[EM] More non-altruistic attacks on IRV usage.

[David L Wetzell]

>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: robert bristow-johnson <rbj at audioimagination.com>
> To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
> Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2011 22:18:32 -0500
> Subject: Re: [EM] More non-altruistic attacks on IRV usage.
> On 12/1/11 5:14 PM, David L Wetzell wrote:
>
>>
>>    KM:If the cost of campaigning is high enough that only the two
>>    major parties can play the game, then money (what you call $peech)
>>    will still have serious influence.
>>
>> dlw:My understanding/political theory is that $peech is inevitable and
>> all modern democracies are unstable mixtures of popular democracy and
>> kleptocracy/plutocracy.  To bolster the former, we must accept the
>> inevitability of the latter.  This is part of why I accept a two-party
>> dominated system and seek to balance the use of single-seat/multi-seat
>> elections and am an anti-perfectionist on the details of getting the best
>> single/multi-seat election.  Deep down, I am skeptical of whether a
>> multi-party system improves things that much or would do so in my country.
>>
>
> RBJ:i am thoroughly convinced that a multi-party (and viable independent)
> system improves things over the two-party system. besides the money thing,


dlw: It might improve things over our current two-party system, but is
there really no choice C?  Ie, 2 major parties, an indefinite number of
minor parties trying to become or merge with a major party, and a whole lot
of LTPs who specialize in contesting more local elections and o.w. move the
political center thru voting strategically together in "less local"
elections and engaging in civil disobedience actions.


> RBJ: i just cannot believe that exhausting our social choice to between
> Dumb and Dumber is the lot that a democratic society must be forced to
> accept.  what was so frustrating during Town Meeting Day in 2010 (when the
> IRV repeal vote was up), it was another choice between Dumb and Dumber.
>  and, as usual, Dumber prevailed in that choice.  nobody seems to get it
> (present company excluded).  added to the result of the 2000 prez election
> and, even more so, the 2004 result, the aggregate evidence is that American
> voters are stupid.  incredibly stupid.  and a large portion of Burlington
> Democrats were stupid to join with the GOPpers, the latter who were acting
> simply in their self-interest to repeal IRV.  and the Progs were dumb to
> continue to blather IRV happy talk as if it worked just fine in 2009.
>

dlw: It wd have worked just fine if it was continued.  It's failure to
elect the CW was a byproduct of how IRV does not end the tendency twds 2
party domination.  But it does make it so that the top 2 must be
responsive.

>
>  dlw:Burlington's two major parties would not be the same as the two nat'l
>> major parties.
>>
> RBJ:David, we don't have two major parties.  we have three.  the Dems may
> be the least of the three, but they're centrist and preferable to the GOP
> than are the Progs and preferable to the Progs than are the GOP.  but they
> are literally "center squeezed".  that is precisely the term.
>

dlw: I'm speaking in future tense.  If we got 2 dynamic major parties then
we don't need a centrist party, cuz the center will be too dynamic to be
the basis for a party platform.

>
> RBJ: Republicans would vote Democrat in Burlington mayoral elections.
>>
> if forced to.  but they would like to give their own guy their primary
> support.  IRV promised them that they could vote for their guy and, by
> doing so, not elect the candidate they hated the most.  and in 2009, IRV
> precisely failed that promise.
>

dlw: You can't make a melding pot without breaking some vases.  IRV tends
to do that, it doesn't do it all the time, especially when there's a
transition to a new set of two major parties around the new political
center.

>
> RBJ:it not a tug-of-war with a single rope and the centrists have to
> decide whether they get on the side of the GOP or the side of the Progs.
>  the idea of having a viable multi-party election and a decent method to
> measure voter preference is a joined, three-way rope going off in
> directions 120 degrees apart.  Progs get to be Progs, Dems get to be Dems,
> and GOP get to be dicks (errr, Repubs).  we know, because the ballots are
> public record, that the outcome that would have caused the least amount of
> collective disappointment is not the winner that the IRV algorithms picked,
> given the voter preference information available and weighting that equally
> for each voter.
>

dlw:change is hard but it also is crucial..

>
>  KM:So why would IRV improve things enough over Plurality? That verdict,
>> too, has to come from somewhere.
>>
>> dlw: more votes get counted in the final round than with FPTP.  Thus, the
>> de facto center is closer to the true center
>>
> RBJ:i dunno what you mean by "de facto" or "true" center, but neither was
> elected in the Burlington 2009 example.  (but, again, favoring the center
> more than the wings is not why Condorcet is better than IRV.  it is because
> of the negative consequences of electing a candidate when a majority of
> voters prefer an different specific candidate and mark their ballots so.)
>

dlw: There's always a de facto center, depending on the rules of the
election/game.  IRV was instigating a realignment in parties around the
true center.

>
> dlw: and third party candidates can speak out their dissents and force the
>> major party candidates to take them seriously.
>>
> RBJ:well, here the third party won, against the expressed wishes of a
> majority of voters.  i do not agree with the GOPpers that IRV was a method
> taylor made to elect the Progs, it's there to make a three-party system
> work which means that third parties have a good change and win (or lose) on
> their merits, not because they are perceived (or not) as electable.
>

dlw: It makes it so that minor parties get more voice and the two major
parties need to realign to the true center.  A minor party won because the
two major parties were poorly aligned for Burlington.

dlw:  Why not look at the total number of cities that have adopted IRV and
>> see what a small fraction have had buyer's remorse?
>>
>

> RBJ: doesn't look good, David.  Cary NC, Aspen CO, Pierce Co WA, Ann Arbor
> MI, Burlington VT.  it's a damn shame that reform advocates didn't think
> this out a little in advance and sell the ranked-choice ballot tabulated by
> Condorcet instead of Hare.
>

dlw:The evidence for Ann Arbor shows its repeal could be learned from.
http://www.migreens.org/hvgreens/aa-irv01.htm
This is more so if a 2-stage approach is used to reduce the number of
candidates to 3 on the day of the election.
I don't have time to go thru each case, but I know already that anti-reform
activism played an important role in them and would similarly act against
other alternatives to FPTP.

dlw

>
>
> JQ:Basically, the bottom line for me is that I trust real evidence more
> than I trust theory, but I need to find room to take hopeful action. That's
> not a matter of building an elaborate model of reality in my head and then
> repeatedly claiming that I'm a pragmatist; it's a matter of trying to make
> my questions as simple as possible, answering them with evidence, and then
> finding the shortest path of least resistance to hope.
>
> What does the evidence tell us?
>
> A. Evidence about the status quo says:
> 1. Plurality is a theoretically-horrible system, with no redeeming
> features.
>

dlw: it's less bad in the "less local" elections taht tend to be
competitive.  It redirects third party activism to "more local" activism or
to the politics of Gandhi/MLKjr that move the center.


> 2. Single-member districts have certain advantages, but also serious
> problems; I'd say that on the whole the problems dominate. (?)
>

dlw: moreso if they're only used.


> 3. In practice, the problems with both plurality and single-member
> districts seem to culminate in two-party domination.
>

dlw: At issue is whether alts to plurality that retain the use of primarily
single-member districts will end two-party domination.
I'd go further and say the near exclusive use of single-member districts
(or something that acts like single-member) tends to culminate in
single-party domination.
Although, there can be an in-between time where two-parties duke it out in
a cut-throat competition to become the dominant party.


> 4. It takes a lot of money to get elected in the current system.
> 5. Status quo politics are badly broken.
>

dlw: yup.

> 6. It's likely that 3 is one main cause of 4, and that 3 and 4 together
> are the main causes of 5. Thus there is a need to change either plurality,
> single-member districts, or both. (?)
>
dlw:  It's cuz we're caught in-between two major parties trying to get a
perm majority or keep the other from getting a perm majority that things
are so badly broken.  It's not because there are two dominant parties. ...

>
> B. Evidence about IRV says:
> 1. There's been a well-organized and decently-funded national campaign for
> IRV. I'm speakin of course about Fairvote, whose spending on IRV over its
> history has probably totalled millions of dollars.
> 1a. It's had real successes
> 1b. It's still fallen widely short of the progress that is needed.
>

ie. it doesn't end the tendency for there to be two major parties, which
may or may not be need to change to get the changes we need.


> 2. Even in places that were initially favorable to IRV, and have tried it,
> opposition is persistent. (This includes Australia, where reputable polls
> have found majorities favoring changing the system.)
>

This could be because of the way single-member is used in the lower house
and PR is used in the upper house...


> 3. IRV pathologies can happen in real life.
> 4. Especially when pathologies happen, IRV is subject to repeal.
>

The CW is not guaranteed to win and there are spoiled grapes phenomena that
can be used to repeal IRV.


> 5. IRV does not seem to end two-party domination; certainly it does not do
> so reliably. (?)
> 6. In a hard-fought national referendum in the UK, where both sides had
> significant funding and organization, IRV lost resoundingly.
>

dlw: Labor leaders didn't support it well, Lib-Dems fell in populairty and
Conservatives had a very successful obfuscatory campaign, including the
excessive amount of attenting given to a royal wedding....   If IRV is so
ineffective then why bother?

>
> C. Evidence about other single-winner systems says:
>  1. Non-IRV voting activists are, as a whole, fractious and disorganized.
> 2. It is very difficult to get all voting reform advocates to agree on a
> single best system.
> 2a. It's especially difficult to get theorists to support IRV in spite of
> its theoretical flaws. (?)
>
dlw: You mean in spite of its empirical first-mover and marketing
advantages and well demonstrated advantages over FPTP.


> 3. It is less difficult to get reform advocates and theorists to agree
> that a set of systems are all better than plurality.
> 4. Other single-winner reforms haven't been implemented much.
> 5. Therefore, there is little evidence of what would happen after they
> were implemented, although we can theorize. (?)
>

dlw: There is evidence that attacking IRV in favor of a holy-grail
alternative may well be a chasing after of the wind.

>
> D. Evidence about PR says:
> 1. PR can end two-party domination.
>
dlw: Or end one-party domination and make two-party domination more
contested.


> 2. With PR, there can still be fewer competitive elections and more safe
> seats than voters would like to see. (?)
> 3. When combined with a parliamentary system, PR can lead to instability.
> 3a. But there are reasons to believe that those problems would not
> generalize to a presidential system. (?)
> 4. PR is a more-radical change than single-winner reform.
> 4a. It may be harder to promote to an American audience.
> 4b. It may be harder to sell to politicians who have won in the status quo.
> 5. PR systems can be tuned to optimize various advantages, but it's hard
> to find a system which is perfect in all ways (simple, local,
> voter-centric, doesn't require ranking dozens of candidates) (?)
>

dlw: 3-seat LR Hare is simple, local, keeps it one candidate per party and
one vote per voter.
It's best used in conjunction with a single-winner rule to ensure adequate
hierarchy.

>
> JQ: There's plenty of reasons for pessimism in the above. David seems to
> find his optimism by emphasizing points B1a, C1, C4, D1, and D5, and giving
> (plausible) counterarguments for points B1b, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6,
> C2a (though he backed off from a bet), D4a, and D4b. That's 9 points he's
> trying to overcome (though since B4 is little more than B2+B3, I guess it
> may be more like 8 than 9).
>

dlw: I'm sorry I don't like betting.  It's a cultural thing.

>
> JQ: I on the other hand think that the path of least resistance is to
> emphasize C3 as a way to overcome C1, C2, and C4. I think that it's better
> to fight reality on 2-3 points than on 8-9, no matter how plausible the
> arguments that the 8 or 9 battles are winnable.
>

dlw: I'd rather just hit Am forms of PR really hard as a foot-soldier that
accepts that whatever form of PR gets pushed, it'll make things better than
just using single-member/winner election rules.

>
> One specific response:
>
>> JQ:
>>
> 3. Some other organization pushes some other system(s), and reaches a
>> tipping point.
>>              dlw:IOW, they need to reinvent what FairVote's been working
>> hard to build up for some time...
>>
> Yep. It's a lot of work. If voting reform were an easy task, we (and I
> include Fairvote in that "we") would have won already.
>

dlw: Aye, but the struggle is just as much one within.
dlw

>
> JQ
>
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