[EM] Re: Presidential Poll Objections

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Steve--

You wrote:

I'm not suggesting abandoning the straw poll in EM about
presidential candidates.  But I have two concerns:

1. Potential allies for voting method reform may get the
idea that certain voting methods are popular mainly amongst
their political opponents, and change from allies to
obstructionists.  For example, if some Democrat (or Green,
etc.) trounces Bush in the poll, then Republicans who learn
of the poll results might become (more) leery of reform.

I reply:

But surely the Republocrats already know that voting reform that gives 
genuine choice would mean the end of the phoney "2-party" choice.

Certainly someone related to the media knows that, which is why you'll never 
find a tv special about better voting systems, and which is why _Scientific 
American_, when it finally publishes an article on voting systems, publishes 
one that advocates Copeland, which would turn elections into clone-contests. 
And that isn't even the April Fool issue.

Officeholders, with a very few remarkable exceptions, couldn't be any more 
opposed to voting-system reform than they arleadyi are.

You continued:

2. Casual readers may incorrectly get the idea that our
voting method reform proposals involve scrapping the
Electoral College.

I reply:

Of course that's a separate issue. States could use SSD, RP or Approval to 
choose their electors, for the electoral college, or the EC could be 
discarded and we could do one big SSD, RP or Approval count. Either would be 
a big improvement.

I'd suggest offering these better methods to do the elections that are now 
being done, and not mixing it with or tying it to a proposal to get rid of 
the EC.

The EC was part of a compromise to get the small colonies to join the union. 
Rightfully, if the EC is discarded, the states that joined because of that 
compromise promise should be allowed to withdraw from the uniion if they 
want to. An offer like that doesn't sound likely at all.

You continued:

I wouldn't oppose tweaking the EC to
remove the bias favoring small states (an amendment which
will never pass since the small states would veto it).  But
I don't think the EC should be eliminated because it causes
a couple of effects that seem positive: (1) It forces
candidates to compete "broadly" to be the best compromise
in the states that pre-election polls indicate are closely
divided, rather than run up their totals where they are
"favorite sons"

I reply:

But wouldn't they still have to campaign broadly in a single national vote? 
If the voters in a candidate's home state want to elect hir, then fine. But 
s/he needs more than that to win nationally.

You continued:

and (2) if a recount is needed, it can be
confined to one or a few states rather than requiring a
nationwide recount.

I reply:

But even in that one state, the recount didn't happen anyway.  And if one 
state's counties can manage to all recount their votes, then there's no 
reason why the rest of the states couldn't do so also. Fortunately, 
Condorcet & Approval meet the Summabiliity Criterion, meaning that counts 
from the counties can be sent in, pre-counted in parallel, to be easily 
combined at the national level.

Isn't it true that a county used to be governed by a person referred to as a 
count? The Dracula county line?

You continued:

The 2nd effect seems especially
important, after seeing what happened in the 2000 election
and imagining what a nationwide recount would have
entailed.

I reply:

If one state can recount, then the other states can too, with just as much 
feasibililty.

You continued:

An important question that I believe should be polled
periodically (hopefully including other people outside EM
who are knowledgable about voting methods) is to rank the
various criteria used to compare voting methods for public
elections.

I reply:

Sure, it would be good to have a poll on standards. But right now is the 
brief opportunity for a presidential poll to be timely.

I suggest that a poll should be on standards rather than criteria. A 
subsequent poll then could be about what criteria best measure for the 
winning standard. When that poll's nomination time arrives, I'll nominate 
the standards of majority rule and getting rid of the lesser-of-2-evils 
problem.

But let's do the presidential poll first.

You continued:

I rank criteria justified only by "aesthetic consistency"
below any having a well-reasoned justification about making
society better off.  Although an argument can be made that
some voters may complain or regret when a consistency
criterion is violated, and that their complaint or regret
may harm society, I think such arguments can be dismissed
unless empirical evidence exists that show a particular
kind of inconsistency causes harm.  Furthermore, it's
impossible to satisfy all consistency criteria, so without
empirical evidence about harm we're left to wonder whether
arguments justifying the various consistency criteria
cancel each other out.

I reply:

Qute so. Anyone advocating a criterion or standard, and wanting to convince 
others about it, should tell what obvious & widely-recognized  problem 
results when it isn't met. It isn't enough to say "I think this criterion 
should be met", or "I claim that this is important".

Mike Ossipoff

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