Email discussing ranked‑choice voting theory and potential political impact

www.larrysummers.com On Sep 11, 2018, at 6:05 PM, Maskin, Eric (> wrote: Hi Larry, Thank you very much for taking the meeting this morning. I’m glad you found it worthwhile, and I agree with you that Adam Friedman’s commitment to the project is impressive. I AM serious about working on this---it’s a nice opportunity to make important practical use of some interesting theory. Voting rules may seem nerdy and dry, but they can make an enormous difference to actual politics The formal argument that RCV promotes centrism better than the current system (plurality rule) is straightforward. Suppose that most voters vote ideologically in the sense that the closer a candidate is to their own position on the left-right spectrum, the more like they are to vote for him. Then under majority rule (my favorite voting system)---in which voters rank candidates and the winner is the candidate who beats all other in pairwise comparisons----the winner will be the median voter’s favorite candidate ----- in other words, the most centrist candidate gets elected (this assumes that there are enough candidates running so that there is one who is reasonably close to the median voter). Now observe that RCV is in between majority rule and plurality rule, and so will promote centrism better than plurality rule. Best wishes, Eric From: Lis <a Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2018 4:16 PM To: Maskin, Eric Ce: lhsoffice Subject: This morning ' It was fun and interesting. I admire your friends determination. Are you serious about working on this? Has anyone done a full analysis of this and polarization. Seems like on one hand it might encourage Ralph Nader cuz he d get more first round votes and not elect George bush. This might be bad. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_026510