Relative and Absolute Power

Richard Moore rmoore4 at home.com
Fri Jun 29 21:42:18 PDT 2001


Tony Simmons wrote:

> 
> Richard,
> 
> I quickly read the article at
> http://208.245.156.153/archive/output.cfm?ID=907 about Alan
> Natapoff's scheme for computing power.  Apparently, it does
> indeed compute power in a sense that doesn't require the
> total to be a constant.  That's what I was getting at with my
> examples of elections in which none of the voters had any
> power at all -- that absolute power needn't be fixed at some
> arbitrary total.  That's also why I was asking if he'd taken
> into account the effect of each candidate's chance of
> winning.  As it turns out, that's what drives his argument.


I agree to the point that total power can be decreased by 
introducing random elements. But, I think there is a maximum 
power and in the absence of randomness or other 
power-decreasing influences the total power of the 
electorate will be equal to this maximum.

As an example of a non-random power-robbing influence, you 
could have an election with the rule that a unanimous 
outcome in support of one outcome is required, or else the 
other wins. This reduces the power of the electorate in the 
sense that the process is already biased toward one outcome, 
so that even a landslide majority is insufficient to 
overcome the bias. It certainly increases the power of the 
supporters of that outcome, since only one of them needs to 
cast a vote. But the cost to the supporters of the other 
outcome outweighs the benefit to the first group. 
Gerrymanders have a similar effect, and what is the EC if 
not the biggest Gerrymander of all?


> I think that makes good sense.  I haven't actually seen his
> theorem, so I can't say it's valid, but it's what I'd expect.
> If I'm voting in the 2000 Presidential election, it makes
> sense for me to feel that I have more power if I live in
> Florida than if I live in California, at least in the sense
> of being more likely to casting the decisive vote.  And given
> something reasonably close to that for a definition, I'd
> expect total power to vary.


Alas, I couldn't find Natapoff's actual paper on the 'net, 
so I haven't seen it either, so we only have the magazine 
article to review. And articles written for broad audiences 
are often pretty bad about getting key facts straight. How 
many newspaper headlines reported this morning that the 
Microsoft break-up penalty was reversed by the Court of 
Appeals, when in fact it was only remanded to a lower court? 
But I digress...


> What I'm not at all convinced of is that increasing total
> power in that sense has anything close to the significance
> Natapoff wants us to believe it has.  Or that it's at all
> desirable.
> 
> For example, suppose the League of Women Voters is electing
> an Honorary President, and the two candidates are Elizabeth
> Cady Stanton and Jack the Ripper.  As it turns out, Stanton
> is way ahead in the polls.  Consequently, with only the most
> miniscule chance that Mr. Ripper could win, no vote is
> anything close to pivotal, and consequently, nobody has any
> power in the Natapoff sense.  Now, let's suppose somebody
> comes up with a method of counting votes that gives Mr.
> Ripper a very well insulated snowball's chance in hell of
> winning.  Is this a Good Thing?  Or is the good thing that
> Stanton should win because that's who the voters want?

> My feeling is, if Stanton is more likely to win, choosing a
> system that gives the Ripper a better chance might increase
> the total power in the Natapoff sense, but so does anything
> that makes the odds of each candidate winning about the same
> no matter what the sentiment of the voters.  I don't see how
> that can be a Good Thing.

Ah, you can apply my "unanimous decision" example above to

this case. Let's say we require unanimous support for Stanton,

else Jack wins. By the Natapoff measure, total power is

increased, but to my thinking the electorate has actually lost

power. To paraphrase "The Princess Bride", I don't think "voter

power" means what Natapoff thinks it means.

> Personally, I think Natapoff has fallen victim to his own
> rhetoric.  He is quoted in the article as talking about how
> the Electoral College protects the minority from the tyranny
> of the majority.  But the fact is, somebody is going to win.
> The voters who voted for the winner get their way, and
> everyone else doesn't.  If that's tyranny, it's also
> unavoidable in a one-seat race.
> 
> Natapoff seems to realize this.  He says that the one
> unavoidable anomaly of the Electoral College is that
> occasionally a less popular candidate will win, but that's
> the price we pay for preserving the power of the minority.
> Natapoff says the outcome is only temporary, and is fixed
> four years later.  But this anomaly isn't really an anomaly,
> or a side effect of the difference between the EC and direct
> election.  It is the only difference in the outcomes, and if
> it's not a benefit, then the EC has no benefits at all.


Either the EC needs to be abolished (by constitutional 
amendment) or it needs to be selected proportionally in 
every state (probably an easier thing to accomplish, unless 
the courts rule that this can't be legislated by Congress). 
The all-or-none rule used by most states has a serious 
negative consequence regarding any EM reform meant to do 
away with the "lesser of two evils" problem. Let's say 
California adopts IRV for the selection of its EC delegates, 
but keeps the all-or-none rule (they could choose Approval 
or Condorcet but since we are more likely to see IRV put 
into practice first I'll use IRV for this example). In the 
next presidential election, because voters feel safe in not 
abandoning their favorite (not always true in IRV but most 
voters will believe the hype the first few times), 
California succeeds in choosing Mr. Nader over Mrs. Clinton 
and Mr. Bush. All of California's EC votes go to Nader. 
Unfortunately, the rest of the nation, still using 
Plurality, chooses either Bush or Clinton, neither of whom 
gets an EC majority, and then Congress chooses Bush. Lots of 
Californians would then feel that the election was stolen 
from them because, in the old Plurality system, they would 
have "played it safe" and voted for Clinton. Some will blame 
Congress, some will blame the EC (but not those who 
previously insisted it's a good thing), and some will blame 
the new method. This last group will conclude that EM reform 
is about as good as power deregulation.

(A shorter way of saying the above is that the EC violates FBC).

Unfortunately, states currently have no incentive to give up 
the all-or-none rule, since abandoning that rule dilutes the 
power of the voters in that state.

Richard




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