[EM] primary elections

[Alex Small]

Bart-
 
Good points.  Advancing the top N would be a bad idea if the top N were determined by Approval totals.  OTOH, if the top N were determined by first-choice vote totals then parties (especially small parties or compromise parties) that split their vote would be excluded from the final round.  And if we went by the original proposal in this thread and advanced anybody with over 1% approval then, leaving aside strategic objections for a moment, the field would probably be pretty crowded so the primary wouldn't really serve its purpose of narrowing the field.
 
So separate partisan primaries seem the way to go for partisan races.
 
But for local races there is a real dilemma when local races are non-partisan.  One could argue for simply using a good single-winner method that can handle more than 2 candidates and be done with it, and not have a primary.  However, many people see value in winnowing down the field to allow for more focused debate before making a final choice.
 
If this is to be done, how do we justify to voters the notion of using anything other than top 2 runoff?  It would be hard to justify bringing 3 or more cnadidates into the final round.  Sure, we could all think of good reasons that satisfy us, but will they satisfy the average voter?
 
Here's a thought:  If there's a CW and he also has majority approval then he wins without a second round.  That's in some ways a less stringent criterion than the criterion in top 2 runoff (majority of 1st place votes) but still fairly stringent (he has to pass 2 tests, not 1).
 
If no candidate passes both criteria then only advance 2 to the final round.  One of them should be the CW if he exists.  But I'm not sure whom the other should be.
 
Perhaps the remaining candidate with the greatest approval, but that runs the risk of a faction approving some doofus to make sure their candidate has an easy opponent in the final round.  Be careful, though:  A great number of doofuses have been elected to a variety of offices.  (I shall refrain from identifying them, although a certain Senator from Massachusettes and a certain former Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court would surely make the list.)
 
Another possibility would be to look at the remaining candidates and, if there's a CW amongst them, send him to the second round.  It would be easy to say that there's no need for a second round if there's a CW, but the whole point is that the process should include more deliberation.  If the CW of the first round remains the people's choice then he'll coast to victory.  If, on the other hand, they have second thoughts about him, well, good thing we had that second round.
 
But I'm not sure what to do if there's no CW, or if there's a CW but a cycle among the remaining candidates.  I guess you could always use your favorite Condorcet cycle resolution method, but that's a whole other can of worms.
 
Anyway, I don't claim to have any answers on this, just some things to think about.
 
 

Alex
 


Bart Ingles wrote:
Open or blanket primaries make it easier to engage in pushover strategy, 
where one party tries to make sure the opposing party nominates a weak 
candidate who can be easily defeated in the general election. That's 
the main reason most parties (e.g. Democrat, Republican, Libertarian) 
oppose open primaries. A blanket primary was just defeated in 
California (November 2004).

Also, using an approval-like method in the first round of a two-round 
election makes possible risk-free collusion strategies, where two 
parties gang up to exclude a third (perhaps Condorcet candidate) so that 
they can face each other in the final round.

Would this proposal allow both strategies to be pursued simultaneously?

My preference at present is for a plain approval primary, which is 
either a closed primary or a California-style "modified open primary" in 
which voters can choose any party on election day but can only 
participate in that party's primary.
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