[EM] Why All the Fuss?

Kristofer Munsterhjelm km_elmet at t-online.de
Mon Feb 27 04:13:54 PST 2023


On 2/27/23 06:47, Forest Simmons wrote:

> Simulations will tell.
> 
> Here's my question: do simulations carry any weight with the public? Or 
> do they just care about choice of buzz words and phrases like democracy; 
> majority rule, etc?

I'm mostly thinking about simulations as a way to determine what 
criteria are actually (likely) to be passed -- it's a good way to make a 
shortcut through subtle arguments -- and to determine if the criteria 
generalize the way we think they do (e.g. JGA's nomination incentive and 
clone independence; sometimes they do, sometimes they don't).

Proofs that a method may pass or fail a criterion may be very subtle and 
possibly contain similarly subtle errors or assumptions that we don't 
see. (I've had my share of disproven proofs, myself!) So, in particular 
given how many proposals there have been for different methods on EM 
since it started, simulations seem appealing because they'll give 
another perspective and let us check our blind spots. (Of course, it's 
not that easy: someone has to actually implement the method -- and the 
simulations!)

I don't think that the public at large cares much about simulations. I 
think that a citizens' assembly, who would have more time to investigate 
the methods, would care more. I'm not sure what it takes to create 
public support in a method, but I have a hunch there's no substitute for 
plain old advocacy - doing the work to make the method known.

Certainly FairVote has managed to accomplish quite a lot through their 
singleminded focus on advocacy and marketing... at the expense of the 
method's quality itself (which would get in the way of their story).

-km


More information about the Election-Methods mailing list