[EM] Why study only public election proposals?

[James Green-Armytage]

>There are many uses for election methods besides public election
>proposals.  

	Agreed.

>If you want to stay in your tiny little public proposal world, that's
>fine, but don't expect everybody else to limit themselves to your
>provincial point of view.

	Whom are you addressing here? This list has tended to focus mostly
(though not exclusively) on public methods. The question of public single
winner methods is in itself very difficult, and easily provides sufficient
fodder for a single internet discussion list, but I for one am happy to
consider methods for other purposes. You may recall my interest in
delegable proxy methods, iterative voting methods, etc. 
	In some smaller groups, greater sincerity can be expected, and thus it
may be possible to do better than majority rule (Smith efficiency). In
such cases, maximum social welfare methods and maximum consensus methods
become quite interesting. I would be happy to get into more discussion
about these. 
	For the sake of clarity, though, when discussing methods not intended for
public elections, it may be helpful to place frequent reminders in the
text about the intended use.

my best,
James