Self-Evident Truths, Or Are Explanations Needed?

[Al Cannistraro]

May I suggest that the new home page eventually will need a link to persuasive essays and videos that explain the benefits of passing the proposed 3-bill package, that explain why those particular reforms are seen as critical at this time, and that answer the obvious objections that can be expected to arise?  To me, the answers to those questions are not totally self-evident, but they have something to do with EFFECTIVE government by/of/for the people, not LESS government.

The reason I bring this up now are that I fear this project being hijacked and expertly exploited by right wing/Fox News//Tea Party/Trump elements to advance the objectives of forces such as the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives (see link below). 

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/14/a-house-divided

Also, it seems obvious to me that, for example, were the proposed reforms already in place (especially ranked choice voting), we now could be looking at the real prospect of a sizable Trump-led party or caucus in the House.  The consequences of the suggested reforms, as currently envisions, might not all be for the best from any particular perspective, so ensurance needs to be baked in.

A thoughtful debate/discussion about the basic elements of the proposed Citizen Equality reform package and their pros and cons should occur early in the process, rather than later, in my opinion.  Had Larry succeeded in joining the fray, the debate/discussion I am suggesting probably would be taking place right now.

As it is, we seem to be saying, these reforms pretty much are what Larry was building up to start pushing, so they must be good

Al C.

[Bruce Skarin]

Hi Al,

​​

There will eventually be a lot more on our site, but for the time being we are relying on all the fantastic work done by our partners. If you have not already, make sure you look at all the details available on the Ranked Choice Voting Act and the Blueprints for Democracy that discuss many of the concerns that people raise. For instance, in response to your example, ranked choice tends to actually minimize extremism because all voters have the chance to rank all the candidates. 

A good democracy is actually really hard to hijack, but considering how broken ours is, it already has been hijacked for all intents and purposes. This is why we have seen both sides tilt towards the extremes, with primaries having extremely low turnout.

I think the crowdsourcing process will allow for exactly the kind of robust discussion you're looking for. The experts have been doing this for decades, and while they may not be perfect, they really have done their homework on most of it. They key is making sure there are no giant holes and that it is easy for the public to understand both the problems and the solutions.

Thanks,

-Bruce

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[Clay Shentrup]

On Friday, December 11, 2015 at 1:44:49 PM UTC-8, Bruce Skarin wrote:

ranked choice tends to actually minimize extremism because all voters have the chance to rank all the candidates.

A Princeton math PhD who's arguably the world's leading expert on voting methods says precisely the opposite.

http://scorevoting.net/IrvExtreme.html

One major problem that IRV shares with traditional delayed Top Two Runoff is the "center squeeze" effect. For example, say your voter factions are as follows:

35% Left > Center > Right

33% Right > Center > Left

32% Center > others

Center is eliminated and Left and Right go head-to-head.

But observe that Center is preferred to Left by a huge 65% majority. And Center is preferred to Right by a huge 67% majority. Center is the beats-all "Condorcet" winner, and clearly the most broadly supported candidate, but is eliminated first.

This happens because IRV completely ignores that Center is the 2nd choice of the first two factions. It cannot register that information because it only looks at one layer of preferences at a time. This problem can be quite severe with many candidates.

http://scorevoting.net/IrvIgnoreExample.html

This actually happened in the 2009 IRV mayoral race in Burlington, VT. The Progressive won, but the relative centrist Democrat was preferred to the Progressive and the Republican by a majority.

Two simpler and superior systems that don't have this flaw are Score Voting and Approval Voting

[Bruce Skarin]

This isn't the right forum for getting into the weeds, but there are conditions where every system has advantages and disadvantages. Single winner elections are particularly hard, but the RCVA is only about house elections with multi member districts. It's a totally different ballgame.

FairVote has done some incredibly thorough work in examining real world cases of RCV and working with the election boards. This is precisely the kind of homework that needs to be done before a bill can even be considered.

Sent from my Moto Nexus

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[Clay Shentrup]

That first link had a typo. Should have been: http://scorevoting.net/LAgov2015.html

[Bruce Skarin]

Gents,

I'm sorry, but had to delete some of the posts from the board because they were personal attacks, which violates the general forum rules we expect members to follow. I must ask that you refrain from such activity in order to be able to continue contributing to the discussion.

I am all for a robust debate of theory, but it must be professional and based on reliable information (preferably peer reviewed sources).

Given the information provided thus far I have seen some mathematically interesting concepts, but also some key assumptions that would need to be rigorously validated with empirical evidence. In particular, there are countless studies demonstrating that people rarely use optimal utility functions in decision making and evaluating outcomes across a wide range of issues. While simulations can explore a broad parameter space, it should also be able to reliably reproduce real-world historical behaviors given the same initial conditions.

Multi-member RCV may indeed have distinct differences and potential issues under specific conditions, but whether those differences are features or bugs and whether or not those issues are at all likely is the real question to be determined by the various communities involved. Given that there are numerous real world examples of RCV that can be evaluated, I see plenty of evidence that it would provide a significant improvement over the gerrymandered system we have now and that such reforms could meet the criteria for being passed by the next Congress.

There are similar debates within the campaign finance community claiming that a constitutional amendment is the only reform that matters, but there again is plenty of evidence that significant improvements can be made right now.

Lastly, writing legislation that meets the legal criteria and requirements of election boards is a crucial step that cannot be glossed over. I would absolutely welcome alternative legislation, but it should follow an equally thorough process.

Thanks,

-Bruce

[Joe]

Bruce,

IRV worries me greatly, I have to be honest. Outside of the fact that it can sometimes have unusual undesirable results, it's not conducive for hand-counting the vote, which troubles me even MORE than the potential for unusual results. Even FairVote admits this.

Approval Voting is an easy tweak to the way our current system works, so I find it hard to believe that IRV would be easier to adopt from a political standpoint and an implementation standpoint.

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[Joe]

Also, I see that my post referring to a certain person's "egregious mistake" was deleted. That's not a personal attack. I didn't call anyone a name. I criticized a person's egregious mistake. That post should not have been deleted, IMO. It ought to be possible to critique mistakes without having those arguments purged from the record.

[Clay Shentrup]

On Tuesday, December 15, 2015 at 11:07:46 AM UTC-8, jac433 wrote:

Approval Voting is an easy tweak to the way our current system works, so I find it hard to believe that IRV would be easier to adopt from a political standpoint and an implementation standpoint.

IRV is politically easier in the sense that it has more (and more recent) precedent. But my view is that if you could get a couple cities to use Approval Voting right now, it would be radically easier to propagate it.

[Clay Shentrup]

On Tuesday, December 15, 2015 at 11:11:48 AM UTC-8, jac433 wrote:

Also, I see that my post referring to a certain person's "egregious mistake" was deleted.

Seems I experienced the same thing regarding my numerous citations of FairVote's false and misleading comments. Simply incredible. Here you have what is arguably the most important issue facing humanity—how we make group decisions, and the most high-profile organization in the field is on record repeatedly lying and misrepresenting critical facts on the issue. This  group has made one of their proposals a key plank, so you'd think the science and fact-checking would be of great significance here.

[Bruce Skarin]

You are just going to have to find a way to make your arguments without attacking the individual. If the science can speak for itself it should be able to stand on it's own.

To imply that fair vote is intentionally lying is like saying that Larry is only in this for the publicity. They simply remain unconvinced by the arguments made thus far. Just because someone disagrees with you does not make them a liar.

I personally am interested in seeing a more robust discussion, but you will have to go about it differently. You could learn a lot from how Lessig has approached those that insist that a constitutional amendment is the best and only solution. It is never personal, he makes a very convincing case based on a wide range of real world data and examples.

As a further example, I don't see fair vote attacking you personally.

Check your assumptions carefully, find better data, and do not gloss over the details of securing the input of legal and election board authorities.

Sent from my Moto Nexus

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[Bruce Skarin]

Clay, I think you're highly overestimating how condemning your case is. You're trying to pass off abstract simulations as real world data. This does not make me unreasonable.

I see no clear consensus in this case, but it is also far less researched than climate science.

You may still have a very solid argument, but you're going about it all wrong. If you really want to challenge a respected expert you have to do your homework. Not call them a liar.

It undermines your own reputation, making you sound petty. If you want to earn the respect that others have already earned, you'll just have to find a way to stand on the merits alone.

If you want to continue personal attacks offline, you are welcome, but the people on this forum deserve discourse that follows the guidelines.

I'm sorry if that makes your job harder, but this is your final warning.

[Joe]

My guess is that Clay can deal with being called a "very very unreasonable person" as long as he's allowed to do something as mild as quote what an expert says about the quality of someone's work and reputation.

But Clay can correct me if I'm wrong.

[Bruce Skarin]

Volunteers, my apologies to this forum for the recent violations of the code of conduct. The offender has been banned unfortunately.

I am all for a robust debate, but insist that it not be personal in any way. This especially true when it comes to the partners and leaders of this project. Fair Vote and Rob Richie have done an incredible amount of legwork in crafting the Ranked Choice Voting Act. That does not mean that it is a perfect bill, but there will be ample opportunities to provide feedback that is constructive. In addition, those that participate will be able to cast votes of approval both along the way and on the final product.

If there is to be further discussion on ranked versus approval voting, it must be on differences alone without personal judgements on the proponents.

Thanks,

-Bruce

[Joe]

Bruce,

Under what circumstances would you consider reinstating Clay into the group? For example, if he were to apologize and promise to never criticize a person by name, would that potentially get him back in the group?

Thanks

[Tim Huegerich]

I'm with Bruce, here, briefly stated. Scholars know how to discuss opposing views clearly and even bluntly without impugning motives, and Clay simply did not do that.

On the merits, what I haven't seen regarding approval/score voting is a discussion of how it would work in a multi-member district, which is the only relevant question here, as far as I can tell. RCV has the desirable "single-transferable vote" property which means that my vote ultimately only goes towards supporting *one* of the multiple reps in such a district. Intuitively, my sense is that the resulting "team" of reps for a district will better represent the spectrum of views. With something like approval voting, however, all five reps would likely end up representing the middle, since it would be the ones that are least objectionable to the most people that win. If that's right, then the question is whether you think it's better to have five centrists representing a district or reps of five different points on the spectrum. FairVote, to me, explains persuasively why the latter is better.

But please correct me if I've gotten anything wrong factually.

Tim

[Joe]

Tim, if you want great answers to those questions, I recommend you contact Clay directly, because he's no longer in this group.

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[Tim Huegerich]

Thanks, Joe. I did look at Clay's twitter feed, which just happened to link to a score voting proponent who says, "Range voting...we only recommend for single-winner elections..."  http://scorevoting.net/PropRep.html  But all the author is saying is that a variant of score voting is needed for multi-member districts.

The author then goes on to recommend two tweaked forms of score voting of his own devising that he calls "apparently-superior forms of [proportional representation]," later stating that they "might be better" than a specific single-transferable vote (STV) method: 

• The variant closest to single-winner score voting he calls re-weighted range voting (http://scorevoting.net/RRV.html), in which the votes of electors are given lower weights when their favored candidates are selected. In the simplest case of approval voting, the votes of anyone who approves of the most-approved candidate are given half as much weight when determining the second winner, and so on. A version which allows 0-9 ratings is apparently used by the OSCARs to determine the 5 nominees in a particular category. In the end, the author somewhat acknowledges that the benefits over a good STV system are not that substantial, and he seems to say the main advantage is that range voting in single-voter elections would be the stepping stone, as opposed to single-winner IRV, which he says is clearly inferior to straight range/score voting.
  
• The more interesting/bizarre variant he calls asset voting (http://scorevoting.net/Asset.html). It may strike many as odd, but I feel right at home with it as an economist. It is similar in spirit to the way parties in proportional systems negotiate to form coalitions after each election, which determines which parties will be part of the ruling majority. Such a process may seem undemocratic on its face, but once you take into account that voters know such a post-election haggling will take place and choose their party to represent their interests accordingly in that process, you can see how such a process can actually help produce better representation than is otherwise possible. If you accept that premise, this system is pretty much unbeatable both for its simplicity (in terms of ballot choices required of voters) and its representation properties. However, the post-election negotiation idea is entirely foreign to US voters, so I doubt this is a feasible option.

Tim

On Thursday, December 17, 2015 at 8:26:29 AM UTC-6, jac433 wrote:

Tim, if you want great answers to those questions, I recommend you contact Clay directly, because he's no longer in this group.

On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 9:14 AM, Tim Huegerich <hug...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm with Bruce, here, briefly stated. Scholars know how to discuss opposing views clearly and even bluntly without impugning motives, and Clay simply did not do that.

On the merits, what I haven't seen regarding approval/score voting is a discussion of how it would work in a multi-member district, which is the only relevant question here, as far as I can tell. RCV has the desirable "single-transferable vote" property which means that my vote ultimately only goes towards supporting *one* of the multiple reps in such a district. Intuitively, my sense is that the resulting "team" of reps for a district will better represent the spectrum of views. With something like approval voting, however, all five reps would likely end up representing the middle, since it would be the ones that are least objectionable to the most people that win. If that's right, then the question is whether you think it's better to have five centrists representing a district or reps of five different points on the spectrum. FairVote, to me, explains persuasively why the latter is better.

But please correct me if I've gotten anything wrong factually.

Tim

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