[EM] Making a Bad Thing Worse

[Raph Frank]

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 8:04 PM, Greg Nisbet <gregory.nisbet at gmail.com> wrote:
> Because they cannot even run otherwise. I know it isn't the same as a
> gun to your head, but it wouldn't even occur if they didn't have an
> artificial monopoly on power.

Do you consider making them legally compulsory (sore loser laws) and
practically compulsory (via plurality) to be the same thing.

When you say making the voluntary, you meant by changing the voting system?

> There would be more competition at least.

Why?  There would still only be one per major party.

>> I think you underestimate the value of having a major party nomination
>> in FPTP.  No matter how it works, the nomination of one of the two
>> major parties is almost essential to winning.  The only people who
>> might be able to get around it are previous winners/incumbents.
>
> I think you underestimate the ego of candidates. They probably would
> run if they could.

I think you need to define 'could' in this case.

I mean legally allowed, but you seem to mean practically allowed.

> There's the anti-faithless elector law... but that isn't a transfer.
> It's an insincere vote. You only get one shot at making your vote if
> you are an elector. That makes it far inferior to even single winner
> asset voting.

I mean that the process would be

- Some Green Party members are elected as Electors
- Greens Electors have balance of power
- Greens + Republicans make a deal
- Greens tell their electors to vote Republican
- Green electors do as 'recommended' by their party leadership


> No, it makes strategy the norm.

Not for the voters, you just pick someone who you agree with and is
good at negotiating.

> That would arguably make it easier, in fact incredibly simple, to vote
> strategically, but do you actually want that to happen?

The ideal voting system is one where you just tell it what you want
and it picks the highest utility (or honest condorcet winner) and that
there is no strategic incentive to lie.

This isn't possible to do except by a random method.

> Trusting voters is part of democracy. Why force them to trust candidates more?

Well, the more electors that there are, the 'nearer' you can be to the
elector and thus the more likely you can find someone who is
trustworthy.