New article on Big Think! (President Bloomberg? How Bloomberg Could Win — With Slightly Different Voting Rules)

[esand...@gmail.com]

Super happy with how this one turned out! Hope you enjoy--and please feel free to comment (on the article) and share (Facebook, CES site, etc.)!

http://bigthink.com/action-in-action/president-bloomberg-how-bloomberg-could-win-with-slightly-different-voting-rules

[Bruce Gilson]

On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 8:08 PM, <esand...@gmail.com> wrote:

Super happy with how this one turned out! Hope you enjoy--and please feel free to comment (on the article) and share (Facebook, CES site, etc.)!

http://bigthink.com/action-in-action/president-bloomberg-how-bloomberg-could-win-with-slightly-different-voting-rules

​There is one error there in that the author thinks Maine and Nebraska apportion electors by PR rather than district plurality.​

 

[esand...@gmail.com]

You are correct, good catch, Bruce! It's actually a split:

"Maine and Nebraska have taken a slightly different approach in recent years. These states allocate two Electoral Votes to the popular vote winner, and then one each to the popular vote winner in each Congressional district (2 in Maine, 3 in Nebraska) in their state. This creates multiple popular vote contests in these states, which could lead to a split Electoral Vote."

I'll post a correction/update.

http://www.270towin.com/content/split-electoral-votes-maine-and-nebraska/

[Warren D Smith]

The problem with the Maine & Nebraska approach is, it if it were
adopted USA-wide,
it would for the first time allow gerrymandering the US presidency.

One occasionally hears prominent politicians calling for the adoption
of a Mainish system
in certain states in the interest of "fairness." But they virtually always only
advocate that for a state that is (a) large and (b) highly presently
favoring the enemy party.
E.g. forces associated with (then Republican presidential candidate)
R.Giuliani wanted
California to do this shortly before he ran for president. California
at that time
was highly Democratic in terms of its voters, but highly gerrymandered
in favor of the Republicans. Those behind it (who turned out to be
Guiliani's financial backers)
pretended this proposed change was a "grassroots reform effort"
prompted by "good, hardworking Americans" in the interests of
"fairness." But strangely enough, they were not pushing for any other
state besides California, to become "fair."

A truly more-fair, and also simpler, system would be nationwide popular vote.
But THAT is something you do not see prominent politicians like
Giuliani pushing.


--
Warren D. Smith
http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking
"endorse" as 1st step)

[esand...@gmail.com]

"A truly more-fair, and also simpler, system would be nationwide popular vote."

Definitely true, but since this would require a Constitutional amendment, I'd love to see individual states (such as NY) award their electors to the Approval Voting winner instead. Then reform could happen on a state by state basis.

[Frank Martinez]

"A truly more-fair, and also simpler, system would be nationwide popular vote." -- Depends on One's definition of "fair". I find the Jagellonian compromise more fair than a national popular vote.

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[Warren D Smith]

"Jagellonian compromise"?

[Frank Martinez]

Sorry, misspelled it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagiellonian_Compromise

On Friday, January 29, 2016, Warren D Smith <warre...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Warren D Smith]

On 1/29/16, Frank Martinez <frankdm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry, misspelled it:
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagiellonian_Compromise

-- I would be suspicious of that whole idea.
Its mathematical basis is a model that votes are random unbiased coin tosses.
This model might be unrealistic enough to invalidate the whole concept
in the real world.

A different utterly opposed and also highly oversimplified
model is: all voters are 100% correlated based entirely on geography
(e.g. all British vote the same, etc).

In the Jaggiellonian model they use SquareRoot(x). In my model the right
function instead would be linear F(x)=x.

Well, which silly model is more correct? That depends...
but if, say, it wasn't 100%, it was, Brits vote 60% one way, French
vote 60% one way, etc, that still would imply the right answer would
be linear.

[Warren D Smith]

So an *actual* compromise between the two models would have been,
say, F(x)=x^(3/4).

[Frank Martinez]

Without knowing what issues drive which Voters from election to election, coin flips seem consistent with the principle of a priori probability.

On Friday, January 29, 2016, Warren D Smith <warre...@gmail.com> wrote:

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