[Election-Methods] Partisan Politics + a method proposal

[Fred Gohlke]

Good Afternoon, Juho

(For my writing ease, when speaking of unspecified individuals, I shall 
use a genderless he-him-his.  I could as well use she-her-hers, but, at 
my age, attempting to achieve political correctness imposes a 
significant burden.  My purpose is not to offend but to express myself 
clearly.  I beg the indulgence of those who think the matter of greater 
importance than I attach to it.)


re: "Note that there are also cases where the groupings can not be 
hidden.  For example two white persons and one black person in a room 
might easily elect a white person even if the back person said nothing 
about the skin colours and all of them would behave politely etc."

Oh, my goodness!  I never meant to imply that one's affiliations should 
be hidden.  Not even such superficial ones as skin color.  Quite the 
contrary, I anticipate people will be quick to proclaim the qualities 
they hold in common with others as well as those that set them apart and 
make them worthy of selection.

Before continuing, I must note that I am considering 'blacks' in the 
generic rather than the specific sense.  In what follows, the term 
represents any group of people who are seen to be at a disadvantage 
relative to some other group of people, called 'whites'.  That includes 
the Micks, Spics, Kikes, Gooks, Niggers and Wops of my youth and extends 
to the Towelheads, Latinos, Asians and Blacks of today.  It also applies 
to a host of religious sects, including those now branded by some with 
the label 'Islamofascists' and includes those people who would abolish 
the Federal Reserve, seek ecological balance, advocate direct democracy, 
and prevent cruelty to animals.  In short, I apply it to all groups that 
are considered minorities.

In the instance you cited of two white people and one black person, the 
chance a white person will be selected exceeds the chance that the black 
person will be selected on purely mathematical grounds.  The odds are 2 
to 1.  But the selection will not be made on mathematical grounds. 
Implying it will ignores the most significant aspects of the process:

If a person wants to be selected to represent others, the first thing 
that person must do is describe himself.  If one would make oneself 
appealing to others in a political sense, he must convince them he has a 
community of interest with them.  Making such assertions is easy, 
politicians do it constantly.  Backing them up when challenged is more 
difficult ... and more revealing.

When a very small group of people meet to select one of their number to 
represent the other two, he who announces his attitudes and beliefs can 
expect to be examined on his assertions because his counterparts will, 
in the process of advancing their own candidacy, challenge him.  Which 
of the three is selected depends on the qualities of each; their hopes, 
their fears, their biases, their knowledge, their personality, their 
judgment, their motivation and their persuasiveness.

If the 'black' person sees himself (and those like him) as at a 
disadvantage, there is an excellent chance he will be more highly 
motivated than his counterparts to seek a position from which he can 
improve his (and their) lot.  Motivation is only one of the qualities 
necessary for selection, but lack of it diminishes the chance of being 
selected.  This dynamic improves the opportunity of the 'black' 
participants.  Since it applies throughout the electoral process, 
members of a minority who embody the other qualities needed for 
selection gain an important advantage.

In addition, the 'black' person is not without recourse.  When he makes 
a choice, it can be one or the other of the whites ... or neither.  The 
choice he makes depends on his perception of them.  Since, in the case 
you cite, where he must choose one of the whites, it is reasonable to 
think he will choose the one he believes most likely to advance his 
interest.  More than that, if he perceives one of them to be inimical to 
his interests, he can guarantee that person does not advance by refusing 
to vote for him.  And, as a last resort, if he perceives both of them as 
hostile, he can assure that neither advances by not voting at all.

When viewed strictly in racial terms, the implication that two whites 
will not select a 'black' is a bit extreme.  I do not mean to imply 
racial bias does not exist for it certainly does, but it is a mistake to 
imagine it so beclouds the judgment of whites as to make them incapable 
of openmindedness.  A part of my homeland that was almost exclusively 
Caucasian spent the lives of a reported 390,000 of their people in a 
brutal, bloody war, one purpose of which was to guarantee that their 
Negroid countrymen would have the same rights as they.



re: "I also do not have full trust that only good properties of the 
people would propagate upwards in the election process.  It may also be 
that people that are good at fooling other people and hiding their true 
(maybe less noble) intentions will reach the top levels more often than 
others."

I can not say you are wrong.  As I wrote in the outline, the process 
"cannot guarantee that unprincipled individuals will never be selected 
... such a goal would be unrealistic ...", but I believe they will be 
the exception rather than the rule.  I will explain why I think your 
mistrust unjustified.  If you can counter my reasons it will help me 
expand my understanding of the way humans pursue their own interest.

To begin, we must distinguish between the probable actions of people at 
the lowest levels of the selection process and those who advance to the 
upper levels.

The lowest level engages the entire population and includes its dregs as 
well as its bright lights.  It includes idiots as well as intellectuals. 
  It includes arrogant people and humble people.  It includes rednecks 
and loudmouths and radicals and bon vivants as well as thinkers and 
workers and leaders.  The most extreme of any of these types of people 
are but a very small subset of society.

When three randomly chosen people from a neighborhood select one person 
to represent the other two, the chances are excellent that they will 
reject those who are obviously unfit.  By the second iteration, the most 
objectionable people will have been eliminated by those who know them best.

While it is not unreasonable to imagine the people at the first level 
will pick those they believe best suited, those selected may not have a 
desire for public office.  They may accept the selection because 
'someone has to do it'.  Such people lack the motivation to continue 
advancing.  At the next succeeding level, they have an incentive to 
select someone else.

Here, your concern is justified.  Such people may lack the interest to 
make a 'good' choice.  However, this characteristic eliminates itself as 
the levels advance.  People who have no desire to advance are replaced 
by people who seek advancement, and the threat of uncaring selections 
recedes.

When a person who seeks advancement meets with two other people who also 
seek to advance, we can be sure he will do everything in his power to 
persuade the others that he is the best choice.  The question you raise 
is how we can be sure he will select the best of the other two as his 
choice.  Here are some considerations:

The choice he must make is subjective.  I posit that the person making 
the choice is a man of good judgment.  The evidence of that is his 
advancement to the current level.  Were he a person of poor judgment, he 
would not have been selected at prior levels.

We recognize that this is not a universal truth, for, surely. people of 
poor judgment will sometimes advance.  To reduce this threat, we atomize 
the electorate into a large number of very small groups.  In this way, 
we increase the opportunity for good judgment to assert itself.

One may argue that the majority of those who advance will be people of 
poor judgment, but to do so is to assert that the people, in general, 
lack the ability to discern between those of good judgment and those of 
poor judgment.  If that were true, the people would be incapable of 
governing themselves, in which case discussing electoral methods is 
moot.  Thus, while it is not universally true that people of good 
judgment will be selected, it is generally true and can be accepted as a 
basis for proceeding.

The effect of this circumstance is progressive; the further a person 
advances, the more we can consider him a person of good judgment.  For a 
person of good judgment, selecting the poorer of the two choices ... 
absent an incentive for doing so ... flies in the face of reason.  To be 
complete, therefore, we must consider the incentives that might cause a 
person of good judgment to select the poorer of the other two 
participants in his group.  The two reasons that leap to mind are an 
ideological commitment or an offer of economic benefit (which includes 
intimidation).  We will examine these:


IDEOLOGICAL COMMITMENT
If there is an ideological commitment, there must be two members of the 
ideology in the group; the person making the selection and the person he 
selects.  Whether he or the person he selects advances, only one person 
of that ideology will advance to the next level.  If all the supporters 
of this ideology are stick figures with no capacity for judgment beyond 
the dictates of the ideology, the extent to which they can cause one of 
their number to advance to the next level depends on the number of stick 
figures of that particular ideology in the electorate.  Unless it is a 
preponderant majority, reliance on ideology alone must ultimately fail 
to advance a supporter.

In very small groups, practical considerations tend to take precedence 
over ideological ones.  When three people spend an extended period (days 
and weeks) to evaluate one another, the topics they discuss are more apt 
to be matters of joint concern, like taxes, area development, schools, 
congestion, employment, health and the myriad other parts of everyday 
life than abstractions like ideology or party.

This is easily seen when looking at national issues.  When asked what 
one thinks of the Iraq War, the response is more apt to be "I think we 
need to fight it because we need the oil." or "I think we should stop 
the killing and let the market control the availability of oil." than it 
is to be "I am a Republican." or "I am a Democrat."  The former opens 
the door for a closer examination of the topic while the latter inhibits 
further discussion.

The point is that, for the most part, the electorate is not a bunch of 
stick figures, incapable of rational thought.  They differ in their 
opinions, their desires and the intensity with which they pursue their 
own interest.  They can be fooled, but they are not fools.  When given 
an opportunity, they will make the best decisions they can about their 
counterparts.  The cumulative effect of their efforts will yield the 
best of their number.  That is my opinion.  I will change it if I find 
superior arguments.


ECONOMIC BENEFIT
If there is an economic benefit, a bribe, an offer of a job or any other 
such consideration, the miscreant offering the bribe faces obstacles. 
The most obvious is that the process requires additional bribing at each 
level.  Bribing one person in a triad is enough to insure that a 
specified person is selected (the bribed person not only votes for that 
person but alienates the other person to prevent a vote for himself.) 
However, the bribed person does not advance, so the miscreant must bribe 
someone else at the next level.

Since candidates are assigned to groups randomly, the miscreant has no 
way of knowing who to bribe at the next level until the groups are set. 
  Then, the bribe offer must be made quickly and in a relatively open 
and forthright fashion.  That's not a plausible environment for 
corruption, which blooms in dark places.  Bribery does not thrive in the 
open.

In addition, we should not assume that everyone is susceptible to 
bribery.  Those to whom the offer is made have just achieved advancement 
on the strength of their ability, their intellect, their attitude about 
public concerns and their power of persuasion.  They are filled with 
pride and confidence.  They are poor targets for bribery.  They are 
unlikely to give up their opportunity for continued advancement by 
ceding their chances to another, particularly at the risk of taking an 
illegal payment.

At each succeeding level, the miscreant's risk of rejection increases 
... and rejection carries the greater risk of public denunciation, a 
circumstance that threatens criminal prosecution and carries over to 
future election cycles as well.

Another important factor in terms of achieving selection through bribery 
or intimidation is that we are talking about selecting candidates for 
office, not the offices they will fill.  As I said in a recent post, the 
actual election to specific offices might occur by some form of popular 
vote when a suitable number of candidates have been selected.  This 
reduces the incentive for chicanery.  Those who suborn others like to 
target their efforts.

I can not guarantee your concern "... that people that are good at 
fooling other people and hiding their true (maybe less noble) intentions 
will reach the top levels more often than others." is unfounded. 
However, I believe careful thought on these points will show the 
opposite is more likely.

I have been thinking about the method you outlined and find I have quite 
a few questions.  I want to ask them in a way that helps us identify the 
strengths and weaknesses of the method in the hope we can fortify the 
former and reduce the impact of the latter.  This will, as usual, take 
me some time.  I will post them as quickly as I can.

Fred