Published in Election Science

·2 days ago

ultrademocracy

an ideal policy-making body has two fundamental characteristics. aim alignment aim is like an archer’s ability to accurately relate the position, angle, and tension of his bow to the arrow’s point of impact. in policy terms, it is the ability to accurately assess the outcome of a particular policy. alignment…

4 min read

Published in Election Science

·Nov 9

expressiveness

a lot of people intuitively believe that ranked choice voting (RCV) is better than approval voting because it seems to be more expressive to indicate a ranked ordering than to simply indicate which candidate you approve of. this intuition is false. here’s why. imagine a simple example of preferences like…

2 min read

2 min read

Aug 19

ranked choice voting doesn’t solve the spoiler effect

but approval voting does — the alaska house election this november 2022 will use ranked choice voting (RCV), and will feature three candidates. moderate republican nick begich is almost certainly preferred head-to-head against peltola to his left, and palin to his right. …

2 min read

ranked choice voting doesn’t solve the spoiler effect

2 min read

Published in Election Science

·Aug 13

Ranked Choice Voting: Wrong for Seattle

Seattle voters have a chance to adopt one of two alternative voting methods this November 2022. Approval voting: Vote for as many candidates as you like (no ranking). That’s it. The two candidates with the most votes advance to the general, just like now. The ballot looks the same. The…

4 min read

4 min read

Published in Election Science

·Jul 30

independence of irrelevant alternatives

independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) is a criterion that can apply to either of the two components of a voting method. what are those two components? ballot component: how preferences are translated to votes. tabulation component: how votes are translated to results. the ballot component fails IIA for every deterministic…

2 min read

Published in Effective Economics

·Jun 26

does a land value tax have zero or negative deadweight loss?

i was recently reading the wikipedia article on optimal taxation theory, when i came across an assertion that land value taxes (LVT) have not zero deadweight loss, but actually negative deadweight loss. Economic theory suggests that a pure land value tax which succeeds in avoiding taxation of improvements could actually…

Lvt

3 min read

Lvt

3 min read

Published in Effective Economics

·Jun 26

shorting

a traditional short sell, or short for…short, you borrow an asset that you believe will decline in value, sell it, then buy it back before it’s due to be returned. for instance, suppose acme stock is at 2300 and you believe it will be at 2000 in one month. you…

2 min read

Jun 26

the long road to approval voting

early in 2010, i encountered Aaron Hamlin on a comment thread about alternative voting methods. later that year, we began the 501(c)3 incorporation process for the center for election science. it wasn’t until 8 1/2 years later that fargo became the first u.s. city to adopt approval voting. electoral reform is glacial, but i believe that approval voting will become an overnight success within a few years.

1 min read

1 min read

the long road to approval voting

early in 2010, i encountered Aaron Hamlin on a comment thread about alternative voting methods. later that year, we began the 501(c)3 incorporation process for the center for election science.

it wasn’t until 8 1/2 years later that fargo became the first u.s. city to adopt approval voting. electoral reform is glacial, but i believe that approval voting will become an overnight success within a few years.

Published in Election Science

·Jun 24

ends vs means

i think an under-appreciated distinction in politics is the focus on ends vs means. while people have legitimate disagreements about the ideal state of the world, there’s a lot we all agree about in terms of the end state of things. we all want safety and prosperity. we want our…

4 min read

Jun 17

majorities

say we have three groups of voters with preferences for social and economic liberalism or conservatism indicated as follows. test. +-----+-------+-------+-------+-------+ | % | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | +=====+=======+=======+=======+=======+ | 35% | sl ec | sc ec | sl…

1 min read

ultrademocracy

expressiveness

ranked choice voting doesn’t solve the spoiler effect

Ranked Choice Voting: Wrong for Seattle

independence of irrelevant alternatives

does a land value tax have zero or negative deadweight loss?

shorting

the long road to approval voting

the long road to approval voting

ends vs means

majorities

Clay Shentrup