[EM] primary election thoughts

[Alex Small]

So, as I understand, the gist of the proposal is:
 
1)  If there is a Condorcet Winner
and
2)  That CW has more than 50% approval,
 
then skip the general election.  Otherwise, eliminate candidates with the weakest support and hold a general election using some suitable method.
 
That seems reasonable to me.  Some here would probably argue that there's no need for a primary election at all if we use Approval, Condorcet, or some other method suitable for more than 2 candidates.  However, I see some practical value to first thinning out the field and allowing a period of further debate before making a final decision.  The only exception should be when there's a clear consensus in favor of one candidate.  Requiring both majority approval and a Condorcet victory seems a reasonable measure of consensus.
 
I am not so sure that I like the idea of implementing the approval cutoff at the third rank.  It would make more sense to give voters maximum flexibility by letting them express their own approval cutoff.
 
Also, I'm not so sure about setting the cutoff for the general election at 1%.  That might let in just about every candidate in most primaries.  I'd be more inclined to say that the top N get in (where N is some number that we can debate).  If one of the candidates decides to drop out then the candidate with the next greatest number of votes can be offered a spot on the ballot.


Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 16:41:09 -0800
From: Ted Stern 
Subject: [EM] primary election thoughts
To: election-methods at electorama.com
Message-ID: 
Content-Type: text/plain

What do group members think of the following primary election proposal:

- Ballots allow a voter to rank 1st, 2nd or 3rd choice candidates.

- Unlike IRV, more than one candidate can be chosen for any rank.

- Any 1st/2nd/3rd choice vote is considered an "approval" vote.

- Use Condorcet to tally.

- If a Condorcet winner exists, with more than 50% of the voters
approving, then that candidate wins immediately and the seat doesn't have
to be decided in the general election.

- Otherwise, eliminate candidates with less than 1% approval.

- On the general election ballot for that seat, candidates will be listed
with the Condorcet winner (if any) at the top, with remaining candidates
listed below in order of approval.

This would be an alternative to either Louisiana-style top two runoff or
closed party primary.

I'm curious what advantages of full Condorcet might be lost by reducing the
options to only 3 ranks.

[The general election could also use a 3 choice ballot with some robust
Condorcet completion method such as Ranked Pairs (wv), optionally using
approval-weighted pairwise ranking.]

IMO, the main benefits of such a primary would be

1) The ballot would be relatively simple, no different from some IRV proposals
or the "Borda" of www.vote123.info (really just a Cardinal Rating scheme).

2) Non-controversial positions would be decided in the primary and the general
election ballot would be much less cluttered.

3) Popular cross-over or third-party compromise candidates could win races at
the "primary" level without being eliminated before the general election,
and even more clutter would be eliminated from the general election ballot.

4) The general election would be reduced to just controversial races. In
those, candidates would vie for highest approval rating on the general
election ballot.

In Washington State, the voters approved a Louisiana style top-two-primary
initiative last November. This law cannot be changed within the next 2 years
except by another initiative. There is an IRV initiative circulating in the
state. I'd like to see a better alternative.

		
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