Re: [EM] STV vs Party-list PR, could context matter?

[Raph Frank]

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 8:47 PM, Richard Fobes
 wrote:
> Another way to understand the second problem is to consider what would
> happen if 55% of the voters in a state favor the Republican Party, and the
> remaining 45% favor the Democratic Party, and there is an even distribution
> of these preferences throughout the state.  If STV uses 3 seats per
> district, the likely result would be that two thirds of the elected
> representatives would be Republicans, and only one third would be Democrats.

If they were single seaters, then it would be 100% Republican.

Small districts inherently don't give good PR, but a 1/3 to 2/3 split
is better than 100% to one, if the votes are 55% to 45%.

> If STV is used with 4 seats per district, in a (different) state that
> strongly favors a third party, the fourth seat would yield unpredictable
> results.  Here I'm assuming that the first three seats would be filled by
> one Republican, one Democrat, and one third-party politician.

There would be a little randomness, but it should balance out somewhat
when averaged over many districts.  Tiny parties would still have a
very hard time.

4 seats means a quota of 20%.  If both Republicans and Democrats are >
40%, then they both get 2 seat each.

An odd number of seats has the feature that if a party gets a majority
of the vote, it gets a majority of the seats.

> In contrast, my view is that first we -- the voters -- need to reclaim
> control of the Republican and Democratic parties, and then we can decide
> whether we need one or more third parties.  (I expect that we will need
> small third parties, but that they will primarily serve as a way for voters
> to steer the two main parties in wiser directions.)

The issue is that if the 2 parties work together, then they can ignore
the voters, since they effectively hold a duopoly.

Everyone must choose one or other, so there is relatively little control.

With third parties, it is possible for voters to move to one of the
third parties.  Even if only a small number do it, it still acts on as
a check, since each voter who leaves represents loss of power for the
party.

Currently, the only way to leave is to switch vote from one party to
the other, which is a big step for many people.

> Remember that state legislatures and Congress use a voting method (for
> choosing which proposed laws to pass) that works reasonably well with just
> two main parties, but that voting method would break down into chaos if a
> legislature or Congress had to form coalitions (in order to get a majority
> of support for each proposed law).

Certainly, there would need to be changes in the customs/rules of
order in the House.

The Senate would likely not be PR based anyway, due to the 2 Senator
per State rule.

> Also remember that in Congress (and
> presumably in state legislatures) the chairmanship of each committee
> switches to a committee member who is from the majority party; there is no
> graceful way to choose which committees switch their chairmanships to which
> of three (or more) parties.

That could be handled either by having a formal coalition (the
coalition agreement would include how to split the chairmanships) or
maybe doing it via PR, or some other compromise.

> You seem to be focused on accommodating a transition to a three-party
> system, without also accommodating a later transition back to a two-party
> system.

PR is unlikely to switch back to a 2 party system.  There is little
benefit in reducing voter choice.  However, if the voters mostly vote
for the 2 biggest parties, PR allows it to move back to 2 party.

> Election-method reform must (first and foremost) cut the puppet strings that
> currently connect politicians -- of both parties -- to the biggest campaign
> contributors ("special interests").

That is one of the main points about PR.  By giving the voters more
choice, they can move their support away from parties that don't
represent them well.

A 2 party system inherently, only has 2 choice.  If a voter hates one
party and dislikes the other, then he isn't likely to move his vote to
the party he hates.

The more voters who are in that situation, the less voter control
their is over the party.

> That alone will change the political
> landscape dramatically, and that change might result in a stable two-party
> system that all the voters like.

I assume you mean campaign contribution reform?  That isn't actually
an election method.

Also, because of the FPTP method, politicians can ignore the public,
as long as both parties agree.

Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

[EM] 'lection de trois

[David L Wetzell]

>
>
>
> -- Forwarded message --
> From: robert bristow-johnson 
> To: election-methods@lists.electorama.com
> Cc:
> Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:13:51 -0500
> Subject: Re: [EM] élection de trois élection de trois
> On 2/19/12 8:53 PM, David L Wetzell wrote:
>
>> It seems quite a few election rules get quirky in one way or the other
>> with a 3-way competitive election.
>>
>> That might be a point worth considering in the abstract in a paper or
>> something why are 3-way single-winner elections quirky?
>>
>>
> isn't it obvious?
>
>   
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Duverger%27s_law


Duverger's law was based on the assumption of FPTP.  I'm being more
general, suggesting that any single-winner rule(apart from hybrids like a
2-stage rule) will
tend to get quirky when there's a competitive 3 way election, which will
tend to make it hard to sustain there being 3-competitive parties.  .

>
>
> to wit: Duverger suggests two reasons why single-member district plurality
> voting systems favor a two party system. One is the result of the "fusion"
> (or an alliance very like fusion) of the weak parties, and the other is the
> "elimination" of weak parties by the voters, by which he means that the
> voters gradually desert the weak parties on the grounds that they have no
> chance of winning.
>

I'm dealing with a fuzzy monster on this more general quirkiness of 3-way
competitive elections.  That's just one case.

>
>  On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 5:31 PM, Jameson Quinn 
> > jameson.quinn@gmail.**com >> wrote:
>>
>>..., cuz the simple fact of the matter is that IRV works best
>>with only 3 candidates.
>>
>>
>>
> geez, i wish people used only plain text email.  or that the list server
> converted every post to plain text, perhaps wrapping lines at 70 columns.
>
> 2.5, actually.
>>
>>
> yeah, i don't get the reasoning behind David's claim.  IRV works just as
> well with 4 or more candidates as with 3.  if there are 3 nearly equal
> candidates IRV may screw up just as bad as if there are 3 nearly equal
> candidates with more minor candidates added.  i am not assuming "IRV3".
>

dlw: Cuz, there's more opportunities for the order of elimination to make a
difference when you eliminate more candidates?

> I don't think there's a big diff between IRV w. 3 candidates and IRV with
> 4 candidates, but my debates with Dale Sheldon Hess have confirmed that
> according to the measures they found with simulations that IRV was closest
> to their favorites with only 3 candidates.
> --
>
> r b-j  r...@audioimagination.com
>
> "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -- Forwarded message --
> From: Richard Fobes 
>

BTW, Richard, you're a pretty good dancer!!!  I saw the U-tube video from
your website...

>
> As for the U.S., the biggest (but not the only) election unfairness occurs
> in primary elections as a result of vote splitting.  "Special interests" --
> the people who give the largest amounts of money to election campaigns --
> have learned to give money to candidates in the primary elections of _both_
> the Republican party and the Democratic party (as needed), and give
> additional support to "spoiler" candidates when needed.  The result is that
> the money-backed candidate in each party's primary election wins, and then
> it doesn't much matter whether the Republican or the Democrat wins the
> "general election".
>

dlw: Our system is too entrepreneurial with pretty weak intra-party diffs
to maintain party brands against this sort of opportunism.
IRV(and other rules) gets rid of some primaries.

>
> Simply getting one political party or the other to use a fairer voting
> method (any of the ones supported by the Declaration of Election-Method
> Reform Advocates) in the primary elections would greatly improve the
> ability of voters to elect problem-solving leaders -- instead of
> special-interest puppets.  (After one party adopts such fairer primary
> elections, the other party would soon have to do the same or else risk
> losing lots of support.)
>

dlw: primaries are good places to push for electoral reform.

>
> That's all I have time to write now.
>
> Richard Fobes
>
>
>
> -- Forwarded message --
> From: Kevin Venzke 
> To: election-methods 
> Cc:
> Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 02:39:40 + (GMT)
> Subject: Re: [EM] élection de trois élection de trois
> They are quirky because of IIA. The papers on this are from the 1970's.
> Quote Wikipedia:
>
> "The *Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem*, named after Allan 
> Gibbardand Mark
> Satterthwaite , is
> a
> result about the deterministic voting 
> systemsthat choose a single 
> winner using only the preferences
> of the voters, where each voter ranks all candidates in order of
> preferenc

Re: [EM] Question about Schulze beatpath method

[Markus Schulze]

Hallo,

in example 3 of my paper, the weakest link of the strongest
path from candidate A to candidate C is the same link as
the weakest link in the strongest path from candidate C
to candidate A:

http://m-schulze.webhop.net/schulze1.pdf

Markus Schulze


Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info

Re: [EM] Question about Schulze beatpath method

[robert bristow-johnson]

On 2/20/12 1:15 PM, Markus Schulze wrote:

Hallo,

in example 3 of my paper, the weakest link of the strongest
path from candidate A to candidate C is the same link as
the weakest link in the strongest path from candidate C
to candidate A:

http://m-schulze.webhop.net/schulze1.pdf

the thing that had been confusing me (until Kevin replied) is that the 
*direction* through that link is the same whether your defeat path is 
from A to C or the reverse.  that seems sorta counter-intuitive.


--

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] Kevin V, Richard F., Raph F

[David L Wetzell]

>
>
> From: Kevin Venzke 
> To: election-methods 
> Cc:
> Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2012 03:01:06 + (GMT)
> Subject: Re: [EM] Kevin V.
> Hi David,
>
> >>KV:The similarity is that with SODA, you (and like-minded candidates)
> get a benefit even if you don't
> >>win. Under normal methods you have the inherent pressure against running
> clones (that I think we both
> >>agree exists) with little possible benefit in nominating them.
> >
> >dlw: What is the benefit?  You might get lucky?  There'd be pressure in
> real life against clones running
> >regardless and so the strength of the effect is still an empirical
> question.
>
> The benefits are
> 1. to the candidate: still gets to influence the result even if he loses
> 2. to the voter: greater chance of having somebody palatable to vote for
> without wasting the vote
> 3. to the candidate's party: the candidate can attract voters that might
> not have bothered voting if there
> had only been one nominee.
>

dlw: If it's really a clone then 2 seem like a stretch.   For 1 and 3, why
not just hire more campaign staff to GOTV?

>
> The main factor working against nominating clones in most methods is that
> it risks dividing up the voters
> such that they refuse to vote for all the like-minded candidates. If
> voters actually delegate power to a candidate
> (which is a little uncertain) the risk of this is reduced.
>

dlw: It also imposes higher costs on voters in terms of getting to know the
candidates and figuring out that so-and-so are clones...

>
>
>
> >>By "difficult to tabulate" I was talking about IRV itself. But no matter:
> >
> >dlw: Maybe that's why I'm pushing IRV+???
>
> Ok, maybe I should take that literally, that you want to use an approval
> filter because it makes IRV easier
> to tabulate. I don't know what else the lack of example scenarios could
> mean.
>

My motivation is pragmatic, or problem-solving driven, rather than based on
stylized hypotheticals..

>
> >>KV:Ok, so you are married to IRV or variants because of its "first
> mover" status. Then my question switches
> >>to how the approval rule helps it. Do you have a scenario on-hand that
> shows your method doing something
> >>preferable to what IRV normally would do? I can't think of what the
> expected difference would be, except
> >>when somehow the second-place (on first preferences) candidate isn't
> among the top three approved. Are
> >>you thinking of a Chirac/Jospin/Le Pen scenario (2002 French
> presidential election)? Though that would
> >>not even have happened under IRV.
> >
> >dlw: Speeding up the election and simplifying the use of IRV are enuf to
> justify the use of IRV+ over IRV,
> >especially for bigger elections.  It doesn't matter how often it'd get a
> different outcome.  There'd be no recursion
> >in the explanation of how it'd work and that'd be one less arg that
> opponents of electoral reform could use
> >against it.
> >Plus, almost all of the args used by advocates of Approval Voting against
> IRV would get watered down...,
> >cuz the simple fact of the matter is that IRV works best with only 3
> candidates.
>
> I don't buy that second paragraph at all. Contrived IRV bad examples
> usually don't need more than three.
> Do you know one that requires four?
>

dlw: Well, it's the least important for me personally of the args, hence
why it's listed last.
It's easiest to give bad egs with 3 candidates.  That doesn't mean they
don't also exist for more than 3.
If you know of examples where order of elimination matters in a cascading
fashion then that'd make a great example for IRV+.
As for IRV working best with only 3 candidates, the pathological examples
emerge only in the relatively rare case of competitive 3 way elections
and those are relatively rare and not stable so the use of less ranking
info by IRV relative to Condorcet methods would be less important w. only 3
candidates and so on...

>
> >>>It's not raw for a first stage of single-winner election.  Plurality
> at-large for multiple seats is not unlike
> >>>single-winner elections, but that's the point, it's a single-winner
> election rule.   thanks for the good comments.
> >>
> >>By "raw" I mean "nothing is done to ensure one viewpoint doesn't take
> all the spots." Usually finalist selection
> >>isn't "single-winner" (read: single viewpoint) but are somewhat
> representative of all the voters, such as the
> >>last two candidates standing in IRV.
> >
> >dlw: Well, if there's only winner in the end, it doesn't matter if all
> viewpoints are expressed in the final round.
> >There's usually no door-bell prize.
>
> Yes but theoretically you make the final round moot. I can't believe we're
> discussing this. You're using
> approval to pick finalists for IRV and apparently don't believe this would
> even be too different from IRV. Maybe
> you're right. But you should see that if your finalists all came from the
> same viewpoint then your method would
> actually be equivalent to Approval, not IRV. All the steps to condu