[EM] Re to Kristof M

[David L Wetzell]

On Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 2:35 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm <km_elmet at lavabit.com
> wrote:

> David L Wetzell wrote:
>
>
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 3:20 PM, David L Wetzell <wetzelld at gmail.com<mailto:
>> wetzelld at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>    Here's a bunch of responses
>>>
>>
>>  dlw: SL may be more proportional than LR Hare, but since I'm advocating
>> for the use of a mix of single-winner and multi-winner election rules, I
>> have no problems with the former being biased towards bigger parties and
>> the latter being biased somewhat towards smaller parties.  For there's no
>> need to nail PR if PR itself does not nail what we really want PP,
>> proportionality in power.  This is also part of why I prefer small-numbered
>> PR rules (less proportional) that increase the no. of competitive elections
>> and maintain the legislator-constituent relationship.
>>
>
> Proportionality in power is quite well approximated by proportionality
> in representation, however. The degree of fit depends on strategy and
> coordination: if every member of the assembly votes for himself, it's
> near-perfect (within per-issue variance that gets evened out); if
> everybody colludes into one or two superparties, then it may diverge
> greatly.
>

dlw: My view is that collusion is inevitable in the struggle to capture
control of the state's monopoly on the use of legit violence or its
threat...

>
> At that point, the question is how far you should take PR. From my own
> observation, PR as approximation of PP has problems in certain edge
> cases (kingmaker parties), but these are rare. Therefore I think that as
> long as you patch up the edge cases or make them unlikely - say, by an
> explicit threshold or an implicit one such as STV's - you can optimize
> for PR within those bounds.
>
> Even if you don't think PR approximates PP, you can use the same
> advanced PR method to give seats fairly according to PP instead. Poland
> has proposed something like this be done in the Council of the EU, the
> proposal saying that each country should have a weight proportional to
> the square root of the number of people in the country.
>

dlw: I had not heard of that.  Why the square root?

>
> My preference for integrating single-winner and multiwinner (if you're
> going to do both in the same context) is then that whatever you decide
> to apportion on (power or votes), the single-winner method can take it
> into account. It knows about it, and so you play it a bit more safe. If
> the multiwinner rule is bad, the single-winner rule can compensate, and
> if the single-winner rule is bad, the multiwinner rule can compensate.
>
> If you're risk averse, as you said you might be, that's a good property!
>
> The flipside is that you won't get the optimal result if it turns out
> that the real thing you should optimize is whatever either the
> single-winner or multiwinner method optimizes. If that is the case, then
> the multiwinner or single-winner method (respectively) will only be a
> burden and pull you away from your goal.


dlw:I guess the  need to value the values associated with both
single-winner and multi-winner makes it difficult to optimize according to
either.  I've come to the view that multi-winner solves a concrete problem
of non-competitive elections in "more local" elections that doesn't exist
so much in "less local" elections.

>
>    KM:You might be able to get something more easily understood yet
>>>   retaining some of the compensation part of the first version, by
>>>   doing something like this: first elect the single winner/s. Then
>>>   start STV with the single winner/s marked as elected (and thus with
>>>   vote transfers already done).
>>>
>>
>>  dlw:The rub here is the desirability of guaranteeing that the Condorcet
>> winner is elected.  In "more local" elections that attract less attention,
>> I put less emph on the usefulness of rankings and thereby the Condorcet
>> winner.
>>
>
> The single-winner doesn't *have* to be the CW (although I would prefer
> the system to ensure it is). Even if you for some reason thought the
> Plurality winner was the best one, and wanted to design the integration
> accordingly, you could do STV with the Plurality winner already elected.


dlw: Sure.  You do understand why I don't trust rankings so much in "more
local" elections, r ight?  GIGO

>
>
>
>    dlw:   1. While all forms of PR fall short of proportionality in
>>>>   representation, the best predictor of proportionality is the number
>>>>   of contested seats.
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>>    KM:The Hix-Johnston-MacLean document states that these effects are
>>>   weak. To quote:
>>>   "Turnout is usually higher at elections in countries with PR than in
>>>   countries without, It also tends to be even higher in PR systems
>>>   with smaller multi-member constituencies, and also tends to be
>>>   higher where citizens can express preferential votes between
>>>   individual politicians from the same political party rather than
>>>   simply choosing between pre-ordered party lists. In general, the
>>>   more choice electors are offered, the greater the likelihood that
>>>   they will turn out and exercise it. However these effects are not
>>>   particularly strong, there is some evidence that highly complex
>>>   electoral systems suppress turnout, and turnout levels may partly
>>>   reflect influences other than the electoral system, for instance in
>>>   some countries voting is compulsory."
>>>   So I don't think you can necessarily draw that conclusion. The
>>>   apparent competitiveness between seats may be lesser (because of
>>>   what I mentioned above in that single-member districts are much more
>>>   win-all/lose-all), but that doesn't mean the real change in voter
>>>   opinion from term to term is any greater in SMD countries.
>>>
>>
>>
>> dlw: I interpret what they're saying is that other factors also come into
>> play that impact the competitiveness of elections.  So my conclusion could
>> still be"useful", even if it abstracts from a lot of real-world stuff that
>> also affects voter-turnout.  The election rules that best guarantee
>> proportionality tend to reduce voter interest in elections, thereby making
>> PR not the key criteria for choosing an election system.
>>
>
> The whole point is that you can't say that it tends to do so.


dlw:But that is the whole point of the statement...


> There are so many other parameters, and the conclusion could just as well
> align in the favor of "more choices is higher turnout", as they themselves
> say.


dlw: "more *meaningful *choices is higher turnout".  If there's lots of
seats then how one votes is less likely to make a difference in who gets
elected and the consequent political outcomes.


> If you wanted to make that conclusion rather than yours, you could point
> at that PR in the first place gives higher turnout than non-PR; and that
> countries with ranked balloting types of PR has higher turnout than
> countries with party list, all else held equal. Sure, ranked balloting type
> PR tend to have fewer seats, but then the weak "fewer seats -> more
> turnout" is a correlation, not a causal relationship.


It cd be fewer seats-> more competitive elections and higher chance to be
swing voter -> more turnout.  Either way, it's a tendency that subverts the
desirability of nailing PR.

>
>
>   2. Proportionality in representation does not entail proportionality
>>>>  in power and the latter is desired more than the former. As such, it
>>>>  seems that minority dissenters will need to use extra-political
>>>>  methods (not unlike #OWS) to move the center, regardless of whether
>>>>  PR or another mixed system is used.
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>>   Proportionality in representation is correlated with proportionality
>>>   in power. The correlation isn't perfect, as Banzhaf and
>>>   Shapley-Shubik's measures make apparent, but to leap on that and
>>>   conclude that proportionality isn't proportional... that's unwarranted.
>>>
>>
>> dlw: But it waters down the desirability of nailing PR even further and
>> opens the door to a greater valuation of other conflicting criteria.
>>
>
> KM: See above. If you think you should optimize proportionality of
> something else, feel free to use the fine-honed machinery of PR with a
> different target than proportionality in numbers. Use square root laws,
> dynamic programming or simulated annealing (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/*
> *viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.34.**6640<http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.34.6640>)
> to get proportionality by power (under assumptions of great amounts of
> collusion) if you wish. In any case, you'll get that for which you
> optimize, instead of a fuzzy perhaps-what-you-want, perhaps-what-you-don't.


dlw: My approach is to push for 3-seat LR Hare PR in state reps(or city
council), since that's very close to FPTP and what we've experience with in
the US in IL.  I also support what I believe Fair Vote is going to push
for: 3-5 seat open PR for US reps, since folks care more about US reps,
since state rep elections are rarely competitive and are consequently not
interesting.  It keeps the constituent-legislator relationship.  It
engenders less opposition from the two major parties.  This is the politics
of the possible.  I don't want to go overboard, since there are an infinite
number of election rules.  I'd rather take inspiration from our handicaps
for figuring out which election rules are worth pushing.

This requires somewhat ad hoc assumptions about what can and cannot be
changed about the status quo.  I don't think we need to abolish the state
senate or the US senate.  The latter is damn hard, because of the
difficulty of changing the US constitution.

>
>
>    KM:If anything, when proportional representation disagrees with
>>>   proportionality in power, the power favors the minority parties.
>>>   Minor party kingmakers can make themselves costly if they know there
>>>   won't be any coalition without them. Hence the presence of
>>>   thresholds in most PR systems: these keep too minor parties from
>>>   becoming potential kingmakers.
>>>   Over here, the threshold of 4% keeps most "swing parties" (as one
>>>   may call them) out of power. Yet the threshold is soft - even
>>>   parties below 4% of the total vote can get representatives, they
>>>   just don't get MMP-esque compensation on the national level. (Our PR
>>>   system is a bit unusual in this respect: parties get additional
>>>   seats if their per-region seats reflect their national share of the
>>>   vote too badly.) Perhaps you'd want a hard threshold for a less
>>>   homogenous country, but my point is that the problem can be managed.
>>>
>>
>>
>> dlw: Since PR->PP, we deny PR.  My wider point is that American forms of
>> PR takes a different approach to the problem, one that presumes both PR and
>> single-seat elections are in use so that as long as the latter favors
>> bigger parties, PR may be biased somewhat in favor of smaller parties.
>>
>
> I don't know what you mean by "PR->PP". "PR leads to proportionality of
> power"?


My bad, that shd be PR~->PP,  PR does not lead to PP.


> Anyway, if the inaccuracy in PR wrt proportionality of power favors the
> small parties, there's the small-party bias you want. Use it, then
> integrate your single-winner method with the PR so that if you against
> expectations are wrong, the method can still work.


I'm not following you.

>
>
>   dlwThese seem to imply that we need not strive for proportionality
>>>>  in representation as the gold standard for electoral reform.  If the
>>>>  two major parties, with a somewhat disproportionate amount of
>>>>  representation, are more dynamic then they'd tend to represent well
>>>>  the majority of the population and heed minorities that frame their
>>>>  issues respectfully.
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>>   KM:Do note, though, that the same Lijphart as you referenced on your
>>>   page, said:
>>>   "If partisan conflict is multidimensional, a two-party system must
>>>   be regarded as an electoral straitjacket that can hardly be regarded
>>>   as democratically superior to a multiparty system reflecting all the
>>>   major issue dimensions." ("Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and
>>>   Consensus Government in Twenty-One Countries", 1984, page 114.)
>>>
>>
>>
>> dlw:What if there's a dialectic between multi-dimensionality and
>> single-dimensionality that gets worked out in an ongoing process?  If so
>> then a 2-party system isn't so bad if it need not be the same two parties
>> de jure and de facto and the two major parties together serve as
>> melding(not melting) pot with significant inputs from dissenters/third
>> parties who raise up new dimensions of conflict into our political systems
>> that lead to a repositioning of the de facto two major parties.
>>
>
> KM:I'd imagine Lijphart knows that parties are not static fixed-in-stone
> things. Beyond this, I don't know what arguments Lijphart employed. Myself,
> I would say that the difference is like that of a proposal to use market
> pricing in a corporation versus doing logistics calculations directly: the
> first gets there in a slower, more roundabout way; the latter goes right to
> what is needed.
>

I think it depends.  I don't envision the US becoming other than a
two-party dominated ssytem in the near future but I could see it becoming a
far more contested duopoly easily.

>
> Of course, since I'm not Lijphart, I'm not the same kind of authority and
> so you could counter more easily. But also note that Lijphart is in favor
> of multiparty democracy for other reasons, too. To quote Wikipedia (
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Arend_Lijphart#Major_works<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arend_Lijphart#Major_works>):
>
> "While Lijphart advocated consociationalism primarily for societies deeply
> divided along ethnic, religious, ideological, or other cleavages, he sees
> consensus democracy as appropriate for any society. In contrast to
> majoritarian democracies, consensus democracies have multiparty systems,
> parliamentarism with oversized (and therefore inclusive) cabinet
> coalitions, proportional electoral systems, corporatist (hierarchical)
> interest group structures, federal structures, bicameralism, rigid
> constitutions protected by judicial review, and independent central banks.
> These institutions ensure, firstly, that only a broad supermajority can
> control policy and, secondly, that once a coalition takes power, its
> ability to infringe on minority rights is limited."
>
> Now you could say that "it'll be different". Okay, but then your
> particular construction would have to give significantly different outcomes
> than the range of majoritarian democracies that Lijphart studied.
>

dlw: I believe we need to be open to changes moreso than the above model.
 If neither of the two major parties can dominate or take for granted their
major party status and there are some super-majority requirements and lots
of LTPs to protect minorities of a variety of sorts and to check the
influence of hierarchical interest group structures then  we'd get a lot of
the good things that Lijphart describes.

So yes, I want a different sort of system, something that hasn't really
been done yet and that is inherently easier to move towards from where the
US is right now.

dlw
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