[Election-Methods] Elect the Compromise

[Forest W Simmons]

>Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 23:59:26 -0700
>From: "rob brown" <rob at karmatics.com>
>Subject: Re: [Election-Methods] Elect the Compromise
>To: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
>Message-ID:
>	<feac5e6f0708252359n1735cbdco98fe4a0a891342e1 at mail.gmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>On 8/25/07, Jobst Heitzig <heitzig-j at web.de> wrote:
>>
>>
>> > So there are two main devices for solving the challenge: vote trading
>> > and randomness.
>>
>> There is a third one! One of the oldest voting methods that have been
>> studied can also solve it at least in part. I wonder who will first 
see what
>> I mean :-)
>>
>
>I tend to be in agreement with Forest that vote trading and randomness 
are
>the only solutions.   I have no clue what you are thinking of, but I 
suspect
>when I hear it I'm going to think its in the range of what I'd consider
>"cheating". :)

Jobst is right.  There is a method.  I don't want to spoil the fun, so 
I won't tell yet.

>
>Randomness is a weird one....it is great that it can get people to vote
>honestly, but then it can just pick the "wrong" one.

But more often than other methods?

>
>Vote trading generally means the ballots can't be secret, so elections 
would
>be inherently corruptible by anyone with money.  Not good.

The proxy principle helps here. If vote trading is at the proxy stage, 
then it is good to have the proxy votes made public.  The proxies are 
representatives that must be accountable to the public they serve.

Forest