[EM] Re: Chris: Approval vs IRV

[Chris Benham]

Mike,
You wrote (Tue.Jun.8):

>>From the 3 Australians that I had the opportunity to ask, I heard that it 
>isn't unusual for preferrers of non-big-2 candidates to insincerely rank in 
>first place the big-2 candidate whom they like better than the other big-2 
>candidate, to avoid "wasting [their] vote". Australia has had IRV for a 
>along time, but parties are still mostly unwilling to run more than 1 
>candidate per election, contrary to the hopes when IRV was adopted.
>
CB: You are not  STILL talking about the apocryphal  "3  Australians"? 
You don't update the results of your on-going survey
of  reports by Australians about how IRV operates there very often, do 
you?  Let me refresh you memory of  an on-list  discussion
you had with the Australian Albert Langer  in  December 1998 with some 
excerpts.

This from a post dated  Fri.Dec.4, 1998  ("IRO" means IRV, and  "VA" 
stands for "Votes Against" and refers to Condorcet,
Winning Votes.)

> [AL]
> In Australia IRO makes the support for third parties highly visible.
> NOBODY who would vote for them under Approval or VA fails to vote for
> them as a result of strategic considerations concerning IRO.
> Nevertheless, since they never win any seats they don't get to build
> their support in the way that they would if they were represented.
>
> Of course they wouldn't dominate a PR Parliament either. They would
> simply be represented, which is all that PR supporters have ever claimed
> for PR. As a result of being represented they might build their support,
> so the two party monopoly makes damn sure they aren't.
>
> <snip>
>
> [MO]
> With IRO something _does_ prevent people from registering their support
> for a less winnable alternative: The fact that while their vote is
> on their favorite, a needed compromise might get eliminated, resulting
> in the victory of one's most despised last choice.
>
> [AL]
> Nope. That is just your speculation. Ask any Australian of any political
> persuasion and you'll find that this just isn't a factor in the way
> people actually vote here (as opposed to the way parties plan their
> campaigns). <snip>

You wrote:

>You continued:
>
>..., voters and political parties would hate approval.
>
>I reply:
>
>Why would voters hate Approval more than Plurality? Because it lets them 
>always vote for their favorite instead of having to strategically abandon 
>hir? Because it gives them the freedom to vote for and show support for 
>people they like better than their Plurailty compromise?
>
>Your claim is not only unjustified, it's absurd.
>
CB: This thread is  "Approval vs. IRV", not  "Approval vs. Plurality". 
Of course Approval is an unambiguous improvement
on Plurality, and  those voters who notice any difference will 
 (probably) prefer it. Why will small parties prefer IRV to  Approval?
Because small parties like it to be possible that  all indications from 
published polls and previous elections are wrong, and this time
the voters will vote as they reccomend and vote them in to office. Under 
Approval, that means either continuing to vote as in
Plurality and  foregoing any say among the real contenders  (and opening 
the door to the election of  the Condorcet or even
Majority loser) or completely  abandoning the fantasy and saying, in 
effect, "We want the result to be a tie between us and one of
the major parties" , which is false and ridiculous. Under IRV, they are 
not in that bind. They can say "Vote for us as your unique
favourite, so that if enough of you do we will win, but if  we are 
eliminated then you can still have your say among the main contenders", 
 plus they get some clout  that can arise if  they are seen as having 
the power to  "direct preferences".

 From the point-of-view of voters that aren't interested in 
strategising, Approval doesn't "guarrantee" anything.  You seem to assume
that the voters all fall into one of  two categories:
(1) partially-informed strategists  who know that if  they don't 
 compromise by voting Middle  first (in IRV) then there is a danger
that  Worst will win, but don't  know  that Favourite can't win if they 
vote sincerely; so maybe they'd like to vote maximum clout
against Worst and leave it to other voters to decide which of  Favourite 
and  Middle  actually  *wins* .
(2) "semi-strategists"  who are perfectly happy and comfortable voting 
compromises equal to their sincere unique favourite, but
are squeamish about voting  a compromise above  their sincere favourite.

In the case of  IRV, the voter might SOMETIMES be, as you say, be 
 "strategically forced" (in the setting of a US presidential election)
to Compromise and  falsely vote Middle above Favourite. But that is 
versus having  to falsely vote compromises equal to sincere
Favourite in Approval, ALL THE TIME.  That is fine if you think that 
order-reversal is terrible, but order-compression is nothing.
But if  you consider them both bad, and order-reversal  is only about 
two or three times worse than order-compression; then  IRV
looks like the much more attractive  way of voting.

Consider these  further categories of voters:
(3) voters who are not be interested in strategy, and so just want  a 
clear-cut way of voting sincerely. Under IRV, this category
would be much larger than it is under Purality, when voters appreciate 
IRV's "majority for solid coalitions" and  Condorcet Loser
guarrantees. This is the group who would not be Approval fans.
(4) well informed  strategists, who don't mind  Compromise-strategy 
order-reversal. ("betraying" their favourite).This group
has no real reason to prefer Approval over IRV.

Chris Benham

PS , another interesting excerpt from your chat with  Albert Langer 
(posted Wed.Dec2,1998):

> [MO]
> Speak for yourself. Duverger's law is about Plurality, and doesn't
> accurately apply to single-winner methods in general.
>
> Maybe some
> like Plurality because it produces a 2-party system, but a better
> single-winner method, one that lets people vote sincerely, wouldn't
> produce a 2-party system. I claim that even the simple, modest
> Approval method would bust the artificial 2-party system wide open.
>
> [AL]
> I always do, and obviously was, speaking for myself (even when I wrote
> "edit" meaning "edict" :-). Du Verger's law would not apply to "Random
> Ballot" but it certainly does apply to IRO as proved for more than half
> a century of experience in Australia and you have not advanced anything
> resembling an argument as to why it would not apply to Approval. I
> cannot even guess what your argument might be. People overwhelmingly do
> vote "sincerely" (ie naively) at least as regards first preferences
> under IRO in Australia and haven't got the foggiest clue about the fact
> that there is something fundamentally absurd about the way votes are
> counted. 20% of them sincerely vote for other parties as their first
> preference and are not in the least surprised that the two major parties
> always win because they understand the elementary logic that if there is
> going to be only 1 winner it is going to come from one or other of the
> two big parties and not from 1 of the small ones. Any fancy system that
> produced a different result would be rightly perceived as just plain
> anti-democratic. How could one possibly argue against parties that have
> 80% of the vote not reliably winning a seat? (Certainly not by
> persuading them that a lottery should be used to prevent that obvious
> outcome, not by pretending that some weird way of counting votes could
> result in 1 or other of 2 parties with 80% support between them winning
> the seat rather than 1 or other of the reamaining parties or
> independents with 20% support).
>
> If you want representation of other parties then you have to go for PR
> as in Europe.
> This is just plain obvious and not worth arguing about further.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/2739

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/2805

Something very odd, December 98 seems to be missing from the Electorama 
EM archive.



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