[EM] Action

[Narins, Josh]

At lunch I discussed "VOTER CHOICE" with a co-worker. He had doubts. When I
said "PRO-VOTER REFORM" he said that was good. Who could be ANTI-VOTER????

Re: E. Europe. OK, I see your point clearly. Perhaps we could stick to SF
and Vermont as examples of reform? Maybe it will seem to thin. 

Re: "breaking the duopoly"
Actually, one could argue that Approval will ENTRENCH the duopoly, just let
the 10% who want to mention a third party do so. In this sense of Approval
Voting, you might see Democrats getting a sense of their total Green vs.
Labor support, and Republicans getting an idea whether it's Libertarians or
Christians who support them.

[as an aside, how does Approval handle multiple endorsements? Say, I'm
Democratic Line in New York county and Green Line in upstate. It's trivial?]

Do not say that there is no reason to go to Approval UNLESS you support
third parties, please :)

re:  "hyper-focused report on a specific reform has a much
better chance of garnering press attention."

As long as it doesn't get "hyper-technical," sure.
<glances in Ossipoff's direction>
Give the reporter some URLs at least, so they can look into things further
if it interests them, for all angles, not just history.

RE: "HAGER in 2002"

It's not a job. It's politics. I'm, for most practical purposes, the
anti-Libertarian. Gosh, 'those people' really get my goat. Privatizing the
Post Office indeed! Hmmph. Grumble. ANYTHING the Government can do the
Private Sector can do better? It's malarkey! I exaggerate. I'd rather have
Ron Paul (R-TX) on the opposite side of the aisle than most Republicans, but
only because I'd consider him the rational counter-argument, not because,
for the most part, I agree with him about anything.
Sorry if I've offended anyone. :)

Re: 2000 examples versus not

I understand. Other people would understand. Is there any way you can say
that in say "1900-2000 X% of all races would have been effected"

I know that's a lot tougher to study, but it would have more impact, and
would be less threatening to the status quo.



-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Small [mailto:asmall at physics.ucsb.edu]
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 3:16 PM
To: election-methods-list at eskimo.com
Subject: Re:[EM] Action


Josh wrote:

>2. I really like the name "VOTER CHOICE". Could we vote on it? :)

Substitute "failed to give voters more meaningful choices" with "failed to
break the duopoly" and I think we have a better way to approach Australia.

>4. I WOULD think, without any clear reason, that we want to avoid parallels
>with Eastern Europe

One natural question people will have is "Nice idea, but has anybody
actually tried this?"  Admittedly, I don't want to say "Why, yes.  In <name
of country> the Communist, Fascist, and Isolationist parties were all
competitive in the 1999 elections, and all won offices just prior to the
coup."  However, I wouldn't mind saying "Several Eastern European countries
have seen multiple competitive parties in single-winner races."

>5. RE: Australia's IRV and "Breaking the duopoly"... I don't like the
>Duopoly, you don't like it, but the goal is not to break it.  The goal is
>to enhance voter choice.

True, but there's no reason to abandon plurality unless you want more than
2 _competitive_ options.  I'm up for massaging the wording, saying "voter
choice" instead of "more parties."  We shouldn't explicitly condemen the
Republicrats, but we can't escape the fact that we're advocating the
potential downfall of the duopoly.  We can say "In other countries voters
have a wide range of choices, but in places where you only get one vote
only two choices are usually competitive."

>6. I think a good paper will include lots of historical stuff in one two
>page section. I may just have an over-fondness for this topic. I do think
>the "Hamilton's Math Sucked" and the "National Academy of Sciences answered
>all doubts" aspects of the Apportionment story are relevant. I also think
>they are interesting, which is a much more personal assessment.

I'm proposing a project focused on implementing Approval Voting.  I have my
own list of pet topics of discussion, but I want the "report" to be a case
specifically for our reform, not an intersting historical survey of
election methods.  A hyper-focused report on a specific reform has a much
better chance of garnering press attention.

>7. I can't endorse Hager.

I admit that I really want to couple this Approval publicity drive with an
endorsement of the only candidate (I know of) who favors our reform.  There
may be ways to work around this, mentioning Hager in the press release but
not the report (assuming you contribute to it).  The idea of the report is
to try and get a newspaper story that begins "According to a new study..."
since papers seem to like those.

It may be possible to say "A group of scientists has released a report
documenting the advantages of a proposed voting reform..."  and "Some of
the authors have banded together to support the candidacy of like-minded
reformer Paul Hager..."

If you don't mind answering, when you say "can't" do you have a government
job that bars endorsing candidates (I've heard of such jobs) or do you
oppose Hager's stances?  I won't try to talk you into going against your
conscience and/or employment contract.  I'll only say that some list
members who donated probably don't agree with all of his stances, but he's
running for a single-duty office on a single-issue platform.  In that
context people from different ideologies can often work together without
violating their consciences.

Feel free to ignore that intrusive question.

>8. I think we should not emphasize the way this method would have changed
>races in ANY ANY ANY recent races. We should have the data on hand, but we
>should not say "See, look, Gore would have won"

I wouldn't say "Plurality stuck us with that idiot W!"  I would say,
however, that "In x% of state and federal races in 2000 a third party
candidate likely tipped the balance.  With approval voting, however..."

Have I assuaged your concerns?

Alex



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