[Election-Methods] Partisan Politics + a method proposal

[Juho]

On May 28, 2008, at 1:24 , Dave Ketchum wrote:

> 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.

Yes, if there are several elections for the same set of voters then  
at least there should be a clear justification of any differences. I  
think people can understand if there are some extra limitations on  
who can be elected as the president when compared to who can be  
elected for some minor duties.

> 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.

I agree that for most elections the deterministic methods are more  
recommendable than the non-deterministic ones.

Juho

>>> >> 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
> -- 
>  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.
>
>
>


		
___________________________________________________________ 
Now you can scan emails quickly with a reading pane. Get the new Yahoo! Mail. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html