Pepper Spray IS a vegetable!

[Indirik]

Visibility via advertising puts the candidate's name in people's minds. That way when people go to vote, assuming they're not the typical mindless drone that just goes down the ballot and checks all the democrat/republican boxes, they vote for names that sound familiar. Because they're more likely to pick a name they've heard of than one they haven't. That's how you buy votes.

[Chenier]

Visibility via advertising puts the candidate's name in people's minds. That way when people go to vote, assuming they're not the typical mindless drone that just goes down the ballot and checks all the democrat/republican boxes, they vote for names that sound familiar. Because they're more likely to pick a name they've heard of than one they haven't. That's how you buy votes.

Indeed.

Most people don't have the time or don't care enough to go look at all the options they have. As such, they stick to those they've heard about, and chose their favorite according to the information that was fed to them. This is in addition to the "not wanting to waste their vote on a candidate that doesn't have a chance to win" mechanics I spoke of earlier.

[Indirik]

... the "not wanting to waste their vote on a candidate that doesn't have a chance to win" mechanics ...

I've run into that before. I've had people tell me: "You voted for him?! This election was way too important for you to waste your vote like that!"

[fodder]

bah. ban advert.

sorted

[Chenier]

I've run into that before. I've had people tell me: "You voted for him?! This election was way too important for you to waste your vote like that!"

Indeed, I hear that all the time up here. "We must vote for X, because they have the highest chance of defeating Y!" Never mind the fact that X sucks just as much as Y, or pretty darn near. At least the cash per vote system gives incentives to not think like this, but it ain't big enough. And Harper removed that at the federal level anyways.

I think this attitude is probably worse in winner-takes-all systems like we have, as opposed to systems like the one in France (as far as I know it).

bah. ban advert.

sorted

And how do you know who to vote for? This would just give elections to famous people on a silver plate.

Election ads are a necessary evil, which I think is best when regulated by spending caps.

[vonGenf]

I think this attitude is probably worse in winner-takes-all systems like we have, as opposed to systems like the one in France (as far as I know it).

France has a winner-takes-all system with two rounds instead of one. Weren't you thinking of proportional systems?

[Chenier]

France has a winner-takes-all system with two rounds instead of one. Weren't you thinking of proportional systems?

Nah, I was thinking of multi-round systems, as you can try to vote for a marginal candidate without the net result being a seemingly pretty useless vote in the grand result, because you also have a word to say on other candidates. But then again, maybe not that much.

[vonGenf]

Nah, I was thinking of multi-round systems, as you can try to vote for a marginal candidate without the net result being a seemingly pretty useless vote in the grand result, because you also have a word to say on other candidates. But then again, maybe not that much.

I prefer preferential voting to multi-round systems. I have yet to see an argument against preferential voting that does not boil down to "Voters are to dumb to understand it. Not me, of course, I understand it fine. Others are dumb."

[Chenier]

I prefer preferential voting to multi-round systems. I have yet to see an argument against preferential voting that does not boil down to "Voters are to dumb to understand it. Not me, of course, I understand it fine. Others are dumb."

Is that when you set the order of preference when you vote, and if the winner doesn't get 51%, you scrap the lowest results to give the 2nd choice instead, and so on until someone has 51%?

Yea, that was proposed by the Liberal Party of Canada a few days back. Obviously, it was tailored to their interests, and they didn't even try to hide it, saying that they didn't like proportional because it would help the other parties. And obviously, the PLC never proposed that in the decades of their rule. Even when in the official opposition. Only when they got whacked down to crappy status did they propose it...

I *really* hate it when parties propose different voting systems with the clear and blatant goal of simply increasing their own power, regardless of the proposed system's merits.

[vonGenf]

Obviously, it was tailored to their interests, and they didn't even try to hide it, saying that they didn't like proportional because it would help the other parties.

I saw that too. I can think it's a good idea and still retain deep mistrust for their particular reasons for proposing it.

[Chenier]

I saw that too. I can think it's a good idea and still retain deep mistrust for their particular reasons for proposing it.

Indeed. That's like when Québec Solidaire, a leftist party that gets about 16% of the votes, said that they favored lowering the limit of cash you can give to political parties to 400$ (which is the limit of when you get most of your cash back as tax-deductible), because they don't get bigger donations than that. I like that party, but when one of the leaders said that, I double face palmed.

I mean, yea, I'm all for lowering the spending limit, and replacing our current one-round winner gets all system, but does it have to be so damn partisan?

[Vellos]

Visibility via advertising puts the candidate's name in people's minds. That way when people go to vote, assuming they're not the typical mindless drone that just goes down the ballot and checks all the democrat/republican boxes, they vote for names that sound familiar. Because they're more likely to pick a name they've heard of than one they haven't. That's how you buy votes.

I don't buy it.

First, because straight-line voting is so common.

Second, because, empirically, campaign funding (when both sides have any meaningful sum) has little to no correlation with victory in swing-states or areas with roughly equal party registration.

Third, voter turnout is very low in the US, especially among uneducated people. The average American is very politically uneducated. But the average American voter (not potential voter, but actual voter) is significantly better educated than the average American. Some, even many, may be greatly swayed by simple recognition, especially in low-level elections for county and state offices. But I think most, especially for national offices, make decisions based on bounded understandings of policy, largely gotten by word of mouth and ads. Racial allegiance, religious influence, family history... are all much bigger influences than campaign funding.

Fourth, campaign funding (or threats of funding the foe) DOES have an influence on post-election legislative choices by congressmen: which seems most easily limited, not by complex and easily circumventable campaign finance rules, but by longer, staggered terms and reducing incentives for rent-seeking.

[Chenier]

I don't buy it.

First, because straight-line voting is so common.

Second, because, empirically, campaign funding (when both sides have any meaningful sum) has little to no correlation with victory in swing-states or areas with roughly equal party registration.

Third, voter turnout is very low in the US, especially among uneducated people. The average American is very politically uneducated. But the average American voter (not potential voter, but actual voter) is significantly better educated than the average American. Some, even many, may be greatly swayed by simple recognition, especially in low-level elections for county and state offices. But I think most, especially for national offices, make decisions based on bounded understandings of policy, largely gotten by word of mouth and ads. Racial allegiance, religious influence, family history... are all much bigger influences than campaign funding.

Fourth, campaign funding (or threats of funding the foe) DOES have an influence on post-election legislative choices by congressmen: which seems most easily limited, not by complex and easily circumventable campaign finance rules, but by longer, staggered terms and reducing incentives for rent-seeking.

I'm too busy right now to go fetch the numbers, but if you can find them, I'd be more than happy to crunch some numbers and see what the correlation looks like. Obviously, though, a large sample is needed, taking just the last 2 or 3 won't count.

As for the average voter, sure, he's better educated than the average American. That doesn't make him very educated regardless. While I do observe greater radicalism among young and/or poorly educated voters, I have never (anectdotally) observed a significant difference among the educated people when it comes to political awareness. It's not because people have a master's that they care about politics, and even if they do, that doesn't mean they are ready to read the 60+ page programs the parties published at the last federal election.

You speak of things like "racial allegiance", but I'm sure other black people tried to run for leadership of their party before Obama did without anywhere near the support Obama got from their community. Religious influence... You mean, like those religious nuts that are *always* on TV? Whatever trait or agenda a politician has, it cannot influence people unless it is advertised, be it positively by the candidate himself or negatively by his opponents.

As for reducing incentives for rent-seeking, most of these measures I hear of are worse than the corruption their absence could generate.

[Vellos]

I've seen quite a few studies on money in elections. Most of them include non-competitive constituencies. Those that address ONLY competitive constituencies with competitive party registration numbers and two candidates that both receive reasonable amounts of money tend to fail to find any significant role of money in making a victor.

That doesn't mean campaign giving is useless: early fundraising can shut out primary challengers, or intimidate the other party into not competing in a meaningful fashion. And if you DON'T raise any money, then you don't fall into that category of "reasonable amounts of money." If the other guy raises $10 million and you raise $10,000, I don't see why you should expect to win: nobody apparently bothered to support your campaign. But if you raise, say, $1.8 million, and the other guy raises $4 million, it might make a big difference, but it also might not. Statistically, there's no clear indicator that such differences matter a great deal, in the one or two studies I've seen in my poli sci and econ classes. There may be others I haven't seen.

Racial allegiance actually wasn't a reference to Obama, but rather to some racial/ethnic groups tending to favor a specific party, such as African Americans with the Democratic Party (and possibly Hispanics). By religious influence, I meant election-day sermons and the like.

And making longer, staggered terms drastically reduces the returns on rent-seeking, because it means companies have constant election cycles to "buy," but politicians have comparatively much longer tenures and less need to worry about re-election. Possible methods that various peoples and governments have used to reduce rent seeking include geographic isolation (move the capital away from wherever all the lobbyists live), rigorous civil service examinations (which the US lacks), segmentation of interests (crush public sector unions, allow large firms to fail), constitutional limits or some other commitment mechanism (a credible claim to absolutely refuse to address a certain policy arena, meaning no firm has any incentive to lobby in regards to it), expansion of the powerful class (in the case of the US, this would men a larger congress), reinforcing the independence of institutions (changing the structure of political appointments, for example), and others.

Most of these options are not realistically on the table for most politicians. Which is sad, because those are the kinds of things that make real reform.

Ironically, the ECB is a fun example of how more completely independent institutions can curb rent-seeking. Is the ECB being lobbied? Yes, by many nations. But no Greek bank can really do much rent-seeking in a meaningful fashion, and the influence of any particular German bank is greatly limited. This inability to seek rents actually cripples many political systems that are built upon rent-seeking habits but, crucially, serves as a credible commitment mechanism. Supranational entities have a major democratic deficit, but sure are effective at being commitment mechanisms.