[EM] Voting System - Wiki

[Juho Laatu]

On 20 May 2014, at 18:50, Michael Ossipoff <email9648742 at gmail.com> wrote:

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> It would be good to point out clearly where the recommendations apply (e.g. to improve presidenial elections of certain type, in single winner districts of legislative bodies etc.)
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> [endquote]
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> I don't specify that because, when I refer to official public political elections, I mean all of them. But yes, certainly elections to state and national office are the imporatnt ones here, and those are the ones that I really mean when i say "official public political elections".\

Readers need to understand that in the U.S. most elections are plurality elections, and therefore the comparisons are likely to refer to improvements of the plurality method. Maybe that should be stated explicitly to make the scope of the claim clear.


> This sounds a bit like using different methods based on the current political situation.
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> [endquote]
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> Yes.
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> You continued:
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> Typically one has to use one method that works well enough in all possible situations.
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>  
> [endquote]
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> Certainly not.
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> I'm not saying that we should vary the voting system from one election to the next, but I do say that there are  broad longterm conditions that obtain for long periods (but it would be nice if current conditions don't obtain for too long), and that the votnig system should be optimized for those longterm condtions.

Different parties might have different (strategic) thoughts on which methdod is best for some particular region. I mean that it might be difficult to find an agreement between the politicians on which method to use in each region and election. As you well kow, even experts can often disagree on when certain properties of a method are needed and when not.

To me the easiest solution would be to agree clear rules on what methods (that work well enough in all anticipated situations) are to be used everywhere when the next elections are as far away as possible. Otherwise things might get too "political", i.e. strategic games might start already from the selection of the election method. At least there might be an agreed fallback method that will be used if the politicians are unable to reach consensus on which method to use (maybe you thought that in the U.S. that would be plurality (which is a bit risky since the top two parties might stck to that forever, if given a chance)).

Juho


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