[EM] D2MAC

[Jobst Heitzig]

Dear Forest,

you wrote:
> At the other extreme, suppose the election is presidential, and one
> voter bullets for write-in X, and no other voter even approves X, and
> that the first ballot drawn is the bullet for X.  Then under D2MAC
> candidate X wins.

The reason I suggested D2MAC was foremost to show that democratic 
methods are possible in theory. 

In practice, one will have to make sure only such options that are in a 
certain sense "feasible" are on the ballot. Write-ins would not 
automatically pass as "feasible" unless the electorate is small and 
voters trust each other not to suggest "unconstitutional" options.  

Feasibility of all options on the ballot could be checked by an 
independent institution, say a high court or mediator. 

A different approach would be to combine a democratic method like D2MAC 
with some kind of "supermajority veto": all suggested options must be 
registered before the decision, will appear on the ballot, and each 
voter can mark an option as "unconstitutional"; options which are thus 
marked by more than, say, 90% of the voters are considered infeasible 
and are removed. This, of course, requires responsible voters who 
really mark unconstitutional options.

Yours, Jobst
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