[EM] Some chance for consensus revisited: Most simple solution

[Jobst Heitzig]

Hi Raph,

> The odds of it actually working are pretty low.  For it to work, all
> voters must be aware that C is a valid compromise.

Sure, that's the flipside of it being so ultimately simple. The easiest way to safeguard against a small number of non-cooperative voters would be to require only, say, 90% of the "consensus" ballots to have the same option ticked in order for that option to be elected. I guess that's what you mean by threshold:

> In practice, there needs to be a reasonable threshold.  There is
> always going to be a need to balance tyranny of the (N%) majority
> against the hold-out problem.

Even with a 90% threshold, a tyranny of a 90% majority can be avoided, but this requires another slight modification: Instead of on two separate ballots, every voter marks her favourite and consensus options on one ballot using markers "1" and "2". Then a ballot is drawn at random. If at least 90% of all ballots mark the same option "2" as this drawn ballot does, then that option wins. Otherwise the option marked "1" on the drawn ballot wins. In this way, a bullet-voting faction of, say, 5%, allocates at least 5% winning probability to their favourite (as required by my interpretation of "democratic method").

Yours, Jobst