[EM] Declaration of Election-Method Experts and Enthusiasts

[Dave Ketchum]

On Aug 31, 2011, at 11:11 PM, Richard Fobes wrote:

> Thank you Dave Ketchum and Peter Zbornik for your excellent  
> responses to my first draft of the "multiple rounds of voting"  
> section!  I have tried to incorporate your requested improvements,  
> while attempting to keep it short.
>
> Here is what I've got now for this section:
>
> -------------- Multiple rounds of voting --------------
>
> Current elections commonly use multiple rounds of voting in an  
> attempt to overcome the weaknesses of plurality voting.  When any of  
> our supported election methods are used, just one round of voting  
> may be sufficient.
>
> Although our supported election methods could eliminate the need for  
> primary elections (in which political parties choose just one  
> candidate each to progress to the main election), we support the  
> continued use of primary elections because they foster political  
> dialogue and the resolution of intra-party differences.

I claim we should promote careful thought as to whether primaries are  
worth the expense since some methods, such as Condorcet, have no  
problem with clones or near-clones participating.

With an activity changing from essential to useful, there should be  
consideration as to other possible ways to attend to its usage.
>
>
> In situations that are highly controversial, we support the use of  
> two voting rounds so that voters can focus attention on the most  
> popular candidates during the second round, without distractions  
> from less-popular candidates. When multiple voting rounds are used,  
> every round should use one of our supported election methods. In  
> these cases it is not necessary to limit the runoff election (the  
> second round) to only two candidates, because that limit is only  
> needed to accommodate plurality voting.

Runoffs are essential in FPTP, for FPTP can fail to have any candidate  
get a majority.  Runoffs should not be needed for this more than very  
infrequently with our better methods (and they are EXPENSIVE - thus  
hard to justify).

.     A thought:  If runoffs are not expected, voters had best prepare  
well for the main election.  If expected, why should the lazy among  
the voters bother to prepare well before the main election?

We WANT voters to do well with minimum of effort, so rounds should be  
minimized except where they may truly justify their expense.
>
> Also we agree that "open primary" elections are not fair. In this  
> approach, the supposedly most-popular candidates, regardless of  
> political-party affiliation, progress to the runoff (main) election.  
> This approach fails to consider that a near-majority of voters can  
> end up with only getting to choose between the two candidates who  
> are preferred by the majority. Expressed another way, the  
> designation of "most popular" is ambiguous in the context of  
> choosing which candidates deserve to progress to the main election.

Why must we touch this topic (open vs closed) primaries?  Seems like  
it is separate from our emphasis on voting methods.
>
> When choosing which candidates deserve to progress to a runoff  
> election, we do not offer specific recommendations for interpreting  
> results -- beyond obviously including the most popular candidate.  
> There are various possibilities for how to choose the second, third,  
> and additional candidates, and the best approach would depend on  
> which of our supported methods is used (in the earlier round), and  
> other details. This complexity overlaps with the complexity of  
> choosing a best method to increase proportional representation.
>
> Therefore, in this declaration, we are not expressing support for  
> any specific way to choose which other candidates (besides the most  
> popular), and how many candidates, deserve to progress to the runoff  
> election. Fortunately, in the runoff round, any of our supported  
> methods can produce fair results with three, four, or more  
> candidates -- in contrast to plurality voting which can handle only  
> two.

Huh?  There can be a near tie amongst three and some could wish for  
all such to get included even in the FPTP world.
>
>
> -------------- end --------------
>
> Richard Fobes