Yet Another Conception of "Wasted Vote"

 

Back in March of 2024, I wrote a piece about the ambiguity of the term "wasted votes." In it I reproduced three or four inconsistent meanings of the expression that can be found around the web and are used by advocates for various reforms. But after reading Steven Hill's useful 2023 Substack essay, "Which Proportional Representation Method is Best for America?" I see that I left out an important conception of the term, one that Hill relies on extensively as a reason for preferring Ranked Choice Voting ["RCV"] to several popular Proportional Representation ["PR"] alternatives. 

While Hill doesn't actually define "wasted vote" in that piece, it is fairly easy to infer that he takes a vote to be wasted just in case it produces zero representation or voice for the voter who cast it. So, for example in an election for President or Senator in our winner-take-all system, if you voted for any losing candidate, Hill considers that to be a wasted vote. Where there is PR on the other hand, it is possible to vote for a second- (or third- or fourth-) place candidate and still get representation or voice. So, according to this conception, when that happens the votes are not wasted. 

That particular understanding of waste is somewhat different from each of the publicly available explanations I considered in my blog last year, including the definition that FairVote, an organization with which I believe Hill is closely associated, provides (or at least at one time provided) on its website; but it can't be denied that Hill's version has an intuitive, even  somewhat comforting, ring to it. I mean, one really might sensibly think I guess I could just as well have stayed home if it turns out that, subsequent to the next swearing-in ceremony, nobody will be representing one's views in the legislature, or council, or whatever. 

I think there are a couple of problems, however. First, it seems to me that it actually does make a difference whether a candidate wins by 30% or .02% of the vote. That is, the votes for losing candidates do matter in some sense, so long as they are counted and publicly published. Since close elections may constrain winners, it may be better to vote for a loser than stay home. So it could be reasonably concluded that such votes aren't really wasted.

Nevertheless, votes for losing candidates do seem wasted in SOME sense: what does the voter get for it? The problem is that if we consider RCV, Hill's favored way to reduce wastage, it seems wrong to infer that, so long as Smith has ranked Crawford at all, and Crawford wins a seat, that Crawford should be thought to be providing a "voice" for Smith. For example, I may prefer Vance to Trump--and may have strategic reasons for ranking Vance at all--but one can't reasonably infer from this that I want Vance, or that he will be speaking for me should he get elected. 

The idea that every ranking is a wanting is simply a problem for all ordinal voting methods: not even a top-ranking should automatically be thought to be a wanting. This is one reason that I believe Approval Voting ["AV"] is superior to every ordinal method in the search for proportionality--or at least would be if we could depend on voters to faithfully follow AV rules and vote for all and only those candidates of whom they actually approve. (Please note that I acknowledge with regret that voters may very well not follow those rules. See this article.) 

In fact, Hill's conception basically makes the determination of whether or not a vote is wasted depend on something that might be entirely extraneous to who one takes to be an appropriate representer of one's views. 

Take this cuckoo example. Suppose there is a PR voting rule that says "Put a mark next to all those candidates you have heard of, making the size of the mark bigger based on how frequently you have heard of him/her. If you have heard of this candidate a LOT, make a very large mark, and if you have only heard of him/her very infrequently (or you think you've heard of him/her but aren't entirely sure whether you've heard of him/her at all), make your mark very small. The votes are to be tallied as follows: the size of all marks made are to be "added up" and the five candidates producing the largest aggregated mark are to be declared winners. 

Under this rule and Hill's definition of "waste," a ballot will be wasted only if it includes no vote cast for a candidate among those who amass one of the five biggest splotches. In other words, in this scenario, those who voted only for candidates that most people hadn't heard much about would be considered to have wasted their votes, but those who cast ballots that included a smudge for any of the five best known candidates would NOT be wasting their votes. Obviously, that produces a very odd and unacceptable conception of voice.

Now, I am not suggesting that under RCV the rule requiring the ranking of candidates by how one compares them to others running for the same office should be considered tantamount to the crazy voting rule specified above. But I do think that if wasting a vote is thought to be a matter of not getting ones "voice" heard in the future chorus of representatives, a vote must be a matter of APPROVING a candidate as being someone one believes to be fit for the job, someone who is better than nothing; not just a matter of whether one likes him/her a bit more than some alternative considered to be almost equally awful.

A Drop of Good News Falls From the Pervasive Dark Clouds of Doom!

 

Something good has actually happened for the future of democracy someplace! Not in the U.S., natch, but in the land of Viginia Woolf and Thomas Hobbes. You know, our (one-time) close ally, England. Those hiding in their American basements between their meat freezers and their dart boards may wonder what it is that I believe ought have their populace absolutely chuffed. So, I will keep them in suspense no longer: ENGLAND HAVE/HAS LOWERED THE VOTING AGE IN NATIONAL ELECTIONS TO 16! 

There will, no doubt, be those who doubt that  this is really a good thing. In fact, the U.S. is home to a burgeoning new movement that advocates for the removal of suffrage from women (or, I suppose, those assigned Female at birth, or conception, or whatever this group thinks is the Godly way to put this sought after restriction). What those concerned gentlemen (mostly gents, anyhow) are quite sure of is that women don't "have what it takes" to be allowed to make a difference in their country based on their views--unless any difference-making opportunity they're given consists solely in begging their husbands, and that is something for which I think it's deemed OK by this group to beat them.

Now, of course, the proportion of the U.S. population that denies that 16- and 17-year olds have the mysterious something required to be eligible for voting rights is considerably larger than the fringe group that would remove women's suffrage. Indeed, the anti-youth vote segment even contains multitudes of women! It's not a marginal group at all. It's just those people who can be heard to say, "Teens simply aren't ready. I mean, have you ever talked to one? Let me get Bracey away from his screens for a minute and you'll see what I mean!"

These sorts of pronouncements aren't new: "They don't pay taxes! They don't know anything! They can't buy a rifle or get a mortgage! They never work! They don't care about anything but video games, halter top styles, muffin recipes, fantasy football or porn! For heaven's sake, if you think about this even for a minute, you'll see that it's a ridiculous-- even disgusting--idea!"

Of course, the same charges have long been--and in numerous quarters still are--aimed at non-caucasions--regardless of gender. 

I discuss this matter at some length in Chapter 6 of my book on democratic theory (which if you haven't yet read in its entirety, tsk, tsk). However, I am so delighted at seeing this news about what's happening in the Parliamentary world of dear Bertie that I will provide an excerpt from that book here. [For those who are already sick of reading at this point, the bottom line is: midteens should be allowed to vote, and democracy is that much worse where this right is not granted.]

First, there are a few pages spent on discussing the numerous arguments that have been brought against teen voting for centuries. I omit them here, as well as any footnotes to what I will reproduce. The text continues as follows:

So, what should voters be able to do? According to Vivian Hamilton (2011, 53), “a minimally competent voting decision involves the appropriate application and coordination of various reasoning processes to make a choice that could be justified by a good reason.” This is because, on her view (2011, 52-62), the ability to cast a non-random vote requires minimal competence in all of the following:

• The ability to learn and retrieve information.

• The ability to form mental representations of information.

• At least some ability to reason inductively, deductively and analogically.

• The ability to apply and coordinate reasoned inferences to some goal, like the solving of a problem or the making of a decision.

Once there is agreement on these, settling on a minimum voting age is simply a matter of consulting the literature on the stages of psychological development. That is precisely what Hamilton does, with patience and care. I will not rehearse her generous summary of the research here, but simply report the absolutely decisive conclusion that, (i) prior to the mid-teens (i.e., 16 or thereabouts) there is, on average, arguably insufficient maturity to meet Hamilton’s criteria; and (ii) after the mid-teens, there is, on average, no development in those areas significant enough to be declared relevant.

This result will not be surprising to anyone who has adult children. That something dramatic happens during the high school years is quite obvious. Athletes begin to have 90 miles-per-hour fastballs, close in on Olympic records, even get notifications of interest from professional teams. Musicians, visual artists, and actors begin to give performances or create pieces that could be staged without embarrassment anywhere in the world. Writers begin to compose publishable works of poetry and prose. Mathematicians suddenly make progress on matters that have stumped the world since the beginning of time. Chess and video game players become masters. Actors start to show multiple levels of depth and nuance of expression. Comedians become funny in original ways. Of course, some kids develop earlier, and some are late bloomers. But those of us who have gone to plays, concerts, games, showings, etc. at our children’s high schools will know that an incredible change takes place among the rank and file there. Clearly, if what the people in some polity want is a strict function of what the individuals in it want, 16-year-olds must be allowed to express their desires and aversions in the same manner as older members of society.

Will the votes of 16-year-olds be independent, or will they just ape the votes of their parents or teachers? It really doesn’t matter: nobody’s vote is entirely independent of those around them. What about the danger of teens simply being instructed to cast their votes in a particular manner by those who feed and house them? The secret ballot is a wonderful protection against coercion of that type. Will they not care enough to vote, based on the belief—correct or incorrect—that most of the issues won’t affect them? That is entirely up to them. Electoral indifference also provides useful information about the state of the populace. (And if they are made to go to the polls against their will, they can always write in Rihanna, Payton Manning, Zippy the Pinhead, or one of the Mutant Ninja Turtles: no harm will have been done). 

Let us agree then to take a break from either mourning or protesting--or whatever you think is most called for in these desperate times--and celebrate this brave British revision of its electoral rules. The new youth vote in England is estimated to constitute only 2% of the total electorate, and the new voters will remain ineligible to hold office themselves. But, in spite of its limits nobody should deny that this is a wonderful moment for democracy in the world. May more soon follow!!

 

 

Democracy Criteria From the Woodstock Days

 

Back in 1968, Professor David Braybrooke published his book Three Tests for Democracy. Much of that work focuses on rights and welfare, but the final third proposes tests for whether a polity is a democracy based on whether "collective preferences" are satisfied there.

While the writing may seem a bit stilted to the modern reader--especially one with no extensive background in either analytic philosophy or welfare economics (I admit to briefly wondering whether Braybrooke's style might have benefitted from cutting down on what I imagine to have been a hefty diet of G.E. Moore)--the main idea is fairly commonsensical: criteria for democratic government must have "something to do with majority rule" As Braybrooke puts it, "Consider a community of sane adults for which a number of mutually exclusive policies P1, P2, P3....Pn have been proposed. Suppose that it is known that a majority of the members of the community prefer P3 to all of the other policies--i.e., it is known that with one vote each to cast [a majority] would would vote for P3. Nevertheless the policy adopted for the community is not P3, but P2....[A]dvocates of democracy would find this result objectionable....[I]t is a flagrantly undemocratic result."

Now, Braybridge doesn't suggest that that adoption of P2 in all such cases is sufficient to show that the group in question is a democracy. Other requirements must also be met. He proposes, in addition, an Adoption Condition, according to which the government in question must sincerely attempt to get P2 put into practice, and a Participation Condition, which looks into both who gets to vote, and who actually does so. For example, if only 5% of the eligible voters bother to cast ballots, and 95% of that cohort are from a minority class, gender, social class, geographic region, ethnicity or race, it will be doubtful that the majority is ruling just because it the polity is apparently functioning in accordance with the results of that election.

I bring this 60s sentiment up because there is an awful lot of gnashing of teeth these days due to a fear that the loss of 'our democracy' is imminent. This keening can be heard on both the left (because of the alleged increase in fascist tendencies among Republicans) and on the right (because of an alleged increased reliance on "fake voters" and other types of election fraud by Democrats). 

Well, whoever may be right about what's happening in the country these days (and I hope my own views about this are known to my readers), it's pretty obvious that to lose something, you first must have it. Set aside for the moment the problems produced for U.S. democracy by the Electoral College, the Senate (and its Filibuster), the effects of gerrymandering, and all the other well-known defects in the American governmental structure. In a recent Substack piece, Lee Drutman displays in broad, dark strokes something particularly depressing about the U.S.: wealthy people are much more likely to vote here than poorer people are.

Drutman's fine piece can be read in its entirety here.

But, of course, that distressing piece of news just provides a bit of the causal story behind what we already ought to have known to be true: quite substantial majorities in the U.S. are simply not getting most of what they are known to want. As I mentioned on page 30 of my 2020 book on democratic theory, a now classic study of this issue, [Gilens and Page (2014)] "looked at about 1,800 policy positions considered by Congress between 1981 and 2002, and found that the views of the majority of Americans on those issues were largely ignored in favor of the the views espoused by powerful (mostly corporate) lobbyists." 

This situation has not improved since 2002. According to the most recent credible polling, substantial majorities are not getting what they want in such areas as gun control, abortion rights, climate change policy, marijuana legalization, student debt, and healthcare coverage. There is no doubt that we are far from a passing grade on Braybrooke's test here.

In a word, all this mournful talk about "losing our precious democracy" is a little nonsensical--whether we're hearing it on MSNBC or FOX. A facade is crumbling: that's all. Furthermore, in my own view, the widespread grief over this loss of something we never had is part and parcel of the blanket disparagement of "populism" as a political theory always to be feared. What IS indisputably bad is autocracy, but, in reality, whether or not it has entirely descended into some sort of fascist tyranny, autocratic rule is the very opposite of (any appropriately "distilled") populism, for the latter insists that democracy must be real, rather than merely imagined--with or without any accompanying flag.

A Few Key Quotes From Robert Jones's Book on White Supremacy

In his excellent book on the history of American racial domination and genocide, Robert Jones focuses on "The Doctrine of Discovery," according to which it is always perfectly acceptable--indeed, required--for civilized, Christian (i.e., white, European) peoples to wrest land from darker savages--whether that latter group were already long established somewhere (like the indigenous people living in North America or Australia) or  arrived later--whether brought against their will like black slaves from Africa, or came voluntarily, like current immigrants from Mexico or Haiti. 

Jones puts the date at which he takes the The Doctrine of Discovery to have become the foundational principle of the future United States of America at 1493, but notes that its official enshrinement into legality here was accomplished by Chief Justice Marshall in a 33-page decision on the 1823 case of Johnson v. M'Intosh. Marshall there opined that 

[The rights of the Indians to sovereignty as independent nations] were necessarily diminished, and their power to dispose of the soil at their own will, to whomsoever they pleased, was denied by the original fundamental principle that discovery gave exclusive title to those who made it. 

While the different nations of Europe respected the right of the natives, as occupants, they asserted the ultimate dominion to be in themselves; and claimed and exercised, as a consequence of this ultimate dominion, a power to grant the soil, while yet in possession of the natives.

The Chief Justice seemed a little embarassed by this proclamation when he also noted in his opinion that, 

The potentates of the old world found no difficulty in convincing themselves that they made ample compensation to the inhabitants of the new, by bestowing on them civilization and Christianity, in exchange [for giving up their] unlimited independence.

But Marshall himself didn't rely on any exchange  being made here, fair or not. In his view, precedence was enough. Might has always simply made right.

Unlike Marshall, Jones, a Ph.D. in religion and a graduate of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, remains troubled by the Christian  background of these power grabs. Jones has not been alone in that sentiment. In fact, his book provides this excerpt from a 1955 sermon given in Montgomery, Alabama by the 26-year old Rev. Martin Luther King:

The white men who lynch Negroes worship Christ. That jury in Mississippi, which a few days ago in the Emmett Till case, freed two white men from what might be considered one of the most brutal and inhuman crimes of the twentieth century, worships Christ. The trouble is that all people, like the Pharisee, go to church regularly, they pay their tithes and offerings, and observe religiously the various cermonial requirements. The trouble with these people, however, is that they worship Christ emotionally and not morally. They cast his ethical and moral insights behind the gushing smoke of emotional adoration and ceremonial piety,

I get what King is saying here, but I'm not sure he was focused on quite the central problem. 

I see the use of Christianity in this context as being not very different from the employment of a claimed love of democracy as being a key reason for rapacious activities. Both are absolutely absurd. As Jones tells us, in the few weeks after a particularly disgusting display of violence in the Mississippi counties of Warren and Hinds in which white mobs killed 50 black Americans, including children and a state senator, taking over the of levers of "democracy" became the goal of the supremacists. 

"[W]hites engaged in a broad effort to rig the elections, including vigilante violence, voter intimidation, bribery of election officials and ballot tampering." Many blacks were hiding in the woods on the next election day. In fact, in one key county in which, thanks to  Reconstruction, blacks had briefly done well, only seven Republican ballots were counted as compared to 4,000 Democratic ballots. Naturally, once in power, the white minority did all they could to impeach any remaining black office-holders. These acts may have been proclaimed to be "redemption" by the self-described pious  Christian whites in Mississippi, but they weren't actually connected with anything in the Bible, or even with the Doctrine of Discovery. Supremacists have long touted religion or democracy (or whatever else they thought might help) when useful, but their actions have always been about getting their money, power, and self-respect back. And, of course, about simple hatred and fear of "the other."

If Jesus had specifically preached against any such domination principle as the Doctrine of Discovery (and I presume that many scholars would say he did!), it would have made no difference at all to those conducting their  lynching parties on their way to watch baseball games. Their "faith" has been no more important than their "patriotism" or "love of democracy" as  inducements to their appalling activities. It has been their cotton revenues, their exclusive right to hold public office, their position as kingpins, and their feelings of repulsion that have always been the significant incitements.

Well, what about now? Same deal. Any spiel about the deep Christianity woven into some "nationalistic" movement is as phony as current Republican claims of a desire to "save our democracy" by such methods as stringent voter ID requirements. I.F. Stone made what was going on perfectly explicit as long ago as the Emmett Till trial when he wrote, 

The South must become either truly democratic or the base of a new racist and Fascist movement which could threaten the whole country and its institutions. 

Stone saw where we were heading back in the 1950s, and it was not toward anything that can correctly be called "Populism," which is a type of authentic, if arguably radical, democracy. It was in exactly the opposite direction.

Jane Austen on the Difference Between Moral and Prudential Values

For at least a decade, I have been trying to get more respect for prudential values (that which is good for individuals and groups), based on the view that they have been badly mistreated by philosophers who seem to care only about what is morally right or good. I take up that cudgel once again in my latest book review, that of Bas van der Vossen's Political Philosophy: The Basics. In that piece I complain that theorists are all too prone to worry about what makes a state or a law legitimate, without much care about what makes that state or law good for the people who are subject to it.

But I feel myself chastised! Near the end of her novel Mansfield Park, Jane Austen spends perhaps the longest time she ever devoted to a philosophical problem, on having the somewhat priggish cleric Edmund Bertram castigate (his then crush) Mary Crawford for making prudential values not just first, but only! That is, Mary is discovered by him to have been absolutely incapable of distinguishing between the two sorts of value. When Edmund finally comes to realize her blindness--something the book's heroine Fanny Price had understood for some time--the both devastated and astonished lover is able to get over his feelings for Mary and (finally!) attach them to (the also somewhat priggish) Fanny. 

It's a brilliant multi-page passage. Edmund gives a detailed account to Fanny of his final talk with Mary, in this way trying to explain how Mary has fallen from his grace. 

Fanny suggests that Mary has been cruel. But Edmund demurs. "Cruelty do you call it? We differ there. No, hers is not a cruel nature. I do not consider her as meaning to wound my feelings. The evil lies yet deeper: in her total ignorance, unsuspiciousness of there being such feelings....Hers are faults of principle, Fanny; of blunted delicacy and a corrupted, vitiated mind." 

Edmund tries to make this clearer by explaining the way Mary treated the "dreadful crime committed by her brother and my sister [running off together, in spite of Edmund's sister's recent marriage to another man]....giving it every reproach but the right; considering its ill consequences only as they were to be braved or overborne by a defiance of decency and impudence in wrong; and...recommending to us a compliance, a compromise, an acquiescence in the continuance of the sin on the chance of a marriage." Mary did admit that the affair had been handled badly, but her thought was that whatever could now be done to mitigate the damage was in order. In her view, the whole kerfluffle might have been avoided if her brother had first married someone else for whom he apparently had feelings (Fanny). This would have been much better, Mary felt, because she believed it "would have all ended in a regular standing flirtation, in yearly meetings..." 

What Mary advised Edmund and his family to now do was just be quiet about the whole matter and "let things take their course." On her view, it would surely be bad for Edmund's sister to leave her brother as a result of family interventions. She says that if anything is done to separate them now, "there will be much less chance of his [eventually] marrying her." And it is that which Mary thinks everyone should understand to be the main goal now that a clandestine elopement has taken place.

Edmund is thunderstruck by all of this. For he has come to see that Mary can think only of what course of action will conduce to the highest level of future well-being and never considers what is morally appropriate. She is unable even to comprehend that there might be some right or wrong here, regardless of what would work out for the best.

Well, I am concerned that my own above-linked comments on van der Vossen's treatment of whether Socrates "should" have fled Athens as his friend Crito wished may be construed to reflect a Crawfordian blindness to the question of what action would be right--and not just prudential--for Socrates under the circumstances. For I, too, generally focus on what can be expected to be most beneficial for all parties. So I want to stress here that I do not deny the existence of moral truths. Nor am I a relativist--cultural or otherwise--on these matters. I understand the distinction that Austen is highlighting and agree wholeheartedly with her. Furthermore, I believe the distinction she makes is important, and even insist that many self-described moral skeptics are confused on this score.

But I do resemble morality deniers in being doubtful about our ability to know that this or that proposition counts as a moral truth. Because I am unlike Edmund and Fanny in failing to trust to religious foundations for ethics, and because moral claims seem to me to be unlike empirical assertions in having no likely foundation other than "intuitions" and prudential considerations, I am hesitant to place much confidence in any conclusions claimed to emanate from some alleged "moral sense." 

So, unlike Mary Crawford, I don't make prudential values to be either the "be-all" or "end-all" of value theory (and I include aesthetic values in this judgment). But I do think that we often have little else than humble prudential considerations to rely upon. As I have said elsewhere, I am comfortable putting prudential values at the kiddie table, but I have little faith in the pronouncements descending from the fancier place-settings--no matter how loudly and confidently they are declaimed. 

I therefore hope I can be excused for thinking that it's possible that Socrates ought to have given a bit less weight to Austenian arguments here and paid significantly more attention to the pleas of his friend Crito.