When Lobbying was Illegal • Hacker News Board

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#131

Post by BurningFrog » Sat, Apr 16, 2016, 7:20 PM UTC

mtgx wrote: post #51

BurningFrog wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious solution to this is to make it easier for politicians to raise money. Instead everyone is demanding to make it harder. The lack of Economics instinct is costly for our society.

Easier in the sense that every citizen should be able to contribute more, and that can also be achieved through public funding. But not easier in the sense that anyone can donate an infinite amount directly to the campaign. That just skews the system in the favor of a few donors (as it already has to a great degree). We need the "money vote" to be "equalized" among people, just like the ballot vote is. One person sho…

What I'm saying is that it would be easier for the candidate to raise money.

If there is plenty money to be had from many sources, candidates don't need to spend so much time getting it, and they don't need to offer so many legislative favors in return.

Note that you only need enough money to run a good campaign. Getting twice or 10 times that money does very little for your electability.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#132

Post by aninhumer » Sat, Apr 16, 2016, 7:21 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #104

nitrogen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm drawing my conclusions from the visualizations here: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ (search for "nonmonotonicity"). Maybe I should have said public opinion. Shifting public opinion closer to your position can make you lose in IRV; I'm not sure if there's an actual vote count increase as well. From those visualizations and my reading elsewhere it looks like approval voting is the closest to a Voronoi-style partitioni…

There is no perfect electrol system, just systems of more or less degrees of badness. Any system chosen is always a balance between simplicity and correctness.

Honestly, I've yet to be convinced of a serious problem with Approval/Range Voting. They even survive Arrow's Theorem by not being ranked systems.

And there's obviously some variance of complexity between them, but even fine grained Range Voting isn't that hard to understand.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#133

Post by nitrogen » Sat, Apr 16, 2016, 7:25 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #104

nitrogen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm drawing my conclusions from the visualizations here: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ (search for "nonmonotonicity"). Maybe I should have said public opinion. Shifting public opinion closer to your position can make you lose in IRV; I'm not sure if there's an actual vote count increase as well. From those visualizations and my reading elsewhere it looks like approval voting is the closest to a Voronoi-style partitioni…

There is no perfect electrol system, just systems of more or less degrees of badness. Any system chosen is always a balance between simplicity and correctness.

Indeed. Approval voting seems a bit simpler to me than instant runoff, but instant runoff is better than simple plurality. If a location is considering changing voting systems though, IMO they would be best served by skipping IRV and going for approval. After that we can try to fix party line voting in the US.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#134

Post by ClayShentrup » Sat, Apr 16, 2016, 7:49 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #76

danieltillett wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You never lose by getting more votes - the nice thing about instant run offs is it simple (just rank) and it is close to the ideal outcome. It is not perfect, but it is not too bad. In regards stability it is better than proportional voting which tends to splinter the electorate. With instant run offs the candidate that is close to the consensus tends to win.

I'm drawing my conclusions from the visualizations here: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ (search for "nonmonotonicity"). Maybe I should have said public opinion. Shifting public opinion closer to your position can make you lose in IRV; I'm not sure if there's an actual vote count increase as well. From those visualizations and my reading elsewhere it looks like approval voting is the closest to a Voronoi-style partitioni…

You seem to be making a common logical fallacy about tactical voting, explained in the graph here. http://www.electology.org/topic/tactical-voting

In short, tactical voting isn't all that important. For instance, Score Voting and Approval Voting perform better with 100% strategic voters (in which case they are identical) than IRV does with 100% honest voting. So even if IRV magically encouraged all voters to be honest (which it doesn't), Score/Approval would still be superior.

Score Voting is definitively superior to Approval Voting in terms of producing the right electoral outcome (ignoring practical concerns around complexity and the cost of adoption, upgrading voting machines, etc.). That's because, for tactical voters, both systems are the same. But for honest voters, Score Voting adds less noise/loss/distortion, because it doesn't force you to round your 7 up to a 10, or your 3 down to a 0. Hence better outcomes overall, as seen in this graph of Bayesian Regret figures.

http://scorevoting.net/BayRegsFig.html

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#135

Post by ClayShentrup » Sat, Apr 16, 2016, 7:50 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #104

nitrogen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm drawing my conclusions from the visualizations here: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ (search for "nonmonotonicity"). Maybe I should have said public opinion. Shifting public opinion closer to your position can make you lose in IRV; I'm not sure if there's an actual vote count increase as well. From those visualizations and my reading elsewhere it looks like approval voting is the closest to a Voronoi-style partitioni…

There is no perfect electrol system, just systems of more or less degrees of badness. Any system chosen is always a balance between simplicity and correctness.

But there's an objective measure of that degree of badness. Bayesian Regret.

http://scorevoting.net/BayRegsFig.html

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#136

Post by ClayShentrup » Sat, Apr 16, 2016, 7:52 PM UTC

aninhumer wrote: post #132

danieltillett wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no perfect electrol system, just systems of more or less degrees of badness. Any system chosen is always a balance between simplicity and correctness.

Honestly, I've yet to be convinced of a serious problem with Approval/Range Voting. They even survive Arrow's Theorem by not being ranked systems. And there's obviously some variance of complexity between them, but even fine grained Range Voting isn't that hard to understand.

Score Voting and Approval Voting are clearly the best alternative systems for single-winner elections (for multi-winner elections, many people support some form of Proportional Representation).

The problem is that FairVote, which advocates IRV (apparently because it's a useful steeping stone to the their REAL goal of STV), is run by a professional liar named Rob Richie, and he disseminates a massive amount of false and misleading information about voting systems. E.g.

https://sites.google.com/a/electology.org/www/fact-check

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#137

Post by ClayShentrup » Sat, Apr 16, 2016, 7:53 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #76

danieltillett wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You never lose by getting more votes - the nice thing about instant run offs is it simple (just rank) and it is close to the ideal outcome. It is not perfect, but it is not too bad. In regards stability it is better than proportional voting which tends to splinter the electorate. With instant run offs the candidate that is close to the consensus tends to win.

I'm drawing my conclusions from the visualizations here: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ (search for "nonmonotonicity"). Maybe I should have said public opinion. Shifting public opinion closer to your position can make you lose in IRV; I'm not sure if there's an actual vote count increase as well. From those visualizations and my reading elsewhere it looks like approval voting is the closest to a Voronoi-style partitioni…

Incidentally, the guy behind Zesty.ca lives across the street from me in Berkeley. I co-founded the Center for Election Science. It was a complete coincidence. We moved here from SF a few years ago, and one day I was walking by his house and recognized him sitting on the steps, from a picture on his site. From like 20 feet away. It's a small world.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#138

Post by cm3 » Sat, Apr 16, 2016, 8:08 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #124

nhaehnle wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak much for other countries, but for the Germany I suspect that a big part of the difference ultimately derives from a different voting and representation system that is much less focused on individual politicians, and therefore has a much lower tendency to devolve into a popularity contest. (It's still a popularity contest, but much less so.) The unit that really matters in Germany is the party, and the m…

This is very similar to the Canadian system - the main problematic outcome in it is when the Inner Party takes control of the agenda... In contrast to the interests of the rank and file. We're seeing it happen right now in the US, with Clinton and the Democrats, and we're also seeing it happen in Canada, with the debacle that is the NDP / Mulcair. For non-Canadians, the NDP is supposed to be Canada's socialist party…

Implement full accountability for all promises and actions in order to fix the most glaring issues. But who would go into politics if you're accountable for lying or misappropriation of funds (which includes uneconomic projects).

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#139

Post by specialist » Sat, Apr 16, 2016, 8:46 PM UTC

ClayShentrup wrote: post #134

nitrogen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm drawing my conclusions from the visualizations here: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ (search for "nonmonotonicity"). Maybe I should have said public opinion. Shifting public opinion closer to your position can make you lose in IRV; I'm not sure if there's an actual vote count increase as well. From those visualizations and my reading elsewhere it looks like approval voting is the closest to a Voronoi-style partitioni…

You seem to be making a common logical fallacy about tactical voting, explained in the graph here. http://www.electology.org/topic/tactical-voting In short, tactical voting isn't all that important. For instance, Score Voting and Approval Voting perform better with 100% strategic voters (in which case they are identical) than IRV does with 100% honest voting. So even if IRV magically encouraged all voters to be hones…

For future discussions: I advocate Approval because it's both "good enough" and easy to administrate, tabulate. Balancing concerns from the election integrity viewpoint.

Re: When Lobbying was Illegal

#140

Post by FireBeyond » Sat, Apr 16, 2016, 9:07 PM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #27

jeffdavis wrote: post #25

Why don't we just pay lawmakers $1M a year, or maybe more? The fact that a lawmaker is impressed by a nice dinner or a basketball game is embarrassing.

They're not. Lobbyists are breaking federal law if they take a congressman out to a nice dinner. Paying them more wouldn't solve this problem because running an election campaign is so expensive that they spend the majority of their time trying to raise money. They end up taking positions that are friendly to potential donors in the hope that the donors will keep sending them money. The major problem isn't that they…

Right, so what happens instead is the lobbyist donates some money to the campaign, and the campaign takes them out to dinner, where they can talk about future campaign funding.

And that's totally legal.