[EM] A response to Juho Laatu

[Juho Laatu]

On 1.11.2011, at 0.46, David L Wetzell wrote:

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Juho Laatu <juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk>
> To: EM list <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>
> Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 20:14:45 +0200
> Subject: Re: [EM] hello from DLW of "A New Kind of Party":long time electoral reform enthusiast/iconoclast-wannabe...
> On 31.10.2011, at 18.20, David L Wetzell wrote:
> 
> > This is not about getting third party candidates elected, it's about making our polity tend towards a contested(and far more dynamic) political duopoly, rather than a (somewhat contested) political monopoly.
> 
> I'm not sure what your targets for the national level are. This sentence however sounds like 
> 1) representatives of minor third party should not be elected, 
> dlw: It's not a should, it's a matter-of-fact that in the US third parties are not strong and so it doesn't make sense to push for electoral reforms that help them a great deal at the expense of the two major parties.  

"third parties are not strong" => ok, only strong enough parties to get seats, not e.g. compromise candidates that are ideologically between the two major parties

> 
> 2) the strongest party should win in each single-winner district, 
> 
> dlw:This will tend to be true in any single-winner election because of the economy of scale in vote-getting...

ok, and maybe this is a target too (the closest alternative to this approach would maybe be to elect few representatives from each district)

> 
> 3) the target is a political duopoly (in each district),
> 
> dlw: The target is to prevent political monopoly in each district.  If there tends to be duopoly in each district, it need not be the same two parties in every district.  Thus, there will be scope for minor parties to contest the political duopoly.  

ok, third parties may become one of the "duo" (independently in any district)

> 
>  4) the political duopoly should just be more dynamic than today, which could mean that new parties may replace the current major parties when the small parties grow stronger than the old parties. These requirements reflect what I tried to achieve a while ago. I'm just wondering if that is also what you want.
> 
> dlw: Absolutely, the parties should be more willing to change themselves and need to merge with successful minor parties or even be replaced.   I think the GOP is going to implode when the major fissures between the social and economic conservatives come to a head in this coming year.  Then, it's possible that blue-dog democrats might merge with the more powerful rump of the GOP and the rest of the Democratic party will turn to the biggest of lefty third parties.

It seems that your approach is quite close to what I tried to do in http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2011-October/028709.html. In that mail I listed three methods that were my best attempts to find a method that would maintain the basic idea of single winner districts (= let the strongest candidate/group represent that district) but that would allow also third parties and second candidates to run without spoiling the election. In some sense those methods are intended to be like IRV but without some of its key flaws. Those methods are also like Condorcet methods but only in a way that does not allow "weak Condorcet winners" (weak = not much first preference support or approvals) to win. They might be of interest also to the IRV camp, although I guess I agree with you in that an efficient reform campaign might work best if it is kept simple (i.e. without too many alternative methods).

Juho


P.S. The requirements were listed in http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/2011-October/028666.html

> 
> dlw
> 
> Juho
> 
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