[EM] Range Voting vs Condorcet (Greg Nisbet)

[Raph Frank]

On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 7:58 PM, Jobst Heitzig <heitzig-j at web.de> 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?

To a certain extent, I would say it works reasonably if one faction is
>75% or no faction is more than 1/3.

In the first case, the majority should be sufficiently confident in
its power that it doesn't have to be oppressive and in the second
case, there is a requirement for negotiation.

It also works if there is trust/good relations between the factions,
no matter the distribution.

Where is breaks down is when one group is a majority but not an
unassailable one.  If one group is 55-60%, then it needs to stay
together or it risks losing control.  This is made even worse if there
is distrust/fear between the two groups.  In Nothern Ireland, they
have a substantial minority who don't want NI to exist.

It also tends to move power to the leadership of the majority and away
from their supporters.

>> 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.

I was thinking of PR + negotiations in the legislature.  If a party
supports policy A in exchange for policy B being killed, and then the
other party breaks its word, then that is bad for that party's
reputation.  This will make it more difficult for it to make deals in
the future.

>> 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.

This occurs in Ireland with our "Programme for Government".  After the
election, there is a negotiation between the parties to agree on what
the policies/priorities for the government until the next election
will be.

If the coalition doesn't implement what was agreed, then it could find
that one of its members leaves and the government falls.  This could
lead to a new general election or to a different coalition being
formed.

>> 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?

Well, they aren't likely to care equally about every issue.  In any
case, negotiations will start for the "Every decision decided by
simple majority" and negotiations should improve the utility.  It is
possible that total utility would fall as a result of those
negotiations, but that is (hopefully) unlikely.

>> 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.

I know, but it does have randomness.

Btw, could you create a web page that gives a description of the
method, since it was still in the discussion stage the last time you
posted here.

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

Great.

> Using majority rule?

Well, majority of the members of Congress.  It may not have passed if
voted directly by the people.