A Colorado Vision
freder...@yahoo.com
Colorado Vision which has been presented to the Voter Choice Task
Force.
I know the issue of a UNICAMERAL legislature is controversal but it's
time has come! There is no rational reason for a Senate to exist in a
USA State. I am sure that this issue will get the debate of
Alternative Voting Methods off page 17 to at least page 2 as soon as
the PRESS hears about it!
Proportional Representation (PR) will give Party's that can muster a
5% statewide threshold a voice in the Peoples House of Representatives
and no longer will political issues/ideas be marginalized to the
dump! Mandela had the opportunity to keep out the opposition Party's
but he believed that they should be inside rather than outside.
Also, it's my opinion that to fill/allocate Party seats under PR it is
best to create party list of the losers of a district election than to
let Party bosses create the list.
If you have any questions or comments please post.
Frederick Ellis
Dave Ketchum
> I am a new member as Jan Kok asked me to join. I am the author of A
> Colorado Vision which has been presented to the Voter Choice Task
> Force.
>
> I know the issue of a UNICAMERAL legislature is controversal but it's
> time has come! There is no rational reason for a Senate to exist in a
> USA State. I am sure that this issue will get the debate of
> Alternative Voting Methods off page 17 to at least page 2 as soon as
> the PRESS hears about it!
If its time had TRULY come, more states might be doing it.
One advantage to two houses is that it is difficult to sell the same
stupidity to both at the same time.
In New York the politics has let the Democrats control the Assembly while
the Republicans control the Senate - describing facts, not bragging about
the way we do gerrymandering.
ASSUMING I got to try repackaging NY districting, I would think on such
as: Make the state 30 districts of the same population.
Two Senators per district. Thinking as to whether the district is
split to let each half elect one.
Five Assembly members per district.
Perhaps each 1/5 of the district elect one.
Perhaps do PR.
>
> Proportional Representation (PR) will give Party's that can muster a
> 5% statewide threshold a voice in the Peoples House of Representatives
> and no longer will political issues/ideas be marginalized to the
> dump! Mandela had the opportunity to keep out the opposition Party's
> but he believed that they should be inside rather than outside.
>
> Also, it's my opinion that to fill/allocate Party seats under PR it is
> best to create party list of the losers of a district election than to
> let Party bosses create the list.
A sticky question. Making a party list from losers turns me off.
>
> If you have any questions or comments please post.
>
> Frederick Ellis
--
da...@clarityconnect.com people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026
Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
If you want peace, work for justice.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>I am a new member as Jan Kok asked me to join. I am the author of A
>Colorado Vision which has been presented to the Voter Choice Task
>Force.
Welcome. I don't reside in Colorado currently but I have a deep
interest in organizational systems, including but not limited to
governmental ones, and Jan asked me to participate as well.
>I know the issue of a UNICAMERAL legislature is controversal but it's
>time has come! There is no rational reason for a Senate to exist in a
>USA State. I am sure that this issue will get the debate of
>Alternative Voting Methods off page 17 to at least page 2 as soon as
>the PRESS hears about it!
Perhaps, perhaps not. Making possibly very minor changes to voting
systems is one thing, dramatically restructuring state government is
another. The former can be accomplished, in some cases, without
constitutional amendment, and, in the extreme, i.e., the Count All
the Votes reform (i.e., "Approval" voting), don't even require
significant changes to ballots or counting procedures. Restructuring
the government requires much more consideration and involves some
substantial implementation issues, i.e., how to get from here to there.
To claim there is no "rational reason" for district representation is
clearly to exaggerate. There are reasons, indeed, having to do with
the compromises made to bring diverse regions into a single
government. Absolutely, there is an antidemocratic aspect to the
representation of regions rather than of voters. But governments are
formed out of complexes of interests. Is it the time to move away
from district (state, county) representation? I don't know, but
certainly it is the time to begin considering it. However, it is not
where I would begin. I would begin with some easy changes that
rectify some long-standing inequities.
And simply dropping the no-overvoting rules, rules which restrict the
freedom of voters in a way that clearly can produce less than
satisfactory, even seriously harmful, election results (and which
which has often done so, both here in the United States and
elsewhere) is an obvious excellent first step. I wouldn't want debate
on more complex reforms to derail it. It may be possible to implement
this particular reform, which in no way obstructs deeper reform, by
the 2008 elections.
However, if we are considering deep reform, such as creating a
unicameral legislature, there are many ways to accomplish this, some
of which are in actual using in the world (STV with multi-member
districts, the extreme being a single district for the entire state),
others of which have never been tried in government (some are known
to work in business applications). Because a major reform will be
expensive, probably, we should study the reforms carefully before
leaping into them.
>Proportional Representation (PR) will give Party's that can muster a
>5% statewide threshold a voice in the Peoples House of Representatives
>and no longer will political issues/ideas be marginalized to the
>dump!
That is only one possible implementation of PR. It's possible to have
deeper representation that that, and why not? Are we afraid that
someone who represents a scattered 1% of voters is going to ... what?
Start shouting on the floor? Certainly that is possible, but there
are already procedures whereby an assembly can protect itself against
disorderly members.
It is possible, in fact, to have *every* voter represented in some
way, by a chosen representative. Voters with highly idiosyncratic and
isolated views may find some serious compromises being made, but they
would be based on free choice and the natural restrictions required
in a peer assembly due to problems of scale. The method which is
closest to traditional forms is Asset Voting, which was an invention
of Warren Smith, but which is really a form of delegable proxy
designed to create a peer legislature, where all seats have the same
voting power. Votes aren't lost in this system, unless those who are
exercising them refuse to compromise to find the best possible
representation, in which case there is someone specific to hold
responsible for the loss.
Asset Voting is worth looking at. It is extremely simple, yet it has
potential for radically transforming the face of government to the
point where the average person really does think of government as
"us," instead of "them." With Asset Voting, it is even possible to
move to something that is very much like direct democracy, while
retaining the efficiency and concentration of wisdom that are the
best features of representative democracy, when it works. With Asset,
it is possible I could know exactly what specific representative my
vote elected, while my vote would remain secret. (The rep would know
that a vote came from the precinct in which I voted, but not my identity.)
> Mandela had the opportunity to keep out the opposition Party's
>but he believed that they should be inside rather than outside.
It's better to be having arguments on the floor of an assembly than
in the streets with guns.
>Also, it's my opinion that to fill/allocate Party seats under PR it is
>best to create party list of the losers of a district election than to
>let Party bosses create the list.
Asset completely bypasses the need for political parties. They will
still exist and function, to be sure, but they are not specifically
relevant to the election process under Asset.
But, as mentioned, there are many ways to do Proportional
Representation. The key question, though is what is being
"proportioned." Typically it has been party affiliation. Whether this
is a good thing or a bad thing is certainly debatable. But we should
understand, before recommending major reforms, that there are other
possibilities, and we should choose from the known universe of such
possibilities rather than just one or two suggestions.
The Voter Choice Task Force can draw from the knowledge and
understanding of experts from many fields, as well as from members of
the public who have studied the issues. It can use this list as an
ongoing public forum. It is not necessary that all members of the
Task Force follow the discussions on this list, but if any member is
*not* going to follow this list, I'd suggest that member identify
someone who *will* follow the list and summarize and recommend to the
member what is important to know and what is not.
(This is, in fact, an idea coming from possible structural reforms.
Not all reforms, nor even, possibly, the most important and practical
reforms, require changes in law. I'll give an example in another post.)
freder...@yahoo.com
eliminating the Senate (35 districts apportioned by population) and
that there would be no district representation. The present 65 House
Districts would still directly elect a representative.
In my view, anything less than a 5% Party threshold in statewide votes
to gain House Proportional Seats would be a mistake. A group of
voters who form a Party should have to prove that they a level of
public support and a 5% threshold is a reasonable proof.
Comment: A dramatic change (Unicameral, Proportional Representation
and Instant Run-Off Voting) in the structure of the Colorado state
government should be put before the electorate in the form of an
initiative. Reason - it would be very unlikely that the Legislature
would vote to eliminate 1/3 of its members.
Frederick Ellis
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
>Perhaps 'abd' misread the section dealing with a Unicameral system in
>eliminating the Senate (35 districts apportioned by population) and
>that there would be no district representation. The present 65 House
>Districts would still directly elect a representative.
I didn't misread it, I hardly read it at all. What I saw when I
looked at it was a deteiled proposal to restructure the government. I
see many such proposals, ofteh with excruciating detail. For some
reason, some reforms seem to think it necessary to imagine every
possible detail in advance. When proposing legislation, this is
necessary. But proposing major structural changes should be preceded
by an understanding of what already exists, including the reasons why
it exists, and denying that there is any "rational reason" for the
existence of what is a nearly universal structure in states is not a
promising start.
I didn't refer to the specific proposal, being aware that I was
blissfully ignorant of details.
>In my view, anything less than a 5% Party threshold in statewide votes
>to gain House Proportional Seats would be a mistake. A group of
>voters who form a Party should have to prove that they a level of
>public support and a 5% threshold is a reasonable proof.
This is a mere assertion. I.e., less than 5% party threshold is
asserted as being "a mistake." Why? No reason is given, at all. We
already know that Mr. Ellis is proposing a 5% threshold, so he added
nothing by his response.
A 5% threshold for party representation *assumes* party
representation. What about independents? How does one gauge the
proper proportion for independents? Or are we deciding that
independents don't deserve to be representatives? Are we requiring
party affiliation? Why?
In a good PR system, most people vote for a candidate who wins. These
people are represented. That's good. However, if they are constrained
to vote only for candidates representing "parties," that prevents the
election of otherwise quite qualified and sufficiently trusted
individuals who aren't part of the party system.
In the document that went from Mr. Ellis to the Voter Choice Task
Force, it was written:
>To achieve equity and participation we need to have an 'Instant
>Run-off Voting-IRV' for elections for a single office and a
>'Proportional Representation-PR' electoral system for the remaining
>seats in the state legislature. IRV guarantees majority victories
>without additional elections. PR guarantees representation for all
>political ideas.
Those who have studied elections and election methods in general will
recognize the naivete of these claims. IRV does not "guarantee
majority victories," it can even fail to elect a candidate who would
soundly, by majority vote, beat the IRV winner. And this is not some
rare event, unless there is a firm two-party system. Indeed, some
claim that the reason why countries with IRV elections have strong
two-party systems is that you can get seriously bad IRV results if
there appears a third party in range of winning.
And we just saw that PR does not, if implemented as Mr. Ellis
suggests, "guarantee representation for all political ideas."
Now, if it were impossible to accomplish this goal, we could easily
forgive the hyperbole. But a party is not a "political idea,"
necessarily, and 95% is pretty far short of "all." And there are mans
to insure representation of *nearly* all ideas, far more than 95%.
And it is actually simpler, no petitions, no qualifying standards,
just a regular ballot, easily counted. With post-election process in
which those who were given votes in the general election cooperate,
as they freely choose, to form seats. It's even possible to place
control of this process in the hands of the voters directly, but I
wouldn't recommend it. Most voters simply don't have the time and
necessary information to make optimal decisions, and I'd prefer to
reserve the voter action to choosing the most trustworthy person or
persons to actually put together the legislature.
For an example and precedent, consider the U.S. electoral college if
it had developed more along the lines of the original vision. Suppose
that states had selected electors by Asset Voting. And we had been
voting for electors, not Presidential candidates. We've forgotten
that this was the original vision! That electors came to be pledged
and that they came to be elected by all-or-nothing statewide
elections -- in nearly every state -- was an artifact of political
history, made strategically necessary, state-by-state, by the
adoption of such practices by other states. In other words, once the
majority party in a large state took advantage of the loophole in the
Constitution that the method of selecting electors wasn't specified
but was left to the states, the opposing party was essentially forced
to do the same in states where it was in the majority, or face a
severe electoral disadvantage.
In Asset Voting, voters are essentially voting for electors. Asset is
not being used anywhere that we know of, not just like we would
propose. So there are many details that could vary. In some systems,
electors are ineligible to serve in the offices being elected,
allegedly this would make them more disinterested and likely to make
good compromises. But in the simplest system, anyone can register as
a candidate for the office, and, if the person gets enough votes,
they are elected. But, unlike present systems, votes that go to
candidates who are not elected are not wasted, they can be used by
those candidates, in combination with votes from others, to create
seats, i.e., to elect representatives. Every representative is
elected by the same exact vote count.
There are varieties of Asset Voting where it can be said that "no
vote is wasted." However, in the simplest form, it's possible that a
few votes end up not being used to create a seat, and thus the
legislature could be a seat or maybe even a few seats short. But, by
the nature of the system, these would represent very few wasted
votes. There is more to Asset Voting, it is worthy of attention and
should be on the table if PR systems are being considered.
However, my major point was that moving to PR is a huge step, not a
simple one. And given that it is a huge step, fixing on one
particular proposal at this time may satisfy partisans of that
proposal, but is not really likely to serve the public well. Rather,
in the short term, it is useful to examine and make clear the
shortcomings of existing systems as well as their strengths.
Single-winner districts have some obvious and very severe problems,
yet they are ubiquitous. Why?
Problems with transition would be one reason. How does a system
change from something less than ideal to something better? There can
be disruptions. There can even be political manipulation in reform.
(Gerrymandering is political manipulation in reform of district
boundaries, and political history is full of reforms that were
implemented to solve one problem that were manipulated to create
others, i.e., to unfairly benefit one party at the expense of another.)
>Comment: A dramatic change (Unicameral, Proportional Representation
>and Instant Run-Off Voting) in the structure of the Colorado state
>government should be put before the electorate in the form of an
>initiative.
That's a political conclusion. Why should we trust it?
First of all, were IRV to come before me as a voter, I used to say
that I'd vote for it, even though I knew it had some flaws. I thought
it better than Plurality, the status quo. I'm no longer so sure. I
*am* sure that it is not the optimal reform, if we are going to spend
so much money implementing a ranked ballot system that asks voters to
put effort into ranking the candidates, why not actually *use* the
information, all of it? Why use a method which discards the majority
of that information using a simulation of runoffs, when top-two
runoff is known already to suffer from serious problems, witness
several recent French elections? Why not use a method that actually
will choose the pairwise winner, if one exists? IRV can elect, as I
mentioned a winner who would lose to another, even by a large margin,
in a face-off with another candidate that IRV passed over.
There is a much simpler reform that, while not perfect, has the
advantage of being (1) free, there is no transition cost, and (2)
considered a very good method by experts, one of the best.
But if one wants to insist on ranked ballots and the expense of
counting them, why not choose a Condorcet-compliant method which will
always elect the pairwise winner? There are a number of these, and
model legislation exists for one of them, it was developed for the
State of Washington.
Most of us involved are proposing that we start election reform with
the simple reform changing just about nothing, but starting to
actually count all the votes. Instead of assuming that overvotes are
errors, why not just count them? Initially this will have almost no
effect on major party voters. However, supporters of third parties
suddenly get a huge benefit: they can now vote for their favorite
without thereby making their vote moot. And it becomes much less
likely that a spoiler effect will rear its ugly head. What if we get
a third party candidate in 2008, a conservative like Bloomberg, who
diverts Republican votes, causing the Democrat to win? Personally,
I'd not mind that outcome in itself, but I *do* mind, very much, when
election results don't reflect the collective will of the electorate.
IRV allegedly solves the spoiler effect also, but actually, when one
looks more closely, it only does so in the two-party environment. Get
a third party involved that has a chance of winning, IRV can fail
miserably. There are better methods, and the Voter Choice Task Force,
we believe, will be examining them and making recommendations. It's
about time that we started looking at how we make collective
decisions, and I think we should be vary careful about making major
changes based on shallow consideration of the options. A lot is at stake.
> Reason - it would be very unlikely that the Legislature
>would vote to eliminate 1/3 of its members.
Indeed. However, it's also pretty unlikely that the electorate will
vote to do the same. Why not design, not only a better system, but a
better transition, one that does not unseat existing members? Do this
well, and you won't see major organized opposition from people who
might, if not personally threatened, be on your side.
Consider U.S. Presidential election reform. Assigning electors
proportionally is an obvious improvement over the existing system. So
why did it fail in Colorado?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Amendment_36
It's obvious why similar efforts have generally failed. It does
short-term damage if done state by state. This electoral reform harms
the majority party in the state, and, unless it is balanced by
similar and simultaneous reform in states where the opposite party is
in the majority, it warps the election outcome unfairly. Changing the
electoral system must be done in a manner that does no harm during transition.
There is a more sophisticated attempt to reform the assignment of
electors, the National Popular Vote initiative. I happen to consider
it flawed, but it is far more likely to succeed. My own preference
would be, however, a transitional plan that would assign electors to
ultimately create a *real* electoral college. In transition, the
electoral assignment rules would not allow an unfair reversal of the
national vote due to the state's unilateral assignment of electors by
its own rules, as Colorado Amendment 36 could well have done. If a
reasonable number of states adopted such a reform, the electoral
college makeup would become proportional, even if some states held out.
(The states that implemented the reform would preferentially assign
their electors to balance out the holdout states. "If your state is
going to disenfranchise your Republican voters by giving all the
electors to the Democrat, our state is going to balance this by
assigning as many of our electors as necessary to balance out your
inequity." This can be designed so that it does no harm in
transition. So, say, a Republican state would not fear that by
implementing the reform, it would *unfairly* elect the Democrat,
which could have been the case with Amendment 36.)