[EM] Persistent Majority (a new single-winner method)

[Donald E Davison]

Mr Steve Eppley,

     Your Persistent Majority method does have one possible use. You could
use it to keep control of the members of the ER list.
     You would keep a tally of the negative and positive votes of every
member of the ER list. When their negatives become more than their
positives, you would have the joy of removing them from the list, until
their positives become greater, then you would let them back onto the list.
(Thank the Lord for small favors)

     "Essentially," every member of the ER list "would continually be in
danger of removal". (your quotes)
     This will show those uppity members that they cannot mess with you.

"Just No Respect",
 Donald
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>Here's a simple method of electing single-seat offices:
>
>Essentially, incumbents would continually be in danger of removal.
>There wouldn't be an "election day": voters would be allowed to vote
>whenever they want and change their votes whenever they want.
>Whenever a challenger maintains a majority (pairwise) lead over the
>incumbent for a significant period of time (about a month?) then the
>challenger is elected and the incumbent is ousted.  Anytime the
>incumbent retakes the lead over a challenger, the challenger's "lead
>clock" is reset to zero.
>
>People who haven't yet voted their preference for the incumbent would
>not have to bother voting until a challenger gets close to holding a
>majority lead for the required period of persistence.  Presumably the
>news media would alert potential voters about incumbents in imminent
>danger of being ousted.  It wouldn't take many responsible voters to
>then defeat a fringe challenger (someone whom only a few voters
>prefer more than the incumbent).
>
>There'd be no limit on the number of challengers, and no need to
>gather signatures to place a challenger on a ballot.  (The challenger
>would gather votes, not signatures.)  Perhaps for simplicity's sake
>the voters would only be allowed to express preferences regarding
>pairings which include the incumbent, and not on pairings of two
>challengers.
>
>I'm not saying that I advocate the above method.  I just think that
>it's simple and straightforward, and therefore worthy of being posted.
>If it has enough merit, some missing details would have to be added:
>how to fill an empty seat, and the question of whether there should
>be a maximum term of office.
>
>
>---Steve     (Steve Eppley    seppley at alumni.caltech.edu)