[EM] Greatest Majority is the future of elections

[Jameson Quinn]

The people on this list generally believe that there voting systems are both
important and interesting. We're interested in both technical discussions
and activism.

However, while some of us (including me) support IRV as a step forward, a
majority of us (also including me) think that there are voting systems which
would help even more. I suspect that Approval, Bucklin, Condorcet, and Range
(alphabetical order) are each more popular than IRV here. In fact, I'd bet
that most of us think that the term "greatest majority voting" does not
actually describe IRV at all.

However, we understand that GMV is not being used as a neutral term for
"whatever voting system is best"; it is being used to promote IRV.

It is simply false - not a matter of opinion at all - that IRV is
"realistically equivalent" to Ranked Pairs. If that were true, then they
would not have disagreed in the real-world election in Burlington. It is
also not true that ranked pairs is "not realistically practical"; it is
actually easier to implement than IRV. That is not to say that IRV doesn't
have political advantages, which many of us acknowledge; certainly, IRV
reforms have a better recent track-record of actually passing in the US than
any of the other systems I mentioned.

Thank you for the link to the craigslist forum; it is good to have a place
to talk about voting activism. However, please understand that many of us
are likely to consider your promotion of the term "GMV" as a blanket term,
when it's actually being used to promote IRV, as dishonest. I suspect that
it's actually an honest mistake, so I encourage you to learn more about the
ways other systems are even better than IRV.

By the way, if you're interested in picking the best name for promoting your
favored voting reform, there's a poll <http://betterpolls.com/do/1189> open
this month on exactly that question.

Jameson Quinn

2010/9/3 Sand W <b4peas at yahoo.com>

>
> I just joined this list and some of it is kind of bewildering.
>
> 1-what is your goal for elections?  I would assume that it is to have the
> best govt. which presumably can be identified as the system of govt.
> supported by the most people.
>
> 2- Since there will probably be more than one exclusive/competing
> policy/candidate supporter by more than a majority we can call this goal
> "GREATEST majority voting."
>
> 3- Thus the goal would be determine the best or at least better structure
> of govt./voting to require the greatest majority support possible.
>
> 4-This would probably be a combination of local representatives and
> executives elected by ranked ballots, "ranked pairs" if possible, but that
> counting the system is not realistically practical and the IRV counting
> system is realistically equivalent.
>
> I suggest the ranked voting forum for debate: http://4gmv.org/
>
> We would rather not have any new govt. policies unless, at least, the
> greatest majority of the population agrees that it hopefully be the best
> govt. policy.
>
>
> ----
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>
>
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