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Joe Weinstein | 18 Apr 2002 20:46
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[EM] Lincoln; Big money, gerrymanders, rotten EC, etc.

First of all, some disagreement with DEMOREP.  Then, some agreement.

DEMOREP writes (Thu, 18 Apr 2002 00:23:55 EDT):

"NO apologies to the late Prez A. Lincoln --- see his unreality speech at 
Gettysburg, PA, Nov. 1863. --- taking note that his minority rule 
gerrymander election in 1860 helped produce about 620,000 dead in the 
1861-1865 Civil War."

DEMOREP here argues instances of two fallacies: ad-hominem and 
post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc.  I believe apologies ARE due the memory of 
Lincoln.

First of all (re: ad hominem), why was it Lincoln's fault (or indeed 
anyone's) that he was elected by 'minority' rule: i.e., a plurality which 
happened not to be a majority?  A few IRVites to the contrary, there really 
are situations where NO articulated position or available candidate is 
supported by a majority.  And was indeed the Gettysburg address any more 
'unreality' than a typical public speech?

Second (re: post-hoc) and more important, did in fact Lincoln's election 
guarantee an otherwise avoidable Civil War and an otherwise avoidable 
620,000 dead?

At the moment I hold a rather non-revisionist Yankee-oriented view.  Namely, 
that Lincoln was in fact a moderate Yankee who really tried to save the 
Union above all.  That he had a good mix of personal ambition and commitment 
to mission and principle.  That the country was permanently better off for 
being kept indisputably united.  That had Lincoln not fought for the Union, 
a later Prez or a later polity - perhaps involving various confederations of
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Arnold B. Urken | 18 Apr 2002 21:39

[EM] Access to voting booths

Hello,

Does anyone know about sources that describe customs or regulations governing 
what happens when a voter voluntarily brings another person into a voting 
booth?  I have heard stories about keeping kids out when the voting machines 
might be messed up by malicious or playful actions. I can understand this in 
the case of electronic devices (if the power is not kid-proof), but I don't 
think the justification is reasonable for marking a ballot or pulling a lever.

This issue is also relevant to the question of validating contracts in vote 
trades. Is there any law or custom that prevents bringing an observer into the 
voting booth? Observers might be certified (like notary publics) to verify that 
votes were cast according to contract.

Thanks in advance.

Arnie Urken

Hoboken, NJ 07030
201-420-5998

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Adam Tarr | 18 Apr 2002 22:45
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Re: [EM] Lincoln; Big money, gerrymanders, rotten EC, etc.

>DEMOREP writes :
>
>"NO apologies to the late Prez A. Lincoln --- see his unreality speech at 
>Gettysburg, PA, Nov. 1863. --- taking note that his minority rule 
>gerrymander election in 1860 helped produce about 620,000 dead in the 
>1861-1865 Civil War."

Joe takes issue with this line in a larger sense, but allow me a much smaller, 
somewhat semantic correction.  The term "Gerrymandering" describes the 
re-drawing of district lines in order to engineer "safe" districts and 
artificial legislative majorities.  While the Electoral College certainly 
distorts the results on an election, I don't think it can be considered 
"Gerrymandering" in the traditional sense, since nobody drew the lines in an 
effort to give one group or region an artificial majority.

Later on, Joe writes:

>I despair of easy solution, but one new (for me) tack continues to urge 
>itself:  reduce or eliminate the role of PERMANENT or anyhow 
>PRE-IDENTIFIABLE power centers - parties, bosses, small office-holding 
>elites.  We may thus reduce or eliminate incentives and pathways for 
>big-money infusions and for gerrymanders.
>
>One part of the overall mechanism would be to reduce the role of usual 
>elections altogether - at least for choosing office-holders as vs resolving 
>issues.  Maybe choose legislatures as we choose juries - by lot from voter 
>rolls - or anyhow choose candidates by lot, followed by speedy PAV election. 
>  Maybe also fill by lot executive and judicial positions, or anyhow thus 
>get candidates (with speedy election by AV), from among those who pass 
>suitable qualifying exams. (Yes, OK, unavoidably maybe, there might well be
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Alex Small | 18 Apr 2002 23:15
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Re;[EM] Lincoln; Big money, gerrymanders, rotten EC, etc.

I'd like to concur with Joe's sentiments.  Although an in-depth debate over
Lincoln is a little off-topic, two observations:

1)  Although the US is (to the best of my knowledge) the only country that
required a full-blown war to end slavery, it's not entirely clear to me
that it could have happened any other way.  OK, maybe at some point
technological progress would have rendered slave-based farming
unprofitable.  However, to this day there are places in the world where
people are in bondage.

My point is, it's possible that the differences were irreconcilable, and
since they were associated with region as much with class (unlike some
places where slavery is purel a class issue) and because the slave-owning
region fancied itself to be sovereign ("states' rights"), war may have been
inevitable, unless the North rolled over and played dead.  If so, then at
some point it's inevitable that a President who was unacceptable to most
Southerners would take office, and at that point all hell would have broken
loose.

So, Lincoln and the EC may not be to blame.

2)  Although I fully agree with Demorep that the EC should be abolished, I
don't know that anybody should prophesize civil war the next time the EC
defeats the popular winner.  Of the 4 (or 5, depending on what you think of
1960) EC failures, NONE produced a civil war.  One resulted in a deal
ending Reconstruction, to the doom of southern blacks, but the defeat of
the popular will did not lead to war.

I am NOT saying the popular will should be defeated.  I'm saying that even
very bad things (like defeating the popular will) are not guaranteed
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Alex Small | 18 Apr 2002 23:27
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one more thing

If I'm not mistaken, the Confederate Constitution retained the Electoral
College.  The EC and dissatisfaction with democracy were NOT the reasons
for secession.  Indeed, in South Carolina the people did not choose
electors.  The legislature did.

And, if I'm not mistaken, SC was where the first shots were fired.  I lived
in Charleston for a year, and they're still proud of that fact.  Scary...

Alex

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Forest Simmons | 19 Apr 2002 01:33
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Re: Lincoln; Big money, gerrymanders, rotten EC, etc.

On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Adam Tarr wrote:
>
> Later on, Joe writes:
>
> >I despair of easy solution, but one new (for me) tack continues to urge
> >itself:  reduce or eliminate the role of PERMANENT or anyhow
> >PRE-IDENTIFIABLE power centers - parties, bosses, small office-holding
> >elites.  We may thus reduce or eliminate incentives and pathways for
> >big-money infusions and for gerrymanders.

Let's don't forget this goal. If one suggestion or another seems
impractical, let's keep brainstorming!

> >One part of the overall mechanism would be to reduce the role of usual
> >elections altogether - at least for choosing office-holders as vs resolving
> >issues.  Maybe choose legislatures as we choose juries - by lot from voter
> >rolls - or anyhow choose candidates by lot, followed by speedy PAV election.
> >  Maybe also fill by lot executive and judicial positions, or anyhow thus
> >get candidates (with speedy election by AV), from among those who pass
> >suitable qualifying exams. (Yes, OK, unavoidably maybe, there might well be
> >some litigations as to which proposed exams were truly suitable.)  Make
> >terms just long enough to enable necessary business to get done.
>
> Issues like these are where electoral reform starts to blend into politics, so I
> don't want to get into a protracted debate on these issues over the list.  But I
> do want to point out that legislation is a far more involved process than jury
> duty, and it would be a pretty significant strain on society if you forced
> people of all walks of life into periodic legislative duty.

The part of me that is Libertarian perks up when I see the words "far more
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DEMOREP1 | 19 Apr 2002 02:45
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France President Election

BBC TV news had a story tonight about the election for President of France on 
Sunday.

If no candidate gets a majority, then the top 2 candidates are in a runoff 
election.

The story showed some of the left/ right extremist candidates (with an 
estimate that the combined extremists will get a majority on Sunday---  so 
that there will likely will be a runoff election).

Yet another reason to have an election method such as Approval to reduce the 
extremist talk regarding the chief executive office of a nation.

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hager2002 | 19 Apr 2002 15:09

Re: Lincoln; Big money, gerrymanders, rotten EC, etc.

RE: gerrymanders.

I'm currently investigating the possibility of using "cake cutting" as a 
way to avoid gerrymanders in the redistricting process.  The basic 
principle is simply elucidated by looking at the problem of how two people 
divide a cake in a manner that both accept.  The intuitive solution is for 
one person to cut the cake and the other to choose.  (I tested the 
intuitiveness on my 10 year old daughter, asking her to come up with a 
fair way to divide the cake and she immediately offered the solution.  Not 
scientific, but definitely illuminating.)

For redistricting, it would seem that a similar process could be used.  
Instead of whichever party controlled the state legislature drawing the
district lines, the parties would participate in a "cake cutting"  
procedure, with party 1 drawing up a map and party 2 then selecting
acceptable districts.  Party 2 would then divide the remainder of the map
(minus the selected district(s)) and party 1 would select.  One approach
would be to alternate selecting one district at a time.  Possibly two at a
time could be done.  Another approach might be for party 1 to draw the
map, and party 2 can select any number of acceptable districts and then
draw its map for the remainder.  Since computers can take census data and
draw district maps based upon criteria of acceptable district size, even
multiple rounds of the cake cutting process could actually be conducted
fairly quickly.  Practically speaking, the cake cutting negotiation period
could be fixed and formalized so that it would be no longer than the
amount of time it typically takes a legislature to redraw district lines.

First off, is any state using a redistricting procedure like the one I'm 
suggesting?
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Richard Moore | 20 Apr 2002 03:39
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Re: delta-p Approval strategy

Mike,

I think there may be far less of a difference here than meets the eye.
Consider the equations for the two methods:

delta-Pij = -sum_over_X(Fi(X-Ai)*Gj(X)*product_over_k(Bik(X-Ak)))

pij = -sum_over_X(Fi(X-Ai)*Fj(X)*product_over_k(Wik(X-Ak))/pt)

In the pij equation, Wik represents the probability that i will
defeat k strictly on votes (i.e, they will not tie), compared to
Bik which includes the possibility that i beats k in a tiebreaker.
Wik is used here since the definition of pij as I understand it
only includes two-way tie possibilities. For large populations,
more-than-two-way ties are much less likely than two-way ties,
and so can be ignored; this means Wik is very nearly equal to Bik
for large populations.

Of course, you could accommodate multiway ties by simply replacing
the Wik with Bik.

Also, pt is the probability that there is a tie for first place.
Dividing by pt converts pij to a conditional probability. pij is
the probability, given a tie for first place, that it is between
i and j (i and j both score some value X, and all other candidates
score less than X). pt can vary slightly with changes in the Ai/Ak
values. However, pt will be constant for each pij for a given j,
so all the pij for that j will scale by the same amount, so the
resulting approval decision for candidate j is not affected.
Therefore, we can ignore pt altogether.
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Blake Cretney | 20 Apr 2002 09:51

VIRUS --> Ali distribuirati

The above email is a virus.  It looks like it was damaged, though, so 
hopefully this copy won't work.  I don't know too much about the virus, 
but I've been sent it a few times today.  It wasn't really sent by 
rdomr <at> us.re.i.  Normally the virus fills the From header with someone 
from the sender's address book.  This address looks made up, though. 
 The subject varies as well.

Don't open the virus even in a preview window, especially if you are 
using Windows/Outlook.  Get any security updates/upgrades available for 
Outlook.  Remember, be wary of unsolicited attachments.

I don't know the virus's name, and would be interested if anyone could 
enlighten me.

---
Blake Cretney (http://condorcet.org)

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Gmane