[EM] (23) APR: Steve's 23rd dialogue with Richard Fobes

[VoteFair]

On 12/2/2015 5:05 PM, steve bosworth wrote:
 > ... my criticism remains that, in contrast to APR,
 > [VoteFair ranking] limits both
 > the number of parties on the ballot, and the degree to which each of
 > these parties will be represented in the assembly more than is
 > necessary. Remember that you seem quite happy with your system not
 > allowing any representation to one of your parties that had received
 > support from 10% of the electorate in the electoral district.

You are referring to an example that demonstrates a situation in which a 
10% minority of voters have a first preference for a third political 
party, yet many of those voters have expressed a preference for the 
candidates in the most-popular political party.

To better understand the situation, keep in mind that when a voter is 
allowed to express preferences for both candidates and political 
parties, both preferences from each voter cannot be accommodated in all 
cases.  This is especially true when a voter prefers a political party, 
but does not prefer the candidates in that party.

Your APR method has a similar issue.  Consider a voter who expresses 
their preference for a specific "association" (political party), yet 
that voter chooses to give his or her weighted vote to an elected 
official who is in a different "association."

Of course, for both VoteFair ranking and your APR method, if every voter 
prefers the candidates in their own political party as the best 
candidates, then the situation expressed in that book's example does not 
arise.

Also keep in mind that this particular example refers to 100 voters 
electing 10 representatives, so even if the results are considered to be 
"off" by one elected official, that does not yield a 10% "error" in a 
real-life situation.

Specifically, if VoteFair ranking were used to elect the 80 
representatives in the "lower house" of the California "assembly" 
(legislature), and the analogous situation occurred, being "off" by one 
elected official is only a 1.25% "error," not the 10% "error" in the 
simplified example.

Another way to keep this concept in perspective is to consider that when 
a political party offers better candidates than the other political 
parties, that party deserves to win extra seats, even if it means that a 
minor political party does not get as many seats as they would otherwise 
get -- if they had offered better (more representative) candidates.

Again recall that politics is multidimensional and that there are 
frequently reasons for crossing party ("association") lines.

For example, suppose your APR method were used for electing the 80 
members of the (lower house of the) California assembly, and suppose 
that most female Latina voters indicate a preference for a 
Latino-oriented association, yet all the candidates in that 
Latino-oriented association were male.  Many of those female voters 
would give their candidate-based preference to female candidates in 
other associations, based on shared political views regarding issues 
that are most important to those female voters.

In this case your APR method would give the "correct" number of seats to 
the Latino-oriented association, but the representatives in those seats 
would have less than the "correct" level of influence in terms of 
legislative voting power.

 > ... 1)how do you guarantee that the citizens whose votes are wasted by
 > VoteFair will be represented at all in the assembly?
 > ...
 > ... in contrast to APR, VoteFair needlessly wastes some votes both
 > qualitatively and quantitatively.

As partially explained above, when VoteFair ranking is used, very few 
votes are "wasted."

Remember that both APR and VoteFair ranking do two kinds of 
measurements.  One measurement asks for party affiliations, and the 
other measurement asks for candidate preferences.

Your APR method would nearly always elect some representatives who carry 
relatively little weight during legislative voting because very few 
voters chose them as "their" representative.  The result is that power 
is concentrated in the hands of fewer representatives.  In my opinion, 
that is a recipe for more corruption compared to what can occur when all 
the elected representatives have the same voting power.

Before you disagree, consider that "unpopular" representatives would not 
get chosen to be on important committees.  The important committees 
would consist of representatives who have higher levels of voting power.

 > S:Again, I am not claiming that APR guarantees “full” representation.I
 > have only argued that it seems to provide more complete, proportional,
 > and exact representation than any other system of which I am aware
 > (including VoteFair for multi-winner elections).

I can argue that APR's "unpopular" representatives waste representation 
because fewer of the elected representatives -- in fact less than half 
-- hold all the power in the legislature.  When fewer people represent 
the voters, fewer voters are fully represented.

So, if you want to argue about wasted votes, I would argue that your APR 
method "wastes some representative seats."

In contrast, VoteFair ranking does not waste votes.  Rather it uses both 
the candidate-specific measurements and the party-specific measurements 
to fill the seats in a way that spreads power equally to all the elected 
representatives, and in a way that maximizes representation according to 
a balance of both kinds of measurements: candidate-specific and 
party-specific.

 > S: Currently, I assume that we agree,
 >
 > 1)that by “oppression” we mean any state action that violates the “human
 > rights” of any members of its population;

There are different kinds of oppression.  Also, there are countless 
interpretations of the words "human rights."  As a result, a definition 
of oppression that uses the term "human rights" is simply shifting 
ambiguity (multiple meanings) onto another term.

In general I avoid carefully defining words because most words have 
multiple definitions.  You can assume that if you propose a definition, 
I am not going to agree with that definition.  Instead, let's stick to 
talking about concepts, not words.

 > 2)that, unless it is specially defined, a “majority” is anything over 
50%;
 >
 > 3)that the very concept of a representative “democracy” expects a
 > majority of citizens indirectly (i.e. through its elected reps) to rule
 > the whole population against the will of the minority when this is
 > judged to be necessary by that majority; and

You seem to imply that democracy is a yes-or-no categorization.

I regard democracy as being like a ladder, and currently we are near the 
bottom of that ladder because we use primitive single-mark ballots.

Our proposals -- my VoteFair ranking and your APR method -- make 
improvements in collecting preferences and calculating results, but 
there are yet higher levels of democracy, as pointed to by my 
www.NegotiationTool.com website (thank you for expressing appreciation 
for it) and the idea of "direct democracy."

Regarding "majority rule," yes it is a big improvement over 
dictatorship.  Yet majority rule can be regarded as a category that 
encompasses the lower half of the "democracy" ladder.  In the upper area 
of that ladder is "full representation."  At the very top of the ladder 
are ways in which elected representatives and voters and a consideration 
for future generations combine to arrive at wise decisions -- which are 
much better than majority-based decisions.

We have a long way to go to get to the top of the "democracy" ladder, 
yet the result will be widespread economic prosperity beyond what most 
of us can imagine.  That's a natural consequence of cooperation instead 
of conflict.

The current U.S. Presidential election is providing an example of a 
celebrity politician advocating a very unwise (downright stupid!) 
"solution."  Specifically Donald Trump recommends that Muslims be 
blocked from entering the United States (until U.S. Congress can figure 
out what's going on, which is like saying "until hell freezes over," 
which means forever).  Surprisingly there are many voters (although a 
small minority) who think this is a good "solution."

This example reveals what I have said about the "celebrity" problem with 
the APR method.  Lots of people will say "I want my vote in the 
legislature to be controlled by so-and-so," who is a celebrity 
politician, without realizing that the representative is not capable of 
making wise decisions.

The election process can and should involve discussing how to solve 
problems, and this discussion process helps to steer political parties 
away from unpopular "solutions" and converge on wise solutions.  But if 
those discussions are then subverted by lots of impressionable voters 
voting for celebrities with crazy ideas, bad laws are likely to get passed.

 > 2)Given that APR allows each citizen to give their vote to the
 > congressperson of the 435 she judges will best reflect her own hopes and
 > concerns, ...

You have wandered back into talking about the possibility of using your 
APR method for electing members of U.S. Congress.  Apparently you do not 
yet fully understand what I have tried to convey in earlier messages, so 
I'll try again, from a different perspective.

The United States is basically 50 separate nations.  We share one 
military, and we share a single currency.  (And there are some other 
federal control issues, such as our interstate highway system being 
built and maintained for military purposes, and civilians get to use 
those highways except at times when the military needs them.) Otherwise, 
each of the 50 states operates like a nation in the sense that European 
nations have developed, although without the language and religious 
differences.  In particular, each state/nation is economically dominated 
by one or two or sometimes three big "cities" or "metropolitan areas."

With this in mind, imagine your APR method being adopted to elect the 
members of the European Parliament.  Hopefully you recognize that APR 
would not work well for that purpose.  For those same reasons, the APR 
method would not work for electing members to U.S. Congress.

In particular, corruption would result because less-prosperous nations 
would have their citizens' votes shifted to the representatives of 
stronger nations through the use of economic incentives given to those 
voters (in various forms of legal and illegal bribery).

Keep in mind that Europe is still in the early stages of "union," the 
honeymoon phase, so you must allow for the corruption that will creep 
into the European Parliament.  What goes on in Washington DC 
demonstrates the corruption that arises after the biggest campaign 
contributors have had time to learn how to take advantage of weaknesses 
in the chosen voting methods.

So please stick with our agreement to consider whether the APR method 
would work for electing the 80 members of the "lower house" of the 
California legislature or the 40 members of its "upper house" -- or some 
other case where voting does not cross national/state borders.

That's all I have time for now.  I appreciate your questions, and your 
desire to understand.

Richard Fobes


On 12/2/2015 5:05 PM, steve bosworth wrote:
 > [EM] (23) APR: Steve's 23^rd dialogue with Richard Fobes
 >
 >>  Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2015 09:54:43 -0800
 >>  From: VoteFair <ElectionMethods at VoteFair.org>
 >>  To: "election-methods at lists.electorama.com"
 >>  <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
 >>  Cc: steve bosworth <stevebosworth at hotmail.com>
 >>  Subject: Re: [EM] (22) APR: Steve's 22th dialogue with Richard Fobes
 >>  Message-ID: <5650AFE3.9090503 at VoteFair.org>
 >>  Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1254; format=flowed
 >>
 > R:> Steve, you don't seem to be carefully reading what I write. As an
 >>  example, I wrote:
 >>
 >>  > R: > VoteFair ranking is intentionally designed to limit the 
number of
 >>  >> political parties who actually get their candidates elected. But it
 >>  >> does this in a way that lists a greater number of minor political
 >>  >> parties on the ballot.
 >
 >>
 >>  Your reply was:
 >>
 >>  > S: Limiting the number of political parties arbitrarily is not a 
virtue
 >>  > when this prevents some citizens from being represented most
 >>  > faithfully. APR only limits the number of ?associations? (e.g
 >>  parties) to the number that have received sufficient support during
 > APR?s primary
 >>  > election.
 >>
 >>  VoteFair ranking does not "arbitrarily" limit the number of parties.
 >>
 >>  Please re-read the chapter titled "It's Party Time!: Voting For Parties
 >>  And Keeping Ballots Short" (in "Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S.
 >>  Elections"). It explains how VoteFair party ranking carefully(!)
 >>  identifies which political parties deserve to have candidates on the
 >>  ballot. (And it explains how the method prevents large parties from
 >>  having "shadow" parties whose purpose would be to reduce the number of
 >>  candidates from small parties.)
 >
 > S:Yes, I do accept that your VoteFair ranking is “intentionally designed
 > to limit the number of political parties [….] in a way that lists a
 > greater number of minor political parties on the ballot” than the
 > existing system.Also, it was an exaggeration for me to call this design
 > “arbitrary” since you do outline the method by which this “limit” is to
 > be determined.
 >
 > However, my criticism remains that, in contrast to APR, it limits both
 > the number of parties on the ballot, and the degree to which each of
 > these parties will be represented in the assembly more than is
 > necessary.Remember that you seem quite happy with your system not
 > allowing any representation to one of your parties that had received
 > support from 10% of the electorate in the electoral district.
 >
 > This contrasts with APR, which in theory, would allow citizens in its
 > primary to require candidates to run to represent up to 435 parties
 > (“associations”) to appear on the country wide USA general election
 > ballots for congresspersons.Also, any such party whose candidates
 > collectively received 10% of citizens’ votes in the country would
 > command 10% of the weighted votes in the House of Representatives.Also,
 > on average, each elected APR congressperson would have received between
 > 0.2% and 0.3% of the votes from the American electorate.
 >
 > Thus, in contrast to APR, VoteFair needlessly wastes some votes both
 > qualitatively and quantitatively.
 >
 >
 > R:> Steve, another pattern in your messages is that you repeatedly claim
 >>  advantages for your APR method as if they apply to a comparison with
 >>  VoteFair ranking, even though they are really just advantages over
 >>  current voting methods. (By current methods I mean the ones commonly
 >>  used in the U.S. and Europe.)
 >>
 >>  Specifically, your following claims for APR also apply to VoteFair
 >>  ranking (if the word "association" is replaced by "party")
 >
 > [….]
 >
 >>
 > R: > All of these claimed advantages also apply to VoteFair ranking.
 >>
 >>  Yes, these claims are valid advantages for your APR method compared to
 >>  existing voting methods. But you have been stating that you want to
 >>  compare your APR method to VoteFair ranking, so please do not imply 
that
 >>  these advantages are relevant in comparing your APR method with 
VoteFair
 >>  ranking.
 >
 > S:Yes, I do accept that the advantages of APR repeated below also apply
 > to VoteFair, but only to a smaller degree.This follows both from the
 > above fact that you say VoteFair,
 >
 > 1)would allow some parties who have received even 10% support from the
 > electorate not to be representation in the assembly, and
 >
 > 2)VoteFair is designed to allow fewer parties (associations) and fewer
 > candidates than APR allows, from which each citizen can select the one
 > who seems most accurately to represent her own hopes and fears:
 >
 >>
 > R:> > S: .... a foundation for the growth of this qualitative
 >>  > advantage would have been provided earlier by the way [the method]
 >>  recruits its
 >>  > candidates.
 >>
 >>  > .... [the] primary election discovers the ... organizations in
 >>  > the country that are Smost trusted by its citizens.
 >>
 >>  > ... should
 >>  > stimulate more attractive candidates ...
 >>
 >>  > ... [the] election of the
 >>  > most favored of these better candidates would seem also to combine to
 >>  > raise the average quality of representation in the assembly ....
 >>
 >>  > ... closer bonds between citizens and their
 >>  > representatives ...
 >>
 >>  > ... It asks citizens to start to
 >>  > familiarize themselves with the existing members, officials, and 
other
 >>  > potential candidates of their preferred organizations months 
before each
 >>  > voter has to finalize her ranking of candidates during the general
 >>  > election.
 >>
 >>  > ... [time] would allow each association, its candidates and
 >>  > its registered voters to coordinate their thinking and planning about
 >>  > how best to run their common campaign in the coming general election.
 >>
 >>  > ... This closer bond between each rep and his electorate would also
 >>  seem to
 >>  > make each congressperson’s work in the assembly more focused and 
known
 >>  > to be backed by his association and his electors.
 >>
 >>  > ... more likely to produce, on average, a
 >>  > closer ideological fit between each citizen and her 
congressperson ...
 >>
 >>  > ... more likely to help solve the real problems facing the
 >>  > country. They are more likely to do this because of the greater
 >>  > expectation on the part of their different electorates that progress
 >>  > must actually be made with respect to the goals of each of the
 >>  > ideological different electorates who elected them.
 >>
 >>  > .... this ideological bond between each citizen
 >>  > and her rep would seem more likely to provide the kind of
 >>  > congresspersons to engage in the kind of productive debates and
 >>  > negotiations in the House to [...] help solve the
 >>  > real problems facing the country.
 >>
 >>  > ... Consequently, an assembly composed of such able,
 >>  > different, well informed, clashing, and focused reps would seem to
 >>  > provide an optimal debating and negotiating chamber for the 
production
 >>  > of creative and evidence based solutions to common problems. The 
wisdom
 >>  > of any decisions resulting from this deliberative process is also 
likely
 >>  > to be aided by the simple fact that it would take place in an 
assembly
 >>  > whose composition most accurately reflects the real variety and
 >>  > intensity of the concerns of all citizens.
 >>
 >>  > ... [an elected representative] would seem to be both more able and
 >>  more likely to
 >>  > negotiate solutions to common problems together with fellow but
 >>  > ideologically different congresspersons. This is because each
 >>  [representative]
 >>  > would probably enjoy more trust from his electorate.
 > [….]
 > R:> Now let's look at some other advantages you claim for APR.
 >>
 >>  Your latest message (copied below) also claims some advantages that I
 >>  did not include above. That's because they involve your words "largely
 >>  homogeneous electorate" and "coalition," which suggest a possible
 >>  misunderstanding.
 >>
 >>  >S: Because an APR congressperson would be more clearly expected to
 > work and
 >>  > vote to promote the scale of values he shares with his largely
 >>  > homogeneous electorate, ....
 >>
 > R: > A "largely homogeneous electorate" is exactly the opposite of the
 >>  concept that politics is multi-dimensional. I explained this concept in
 >>  my last message, but I don't think you fully understand what I'm
 >>  writing, so, let's consider an example.
 >>
 >>  Expanding on the California example from last time, consider a female
 >>  latina voter who votes for a female latina representative even though
 >>  that representative has the opposite preference for whether to build a
 >>  wall between California and Mexico. In your APR claims you imply that
 >>  this won't happen. I do not make such a claim about VoteFair ranking.
 >
 > S: No, I only say that it is less likely to happen with APR because it
 > provides her with more candidates from which to choose, i.e. to find the
 > ones that more completely possess the appropriate combination of all the
 > “multi-dimensional” concerns she cares about.In any case, each citizen
 > must have the freedom to these judgments for themselves.
 >>
 > R:> You said you agree that politics in the U.S. and Europe is
 >>  multi-dimensional. So how can you claim that a representative who is
 >>  elected using your APR method can possibly fully -- in all 
dimensions --
 >>  represent the tens of thousands of voters who elected that 
representative?
 >>
 >
 > S: I do not claim that APR guarantees that all the dimensions cared
 > about by each citizen will be “fully” represented by the congressperson
 > to whom her vote is added.I only see APR as structurally making it more
 > likely both that, on average, each will be represented in this way as
 > closely as possible, and that more of the competing value systems (each
 > containing many dimensions and held by the whole electorate) will be
 > proportionately represented in the assembly.
 >
 >
 > R:> Now let's consider your use of the words "coalition" and "working
 > majority."
 >>
 > R:> >S: The extra ability with which APR reps would seem to be able to
 > negotiate
 >>  > compromises, would also seem to make it more likely that APR
 >>  > congresspersons would respond to the imperative to form a working
 >>  > majority in the assembly. Without such a majority coalition, any wise
 >>  > legislative solutions to problems that such rational 
deliberations might
 >>  > have discovered could not be passed into law. Each APR rep is more
 >>  likely to see that if he is not a part of the majority that will 
shape the
 >>  > assembly’s binding decisions, his own agenda, and that of his
 >>  > electorate, will not be advanced.
 >>
 > R:> The basis of this forum is to focus on claims that are backed up by
 >>  mathematics, so let's get mathematical.
 >
 > S:I assume this forum also wants to consider any claims supported by
 > non-mathematical “reasoning”.
 >>
 > R: > A coalition or working majority usually constitutes 51 percent to
 > about
 >>  65 percent, and that coalition can pass laws without compromising with
 >>  the other 49 percent to 35 percent of the representatives.
 >
 > S: At the same time, any legislation is likely to have resulted from
 > many compromises that were made between the members who formed the
 > relevant legislating majority.
 >>
 > R:> Yet you say about APR:
 >>
 >>  >S: ... [the elected representative] would seem to be both more 
able and
 >>  likely to
 >>  > negotiate solutions to common problems together with fellow but
 >>  > ideologically different congresspersons.
 >>
 > R:> If your APR method were used in California, the "conservatives" and
 >>  "liberals" would compete, and whichever side has the majority of 
elected
 >>  representatives would pass laws without regard for the other side. That
 >>  is not true negotiation.
 >
 > S: This is a possible result for a majority elected by any method,
 > including VoteFair.However, since APR allows more accurate
 > multi-dimensional representation to take place, this may, in effect,
 > remove the dominance of the simplistic categories of “conservatives” vs.
 > “liberals”.
 >>
 > R: > In order to get true negotiation between the majority and the 
minority
 >>  (of legislators), the legislature would have to adopt fairer voting
 >>  methods within the legislature.
 >>
 >>  My interactive website at www.NegotiationTool.com demonstrates how that
 >
 > S: Thank you for directing me to this tool much earlier during our
 > discussion. After studying it, my response was to agree with you that
 > that tool would help any assembly to arrive at decisions that would be
 > most agreeable to the assembly, including an APR assembly.Still, I see
 > that any specific legislation that might be tentatively proposed as a
 > result of using this too, should need finally to be confirmed only by a
 > straight forward majority of the APR assembly’s “weighted votes”.This
 > would be needed to make it clear to all which reps are responsible for
 > the new law
 >
 > However, the usefulness of this tool is irrelevant to the question of
 > whether a VoteFair assembly or an APR assembly would be more
 > representative of a country’s citizens.I believe that the above
 > arguments have already shown that APR is more like to produce the most
 > representative assembly.
 >>
 > R:> Electing representative who better represent the voters is only the
 >>  first step toward the kind of problem-solving, compromise-seeking
 >>  negotiations that voters want. Using better voting methods within a
 >>  legislature is the next step.
 >
 > S: I agree.
 >>
 > R:> Your APR method involves the first step of improving -- over current
 >>  methods -- the election process. However, your APR method would not
 >>  necessarily lead to the problem-solving, compromise-seeking 
negotiations
 >>  that you idealize.
 >
 > S: I did not claim that APR would “necessarily lead to the
 > problem-solving, etc.”, only that its more exact representativeness
 > would make such “problem-solving” more likely.
 >>
 > R:> Yes, getting better elected officials -- who represent the voters
 >>  instead of the biggest campaign contributors -- would improve
 >>  negotiations within a legislature, but VoteFair ranking would also
 >>  provide the same benefit.
 >
 > S: No, given that VoteFair wastes some votes and its representativeness
 > is less exact than APR’s, it is less likely to provide this “benefit” as
 > fully.
 >>
 > R:> Remember that in your APR method it is easy for only 51 percent 
of the
 >>  voters to be represented when a law is passed. That easily leads to
 >>  oppression of the minority of voters -- namely the "associations" that
 >>  comprise the other 49 percent.
 >
 > S: Currently, I assume that we agree,
 >
 > 1)that by “oppression” we mean any state action that violates the “human
 > rights” of any members of its population;
 >
 > 2)that, unless it is specially defined, a “majority” is anything over 
50%;
 >
 > 3)that the very concept of a representative “democracy” expects a
 > majority of citizens indirectly (i.e. through its elected reps) to rule
 > the whole population against the will of the minority when this is
 > judged to be necessary by that majority; and
 >
 > 4)that both VoteFair and APR are attempts better to serve “democracy” by
 > electing more representative members of the assembly.
 >
 > In this context, it is worth noting that one obligation imposed upon by
 > a universal respect for “human rights” is for us to give each person
 > equal consideration.I see this moral obligation as specifically
 > requiring that each adult’s vote be treated equally.If so, no citizen’s
 > vote should needlessly be given more weight than another, e.g. none
 > should be wasted as VoteFair wasted the above 10%.
 >
 > Also, I accept that a “majority” in states that call themselves
 > democracies may still sometimes “oppress” sections of their
 > populations.This possibility would not be necessarily excluded even if
 > their assemblies were elected by APR or VoteFair.In any case, I see no
 > reason to assume such oppression always is “easy”. Still, a ruling
 > minority is even more likely to “oppress” larger sections of its
 > population.This is why, other things being equal, we prefer “democracy”.
 >
 > At the same time, I see an APR majority as less likely than a VoteFair
 > majority to oppress sections of its population.This is because an APR
 > majority is structurally more likely to be composed of congresspersons
 > both who represent a unity of a greater number of dimensions and who are
 > supported by a larger percent of its population. In contrast to APR,
 > VoteFair both wastes some votes and elects each rep with a scale of
 > values, which on average, will be less clearly aligned with the hopes
 > and fears of his or her electorate.
 >>
 > R: > The moment you refer to one elected politician as representing 
tens of
 >>  thousands of citizens, you are overlooking that the similarity of those
 >>  citizens ?- as measured as members of one of your associations -? have
 >>  to be one-dimensional.
 >
 > S:Please explain the thinking process by which you have arrived at this
 > conclusion.As yet, I see no reason to expect that the worldviews of
 > individual APR reps of “associations” would probably be any less
 > multi-dimensional, on average, than those elected by VoteFair.In fact,
 > it seems to me that APR structurally makes it more likely that the range
 > of concerns that would be included in any majority formed by APR reps
 > rather than VoteFair by reps would be wider and more accurately reflect
 > the range and intensity of concerns held by the whole electorate.Again
 > remember that the perspectives present in the votes that VoteFair would
 > waste would be represented in the assembly only by chance, if at all.
 >>[….]
 >
 >>
 > R:> This topic leads to the issue of understanding the difference between
 >>  "proportional" and "representative."
 >>
 >>  The concept of proportionality is one-dimensional, and is based on some
 >>  kind of measurement. And that measurement is just a single number.
 >>  Remember that single numbers are what your APR method uses.
 >
 > S: Yes, the weighted vote that each APR representative would have in the
 > assembly would be single number.This single number tells us exactly how
 > many citizens support that congressperson’s combination and hierarchy of
 > dimensions (concerns) more than those held by any one of the other 434
 > reps.Thus, each single number is a comparative measure of the degree to
 > which citizens currently support each of the competing multi-dimensional
 > agendas currently being offered by the members of the assembly.
 >
 > I accept that these “dimensions” will probably include many issues and
 > question including those related to the following ones you mentioned,
 > e.g. “political party affiliation, … females versus males, … religious
 > affiliation, … financial net worth, … or "association" ...
 >>  […]
 >
 >
 > R:> Getting back to the general topic of VoteFair versus APR, you wrote:
 >>
 >>  > S:I hope the following last addition to this post will help to 
explain
 >>  > why I see APR as most likely to help elect a legislative assembly
 >>  that would
 >>  > 1) be less corrupted by private money;
 >>  >
 >>  > 2) be composed of reps who could be more easily held to account by
 > their respective electorates,
 >>  >
 >>  > 3) be composed of reps more skilled at explaining the merits of
 > their own
 >>  > agendas to their fellow reps, and more determined to form the 
alliances
 >>  > and to make the compromises necessary so as to be an essential 
part of a
 >>  > majority that can legislate at least part of their own respective
 >>  > agendas; and thus
 >>  >
 >>  > 4) an assembly that would be more likely to make rational and 
evidence
 >>  > based laws.
 >>
 >>  VoteFair ranking would also produce these same advantages.
 >
 > S: Yes, but I think to a lesser extent for the reason given above.
 >>
 >>  > S: I assume we agree that when a citizen sees a member of the
 >>  > assembly as speaking and acting in the ways entirely approved by that
 >>  > citizen, then we would say that that member represents that 
citizen as
 >>  > completely as possible. As you know, APR allows each citizen to
 >>  > guarantee this by adding her vote to the ?weighted vote? of the 
member
 >>  > she most trusts to speak and act in this way. VoteFair does not 
do this
 >>  > as efficiently.
 >>
 > R:> I disagree.
 >>
 >>  You have worded the above paragraph in a convoluted way, so I have to
 >>  clarify:
 >>
 >>  * I do agree that "when a citizen sees a member of the [legislature] as
 >>  speaking and acting in the ways entirely approved by that citizen, then
 >>  we would say that that member represents that citizen as completely as
 >>  possible."
 >>
 >>  * My statement "I disagree" regards the word "this" in "VoteFair does
 >>  not do this as efficiently" as referring to the first sentence about
 >>  representation.
 >
 > S: Do you still believe that VoteFair does this as “efficiently” in the
 > light of my contributions to this post?If so, please explain why.
 >>
 > R:> * I am not commenting on your second sentence, which refers to an
 >>  APR-specific feature. This feature is a characteristic of the APR
 >>  method, but it does not imply full representation.
 >
 > S:Again, I am not claiming that APR guarantees “full” representation.I
 > have only argued that it seems to provide more complete, proportional,
 > and exact representation than any other system of which I am aware
 > (including VoteFair for multi-winner elections).
 >>
 > R:> To be clear, you have not yet provided evidence, either 
mathematical or
 >>  otherwise, that supports your claim that your APR method would produce
 >>  better representation than what VoteFair ranking would produce.
 >
 > S:In that case,
 >
 > 1)how do you guarantee that the citizens whose votes are wasted by
 > VoteFair will be represented at all in the assembly?
 >
 > 2)Given that APR allows each citizen to give their vote to the
 > congressperson of the 435 she judges will best reflect her own hopes and
 > concerns, how can you maintain that a VoteFair voter, on average, will
 > have an equally exact quality of representation when she only has the
 > opportunity of ranking a relatively small number of local candidates?
 >
 >
 > R:> Please continue to ask questions because I'm assuming that our
 >>  discussion is helping readers of this forum better understand 
subtle yet
 >>  important aspects of voting.
 > S:Thank you for your responses and I look forward to the continuation of
 > our dialogue.
 >
 >
 >>  Richard Fobes
 >
 > Steve Bosworth