4 ms·

Has this been demonstrated?

by CarVac 4y ago

manholio 4y ago
I can't be bothered to search for academic papers, but I've seen it use in real elections to designate party candidates. Voters were absolutely rabid, marking exclusively for candidates from their group. The largest group gets a clean slate and the unaligned voters, instead of acting like swings, are simply ignored.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  This misses the point dramatically. If someone is favoured by a large enough group, they're supposed to win. The point is what happens when people aren't fanatical but are forced to vote as if they were.
  - manholio 4y ago
    The point is to have fair representation. If a 30% fanatical minority can get a 100% clean slate for its candidates by voting strategically, AV fails. In a single winner election AV makes coordination among moderates somewhat easier, so it's an improvement, but still inferior to Ranked Choice/STV with multi-member districts.
    - CarVac 4y ago
      This probably is a difference in PoV based on how many of your elections are multi-winner versus single-winner. I was mostly thinking about single-winner elections because the big headline elections in the US are all single-winner.
    - jjitz 4y ago
      AV is great for a single winner. As you have noticed, if you elect multiple winners the "naive" way then you can get unproportional outcomes. However, there are simple ways to use approval to elect winners proportionally! One easy example is this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_proportional_approval_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_proportional_approv...
    - ClayShentrup 4y ago
      Approval voting gets very good results even under asymmetrical strategy. https://rpubs.com/Jameson-Quinn/VSE5key https://rpubs.com/Jameson-Quinn/VSE5key Your scenario is unrealistic because real humans aren't that tightly clustered, so you get defectors. And people vote strategically. The winning position is the centroid. https://www.rangevoting.org/AppCW https://www.rangevoting.org/AppCW It is not known whether proportional representation can compete with the best single winner voting methods. We don't have enough data and we can't do multi-winter Bayesian regret calculations confidently. Here's an article you really should read if you think proportion representation is the answer. https://www.rangevoting.org/PropRep https://www.rangevoting.org/PropRep
      - jjitz 4y ago
        There is a litany of research showing that proportional representation leads to more representative and stable democracies, both in terms of empirical outcomes and normative political theory. Saying we don't have enough data just because some borderline-crackpot blogger doesn't like it is pretty disingenuous.
        ClayShentrup 4y ago
        Here's a compilation of the best expert research, arguing for and against PR. https://www.rangevoting.org/PropRep https://www.rangevoting.org/PropRep A. The research compares proportional (PR) methods to plurality voting, the worst single-winner voting method there is. But superior methods like score voting and approval voting roughly double the accuracy (i.e. group welfare) compared to plurality voting. So no, there's no research showing the superiority of PR to these methods. B. Even in that limited comparison, of PR to plurality voting, the data still is actually not that clear. For instance, Canada uses plurality voting rather than PR, and is rated as one of the most high functioning democracies by The Economist. Meanwhile lots of proportional democracies are far worse than plurality countries. Compare proportional Brazil (and several other Latin countries) to non-proportional UK, Canada, and USA.
      - manholio 4y ago
        > It is not known whether proportional representation can compete with the best single winner voting methods. I don't know the metric you are using here, but it is surely purely academic, as the rest of your comment. The idea that a single candidate can better represent a smaller (and usually gerrymandered) district than a larger number of diverse candidates in a larger district flies in the face of everything we know about real democracies and party systems. > Your scenario is unrealistic because real humans aren't that tightly clustered, so you get defectors. Again, theoretical claims against real world experience. I've experienced polarization in AV to the point where center becomes a wasted vote, and people are incentivized to support one of the two dominant slates.

Has this been demonstrated?

by CarVac 4y ago

Has this been demonstrated?

I can't be bothered to search for academic papers, but I've seen it use in real elections to designate party candidates. Voters were absolutely rabid, marking exclusively for candidates from their group. The largest group gets a clean slate and the unaligned voters, instead of acting like swings, are simply ignored.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
This misses the point dramatically. If someone is favoured by a large enough group, they're supposed to win. The point is what happens when people aren't fanatical but are forced to vote as if they were.
- manholio 4y ago
  The point is to have fair representation. If a 30% fanatical minority can get a 100% clean slate for its candidates by voting strategically, AV fails. In a single winner election AV makes coordination among moderates somewhat easier, so it's an improvement, but still inferior to Ranked Choice/STV with multi-member districts.
  - CarVac 4y ago
    This probably is a difference in PoV based on how many of your elections are multi-winner versus single-winner. I was mostly thinking about single-winner elections because the big headline elections in the US are all single-winner.
  - jjitz 4y ago
    AV is great for a single winner. As you have noticed, if you elect multiple winners the "naive" way then you can get unproportional outcomes. However, there are simple ways to use approval to elect winners proportionally! One easy example is this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_proportional_approval_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_proportional_approv...
  - ClayShentrup 4y ago
    Approval voting gets very good results even under asymmetrical strategy. https://rpubs.com/Jameson-Quinn/VSE5key https://rpubs.com/Jameson-Quinn/VSE5key Your scenario is unrealistic because real humans aren't that tightly clustered, so you get defectors. And people vote strategically. The winning position is the centroid. https://www.rangevoting.org/AppCW https://www.rangevoting.org/AppCW It is not known whether proportional representation can compete with the best single winner voting methods. We don't have enough data and we can't do multi-winter Bayesian regret calculations confidently. Here's an article you really should read if you think proportion representation is the answer. https://www.rangevoting.org/PropRep https://www.rangevoting.org/PropRep
    - jjitz 4y ago
      There is a litany of research showing that proportional representation leads to more representative and stable democracies, both in terms of empirical outcomes and normative political theory. Saying we don't have enough data just because some borderline-crackpot blogger doesn't like it is pretty disingenuous.
      - ClayShentrup 4y ago
        Here's a compilation of the best expert research, arguing for and against PR. https://www.rangevoting.org/PropRep https://www.rangevoting.org/PropRep A. The research compares proportional (PR) methods to plurality voting, the worst single-winner voting method there is. But superior methods like score voting and approval voting roughly double the accuracy (i.e. group welfare) compared to plurality voting. So no, there's no research showing the superiority of PR to these methods. B. Even in that limited comparison, of PR to plurality voting, the data still is actually not that clear. For instance, Canada uses plurality voting rather than PR, and is rated as one of the most high functioning democracies by The Economist. Meanwhile lots of proportional democracies are far worse than plurality countries. Compare proportional Brazil (and several other Latin countries) to non-proportional UK, Canada, and USA.
    - manholio 4y ago
      > It is not known whether proportional representation can compete with the best single winner voting methods. I don't know the metric you are using here, but it is surely purely academic, as the rest of your comment. The idea that a single candidate can better represent a smaller (and usually gerrymandered) district than a larger number of diverse candidates in a larger district flies in the face of everything we know about real democracies and party systems. > Your scenario is unrealistic because real humans aren't that tightly clustered, so you get defectors. Again, theoretical claims against real world experience. I've experienced polarization in AV to the point where center becomes a wasted vote, and people are incentivized to support one of the two dominant slates.