[EM] 17) APR: Steve's 17th dialogue with Richard Fobes

[Richard Fobes]

On 4/8/2015 1:20 AM, steve bosworth wrote:
 > ...
 > 2) ... unlike APR, VoteFair ranking cannot allow each
 > elector to guarantee that her one vote will continue to count in the
 > assembly through the elected candidate (i.e. rep) she ranked most
 > highly. ...
 > ...
 > 3) Also, unlike APR, VoteFair rankings cannot allow each of its reps to
 > have a weighted vote in the assembly exactly equal to the number of
 > electors throughout California who had similarly ranked him most highly.

Actually VoteFair ranking can achieve the equivalent of these goals -- 
assuming, as you do, that highly proportional results are very important 
and the issue of how voting is done in the legislature is ignored.

To see how, let's get specific.

Currently the California State Assembly (the "lower house") has 80 
representatives (legislators), and each representative is elected from 
one of 80 districts.  (A map of the districts is at: legislature.ca.gov)

If VoteFair Ranking were used to elect these state representatives in a 
way that produces proportional results, the district boundaries would be 
changed to form (say) 32 districts.  Each of these districts would use 
VoteFair representation ranking to elect two representatives.

The remaining 16 seats would be filled by "statewide" representatives 
who are elected using VoteFair partial-proportional voting.

(Note: 32 + 32 + 16 = 80.)

Here is how the voting and counting would be done:

* Two years before the current election, each voter will have ranked all 
the (qualified) political parties.  Each voter's favorite party will be 
directly used to determine the parties from which the 16 statewide 
representatives are chosen.

* In the current primary election, each voter ranks all the party's 
candidates in their district.  Within each party the most popular 
candidate will move on to the general election.  In addition, the two 
most popular political parties -- within that district -- are allowed to 
have a second candidate (the second-most popular one) on the general 
election ballot.

* In the general election, each voter ranks all the candidates from 
their district.  The two most-representative candidates will win the two 
seats in their district.

* The general-election ranking of candidates is also used to determine 
the popularity of non-winning candidates.  The most popular of these 
candidates who are from the correct political parties are elected to 
fill the 16 statewide seats.

This method would elect members of the California legislature in a way 
that ensures proportional results.

Also, the weight of each legislator's vote (in the legislature) does 
approximately match the number people who elected that legislator.

What you are overlooking is that each legislator elected this way 
represents the same number of voters.  It is not necessary for the 
representatives to have different voting weights and represent different 
numbers of voters.

As for the linkage, let's consider an example.  A voter in a very 
"conservative" district who is a lesbian can rank as her first choice a 
political party hypothetically named the Stay-Out-Of-My-Personal-Life -- 
SOOMPL -- party.  Her vote will directly translate into electing the 
proportional number of candidates from that political party. 
Specifically, if 10 percent of the voters rank the SOOMPL party as their 
first choice, then about 8 of the elected representatives (which is 10 
percent) will be from that party.  Unlike in your APR method, she will 
not know which representative she "elected," yet collectively the 8 
representatives will know that they represent that specific 10 percent 
of the voters.

Because this female voter is surrounded by "conservative" voters, 
probably none of the elected SOOMPL representatives will be from her 
district.  Instead the elected SOOMPL representatives will come from 
districts where they received the most votes from the voters who also 
ranked the SOOMPL party as their first choice.

Now let's consider the two winning candidates from each district.  Under 
current conditions most districts would elect one Republican and one 
Democrat.  If a district is split into 60 percent Republicans and 40 
percent Democrats, the Republican winner represents the Republican 
voters, and the Democratic winner represents the Democratic voters. 
Other districts would probably have the opposite bias, so the "roundoff 
errors" would tend to cancel out.  Importantly, the overall balance of 
elected Republicans and elected Democrats would be very close to the 
statewide balance, because these numbers are adjusted to be as 
proportional as possible within the limitations of holding 
district-based elections -- which is an essential part of U.S. culture.

The biggest unfairness gap is if one party or the other wins "too many" 
of the district-based seats.  Yet the other party would then get the 
advantage over tiny political parties, such that tiny parties might not 
win any seats.

Yet another linkage between voters and winners is that the "statewide" 
seats are won on the basis of the popularity of that candidate compared 
to the popularity of other candidates from the same party.  In other 
words, a lesbian voter in a "liberal" district would help elect a 
specific SOOMPL candidate.  Ideally the other SOOMPL voters would also 
have first-ranked one of these candidates if that candidate had been 
running in their district.

As another linkage, the primary election would reduce the district 
choices to one candidate per party, except that the two "most popular" 
parties -- according to VoteFair party ranking (which has special 
adjustments) -- would be allowed to offer two candidates each.  This 
means that a stereotypic "Republican" voter or "Democratic" voter would 
have only two choices in "their" party, so either their first-ranked 
choice or their second-ranked choice would win.  This means they are 
represented by either their first choice or their second choice.  And 
only a minority of voters (in each of the two main parties) would not be 
represented by their first choice.  (And remember that their 
first-ranked party is still directly connected to the overall 
party-based count.)

If you want to claim that these VoteFair-based linkages between a 
specific ballot and a specific representative are not as obvious as the 
linkage in your APR method, then I would not dispute that claim.  Yet 
mathematics can identify the linkages.

So, regarding the "wasted votes" concept that you like to refer to (with 
various wordings), both VoteFair ranking and your APR method have 
similar percentages of "wasted votes" -- as I indicated earlier.

You ask how I arrived at those percentages.  A rigorous measurement 
would require running lots of election scenarios through appropriately 
written software, and we don't have that.  Instead I estimated mentally. 
  Could my estimates be incorrect?  Of course.  As I said, they are 
estimates.

The more important fairness difference between VoteFair ranking and your 
APR method is the APR method's vulnerability to corruption through 
monetary tactics.

I will argue that when VoteFair ranking is used, money cannot be used to 
promote -- in an effective way -- a voter to choose a candidate or party 
in a way that does not also undermine the voter's real preferences.

This advantage is significant because all other voting methods that I 
know of -- including your APR method, and including STV (the 
single-transferable vote) -- are vulnerable to money-backed tactics that 
take advantage of counting weaknesses.

I do not dispute your claim that your APR method has the advantage that 
a voter can directly associate their vote with a particular elected 
representative's voting influence.  However, this advantage must be 
weighed against the multiple ways -- that I previously explained -- in 
which your APR method is vulnerable to monetary tactics.

My explanation above assumes that you understand -- after reading my 
book "Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S. Elections" -- how the 
components of VoteFair ranking work, yet I'll be happy to answer any 
specific questions.

This discussion focuses on how the different components work together in 
a scenario where highly proportional results are important, and where 
the issue of voting methods used within the legislature are ignored.  I 
did not emphasize this scenario in my book because civilization is not 
yet even beginning to recognize the need to improve 
parliamentary/legislative voting methods beyond the current simplistic 
"majority-yes-or-no-log-rolling" approach.

I hope my answers to your questions continue to be helpful.

Richard Fobes



On 4/8/2015 1:20 AM, steve bosworth wrote:
> (17) APR: Steve's 17th dialogue with Richard Fobes (Steve)
>
>>  Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2015 12:01:59 -0700
>>
>>  1. Re: (16) APR: Steve's short 16th dialogue with Richard Fobes
>>  (Steve) (Richard Fobes)
>>
>
>>  From: Richard Fobes <ElectionMethods at VoteFair.org>
>>  To: "election-methods at lists.electorama.com"
>>  <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
>
> R: Steve, in your latest message (copied below) you asked several
> questions for which you want a yes or no answer, but your introductory
> wording includes the word "not," which results in questions that are
> double negatives. Plus, some of your questions are worded as if they are
> a single question, yet actually they are multiple questions. …
>
> S:Sorry for these ambiguities.However, now that I have read your book, I
> will try to answer all the questions that I had in mind in the way that
> I think you would have done if I my questions had been free of these
> ambiguities.Please correct me if any of these answers do not reflect an
> understanding of your VoteFair popularity ranking method:
>
> 1a) VoteFair popularity ranking could elect California’s legislative
> assembly by all of its citizens in one day (i.e. one day for the
> primaries and one day for the general election).
>
> 1b) However, even theoretically it could not do this by giving each
> citizen the opportunity to rank as few or as many candidates in the
> whole state as she might wish.It only gives each citizen in a given
> electoral district the opportunity to rank all the candidates seeking to
> be the one elected for that district. In doing so, VoteFair ranking has
> the advantage over all other single-winner systems in that it guarantees
> that the one elected will have been preferred by more voters than any of
> the other candidates for that district.
> 2) At the same time, unlike APR, VoteFair ranking cannot allow each
> elector to guarantee that her one vote will continue to count in the
> assembly through the elected candidate (i.e. rep) she ranked most
> highly. APR allows this but no electoral system (including APR) could
> guarantee that her rep will always vote exactly as she might wish. I
> only claim that APR allows each citizen to guarantee that her one vote
> will be add to the weighted vote in the assembly of the rep she most
> trusts to vote as she wishes (e.g. the one congressperson among the 435
> she believes is the most like to vote in the House as she wishes).APR
> seems to have this representational advantage over the rep(s) elected by
> VoteFair or by any other method.
> 3) Also, unlike APR, VoteFair rankings cannot allow each of its reps to
> have a weighted vote in the assembly exactly equal to the number of
> electors throughout California who had similarly ranked him most highly.
> 4) Given a suitable US constitutional amendment, unlike APR, VoteFair
> ranking could not allow such a voting system to elect all 435
> congresspersons in one day, i.e. each citizen in the country also being
> allowed to rank candidates in states other than the one in which they
> reside.
>
> R: Here are my answers:
>
> VoteFair Ranking takes place during one day for the primary election,
> and another (separate) day for the general election.
>>  When you read my book, pay close attention to the election that Arnold
>>  Schwarzenegger won to become governor of California. That was a special
>>  election that did not have a primary. As a result, there were more than
>>  100 candidates on the ballot competing in a single race for governor.
>>  This demonstrates the essential role of primary elections.
>>
>>  One of the weaknesses of your APR method is that it does not (yet)
>>  accommodate primary elections. I recommend that you modify your method
>>  to include them.
>
> S: Please recall our 10^th dialogue in which you welcomed my simple
> description of how APR would work.This description included an explain
> of how APR’s primary would allow each citizen to determine through which
> ‘association’ she will later rank as few or as many candidates in the
> whole state (or country) in the general election.At the same time, I
> believe we agreed that the number of candidates would be limited to
> those who had either submitted enough signatures of support to the
> central electoral commission, or had submitted an appropriate,
> returnable money deposit.Thus, there would appear to be no need for an
> additional primary to reduce the number of candidates for an APR general
> election.Also, I see APR’s primary as a way of recruiting the most
> attractive candidates for the election of a state’s (or the country’s)
> legislative assembly.At the same time, APR’s way of counting votes
> easily copes with the rankings of many candidates.
>
> However, for the election of a governor (or major, or president), I
> entire agree with you that VoteFair popularity ranking is the best system.
>
> R:You again asked about wasted votes (although without using that
> term).For VoteFair Ranking, the worst-case scenario can produce up to 49
> percent wasted votes.
> For comparison, your APR method can produce up to 90 percent wasted votes.
>
> ………………………….
>>  Of course both methods can achieve zero percent wasted votes in the
>>  best-case scenarios.
>>
>>  For VoteFair Ranking, the typical real-world range of wasted votes would
>>  be about between 30 percent and 15 percent. This is an estimate.
>>
>>  For your APR method, the typical real-world range of wasted votes would
>>  be about between 30 percent and 10 percent. This too is an estimate.
>>
>
> S: I need you to explain the process by which you arrived at these
> percentages.I accept that an APR citizen can choose not to guarantee
> that her vote will be added to the weighted vote of her most favoured
> rep, e.g. when none of the candidates ranked by a citizen are elected,
> she can tick the relevant box on the ballot so as to prevent her first
> choice but eliminated candidate to transfer her one vote to the rep most
> favoured by that eliminated candidate. However, I know of no way for us
> to say that any particular percent of electors will do this.My claim is
> only that each APR citizen has the opportunity to guarantee that her
> vote will continue to count for one in the assembly as described
> above.What makes you think this is not the case?
>
>>
> R: Regarding another question you have, if VoteFair Ranking were used to
>>  elect representatives in the state of California, a voter would only
>>  choose among candidates running in their district, yet a vote for a
>>  non-winning candidate still influences the results in two or three
>>  additional ways -- which you will read about in my book.
>
> S: I understand this but this probable “influence” would seem not to be
> nearly as motivating to a citizen as APR’s offer to guarantee that her
> vote will mathematically count for one within the weighted vote of her
> most favoured rep.
>
> What do you think?
>>  ………………………………
>>  > Steve
>