[Election-Methods] Partisan Politics + a method proposal

[Dave Ketchum]

I see governor as the initial office to attend to.  Simpler single person 
offices can be simplified from that base.

Presidential race is even more important, but its extra complications 
deserve a separate discussion after this one.

I see Condorcet and RV as the base election methods.  I will argue against 
IRV for its problems, and against methods that are more difficult to do 
for multiple precincts.

On Mon, 26 May 2008 22:14:43 +0300 Juho wrote:
 > On May 26, 2008, at 17:41 , Fred Gohlke wrote:
 >
 >> Because our physical needs often dictate the course of our lives,
 >> most of those who would make the best leaders are unaware of their
 >> political talents and are never able to exercise them.
 >
 >
 > Or may think that it is not possible or tempting for them to first
 > fight their way through the unpleasant jungle to then deliver  something
 > better than that fight through the jungle. Or they may  think that the
 > system is too rotten or too strong opponent for them  to even provide
 > good end results after the fight. Or they may think  that those who seem
 > to be more motivated also have better ideas than  they do.
 >
 >> They are out there.  Can we find them?  My interest is in doing so.
 >
 >
 > I don't think we can "find" them but we can increase the probability
 > that they will find their way to the top.
 >
 >> In the course of outlining this suggestion, you mention several
 >> aspects.  I will summarize my understanding of them ...
 >>
 >>
 >> * Nominations are open to the entire electorate.
 >>
Agreed, but any one nominator cannot sign for more than one nominee - and 
must be in the electorate.  Lists of nominators accessible to all, but not 
especially publishable.

A goal here is to, usually, get a reasonable quantity of candidates:
      Perhaps aiming for at least five whenever at least that many wish to 
be candidates - anything working to limit to two major backers (parties) 
is unacceptable.  Twenty should be acceptable, but too many to have as a goal.
      Number of nominators required to nominate a candidate seems like 
primary control toward this goal

Nominee must accept nomination.

Nominee expected to provide a resume, inside size limits, but permissibly 
linking to whatever else nominee feels needs saying.

Election system publishes these resumes accessible to all.
 >>
 >> * Anyone can nominate anyone else, including oneself, for office,
 >> provided the nominated person accepts the nomination.  If
 >> restrictions on the nominations are established, they might include:
 >>
 >> - an educational minimum
 >>
 >> - if expertise is required in the area for which the person is
 >> nominated, a degree symbolizing competence in that area.
 >>
 >> - if trust is required in the area for which the person is  nominated,
 >> support of at least 100 persons in addition to the  nominator,
 >> expressed by email or in some other form.
 >>
By choosing to nominate, the nominators, whatever quantity required, have 
asserted this.
 >>
 >> * Nominations (the name of the nominator and nominated) are  recorded
 >> by an election coordinator.
 >
 >
 > Listing the nominators may not be always needed. In some cases there
 > could be 100 nominators.
 >
 >> * The election coordinator publicizes the list of candidates.
 >>
Plus resumes per above.
 >>
 >> * The public votes for the candidate of their choice ...
 >
 >
 > I guess "public" doesn't necessarily mean that the ballot would not  be
 > a secret/anonymous ballot.
 >
 >> - by voting for a single person, or
 >>
 >> - by making a list of the candidates the voter approves, in which
 >> case the candidates are listed in order of preference.  If the  first
 >> candidate on the list does not get sufficient first place  votes for
 >> election, that candidate is dropped from the list and the  second
 >> candidate moves into the first position on that ballot.  In  this
 >> case, since anyone may nominate anyone else, voters may write  the
 >> name of their candidate on the ballot.

REJECT - this has at least the smell of IRV.  Condorcet uses the same 
ballot but shows more interest in honoring voter desires.

Write-ins belong.  Think on a simplification for counting:  Treat 
write-ins as if a candidate:
      Usually this will verify that there are not enough to affect results.
      When there are too many write-ins, redo the count with each such 
name treated as a separate candidate.
 >>
 >> - the candidate receiving the greatest number of votes wins.
 >>
 >>
 >> * Alternately, the preceding process is used to select those who  will
 >> be candidates for election.  Then, after these candidates are
 >> presented to the voters, an election determines the winner.
 >>
Condorcet can tolerate a bunch of candidates without getting lost.
 >>
 >> * The purpose of the method is to ...
 >>
 >> - make candidacy available beyond the incumbent power structure.

By asking for only voter nominations in reasonable quantities.
 >>
 >> - replace candidates who want a particular job with candidates the
 >> people want in that job.

BETTER find candidates willing to work.  Does address people's desires.
 >>
 >> - allow the election of good and competent candidates.

That was allowed.  What is improved is quality of candidate pool.
 >>
 >> - favor candidates who are preferred by one voter and attract the
 >> support of many voters.

I say nomination should show preference by more than one - NEEDED to get a 
candidate pool worth studying.
 >>
 >> - eliminate the need for a candidate to fight his way against
 >> challengers.

Disagreed - this should usually get a pool with more challengers.
 >>
 >> - be fair to minorities.
 >
 >
 > Yes, I tried to support this type of targets to meet the needs that  you
 > might have.
 >
 >> * The challenge of the method is to insure that the person elected  is
 >> the best for the job.
 >
 >
 > In summary, yes, that is what the rules could look like. I'm very
 > flexible to what kind of set of rules each user would adopt. The  rules
 > also could be much simpler than including all the listed  possibilities.
 > My intention is just to show various paths that could  be used to make
 > the basic random vote method more applicable to the  needs.

This puzzles.  You need ONE set of rules for all to understand, with a few 
details such as number of nominators for a nominee tailored to getting 
reasonable quantities of candidates.
 >
 >> You also mentioned the possibility of direct democracy and  delegable
 >> proxy.  As to these ...
 >>
No comment by me.
 >
 >> Will the lists become unwieldy if the process extends beyond the
 >> local community?  For example, the number of candidates nominated  for
 >> governor of my state could be immense.
 >
I addressed this above.
 >
 >> Does nominating someone for public office suggest a beneficial
 >> interest in that person's election?  If so, should we be concerned?
 >
 >
 > I'm not sure if I caught the point, but I don't see a big difference
 > between different candidates here.
 >
 >> When the list of candidates for a given office is published by the
 >> election coordinator, will the candidates campaign for the office  for
 >> which they have been nominated?  For example, when you  mentioned that
 >> candidates would be "presented to the voters" does  that mean they
 >> will campaign?
 >
I say above that this list should include a resume by each candidate. 
While this basic campaigning is optional, I would not prohibit other 
campaigning for candidates who choose to do such.
 >
 > I think it s impossible to avoid all campaigning. Maybe the rules for
 > campaigning are separate. In many cases I think it would be useful to
 > limit the amount of campaigning to avoid the one-dollar-one-vote
 > effect. One could e.g. set a fixed limit on the campaign costs.

If there are to be limits, scale them according to the office.
 >
 > My interest when talking about presenting the candidates to the  voters
 > was in avoiding a situation where there are so many candidates  that the
 > voters are not able to analyze the long list of candidates  well enough
 > to understand who would be good and who would be bad.  Many votes could
 > be lost. Or only some public figures would have a  chance. In this way
 > the regular good people would at least be brought  to the attention of
 > their potential voters before the final decision.

Back to governor's race as extreme example, with even a reasonable 
quantity of candidates, voters need some clue as to what the various 
candidates may offer.
 >
 >> At the moment, my grasp of your suggestion does not allow a firm
 >> opinion.  Can we flesh out parts of it with greater detail?
 >
 >
 > I presented the proposal as a family of methods that might use
 > different rules in different ways. In order to go to greater detail
 > (maybe to lesser amount of details too) one could take some example
 > situation and example method. We could for example see what kind of
 > rules could be used in electing ten people of a city to act as  trusted
 > citizens monitoring the criminal interrogations of the police.
 >
 > There is probably no reason to require any specific skills => normal
 > people will do. Maybe all volunteers can be expected to have good
 > intentions => no need to control the candidates from this point of  view
 > either. Maybe we could require some width of support => let's  say three
 > support votes needed. We could allow voters to list e.g.  three
 > candidates. After collecting the ballots (and counting the  number of
 > support votes for each candidate) we would pick random  ballots and
 > elect the first candidate (who has not been elected yet)  with at least
 > three support votes overall from each ballot. If we  don't know if
 > someone has volunteered we could call him and check  (and move to the
 > next candidate or ballot if the answer is negative).  If all citizens
 > can be uniquely identified with good enough  probability (in unclear
 > cases the previous ten elected citizens may  interpret the intended
 > meaning of the vote) there may be no need for  a formal nomination process.

Good intentions?  Desirable, but attempting non-destructive control could, 
itself, be destructive.

Random ballots?  I admit to choking at the thought:
      If the voters identify a winner, that should end it.
      If the leading candidates are near a tie then it matters little 
which wins, but I would go for chance only on a true tie.
 >
 > This method is quite simple and straight forward and might work well
 > enough for this simple task. Just one example among many.

For most elections I am for Condorcet, which permits:
      Bullet voting, suitable when a voter does not care beyond naming a 
first choice.
      Ranking all liked candidates above those liked less.
      Ranking all candidates, suitable for ranking hated enemies at the end.
 >
 > Juho
-- 
   davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
   Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
             Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
                   If you want peace, work for justice.