Re: [EM] Sainte-Lague vs d'Hondt for party list PR
On 2.7.2012, at 13.58, Raph Frank wrote: For example, 26 parties at 1.5% and one party at 61% for a 49 seat parliament would split the seats, 20 for the large party and 29 for split between the micro parties. The micro parties get 59% of the seats for 39% of the vote. I only now checked the numbers in this Webster / Sainte-Laguë example. It seems that even with first divisor 1 the largest party would get 23 seats. The example is still valid, just the numbers seem to be inaccurate. Divisor methods are based on a fixed seat allocation order (based on the number of votes of each party) that does not depend on the number of seats. This means that if there are N small parties of equal size and one large party, there will be some fluctuation in the results when the number of seats grows. There is some number of seats (S1) that will all go to the large party, and next N seats will all go to the small parties (assuming no other ties than those between the equal size small parties). Size S1 thus favours the large party, and size S1+N favours the small parties. This is what I called fluctuation above. In the given example S1 = 20 (all seats to the large party) and S1+N = 20+26 = 46 (one seat to every small party, still 20 to the large one). In the S1 seats case the large party gets 100% of the seats with 61% of the votes. In the S1+N seats case the large party gets 43.48% of the seats with 61% of the votes. Or in other words, all 20 seats with only 12.2 quotas (7.8 extra seats), or only 20 seats with 28.06 quotas (8.06 seats too little). In real life party sizes usually vary more, and as a result the fluctuation is not as radical as in this kind of extreme examples. Modified first divisors can be used to eliminate strategic splitiing of parties. Use of the second divisor for strategic purposes is more difficult than using the first divisor, so there may be no need to modify the second divisor, although there is similar (but proportionally smaller) fluctuation also around the second (S2 = 87), third (S3 = 154) and later seats. Juho Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Sainte-Lague vs d'Hondt for party list PR
On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 5:10 AM, Michael Ossipoff email9648...@gmail.comwrote: Raph: Looking again at your Sainte-Lague splitting-strategy example, I don't think that the situation is quite as bad as you said. The smaller group, with 39% of the voters ends up with only 53% of the seats, unless I've made an error, which is quite possible. I think you are correct. The bonus only happens for the first seat that each party gets, so they can only get one each (26 total) before the rest go back to the large party, so 26 out of 49, 53% as you said. It might be possible to tweak it by having more micro-parties, but the more accurate it needs to be, the harder for it to happen in practice. It was really just illustrating the point that Sainte-Lague could favour very small parties. Even just using 0.7 as the first divisor instead of 0.5 might eliminate it in practice, but that is bias against smaller parties which has the same effect as d'Hondt, giving voters an incentive to vote for larger parties. 2. d'Hondt can strategically force people to vote for a compromise party instead of their favorite, in order to maximize their weight in parliament. What other solutions are there? Largest-Remainder. In your example, In LR, the large party immediately gets 29 quota seats, and then the first remainder seat. The small parties get the rest of the remainder seats. Another possibility is Largest-Remainder, but with STV transfers allowed. The ranking could even be set by the parties. This would mean no lost votes, but still be very simple (voters just pick one party). Even national level pure STV, but by party, would be possible. There would be no elected party. In each round the party with the lowest remainder would be eliminated and have its number of seats locked by rounding down. There could then be surplus transfers. I think a transfer system of some kind would make people much more confident to vote for their favourite party. Even if on average the system is unbiased, voters wouldn't want to risk giving a majority to a different group. Transfers would more consistently give a majority of the seats to a majority of the voters (assuming it is a solid coalition). Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Conceiving a Democratic Electoral Process
On 07/08/2012 07:04 PM, Fred Gohlke wrote: Good Morning, Kristofer re: Whether this [the assertion that elections impart upon a system an element of aristocracy] is a good or bad thing depends upon whether you think aristocracy can work. In this sense, 'aristocracy' means rule by the best, i.e. by a minority that is selected because they're in some way better than the rest at achieving the common good. Whether or not 'rule by the best' can work depends in large part on how well the electoral method integrates the reality that the common good is dynamic. Those who are 'the best' at one time and under one set of circumstances may not be 'the best' at another time and under different circumstances. Perhaps we could say that in a representative democracy, we want representatives that are alike us (as a people) in opinion but better in ability to govern. If we consider representative democracy as a proxy for direct democracy, to make the latter managable, then we could be even stronger: we'd want representatives that would act as we would if we had sufficient information and time. There's a problem, though: it's hard to separate the categories (opinion and ability) from each other. If a representative says that we can't do X, is that because it's really a bad idea or because he's part of an oligarchy that benefits from not doing X? Similarly, if a representative says we should do X, does he mean that is a good idea, or is he trying to manage perceptions? Since it's hard to tell by the representatives' acts alone, that leaves the system. In an ideal case, the system discourages an oligarchy in the first place (rather than trying to patch things up when the oligarchy exists), while placing the good in positions as representatives. (If representative democracy is/should be a managable way of direct democracy, then we can also note that it doesn't, by itself, deal with the problem of opinions changing too rapidly, or of populism. Other parts of the system should handle that, and we might look at similar problems dealt with control theory - e.g. machines that respond too quickly to feedback and thus oscillate between setpoints are adjusted by adding some attenuation into the system. In an electoral context, that might take the shape of not frequently re-electing the whole assembly but rather parts of it, or having different term limits depending on support, or requiring supermajorities or double majorities.) re: Thus, it's not too hard for me to think there might be sets of rules that would make parties minor parts of politics. Those would not work by simply outlawing parties, totalitarian style. Instead, the rules would arrange the dynamics so that there's little benefit to organizing in parties. The rules (or goals) must accommodate the fact that parties, interest groups, factions and enclaves are a vital part of society. They are the seeds from which new or different ideas germinate and lead civilization forward. Outlawing parties would be an outrage against humanity. It wouldn't work, either. The threat we must fear is not the existence of parties, it is letting parties control government. We will be best served by devising rules (or setting goals) that welcome partisans while ensuring they maintain a persuasive rather than a controlling role in the election process. So the problem is not partisanship, but rather exclusively partisan decisions. It it were partisanship itself, the solution might have been easier, but what you're saying means that we should try to find a just-right spot instead: partisan influences not too strong (which is the case now) nor too weak. What do you think of proportional representation systems? Are they closer to that sweet spot than are majoritarian systems? Are they close enough? Certainly Duvergerian oligopoly isn't operating here in Norway - although a cynic might say the coalitions that have arisen lately constitute multiparty two-'party' rule. re: For instance, a system based entirely on random selection would probably not have very powerful parties, as the parties would have no way of getting 'their' candidates into the assembly. Of course, such a system would not have the aristocratic aspect either. The closing sentence is what makes sortition a poor option (in my view). It strives to achieve mediocrity rather than meritocracy. Still, if aristocracy (in the original sense) decays to oligarchy too quickly, then sortition might be the worst except for all the others. This is a bit like the discussion about how strategy-proof an electoral method needs to be. If people cheat all the time and some have supercomputers by which to calculate the optimal strategy, then you might have to use a strategy-proof method even though the result is a lot worse, with honest voters, than if you used a vulnerable method; and on the other hand, if voters are mostly honest, you can use a method that's vulnerable to certain forms of
Re: [EM] The Sainte-Lague index and proportionality
On 07/09/2012 06:33 AM, Michael Ossipoff wrote: SL/Webster minimizes the SL index, right? It's known that Webster has _no_ bias if the distribution-condition that I described obtains--the uniform distribution condition. I'm not a statistician either, and so this is just a tentative possibility suggestion: What about finding, by trial and error, the allocation that minimizes the calculated correlation measure. Say, the Pearson correlation, for example. Find by trial and error the allocation with the lowest Pearson correlation between q and s/q. For the goal of getting the best allocation each time (as opposed to overall time-averaged equality of s/q), might that correlation optimization be best? Sure, you could empirically optimize the method. If you want population-pair monotonicity, then your task becomes much easier: only divisor methods can have it so you just have to find the right parameter for the generalized divisor method: f(x,g) = floor(x + g(x)) where g(x) is within [0...1] for all x, and one then finds a divisor so that x_1 = voter share for state 1 / divisor, so that sum over all states is equal to the number of seats. We may further restrict ourselves to a somewhat generalized divisor method: f(x, p) = floor(x + p). For Webster, p = 0.5. Warren said p = 0.495 or so would optimize in the US (and it might, I haven't read his reasoning in detail). Also, I think that the bias is monotone with respect to p. At one end you have f(x) = floor(x + 0) = floor(x) which is Jefferson's method (D'Hondt) and greatly favors large states. At the other, you have f(x) = floor(x + 1) = ceil(x) which is Adams's method and greatly favors small states. If f(x, p) is monotone with respect to bias as p is varied, then you could use any number of root-finding algorithms to find the p that sets bias to zero, assuming your bias measure is continuous. Even if it's not continuous, you could find p so that decreasing p just a little leads your bias measure to report large-state favoritism and increasing p just a little leads your bias measure to report small-state favoritism. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
[EM] Better runoffs
When runoffs are subjected to criterion analysis, one usually considers voters to vote in the same order in each round. If they prefer A to B in the first round, and A and B remain in the second round, they'll vote A over B in the second round. This may not necessarily fit reality. Voters may leave or join depending on whether the second round is important or not, and the same for later rounds in exhaustive runoff. But let's consider top-two runoffs and, to begin with, that the voters will stay consistent. The kind of criterion analysis performed on top-two then says that top-two Plurality runoff is not monotone. Furthermore, it is worse than IRV (i.e. fails participation, consistency, and so on, but also things IRV passes like MDT and mutual majority). If we want to have a method that does better, what would we need? Some methods (like Ranked Pairs or Kemeny) pass what is called local IIA. Local IIA says that if you eliminate all candidates but a contiguous subset (according to the output ranking), then the order of those candidates shouldn't change. If you eliminate all candidates but the ones that finished third and fourth and rerun the election, then the candidate that finished third should win. More specifically, for runoff purposes: if you pick the two first candidates to the runoff, and voters are perfectly consistent, then the order doesn't change. Thus, all that you really need to make a runoff that isn't worse than its base method is that the method passes LIIA. Use Ranked Pairs for both stages and there you go -- if the voters change their minds between rounds, conventional criterion analysis doesn't apply, and if they don't change their minds, you don't lose compliance of any criteria. However, such runoffs could become quite boring in practice. Say that there are a number of moderates in the first round and people prefer moderates to the rest. After the first round is done, two moderates are retained and run in the second round. What does it matter which moderate wins? The closer they are to being clones, the less interesting the runoff becomes. More formally, it seems that the whole voting population is not being properly represented. Two candidates represent the middle but nobody represents either side. That might be okay if voters are normally distributed around the candidate, but if they are, you wouldn't need the runoff to begin with. If that's correct, then it'd be better to have a proportional ordering. That proportional ordering should still put one of the moderates first (assuming he'd be the winner had there been only one round), but also admit one of the side candidates. But here's the tricky part. That proportional ordering method should also pass LIIA, so that all the criterion compliances held by the base method are retained. It's thus necessary that the winner of the base method comes first. Beyond that, however, I have little idea how the method might be constructed, or if it's even possible to have both a proportionality criterion and LIIA. Finally, if such a method were to be found, one could possibly have more than two candidates in the runoff. The runoff would serve as a way of the method to say hey, look at these candidates more closely, where their positions could then be compared and voters possibly change their minds. If the method passes LIIA, it doesn't matter how many (or few) candidates you put in the second round - the method acts like the one-round method if all the voters remain perfectly consistent. Practically, also, if there are only two candidates and one is a moderate, the other wing not represented might feel cheated out of a chance if only one of the wings are represented. If the centrist and the leftist goes to the second round, the right-wingers may complain that their candidate is not represented, whereas ordinary top-two runoff would have no such problem because both the right-wing and left-wing candidate would be represented at the cost of the centrist. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Better runoffs
On Jul 10, 2012, at 6:51 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: When runoffs are subjected to criterion analysis, one usually considers voters to vote in the same order in each round. If they prefer A to B in the first round, and A and B remain in the second round, they'll vote A over B in the second round. This seems reasonable to me - however much they thought, they decided on A vs B for the previous round and have no real need for more thinking now. However, those preferring C or D have only A and B available in the top-two runoff round and therefore must change. Should C and D have lost in the previous round? Experience with IRV demonstrates that those deserving to win can lose due to bad methods before runoffs. Assuming C and D deserved to lose, their backers need to accept their weakness and move on. Further, C and D could be clones who lost out because the method was Plurality, in which clones often lose due to the method. Plurality has primaries to help with this but clones can get nominated via multiple parties. DWK This may not necessarily fit reality. Voters may leave or join depending on whether the second round is important or not, and the same for later rounds in exhaustive runoff. But let's consider top- two runoffs and, to begin with, that the voters will stay consistent. The kind of criterion analysis performed on top-two then says that top-two Plurality runoff is not monotone. Furthermore, it is worse than IRV (i.e. fails participation, consistency, and so on, but also things IRV passes like MDT and mutual majority). If we want to have a method that does better, what would we need? Some methods (like Ranked Pairs or Kemeny) pass what is called local IIA. Local IIA says that if you eliminate all candidates but a contiguous subset (according to the output ranking), then the order of those candidates shouldn't change. If you eliminate all candidates but the ones that finished third and fourth and rerun the election, then the candidate that finished third should win. More specifically, for runoff purposes: if you pick the two first candidates to the runoff, and voters are perfectly consistent, then the order doesn't change. Thus, all that you really need to make a runoff that isn't worse than its base method is that the method passes LIIA. Use Ranked Pairs for both stages and there you go -- if the voters change their minds between rounds, conventional criterion analysis doesn't apply, and if they don't change their minds, you don't lose compliance of any criteria. However, such runoffs could become quite boring in practice. Say that there are a number of moderates in the first round and people prefer moderates to the rest. After the first round is done, two moderates are retained and run in the second round. What does it matter which moderate wins? The closer they are to being clones, the less interesting the runoff becomes. More formally, it seems that the whole voting population is not being properly represented. Two candidates represent the middle but nobody represents either side. That might be okay if voters are normally distributed around the candidate, but if they are, you wouldn't need the runoff to begin with. If that's correct, then it'd be better to have a proportional ordering. That proportional ordering should still put one of the moderates first (assuming he'd be the winner had there been only one round), but also admit one of the side candidates. But here's the tricky part. That proportional ordering method should also pass LIIA, so that all the criterion compliances held by the base method are retained. It's thus necessary that the winner of the base method comes first. Beyond that, however, I have little idea how the method might be constructed, or if it's even possible to have both a proportionality criterion and LIIA. Finally, if such a method were to be found, one could possibly have more than two candidates in the runoff. The runoff would serve as a way of the method to say hey, look at these candidates more closely, where their positions could then be compared and voters possibly change their minds. If the method passes LIIA, it doesn't matter how many (or few) candidates you put in the second round - the method acts like the one-round method if all the voters remain perfectly consistent. Practically, also, if there are only two candidates and one is a moderate, the other wing not represented might feel cheated out of a chance if only one of the wings are represented. If the centrist and the leftist goes to the second round, the right-wingers may complain that their candidate is not represented, whereas ordinary top-two runoff would have no such problem because both the right-wing and left-wing candidate would be represented at the cost of the centrist. Election-Methods mailing list - see
[EM] Oops! I said it backeards. LR's overall-counted s/q are more equal in Raph's example.
Contrary to what I said before, LR, not SL, makes the overall s/q more equal in Raph's SL bad-example. When the small parties are considered as a whole, their overall s/q is more nearly equal to that of the big party in LR, as compared to in SL. And for both sets of voters (small and big party voters), the s/q are closer to what they should ideally be (when the small voters and their seats are looked at overall, instead of individually by party). So it could be argued that LR looks considerably better in that example. But, if you're a voter of one of the small parties, you might not think so. When a small party gets 0 seats instead of 1 seat, its s/q differs from the ideal common s/q by more than it would if it got one 1 seat. You might not feel any affinity to the other small parties and their voters, and you might wonder why we'd think that it makes sense to lump you together with them. So, looking at it in terms of fairness to individual parties and their votes, SL is still fairer in this example--if splitting strategy isn't being used. So, still, LR's value remains only as the backup for when splitting-resistance is needed. LR stays within quota, and that tends to look better. For SL/Webster to look better in that regard, maybe it would be better to go back to the way Webster and Jefferson were done initially. When Jefferson's method (d'Hondt) was used for apportionment, and later, when Webster's method was first used, they were used with variable house-size. When the states' populations were divided by a pre-chosen divisor, and rounded off (according to the particular method's round-off rule), that was the number of seats. In other words, the divisor, and not the total number of seats in the House, was what was specified and constant. Maybe we should go back to that. I'd suggest choosing a divisor that is chosen so that the smallest state rounds to one seat. Then every state could have a seat without violating the Webster allocation rule. If that makes the House quite large, then maybe it would be best to make it a unicameral Congress, consisting of the House only. But that would violate the Great Compromise, under which condition the small states were willing to join the union, and so it couldn't be done without their agreement. Mike Ossipoff Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Better runoffs
This could make for boring runoffs in many cases. To solve that problem, it might be possible to reduce the pressure for people to vote in the runoff, by making it so the first-round winner is not supplanted unless the turnout in the runoff is high enough. For instance, if the first round were approval (I know this doesn't meet LIIA, but to make my point), the winner could be the highest vote total in the first or second round. A low-turnout runoff would leave the first-round winner in place. Jameson 2012/7/10 Dave Ketchum da...@clarityconnect.com On Jul 10, 2012, at 6:51 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: When runoffs are subjected to criterion analysis, one usually considers voters to vote in the same order in each round. If they prefer A to B in the first round, and A and B remain in the second round, they'll vote A over B in the second round. This seems reasonable to me - however much they thought, they decided on A vs B for the previous round and have no real need for more thinking now. However, those preferring C or D have only A and B available in the top-two runoff round and therefore must change. Should C and D have lost in the previous round? Experience with IRV demonstrates that those deserving to win can lose due to bad methods before runoffs. Assuming C and D deserved to lose, their backers need to accept their weakness and move on. Further, C and D could be clones who lost out because the method was Plurality, in which clones often lose due to the method. Plurality has primaries to help with this but clones can get nominated via multiple parties. DWK This may not necessarily fit reality. Voters may leave or join depending on whether the second round is important or not, and the same for later rounds in exhaustive runoff. But let's consider top-two runoffs and, to begin with, that the voters will stay consistent. The kind of criterion analysis performed on top-two then says that top-two Plurality runoff is not monotone. Furthermore, it is worse than IRV (i.e. fails participation, consistency, and so on, but also things IRV passes like MDT and mutual majority). If we want to have a method that does better, what would we need? Some methods (like Ranked Pairs or Kemeny) pass what is called local IIA. Local IIA says that if you eliminate all candidates but a contiguous subset (according to the output ranking), then the order of those candidates shouldn't change. If you eliminate all candidates but the ones that finished third and fourth and rerun the election, then the candidate that finished third should win. More specifically, for runoff purposes: if you pick the two first candidates to the runoff, and voters are perfectly consistent, then the order doesn't change. Thus, all that you really need to make a runoff that isn't worse than its base method is that the method passes LIIA. Use Ranked Pairs for both stages and there you go -- if the voters change their minds between rounds, conventional criterion analysis doesn't apply, and if they don't change their minds, you don't lose compliance of any criteria. However, such runoffs could become quite boring in practice. Say that there are a number of moderates in the first round and people prefer moderates to the rest. After the first round is done, two moderates are retained and run in the second round. What does it matter which moderate wins? The closer they are to being clones, the less interesting the runoff becomes. More formally, it seems that the whole voting population is not being properly represented. Two candidates represent the middle but nobody represents either side. That might be okay if voters are normally distributed around the candidate, but if they are, you wouldn't need the runoff to begin with. If that's correct, then it'd be better to have a proportional ordering. That proportional ordering should still put one of the moderates first (assuming he'd be the winner had there been only one round), but also admit one of the side candidates. But here's the tricky part. That proportional ordering method should also pass LIIA, so that all the criterion compliances held by the base method are retained. It's thus necessary that the winner of the base method comes first. Beyond that, however, I have little idea how the method might be constructed, or if it's even possible to have both a proportionality criterion and LIIA. Finally, if such a method were to be found, one could possibly have more than two candidates in the runoff. The runoff would serve as a way of the method to say hey, look at these candidates more closely, where their positions could then be compared and voters possibly change their minds. If the method passes LIIA, it doesn't matter how many (or few) candidates you put in the second round - the method acts like the one-round method if all the voters remain perfectly consistent. Practically, also, if there are only two
Re: [EM] Conceiving a Democratic Electoral Process
Good Afternoon, Kristofer re: If we consider representative democracy as a proxy for direct democracy, to make the latter managable, then we could be even stronger: we'd want representatives that would act as we would if we had sufficient information and time. That's a good way of putting it. Could it be improved by saying we want representatives that would act better than we act - by making rational rather than emotional decisions? re: There's a problem, though: it's hard to separate the categories (opinion and ability) from each other. If a representative says that we can't do X, is that because it's really a bad idea or because he's part of an oligarchy that benefits from not doing X? Similarly, if a representative says we should do X, does he mean that is a good idea, or is he trying to manage perceptions? Since it's hard to tell by the representatives' acts alone, that leaves the system. In an ideal case, the system discourages an oligarchy in the first place (rather than trying to patch things up when the oligarchy exists), while placing the good in positions as representatives. As you say, it's hard to separate opinion and ability from each other - and it's impossible to do so from a distances. That's why the system must give us a way to gauge the judgment and integrity of candidates before they're elected. Once they take office, their decisions affect our lives. If we cannot conceive a system that lets us evaluate them as well as we're able before we elect them we are doomed to an endless repetition of our past. Gauging the judgment and integrity of an individual can never be perfect, but we can get better insight into a person's character through face-to-face interaction than we can in any other way. If the interaction takes place in a competitive environment, it will bring out the vital distinctions needed to identify the better qualified candidates. re: If representative democracy is/should be a managable way of direct democracy, then we can also note that it doesn't, by itself, deal with the problem of opinions changing too rapidly, or of populism. Other parts of the system should handle that ... Therein lies the role of partisanship. Society is dynamic and people's perceptions and anxieties change. As particular concerns arise, their proponents will attract supporters. While the rabble-rousing effect of the media cannot be avoided, that influence can be ameliorated if partisans are given the facilities and encouraged to seek out their best advocates to outline their concerns and develop alternatives. When their views are shown to be in the interest of the community, their alternatives will be adopted, in whole or in part. re: In an electoral context, that might take the shape of not frequently re-electing the whole assembly but rather parts of it, or having different term limits depending on support, or requiring supermajorities or double majorities.) Re-electing a portion of the assembly at each election provides a level of stability to government. Term limits, while important, become less so if the people have a mechanism to carefully examine candidates during each election cycle. When I think of the size of majorities, I think of the life of our laws. At present, there is no provision for removing bad laws except by legislative action. We will be better served when the life of our laws depends on the size of the majority by which they are passed. Then, laws which barely pass will have to be re-enacted when they expire. This forces a re-examination of the law, after it has had an opportunity to accomplish the purpose for which it was passed. If it is found to be effective, it may attract a greater majority and a longer life. re: So the problem is not partisanship, but rather exclusively partisan decisions. The problem is that the parties are allowed to control the people's access to their government. When the parties enact the rules by which elections are conducted, they control the way the people can interact with their government. Gerrymandering and school board elections (in my state) are screaming examples, and are but the tip of the iceberg. When the parties write the rules of engagement, democracy can not survive. re: It it were partisanship itself, the solution might have been easier, but what you're saying means that we should try to find a just-right spot instead: partisan influences not too strong (which is the case now) nor too weak. Not exactly. What I'm saying is that the people, all the people, including non-partisans, must be allowed to participate in the political process. This is difficult because non-partisans, as a group, are not active in politics, yet many of their most important concerns remain very political. (quote taken from The Report of the Commission on
Re: [EM] Better runoffs
On 7/10/12 6:51 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: When runoffs are subjected to criterion analysis, one usually considers voters to vote in the same order in each round. If they prefer A to B in the first round, now how is this known, without a ranked ballot? and A and B remain in the second round, they'll vote A over B in the second round. that is, if nothing changes their mind. during our big IRV slugfest we had in 2010 (as a consequence of the 2009 IRV election), one of the points of the opponents of IRV was that they felt they deserved the right to make up or even change their minds about A and B. even if they voted for A or B in the first round. i, of course, felt it is a reasonable requirement that voters make up their minds about candidates by Election Day and that the downside of delayed-runoffs exceed this nebulous freedom to change my vote that the opponents touted. (one argument these folks made was that if their favorite candidate was eliminated in the first round, these voters would like to know who, of the remaining candidates in the runoff, their candidate might favor. i still don't see that as a compelling argument for delayed runoff.) This may not necessarily fit reality. Voters may leave or join depending on whether the second round is important or not, and the same for later rounds in exhaustive runoff. and this can be adequately dealt with using a ranked ballot. as long as all of the candidates are in the race up to Election Day, if it's important enough to vote during *any* round, it's important enough to rank it on a single ballot. i know there is more to your post, Kristofer, but i have to decode more of it before i can say anything about it. at least in my experience, all non-IRV elections were either straight plurality, or had a top-two runoff. and, besides the problem of greatly reduced turnout for the runoff, it is not clear that the top-two vote getters should be the candidates in the runoff. indeed, my argument to Democrats who voted against IRV (to return us to plurality/runoff) is that the candidate who should have won the 2009 race (who was the Dem candidate, so we Dems felt screwed) would *not* have ended up in the delayed runoff, had that been the law at the time. so voting against IRV and returning to delayed runoff did nothing to solve that problem. so i dunno how we do better delayed runoffs without using a ranked ballot in the first round to begin with. and if you do that, then what's the point (other than allowing voters to change their mind after Election Day)? L8r, -- r b-j...@audioimagination.com Imagination is more important than knowledge. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Conceiving a Democratic Electoral Process
Good Afternoon, Dave re: I would not do away with primaries - instead I would do away with Plurality and leave primaries to any party that still saw value in them. I believe the discussion was more about opening primaries to the public than to eliminating them. re: I see value in parties - Green, libertarians, socialism, etc., let voters with particular desires work together. Absolutely, but there must also be a way for those who don't subscribe to any party to participate in the electoral process. They have no voice at present, and that's the rub. Fred Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Conceiving a Democratic Electoral Process
Good Afternoon, alabio I, too, bridled at 'aristocracy' when I first read it. But, as I read the rest of Kristofer's message, his meaning was clear. I see he has already answered you, so I'll leave it there. Can you help us achieve a meritocracy? What are some of the elements we must consider in trying to make our government more democratic? Fred Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Conceiving a Democratic Electoral Process
Good Afternoon, Michael re: The public may include partisans, of course, but they would vote together with everyone else when it comes to public decisions. That's the crucial thing. I agree that it's a crucial issue, but, as far as this discussion has advanced, we've yet to suggest a method by which it can be done. One of the problems is that people motivated to political action are partisan, but they are a relatively small part of the electorate. The non-partisans, virtually by definition, tend to not be politically active. That does not mean they have no political interest or concern. They do, but there is no viable 'good government' party they can support. So, while they should be the greatest voice in the conduct of our government, they are forced to stand mute because parties dominate the political scene. That is the crux of the matter. I feel, like you, that our electoral method must embrace the entire electorate. Those who don't wish to participate must be allowed to drop out, but everyone else must have a way to provide meaningful input into the choice of the people's representatives in their legislature. Fred Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Conceiving a Democratic Electoral Process
Good Afternoon, Mr. Hoffard Your post does not seem to address the issue of non-partisans, yet they are, by far, the majority of the electorate (whether or not they actually vote). Is the implication that they should only be allowed to vote for a candidate sponsored by a party a correct interpretation of your view? re: If you assume there are no Parties and we have the same people running for office you get the same results. I don't understand why, if there are no parties, it is proper to assume 'we have the same people running for office'. Although I don't advocate elimination of parties, it they are removed from the scene the dynamics of the process change dramatically and the likelihood of having the same candidates is slim. Fred Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] Conceiving a Democratic Electoral Process
On Jul 10, 2012, at 3:49 PM, Fred Gohlke wrote: Good Afternoon, Dave re: I would not do away with primaries - instead I would do away with Plurality and leave primaries to any party that still saw value in them. I believe the discussion was more about opening primaries to the public than to eliminating them. True, but I suggest looking a little deeper. Clones are a problem for Plurality, and primaries were invented to dispose of clones within a party - still leaves us with such as multiple parties nominating clones. These are not Plurality's only problem, so looking for better election methods is still worth doing. Anyway, I do not argue against primaries for anyone who sees other value in them. re: I see value in parties - Green, libertarians, socialism, etc., let voters with particular desires work together. Absolutely, but there must also be a way for those who don't subscribe to any party to participate in the electoral process. They have no voice at present, and that's the rub. Could say that if they have no voice they have no need of anyone to speak to. If there is an idea worth speaking about and no party is interested, its backers could form a party. Fred Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
