[EM] Three rounds

[Juho Laatu]

--- On Thu, 13/11/08, Raph Frank <raphfrk at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 2:39 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm
> <km-elmet at broadpark.no> wrote:

> > For honesty, then, we have to know which are the two
> best candidates. This
> > sounds like a proportional representation problem with
> a "council" of two;
> > however, such methods cannot be invulnerable to
> cloning, since the Droop
> > proportionality criterion and clone independence
> contradict each other (by
> > http://www.mcdougall.org.uk/VM/ISSUE3/P5.HTM ,
> "clone-no-harm").
> 
> I disagree, a PR method is not what you want here.  If the
> best
> candidate is cloned, then both clones should be picked as
> the top-2.

I agree that the targets of proportional methods and single winner methods are different. The best single winner may not be included in the best set of proportional representatives.

> PR will likely elect
> candidates at the
> 33% and 67% marks.  Neither of those candidates is optimal.
> 
> In fact, I think that picking one of the 2 would be give
> roughly the
> same result as the plurality system.

One could also claim that in a typical two-party system the two main candidates often are roughly at the 45% and 55% marks.


> >> 40: A1>A2>B>C
> >> 08: A2>A1>B>C
> >> 07: A2>B>A1>C
> >> 25: B>A2>C>A1
> >> 20: C>B>A2>A1
> >> A2 would be eliminated first in IRV but here A1
> and A2 form a party
> >> (with 55 first preference votes) and therefore C
> will be eliminated
> >> first, B next, and then A2 will win.
> >
> > This seems to be more of a problem with IRV, and so
> I'd say that a better
> > solution would be to switch to another voting system
> rather than try to
> > patch it up with party lists.
> 
> Also, the A2>B>A1 voters cannot be considered members
> of the A party.
> This highlights a problem with the party list system, it
> assumes
> voters are rock solid supporters of their first
> choice's party.

This party list based method actually allowed the party supporters not to be rock solid supporters of the party. Those 7 A2>B>A1 voters were able to indicate that they preferred B to A1. And their favourite still won.

Those voters may still be considered to be members of the A party. It is quite natural that members that are close to the border of the party like some of the candidates of the nearby B party better than the candidates of the very other end of the A party. These voters may still accept the alliance of A1 and A2 although they might be even happier if A2 and B (and maybe A1) would establish a new party together.

Juho