[EM] Student government - what voting system to recommend?

[Howard Swerdfeger]

Chris Benham wrote:
> 
> 
> Howard Swerdfeger wrote:
> 
>> Tim Hull wrote:
>>  
>>
>>>  Condorcet, on the other hand, does not suffer
>>> from the center squeeze.  However, it suffers from the opposite 
>>> problem -
>>> the so-called "Pro Wrestler" or "Loony" syndrome in an election with a
>>> couple polarized candidates and a weak centrist or joke candidate.  
>>> In my
>>> student government elections, I picture this being a candidate walking
>>> around campus in a clown suit and winning based on becoming 
>>> everybody's #2.
>>> Also, Condorcet's later-no-harm failure may mean people give a less 
>>> sincere
>>> ranking than in IRV, though this failure is far less so than in range.
>>>   
>>
>> This is a potential problem with all pure Condorcet methods.
>> It might be able to be overcome with some restrictions
>> Candidate must have >5% first preference votes or be one of the top 5 
>> candidates in number of first preference votes.
>> Or some other restriction might help.
>>  
>>
> 
> I can see why this is a marketing/propaganda problem, but not why it is 
> a *real* problem.
> One reason why not is that Condorcet gives serious candidates incentive 
> to contest the centre so if the
> election is serious then at least one serious centrist will run and one 
> will win. If the election isn't serious then
> why is "polarised candidate" necessarily a better winner than a weak 
> centrist or even a "joke candidate"?

I have no argument for why additional popular Centralist candidates 
would not run. Indeed  would suspect this is probable in many real world 
situations.


Allow me for a moment to escape in to a magic world of Ideal situations:

The fundamental problem is that any strict ranking method takes the nD 
Issue space on which we imagine voters base decisions and translates 
them into a 1D preference, In this there is loss of information.

Imagine 2D political spectrum.
Imagine a divided society, where almost every voter exists at one of 2 
points (1,1) and (-1, 1)
now imagine 3 candidates one at (1,1) A,  one at (-1, 1) B and one at 
(0,0) C.

voters Near candidate A would vote
A>C>B
and voters near candidate B would vote
B>C>A

it is likely given a some some random alignment of other small portion 
of the population that C could win.

Is this Good for society?
Arguments against would be :
  * The vast majority of the population on the second axis is at or near 
1. Yet we just elected the candidate that is furthest from this position.
  * very few people in the population actually support Position 0 on the 
X axis, yet that is the candidate elected.

Arguments For it would be...
  Well there are quite a few, and I am sure you can come up with them on 
your own.


>> While I agree party lists are "rotten".
>>
>> there are lots of other multi winner PR systems, that don't require a 
>> party list
>> MMP where the "top-up" comes from the best of the losers.
>>
> 
> How exactly does this version of  MMP work?

See Tims reply.
That is essentially what it.
But there would be variations on what you could do with that also.



> 
> 
> Chris Benham
> 
> 
> 
> 
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