Local Township Elections

[Steve Eppley]

Missy <bimi at ccia.com> asked:
> I have a question that someone here may be able to help me
> with...Our twp supervisor/secretary (she wears both hats) is
> running for supervisor again this year.  The twp office is in
> her house (the front closed in porch). Some folks for the
> opposition are complaining that she is campaigning from the
> municipal building which is illegal.  She has done all her
> campaigning outside of the "office" but within her home.  She
> had a sign posted outside her home and they said that this was
> illegal because she was posting it in front of the "municipal
> building".  Any opinions?

Not me.  Also, I think the question might not be within the 
scope of this maillist.  This list has been about decision-
making methods--different kinds of ballot formats and how 
ballots should be tallied--not about the regulations which 
govern candidates' behavior. 

For instance, many subscribers of this list would suggest that 
in an election for a supervisor, each voter should be able to 
rank all the candidates in his/her order of preference, 
rather than being limited to selecting only one choice.  
The information in the voters' preference orders is sufficient 
to determine which candidate is the best compromise, the "true 
majority" choice, even when three or more candidates fragment 
the votes.  That's because with the preference orders it's 
possible to calculate which candidate would win any possible 
pairing of two candidates: if more voters ranked candidate X 
ahead of candidate Y than vice versa then X would beat Y 
"pairwise".  So if there's a candidate which would beat every 
other candidate "pairwise" then it's the best compromise.

I know that must sound arcane, but there are serious
consequences to using a flawed voting method: candidates
choosing not to compete because they could spoil the election
(which is the basis of the two-party system), voters forced to
pretend they most prefer a "lesser of evils", expensive primary
elections dominated by extremist voter factions, etc. 

---Steve     (Steve Eppley    seppley at alumni.caltech.edu)