Neopopulist Blog

by Tom Dahlberg

I am getting the impression that our opponents on IRV are of the opinion that the constitution is satisfied if one's vote is counted, even if it's effect is not predictable.

There's some kind of confusion surviving in this case, some kind of confusion in the debate and the decisions, from an analytic philosopher's perspective. 

The implicit position of Magnuson, for example, is that we are making a category mistake when we suppose that our right to vote is identical with the right to know that that vote is going to have a particular effect.

He seems to be saying that as long as our vote is counted, the right is satisfied.  The effect of the vote is not guaranteed.

But clearly the right to vote is identical with the right to know what effect the vote will have. 

Everyone will agree that if I enter a vote for Jones, who is opposed by Smith, and the electors are allowed to change my vote to Smith, or not, then I could not know the actual effect of my vote and clearly, in this scenario, I have been disenfranchised. 

The IRV folks will immediately respond that this is not analogous since no one is literally changing my vote.  But it is changing my vote, by virtue of making it's effect unpredictable.  And the fact that this is happening to everyone doesn't make it acceptable.  If everyone's vote is subject to change by the electors  (the IRV algorithm) then we are all equally abused.  IRV algorithms, which would count some votes more than others, is changing my vote, altering its effect; making it's effect unpredictable with a complicated algorithm.

It  won't do, of course, to argue that the electors may NOT change my vote even though they MAY.  If they may, in principle, change it, then I cannot predict the effect of my vote.  To argue under these circumstances that I have voted, and that therefore my right has been satisfied, would be absurd. 

If all we have is the right to vote, and not the right to know what effect the vote is going to have, something has gone profoundly wrong.  Under my elector scenario, where the experts go all the way to explicitly changing my vote, the absurdity is absolutely clear.  IRV simply changes my vote -- the effect of it --  implicitly.

The legal doctrine would be that the vote is identical with an intended effect.  If that intended effect is altered against your will, your vote has been changed. 

In any traditional election -- a primary, a runoff, a general -- I do seem to know exactly what effect my vote will have.  What do we mean by the "effect" of my vote?  It is not a probability on the face of it.  We would not say, "Because I voted for Jones, the probability of his winning is higher."  I think if you examine this idea you'll find it's invalid.  Voting does not increase the odds that Jones will be elected; it either elects him or it doesn't.  We do say "Jones was elected ten to one" when ten of eleven voters vote for Jones and only one for his opponent.  But it would be odd to suggest that Jones "odds" of winning are ten to one.  He was elected ten to one.  It is merely analogical and confusing to talk about the effect of voting increasing the odds of a candidate winning.  I am not predicting the odds when I vote.  I am trying to get my candidate elected.

So what is the literal effect of voting which must be predictable?  Remember the all important criteria here for defining the effect of a vote: The effect must be defined literally, univocally, and it must be a predictable effect.  (This is the route to creating a legal doctrine -- a new one perhaps.  At least a clear one.)

Is the effect that I am "associating" with the candidate?  Although true, this is a relatively  abstract effect.  I can associate with the candidate even if I don't vote for him, and associating with the candidate, even by a majority of the people, isn't prima facie what gets him elected.  I think the argument that IRV impinges upon freedom of association, although true,  is not the heart of the matter, not a substitute for this hard core definition of the effect of a vote which needs to be guaranteed.

We know that the Constitution would strike down my elector scenario, even for judges within the Modern Liberal Rationalist Tradition (MLRT) where the effect of my vote clearly becomes unpredictable because my vote can be explicitly changed.  And if IRV can be shown to literally, although implicitly, change my vote -- my clear, as applied intention --  it cannot stand Constitutional scrutiny no matter what the MLRT says.  (Remember, the primary purpose of a tradition is to define what's good, and the primary role of judges within the MLRT is decide what's good from within that tradition.  It's not about deciding what's constitutional.  I'm just saying that even a MLRT judge might conclude that if IRV is changing my clear, as applied intention, albeit implicitly, it's a bad thing.) 

But what, exactly, is the clear, literal, univocal "effect" that I must be able to predict in order to have voted?  

The predictable effect must be that my vote CANCELS THE EFFECT OF AN OPPOSING VOTE, ONE TO ONE.  Literally, univocally, a traditional election is canceling votes against one another until there is no vote to cancel an opposing vote.  This has nothing to do with 51% majorities and the counting could stop right at that point and we would know who won.  In other words, all traditional elections are won, in principle, by one vote (your vote), NOT BY A MAJORITY, because this must be the predictable effect of my voting in order for me to have actually voted. 

We do not say that because Jones won by two votes instead of one, that he has "more won" or "won more".  Winning is NOT something that gets increased quantitatively.  It is a qualitative state.  The state of having won is NOT a matter of degree -- except in the odd mental machinations of IRV proponents.

Having won is a state that obtains whether I win by one vote or ten million.  Won = one.   IRV distorts the ordinary understanding, the ordinary language, of what it means to win.  It is trying to convince people that there must be something more to winning than just having more votes.  This is reminiscent of children proposing that its not fair that the other softball team got the trophy when it only won by one run.  When we teach kids sports, we are trying to teach them that in the real world there are hard edges.  But we live in a day and age where the losing team gets a trophy too.  Failure and risk are evil within the MLRT.

As soon as you take on the premise that winning must be something more than having one more vote than your opponent, there is no obvious, shared meaning for "winning".  And this is why IRV will devolve into controversy and chaos in the long run, alienating even its MLRT candidates (the ones who lose).   It's victory in the MLRT courts will continue (on the grounds that it's nice, it's good) until it's inherently controversial view of what it means to win gets on just about everyone's nerves -- including liberals.  IRV is an entirely relative, merely value based, expert perspective on what it means to WIN.   As soon as we decide that winning means something other than having at least one more vote, we condemn the concept of winning to subjectivity and rabid controversy.   Look at what's happening!  Democracy cannot afford questionable, vague concepts of what it means to win.  IRV misdirects the people on what it means to win.  It subjectifies what it means to WIN.  It makes the definition of winning too complicated and too controversial.

In order to predict the effect of my vote, IT MUST BE POSSIBLE FOR IT TO BE THE WINNING VOTE.  My vote must be able to cancel an opposing vote one to one, and therefore it must be possible for my vote to be the winning vote when there's no other vote to cancel.  If this is not predictable, then I have lost my vote.  My voting, or not voting, may have no effect at all given the complexity of winning under IRV.

If it is NOT even in principle possible for my vote to be the winning vote then why should I vote at all?  If it is not possible for my vote to be the winning vote, then I cannot even in principle predict the effect of my vote.  Everyone who votes for a winning candidate has, in principle, cast the winning vote.  This is literally true in a traditional election; literally predictable.

The effect of my vote, when I cast it, and which must be predictable, is that it can win the election.  If it can't win the election, then my vote has been stolen from me.  The confident prediction of this effect of canceling the other's vote one to one  is quite literally what the Constitution is guaranteeing if it is guaranteeing my vote.  If this does not happen then the protection is unequal.  If I express only one preference under IRV, it may or may not be the winning preference because a plurality is not accepted.  The same is true for each subsequent "runoff". 

IRV will NOT allow my one vote to win the election.  There are other conditions added on.  Therefore the effect of my vote is not literally and univocally predictable.  I cannot know that it will cancel an opposing vote one to one.  I cannot know that my vote can win the election.

So here's the argument which appeals to a compelling legal theory:

1.  In order for my right to vote to be satisified, the effect of my vote must be predictable in a literal, univocal sense.  My right to vote and the ability to clearly predict the effect of the vote cannot be separated.  This is demonstrated by my elector scenario.
2.  In order for the effect of my vote to be predictable in a literal, univocal sense, it must cancel an opposing vote one to one.
3. The predictable effect in (2) is logically equivalent to my vote being able to win the election.
4. But in IRV my one vote cannot, all by itself, win the election.  There are other conditions established for winning besides my casting a vote which is NOT canceled by an opponents. 

5. Therefore the literal, univocal effect of my vote under IRV is not predictable and IRV is no better, morally, than my elector scenario.  If my one vote cannot all by itself, win the election, if there are other conditions, I cannot predict the effect of my vote.

Without question, IRV leads to a despair of voting. 

The alternative to despair is to start gaming IRV to our advantage.  Then we'll see how long the rationalists of the modern tradition continue to think it's a good thing.   Let's manipulate an election, brag about it, demonstrate that it's been done, and then we'll see how happy Frankenstein is with the monster.