[EM] Oops! Squeeze-effect.

[Michael Ossipoff]

On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 4:14 PM, Raph Frank <raphfrk at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 5:05 PM, Michael Ossipoff
> <email9648742 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Elimination would start at the extremes. Transfers would be sent
>> inward, until the candidates adjacent to the CW would have collected
>> all of those inward-transferred votes, enough to eliminate the CW.
>
> It seems more realistic that the CW is the centrist

Certainly the CW is the centrist, in the strongest meaning of the word.

In the U.S., however, "centrist" is used deceptively by the media. The
media seem to think that "Centrist" means someone who is between the
Democrats and the Republicans. Their implication is that that's where
the public's genuine center is.  ...the voter median, if the media
ever worded it in that way.

Well, the media are wrong. The public median, in terms of actual
wishes and preferences, is somewhere among the progressive parties,
maybe the Greens. As I always point out, only a schoolground
drug-dealer is regarded as being as despicable, contemptible and
disgusting as a Republocrat politician. Polls consistently show that
the voters are considerably more progressive than their Republocrat
"representatives".

No, the media's "center", between the Democrats and Republicans isn't
where the voter-median is.

I'm just mentioning the double-meaning for "centrist" in this country.




>and one of the 2
> large parties wins.

I believe that we have a progressive majority, if people would just
read the platforms and vote for what they actually want.

As I was saying, I believe that the voter-median is in the progressive
region, maybe where the Greens are.

Approval (or Score) will quickly home in on the voter median and then
stay there. That means it will soon give us governments by progressive
parties such as the Greens, and keep on doing so.

ICT or Symmetrical ICT would get us there a little quicker, but is
less enactable, and more difficult to handcount.

IRV? Well, if the progressive majority is cohesive, a mutual majority,
then IRV will work great for progressives, and the Republocrats will
never win again. But, as I was saying earlier, we don't know if that
majority is mutual, cohesive. That's something that we'll find out
later.

Without a mutual majority, we wouldn't want IRV.

If the progressives aren't cohesive, then the mutual majority might
include the Democrats, and IRV could elect them, even if the
progressives are a (not cohesive) majority.

So yes, under the right bad conditions, even if everyone knew the
progressives were a majority, IRV could elect Republocrats.

And certainly I agree that we don't want IRV now, under the existing
conditions, with our current electorate. Yes, under these conditions,
IRV would keep on electing Republicans and Democrats, as Plurality
does.


>
>> So it's safe to say that IRV isn't at all good at electing CWs or fair
>> compromises.
>
> Right, that is the problem.
>
> IRV supports the 2 party system.  It is not clear if the effect is
> weaker than with plurality.

Yes, IRV would preserve the 2-party system we have now.

IRV wouldn't be as bad as Plurality, but iRV definitely wouldn't be
good enough. It wouldn't be adequate at all, for out electorate now.

>
>> In that squeeze-effect scenario, of course the voters preferring
>> candidates to one side, plus those preferring the CW, must add up to a
>> majority. So there are two majorities, and the one that prevails will
>> be the one on the side that the CW's voters prefer and transfer their
>> votes to, when the CW is eliminated.
>
> 45) L > C > R
> 10) C > L > R
> 45) R > C > L
>
> The center candidate loses.
>
> The mutual majority is (C, L), but the C candidate is the CW.

Yes, the C-L majority would be out of luck.

In a Condorcet method, especially ICT or Symmetrical ICT, C would win.
With Approval or Score (optimally-voted), C would win.  The voters who
like C best would rather have Condorcet, Approval or Score, instead of
IRV.So would the L voters.

The R voters would be quite happy with IRV.

But, what if we vote in a Green government, and everyone knows then
that the progressives are a majority, and that they're a mutual
majority? Then, if that Green government holds a referendum on what
the voting system should be, wouldn't it be to the best advantage of
the progressives to support IRV under those new favorable conditions?

Suppose the progressives are a majority, and all of the members of
that progressive majority would rank all of the progressive candidates
over all the other candidates? With IRV, the progressives would have
an automatic win every time.

Would it be self-serving for the progressives to vote for IRV in that
hypothetical green government voting systems referendum? Of course.
Would there be anything wrong with that self-servingness, or anything
dishonest about it? No. People should support the voting system that
is in their best interest. In the hypothetical (optimistic) situation
I supposed above, the mutual majority (progressives) should support
IRV. Nothing wrong with that.  There's nothing wrong with government
by a cohesive majority.

...on the other hand, if progressives turn out _not_ to have a mutual
majority  then you'll hear me urging progressives to vote for Approval
or Score, and against IRV, in that voting-system-choosing referendum
in that hypothetical Green government.

>> IRV is a special purpose method that should
>> only be supported by beneficiaries of a mutual majority.
>
> It benefits the 2 parties, since they will be the last 2 parties to be
> eliminated.

Well, under current conditions, progressive will fear that if they
don't rank the Democrat in 1st place, and the Greens were popular
enough to eliminate the Democrat, then with the Democrat voters
transferring their votes to the Republican, then the Republican would
win because the progressives ranked honestly. So they'd rank
dishonestly, and would rank the Democrat in 1st place, burying their
favorite, the Green. That's why I don't want IRV, under existing
conditions, with our current electorate.

In other words, IRV will make progressives bury their favorite, and
top-vote the Democrat, just as they do now in Plurality. IRV wouldn't
be any good now.

>
> Spoiler effects mean that voters can't pick the best candidate.  In
> the L/C mutual majority that can just pick L/C as a bloc.

If it's Greens, Democrat and Republican, the Greens would fear that
there's no progressive majority, and that the Democrat must be part of
any majority (I don't think so, but that's what people would believe.
And they'd know that the Democrat voters would probably rank Repub
over Green. So progressives would feat that the mutual majority is
{Dem, Repub}. So they'd rank Democrat in 1st place, giving away the
election to the Democrat, just as progressives do now, every four
years. (every two years in Congress).

Yes, the spoiler problem would remain if we now changed to IRV.


>
> Anyway, "better" systems would not be an advantage for the current
> parties, better to have a 50% chance of winning the election, than a
> centre party wins most of the time.

Better systems will always be disadvantageous for unliked parties,
such as the Democrats and Republicans. Under current conditions, IRV
is a worse system, like Plurality.

Approval or Score would be an excellent system, under any conditions,
but especially needed now, given our electorate, and what they
believe. Yes, a better voting system would mean that the Democrats and
Republicans would soon be all finished.


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