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

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

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*. 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.*

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

>    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.

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.

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?

Bucklin would do it with ease, it is extremely easy to understand, no 
surprises, and it has what I'd call "historical 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."

But no method can handle voter ignorance, which is the primary cause 
of bullet voting. The other cause is strong preference for the 
favorite, which means that Bucklin would be collecting information on 
*preference strength*, which is very important for party primaries! 
We can assume with Bucklin that first preference votes are the same 
as they would be with IRV, the differences will appear in lower preferences.

(An exception would be if voters are allowed to vote for more than 
one in first preference: but voters, with Bucklin, will only do this 
if they have no strong preference. That's a feature, not a bug. I've 
argued that IRV should also allow multiple votes at a rank.)

>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.

>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. 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.

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.*

And so they dump IRV, and, good chance, they go back to what was in 
place before. At least, with Plurality, people understand the effect 
of their vote. And it's cheap and easy to count. And so all that 
implementation work, and the prior campaign, were not only *wasted*, 
but harm was done to the voting reform movement.

Really, David, FairVote should stop the deceptive advertising and 
focus on what is real and what is true reform. FairVote lost their 
original purpose in their "momentum." By suggesting we all sign up 
for that parade you are suggesting that we validate deception. Not 
likely, David. We, and the entire planet, are moving in a very 
different direction.

>[...]
>
>So I take offense at having my views characterized as "religious" or 
>anti-reason when I made clear the diffs between me and Herr 
>Kristofer were epistemic, simply not easy to reconcile from evidence 
>readily available.

We could be less polite if you wish.