On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 3:21 PM, Jameson Quinn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jameson.quinn@gmail.com">jameson.quinn@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
2012/2/4 Bryan Mills <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bmills@alumni.cmu.edu" target="_blank">bmills@alumni.cmu.edu</a>></span><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div class="h5"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">> From: Bryan Mills <<a href="mailto:bmills@alumni.cmu.edu" target="_blank">bmills@alumni.cmu.edu</a>><br>
> To: David L Wetzell <<a href="mailto:wetzelld@gmail.com" target="_blank">wetzelld@gmail.com</a>><br>> > If there are 3-5 seats STV then the number of candidates won't<br>
> proliferate<br>
> > too much and there'd be 5-7 places to vote. This would keep things<br>
> > reasonable.<br>
><br>
> To get reasonable proportionality with only 3-5 seats per district<br>
> you'd probably need to go to an MMP system, with all its added<br>
> complexity. Otherwise Droop proportionality doesn't buy you much over<br>
> FPTP; with 5 seats the Droop quota measures to a precision of ~17%,<br>
> and the remaining 17% in each district is still susceptible to<br>
> gerrymandering.<br>
><br>
<br>
Not much?<br>
The goal here is not perfectionism wrt proportionality.<br>
The goal is to increase proportionality and to increase the number of<br>
competitive seats<br>
and to reduce the cut-throat competitive nature of US political rivalry<br>
between its two biggest parties<br>
so they can't dominate the other and have more incentives thereby to work<br>
together on the many issues that need work.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I'm doubtful that 3-5 candidate districts actually would "increase the number of competitive seats". Each major party ends up with 1-2 safe seats, and at that level of granularity gerrymandering and geographical polarization are still significant enough to render the last seat non-competitive in most districts. (It would increase proportionality somewhat - by transforming some of the safe-by-gerrymandering seats into safe-by-Droop-proportionality seats - but you seem to be arguing that proportionality isn't as important as competition.)</div>
<div><br></div><div>Suppose we have two parties with a 50/50 split and 5 seats per district, with one party more popular in urban areas and one more popular in rural areas. And suppose that the district lines are drawn such that 4/5 of districts are slightly more rural than average and 1/5 of districts are more urban than average, so that the 5th seat in each district becomes relatively safe as well. (We can do this fairly easily using geographical boundaries by centering 1/5 of the districts around cities.)</div>
<div><br></div><div>Scale that up to 400 legislators (80 districts). What do we end up with?</div><div>320 "natural" safe seats guaranteed by Droop proportionality (160 for each party)</div><div>80 gerrymandered-safe seats for the rural party</div>
<div>20 gerrymandered-safe seats for the urban party</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></div></div><div>First, your numbers add up to 420. I think you meant 64/16 for the safe seats, which is only a 56/44 advantage, not 60/40.</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Oops! I had started calculating with 500, then switches to 400 and forgot to update some of the numbers. You're right, I should have had the gerrymandered seats at 64/16, and that does give a 56:44 advantage rather than 60:40. (Of course, if you throw in some third-parties the whole analysis changes too; the 50/50 example is meant to be representative of an idealized two-party world.)</div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote">
<div>Note that the "safe" seats would still swing if there were a swing in national mood of around something less than 8%, not something less than 25% as in single-member districts. And the more highly-gerrymandered the map is, the tighter that margin, and so the greater the chances of it backfiring against the gerrymandering party. Gerrymandering is a fine art, but 8% doesn't leave a whole lot of room to play with. Considering safety margins and misfires, I doubt that the gerrymandering party could get anything close to the 6% representation advantage your (corrected) numbers suggest. So, while 2-3% unfairness is still a problem, I think it's a big step up from where we are. </div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Hmm, interesting. So maybe that's not as much of a concern as I thought; I'll have to give it some more consideration. I don't think it solves the problem of multiple axes of policy preference, though, and 16% is a lot of voters to leave unrepresented in the multiparty case.</div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="im"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="gmail_quote"><div>Now, despite a 50/50 natural split, the rural party has a 60% supermajority. And, of course, if you draw the district lines differently you can do the same thing for the urban party.</div>
<div><br></div><div>So there's still relatively little hope that a system with such small districts would produce a party-proportional legislature. As you point out elsewhere, it might still be possible to get an ideologically-proportional legislature if you can get the parties themselves to shift ideologies.</div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">> If you assume two major parties with ~40% of the electorate each, that<br>
> means that the 5th seat in each district is noisy -- but it's not<br>
> random noise, it's systematically biased by the parties' voting<br>
> strategies and the choice of district boundaries. Larger districts<br>
> allow finer-grained Droop quotas and thereby reduce that noise.<br>
<br>
dlw: Smaller districts engender less opposition from those in power.<br>
They keep the constituent-legislator relationship more so.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Absolutely agreed that smaller districts engender less opposition from those in power. That's because smaller districts don't fix the biases that keep them in power.</div>
<div><br></div><div>They do maintain the constituent-legislator relationship, *for the subset of voters who voted in favor of the legislator*. For the remaining Droop quota of un- or under-represented constituents the nonexistence of the constituent-legislator relationship is also maintained.</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div></div><div>Here's my chance to plug <a href="http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/PAL_representation" target="_blank">PAL representation</a>, which does PR but uses existing-sized districts and preserves a specific constituent-legislator relationship for all but (up to) one Droop quota of voters. </div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Hmm.. Interesting, but it seems too complicated to me. It's got all the complication of delegation, approval, and STV - with a bit less voter burden on the approval side since only the candidates have to pick approval thresholds - plus the variable quota and elimination procedure, which doesn't have a strong intuitive interpretation to me. Maybe if you can find a way to simplify the counting algorithm - or a way to explain it with a more intuitive connection - but otherwise I think it would be too difficult to get adopted.</div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div class="h5"><div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">> >> But if we assume that partial rankings are effective, there's still the<br>
> >> strategy/computation tradeoff to deal with: allowing truncated ballots<br>
> >> still doesn't help with favorite-betrayal, and STV variants less<br>
> >> susceptible to favorite-betrayal are also less susceptible to efficient<br>
> >> counting.<br>
> >><br>
> ><br>
> > dlw: Truncated ballots may not end favorite betrayal, but it'll help with<br>
> > it.<br>
><br>
> I don't see how; please elaborate.<br>
><br>
<br>
This is essentially the same arg that IRV does not end the fact that some<br>
will still on occasion be pressured to betray their favorite.<br>
But it'll be of less consequence when it happens. It won't be 3rd party<br>
dissenters, it'll be the supporters of a major party that does<br>
not position itself near the true political center who get pressured to<br>
betray their favorite and that in turn will pressure the major party<br>
to adapt or die.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Are you saying that favorite-betrayal isn't a problem when those forced to do it belong to a major party? I hope I'm just misunderstanding your point, but it sounds to me like you're describing a system like FPTP but with major-party spoilers substituted for minor-party spoilers.</div>
<div>
<br></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">> >> With an implicit "first-preference" approval, it has the same problem as<br>
> >> traditional STV (i.e. IRV), namely of unduly rewarding<br>
> favorite-betrayal.<br>
> >> With an implicit "all-ranked" approval, the overall system would likely<br>
> >> violate later-no-harm with much higher frequency; by expressing a<br>
> >> preference between two dispreferred candidates one might unintentionally<br>
> >> put the higher of the two in contention.<br>
> >><br>
> ><br>
> > dlw: I'd say empirically we'd see just how high of a frequency LNH would<br>
> be<br>
> > violated. Jameson Quinn had a hard time coming up with a pathological<br>
> > example for IRV3/AV3 and I imagine it'd be similar for the above. The<br>
> 1st<br>
> > stage would reduce the number of candidates to N+2 and it seems likely<br>
> that<br>
> > the N+2nd and N+3rd candidates in terms of "all-ranked" approval are less<br>
> > likely to be among the N winners.<br>
><br>
> Hmm, ok. I'm operating on the assumption that voters will vote<br>
> strategically if doing so is easy, and will vote approximately<br>
> honestly if strategic voting is difficult.<br>
><br>
<br>
okay.<br>
<br>
><br>
> We're taking the top S+k winners and running some ideal STV method on<br>
> them; let's try to find an "easy" strategy. Here's my idea:<br>
> 1) Gather a set of related parties to form a majority-coalition.<br>
> 2) Have the coalition propose exactly S+k candidates.<br>
><br>
<br>
good luck coordinating that..<br>
<br>
3) Ask coalition voters to vote for all of the coalition candidates in<br>
> any order they choose.<br>
><br>
> Since a majority of candidates approve of every coalition candidate<br>
> and disapprove of every competing candidate, the coalition candidates<br>
> win the approval vote.<br>
> By adding the "approval" phase to the STV election, I'm able to turn a<br>
> simple majority into a 100% supermajority.<br>
<br>
<br>
> Is there a flaw in my strategy? (I don't think there is, but I may be<br>
> missing something.) If not, we'll either need to abandon a fixed<br>
> limit on the number of candidates or we'll need something more<br>
> sophisticated than a simple approval-vote to filter them.<br>
><br>
<br>
dlw: It's not realistic.<br>
<br>
You'd need to have serious intra-party discipline to keep the no. of<br>
candidates down to S+2<br>
and to get a majority of voters all to vote for all of that S+2 candidates.<br>
That is a serious coordination problem.<br>
<br>
But if it did happen then it'd "work" in terms of making the leading<br>
coalition of parties cast a broad net that strongly met the needs of most<br>
people. This would be much better than a bunch of non-competitive<br>
single-winner elections. In that case, we're in DINO land.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>By "strongly met the needs of most people" you appear to mean "met the needs of a bare majority of people marginally better than the alternatives". My concern is that in this scenario 25% of the electorate would benefit substantially, 25% would benefit marginally, and the remaining 50% would be arbitrarily worse off. That's essentially the same worst-case behavior as the current majority-of-majorities setup, but with a simpler strategy required to implement it.</div>
<div><br></div><div>That being the case, I think we'd be better off with small-district STV than with large-district STV with this sort of approval-based filtering.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
> >> It may well be that these issues are all less severe than in the<br>
> >> deterministic alternatives to STV, but I still think they're enough to<br>
> >> merit consideration of nondeterministic alternatives.<br>
> >><br>
> ><br>
> > In terms of the US's political culture, nondeterministic alternatives are<br>
> > not going to happen anytime in the near future and we need electoral<br>
> reform<br>
> > ASAP!!!!<br>
><br>
> Sadly, I think both nondeterminism and STV share the "not going to<br>
> happen in the near future given political culture in the US"<br>
> classification, given that US law requires single-winner FPTP<div><br>
> elections for federal representation and the major parties (who<br>
> control the legislature and benefit greatly from FPTP) have no<br>
> incentive to change that law.<br>
<br></div>
dlw: STV need not end 2-party domination. Reforms that do not end 2-party<br>
domination are more fit in the US and should be the only ones pushed.<br>
And, as I've shown, it's implementation can be simplified.<br>
Thus, it can become a political jujitsu issue, whereby it is more rational<br>
for those in power to accommodate than to resist the proposed change.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>The belief that the 2-party system can accurately reflect voter consensus relies heavily on the assumption that voters' differences of opinions correlate sufficiently well with a single dimension of variability, so that tending toward the center along a single axis produces centrist results on all issues. I do not accept that assumption: in my experience, Americans disagree along at least two axes that do not correlate perfectly (fiscal policy and social policy).</div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
> So as far as I can tell the only option for meaningful reform is a<br>
> constitutional amendment, and that means reforming 75% of the states<br>
> as a first step. This is not a short-term process. </blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
I think one could argue that the current law requiring single-winner<br>
elections is discriminatory twds minorities, and adopted under bad<br>
circumstances, and thereby unconstitutional. This would not require a<br>
constitutional amendment.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I think you're perhaps overly optimistic about the willingness of courts to overturn election law. But we'll see - I'd be thrilled to be proven wrong about this one.</div>
</div>
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