Stopping Plurality

[Mike Ossipoff]

DEMOREP1 at aol.com writes:

[But first Mike writes: I'm replying to Demorep's statements
farther down in this letter]

> 
> Just a friendly reminder- the election enemy for executive and judicial
> offices is ultra-dangerous plurality nominations and plurality elections (and
> not any election method that gets rid of the chief defect of plurality-
> namely, the nomination or election of candidates by minorities).   Note the
> plurality election of Mr. Lincoln in 1860 lead directly to Civil War (with

> some 620,000 dead) and note the continuing paralysis/gridlock with the 2
> plurality elections of Mr. Clinton.
> 
> I note again that the D's/R's try to maintain the facade of majority rule by
> having top 2 runoff primaries in the 10 old D one party (but now 2 party)
> southern States and by having unequal ballot access laws such that most
> states effectively have only D and R candidates (or 2 "nonpartisans") for
> most offices in the general election so that the general election winner
> generally gets a majority of the votes in the electoral area involved.  
> 
> I note that Louisiana has an open primary for all candidates- if the primary
> winner gets a majority of the primary votes, then he/she is elected.  If not,
> then the top 2 in the primary (even if both D or both R) go to the general
> election.
> 
> All election methods have strategy problems (a) with getting a majority of
> all voters winner (e.g. 51 of 100 voters) (such as in plain Condorcet- due to
> truncations, order reversal possibilities) and/or (b) in head to head

Here you go again, with the same remark, blissfully ignorant of
the fact that the remark has been answswered, in my previous reply
to you: The difficulty in getting a candidate who has a 1st choice
majority isn't the result of using Condorcet's method. It's
unrelated to what method is used; the fact is that there usually
isn't a 1st choice majority candidate. But wait, it isn't
entirely unrelated to the method after all: Methods that force
people to insincerely vote a 2nd choice lesser-evil in 1st
place can take votes away from a genuine 1st choice majority
candidate. Condorcet(EM) is the method that avoids that
lesser-of-2-evils problem. All the many, many methods proposed
by you & Don don't get rid of that problem, & therefore have
the problem that you speak of. 

You say "All methods have strategy problems". The strategy problem
is when voters are forced to use defensive strategy, or, worse
yet, are forced to use drastic defensive strategy. But there's
a method with which no defensive strategy is ever needed unless
the devious & improbable offensive strategy is attempted, and
with which it's never necessary to use drastic defensive strategy.
That method, of course, is Condorcet's method.

Defensive strategy can be defined as the need for a majority
to do other than sincerely rank all of the candidates, in order
to enforce a pairwise preference that they share; or the need
for such less-than-sincere voting in order to elect a Condorcet
winner (candidate who'd beat each one of the others in separate
2-candidate elections). Drastic defensive strategy is defensive
strategy that ranks a less-liked alternative equal to or over
a more-liked one.

If you don't like strategy problems then you must like
Condorcet(EM).

> comparisons (such as in approval voting and instant runoff). 
> 
> However, I note that approval voting, Condorcet and instant runoff each have
> a special feature- 
> Approval voting- picking a majority winner,

For Approval this can be said: If a full majority vote A over B,
then that automatically defeats B, without anyone having to vote
a less-liked alternative over a more-liked one.

As for picking a majority winner, no method can do that unless one
exists (if you mean a 1st-choice majority winner). And most methods
can, with varying degrees of liklihood, fail to elect a majority
winner. for instance, that can happen with Approval if that
candidate's supporters mistakenly believe that they need to also
vote for a middle compromise. However in doing so, they at least
don't give the election away to the extent that they would
if they protected that middle candidate in MPV (which you may
referring to as "Instant Runoff"), as they'll often be forced
to do in that method.

> Condorcet- picking a head to head winner that beats each other candidate
> (assuming no circular ties),

But Condorcet(EM) has many more advantages & desirable properties
than that. I've been discussing them here for a long time.

> Instant runoff- dropping one candidate at a time and ending up with a
> majority winner.

Nonsense. What "Instant Runoff" ends up with isn't a genuine
majority winner. Maybe it's what would be majority winner if
the candidate set had been smaller, if the candidates it's
eliminated had never been candidates, but that's a "majority
winner" only in the delusions of MPV advocates.

If I take away all but 2 of the candidates, and (amazing!) we
find that one of the 2 that I've allowed you to consider is
preferred to the other by a majority, do you then call that
a "majority winner"?

> 
> Thus, I now suggest that a combination of AV, C and IRO is a distinct
> possibility.  This is an ongoing reform process so no one should be obsessed
> with *the one and only* method. 

But no one should be obsessed with continually, inanely, sloppily
& carelessly proposing innumerable new methods without saying
what's supposed to be good about them. Or continually repeating
silly statements that have been refuted, unless the refutations
can be answered.

Yes, it's surely a "distinct possibility" that you'll post
a combination of those methods. With you anything like that
is a distinct possibility.

"One & only method"? If you have a method that you believe is
better than Condorcet(EM) & Smith//Condorcet(EM), then trot
it out. There is one & only 1 method that EM has voted to
recommend as #1, because it seems to be best, by the standards
that we value. But if you believe you have a better one, say
so, & show why you believe it to be better (you post lots
of methods, but you never say why they're supposed to be good).

> 
> Purists will of course say that strategy problems are tripled and that the
> combination of AV, C and IRO (ACI) is too complex.

With all the methods that you propose, the strategy problems remain.

> 
> My response in advance is - GET REAL.  The people will NOT pick any method
> that on paper permits minority of all voters winners for U.S. President,
> Governors, Mayors, Sheriffs, Judges, etc.   Ranking executive and judicial
> candidates will be a giant improvement (made much easier if p.r. is also
> used- see below).   Dropping the lowest candidate with the fewest votes in
> case of circular ties is common sense.  

Well how's that for a compelling argument: You consider it to
be common sense. Some of us are more interested in majority
rule & avoiding the lesser-of-2-evils problem than doing eliminations
because its advocates call it common sense.

> 
> Thus, I thank the authors of AV, C and IRO for their individual efforts with

The name "AV" stands for "Alternative Vote", a name for MPV
(which you're calling Instant Runoff).

> their combined synergy [working together for folks without dictionaries].
> 
> Multi-member legislative offices are included in any reasonable proportional
> representation method (noting that with a proxy p.r. method Condorcet and

How would you do proportional representation without a multi-member
body?  :-)

> Instant runoff can be used-- each of the final N (2 or more) winners per
> district or at large having a voting power equal to the number of votes
> received).
> 
> .-
> 


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