[EM] (27) APR: Steve's 27th dialogue on NUTS with Richard Fobes

[VoteFair]

Steve, three months ago you asked for a clearer definition of a "nut." 
I have not come up with any new way to clarify what I previously tried 
to explain.  So, I'm removing your question(s) (below) from my inbox.

If I should find time to do any writing about election-method reform, 
I'll use that time to write an article about what's going on in the U.S. 
Presidential elections -- which itself might later yield an interesting 
example on the topic of "nuts."

This would be a great time to write about the link between single-mark 
ballots and the crazy Presidential primary results, and the need for 
better ballots and better vote-counting methods, but alas I'm too busy 
writing code for a new website.

(I'm not ready to reveal what the website is about, but I can say that 
I'm writing the code in the Dashrep language, which is a programming 
language I created, and which is documented at: Dashrep.org)

Richard Fobes


On 2/19/2016 11:47 AM, steve bosworth wrote:
>
>
> [EM] (27) APR: Steve's 27th dialogue on NUTS with Richard Fobes
>
>
>>  Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2016 23:48:29 -0800
>>  From: ElectionMethods at VoteFair.org
>>  To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
>>  CC: stevebosworth at hotmail.com
>>  Subject: Re: [EM] (26) APR: Steve's 26th dialogue with Richard Fobes
>
>
> To Richard:
>
>
> S: I am perplexed by your “definition” of a “nut” (copied below).It
> seems simply to refer to anyone who has ideas that are currently
> unpopular. If being in a minority by definition makes you “nuts”, how
> are you or I to escape, if at all, from this label?After all, each of us
> currently is in a slightly different minority in the USA by favoring
> VoteFair and APR respectively.
>
>
>
> The implications of your definition makes me think that we should save
> our more detailed comparisons of APR and Votefair for our next or later
> dialogue.I need you to clarify your definition.You seem to believe than
> any minority views are “nuts”.You see an electoral system’s denial of
> political influence to these people as an unfairness of little
> importance:“failure for a nut to be represented anywhere within that 49%
> is not an unfairness worth worrying about”.This seeming political
> contempt for many of your fellow citizens seems to cast into doubt
> whether you even belief in “democracy”.If so, why are you promoting
> VoteFair, a system that enables all citizens to record all of their
> preferences with regard to all of the available candidates?What happened
> to toleration, equality, and the democratic belief that each person
> (given the freedoms of speech, press, and association) has the potential
> to learn and work together for the common good?
>
>
>
> Finally, given that you seem also to believe that political parties are
> more reliable than their individual candidates, why do you not currently
> prefer closed-list-party PR for electingf your legislative assembly?
>
>
> [….]
>
>
>
> R:> In summary, the biggest weakness of the APR method occurs at the last
>>  step in which each voter can give his or her "weighted" support to any
>>  one of the elected representatives, even if that representative is not
>>  in the voter's favorite political party.
>>
>>  A key part of the reason for this weakness is that a voter can easily
>>  get lots of information about political parties ("associations"), but
>>  voters never(!) get sufficient information about what a candidate will
>>  or won't do after getting elected.
>>
>>  As a result, voters are capable of making reasonably wise decisions
>>  about choosing a political party, but voters find it challenging to
>>  anticipate what a candidate will do after the election, so most voters
>>  are easily influenced by personalities rather than positions (and
>>  because the positions are unknown).
>>
>>  The candidates who do well in elections are the ones who talk in ways
>>  that are boastful, act in ways that appear to be decisive, hide their
>>  fears, avoid being specific about how they believe a problem can be
>>  solved (if they have any even if they have preconceived solutions in
>>  mind), etc.
>>
>>  The result is that crazy-talking megalomaniacs -- such as two of the
>>  Republican presidential candidates in the current US election -- attract
>>  lots of support in spite of being clueless about how to solve the huge
>>  problems they will face if they are elected.
>>
>>  Because of the multiple reasons explained above, only a small minority
>>  of voters would be able to identify a candidate who "fully represents"
>>  them. The remaining voters would not be "fully represented" by any of
>>  the elected representatives.
>>
>
>
> [….]
>
>
>>  In the case of a very mainstream voter who prefers the most popular
>>  political party, almost all of his or her tokens would be used toward
>>  electing the first representative. The few remaining tokens would be
>>  used to influence the choice of the second representative.
>
>
>
> [….]
>
>
>
> R: > You asked me for a definition of a "nut." In my opinion, a voter
> who is
>>  a nut has to be defined through counting and mathematics. By contrast,
>>  a carefully worded definition would not be meaningful.
>>
>>  If you want a mathematical definition of a nut,
>
>
>
> S:I did not ask for “a mathematical definition of a nut”, nor do I think
> such a definition is meaningful.
>
>
>
> R: >… then the best I can do
>>  is point to VoteFair ranking. When all the different components of
>>  VoteFair ranking are used together, the only voters who are
>>  unrepresented are the ones who have preferences that are not shared by
>>  hardly any other voters. Many, although not all, the voters in this
>>  category are likely to be nuts, at least from the perspective of
>>  calculating election results.
>>
>>  In other words, VoteFair ranking does not attempt to get "nuts" fully
>>  represented. Specifically, a voter who is a "nut" would end up holding
>>  some of their tokens, after having given only a few of their tokens to
>>  help elect their district's first representative, and a few more tokens
>>  to help elect their district's second representative, and possibly a
>>  couple more tokens to help determine which candidates win one or two
>>  statewide seats.
>>
>>  As a clarification, a voter who is a "nut" might get full representation
>>  (except for "round-off errors") in terms of helping to determine how
>>  many seats are won by each political party, provided their favorite
>>  party is popular enough to win at least one seat.
>>
>>  One of the reasons I do not claim that VoteFair ranking "fully
>>  represents every voter" is that "nuts" do not need to be represented in
>>  order for election results to be fair.
>>
>>  Remember that the voting process currently used in nearly every
>>  legislature ignores(!) preferences of (up to) 49% of the elected
>>  representatives, so a failure for a nut to be represented anywhere
>>  within that 49% is not an unfairness worth worrying about.
>
>
> [….]
>
>
>