[EM] My diffs w. Kristofer are not anti-reason.

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 01:26 PM 7/2/2013, David L Wetzell wrote:

>On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 11:12 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax 
><<mailto:abd at lomaxdesign.com>abd at lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
>At 02:16 PM 6/30/2013, David L Wetzell wrote:
>I've argued that the combination of aspects of the US political 
>system in our constitution, namely the import of winner-take-all 
>presidential/senatorial/gubernatorial elections(obviously hard to 
>change), + habits built up among many US voters( used to 2-party 
>dominated system, inequalities in the quality/quantity of eduation) 
>+ bounded rationality of voters make it wise to assume the continued 
>two-party domination of the US political system.
>
>
>While it may be *reasonable* to assume continued domination, in some 
>areas, it is not *wise*.
>
>
>Wisdom entails consideration of real world precedents, such as how 
>positive election reforms have tended to be 
><https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&ie=UTF-8#output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=elite-mass%20interactions&oq=&gs_l=&pbx=1&fp=e16824eab702e431&ion=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.48572450,d.aWc&biw=1366&bih=603>elite-mass 
>interactions.

If we look beyond mere electoral reform to all reform, which is a 
broader sample, we can see that reforms do have, generally, an 
elite-mass interaction stage. It is not the first stage. Something 
influences the elite -- the minority of politicians -- to espouse 
reform. It has not uncommonly been one person with an idea, which is 
then taken up by a popularizer, which then reaches the elite.

The original idea sparked something that was latent, already.

>
>Essentially, one of the possible positive functions of voting system 
>reform would be encouragement of a healthy multiparty system, even 
>if there continue to be two major parties *in most elections.*
>
>IRV+ American forms of PR will do exactly that.

Would, but won't. It would short-term encourage it, until it goes 
down in flames. (Not PR, by the way, just IRV, but IRV might possibly 
take down PR with it.)

>   The presences of 2 major parties *in most elections* is the 
> essence of a 2-party dominated system.   It will be a healthy 
> system because the 2 major parties will be more meritocratic and 
> their duopoly will be easier to contest.

Sure as to the "essence." IRV would, again, have that short-term 
effect, if it can be implemented. The problem would be that where it 
succeeds, it will then fail, and this will certainly be noticed. 
Given that there are far better methods, easier to canvass, not 
requiring the expensive conversion to IRV and the difficulties IRV 
brings -- talk to the election audit people! -- we don't need to 
waste time and money on a system that we know *will* fail.

>We *already have* places in the U.S., with elections, where there 
>are three major parties.

>Depends on how you define major parties,

That's silly. Anything depends on "how you define." A major party is 
a party that, in an election, is favorited by a large number of 
voters, such that it routinely finishes, as to that designation, in 
the top two. We are considering the situation where a third party 
advances to challenge this, what happens when it gets close to parity 
or passes it? In this discussion, it is a party that is essentially 
unchallegable by a minor party, the effect with plurality is only a 
possible spoiler effect if it preferentially draws votes away from 
one of the major parties. IRV fixes that spoiler effect, but then 
fails miserably, on occasion, when there are three major parties, 
i.e., a third party is close to parity.

>  but yes regional diversity + cross-regional subsidies have been a 
> major source of potential threats to duopoly in US political history.

Duopoly is not an interest group that can be threatened. Some people 
do like duopoly and argued for it, and they have some points.

Missing entirely in this discussion is how parties in a two-party 
system make their nominations. What a two-party system does is to 
split an election into a round-robin contest, effectively, as with 
baseball leagues, and with the World Series being the major election.

>
>
>
>    I have argued more recently that in addition that economic 
> factors involved with running for an important single-winner 
> election tend to reduce the number of competitive candidates and in 
> combination with the likely continued 2-party domination reduce the 
> feedback loop from a change in election rule to increased numbers 
> of competitive candidates in single-winner elections.
>
>
>IRV is being promoted for nearly all elections, regardless of 
>conditions. We know that advanced voting systems will encourage 
>additional candidates to run, that's obvious and it shouldn't be 
>questioned. Yes, there are natural limits in those "important 
>single-winner elections," i.e,. elections on a large scale. We do 
>not clearly know how rapidly a minor party might grow if not for the 
>first-order spoiler effect, which IRV does resolve.
>
>
>dlw: It's called keeping things simple in marketing to people with 
>opp. costs to learning about politics, much less electoral analytics.

Elitist. Cynical manipulator of people "for their own good." David, 
those are terms that are coming up in my mind. Why?

>   Yes, the number of candidates will grow and get more respect from 
> people, obviously minor parties might grow and then get 
> coopted?   The issue is how often it'd lead to the scenarios where 
> it'd be nice to have more rankings or approval votes or 
> what-not.  I'm willing to wait and see, let folks get habituated to 
> IRV before delving into experiments with other single-winner 
> election rules in the USA.

The failures of IRV will damage the chances of election reform. We 
also saw how the addition of an IRV option torpedoed an Approval 
Voting initiative in the Arizona Senate. It may come back, but ... 
IRV is a dead weight. It's time to cut the line and let it sink.


>Howver, given that minor parties still often maintain ballot 
>presence, given how much of an obstacle currently exists for such 
>parties, due to Plurality voting, given that IRV would not increase 
>the obstacle, it would relieve it and open the door, David's 
>argument seems facile. Once minor parties can get, in public 
>elections, validation for true support and thus increased ballot 
>position, we can expect *as a reasonable possibility* that, in 
>places, the minor party will rise to parity.
>
>
>dlw: It's one thing to make it easier for folks to get on the ballot 
>but to rise to parity is another question.  More likely there'd be 
>some mergers to ward off Burlington-like scenarios.

Very unlikely, David. What might happen is Fusion Voting. But the 
major parties have opposed it, that's why it failed in Massachusetts.

>
>
>And that is precisely where IRV breaks down, badly, as it did break 
>down in Burlington. IRV is a *terrible* single-winner method when 
>there are three viable candidates or more. So why set this up? Why 
>not use a *simpler* method that also addresses the spoiler effect?
>
>
>dlw: With one more election and voter-learning, Burlington would've 
>worked out just fine.

Right. The Republicans learn to vote insincerely? David, I'm going to 
just come right out and say it: you are an idiot. The whole point of 
IRV there was that voters could supposedly vote sincerely? How are 
these voters going to be "educated." Is FairVote going to run a 
campaign saying, "Hey, if you vote for your favorite, it could cause 
your worst nightmare, so vote for your favored frontrunner"?

Don't you think that these voters would recognize, hey, we could have 
done that with Plurality. Why are we running this complicated system?

>  It's true that IRV does coerce supporters of a major party that 
> refuses to realign itself towards the true center to vote strategically.

Please make sure that this is incorporated in FairVote propaganda in 
the future. Say it like that. It's coercing "supporters." I.e, 
voters. And we have, here, someone who may think of himself as a 
voting system reformer, but he's really just another anti-democracy cynic.

>With one more election, presuming a comeback in popularity was not 
>acheived by the Progressive party, the Republicans would've either 
>shifted to be more like the Dems or they'd have lost their moderates 
>to the Dems so that GOP would've sunk into the minor/third party 
>status they deserve in Burlington and maybe started to push for 
>American forms of PR.

But it won't happen. IRV killed the possibility. The Progressives may 
come back, it's fascinating that they sat that last election out. But 
it's really a minor party, it's only locally large. One wonders why 
they are separate from the Greens, who also ran a candidate with tiny 
support. Something is odd about Burlington politics.

>
>
>Bucklin would do it with ease, it is extremely easy to understand, 
>no surprises, and it has what I'd call "historical momentum."
>
>
>not recently.

That's why I called it "historical momentum," not just "momentum."

>
>FairVote has attempted to confuse that history, it's one of their 
>more objectionable activities. Bucklin worked. It did not do 
>everything that was claimed for it, that's all. It did not magically 
>generate majorities in party primaries, but there is *no* claim that 
>it caused harm. Bucklin is *better* than IRV as to finding 
>majorities, in a nonpartisan election context (and a party primary 
>is a nonpartisan election), because it can uncover support for a 
>candidate, underneath support for the favorite. Bucklin votes only 
>add, and there are no eliminations. It's "instant runoff Approval."
>
>
>Bucklin voting sounds like a great rule to push for nonpartisan 
>elections, like primaries.   Let's hope that FairVote will concede that.

Good luck. They might, *if they have any sense*. But we remain 
unconvinced of that. They are more like an artillery shell than a 
guided missile. That's true of a lot of long-term political advocacy 
organizations. They lose their ability to retarget intelligently. But 
you never can tell.

>
>My next arg was that if the average number of competitive candidates 
>wouldn't be likely to grow too much with the adoption of a, 
>Condorcet-like or Approval-like or IRV-like election rule that it 
>would lower the value-added from Condorcet-like or Approval-like 
>rules relative to a variant of IRV.
>
>*Any method* that eliminates the first-order spoiler effect will 
>encourage *many* more candidacies. I don't see that I understood, 
>however, what David was saying here. Too many variable or negative 
>conditions to parse readily.
>
>competitive candidates it the key term.  In terms of the models that 
>Warren Smith likes to use to evaluate election rules, candidates 
>come from a mixed distribution with competitive candidates having an 
>a priori decent chance at election and non-competitive candidates 
>having a very small chance, even with a "good" rule.

That's right.

>   My point is that the economics of running for serious 
> single-winner elections and voter quirks in real life make it 
> easier for the number of non-competitive candidates to increase 
> while the number of competitive candidates would increase less, 
> regardless of the election rule used.

You do realize that some reforms some of us are working on would 
reduce the cost of running for election, right?

>
>
>
>I then have argued that if the short-run probability of widespread 
>implementation of an IRV-like rule in our current US system with all 
>of the previous conditional factors plus the first-mover marketing 
>advantage of IRV-like system out weighs the short-run probabilities 
>of other alternatives to FPP then it doesn't per se matter if there 
>is some value-added from such alternatives relative to IRV.
>
>
>This is a circular argument. The "marketing advantage" of IRV is 
>useless if the method will be rejected.
>
>
>There is no good reason to insist it will be rejected.

It's not an insistence, it's a prediction.

>   The tactics used during Burlington can be subverted if we all 
> defend IRV-like election rules as very useful ways to help the 
> USA's beleaguered democracy so long as they're combined with 
> American forms of Proportional Representation.

"Tactics used in Burlingon?" What tactics, and by whom were they 
used. And we are *not* "all" going to defend IRV-like election rules, 
unless those shift substantially. Is Bucklin "IRV-like?" If so, we 
can start to talk. Otherwise this is a waste of time.

>  Burlington was arguably a fluke, hardly enough evidence to settle 
> the matter...

Once again, that "idiot" word comes to mind. The method behaved in 
Burlington as it would behave in any town with that kind of political 
balance, often. You've completey missed the point. FairVote promoted 
IRV in a place where it was very likely to fail, and spectacularly. 
That's because Richie is a professional political activist, and his 
income depends on "success." And any implementation is a "success." 
Even if it fails and damages the whole election reform movement.

>
>
>More people know about IRV, yes, and most of them don't know about 
>the problems, but ... these do come out in campaigns for 
>implementation. We have to notice, now, how many jurisdictions have 
>tried IRV and have later rejected it. Maybe it's time for a fresh approach.
>
>
>You need more evidence.  Why not wait and see and support the best 
>known alternative to fptp or top two primary whereever there is a 
>push for election reform?

Because I prefer FPTP. Smoke that. I prefer it because it's honest, 
voters know exactly what they are doing. It is very easy to 
understand. And we can make that simple system better by simply 
Counting All the Votes. Approval.

>  IRV will likely remain in the lead and we must do no harm against it.

It's dead. Good riddance. Go jump in a lake.

David, what it the world makes you imagine this argument would fly here?

>   For IRV's widespread adoption and internalization  will make it 
> easier for other election reforms down the road.

Not if it fails as it did, as it will.

>
>
>This is what I'd predict: at great expense, a jurisdiction 
>implements IRV. As a result, a minor party grows in strength until 
>it challenges a major party. Then there is a spectacular failure, 
>where voters realize that they'd have gotten a better result by not 
>voting. They realize that the promise that they could now vote 
>sincerely was a *lie.* They realize that the promise of finding 
>majorities was *highly deceptive.*
>
>
>dlw: Nonsense.

Bye. Good luck with whatever hobby you take up. I suggest knitting.

I did not read the rest.