[EM] Is Condorcet The Turkey?

[Dgamble997 at aol.com]

Kevin Venzke Wrote

In other words, campaigns become about personality instead of policy. I
don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Whatever policies the elected
representatives enact, they still need to get reelected.

I have to disagree with this . Campaigns about personality as opposed to 
policy tend to descend into trivial, sensational and hypocritical debate about 
candidates private lives in general and sexual conduct in particular. Take for 
example the unedifying spectacle of the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Kevin also wrote

I think "compromise at any cost" is a good strategy for electing the members
of a legislature. Policies supported by a majority vote of compromises should
be pretty reasonable. But if you elect lop-sided candidates, chances are you
will get lop-sided results. That is what I want to avoid "at any cost," and
compromise at the election level appears to be the solution.    

You say lop-sided I say decisive and radical when decision and action are 
necessary.
Government and legislators are required in certain circumstances to make 
tough decisions and in crisis situations to make those decisions quickly out of 
necessity. Sometimes waiting for a compromise is simply not an option- things 
need doing now. The debate around certain issues ( for example abortion) is by 
the very nature of the issue polarised. You either believe in a woman's right 
to choose or in the right to life - a middle ground between the two is very 
hard to find. What was at one point on history regarded as radical and extremely 
controversial ( for example female suffrage) years later is accepted as 
self-evident truth. An excess of consensus and compromise ( compromise at any cost) 
can result in weak and indecisive government, political drift, an inability to 
deal with controversial problems and can 'put a brake' on social change.

Also mentioned was

> Irving also elects compromise candidates, however under irving a candidate 
> must get a reasonable proportion of first/higher preference support to 
reach 
> next stage of the election and win. A candidate cannot win by being
everybody's 
> last preference.

If IRV elects "compromise" candidates, then so does Plurality. They both
elect candidates from the big, entrenched parties. It's very hard for an
independent to win, even if a majority actually likes him best.

Regarding your last sentence, of course that can't happen in Condorcet,
either.

What I meant by last preference was the following A 1st, B 2nd, C 3rd, D and 
E not ranked at all. Last preference equals C.

You also might try considering Condorcet outside a purely American context.

Also stated

Now I will offer reasons why Condorcet is better than IRV.
1. You can generally vote sincerely. In IRV, you have to keep in mind
that you cannot support a candidate after he's been eliminated  

Consider the following example:

40 voters sincerely support candidate A and sincerely dislike candidates B 
and C. However they dislike C considerably more than B.

39 Voters sincerely support C and sincerely dislike candidates A and B. 
However they dislike A considerably more than B.

The 21 B supporters vote 11B>A>C,  10 B>C>A.

If A and C supporters vote sincerely the votes look like this:

40 A     11 B>A>C   10 B>C>A      39 C

Under Condorcet A wins.

If C's Supporters insincerely express a preference for B they can at least 
defeat the candidate they dislike most (A).

Motives and situations that encourage insincere voting can be found under 
virtually any electoral system Condorcet being no exception.



Dave Ketchum wrote

For the American system either IRV or Condorcet will be more tolerant of
third party votes than Plurality is, so we can expect more of them. 
    
Yes I agree. Skimming through the 2002 congressional results I noticed two 
significant organised groupings other than Democrat/Republican - Libertarian and 
Green. Since ( correct me if I'm wrong) the Libertarians are generally 
perceived as being to the right of the Republicans and the Greens to the left of the 
Democrats, Republicans are unlikely to preference Greens to defeat Democrats 
nor Democrats likely to preference Libertarians to defeat Republicans. 

Both Condorcet and IRV tend to assist centrist candidates and  work against 
those perceived as extreme. IRV electing centrist candidates who run ahead of 
either Democrats or Republicans and Condorcet electing additionally centrists 
who run behind both Democrats and Republicans.

Neither IRV or Condorcet will get Greens or Libertarians into congress they 
will just prevent a Gore/Bush/Nader situation (because a Green stood a 
Republican defeats a Democrat) and possibly elect a few  or maybe even a lot of 
centrist independents.

As regards your comment on the Kent 1997 situation. Yes a Liberal Democrat 
victory in the situation

C 42%
LD 20%
LA 38%

would probably please most voters most at the level of the individual 
constituency contest. However the fact that parties obtaining 77.7% of first 
preference vote only obtain 23.5% of the seats and that a party with 17% support 
obtains a large majority would most probably cause great dissatisfaction on an 
across Kent level. The dissatisfaction at the result at the across Kent level  
would probably outweigh considerably the satisfaction with the individual 
constituency results.

One question comes to mind what might the outcome of Bush, Clinton, Perot 
(1992) have been under Condorcet?

David Gamble



    


    
    

    


    

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