<div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><br>---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: Kevin Venzke <<a href="mailto:stepjak@yahoo.fr">stepjak@yahoo.fr</a>><br>
To: election-methods <<a href="mailto:election-methods@electorama.com">election-methods@electorama.com</a>><br>Cc: <br>Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2012 22:37:56 +0000 (GMT)<br>Subject: Re: [EM] Kevin V<br><div><div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif">
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<div><span>Hi David,</span></div>
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</div><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:bold">De :</span></b> David L Wetzell <<a href="mailto:wetzelld@gmail.com" target="_blank">wetzelld@gmail.com</a>><br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:bold">À :</span></b> <a href="mailto:stepjak@yahoo.fr" target="_blank">stepjak@yahoo.fr</a>; EM <<a href="mailto:election-methods@lists.electorama.com" target="_blank">election-methods@lists.electorama.com</a>> <br>
<b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:bold">Envoyé le :</span></b> Mardi 7 février 2012 16h17<br><b><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:bold">Objet :</span></b> Re: Kevin
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<div><font face="arial, sans-serif" color="#222222">dlw: I argue that the strength of the US presidency and regular presidential elections has the effect of building up our two-party system. <br></font></div>
<div>This is why I take as a given that there tend to be 2 bigger major parties and not as many serious candidates in "single-winner elections". This in turn tends to </div>
<div>reduce the import of the diffs among the wide variety of single-winner elections. </div></blockquote>
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<div>I think it works like this:</div>
<div>President isn't responsible to or chosen by Congress -></div>
<div>There is not<var></var> that much prize for having a majority of a house -></div>
<div>Weak party discipline (because of less focus on party: a candidate can get reelected even if his peers are unhappy) -></div>
<div>If you are a viable candidate, there is no need for you to carve out a new party. There is only room for two contenders per</div>
<div>race (under FPP), and there are two parties that will take you as long as you can win for them.</div>
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<div>dlw: Aye, but the prez election itself and its potential for coat-tails and the reward from capturing one or both of the US legislatures</div>
<div>does build up the parties who can afford to run a serious prez election race. <span style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">I think some of the weak party discipline is also due to the restrictions on donations to parties in the 1974 FEC act.</span></div>
<div>Our system wd function better if there was more intra-party discipline and the donations flowed thru the relatively transparent venue of the party. </div></blockquote>
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<div dir="ltr" style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">Personally I prefer weak party discipline. I like candidates to have independence, with the decision-making power</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">less concentrated. And I'm suspicious of what party policies designed at the national level would look like.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote>
<div><br></div><div>dlw: Well, intra-party discipline is needed one way or the other to get things done. Our system right now is characterized as full of political entrepreneurship, which makes bills a lot more complicated than they need to be and things take longer and too much of politicians' time gets spent fund-raising... </div>
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<div>KV: I think we could have three "parties" (if not a much greater variety of viewpoints) with the right method. I wouldn't care</div>
<div>if they are actually parties or just a higher number of real choices, on average, in a race.</div>
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<div>dlw:Would it make a diff if our two major parties became two different major parties, bridging the gap between the de facto center and the true center?</div>
<div>If American forms of PR were adopted so that there'd still be 2 major parties per area, they wouldn't be the same 2 parties for all regions, which would then enable minor parties </div>
<div>to contest the duopoly. And if this got complemented by a host of LTPs(with coalitions) that specialized in contesting "more local" elections and voting strategically together in "less local" elections, </div>
<div>along with other acts that hold elected officials accountable to their promises then we'd have better quality choices, even if the quantity is less than we'd prefer.</div></blockquote></blockquote>
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<div style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">Yes, I think it would be useful if we could increase the incentive to stand at the median, even if two "parties" maintained</div>
<div style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">their grip on things.</div>
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<div style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">I don't find PR very interesting personally. It can be its own goal, but it doesn't seem useful for the things I'm concerned</div>
<div style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">about.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>dlw: For more local electyions that are rarely competitive, it's the only way to make them not DINOs. We used quasi-proportional elections for IL from 1870-1980 and it kept either major party from dominating the state's politics, so other states that are/were economically dependent on IL could afford to be more politically independent than if one party had been able to leverage their domination of IL's politics... It's a neglected part of our history!!!</div>
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<div style="FONT-SIZE:12pt">Kevin</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br><br>---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: Kevin Venzke <<a href="mailto:stepjak@yahoo.fr">stepjak@yahoo.fr</a>><br>
To: election-methods <<a href="mailto:election-methods@electorama.com">election-methods@electorama.com</a>><br>Cc: <br>Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2012 22:53:34 +0000 (GMT)<br>Subject: Re: [EM] [CES #4445] Re: Looking at Condorcet<br>
<div><div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif"><div><span>Hi Robert,</span></div>
<div><span></span> </div>
<div><span>I would +1 to Bryan Mills' post.</span></div>
<div><span></span> </div>
<div><span>>in the two-candidate case, you would have to assume unequal treatment for voters</span></div>
<div><span></span> </div>
<div><span>Yes, utility inherently does this. It's trying to maximize "happiness" which is a different ideal from giving</span></div>
<div><span>everyone equal weight (e.g. even people who don't have a strong opinion).</span></div>
<div><span></span> </div>
<div><span>>but when Clay says that Score or Approval is better at picking the Condorcet winner than is a </span></div>
<div><span>>Condorcet-compliant method, *that* is no tautology is obviously controversial, since it says that there is </span></div>
<div><span>>a number closer to 3 than the number 3 itself.</span></div>
<div><span></span> </div>
<div><span>What Clay means is that score/Approval are better at picking the *sincere* Condorcet winner. Yes, that's</span></div>
<div><span>obviously controversial. It could be true if it so happens that nobody wants to vote truthfully under</span></div>
<div><span>Condorcet methods, while Approval in practice never has an<var></var>y bad outcomes, etc.</span></div>
<div><span></span> </div>
<div><span>>if it isn't 0 (for when you don't get who you voted for) and 1 (for when your candidate is elected), then </span></div>
<div><span>>some voter is diluting their utilities and i think it's pretty useless and in bad taste to ask voters to do that </span></div>
<div><span>>explicitly with a Score ballot.</span></div>
<div><span></span> </div>
<div><span>"Utilities" refers to what voters actually "feel," not what they are putting on the ballot.</span></div>
<div><span></span> </div>
<div><span>Kevin</span></div>
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