that they can reaffirm their slight majority and then get through on a 50%. I do see the point, though, because a very slight majority couldn't be sure they would stay a majority after the election. 1/3: new election 2/3: Each legislator nominates a candidate and then a random legislator is picked and his choice wins[*] [*] could use something like IRV to eliminate very small options (say 20%) Perhaps something like multistage Hay voting ( http://www.panix.com/~tehom/essays/hay-extended.html ) could be used to remove clones while keeping the method strategy-proof, also. The mathematics is a little too tough for me, so I don't know if one could remove very small options in multistage Hay without upsetting the resistance to strategy. The problem with requiring 60% to take down the government, means you have to swing 20% of the house to cause a collapse. That is a shift of power to the executive. And secondarily, to the faction that managed to get their government through, yes. In more general terms: a 60% barrier to no-confidence favors the status quo because the status quo can survive on less (40%) than any of the alternatives. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] An artist's view on voting methods
Kristofer Munsterhjelm said: One should be careful with election by story, though. The worst kind of modern-day dictatorial regimes have often been backed by stories or myths to lend the regime legitimacy. ... Yes, I agree. The events of the 20th century effectively innoculated a generation against this particular disease, but younger generations aren't necessarily immune. Under the right circumstances, propaganda can masquerade as a legitimate world view. It can fool people into making terrible mistakes. ... For instance, left-wing authoritarian rulers have claimed power to have been given to them by the workers or the people, and that the centralization of power through authoritarian measures is needed in order to protect the system from vast external enemies that would otherwise destroy it, and so that the rulers can direct the nation towards a glorious future. Similar mythology exists on the right: see, for instance, Gentile's description of the structure of Italian Fascism: http://www.oslo2000.uio.no/program/papers/s12/s12-gentile.pdf Among other things, he notes that totalitarianism provides a single narrative, then seeks to politicize all of life so as to pull it into that narrative. This trick depends on an un-elected narrative, of course. There are moments in history when people make the wrong choices and are trapped by them, and come to regret them. Examples are post-Periclean Athens and Weimar Germany. But the basis of legitimacy for these mistakes is narrow (often a single vote) compared to the lengthy and elaborate election of a narrative world view. Examples again are compilations such as The Iliad, The Mahabharata, Ramayana, Old and New Testaments. These are traditionally the work of centuries, and they stand for a long time, if not forever. Could such a cultural election happen in modern times, do you think? Or what might prevent it? Mike Kristofer Munsterhjelm said: On 12/03/2012 05:35 AM, Michael Allan wrote: Jonathan Denn said: Someone is editing Kurt Vonnegut letters for publication. This was online today... I'm struck with editor meaning voter and stories as candidates ...I invite you to read the fifteen tales ... I believe whole civilizations have been voted into existence by this method, more or less. The candidate stories for the collection are myths of a cherished past (as in The Iliad), or utopias of a hopeful future (New Testament) or both (Mahabharata). The narrow method is one of cultural selection; but the larger process, which Vonnegut seems also to ask of his students, might more pointedly be called cultural *e*lection. Could such an election happen in modern times, do you think? One should be careful with election by story, though. The worst kind of modern-day dictatorial regimes have often been backed by stories or myths to lend the regime legitimacy. For instance, left-wing authoritarian rulers have claimed power to have been given to them by the workers or the people, and that the centralization of power through authoritarian measures is needed in order to protect the system from vast external enemies that would otherwise destroy it, and so that the rulers can direct the nation towards a glorious future. Similar mythology exists on the right: see, for instance, Gentile's description of the structure of Italian Fascism: http://www.oslo2000.uio.no/program/papers/s12/s12-gentile.pdf . Among other things, he notes that totalitarianism provides a single narrative, then seeks to politicize all of life so as to pull it into that narrative. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
