[EM] Election-Methods Digest, Vol 140, Issue 8

Sat Feb 6 22:41:11 PST 2016

To cut this reply to Steve short,1:  APR is essentially a fictional election system.  The reality is that if a candidate does not even have majority support, the majority of voters would rather that those extremist politicians have ZERO influence over the rest of us.  It is a waste of  time to even think about American voters choosing to make our election system even worse.  

2: Since IRV (besides fictional "condorcet") includes the maximum possible # of ballots to select the winner, it will logically result in the best govt. possible and will inevitably eventually become adopted by all true democracies unless the Chinese system takes over first.  The #1 goal of China's govt. is to eliminate the parliament system before it destroys the world with endless war. 
-sennet

    On Saturday, February 6, 2016 7:44 PM, "election-methods-request at lists.electorama.com" <election-methods-request at lists.electorama.com> wrote:

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Today's Topics:

  1. APR (7): Steve?s 7th dialogue with Sennet (Steve Bosworth)
      (steve bosworth)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2016 03:44:42 +0000
From: steve bosworth <stevebosworth at hotmail.com>
To: "election-methods at lists.electorama.com"
    <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
Subject: [EM] APR (7): Steve?s 7th dialogue with Sennet (Steve
    Bosworth)
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 APR (7): Steve?s 7th dialogue with Sennet (Steve Bosworth)

 >
From: election-methods-request at lists.electorama.com

> Subject: Election-Methods Digest, Vol 140, Issue 5

> To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com

> Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2016 11:33:32 -0800

> 

[?.]

>
1. Re: APR (6): Steve?s 6th dialogue with Sennet (Sennet Williams)

>
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2016 09:14:21 +0000 (UTC)

> From: Sennet Williams <sennetwilliams at yahoo.com>

> To: steve bosworth <stevebosworth at hotmail.com>,

> "election-methods at lists.electorama.com"

> <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>

> Subject: Re: [EM] APR (6): Steve?s 6th dialogue with Sennet

> Message-ID:

> <1712157418.1610451.1454577261757.JavaMail.yahoo at mail.yahoo.com>

> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

> 

W: > I'll try to address your questions, but not in the same order.1st, I
consider votes "wasted" if the candidates are not beholden to
everyone, not just the people who voted for them.

S:  Of course, each rep is morally responsible (?beholden?)
to all citizens for their own speeches, voting, and behavior. However, only the
citizens who helped to elect him are able to punish him during the next
election for any failures to represent them faithfully.  This is true for every electoral system.

W:
??2nd, when IRV is used to elect two winners on the same ballot, the proper
system is run the ballots through again after the 1st winner is selected.
?Depending on the law, either all ballots are run through again, ?OR just the
ballots that were ?not used to select the winner are run through again. ? 

S:  Perhaps you are not aware that APR is
different from ordinary IRV in that it elects hundreds of reps at the same time
for a legislative assembly, i.e. each with a ?weighted vote? in the legislative
assembly equal to the number of citizens who helped him to be elected, and no
vote is ?wasted? in the sense that I define ?waste?.  To explain this more fully, separately I am
sending you a copy of my article that systematically explains how APR works.

W:
So, with your example ....this is a wasted exercise. ?

S:  Which part do you consider to be ?wasted??

W: > 3rd, What really matters is that your example is so unrealistic that it
is pointless to consider, ?.

S:  Neither Kristofer nor I saw this example to
be ?realistic? in your sense.  Instead,
it was useful to clarify both what I mean by ?waste?, and how APR, including
its use of ?Asset voting? allows each citizen to guarantee that her vote will
not be wasted.

W:
?. so I prefer to consider this:  3a- In
a real IRV election, voters will rank at least 3 candidates: ?The people who
ranked B second would not be disenfranchised.

S:  With APR, no citizen would not be ?disenfranchised?
mathematically or quantitatively, but they would be partly ?disenfranchised?
qualitatively.  If B were elected in this
example, the 11 who preferred C to B would feel that B is less likely to
represent them faithfully (i.e. the quality of their representation would be
reduced).  Also, APR?s Asset feature
allows the 10 who preferred A to B could require A to give their 10 vote to the
weighted vote of C or D, which ever A believes will best represent both him and
these 10 citizens.  What do you think?

W:
3b- ?In a real IRV election, there are usually a lot more candidates. ? SF and
Oakland generally have about 10 candidates if the seat is vacant vs 3-4 using
simple plurality. ?Since B's issues have the widest support, you can be sure
that there will be another candidate (E) with almost the same platform as B,
which has almost twice the support of A, C or D. ? Realistically, B and "E"
would win with that platform. ?But A, C and D would also have different
platforms. (if they understood IRV) ?But it seems unlikely that any of those
minor candidates could double their support to compete with B.

S:  These are your own thoughts about your local
situation.  However,
I see APR as offering the electoral reform that would allow each of the SF and
Oakland citizens a vote that is most likely to enable each to feel as
enthusiastic as possible about the member of the city council each had helped
to elect.  If you disagree, please
explain.  

W: > ? From what I have seen with PR, I don't think that voters are two
happy with "their" winning candidates, and the elected politicians
are more concerned about negotiating with the other (opposing) parties'
representatives so that a new election will not be called.

S:  Most of the European states have a variety of
?party-list? PR and they are generally more satisfied with that system than are
Americans with its ?plurality? (or First Past the Post (FPTP)) systems.  APR would be even better than other PR
systems because it allows each citizen as much power as possible to determine
which of the many members of the legislative assembly will receive her one vote
within his ?weighted vote? in the assembly.

W:
 ? Personally, ?If B's ?platform is about
twice as acceptable as any of the minor candidates, I would rather not having
A, C and D making laws that affect me. ?But, in real IRV, those candidates
would not be taken very seriously. ?So they would either have more popular
platforms or else they would know that they have no chance of actually winning.
?(Some candidates in IRV run to promote their special cause and hope that the
major candidates adopt it, but they know that they have no chance of winning
themselves. ?In the 1st Oakland mayor's race using IRV, there were 6 or 7
candidates who had never even been councilmembers (or higher office) before.

S: 
I do not claim that APR is the best system for electing one winner, e.g.
mayor, governor, president.  Instead, I
see the variety of ?ranked-pairs? called Maximize Affirmed Majorities (MAM) as
best for this purpose.  It does not
eliminate any candidate until it is mathematically discover which candidate is
preferred to every other candidate by more citizens than any one of the other
candidates (see www.alumni.caltec.edu/~sepply).

W:
None of the minor candidates had anywhere near majority support. ?The

> three major candidates all had much wider support, but the ballots only
allowed 3 rankings. ?So many ballots were exhausted on minor candidates that we
just don't know how many would have also shown their support for the 3 major
candidates if they could. 

S:  In contrast, MAM allows use to ?know? this
and no citizen?s vote is ?exhausted? until the one winner is discovered.

W:
?I believe that Kaplan and Perata probably both had supermajority support, but
Quan ran a more effective campaign. ?Luckily for all the people who didn't
vote, most of the local politicians elected using IRV were the best candidate
for the job. ?They focused on outreach to everyone, not just one group and
campaign money is practically irrelevant. ?

> The fact is, to win an IRV/condorcet election generally requires the
widest support of any election system, which means that more voters
"matter" than any other system, their votes are not wasted. 

S:
For a single-winner election, MAM Condorcet (not IRV) wastes fewest votes.  At the same time, APR would allow each of the
435 congresspersons to be enthusiastically supported by their respective
electorates, i.e. with no citizen?s vote being wasted in the sense I have
defined.

S:  I look forward to our dialogue.

Steve

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