Stop bashing third parties - here's what Dean said

[welshTerrier2]

Democrats should be calling for Instant Runoff Voting !!!

here's what Howard Dean said at this past week's Take Back America conference:

"I think we ought to have instant runoff voting. I think that -- I think people -- (applause) -- I think that brings people in to the polls. If there's a third party, fine. They get a choice. We finally get -- we get majorities that win, and it brings more people in."

[Trillo]

1. Excellent idea.

If only the votes were counted as they were cast :(

[rogerashton]

2. Hear, hear!

n/t

[dsc]

3. I am a Dean man

and I like much of what he says, but I have one really big problem with IRV. I think it makes it much harder for minorities (I mean racial, ethnic, and orientation here not people getting few votes) to get elected. In places that already have runoffs this is a great idea but in places without them, I am less sure.

[blurp]

4. Instant runoff voting is no improvement. It always reduces to what we have

http://electionmethods.org/IRVproblems.htm

The Problem with Instant Runoff Voting
Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) has been officially endorsed by several organizations and is gaining momentum. Unfortunately, however, confusion reigns regarding its advantages and disadvantages. IRV is very good at preventing minor parties from interfering with the two-party system, but it is arguably no better than our current plurality system at expanding the two-party system and giving other parties a chance to actually win elections. Furthermore, if a third party ever does become strong enough under IRV to seriously threaten the two major parties, they could hurt their own cause and wreak havoc with our entire political system, just as they could under our current plurality system.

IRV can prevent the spoiler effect, in which a minor party splits the vote with a major party and tilts the election toward the other major party, hurting its own cause. IRV therefore seems to allow supporters of minor parties to cast protest votes without "wasting" their votes. This advantage is illusory, however, because it applies only as long as those minor parties are sure to lose. As soon as one of those minor parties threatens to become a major party and actually win, its supporters vote for them at the risk of hurting their own cause, just as in the current plurality system. Under IRV, votes for minor parties are therefore symbolic at best, or dangerous at worst. An example will illustrate why.

Suppose my true preference is for the Libertarian first and the Republican second. Suppose further that the Libertarians are the strongest "minor" party. At some round of the IRV counting process, all the candidates will be eliminated except the Republican, the Democrat, and the Libertarian. If the Libertarian then has the fewest first-choice votes, he or she will be eliminated and my vote will transfer to the Republican, just as I wanted. But what if the Republican is eliminated before the Libertarian? Unless all the Republican votes transfer to the Libertarian, which is extremely unlikely, the Democrat might then beat the Libertarian. If so, I will have helped the Democrat win by not strategically ranking the Republican first. But that's the same situation I'm in now if I vote my true preference for the Libertarian!

What happened in the above example is that IRV essentially ignored one of my key preferences. By voting (Libertarian, Republican, ..., Democrat), I increase the chances that the Republican will be eliminated before the Libertarian. If that then happens, my preference for the Republican over the Democrat is essentially discarded or ignored. This is the fundamental problem with IRV. The only preference that is sure to be counted is my first choice. The problem gets worse as the number of candidates increases. The outcome of the election can depend in a very quirky way on the order in which candidates are eliminated for having the fewest top-choice votes. The only way a voter can be assured of not wasting his or her vote is to rank one of the two major parties as their first choice, which is precisely what happens now under plurality voting.

The example is hardly contrived. The "lesser of two evils" problem is almost guaranteed to rear its ugly head again under IRV. Until a minor party is strong enough to win, a first-choice vote for them is essentially only symbolic. After a minor party is strong enough to win, on the other hand, a vote for them could have the same spoiler effect that it could have under the current plurality system. Hence, if IRV is ever actually adopted, we will likely remain stuck in the old two-party system, just as Australia still is, despite the fact that it has used IRV since around 1920. On the other hand, if minor parties do somehow manage to become competitive under IRV, they could wreak havoc with our entire system of government. As in our current system, the stronger a minor party becomes, the more it could hurt its own cause.

In other words, IRV can have either of two completely opposite effects, depending on whether a third party is truly competitive or not. Before a third party is competitive, the effect of IRV is equivalent to a plurality system in which all supporters of minor parties are somehow convinced to abandon their principles and vote for the "lesser of two evils." Yes, those voters get the satisfaction of knowing they voted for the party and the candidate they truly prefer, but their first choice is eventually eliminated and has no effect on who actually wins. After a third party is competitive, on the other hand, the effect if IRV is equivalent to a plurality system in which many voters are somehow convinced to forget about strategy and vote sincerely. As most intelligent voters know, that would wreak havoc with the stability of our political system.

IRV has been said to make strategic or defensive voting very difficult. But strategic voting is difficult under IRV only after more than two parties are truly competitive. Before that time, strategic voting is essentially the same as what it is in our current plurality system: rank the "lesser of two evils" candidate as your first choice. As soon as more than two parties are truly competitive, strategic voting could indeed become very difficult because the "lesser of two evils" concept no longer applies when more than two parties are competitive. However, this difficulty, far from being an advantage, is actually a huge disadvantage. Voters will then need to vote strategically but will be unable to figure out how to do so, except to revert back to the old two-party paradigm. Hence the original duopoly will remain intact. In other words, IRV will not solve the classic "lesser of two evils" problem that plagues plurality voting.

IRV does have one possible advantage over our current plurality system: it could be a step toward true electoral reform in the form of Condorcet voting, which is far superior to IRV. The actual voting mechanics of IRV and Condorcet voting are identical. In both IRV and Condorcet voting, the voters rank the candidates, and the required voting equipment is the same for each. The only difference is the actual algorithm (and its implementation software) for determining the winner. In other words, the "front end" is common for IRV and Condorcet voting, and only the "back end" is different. From a purely technical perspective, that "back end" software would be very easy to replace, but the political perspective is another story altogether, of course. If IRV is widely adopted, it could be transitional to true reform -- or it could become entrenched.

IRV has other serious problems too. It is an erratic voting system because ranking a candidate higher can actually cause the candidate to lose, and ranking a candidate lower can cause the candidate to win. As if that weren't bad enough, it can also fail to elect a candidate who is preferred over each of the other candidates by a majority of the voters. It is also much more difficult to implement with security and integrity because the votes cannot be summed as in most other election methods.

In summary, IRV is a deceptive and potentially dangerous non-reform masquerading as a reform. If adopted, the cure could be worse than the disease. Once the inadequacy of IRV becomes clear in actual practice, it could disillusion the public with electoral reform and thereby close the door to true reform. The stakes are way too high to get this one wrong. We can only hope that the well-intentioned and devoted advocates of IRV are still open-minded enough to recognize this reality. The battle for electoral reform will be difficult enough without insurmountable ignorance within the reform movement itself.

[welshTerrier2]

5. a few points ...

first, it was interesting to note the article you posted used the example of being torn between Libertarians and republicans ... i wonder if that is the author's (of the article) bias ...

second, IRV, at least as far as i understand it, does not require any voter to cast multiple ranked votes ... for example, you could just cast your first choice for the Green Party and that's that ... isn't this what we already have? if a voter, rather than the election laws, chose to cast a second or third place vote, shouldn't that be up to them?

third, my impression is that third parties strongly support IRV voting ... is this not the case?

and finally, i posted this thread primarily to focus on Dean's acceptance of third parties ... while his call for IRV was clearly a part of the statement i posted, i wanted to emphasize that he was preaching more tolerance for third parties than we often see on DU ...

[blurp]

6. IRV means tolerance of 3rd parties without real risk

first, it was interesting to note the article you posted used the example of being torn between Libertarians and republicans ... i wonder if that is the author's (of the article) bias ...

It's a real shame that an article can be "tainted" in your mind simply because of this example. Just read what he has to say. He makes good points.

And Dean's acceptance of 3rd parties is a bit of an illusion. As the article points out, IRV is really no genuine threat to the 2 party system. So, is Dead just trying to score points with 3rd parties without actually risking anything?

Not that I'm against Dead. He was certainly a better candidate than Kerry.

There is one more thing about approval voting that I like. At the end of the day, we only have one president, or one governor, or one mayor. That person shouldn't be a divider. Approval voting gives a result most everyone can accept.

[welshTerrier2]

7. well, let's say "thanks" and then call for more "risk"

in making the following observation, and i'm no expert on IRV, i thought it brought into question the points raised in the article you posted:

"second, IRV, at least as far as i understand it, does not require any voter to cast multiple ranked votes ... for example, you could just cast your first choice for the Green Party and that's that ... isn't this what we already have? if a voter, rather than the election laws, chose to cast a second or third place vote, shouldn't that be up to them?"

and whether or not IRV is a threat to the two-party system, a point i never raised, you also didn't respond to this point i raised earlier:

"third, my impression is that third parties strongly support IRV voting ... is this not the case?"

as to your statement that Dean (your unfortunate typo notwithstanding) did not risk anything by making the statement he made, i fundamentally agree ... btw, i'm a Democrat not a third party supporter ... but i do think we need to find a way to give voice to other than the two major parties during our elections ... i would like to see some type of process where minor parties get to participate in SOME of the presidential debates based on SOME criteria ... i won't take the time here to speculate on how such a system might work ...

anyway, the main point i wanted to make was that i considered Dean's comments a breath of fresh air on the subject ... it's time for Democrats to recognize the legitimate interests of those in third parties ... i think it's healthy for our democracy ... should he have gone much further than he did? i think he should have and still hope he does ...

[blurp]

8. Brings into question the article? How?

"second, IRV, at least as far as i understand it, does not require any voter to cast multiple ranked votes ... for example, you could just cast your first choice for the Green Party and that's that ... isn't this what we already have? if a voter, rather than the election laws, chose to cast a second or third place vote, shouldn't that be up to them?"

Of course it should be up to them. Can you elaborate, though, on how this "brings into question" the article?

"third, my impression is that third parties strongly support IRV voting ... is this not the case?"

Just because there is support in 3rd parties for IRV doesn't mean it's a good system. Of course, at this point, 3rd parties will take any kind of reform.

The point of the article is that the benefits of IRV are an illusion.

Elections in Australia where they have IRV have done very little to change the 2 party system.

[blurp]

9. Give this article a try

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

The relevant part:

Criteria failed

IRV is unusual in that it does not satisfy the monotonicity criterion —in some situations, if a voter or group of voters decides to rank a preferred candidate lower, it can result in that candidate winning the election, whereas if they had ranked the candidate higher, according to their sincere preference, that candidate would not have won.

It is also unusual in that it does not satisfy the summability criterion. Tallying the votes must be centralized to do the eliminations and vote transfers. IRV does not pass the consistency criterion, which can be stated as follows: "If the hypothetical tallied outcome of two voting districts is the same, then the tallying of the ballots in both districts should yield the identical outcome." This does not necessarily occur in IRV.

In IRV, a voter can sometimes get a better result by not voting at all than by ranking their sincere preferences. Thus, IRV does not satisfy the participation criterion.

IRV does not pass the Condorcet criterion or the Smith criterion.

IRV fails the Independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion.

These theoretical objections correspond with several serious practical 'failure modes' for IRV, discussed below. The first two, compromise and push-over, are common forms of tactical voting, where voters must change their preferred ranking of candidates to increase the likelihood of a favored outcome. Traditional plurality elections are also vulnerable to 'compromise' tactical voting. The other failure modes are more specific to IRV.

It should be noted that Condorcet methods or Approval voting methods can avoid the Return of the '3rd-party spoiler effect' and Failure to pick a good compromise problems.

<snip>

Push-over
Tactical voters can intentionally promote "push-overs", candidates unlikely to win, past their real preference. This can sometimes benefit voters by bringing their preferred candidate to a more winnable final runoff round, basically using the push-overs as a shield for protection of their primary vote.


Return of the '3rd-party spoiler effect'
IRV only stops the '3rd-party spoiler effect' as long as the 3rd party clearly does not have a chance to win. Just when the 3rd party grows to a competitive size, voters may start to find again that they benefit from tactically ranking a major party candidate over their favorite candidate.

This failure mode occurs if the voter fears that his 1st-choice candidate (the 3rd party) might first win from his best-liked major party, then not get enough of the redistributed votes, and finally almost certainly lose to the other major party. The voter would wind up with his least-favored outcome. The voter may seek to prevent this by ranking the best-liked major party over his actual first choice.


Failure to pick a good compromise
IRV can ignore a good compromise in favor of a polarized choice that enjoys smaller actual support.

This failure mode occurs in a 3-choice election where parties A and B are bitterly opposed, and party C is first choice for a minority but tolerable for a large majority. For a real-life example, consider the 17th-century Europe struggle over "government-enforced Catholicism" versus "government-enforced Protestantism", with "freedom of private worship" as the compromise C.

Voting turnout would resemble the following:

38% of voters 38% of voters 11% of voters 13% of voters
1. A 1. B 1. C 1. C
2. C 2. C 2. A 2. B
3. B 3. A 3. B 3. A

In IRV, the compromise (choice C) is eliminated immediately. Choice B is elected, giving severely lower total satisfaction amongst voters than choice C.


Logistical issues
Ballots in IRV cannot be easily summarized. (Political scientists call this the Summability criterion.) In most forms of voting, each district can examine the ballots locally and publish the total votes for each candidate. Anyone can add up the published totals to determine the winner, and if there are allegations of irregularities in one district only that district needs to be recounted.

With IRV, each time a candidate is dropped, the ballots assigned to them must be re-examined to determine which remaining candidate to assign them to. Repeated several times, this can be time-consuming. If there is a candidate X who got more votes than all of the candidates who got less than X put together, then all of these candidates who lost to X can be dropped simultaneously without affecting the final outcome, which can speed up counting.

If counting takes place in several places for a single IRV election (as in Australia), these counting centers must be connected by a securely authenticated channel (historically the telegraph was used) to inform them which candidate has come last and should be dropped. Centralizing the counting to avoid this problem can add opportunity for tampering.

<snip>

[blurp]

10. Here is one on approval voting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting

[welshTerrier2]

11. studying various voting systems

well, after doing a little reading, i'm more confused about this ... i suppose that's a good thing ...

let me make a few points of the criteria i'm seeking with changes in how we vote:

1. any system should encourage voters to vote for what they believe are really the best ideas and best candidates
2. the system should discourage "voting tricks" that might cause voters to vote for a candidate they don't really support to bring about some other objective
3. systems that allow powerful parties, e.g. the two major parties, to essentially squash smaller, weaker parties should be rejected

these criteria would be my starting point ...

in reading one of the articles you cited, i also read about the Condorcet criterion ... this system seems to have its own imperfections ... here was the example they cited (there are candidates A,B and C shown with their vote counts)

499: A,B,C
498: C,B,A
3: B,C,A

the Condorcet system would argue, as i understand it, that candidate B should win because that candidate would be least objectionable to the majority ... while that may be true given the results shown, it seems to also be true that only 3 voters thought candidate B was worthy of winning the election ... i understand there's an embedded "i'd still rather have B than A" but it seems like this system focusses more on the lesser of the evils than it does on actual preferences for the top spot ...

my point isn't that the system isn't a legitimate idea; it's that i've yet to read about any system that is "perfect" ...

are you advocating a particular voting system ?? for me, the specific system will require much more study than i've done ... my appreciation for IRV (not as a preference over other systems) is based on where we are today ... third parties are not currently viable and the legitimate arguments made against IRV in an environment where third parties become viable seem to have merit ... if we can identify better systems and be more forward-thinking, i'm all for them ...

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

12. Isn't everybody calling for IRV?

Fuckin' centrist.

:patriot:

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. Ranked voting of some kind at any rate

http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/electionreform.htm