[EM] Why We Shouldn't Count Votes with Machines

[James Gilmour]

Dave Ketchum > Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 1:16 AM
> We have to be doing different topics.

Yes, we must indeed be doing different topics.

If you are electing the City Mayor or the State Governor and there are only two candidates, plurality is as good as it gets.  If
there are more than two candidates you can do better with a different voting system - some favour a Condorcet approach, some IRV,
and some promote a variety of other voting systems.

But the context in which my comment was set was much broader, following on from the general suggestion that we should not move from
plurality (with single-member districts implied) to more complex voting systems because the possibility of detecting electoral fraud
might thereby be reduced.  That proposition was not specific to single-office elections, but was relevant to the discussion of more
general electoral reform on this list and under this topic (with some non-USA examples), a discussion that is taking place in both
the USA and Canada that could see city councils and state legislatures (and perhaps even the US House of Representatives and the
Senate!!) elected by voting systems that would give more representative results than the present plurality.

My problem with the statement "Plurality does fine with two candidates ..." is that I have heard it so many times over the years,
mainly from those who are opposed to any reform that would make our various assemblies more representative, but sadly also from some
who support reform of the voting system but say it would not need any change if there were only two parties.  That extrapolation
from single-office elections to assembly elections is not valid.  In my experience the statement is unhelpful and hinders the cause
of reform - hence my reaction to it.

James
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