[Election-Methods] Partisan Politics + a method proposal

[Dave Ketchum]

On Tue, 27 May 2008 19:33:29 +0300 Juho wrote:
> On May 27, 2008, at 18:52 , Dave Ketchum wrote:
> 
>> > 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.
> 
> 
> Ok, the example below gave one set of rules for one need. Generally I  
> just identified a list of tricks that can be used in a random vote  
> based methods to make them usable in various situations.

Looking at ALL the races voted on at a precinct, they share ONE set of 
voters, who can be expected to start asking questions if the rules differ.

Your reference to "random vote" sounds like a purpose would be to prevent 
winning by the candidate the voters prefer.
      Certainly we should want the voters to make intelligent informed 
choices.
> 
>> >> 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.
> 
> 
> My assumption here was that these positions were light weight enough  to 
> allow some fellow citizens to make the decisions according to  their 
> best understanding, and that would probably not lead to any  major 
> conflicts of interest. It is for example not very likely that  any of 
> the decision makes would know any of the to be elected  candidates here.

Again, all races should share one set of rules.
> 
>> 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.
> 
> 
> Random ballot based methods were addressed to offer solutions to  (what 
> I thought to be) the requirements of Mr Gohlke. From this  perspective 
> random ballots can be used to open up the possibility to  elect also 
> some regular citizens in addition to (or instead of) the  party 
> controlled candidates.
> 
> Juho
-- 
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  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
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