[EM] Who Are We?

[James Green-Armytage]

>I was prodded to be curious about the question of "Who are the people on
>the EM list?" Are we academics? Hobbyists? Politicians?

	I'm 24 years old. I was born in Manhattan and lived there until I was 19,
when I went to college in southern Ohio. I have a BA from Antioch college
in "philosophy, psychology, and politics." Eventually I hope to earn a PhD
in economics (or possibly some economics-political science combined
program), and then teach, do research, and possibly get involved in
politics / public policy.
	For the purpose of this list, I'd like to talk mostly about my bio as a
voting methods guy, rather than my bio in general.
	I began dabbling in voting methods several months before the 2000
election. It seemed clear to me that the plurality system was serving as a
barrier to political accountability and democratic change, but I wasn't
really aware of the alternatives. A few ideas occurred to me during that
time, including approval voting, which I dismissed shortly after
re-inventing it, basically because of the uncertainty of the
cooperation/defection dilemma.
	My interest in the topic began in earnest in the Spring of 2001 (I was a
sophomore on temporary leave from college), when I happened across an
article about IRV, which linked to the CVD web site. I realized that
ranked ballots were the missing piece in my earlier efforts. I learned the
rules of IRV, read the claims that they put forward there, and then
started thinking about it. It wasn't more than a day or so before my hopes
about IRV hit against what I called the second-order spoiler problem, that
is a non-winning candidate who 'spoils' by causing an otherwise-winning
candidate to be eliminated early.
	I developed a quirky algorithm of my own whereby the second-place
finisher (last to get eliminated) in the IRV tally should be permanently
eliminated, another IRV tally should take place with that person being out
from the start, the second-place finisher in that tally should also be
permanently eliminated, and so on until all candidates save one had been
permanently eliminated. So I intuited the need for Condorcet's method and
made up a (weird) Condorcet-efficient voting method before having heard of
Condorcet. The idea of pairwise comparisons even occurred to me (while I
was at the post office on the East side of Charleston), but I realized
that there wouldn't be an unbeaten candidate in all cases, so I stuck to
my weird proposal.
	I actually wrote e-mails to CVD and various CVD satellites, earnestly
pointing out the flaw in IRV (I didn't realize that they already knew
about it!) and suggesting my system instead. Some of the replies that I
got suggested that I have a look at Condorcet's method, which I then
learned about and eventually decided was superior to both IRV and to my
own proposal. 
	Anyway, during that spring I was already quite obsessed with the topic of
voting methods, and I spent hours scribbling away at different imaginary
examples. I didn't fully understand the concepts of STV until awhile
later, but there is one page in my notes from a car trip across
Pennsylvania (where I was just starting to feel the effects of a strange
sickness that would last through much of the summer) where I guessed at
the formula for CPO-STV, minus the surplus transfer rule. (I barely
understood surplus transfers at that point anyway.)
	I never had any classes in voting methods specifically, but I found ways
to work it into various classes and write papers about it. For a couple
years, my knowledge on the subject increased very gradually. I read
"Behind the Ballot Box", and that cleared up a few gaps. I read Tideman's
"Better Voting Methods Through Technology" paper, which gave a good
history of the different forms of STV, including CPO-STV. I traded e-mails
with Mike Ossipoff, Russ Paielli, and Rob Loring, which were very helpful
in getting me up to speed.
	In the summer of 2003, I took an internship at CVD, in Takoma Park. I
already had many points of disagreement with CVD, but I thought that they
were the best people to teach me about organizing for voting methods.
While I was there, I generally didn't voice my anti-IRV opinions very
much, since I didn't want to alienate people. I did bring it up with some
people there eventually, but mostly I kept quiet about it and tried to
learn rather than teach. It was a strange experience, but in many ways a
rewarding one. I was fully immersed in an issue that I cared a great deal
about, from at least two very different approaches: the lobbying /
organizing approach taken by CVD and its network, and the more academic
and discursive approach taken by people such as those on this list. It was
at this point that I changed my mind and decided that I was probably
better-suited to an academic career than to a career in the NGO sector.
	That brings me more or less up to the present. I tried to keep up my
interest in voting methods during my last term in college (fall 2003) by
writing the "Survey of Basic Voting Methods" and some of the other
material that is now on the web. While I'm not sure that I want to focus
entirely on voting methods or public choice in my doctoral work, I would
like to stay engaged with it in a serious way.

James