Re: [EM] Gerrymandering solutions.
On 6/4/2012 10:18 PM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: [snip] 2. Whatever can be accomplished by PR can be accomplished by an at-large single winner election, because every single winner method can output a ranking of candidates instead of just one winner: Elect the winner. Then delete the winner from the ballots and count them again. That will elect the rank 2 winner. Then eliminate the rank 2 winner too, and count the ballots again. Each time, delete every previous winner before counting to determine the next winner. So you can elect N winners at large in a state, or nationally, for a body such as Congress (or its separate houses, if you want to keep them) or a state legislature. Of course, with Approval, it only requires one count, and you elect the N candidates with the most approvals. This does not accomplish what PR accomplishes. In fact, it does the opposite -- over-represents the largest plurality at the expense of everybody else. How can you think otherwise? --Bob Richard Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Gerrymandering solutions.
Ted: You said: Michael, you are stepping naively into an area that has been very well studied. I include a couple of points below you may want to consider. Of course, it's necessary to check out your points before answering about the purported naivete of my suggestions. But I would recommend that, as a general rule, it's better to just tell us your arguments, and report any errors that you find, before drawing conclusions or expressing characterizations. Best to save those for after their alleged justifications. On 04 Jun 2012 22:18:06 -0700, Michael Ossipoff wrote: 2. Whatever can be accomplished by PR can be accomplished by an at-large single winner election, because every single winner method can output a ranking of candidates instead of just one winner: Elect the winner. Then delete the winner from the ballots and count them again. That will elect the rank 2 winner. Then eliminate the rank 2 winner too, and count the ballots again. Each time, delete every previous winner before counting to determine the next winner. So you can elect N winners at large in a state, or nationally, for a body such as Congress (or its separate houses, if you want to keep them) or a state legislature. Of course, with Approval, it only requires one count, and you elect the N candidates with the most approvals. Can you prove that the ranking from a single-winner election is proportional? No. Nor did I say that it was. Notice that I didn't call it PR or Proportional Representation. When I said Whatever can be accomplished by PR can be accomplished by an at-large single-winner election, I was comparing the suggested multi-winner use of a single-winner method to PR--speaking of it as something _other than_ PR. That shouldn't be taken as saying that it is PR. Yes, it wasn't the best choice of wording. No, it didn't imply that multi-winner use of a single-winner method is PR. I spoke of it as something other than PR. All I meant was that a single winner method, used as I described, can elect a national Congress, at large, without districts. At the very least, you should remove ballots, in some fractional way, when a ballot has achieved some portion of its preference. Single Transferable Vote (STV) is one way, of course Of course. You're talking about PR. I wasn't talking about PR. I was talking about the use of a single-winner method, without the goal of proportionality. I have nothing against PR--except that I don't like the idea of unpopular parties being seated in Congress :-) But PR would be fine anyway. It works fine in Europe. There would be nothing wrong with borrowing from Europe. As I said before, if there were a referendum tomorrow about whether to adopt European or Australian PR, I'd vote Yes on it without hesitation. One advantage of party list PR is that it allows the use of the most proportional PR formula: Sainte-Lague. Sainte-Lague isn't the only PR formula that is unbiased with respect to party-size, but it's the only unbiased formula that doesn't share the avoidable errors of STV and Largest Remainder. Also, I like emphasis on party platforms instead of personalities and hairdo, etc. But I recognize that many would like to vote for individuals, even in a PR election. Of course that can be done in open list systems, such as those in Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland. The best of both worlds: Optimal proportionality and opportunity to support individual candidates. I'd thought that Finland had open list, but Juho says that they don't. , but there is also Reweighted Range Voting, and a Bucklin variant proposed by Jameson Quinn as AT-TV a year ago. My simplified version of JQ's method is Graded Approval Transferable Vote (GATV) and can be found here: Forget those. The familiar already-used methods are fine. The last thing you'd want to do would be to invent and propose something entirely new. If all you want is PR, then stick with existing familiar PR systems. But I'll say again that, for the U.S., PR would be a whole entirely new and different system, a new concept of government. Forget it. A better single-winner method is nothing more than a better way of doing what we already do. And Approval is nothing other than Plurality with its ridiculous forced-falsification rule repealed. Ask for less change. Get something. And no, I don't recommend including at-large Congressional elections as part of an Approval proposal :-) I propose nothing other than replacing Plurality with Approval. No other change in the electoral system. Further refinements and enhancements could be proposed later. Brian Olson has one automated method, with examples from the 2010 census, located here: http://bdistricting.com/2010/ There is also the shortest splitline algorithm, discussed here: http://rangevoting.org/GerryExamples.html http://rangevoting.org/GerryExec.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUS9uvYyn3A Ted Ok, Ted, I guess I
Re: [EM] Gerrymandering solutions.
As far as the US goes, the Supreme Court (law of the land) has officially declared that gerrymandering is just fine. The only solution to gerrymandering is for voters to elect representatives who won't draw the districts to benefit themselves. Aint happening in Texas or anyplace else it matters. We all know there are good and fair ways to draw districts, but the US Supreme Court has said those are not criteria they care about. -Original Message- From: election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com [mailto:election-methods-boun...@lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Michael Ossipoff Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2012 8:22 PM To: 'Ted Stern'; election-methods@lists.electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] Gerrymandering solutions. Ted: You said: Michael, you are stepping naively into an area that has been very well studied. I include a couple of points below you may want to consider. Of course, it's necessary to check out your points before answering about the purported naivete of my suggestions. But I would recommend that, as a general rule, it's better to just tell us your arguments, and report any errors that you find, before drawing conclusions or expressing characterizations. Best to save those for after their alleged justifications. On 04 Jun 2012 22:18:06 -0700, Michael Ossipoff wrote: 2. Whatever can be accomplished by PR can be accomplished by an at-large single winner election, because every single winner method can output a ranking of candidates instead of just one winner: Elect the winner. Then delete the winner from the ballots and count them again. That will elect the rank 2 winner. Then eliminate the rank 2 winner too, and count the ballots again. Each time, delete every previous winner before counting to determine the next winner. So you can elect N winners at large in a state, or nationally, for a body such as Congress (or its separate houses, if you want to keep them) or a state legislature. Of course, with Approval, it only requires one count, and you elect the N candidates with the most approvals. Can you prove that the ranking from a single-winner election is proportional? No. Nor did I say that it was. Notice that I didn't call it PR or Proportional Representation. When I said Whatever can be accomplished by PR can be accomplished by an at-large single-winner election, I was comparing the suggested multi-winner use of a single-winner method to PR--speaking of it as something _other than_ PR. That shouldn't be taken as saying that it is PR. Yes, it wasn't the best choice of wording. No, it didn't imply that multi-winner use of a single-winner method is PR. I spoke of it as something other than PR. All I meant was that a single winner method, used as I described, can elect a national Congress, at large, without districts. At the very least, you should remove ballots, in some fractional way, when a ballot has achieved some portion of its preference. Single Transferable Vote (STV) is one way, of course Of course. You're talking about PR. I wasn't talking about PR. I was talking about the use of a single-winner method, without the goal of proportionality. I have nothing against PR--except that I don't like the idea of unpopular parties being seated in Congress :-) But PR would be fine anyway. It works fine in Europe. There would be nothing wrong with borrowing from Europe. As I said before, if there were a referendum tomorrow about whether to adopt European or Australian PR, I'd vote Yes on it without hesitation. One advantage of party list PR is that it allows the use of the most proportional PR formula: Sainte-Lague. Sainte-Lague isn't the only PR formula that is unbiased with respect to party-size, but it's the only unbiased formula that doesn't share the avoidable errors of STV and Largest Remainder. Also, I like emphasis on party platforms instead of personalities and hairdo, etc. But I recognize that many would like to vote for individuals, even in a PR election. Of course that can be done in open list systems, such as those in Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland. The best of both worlds: Optimal proportionality and opportunity to support individual candidates. I'd thought that Finland had open list, but Juho says that they don't. , but there is also Reweighted Range Voting, and a Bucklin variant proposed by Jameson Quinn as AT-TV a year ago. My simplified version of JQ's method is Graded Approval Transferable Vote (GATV) and can be found here: Forget those. The familiar already-used methods are fine. The last thing you'd want to do would be to invent and propose something entirely new. If all you want is PR, then stick with existing familiar PR systems. But I'll say again that, for the U.S., PR would be a whole entirely new and different system, a new concept of government. Forget it. A better single-winner method is nothing more than a better way of doing what we already do. And Approval is nothing other than Plurality
Re: [EM] Gerrymandering solutions.
Michael, you are stepping naively into an area that has been very well studied. I include a couple of points below you may want to consider. On 04 Jun 2012 22:18:06 -0700, Michael Ossipoff wrote: About gerrymanmdering; PR would be a solution to gerrymandering, but certainly not the only one: 1. Proxy Direct Democracy wouldn't have a gerrymandering problem either. If Proxy DD can be made count-fraud-secure, then it would make PR obsolete. 2. Whatever can be accomplished by PR can be accomplished by an at-large single winner election, because every single winner method can output a ranking of candidates instead of just one winner: Elect the winner. Then delete the winner from the ballots and count them again. That will elect the rank 2 winner. Then eliminate the rank 2 winner too, and count the ballots again. Each time, delete every previous winner before counting to determine the next winner. So you can elect N winners at large in a state, or nationally, for a body such as Congress (or its separate houses, if you want to keep them) or a state legislature. Of course, with Approval, it only requires one count, and you elect the N candidates with the most approvals. Can you prove that the ranking from a single-winner election is proportional? I think not. At the very least, you should remove ballots, in some fractional way, when a ballot has achieved some portion of its preference. Single Transferable Vote (STV) is one way, of course, but there is also Reweighted Range Voting, and a Bucklin variant proposed by Jameson Quinn as AT-TV a year ago. My simplified version of JQ's method is Graded Approval Transferable Vote (GATV) and can be found here: https://github.com/dodecatheon/graded-approval-transferable-vote 3. But districting needn't have a gerrymandering problem, even if single-member districts are kept. Who said that districts have to be arbitrary and freehand-drawn?? Where did we get that silly assumption? Draw the district lines by some simple rule that doesn't leave any human discretion or choice. It would be completely automated, but it would be so simple that it would be very easy for anyone to check. For example: You could divide the country (or state) into N1 latitudinal bands such that each has the same population/average longitudinal width. Then divide each latitudinal band into longitudinal sections, in such a way as to give each section the same population, and so that there are the right number of such sections overall. But of course you wouldn't have to use latitude and longitude if you don't want to. On a map, on any projection, that you choose, use a rectangular grid of lines, drawn similarly to the way described above. If you use a gnomonic projection, then all of your district lines will be straight lines on the Earth (great circles). If you use a cylindrical projection, then it will be as described in the previous paragraph. But it could be any projection you like. I'd suggest that gnomonic and cylindrical (using parallels and meridians as described in the previous paragraph) would be the main two choices. Districts divided by parallels and meridians, or by straight lines (great circles). The point is that it could be done by a simple rule that would have no human input, no human choice. What if it divides a county or a city? So what? No problem. The rule could be that houses would be all counted on whichever side of a line most of the house's area lies. It could be automated of course, but the result could easily be checked by anyone. Brian Olson has one automated method, with examples from the 2010 census, located here: http://bdistricting.com/2010/ There is also the shortest splitline algorithm, discussed here: http://rangevoting.org/GerryExamples.html http://rangevoting.org/GerryExec.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUS9uvYyn3A Ted -- araucaria dot araucana at gmail dot com To change the subject a little, I'd like to bring up another geographical government suggestion, while I'm at it: Partition. It doesn't make any sense for people to have to live under a government that they don't like, with people whom they don't agree with or don't like. So why not just divide the country up into separate countries, according to what kind of government people like? It's ridiculous to make everyone share the same county, when they want different kinds of country. It would be like a PR election, except that it would be for square miles instead of for seats. Though, like districting, the partitioning of the country could be (1) by an automatic rule, with those same rectangles (I like that), or (2) it could also be done by national negotiation in a PR negotiating body, or maybe by a proxy DD negotiation. I like the quick simplicity of (1). But (2) could _maybe_ be done in such a way as to ensure that each new partition-country has, to the best extent possible by
Re: [EM] Gerrymandering solutions.
About gerrymanmdering; PR would be a solution to gerrymandering, but certainly not the only one: 1. Proxy Direct Democracy wouldn't have a gerrymandering problem either. If Proxy DD can be made count-fraud-secure, then it would make PR obsolete. 2. Whatever can be accomplished by PR can be accomplished by an at-large single winner election, because every single winner method can output a ranking of candidates instead of just one winner: Elect the winner. Then delete the winner from the ballots and count them again. That will elect the rank 2 winner. Then eliminate the rank 2 winner too, and count the ballots again. Each time, delete every previous winner before counting to determine the next winner. So you can elect N winners at large in a state, or nationally, for a body such as Congress (or its separate houses, if you want to keep them) or a state legislature. Of course, with Approval, it only requires one count, and you elect the N candidates with the most approvals. 3. But districting needn't have a gerrymandering problem, even if single-member districts are kept. Who said that districts have to be arbitrary and freehand-drawn?? Where did we get that silly assumption? Draw the district lines by some simple rule that doesn't leave any human discretion or choice. It would be completely automated, but it would be so simple that it would be very easy for anyone to check. For example: You could divide the country (or state) into N1 latitudinal bands such that each has the same population/average longitudinal width. Then divide each latitudinal band into longitudinal sections, in such a way as to give each section the same population, and so that there are the right number of such sections overall. But of course you wouldn't have to use latitude and longitude if you don't want to. On a map, on any projection, that you choose, use a rectangular grid of lines, drawn similarly to the way described above. If you use a gnomonic projection, then all of your district lines will be straight lines on the Earth (great circles). If you use a cylindrical projection, then it will be as described in the previous paragraph. But it could be any projection you like. I'd suggest that gnomonic and cylindrical (using parallels and meridians as described in the previous paragraph) would be the main two choices. Districts divided by parallels and meridians, or by straight lines (great circles). The point is that it could be done by a simple rule that would have no human input, no human choice. What if it divides a county or a city? So what? No problem. The rule could be that houses would be all counted on whichever side of a line most of the house's area lies. It could be automated of course, but the result could easily be checked by anyone. To change the subject a little, I'd like to bring up another geographical government suggestion, while I'm at it: Partition. It doesn't make any sense for people to have to live under a government that they don't like, with people whom they don't agree with or don't like. So why not just divide the country up into separate countries, according to what kind of government people like? It's ridiculous to make everyone share the same county, when they want different kinds of country. It would be like a PR election, except that it would be for square miles instead of for seats. Though, like districting, the partitioning of the country could be (1) by an automatic rule, with those same rectangles (I like that), or (2) it could also be done by national negotiation in a PR negotiating body, or maybe by a proxy DD negotiation. I like the quick simplicity of (1). But (2) could _maybe_ be done in such a way as to ensure that each new partition-country has, to the best extent possible by negotiation, equally good land, by whatever standards its people want to bargain for. Of course an overall census could be taken periodically, and the process repeated, to take into account people who have voted with their feet. But those adjustments wouldn't be necessary, because the initial partition would let everyone live in the govt they like best. But, though I don't watch tv, I used to watch it along with the family I was part of, so what about a family like the one in All in the Family? Should Archie Bunker's daughter have to remain in his country? Likewise the family in A family Affair (if I've got the show-name right). It is not your fault what country you're born in. So there would be a strong case for letting people continue to choose what country they want to live in, even after partition. Of course then it would be necessary to repeat the initial partition process to adjust the national borders to the new populations. Maybe migration should only affect borders when it's by people who were born in the country that they're in, as opposed to people who chose that country at partition time. But migration must be distinguished from fecundity, for this purpose. A country shouldn't be able to
