New Tri-Fold Color Pamphlet

[Aaron Hamlin]

Hey everybody. I've put together a tri-fold that you can find here:  http://tinyurl.com/7gfo3ar (thanks to Clay for feedback in its development)  It has a focus on Approval Voting.

I'll be handing it out next Saturday at the Michigan Summit in East Lansing where The Center for Election Science has a table.

[Aaron Hamlin]

It looks like the image quality is dull on the French Election study. But when you download the pdf, then it becomes clear.

[Jomo Kenya]

I thought that mentionning France was counter-productive in U.S.
politics.
Though people are more open-minded at a summit.

On 5 mai, 16:21, Aaron Hamlin <aaronham...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey everybody. I've put together a tri-fold that you can find here:  http://tinyurl.com/7gfo3ar<http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftinyurl.com%2F7gfo3ar&h=...> (thanks

> to Clay for feedback in its development)  It has a focus on Approval Voting.
>
> I'll be handing it out next Saturday at the Michigan Summit in East Lansing
> where The Center for Election Science has a table.
>

>  CES Pamphlet.pdf
> 667KAfficherTélécharger

[Aaron Hamlin]

The French study was the largest, most recent, and comprehensive study on Approval Voting for a government election. If there was a US counterpart to that, I would have gone with it.

[Jameson Quinn]

Pretty good. I agree that the "no vote splitting" could be seen as misleading (chicken dilemma); I'd go with "no need for vote splitting", which is 100% true and sounds about the same.

Also, I don't like the red dotted line. I'd go with a light blue background, with no outline or just a thin slightly darker blue one, instead.

Good job.

Jameson

2012/5/5 Aaron Hamlin <aaron...@gmail.com>

[Maxime Lévesque]

I would replace 

 "centrist winner"

by something along the lines of :

"candidate with wider consensus wins"

not sure about the exact formulation, but I think that "consensus" is more precise than "centrist".

The latter also has a uni-dimensional  / "left vs right" connotation.

2012/5/5 Jameson Quinn <jameso...@gmail.com>

--
Seuls les poissons morts nagent avec le courant

[Jameson Quinn]

2012/5/5 Maxime Lévesque <maxime....@gmail.com>

I would replace 

 "centrist winner"

by something along the lines of :

"candidate with wider consensus wins"

not sure about the exact formulation, but I think that "consensus" is more precise than "centrist".

The latter also has a uni-dimensional  / "left vs right" connotation.

This is a good point. Almost nobody thinks "partisan" is the best way to be, but plenty of people think that goldilocks centrism isn't a good idea. It's pretty impossible to argue with "consensus" though.

Jameson

[Aaron Hamlin]

You can think in terms beyond one-dimensional political space such as a two-dimensional Nolan chart. Still, Approval would favor the Centrist to win. And by favoring the Centrist winner, I mean favoring the Centrist winner.

Whether it's good or bad to select the candidate with the median opinion, that's what Approval does. Median-positioned candidates also have the highest average support among voters by the very nature of their position.

It's no accident that Centrist sounds like it's offering a political connotation. That's because it is. The voting system will play a large role in whether the winners tend to be more partisan or more towards the center. Approval Voting does the latter and it's accurate to state so.

[Maxime Lévesque]

I disagree here, not all elements in electoral platforms are dimensional, 

consider these two electoral platforms :

 A)  lets dig a big hole and then fill it back to create jobs

 B)  prohibit fishing in a certain lake for 5 years

Where do these fit in a dimensional space ? What would be the median ?

I think the idea that any project, plan or electoral platform has to be placed

in a dimensional space emanates from the left vs right, conservative vs liberal view of the world,

which is itself a cultural byproduct of the two party domination, each side defining itself as the negation 

of the other.

2012/5/5 Aaron Hamlin <aaron...@gmail.com>

[Clay Shentrup]

I'm with Aaron. We've got to be assertive about the fact that there's absolutely nothing negative about centrists.

[Aaron Hamlin]

I had to fix some boarder issues with the printer place, so I had a chance to make some revisions (updated in link).

I still think it makes sense to use the term Centrist. I think the "no vote splitting" is still pretty accurate as well. But I've changed it to "no spoilers." The reasoning behind this is that I've encountered so many people that aren't familiar with the term "vote splitting." So because the spoiler idea is both more understood and concerning, I switched to that one.

I also took off the flashy red boarders around the two text blocks. Like Jameson suggested, I just gave it a light blue background. I also vertically centered it. I agree and think it looks cleaner that way.

On Saturday, May 5, 2012 10:21:06 AM UTC-4, Aaron Hamlin wrote:

[Jameson Quinn]

How about "broad appeal" instead of "centrist"? I don't like "centrist" because it's inherently relative and reactive. The truth is at least as likely to be on one "side" as it is to be in the "center". I think "broad appeal" versus "partisan appeal" gets the idea across in a way that even people (like me) who are far to the left or right can embrace.

Jameson

2012/5/7 Aaron Hamlin <aaron...@gmail.com>

[Jomo Kenya]

I know that many people in the U.S. or the U.K. tend to like and use
Nolan's diagram, but it simply doesn't work everywhere. It can also be
considered a bias. In France, the only party that used it tactically
(mxing economic and social strong liberalism) got less than 0,2% in
the most open election (European), even with free ads running and
speech time in primetime shows. The only thing that matters beyond
left-right is populism, and to a larger extent, what is the second
choice of those who fail or not to pass the 1st round.

Frankly, I find we'd miss something by calling some right-wing
populist parties "economically centrist" because of some
'distributive' policies addressed to some groups. I've found Nolan
diagrams of Dutch and Swiss politics on Wikipedia saying this.
Everyone knows the social part is a make-up for the exclusion of
another group -- jew, muslim, african, etc. When you are questioning
people's equal rights, in a democracy founded on it, you can hardly be
put at the center.

Now, if one axis isn't efficient to explain differences, that doesn't
mean two are needed. A good clue is how politicians set themselves in
comparison to others, who do they like and how. And then the pattern
to garner votes.

[Dale Sheldon-Hess]

All good points. In the US today (and this may or may not be an
artifact of our voting system; not going to argue that right now) 90%
or more of the variance between members of congress can be explained
by one axis (going by http://voteview.com/ and their NOMINATE data),
generally understood as a left/right economic axis, while even in the
recent past, there was much more need for two axes; the economic one,
and one for views on civil rights for African Americans. Now, that's
no longer an issue which cuts across political-economic lines.

--
Dale Sheldon-Hess

[Eric Sanders]

I agree about the term "centrist." I think talking about how Approval Voting produces "centrist" outcomes could alienate groups such as Occupy Wall Street or the Tea Party. However, I think most people in those groups would like the term "broad appeal" or "most generally preferred," something that doesn't have an ideological connotation. When I think of "centrist" I think of Bill Clinton and his triangulation policies...