Relevance of Consistency

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

I'd said:


>If there's some way in which the outcome in the districts
>can be called the people's choice, representative of what they want,
>then how can we say that about the systemwide result?

Blake replied:

If I say that Bill Smith chooses candidate X, we all know what that
means. But what do I mean when I say Northern California chooses X? Do
I mean that Northern California has wills and desires in the same sense
that Bill Smith does? Of course not. I can ascribe decisions to
Northern California only metaphorically. Probably what I mean is that
Northern Californians generally prefer X, or that their constitution
designates X as the winner, or something like that.

I think you're taking the choice of a district quite literally, as if
there were some kind of entity called the district with a capacity to
choose in the same way that Bill Smith has a capacity to choose. This
allows you to take a district and mentally replace it with a single
voter, the group. So, when two groups say A, but their combination says
B, its kind of like B winning despite the unanimous choice of A. But
its just a trick of the language.

I reply:

Yes, that's why I said "If there's some way in which...", in the
passage that you quoted. I'm not saying that it really has a definite
meaning to speak of the best choice for a particular set of people.

But if there's a winner that's really right for the people of
Southern California, and that winner is also really right for the
people of Northern California, then of course, since that winner
is right for all those people in some way (even though he isn't
liked by all of them), then he's right for California.

But I'm not saying that there's such a candidate, and that's why
I said "If...". And I said that I don't have proof that Approval's
winner in a particular electorate is, by some precise meaning, the
right choice for those people, because of course I don't know it
would mean to say that.

I only meant that Approval's results are consistent with
someone saying that it has chosen such a right
candidate in Northern California, Southern California, and in California. 
Obviously, for the reasons that you gave above,
and also because other considerations are of more concern to voters,
Consistency failure isn't such a strong bad-mark against a method.

Mike Ossipoff







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