fling93 loves fishies

the situation in canada (where we have a parliamentary system) is kind of interesting right now, certainly offering more in the way of choice. Traditionally there have been 3 major parties: The New Democratic Party (left-wing), Liberal (centre left-right), and Progressive Conservatives (right). [Note: The spectrum is shifted far to the left compared with the US so our PC party would probably fall further left than the Democrats.]

Dissatisfaction with the major political parties led to the rise of a further-right party in the late 80s (Reform, which has since absorbed the PC and been reborn as the Conservative Party of Canada).

Finally, out of the separatist movement in Quebec, a fourth major political party was born, the Bloc Quebecois (probably further left than the NDP).

So in our last election we had:
-Conservatives (right)
-Liberal (centre right-left)
-NDP (left)
-Bloc (separatist/left)

The result was a minority government for the ruling Liberals (who have been in power since 1993), who now must bargain with the Conservatives on the right and the Bloc & NDP on the left to make sure they get their policies through.

Some might deride a minority government as unworkable, but in fact (and I think many Canadians agree) it does a decent job of actually reflecting the desires of the Canadian people - generally to have a centrist government in power, but kept in check by fiscal conservatives and social-democrats. Ie we want it all, and maybe this outcome is just that. Or maybe it’s not all, but rather nothing.

If accurate democratic representation of the will of the people (not just compromise of the people) is what you’re after, this system seems to do a better job of meeting people needs than does a restrictive 2 party system in the US.

Now how it does as a government is a different story altogether.

hugh: The spectrum is shifted far to the left compared with the US

I think that’s true for a lot of countries, as a lot of them have socialism in their history. Or I suppose you could say our spectrum is shifted far to right compared to the rest of the world.

hugh: The result was a minority government for the ruling Liberals…. Some might deride a minority government as unworkable, but in fact (and I think many Canadians agree) it does a decent job…. …this system seems to do a better job of meeting people needs than does a restrictive 2 party system in the US.

Interesting. Piqued my curiosity, so I just read up on the Canadian system (well, I’m eventually going to have to learn about it anyway). I think minority is a bit misleading. I think plurality is the better term for it, as the Liberals still have more seats than any other party. They just don’t have a majority, so must cut deals with other parties to pass legislation.

But indeed, the minority/plurality government is actually somewhat similar to the model I envision. I think it’s far preferable to the more common coalition government, where small parties can act as kingmakers. Or a majority government, where it’s hard to prevent tyranny of the minority. But with a minority/plurality government, coalitions are more likely to form, dissolve, and reform with each bill that is debated. Kinda like how in our system, every vote tends to have some defections from both parties because the parties are themselves coalitions. But this happens much more freely in a multi-party system, where party discipline would not interfere with true preferences as much. So I believe that means the votes on each issue would much more closely mirror the electorate’s positions, instead of being distorted due to the two-party filter.

The main difference between this and my vision is that Canada still has a parliamentary system where the legislature forms the government. A presidential system with a strong and independent executive has advantages that Americans are very fond of. It also means ruling coalitions won’t need to form, which I think also distorts power. That, plus Canada uses plurality/first-past-the-post, which can result in the spoiler effect and reduces support for third parties. Plus, I believe proportional representation would make the minority/plurality government case occur much more often, as well as open up representation to a much wider variety of viewpoints.

I just learned about the French semi-presidential system, which is actually quite close to what I envision, only they have a two executives, one president elected by the people, and a premier (prime minister) selected by the ruling coalition in Parliament. I think that just leads to gridlock when the premier is from a different party than the president. And I see little need for two executives when there are already checks between the executive and legislative branches. I asked about my model last night in class, and my professor couldn’t think of any countries off the top of his head that had a single-executive presidential multi-party system, so I wonder if there’s a reason it’s never been tried.

just one little note on the british-style parlimentary system, party loyalty is generally the rule (actually a rule), so in many cases members of parliament are forced to vote on party lines, outherwise they are kicked out of the party … occasionally votes are opened, so that mmembers can vote against their party, but often not. This is very different from the US system, where votes must be bargained for. There are historical reasons for the Canadian system, and some arguments for it, but libertarians wouldn’t buy any of them!

fling: Or I suppose you could say our spectrum is shifted far to right compared to the rest of the world.

on the left-right question, there is no doubt that the US is alone to the right of the rest of the industrialized world, and I guess becoming more so.

PS HOW do i make italics??

hugh: just one little note on the british-style parlimentary system, party loyalty is generally the rule

Yeah, I heard about that. Not fond of that sorta thing, as it distorts results from the preferences of the electorate. But a multi-party system makes that less of an effect, and I think our culture has always been more tolerant of individualists and mavericks, like John McCain.

As for italics, the easiest way on my blog, which has a Textile plugin installed, is to put underscores around the words. The plugin will automatically replace them with the <em> tag, which is the standards-compliant way to italicize. And it also works around whole groups of words. Asterisks become the <strong> tag, which typically show up as bold, as you’ve probably noticed. And there’s a shortcut for links, too.

So this:

"Natalie Portman":http://www.natalieportman.com/ is _such_ a *hottie*.

becomes:

Natalie Portman is such a hottie.

Yeah, I have a bit of a one-track mind. I’ve long been meaning to write up something quick in the “Post a comment” box to explain this, like Winds of Change has, but I always procrastinate.

You can also type out the HTML, and my comments will accept a lot of tags, including <em> as well as the non-standards-compliant <i> and <b>. And you can also blockquote.

re: itals, tx.

I think IRV tends to weaken parties a whole lot. Like, what’s to keep two candidates from the same party from running? They don’t take votes from each other. The party can endorse both of them. So the party has less control of its own candidates.

Jefferson compared monarchy to a fine ship with many sails, and democracy to a raft. The ship moves fast and maybe breaks on a reef. The raft is safe but it goes slow and your feet are always in the water.

The american system is designed to get the advantages of monarchy part of the time. The strong executive can sometimes do things without legislative approval, and the legislature will sometimes be controlled by a party that somebody has control of, and the legislature will do whatever he wants.

Here are some kinds of decision-making. I’ll consider an example where each has a disadvantage.

1. It takes a solid majority to do something.

Say you’re starting a war, you’ll never achieve surprise this way.

2. A small temporary majority can start something, and a small temporary majority can stop it.

So we get into a war we aren’t sure about, and we try to back out early. Bad both ways.

3. A small temporary majority can get something started but it’s much harder to stop it.

Now we get into the war we don’t want but we can’t get out. Is this really better than quitting before we lose?

4. The smaller the majority the longer it takes to implement stuff.

This has some possibilities. Hard to start the war without lots of support, and the longer it takes the more likely it will get more support or get stopped. On the other hand, when you want to pull out you telegraph that a long ways ahead, encouraging the enemy to try hard to persuade you to quit. And yet, the alternatives are to pull out real fast when a bare majority wants to, or to keep slugging it out even when the strong consensus is to give up.

Ideally there would be criteria for what sort of problem each piece of legislation is solving, that would decide whether to start easy and stop easy, or be had to start and hard to stop, or start slow and stop slow, etc. But I don’t see how to choose that and I sure don’t see how to get a political consensus about which things to go which ways.

J Thomas: I think IRV tends to weaken parties a whole lot.

Well, what it mainly accomplishes is that it makes primaries unnecessary and you get more than two parties. But yes, it also weakens parties. That’s part of my goal. Right now, the two parties are too powerful. An issue isn’t an issue unless one of the two parties picks it up. This is a reason it’s hard to get anything done in regards to campaign finance or gerrymandering or ballot access or electoral reform in general. The two parties both like a lot of the political system’s status quo.

J Thomas: Jefferson compared monarchy to a fine ship with many sails, and democracy to a raft.

This is why I’d keep the checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches, and also keep it a representative democracy (i.e. republic) instead of a direct democracy. Changing how we elect the President shouldn’t affect the system’s decision-making. It just changes who wins.

Creating a multi-party legislature will change the decision-making, but I think for the better. Currently, the majority party rules, and can do most of what they want if they can enforce strict party discipline. This results in legislation that doesn’t match the electorate’s preferences, just that of the majority party (which is why the party in power can try to enact legislation with the sole purpose of consolidating their power — not something the electorate wants at all).

With a multi-party system, you get a lot of different voices. Some of the anti-war parties will also be pro-free-market. Some of the pro-free-market parties will also be pro-life. Some of the pro-life crowd will also be pro-gun-control. This gives voters better choices. If you support gun control and opposed the war, you no longer have to choose between a candidate who opposes gun control and opposed the war and a candidate who supports gun control and supports the war. Instead, you can pick a candidate who mirrors your beliefs. Then we’ll have a Congress that is more representative of the views of the electorate. And furthermore, no single party will have a majority. Every vote will require a coalition.

Perhaps it sounds more chaotic, but when it comes down to any single issue, all of the parties will generally fall on one side or the other, so the coalitions will be natural and form automatically (instead of being patched-together for political purposes, like in our two-party system). Laws that have majority support in the electorate will also have majority support in Congress and will pass.

You might argue that our system has too many checks and balances or too few checks and balances or that it has checks and balances that become irrelevant when one party has all three branches. But I think this is a separate issue from the choice of the voting system.

Oh, by the way. In case you haven’t seen it yet, I do have a post on IRV.

But yes, it also weakens parties. That’s part of my goal.

I agree that would be a good thing. But both party organisations will tend to oppose it because neither of them would want to be weakened even if the other gets weakened more.

“Jefferson compared monarchy to a fine ship with many sails, and democracy to a raft.”

Changing how we elect the President shouldn’t affect the system’s decision-making.

Agreed. I’d like to see us rethink how we want to change the decision-making too. We’d be better off if it was harder for us to go off half-cocked. That’s a minority view now, but maybe in a few years it will be the large majority.

With a multi-party system, you get a lot of different voices.

True. I don’t know whether that would be a good thing or not. I hope it would be. When one majority party can hold party discipline, they might follow some consistent philosophy. That could be good or bad. But when everybody gets to choose for themselves, they can do horse-trading. Vote for things they tend to oppose in exchange for extra votes for what they care most about. It would be a crap-shoot which laws get passed — depending partly on how good each negotiator is at juggling commitments and partly on sheer luck. While I tend to think that would be an improvement I’m not completely sure.

I do have a post on IRV.

Yes, that was what brought me to your blog in the first place. I’d been thinking about how to write something like that, and you had done it superbly already. Very very clear. So I didn’t bother.

J Thomas: But both party organisations will tend to oppose it

Oh believe me, I realize that it’s a longshot of all longshot. It’s why I bring up electoral reform at every chance I get. Plus, a person’s reaction to the topic is often very telling about how partisan they are.

J Thomas: But when everybody gets to choose for themselves, they can do horse-trading. Vote for things they tend to oppose in exchange for extra votes for what they care most about.

Well, that already happens now. I suspect that it would happen less in a non-parliamentary multi-party system, but I’m not sure. Party discipline itself is a form of horse-trading, where a party member is persuaded by the party to vote against their conscience in exchange for continued party support.

fling93: I do have a post on IRV.
J Thomas: Yes, that was what brought me to your blog in the first place. I’d been thinking about how to write something like that, and you had done it superbly already. Very very clear. So I didn’t bother.

Oh thanks. I’m flattered!

“But both party organisations will tend to oppose it.”

Oh believe me, I realize that it’s a longshot of all longshot. It’s why I bring up electoral reform at every chance I get.

I went to a meeting about this last month in Washington, DC. They had somebody who used to play in a rock band talking about it, and somebody they brought in from britain. The musician explained how he’d seen a censorship issue and started into political action and when he saw how the system was rigged he wound up pushing election reform. The british guy had a thick accent with heavily rolled r’s and such. I had to reprogram my brain a little to understand him, and after the meeting a couple of people commented on my british accent. They both said that to get IRV etc in, it’s necessary to start local. Each place people get used to it on a local level is a base to work from for larger change later. San Francisco had an election that way, and candidates whose positions were similar actually agreed with each other in public and supported each other. They wanted to get second-votes. When it was just one vote they were competing for the same votes and they tried to knock each other down.

After that I wanted to get involved in local politics in my town and city and campaign for IRV here, but I haven’t actually done anything yet.

J Thomas: I went to a meeting about this last month in Washington, DC. They had somebody who used to play in a rock band talking about it

Hey, was this that event by the New America Foundation that Matt Yglesias blogged about (a post that I commented on). Did they talk about any other voting methods besides IRV?

J Thomas: They both said that to get IRV etc in, it’s necessary to start local. Each place people get used to it on a local level is a base to work from for larger change later.

Yeah, that sounds about right. And yes, San Francisco used IRV in the last election. Not sure what the general response was to it, though. Local politics have generally never interested me as much as the grander issues, so I haven’t done much either.

Hey, was this that event by the New America Foundation that Matt Yglesias blogged about (a post that I commented on).

Yes, that’s how I found out about it. I didn’t see anybody there who looked like Matt’s published photos. I met one guy named Andy Sullivan. I said, “Oh, I’ve heard of you.” He said, “No! You haven’t ever heard of me!” His business card said he was a Reuters reporter and I was surprised at first that he’d insist I’d never seen his byline. Later I figured he probably didn’t want to be confused with the famous homosexual blogger.

Did they talk about any other voting methods besides IRV?

I don’t recall any emphasis on other methods. They talked about something that was about the same as IRV but they gave it a different name when it was multiple candidates competing for multiple seats. Oh, they talked about accepting small improvements. If you can get an electoral reform that isn’t nearly as good as IRV, might as well take that now and keep working for something better.

During the question and answer period an audience member talked at length about other methods. He had gotten tremendously enthused about alternate voting methods and he’d researched them in great detail and he had no one to talk to about it. So he came to the meeting and asked a question that was more a long lecture, and then he kept talking until they suggested he stop.

Apart from the suggestion to start local, most of what I remember is the talk about the bad results of the current system, and the stress that change is a long-term project. The british guy pointed out that they’ve made considerable progress in the last eighty years and they hope to make considerable more in the next eighty years.

J Thomas: So he came to the meeting and asked a question that was more a long lecture, and then he kept talking until they suggested he stop.

Ha, that could easily have been me, if I had been there.

Indeed, I think Approval would be a far better than IRV (and Condorcet even better, albeit more complicated), but I’ll explain this when I get to Part 4 of my “Electoral Reform” series (yeah, I still need to do Part 3, which will cover the Condorcet Method). But as I’ve said, IRV is still a move in the right direction and a vast improvement over what we have now.

Ha, that could easily have been me, if I had been there.

I came close, but I figured if I was going to do that sort of thing I ought to come up with some central idea I wanted all those people to hear, and it shouldn’t just be preaching to the converted, and I didn’t get it phrased while I was listening to the other questions and answers.

I could have spammed them about voting machines, but instead I talked about it to a couple of people before the meeting until their eyes started glazing over.

Hey, I could do that here. Ideally we’d have open voting where people could see how their votes were counted. But we insist on secret ballots for a couple of good reasons — we don’t want people to be intimidated into voting as someone powerful tells them to, and we don’t want people to sell their votes and be able to prove they delivered.

If we use the principles the banking industry uses, we could get voting machines that overcome a lot of that. The first thing is, let each voter have a secret key he assigns to his ballot. Publish the ballots with the keys (on the internet) and each voter can tell whether his vote was falsified.

Also, post the voter list (on the internet). That lets everybody challenge the list, and makes it harder to add extra voters.

Then there’s the question what the voter can do about it if his vote is absent or falsified. Given the recent level of partisanship we might get 3% of the voters lying about their votes being missing almost as easily as we’d get parties falsifying about the elections.

The banking approach is not to trust a single vendor to both design the system and run it, and split the verifiability among independent organisations. We could let the system assign a key to each ballot along with the voter’s key. So if a voter says his ballot was falsified they can check whether the ballot he says was his was actually his. I think that might work if one machine (Voter Machine) tallies voters and keeps a database of who voted along with keys it assigns to voters. For each voter it presents that key to a second machine (Key Machine) that keeps a database of voter keys, and for each key it creates a ballot key and sends that to the actual voting machine (Ballot Machine). The ballot machine lets the voter fill out the ballot and assigns the ballot key and the voter’s own key to it, and publishes the ballot.

Then no one of the three organisations can find out who you voted for. The one with the voter lists and the one with the pairs of keys can work together to connect your name to your ballot. The one with the ballots can falsify your ballot but it can’t keep you from finding out. If it falsifies your own key you won’t see your vote at all. If it falsifies the ballot key then it won’t line up with the key machine’s database. One or the other of them must be wrong. If it leaves the keys alone and falsifies the ballot then you can find out, if you bother.

The ballot machine can falsify its records but the only result is to create a doubt that the voting machine might be off.

If all three machines are in collusion they could arrange some corruption. Get a Voter X who’s willing to lie about his vote. For a collection of other voters, the voter machine and the key machine assign keys that point to him. The ballot machine falsifies their ballots, it keeps their own keys but uses the key the key machine supplied that points back to X. If a voter notices his ballot is bad, he complains and they check. The machine key for his ballot gets sent to the key machine which sends X’s voter key to the voter machine which tells them X cast that vote. They ask him what key he assigned his vote and he says he doesn’t remember. If they show him the key on that vote he says it’s his. The disgruntled ex-voters then have no obvious recourse short of taking up their weapons and trying to overthrow the government. But it takes considerable collusion among the machines to falsify votes without leaving a trail. The trail doesn’t necessarily tell who’s at fault but it shows there’s a problem.

That collusion could be reduced by defining the interfaces carefully and buying the voting machines, key machines and voter machines from multiple vendors. It would be harder to collude when you have to indentify the other machine as a co-conspirator before you do anything overt, and if the combinations of machines was randomised then the bad ones wouldn’t get together as often.

I think some scheme along these lines would work, and would make the elections far more open.

hey fling, have you seen this yet? thought it might be of interest:

http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/public

No, hadn’t seen that. Only starting to look at it now. I’ve heard of STV, but I’m not familiar with this version of it. Thanks!