[EM] About random election methods

Jobst Heitzig heitzig-j at web.de
Tue Mar 15 05:30:17 PST 2005


Dear Russ!

You wrote:
> I think voters will reject any method that isn't deterministic. Barring 
> actual numerical ties, why should the selection of the winner depend in 
> any way on some random event? 

Well, in my opinion election methods should be democratic, and that is not 
the same as "majority rule". Recall that "democracy" is greek for "the people rule" 
and not for "the majority may rule as they like and opress the minority".

In my opinion, democracy is also about equal chances, and one could argue that 
this implies that in an obviously polarized situation in which no CW exists,
the most acceptable candidates should all have some chance of winning. 
When the election is held repeatedly in certain time-intervals, as is most often the case,
then this will lead to a much better representation of the people's will in the long time!

> Yes, randomness may help thwart strategy, 
> but so what? Of course strategy is useless if we toss dice to determine 
> the winner.

Introducing a small amount of randomness in case there is no good compromise 
candidate (CW) is not determining the winner by throwing dice, Russ.

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