Posts made by SaraWolk

@cfrank If others have examples, simulations, or citations for my claim that "over time the two opposing factions become more and more polarized” I'd love to have those on hand too. I'm not sure I'm referencing any one thing I've read or heard in particular, but more putting multiple things together to get the big picture.

On the math alone I think you're right that the center is an important block for the two parties to court as well, but in practice I think that that incentive is outweighed by the other perverse social incentives to demonize the other side, to punish "traitors" considering switching, and so on.

Cancelling people who question the party line costs center voters, but it also discourages others from following. I think this was the subliminal Democratic Party tactic over the last decade that paid dividends for a while but then ultimately lost them the "big-tent" advantage and the presidency. I'm not saying it was an intentional strategy. There are big cultural forces at play here. That's obviously my own personal opinion.

Back on topic: As the narrative gets dominated by two polarized factions and the middle is silenced, the real middle (the center of public opinion) almost ceases to be a part of the political spectrum because it's doesn't actually map on to the left, right, and swing voter boxes.

Identifying and presenting consensus win-win policy and then getting it passed is the goal. We need to incentivise and empower that one way or another.

@cfrank I have been thinking about the same questions. I think that the safeguard to fascism is ensuring checks against polarizing factions taking control.

In FPTP two party domination, the center-squeeze effect ensures that over time the two opposing factions become more and more polarized and this gives the illusion of majoritarianism, but as we know, the electability bias from voters having to vote for the frontrunner on their side can wildly inflate the perceived popularity of those frontrunners. In practice the moderate and third party voices are silenced and we see super polarizing candidates like Donald Trump (who initially only had some 25% of the vote in the 2016 primary) winning decisive control of their party. His own party has little they can do if they don't like his leadership, and the opposing party also has no leverage whatsoever if they can't beat him head to head. This last presidential election we saw both parties put forward candidates with record low approval ratings, but nobody else had a chance of challenging them at the same time. This is textbook polarized entrenched two party domination.

Meanwhile, I'm not convinced that a multi-party system on it's own will address any of that and it could make it worse. Just as choose one ballots can create a center-squeeze in FPTP, they can do the same in PR, resulting in a donut of polarized factions represented and little to no representation for the middle. In an election where the quota to win is 10% for example, a candidate could theoretically be strongly opposed by 90% of the electorate. Meanwhile, other factions could win with their standard-bearer also preferred by 10% of the electorate, but also strongly supported by many more and only strongly opposed by a slim minority.

When some winners are hyper-polarizing and others are not, it not only allows for the rise of dangerous factions who are more likely to bring about civil war, it also creates a lopsided and unstable winner-set. That's not the idealized definition of proportionality we're aiming for even though it would technically pass PR criteria. Theoretically, we should be able to do better.

The magic of a more expressive ballot or especially a 5 star ballot is that voters can show not only who their favorites are, but how much they like and dislike candidates from other factions. In an ideal system, this data could then be used to:
a) ensure that factions who deserve a seat at the table get one, and
b) ensure that candidates or factions that are seen as dangerous and harmful by others are not platformed when better alternatives exist.

In single-winner STAR, voters who are in the minority who are not going to get their favorites elected still have a strong vote against their worst case-scenario in the runoff. This is a massive check on authoritarianism and fascism. This is amazing and we don't need to switch to PR to get this windfall.

And, in a top shelf 5 STAR-PR system, theoretically we could do the same, using scores to identify which candidates and factions meet quota rules, while using scores and runoffs or preference data to identify the most polarizing and most opposed candidates.

At best, PR systems boast that legislatures where all perspectives are represented at the table. These legislatures are more likely to put forward more broadly acceptable legislation, but at their worst, they can give extremist factions massive leverage to cause stagnation or tear the system apart from the inside. For example, a super polarizing candidate like Israel's Ben Gvir who was elected with only 3.5% of the vote has the power to make or break the majority coalition and call a new election with a vote of no confidence if Netanyahu defies him. At worst, PR systems can give small polarizing factions extremely disproportionate leverage. Some of this can only be reformed with governmental system reforms such as higher quotas, but some of it can be fixed with the voting method itself.

Again, I think with a more expressive ballot and a hybrid ordinal and cardinal (STAR) approach we can do better.

Thank you both for keeping an eye on this and deleting the spam. If you have suggestions for the settings I'm open to whatever seems like the best option. I don't have strong opinions either way as long as people like you both are taking care of it if it does occur.

If that wasn't the case I'd say we should look into other options.

@cfrank said in Approval Voting as a Workable Compromise:

I’m also considering what @SaraWolk suggests, namely that another method like RCV (IRV) might be a more practical conduit for change, even though it is significantly less ideal.

I'm not recommending RCV (IRV). I think it's oversold, broken, and extremely damaging to the voting reform movement.

I recommend STAR, Approval, and Condorcet, and support a number of others.

@toby-pereira The lay person audience is already more familiar with RCV than IRV, if you add in jargon (like Instant Runoff Voting/IRV) or even use multiple terms for the same thing, you lose people and use up cognitive load that you want to save for your actual points.

It's bad enough that there isn't a single clear term for Choose One Voting/ Plurality/FPTP.

My advice is to call the ranked ballot family of voting methods "Ranked Voting", call IRV "Ranked Choice Voting" and call FPTP "Choose One Voting".

In academic contexts, we should also use these common words but then have the technical names in parenthesis. The target audience for this stuff is groups like LWV who form non-expert volunteer committees to get up to speed and study reforms before making recommendations that carry massive weight.

This is another reason to not rebrand Approval, which already has a clear and self explanatory name.

@cfrank I say Ranked Voting to be more inclusive of ranked methods. (Ranked Choice/RCV is IRV and also sometimes STV).

Sidenote: Since advocates call IRV RCV, but academics and electoral theorists call it IRV, they have a firewall between the method and its scientific criticisms.

That's a problem and I strongly encourage us to all start calling it what they call it so the algorithms and search engines connect the two.

I agree that Approval is a workable compromise and I think it should be the default voting method (as opposed to Choose One Plurality.)

On whether it should be the one reform we all work to implement, I don't agree. I don't think Approval is persuasive, and I don't think it's competitive against RCV, the status quo in voting reform. I wish it was.

I absolutely encourage advocates to continue to advocate, and I'll keep advocating for it, but I'm more persuaded now than ever that we need a reform that is scaleable, viable, and that delivers on the goals set out by RCV advocates while addressing it's serious pitfalls.

Approval voting tells inspired voting reformers to stop caring about the things they think they want, to change their priorities, and to trust the simulations over their intuition. That's not a winning pitch. The many benefits of Approval are neither transparent or self-evident to lay people and it appears to violate one person one vote, even though it should be the gold standard.

@gregw Yes. Unite Oregon is listed as a top donor for NextUP and NextUP is listed as the top donor on the anti-STAR mailer that just dropped in people's mailboxes yesterday. They are also doing anti-STAR Voting robocalls to voters.

@lime Assertions that strategic voting incentives are not important but that the 100% passage of mutually exclusive criteria (in which it's agreed that all are important but passing them all is impossible) is required, are wildly out of touch and outdated.

More likely they are linked to the RCV lobby's campaign to sabotage STAR Voting for Eugene, Measure 20-349, which people start voting on this week. (see pgs 9-26)

Getting a 99% on a criteria like Favorite Betrayal is not a "dramatic criteria failure". Balancing mutually exclusive criteria like FB and LNH is common sense.

In STAR, in practice, a voter should give their favorite 5 stars, their last choice 0, and show their full honest preference order between the candidates who are at all relevant. In order to argue otherwise a faction would need impossible polling data in near tie scenarios.

Arguments like these are the reason voting reform is still in the dark ages.

The argument that many prefer Smith//Score (good luck with that level of complexity in the real world) or plain Score goes to show that the war between ordinal and cardinal methods is still alive and well.

When will we stop ignoring the forest for the trees and recognize that both have important pieces of the puzzle and that a hybrid approach like STAR makes more sense than telling people that their concerns are invalid.

A Gore voter might cast a strategic vote...
The example given isn't a "strategic" vote in any way. That would be an extremely risky vote that would be as likely to elect Hitler as it would be to help ensure your favorite won the runoff. By definition if the turkey candidate is strong enough to make the runoff then it's strong enough to be a real threat to your favorite.

Our paper found that burial is strongly disincentivized in STAR.

Constitutional Political Economy. STAR Voting, Equality of Voice, and Voter Satisfaction: Considerations for Voting Reform
https://rdcu.be/dkoyx

proportional STAR isn't really STAR

True. It's Proportional Score. This is definitely not set in stone as the best or only way to do Proportional Score, and I expect to see more progress to determine the "best" PR method that does include a 5 star ballot and binary "runoff" of some type would be. Like Condorcet, I expect that there will ultimately be a number of viable proposals that could be considered best depending on what considerations one finds most important.

@lime Yeah. Were working on that edit.

clone-independence

There are many reasons why running clones is strongly disincentivized in general, for every voting method, regardless of passing IIA or not. Voter behavior, competing for volunteers, endorsements, and funding, etc. The statement that the best strategy in STAR is to run 2 clones per faction is absolutely wildly false in the real world, even if it might make sense in a computer model.

@toby-pereira said in The dangers of analysis paralysis in voting reform:

Ranked Robin

We are planning to come back to the original intention around Ranked Robin, which is to stop branding Condorcet as a whole bunch of systems to fight between, and move to calling them one system, Ranked Robin, with a variety of "tie breaking protocols" a jurisdiction's special committee on niche election protocols could choose between. Honestly, specifying Copeland vs RP vs Minimax is way beyond the level of detail that should even be written into the election code or put to the voters.

Equal Vote's point with the Ranked Robin was never to say that Copeland is better than Ranked Pairs is better than Smith/Minimax. The point is that these are all equivalent in the vast, vast majority of scaled elections and that Condorcet as a whole is top shelf so it should be presented to voters as a better ranked ballot option. Ranked voting advocates should support it. The main reason Condorcet is not seriously considered is because of analysis paralysis and a total lack of interest in branding and marketing for simplicity and accessibility.

@lime said in The dangers of analysis paralysis in voting reform:

the consensus seems to be that people prefer slightly more categories—up to 10, with more than 10 having smaller effects.

https://www.laguardia.edu/uploadedfiles/main_site/content/ir/docs/the-qualtrics-handbook-of-question-design.pdf

For voting having high-quality, more reliable data is really important so it's important to have the range on the lower end of the workable cognitive load range. 10 is too many. Ballot design for paper ballots also makes a field of too many bubbles a non-starter, like you say. Third, we have to remember that a voters available cognitive load should not all be all used up on the rating itself. The voter needs some bandwidth available to consider the actual candidates as well.

"Determining the number of scale points is a balancing act, which creates a tension when trying to maximize data quality. Including more scale points might differentiate responses more, whereas fewer scale points might produce more reliability. Fortunately, survey methodology research on this subject provides some guidelines for best practices that enable optimal validity and reliability. The results of this research suggest that the optimal number of scale points ranges from 5 to 9—with fewer points, you lose the ability to differentiate as much as you could between respondents, and with more scale points, the reliability of responses tends to drop off."

As we see in this thread, some people are saying that STAR is too much and that they prefer Approval for that reason. Others are saying that voters actually prefer 0-9 (citation needed). It makes a lot of sense to offer people something in the middle so we can maximize the best of both worlds.

Approval is another great system, but the fact is that voters need to approve the front-runner on their side (and everyone they like better than them). That means that a voter who doesn't like the frontrunners has to lie and approve one anyways to have an effective voice.

No, you don’t have to approve anyone that don’t like. Never approve someone that you don’t like.

Okay. You don't HAVE to, but you should. If the options are Trump, Bernie, and Biden, I don't want to approve Biden and I also don't want to bullet vote Bernie. Approval in that election doesn't get the job done. I need to be able to show that I prefer my favorite, even if I think he's an underdog. I need to be able to give my lesser evil 1 star to prevent vote-splitting without strategically supporting a candidate I dislike.

This doesn't mean that I don't support Approval, I do approve it, but this does mean that I'm not inspired to support it to the exclusion of all others. It also means I worry it doesn't have what it takes to win over reformers in sufficient numbers with sufficient enthusiasm.

The pitch for Approval, to someone excited about any other alternative voting method, is that even though they think they want to be able to show their preferences, their preferences are actually irrelevant because Approval doesn't need them to find a good enough centrist consensus winner. That's not a compelling response and it comes across as tone deaf and dismissive. Approval has been proposed over and over in Oregon. The fact that it's not the proposal isn't for lack of being included in the options.

just propose the method that's completely un-arbitrary because it's absolutely minimal: Approval.

Where to put your Approval threshold is absolutely arbitrary unless I'm a sophisticated strategic voter who knows that I should approve the frontrunner on my side and everyone I like better than them. In any case the threshold moves dramatically from election to election and from race to race. That's not actually simple for voters.

remind them that...

Please join your local League of Women Voters chapters and remind them yourself. It's not for women only and they need more people who know the facts on voting reform. This was my point. Don't be an armchair election theorist. It's a battle out there and we need you all, even if we don't agree on top choice method.

You don’t know whether you should approve your 2nd-choice? Neither do the other voters, so don’t worry about it.

Great! Thanks. I'll take your word for it. It's just our elections.

Yes, & so the obvious solution is to propose the absolute MINIMAL multicandidate voting-system.

My point was NOT that we should only promote STAR or that we should eliminate Approval for consideration. I think they are both great options that are not redundant at all.

The point was that having TOO MANY options is harmful to the adoption of any of them. How many is too many? I would (jokes aside) argue for the elimination of all that are redundant and don't add to the conversation. One traditional ballot, one ranked, and one scored system is plenty. We can eliminate any that have serious issues with vote-splitting and accuracy, that have have serious issues with voided ballots, or voter error, that have problematic strategic incentives, or that have unnecessary complexity that doesn't add much to the question.

To me that leaves us with STAR, Approval, and Ranked Robin (aka Condorcet), and the multi-winner and PR versions of those.

Top 3 STAR is a known variation.

The thing is that ties in STAR Voting are 10 times less likely to occur than in the current system. Three way ties are an extreme edge case. The scenario where the 3rd place score getter could beat the finalists in the runoff is also an extreme edge case and not one that is predictable enough to influence voter behavior or strategy. (There's also the argument that that candidate doesn't deserve to win.) So, imo, this is a non-issue in elections at scale.

I assume this post is just for fun, because the puzzle is interesting. There is always a way to approach perfection if complexity is not an issue and comes at no cost, but complexity is a huge cost and barrier to implementation and adoption.

In elections that are not to scale (a vote by a board of judges for best movie, for example) ties are easily solved by super simple options like a runoff between the tied candidates or any number of other mechanisms that wouldn't make sense for a real scaled political election.

For elections at scale here's our official tie-breaker recommendation: starvoting.org/ties

Have you all seen this video from Mr Beat?
"What's the best way to vote?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFqV2OtJOOg

Or the response featuring me and Sass?
"Maybe we were wrong about Ranked Choice Voting?"
Youtube Video

@sarawolk As for why two. Two candidates is the number that guarantees a majority preferred winner whenever possible, and two is the number that eliminates spoilers. Top two runoffs have huge advantages, both mathematically and in terms of perception, and so STAR leverages that.