Re: [EM] Re2: Fobes wrt IRV w. relatively few competitive candidates.
At 01:44 PM 5/29/2013, David L Wetzell wrote: I believe the diff IRV makes makes it worth it. Given the current habits of the US, I don't see advanced-systems havinge sufficient additional value-added to justify switching from the extensive marketing campaign already in place for IRV. If things evolve, it will be easier to switch from IRV, in part because of widespread habituation to IRV and how it'll make it harder for those who benefit from the status quo to divide and conquer advocates of reform. This has been, of course, the FairVote argument for a long time. FairVote, however, did not merely market IRV. They also deprecated other systems, such that the President of FairVote Arizona, putting on her Arizona League of Women Voters President hat, lobbied against the recent Approval initiative based on old FairVote arguments that actually did not apply to the circumstances where Approval has been proposed, old and discredited arguments, which she did not understand, promoted by FairVote. That's the problem with a divisive marketing campaign! And it can backfire. IRV was known as a seriously defective single-winner voting system, since it was proposed as the Ware system. It's a make the world safe for major parties system. It breaks down badly when a third party starts to attain parity, or passes parity, as in Burlington. The FairVote campaign oversold IRV, and there is a backlash, implementations are being rescinded. Previously, IRV was dumped for (unfair) political reasons, as in Ann Arbor, MI. Much rescinding of late has not been unfair like that. It's been based on substantial method failure. Because FairVote focused only on IRV for single-winner elections, it was not prepared for this. It recommended IRV blindly, regardless of context. In Burlingon, it's obvious, instead of going back to a plurality-satisfied (40% ) runoff voting, a hybrid could have been proposed: Bucklin, using the same 3-rank ballot, can handle a three-party situation with ease, tending to find a majority, and if no majority were found, it's then possible to design an optimal runoff. FairVote should be *ready* with alternatives, and ready to recommend them, not just to slink away. In Arizona, it's quite possible that IRV could be ruled unconstitutional, because of the most legal votes standard of the Arizona constitution. IRV discards and does not consider some legal votes. Some it counts, some it does not, treating ballots differently. It's a problem. Because court decisions with regard to voting systems do not always consider all the issues, I can't predict how the Arizona Supreme Court would rule. If my argument here is legally supported, what, then, should FairVote Arizona recommend, short of amending the constitution? Is Arizona hopeless? Hint: Bucklin counts all the votes, and uses them. (There could be an issue with unused ranks, but my sense is that this would pass muster, because all ballots are treated equally, and all ranks are either counted or not.) Bucklin is American preferential voting. Yet FairVote used invented arguments to discredit Bucklin, not election science. FairVote supported the decision in Brown v. Smallwood, when that decision would just as easily have dumped IRV, the arguments would be quite similar. The decision was idiosyncratic, not supported anywhere else, and not supported by the current Minnesota court. The point is that FairVote distorted the information available to the public, pursuing a narrow campaign for a particular method. The case can be made that FairVote has done significant damage to election reform in the U.S., by attacking runoff voting, widely recognized as more democratic than raw plurality. Instead of *improving* runoff voting, IRV gutted it as an expensive nuisance. Replacing it with an expensive single-ballot system missing most of the advantages of actual runoff voting. I'm hoping that FairVote will begin to cooperate with the Center for Election Science. We have certain common goals, most notably proportional representation. The question of optimal voting system is often dependent on the specific circumstances of a jurisdiction, and that, as well, can be studied. Yes, political practicality is a crucial issue for an advocacy group, but if what is advocated is *actually harmful*, what then? We need clear-thinking activists *and* we need election science. How about it, David? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] A simple thought experiment.
At 02:52 PM 5/29/2013, David L Wetzell wrote: Also, the bottom line is that when you're advocating for a change in which single-winner election rule alternative ought to be used, it's not right to dump the burden of proof on IRV advocates. The amount of time spent marketing IRV already is a sunk cost and so the burden of proof for switching ought to lie on the challengers not the defenders of the status quo progressive electoral alternative to fptp. Sunk cost for you, David. The rest of us are singularly unimpressed. We didn't ask you to spend that time and money. Voting systems scientists have been advising strongly against the method you adopted since the 19th century. The voting system community, including *many* former IRV supporters and even FairVote activists, settled on a first voting system reform propoosal, not as the ideal voting system, but as a do-no-harm improvement, Count All the Votes. I.e,. Approval Voting. It will not fix all problems. But it costs almost nothing. It has an obvious problem, but that problem only arises because, with it, voters who support a minor party will be able to express a vote for their favorite party, and all analysts agree that they will do this, it is strategically sound. Approval always allows voting for your favorite. However, once voters can do this, they will *also* want to be able to express a preference for their favorite, which they cannot do in Approval where they choose to support, say, their minor party favorite and to cast a vote in the major election. This is the problem that IRV solves. However, the problem was solved long ago, with a voting system that does not have IRV's serious malfunctions: Bucklin. It's ranked approval voting. It actually uses a truncated Range ballot, this has often been missed by analysts. A voter who has a strong preference can skip ranks to express it, causing the second preference vote to show up in a later round of canvassing. I call that Limited Later-no-Harm protection. Voters will use this -- or bullet vote -- depending on preference strength, which is precisely how the system performs well in utility evaluations. Bucklin was oversold, as was IRV recently, as a way to guarantee majorities. No voting system can do that except by restricting the freedom of the voter, in which case the majority is coerced or artificial. However, in contested public elections, Bucklin *did* find majorities even with many candidates on the ballot. Later, in party primary elections, with many candidates and bullet voting rates approaching 90%, it didn't find majorities. In that context, runoff voting makes *much more sense,* because what voters need is *information.* It's not about Later-no-Harm failure, an old speculation that FairVote enshrined as being The Reason why Bucklin didn't find majorities. And, given that, what would really have made sense would have been a Bucklin primary, with intelligent choice of runoff candidates if needed. And maybe a Bucklin runoff; with an advanced voting system, finding a optimal winner with three candidates should be possible. Bucklin is *vastly* easier to canvass than IRV, it is just sums of votes. So, David, sunk cost is also water under the bridge. What you have left is an organization with some established reputation. How you use that will determine if all the cost is truly sunk, or there is something that can be salvaged and used to build a brighter future. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Why LTPs/Am forms of PR matter for more local democracy...
At 03:09 PM 5/30/2013, David L Wetzell wrote: * LR Hare has one vote per voter and one candidate per party and one or two vice-candidates on the party-list who win the extra seats if a party's candidate wins multiple seats. But the top candidate would have to beat the third place candidate by more than one-third of the vote to win two seats and (s)he'd have to beat the 2nd place candidate by more than two-thirds of the vote to win all three seats. So if the vote %s were 40:30:20:10 then there'd be 3 winners. If they were 50:35:10:5 then the top candidate would win two seats and her/his vice-candidate would hold the second seat. If they were 80:10:5:5 then the top candidate would win all three seats and get to choose two vice-candidates (or have her/his list specified before the election) but that outcome is not likely outside of Russia or other DINO areas. Party-list PR is interesting, and STV is a very fair system for handling it. I'm not going to get into best system yet. If we are looking at a practical possibility in the U.S., we will need to answer that question. There is no sunk cost, so to speak. Asset Voting was originally a tweak on STV. Most voters only know their favorite. I find it interesting that David assumes that an asset-like condition is possible, either by free choice of the candidate, or by a predetermined list. In the long run, I find the former to be the deepest reform because it can take us *beyond* the party system to something that can shade into direct/representative democracy, a profound transformation. Possible in NGOs, immediately. Now, the quota. It's clear that the Hare quota creates proportionally fair winners, generally the first two. What about that third seat? The Droop quota gives more voting power to the winners of the first two seats, effectively. It treats all seats equally. The Hare quota gives minority representation better. In a two-party system, the Hare quota is more likely to elect a minority party candidate. It does not go too far in this. That candidate *will* be elected with fewer assigned voters, by definition. In the Asset systems I've proposed, I've used the Hare quota, and *tolerate* the possible unfilled seat. I'd allow the unrepresented votes to be cast *directly* on Assembly issues. These are public voters, those votes could be cast over the internet without the security issues we associate with internet voting. (All votes would be public.) So the function of a *seat*, then, is representation in deliberation: in introducing motions, and in debating on the floor, this can be distinguished from amalgamation, actual choice. However short of that, Hare will accomplish this goal better than Droop: a goal that the number of citizens who are represented in the Assembly be maximized. Hare will produce a *slight* bias toward minority representation over Droop. That's not going to give away the assembly to a minority party, just give them a voice. Obviously, using larger districts will enhance this. But what about the desire of local representation? That can happen spontaneously. Under full Asset, people will very likely tend, most of them, to vote for someone local, and because full Asset does not waste votes, it's totally safe to vote without any restriction as to electability. I know that I'd prefer a representative in an Assembly who lives relatively far from me, but who represents me more accurately, to one who is close but with whom I cannot communicate well. After all, there is the telephone and email and, even, snailmail. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] What are the approaches you advocate for?
On 5/30/2013 12:44 PM, David L Wetzell wrote: ... dlw: If neither can dominate and we have some exit threat between them and away from them, possibly changing the specific two parties at the top or forcing them to merge with a growing (or regionally strong) third party, then it'll be easier to check the influence of special interests on both of them. ... I also think that 3rd party aficionados will recognize that the imperative is to incorporate the use of PR asap so as to mitigate the cut-throat competition between the two major parties that prevents us from making progress on so many issues that desperately need change and to trust that as a result of the changed rules that both major parties would be seriously changed for the better even if their names do not change. Rather than giving up on voter control of the Republican and Democratic parties, I want to increase voter influence on these two parties. That is why I promote reforming *primary* elections. I agree that third-party candidates should win often enough to indicate the extent to which the main parties (which could be more than two at a distant future time) fail to be controlled by the voters. Privately David asked: What are the approaches you advocate for? For primary-election reform (which are single-winner contests) I promote VoteFair popularity ranking, which is mathematically equivalent to the Condorcet-Kemeny method. (IRV cannot handle enough candidates for this purpose. Approval voting would provide improvements here, but I'm not a supporter of approval voting for widespread use.) For multi-winner use I promote VoteFair representation ranking. It is unlike any other voting method I've seen. Details are at: http://www.votefair.org/calculation_details_representation.html (STV is inferior to this method.) In addition I advocate the use of VoteFair party ranking to identify political-party popularity. Those results would be used to allow the two most-representative parties to offer two candidates in each race, and would limit less-popular parties to either one or zero candidates in each race. (IRV cannot handle this kind of general election. Let's say it's a Congressional election in which there are two Republican candidates, two Democratic candidates, one Green-party candidate, one [whatever] candidate, and no additional candidates.) To solve the gerrymandering problem I advocate using VoteFair representation ranking in double-size districts (to elect the two most representative candidates in each district), plus having some additional seats filled based on party-based proportionality. ... ... But choosing the candidate for the proportional seats would NOT be done using any kind of party list, and instead would be based on which district-based candidate lost in their district yet demonstrated he or she is the most popular candidate (of the specified party) compared to the other losing candidates (of that party) in the other districts. The full approach includes providing for a smooth transition to better elections. And the approach includes a proposed Constitutional amendment for reforming Presidential elections, which involves complications that IRV advocates don't seem to be aware of. (IRV advocates seem to think that after adopting IRV in more places, the details for dealing with IRV's limitations [especially its inability to handle three somewhat-equally popular political parties] can be worked out later.) Broadly speaking, in the context of this discussion with David about FairVote (not VoteFair) strategy, I do not see either FairVote or IRV advocates promoting a full election system that works together. Instead I hear let's use IRV here, and STV there, but stay with plurality voting there and there, and let's ignore the consequence of a third-party presidential candidate winning some electoral votes and preventing any candidate from winning a majority of electoral votes, and we're confident that everything will all work out. IRV and STV have been tried elsewhere (notably Australia) and those governments are just as corrupt as the U.S. (single-mark-ballot-based) and European (PR-based) election systems. Ironically most IRV advocates say they want third parties to grow, yet IRV cannot handle more than (let's say) 3 main candidates in a general election, so that will lead to a dead end if there should turn out to be four main parties. Richard Fobes Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] apologies, m going on vacation til 16th,
I will gladly respond to Richard F and Abd Lomax shortly after then... dlw Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
