Circular tie solutions should be obvious

DEMOREP1 at aol.com DEMOREP1 at aol.com
Sun Feb 20 20:48:14 PST 2000


Mr. Ossipoff wrote --

But people vote strategically. If you add a Y/N vote to a method,
voters will simply do their best to use that strategically too,
and so they won't use the Y/N vote to vote "Yes" on candidates
whom they absolutely want, and "No" on candidates whom they
absolutely don't want. They'll sometimes give a "Yes" to someone
whom they don't want, because he and someone they like less are
perceived to be the top rivals, for instance.

That's because, though some principled voters regard some candidates
as candidates whom they absolutely don't want & won't vote for
even strategically, a multicandidate election is fundamentally
not a question of "Yes" vs "No". It's a question of "Which?",
and most voters will strategize to get the best outcome they can,
just as they do now.

Additionally, adding Y/N to a method greatly complicates its
strategy.
---
D- I beat the dead political horse some more.

The current system in about 10 States has top 2 runoff partisan primaries (in 
order to get majority primary winners) (in addition to the numerous top 2X 
nonpartisan primaries in numerous cities (and other local governments (?)).

Many State constitutions require laws to be approved by a YES majority of ALL 
members of a legislative body (not just a plurality of a quorem).

Namely, having a one step election reform that produces circa 40-49 percent 
YES plurality winners has approximately zero chance of being adopted in the 
real world.  

The current regime in the U.S. in effect assumes only 2 parties with a D or R 
getting a majority of the votes in the general election (which is especially 
breaking down in some marginal legislative gerrymander districts with under 
50 percent general election winners).

Minority group folks do not have to vote YES for any of the perceived evils 
in the majority group (i.e. the majority group folks by definition will 
choose choices that get majority acceptability).

Perhaps complicating the system with a simple YES/NO vote will reduce the 
conspiratorial strategy/strategies floating around.

For newer EM folks, Mr. O. and D. have gone through this before about 6 times.



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