[EM] Three rounds

[Juho Laatu]

FYI. Finland used to have three rounds in the presidential elections. Since 1994 a typical direct two round method has been used. Before that (in most elections) the voters first elected 300 (or 301) electors who then voted in three rounds (two candidates at the last round).

Reasons behind moving to the direct two round system included assumed general popularity of a direct election, some problems with heavy trading and planning of votes by the electors, possibility of black horses and other voting patterns that are not based on the citizens' votes. Maybe three rounds / three election days in a direct election would have been too expensive and too tiring.

- - - - -

One somewhat related method:

I sometimes played with the idea that in IRV one would not totally eliminate the least popular (first place) candidates but would use some softer means and would allow the "eliminated" candidates to win later if they turn out to be the favourites of many voters (after their first preference candidates have lost all chances to win).

One could e.g. force supporters of the "eliminated" candidates to approve more than one candidate (at least one of the "remaining" candidates) (instead of just bullet voting their second preference). On possible way to terminate the algorithm would be to stop when someone has reached >50% approval level.

Also in "non-instant" runoffs one could e.g. force the voters to approve at least one on the "remaining" candidates. (One could eliminate more than one candidate at different rounds.)

Juho


--- On Mon, 10/11/08, Raph Frank <raphfrk at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Raph Frank <raphfrk at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [EM] New MN court affidavits by those defending non-Monotonic voting methods & IRV/STV
> To: "Abd ul-Rahman Lomax" <abd at lomaxdesign.com>
> Cc: kathy.dopp at gmail.com, "EM" <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
> Date: Monday, 10 November, 2008, 2:30 PM
> On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 1:16 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
> <abd at lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
> > Top Two Runoff has an obvious problem, if the first
> round is simple
> > vote-for-one. Sometimes a compromise candidate fails
> to make it into the
> > runoff. This is really the same problem as IRV, but
> the problem doesn't
> > exist -- or is ameliorated -- under some election
> rules. In particular,
> > Robert's Rules, for runoff elections, does not
> allow ballot restriction.
> 
> As a compromise to repeating the balloting until the
> deadlock is
> resolved, what about the following rules
> 
> Round 1
> 
> - All candidates on the ballot
> - If a candidate gets a majority, he is elected and no
> further rounds held
> 
> Round 2
> 
> - All candidates on the ballot
> - The top 2 from round 1 appear first on the ballot and are
> marked as top-2
> - If a candidate gets a majority, he is elected and round 3
> is not held
> 
> Round 3
> 
> - One of the top 2 from round 1 is on the ballot
> -- (the one who received the most votes in round 2)
> 
> - The plurality winner of round 2 is on the ballot
> -- (excluding the above candidate)
> 
> - Candidate with the most votes wins
> 
> This gives the voters 2 chances to pick a majority winner
> before going
> to run-off.
> 
> In a 'normal' top-2 situation, the top 2 will also
> be the top 2 in
> round 2 and they will be the 2 candidates for round 3.  In
> fact, it
> would likely result in round 2 being the last round as one
> of them
> would get a majority.
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