The Condorcet paradox and elections in America

Hello ATS!

From time to time I read the real battles that take place on the forum around the last US elections. I will not comment, but I want to remind members of the forum. that democratic elections are a non-linear function to which modern political technologies are trying to reduce. An election is not a primitive vote between white and black (no racism). Elections are much more difficult, and I'll show you that now.

Back in 1785, when France was an absolute monarchy, Nicolas de Condorcet's book Discourses on the Application of Analysis to Evaluation of Elections by a Majority of Votes was published. And this despite the fact that there were no elections in our understanding in the country at that time. True, they existed to some extent in England.

Being not only a philosopher and politician, but also a mathematician, the Marquis de Condorcet looked at elections from the point of view of mathematics. It was generally the first time in the world when mathematical methods were applied to the study of a social phenomenon.



I will explain the Condorcet paradox from the other side. Imagine that you have to choose from three candidates, while the number of voters is, say, a thousand. In general, there is a cyclical ranking of candidates (this is called non-transitive ranking) among this thousand. For example, Smith among them is preferable to Johnson, and Johnson is preferable to Kogan. This means that Smith is preferable to Kogan, too, that is, he must win the election as a result of a collective expression of will.

But at the same time, the rankings of not all voters can be cyclical (that is, they are transitive). For example, I like Smith - period, I don't compare him to Kogan and Johnson at all. I like him on his own, because his eyes are honest, his chin is courageous and he speaks beautifully.

Condorcet believed that in this case it is impossible to talk about the true expression of the will of the voters. That is, "voting with your heart" is wrong, you have to "vote with your mind." To understand the will of the majority, ideally it is necessary that each voter ranks all candidates. There are pairs of candidates where Smith is preferable to Johnson, Johnson is preferable to Kogan, Smith is preferable to Kogan. In each pair, you can calculate how many voters are for one and for the other. This is how the matrix of pairwise preferences is formed.

On this basis, it is possible to build a collective ranking of candidates.

Condorcet says that people's preferences regarding the proposed options can only be compared, identifying which is worse or better. This approach is called ordinal utility theory. This theory argues that the marginal utility of goods is immeasurable, since only the order of their preferences can be measured.

Illustrating his paradox, Condorcet gives an example of the adoption of a certain law article by article. Each article individually can be adopted by a majority, and the law as a whole, when voting for it, is rejected! Or vice versa - although the majority did not support each separate chapter, the law as a whole was adopted. This is a paradox.

Unfortunately, now in the West, and especially in the United States, there is a primitive democracy, in my opinion. The choice is artificially reduced to a choice between two candidates. Moreover, each of them is a nominee of the same political (civilizational) forces. In fact, elections have been created without choice, IMHO. In fact, democracy and elections are a very smart system, by no means primitive, and implies the choice of smart thinking people.

Thanks.

All I know is between corruption and the way they are now doing elections in the states it is a sham. No voter ID and dead people voting and several other things tends to sour my belief in any fair election.

originally posted by: 727Sky
All I know is between corruption and the way they are now doing elections in the states it is a sham. No voter ID and dead people voting and several other things tends to sour my belief in any fair election.

What you are talking about are primitive tactical tricks. I am food about things of principle. If we do not know about them and apply them, we will continue to be manipulated with the help of the tactical tricks you described.

originally posted by: 727Sky
All I know is between corruption and the way they are now doing elections in the states it is a sham. No voter ID and dead people voting and several other things tends to sour my belief in any fair election.

Not to mention the full on propaganda from the MSM and the online social media outlets like Google, Twitter and Facebook.

originally posted by: 727Sky
All I know is between corruption and the way they are now doing elections in the states it is a sham. No voter ID and dead people voting and several other things tends to sour my belief in any fair election.

Yeah, we don't have to make rocket science out of this. Voter ID and more rigorous controls to tamp down on fraud.

Cheers

it makes sense for big money lobbyists to actually put money into both sides of an issue when necessary. The investment to keep an almost perfect balance between black and white(both sides of the isle, issue etc.,) is the smartest way to spend your money. That way, when the scales need to be tipped it doesn’t take a large sum of money to sway the right vote or buy the right amount of commercials or air time. It benefits all who are financially involved to have a country that is split right down the very middle at all times. It’s easier to game the sister, manipulate elections and make laws that suit your business needs. For this reason and because of this perfect polarity that is nurtured along, most important elections are won by a fraction of a percent. The game is rigged and it has been for quite some time.

But then you also have to recognise the fact that because of this necessary polarisation, most candidates are handpicked to be polarised enough to stand apart from their opponent, yet similar enough that their outcome won’t tip the balance too far. You end up with a perfect soup of politics where each elected official can spend 30% of his time fixing all his predecessors mistakes, 30% making his own “mistakes,” which will be fixed after he leaves office, and the other 30% serving those who got him elected and running for his next term. And the whole think can be tweaked a bit here and there to produce whatever outcome is needed with minimal investment.

It happens in plain site, talked about even as if it’s just business as usual in politics. But in reality is a natural order of $$ in politics and the end result is the fleecing of resources, money and human energy for the benefit and bottom line of big business. One day, the issue of money in politics will be talked about pretty heavily. The system doesn’t work any more because of it.

An interesting aspect for me is that often when you think about the big issues of today regarding broken govt systems, you often find that they also happen to be the same places where modern government has strayed the farthest from the original ideals/processes put forth in the constitution.

a reply to: RussianTroll

Maybe I am misunderstanding but is your point that for elections to be "smart" we should be using rank choice election systems?

Thinking that, I researched the subject and found: ballotpedia.org...(RCV)

An argument FOR RCV from that article:
"In a ranked-choice election, the only way to waste your vote is to actually vote against a candidate. As long as the candidate you like least doesn’t reach the 50 percent threshold, they won’t win. So only positive votes matter. ... Ranked-choice voting effectively allows voters to vote their actual preferences instead of having to vote strategically. This would have a meaningful impact on elections and governing. It would empower independent and third party candidates by eliminating the “wasted vote” argument.[9]"

And another:
"All states and all congressional elections currently use winner-take-all rules that elevate district lines over voters. Legislatures elected by winner-take-all are characterized by distortions in partisan representation, entrenchment of incumbents in safe seats, regional polarization, and low representation of women and racial and ethnic minorities. When combined with multi-winner districts electing at least three members, ranked-choice voting helps to make elections fairer and more reflective in every district. This ends the cycle of gerrymandering, and creates competitive elections in which every vote really counts.[9"

Argument against? From the article:
"Ranked-choice proponents dislike [other types of] primaries, because fringe candidates can win, producing an unhappy choice in the general election. That sounds like the position of philosopher-kings who really don’t trust democracy and certainly want to see the end of political parties. If there’s something wrong with [other types of] primaries, find a way to get more people to vote. But don’t manipulate their voting. ... If we want decisions guaranteed to be made by a majority, then a runoff is a better idea, because it allows voters to make a clear choice rather than the muddled, computer-run outcome of ranked-choice voting"

I can't decide if I like RCV or not, but would suggest that, as to the US at least, the problem is less the system used than it is the quality of those running for office. On the other hand, the current system used in the US seems altogether broken in that it appears to produce ever higher levels of corruption and it seems to more entrench existing corruption.

As the US appears to inch ever closer to becoming a One Party jurisdiction, maybe none of it matters anyway.

a reply to: TonyS

I think that the problem of democracy is the presence of parties. The winning candidates do not represent the interests of voters, but the interests of parties, which are bureaucratic and easy to seize power over. And if there are only two such parties (a two-party system), then the power of bureaucratic groups is practically guaranteed.

a reply to: RussianTroll

Interesting.

So you see the RCV system as a remedy to the two party system? Might be. You do realize that George Washington, the first President of the US inveighed against formation of political parties. He did not like them either.

It may, as I pointed out, be a moot point however. In much of the US, there is only one functioning party, the Democrat party, which is firmly in control of both Coasts and all major US cities. It may not be long before the entire country is dominated by the one party, i.e., the Democrat party much as it was under FDR.

originally posted by: TonyS
a reply to: RussianTroll

Interesting.

So you see the RCV system as a remedy to the two party system? Might be. You do realize that George Washington, the first President of the US inveighed against formation of political parties. He did not like them either.

It may, as I pointed out, be a moot point however. In much of the US, there is only one functioning party, the Democrat party, which is firmly in control of both Coasts and all major US cities. It may not be long before the entire country is dominated by the one party, i.e., the Democrat party much as it was under FDR.

Let's go into history a little. In fact, in its development, the US party system exactly copies the system of Great Britain in the 19th century. Only with a slight delay in time.
Let's remember the Great Britain of the 19th century - the Whigs and the Tories. Then one of the parties ceased to satisfy the establishment, and she left. Another party came, you know which one, but the system remained unchanged.
It's the same in the United States. Where were the Democrats in the early 19th century? They just weren't there. The Republicans were (party of the North). But then the paradigms of the development of society, as the elite understood them, changed, and another party - the Democrats - entered the system. But the system remained the same, only more controlled.
Honestly, this system was formed under Oliver Cromwell almost 500 years ago, when the current Judeo-British civilization was born with the filing of the bankers expelled from Spain to Holland and Belgium.
In my opinion, now the West is experiencing a civilization crisis, which naturally led to a crisis and democracy in its modern form, as its foundation.