A few remarks.
> At 16:16 10/04/2011 +0100, Tony Greenfield wrote:
> To AV or not to AV?
> I really cannot decide which way to vote in the referendum.
> We are asked to choose between two unsatisfactory methods.
I hear this often, but I wonder whether people could properly define what
a "satisfactory" method would be, and if so, I suspect that one could
show that such a method doesn't exist.
I personally think that AV is a pretty appealing compromise between giving
the voter more choice, having candidates still linked properly to their
constituency and making a strong government possible by forcing candidates
to try to win a majotity of voters over, which will be very difficult for
small and extreme groups.
> The only arguments I have seen, for both sides, are
> assertions, often over long lists of signatories, with very
> few references to places where the methods are used.
> Simulation seems, to me, to be the only way to compare
> methods. I tried this, basing my prior distributions on the
> 2010 parliamentary results, This showed a great bias to the
> liberal democrats.
The key decision about any simulation study is how to measure "quality"
and "bias". "Bias to the liberal democrats" somehow implies that you can
formally define that the libdems "truly" should have fewer seats than they
got in your simulation, but what "truth" does this refer to?
Clearly under the current system some people vote tactically and not what
they really want, which certainly induces some kind of "bias" (apart
from the observable bias coming from the fact that a party may win that
doesn't have the most votes, let alone an overall majority) but equally
clearly some strong and untestable assumptions are needed if one would
model their "true preference" as different from their voting behaviour.
I don't really think that the key problem here is a mathematical one.
> possible candidate voting systems. As well as AV and FPTP,
> these should include the alternative member system (AMS), AV
> plus, mixed member proportional (MMP), mixed member system
> (MMS), a regional list, a second ballot (SB), a single
> transferable vote (STV), a supplementary vote (SV) and some
> hybrids of these.
I think that if we are asked to decide AV against FPTP, the question is
which one of these I like more. If this happens to be AV, I don't see
that the fact that I may like something else even more could be a reason
not to vote in favour of AV now.
John wrote:
> **One of the problems with simulations is obviously that, without
> guesswork, they cannot model what might be one of the biggest factors -
> potential changes in voting behaviour as a result of a change in the
> voting system (which changes I imagine would be fairly inevitable). For
> example, it seems to me that there is a possible 'problem' of AV which I
> have not seen/heard being discussed .... It could be that, with the
> appearance of AV, and particularly at times of not very popular
> government or opposition, a substantial number of voters might decide to
> use their 'first vote' for a purpose other than intended, assuming that
> it would not result in anyone being elected and using their second-choice
> vote as their 'real' one. Hence, they might give their fist vote to an
> 'extreme' party (e.g. BNP) or to 'local issues' candidate, to 'make a
> point'. One could say that's fair enough, but if too many people had the
> same idea, it could theoretically have the consequence of resulting in a
> candidate being elected despite the true wishes/intentions of the voters!
Well, if people don't vote according to their true wishes, they shouldn't
complain if they don't get what they want. That's democracy.
Actually a similar thing happened in France not long ago. In the
presidential election 2002 (with the system of a runoff of the best two
candidates, which is very similar to AV if people don't change their
preferences between first and second voting), many potential supporters of
Jospin voted for
other left wing candidates in the first go, so that finally Le Pen stood
against Chirac. Although this was perceived as a huge embarassment, There
was no way that Le Pen could get 50% of the voters behind himself, and
therefore lost clearly (if 50% of the people think that it is OK to vote
for a racist candidate in order to "make a point", something other than
the voting system must have gone very wrong; in fact the BNP is against
AV for - for them - very good reasons). There is absolutely no
indication that under any other system the winner wouldn't have been
Chirac.
In fact I believe that the fact that Le Pen beat Jospin in the first go was
a quite healthy shock for the left, and I don't expect that such a thing
happens again in the next 50 years (except if there are very good reasons
to punish a candidate).
Regarding single constituencies, if this brings four "local issue"
candidates or so into parliament, this won't hurt too much, as far as I
see it.
Best regards,
Christian
*** --- ***
Christian Hennig
University College London, Department of Statistical Science
Gower St., London WC1E 6BT, phone +44 207 679 1698
[log in to unmask], www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucakche
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