[EM] Range Voting vs Condorcet (Greg Nisbet)

[Jobst Heitzig]

Dear Raph,

you wrote:
> The thing is that in such a case, it isn't really a single 'demos'. 
> It is two groups voting as one.

Do you mean to say democracy is only for societies which are
sufficiently homogeneous?

> 
>> That doesn't help because then the majority on issue A will still
>> overrule the rest in every single decision on that issue. So a
>> compromise option for that issue will have no chance.
> 
> You can still have compromises.

Only if the majority for some reason prefers to elect the compromise
than their favourite. But in that it seems the "favourite" was just not
the true favourite of the majority but the compromise was. So, still the
minority has no influence on the decision but can only hope that the
majority is nice enough to decide for the compromise.

> In fact, it can be helpful if multiple issues are voted as a single 
> unit.  This allows negotiation between factions in order to make up 
> the majority.

This common behavious is a pretty artificial construct to overcome the
discussed drawbacks of majoritarian rules.

> A faction can make compromises on issues that it doesn't care about
> in order to get things that it does.  This requires there is no solid
>  bloc though.

And when both factions care about both issues?

>> A split society will only function poorly when a majoritarian
>> method is used. When they use a method like FAWRB instead, they
>> will function well because then they will care what the other
>> faction wants, will try to devise good compromise options, and will
>> vote in a way which makes sure the good compromises are elected
>> instead of the random ballot result. This is possible *precisely*
>> because with a non-majoritarian method the majority cannot simply
>> ignore the minority but has to figure out how to get them to
>> approve a compromise that is sufficiently near to their favourite.
>> Non-majoritarian methods encourage discourse and cooperation.
> 
> Sounds reasonable, the problem is that a) people don't like random 
> methods b) it will result in certain outlier elements in society 
> getting some power.

a) FAWRB is not a random but a very specific and quite sophisticated
method. It only uses a certain amount of chance, just as many things in
our life do. Chance should not be mixed up with arbitrariness. Used in a
rational way, FAWRB will usually elect good compromise options with near
certainty, not leading to significant amounts of randomness.

> Perhaps a threshold could be set before a candidate can participate.

Yes, I agree. The version I just proposed to Terry incorporates such a
threshold.

> Also, the citizens of the US didn't get to vote on the restrictions
> of civil rights directly.  It was handled by Congress.

Using majority rule?

> That someone was me.
> 
> Sorry, Greg didn't include your name in his post (or I couldn't find
> it).

No need to be sorry.

Yours, Jobst