JAGWAK

Equal Expandable Vote (EEV) is a voting system adaptable to single or multiple winner (proportional) elections. It is generally similar to Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) and Single Transferable Vote (STV), but eliminates the erratic results produced by the elimination steps in those methods.

Ballots

EEV ballots consist of rankings from best (lowest number) to worst (highest number) for each candidate standing for election. Ties are allowed, and the ranking for any number of specific candidates may be left blank to indicate that they are emphatically disapproved. As part of "pretabulation" of the ballots, they shall be normalized so that the highest ranking on each ballot is 1 (one), and there are no ranking skipped on any ballot. Ties are spread across all rankings covered by the tie. For example, the ballot ( A: 2, B: 4, C: 5, D: 4, E: 6, F: none) becomes ( A: 1, B: 2 3, C: 4, D: 2 3, E: 5, F: none )

Election Threshold

For each candidate to be elected, in order, there must be set an election threshold. Usually, for the first seat elected, this is the least integer number of votes greater than the total number of unspoiled ballots cast divided by one more than the number of candidates to be elected. For subsequent seats, the threshold will usually be determined by the same method, subtracting the previous election threshold from the number of available ballots, and using the number of remaining seats rather than the total number to be elected.

Tabulation

Ballots are tabulated in a series of "rounds" by preference. For the first round, each ballot giving a candidate an (untied) preference of 1 gives the candidate 1 vote, each ballot with a tied preference of 1 gives 1 divided by the "width" of the tie (the number of preference rankings it covers, or the number of candidates sharing the ranking). If a candidate has reached the election threshold, he is elected, and those ballots going to him this round are statistically discounted, while those from previous rounds are eliminated. If not, proceed to the next round, which follows the same process for ballots with a preference rank of two, adding those votes to the first round totals to produce second round totals and again checking to see if any candidate has met the election threshold.

Statistical Discounting

Ballots are statistically discounted by finding the number of ballots that were needed to reach the election threshold in the final round for the elected candidate, and finding what proportion that is of the votes that were actually received in the final round. Each ballot which voted for the candidate on the final round has its value (starting at 1) reduced by that proportion. Ballots that voted for the winner on previous rounds are eliminated. Fractional ballots from the final round are discounted by the portion that was voted for the elected candidate, including the total amount of previous rounds, and the "share" amount of the current round.

Why EEV?

EEV is designed to be a more intuitive alternative to IRV and STV. Like those methods, it allows voters to express more nuanced preferences than a "vote for one" ballot as is commonly used in US elections decided by plurality or majority/runoff, and reduces the disincentive to voting for third-party candidates. EEV, however, avoids the "elimination" step in IRV and STV which eliminates the candidate with the lowest number of first place votes in each round. EEV seeks to produce, in single-winner elections, a winner that better represents the preferences of the electorate than any of plurality, majority/runoff, or IRV, all of which tend to "eliminate" candidates with weaker first-place preference but strong "compromise" acceptability, either through structural disincentives or actual elimination in the counting process.

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All kinds of personal stuff -- sickness, work issues, etc. -- intervened. So, over a month with no posts. Bad, bad, bad. "Just Another Guy With A Keyboard...who doesn't use it for anything"!

Seriously, though, I'm going to try one more time to get this going. This time, there's a theme: Policy Ideas. We're going to start for now (today? this week? who knows?) with the specific area of "Elections, Voting and Representation". The idea is going to be to throw out for comment a series of ideas for reforms that I think are interesting ideas. I'm not planning on using this to repeat ideas tossed out on the campaign trail -- by either party -- although I may toss out my own alternatives. There are enough blogs out there that follow political news and will cover the "story of the day" -- or launch their own campaign to make some "underreported" story the new story of the day. They fill an important role, and I may occasionally join in with that. But the focus here is going to be the "Policy Jam" to toss new ideas into the mix.

If you've got your own alternatives to the policies outlined in my posts, I encourage you to post links in the comments, or short descriptions (but beware the Haloscan limit). I'll also try to have regular open threads -- use those to suggest areas to explore, or to post descriptions and links of interesting policy ideas you've come up with or found in areas that I haven't addressed that you think deserve more attention.

Feel free to use this as the first Policy Jam open thread.

Later today: the Policy Jam kicks off with the Equal Expanded Vote, a preference voting alternative to the Instant Runoff Vote (for single-winner elections) and Single transferable Vote (for multiple winner elections). Also coming soon: how to avoid gerrymandering headaches with legislative Freedistricting, followed by the magic of Virtual Bicameralism.

Stay tuned!
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Obviously, its been somewhat erratic so far. Starting now, I'm going to try to post 2-3 posts a week. Maybe more until that premature Howard Dean post gets off the front page. :)
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Spurred largely by the recent decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court which would compel the State of Massachusetts to recognize marriage between members of the same sex on the same basis as between members of opposite sexes, conservative groups have begun pushing hard for what they refer to as the "Federal Marriage Amendment" -- an amendment to the federal constitution designed, supporters claim, to prevent the courts from expanding marriage to include same sex partnerships. The general position the supporters take on the amendment is represented fairly well at The Alliance for Marriage's site on the amendment. Stepping aside from the merits of marriage between members of the same sex for a minute, lets examine the amendment and the Alliance's claims about it, since they are the claims usually used to sell it. The text of the Amendment states:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.

Supporters claim that the first sentence prevents either state legislatures or the courts from "redefining" marriage to include same sex couples, and that the second sentence prevents the courts from creating or allowing "civil unions", "domestic partnerships", or other institutions which provide benefits "associated" with marriage to same sex couples (or other unmarried couples or groups), but leaves state legislatures free to allow this. However, lets look at this closely. Clearly, they are correct that the first sentence clearly restricts "marriage" in the United States to unions of one man and one woman, and does not leave state legislatures or the courts -- or the Congress -- any room to change that. But does the second sentence do what supporters claim, and only what supporters claim?

1. Does it prevent courts from creating "civil unions" or "domestic partnerships" on their own, or from extending marriage-like benefits without those titles? Yes. It prevents any provision of law from being construed to require extending the "legal incidents" of marriage to unmarried couples.
2. Does it leave state legislatures (or populations, where legislation can be passed by citizen initiative) free to create "civil unions" or "domestic partnership" according to the will of the people of the state? No. While the legislature might pass a law which would seem to create such institutions, those rights would not be defensible in court, as the courts would be prohibited from construing any provision of law -- including one passed for that express purpose -- as requiring the state to provide the "legal incidents" of marriage to unmarried couples, including those in "civil unions" or "domestic partnerships".

Besides not providing the freedom to the states that it claims, what else does the amendment do?

1. It would remove all Constitutional protections of equality from marriage. By explicitly stating that the federal constitution could not be construed as requiring states to confer marital status on unmarried couples, it would undo the Loving v. Virginia decision, which found that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment compelled states to grant marital status to interracial couples on the same basis as same race couples, and prevent any future decisions securing equal rights to marriage against discrimination on racial or other bases.
2. It might prohibit all marriages -- or at least, all right to marriage -- whatsoever. Legal marriages are created by state laws which require, once it has been determined that certain requirements have been met -- that marital status be conferred upon an unmarried couple. But such laws would be nullified, or at least rendered unenforceable, were the amendment to pass.

So, under the guise of an amendment to "protect" marriage, what supporters of this amendment are really doing is using same sex marriage as a bogeyman to sneak through a broad assault on marriage and equal rights -- not just for gays and lesbians, but for everyone. And what supporters have yet to do, is to explain how marriage between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, threatens traditional families at all. Certainly they don't believe the existence of homosexual marriages isn't going to make heterosexuals less likely to marry people they love, or to honor the commitment they make? So where is the threat, anyway?
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As you may have heard, President Bush has proposed a new "guest worker" program -- well, concept really, but we'll get to that in a second -- under which currently illegal aliens and future prospective immigrants would be able to get visas to work in this country for a limited period of time provided that they had employer sponsorship. Its been discussed in other blogs, such as:

• Calpundit
• Tacitus
• Atrios
• Talking Points Memo

I'm not going to comment directly on the program, except to note that the fact that lots of critical details, like whether or not the fees involved will be nominal or substantive, being left as things for Congress to work out with no specific proposals from the White House means that the Administration, quite likely, isn't serious about getting anything passed. If they were serious, they'd propose a detailed outline that covered such details, and then work with Congress to resolve any objections that arise. Instead, I'll just propose an alternate plan. Rather than employer sponsorship, which some have compared to "indentured servitude", although that is clearly somewhat hyperbolic, which clearly exist to guarantee that the immigrant will be contributing in some way, why not just require the direct contribution, and let the immigrant meet it there own way -- a more market-based solution if you will. Here's my proposal: The Unrestricted Guest visa program:

1. Create a new Unrestricted Guest visa category. It will be renewable year-to-year, with a substantive fee (for sake of illustration, we'll say $2,000). There will be no limit on the number of these class of visas.
2. Distribute the funds from the visa fees something like this: $250 to the Social Security Trust Fund, $250 to the Medicare Trust Fund, $500 to the State Immigration Impact Program (below), and $1,000 in general federal revenue.
3. Create a federal nonrefundable income tax credit for $1,000 (the general federal revenue portion) of the visa fees, based on the idea that that portion is an "advance" payment in lieu of income tax.
4. Allow a credit-worthy US citizen, permanent resident, or corporation to sponsor an unrestricted guest visa for a prospective (or current undocumented) immigrant, and pay the fee in 12 equal monthly payments rather than paying it all up front.
5. Create a state Immigration Impact Program that distributes a portion of the visa fees to the states in proportion to the total number of legal immigrants residing in the state (not just those in the Unrestricted Guest) program to help offset the cost of services that are impacted by immigration, such as providing services in multiple languages, etc. The state should be free to decide how to spend the funds, but should report to the federal government on how they are spent for informational purposes.
6. While Unrestricted Guest immigrants would be ineligible for SS and Medicare, they would pay into the trust funds if they worked, and the contributions and years of work would be counted if they later became eligible.
7. There would be no limitation on the duration of Unrestricted Guest visas, provided they were renewed year-to-year.
8. Unrestricted Guest visa holders would be eligible to apply for Permanent Residency ("green cards").
9. Years as an Unrestricted Guest would be treated the same as years as a Permanent Resident when applying for citizenship.

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I know, I know, some will say that its premature to call this when, after all, no votes have yet been cast, and that it is incredible chutzpah to do it in the first post in my blog, without even bothering with introductions. Well, maybe that's true, and maybe Dean won't actually win. But I think he's got a winning strategy that is paying off.

Much attention has been paid and credit given to Dean's "netroots" organization, his blog, and his ability to pay attention to both the Democratic base in general and particular important constituent groups. And these are all important, and helped him catapult to the top of the heap. But one thing I haven't seen a lot of people mention, and I think it will be shown as being particularly important now that he is the clear front-runner, is how well Dean's message was crafted so that, if he made it to the front of the pack, he would tend to stick there, despite the inevitable concentration of fire -- indeed, in large part because of that fire -- that he would receive from his primary opponents.

Dean came out of the blocks running hard against Bush, often focusing on the war in Iraq, on which much of the conventional wisdom held Bush to be unassailable. And from day one, he was talking about how much of the party establishment, and the contenders likely to run or already running, didn't offer a clear enough alternative to push, and wouldn't present a focused enough challenge to Bush. And he's held to that message since.

Once his momentum got going, once he seemed to be the front-runner, what happened? The other contenders leveled much of their fire at him. This presented a story the media liked to cover -- so now the media coverage focuses on Dean challenging Bush's policies and saying that the other candidates won't do that as effectively, and on the other candidates obsession with competing for the title of anti-Dean. And every day that that's the story that primary voters see, the stories on the other candidates underscore Dean's message. Sure, the other candidates are challenging Bush's policy in their statements, but as long as they also focus, specifically, on tearing down Dean, that's what's going to get the lions share of the coverage, and its going to make Dean look right.

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