[EM] Primaries?

[Bart Ingles]

I think the issue with multi-winner primaries is not whether they are
proportional, or even whether the elect clones, but whether they advance
at least one winnable candidate to the general election.  But I suppose
a proportional system would be more likely to do so due to the "shotgun
effect" of advancing dissimilar candidates-- resulting in at least one
electable candidate, along with a few destined to crash and burn.

Bart


Adam Tarr wrote:
> 
> This shouldn't bother us in a single-winner situation, but in the case of a
> multi-winner election it begs the question of why we are even bothering
> with electing more than one nominee, if all we are doing is getting the
> three most similar candidates.
> 
> Moreover, this could constitute really poor strategy.  If the general
> electorate has different preferences than the primary electorate (obviously
> very likely) then producing a slate of candidates with diverse stances is
> more likely to produce a good result for the party, in general.
> 
> Again, none of this argues that perfect PR is needed in a primary.  But
> completely ignoring PR issues is a mistake, too.