[EM] California (Re: Two round methods)

[Kevin Venzke]

Hi Rob,

Thanks for all this background.

I mostly like the jungle primary, or top-two runoff, but it's true that the finalists might
get chosen arbitrarily, and we're only assured that a Condorcet Loser won't win.

Rob Lanphier <roblan at gmail.com> wrote earlier:
> 
> > Hmm? In the American system you can't win with a majority on the first "round" because only
> > half the political spectrum participates in a contest. Republican and Democratic are done
> > separately.
> 
> This is true in many parts of our fine nation, but guess what?
> Welcome to California!  That's not the way that we do it here.

I knew this, but understood you as being surprised that a two-round system could ever sensibly
end after one round.

> > If it were possible to win a majority of the electorate during the primaries, you would
> > practically have to elect that person. Otherwise you have the potential that small changes
> > in turnout could reverse the result. That would be really bad.
> 
> What if TWO people won a majority approval in the primary election?
> Let's keep using the CA-10 example from above, and take all of the
> candidates that received more than 10,000 votes in the primary:
> 
> * Jeff Denham (incumbent, Republican) 45,719 votes (37.6%)
> * Josh Harder (Democratic) 20,742 votes (17.0%)
> * Ted D. Howze (Republican)  17,723 votes (14.6%)
> * Michael Eggman (Democratic) 12,446 votes (10.2%)
> * Virginia Madueño (Democratic) 11,178 votes (9.2%)
> * Others (11.4%)
> * Total: 121,757 votes (100.0%)
> 
> At least a couple folks I spoke to liked Virginia Madueño, but rallied
> around Josh Harder after the primary election.  As I recall, on
> election night, Denham and Howze were in the lead, and Harder was a
> close third.  It was only the mail-in ballots that swung toward
> Harder.  But note: this election was a "vote-for-only-one" (FPTP)
> election.  I know that many people that I spoke with in CA-10 were
> eager to get ANYONE other than a Republican.

> My hunch is that Denham, Harder, Cox, Eggman and Madueño could have
> gotten over 50% approval.  Maybe even Howze.

But the voters had their favorites. Would they really approve the entire list, if they
knew there would be a second round that doesn't eliminate the alternatives? I don't think
so. So for my method proposal I think it is fine to end the method if there is majority
approval. (For a top-two, some remarks are below.)

My thoughts on the design constraints here, for a second round with two candidates only.

1. I would want to retain the non-partisan nature of the first round. I don't see a way of
preserving this while having any concept of party included in the method definition.

2. If we advance exactly two candidates to a second round, we want to use a method that is
good at estimating the two most likely "best" candidates. Your concerns show that
vote-for-one is inadequate. And I dare say your hypothetical here actually shows why
approval is inadequate.

If a major party (say 40%+ of the voters) has the stance "let's elect any candidate from
our party, to ensure the winner is not from the other party", they may be able to achieve
this even without majority approval. Two candidates with 45% approval could both advance.

Maybe the best (eliminative) option is the one mentioned in 2018, to pair the approval
winner with the candidate posing the greatest "approval opposition" to him, meaning that
the same 45% of the voters can't pick both finalists.

In some strange scenarios this could create a bad second round: Suppose that 80% of the
voters approve A and B, and the other 20% approve C. Then C is in the second round. That
would be wasteful.

The right question to ask is a bit elusive. The right question is not "which candidate is
most likely to beat A pairwise?" because that will not actually give a different answer
as far as we can tell from the first round approval ballots. It's going to be the second
most approved candidate.

But should top-two selection always imply a concept of proportional representation; i.e.
that the two finalists "represent" as many voters as possible? I am not sure why,
theoretically. It would help maximize the policy difference between the two finalists,
which might be good for participation rate and the appearance that the vote was worth
holding. But maximizing the policy differences between two finalists is certainly NOT
generally music to my ears: It makes it sound like center squeeze is actually a goal.

The approach of my non-eliminative suggestion, to say it again, is to pick just one best,
and then go to the voters again and check if there's any way to show it was the wrong
pick.

Kevin