Sorry this ended up getting a bit long, and it this point I don't want to take the time for editing. i need to just post this and get on the the next item on my list. Btw, i probably wouldn't have done this latest investigating into voting methods if not for the kind people at GIMP-Forum: Anyway, here goes: I thought i should do a little more investigating into the latvian voting system listed on the approval voting wiki. I was not aware previously that anything like this existed. It appears that it is like an approval method fit within a greater electoral system: "...The Latvian parliament uses a modified version of approval voting within open list proportional representation, in which voters can cast either positive (approval) votes, negative votes or neither for any number of candidates..." "...[Latvian parliament]Seats are distributed in each constituency by open list proportional representation among the parties that overcome a 5% national election threshold using an unmodified version of the Webster/Sainte-Laguë method. Voters cast a vote for a party list, which consists of the candidates that the party has submitted in that constituency. Although a specific ordering is listed for each candidate, which is determined by the party, this has no effect on the actual chances of each candidate. Instead, voters cast "specific votes" for candidates. These votes can be either positive votes or negative votes. The number of votes for each candidate is determined by taking the number of votes for the respective list, and adding it to the candidate's positive votes, before subtracting the number of negative votes for that candidate. The candidates with the highest number of votes fill the party's seats. A positive vote is indicated by drawing a plus sign (+) next to the candidate's name on the ballot paper. A negative vote is indicated by crossing out the candidate's name. Voters may only cast specific votes for the candidates on the list that they voted for..." So, it is similar to approval in the ability to express approval/disapproval for multiple candidates, however voters are still restricted to only voting on the candidate list from the party they have chosen. I feel like this is basically the proportional analogue to if an Approval Party started running primaries here in The States, using approval method with the winners going on to participate in the general elections. It seems like this should be an improvement over a closed-list system, however it still seems like you are restricting voters from expressing their full preference by requiring them to only vote on a single list of candidates(similarly to primary system here in the USA). Some may argue that asking voters to vote on every candidate might be overwhelming, however if the goal is simply to narrow the field, perhaps having a second round could serve that purpose, while also allowing voters to express their preferences on candidates from every party. --------------------------------------- At the risk of junking up this post with a tangent, I think i may have identified another possible contributor to our increasingly polarized politics here in The States. I am young enough that i don't really remember a time before open primaries. "...Opponents of the open primary believe that the open primary leaves the party nominations vulnerable to manipulation and dilution. First, one party could organize its voters to vote in the other party's primary and choose the candidate that they most agree with or that they think their party could most easily defeat. Secondly, in the open primary, independent voters can vote in either party. This occurrence may dilute the vote of a particular party and lead to a nominee who does not represent the party's views. There is, however, little evidence of manipulation actually occurring,[citation needed] but there have been occasions when independent voters have an effect on the outcome of a partisan primary..." This is certainly something i have thought about a lot as an independent voter, and it is my personal perception that many people will switch between parties strategically, and there have also been numerous cases in more recent years of campaigns spending money to promote perceived weak opponents in the opposing party's primary[i will have to find citations later]. Here are the links to the court cases on open primaries: Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party - 2008 California Democratic Party v. Jones - 2000 I also find it worth note that we have not had as many independent and 3rd-party legislators since around when they legalized open primaries. It is very evident in the Congress data, with no independent congressman since 2007: Senate data seems harder to decipher: Supposedly their are currently and have been recently various "independent" senators, however upon further inspection usually they are career politicians, and have formerly been a member of a major party, and still caucus with that party(mostly this appears to be Democrat from what i can see recently) see wikipedia: i would need to do a more thorough investigation to get a definite assessment on this, however at first glance it appears that the old data does seem to match what i remembered from college when we did a unit on analysing election data for an intro to computer science class i took. In addition the numbers for recent years seem to match what i personally have perceived that success has become more difficult for candidates outside of the two major parties. Looking further back, it appears Ralph Nader got his start as a Democrat. Perhaps this is the way it has always been? Also, Bernie Sanders was once up a time the lone Independent congressman in the 106th Congress(1999). i'm kind of surprised given he almost won the Democratic presidential nomination back in 2016. turns out he wasn't a Democrat until recently. I guess you learn something every day. Does this refute my thesis? I need to do more research for this one. I still feel like my general intuition is valid with people like Angus King, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin all supposedly being independent but still members of The Democratic Caucus. Bernie Sanders is also a member, however unlike the rest he was not originally a Democrat. He is also an example of trend in Congress with Independents from the time period i mentioned from 1991-2007. Anyway, it's funny, before looking into this, i had mis-remembered the definition of "open primaries". Turns out we already had them as of a long time ago. I guess the correct term for what i was thinking of is a nonpartisan / jungle primary, and we have been seeing some of that recently: "...The top-two system is used for all primaries in Washington and California (except presidential primaries). Alaska has used a highly-similar top-four primary with a ranked-choice runoff since the 2022 House special election..." It's sad to see RCV poisoning the well for election reform. What to do? last thing before returning to my comparison of the latvian parliament and approval voting, i am aware of Ross Perot who was active politically during the timeframe in question. Interesting, "...[Perot]was an angel investor for NeXT.." Very Cool! --------------------------------------- Anyway, back to the subject of the Latvian Saeima. supposedly they use an open list vote, and a webster apportionment. "Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a party's candidates are elected. This is as opposed to closed list, in which party lists are in a predetermined..." "The Sainte-Laguë method, also called the Webster method (French pronunciation: [sɛ̃t.la.ɡy]), is a highest averages apportionment method for allocating seats in a parliament among federal states, or among parties in a party-list proportional representation system..." pretty simple stuff not related to approval method, but perhaps worth skimming to understand nuance in variants of proportional representation. *** i feel like i should include the detail that here in the USA we us direct elections to choose all our representatives: proportional representation is foreign to Americans, however there is the similarity that we also have political parties(though fewer of them i guess). *** So, I think at this point the question is how does an open-list proportional vote compare to a pure approval method? I'm running out of time(and my hand is beginning to feel a bit better, and i'm recovering from the intestinal distress i had yesterday*antibiotics*, so i should probably get on to some of my chores i have to do around here), but here are some notes i was working on before i decided i had to get going and do something else: "...There are five commonly cited criteria (called universality, non-imposition, non-dictatorship, monotonicity, and independence of irrelevant alternatives) for "reasonable behaviour" of an election method. But it has been mathematically proven that no single-winner election method can meet all five of these criteria, so one can always invent situations where a particular method violates one of these criteria. Thus, presenting individual cases of strange behaviour proves little. A more substantive way to argue for or against a particular election method would be to compare how frequently failures occur, under what conditions they occur, and how severe they are..." I should probably cover Arrow - here are some quick wiki-links on Arrow: It's kind of a mouthful to pars the math-language / symbology here. As i understand it, the gist is that an impossibly good election method is all of the following(but this is impossible): 1. Be deterministic(i.e. mathematically a system, process, or model where the output is uniquely determined by its initial inputs and operating rules - not randomness). 2. Be complete, in that all outcomes are possible given a corresponding set of voter-preferences(look up Set Theory). 3. Be not the result of a single person's preference. 4. Be consistent in the relation of voter preference to expected outcome(i.e. expressing greater preference for a candidate should not decrease their chance of winning). 5. Be not affected by the presence of 'irrelevant' choices(i.e. candidates with no realistic chance of winning). I'm not sure if i got that 100% correct. I think the issue is that Arrow was specifically talking about a system where you consider all possible voter preferences as expressed by "transitive and complete" orderings of candidates(look up Binary Relations). The job then is to devise a cumulative preference ordering for the whole population where by all the following are fulfilled(this is impossible): 1. for any two candidates a and b, it is possible to exist a cumulative preference for which the result favors candidate a over b. 2. the result is not decided by a single voter's preference. 3. the relative order of two candidates a and b in the result is always the same as it was in the domain(i.e the cumulative preference of the population - what does that even mean?). further reading(no time!): Sorry, i'll have to finish later! My goal with all this is to find a kind of in-between voting method with properties of both Approval and either Direct or Proportional voting, which would lead to results with Approval type outcomes but also preserving aspects of the traditional methods. I think there needs to be a half-measured path to help society move from the old systems(FPTP, STV) to new(Approval). p.s. since i'm already counting the years for my busted finger, i think i'll also take the opportunity to commemorate the upcoming 14 year anniversary this summer of my terrible accident and resulting incurable IBS. when will the doctors fix me? I don't want to take funny pills that don't work and give you bad side-effects. I have also lost my confidence in surgeons at this point. i guess i will just live with this until i die. ...maybe i will invent a new kind of toilet? does that seem realistic?
Well, i got my last post a little wrong. The Approval Voting Party has been around for 10 years now, though it hasn't seen much progress outside of Colorado and a few selected states. I guess that explains why i haven't come across them before. Here are some links: related: ...I kinda wish Approval Voting Party would choose a different acronym: AVP = Anti-Violence Project, Alternatives To Violence Project-USA, Association of Volleyball Professionals, AVPcap(independent global investment platform), Alien vs. Predator I have a similar problem with The Center for Election Sciences: CES = Consumer Electronics Symposium, Council for European Studies, Center for Economic Studies, Cooperative Educational Services ***this is poor branding*** some wiki-links for approval voting as a concept: ...so they banned approval and rcv in north dakota now as of last year Some good starting places for learning about Approval voting: I kind of don't like the use of Bayes' Theorem in relation to voting methods. What is the "magic best winner"? Isn't voter preference multi-dimensional? I guess i just don't get how you can lay it all out on a graph if you can't actually define what you are comparing. In contrast, i find the concept of monotonicity discussed by Ka-Ping Yee(zesty.ca) very intuitive and profound. Bayes links(i think it is still probably useful to think about): i guess i should probably also include Arrow: Finally, i would have included this one further up, however it looks like they redesigned the website so the page doesn't load anymore for me. what are they doing at the election science center?! further reading(tangential): ...so apparently wikipedia doesn't know that Missouri banned approval voting: ...it looks like they made a little carveout for St. Louis, but still, this is kinda sad. Ironically the headline reads "Missouri voters approve ban on ranked choice voting" but it also include banning approval voting statewide. What the hell?! The election science center keeps dropping the ball! ...on a positive note, it looks like cspan is finally accessible to people without a cable/satellite subscription: i look forward to becoming better informed again. p.s. This month is the 9 year anniversary of my big finger injury(mar/2017), and 9 years since the last time i contributed to an open-source project of any note(was it also the first? i need to double check that, i thought there was one other, maybe two?). I'm also still recovering from this latest dog-bite injury(same hand). The wound seems to have closed up now, but i have a couple knots under the skin now where the teeth went in. Also, it appears i now have a numb spot on my palm between my thumb and index finger(near the bite). i guess i clipped a nerve. i would photo-document it, however none of my phone cameras seem to like to focus up close. i need to get a real camera, if not just to do some night-sky photography again. every year there are more lights in the valley. i shouldn't complain since we built the house only 20 years ago now. still, it is kinda sad to observe this trend.
It appears someone has finally started an Approval Voting party:
Well it is a new month, and today is kinda yucky outside as well as it is also the last day of antibiotics for my injured hand, so i'm taking the oportunity to update this blog. Perhaps one day i will take the time to improve the workflow here, but for now it is still copy-paste html template and fill it in. World news is off the chain right now with the new war with Iran! Conversely, my personal development is still somewhat glum lately, with this last week being me just babying my hand and waiting for it to get better. In defence of the doggo, it turned out he had ehrlichiosis and anaplasmosis, on top of his congenital bad hips. He seems in better spirits now after taking the meds they gave him. Now, i only hope we can keep everyone mindful of his special needs so he doesn't end up developing any bad habits. Ideally i remain the only person he has ever bitten, and hopefully it doesn't happen again - we will see. Spring should be happening pretty soon now. The little flurry we had yeasterday quickly turned to rain, and it has been raining off and on this morning. It looks lke pretty much all the ice patches have melted now from our big snow-storm in January. I got so much stuff i got to do. I am so behind schedule on everything. I don't know how this is all going to work out. I guess i will just grovel to mom and dad some more, and maybe next year will be better? Actually, I'm getting a significant pay bump, so who knows, maybe things will get a bit better soon. At least i should have more money to buy materials and not have to worry about having enough cash anymore, though I don't think it will change my overall plans as far as trying to develop a farm business or any of my project plans involving recycled materials. I'm looking forward to being able to use my hand again soon, and getting back to making progress on some stuff. My hand is definitely less swollen - it's been about 7 days now since the bite. Peaking under the bandage there is still some ooze coming out of the two holes. It's hard to see without removing the bandage, but it appears my little DIY staple job in still holding stuff closed, so that is encouraging. Anyway, I think that is all for today. Hopefully the hand will finish healing, and i'll start getting stuff done again, and maybe even get some time to work on some of the Web stuff i want to do. p.s. ***reminder to self: i still need to renew my SSL cert for tinkerlandfarm.com!