[EM] the 'who' and the 'what'

[Michael Allan]

Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
> It seems this system would be more stable than I originally thought. Third 
> parties could run as parts of the Condorcet party without running much of a 
> risk, since they would otherwise get no votes at all. The defection danger 
> surfaces when the third parties have become sufficiently large from using 
> that parallel electoral system. Then a party that would win a plurality 
> vote but who isn't a Condorcet winner has an incentive to defect.

There might be nowhere to defect to.  The success of a minor party
candidate is not necessarily the success of the minor party.  Whatever
attracts and holds the votes - candidate, party, or something else -
will be strengthened by those votes.

Or there might be (in a sense) no means of defection.  Consider that
the parallel system is nothing but a medium for the expression of
public opinion.  If it is also a continuous medium (vote recasting)
then a would-be defector may be unable to escape its scrutiny.  (Raph
is asking whether this is legal. ?)

> Following that kind of reasoning, it would appear that conventional parties 
> have very little to lose by running Condorcet primaries instead of 
> Plurality primaries, more so if there's an open primary. (So why don't 
> they?)

Maybe technology is a factor.  Pooling votes (by Condorcet counts
etc.) is a technical and administrative challenge.  It may have been a
higher barrier in the past than now.

Also, if it performs the same function as the party systems (primary
selection) without itself being a party, then it is a competitor to
the parties.  Party administrators ought to oppose it because it cuts
into their turf.  It returns that turf to the members and candidates
in the form of a wider playing field.  So it threatens to dissolve the
parties *internally* even as it promises to pool them *externally*.
(Maybe if it succeeds, it could dissolve them down to their historic,
pre-Gladstone roots, as a constellation of one-candidate parties?)

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, 647-436-4521
http://zelea.com/