[EM] SEC quickly maximizes total utility in spatial model

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 08:58 AM 10/26/2009, Jobst Heitzig wrote:
>Dear Abd ul-Rahman,
>
>you wrote:
> > Well, I find it hard to believe how wrong-headed this is. Forest 
> is no slouch, either.
>
>Well, thank you very much.

Don't take it personally. You are in the company of experts, too many of them.

> > In a real society that is
> > large enough, the consensus urn will never choose a winner unless there
> > is a true consensus process already in operation, people will not
> > naturally agree on a large scale, and, while in small organization, 100%
> > consensus is attainable, attaining it in very large ones is next to
> > impossible. With 100,000 voters, at least one of them, even if they all
> > agreed, would accidentally mark the wrong choice.
>
>Of course. The method is not suggested for large groups. The cited paper
>includes suitable variations for that case (using thresholds and the
>like).

The method seems simple. It's not. It's quite complex for the voter! 
I do suggest a possible application. Ballot after ballot has resulted 
in majority failure. So, this method. That's after voters know the 
general position of the electorate. Now, if the method requires a 
majority in the first box, might work. Don't come to a compromise, 
it's random ballot.

(It seems that a factor in the system was misstated. If the threshold 
for the first box is "majority," or possibly some supermajority, it 
could work, particularly for representation, if there must be single 
winners. It is a probable improvement on what Alchoholics Anonymous 
uses for delegation.)
Alcoholics Anonymous requires a supermajority for the election of 
delegates to the World Service Conference from the Regions. 2/3 vote. 
If, after repeated balloting, they don't get it, the delegate is 
chosen by lot from the top two. Yes, in some ways it might not seem 
fair. But consider it a form of proportional representation; 
minorities get some representation that way.

AA is seeking consensus; the Conference is where fellowship-wide 
consensus is expressed, and a vote there isn't considered to be 
consensus until it has at least a two-thirds vote, and, according to 
Bill Wilson, anyway, they will discuss well beyond that point and, in 
any case, the Conference is only advisory, it doesn't control 
anything except its record.

> > It is traditional
> > in democracies that no collective action can be taken without the
> > consent of a majority.
>
>And that precisely makes those "democracies" undemocratic since it gives
>majorities the power to ignore minorities.

Sigh. If the majority has the power to ignore minorities without 
harming itself, it will, and no structure you impose will prevent it. 
How is this ideal voting method going to be implemented? Against the 
will of the majority by the technocracy?

That is *not* precisely what causes ignorance of minorities, it is 
ignorance about the value of consensus that causes that.

The work of democracy is in the deliberative process, and voting is 
actually a detail. For efficiency, a majority *may* make a decision 
by as little as a half-vote margin. It's been claimed that this is 
arbitrary, but that's not true. Suppose you come to a fork in the 
road, and you and your company have to decide to turn left or turn 
right. You could also sit down, jump up and down, or turn back, of 
course, or start building a new road, there are an infinite number of 
possibilities, in fact, and it would take an infinite time to 
consider them all. So what do you do?

Well, standard democratic process. It is moved to take one of the 
forks. If the motion passes by a majority, that's the decision. If 
the motion fails, it's off the table for the moment. If you have a 
required supermajority, then you create a bias against the first 
motion and, as well, a bias in favor of the status quo. I've seen it 
in consensus organizations. After quite a bit of experience and 
thought, both with the power of consensus and with the problems, I've 
concluded that it is the right of the majority to decide when it is 
ready to decide, and that the majority always has the right of 
decision. Typically, where not all the eligible voters are assembled, 
and they might be affected by a decision, there are supermajority 
rules limiting the power of a majority; generally, the majority 
cannot close off debate without a supermajority, generally 2/3. In 
systems that become partisan and that oscillate, there is constant 
pressure to move that margin down, to increase the power of the majority.

But, in the end, the only thing actually restraining the majority is 
its own wisdom. And if the majority is stupid, the only thing you can 
do is to try to persuade them. If you try to force them, you become a 
dictator. The so-called "nuclear option" in the U.S. Senate proceeds 
from the rights of the majority over its own process, over 
interpretation of the rules. Any time a member of a deliberative body 
considers that the chair has ruled improperly, the member may 
immediately appeal, and this is a high-priority motion, taking 
precedence over ordinary business. If it is seconded, it is 
immediately put to a vote, no discussion. The majority is sovereign. 
And a wise king will hear out his subjects and respect their advice. 
And take responsibility for the decision. A wise King will wait until 
one of two conditions exists: the advisors are in substantial 
agreement, or delay becomes riskier, in the judgment of the King, 
than the possibility of overlooking the wisdom of a minority.

Few decisions in a democracy involve zero-sum games. If there is 
general agreement on a decision, voting, if needed at all, is a 
formality just to check the agreement. If not, deciding by voting is 
only appropriate when the decision is not important. Probably most 
votes in a deliberative body, in my experience, are procedural, if a 
mistake is made with them, they can be fixed. To waste a lot of time 
trying to get it just right would be highly inefficent. So ... the 
majority prevails, with little fuss. But where it counts, the 
minority, if it has one-third of the votes, can continue debate and 
delay decision. If, however, it does this as a power grab, as a means 
of attempting to deprive the majority of its right of decision, the 
majority can and will use its power, and the rules generally provide for that.

Under Robert's Rules, any assembly may amend its bylaws. The routine 
procedure involves providing notice in advance of the consideration 
of the amendment, and a two-thirds vote. However, often overlooked 
because it isn't easy, is that an absolute majority, i.e, of all 
members eligible to vote, can change the bylaws without notice.

Majority rule is fundamental to democracy, and my observation is that 
allowing minorities to control process, without the consent of the 
majority, results in minority rule over time, rule favoring the status quo.

But that the majority has the power to rule does not make it wise to 
neglect and ignore minorities! If there is a thin majority, then the 
sides are evenly matched, for practical purposes, and both sides 
might think that they could prevail if there is a revolution. And if 
that broke out, it would be bloody and likely inconclusive, unless 
natural Range Voting revealed that the "majority" was by weak 
preference. (And a minority by weak preference would hardly ever 
start a revolution. Kind of an oxymoron.)

So if the preference of a majority is weak, it is foolish to overlook 
a majority with a strong preference; at best there will be decisions 
that do not have broad support, and if people work against those 
decisions, the net effect can be zero. Consensus is expensive, it 
takes time, but it resolves disputes, and in the end, if it can be 
found, it is much more efficient than continual battle over the same 
issues, over and over.

The hysteresis of the American political system, as it is, can give 
us collective whiplash. What I see in this system is an attempt to 
coerce the majority into giving up its right of decision, in favor of 
an abstract conception of social utility. So ... this system is 
implented, and a ninety percent majority is passed over, luck of the 
draw. And it was important to them. So, the ninety percent then vote 
for something different with their voices, their hands, their feet, 
and maybe even their guns, though usually a majority that high 
doesn't need to use guns except for police action.


> > While random choice has an appeal, where deliberation is impossible and
> > where results over many elections will average out, what if 1% of the
> > electorate wants to elect a crazy who will start a nuclear war? Could we
> > afford to take a 1% chance of that?
>
>Of course not. But such an option must never appear on a ballot in ANY
>voting method, since such options could easily reach majority support as
>well, as history has proven over and over again. Exclusion of such
>options is a different topic which in my view cannot be addressed by
>voting methods but must be addressed with legal measures.

There is no way to stop it by legal measures, no way to stop the 
election of a crazy, in a democracy, if the majority want that person elected.

The majority can err, sure, but it's less likely that for a plurality 
to err, hence majority rule *as a minimum.* That's why accepting any 
election without majority consent is a risk, that's why it's 
prohibited under Robert's Rules for *any* decision, unless a society 
has determined differently by amending the default rules. It can do 
it, but it's not done in small deliberative bodies because it's a 
really bad idea.

With repeated balloting, and a majority requirement, plurality is 
quite a sophisticated method. Approval theorists often assumed 
repeated balloting. And Range could speed the process up, but the 
important point that has been missed is the desirability of repeated 
balloting until a majority is found. Range with an approval cutoff 
would maximize efficiency.

Neglecting multiround balloting and making the goal a single-ballot 
"best system" has done quite a bit of damage. Because of that 
neglect, FairVote has been able to encroach upon the best of American 
demoicracy, replacing it with a system that, in actual practice, in 
nonpartisan elections, doesn't imrove things at all. It only works in 
partisan elections because of the effect of the party system on 
voting, and there it only functions as people expect if there are two 
major parties and a minor spoiler, and preventing the spoilers 
defangs the minior parties, which might help them or might hurt them, depends.



>The rest of your post does not seem to be related to mine, and I wonder
>how you were able to write this much in such short time. Sorry if I
>don't have the time to read it.
>
>Yours, Jobst