[EM] Order of succession in voting methods

[James Green-Armytage]

Hi, this is James, replying to Michael Rouse's comments on systems of
succession for fixed-term public offices

My opinion is that the current office-holder should always be in charge of
choosing their successor(s), assuming of course that the term of office is
fixed. (Obviously it wouldn't make sense for retiring supreme court
justices to choose their successors, and so on.) That way, theoretically,
the successor is an 'extension' of the previous office-holder, and does
more or less what they would have done, and thus the remainder of the term
is carried out more or less in line with the voters' original intent.

As you mentioned, it doesn't make sense for the successor to be
ideologically very different from the original office holder. This gives a
fairly strong incentive for assassination, which we don't want. I think it
used to be that the vice president of the US was the person who finished
second in the election, but they got rid of that system, and I'm glad that
they did. For example, if they kept it like that, Nixon would have become
the president as soon as JFK was shot. 

So, I'm not interested in writing any new algorithms for succession. I
think that every holder of a fixed-term public office should be required
to name their potential successor, or better yet an ordered list of
potential successors. In some cases it might make sense for the list to be
sealed from public view unless the person actually died in office (again,
this is to avoid giving anyone an incentive to assassinate the person); in
other cases (perhaps most cases) it makes sense for the candidates to
formally announce their successors before they get elected, as with vice
presidents today.

my best,
James Green-Armytage
fc.antioch.edu/~james_green-armytage/voting.htm