PR + Condorcet (was Re: Hitler and Plurality)

[Steve Eppley]

Demorep wrote:
>Mr. Ossipoff and I have had a few comments about Hitler.   Folks
>might want to take a look at the following web page and note (a)
>that in the last free election under Hitler the Nazis got a
>plurality only and (b) the *fatal* art. 48 of the Weimar
>Constitution--
>http://www.weyrich.com/political_issues/reichstag_fire.html

The plurality problem exists in the parliamentary form of gov't,
where the Executive is chosen by the Legislature, even when the
Legislature is elected by PR: typically, the largest (i.e.,
plurality) party in the Legislature is given first crack at 
putting together a majority coalition.

It's different if the Executive isn't a prize given to the plurality
party.  (Try tallying the Germany voters' preferences--using
reasonable approximations of the voters' preference orders--with
Condorcet.)  This suggests that one possible improvement is to
popularly elect the Executive using Condorcet.  

Another possibility, a variant of the parliamentary form, is for
voters to rank the parties, and the party which would win by
Condorcet picks the Executive.  Allowing the voters to rank
the parties has additional advantages:  It won't waste votes when
there's a barrier threshold (like the common 5%) which keeps small 
parties out of the legislature.  And it provides a lot of feedback 
from the voters about how much support or opposition the parties 
*really* have.  All three of these effects would reduce the 
potential threat posed by large factions.

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