[EM] Voting reform statement

[Jonathan Lundell]

On Aug 15, 2011, at 10:31 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote:

> 2011/8/15 Jonathan Lundell <jlundell at pobox.com>
> On Aug 15, 2011, at 8:35 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote:
> 
>> 2011/8/15 Jonathan Lundell <jlundell at pobox.com>
>> On Aug 15, 2011, at 7:09 AM, Jameson Quinn wrote:
>> 
>>> So, what do you think? Let the debate begin. I expect the above to be torn to shreds. But once it's starting to seem stable, I'll make a google doc out of it, so we can collaboratively polish up the language.
>>> 
>> 
>> Where you will lose many of us, I think, is in a flat endorsement of approval. The fundamental problem with approval voting is that, with more than two candidates, voting demands that the voter engage in strategic voting. That is, if my preference is A>B>C, then my decision whether to approve B cannot be made without strategizing. That flies in the face of your fine suggestion that strategy avoidance be an important criterion. 
>> 
>> (It's not an answer to say that approval strategy is "easy" or "obvious"; that's not the point, nor is it generally true, since it depends on having information not generally available about other voters' preferences and strategies.)
>> 
>> Well, I specifically didn't make such a claim, because, although I believe it, I knew it would lose people.
>> 
>> I would claim that approval strategy is at least as easy/obvious as plurality strategy; and that approval reacts at least as well to a lack of strategy as plurality.
>> 
>> The problems of IRV are minor compared to approval (and any other rating-based system).
>> 
>> You can believe that and still sign this statement, as long as you believe that approval is a worthwhile step up from plurality. Note that the statement nowhere claims that approval is better than IRV, just that it is likely to be able to get a broader consensus from theorists.
>> 
>> Still... although you haven't actually said anything that contradicts what I wrote, you did say that I will lose you for endorsing approval, which makes me suspect that you also feel that approval is not a worthwhile step up from plurality. I'd love to convince you otherwise, but the most important thing is to get a worthwhile consensus statement. To me, any statement that can't flatly endorse even one system is meaningless, and I'd guess approval is probably the system which can get the broadest support, and also one of the few which has a real chance of being implemented for real-world political elections. Am I wrong? Would you, for instance, endorse SODA?
>> 
>> Personally, I see voting reform as a step-by-step process. Yes, approval has unsatisfying aspects. But implementing approval is a clear step up from plurality; a clear step towards any system you might advocate; and a step that would give us useful empirical data to help decide which direction to go from there. I think that most voters would be wary of taking a larger leap, even to my one of my favored systems, which I think are among the simpler of the better options. And since the simpler, safer option of approval does exist, I can't even blame voters for that.
>> 
>> So, the bottom line is: Jonathan, what do you suggest? Do you think that this statement would still be useful if we simply removed approval and thus made no clear policy suggestion? Do you think that there's some other system which could get broader support from this community than approval would? Or do you thing that a useful, broadly-supported statement is simply impossible? (Or do you see some other option which I don't?)
>> 
> 
> I'm doubtful that such a statement is possible, at least if you want universal assent.
> 
> Not universal, just as broad as possible. 
> 
> If we grant for the sake of the argument that approval is strictly preferable to plurality (and I might argue with that), then I don't see the case for rejecting IRV out of hand. Sure, there are list members who are allergic to IRV, but it seems to me that the argument against strategy-intensive rules is at least as convincing (more so to me).
> 
> There are people here who have reasonable arguments that IRV is strictly worse than plurality, and so will not sign any statement advocating it. You are making a reasonable argument that to me says that Approval is only marginally better than plurality. So I don't see how that precludes you from being able to sign on to this statement.
> 
> Perhaps your argument is better than the anti-IRV argument, but that's not the point here. We can certainly assume that it's impossible that everyone here will agree on any statement of that form.
>  
> 
> In general, if the primary reason we're rejecting plurality is its strategy problems (and your three listed problems, honest results, strategy-resistance, and candidate incentives all fall into a strategy category, seems to me), then it's hard for me to see a strong motivation for advocating approval.
> 
> Again, broadest possible consensus. Approval is nobody's favorite (I think; it certainly isn't mine), but it's a good next step, and something we can (I hope) agree on.
> 

It's true that I might agree to a statement if all it said were "We believe that approval is marginally superior to plurality" (thought to the extent that I agreed, I don't think it's enough better to merit any energy in advocating it). But that's not what you're proposing. Is it?
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20110815/78dcdd9a/attachment-0004.htm>