[EM] Declaration of Election-Method Experts and Enthusiasts

[Dave Ketchum]

Too late this night for fancy words, but hopefully I can express some  
useful thoughts.

On Aug 30, 2011, at 4:52 PM, Richard Fobes wrote:

> Here is what I've just written for the new section titled "Multiple  
> rounds of voting":
>
> ----------- begin ------------
>
> In highly competitive elections, multiple rounds of voting are  
> needed to eliminate the weakest candidates so that attention can be  
> focused on electing one of the most popular candidates.  Our  
> supported election methods work as described for two rounds of  
> voting if the first round of voting elects a single winner from each  
> political party, and the second round chooses from among those  
> winners.

FPTP has a serious problem because it cannot let a voter vote for more  
than one candidate - and voters can want to vote for more than one -  
and to say which are liked better than others.  Methods we are  
promoting, such as Score and Condorcet, give the voter needed power.

With such methods rounds become less needed since voters can better  
express their desires in the main election.  Likewise, when there are  
to be rounds, more of the weakest can be discarded before the round  
since we know better which of the weakest might believably win.

The last sentence above is about primaries.  FPTP desperately needed  
such to avoid multiple candidates from a party competing in an  
election.  Once voters understand they can vote for more, and indicate  
their preference via rating or ranking, primaries will lose much of  
their backing - thus, possibly getting discarded with FPTP.

Note that parties could have a single candidate and not have need for  
a primary, even in FPTP days.
>
>
> However, different counting methods are needed if the same voters  
> vote in both rounds. There are election methods that handle such  
> cases, and they use the better ballots we support. However, we have  
> not yet analyzed this category of counting methods sufficiently to  
> express support for any specific methods.

Assuming primaries still exist, I see no need for that round being  
unlike the main election, even noting that some voters would be voting  
in both.
>
>
> We do strongly agree that single-mark ballots must not be used in  
> any round of voting. More specifically, just as the candidate with  
> the most first-choice votes is not necessarily the most popular, and  
> the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is not necessarily  
> the least popular, the candidate with the second-most first-choice  
> votes is not necessarily second-most popular, and the candidate with  
> the second-fewest votes is not necessarily the second-least popular.

Whatever makes single-mark evil needs explaining.

As a Condorcet backer I have to choke.  As an example assume that  
everyone considers V acceptable, and A, B, and C are each first choice  
for 1/3 of the voters,  If they all rank V as second choice then, for  
each of the three groups, V will get twice as many V>x as x gets of  
x>V. for being liked better than V.
>
> Also we agree that "open primary" elections are not fair. In this  
> approach, the candidates who are identified as "most popular",  
> regardless of political-party affiliation, progress to the next  
> round. This approach fails to consider that the majority of voters  
> who support the most-popular candidate are likely to be the same  
> majority of voters who support the second-most popular candidate --  
> unless the counting method specifically compensates for this  
> redundant influence. The remaining voters, who may almost be a  
> majority, can end up with only getting to choose between the two  
> candidates who are preferred by the majority. Expressed another way,  
> the words "most popular" are ambiguous in the context of choosing  
> which candidates deserve to progress to another round of voting.

If I cannot kill having primaries I would vote against open.
>
> ----------- end ------------
>
> I'm sure I'm missing some important additional considerations, but  
> they aren't coming to me at the moment, so I'll tap into your brains  
> to help refine this section.
>
> Of course we aren't offering a fair way to handle French  
> presidential (?) first-round elections (in terms of which two  
> candidates should move on to the final runoff election), but we have  
> nothing specific we would agree on, right?
>
> Richard Fobes