Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:50:22 +0100 Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: Dave Ketchum wrote: ... Assuming that this represents 100 votes for A then 100 A>C is represented. If B was also in the matrix there would be 100 A>B. This last 100 fails to show up below: Oops. Yes, that's true. Still, you get the point: the method (when properly implemented) takes two sorted matrices and produces a sorted matrix, possibly larger in size, but still a valid input for later merges. A proper implementation would be to identify a seed candidate who never gets voted for. Any time there is need to add a candidate to the NxN array, as in preparation for a merge, that candidate starts with a copy of seed for its values. I just read of a race with 200 candidates - meaning likely many with few, if any, votes. If such were done with Condorcet it could make sense to include only candidates with votes in the NxN array. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. If you want peace, work for justice. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Dave Ketchum wrote: On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:16:55 +0100 Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: A possible tiebreaker for same names would be to prepend (or append) the state of origin to each candidate name. In case two have the same name in the same state, the state decides who gets to be "number one" and "number two". These corner cases would be extremely unlikely, but it doesn't hurt to specify them. My point was that this is a problem affecting ANY election method, thus not needing special attention for Condorcet. Again, the method does not matter. If the name Bush turns up from two different sources it is essential to determine whether it is: One candidate, for whom the votes must be summed or Two candidates, competing separately, that must somehow be identified as such. In that case, use whatever identity connection method is used with Plurality. It would have to be formalized (for the reasons I mentioned), and to break ties one could use (as I have suggested) the state of origin. It's going to be very unlikely that you'll have two George W. Bushes in Texas, for instance. As you said, the method doesn't matter. Assuming that this represents 100 votes for A then 100 A>C is represented. If B was also in the matrix there would be 100 A>B. This last 100 fails to show up below: Oops. Yes, that's true. Still, you get the point: the method (when properly implemented) takes two sorted matrices and produces a sorted matrix, possibly larger in size, but still a valid input for later merges. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:16:55 +0100 Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: A possible tiebreaker for same names would be to prepend (or append) the state of origin to each candidate name. In case two have the same name in the same state, the state decides who gets to be "number one" and "number two". These corner cases would be extremely unlikely, but it doesn't hurt to specify them. My point was that this is a problem affecting ANY election method, thus not needing special attention for Condorcet. Again, the method does not matter. If the name Bush turns up from two different sources it is essential to determine whether it is: One candidate, for whom the votes must be summed or Two candidates, competing separately, that must somehow be identified as such. That's true, but for methods that only need an array (like Plurality, or a weighted positional method where the method was agreed upon in advance), this happens more or less informally. States don't pass around explicit arrays with candidates in specific orders when tallying Presidential votes, they just say "Bush got this many, Gore got that many". The other side of the coin is that non-summable methods would be in real trouble. Any compact solution defaulting to a method that isn't summable would somehow have to set up an infrastructure (either in counting or in communication), wherein a central unit coordinates. The results should be the same with a plain merge as with a single count, since a Condorcet matrix entry cm[a][b] just lists how many voters ranked A > B. Consider voters that couldn't vote on a given candidate as if they had no effective preference regarding that candidate. Then, by including the results of some other Condorcet matrix, if A and B wasn't on that other matrix, cm[a][b] won't change. Not being sure what you mean by "simple merge", I will repeat my demand. For example, assume A is a write-in which CANNOT be planned on but must be adjusted for when counting the ballots. The national NxN array must include A reflecting proper counts for all votes in the US. True that such an A is unlikely, but to be expected more if you assume it will never happen. A simple merge sorts the arrays by name (and tie-breaking info, like name of state of origin). Then it merges the data, summing cells if the candidate in question exists in both matrices, otherwise inserting the relevant rows and colums in the right place so that the result (merged) matrix is still sorted. For instance, consider these matrices: x A B A -- 30 B 35 -- and x A C A -- 100 C 25 -- Assuming that this represents 100 votes for A then 100 A>C is represented. If B was also in the matrix there would be 100 A>B. This last 100 fails to show up below: The result is x A B C A -- 30 100 B 35 -- 0 C 25 0 -- and the expanded matrix stays sorted. Individual write-ins can be handled by considering each voter's ballot as a Condorcet matrix, then merging that in as above. In extreme case (each voter names a different write-in), that would make the matrix expand by a lot, but if that's a concern, sparse representation formats can be used. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. If you want peace, work for justice. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
A possible tiebreaker for same names would be to prepend (or append) the state of origin to each candidate name. In case two have the same name in the same state, the state decides who gets to be "number one" and "number two". These corner cases would be extremely unlikely, but it doesn't hurt to specify them. My point was that this is a problem affecting ANY election method, thus not needing special attention for Condorcet. That's true, but for methods that only need an array (like Plurality, or a weighted positional method where the method was agreed upon in advance), this happens more or less informally. States don't pass around explicit arrays with candidates in specific orders when tallying Presidential votes, they just say "Bush got this many, Gore got that many". The other side of the coin is that non-summable methods would be in real trouble. Any compact solution defaulting to a method that isn't summable would somehow have to set up an infrastructure (either in counting or in communication), wherein a central unit coordinates. The results should be the same with a plain merge as with a single count, since a Condorcet matrix entry cm[a][b] just lists how many voters ranked A > B. Consider voters that couldn't vote on a given candidate as if they had no effective preference regarding that candidate. Then, by including the results of some other Condorcet matrix, if A and B wasn't on that other matrix, cm[a][b] won't change. Not being sure what you mean by "simple merge", I will repeat my demand. For example, assume A is a write-in which CANNOT be planned on but must be adjusted for when counting the ballots. The national NxN array must include A reflecting proper counts for all votes in the US. True that such an A is unlikely, but to be expected more if you assume it will never happen. A simple merge sorts the arrays by name (and tie-breaking info, like name of state of origin). Then it merges the data, summing cells if the candidate in question exists in both matrices, otherwise inserting the relevant rows and colums in the right place so that the result (merged) matrix is still sorted. For instance, consider these matrices: x A B A -- 30 B 35 -- and x A C A -- 100 C 25 -- The result is x A B C A -- 30 100 B 35 -- 0 C 25 0 -- and the expanded matrix stays sorted. Individual write-ins can be handled by considering each voter's ballot as a Condorcet matrix, then merging that in as above. In extreme case (each voter names a different write-in), that would make the matrix expand by a lot, but if that's a concern, sparse representation formats can be used. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:37:35 +0100 Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: Dave Ketchum wrote: On Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:45:38 +0100 Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: ... States have differing collections of candidates: In theory, could demand there be a single national list. More practical to permit present nomination process, in case states desire such. Thus states should be required to prepare their NxN arrays in a manner that permits exact merging with other NxN arrays, without having to know what candidates may be in the other arrays. The easiest way to do this is probably to have the candidates sorted (by name or some other property, doesn't really matter). When two matrices with different entries are joined, expand the result matrix as appropriate. Since the candidate indices are sorted, there'll be no ambiguity when joining (unless two candidates have the same names, but that's unlikely). Two candidates with the same name is a problem to solve regardless of method. Sorting could be part of the joining, but I demand the results be exactly the same as if the ballots had been counted into the final matrix. Doable, but takes a bit of planning. A possible tiebreaker for same names would be to prepend (or append) the state of origin to each candidate name. In case two have the same name in the same state, the state decides who gets to be "number one" and "number two". These corner cases would be extremely unlikely, but it doesn't hurt to specify them. My point was that this is a problem affecting ANY election method, thus not needing special attention for Condorcet. The results should be the same with a plain merge as with a single count, since a Condorcet matrix entry cm[a][b] just lists how many voters ranked A > B. Consider voters that couldn't vote on a given candidate as if they had no effective preference regarding that candidate. Then, by including the results of some other Condorcet matrix, if A and B wasn't on that other matrix, cm[a][b] won't change. Not being sure what you mean by "simple merge", I will repeat my demand. For example, assume A is a write-in which CANNOT be planned on but must be adjusted for when counting the ballots. The national NxN array must include A reflecting proper counts for all votes in the US. True that such an A is unlikely, but to be expected more if you assume it will never happen. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. If you want peace, work for justice. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Dave Ketchum wrote: On Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:45:38 +0100 Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: I'll add that this phrasing would give states the same power no matter the relative turnout. If that's not desired, it could be rephrased differently, but giving states the same power is closer to the current state of things. The continuous electoral college variant does not take into account the 23rd Amendment, either. Ugh. All of which is fixable. I was just trying to give a rough idea of how it may be phrased. Yes. What I'm saying is that it's theoretically possible to incorporate any voting method into this; however, the results might be suboptimal if you try to aggregate, say, IRV results this way, since you'd get both the disadvantages of IRV and Condorcet (nonmonotonicity for the former and LNH* failure for the latter, for instance). IRV is a distraction since such ballots could and should be counted as Condorcet. Should be a method that at least tries for a result based on comparative strength of candidates. Again, that's true. The point of my generalized transformation scheme is that any method could, theoretically, be incorporated into this form of compact. Therefore, complaints that it's biased in favor of explicit Condorcet methods would be weakened (although not completely eliminated, because of the intersection of limits I mentioned). States have differing collections of candidates: In theory, could demand there be a single national list. More practical to permit present nomination process, in case states desire such. Thus states should be required to prepare their NxN arrays in a manner that permits exact merging with other NxN arrays, without having to know what candidates may be in the other arrays. The easiest way to do this is probably to have the candidates sorted (by name or some other property, doesn't really matter). When two matrices with different entries are joined, expand the result matrix as appropriate. Since the candidate indices are sorted, there'll be no ambiguity when joining (unless two candidates have the same names, but that's unlikely). Two candidates with the same name is a problem to solve regardless of method. Sorting could be part of the joining, but I demand the results be exactly the same as if the ballots had been counted into the final matrix. Doable, but takes a bit of planning. A possible tiebreaker for same names would be to prepend (or append) the state of origin to each candidate name. In case two have the same name in the same state, the state decides who gets to be "number one" and "number two". These corner cases would be extremely unlikely, but it doesn't hurt to specify them. The results should be the same with a plain merge as with a single count, since a Condorcet matrix entry cm[a][b] just lists how many voters ranked A > B. Consider voters that couldn't vote on a given candidate as if they had no effective preference regarding that candidate. Then, by including the results of some other Condorcet matrix, if A and B wasn't on that other matrix, cm[a][b] won't change. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Sat, Nov 8, 2008 at 7:12 PM, Dave Ketchum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:45:38 +0100 Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: >> If the small states resist, the large and middle sized states will attain a >> majority, and thus through the compact/agreement overrule the others. At >> that point, it'll be in the interest of the small states to join since their >> share of power by staying outside the system is effectively zero. > > If you wander outside the law you can end up in court - a path available to > the small states if the large states do that - or whoever felt hurt by the > NPV agreement. Is that illegal/unconstitutional? That is open to dispute. States are allowed to decide how to assign their Electors, States representing 51% of the EC votes could make the decision based on what happens outside their State. As a more extreme example, what if States formed a compact and the compact said that they will not accept more members if the EC votes of the compact exceed 50%. This would create an incentive to join and would mean that the compact States would hold all the power. It is reasonable that the SC would rule that this is stripping the non-compact members of their right to vote. They might even rule that State EC vote assignments must be purely based on the views of the voters in that State. However, someone with more SC knowledge could probably comment better. Also, a compact requires Congress' consent (or at least Congress can block compacts). It is likely that Congress wouldn't agree if the terms of the compact were grossly unfair. However, States could create a de facto compact by just establishing a process and making it hard for the State to withdraw. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:45:38 +0100 Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: Dave Ketchum wrote: On Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:58:30 +0100 Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: I think an NPV-style gradual change would have a greater chance of succeeding than would a constitutional amendment. The constitutional amendment requires a supermajority, and would thus be blocked by the very same small states that benefit from the current Electoral College. An NPV style change MIGHT have a greater chance than an amendment but: It would be incomplete. Small states could resist for the same reason. If the small states resist, the large and middle sized states will attain a majority, and thus through the compact/agreement overrule the others. At that point, it'll be in the interest of the small states to join since their share of power by staying outside the system is effectively zero. If you wander outside the law you can end up in court - a path available to the small states if the large states do that - or whoever felt hurt by the NPV agreement. Note that small states could retain their advantage with an amendment -- as I proposed. What might all states compromise on? That would depend on the nature of the agreement. Either it would be straight NPV (all states weighted by population) or it would be according to current (EC) weighting. For an amendment, it's possible that small states would oppose the amendment if it's population-normalized, whereas large states would oppose it if it was electoral-college-normalized. Which means, as in many disagreements, a compromise would make sense. As for the system of such a compact, we've discussed that earlier. I think the idea of basing it on a Condorcet matrix would be a good one. That is, states produce their own Condorcet matrices, and then these are weighted and added together to produce a national Condorcet matrix, which is run through an agreed-upon Condorcet method. How do we tolerate either weight or not weight without formal agreement (amendment)? I imagine a clause like: "The maximum power of a state shall be its population, as a fraction of the population of all states within the compact. Call this power p. The state shall be free to pick an x so that the weighting for this state is p * x, 0 <= x <= 1". That's for the closest thing to NPV. For a continuous electoral college, the first sentence would be "The maximum power of a state shall be the sum of its number of representatives and senators, divided by the sum of the number of representatives and senators for all states within the compact". There's no reason to have x < 1 but for future agreements to mutually diminish power (to turn an EC compact into a population-normalized one or vice versa). I'll add that this phrasing would give states the same power no matter the relative turnout. If that's not desired, it could be rephrased differently, but giving states the same power is closer to the current state of things. The continuous electoral college variant does not take into account the 23rd Amendment, either. Ugh. If all states use Plurality, well, the results are as in Plurality. If some use Condorcet, those have an advantage, and if some want to use cardinal weighted pairwise, they can do so. Yet it's technically possible to use any method that produces a social ordering (by submitting, if there are n voters and the social ordering is A>B>C, the Condorcet matrix corresponding to "n: A>B>C"). While imperfect, and possibly worse than Plurality-to-Condorcet or simple Condorcet matrix addition, the option would be there, and would be better than nothing. Actually each state does only the first step of Condorcet - the NxN array: If a state does Condorcet, that is exact. If a state does Plurality, conversion as if voters did bullet voting in Condorcet is exact. If a state does something else, it has to be their responsibility to produce the NxN array. Yes. What I'm saying is that it's theoretically possible to incorporate any voting method into this; however, the results might be suboptimal if you try to aggregate, say, IRV results this way, since you'd get both the disadvantages of IRV and Condorcet (nonmonotonicity for the former and LNH* failure for the latter, for instance). IRV is a distraction since such ballots could and should be counted as Condorcet. Should be a method that at least tries for a result based on comparative strength of candidates. States have differing collections of candidates: In theory, could demand there be a single national list. More practical to permit present nomination process, in case states desire such. Thus states should be required to prepare their NxN arrays in a manner that permits exact merging with other NxN arrays, without having to know what candidates may be in the other arrays. The easiest way to do this is probably to have the candidates sorted (by nam
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Hi Chris and Jonathan, >Kevin, >Why does having elections for national office run by a "central authority" >like a federal electoral commission necessarily mean that the "federal >government" (presumably you refer here to partisan office-holders with >a stake in the election outcome) would have the power to "cancel or >postpone or manipulate" the presidential election? It doesn't. It's possible to imagine an electoral commission with enough independence and security to conduct an election that can't be tampered with by the government in power at the time. >Can you please support your point by comparing the US with other >First World countries, perhaps just focussing on the last few decades? I don't see why I would focus on First World countries in the last few decades. America goes back further than that, and the point is theoretical. Jonathan wrote: >>It's possible to imagine a different American history, if the federal >>government had been in a position to cancel or postpone or manipulate >>the presidential election. > >Presumably, under that scenario, 50 states could do that to state >elections. Not necessarily, since there would be some threat of intervention by the federal government, if democracy were to fail too obviously in a state. Sometimes people do claim irregularities with a vote within a certain state. Kevin Venzke Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Dave Ketchum wrote: On Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:58:30 +0100 Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: I think an NPV-style gradual change would have a greater chance of succeeding than would a constitutional amendment. The constitutional amendment requires a supermajority, and would thus be blocked by the very same small states that benefit from the current Electoral College. An NPV style change MIGHT have a greater chance than an amendment but: It would be incomplete. Small states could resist for the same reason. If the small states resist, the large and middle sized states will attain a majority, and thus through the compact/agreement overrule the others. At that point, it'll be in the interest of the small states to join since their share of power by staying outside the system is effectively zero. Note that small states could retain their advantage with an amendment -- as I proposed. What might all states compromise on? That would depend on the nature of the agreement. Either it would be straight NPV (all states weighted by population) or it would be according to current (EC) weighting. For an amendment, it's possible that small states would oppose the amendment if it's population-normalized, whereas large states would oppose it if it was electoral-college-normalized. As for the system of such a compact, we've discussed that earlier. I think the idea of basing it on a Condorcet matrix would be a good one. That is, states produce their own Condorcet matrices, and then these are weighted and added together to produce a national Condorcet matrix, which is run through an agreed-upon Condorcet method. How do we tolerate either weight or not weight without formal agreement (amendment)? I imagine a clause like: "The maximum power of a state shall be its population, as a fraction of the population of all states within the compact. Call this power p. The state shall be free to pick an x so that the weighting for this state is p * x, 0 <= x <= 1". That's for the closest thing to NPV. For a continuous electoral college, the first sentence would be "The maximum power of a state shall be the sum of its number of representatives and senators, divided by the sum of the number of representatives and senators for all states within the compact". There's no reason to have x < 1 but for future agreements to mutually diminish power (to turn an EC compact into a population-normalized one or vice versa). I'll add that this phrasing would give states the same power no matter the relative turnout. If that's not desired, it could be rephrased differently, but giving states the same power is closer to the current state of things. The continuous electoral college variant does not take into account the 23rd Amendment, either. If all states use Plurality, well, the results are as in Plurality. If some use Condorcet, those have an advantage, and if some want to use cardinal weighted pairwise, they can do so. Yet it's technically possible to use any method that produces a social ordering (by submitting, if there are n voters and the social ordering is A>B>C, the Condorcet matrix corresponding to "n: A>B>C"). While imperfect, and possibly worse than Plurality-to-Condorcet or simple Condorcet matrix addition, the option would be there, and would be better than nothing. Actually each state does only the first step of Condorcet - the NxN array: If a state does Condorcet, that is exact. If a state does Plurality, conversion as if voters did bullet voting in Condorcet is exact. If a state does something else, it has to be their responsibility to produce the NxN array. Yes. What I'm saying is that it's theoretically possible to incorporate any voting method into this; however, the results might be suboptimal if you try to aggregate, say, IRV results this way, since you'd get both the disadvantages of IRV and Condorcet (nonmonotonicity for the former and LNH* failure for the latter, for instance). States have differing collections of candidates: In theory, could demand there be a single national list. More practical to permit present nomination process, in case states desire such. Thus states should be required to prepare their NxN arrays in a manner that permits exact merging with other NxN arrays, without having to know what candidates may be in the other arrays. The easiest way to do this is probably to have the candidates sorted (by name or some other property, doesn't really matter). When two matrices with different entries are joined, expand the result matrix as appropriate. Since the candidate indices are sorted, there'll be no ambiguity when joining (unless two candidates have the same names, but that's unlikely). Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Nov 7, 2008, at 9:22 PM, Chris Benham wrote: Kevin Venzke wrote (Fri.Nov.7): Hi, --- En date de : Ven 7.11.08, Markus Schulze alumni.tu-berlin.de> a écrit : > Second: It makes it possible that the elections > are run by the governments of the individual > states and don't have to be run by the central > government. I especially agree with this second point, or at least that it has been a good thing that the elections have not been conducted by a single authority. It's possible to imagine a different American history, if the federal government had been in a position to cancel or postpone or manipulate the presidential election. Presumably, under that scenario, 50 states could do that to state elections. Not to mention a couple of dozen European democracies. But which country has had its federal supreme court short-circuit a national election? Kevin Venzke Kevin, Why does having elections for national office run by a "central authority" like a federal electoral commission necessarily mean that the "federal government" (presumably you refer here to partisan office-holders with a stake in the election outcome) would have the power to "cancel or postpone or manipulate" the presidential election? Can you please support your point by comparing the US with other First World countries, perhaps just focussing on the last few decades? Chris Benham Search 1000's of available singles in your area at the new Yahoo!7 Dating. Get Started. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Hi, --- En date de : Ven 7.11.08, Markus Schulze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a écrit : > Second: It makes it possible that the elections > are run by the governments of the individual > states and don't have to be run by the central > government. I especially agree with this second point, or at least that it has been a good thing that the elections have not been conducted by a single authority. It's possible to imagine a different American history, if the federal government had been in a position to cancel or postpone or manipulate the presidential election. Kevin Venzke Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
--- On Fri, 11/7/08, Jonathan Lundell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: Jonathan Lundell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad > Thing Worse) > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Cc: "Chris Benham" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, election-methods@lists.electorama.com > Date: Friday, November 7, 2008, 10:47 AM > On Nov 7, 2008, at 8:07 AM, Aaron Armitage wrote: > > > A national plurality > > election only gains anything in the very rare case > that the EC result > > would have been different > > That's true only if one assumes that both candidate and > voter behavior is the same under NPV and EC, and that's > really in indefensible assumption in both cases. I should have specified that I meant gains in terms of better outcomes, and before 2000 the last election in which a candidate carried the EC without also carrying the popular vote had been over a hundred years before. So from that perspective it seems behavior won't change that much. If you place a value on a voting system because you approve of its behavioral effects even when those effects have no impact on the outcome, it's not clear which way that argument cuts. Most of the arguments defending the electoral college are of the same kind. Maybe what you see as a closer proportion between population and political importance others will as ignoring rural voters altogether. You might not like a strong focus on swing states, but it seems likely that conservative Ohio voters were less likely than conservative Idaho voters to think Bill Clinton was sending black helicopters to round them up and send them to secret FEMA camps, and likewise it seems likely that liberal Ohio voters are less likely than liberal San Francisco voters to think George Bush should be executed for war crimes. We won't know which case is actually better until we make the experiment, but there are very good reasons to think that even making the most optimistic assumptions about what effect a national plurality would have, the gains will be small compared to a popular vote using other systems, especially Condorcet. For example, in Condorcet it makes a lot of strategic sense to appeal to voters who will never rank you first, and even would never approve of you. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:09:51 +0100 Markus Schulze wrote: Hallo, in my opinion, the electoral college has two advantages to the popular vote. ... Second: It makes it possible that the elections are run by the governments of the individual states and don't have to be run by the central government. These are topics to consider when drafting an amendment. [Currently, to guarantee that the Equal Protection Clause is fulfilled, it is only necessary to guarantee that all the voters within the same state are treated equally. A popular vote would make it necessary that also all the voters across the USA are treated equally. This would mean that also the regulations on eligibility, absentee ballots, early voting, voting machines, opening hours of the polling stations etc. would have to be harmonized across the USA.] * In section 8 of the current version (3 November 2008) of my paper, I explain how the electoral college should be combined with Condorcet voting: I would not combine, but would try for the best we could with an amendment. Markus Schulze -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. If you want peace, work for justice. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
--- On Fri, 11/7/08, Markus Schulze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: Markus Schulze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad > Thing Worse) > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: Friday, November 7, 2008, 4:09 AM > Hallo, > > in my opinion, the electoral college has two > advantages to the popular vote. > > First: It gives more power to the voters in > smaller states. > > [In the USA, the Senate is significantly stronger > than the House of Representatives. > > For example: To appoint a Cabinet member or some > other federal officer, the President needs the > approval of the Senate, but not of the House of > Representatives. > > Therefore, a deadlock between the President and the > Senate would be more harmful than a deadlock between > the President and the House of Representatives. > Therefore, it makes sense to elect the President > in a manner that corresponds more to the election > of the Senate than to the election of the House > of Representatives.] > If we really wanted to prevent deadlock between the President and the Senate, we should adopt a parliamentary system. Deadlock between the President and the Senate may be worse -- if you don't like deadlock -- but an opponent of deadlock should object to deadlock between the President and the House, or for that matter between the House and Senate. After all, the EC is actually more like the House than the Senate, so if dropping it in favor of a more House-like procedure produces too much deadlock between the President and the Senate, then there should already be deadlock between the two houses of Congress. Getting rid of deadlock implies this overhaul of the government because the checks and balances system means the possibility of deadlock. The possibility of deadlocking is what a check *is*. In order for the system to work, the political branches should be chosen differently, but not too differently. An intractable deadlock would mean civil war; in fact that's more or less how the English Civil War happened. But it seems that both being subject to popular election in some form is enough similarity. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:58:30 +0100 Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote: Dave Ketchum wrote: With the EC it seems standard to do Plurality - a method with weaknesses most of us in EM recognize. Let's do a Constitutional amendment to move up. I propose Condorcet. One advantage is that states could move up to use it as soon as ready. States, and even districts within states, could remain with Plurality until able to move up - with their votes counted as if they did bullet voting with Condorcet. Approval voting would be permitted the same way. To clarify, the US would be a single district, while vote counts could be published for states and other contained districts, as might be useful. I think an NPV-style gradual change would have a greater chance of succeeding than would a constitutional amendment. The constitutional amendment requires a supermajority, and would thus be blocked by the very same small states that benefit from the current Electoral College. An NPV style change MIGHT have a greater chance than an amendment but: It would be incomplete. Small states could resist for the same reason. Note that small states could retain their advantage with an amendment -- as I proposed. What might all states compromise on? As for the system of such a compact, we've discussed that earlier. I think the idea of basing it on a Condorcet matrix would be a good one. That is, states produce their own Condorcet matrices, and then these are weighted and added together to produce a national Condorcet matrix, which is run through an agreed-upon Condorcet method. How do we tolerate either weight or not weight without formal agreement (amendment)? If all states use Plurality, well, the results are as in Plurality. If some use Condorcet, those have an advantage, and if some want to use cardinal weighted pairwise, they can do so. Yet it's technically possible to use any method that produces a social ordering (by submitting, if there are n voters and the social ordering is A>B>C, the Condorcet matrix corresponding to "n: A>B>C"). While imperfect, and possibly worse than Plurality-to-Condorcet or simple Condorcet matrix addition, the option would be there, and would be better than nothing. Actually each state does only the first step of Condorcet - the NxN array: If a state does Condorcet, that is exact. If a state does Plurality, conversion as if voters did bullet voting in Condorcet is exact. If a state does something else, it has to be their responsibility to produce the NxN array. States have differing collections of candidates: In theory, could demand there be a single national list. More practical to permit present nomination process, in case states desire such. Thus states should be required to prepare their NxN arrays in a manner that permits exact merging with other NxN arrays, without having to know what candidates may be in the other arrays. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. If you want peace, work for justice. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Nov 7, 2008, at 8:07 AM, Aaron Armitage wrote: A national plurality election only gains anything in the very rare case that the EC result would have been different That's true only if one assumes that both candidate and voter behavior is the same under NPV and EC, and that's really in indefensible assumption in both cases. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
> Why would anyone go to the trouble of elaborating and > proposing a > relatively complicated ranked-ballot method that is > justified by meeting > the Condorcet criterion and Majority for Solid Coalitions > and so on, > and then turn around and suggest that it is desirable that > weighting votes > unequally should be maintained, thus ensuring that any > voting method > cannot meet those criteria or even Majority Favourite or > Majority > Loser? > Although I'm also against the EC for the same philosophical reasons you are (or more precisely, against letting it produce a counter-majoritarian result: a compact that guarantees the majoritarian winner an EC majority makes it harmless pagentry), the major problem with it is the fact that the underlying system is plurality. Plurality is disfunctional when there are more than two candidates. The adaptation to this, namely the reduction to two major candidates, is also disfunctional. A national plurality election only gains anything in the very rare case that the EC result would have been different, and even then it gains relatively little because the choice has already been artificially restricted to two candidates, neither of whom may have been the CW in a larger field. Almost any other single winner method gains much more in every election. A system where each state gives its EC votes to the Condorcet winner in that state, while not guaranteed to elect the national Condorcet winner (and therefore not properly majoritarian overall), is better than a national plurality contest, because it doesn't go pear-shaped as soon as a third candidate appears. Even though national plurality obeys the majority criterion if we take the field of candidates as a given, an EC awarded by Condorcet is in fact more majoritarian because it opens up that field. A national CW deprived of office by the EC may not have even made it through the party primaries under plurality. Of course I would rather see the national CW elected all the time, either by eliminating the EC or by a compact pledging it to the CW. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Dear Chris Benham, I wrote (7 Nov 2008): > In my opinion, the electoral college has two > advantages to the popular vote. > > First: It gives more power to the voters in > smaller states. > > [In the USA, the Senate is significantly stronger > than the House of Representatives. > > For example: To appoint a Cabinet member or some > other federal officer, the President needs the > approval of the Senate, but not of the House of > Representatives. > > Therefore, a deadlock between the President and the > Senate would be more harmful than a deadlock between > the President and the House of Representatives. > Therefore, it makes sense to elect the President > in a manner that corresponds more to the election > of the Senate than to the election of the House > of Representatives.] You wrote (7 Nov 2008): > Presumably then you would favour abolishing the > general presidential election and instead fill the > office by a vote among the members of the Senate. > > That would further greatly reduce the chance of a > deadlock between the President and the Senate, and > also save a lot of time and money. A frequently used argument against the electoral college is that it gives more power to the voters in smaller states. However, I don't think that this is an important argument since the composition of the Senate favours the voters in smaller states even more and since the President needs the approval of the Senate for most of his decisions. Therefore, a popular vote of the President without a reform of the Senate would rather only lead to more deadlocks between the President and the Senate than to more equality between the voters. Markus Schulze Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Nov 7, 2008, at 2:09 AM, Markus Schulze wrote: Second: It makes it possible that the elections are run by the governments of the individual states and don't have to be run by the central government. [Currently, to guarantee that the Equal Protection Clause is fulfilled, it is only necessary to guarantee that all the voters within the same state are treated equally. A popular vote would make it necessary that also all the voters across the USA are treated equally. This would mean that also the regulations on eligibility, absentee ballots, early voting, voting machines, opening hours of the polling stations etc. would have to be harmonized across the USA.] And this would be, on balance, a bad thing because...? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Dear Jonathan Lundell, I wrote (7 Nov 2008): > Second: It makes it possible that the elections > are run by the governments of the individual > states and don't have to be run by the central > government. > > [Currently, to guarantee that the Equal Protection > Clause is fulfilled, it is only necessary to > guarantee that all the voters within the same > state are treated equally. > > A popular vote would make it necessary that also > all the voters across the USA are treated equally. > This would mean that also the regulations on > eligibility, absentee ballots, early voting, > voting machines, opening hours of the polling > stations etc. would have to be harmonized across > the USA.] You wrote (7 Nov 2008): > And this would be, on balance, a bad thing because...? First of all: There are many people in the USA who argue that the central government should pass regulations only where absolutely necessary and that the individual states should have as much say as possible. Furthermore: Currently, there are always also many elections on the state level and on the local level parallel to the presidential elections. The states would either have to run the presidential elections separately from the state elections and the local elections (which would increase the costs) or they would have to apply the same regulations for the presidential, the state, and the local elections (which would increase the power of the central government even further). Markus Schulze Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Nov 7, 2008, at 6:07 AM, Chris Benham wrote: Presumably then you would favour abolishing the general presidential election and instead fill the office by a vote among the members of the Senate. That would further greatly reduce the chance of a deadlock between the President and the Senate, and also save a lot of time and money. And we could go back to letting the state legislatures elect our senators, giving state governments even more control over elections. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 8:58 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If some > use Condorcet, those have an advantage, and if some want to use cardinal > weighted pairwise, they can do so. You can also create a pairwise matrix from a range/score voting election. Basically, each candidate's total score sum is divided by the max score and all entries for that candidate in the table are set equal to that value. For example, Condorcet voting A ballot of A>B>C is converted to A B C A X 1 1 B 0 X 1 C 0 0 X Range/Score voting: A ballot of A(99) B(49.5) C(0) is converted to A B C A X 1 1 B 0.5 X 0.5 C 0 0 X e.g. the ballot is renormalised so that max value = 1 vote, A(1) B(0.5) C(0) Approval voting A ballot of A + B is converted to A B C A X 1 1 B 1 X 1 C 0 0 X Plurality voting A ballot of A is converted to A B C A X 1 1 B 0 X 0 C 0 0 X Since each method is summable, this means that all the matrices can all just be added together. If all the states use one type of ballot, then the result is equivalent to just using that type of election nationwide. Methods like IRV would be harder to fit into the system. It would require counting all the ballots (probably at the State level) and then generating a psuedo-matrix. Alternatively, maybe the matrices could be filled in as best as possible based on the announced results. It would give a mix of condorcet and plurality voting. First choices would effectively work like plurality and then the extra info from later rounds would help fill in the remainder. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Hallo, in my opinion, the electoral college has two advantages to the popular vote. First: It gives more power to the voters in smaller states. [In the USA, the Senate is significantly stronger than the House of Representatives. For example: To appoint a Cabinet member or some other federal officer, the President needs the approval of the Senate, but not of the House of Representatives. Therefore, a deadlock between the President and the Senate would be more harmful than a deadlock between the President and the House of Representatives. Therefore, it makes sense to elect the President in a manner that corresponds more to the election of the Senate than to the election of the House of Representatives.] Second: It makes it possible that the elections are run by the governments of the individual states and don't have to be run by the central government. [Currently, to guarantee that the Equal Protection Clause is fulfilled, it is only necessary to guarantee that all the voters within the same state are treated equally. A popular vote would make it necessary that also all the voters across the USA are treated equally. This would mean that also the regulations on eligibility, absentee ballots, early voting, voting machines, opening hours of the polling stations etc. would have to be harmonized across the USA.] * In section 8 of the current version (3 November 2008) of my paper, I explain how the electoral college should be combined with Condorcet voting: http://m-schulze.webhop.net/schulze1.pdf The basic ideas are: 1. Each voter gets a complete list of all candidates and ranks these candidates in order of preference. The individual voter may give the same preference to more than one candidate and he may keep candidates unranked. 2. For each pair of candidates A and B separately, we determine how many electoral votes Elect[A,B] candidate A would get and how many electoral votes Elect[B,A] candidate B would get when only these two candidates were running. To determine the final winner, we apply a Condorcet method to the matrix Elect[X,Y]. 3. To calculate Elect[A,B] and Elect[B,A], the electoral votes of a state should be distributed to candidate A and candidate B in proportion of the number of voters who strictly prefer candidate A to candidate B and the number of voters who strictly prefer candidate B to candidate A. Markus Schulze Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Dave Ketchum wrote: With the EC it seems standard to do Plurality - a method with weaknesses most of us in EM recognize. Let's do a Constitutional amendment to move up. I propose Condorcet. One advantage is that states could move up to use it as soon as ready. States, and even districts within states, could remain with Plurality until able to move up - with their votes counted as if they did bullet voting with Condorcet. Approval voting would be permitted the same way. To clarify, the US would be a single district, while vote counts could be published for states and other contained districts, as might be useful. I think an NPV-style gradual change would have a greater chance of succeeding than would a constitutional amendment. The constitutional amendment requires a supermajority, and would thus be blocked by the very same small states that benefit from the current Electoral College. As for the system of such a compact, we've discussed that earlier. I think the idea of basing it on a Condorcet matrix would be a good one. That is, states produce their own Condorcet matrices, and then these are weighted and added together to produce a national Condorcet matrix, which is run through an agreed-upon Condorcet method. If all states use Plurality, well, the results are as in Plurality. If some use Condorcet, those have an advantage, and if some want to use cardinal weighted pairwise, they can do so. Yet it's technically possible to use any method that produces a social ordering (by submitting, if there are n voters and the social ordering is A>B>C, the Condorcet matrix corresponding to "n: A>B>C"). While imperfect, and possibly worse than Plurality-to-Condorcet or simple Condorcet matrix addition, the option would be there, and would be better than nothing. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Raph Frank wrote: On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Steve Eppley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: For recounting in close states to affect the outcome, the leader's share of the EC (prior to recounts) would need to be very very close to half of the EC. If a State has 10 seats, then it would be 0.2% per seat. However, I would agree, in most cases, there wouldn't be an issue, as it would require 2 things to happen at once. First, there would need to be an extremely close national election and also an extremely close State vote. Perhaps the chances of this could be estimated by looking at how past presidential elections have gone. The national data is easily accessible, but I don't know about the state data; I know Wikipedia has diagrams of which way the various states voted in each presidential election, but to my knowledge, that doesn't show the margins that you'd need to see which states were close. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Nov 6, 2008, at 6:58 AM, Steve Eppley wrote: Greg Nisbet wrote on 10/18/08: -snip- The Electoral College: This is generally regarded as a bad thing. No one really appears to support it except as an adhoc version of asset voting. -snip- I don't believe the EC is generally accepted as a bad thing. (I picked the Subject line above to cite a book by the same name.) Although I may have been the person who came up with the idea for how to get rid of the EC without a constitutional amendment (posted in EM many years ago), I later concluded the EC is better than a national popular vote. One widespread argument against the EC is that presidential candidates ignore the voters in states where a candidate has a big lead. I don't accept that. It seems more reasonable that the candidate with the big lead has it because s/he has NOT ignored the preferences of the voters in that state. Furthermore, the interests of voters in the close states are similar to the interests of the voters supposedly being ignored. The main difference between the two types of states is in the ratio of each type of voter. California has a higher ratio of Democrat-leaning voters to Republican-leaning voters than Ohio has, but Democrat- leaning voters in California and Democrat-leaning voters in Ohio have similar interests, and Republican-leaning voters in California and Republican-leaning voters in Ohio have similar interests. A candidate who pays attention to the Democrat-leaning voters in Ohio is also paying attention to Democrat-leaning voters in the other states. A national popular vote would exacerbate polarization, since candidates could/would focus on voter turnout of their "base" instead of having to appeal to swing voters in a few close states. A national popular vote would exacerbate the candidates' need for campaign money, since they would not be able to focus on the few states that are close. That would make them more beholden to wealthy special interests. A national popular vote would make for a nightmare when recounting a close election. The recounting wouldn't be confined to a few close states. I favor a slight refinement of the winner-takes-all formula used by most states to allocate their EC delegates. The formula can be refined so a recount is unlikely to change the outcome by more than 1 or 2 EC delegates in any recounted state, rarely enough to affect the overall outcome, yet still preserve the basic desirable winner- takes-all property. Allocate all of the state's EC delegates to a single candidate only when that candidate has a sizable win. By sizable, let's say at least a 2% lead over the candidate who finishes 2nd in that state. (A candidate who receives at least 51% will win all of the state's delegates, since the candidate who finishes 2nd will receive at most 49%. When there are 3 or more candidates, the leader might win all with less than 51%.) Here's the proposed formula: Call v1 the number of votes won by the candidate who led in the state, and call v2 the number of votes won by the candidate who finished 2nd in the state. Set W = 2% of v1+v2. When v1 - v2 is at least W, the leader wins all. When v1 - v2 is less than W, award (W+v1-v2)/2W of the state's delegates to the leader (rounding to the nearest integer) and award the rest to the candidate who finished 2nd in the state. For recounting in close states to affect the outcome, the leader's share of the EC (prior to recounts) would need to be very very close to half of the EC. You're ignoring the biggest problem with the EC, that voters in states like CA, NY, WY, UT are effectively disenfranchised. I'm in CA, and I could be entirely assured that my vote made no difference whatsoever in the presidential election. Are my interests the same as the voters in Ohio that Obama and McCain were appealing to? I don't think so, and I'm certainly not prepared to, effectively, grant them my proxy. Proportional allocation of electors would be an approximate solution in California, but not much of a solution in small states (especially if they were reduced, as I think we agree they should be, to a more proportionate share of the total College). I'm also open to amending the EC so that states with small populations do not have such a disproportionally large fraction of the EC. That could be accomplished without having to amend the US Constitution, the same way the national popular vote could be accomplished. Elaborate, please. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Nov 6, 2008, at 6:58 AM, Steve Eppley wrote: A national popular vote would exacerbate polarization, since candidates could/would focus on voter turnout of their "base" instead of having to appeal to swing voters in a few close states. How would you describe the just-concluded campaign? That because of the EC, McCain/Palin weren't focusing on their base? 2004 likewise? Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
ZERO defense here - it is time to be rid of the EC! First a detail that scares many before they seriously consider change: The EC is packaged such that each 100 voters in state X have as much power as 120 in CA or NY. Could simply multiply state X counts by 120%. I am NOT promoting this way of continuing small state advantage - simply noting that it is not a reason to give up on needed change. Those tempted to try to steal a Presidential election now must ply their trade in swing states. With changes such as NPV all states become equally attractive targets. Either way, what has happened many places is a sin that should not be tolerated: True that errors can happen in any activity. But some represent incompetence, deserving more effort to end. And some we read about in elections should be recognized as, and punished as, the criminal acts which they are. With the EC it seems standard to do Plurality - a method with weaknesses most of us in EM recognize. Let's do a Constitutional amendment to move up. I propose Condorcet. One advantage is that states could move up to use it as soon as ready. States, and even districts within states, could remain with Plurality until able to move up - with their votes counted as if they did bullet voting with Condorcet. Approval voting would be permitted the same way. To clarify, the US would be a single district, while vote counts could be published for states and other contained districts, as might be useful. DWK On Thu, 6 Nov 2008 15:57:50 + Raph Frank wrote: On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Steve Eppley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: One widespread argument against the EC is that presidential candidates ignore the voters in states where a candidate has a big lead. I don't accept that. It seems more reasonable that the candidate with the big lead has it because s/he has NOT ignored the preferences of the voters in that state. There are 2 kinds of preference, policy preference and 'pork' preferences. A state which is solidly behind a candidate's policy ends up with less 'pork'. Furthermore, the interests of voters in the close states are similar to the interests of the voters supposedly being ignored. Only on the policy axis. A national popular vote would exacerbate polarization, since candidates could/would focus on voter turnout of their "base" instead of having to appeal to swing voters in a few close states. Hmm, it would make every vote count. In a NPV election, the swing voters would still likely hold balance of power. Your base would vote for you (almost) no matter what and you need to get the swing voters on side to actually win. A national popular vote would exacerbate the candidates' need for campaign money, since they would not be able to focus on the few states that are close. That would make them more beholden to wealthy special interests. This may be true. Alternatively, they may just spread the money they have more evenly. NPV would certainly be harder on the candidates. A national popular vote would make for a nightmare when recounting a close election. The recounting wouldn't be confined to a few close states. This is a reasonable issue. One option here would be to allocate the EC votes proportionally rather than actually using NPV. This would almost certainly give the same result anyway. However, most states wouldn't be near the cutoff points. If a State has 10 seats, then it would on average require a 2.5% swing for a candidate to get another EC vote. For recounting in close states to affect the outcome, the leader's share of the EC (prior to recounts) would need to be very very close to half of the EC. If a State has 10 seats, then it would be 0.2% per seat. However, I would agree, in most cases, there wouldn't be an issue, as it would require 2 things to happen at once. First, there would need to be an extremely close national election and also an extremely close State vote. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. If you want peace, work for justice. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
Steve Eppley wrote (Th. Nov.6): Hi, Greg Nisbet wrote on 10/18/08: -snip- >The Electoral College: >This is generally regarded as a bad thing. No one really appears to >support it except as an adhoc version of asset voting. -snip- I don't believe the EC is generally accepted as a bad thing. (I picked the Subject line above to cite a book by the same name.) Although I may have been the person who came up with the idea for how to get rid of the EC without a constitutional amendment (posted in EM many years ago), I later concluded the EC is better than a national popular vote. -snip- One widespread "argument" against the EC is that it flouts the commonsense fairness axiom that all votes should be weighted equally. "A national popular vote would exacerbate polarization, since candidates could/would focus on voter turnout of their "base" instead of having to appeal to swing voters in a few close states." I don't see how preventing the supposed evil of "exacerbating polarisation" anything like justifiies the unfairness evil of weighting votes unequally. And in any case I don't accept the argument. Why wouldn't candidates have incentive to appeal to swing voters *across the whole country*?? Why would anyone go to the trouble of elaborating and proposing a relatively complicated ranked-ballot method that is justified by meeting the Condorcet criterion and Majority for Solid Coalitions and so on, and then turn around and suggest that it is desirable that weighting votes unequally should be maintained, thus ensuring that any voting method cannot meet those criteria or even Majority Favourite or Majority Loser? "A national popular vote would exacerbate the candidates' need for campaign money, since they would not be able to focus on the few states that are close. That would make them more beholden to wealthy special interests. A national popular vote would make for a nightmare when recounting a close election. The recounting wouldn't be confined to a few close states." Plenty of other countries directly elect their presidents without any EC, and yet it is the US that has these problems (more severely). I think the counting problems would be less likely with a national popular vote, simply because it is very unlikely to be very close. The scenario that it is very close in some (using the the EC) critical states but not close in the overall popular vote is much more likely than it being very close in both. Chris Benham Search 1000's of available singles in your area at the new Yahoo!7 Dating. Get Started http://au.dating.yahoo.com/?cid=53151&pid=1011 Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
Re: [EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)
On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Steve Eppley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > One widespread argument against the EC is that presidential candidates > ignore the voters in states where a candidate has a big lead. I don't > accept that. It seems more reasonable that the candidate with the big lead > has it because s/he has NOT ignored the preferences of the voters in that > state. There are 2 kinds of preference, policy preference and 'pork' preferences. A state which is solidly behind a candidate's policy ends up with less 'pork'. > Furthermore, the interests of voters in the close states are similar to the > interests of the voters supposedly being ignored. Only on the policy axis. > A national popular vote would exacerbate polarization, since candidates > could/would focus on voter turnout of their "base" instead of having to > appeal to swing voters in a few close states. Hmm, it would make every vote count. In a NPV election, the swing voters would still likely hold balance of power. Your base would vote for you (almost) no matter what and you need to get the swing voters on side to actually win. > A national popular vote would exacerbate the candidates' need for campaign > money, since they would not be able to focus on the few states that are > close. That would make them more beholden to wealthy special interests. This may be true. Alternatively, they may just spread the money they have more evenly. NPV would certainly be harder on the candidates. > A national popular vote would make for a nightmare when recounting a close > election. The recounting wouldn't be confined to a few close states. This is a reasonable issue. One option here would be to allocate the EC votes proportionally rather than actually using NPV. This would almost certainly give the same result anyway. However, most states wouldn't be near the cutoff points. If a State has 10 seats, then it would on average require a 2.5% swing for a candidate to get another EC vote. > For recounting in close states to affect the outcome, the leader's share of > the EC (prior to recounts) would need to be very very close to half of the > EC. If a State has 10 seats, then it would be 0.2% per seat. However, I would agree, in most cases, there wouldn't be an issue, as it would require 2 things to happen at once. First, there would need to be an extremely close national election and also an extremely close State vote. Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
