[EM] hello from DLW of "A New Kind of Party":long time electoral reform enthusiast/iconoclast-wannabe...

[David L Wetzell]

Hello Walabio, et al.

On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 4:41 AM, ⸘Ŭalabio‽ <Walabio at macosx.com> wrote:

> >       6.      I advocate for FairVote's IRV3.
>
>         I hate to break this to you, But FairVote.Org is Astroturf.  The
> Republicrats and Democans know that people want reform.  IRV (Instant
> Runoff-Voting) is a reform changing nothing.  We need to take a step back
> and look at Duverger’s Law:
>

dlw: IRV3 hardly changes nothing.  It doesn't by itself change the tendency
for there to be two major parties, but I take issue with the view that that
has to be changed.

In my explanation of Strategic Election Reform, I outline my vision of a
contested duopoly with 2 major parties, an indefinite number of minor
parties trying to replace one of the two major parties or for one of them
to merge with them on their terms, and a large numer of LTPs, Local Third
Parties who specialize in contesting "more local" elections and who vote
strategically together in "less local" elections as a part of their wider
practice of the politics of Gandhi, as I believe will emanate from the #OWS
led political cultural changes.

So IRV3 gives dissenters more exit threat and voice in elections and it
makes both of the two major parties reposition themselves closer to the
true political center (a moving target) more often.
What's not enough is IRV3 alone, but that's not what FairVote is pushiing.

>
>        Duverger’s Law is an observation.  Let us suppose that we have more
> candidates on the left than right.  Let us also suppose that we use
> plurality (only vote for one candidate for each office).  The candidates on
> the left will split the vote causing the 1 of the candidates on the right
> to win.  Over time, this causes only one party on the left and one party on
> the right to survive.  That is why we have republicrats and democans.
>

My dissent from Duverger's law is that I think it's the Economies of scale
in winning single-seat elections that leads to fewer "major parties" and
that this tends to be true with almost all single seat elections.  Why,
because rational choice theory for politics is not very realistic.  We do,
as a matter of fact, act not unlike sheep a good deal of the time,
especially when it comes to politics.  As a result, marketing matters in
the (re)formation of preferences and there are economies of scale in
marketing, or reshaping the preferences of enough people to win a big
single-seat elections, thereby leading to major parties.

>
>        Now to IRV.
>
>        With IRV, one ranks the candidates.  One eliminates candidates from
> the ballot.  In IRV, someone on the right may list Libertarian first, but
> just in case list Republican as third.  Someone on the left might list
> Green as first, but list Democrat as third.
>
>        People will disagree about who should be first or second, leading
> to eliminations to third place.  In third place, one only finds
> republicrats and democans.  Let us look at Australia as an example:
>
>        In Australia, one finds 2 houses.  1 house represents the political
> views of Australia and uses STV (Single Transferable Vote).  The other
> house represents the interests of districts.  It uses IRV.  In the
> STV-house, one finds lots of parties and independents.  In the IRV-house,
>  one finds only 2 parties with no independents and no third-parties.
>

Aye, and that's not per se a bad thing.

There's a thing in the social sciences called, "the problem of
order<http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22problem+of+order%22+spengler&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=14759l16228l2l16537l8l7l1l0l0l0l328l1552l0.2.4.1l8l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&biw=1366&bih=631&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=ws>".

"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve
change amid order. "  We need both hierarchy and equality and change and
continuity in working out the rules that govern us all, and this is
possible with a contested duopoly in our political systems.


>
>        IRV occasional reverses whether the republicrat or democan wins but
> does not allow independents or third-parties to win:
>
>        If we would have had IRV in 2000, Gore would have won, but in
> Presidential Election since 1856 no third-party or independent would have
> won under IRV.
>

And very likely any other single-seated election...
It's costly to run an effective multi-seat US Presidential election.  This
does not deny third parties a constructive role in our political system,
however.

>
>        Many competitive single-winner voting systems exists such as
> Condorcet, Score-Voting, Approval, et cetera.  My favorite is Approval
> because it is simple and runs on existing voting equipment:
>
>        http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/Approval_voting


I'm familiar with AV and SV.  I've dialogued on these matters at length
with Dale Sheldon Hess and Clay/Broken Ladder at my blog.
<http://anewkindofparty.blogspot.com/2010/07/strategic-election-reform-vs-approval.html>
AV and SV are not as great when you relax the assumption of cardinal
utility preferences over politicians among voters.  As I stated above, I
like using a limited form of AV to reduce the number of candidates in IRV3
to three.  You'd agree that IRV works far better with 3 than very many
candidates?

>
>
>        I hope that you will be weary of the Astroturf of FairVote.Org now.
>  For a general feeling of the feelings of voting experts, you should read
> this position-paper:
>
>
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oyJLxI9dciXBbowM5mougnbGHzkL3Ue1QkD8nnMwWLg/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1
>
>        The position-paper is a work in progress.


dlw: The real issue with Electoral Reform is a marketing problem, not an
analytical problem.  FairVote is great at marketing.  Most electoral reform
experts, including myself, aren't.  And, as I stated before, given the fact
that we are in a FPTP-dominated political system, there can only be one
alternative to FPTP at a time locally.  I don't have a problem with that
alternative being IRV.  It doesn't bother me if IRV isn't self-evidently
the best election rule from an analytical standpoint.

dlw
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