[EM] the 'who' and the 'what' - trying again, again

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

For some reason, I didn't receive Dave Ketchum's reply to my post about
the Condorcet party. So let's try this again, indeed.

Dave Ketchum wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:05:28 +0200 Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
>> Dave Ketchum wrote:
>> 
>>> My goal is using Condorcet, but recognizing that everything costs
>>>  money, wo we need to be careful as to expenses.
>>> 
>>> Thus I see: Condorcet as the election method. But then see no
>>> value in a "condorcet party". Also then see no value in
>>> primaries, but know parties see value in such.
>> 
>> 
>> The idea of having a Condorcet party is to gradually transform
>> Plurality elections into Condorcet elections.
> 
> Disturbing existing elections by marrying in something from Condorcet
> seems very destructive considering possible benefits, so how about: 
> Run a phantom Condorcet election with current candidates before the 
> existing voting.
> 
> Candidates can drop out if they choose: Third party candidates have
> little to lose. Major party candidates risk static as to why they did
> not dare.
> 
> Those who choose to, vote via internet.
> 
> Thus we have ballots to count and report on as a sort of poll.

If you're going to have a poll, you don't need the Plurality shell; 
that's true enough. But if you're a third party and you're seeing your 
rate go to close to zero, then uniting with other third parties under a 
Condorcet "party" could improve your chances, because at least the third 
parties aren't splitting the votes among themselves anymore.

For polling, I would advocate "ordinary" polling, because internet polls 
would be colored by the effect that those who have good internet 
equipment would affect the results in a disproportionate manner. So 
could foreigners or hacked computers, although in reality those probably 
wouldn't be much of a problem.

Perhaps internet voting biases could be fixed by having a "vote by 
party" adjustment like real polling organizations do. That is, if 53% of 
the people are Democratic, then all Democrat-first voters count for 53% 
of the voting power in the poll, and so on. But that faces another 
problem, because many of those "Yes, I like Democrats" replies (that 
were used to derive the 53%) may be a result of the strategic vote 
nature that Plurality encourages.

>>> And no value in runoffs - Plurality needs runoffs because of the
>>> way voters cannot express their thoughts - but Condorcet has no
>>> similar problem.
>> 
> Runoffs are not perfection even in Plurality - look at the recent
> French election for which voters thought of rioting when neither
> runoff contender was popular.

You're replying to yourself, but I'll agree with you here. Plurality 
plus runoff is not perfect, but it's much better than Plurality without 
runoff. To make a general observation, runoff weakens strategy, and 
Plurality is filled with strategy (least of two evils). Runoff doesn't 
eliminate the strategy, but then it can't, no matter what voting system 
it is paired with.

> With Condorcet they offer little possible value - every voter could
> rank A>B, A=B, or B>A at the same time as doing any other desired
> ranking.

For public elections I think it's likely that candidates won't 
strategize enough to necessitate further hardening against strategy. Not 
everybody agrees, and I'm simply saying that I can see how someone would 
argue in the favor of having a runoff even with a Condorcet method.

> Also, if there is no CW there are at least three candidates in a near
> tie - want to put the N candidates in a "runoff"?

I don't know - is that the case for Plurality ties with Plurality+runoff?

>> Condorcet runoffs may have value if the people decide to play dirty
>> and always use strategy. Since the runoff must be honest (with only
>> two candidates, the optimal strategy is honesty), it hedges the
>> risk since the best of the two will always win.
> 
> How much strategy need concern us with Condorcet?  The plotters need
> an accurate picture of their starting point.  The plotting is complex
> because of the tournament counting.  Then they must advertise their
> plot to their friends while keeping that a secret from their enemies.

I'm rather thinking of uncoordinated strategy, like Burial, here.