[EM] Primaries?

[Dave Ketchum]

On Tue, 30 Mar 2004 08:52:22 -0500 Adam Tarr wrote:

> 
>>> Dave Ketchum wrote:
>>>
>>>>  If a method is "good enough" to select a single winner in the 
>>>> general election, then it must be good enough, and most logical 
>>>> choice, for use in related primaries.
>>>
>>>
>>> It does not follow.  An general election is a method the government 
>>> uses to try to find a candidate who best represents the voters.  A 
>>> primary election is a method a party uses to pick its candidate for a 
>>> general election -- NOT simply to find the candidate who best 
>>> represents the party's voters.  These two goals can be the same, but 
>>> it does not logically follow.
>>
>>
>> Perhaps I live in an odd state, but New York's Board of Elections DOES 
>> our elections.
> 
> 
> I imagine this is common, but they are really doing the primary on 
> behalf of the party.  The party could decide to not have a primary, just 
> as the state could decide to not do the party the favor of administering it.
> 
About 100 years ago NY set up its system, in which primaries are done BY BOE 
on behalf of the PEOPLE.

As to "party":
     Libertarians and Greens are national parties - this cuts NO ICE as to NY law.
     Groups willing and able to conform to NY law get the party privileges that 
make obeying desirable.
     Independent petitions, to be candidates in general election, require 
signatures by 5% of voters, with numeric limits such as 15,000 for governor.
     Party petitions, signed by members and subject to primary if too many 
candidates, have requirements based on party strength.
     Party state and county committees are elected at primaries.
     Libertarians are able to get above 15,000 signatures, but unable to get the 
50,000 votes (about one percent) for governor to be recognized as a party.
     Greens became a party in 98, failed to get the 50,000 votes to continue in 02.  
They did a new thing - got a judge to direct BOE to continue to maintain party 
membership lists.

>> Anyway, big deal is that it is good for the voters to understand the 
>> method used, and that is more practical if both elections use the same 
>> method.
> 
> 
> Probably true, but as I said before I wouldn't mind multiple winners, 
> and the goals of the elections are not exactly the same.
> 
One of my reasons for starting this series was that having ranked ballots in 
general elections removes one big reason for needing single winner primaries.

Sorting out goals seems too big to solve here.

>>>> I would make one exception.  If the general election is stuck with 
>>>> an outdated method, and a party is willing and able to move ahead - 
>>>> let it. This could encourage updating the general election method.
>>>
>>>
>>> As I implied above, I don't think that the government has a right to 
>>> tell parties how to run their primaries.  They could provide very 
>>> strong incentives (free air time, use of public polling equipment, et 
>>> cetera) but fundamentally these are private organizations.  If a 
>>> party wants to decide its candidate by plurality or IRV or salic 
>>> primogeniture (first born son of the previous nominee) then they 
>>> should be free to do so.
>>
>>
>> I do not see where I gave you an excuse for this paragraph.
> 
> 
> Well, when you said, "[If] a party is willing and able to move ahead - 
> let it", that implied to me that you thought the government had the 
> right to not let them.

See my words above.
> 
>>>>      Puzzle:  Assuming the above leads to Condorcet in the primary, 
>>>> to select two candidates for the general election - WHY NOT?  the 
>>>> arguments are not necessarily the same as related to electing two 
>>>> officers for PR.
>>>
>>>
>>> Not necessarily, sure, but I don't think that Condorcet is clearly 
>>> the best method to elect two candidates.  It seems likely that it 
>>> would end up picking two candidates from the center of a party, and 
>>> nobody from a wing (think Kerry and Edwards, in stead of Kerry and 
>>> Dean).  But there have been some stabs taken at Condorcet-flavored 
>>> proportional representation.  The best attempt is probably this one:
>>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/election-methods-list/message/10308
>>> It's pretty complicated, but worth the read.  Try to sell that to the 
>>> public, though...
>>
>>
>> As I said above, we are not doing PR, so almost certainly would not 
>> find such complication worth the pain.
> 
> 
> Probably not, but this does not imply that pure iterative single-winner 
> is the best approach, either.  A good compromise (in my opinion) would 
> be the sequential variant of the method described in the link.  So, 
> first you find the CW, then you find the best two-candidate slate with 
> the CW in it, then you find the best three-candidate slate with those 
> two candidates in it, and so on until you've generated as much of the 
> order as you need.
>
You seem determined to add unneeded complications.

-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
            Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
                  If you want peace, work for justice.