Thanks Dave for the comment(s), and thanks Tom for bringing more to light.
Bjorn
6 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Wow, this is exactly what we need! Under our current system we can (and probably do) end up with a candidate winning who would also get the greatest number of votes if there were a question on the ballot asking which canditate you DON'T want to win.
Personally, I would feel better knowing that a candidate who I didn't particularly like won if a majority of those voting wanted that result. As it is, I can easily get irked at those "throwing away" their vote on a non-Democratic or Republican candidate when they have no realistic chance at winning... even though I have done this (however, I was fairly certain that my second choice was going to win anyway. If I think it will be close I will go with the major party... arguably giving in...).
Wouldn't you like to see how this type of voting would have turned out in this years Governor's election??? I bet it will be awhile before this is used on a larger scale though.
I find disturbing the reasons that this voting system is growing so popular. Mostly, people in support of IRV voice their support because it gives them an "out," in that it allows them to vote their conscience AND for someone they think will win. I've not once heard someone say, "I think this will elect better leaders," which is not incidentally the reason we have elections.
In my graduate classes in computer science (under the heading, "user interface") we learned that in polling users, the best way to get the solution that satisfies the most is to allow them to vote for as many choices as they'd like (without ranking, by the way). So, if the ice cream party for the class can have Chocolate, Strawberry, Vanilla, or Cake Batter flavor, but only one, people vote for every flavor they'd be happy with, but keep in mind that voting for every flavor is like voting for none and that voting for all but one is effectively casting an anti-vote. So yes, in polling a group, achieving the highest satifaction rate of the outcome of the vote is done by IRV (again, without ranking). Does that work for electing officials? I don't know, but I'm inclined to think not.
See, all that's going to happen is our major parties are going to converge toward the middle and fight for those votes, while strident "3rd" parties will begin to come out of the woodwork. Before you know it, we'll be having elections won
Candidate A: 65 Candidate B: 63 Candidate C: 62 Candidate D: 58 etc. Candidate L: 33 etc. Candidate XX: 0.2
And you think it's hard to do candidate research now?
What's more, is an electoral process like this encourages coalitions rather than divided parties. So rather than voting on your party line (i.e. Rep for low taxes, small government, etc. and Dem for environmentalism, minority interest groups, etc.), you vote for a candidate who could already be in a secret coalition or a coalition that forms AFTER the election -- in a you scratch my back fashioned campaign. In a sense, there's a tremendous amount of potential for voting for a candidate whose intentions aren't as outlined. Now, I'm not naive, I know that candidates make hollow promises all the time now, but at least they don't pretend to be aligned with environmentalists then cut down a forest to produce more stylish pencils for the private education system. They just can't do that now because it would be political suicide within their party.
Bottom line, I think the IRV paves the road to more Jesse Venturas being elected. It's funny because he was elected on the premise that career politicians don't have the common sense that the common man does and then his service proved to be amateur BECAUSE he wasn't a professional politician. IRV improves the variance in election results. In other words, there's a higher chance a candidate who's unfit for the job can win. And yes, there will be a greater satisfaction rating among the public for the result of the election, but not necessarily for the result of his or her service.
First of all, when I posted about this election, and subsequently IRV, my major concern with the 'new' electoral process was that we would reach somthing like France's (former) political system. The French have so many major parties that it was once possible that it would take only a relatively small precentage of the population to elect powerful/national leaders.
However, we have to allow the possibility that the problems you see with this IRV system could be addressed and made to work in the US. Just as in modern day France where the government now RELIES on coalitions, and no parties ever work singularily and/or unchecked when in office. (See link above for more info.)
And if the French can do it, we Americans know we'll only do it better, right?
Second of all, I think that we (the posters on this blog) had all assumed for each other that who we were each 'satisfied' with in office would also be who we considered to be a better political leader and/or servant of the public. In other words, I guess we trust that we're all making informed decsions as voters.
I think that you have to do that to keep the system entirely democratic. And beleive me, I know how scary that prospect can be at times, but if the population identifies more with the 'common man', and if Ventura (or Bush) wins because of that, then I have to resign myself to being in the (however slight) minority (as an liberal/intellectual, or whatever you want the label to be)... But I don't know if we can say that IRV would be more or less susceptible to that kind of campaigning?
Especially when it seems our current system already is...
This thought seems incomplete, so maybe I'll have more later.
Yeah, I didn't want to go into the coalitions too much, but since you brought it up, that's kind of the problems. The "2" party system, in my mind, is a superior one. With the coalitions, the problem you have voting is that you don't know what coalition may have been secretly or not yet formed -- either way, there's a big question mark on your vote. With the 2 party system, you do have a little more security in your vote that way since you are voting on a safe (safer?) party line. That is, it's less likely that a candidate will, as I said before, jump ship after the election -- which is a vast difference from making hollow promises.
Also, let's be careful the path we go down. Did you really say we should follow France's lead? Heh. Seems scary to me, but I do see you're point in that maybe there's a way to do it better, but I don't think what "we" voted for IS is a better way. Ugh.
I'd have to say that I don't know enough about France's system (or ours?) to make valid a one-to-one comparison between our electoral processes. I used theirs as an example because, well first of all France is so often used as a contrast to the USA, but really because their system was a popular (as in, known) and succesful (some would say) system that shows some significantly different options to our own.
And it's clear that we don't see eye to eye on the coalitions thing... your concern is with secret, opportunistic, and devious coalitions forming and being sprung upon the fearful public... and I don't know how to respond to that. My interest in the coalitions began when I saw that the French government imposed two otherwise opposing parties upon each other in the hopes of guaranteeing a voice for those on different sides of any issue. And the way I see it, the system could be constructed so that the government used coalitions instead of the other way around. I didn't mean to say we should adopt France's electoral process, but that we should improove our own... and here are some ideas...
...update your blog! Last I read, we were at Regions....
6 comments:
Wow, this is exactly what we need! Under our current system we can (and probably do) end up with a candidate winning who would also get the greatest number of votes if there were a question on the ballot asking which canditate you DON'T want to win.
Personally, I would feel better knowing that a candidate who I didn't particularly like won if a majority of those voting wanted that result. As it is, I can easily get irked at those "throwing away" their vote on a non-Democratic or Republican candidate when they have no realistic chance at winning... even though I have done this (however, I was fairly certain that my second choice was going to win anyway. If I think it will be close I will go with the major party... arguably giving in...).
Wouldn't you like to see how this type of voting would have turned out in this years Governor's election??? I bet it will be awhile before this is used on a larger scale though.
Now what do we do about the electoral college? :)
Also, this could potentially impact voter turnout...
I find disturbing the reasons that this voting system is growing so popular. Mostly, people in support of IRV voice their support because it gives them an "out," in that it allows them to vote their conscience AND for someone they think will win. I've not once heard someone say, "I think this will elect better leaders," which is not incidentally the reason we have elections.
In my graduate classes in computer science (under the heading, "user interface") we learned that in polling users, the best way to get the solution that satisfies the most is to allow them to vote for as many choices as they'd like (without ranking, by the way). So, if the ice cream party for the class can have Chocolate, Strawberry, Vanilla, or Cake Batter flavor, but only one, people vote for every flavor they'd be happy with, but keep in mind that voting for every flavor is like voting for none and that voting for all but one is effectively casting an anti-vote. So yes, in polling a group, achieving the highest satifaction rate of the outcome of the vote is done by IRV (again, without ranking). Does that work for electing officials? I don't know, but I'm inclined to think not.
See, all that's going to happen is our major parties are going to converge toward the middle and fight for those votes, while strident "3rd" parties will begin to come out of the woodwork. Before you know it, we'll be having elections won
Candidate A: 65
Candidate B: 63
Candidate C: 62
Candidate D: 58
etc.
Candidate L: 33
etc.
Candidate XX: 0.2
And you think it's hard to do candidate research now?
What's more, is an electoral process like this encourages coalitions rather than divided parties. So rather than voting on your party line (i.e. Rep for low taxes, small government, etc. and Dem for environmentalism, minority interest groups, etc.), you vote for a candidate who could already be in a secret coalition or a coalition that forms AFTER the election -- in a you scratch my back fashioned campaign. In a sense, there's a tremendous amount of potential for voting for a candidate whose intentions aren't as outlined. Now, I'm not naive, I know that candidates make hollow promises all the time now, but at least they don't pretend to be aligned with environmentalists then cut down a forest to produce more stylish pencils for the private education system. They just can't do that now because it would be political suicide within their party.
Bottom line, I think the IRV paves the road to more Jesse Venturas being elected. It's funny because he was elected on the premise that career politicians don't have the common sense that the common man does and then his service proved to be amateur BECAUSE he wasn't a professional politician. IRV improves the variance in election results. In other words, there's a higher chance a candidate who's unfit for the job can win. And yes, there will be a greater satisfaction rating among the public for the result of the election, but not necessarily for the result of his or her service.
Lou,
Compelling points.
My rebut...
First of all, when I posted about this election, and subsequently IRV, my major concern with the 'new' electoral process was that we would reach somthing like France's (former) political system. The French have so many major parties that it was once possible that it would take only a relatively small precentage of the population to elect powerful/national leaders.
However, we have to allow the possibility that the problems you see with this IRV system could be addressed and made to work in the US. Just as in modern day France where the government now RELIES on coalitions, and no parties ever work singularily and/or unchecked when in office. (See link above for more info.)
And if the French can do it, we Americans know we'll only do it better, right?
Second of all, I think that we (the posters on this blog) had all assumed for each other that who we were each 'satisfied' with in office would also be who we considered to be a better political leader and/or servant of the public. In other words, I guess we trust that we're all making informed decsions as voters.
I think that you have to do that to keep the system entirely democratic. And beleive me, I know how scary that prospect can be at times, but if the population identifies more with the 'common man', and if Ventura (or Bush) wins because of that, then I have to resign myself to being in the (however slight) minority (as an liberal/intellectual, or whatever you want the label to be)... But I don't know if we can say that IRV would be more or less susceptible to that kind of campaigning?
Especially when it seems our current system already is...
This thought seems incomplete, so maybe I'll have more later.
Thanks for you comments.
Bjorn
Yeah, I didn't want to go into the coalitions too much, but since you brought it up, that's kind of the problems. The "2" party system, in my mind, is a superior one. With the coalitions, the problem you have voting is that you don't know what coalition may have been secretly or not yet formed -- either way, there's a big question mark on your vote. With the 2 party system, you do have a little more security in your vote that way since you are voting on a safe (safer?) party line. That is, it's less likely that a candidate will, as I said before, jump ship after the election -- which is a vast difference from making hollow promises.
Also, let's be careful the path we go down. Did you really say we should follow France's lead? Heh. Seems scary to me, but I do see you're point in that maybe there's a way to do it better, but I don't think what "we" voted for IS is a better way. Ugh.
Lou,
I'd have to say that I don't know enough about France's system (or ours?) to make valid a one-to-one comparison between our electoral processes. I used theirs as an example because, well first of all France is so often used as a contrast to the USA, but really because their system was a popular (as in, known) and succesful (some would say) system that shows some significantly different options to our own.
And it's clear that we don't see eye to eye on the coalitions thing... your concern is with secret, opportunistic, and devious coalitions forming and being sprung upon the fearful public... and I don't know how to respond to that. My interest in the coalitions began when I saw that the French government imposed two otherwise opposing parties upon each other in the hopes of guaranteeing a voice for those on different sides of any issue. And the way I see it, the system could be constructed so that the government used coalitions instead of the other way around. I didn't mean to say we should adopt France's electoral process, but that we should improove our own... and here are some ideas...
...update your blog! Last I read, we were at Regions....
Post a Comment