[EM] Thoughts on a nomination simulation

[Kevin Venzke]

Hi Kristofer,

--- En date de : Mer 16.6.10, Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km-elmet at broadpark.no> a écrit :
> >> Even so, the simulation would fail to catch
> certain aspects
> >> of the election cycle itself. Consider a two party
> state
> >> under FPTP. In a pure opinion-space analysis, the
> two
> >> parties would converge on a common point (the
> "center") in
> >> an effort to eat into each others' voters, yet in
> reality
> >> that doesn't seem to happen - the Republican and
> Democratic
> >> parties appeal to different voters.
> > 
> > A possible theory: They could not converge to the
> center because a
> > third candidate could decide to sit on the outer side
> of one, and still
> > be somewhat viable. So, a candidate needs to be far
> enough from the center
> > to discourage a rival nomination from the same side.
> 
> That is possible. Would primaries encourage that effect? If
> so, would we expect parties in two-party states without
> voter primaries to be closer to each other?

I'm not sure. I tend to view primaries as one form of a phenomenon that
will inevitably happen under FPP one way or another. If there's something
important about them I guess it has something to do with timing...

> >> There are other effects as well: Parties and
> candidates
> >> might also slide into corruption unless checked
> by
> >> competition. One could model that by a candidate
> wanting to
> >> both be elected and to be placed at a certain
> point in
> >> opinion space (individual corruption), or by
> candidates
> >> being attracted towards a certain area in opinion
> space
> >> (coordinated corruption, e.g. by lobbying).
> > 
> > Those are definitely interesting ideas. One would have
> to figure out the
> > formula that decides where increasing "electibility"
> is no longer desirable
> > to a candidate.
> 
> I imagine electability would be the first priority
> (excepting idealist candidates, but they aren't likely to be
> corrupted anyway). The candidate would reason: better to be
> elected and make a compromise than not make a compromise and
> not be elected. Within the space of positions he can take
> and still be elected, however, the candidate would tend
> towards a self-serving/corrupted point.

Well electability would be a percentage. So assuming that's the final
measure of the value of a position, I guess position on the "corruption
axis" could work as a bonus/penalty to this measure. Not quite sure how
it would work but I imagine the idea is that if you have two major
parties, both parties can seem to conspire to nominate candidates in
a region that no voters really like.


At the moment I've added to my utility simulation the ability to iterate
over some space rather than just be completely random. I'm checking all
elections in 1D space with 9 positions allowed (evenly spaced) for just
729 possible elections (some redundant due to symmetry). Then I'm going
to see if the methods differ, on these, with respect to which scenarios
don't give any of the three candidates incentive to move. And then for the
"stable" scenarios I'll check whether any candidates wanted to withdraw.
Could be interesting, could be dull. Hopefully it will give me a sense of
how productive a brand new simulation would be.

Kevin