[EM] "Market based voting" paradigm. Revolutionary(?) design idea for multiwinner election schemes.

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Warren Smith wrote:
> A preliminary page on this now at
> 
> http://rangevoting.org/MarketBasedVoting.html
> 
> Insights please...

One possible problem of the market paradigm is this: in a market, there 
are buyers and sellers. The market finds a clearing price so that supply 
balances demand. While the exchange of money can be emulated on one end 
by the voters providing "money", it is not clear for what the candidates 
use that money.

To be more clear: some amount of "money" represents a position on the 
council. However, unlike a true market, a candidate acquiring more 
"money" can't use it. Thus, it's no longer clear why one would want 
allocative efficiency in the market sense.

Or take an auction. An auction is a method to pair sellers (who provide 
some good) with buyers (who have money) so that the sellers get as much 
money as possible for the goods that they sell. The theoretical optimal 
auction finds the best such set of pairings. But in a multiwinner 
election context, if votes are money, then why should the candidates 
want to get as much money as possible? They only need to pass a 
threshold to get on the council - any more voting power is simply 
wasted, because no candidate can hold more than one seat.

If we use weighted council votes, then I don't think we have to bother 
with markets at all: simply give each candidate power proportional to 
the number of votes he got. Use Plurality or cumulative. If the weights 
have to be rational, use your favorite apportionment method.