[EM] Range Voting vs Condorcet (Greg Nisbet)

[Jobst Heitzig]

Dear Greg,

I will focus on the question of majoritarianism in this message.

First my working definition of "majoritarian method": A method is majoritarian if for every option X and every group G consisting of more than half of the voters, there is a way of voting for G which makes sure X wins regardless of how the voters outside G vote. In other words: Any majority can overrule the rest if that majority votes in a certain way. 

Now for the discussion. I said:
> That leads me to the main problem with Range (as with any other 
> majoritarian method): It is simply not democratic. It cannot be 
> because every majoritarian method gives 100% of the power to less 
> than 100% of the people (the "demos" in greek). Often, about 60% of 
> the people can consistently impose their will on the other 40% 
> without the latter being given any means at all by the majoritarian 
> method to influence the decision. Of course, this is a problem of 
> most popular election methods, but that does not mean the problem 
> cannot be solved. Democratic decisions are possible but not with 
> majoritarian methods.

To which you replied:
> Interesting point. I would argue that a compromise candidate is 
> better than a polarizing but barely passing candidate (like FPTP with 
> primaries tends to produce). I'd say this isn't a voting-issues 
> question, but a civil rights question. A nice constitution will help 
> protect you from tyranny of the majority.

While of course civil rights are very important to make sure that no-one's basic *rights* are violated, they cannot make sure that everybody's *preferences* are have a fair chance of influencing decisions that are made *within* the limits the civil rights pose.

> "Advocates of majoritarianism argue that majority decision making is 
> intrinsically democratic and that any restriction on majority 
> decision making is intrinsically undemocratic. 

I wonder how they do so. It's as simple as that: When any group of people, be it a single person (dictatorship) or a small group (oligarchy) or a large group (majoritarianism) can overrule the rest, that's not democratic since democracy in its main sense requires that *all* people must have a means to influence decisions.

> If democracy is 
> restricted by a constitution which cannot be changed by a simple 
> majority decision then yesterday's majority is being given more 
> weight than today's; 

We may later discuss shifting majorities, but please let us first continue discussing a single decision since that is complicated enough.

You continue to ask:
> ... if not the majority, then who decides? 

Simple answer, contained in the definition of "democracy": It's not a subgroup of the voters which decides but its *all* voters who decide.

I guess your real question is not who decides but how they do it.

> If you 
> delegate the responsibility to some group (even yourself) to judge 
> what is best for society, then you are imposing your will on people.

Right. That would be much worse. But essentially majoritarianism *does* delegate the decision to some group (the majority that finally overrules the rest). The only difference is that it does not prescribe who belongs to this group. Rather, any willing majority can establish itself as this deciding group. But this is not much better because some group overrules the rest anyway. The whole point of democracy is that *no* group can overrule the rest, neither a predefined group nor a group that establishes itself as a majority. 

> Arguments both for and against majoritarianism both tend to boil down 
> to rights. Do you have the right to non-interference from the 
> majority? Does the majority have the right to non-interference from 
> you? 

Please don't shift the focus. The question is not whether some group can intefere but whether some group can overrule. So, the right everyone should have is the right not to be overruled by a majority without my preferences having any chance to influence the result.

Probably you still think, how on earth could this be achieved? But it is very easy to see that real democratic decisions are possible. Just imagine everyone marks their favourite option and then a ballot is drawn at random to decide the winner. Of course I don't suggest to use this method called Random Ballot. It is only to illustrate that the requirement of "democracy" can be met. 

The real task now is to find methods which are not only democratic but also satisfy other criteria (like anonymity, neutrality, monotonicity, clone-proofness etc.) and are efficient in electing good compromise options. This is achieved by the methods D2MAC and FAWRB for example - you make look them up in the archives.

Yours, Jobst