[EM] Voting systems theory and proportional representation vs simple representation. (Abd ul-Rahman Lomax)

[Kathy Dopp]

Abd ul, I agree with virtually all you say that I had time to read,
but would prefer party list voting over asset voting simply because it
forces the #1 elector, as you put it, to state in advance who he will
nominate with any excess votes and also in some systems gives the
voters a chance to vote for changes in the order of the list.  This
gives options to those voters who are well-informed that asset voting
does not.

Kathy

> Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:53:52 -0500
> From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <abd at lomaxdesign.com>
> To: EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
> Cc: EM <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
> Subject: [EM] Voting systems theory and proportional representation vs
>        simple representation.
> Message-ID: <20100313195610.C65308DB0062 at zapata.dreamhost.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
> Voting systems theory should properly be a subtopic within social
> choice theory, which is -- or should not be -- based on instantaneous
> process, as from a single ballot, but from the whole set of
> procedures whereby a community of interest discovers and makes choices.
>
> In small-group process, choices by secret ballot are quite unusual,
> outside of elections, and, again, in such process, even with secret
> ballot (which is by no means universal), voting is traditionally
> vote-for-one, with a majority required for a result to be declared,
> otherwise the election is null as to legal effect and "must be
> repeated," in the language of Robert's Rules of Order. Which means,
> among other things, no eliminations are automatic, they are voluntary
> or up to whatever renomination process is used. However, the repeated
> ballots are based on information from prior ballots as to likely
> results, thus the results shift as voters compromise their positions,
> with communication outside the ballot process being quite likely. In
> the end, the proof of adequate compromise is in a result approved by
> a majority, and, in some organizations, even a supermajority is required.
>
> Generally, standard democratic choice is through votes which are Yes
> or No on stated propositions, which are themselves amendable through
> Yes or No votes on proposed amendments. The amendment process
> typically procedes until there is a supermajority in favor of closing
> debate and process on each amendment and then on the main motion.
> Thus a single final Yes or No decision may have been preceded by many
> polls, compromises, etc.
>
> Elections with multiple candidates might be seen as an exception;
> however, if the majority requirement remains, it represents a
> collapse of a longer process that would be the more rarely used
> election by orginary motion. Election by motion is, intrinsically,
> with adequate participation, Condorcet-compliant, and probably tends
> to be more social-utility optimizing than we might expect, in healthy
> organizations.
>
> However, with public elections, and particularly with secret ballot
> and the lack of an ability to conduct repeated ballots in short
> order, the focus came to be on methods of determining some kind of
> ideal winner from a single ballot, and this has suffered from lack of
> precision in the definition of "ideal winner," there are competing
> criteria that can sound optimal at first blush that may not be so.
> Returning to basic social choice process, it is easy to demonstrate
> that, under some conditions, the winners required by the Majority
> Criterion or the Condorcet Criterion may not be ideal, with ideal
> being defined as a result that would be approved by *all* voters
> given full information. (I have used the "pizza election" to show
> this, with an "ideal result" that would be approved unanimously by
> voters, even though the first preference of a supermajority of voters
> was different.)
>
> It is possible to roughly predict such results using social utility
> analysis, in situations where true absolute voter utilities are
> known. Those situations are rare; however, their value was not
> recognized by Arrow et al. Individual voter preferences are not fixed
> things, they are an interplay between the voter's ab initio
> preferences, which may be initially uninformed, and the preferences
> of the rest of the society. It is possible for voter preferences to
> actually reverse based on knowledge of the preferences of other voters.
>
> But when it comes to representation in public process, where scale
> does not allow direct participation by all voters, it has sometimes
> been assumed that representatives would be chosen based on overall
> utility for each choice, and this is diametrically opposite to the
> principle of representation by choice, as distinct from
> representation by appointment. I.e., the King might appoint a
> representative for a colony, that's by appointment, obviously. A
> choice of a single representative for a community by majority vote
> (or worse, plurality) is representation by election for the community
> as a whole. But it is not representation of the individual voters by
> choice, and those who did not explicitly accept the winner cannot be
> said to be personally represented in whatever decisions the elected
> representative makes.
>
> Proportional representation was intended to address this, bringing,
> at least and in theory, various factions to the legislative table so
> that they may negotiate more broadly acceptable solutions, which then
> become, to the extent that they are, in fact, more broadly accepted,
> unifying factors for the society, which increase efficiency and
> voluntary compliance and support and a sense of connection with government.
>
> However, the concept of representation remained collective rather
> than personal, severely limiting this approach. Generally, with PR,
> it is a party that is represented. If one is in a minority in the
> party, one can easily end up inaccurately represented. A totally
> different possibility has been suggested from time to time, but it
> has never, to my knowledge, been used in political elections. It's
> standard practice with corporations, in theory, though it is in
> practice corrupted by certain power-centralizing practices which were
> allowed to disrupte the democratic character of corporate elections,
> and shareholders were not sufficiently organized, independently of
> the corporations -- centralized power -- to resist this.
>
> Corporations generally allow proxy voting, so that those who actually
> vote in corporate elections or other decisions made at regular
> meetings of the shareholders are casting votes not only for their own
> shares (if they have any, there are professional proxies who do this
> representation), but for those who have voluntarily chosen them as
> representatives.
>
> Attempts have been made to apply this to public elections. I forget
> the city, but there was a proposal in the early 20th century to hold
> an election for a City Council where, in the council, representatives
> would exercise the votes they recieved in the general election. This
> would have been, for the first time, true and accurate representation
> before the Council. Because some council members would have many more
> votes than others, others would have less; this would produce a more
> representative result than a scheme in which votes are allocated to
> seats equally, because smaller groups could still obtain seats.
> (Assume a fixed number of seats. Suppose the top N vote-getters are
> elected in a vote-for-one election. Look at the minimum number of
> votes obtained by a candidate who nevertheless obtained a seat. In a
> system which redistributes votes somehow so that a faction with 2Q
> votes gets two seats, and Q votes are required to win a seat, and
> there are N seats, compared to one where the top N candidates get
> seats, with variable voting power, it's obvious that since for some
> seats in the latter case, more than Q votes were obtained, some must
> have less, and thus smaller factions get representation.)
>
> Arguments against systems like this, on the face, seem to be based on
> the idea that it would assign too much power to individuals, though
> the power of an indivicual councilmember would probably be less than
> that of, say, a single elected mayor; I would more precisely claim
> that opposition is based, in the end, on distrust of democracy.
>
> Fortunately, a relatively simple system, rooted in early study of
> Single Transferable Vote by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll),
> published in 1884 or so, allows the creation of a peer assembly,
> where all seats represent exactly the same number of voters. Dodgson
> recognized a basis fact of electoral democracy, one which actually
> underlies the power of Plurality Voting and explains why, in spite of
> its obvious deficiencies, it has remained: most voters have
> sufficient information to be clear about their Favorite, but may have
> much less information about lower preferences. Thus preferential
> ballot, so easily seen as obviously superior, may be collecting
> noise, unless special importance is given to the first preference.
> And where that preference is not strong, this, too, may be quite
> noisy. Dodgson harness the power of first preference, to create
> accurate proportional representation that did not effectively
> disenfranchise those who only voted for one candidate (when that
> candidate did not win). He hit upon the idea of what Warren Smith
> later called Asset Voting; it was earlier known as Candidate Proxy
> when proposed by Mike Ossipoff and Forest Simmons in the late 1990s.
> In an STV election, let the candidate in first position on any
> otherwise exhausted ballot recast the vote.
>
> Dodgson's proposal was lost in the noise for a long time, even though
> he's been considered one of the foremost experts on voting systems of
> the nineteenth century. The implications and possibilities are
> enormous, from such a simple tweak.
>
> A long time ago, the United States was founded on rhetoric about "No
> Taxation without Representation." But I have personally never been
> represented by anyone I chose, nor, even, by the somewhat lesser
> standard of being represented by someone who was chosen by someone I
> chose. In direct democracy (i.e., New England Town Meeting
> government), I can vote directly on many issues. But as the scale has
> increased, this ability is almost always lost, for reasons that are
> obvious and that are not addressed merely by devices such as internat
> voting. Deliberation by representation is essential when the scale
> becomes large.
>
> And no voting system that massively anonymizes the process can
> actually create this, no matter how idea the system seems on pater as
> to "social utility" or various measures of representational quality.
> What Asset Voting would do is to create a set of "electors" who then
> *publicly* elect an assembly to actually conduct legislative
> business, which could include the election of public officers, which
> can then use the highly effective deliberative processes, not
> depending only on limited single-ballot procedures or even restricted
> ballot (i.e., top-two runoff, as an example).
>
> I would know where my vote went, exactly, I would know if it was used
> a part of the election quota, or perhaps was wasted, and if it was
> wasted, in general, I'd know that the candidate I trusted might be
> responsible. I've recommended the Hare quota, i.e., a fixed quota
> designed to set a maximum number of seats, not to necessarily elect a
> fixed number. I.e., if candidates holding the dregs cannot find
> compromises, they and those they represent lose representation, until
> and unless they do compromise. If Assembly rules require, at least
> for some purposes, an absolute majority of the theoretical maximum,
> there is no gain in power by refusing to compromise, there is,
> instead, a small loss.
>
> Under these conditions an absolute majority of the Assembly would,
> with absolute free choice in representation, represent a majority of
> the electorate. I know of no other proposed system of proportional
> representation (other than variations such as the early 20th century
> variable voting scheme described above) that can accomplish this.
>
> Because the electors are public voters, who have assigned their votes
> in a public process, it also becomes possible to separate
> deliberation and aggregation. I do not know how much difference this
> would actually make, given how freely seats would be elected, but if
> electors are allowed to vote directly on any issue before the
> assembly (other than Questions of Privilege, another matter), the
> seats can be seen, then, as representatives in deliberation and only,
> in aggregation, as "default voters." The process would work fine if
> no electors vote directly, but it means that the dregs, the votes not
> used to elect a seat, would not be wasted, they could still be
> exercised, if the electors took the trouble. It means that an elector
> might more readily make a compromise based on general usefulness in
> deliberation, even if the elector fears that he or she will disagree
> with the choice on some issue. An elector holding a lot of votes
> might have some significant impact, if the vote was close in the Assembly.
>
> Asset Voting could create a penumbra of electors who serve as
> intermediaries between anonymous voters and elected seats. Electors
> are directly chosen, presumably with little or no restriction. I
> could choose someone with whom I can actually sit down and talk. My
> elector will generally be known as someone with influence over the
> seat, because the votes are explicitly known. Asset Voting would
> connect me with the Assembly. To get something to the floor of the
> Assembly, I'd only need to convince my elector that it's worthwhile,
> and then the elector must convince the holder of the seat. Yet
> general noise, bad ideas, etc., would tend to be filtered out, but
> not with simple rejection and igorance, as happens at present. My Bad
> Idea would be rejected, hopefully, by a specific person, either my
> elector, or, at the next step, my elected seat. Who can explain it,
> through the elector. Someone I trust, in general. If it actually goes
> before the Assembly, then I know that it has a shot at being
> considered by a wider group. If for some reason, my elector and seat
> aren't willing to consider it, I can find anyone else with a
> different elector, and the idea has a shot.
>
> For very popular electors, the scale would be too large, and I'd
> expect the system to adjust toward smaller and smaller vote counts
> for electors, with, possibly, intermediate aggregations, more or less
> along the lines of delegable proxy. But delegable proxy could be
> totally informal, advisory, which is pretty much how I've proposed it
> everywhere. It's just a way of communicating in large-scale
> organizations, that can also help with very small-scale organizations.
>
> So I'm not terribly interested in methods of aggregating
> representation through theoretical optimization from a single ballot.
> They seems like utterly impoverished approaches to me, that would not
> result in true, clear representation. The social intelligence of a
> single ballot is very, very limited, given that alternatives not only
> exist, they are routine in small-scale direct democracy and in
> certain large-scale applications. Proxy voting is considered
> inappropriate in membership organizations, by Robert's Rules of
> Order, for reasons that I won't go into here, but RRONR was
> contemplating only direct democracy, as practiced and implemented for
> centuries, and, I'd suggest, the arguments against proxy voting were
> shallow, mostly based on the idea that property rights are not
> represented; they are quite in favor of proxy voting with respect to
> property rights.
>
> But ... what if the members of an organization are encouraged to
> think of the organization as "theirs" in some way? What if the
> property right analogy is more applicable than was thought, what if
> this would encourage a deeper sense of participation and "ownership"?
> If I invest a thousand hours of volunteer time in an organization,
> how is this different from investing thousands of dollars in some
> piece of property. The difference I see is that in the organization,
> generally a nonprofit, I don't gain "personal ownership." But there
> are other kinds of ownership, including collective pride and a sense
> of responsibility.
>
> However, Asset Voting only represents narrow representation by what
> resembles proxy voting, in the process of electing an assembly. I
> raise the ownership issue because, indeed, I believe that our
> societies will function better if citizens feel "ownership." I've
> seen it in small New England Town Meeting towns. Citizens have the
> sense that it is "their town" and "their town government." They take
> responsibility for the town and for each other. What if we could
> foster this on a large scale? Wouldn't that be interesting?
>
> The biggest opposition to Asset Voting, once the power of it is
> realized, would be from political parties and those who benefit from
> the divisions that political parties represent. Parties must
> amalgamate issues to be efficient, so minority representation gets
> lost; if you are, as an example, a Pro-Life Progressive (they
> exist!), you are out of luck. Even though, in theory, if you are
> truly pro-life you would also be against war and the corporate rape
> of the planet (from this point of view). Asset makes political
> parties much less important, I'd expect, because it's people being
> elected, not parties or issues, even though these people may have
> their own political affiliations and issues they consider important.
> They would not need to affiliate with a party to gain voting power as
> electors, and because the electors are a reduced set of voters, they
> might be readily elected based on personal communication within the
> elector body with no need at all for public campaigning, which
> requires major expense.
>
> Address campaign finance reform by making it unnecessary! Tell me,
> what would you think of someone who tried to persuade you to vote for
> them instead of a person you already trust, by spending a lot of
> money? Would you be inclinded to trust this person? I wouldn't! The
> very fact of campaign spending, in an Asset environment, would mean
> that the person has some axe to grind, some cause to advocate, a
> cause that can collect money, and the most obvious candidates would
> also be major sources of corruption, who, instead of relying upon
> cogent argument and relationships of personal trust, want to
> influence large numbers through media manipulation.
>
> I don't think this is a difficult argument to fathom! The fact is
> that most voters do *not* trust politicians, it's a profession that
> is down somewhere below "user car salesman." They don't trust them
> because they know that the system requires politicians to lie in
> order to gain enough votes to win election, and that politicians must
> also gain campaign funding, which is most easily gathered through
> large donations from special interests of various kinds. Voters
> nevertheless vote for these politicians, whom they do not trust,
> because they don't have any other better choice that wouldn't waste
> their vote. And many don't vote at all, because they have no
> confidence that their vote would make any difference at all.
>
> Asset Voting causes every vote to count, to make a difference. In the
> systems I'd propose, if you don't trust *anyone* (a bad condition to
> be in!), you can register as a candidate for a nominal fee and vote
> for yourself, and then participate directly in subsequent process.
> But most people would not bother with that, too much work for too
> little benefit, if one only gets one vote. (It might be necessary to
> get two or three or more, and registered candidates might be required
> to cast a separate identified preferential ballot when they register;
> the "two or three" might be necessary for security reasons. Details.
> If they get less than the minimum number, then, in the actual secret
> ballot process their vote would be reassigned to a candidate from
> their preferential ballot and the official results would only show
> that the candidate got less than the minumum, it would otherwise be
> anonymized. Under this scheme, candidates would not vote in the
> general election directly, they would vote by identified ballot.)
>


-- 

Kathy Dopp
http://electionmathematics.org
Town of Colonie, NY 12304
"One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the
discussion with true facts."

Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting
http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf

Voters Have Reason to Worry
http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf

Checking election outcome accuracy
http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf