[EM] Condorcet divisor method proportional representation

[Jameson Quinn]

2011/7/5 Kathy Dopp <kathy.dopp at gmail.com>

> On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 2:20 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm
> <km_elmet at lavabit.com> wrote:
>
> > If you want to minimize unhappiness of the voters by electing candidates
> >  hated by few, you can make the same kind of argument against the
> majority
> >  criterion for a single-winner method as you did against the Droop
> > proportionality criterion. That is, imagine an election of the sort:
> >
> > 51: Left > Center > Right
> > 45: Right > Center > Left
> >  4: Center > Right > Left.
> >
> > The majority criterion forces Left to win in a single-winner election.
> > However, Left is hated by 49% of the voters.
>
> Yes. Of course I totally agree that with a rank choice ballot, the
> Droop quota also is not a good idea.  (Droop quota is the same as
> majority in a single winner election.)
>
> >
> > Borda, which fails the majority criterion, would elect Center as a
> > compromise. Center is not hated by any of the voters, and so by your
> metric,
> > that would be a better outcome.
>
> Yes. I agree completely with that.
>
> >
> > Yet I suppose that since you like the Condorcet criterion, you also like
> >  the majority criterion that it implies. That means that some methods
> (like
> > Borda) can be *too* centrist by your/the Condorcet measure.
>
> Huh!?  One obviously is not equivalent to the other, so "No".
>
> Sorry. Too busy today to go through the rest of your statements currently.
>
>
The problem is, that any election system which doesn't obey the majority
criterion (or, for multiple seats, the Droop criterion) is essentially
asking for strategy. As Charles Dodgson wrote, it makes elections into a
game which the most skillful player wins, the rule of which is, whenever the
choice is between two alternatives you don't like, you must support the less
popular one. At best, you get a system you didn't ask for (ie, Approval
instead of Range); at worst, you elect a useless nobody or a scheming
bastard. And  whether it's true or not, sore losers will whine that they
only lost because of strategy.

So yes, majority democracy is the worst system, except for all the others.
And the same goes for the Droop criterion in a proportional context.

JQ

ps. OK, to be fair, at best you get mostly-approval instead of range, and
mostly-approval is better than approval. But that doesn't compensate for the
worst case where you elect a scheming bastard, or for all the ready-made
argument you're handing to sore losers.
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