[EM] Poll on voting-systems, to inform voters in upcoming enactment-elections

[Michael Ossipoff]

On Fri, Apr 5, 2024 at 4:33 PM James Gilmour <jamesgilmour at f2s.com> wrote:

> There's some muddled thinking here.
>

Let's not be too quick to be sure that we're right. Remember what Dunning &
Kruger said.

>
> If you are electing a president or a mayor, you will use a single-winner
> election method.
>
> If you are electing a "representative assembly" like a parliament or town
> council, you would use (should use) a multi-winner election method.


Wrong. You will use what's legal (or of course change Congressional
statute, for which there's no such thing as initiatives), &, in any case
what can be most quickly & easily enacted. There's some urgency, &
soon-enacstability counts very much.

As I mentioned, multimember Congressional districts are illegal here, by
federal law, which isn't subject to initiatives.


> Only by using a multi-winner method can you begin to ensure that the
> elected assembly is properly representative of those who voted.
>

Dream on. That's farther away & more distantly attainable.  I'd prefer PR
for Congress. In fact, I'd prefer a party-list PR Parliament...no
president. But it seems things can't always be as I'd prefer. Single-winner
reform is what's more attainable sooner here. As I mentioned "Soon" is
importan.

>
> So before you hold your "Poll on voting systems", you must define the
> purpose of the election for which the voting system is to be used.
>

It's to be used for all single-winner races, including
single-member-district Congressional seats, because it isn't easy to change
federal-law. How many Democrat or Republican Congressmemembers are willing
to allow PR?  Bill Clinton fired Lani Guinier because she was a PR
advocate. He said he fired her because PR is "antidemocratic".

What, then elect a different party to Congress, to get the law changed?
How possible do you think that is here?  That, too, goes into the "Dream
On" category..

Non-Republocrat parties are struggling for ballot-access, which can only be
achieved at great expense, separately in each of the 50 states. Everything
is against anyone other than a Republican or Democrat being elected...&
onlly one that toes the antidemocratic line.

So, kndly don't be so quick & glib with your criticisms.

>
> James Gilmour
> Edinburgh, Scotland
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Election-Methods [mailto:
> election-methods-bounces at lists.electorama.com] On Behalf Of Kristofer
> Munsterhjelm
> > Sent: 05 April 2024 18:55
> > To: Filip Ejlak <tersander at gmail.com>; EM <
> election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
> > Subject: Re: [EM] Poll on voting-systems, to inform voters in upcoming
> enactment-elections
> >
> > On 2024-04-05 16:03, Filip Ejlak wrote:
> > > First thing: it's surprising how all the options that have been
> > > mentioned are single-winner methods, despite the poll subject not
> > > being worded in such a restrictive way. Are multi-winner options
> > > allowed as well, or should this be a different poll? Because it needs
> > > to be said that _every legislative election needs proportional
> > > representation_. I guess any single-winner method, no matter how good,
> > > will be bad in comparison with a PR method. So if multi-winner options
> > > were allowed in the poll, I would nominate *STV *(a
> > > Condorcet-compliant variant would be better if there was any
> > > polynomial one with good recognition; an optional indirect element -
> > > like GVT, but strongly improved - would also be nice).
> > >
> > > And speaking of single-winner methods, in my opinion *Woodall* and
> > > *Benham* seem to be the best, at least among the well-known ones.
> > > While Woodall (especially Schwartz Woodall) is perhaps marginally
> > > better, Benham is so easy to explain (and it's a very obvious/natural
> > > way to make IRV actually good) that it should be seriously considered
> > > by voting reform campaigners. So I'd like to nominate these two.
> >
> > I agree: if the poll is primarily meant to be about single-winner
> methods, it would still be useful to have a "use
> > multiwinner PR instead"
> > option, to see how well it would do compared to the single-winner
> methods.
> >
> > I'd also suggest the following methods:
> >
> > Majority Judgement (as a category; includes usual judgement etc.)
> Approval with manual runoff (since it has seen actual
> > use) Copeland//Borda (proposed by Equal Vote)
> >
> > and to echo Joshua Boehme, I'd also like to know what it's a poll of:
> > the theoretically best method, the one with best chance of passing a
> reform effort, most bang for the buck, or something
> > else?
> >
> > On an aside, STV with ranked pairs elimination is not too bad a polytime
> Condorcet-reducing STV method IMHO. RP's LIIA
> > compliance reduces the chaos you would otherwise get from elimination.
> It tends to have somewhat of a center bias
> > within the "clusters" (solid coalitions entitled representation by Droop
> proportionality), but that might not be too bad if it
> > deters extremist kingmaker scenarios.
> >       (You'd do a ranked pairs election every time you've elected
> someone and eliminated him from the ballots, then
> > eliminate from the RP loser up until someone exceeds the quota, then
> elect him, distribute surpluses, and do a new RP
> > election, and so on.)
> >
> > -km
> > ----
> > Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
> info
>
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