[EM] Re et al Chicken and Egg

[David L Wetzell]

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 6:18 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm <
km_elmet at lavabit.com> wrote:

> On 12/21/2011 05:10 AM, David L Wetzell wrote:
>
>> Happy Holidays, I reply to RBJ, Ted Stern, Dave Ketchum and Kristofer M
>> below.
>>
>
> (...)
>
>
>  DK:But when marketers lie and get caught, potential customers get
>>> suspicious as to future marketing.
>>>
>>
>> dlw: To simplify is not to lie.
>>
>
> "IRV finds the majority winner". Given that IRV doesn't even do that by
> its own standards when it's limited to three ranks, is that a lie or
> simplification?


It finds the majority winner more often than FPTP and always improves the
percent of votes allocated to the winner over a comparable FPTP election.


> KM: "IRV solves the spoiler problem". Given that IRV exhibits center
> squeeze, which by its nature involves spoilers, is that a lie or
> simplification?


dlw: It's only a problem if the two major parties are not aligned around
the center.  This is what tends to be the case in the US historically.
 It's what would have become the case in Burlington VT if IRV had been
retained.


> KM:"In IRV, voters just have to vote honestly". Given the Burlington
> example, is that a lie or simplification?
>

dlw: Once again, the standard case in the US, the audience of FairVote, is
for there to be 2 major parties strategically positioned around the de
facto center.  You cut the legs to what would have been an increasingly
defunct GOP in Burlington, VT and it becomes 100% true.

>
> KM:Where do you draw the line between separating lie and simplification?
> Do you just fit the line or curve so that all the counter-IRV objections
> get clustered on the disingenuous side of the line and the IRV marketing
> arguments get clustered on the "oh, merely marketing simplifications" side
> of the line?


dlw: Context.  And FairVote gets the benefit of the doubt in my book
because they're the ones doing the spade-work of actually pushing for
electoral reforms with US voters with very limited frames of reference for
electoral reform.

>
>
>  Now to Kristopher M.
>> On 12/14/2011 09:59 PM, David L Wetzell wrote:
>>
>>     if we push hard for the use of American Proportional Representation
>>>>    it'll give third parties a better chance to win seats and they will
>>>>    prove great labs for experimentation with electoral reform.
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>  KM: You keep on saying that. We can keep stating our priors until the
>>> cows come home, but that won't do anything. Instead we should find some
>>> information that would resolve the uncertainty.
>>>
>>
>> dlw: What uncertainty?  These are not simply priors.
>>
>
> The uncertainty within the parameters that you call p_irv and x_irv, and
> the uncertainty within the truth that the party dynamics will behave the
> way you do.
>

dlw: There's not much uncertainty about P_IRV being considerably bigger
than P_Other, at least in the near future in the US.  As for X_IRV, I can
only keep adding args that |Xirv-Xoth| is not-so-great in real life and
that the absence of a clear-cut single alternative alternative to FPTP
makes it so that lower PIRV does not raise POth proportionately.

As for party dynamics, quasi-proportional PR in "more local" elections
isn't rocket science, neither are the fact that it'd prevent either major
party from dominating a state's politics, which is the basis for the
perceived tendency among politicos in the US for a party to get a permanent
majority.  If you take that prize away, you increase the incentives for
whichever two major parties are on top to cooperate.

>
> In other words, because we disagree, and because there is only one set of
> facts, one reality, there must be some discrepancy in our parameters wrt
> their "true" (God's value, to use Quinn's metaphor) values.
>

dlw: I agree.  I think the root diff is our assessment of the badness of a
two-party dominated system.  I believe from my country's history that it's
not so bad if handicapped by the use of multi-winner elections in "more
local" elections and if the duopoly is contested by minor parties, as was
the historical practice in my country.   Because of this assessment, I
don't mind the fact that IRV doesn't always get the Condorcet Winner when
the two major parties fail to align themselves around the de facto center,
as was the case in Burlington VT.  I see such as a way to incentivize the
two major parties to realign themselves.

>
> If we had the same priors, i.e. the same judgement of either the likely
> range of these parameters or of the data from which we make the conclusion
> about the likely range of these parameters, we would be in agreement. We're
> not, so we don't.


But the burden of proof is still on your side, not mine, due to how
Pirv>>Poth.

>
>
>  PR does help 3rd parties(we agree right?) and American forms of PR would
>> tend to help LTPs since there'd be fewer seats in plenty of "more local"
>> "super-districts", this tends not to encourage nation-wide 3rd parties.
>>
>
> KM:PR does help third parties; or rather, we can say that systems that
> give political minorities representation help the organizations that
> represent those minorities. If your American PR does just that, then it
> will help third parties.
>

dlw:By sort of helping third parties, we would give minorities more exit
threat and thereby also more voice within the major parties.

>
> KM:Of course, it is possible to twist PR so that it is no longer PR. Using
> a divisor rule with an enormous large-party bias would be one way of doing
> it, for instance. Having a very low number of seats per district is another
> way, as that imposes an effective threshold below which a group gets no
> representation.


dlw: The barrier will be higher, but there'd be other positive effects
without nailing proportionality.  But this is why I very much want 3 seat
LR Hare to get third party state reps elected.  I can live with a 3-5 seat
STV with a Droop Quota for US congressional elections as a matter of
realpolitik, but I think it's important to give third parties a
constructive role to play in the US's democracy, which means helping them
get representation.

>
>
>  3rd parties are great places to experiment with electoral reform.
>> This would especially be true with LTPs since any org that is smaller
>> and consequently has less hierarchy is better at innovating.  And, when
>> you got a whole lot of 3rd parties, as with LTPs, there's great scope
>> for experimentation.  The kicker is to get them to share with others
>> about the experiments so that the results will trickle out and up.
>>
>
> But that's the whole point. You have constructed an elaborate ecology
> where small parties compete on a local level, somehow build up large enough
> momentum, and then challenge the big parties. You think that if we
> institute STV+IRV, then the sort of system we're going to get is the system
> you detail, that it will be good, and that it's going to succeed at what
> you say it is going to do.
>

dlw: It's based on my country.  Small parties don't need to build up enuf
momentum to become minor parties who can challenge the major parties. The
US is far more politically heterogenous than say Norway.  So even if our
system tends to be dominated by 2 major parties, the "right" two parties
will differ by state and that will enable minor parties who are able to be
among the top two in at least one state to challenge the major parties.

As for LTPs, they're more like hybrids between the traditional intermediary
institutions<http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=intermediary+institutions+tocqueville#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&source=hp&q=%22intermediary+institutions%22+tocqueville&pbx=1&oq=%22intermediary+institutions%22+tocqueville&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=974l974l1l1422l1l1l0l0l0l0l179l179l0.1l1l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=69cdc300061f0b46&biw=1490&bih=1000>that
Tocqueville wrote about as crucial for the US's democracy and a minor
party.  The limited successes of the tea-party movement and the unfair
limitations on third parties for "less local" elections are making such a
natural vent for dissenters from the major parties.

>
> However, the system has never been tried. Therefore, we don't have any
> exact data from which to draw conclusions. Where we do have somewhat
> similar data, you say it's not applicable -- even local AU elections that
> you'd think would have different "local third parties" but don't.
>

dlw: We have neither major party dominating the politics of IL for a
century in the US while 3-seat quasi-proportional elections were used for
state reps elections.  We have third party successes that changed the
behavior of the two major parties in the economic hinterland of IL, as
illustrated by LaFollette's Progressive Party in WI and the DFL party in
MN, during the same time period.  We have a historic tradition of
intermediary institutions forcing the two major parties to be more
accountable in the US.   My proposed idea, while different, is in
continuity with that tradition.

>
> KM:So, in the absence of all of that, the only thing we have is theory.
> Well, theory and your Illinois example. I think that it's a very risky
> assumption to put the Illinois example against Yee, criteria, etc. and then
> say that the Illinois example wins. Furthermore, I think it's silly to take
> that risk when the opportunity of reform presents itself: better do it
> right and have something that *will* work, than rely on limited examples
> and push for something that only might.
>

dlw: Has the Condorcet winner been used much for political elections?  If
IRV examples are scarce then other purportedly better single-winner
examples are even more scarce...   IL wins because it's empirical.  It
lasted for a century and was only ended by a very misleading referendum
campaign during a time of great antipathy against state legislators.

> More later...

dlw
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