[EM] Making a Bad Thing Worse

[Greg Nisbet]

On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 4:44 AM, Greg Nisbet <gregory.nisbet at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ah. A candidate would run if they were legally allowed to. A candidate
> who isn't a diehard loyalist to his party probably wouldn't see much
> point in stepping down graciously and letting the winner of the
> primary slide into spot 1.5th place.

However, without the party logo beside his name, he will lose (unless
he is exceptional in some way).  Candidates won't bother to run if
they are certain to lose and party supporters won't vote for a
non-party member unless there is a really good reason to.

=Potential competition is also relevant. Primaries are unlikely to put
forward unpopular candidates if a popular loser could potentially
shoot them in the foot. This would give primaries more incentive to
pick someone favorable to the entire electorate, rather than the
faction that chose to participate in their primary.

Ballot access is pretty open in the UK, and you don't see lots of
former party members running.

=How do the parties nominate individuals in the UK?

> anyway, this isn't quite as powerful as pure asset voting. It is like
> contingent vote vs IRV.

You are right, but it isn't like a ranked ballot.  The negotiations
happen at the party level after the number of seats per party are
known.

Under IRV, the transfers happen based on ballot changes.

> I am most near to myself. By any sensible definition, my distance from
> myself is always zero. I know exactly what I want, why can't I be my
> own elector instead of delegating the tasks to people wih increasingly
> vaguer connections to me?
>

So, vote for yourself.  The problem with doing that is that then you
have to make a trip to the State capital to participate in the
negotiations.

=Why can't a represent myself with an IRV ballot? It isn't a big
stretch of the imagination for me to delegate my vote to a program,
essentially. Or should I be limited to casting a vote for someone who
can actually win the election?