[EM] Student government - what voting system to recommend?

[Tim Hull]

Yes, Condorcet would probably work in - say - a U.S. presidential election.
Enough legitimate
non-"Pro Wrestler" types would run to keep those candidates from winning.
Anyway,
pro wrestlers do win fluke elections even in plurality - witness Jesse
Ventura in Minnesota a few years back.
There is still the "later-no-harm" issue, though, and I think that many
voters would bullet vote - especially the major party supporters (which are
the ones who may in fact benefit immensely from bullet voting).

However, in a situation like my student government, there would be less
interest in running -  and the possibility of a "Monster Raving Loony" type
candidate winning would be far higher...

On MMP - I wonder if anyone has looked into the semi-proportional
nonpartisan MMP I mentioned earlier...  It would do a best-loser top-up by %
of vote without taking into consideration parties.  It almost seems like it
would be pretty close to PR, except for parties who can't even manage a
reasonable number of 2nd or 3rd place showings in a constituency and for
major parties who win a strong majority government.  It does seem like it
would help the Liberal Democrat (UK)/NDP (Canada) type parties, and even
smaller parties would gain a seat hear and there...

On 4/25/07, Howard Swerdfeger <electorama.com at howard.swerdfeger.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Chris Benham wrote:
> >
> >
> > Howard Swerdfeger wrote:
> >
> >> Tim Hull wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>  Condorcet, on the other hand, does not suffer
> >>> from the center squeeze.  However, it suffers from the opposite
> >>> problem -
> >>> the so-called "Pro Wrestler" or "Loony" syndrome in an election with a
> >>> couple polarized candidates and a weak centrist or joke candidate.
> >>> In my
> >>> student government elections, I picture this being a candidate walking
> >>> around campus in a clown suit and winning based on becoming
> >>> everybody's #2.
> >>> Also, Condorcet's later-no-harm failure may mean people give a less
> >>> sincere
> >>> ranking than in IRV, though this failure is far less so than in range.
> >>>
> >>
> >> This is a potential problem with all pure Condorcet methods.
> >> It might be able to be overcome with some restrictions
> >> Candidate must have >5% first preference votes or be one of the top 5
> >> candidates in number of first preference votes.
> >> Or some other restriction might help.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > I can see why this is a marketing/propaganda problem, but not why it is
> > a *real* problem.
> > One reason why not is that Condorcet gives serious candidates incentive
> > to contest the centre so if the
> > election is serious then at least one serious centrist will run and one
> > will win. If the election isn't serious then
> > why is "polarised candidate" necessarily a better winner than a weak
> > centrist or even a "joke candidate"?
>
> I have no argument for why additional popular Centralist candidates
> would not run. Indeed  would suspect this is probable in many real world
> situations.
>
>
> Allow me for a moment to escape in to a magic world of Ideal situations:
>
> The fundamental problem is that any strict ranking method takes the nD
> Issue space on which we imagine voters base decisions and translates
> them into a 1D preference, In this there is loss of information.
>
> Imagine 2D political spectrum.
> Imagine a divided society, where almost every voter exists at one of 2
> points (1,1) and (-1, 1)
> now imagine 3 candidates one at (1,1) A,  one at (-1, 1) B and one at
> (0,0) C.
>
> voters Near candidate A would vote
> A>C>B
> and voters near candidate B would vote
> B>C>A
>
> it is likely given a some some random alignment of other small portion
> of the population that C could win.
>
> Is this Good for society?
> Arguments against would be :
>   * The vast majority of the population on the second axis is at or near
> 1. Yet we just elected the candidate that is furthest from this position.
>   * very few people in the population actually support Position 0 on the
> X axis, yet that is the candidate elected.
>
> Arguments For it would be...
>   Well there are quite a few, and I am sure you can come up with them on
> your own.
>
>
> >> While I agree party lists are "rotten".
> >>
> >> there are lots of other multi winner PR systems, that don't require a
> >> party list
> >> MMP where the "top-up" comes from the best of the losers.
> >>
> >
> > How exactly does this version of  MMP work?
>
> See Tims reply.
> That is essentially what it.
> But there would be variations on what you could do with that also.
>
>
>
> >
> >
> > Chris Benham
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
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