[EM] Rob: Condorcet's Criterion vs FBC. Will people favorite-bury?

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 11:34 PM 10/3/2005, Paul Kislanko wrote:
>If you think B "should" win, the point is made that Range voting won't pass.
>Anybody who loses 90-10 in plurality but wins in another system is just an
>argument against the other system.

This argument has been pretty well demolished by Mr. Smith, I think.

Standard plurality methods don't measure absolute preference, only 
relative preference, and that relative preference might be *extremely* small.

If I have a group of people, and I care about the unity of that 
group, and a large majority have a slight preference for one option, 
but a small but significant majority have a strong aversion to that 
option, and there is another option quite acceptable to all, I would 
greatly prefer to see the option that would be universally approved.

Who should decide how important the unity of the group is? Where 
should the dividing line be placed?

In a democracy, to me, the answer is obvious: the majority has the 
right to determine when to override a minority view, when the benefit 
outweighs the harm. The increased rigidification of public 
decision-making methods away from deliberation and toward mere 
aggregation actually makes it impossible for the *majority* to make 
the decision, for the decision is made by the method, it is *assumed* 
that a majority will want to override the minority. And this is what 
Mr. Kislanko seems to be advocating.

Institutionalized Tyranny of the Majority.

Something often overlooked in the EM community is the path from here 
to there. Should an advanced election method be imposed by an 
enlightened oligarchy? Or should it be democratically chosen by the people?

If the people have chosen a method which respects the views of 
minorities, such as to maximize Approval rather than preference, then 
it cannot be said that a majority failure has occurred, as Mr. 
Kislanko implies.

Approval methods, unlike common assertion, do not involve majority 
failure. They are plurality methods, and there is only an apparent 
majority failure if there is more than one "majority" winner. By 
choosing to Approve additional candidates beyond the true favorite, 
voters have *chosen* to be considerate of the views of the minority, 
they have chosen to maximize consent rather than preference.

I think consent is the fundamental issue in democracy, which is only 
poorly defined as government by the "will of the people," and is 
better defined as government by consent, and the more that it is true 
that a government enjoys the consent of the governed, to that extent 
the society is democratic.

(However, such a government might not have democratic *institutions*, 
and this would mean that its democracy, even if full at one time, is unstable.)