[EM] To Condorcetists:

[Juho Laatu]

On 16.5.2012, at 0.21, Michael Ossipoff wrote:

> PR is fine, provided that there are sufficiently many seats per district

That is typical. But it is also possible to count the correct proportions at national level and then distribute the seats to the (few member) districts. Using districts of size one would be a hack, but ditricts of size 5 could be already used to elect a "perfectly balanced" group of representatives.

> I feel that any lack of perfection in the results of PR in Europe can be
> attributed to small districts &/or theresholds.

I guess all countries have somewhat different systems and thereby also somewhat different problems. The ones you mentioned are probably common.

> Proxy Direct Democracy would be best.

That is an interesting area of study that could generate also new kind of democracies. Not without problems though, but that applies to all systems.

> Electing each representative from the same winning party is what happens
> now, regardless of what the single-winner method is. Of course that was the
> intent.

I guess the idea is that the two dominat parties alternate in power. This way we can get (two-party) proportionality in time. And the dividing line between the two parties is supposed to represent the opinion of the median voter.

Use of othe methods that Plurality in the single-winner districts may break these properties. That may be good or/and bad.

> But PR isn't _necessary_ if we use a good single-winner method. PR isn't the
> only way.

Right. A two-party system is another approach. Proxy Direct Democracy could introduce another one. And there is also the traditional direct democracy. I believe single-winner districts with compromise seeking non-two-party single-winner methods have not been discussed well enough yet to have a clear understanding of the properties of the resulting political system.

> But, for me, the ideal target would be Proxy DD.  As I said, it uses a
> single-winner method for all decisionmaking.

Good single-winner methods could be used much more than they are used today to make various decisions in all kind of political systems.

> You said:
> 
> When I say that Condorcet methods are good methods I mean that they are good
> methods for typical single-winner elections (or to be more exact, for
> _compromise_seeking_ single-winner elections) (and I don't mean
> single-winner districts in multi-winner elections).
> 
> [endquote]
> 
> ...only if you disregard their favorite-burial incentive, and (for most of
> them) their C/D problem.

I'm still not convinced that Condorcet methods would be unusable or worse than others with respect to strategic vulnerability in typical real life elections.

> Let's substitute "good single-winner method" for "Condorcet".  It wouldn't
> have problems. In fact, though good PR would be fine too, I'd rather elect
> Congress and state legislatures in single-member districts via a good
> single-winner method such as Approval or ICT. That's because, why have all
> the rejected parties as part of the Congress?

Ok, that sounds like a group of village elders (with no need to have party affiliations). That may be a working approach for some needs.

> No, with PR, some unpopular parties would be able to stay in Congress. I
> wouldn't want that.

Interesting. That is of course against the principles of proportional representation. But why not. Many political systems of today try to exclude extremist parties from the system (e.g. using thresholds) and allow only mainstream parties to be represented (e.g. two). Decisions should generally not be extreme. But representation might include or not include all (also extremists).

> You said:
> 
> But that does not mean that the method would behave in some other sensible
> way that would be easy to predict and easy to justify.
> 
> [endquote]
> 
> If you're referring to Approval, then in what way would it behave
> unsensibly, unjusitifably or unpredictably? Of course any election can be
> unpredictable.

E.g. the (theoretical) risk of electing all the representatives of the Congress from one single small party. Approval and other compromise seeking single winner methods do not respect proportional representation nor the alternating two-party principles. I can't tell how e.g. the U.S. would react to the proposed changes in the elections. Your "village elder" approach where there is no need to have party affiliations could maybe work(?) (with this kind of single-winner districts) if(!) things converge in that direction.

> You continued:
> 
> I don't know what would happen if some compromise candidate from a minor
> centrist party would be elected as the next president
> 
> [endquote]
> 
> What do you mean by "minor"?  Receiving the most "Approved" ratings?  :-)

In Condorcet a small party that Democrats condider better than Republicans, and Republicans consider better than Democrats, could win. Approval could do the same if people approve that small party candidate in order to avoid electing the worst candidate. It could still have only few first preference supporters altough it got lots of defensive approvals.

> Don't be so sure that the president won't be a she.

I once asked one of my American friends which one would be elected first, a female or a black president. He answered black and he was right.

> ...would have to build the presidential machinery (government etc.) 
> 
> [endquote]
> 
> Why would that be a problem, when the same single-winner method is tending
> to elect the same kind of candidates, throughout Congress as in the
> presidency?

In the IRV discussions people often talk about risk of electing "weak candidates". In this case that could mean that the major parties do have lots of power and people and already established machinery in Washington. If you elect a competent nice professor from some university in Minnesota (represening the professor party), how could he quickly establish all the required connections and find all the right people to form a government and fill the White House and nominate all the ambassadors etc. I mean that the presidency of the U.S. is not just a one man job but a large political subsystem.

> I also wonder how the minor party president and his single-party government
> would cooperate with the Senate and House of Representatives. 
> 
> [endquote]
> 
> I wonder what you mean by "minor party".  And why should the president,
> senate and HR be too different to co-operate? Remember, Congress would be
> elected by Approval too, and so they'd consist of the same "minor party" or
> set of similar parties.

Today the president needs support e.g. from the Congress to be efficient. If the large parties in Congress hate the minor party of the president, he could be in trouble, or might not achieve much on that sector. But as you say, things might evolve, and the new style Congress might take a different attitude in the long run.

> And, above, your objection is really an objection to the presidential
> system, and is not an objection to Approval vs Plurality, or Approval vs
> Condorcet.

Just saying that the presidential election is not a clean cut single-winner election but a somewhat more complex process. It is designed to work as part of the two-party tradition. Mayoral elections might be simpler.

> I don't consider offensive burial to be Condorcet's biggest problem, or even
> its 2nd biggest.  But what you say above doesn't address my comments about
> many people's need to fully help the Democrat beat the Republican, and the
> examples for the C/D problem in Condorcet.

I wrote also another mail where I addressed one of the voting scenarios that you mentioned. The "need to fully help the Democrat beat the Republican" and therefore bury as much as on can may be based on not understanding well what strategies make sense and are likely to improve the outcome.

> why should they stop advising
> lesser-of-2-evils favorite-burial.  "The only way to maximally help Dem beat
> Repub is to rank Dem alone in 1st place. Don't spoil it for Nader."

Since that may not make sense as a techincal or as a political strategy. I refer to the separate mail and the analysis on which tricks work and which ones do not.

Juho