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A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

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Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#111

Post by BurningFrog »

erentz wrote: post #33
crazygringo wrote: post #9

It's clever, but it doesn't solve the problem. Because the problem isn't with strong preferences -- it's with extreme preferences. If there were 7 versions of a bill (A,B,C,D,E,F,G) ranging from ultra-conservative (a "A") to ultra-liberal (a "G"), in a polarized community people could still be spending the minimum 1 point each on the A's or G's and none on B-F. The problem with politics today isn't that people are si…

> The problem with politics today isn't that people are single-issue voters... The problem is the people have no representation, what people want does not impact the likelihood of passage of a law.[1] People on the left in right have a lot more in common with each other than everyone likes to make out. But even where they agree still nothing happens. I think this “polarization” line is a convenient distraction from t…

> * what people want does not impact the likelihood of passage of a law*

Not that I follow this closely, but last i heard the Median Voter Theorem was still holding up well in the research.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_voter_theorem

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#113

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

breuleux wrote: post #102
vanderZwan wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Greeks who entered the lottery weren't chosen by a (meta) lottery. Greek democracy wasn't nearly as democratic as you may think.

Oh, I'm aware. I'm arguing for universal lottery, and I think it would work.

Bribery would be more rampant than it is now. With no career aspirations to keep them in line, unethical people would take the lobbyist money and run.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#114

Post by BurningFrog »

jimhefferon wrote: post #21
crazygringo wrote: post #9

It's clever, but it doesn't solve the problem. Because the problem isn't with strong preferences -- it's with extreme preferences. If there were 7 versions of a bill (A,B,C,D,E,F,G) ranging from ultra-conservative (a "A") to ultra-liberal (a "G"), in a polarized community people could still be spending the minimum 1 point each on the A's or G's and none on B-F. The problem with politics today isn't that people are si…

> the natural evolution of the two-party system The US has a long history, almost all of it with a two-party system. Only sometimes is there extremity. To my mind, 1860 is even more extreme than today. (My opinion is that an important common thread between then and today is a class of people with a great deal of money who are deliberately driving the political atmosphere. But in any event a claim that it is a natural…

A big difference between the past and now is that in the past, politics was a very minor part in American life.

Outside of wartime, the federal government was something you mainly interacted with when going to the post office. If the national politicians hated each other, it made for good gossip, but didn't affect daily life much

Today, it is involved with and regulating most aspects of our lives, and federal government dysfunction is a much bigger problem.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#115

Post by obelos »

clarkevans wrote: post #55

It's nice to see other ways to vote. One of the other newcomers is STAR Voting ( https://www.equal.vote/starvoting ) Ka-Ping Yee's analysis showing odd discontinuities in Ranked Choice aka Instant Runoff from 2005 is an interesting read http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ .

STAR voting has the added benefit of simplicity and being possible on paper ballots. This quadratic system has neither and would be rife with errors, confusion, and likely fraud when used among people who don't vote for a living.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#116

Post by Jorge1o1 »

hannasanarion wrote: post #64
cjslep wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Career congresspersons are beholden to those that secure their reelection. That's the current steady state system we have now. Term limits forces that dynamic to no longer apply to the final term, which frees congresspeople from this dynamic for at least one term. It also forces clearer the revolving door between the private sector and politics as then the no-longer congressperson gets hired into a company.

>Career congresspersons are beholden to those that secure their reelection Yeah, those people are called "voters". That's how it's supposed to work. We want congresspeople to feel beholden to them. > It also forces clearer the revolving door between the private sector and politics as then the no-longer congressperson gets hired into a company. Isn't this just motivation for more cronyism? You're basically arguing tha…

It turns out that merely repeating the name of a candidate over and over again alongside some platitude or glittering generality is remarkably effective in gaining voters.

But TV ads are expensive, hence the several million dollars each candidate spends every election cycle.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#117

Post by BurningFrog »

weberc2 wrote: post #69
crazygringo wrote: post #9

It's clever, but it doesn't solve the problem. Because the problem isn't with strong preferences -- it's with extreme preferences. If there were 7 versions of a bill (A,B,C,D,E,F,G) ranging from ultra-conservative (a "A") to ultra-liberal (a "G"), in a polarized community people could still be spending the minimum 1 point each on the A's or G's and none on B-F. The problem with politics today isn't that people are si…

> it's that the natural evolution of the two-party system has forced us into choices that are more polarized than ever before in the history of the US I don't think this is supported by the evidence. Polarization in the US hasn't been unidirectional (there are many long periods during which the US became less polarized) and the recent massive spike is, well, a recent spike--it's not a natural evolution at all. Someth…

> Something happened in the last twenty years or so that increased our polarization.

This has happened all over the world. The obvious major thing that's changed is this thing right here: The internet.

Social media has replaced "mainstream media" as the source of our news and our opinions. And so we have a new opinion landscape.

Re: A New Way of Voting That Makes Zealotry Expensive

#119

Post by jakamau »

ajmurmann wrote: post #20

It's unclear to me if this addresses the spoiler effect which I see as the single, biggest issue in US elections right now.

1. End "winner-take-all" allocations of electoral votes

2. Any party that gains the minimum population/electoral vote (Wyoming puts that at ~200k) in any state is guaranteed at least one electoral vote in that state

3. All remaining electoral votes are allocated proportionally based on general election votes

4. If no majority winner exists, the party with the least number of electoral votes casts their vote to other party/ies and this repeats until a winner obtains 270.

Wouldn't this remove the spoiler effect, function within the current voting system, and off-set any perceived difficulty in rank voting to the actual parties?

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