[EM] Majority Criterion poor standard for elections

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 01:28 AM 10/24/2006, Juho wrote:
>One could develop voting methods where knowledgeable voters have more
>weight than uninformed voters.

This is actually done, by layering the system. I don't vote directly 
on legislation, for example, except rarely when there is an 
initiative on which the general public votes.

But we are talking about elections. Ultimately, I favor, as many 
readers know, delegable proxy and methods which work like delegable 
proxy, like Asset Voting. This should, in fact, have the effect of 
giving more weight to "knowledgeable voters," but there is a crucial 
aspect: this is done by free choice of the voters. They *choose* to 
delegate their vote to a specific person. Nobody forces them, nobody 
says to them, "your vote doesn't count as much as anyone else's." 
And, in fact, their vote *does* count as much as anyone else's, in a 
delegable proxy system. Generally, I would allow direct voting on 
issues. But most people, I believe, would greatly prefer to delegate 
votes to those who have the time to study the issues, and whose 
judgement is trusted. I know I would.

*As long as my choice is not coerced in any way.*

However, again, we are talking about election methods, per se. And 
methods which ignore strength of preference cannot maximize social 
utility. The data simply is not there. And if strength of preference 
is considered, there goes the Majority Criterion....