<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p>I don't write much on election methods of late, because I came to
see voting methods as a problem of interest, all right, but not
actually the core problem, and I saw little interest in the voting
systems community in the fundamental, underlying structural issues
that then lead to endless regress on voting systems I will here,
lay that out.</p>
<p>First of all, parliamentary procedure evolved to consider one
question, and only one question, at a time, a question that can be
answered Yes or No, and for an option to win, rules varied, but
the best rules (my opinion) required a true majority of an
assembly. Moving away from an absolute majority was a move down a
slippery slope that might be justified in this or that condition,
and the development of fascism is always "reasonable." After all,
trains run on time, etc. Under Robert's Rules, truly important
issues require a two-thirds majority, or sometimes an absolute
majority of all eligible voters.</p>
<p>What was called the "nuclear option" in the Senate was always
possible, but avoided because it was important to decide, first,
*by supermajority* that the body was ready to vote on the main
issue. Increasingly, over time, that was chipped way, going to 60%
from two-thirds for cloture. The stated reason is always
efficiency, as with every fascist move. Can't have a vocal
minority gumming up the works, can we? Then the nuclear option was
based on the rule that an absolute majority can do anything with
an organization. The right of the minority against an absolute
majority is to leave, and, of course, if fascism is prevalent,
that is prohibited.</p>
<p>(I have been using "fascism" lately quite as Mussolini used it,
where the will of the collective, as represented by the
"leader(s)" is to be enforced, and individual freedom (he called
it "individualism") is to be suppressed, for collective welfare.
This has always been a strain in human organization, in dialectic
with freedom. The future is in synthesis, where it is understood
that diversity is crucial to human survivability and collective
wisdom, so restrictions on freedom of thought and expression are
to be minimized to what is immediately and emergently necessary.
So can the FDA ban books and burn them if they contain "quackery"?
The fascist answer is, "Of course, and it must!" Yet there are
other possibilities, such as creating and requiring informed
consent, warning and notice, as has been done with cigarettes and
cigarette advertising. But in a fascist environment, which modern
social media readily become (even though it paradoxically seems to
be maximally free), synthetic compromises are drowned in the
noise. Each side of a debate is demonized by the other.)</p>
<p>So, for elections, as a way to broaden choice, it was allowed to
have more than one option that could receive votes, and the rule
was vote for one. But there was another rule, often forgotten,
that to win an election, the winning candidate was required to
receive a majority of the votes, not merely a plurality. If not,
then the election was to be repeated. The whole thing, including
nominations. Further, every marked ballot (if it was marked with
any mark) was considered to be a vote, counted in the basis for
majority. Restricted runoffs were instituted to attempt to find
that majority, but they have well-known flaws, most notably center
squeeze. This could all be fixed, but it does not actually address
a core issue, the submission of questions to an electorate that is
largely ignorant, on the one hand, or easily manipulated by media
and mob mentality. (Classic arguments against democracy.)</p>
<p>The old majority-required-to-prevail rule still applies in
assemblies that meet face-to-face, because it can be quickly done.
It could also be quickly done in modern times with internet
voting. But there is a killer solution that also addresses the
more fundamental problem of an ignorant electorate, and "ignorant"
here is not a moral failure. Presenting complex issues to an
electorate that does not have time to truly investigate and
consider them is a formula for failure, though it can work well
enough that we have not immediately recognized and addressed the
problem. The killer solution is to create a truly representative
assembly, chosen as fully trusted (or as fully as possible) to
make all those decisions, including officer elections. Asset
Voting, in a word or two.</p>
<p>As democracy matures, it will come to value consensus as distinct
from the win-lose thinking of majority rule. But majority rule is
necessary because the alternative is minority rule, not consensus.
That is, the majority has the right of decision, but will, to
foster the strength of the organization, protect the minority. I
have seen organizations where the majority goes out of its way to
ensure that the minority is fully heard, and minority reports are
issued if the minority desires it. Such organizations have been
phenomenally successful.</p>
<p>And it can all fall apart of they drop the protections of the
minority in the name of efficiency. Fascism.</p>
<p>What may be appropriate for the Brexit issue would be polling,
especially given that there was a vote. The ideal polling method
is obviously Score. Problems with Score are caused by its use for
*decisions*.</p>
<p>The actual decision would be made by the best representative
body, which can deliberate and debate and amend and all that. If
that body is not truly representative *that's the problem," and it
is going to be a worse problem if Britain exits the EU, because
Parliament will be less restrained. So, from this thinking, the
public can be polled, as an advisory poll, used to inform
Parliament, which, representing the people, will decide, not being
bound by the advice, but informed by it. Sanely, Parliament will
respect the opinions of the people, but those change and can be
quite labile. If it decides to cancel Brexit or modify it, it will
address the concerns, it will seek to unify British society.</p>
<p>Or it will seek personal, individual political advantage and
gain, and if enough members do that, Britain sails off to Hell in
a handbasket.</p>
<p>Now, if Score is to be used, what form?</p>
<p>There are those who want to see min/max scoring either required
or used. This is all designed to create definitive decisions more
efficiently. Reality is that voters have views of different
strength, and the most informed voters might rationally have
stronger opinions. Perhaps. Not always!</p>
<p>Human choice is not as finely graded as to be clearly expressable
on a scale of 0-100 or 0-99. I would suggest using 0-9, anything
more complicates the ballot without benefit, other than attempting
to force choice, and forced choice when the voter has no strong
preference creates noise in the system. I used to suggest having a
+ checkbox that would allow a voter to express a distinction
within a score, but this is really a fish bicycle in a *poll*. I
can think of many refinements, such as two parts to the question.
First part: how important is this to you? Second part, within the
choices, mark favorite, rejected, or in between.</p>
<p>Asking voters to rank candidates where there is no significant
preference between them is, again, asking them to create noise. In
the criticism of Score by that Borda advocate, he posited the
scenario where a majority of voters preferred A, giving A a 10
(say), but also gave B a 9, but enough voters gave B a 10 and B a
0, to cause B to win, and this was somehow considered offensive.
The idea is that the B voters were "insincere" and merely wanted B
to win, so they downvoted A. However, this shows how fascist
concepts ("first choice of a majority must win") can easily slip
in. The choice of B, given the votes, will satisfy every voter, it
is a true consensus choice (and this is especially visible if
there was another candidate, C, truly disliked by a majority.)</p>
<p>But all those considerations fall away if the poll does not
decide, but merely informs the actual decision-makers, who would
make that decision by standard deliberative process: a two-thirds
vote to decide when the Yes/No question is ready for a vote, and
then a vote on the question, and if a majority does not vote Yes,
the question fails and no decision is (yet) made.</p>
<p>This respects the rights of the minority. A mature assembly,
seeking genuine public unity, may go even further than that, being
willing to be patient with the "idiots on the other side."</p>
<p>(Another way to state this under standard rules is "first choice
of a two-thirds majority wins." They can amend the question to be
that choice (that takes mere majority), they can then vote
Previous Question, and then only a majority is required. So the
loss of the supermajority requirement for cloture in the U.S.
Senate is a major blow to deliberative democracy, not a mere
detail. The political environment has become shamelessly fascist.)<br>
</p>
<p>(It is an error to equate fascism with left/right or racism or
other specific traits of specific fascist regimes. In three
different versions of Mussolini's paper on fascism, he equated
fascism in the twentieth century with the rise of the<b> righ</b><b>t</b>,
in another version, he omitted the statement, and in another
official translation he equated it with the rise of the <b>left</b>.
The common factor in all three versions was "the century of the
collective." Hence the symbol of fascism, the strength created by
binding sticks -- individuals -- into a unity, the binding being
the power of leaders and collective will.)<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/1/2019 7:34 AM, Kevin Venzke
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1534962090.23537660.1554118469268@mail.yahoo.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div class="ydp1faf5ae1yahoo-style-wrap"
style="font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial,
sans-serif;font-size:16px;">
<div>That's including first and last choice, I assume. It's not
going to be as informative if everybody automatically uses 100
and 0.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Kevin</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>I agree. There is no reason to require or even suggest all to use
the full scale. Using less than full scale then can allow absolute
preference strength to be expressed. Indeed, the votes can then be
analyzed in different ways. If the poll is used for "information"
as distinct from decision, it can be analyzed six ways till
Sunday. Individual voting patterns matter! So one can sum the
votes (basic, standard score), average the votes (excluding
abstentions), etc. I also used to suggest renormalization, that
all ballots would be normalized to use the full range.<br>
</p>
<p>One could even include a "none of the above" option, I want
something else. Artificially restricting options to a small list
is, again, fascist, but there is a limit to how far one can
practically go to accommodate diversity.</p>
<p>The ballot should be designed for ease of understanding and use.
I would suggest that every option on the ballot have a faction
supporting it, which would, within itself, a voluntary association
of members of Parliament, establish information and arguments to
be placed in a voter information pamphlet.</p>
<p>It would be possible to create this poll as a shining example of
how a democracy can create process which unifies the public and
the government, rather than divides and separates, without
oppressing minority opinion.</p>
<p><b>No more original content below.</b><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1534962090.23537660.1554118469268@mail.yahoo.com">
<div class="ydp1faf5ae1yahoo-style-wrap"
style="font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial,
sans-serif;font-size:16px;">
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<div id="ydp80d8ebf1yahoo_quoted_4670344304"
class="ydp80d8ebf1yahoo_quoted">
<div style="font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial,
sans-serif;font-size:13px;color:#26282a;">
<div> Le lundi 1 avril 2019 à 00:58:09 UTC−5, William WAUGH
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:dgfdwbvm23@snkmail.com"><dgfdwbvm23@snkmail.com></a> a écrit : </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div id="ydp80d8ebf1yiv3866111248">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">She should score them according to the
value she places on each outcome.</div>
<br clear="none">
<div class="ydp80d8ebf1yiv3866111248gmail_quote">
<div class="ydp80d8ebf1yiv3866111248yqt2599486137"
id="ydp80d8ebf1yiv3866111248yqtfd40894">
<div class="ydp80d8ebf1yiv3866111248gmail_attr"
dir="ltr">On Mon, Apr 1, 2019 at 12:09 AM robert
bristow-johnson <a shape="rect"
href="http://rbj-at-audioimagination.com"
rel="nofollow" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">rbj-at-audioimagination.com</a>
|electorama| <<a shape="rect"
href="mailto:qdtc3yujo374wut@sneakemail.com"
rel="nofollow" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">qdtc3yujo374wut@sneakemail.com</a>>
wrote:<br clear="none">
</div>
<blockquote
class="ydp80d8ebf1yiv3866111248gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px
solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex;">
<p> </p>
<p>i presume there is their favorite choice that
they score 100 and there is their hated choice
that they score 0.</p>
<p>so how much should the Brit voter score their
second choice? and their third choice?</p>
<p><br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
---------------------------- Original Message
----------------------------<br clear="none">
Subject: [EM] Comprehensive, simplest, and most
informative Indicative Voting<br clear="none">
From: "William WAUGH" <<a shape="rect"
href="mailto:dgfdwbvm23@snkmail.com"
rel="nofollow" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">dgfdwbvm23@snkmail.com</a>><br
clear="none">
Date: Sun, March 31, 2019 6:57 pm<br
clear="none">
To: <a shape="rect"
href="mailto:election-methods@lists.electorama.com"
rel="nofollow" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">election-methods@lists.electorama.com</a><br
clear="none">
--------------------------------------------------------------------------<br
clear="none">
<br clear="none">
> The UK should use Score Voting with a range
of 0 through 100 by ones to<br clear="none">
> decide what Brexit alternative has the
broadest support.<br>
</p>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">----
Election-Methods mailing list - see <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://electorama.com/em">https://electorama.com/em</a> for list info
</pre>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>