[EM] Election-Methods Digest, Vol 89, Issue 7

[David L Wetzell]

>
>
>> dlw: Or what if the Dems get smart instead of angry and decide to work
>> things thru with the Progs?  It's not IRV, it's the fact that the Dems
>> weren't progressive enuf so as to make the Progs gain popularity and risk
>> spoiling things for the Dems.  This is the same dynamic that exists today
>> for FPTP.
>>
>
> AJ:Yes, ideally that would happen.
>
> But as you say, the same dynamic exists today with FPTP.  And what has it
> led to?  Total marginalization of third parties.  Everyone knows you only
> should vote for the top two parties, otherwise you're wasting your vote.
>  Two-party domination.  I'm not happy with that, and it seems to me that
> IRV is prone to the same equilibrium.
>

dlw: IRV is not prone to that same dysfunctional equilibrium.  It gives
voters more exit threat and makes the major party candidates give third
party candidates more respect.   And the kicker for me is to pair advocacy
for IRV with American forms of Proportional Representation, since the
latter will go along ways to getting third parties more voice, even if it
doesn't help to elect that many third party candidates.

>
> AJ:On the other hand, the Tea Party movement has shown that the major
> parties are movable, to some degree.  So I see what you're saying.  Maybe
> they would be more movable with IRV.  But now you're talking about the
> whole electoral/political landscape compensating for faults in IRV.
> Wouldn't it be better just to pick a better voting system to base the
> system on in the first place?
>

dlw: Maybe, just as the theoretical faults of IRV are not so important
because of how they are so theoretical, the theoretical virtues of other
alternatives to IRV are not so virtuous in reality?

Like I've stated, choices among political candidates are fuzzy choices and
so our rankings and scorings of them are always going to be ad hoc and
sometimes less can be more.

If electoral scholars/enthusiasts like us can't agree on the right
alternative to rally around then it's best to stick with what's been a
useful rule.  For in most cases, IRV has worked and if it had been allowed
to stay in place in Burlington VT, it would have worked.


> Also, you made a remark at one point that the United States political
> landscape is naturally highly-polarized into two parties so we should try
> to work within that landscape.  But I believe Duverger's Law (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law).  That is, the US has
> two-party domination _because_ we use plurality voting.  I believe the
> political landscape would quickly re-configure itself if we had a better
> voting system.
>

dlw: I dissent from Duverger's Law.  I think it's single-winner
elections(not plurality voting) that lead to two (or one) party domination,
while winner-doesn't-take-all elections lead to greater pluralism.

My thoughts on this come from reading empirical findings in "Choosing an
Electoral System<http://anewkindofparty.blogspot.com/2011/04/choosing-electoral-system-part-i.html>".
 There are economies of scale in winning a big single-winner election,
regardless of what sorts of options are given to voters.  This is why there
tends to be either two major parties(coalitions of coalition) or two major
coalitions of parties (coalitions of coalitions).  And I don't think those
two things are *that *different from each other...

This is why in my The Tri-Election Triage
<http://anewkindofparty.blogspot.com/2011/08/tri-election-triage-ttt-my-sometimes-co.html>,
I call for the use of both American forms of PR in "more local" elections
that most need it to be competitive, and the use of IRV(or another
alternative to FPTP) in "less local" elections and then a three-stage
approach to the election of the President.

This is meant to secure a contested duopoly that gives scope for Local
Third Parties (LTPs) who take advantage of the diseconomies in the
formation of community to check the influence of $peech on both major
parties and all wannabes.
dlw

>
> ~ Andy
>
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