[EM] Looking for a little voting insight...

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 01:31 AM 5/3/2006, Matthew Welland wrote:

>I don't follow the logic perfectly but looking at the example it seems that
>intuitively "A" is the choice that would leave the least number of people
>unhappy and since no-one has contradicted you I will go with that.
>
>I think it would be interesting in a range of polls to have people rank the
>comparative results of plurality vs approval vs condorcet etc.. Maybe it has
>been done before. If anyone has pointers to such an experiment I'd be
>interested. If it hasn't been done perhaps I can build it into my site. Of
>course that begs the question - which voting system to use to measure the
>quality of the voting system!

The fact is that the very concept of a voting system, except for the 
simplest (which is not Plurality), is deeply flawed. These results 
show that. A is a *lousy* choice; the system requires that *some* 
choice be made, that a winner be declared, when obviously the 
electorate has not consented to A.

The simplest election method is a standard motion to elect a named 
officer, requiring a majority for approval. Properly, other methods 
should be polling methods that provide the electorate with information.

I claim that if leaders holding sovereignty in the name of the public 
are elected without the approval of a majority of the public, it is 
not really a democracy. It is a method which resembles democracy in 
some ways, but in this case it is functioning undemocratically. It is 
forcing a choice when the public is not prepared to make that choice.

The core of democracy is deliberation and choice, not elections. 
Elections are a very poor method of implementing democracy. But polls 
are great, and using pairwise contests in polls is an excellent 
method of discovering the presence of a candidate who would be 
elected in that single Yes/No vote.

The system, of course, must accomodate what happens if no winner has 
yet been found. Does the government shut down? Probably not. I prefer 
parliamentary systems, particularly if the parliament is fine-grained 
PR -- the finest grained PR being Delegable Proxy and Asset Voting 
should be almost as good -- because a parliament can much more easily 
agree on a caretaker officer. The *really* big problem with elections 
and fixed terms is the severe latency. You can have a candidate who 
wins on a technicality, against the wishes of a majority of the 
people, who then holds the office for four years and acts quite the 
same as if elected by a landslide, including going to war, etc., etc.

Beware of any politician who calls himself a "Uniter." Dictators are 
uniters, and, in modern times, they have learned to use all kinds of 
psychological tricks and devices to accomplish it. Hitler was great at it.

A true uniter facilitates broad agreement, not on his or her 
leadership, but among people, on the issues themselves. A true uniter 
is not the center of the unity formed, just a catalyst.